The latest from this local psychedelic / experimental / drone / noise collective (featuring members of psychedelic space rockers 3 Leafs) comes in the form of an old school VHS tape, no cd, no download code, just that super familiar big square shaped tape, so all you cutting edge, latest gadget having, iPod/iPad toting digi-nerds, unless you have a dusty VCR tucked away in your pad, you're shit out of luck, which would be a shame, cuz this 35 minute slow burn psych-noise epic is a doozy. It captures these guys live on the radio, at KZSU, for their annual Day Of Noise, and while it's most definitely noisy, it's not necessarily 'noise'. It's a thick morass of synthy squelch, of churning droned out rumbles, of long tones tangled into knotty sprawls of feedback drenched undulations, buried beneath are strange staticky rhythms, fractured and free form, there's lots of space too, long stretches of hushed shimmer, of super abstract drift, with distant moans, and keening melodies, of sputtering machine sounds, eventually smoothing out into a weird muted murk, a sea of chordal swells and blackened shimmer, eventually splintering into some seriously caustic crunch, shards of feedback, blurts of white noise static, but draped over a creepy detuned melody, giving the whole thing a sort of lumbering, druggy vibe, that melody nearly obliterated by squeaky balloon melodies, and spaced out synth pulsations.
The track settles into dark brooding drifts throughout, at one point, a long stretch midsong, sounding almost like a field recording of some deep swamp or bayou, the insects represented by fluttering FX, and glitchy sonic fragments, haunting and mysterious, a creeping sonic fog, that is soon joined by woozy synth melodies and sheets of gristly static, disappearing in clouds of malfunctioning interference, weird Conet Project like sputter, smears of shortwave fuzz that almost coalesce into some weird almost-rhythm, before a final squall of psychedelic heaviness, gives way to a slowly unwinding, creepy, crumbling coda.
The accompanying visuals are pretty freaky as well, super blown out, oversaturated super 8 images of jellyfish, bizarre film snippets, tripped out static, swirling psychedelic patterns, blinking seizure inducing flashing lights, groovy textures, old couples dancing, some shots of the band performing live spliced in here and there, glowing orbs, UFO's, uncalibrated video, goofy video loops, horror movies, fountains of blood, birds at birdfeeders, haircuts, hippy home movies, primitive video effects, pink clad people freaking out and screaming hysterically, women being hypnotized, old guys playing the harp, dive bombing seabirds, smoking evil fountains, squirrels, exotic fish, glowing faces, warriors, all of these images flitting one to the next, like it's a recording of someone's seriously fucked up subconsciousness, but it works surprisingly well with the accompanying sounds!
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!! (And psst, actually, somewhere in the packaging is actually hidden a dvd-r version of the VHS, so you out there sans VCRs, it's your lucky day!)...
The only thing we've heard from local psychedelic noise collective White Pee, was a split they recorded with psychedelic space rockers, White Hills, but as that was a collaboration, it was sort of difficult to parse just what these guys sounded like. But finally, the band have released their first proper record, and it's a doozy, featuring at least one member of local psych rockers 3 Leafs, along with a bunch of other SF noisemakers, White Pee reveal themselves as less 'noisy', like we imagined, and definitely more psychedelic, the opening track gets right into it, with some dense gnarled riffage, draped over a simple motorik rhythm, it's still noisy, but here that noise is employed in swirling clouds around that main riff/groove, swirling FX, all manner of buzz and thrum and skree, in a constant swirl. It's downright doomy actually, a dirgey doomkraut groove, laced with what sounds like some bizarre strain of vokills, the sound is most definitely psychedelic, and very trancey, the whole first track essentially a single part looped and locked, the band pounding and grinding away, the sort of heavy psych bliss out that induces deep sonic mesmer in the listener. After a brief bit of actual noise, a freeform drift of warped samples, drum splatter, horn bleat, and effects overload, the group bring it all back together for another kraut-flecked psychedelic jam, after some swirling ambience and mysterious samples, the band lock into a killer groove, the drums simple and propulsive, plenty of piano, lots of squiggly synth, and still more effects, it's a bit like a way more active, much noisier Necks, there's a Circle vibe too, that same sort of endless circular hypno-rock, wrapped in a thick squall of wild synth swirl, and while the band wind it up after about 6 minutes, it easily could have stretched out for another 6 (or sixty!). Finally, there's the epic 11+ minute closer, which begins all twangy and dolorous, woozy and washed out, buried drums, scraggly acoustic guitar, burbling sound effects, the first eight minutes or so spent drifting dreamily, the sounds hazy and blurred and softly psychedelic, before the guitar grows more urgent, horns surface from the murk, the piano gets pounded, the guitar grows angular, only to quickly settle back down into a gorgeously murky slow burn fade out.
Way recommended for fans of 3 Leafs, Circle, the Necks, Carlton Melton, and other cosmic psychedelic explorers...
For some strange reason this is the first record we've reviewed by Emily Jane White, but Ode To Sentience most definitely has us smitten, and also has us wondering how it is we're only discovering her now. The sound here is a gorgeous sonic concoction, equal parts classic Americana, brooding torch song and dark psychedelick folk, her voice mesmerizing and magical, a lush and velvety croon, powerful and throaty, with a tone that's rich and lustrous, presented way up in the mix, wreathed in just a smattering of reverb, the kind of voice that has you realizing the music is really only secondary, that old 'singing the phonebook' adage comes to mind, and when her vox are multitracked and she harmonizes with herself, it's downright divine.
We've seen White compared to Chan Marshall from Cat Power, and Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star. Kate Bush of course, but we also hear less obvious comparisons, one that really struck us was David Eugene Edwards of Sixteen Horsepower and Woven Hand, they have a similar phrasing, and seem drawn to the same sort of melodies and progressions. But unlike Edwards' music, which tends to be harrowing and apocalyptic, White's songs are definitely shot through with a little sunshine, whether it's a playful bit of slippery slide guitar or some surfy twang, that said, ode is definitely a dark record, sonically and lyrically. Just check out the opener, "Oh Katherine", which we find ourselves playing over and over, a lush bit of Appalachia, wreathed in moaning mournful cellos and soaring lyrical violin, one of the prettiest songs we've heard in ages. And while "The Cliff" is a little bit jaunty, it's also about someone leaping to their death (literally or metaphorically it's hard to say), a strange country folk love song, appropriately doomed, but musically hopeful, that maybe just, something else waits at the end of that interminable fall. "Black Silk" is another gorgeous lush brooder, dense tangles of steel string buzz, wreathed in clouds of cymbal shimmer, a darkly dirgey ballad that manages to be impossibly catchy without being the least bit cloying.
And so it goes, each and every song a dark softly psychedelic folk gem, lush twang flecked balladry that manages to fuse classic country/bluegrass tradition with a more modern doomfolk songsmithery, into something we can't seem to stop listening to. Lovely stuff for sure. And we'll definitely be tracking down the two records we missed as well...
The local label Out of Round has been laboring quietly in the background, not calling a lot of attention to itself yet turning out record after record that are consistently of similar mood -- due to the fact that they all play on each others recordings. The
Check out www.outofroundrecords.com -- we carry all of their releases. For a limited time only, get an Out of Round Records label sampler free with purchase any full length on the label.
Peter Whitehead is my favorite artist on the label. This Mission-ite is British-born and a cool instrument-maker, who croons downer vocals over otherworldy stringed instruments just "off"-sounding enough to be delightfully puzzling. Piano, mandolin, zither, siren, "spike fiddle", lyre. Very cool layers of lush metallic sounds acts as climaxes to his Michael-Stipe-like haunting verses.
It's been a while since we've heard from Aussie heavies Whitehorse, but they've returned on this split with East Bay grinders Negative Standards, Whitehorse's contribution to the split a sidelong sprawl of downtuned miserablism, a song that takes WH's usual knuckle dragging tarpit doom sludge, and adds some insectoid black buzz, the swirling fast picked guitar weaving a strange backdrop to the band's monstrous lumber, bellowed vokills and caveman drum crush, the song droning and tranced out, devolving into a killer stretch of power electronics midway through, a field of garbled static and solid state feedback, before lurching back into action, slipping right back into an epic sonic trudge, that like past jams, sounds a bit like a more abject, slo-mo Godspeed, before returning to that opening black metal riff to finish things off.
We had never heard, or even heard of Negative Standards before, even though they hail from across the Bay, but they definitely make a good match for Whitehorse, their sound not doomy as much as crusty and grindy, opening with an extended intro of blackened ambience, and swirling FX, before launching into some fierce D-beat pound, lurching from crusty churn, to furious fastcore grind and back again, the vocals a seriously sick demonic rasp, the sound relentless, until the doomy midsong breakdown, the song slipping easily into slo-mo, downtuned creep, all knuckle dragging pound that evolves into some near Neurosis level epicry, before exploding into one final salvo of blasting, grinding fury. Things finish off with a short sharp burst of crusty grind, beginning with a brief blast of static/feedback power electronics, before exploding into some frenzied metallic crush, the relentless blasting crust, peppered with a few seconds of seriously spaced out doom midway through.
Killer artwork from Sutekh Hexen's Kevin Gan Yuen! But no download, sadly.
The ever-changing roster of the impressive ensemble known as The Why Because is graced with numerous music luminaries from around the Bay Area. The line-up for Music shapes, their third release, is a six member crew including folks from Anticon/Lex avant-hoppers Subtle and Themselves. The disc's five lengthy improvised tracks (recorded live back in 2004) explore the far reaches of jazz, postrock, psych/space rock and ambient experimentation. And they incorporate an even broader array of instruments with trumpet, saxophone and percussion taking prominence amid the Fender Rhodes, other keyboards, bass clarinet, guitar, bass and melodica. Music shapes commences with "Fenced Bird Takes Flight" a barren landscape of faintly blown horns and Spartan drumming. This gradually blossoms into a more fleshed out and sprawling journey with many mesmerizing and meditative stretches as well as more kinetic cyclical passages. Check out "Serpentine Tides" and "We Will Fight For The Things That We Love".
Note: This cd is dedicated to member Dax Pierson who was seriously injured in a tour van accident last year. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Dax Recovery Fund.
We've loved pretty much everything on Anticon, the East Bay hip hop label that has been turning hip hop upside down with their arty, bizarre production and their whiny whiteboy emcees. And this new Why? record takes the production even farther out, so much so that this almost sounds like a quirky indie rock record rather than a hip hop record. But the vocals are really tough to take. I love the whiny, rapid fire delivery, the lyrical surrealism, but here, THAT, combined with the un-hip hop production, makes Why? sound a little too much like Atom And His Package or some other annoying joke band. And the thing is I LOVE Atom And His Package. But I'm sorry, Why? is just no Atom.
First things first, if you want one damn terrific song with one catchy soaring chorus with some really pretty backing vocals and some rockin' heaviness to boot, "Time Machine" by Whysall Lane is where it's at. Hey, sometimes all you need is one song! You'll be singing along and/or humming it during the day in no time. However this Bay Area based band deliver much more on their self-titled debut! This is the current incarnation of former Versus vocalist Richard Balayut's longtime personal project. Up until recently the entity named after a street in Detroit, MI was either a solo endeavor or had an ever-changing supporting cast, but now along with the solid presence of Adam Pfahler (Blackball Records bossman and ex-Jawbreaker, J-Church) on drums and Mikel Delgado (ex-Wussom*Pow) on bass and vocals, his formerly stripped-down songs have been fleshed out into rockin' full band extravaganzas -- dark and smolderingly brooding and peppered with occasional slightly proggy or postrock-ish excursions and sweetly heartfelt sentiments. As we touched on above when Delgado chimes in with her back-up vocals, they really complement Balayut's deep world-weary delivery (also check out their song "Half Life" for more dreaminess!). Recommended.
While we have been digging lots of weird and lo-fi pop that's come out in the last few years, there's been a shortage of the kind of dreamy and focused pure pop records that make us wanna swoon for days on end. Luckily that has changed with the debut full length from New York's Widowspeak. We were already pretty much sold when we first heard their 7" earlier in the summer, which featured one track from this record and a Chris Isaak cover(!), but we had no idea that this was going to be a band who would be responsible for maybe one of the best pop albums of the year, this their self-titled debut. From the opening moments of the records lead off track, "Puritan" to the album's closer, "Ghost Boy", it's a record we'll be listening to repeatedly for a long time to come.
Widowspeak take elements of Cat Power, Beach House, and Mazzy Star, but somehow put them together in a way that countless other bands, all of whom take those same points of inspiration, never seem able to reach. Waves of warmth, and an economical approach to songwriting come together to create songs that make us just want to sway and linger as we stare into the eyes of someone we love, sounds that conjur up the memory of the one that we wish was still by our side.
We also love how as bittersweet and love soaked the songs can be, there are still these awesome and surprising moments that totally rock out and show sound both urgent and passionate, again in a way that many others treading similar terrain are never able to quite capture either.
This is that rare record rife with musical moments that both give us goosebumps as well as inspiring much shimmying and shaking. We might just have ourselves a new favorite band!
These SF noiseniks kick up a serious skree, originally intended to be improvised soundtracks, for friends' films, these jams need no visual component to drag your brain from your head, via destroyed eardrums, and hurl it into the heart of the sun, jamming out while it sizzles and eventually melts into a puddle of grey goo.
Super abstract psychedelic space jams, removed from any of that pesky rocking, and instead allowed to just hover and swirl, and crash and howl, moan and creak, crumble and oooooooze. The guitars are tangled and atonal, the melodies angular and jagged, the drums don't so much propel as offer up spatters of rhythmic interference, swirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, flurries of rapid fire snare, all beneath a continuous avalanche of free-psych-noise. The vocals moan and mumble, organs spew in-the-red wheeze, lots of feedback everywhere, the sound sinister and alien, psych rock with all the rock removed, twisted and tripped out and definitely for those with a taste for sonic whatthefuck and difficult psychedelia.
Packaged in a bright pink fold over Xeroxed sleeve. And probably pretty dang limited (especially considering this was a bit of a warehouse find)...
You know we love the fucked up black metal here at aQ. This is sooooo up our alley in that regard. DIY, lo-fi, totally outsider WTF? stuff. Makes Striborg and Abruptum and Ildjarn and the rest sound like the Tonight Show band. Twisted, raw, black primitivism, only for the true klvt worshippers of blacknoize ritualism and caveman blackbuzz.
We first encountered Wikkid - and seriously, "encounter" is the word, we know we talk about outsider this and that, but this guy is legitimately strange, we know we've met him, and really when he comes in the store, we get a little bit starstruck, you might say, more so than we would for a "real" black metal celebrity. Heck, he invented his own religion called The Black Ism (?!?), more on that later on. As we were saying, we first encountered Wikkid when he brought us a release called The Intro, and we wrote up a big review of it, but he never ending up bringing us more, so we couldn't list it even though we really wanted to - though we did get to eventually list a disc by Wikkid's ambient alter-ego Alturaz, and a Wikkid/Alturaz split too.
But now The Intro has at last been repressed (though mysteriously minus two tracks), in the form of a double cd, paired with another, new Wikkid recording entitled Chapter 1. And, on top of that, there are now also TWO MORE double cds of other Wikkid material. We suggest you get them all. You have to get them all. Particularly since they're so cheap (and by the way, we might have accidentally sold some at a higher price, if you're one of those people, please get in touch).
So, here's the review we originally wrote for The Intro disc: We were sold on this one before we heard a single note. Based entirely on the cover art. Which is essentially a crude cut and paste, black and white Xerox, of the band name, which is Wikkid by the way, on there twice, along with the title, The Intro, also in two different places, a white smudge and some sort of cut out grid, and most telling of all, a ready made description of Wikkid: 1 Man Black Metal Band, Bay Area California. At first we weren't sure if that was maybe part of the title or what. We're still not sure. But we were psyched. We had been missing home brewed DIY black metal, and this is most definitely that, primo outsider one man BM, raw and primitive, super lo-fi, abstract and trippy and seriously goddamn grim and kvlt. The guitars are sharp and angular, brittle and buzzy, the vocals a monstrous bellow, black shadowy exhalations, the drums stumbling sort-of-blast beats, the music a dense, noisy, chaotic black tangle, lurching and lumbering, collapsing into dense swirls of nearly free blackness, before the second track lurches in, a creeping slo-mo black doom, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vocals too, the guitars a brittle insectoid buzz that's barely audible, minus the occasional shredding squall. And so it goes, the next track ramps it back up to buzzing blast, again, lumbering and on the verge of collapse, the vokills here a garbled, grunted speaking in tongues, the guitars murky and blurry black smears, the tempo fluctuating constantly, the sound woozy and washed out, pure underground blackness, that's so underground, it's seemingly from a DIFFERENT underground than the rest of the stuff we hear.
So, we wrote all that about what's now the first disc of the The Intro/Chapter 1 2cd release. We won't delve so fully into the other Wikkids, except to say, they're equally insane and amazing. More stumbling drums, more distorted vox, more disturbing thoughts, more murky guitar drone. If you get one Wikkid, you need 'em all, they're definitely a set, all of 'em basically having that same crude cover design, slightly altered from The Intro's template in ways that almost don't even make sense. Again, sheer WTF? genius. And super duper confusing. Then, one realizes that each disc in each double cd set is really short. Really, really short. Like, five or six minutes! (And the last track on one of 'em even ends with almost a minute of silence!) All six discs probably could have fit on a single cd. (But, they ARE cheap.) And again, in part, that's kind of what's so brilliant, there's just so much WTF? to Wikkid, it's astonishing. Wikkid is almost the black metal Fastest, if you know what we mean.
Oh, to give you a little bit more of an idea about what Wikkid is all about, on his website, there's a page of "definitions", here are two particularly helpful ones:
THE BLACK ISM - A new religion of black/dark musics & money for laws & guidance. Realism, Naturalism, Shamanism, Selfism & Wikkism as core beliefs.
WIKKIDISM - Playing a wicked black metal track on repeat at highest volume until you reach "ISM".
Aha, maybe that's why these discs are so short - you're supposed to play each track on repeat, anyway!!
You know we love the fucked up black metal here at aQ. This is sooooo up our alley in that regard. DIY, lo-fi, totally outsider WTF? stuff. Makes Striborg and Abruptum and Ildjarn and the rest sound like the Tonight Show band. Twisted, raw, black primitivism, only for the true klvt worshippers of blacknoize ritualism and caveman blackbuzz.
We first encountered Wikkid - and seriously, "encounter" is the word, we know we talk about outsider this and that, but this guy is legitimately strange, we know we've met him, and really when he comes in the store, we get a little bit starstruck, you might say, more so than we would for a "real" black metal celebrity. Heck, he invented his own religion called The Black Ism (?!?), more on that later on. As we were saying, we first encountered Wikkid when he brought us a release called The Intro, and we wrote up a big review of it, but he never ending up bringing us more, so we couldn't list it even though we really wanted to - though we did get to eventually list a disc by Wikkid's ambient alter-ego Alturaz, and a Wikkid/Alturaz split too.
But now The Intro has at last been repressed (though mysteriously minus two tracks), in the form of a double cd, paired with another, new Wikkid recording entitled Chapter 1. And, on top of that, there are now also TWO MORE double cds of other Wikkid material. We suggest you get them all. You have to get them all. Particularly since they're so cheap (and by the way, we might have accidentally sold some at a higher price, if you're one of those people, please get in touch).
So, here's the review we originally wrote for The Intro disc: We were sold on this one before we heard a single note. Based entirely on the cover art. Which is essentially a crude cut and paste, black and white Xerox, of the band name, which is Wikkid by the way, on there twice, along with the title, The Intro, also in two different places, a white smudge and some sort of cut out grid, and most telling of all, a ready made description of Wikkid: 1 Man Black Metal Band, Bay Area California. At first we weren't sure if that was maybe part of the title or what. We're still not sure. But we were psyched. We had been missing home brewed DIY black metal, and this is most definitely that, primo outsider one man BM, raw and primitive, super lo-fi, abstract and trippy and seriously goddamn grim and kvlt. The guitars are sharp and angular, brittle and buzzy, the vocals a monstrous bellow, black shadowy exhalations, the drums stumbling sort-of-blast beats, the music a dense, noisy, chaotic black tangle, lurching and lumbering, collapsing into dense swirls of nearly free blackness, before the second track lurches in, a creeping slo-mo black doom, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vocals too, the guitars a brittle insectoid buzz that's barely audible, minus the occasional shredding squall. And so it goes, the next track ramps it back up to buzzing blast, again, lumbering and on the verge of collapse, the vokills here a garbled, grunted speaking in tongues, the guitars murky and blurry black smears, the tempo fluctuating constantly, the sound woozy and washed out, pure underground blackness, that's so underground, it's seemingly from a DIFFERENT underground than the rest of the stuff we hear.
So, we wrote all that about what's now the first disc of the The Intro/Chapter 1 2cd release. We won't delve so fully into the other Wikkids, except to say, they're equally insane and amazing. More stumbling drums, more distorted vox, more disturbing thoughts, more murky guitar drone. If you get one Wikkid, you need 'em all, they're definitely a set, all of 'em basically having that same crude cover design, slightly altered from The Intro's template in ways that almost don't even make sense. Again, sheer WTF? genius. And super duper confusing. Then, one realizes that each disc in each double cd set is really short. Really, really short. Like, five or six minutes! (And the last track on one of 'em even ends with almost a minute of silence!) All six discs probably could have fit on a single cd. (But, they ARE cheap.) And again, in part, that's kind of what's so brilliant, there's just so much WTF? to Wikkid, it's astonishing. Wikkid is almost the black metal Fastest, if you know what we mean.
Oh, to give you a little bit more of an idea about what Wikkid is all about, on his website, there's a page of "definitions", here are two particularly helpful ones:
THE BLACK ISM - A new religion of black/dark musics & money for laws & guidance. Realism, Naturalism, Shamanism, Selfism & Wikkism as core beliefs.
WIKKIDISM - Playing a wicked black metal track on repeat at highest volume until you reach "ISM".
Aha, maybe that's why these discs are so short - you're supposed to play each track on repeat, anyway!!
You know we love the fucked up black metal here at aQ. This is sooooo up our alley in that regard. DIY, lo-fi, totally outsider WTF? stuff. Makes Striborg and Abruptum and Ildjarn and the rest sound like the Tonight Show band. Twisted, raw, black primitivism, only for the true klvt worshippers of blacknoize ritualism and caveman blackbuzz.
We first encountered Wikkid - and seriously, "encounter" is the word, we know we talk about outsider this and that, but this guy is legitimately strange, we know we've met him, and really when he comes in the store, we get a little bit starstruck, you might say, more so than we would for a "real" black metal celebrity. Heck, he invented his own religion called The Black Ism (?!?), more on that later on. As we were saying, we first encountered Wikkid when he brought us a release called The Intro, and we wrote up a big review of it, but he never ending up bringing us more, so we couldn't list it even though we really wanted to - though we did get to eventually list a disc by Wikkid's ambient alter-ego Alturaz, and a Wikkid/Alturaz split too.
But now The Intro has at last been repressed (though mysteriously minus two tracks), in the form of a double cd, paired with another, new Wikkid recording entitled Chapter 1. And, on top of that, there are now also TWO MORE double cds of other Wikkid material. We suggest you get them all. You have to get them all. Particularly since they're so cheap (and by the way, we might have accidentally sold some at a higher price, if you're one of those people, please get in touch).
So, here's the review we originally wrote for The Intro disc: We were sold on this one before we heard a single note. Based entirely on the cover art. Which is essentially a crude cut and paste, black and white Xerox, of the band name, which is Wikkid by the way, on there twice, along with the title, The Intro, also in two different places, a white smudge and some sort of cut out grid, and most telling of all, a ready made description of Wikkid: 1 Man Black Metal Band, Bay Area California. At first we weren't sure if that was maybe part of the title or what. We're still not sure. But we were psyched. We had been missing home brewed DIY black metal, and this is most definitely that, primo outsider one man BM, raw and primitive, super lo-fi, abstract and trippy and seriously goddamn grim and kvlt. The guitars are sharp and angular, brittle and buzzy, the vocals a monstrous bellow, black shadowy exhalations, the drums stumbling sort-of-blast beats, the music a dense, noisy, chaotic black tangle, lurching and lumbering, collapsing into dense swirls of nearly free blackness, before the second track lurches in, a creeping slo-mo black doom, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vocals too, the guitars a brittle insectoid buzz that's barely audible, minus the occasional shredding squall. And so it goes, the next track ramps it back up to buzzing blast, again, lumbering and on the verge of collapse, the vokills here a garbled, grunted speaking in tongues, the guitars murky and blurry black smears, the tempo fluctuating constantly, the sound woozy and washed out, pure underground blackness, that's so underground, it's seemingly from a DIFFERENT underground than the rest of the stuff we hear.
So, we wrote all that about what's now the first disc of the The Intro/Chapter 1 2cd release. We won't delve so fully into the other Wikkids, except to say, they're equally insane and amazing. More stumbling drums, more distorted vox, more disturbing thoughts, more murky guitar drone. If you get one Wikkid, you need 'em all, they're definitely a set, all of 'em basically having that same crude cover design, slightly altered from The Intro's template in ways that almost don't even make sense. Again, sheer WTF? genius. And super duper confusing. Then, one realizes that each disc in each double cd set is really short. Really, really short. Like, five or six minutes! (And the last track on one of 'em even ends with almost a minute of silence!) All six discs probably could have fit on a single cd. (But, they ARE cheap.) And again, in part, that's kind of what's so brilliant, there's just so much WTF? to Wikkid, it's astonishing. Wikkid is almost the black metal Fastest, if you know what we mean.
Oh, to give you a little bit more of an idea about what Wikkid is all about, on his website, there's a page of "definitions", here are two particularly helpful ones:
THE BLACK ISM - A new religion of black/dark musics & money for laws & guidance. Realism, Naturalism, Shamanism, Selfism & Wikkism as core beliefs.
WIKKIDISM - Playing a wicked black metal track on repeat at highest volume until you reach "ISM".
Aha, maybe that's why these discs are so short - you're supposed to play each track on repeat, anyway!!
A new ep from San Francisco's Wildildlife serves as a more concise and slightly less abusive introduction to the band than the dense and unremitting Six, December's Crucial Blast full length release (see review on list #281). Whereas Six showcases the band's expansive capabilities, Peas Feast demonstrates a band equally willing to direct their songs more pointedly. Simply put, this is the sound of a bunch of stoned Hessians taunting Tatiana the tiger (R.I.P.)...
The opener, "White Eyelidz" starts with Chrome like distorted vocals that slowly give way to a groove that is simultaneously long-haired and atonal. The vocals are treated with such reverebarance that they may have been recorded in God's icy womb. The guitar line swirls effortlessly while the band locks into circular Neu! like syncopations. The deep-sea diver finds his hidden treasure; a sludgy walk along the ocean floor. Darby Crash drops by for some tea; for the record he wants Darjeeling, fill his cup 5/4th's full.
"Violent", keeps it super slow and heavy. Picture My Bloody Valentine on 6.66 RPM. Harmonies shouldn't work but they do, possibly accidentally. Every sound feeds back grossly. Like a too full stomach. But the food's just so good, how're you gonna stop eating? Yet the song only gets slower and slower and now your burrito weighs seven pounds. Gentle Californian psych licks expedite the digestive process. Still, you're gonna shit blood.
If your crusty friend P-Nutty let his dog stick his head out of the window of a car he didn't have, "The Shining Son" is what it would sound like inside his doggie's brain. This is easily the catchiest song Wildildlife has ever written. Vocals wretch triumphantly, trying in vain to disgrace this gem of a pop song. Not gonna happen. The final track, "My Song", which had appeared earlier as an acoustic track on the bands self-titled EP, mixes an urgent sing-songy dementia with timpanic bass and drum blasts. This review has yet to mention the constant presence of the shrieking guitar, and this track is jammed with it, beginning to end. The epic track eventually melts away into a into a lalaland that channels a desperation not heard since the coda of Leonard Cohen's "One of us Cannot be Wrong." It should also be said that the experience of seeing Wildildlife's live show can range from pseudo-intentional beer-on-amp pouring to psychosexual hypnosis to telekinetic skull-bashery. Buy this ep it is HIGH-ly recommended.
(Thanks to aQ pal Amitai for the killer review!)
We dug the first ep from SF transplants Wildlife, who just so happened to feature our very own Matt in mailorder on guitar and vocals. A blown out tripped out heavy as fuck space rock psychedelic freakout of the highest order. Since then, not only have the band changed their name, to the much weirder and somehow more appropriate Wildildlife but also honed their sound into something somehow more blown out, more tripped out, heavier, weirder, but more importantly, WAY catchier. Hooks and melodies that most bands would kill for, but Wildildlife play it like it's no big thing, burying that stuff under avalanches of processed guitars, throbbing howling bass pedals, metallic Iron Maiden like riffing, insane chaotic drumming, and a fierce white hot wall of sound.
We were pretty much sold from the first track. Beginning with some simple Adam Ant drumming, tribal and pounding, before the glistening reverbed Big Country guitars come in, all swathed in delay and drifting over the tangled rhythmic chaos below. The guitars build into a serious chordal frenzy, and then a strange haunting, and very eighties sounding hook, and that's when the vocals come in. Distorted but melodic, a dangerously catchy hook, that somehow reminds us of Gaye Bykers On Acid. Druggy and tripped out, with a cool guitar/vocal "la� lalalalalaaaaaaa" refrain that sticks in your head FOREVER. Wildildlife are usually described as Butthole Surfers meets Black Sabbath, which while flattering, and maybe to a certain extent accurate, hardly do justice to Wildildlife's cracked pop flecked noise rock heaviness.
Yeah, they're heavy, but there's no massive doom riffing or downtuned metallic pummel, and they are definitely trippy, but not in the same way as the Buttholes.
Take the second track, beginning with a wicked tangle of distorted guitar, when the drums kick in, and the band locks into an angular almost new wave melody, and those vocals return, sort of raspy and crooned, echoed by either a high wavery guitar or a falsetto vocal, and they repeat, mantra like, mesmerizing and hypnotic, relentless and seriously tripped out. The drums a constant rhythmic lock beneath the strange poppiness of the vocals and the guitar, before the whole thing splinters into a Hawkwind free rock noise jam, all super effected vocals, total drum mayhem, and thick washes of crumbling guitars and throbbing buzzing bass, eventually petering out into a gorgeous metallic slowcore dirge, everything still wrapped in thick layers of reverb and delay, a gorgeous mournful doomic sonic deathmarch. While some may hear the Buttholes, we're hearing stuff like the God Bullies, the Cows, Lubricated Goat for sure and still plenty of Gaye Bykers, although all even more souped up and super charged.
The two halves of the record are separated by the longest track, the 18+ minute "Magic Jordan", which begins as a washed out post rock dirge, all shimmery strummed guitars, echoey Jim Morrison vocals, and a simple stripped down rhythm, Eventually, the band erupts into a massive roiling bout of slow heaviness, that sounds like a way more psychedelic Harvey Milk, with killer angular riffs surfacing amidst the endless black sonic swirl, eventually giving way to 10 minutes of tripped out free folkiness, all warped backwards guitars, abstract percussion, fluttering melodies, haunting disembodied vocals, all sorts of random creaks and chimes and whir and hiss. Which is quickly followed by what is easily the catchiest track on the record. The relatively brief seven minute long "Feed", with its abstract delayed guitar harmonic feedback intro, giving way to probably the most Buttholes sounding bit on the record, a tense and intense bit of furious drumming, and throbbing bass beneath little flurries of metallic guitar leads, doused in FX and sent swirling over the abyss, while the vocals croon from WAY down in the mix, finishing off with a cool thick chunk of melancholy riffage, massive low end throbs playing out a gorgeous melody beneath the squiggly guitar chaos above.
The disc finishes off with a massive sonic one two punch, two fourteen minute tracks, the first, a super abstract slow motion noise doom lurch, with anguished vocals, sung from the bottom of a well, the guitars and drums offering up jagged little stabs, before locking into a relentless Swans like crush, nearly suffocating the vocals, until the band again lock into an impossible blissed out drone, where the guitar and bass mesh into a nearly M83 sounding wash of fuzzed out psychdrone, before reverting to full on glacial plod until the end.
While the final track, begins with a thick bit of bassy buzz, weaving a hard to define slow motion melody, the buzzing rich and thick and rife with overtones, metallic, electric and lush all at once, eventually joined by a downtuned guitar mirroring that same slow motion melody, eventually joined by dramatic almost gothic vocals, the drums dropping in like brass knuckled fists to the sternum, the band again almost slipping into some intense Swans like doom, before the riffing slips away leaving nearly six minutes of soaring guitar noise, and cymbal sizzle, eventually building to a super dramatic major key coda, all soaring chords and falsetto crooning, like some sort of alien metallic "Star Spangled Banner" (again reminding us a bit of Harvey Milk), before drifting off into a meandering morning after guitar bass post rock fade out.
Way recommended. Noisy and heavy and poppy and psychedelic and fucked up and catchy in a way few bands can pull of. And the one time we caught them live, we were hanging in a hammock, above the stage, IN A BUS, getting rammed repeatedly by the headstock of the guitar as the two axemen dueled wildly in the outrageous confines of the space below. Barring that sort of intimate and surprisingly painful interaction with Wildildlife, this record will definitely serve as an ideal introduction to their damaged and druggy fucked up metallic noise rock space pop, at least until you too can be battered and bruised by these guys in the flesh!
Recorded by Aaron from Mammatus, released on the always awesome Crucial Blast, and in some seriously amazing packaging, a super fancy mini gatefold sleeve, thick and full color, with an intense bejeweled turquoise skull on the cover, a fucked up masked dirt faced hatchet flag duel photo inside, as well as a full color booklet with liner notes and a bunch more freaky blurry creepy masked wild(ild)life photos...
On his first full length, Wade Williamson's squirrelly electronic bloops and chirps drift and bob along in the waves of his warm, lulling guitars. It's a solid dozen lovely instrumentals that would fit quite well alongside the bands on the Temporary Residence label. When taking the album's title into consideration, it's comforting to find that the "few things" Williamson has in mind for us are altogether soothing and dreamy. A shimmering, wistful debut.
Fresh & Onlys' Tim Cohen and Ray's Vast Basement's Jon Bernson have joined forces to become Window Twins! The results are a crazy kaleidoscope of ever-shuffling sounds and moods. If taken literally, we can attest that the twins in their name are definitely not identical, and the window in their name is probably of the bubbly textured glass most found in old office doors. You know the kind that obscures your vision, turning people and things into mysterious figures and abstract shapes? I'm This Tall City keeps the listener guessing. It's an off-kilter, loosely stitched patchwork of loping loops and impromptu songs immersed in hazy soundscapes that shift in and out of focus. Quite reminiscent of the shuffling folk pop shambolics of early Badly Drawn Boy and Elephant Six Collective. but a bit more darker hued and brooding.
Couldn't be a more perfect name for this bay area duo who craft such breezy cosmic delights. Samuel Grawe who also plays in Hatchback and Daniel Judd whose record as Sorcerer last year was one of our favorite electronic releases of '07 have created the perfect sounds for a beachside disco party at sunset. Released on a new label run by Prins Thomas, they inject such a refreshing and easy approach to creating cosmic flowing sounds that really do bring images of waves, sand and shimmering coastlines to mind.
There are a couple tracks with vocals that kind of make us think of the Sea & Cake collaborating with Lindstrom, but they are at their best when they let their warm orbiting sounds find that perfect wave to ride into infinity. While most of the current crop of neo-disco cosmic peddlers tend to project a more cold and late-night vibe we think much more about how rad it would be to get to hear Windsurf play in the afternoon as we sprawl out on the warm sand and let their mellow grooves carry us off in daydreams with such delight.
A really nice debut from Izaak Schlossman, a young man from here in the bay area who makes music perfect for long roadtrips on the open road or an afternoon in your bedroom with the windows cracked while hot water boils in the kitchen for your morning tea. It starts of sounding like some lost Neutral Milk Hotel demo hidden in Jeff Mangum's attic for years and years. And then a more electro-acoustic sound comes into play making for a great meeting of worlds between indie-folk song writing and more expansive instrumental and atmospheric passages that hint at what it might sound like if Iron & Wine was way more lo-fi and joined forces with Fennesz. Or something. Its pastoral beauty and earnest delivery also reminds us a bit of folks like Mountains, Rickard Javerling, Grizzly Bear and Horseback. A very DIY affair, the cd-r is packaged in a beautiful hand sewn cover.
And we can definitely see this being one of those cd-r's that a few years from now you'll be bragging to your friends about, how you were digging this stuff well before he became a big name...
The local label Out of Round has been laboring quietly in the background, not calling a lot of attention to itself yet turning out record after record that are consistently of similar mood -- due to the fact that they all play on each others recordings. The homegrown label's "sound", then, is one of a grimy circus atmosphere, like Fellini's La Strada if it was set in some dusty corner of an urban American metropolis. There are lots of slowed down polkas and depressed waltz time-signatures, dour vocals, sad accoridans, and dolefully plucked guitars. Great mood music for the Tom Waits fan in all of us who feels like Waits is just too hip for his own good these days.
Check out www.outofroundrecords.com -- we carry all of their releases. For a limited time only, get an out of Round Records label sampler free with purchase of this disc.
Multiple Peady features four remixes from two of the tracks from Wobbly's Playlist EP, which recontextualized the intrinsically idiotic marketing babel of the corporate music world into a cut 'n' paste collage of clunky electronic jigs and deconstructed vocal samples. For this 12", the remixing artists -- Sutekh, People Like Us, Blevin Blectum, and Wobbly himself -- drew from the damaged electronic rhythms of the EP and stayed clear of the media plunderphonia. Sutekh provides the most structured remix with a dance-floor friendly number of his inimitable goof-ball techno. Blevin Blechtum's jiggly remix smashes the original into tiny maniacal fragments and spiralling time-stretched events. For his own remix, Wobbly turns the damaged hip-hop found on Wild Why with all of the quick tempo changes and erratic jump cuts. People Like Us takes us back to the open range of mutated Americana, much like her collaboration with Wobbly and Matmos on Wide Open Spaces. Limited to 440 and pressed on translucent green vinyl.
For years now, Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker has skirted around the edges of the electronica community, collaborating with People Like Us and The Weatherman (that amazing voice in Negativland), and finding more than a few unreleased samples of his work popping up on
Aquarius favorite Wobbly's first release for Kid 606's Tigerbeat6 label and it's possibly his best yet! Taking source material solely from S.F. Bay Area radio broadcasts, Wild Why is the end result of over two years worth of work which began originally as a live set before being slowly and painstakenly honed and sharpened into a carefully rendered studio project. Those who were fortunate enough to catch Wobbly's instore here early this year got a sneak peak at some of the insane plunderphuckery already. Given the nature of the source material (Destiny's Child, Eminem, y'know the type), and the artist's intention that they remain completely recognizable it's logical to expect that this would be a party pleasing mix a la the Kid's "Action Packed Mentallist...", but such a conclusion would be wrong. Wild Why is like a condensed and expanded homage to John Oswald's seminal "Black" or "Brown". Wobbly twists and turns the cliched utterances of contemporary hip hop in upon themselves rendering even the most macho posturing utterly slapstick. And if that's not enough to show Wobbly's dedication to the art of plunderphonics, then one needs only to open up the accompanying booklet to reveal a transcript of the entire vocal contents of the CD. Take and excerpt of track #18 for instance: "come buy, yo play radishes part (bola bo) judgement day (uh huh) I, I, I, I, quit. hey yo, me. Now now, now, now, lust two two three, back, you know what I'm sayin', we about to give you need y'all, jack d with the key, bounce, die peeps..." etc. So you can even read along with the disc. We asked Jon how long it took him to transcribe all this, but he merely chuckled, sighed and changed the subject. Highly recommended!
Not gonna spend a lot of time on this one, not because this isn't a good record; rather it's just that by the time you've finished reading about this record, it might already be gone. We have limited stock on this collaborative album of plunderphonia from People Like Us, Matmos, and Wobbly, and it's apparently already gone out of print, without any plan for future repressings. All in all "Wide Open Spaces" sounds an awful lot like People Like Us' previous album "Fistful of Knuckles," a cavalcade of bawdy jokes culled from Western storybook records, but that isn't to say that neither Matmos nor Wobbly can be heard. On the contrary, there's plenty of Maymos' twisted rhythms and Wobbly's mutant samples splattered throughout the album. Recorded live at the San Francisco Art Institute on October 5, 2002.
MPEG Download: "Clawing Your Eyes Out Down To Your Throat" [/audio/wmpluclawingyour.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Clawing Your Eyes Out Down To Your Throat" [/audio/wmpluclawingyour.m3u]
Not really sure what needs to be said about psych rockers Wooden Shjips, that we probably haven't covered in our multiple and voluminous reviews of past Shjips records. We've long championed the drowsy, druggy kraut-psych of these local boys (although they're not all local anymore), and have heaped praise upon praise on each and every records, and we should warn you right up front, that this one's not gonna be any different. Cuz it's another great Shjips record, brimming fuzzy guitars, motorik rhythms, simple loping basslines, and echo drenched Velvets/Doors style lugubrious and laid back vox, the songs not so much songs, as jams, no super obvious verse or choruses, instead, much like WS offshoot Moon Duo, these guys pick a riff and lock in, most of the songs, consisting of not more than two parts, but two parts is plenty, for these guys to conjure up a moody sprawl of sonic mesmer, that sounds bit like Hawkwind dosed on horse tranquilizers, the same sort of endless heart-of-the-sun jamming, but dialed down, and stretched way out, not explosive or bombastic, as much as tranced out and hypnotic, and the solos, not so freaked out, more textural and melodic, whether it's guitar or organ, the solos wind their way around the riffs, and become an organic part of the Shjips' hypnorock jammage. On first listen, we were convinced that the band had jettisoned much of the krautrock influence of the earlier records, our theory being that mainman Ripley Johnson took it with him when he formed his new group Moon Duo, which IS heavy on the krautrock, but the more we listen, the more that krautrock influence asserts itself, due in no small part to the endless repetition and the stripped down minimal rhythms, with many of the tracks here sounding like a supercharged, cranked up Can, albeit filtered through some fuzzy sixties garage rock. However you slice it, it's seriously good stuff, head nodding, mesmeric, tranced out, stoned and dreamily druggy, heady, and in its own laid back psychedelic way, also sort of heavy, but like 'heeeavy, maaaaan'. There are a surprising number of uptempo jams, but even those retain the laid back vibe that infuses most of the more druggy droney numbers, it's hard to say if this is the best Shjips record, or our new favorite, but probably safer to say that it's just another great record, from a great band we still dig a while lot. And certainly closer "Everybody Knows" might be the catchiest, poppiest Shjips track yet!
The cd comes in a 4 panel mini lp style gatefold sleeve, wrapped in a custom die cut O-card, pretty swank. And while they last, we have the super ultra deluxe limited lp version, green vinyl, housed in a heavy gatefold jacket with glossy UV printing (on the inside too), and also wrapped in a die cut slipcase - and it comes with a bonus 7" with two songs, "Colors" and an acoustic version of album track "These Shadows"!!! (Oh, and we've got a few of the limited cassette version too, nothing deluxe about it, but it's a cassette.)
Not really sure what needs to be said about psych rockers Wooden Shjips, that we probably haven't covered in our multiple and voluminous reviews of past Shjips records. We've long championed the drowsy, druggy kraut-psych of these local boys (although they're not all local anymore), and have heaped praise upon praise on each and every records, and we should warn you right up front, that this one's not gonna be any different. Cuz it's another great Shjips record, brimming fuzzy guitars, motorik rhythms, simple loping basslines, and echo drenched Velvets/Doors style lugubrious and laid back vox, the songs not so much songs, as jams, no super obvious verse or choruses, instead, much like WS offshoot Moon Duo, these guys pick a riff and lock in, most of the songs, consisting of not more than two parts, but two parts is plenty, for these guys to conjure up a moody sprawl of sonic mesmer, that sounds bit like Hawkwind dosed on horse tranquilizers, the same sort of endless heart-of-the-sun jamming, but dialed down, and stretched way out, not explosive or bombastic, as much as tranced out and hypnotic, and the solos, not so freaked out, more textural and melodic, whether it's guitar or organ, the solos wind their way around the riffs, and become an organic part of the Shjips' hypnorock jammage. On first listen, we were convinced that the band had jettisoned much of the krautrock influence of the earlier records, our theory being that mainman Ripley Johnson took it with him when he formed his new group Moon Duo, which IS heavy on the krautrock, but the more we listen, the more that krautrock influence asserts itself, due in no small part to the endless repetition and the stripped down minimal rhythms, with many of the tracks here sounding like a supercharged, cranked up Can, albeit filtered through some fuzzy sixties garage rock. However you slice it, it's seriously good stuff, head nodding, mesmeric, tranced out, stoned and dreamily druggy, heady, and in its own laid back psychedelic way, also sort of heavy, but like 'heeeavy, maaaaan'. There are a surprising number of uptempo jams, but even those retain the laid back vibe that infuses most of the more druggy droney numbers, it's hard to say if this is the best Shjips record, or our new favorite, but probably safer to say that it's just another great record, from a great band we still dig a while lot. And certainly closer "Everybody Knows" might be the catchiest, poppiest Shjips track yet!
.
Not really sure what needs to be said about psych rockers Wooden Shjips, that we probably haven't covered in our multiple and voluminous reviews of past Shjips records. We've long championed the drowsy, druggy kraut-psych of these local boys (although they're not all local anymore), and have heaped praise upon praise on each and every records, and we should warn you right up front, that this one's not gonna be any different. Cuz it's another great Shjips record, brimming fuzzy guitars, motorik rhythms, simple loping basslines, and echo drenched Velvets/Doors style lugubrious and laid back vox, the songs not so much songs, as jams, no super obvious verse or choruses, instead, much like WS offshoot Moon Duo, these guys pick a riff and lock in, most of the songs, consisting of not more than two parts, but two parts is plenty, for these guys to conjure up a moody sprawl of sonic mesmer, that sounds bit like Hawkwind dosed on horse tranquilizers, the same sort of endless heart-of-the-sun jamming, but dialed down, and stretched way out, not explosive or bombastic, as much as tranced out and hypnotic, and the solos, not so freaked out, more textural and melodic, whether it's guitar or organ, the solos wind their way around the riffs, and become an organic part of the Shjips' hypnorock jammage. On first listen, we were convinced that the band had jettisoned much of the krautrock influence of the earlier records, our theory being that mainman Ripley Johnson took it with him when he formed his new group Moon Duo, which IS heavy on the krautrock, but the more we listen, the more that krautrock influence asserts itself, due in no small part to the endless repetition and the stripped down minimal rhythms, with many of the tracks here sounding like a supercharged, cranked up Can, albeit filtered through some fuzzy sixties garage rock. However you slice it, it's seriously good stuff, head nodding, mesmeric, tranced out, stoned and dreamily druggy, heady, and in its own laid back psychedelic way, also sort of heavy, but like 'heeeavy, maaaaan'. There are a surprising number of uptempo jams, but even those retain the laid back vibe that infuses most of the more druggy droney numbers, it's hard to say if this is the best Shjips record, or our new favorite, but probably safer to say that it's just another great record, from a great band we still dig a while lot. And certainly closer "Everybody Knows" might be the catchiest, poppiest Shjips track yet!
The cd comes in a 4 panel mini lp style gatefold sleeve, wrapped in a custom die cut O-card, pretty swank. And while they last, we have the super ultra deluxe limited lp version, green vinyl, housed in a heavy gatefold jacket with glossy UV printing (on the inside too), and also wrapped in a die cut slipcase - and it comes with a bonus 7" with two songs, "Colors" and an acoustic version of album track "These Shadows"!!! (Oh, and we've got a few of the limited cassette version too, nothing deluxe about it, but it's a cassette.)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The first sighting on anything Wooden Shjips related is usually all it takes to induce mass hysteria around these parts. Apparently, you, our loyal customers, feel the same, because man, we have sold a fuckload of Shjips records. We just can't get enough, and these guys deliver without fail every time. And now, right after their amazing Dos record, comes yet another offering, a two song 12" single featuring a Serge Gainsbourg composition, originally written for and performed by Brigitte Bardot, and a new version of "I Hear The Vibrations", which first appeared on the group's insanely limited Vampire Blues tour 7".
It's doubtful that anyone expected Wooden Shjips to go all French pop on us here. They don't. Instead, "Contact" sounds like the Wooden Shjips we all know and love, with warm bass grooves holding the foundation over a cool, midtempo drum beat with a nice tambourine accent. Bursts of filtered fuzz and wah guitar bubble and whoosh about as the organ pulses rhythmically, and the vocals, sung in French, add the perfect amount of mystery to this hazy rocker.
As awesome as "Contact" is, it's the flipside that really has everyone here going crazy. Why? Because "I Hear The Vibrations" is simply one of the coolest Wooden Ships songs to date, that's why. The song somehow manages to be both mellow and cosmically heavy, not in a typical "heavy" way, just... huge. It's a lumbering behemoth of hazed out stoner majesty that would go on forever if we had our way. To anyone - "anyone" being pretty much the majority of the human race - who hasn't heard this one yet, you'll just have to trust us. It's fucking essential. The few of you who actually got a hold of the 7" will also find a reason to snap up this son-a-bitch, because the version presented here (the "E-Z Version" according to the credits) is definitely the way to go. To quote the Mexican Summer website, it is " slower, grander, heavier, and dreamier, and takes full advantage of the 12" format for better fidelity and a truly blissful listening experience." Yep, pretty much. It's everything that was great about the song to begin with, but MORE of it in every conceivable way. Sooooooooooo so awesome.
But, like most things of this nature, and like everything on Mexican Summer, this is super limited, with only a scant 550 copies to be distributed throughout the globe (though we're told there will be second, equally limited pressing done soon). It also comes with a download card, but really, the best way to listen to this is stoned in your room with the lights on low and the stereo cranked all the way, not on your iPod on a crowded bus. The record itself, pressed on asskicking white vinyl, comes housed in a cool disco sleeve that was printed on a variety of colors. We just hope everybody likes green.
Once again, we can't recommend this band highly enough. When you listen, you'll realize that Wooden Shjips have done all the thinking for you and given you exactly what you wanted. Did we mention this was limited? Ready. Set. GO!!!!
Everybody went completely nuts for the Wooden Shjips 10" we reviewed a while back (ourselves included) so we were super psyched to get our hands on this brand new two track 7" single. Packaged very much like the 10", clear vinyl, no artwork, barely any info, no sleeve, just a clear plastic sleeve, these two tracks are also quite sonically similar to the 10" and has us jonesing for a full length.
Side one is a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake.
Side two is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10: resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay.
Awesome! ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Wooden Shjips are the kind of band that inspire rabid devotion, and not without good reason. They are, in their own distinct way, a perfect band, stripping psychedelia of all its unnecessary flourishes and focusing, REALLY focusing on the fundamental elements that make your favorite songs your favorite songs. No verses, no choruses, no frills, and no bullshit. Just an endless, hypnotic groove that allows the listener to tune out everything else and let the music take them where they need to be. This simplicity is also the band's greatest source of power. While other groups will work desperately to cultivate an image as a "psychedelic" band, Wooden Shjips bypass all that and instead let their music speak for itself. The results are always mesmerizing, not to mention somewhat strange and mysterious, the only logical outcome from four guys who must know exactly what they are doing and understand the importance of working together as a unit instead of showing off their individual musical chops, save the abundance of perfectly timed, ripping fuzz guitar solos. The songs on the band's self-titled debut and their collection of early singles are at once classic and modern, seeming as if they had existed forever and simply needed to be unlocked and revealed by the right musicians. In that respect, we should consider ourselves very lucky that Wooden Shjips exist NOW.
When news of a new Shjips record hit the streets, we aQuarians were foaming at the mouth wondering what might lie ahead. Then one day, without warning, Dos was here, the four disembodied heads on the cover staring forward like totem poles floating in silver space. While the first album featured a hazy image of the band sitting on a stairwell, their faces are the focal point here, almost as if Wooden Shjips are gradually revealing more to the mystery that is their existence. But what does it sound like? Well, hopefully our review can convince you of this album's absolute majesty... but since words could never properly explain how much this has struck some of us, you should probably check out the sound samples, and above all, trust us.
The album opens perfectly with "Motorbike", possibly the most joyous Wooden Shjips song to date. Swirling guitar chords and oscillating swooshes give one the feeling of traveling at high speeds through some glorious psychedelic vortex, throttling you about in the best way imaginable. It's the sort of song that makes you feel great to be alive, with catchy keyboard melodies recalling a more frantic version of the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" as the UNSTOPPABLE rhythm section lays down a steady rhythmic framework that doesn't let up for the next 38 minutes. Next up is "For So Long", maybe our favorite song on the record. Driven by a bass line that is both spooky and relentlessly catchy, sparse, percussive guitar and organ creep about, as singer Ripley's deep croon wavers in the atmosphere. The somewhat ambivalent vibe of this song makes it the ideal soundtrack to pretty much any moment in your day, whether strolling down the street without a care in the world OR walking home late at night in some paranoid daze. "Down By The Sea" utilizes an appropriate underwater effect on the organ as the bass and drums give you the impression of, well, walking down by the sea. About three minutes in, a classic Wooden Shjips guitar solo enters and eventually morphs into squalls of heavenly white noise. This wonderful psych excursion is followed by the more down tempo "Aquarian Time", featuring a cool tremeloed organ (or maybe it's a piano?) and a devastating fuzz guitar groove that locks in with the bass before another rad guitar solo takes you way up into the clouds. The closing number, "Fallin'", kicks off with a simple two note groove, accented by a reedy organ accompanying the bass and a glistening, cleanly strummed guitar while a simple snare hit keeps the percussive flow going, the work of a man who must surely be in a trance - seriously, how the hell does this guy play so steady for so long?!?! It puts you deep under the band's spell, and then, at the 4 minute mark, you are introduced to the CATCHIEST BASS LINE OF THE YEAR!!! It will stick in your head for ages. After 11 minutes, the song ends with an organ chord and amp hum, reminding you that, yes, Wooden Shjips are human beings and not just a psychedelic rock machine. It's like the band is stopping to breathe for a moment before the next adventure, which hopefully will come very soon. You are left wondering what just happened, and if you're like us, you'll immediately put Dos on for another spin (or, if you're like a certain AQ staffer, 9 or 10 more spins!).
The overall sound on Dos is more upfront and less murky than on past releases. This slightly higher fidelity suits Wooden Shjips splendidly, as these five songs are generally tighter and more snappingly rhythmic than anything they have produced before. Each instrument is represented perfectly in the mix, with nothing taking precedence. The nonstop propulsion of this group is undoubtedly the result of four people operating on another level of psychedelic comprehension, a level many other bands simply don't understand. At the same time, their music is highly enjoyable and not difficult to "get". We certainly get it...
To call Dos "essential" wouldn't be enough. We can tell you that this album exceeded any expectations we may have had. We can tell you how if anyone interrupts you while listening to this, you will be pretty pissed and will most likely ignore them and crank up the volume even more. We can tell you that it will remain one of our favorite records for 2009. But you probably just need to close your eyes and experience it for yourself.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
San Francisco psych-lords Wooden Shjips have definitely got the Christmas spirit this year! They've recorded a gift-wrapped "cassingle" featuring their interpretations of two seasonal hits, "O Tannenbaum" and "Auld Lang Syne", 8+ minutes each, suitably psyched-up Wooden Shjips style!! How cool is that. Even cooler, ALL proceeds from our sale of each of these - the whole five bucks - go directly to the SF Food Bank as a donation, as per WS's request. And doesn't "cassingle" seem Christmas-y? 'Cause it sounds like "jingle", as in bells, y'know.
Of course, this tape is a limited edition release. Only 100 copies made, not all of which are for sale (the WS giving away the rest to friends and family as Xmas gifts, naturally). They let us have 35 copies, and needless to say, better act fast if you want to stuff somebody's stocking with one of these, 'cause they'll be gone faster than you can say "Kris Kringle". Or "cassingle". First come, first served, ONE per customer, regardless if you've been naughty or nice.
Collectors should be excited about this "warehouse find"! Our pal JW who runs the Holy Mountain label just discovered a stash of these long out of print Wooden Shjips Sub Pop singles, and sold 'em to us... the tracks latter appeared on WS's Volume 2 collection, but we figure there's folks who are obsessive WS collectors - or who just like 7"s - who would want these. We just a have a handful, and when they're gone, they're quite gone. And they're cheap, too!
Here's some of what we said about this single when we originally listed it in 2007:
We shouldn't have to say very much at all about this brand new 7" from beloved local dronerockers Wooden Shjips, considering how many of their recent full length we sold, same with the self released 7" and 10". It seems like we could just whisper the words "Wooden Shjips" into the internet and all of these records would suddenly just disappear, only to re-appear moments later on turntables around the world. Which, when you think about it, is basically what is about to happen right now.
"Woooooooodennnnnnnnssssshhhhhhhhjjjiiiiiipsssssssssss..."
The A side is classic Wooden Shjips, taking all of their influences and whipping them into a droney druggy blur. Whooshing distorted riffing, heavy on the phaser (so heavy at times, it sounds like maybe it's not just the guitar, like they ran the whole record through a phaser), some warped Stereolab style organs, simple krautrocky drumming, and those hypnotic Jim Morrison / Nick Drake deep crooning vocals. Think a super psychedelic Sabbath, or a heady mix of Flying Saucer Attack, Spacemen 3 and Loop. Cyclical and hypnotic, with a strange almost new wavey chord change / breakdown smack dab in the middle. It's a song that would shoot off way beyond the clouds if the rhythm section didn't keep things perfectly grounded like it does.
The flipside is way more poppy and less droney, a slow psychpop drift, with serpentine guitars, and a gradually increasing tempo, the guitar getting all tangled up with the whirring organ, the whole thing fuzzy and softly propulsive, but with a surprisingly garage-y vibe, reminding us of a more drugged out Sonics, or a more spaced out Fuzztones, especially in the main melody and the higher than usual vocals. It's by far one of the band's most beautiful songs, proving once again that a Wooden Shjips B side is nothing to be taken lightly. Both new tracks are pretty kick ass and fans will most definitely not be disappointed.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Originally released in 2008 as a super limited, gift wrapped cassette tape, given mostly to family and friends (although a handful were available at aQ), this fantastically wintry and washed out chunk of druggy sonic holiday cheer is now available as a super limited 12" (1000 copies, half on green vinyl, half on red)...
San Francisco psych-lords Wooden Shjips have definitely got the Christmas spirit! They've recorded their interpretations of two seasonal hits, "O Tannenbaum" and "Auld Lang Syne", each an 8+ minutes sprawl of druggy psychedelic krautdrone hypnorock bliss.
"O Tannenbaum" begins with jingling bells, an instantly recognizable bassline, and then they're off, a gorgeously hazy, propuslive spacekraut groove. The drums simple and stripped down and motorik, the the guitars gauzy and jangly, everything wreathed in the warm clouds of evershifting organ whir, the track slipping from hypnorock groove, to swirling spaciness and back again. The whole thing is laid back and dreamy, it's not until the last couple minutes that things get revved up, the guitars getting more distorted, the riffage more fuzzed out and gnarled, but before the band can totally let loose, the song dissapears in a squall of feedback, leaving just a field of tinkling bells.
The flipside finds the band welcoming in the new year with the holiday perrenial, "Auld Lang Syne" which begins with a trumpet playing that oh so distinctive melody, the horn seeming to melt and warp before our ears, until in swoops a seriously distorted kick ass main riff, and "Auld Lang Syne" becomes a fierce slab of organ driven spacepsych garagekraut, the guitars fuzzy and fierce, the drums locked tight, solid and motorik, the vocals surprisingly up in the mix, wreathed in tripped out FX, the bass fluid and thick, and the organ, the organ is EVERYWHERE, all over the place, swirling and whirling and swooping from speaker to speaker, fantastically dizzying and WAY psychedelic, almost all of the vestiges of the original washed away by the band's glorious echo drenched space-psych-fuzz crunch. Eventually the guitars join the organs, a wild tangled psychedelic squall, a totally blown out Hawkwind worthy outro, that ends way too soon.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! 500 on green vinyl, 500 on red vinyl, the color you get will be RANDOM (so don't ask, and ONLY ONE PER CUSTOMER!!
Ultra limited 12" single from these SF psychedelic space rockers, featuring three tracks, reworked, reimagined and remixed, by Spectrum from Spacemen 3, Kandodo (aka Simon from heavy psych rockers The Heads!) and strangest of all electronica artists Andrew Weatherall, and if past WS records are any indication, even though we got a whole mess of these, odds are they'll sell out in a flash, and it's very likely that we will NOT be able to get more. Just fair warning.
Andrew Weatherall does seem like an odd choice, but his version is pretty cool nonetheless, he strips it way down, leaving just the bass, and some reverby vocals to drift over a slo-mo house music shuffle, chopping up the vocals into a cool skittery melody, laced with some Synsonics styled eighties Miami Vice drumming, and space age synth pulses, the result is edgy and tense, and definitely ends up sounding like something all the folks into that current wave of retro-futuristic faux eighties Carpenter / Goblin style soundtrackery (a la Zombi, Umberto, Majeure, etc.) would most definitely dig.
Spectrum from the late great Spacemen 3, whose band pretty much set the template for the Shjips, offers up the heaviest remix of the bunch, beginning all woozy and washed out, lots of sweeping backwards effects, dense tangled guitars, building to a serious psychedelic space rock blowout that almost sounds like multiple copies of the original all playing simultaneously, all slightly off, with one spinning backwards, a little like what we would hope a Teenage Filmstars / Wooden Shjips remix might sound like, which means it RULES.
The whole of the B side is taken up by Kandodo's mix, which begins with the basic tracks recorded by the Shjips and then sent overseas to be transformed into a spacey slow motion drug rock dirge, a gorgeous stoned drag, lazy and laid back, spacious and spaced out, the guitars liquid and fluid, the sound swoonsome and super hypnotic, the sound is pretty much locked in, a sprawl of psychedelic hypnorock, laced with all manner of squiggly guitars, and murky blurred melody, the perfect, nodding off drifting off comedown space-drug-psych jam for sure!
LIMITED TO 2500 COPIES! Which does seem like a lot, but see above, you have been warned...
All you music nerd, yeah we're talking to you. You're just like us, you love reading reviews, even of records you already own. But even better is reading about records you've never heard of. And records you're not sure you'd even want to hear. That's where the Siltblog comes in. A sporadically updated site wherein Siltbreeze head honcho Tom Lax reviews all sorts of random and weird records that cross his path. We've definitely discovered some killer stuff, and it's always a totally entertaining read.
Tom wrote about this SF outfit a while back and a few people asked us about it so we got in touch with the band and got a bunch for the store. The Wooden Shjips (huh? we don't get it) aren't as far out as a lot of stuff that gets grilled on the Siltblog, but after a few listens it's easy to see why it's so special. It starts out with a fuzzy garage-y stomp, and it sounds downright indie rock. But then, nothing happens, the groove just sort of locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laid back and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing.
The final track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
A single song teaser to these local boys' long awaited full length, coming soon on Holy Mountain. And if you've been digging their past releases (a 7" and a 10") then this brand new single will definitely hit the spot. More of what we love, a relentless, neverending blown out fuzzy groove, all warm whirring organ, fuzz guitar, and throbbing bass, the drums a super solid motorik framework, the vocals sort of sung / spoken, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, the strangest addition is the haunting horns on the A side, that drift and moan ghost like over the fuzz jam below. One song spread out over two sides, by side 2, the band have locked it in and sound like they are never gonna stop. A looped cyclical minimal fuzzrock jam that sounds almost like some crazy crossbreeding of the Doors and Spacemen 3, which should appeal to Circle, Salvatore and Magyar Posse fans as much as all the druggy psychrock dronesters out there.
Red vinyl, in plain plastic sleeves (like past releases) and all proceeds go to Food Not Bombs...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
People have been chomping at the bit for more Wooden Shjips, and finally, here it is, a tour only 7" that sold out in a flash, and has been repressed in a super limited number so folks who may not have been able to make it out to see 'em play, can finally get their hands on these two new tracks.
The sound of Wooden Shjips has changed very little from last year's full length, but then you know what they say, why fix what ain't broke, and there's nothing broke about WS's glorious druggy din. A washed out retro fuzz drenched blues jam, equal parts Doors and Spacemen 3, the bass a deep relentless pulse, the drums simple and motorik, the guitars unfurling thick clouds of blurred buzz and blissed out riffage, occasionally coalescing into psychedelic leads, but just as quickly dissipating back into the druggy murk, the vocals a lazy drawl, drifting through shimmering clouds of distortion and blurred effects, and of course, the organ, wheezing and whirring, adding a thick warm blanket of chordal buzz over everything. The sound on these two tracks is really much more Spacemen 3 or Loop than Doors, dark and deep and druggy, swirling and lo-fi and fuzz drenched and totally hypnotic. And just maybe enough to tide us over until the next full length...
LIMIT ONE PER CUSTOMER!!!
For those of you who missed out on the limited edition double cd version of the Wooden Shjips debut release on Holy Mountain, here's a proper reissue of that bonus disc, now in a digipack instead of a paper sleeve, and with the addition of the Shjips' now out of print Summer Of Love 7" (never available on cd before!).
This disc has the three tracks from the Shjips debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists.
But unlike the bonus disc that came with the first pressing of the Shjips' debut, this disc tacks also on the Summer Of Love 7", an 11+ minute slab of everything we love about these guys: a relentless, neverending blown out fuzzy groove, all warm whirring organ, fuzz guitar, and throbbing bass, the drums a super solid motorik framework, the vocals sort of sung / spoken, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, the strangest addition are the haunting horns that drift and moan ghost like over the fuzz jam below. By the second half of the track, the band have locked it in and sound like they are never gonna stop. A looped cyclical minimal fuzzrock jam that sounds almost like some crazy crossbreeding of the Doors and Spacemen 3, which should appeal to Circle, Salvatore and Magyar Posse fans as much as all the druggy psychrock dronesters out there.
Anyone who missed out on that bonus disc NEEDS this. For everyone who DID get it (and there are a whole lot of you), you just have to figure out if it's worth buying again to get that extra S.O.L. 7" material on cd.
Either way, killer stuff and absolutely essential!
From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release that clinches its Record Of The Week status not only by comprising a fantastic debut full-length album of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams, but also by including a BONUS disc (limited edition, first 2000 copies only) in a cardboard sleeve shrinkwrapped to the jewel case, featuring all the tracks from the now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year that first made us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, and further whetted everyone's appetites for this album with the "Summer Of Love" 7" single that came out a couple weeks ago and has already sold out (2nd pressing in the works, be patient).
So, this new self-titled album follows on from that single with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the disc. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
And then there's the limited bonus disc. Don't dawdle, you don't want to miss it (particularly if you didn't score the original vinyl releases). It's got the three tracks from their debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" (the one that they didn't even tell us about even though we see these guys on the street every day, we had to find out about it from Mr. Lax's blog!) and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists. These are the songs that had us jonesing for a full length, which you've just read about up above, and now all this music is together in one crucial package, while they last.
FYI, a vinyl version of the full-length is to follow in a month or two we're told... and maybe Holy Mountain can come up with some better cover art for it too? We were a bit underwhelmed by the blurry black & white photo of the band sitting around on the steps to someone's house, but then again their vinyl releases were in clear sleeves with no art to speak of, so I guess elaborate packaging ain't their thing. But motorik minimalist krautrocky pulsations, mellow Doorsy '60s groove, and out and out geetar psych-splosions are, so we can't complain!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A one line review is all we need here, and in fact, that one line could be used just to explain that we only got 30, that's all we're getting, and have already sold at least a third of those before we even had a chance to list this, so act fast ! And oh yeah, the review? This here's a split 7" featuring local psych sensations Wooden Shjips on one side (Spacemen 3 cover "I Believe It"), and a rare track from psych drone legends Spacemen 3 ("Big City", unreleased alternate demo version) on the other. About all you need to know...
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Come the Thaw is the brand new 2nd album from San Francisco's female fronted gothic downer doom trio Worm Ouroboros, which now features Aesop Dekker (Agalloch, Ludicra, Hickey) on drums, as well as bassist/guitarist/cover artist Lorraine Rath (The Gault, Amber Asylum) and guitarist/vocalist Jessica Way (World Eater). We really liked WO's self-titled 2010 debut, also on cult metal label Profound Lore, and are finding that this new one is just as dreamy and depressive, pretty and portentous as before, another slow-moving slab of their "4AD doom" stylings, with ethereal female vocals once again gently hovering over sparse, serene, sorta post-rock soundscapes. The metal factor is actually LESS evident than on their debut; while a few parts do get momentarily heavy with the guitars, it's mostly rather restrained in that regard, or at least seems to be, Worm Ouroboros channelling the likes of Dead Can Dance even more than before. Which is, really, quite nice. And somber, and hushed, and blissful...
On Profound Lore, which has developed quite the reputation as an interesting metal label across several genres ('tis always worth listening to what they deem worthy of release, we'd say) comes the debut from Worm Ouroboros, a Bay Area based trio that notably includes singer/bassist Lorraine Rath formerly of blackened gothic doomsters The Gault (also ex-Amber Asylum). The trio is completed by guitarist/vocalist Jessica Way and drummer Justin Green, who both play in a crusty death-doom metal act called World Eater.
Although Worm Ouroboros has its doomy aspects, it's pretty far from crusty, or even often metal, really! The music on this disc is really mostly quite gentle, with hushed lovely vocals and somnolent instrumental atmospheres. It's all vaguely medieval (in a folky, not metal way) and meditative, dark and dreamy, though these songs do have post-rock style loud-soft dynamics, allowing for some heavy distorted doom riffage to kick in occasionally, and always majestically. Much of the time, though, Worm Ouroboros is all about the interweaving of delicate drifting guitar, clean female vocals (the two ladies in the band sometimes sing harmonies), poetic lyrics, and restrained drumming.
When we first put this on, it started off in that near ambient ethereal mode, and we were thinking, hmm, hope this doesn't turn out to be boring, or too "Lilith Fair", but pretty soon we were thoroughly entranced, it's total ear candy that compels repeat spins. It flows beautifully, whether mellow or more "metal", and even when the waters are churned by heavier guitar/drums passages the mood still remains calm, soothing somehow. Never headbanging, maybe head-cradling though, face in hands, weeping, perhaps from sadness, perhaps from joy...
Slow and sinuous, this sometimes reminds us of forgotten Finnish art-metal act Decoryah from the '90s (which is strange, since they were so unique we're rarely reminded of 'em, in fact, haven't even thought of them for ages, heck now we're gonna go put a Decoryah cd on!). To mention some perhaps better known bands that this also evokes, in ways, at times: Katatonia, Isis, Amber Asylum, Sigur Ros, Hammers Of Misfortune, and of course The Gault... So, can we call it gothic downer doom rock folk prog? Yes indeed. There's even a bit of flute (helping to make the heaviness of the epic 11 minute "Riverbed" be even more progged out), and magically tinkling glockenspiel! Most definitely, another unusual winner (as far as we're concerned) from Profound Lore.
Worship (not to be confused with the infamous doom outfit) are a new mysterious group who've just released their debut cd-r. Definitely for fans of Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice and the Jewelled Antler folks. At times, their shape-shifting, ultra minimal swamp twang is so barely there, it's phantom-like. You feel a presence, more than hear one. Note: this first pressing is limited to 100 hand numbered cd-rs.
Debut full length from these East Bay doomlords, who once featured our very own Andee behind the kit! It's three tracks 43 minutes, of slow building, brooding, emotional, classic epic doom, the emotion mostly due to the vocals, way up in the mix, a cool sort of John Garcia (Kyuss) / Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) hybrid, moaning and mewling during the slow post rocky parts and howling and wailing during the churning chug of the more doomy parts.
Surprisingly catchy and hooky, Worship Of Silence minus the vocals might slip into something more sludgey and ultra dooooooom, but the vocals transform this into something much more accessible, this sounds like a slight, but it's totally not, it really wouldn't be that weird to hear this stuff on some super progressive alternative / metal radio station. It's the Soundgarden vibe, it's hard to avoid, but fuck it, why bother, we all love Soundgarden, so imagine Cornell and company trading in their Zep worshipping grunge, for sprawling epic downtuned doomscapes, with cool swirling riffage, wild tribal drumming, long expanses of shimmery drift, a definite prog element too, as during lots of the slow brooding tribal parts, the band definitely dip into Tool territory, which makes for an awesomely hooky, catchy, but still crushing and epic post-doom. And it's not just the vocals, the riffs and the arrangements are awesome, well crafted, channeling the sound of old school classic doom, but twisting it into something much more modern and polished, eminently headbangable, but definitely a little progged out and catchy as fuck. We're definitely digging this big time.
So somber and emotive, Worthington craft slow country-tinged songs for you to unwind to. Imagine 10,000 Maniacs fronted by a male singer and joined by Guided By Voices later in the album, and you might have an inkling of Worthington's warm, moody sound. He Was Not A Micromanager is an impressive sophomore release, definitely infused with a well-worn ease and confidence. Beautifully packaged in an intricately folded screenprinted cardboard sleeve (which sadly didn't scan very well so our website pic won't do it justice).
