Lo, the Great Orthochromatic Wheel (?) dost turn! And with it, comes a happenstance that shall bring happiness to Jewelled Antler fanciers the world over: yes, a new album from the very special Blithe Sons duo, our friends Loren Chasse (Of, Ov, Thuja, Child Readers, etc. etc. ETC.) and Glenn Donaldson (Skygreen Leopards, Thuja, The Ivytree, Jex Thoth, etc., etc., ETC.). They'd been on a bit of an unofficial hiatus for far too long, taking a little 'time out' as it were, and we were both surprised and pleased to hear tell of not only this album's impending release but also to attend the 'reunion' show they did a couple months back, opening for Van Der Graaf's Peter Hammill at The Great American Music Hall here in SF. At that show they previewed some of what you'll hear here, and it's the usual Blithe Sons naturalistic improv-folk magick conjured from stones and branches well as actual instruments like acoustic guitar, harmonium and recorder. Field recordings suggest the hum of twilight grasses, a pleasant place to find Glenn's gentle Richard Youngish vocals whispering elegiacally o'er the drones and chimes of the Blithe Sons' abstract, organic, mutedly melodic soundworld.
And, they've woven some cover material into their own compositions/improvisations here, doing Jewelled Antlerized interpretations of ye olde progge songs by, we believe Genesis, and perhaps others... prog fans, listen close. Makes sense they'd play with P. Hammill!
There's no cd version of this LP, but it does come with a coupon to allow you to download mp3s of these tracks to your computer.
These days, any band that uses improvisation with heavy doses of loose, opiated psychedelia, lazy comparisons will inevitably be drawn to the No Neck Blues Band. It has to be said that The Blithe Sons, who have warranted a number of such comparisons, sound ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like the No Neck Blues Band. And actually they are much better off because of it... The Blithe Sons, of course, are the Jewelled Antler Collective's most active members Loren Chasse (Thuja, Child Readers, Id Battery, Coelacanth, etc.) and Glenn Donaldson (Thuja, Skygreen Leopards, Bird / Ivy / Olivetree, etc.), having literally embraced their philosophy that "making music should be a picnic." Thus, they've taken to hiking all across coastal California, recording their pastoral avant-folk songs and empathic minimalist actions in direct communion with the landscape around them. The two sites which are particular to the Sons' third album "We Walk The Young Earth" were a wooden bridge in San Gregorio and the concrete bunkers scattered throughout the Marin Headlands. The latter were sites that have played a large role in many of the textural amplifications that Chasse produced in Id Battery; however, Chasse doesn't return the Blithe Sons to the smoldering abrasions of Id Battery. Rather, "We Walked The Young Earth" turns their minimalist hymns and melancholic drones toward a space that is even quieter, more introspective than anything yet produced by the Jewelled Antler collective, as if they've become hypnotized by their own reverberating drones in the confines of the bunker. It's true that in these spaces, Chasse and Donaldson spend a considerable amount of time listening to the environment around them, and shaping sounds that are sympathetic to those spaces. That's something with which the No Neck Blues Band has never really ever succeeded, instead opting for more of a druggy improv stumble. A sleepy album for sure, "We Walk The Young Earth" is another gorgeous album from these perennial AQ staff favorites.
It's unfortunate that we've not reviewed any of the material from electro-acoustic composer Olivia Block. She had begun making music in Austin in the early '90s, having started a guttural shoegaze project called The Marble Index, but shelved that project upon meeting Michael Northam, John Grzinich, and Seth Nehil. Those three had begun their explorations with field recordings, electrical vibration, found object ruminations, volatile drone, and organized decay, and it was this sensibility that inspired Block to leap into piles of rubble armed with little more than a contact microphone. While all four of these artists emerged from a similar aesthetic, each has wandered down his or her own path, with Block taking more of a musique concrete approach, often bringing in various instrumentalists to provide a particular timbre to accompany her tape machinations, not unlike the early Jim O'Rourke compositions Tamper, Scend, and Disengage. One of those chamber musicians who Block had employed was Kyle Bruckmann. The two had met in Chicago in the late '90s, with Bruckmann contributing to almost all of Block's compositions since 1999. Bruckmann, now based in San Francisco, has quite the career in the realms of avant-jazz / new music / classical-experimentation / whatnot. Despite their decade long collaboration, Teem marks their first proper collaborative body of work.
At the beginning of the record, a scrabbling of small metallic objects builds upon a spiralling drone from Bruckmann's circular breathing through the oboe, followed by a series of descending, purposefully off-kilter melodic phrases from that same oboe. As painterly as this piece is, the second track uses Bruckmann's circular breathing for a far more atonal, bruitist attack through a head-throbbing elongated blurt, that recalls those Hermann Nitsch symphonic noise assaults or Penderecki's scabrous crescendos. Block's sensibility speaks more on this track through the oblique noise attack and transitions into passages of concrete noises from various pre-industrial machines struggling to get started. Glowing drones of feedback hang upon a muffling passage of woodwind errata, eventually building through jittery abrasions again reprising that Nitsch-like howl.
The opening song of this SF band's first cd finds them crunching out a rough'n'tumble garage pop with lots of snare drum that sounds a lot like Violent Femmes... but if Gordon Gano were replaced by more of a boyish crooner. The next track "Pipe Down!" does just that (bring things down a bit, that is!) as does the third song. These lower-key tunes which make up the better part of the album (and which gives you opportunity to catch hold of the lyrics), call to mind quirky storytellers such as Jonathan Richman, Microphones' Phil Elverum or Morrissey even. A promising indie pop debut!
The good news, this former Record Of The Week is at last now repressed and back in stock in the convenient compact disc format (as well as being still available on vinyl)! The bad news, it's now a cd-r, not an actual cd... and there's no back cover anymore either. But still, it's direct from Doug, and an amazing album, so if you want it in physical digital form, it's here again.
Our original review:
It's pretty phenomenal that this record went from getting the suspicious side-eye when we first took it in on consignment, to becoming one of our favorite "WTF?" records of the year! When it first appeared, no one seemed to know where it came from (it had been brought in by Blunt himself, one day). And we weren't too sold on the cover, a generic photograph that looked like it was shot in the eighties, of this fellow Blunt, standing with a woman (a close friend of his, in a head to toe orange outfit that looks like it could have been prison garb, and who as it turns out, may no longer be alive) in front of a Mercedes parked in front of the mural on the side of the O'Farrell Theater on Polk street in San Francisco. Also, whenever there's a bunch of "ASCAP" logos plastered all over the front and back cover, our internal "uh-oh" meter goes way off.
So it just sat on our new arrivals shelf for a few weeks. But then a couple of folks (one of whom runs the Gloriette label, who have supplied us with some Ariel Pink and Nite Jewel records) started asking about it, because they had heard about this record, so we gave it a listen and were pretty surprised and rather blown away by what we were hearing. A lo-fi but breezy outsider funk, made with repetitive cheap-sounding keyboards loops and tones (the kind being currently exploited by Dam-Funk, Ariel Pink, and James Pants), strange metallic tropical guitar tones that sound more like steel drums and flute sounds than actual guitar, and sly, laid-back vocals and catchy, infectiously naive grooves that work their way into our heads and never let go. Everybody here ended up really really digging it.
We sold one copy immediately to someone in the store when playing it, and then when we tried to contact Blunt to get more copies, we discovered that somehow we'd neglected to get his contact info, d'oh! The cd had no contact information, and searches online only revealed that the title track, a raunchy but coded come-on to a sexy stranger, was included on a James Pants mix. This only piqued our interest further, as Blunt's skewed Caribbean inflected songs would obviously be simpatico with James Pants' more recent tropical themed output. We could also see folks into Ariel Pink and Dam-Funk getting WAY into this. So we thought maybe this record was a rare private press record from the eighties. It does seem to have a strange hard-to-pin-down-time-wise quality.
Thankfully, Blunt eventually came back in and we got more copies and found out that he had pressed vinyl copies too. He also told us that this record was recorded ten years ago in 2000, but that didn't diminish our new found love for this record's questionable mystery, as it still predates all of the artists mentioned above that it reminds us of, though we're pretty sure Blunt probably has never heard of any of them. It also has the left of center oddness of other outsider funk artists like Tonetta, or Wicked Witch, albeit way more toned down than either of those two. Not that it's completely off the wall weird, but it's one of those records that we went into with such hesitation and were pleasantly surprised that we then became totally enamored with its home-brewed charm.
The lp is 5 tracks, with extra shorter versions of the songs "Fly Guy" and "Gentle Persuasion" and comes housed in an old school white cut-out 12" sleeve. The cd version has two extra songs and instrumental versions of four of the tracks. Oh, and the vinyl has a gold star sticker that boldly proclaims "HIT!" We couldn't agree more!
The first Doug Blunt release, Gentle Persuasion, we made record of the week almost a year ago and people went totally nuts for it. And it's really not hard to see why. Blunt's mellow brand of lo-fi outsider funk is both catchy and rather odd. Sounding like a smoother, Caribbean-inflected Wesley Willis, made with simple keyboard loops, congas and Blunt's own acidy guitar solos. It also had a off-kilter timelessness to it, where we couldn't tell if it was recently recorded or made decades ago.
Doug Blunt came in the store the other day with this new (?) release, Big Top, an ep composed of three songs and three instrumental versions. Complete with cheap color-copied covers of a screen shot from the one video performance we have seen on Vimeo of him performing,"Gentle Persuasion" with an all female backing band (it's totally worth seeking out if you can find it!). While these are new songs, the backing tracks sound almost exactly the same as the tracks on Gentle Persuasion, but with stranger lyrics mostly about being under the stoned spell of sexy freak show women. But the songs are still catchy and crazy as ever, and we may like these new ones even better!
As always it's hard to tell what the real story with Doug Blunt is. Though a super nice guy, sometimes we get the sneaking suspicion he's pulling one over on us. Every time he drops off more cds, he always leaves with a slightly mocking chuckle, as if to say, "those crazy fools". Indeed!
It's pretty phenomenal that this record went from getting the suspicious side-eye when we first took it in on consignment, to becoming one of our favorite "WTF?" records of the year! When it first appeared, no one seemed to know where it came from (it had been brought in by Blunt himself, one day). And we weren't too sold on the cover, a generic photograph that looked like it was shot in the eighties, of this fellow Blunt, standing with a woman (a close friend of his, in a head to toe orange outfit that looks like it could have been prison garb, and who as it turns out, may no longer be alive) in front of a Mercedes parked in front of the mural on the side of the O'Farrell Theater on Polk street in San Francisco. Also, whenever there's a bunch of "ASCAP" logos plastered all over the front and back cover, our internal "uh-oh" meter goes way off.
So it just sat on our new arrivals shelf for a few weeks. But then a couple of folks (one of whom runs the Gloriette label, who have supplied us with some Ariel Pink and Nite Jewel records) started asking about it, because they had heard about this record, so we gave it a listen and were pretty surprised and rather blown away by what we were hearing. A lo-fi but breezy outsider funk, made with repetitive cheap-sounding keyboards loops and tones (the kind being currently exploited by Dam-Funk, Ariel Pink, and James Pants), strange metallic tropical guitar tones that sound more like steel drums and flute sounds than actual guitar, and sly, laid-back vocals and catchy, infectiously naive grooves that work their way into our heads and never let go. Everybody here ended up really really digging it.
We sold one copy immediately to someone in the store when playing it, and then when we tried to contact Blunt to get more copies, we discovered that somehow we'd neglected to get his contact info, d'oh! The cd had no contact information, and searches online only revealed that the title track, a raunchy but coded come-on to a sexy stranger, was included on a James Pants mix. This only piqued our interest further, as Blunt's skewed Caribbean inflected songs would obviously be simpatico with James Pants' more recent tropical themed output. We could also see folks into Ariel Pink and Dam-Funk getting WAY into this. So we thought maybe this record was a rare private press record from the eighties. It does seem to have a strange hard-to-pin-down-time-wise quality.
Thankfully, Blunt eventually came back in and we got more copies and found out that he had pressed vinyl copies too. He also told us that this record was recorded ten years ago in 2000, but that didn't diminish our new found love for this record's questionable mystery, as it still predates all of the artists mentioned above that it reminds us of, though we're pretty sure Blunt probably has never heard of any of them. It also has the left of center oddness of other outsider funk artists like Tonetta, or Wicked Witch, albeit way more toned down than either of those two. Not that it's completely off the wall weird, but it's one of those records that we went into with such hesitation and were pleasantly surprised that we then became totally enamored with its home-brewed charm.
The lp is 5 tracks, with extra shorter versions of the songs "Fly Guy" and "Gentle Persuasion" and comes housed in an old school white cut-out 12" sleeve. The cd version has two extra songs and instrumental versions of four of the tracks. Oh, and the vinyl has a gold star sticker that boldly proclaims "HIT!" We couldn't agree more!
The latest from psychedelic folk troubadour Matthew Sweet, aka Boduf Songs, is a gorgeously intimate, stripped down and haunting songsuite, a collection of hushed, blackened torchsong and achingly melancholic minimalism, on the surface, a sound much more polished and mainstream than previous releases, but this more assured songsmithery, built from an impossibly lush sonic palette of muted organ thrum, electronic pulsations, layered chordal swells, and most importantly, Sweet's delicate, about to crack, whispery vocals, drifting atop a constantly shifting sprawl of starlit moodiness and crystalline shimmer.
And while much of Stench of Exist is still spent in the shadows, a drowsy, druggy, dreamy psych folk that unfolds languorously, laced with mysterious electronic filigree, and wreathed in occasional symphonic billows, some of the record truly surprises, shifting dramatically toward a sound that touches on other groups as disparate as Iron & Wine, the Editors or the National, just check out "Thwart By Thwart" which transforms the minimal into maximal, tribal drumming, wreathed in warm, lush guitar strum, reverbed piano, even handclaps, and warm, softly crooned vocals, a lush, brooding murk, that does in fact sound a bit like a darker, more propulsive Iron & Wine, but unlike I&W, the sound if flecked with mysterious samples, and field recordings, all building to a pretty epic, and almost Godspeed like coda, gloomy and gothic, and darkly dramatic.
Other mysterious moments in a record rife with them, is the strange glitched out electronica of "Head Of Hollow-Fill And Mountain Top Removal", a warped sprawl of industrial murk, peppered with swells of staticky electronic noise, buried melodies and dubbed out FX, a softly roiling noisescape wound around a robotic processed voice, sounding almost like a blackened industrial Radiohead. Or the ambient drone of "Grows In The Small World Of Nerve", a lowercase drift of distant, barely there dreaminess, beneath a skyful of rain, and snippets of conversation, all smeared into an indistinct blur of soft psych shimmer. Or even the swampy cosmic dirge of "Modern Orbita", that again, positions Boduf Songs for some long overdue commercial appreciation, but as if fully conscious of that potential, the otherwise beautifully brooding ballad, a darkly motorik downer psych gem, dusky and deserty, sounding a bit like Earth and Scenic and Sixteen Horsepower, is pocked with strange spaced out swirls, and more druggy dubbiness, which only serves to shine a woozy black light on the twisted loveliness of the rest of the track.
It's that balance that makes Stench Of Exist so stunning, the sound constantly shifting between hushed, harrowing, super personal, bedroom-folk psychedelia, and experimental electronic soundscapery, muted downer pop and drifting dronemusic, the record's finest moments occur when those various sounds bleed and blur into each other. Simple folk tunes are transformed by skeletal programmed rhythms, or swirls of spacey effects, and alternately, pure mad-scientist sonic experimentation is grounded by dour, delicate melodies, and hushed, introspective poppiness. Many of the tracks here begin life as dark, folk flecked, psych pop, but eventually are reimagined as something much more ominous and even malevolent, a whispery, cinematic soundworld of heaving strings and prismatic melody, stately and morose. While fields of effected guitars, unfurling into spiraling sprawls of alien ambience and rainswept atmospheres, all as a crystalline frame for Sweet's heartfelt croon and delicate star dusted balladry.
Fans of King Dude, Iron & Wine, Woven Hand, Townes Van Zandt (if he were raised on industrial music and psychedelia), Sixteen Horsepower, and even Magnetic Fields (check out "The Rotted Names"), will find much to love here for sure. As will anyone into dark, lysergic, gloom-folk melancholia, twisted drum-machine-driven threnodies, and gorgeously grim psychedelia.
Since we first discovered local primitive black metal outfit Bone Awl, on a tip from Leviathan's Wrest, we've been pretty much totally obsessed. As have most AQ customers considering how fast we fly through their limited cassette only releases.
So finally, two of those long out of print demos (so long out of print in fact that we never actually had ANY) reissued on super deluxe 180 gram vinyl. Two demos, one on each side. Bog Bodies on side A, originally released as a cassette in 2003, limited to 300 copies, now LONG out of print, and on side B, Magnetism Of War, originally released as a cassette in 2002, limited to 150 copies and also long out of print.
So this vinyl reissue, is also of course limited. Only 400 copies. Each sleeve is cut and paste style, to sort of keep with the aesthetic of the Bone Awl cassettes and as you can well imagine, this stuff is SICK SICK SICK. Bone Awl play super lo-fi black thrash, simple throbbing, furious and fucked up. Murky and primitive, just guitar and drums, manned by the brilliantly named duo of He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth! Simple riffs pounded into your skull, a crushing static black buzz, that is totally trancelike in its simplicity. Tape hiss wraps it's blackened tendrils around downtuned guitars, the drums a simple pounding framework, the vocals a guttural demonic howl. Actually, Bone Awl sound strangely like some sort of black metal Brainbombs, and we shouldn't have to tell you how goddamn good that sounds. As far as we know this is already out of print at the label. We have 30 copies, and once they are gone, they are GONE FOR GOOD.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!
Wrest from Leviathan had been bugging us forever to carry records by local black metal horde Bone Awl for ages. And we usually trust him when it comes to all things black, However there were a few problems, the first being that we always thought he was saying Bonall, or some other one word variation. The other problem was as far as we could tell they didn't really have any proper releases. Well, we finally managed to track down the guys in Bone Awl and discovered that they did indeed have a bunch or releases, they just happened to consist of several out of print 7"s and a couple cassettes. So we figured what the hell, cd-r's may be the cool cult format, but if that's the case, then it's time to head back to cassettes, the true underground format. So we managed to get a handful of Bone Awl's last two cassettes, and we're happy to report that they're both packed with minimal blackened thrash, 'goat metal' Wrest would probably call it, murky and primitive, simple riffing smeared into dense droney slabs of galloping black metal crush, from just a two piece band of guitar and drums (played by He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth!). But while the lineup is minimal the sound is still thick and snarlingly fierce. Imagine a stripped down Darkthrone (if you can): a single riff pounded mercilessly into submission, gruff gargly vocals buried in the mix, sloppy and raw recorded super hot and totally blown out. This is true underground black metal for sure. By Ropes Through Dirt is the older title and was limited to 500 copies. We have about ten copies and that's it, it's already out of print. Up To Something is the most recent, released last year, and is also limited to 500 copies, we have a bunch but they're going fast and will most likely be gone for good pretty soon.
For the latest installment in their ongoing, all-analog blackened onslaught,�local raw, primitive, black-thrash duo Bone Awl unleash another full length lp, the third by our count, not including a clutch of limited run cassette tapes and 7"s. And as always, it's another fantastically furious and filthy slab of relentlessly pounding buzz, hateful howl and sheer black force.�
For the uninitiated, Bone Awl are the duo of�He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth, just guitar and drums, but the two are a whirling dervish of harsh negative energy, not so much blasting and buzzing black metal style, as pounding and pulsing, a blown out D-beat style garage thrash pummel. Every track takes a single black riff, and pounds it into the ground, the guitar a swirling cloud of dark energy, the drums some sort of harnessed chaos, hewing closer to the abject blown out pound of the Brainbombs than perhaps any of their more metal forebears. No real blast beats to be found, instead the sound is a blackened punk rock, crusty and crumbling, on the verge of total collapse, barreling hellward with unstoppable momentum.�
Pressed on super thick�180 gram vinyl, housed in a thick cardstock inner sleeve, printed with lyrics, and housed in a gorgeous black and white poster sleeve, that opens to be pretty massive. The whole thing tucked in a plastic jacket with a sticker affixed to the front. And as always, probably crazy limited...
While we struggle desperately to get the guys in Bone Awl to bring us more of their cassettes, and while we wait impatiently for the boxes of Bone Awl lps to finally show up after being lost in the postal system for going on three months now, at least we have these here 14 inches of brand new analog Bone Awl to tide us over.
Keeping true to their old school ethos (as in NO CDS!!) the band give us a brand new double 7", released on Hospital Productions (run by the man behind Prurient) and it's just what you might expect. And just what we can never seem to get enough of. Super raw, stripped down two piece black metal buzz. Harsh and hateful, buzzing and brutal, thrashing and totally trancelike. The duo of He Who Gnashes Teeth and He Who Crushes Teeth whip up a frenzy of lo-fi blackened ultra violence, relentless and so sick. We described Bone Awl as sounding a bit like a black metal Brainbombs and that still holds true. Each track, a single riff, guitar and drums, pounded into your skull, over and over and over and over. Fucking awesome!
Probably limited but we got a bunch...
At long last, a new release from the elusive and mysterious Borful Tang (for his head scratching back history, please refer to our reviews for his Root cd and On The Back Of A Dying Beast 2cd-r). A mischievous sound collagist, he's like some peculiar sonic macrame'd synthesis of Negativland, John Oswald's Plunderphonics, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the Sun City Girls / Sublime Frequencies camp... but he doesn't stop there! He then can match immersive wits with the best of the dronologists too. At times Herd And Unherded is languidly lulling, at others it's a barrel of percolating loopiness, while still at others sinisterly possessed. Mr. Tang is clearly something of an obsessive collector of sound sources. He's amassed a vaultful of tapes and vinyl - field recordings, video game soundtracks, religious AM radio broadcasts and other disembodied voices to name just a few. He consults with them, meticulously pares and processes 'em, and the pieces are then refashioned into something which is altogether new, yet haunted by the eclectic phantoms of the past. Add to this sonic palette an arsenal of a homemade electronic gadgets, and you have something festooned with mad scientist goggles and soldering goo. Go on, give your ears a wild feast to munch on. Recommended!
First things first, please don't let the dvd-style case fool you! Contained within are not one but two cd-rs by the cryptic entity known as Borful Tang. If you need this mysterious being's back story, please refer to our review of his last release titled Root from a couple years ago.
As a brief recap though, legend has it that Borful Tang is not an earthly being, and its human conduit is Bay Area man-of-many-hats Dominic Cramp. On The Back Of A Dying Beast zeroes in on a select few of the key passages of the previous release (sadly tho' they don't include his previous churning NoMeansNo-isms), and explores them thoroughly -- fleshing out what was only glimpsed fleetingly on Root.
Disc One floods the air with effects-heavy layers of BBC Radiophonic style analog synth wanderings, sporadic android chatter and sludgy lumps of drone. Disc Two on the other hand is far more spare, hushed and calm even.
We suspect that with the consumption of the right, ahem, 'enhancing' substances this could really take you places. Quite the transportive listen. Recommended.
Who or what is Borful Tang? Well, according to the website of the delightfully named Snurp (the folks who released this cd), the mysterious 'it' is a 'he', and outcast from a distant place and time. Legend has it that Borful Tang was a hill herder who moved hills with sound. Still with us? Okay then, if you'd like to discover his lengthy full story for yourself you can find it where we did, but in the meantime here we have his cd Root -- his wildly eclectic music apparently having been transmitted to us via the conduit known as Dominic Cramp -- quite a multi-faceted gent in his own right (also recording under the monikers of Qulfus, Amazing Colossal Man and Modular Set). Borful Tang's music is trippy, out there, and particularly in the early part of this album, very NoMeansNo-ish in its propulsive tech-y bass lines. Heck, the first track is titled "Borful Tang Loves NoMeansNo"! And we think NoMeansNo samples may be the secret. The latter tracks feature collaged computer voice conversations (sourced from what we guess were English speech lesson tapes) and burbly analog electronics. We'll bet quite a broad range of strange music lovers will dig this... if the names Plunderphonics, Negativland, NoMeansNo, BBC Radiophonic Workshop tickle your aural funnybone!
Full length number three from this mysterious SF black metal horde (who are rumored to share a drummer with SF true metal legends Slough Feg), and their grim blackened buzz meets nineties style post rock hybrid seems to still be in full effect, but this time around they've managed to more seamlessly integrate the two sides of their sonic personality. Where on past records, the schism between clean guitar post rock lope and blasting blackened buzz was pretty distinct, the transitions more abrupt, here, the band seem much more comfortable switching from sound to sound, the best moments being when the blackness bleeds over into the post rock, and vice versa, and that change is all over III, the band unfurling epic blasts of buzzing blackened post rock epicness, and infusing their grim buzz with rhythmic mesmer, and strange haunting spoken word, it definitely makes for a more fully formed and full realized sound.
And on past records, it also took the group a while for the black metal element to assert itself, the group spending much of their time in post rock / math rock territory, but here, the opening track explodes immediately into some frenzied mathy blackened buzz, the sound immediately displaying the above mentioned hybridization, sure there's frenzied riffing and blasting beats, but the sound is soaring and melodic, and the drumming is not just a blast beat, it's wild and insanely chaotic, some of the most amazing drumming we've heard in a while, and that too is all over the record. But all that said, the band still do love to bring it down, and sprawl out into moody minimalism, just check out the gorgeous "Cells", with its spare slowcore guitar, and martial snare, all beneath more spoken word, the melodies chiming, the Slint comparisons more than apt in cases like this, but these guys do it so well, and the band are never that far off from exploding into some frenzied and mathy blackness, those parts making this probably the most black metal sounding of any of the BDN records. But having said that, the heaviness is shot through with loads of melody, and reminds us more of stuff like Fell Voices and Sleepwalker and Deafheaven and Cold Body Radiation and the like, soaring, melodic, buzzy post black metal, that manages to be catchy and sort of pretty but still buzzy and brutal and heavy. And pretty goddamn great.
We should also mention the lyrics, which are amazing, not at all lyric-like, more like short flash fiction, just check out the lyrics to "The Arborist":
"You have disregarded the advice of your friends and entered an accord with the Arborist. He brings you to his special garden at the center of which is a circle of trees. Next to each tree is a sort of well that is meant to receive a person. You will be placed in one of these holes with only your head above the earth. For several weeks you will engage in intense mediation on your novel existence. However, you will eventually grow anxious and restless. Others will come and take their places in the holes near you. You will find it easy to befriend them, but as the months pass you will begin to bicker and experience jealousy. At length, the affinity you feel for your tree becomes something which you cannot express and you will form a union which excludes all others. Soon after, young roots will find you and brush against your most tender places."
Wow. So nuts. We were convinced there was no way that was what he was actually singing, and when we listened close we couldn't discern enough from the raspy vokills, but then suddenly the song shifted, and the vocals changed to a cleaner, spoken word style, and lo and behold, those were in fact the actual lyrics. And all the tracks are like that. Genius!
Hailing from right here in the Bay Area, this mysterious black metal horde recorded this, their debut, way back in 2007, and, except maybe for a few demo cassettes back then, it's only finally seeing the light of day now, which is a shame, cuz this utterly rules, some of the weirdest, coolest, most idiosyncratic black metal ever, a killer mix of Slint like post rock, grim true blackness, and blown out shoegazey drift, it's hard to imagine that most aQ metalheads wouldn't totally lose their shit over these guys, we sure did. And we know nothing about this band, who they are, where they're from exactly, why this record took 3+ years to come out, and how the fuck a band this cool and weird could remain so far and so long under the radar. Well, we're just glad this record is finally getting the attention it deserves. And that we an finally gush about this incredible, fucked up and far out slab of outsider blackness.
The record begins with the very Slintish "Marie", Spiderland guitars, simple spare drumming, lots of space, the only hint of blackness is the tortured vocals, draped over the song's skeletal framework, loping, hypnotic, mysterious, haunting, it's not until 2 minutes in that the blackness drops, frantic double kick, frenzied riffage, and the vocals, seriously tortured and anguished, but even then the minor key post rock vibe manages to still run through the rest of the track, and hell, the rest of the record. The track finishes off with a cool stretch of processed feedback, before launching into the second part of the 'Marie' suite, "Marie Pissed Upon The Count", a seriously frenzied black metal blowout, the vocals just incredible, emotional, not shrieked, more a guttural howl, the whole song manages to be almost a single extended blast, except for a brief respite part way through, where the band slips back into that Slinty lope, but just for a moment. And then there's the untitled third track, that is ridiculously melodic, hazy and shoegazey and washed out, still buzzy, but the melody is so weirdly sunshiney, and the song does eventually transform into something way more fierce and black, but that dreamy vibe infuses the whole track, a weird grim / glowing hybrid. And so it goes, the whole record is a constant sonic exploration, draping those sinister demonic vokills over pretty spidery guitar jangle, sending insectoid riffing into soaring swells of surprisingly major key melodies, injecting weird mathy almost progginess into long stretches of contemplative drift, while much of this sounds like classic Norwegian style blackness, lots of it sounds like some nineties math rock band, imagine a Don Cab / Darkthrone hybrid, or A Minor Forest crossed with Mutiilation, or some sort of Slint / Alcest / Burzum blend, the record lurches and swings from harsh heaviness to melodic lope and back again, finishing off with a long stretch of looped guitar and minimal drumming, that manages to be way more powerful and intense than a blown out black blast closer, which is precisely why this record is so special, and so fucking incredible. And even though technically this is from 2007, there's no way this isn't another black metal of the year contender...
Record number two from this mysterious Bay Area black metal horde, a group whose sound is as heavy on the Louisville math rock is it is on the black buzz, and on record number two, they stretch out even further, exploring their math/post rock tendencies in ways that were only hinted at on the first record. And as one might expect, the mix of black buzz and meandering post rockisms sounds much more organic this time around, where as the first time the separation between the two sounds was more jarring. The production is much improved too.
Just take the opening track, "Volume Two Chapter One", with its darkly dynamic opening, all start stop minor key minimalism, a melancholy minor key melody played out over a series of chords, left to ring out, the drums crashing in time, the only hint of the blackness to come is a howled vocals way way off in the distance, it's two minutes before this crashing moodiness segues fairly smoothly into some frantic blackened blasting, the drums not your typical blastbeat, instead offering up all manner of unlikely fills, the result a little off kilter, and a good balance to the otherwise more traditional back buzz guitar and shrieked vox. And then with about 2 minutes to go, the buzz seems to dissipate leaving just a churning, chuggy chunk of palm muted math rock, that sounds more like Don Cab than Darkthrone, pounding out the final minute in a tangle of mathy rhythms.
The post rockisms are much more subtle in "Marie In A Cage", which plays more like your standard buzzing blackness, but there are those wild chaotic drums, not to mention a killer part midsong where the band switch into a brief bit of proggy mathiness that KILLS, but it's brief and soon the band are galloping along again, never fully shedding that mathiness, but instead incorporating it into the black buzz. "The Lampless Hours" is another track that starts out sounding like some lost mid nineties Touch And Go record (minus the flurries of double kick drum), before launching into a stretch of 'proper' black metal. "The Death Posture" is a churning doomy plod, peppered with burst of blasting black metal, and again here, the band are much more subtle with their deployment of post and math rock elements, which ultimately makes for some truly idiosyncratic black metal. And finally, the record finishes off with the 11+ minute "Why Am I So Lovely? Because My Master Washes Me.", which again sounds on the surface traditionally blackened and buzzy, but the post rock undercurrent seems to seep through every chance it gets, finally shouldering the blackness out of the way at about the midway point for a stretch of gnarled mathiness, that manages to not sound out of place, instead, it's drawn in shades of black, that make it that much easier for the band to slip back into the furious buzz that finishes off the record, until the last minute when the recording seems to go haywire, everything blown out and distorted finishing off in a wild squall of Merzbowian white noise.
Definitely less post rocky than its predecessor, but again, the trade off is that the post rock element doesn't sound as much like a gimmick, instead sounding more an actual intrinsic part of BdN's sound, and while black metal dabblers may not be so inclined this time around (although they should be), true grim metalheads might just find their horizons being expanded, whether they realize it or not.
Hot on the heels of last week's listing of the new double cd release on tUMULt from Bay Area hypersonic one man black metal band Mastery, comes something even stranger. Yet another mysterious one man black metal horde (and another double disc), rising from the fertile SFBM underground. The scene that gave us Leviathan, Draugar, Crebain, Pale Chalice, Sutekh Hexen, Dead As Dreams, Dispirit, Horn Of Dagoth, Pandiscordian Necrogenesis, Amocoma, Elk, Necrite, Palace Of Worms, and more, has now spawned the oddly monikered Botanist, an odd moniker only until you realize that all the songs here are about plants and flowers, and all of the artwork following suit, old faded images of strange and wondrous flora and fauna, but that's not nearly the strangest thing about Botanist. Nope, the strangest thing would be the fact that there are NO guitars, and there is NO bass, just drums, vocals, and HAMMERED DULCIMER. That's right, eerie and esoteric, buzzing and baffling, drum and dulcimer driven black eco-terrorist black metal. And as strange as that may sound, the SOUND is even stranger, the dulcimer a particularly haunting and strangely melodic instrument, the typical black metal riffs replaced by maniacal dulcimer melodies, repeated motifs, flurries of cyclical notes, the sound buzzy and brutal in it's own way, with an almost old-timey feel to the sound, the drums mathy and intricate, often sounding strangely like a demonic drumline, the vocals a hellish raspy croak, but it's the dulcimer that drives the sound of Botanist, a distinctive metallic buzz that's eerily creepy and darkly cinematic, with many of these tracks sounding like they could be some alternate soundtrack for a lost seventies giallo or some super surreal art film.
The tracks are mostly short sharp blasts of metallic buzz, the dulcimer alternatingly offering up dense overtone-rich clouds of frenzied tangled melody, but just as often, unfurling stretches of haunting atonal shimmer, occasionally spacing way out, and weaving sprawling dreadscapes of minor key tension and slow build terror, the sound of the dulcimer so strange, sometimes evoking old pianos in ghost town saloons, other times impossibly melodic, with the songs on the verge of pure poppiness, or as poppy as something as twisted and confusional like this can be. The sound of Botanist is definitely black metal, in form, in structure, in intent, in spirit, even to a degree in sound, but it's also something wholly other, the relation between the rhythms and the melodic component of the dulcimer's haunting buzz and chiming metallic tone hard to quantify, and obviously even harder to accurately describe, then there's the dulcimer's traditional station as a folky Appalachian instrument, it all adds to the crazy, confusional appeal of Botanist's warped sonic world, one that manages to be both heavy and buzzy and blackened, but also haunting and hypnotic and strangely soundtracky, a swirling, hazy, chaotic sound, densely melodic, relentlessly rhythmic, fantastically fucked up and bafflingly brilliant.
The discs are housed in super swank full color mini-lp gatefold style Stoughton jackets, with a thick booklet of lyrics, the jacket and booklet both printed to look like an antique botanist's field journal. ENTER THE VERDANT REALM!!
The return of Botanist, the SF eco-terrorist black metal one man band, whose curious weapons of war are pretty much just drums, voice, and hammered dulcimer! Sound strange, and it most certainly is, and black metal fans have definitely been divided, too weird, and no nearly metal enough for some, perfectly twisted and mesmerizingly oddball for others. We, like many of you, definitely fall into the latter camp, our own Andee having released Botanist's double disc debut, a sprawling collection of short sharp bursts of brittle steel string buzz and furious blasts, but as you may have gleaned from the title of Botanist's third record, some things have changed this time around. Most notably, the tempos are slowed way down, the tonal palette too is much more varied, the sound surprisingly lush, and describing some of the sounds here as simply doom, would definitely be selling short the twisted innovation and warped songcraft on display here.
Just check out the record opener "Quoth Azalea, The Demon (Rhododendoom II)", a swampy, dirgey, slithery creep, that reminds us more of groups like Woven Hand or Der Blutharsch, where the dulcimer manages to sound almost like a piano at times, and the melody is so wistful and melancholy, if it weren't for the raspy vokills, this could be some dark apocalyptic folk ballad. And so goes the rest of the record, unfurling darkly and dramatically, from loping doomy dirge, to creepy slo-mo deathmarch, to strangely propulsive almost post rock, much of this record sounding like something, that sans vox, could be on Temporary Residence, brooding, slow building, majestic and epic, all shot through with a healthy helping of drone, the steel string buzz creating mesmerizing layers of subtly shifting overtones, and woozily tangled melodies. Some of the tracks have a distinctly cabaret vibe as well, but even then, the sound tends to return to something more stately, trudging through thick fields of chiming notes and shimmering buzz, the vocals often buried, but sometimes a demonic croak, and strangely enough, the vocals tend to be at their most demonic, when the music is at its most lovely, which makes for a potent, and fantastically confusional combination.
Fans of the first record will definitely not be disappointed, but folks into brooding slow build post rock, and dark drone driven doom folk, should give a listen as well.
As a bonus, also included is a second disc, called Allies, which finds friends of the Botanist creating their own tracks using drum tracks from the Doom In Bloom sessions. The sounds and songs vary sonically quite a bit, there's strange staticky hushed ambient drift, crushing sludgey slo-mo doom, blown out, soaring hazy mid tempo black metal buzz (courtesy of the Botanist's other band, Ophidian Forest), some corrosive noise too, but there's a clutch of tracks that might surprise folks, the witchy, doomy female vocal driven Bestiary and the pop flecked almost Opeth-y melodic metal of Lotus Thief, but probably our favorite reworking comes from Arborist, whose version starts off as a sort of lumbering, lo-fi bit of screamo-y slo-mo creep, which explodes into a super psychedelic blast of woozy heaviness, the riffs and melodies slipping and sliding and seeming to melt before your very ears. Definitely hope the Arborist and the Botanist do more together in the future (which seems likely, as the Arborist actually records all the Botanist records)...
And if three records is still not enough Botanist for you (it's not for us!), fear not! There are already at least three, if not more, full lengths on deck. We can't wait!
Full length number FOUR from this local eco-terroristic, drum and dulcimer driven black metal one band band, whose first two records were released as a pair on our very own Andee's tUMULt label. At the time, as much as we loved Botanist's unique and warped take on black metal, we must admit we were a bit surprised when Botanist sort of blew up, making all sorts of year end top ten lists, even popping up on Pitchfork and NPR. We sort of assumed it was too weird to have much appeal, but it seems if anything, that weirdness only made Botanist more appealing to non-metalheads, and in another surprise twist, brought out the open minded experimental streak we had just assumed most metalheads might be missing. But it's easy to see why people dig Botanist. Heck Andee dug his stuff enough to put it out. Botanist's music is dark and twisted, droned out and buzzy, weirdly melodic, super trance-y and hypnotic, it's really barely black metal, the blasting drums and the croaked squashed spider vocals really being the only truly black metal elements, even the metallic buzz of the dulcimer, aping the sort of fast picked BM riffing, ended up sounding like something wholly other. Botanist's third record, on the Total Rust label, found him slowing things down, and creating his own version of doom, which like his take on black metal was appropriately and fantastically skewed. Which brings us to IV, the fourth Botanist full length in two years, and once again, a whole sonic shift has taken place, this one more difficult to quantify, it's not black metal, and not doom, and this time around, we're tempted to say it's not even really metal. Actually not at all.
When we first heard it, we were struck by how melodic it was, almost shoegazey, the dulcimer strangely recorded, to turn the brittle buzz of the early records into something washed out and gloriously distorted, single strings ring out like prismatic chordal swirls, and the more rapid passages blur into blissed out streaks of hazy blurred dreaminess. In fact, minus the vocals, Botanist IV sounds more like some experimental shoegaze pop band, even the blast beats seem to have been ditched in favor of more midtempo rhythms, and then those are mostly buried in the mix, beneath clouds of reverberant overtones, of whorls of FX drenched metallic chords, that all seem to sprawl like cloud of metallic shimmer, laced with keening melodies, the whole thing surprisingly sun dappled and prismatic, if we didn't know the grim story behind the lyrics of IV, we'd assume the theme was one of redemption and rebirth, or in keeping with the Botanist's themes, IV plays out like the soundtrack to post-human earth, once the human race has been eradicated, and the world is a lush nirvana, where nothing but plants grow, allowed to spread out endlessly, and reach forever heavenward. And heck, even with the vocals, it's hard to disguise the lush melodic elements that pretty much entirely define the sound of IV.
Considering the sort of surprising widespread appeal the first few records had, we can only imagine this one might just be the real big breakthrough record for Botanist, it's so catchy and melodic, so pretty and lushly layered, that it's hard to imagine that even some of the more metal averse folks wouldn't or couldn't be won over. We even suggested to the Botanist himself that he should release an instrumental version, imagining the pure psychedelic shoegaze sonic bliss that would result, but for now, IV's glorious mix of lush sonic bliss and grim verdant vokills is more than enough.
Another mysterious missive from the verdant realm, which can only mean one thing, the return of THE BOTANIST, our local eco-terrorist drum and dulcimer black metal band, who in fact, have actually expanded into a proper band, and have been playing shows throughout the US recently, which we have witnessed and are pretty incredible. We can also say, that in some ways, they're even better than the records. Odds are you've likely never heard dueling hammered dulcimers, amplified and projected at great volume, accompanied by blasting drums and wheezing sruti box. But ultimately hearing the strange metallic tones of the dulcimers are extreme volume, it's kind of transcendent.
That's not to take away from the records at all, this new one, the fifth in three years (and that's not counting a split with Palace Of Worms, or the fact that they/he skipped number five for some reason), is another fantastic , psychedelic, bizarre and beautiful assemblage of sounds, most of which at this point are really only tangentially black metal. Vokill rasps, check. Furious blast beats, check. But beyond that, Botanist tend to explore some other sonic world entirely, one that's droney and atmospheric, minimal and MAXimal at the same time, the melodies of the dulcimers, no matter how much they're meant to emulate blackened riffing, sound way more alien, and abstract, in some ways it reminds us of the just intonation black metal of Jute Gyte, but the furious flurries of notes, the harmonics and the overtones, all blend into one glorious, constantly shifting organic field of sound, that's utterly mesmerizing and totally immersive, as if all the other elements are just window dressing for these thick, hypnotic, psychedelic swirls of sound. And very much like on IV: Mandragora, the songwriting seems to continue to follow a similar path, one that gets less and less black with every release, with many of the tracks here downright melodic and lovely, sans the harsh vokills, they sound more like Mono or Mogwai, epic and majestic, sun dappled and hopefully, burnished with some inner light, the melodies glowing, the sound emotional and lush, prismatic and heart wrenching. And yeah, sure there are moments more grim, but those just offer shadow, to the rest of Flora's sonic light.
Our favorite local one man arboreal black metal band returns with a brief split to tide us over until the impending release of both V and VI, in the seemingly (and thankfully) unending barrage of material oozing up from the verdant realm. And like the last few Botanist releases, the tracks here find the sound drifting every further away from the black metal that, only barely, defined the sound of those recordings. Minus the vokills, the three tracks here are super melodic, a little bit blissy and shoegazey, and sound like some avant post rock you might find on Temporary Residence. Even with blast beats and a healthy heaping of buzz, the tracks here soar and chime, you can almost envision some wistful sad boy vox and suddenly, this is total teenage mixtape material, which is not a bad thing at all. And when the blacker elements are woven in, it becomes something truly strange and wonderful, and just further demonstrates, why the rest of the world, particularly the non metal portion, have been flipping out over this stuff.
Palace Of Worms on the other hand, is something all together more metallic and grim, their opening track a creepy doomy sprawl, all woozy minor key melodies, haunting ambience, the sound slowly building to something much more epic and majestic, a black buzz, but one that's muted and swaddled in swoonsome synths, giving the sound a sort of washed out and sun dappled quality, which makes it a good match for Botanist. But those moments of wispiness, are more than made up for by some more intense, growly, metallic black buzz, the sound deftly balance between the two, songs flitting from grinding downtuned churn, to synthy shimmer, to crystalline post-metal drift and back again.
Great great stuff from both bands, and some seriously awesome cover art to boot!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Local indie combo The Bother make straightforward gentle indie pop with laidback emotive male vocals. Breezy and wistfully bittersweet tunes with a few nice moody embellishments -- an effected vocal, a textural sound sample, a slinky tremolo'd guitar, a flute -- for added atmosphere and loveliness. A bit reminiscent of early Beck and Pavement.
Such warm, woozy and punchy West Coast pop delivered spot on by this San Francisco band, whose songs are made for that Eternal Summer we all wish we could live in. Their sound reminding us of everyone from the breeziest side of The Kinks, the more at ease moments of The Strokes, a looser Vetiver, a more sun soaked Grizzly Bear, some of that early solo McCartney magic... In other words the Botticellis write some pretty damn great irresistible pop that we can imagine being blasted in the bedroom with the window open so everyone playing in the backyard could soak up these infectious sounds. Pressed on clear vinyl and sounding better and better each time we lay the needle in its grooves.
If you'd like to champion a local San Francisco artist and you're a fan of the gruffy janglings of Tom Waits, this is your ticket! Boxcar Saints sound very much in the vein of Waits, though perhaps a little smoother. Very pretty melodies!
When this came out as a vinyl-only release earlier this year, back in May, we made it our very rockin' Record Of The Week. Now, we're happy to report that the band also has done a limited run of pro-printed cd-rs, for those of you lacking in turntable technology!
Boyjazz? Boyjazz! The name should strike fear into the heart of all posers. Not because they weren't a joke band, cuz of course they were... but in spite of that, they kicked ass on most quote-unquote real metal/hard rock bands out there. Silly name, funny lyrics, tongue-in-cheek attitude and all, damn they rocked. Great songs, super showmanship, part wiseass LA hair metal parody, part party time garage glam rock ravers in their own right, the bombastic Boyjazz couldn't be denied. The musicians in Boyjazz were tight all right, virtuoso nerds in cock rock spandex disguise, but the band's not so secret weapon was charismatic frontman Adam "Sexmouth" Hobbs, who had few peers and less shame in the live arena - and acted as if arenas were indeed where they belonged!
Or maybe you're too young to remember their 2004 album In The City Tonight? Or their US tour opening for The Fucking Champs and Zombi? Well, you're in luck, they're baaaack... sort of... with, at long last, the posthumous release of their final all analog studio recording, tracked back in 2006 but shelved 'til now. Maybe the world is finally ready. We are!
It's clear from the title Unlimited Nights & Weekends that Boyjazz didn't get much more "serious" on their long lost sophomore outing, not that they needed to, or we expected 'em to. Though, they did do it with their five member full band lineup, not as duo-with-drum-machine like on In The City Tonight. So it's more what Boyjazz were like at their peak live, including the six string shred of geeky guitar hero Eric Murriguez, and the actual drumming of Aaron "Supertouch" Levin, with songs just as instantly catchy and kick ass as any on that earlier album. So many infectious riffs and great songs here, straight up. Tracks like "Woman Come To Man", "Woman In Love", "She's Got Gold", "Danger Danger", "Pocket Unicorn", heck ALL of 'em, are gonna be stuck in our heads for the foreseeable future, and that's just after a few spins, the almost-overly-enthusiastic backing vocal choruses generally sealing the deal. Turns out, a bunch actually were already stuck in our heads somewhere, as we immediately recognized several as longtime live faves from the band, so glad they got properly recorded for posterity! Like sleazy side 2 album-ender "Booze", usually their encore as we recall... Armed with these songs, Boyjazz could time travel back to the '80s and take on all comers on the Sunset Strip for sure, though some of the jokes in the lyrics might go over the heads of those in the audience.
'Tis totally over the top boogie rawk action, with wailing vox, clever lyrix, '70s glam riffrock stomp... Boyjazz has tongues firmly in cheek, yes, but they're nonetheless doing it right, asking no quarter and none given, willing to put up or shut up (they choose the former), their goofing and spoofing dangerously close to blowing doors on the real thing, like when they make Led Zeppelin their bitch on "Treat Steamin'" or send Judas Priest running hellbent for cover when they belt out "The Monsters Are Smarter". Even power pop new wave like The Knack gets the Boyjazz treatment via "Hot On The Phone".
It's not rocket science, or maybe it is... Part T-Rex, part Tenacious D, part Turbonego; a little White Stripes, a lotta Whitesnake, Boyjazz almost make even Van Halen seem stiff & serious, uptight with stagefright. To sum up, we've got one word for you: Wooooah-whoooah-whooooah-oh-yeah!
Super limited cd-r edition, in jewel case with full color art, professionally printed. They only only brought us a handful, though if we run out we might be able to get more from 'em in after the holidays.
Since her band's 2004 debut album School Of Etiquette (a particular Andee and Cup fave of that year), SF cool gal and headmistress of poppy post-post-punk grrrls Boyskout Leslie Satterfield has not only moved to NY and back, but she's also assembled an entirely new lineup! And we're happy to report that the music hasn't skipped a beat. Although Boyskout's sound is usually anchored by a mopey Smiths-ian moodiness driven by reeling guitar and keyboards and distinct breathy pout of Satterfield's vocals -- even more so on this album than on the last -- they do insert a warm sunbeam here and there. Take for example the softly snappy retro-pop of "Everybody Knew". It makes for a nice, unjarring shift on the band's modus operandi. The places where it seems this album loses its focus and falters just a bit are those when it seems the creative control and vocal duties were wrested from Satterfield's usually solid grip. A particularly noticeable slip in momentum comes at the cover of Kraftwerk's "The Model" -- ably executed but a bit flat in comparison to the rest of the songs' punch. A far more effective and downright spooky cover is their take on The Beatles' "Drive My Car" (oooh, spoiler: it's the album's closing track simply listed as "Track 12"). Nonetheless, Another Life is a terrific sophomore release. Recommended!
Besides being just about the cutest band in the the Bay Area (although they've recently left SF for NY), Boyskout more importantly manage to meld elements of queer grrrl punk, new wave, pop and goth into super buzzy, catchy, hypnotic perfection.
Three distinct vocalists keep things really interesting: one a petulant pout of a voice, another closely resembles Siouxsie's dark, throaty sultriness, and the third is all Kim Gordon-ish whispery, and almost spoken. So varied and cool. The music has the propulsive new wave simplicity of Interpol, the playful purr of the Cure, and the buzzy intensity of classic punk rock, with claustrophobic minor key melodies, crunchy punchy guitars, thick circus-y Gary Numan-ish synths, and super catchy hooks EVERYWHERE. The more we listen to this the more we love it! Includes one of the songs from their febut 7". The cd also contains a video for the track "Back To Bed", a spicy, saucy romp, reflecting the song's sexy lyrics, with the band making out with each other, and rolling around in their underwear!
In anticipation of their debut full length which is due out in January (Andee and Cup have been diggin' the advance copy they kindly dropped off a month ago), Bay Area foursome Boyskout offer up a two song vinyl appetizer of darkly edgy and emotive feist-pop in many ways quite reminiscent of equally kick-ass gals The Need. Well worth checkin' out!
San Francisco boasts a great history of kick ass party bands who have the ability to get a warehouse full of sweaty folks lost in pulsating sounds. From Tussle, Numbers, Dynasty Handbag, The Vanishing, Harold Ray Live In Concert, Jonas Reinhardt (in their live incarnation) - SF bands have proven you can be fun and smart at the same time. Boyz IV Men follow in this great tradition as the torch carriers for sweaty dance floor jams done so totally right. Armed with analog synths and a minimal drumkit, they blast out electro jams that feel like a less precious Ratatat or a more DIY minded Justice or Simian Mobile Disco. We love how they maintain a raw and gritty sound in the midst of their all out body moving bangers. So damn good!
The lp comes with a coupon for a digital download of the album.
Surrealistic solo artist The Bran (Another plight of medic's...) Pos, aka AQ-customer Jake Rodriguez (who helps to run & book the Clit Stop venue here in SF), has released what I think is his actual debut cd, after a variety of cd-r releases. Experimental to the core, in live performances Jake's a veritable Tasmanian Devil of insane vocal manipulations and electronic effects. Here, the vocals take a back seat (or can't be differentiated from the electronics!), it's pretty much all outer-space distortion and chaos-collage, like a Masonna intent on making 'weird' noises instead of painful ones. One track features his free improv duo Compomicro-Dexall. For fans of Mike Patton and other John Zorn-approved avant garde noise craziness. Good stuff. Comes packaged in one of those clear plastic clam-shell cases.
Isn't it nice when friends become friends with other friends? We sorta get that feeling from this release, as local boys Brian Fraser and Chris Palmatier were AQ faves upon the release of their second album Vectors and now this new disc sees them joining the illustrious ranks of the Dielectric Recordings Empire run by *our* friends Drew and Stephanie... Better yet, B and C don't disappoint with 3, it's a fine disc of light and airy (Airy?) indie rock infused electronica (or electronica infused indie rock?), very creative and summery and mellow and pretty, with room for laptops and guitars and panpipes and random voice recordings and much studio-as-instrument-goings-on. We sell a lot of the likes of the Postal Service and The Books and Boards Of Canada and there's no reason this shouldn't go in the shopping basket with the rest of 'em. Nice.
If Jim O'Rourke wasn't so afflicted with attention deficit disorder, if Boards of Canada weren't so s-l-o-w in making new records, if the Champs weren't on tour all the time -- maybe they all coulda gotten together and made a record as pretty as this one. Brian and Chris are a coolly eclectic local duo whose record is so fresh, gentle, accomplished and unhurried that it's taken us by surprise. When an album is this eclectic we are usually a little suspicious -- but Brian & Chris' "Vectors" album totally works. Bravo.
Starting with a shuffling bass groove layered over with atmospherics full of texture and grit, the record would at first seem to be yet more popular electronics in the vein of Mouse on Mars or Boards of Canada. But before you know it the electronics have been replaced by echoing acoustic blues guitar that's foregrounded right in your eardrum, while tinny jungle beats cavort way in the background, used more as texture than as booty movers. It's a nice combination you'd like to hear longer, but before long chiming, fingerpicked guitars accompany a lilting, ethereal female voice, soon to be followed by angular shards of art-post-rock very similar to Gastr del Sol (in a good way, not pretentious at all). And as if that weren't fun enough, by the end of the album the perfectly seamless segueways between the genre-bending tracks have placed you squarely in the middle of a Champs-style rock guitar workout. Wow. Highly recommended!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
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SORRY.
Since 1991, BJM has offered the public a rock soap opera of sorts. Sideburns, Drugs & Rock 'n Roll, yeah. Providing songs to do drugs to for over a decade now, BJM's label has brought forth a heavy 2 disc retrospective obviously to coincide with the Sundance-acclaimed documentary by Ondi Timoner, "Dig!" Could only a clueless megalomaniac warrant such shameless media attention? You decide. Regardless, Tepid Peppermint Wonderland bequeaths 44 tracks of steady, mid-tempo Notorious Byrd Brothers-meets-Ride/Stone Roses glassy-eyed sonic numbness, including some previously unreleased studio and live songs.
Sometimes you just gotta get down and dirty, sleazy and rocking, and we have to say it's been hard to find bands doing that sort of thing right these days. So thank the stars for Bridez, a San Francisco band who make sounds made reckless nights on the dancefloor, beer soaked chaos, reminding us that rock n roll is supposed to be trashy and wild and impassioned!
There is definitely a '90s vibe happening on Evilroad that reminds us of all those great records by bands like L7, Babes In Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, Hole, Mudhoney, The Gits, Royal Trux, etc. that we've recently been revisiting, reveling in how damn good they still are. For their debut full length Bridez teamed up with Greg Ashley of Gris Gris fame producing and he definitely brings his keen sense of melody and atmosphere to the Bridez' high energy infectious rock assault. While we're sure lead singer Liza Thorn is sick of the Courtney Love comparisons, there is no denying that her voice and energy conjures images of the Courtney we used to go crazy for circa Pretty On The Inside and Live Through This. But while she commands plenty of attention the rest of the band have some serious chops as well and a truly relentless spirit which helps make Bridez a full on band to take notice of.
While much of their reputation surrounds their reckless and chaotic live shows, it's awesome to hear that behind all the commotion and mayhem, this band has some seriously great songs running happening too. So fucking good!
Bridez front woman, and the cover star of this here 7" single, is none other then Liza Thorn, who was responsible for unleashing a thrilling and damaging whirlwind of fierce energy here in the Bay Area with her previous band So So Many White White Tigers. While Bridez is a much more song based endeavor, there is still that reckless energy and dirty quality to their songs that makes this such a fun, fiery and righteously sleazy debut. We hear healthy doses of Pussy Galore, early Hole and the early recordings of The Runaways. Bringing a much needed element of danger and drunken passion to fucked up rock n' roll. So good!
We liked what we heard on the first few outings by The Bright Grey Wing, but with this record it feels like Jaime Borschuk has really come into her own. Such beautiful sketches of songs with no wasted moments and such tender and delicate delivery. Like the soft breeze of the Tenniscoats or Durutti Column with an undercurrent of twee influences and a soft touch similar to folks like Tara Jane O'Neil, Mirah, Rose Melberg, Eddie Marcon and Mary Timony. Such perfect sounds for an early morning or those times when you just want to get lost in a soft Summerbreeze. So nice.
Here's the second full length from this lo-fi solo honey-sweet popster (aka Jaime Borchuk who is also in Plan To Pink). Last time, we noticed that occasionally some of the vocals drifted away from 'in tune'. Well, that's the case on Homecoming too -- it seems she's created her very own key to sing in and often a guitar seems to follow suit as well. The problem is actually more pronounced this time out 'cause the rest of the music that surrounds the vocals is much more polished than last time. Really, when she hits her mark it's like the warmest hug! This could've been a totally soft'n'cozy pop confection, but it falls short on a few occasions. Sort of like an unintentional Shaggs tribute band in its total wide-eyed earnestness. Includes a cover of Daniel Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycle".
The Bright Grey Wing make music just like in the good ol' early '90s days in Olympia, WA when lo-fi twee pop and K Records were king. That is, heart-on-your-sleeve, cardigan sweater tunes with earnest sing-song gal vocals that do the hokey-pokey with the tuning fork every now and again. Seventeen (!) intimate, bare bones, bedroom-y songs ranging in length from a mere 21 seconds to three and half minutes. Ever so marshmallow soft 'n' sweet, I closes with a 32-second rendition of Jim Morrison's "The End".
We've been smitten with these local ladies ever since their first couple 7"s released a few years back. We predicted back then that they should/would end up on Slumberland, and we're happy that our prediction came true, as they really are a band that represents the best aspects of Slumberland's awesome legacy and reemergence as one of the best labels around to trust for indie-pop done right. On Again And Again, Brilliant Colors have created their most free flowing set of songs, each one capable of being a pull-away single, but each track leading right into another with such carefree ease. The kind of album you want blasting in your car as you take to the coast to soak up some sun and dip your feet into the sea. It's got a kind of driving breeze to it that makes for such infectious repeated listening. Still channeling the influence of greats gone by like The Shop Assistants, Heavenly, Velocity Girl and Black Tambourine, as well as groups like Tsunami, Veronica Lake, and Butterglory, but continuing to flex their own vision, and undeniable integrity.
There is such a cool DIY spirit to so much of what Brilliant Colors do. Their handmade flyers, the all-ages shows they play in super unique places, in fact the record release party for this album is going to be held in a tiny hair saloon just a few blocks from our shop. Even though their sound isn't "punk" you can tell that they've got a punk ethos, and that classic post-punk bands really helped influence their sound. If they lived in D.C. rather than SF, they no doubt would be on Dischord. We've been blasting this on repeat ever since it arrived in the store, as its become a major contender for our favorite summer album of the year!
We've been loving everything we've heard from this fairly new Bay Area female trio but we were too slow to snag enough copies of their first 7" to list, but luckily we've got this great new single with two new brand new songs that are sure to show the world that these gals belong in the new league of great garage popsters like the Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, Thee Oh Sees, etc. There is a really cool early '80s minimalist garage pop aesthetic to Brilliant Colors that reminds us a bit of Young Marble Giants, The Raincoats, the heyday of Flying Nun records or some song by an obscure band on a Messthetics compilation that you would want to play over and over. It's much smarter then run of the mill garage rock, but it's also smart enough not to let their brains get in the way of their simple stripped down songs that sound better and better each time we lay the needle in the groove.
We knew it was only a matter of time before San Francisco's Brilliant Colors broke out of the Bay and into the ears and hearts of listeners across the globe, and it makes such perfect sense that Slumberland is the proud label to get to release their debut full length.
After a couple amazing 7"s, we knew the time was ripe for Brilliant Colors to make a big splash with their energetic, raw and super charged garage pop, gloriously drenched in feedback and soaring amplification. They really are like a modern day version of Black Tambourine (the awesome short-lived early '90s band who just had their Complete Recordings reissued by Slumberland). Part pop, part garage, part punk, all coming together in such perfect alignment. BC belong near the top of the list of awesome bands who have emerged in the last few years very much influenced by the likes of The Vaselines, Shop Assistants, Talulah Gosh, Jesus & Mary Chain, Pastels, etc. Alongside folks like Grass Widow, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, and Pens, Brilliant Colors have injected a much needed blast of full throttle female energy into the post-punk scene and this debut full length picks up where their great singles left off, adding even more intensity and uncompromising tenacity to their delivery.
