We mentioned that Cold Cave threw us for a loop with all of the roccoco flourishes that adorned the gloomy synth-pop of their 2011 album Cherish The Light Years. Since then, Cold Cave has steadily released a handful of singles through their own Heartworm imprint, many of which have disappeared almost as soon as they were released. We might have had one or two of those singles at one time or another, but we were never able to get enough stock to list any one of those. Thankfully, Wes Eisold, the man behind Cold Cave, has compiled all of those singles, recorded from 2011 to 2014, on to this single disc right here. These singles represent the simpler, skeletal sound of Cold Cave that struck our fancy way back when. A drum machine, a step sequenced melody, an icy yet harmonic counterpoint, and Eisold's deep monotone croon. That's pretty much the successful formula for a great Cold Cave song, and Eisold pretty much sticks to this strategy. The one notable exception is the Jesus & Mary Chain distorto-crush electronics of the Oceans With No End single. The other singles that round out the compilation include A Little Death To Laugh, Black Boots, God Made The World, and a handful of digital only cuts.
You wonder about a vinyl version? The answer now is a resounding maybe...
"Life Magazine" stood as one of the big hits from Cold Cave's incredible darkened synth-pop album Love Comes Close from 2009. With its squelchy synth lines and monomaniacal drum machines, this was also the song that curiously enough, appeared on a Radio Shack commercial shortly after the release of the record. Here, Cold Cave gets remixed by Arthur Baker, Optimo, Pantha Du Prince, and Prurient. The Arthur Baker connection is quite a nice coup for the band, as Baker was the producer who amped up many a New Order track throughout the '80s certainly influencing Cold Cave's retrogarde sound. Baker's remix stays true to the original, maintaining that amazing synth melody and the vocals from Jennifer Clavin. Optimo strips everything except for the vocals on this prickly techno workout. It's hard to pick much out from the Pantha Du Prince remix with his signature bells sliding over the post-Kompakt shuffling drum programs. Prurient has been moonlighting in Cold Cave's live ensemble and collaborated with Cold Cave on the awesomely bleak Stars Explode LP. This is not the sheer hellish noise facade of Prurient, but rather the one who must still be obsessed with Cold Cave's gnarled electronics on Painted Nails and Cremations. A dour two-note melody and mid-tempo galloping drum machine settle above a seabed of distorted gristle and Ms. Clavin's vocals. Gotta say that the Prurient and Arthur Baker mixes, as opposing as they can be, are the reasons to pick this up! Comes with a download card.
Seven inches of awesomely depressive distortion drenched new wave downer pop. Imagine a couple of old school synth pop classics, dipped in a vat of white noise, then rolled around in shards of fractured synth buzz and crumbling distortion, a morose and melodic blast of blown out noise-wave, a corrosive chunk of Cure-meets-Whitehouse or New Order-meets-Wolf Eyes. The surface is a prickly wall of in-the-red lo-fi fuzz, a curtain of soft focus blacknoise, but just below that surface lurks a secret heart of classic eighties new wave, the programmed rhythms, the swirling synths, the deep dramatic vocals, but taken together, this is everything we always wanted new wave to be, harsh and heavy and dark and deliriously catchy, buzzy and brutal and abrasive but still fuzzy and hooky and weirdly melodic. The B side takes CC's noisy new wave even further out, the sound generously doused with heaps of that blissy Tim Hecker-ish blur of which we can never get enough.
Although, from their not particularly atypical name and logo, you might expect just another business-as-usual Nordic black metal horde, corpsepainted and kvlt-y, this is NOT just another BM (or, USBM in their case as they hail from New Hampshire) band. Nosirree. We figured that out right away, when the vocals started up on "A Dangerous Wayfaring" and weren't a grim rasp, but rather a faux-British accented chorus. The more usual sort of guttural gruffness also soon appears, but CNV had piqued our interest, and we kept listening with curious anticipation that was quickly rewarded by this album's unexpected and unusual blend of underground black metal, goth rock, and industrial. Actually CNV also had our attention 'cause this comes from the same label, Bindrune, who last brought us Blood Of The Black Owl's A Feral Spirit, another unique and experimental metal offering.
This isn't quite as weird as that record, but this eclectic effort certainly captivates chaotically with majestically catchy riffage, Gobliny soundtrack synths, clean vocal singalongs, and even all-acoustic mellow moodiness ("The Shores Of New England"). Our favorite element though is what might be termed their Satanic industrial sound, with sampling and sequencing, the best example of which is "The By-Paths To Chaos", a rhythmic exercise in sinister, cut-and-paste percussive clockwork. Very cool. Hail Cold Northern Vengeance!!
A couple years back, we raved about a disc called The Dematerialized Passenger, the first album from this unique band (or perhaps we should say project), remember? In case you don't, here's the deal: Combat Astronomy are a USA/UK collaboration, creating a crushing industrial/jazz/prog hybrid. Imagine Godflesh with a free improv horn section, saxophones squealing amidst the metallic riffage. Or Scorn taking a skronked-out stab at chamber music. Like their earlier release, this new Combat Astronomy opus is again laced with punishing, rigid drummachine beats, along with heavy, uber-low-end fretless bass shaking each song with doomic distortion. Which establishes an absurdly heavy context for sax, clarinet, flute and bassoon to freak out organically, like wild weeds creeping through cracks in giant slabs of concrete, on the floor of an abandoned factory somewhere.
But unlike their all-instrumental debut, this time Combat Astronomy have recruited a female vocalist, Elaine di Falco, who also plays some piano, to add yet another unusual dimension to their mashup of extremes, now reminding us slightly of James Plotkin's now forgotten post-Old project Flux. (Hmm, maybe Kayo Dot and later Ulver could be other comparisons now too.) If the addition of her vocals makes this a bit more overtly melodic, it's still no less extreme overall. And certainly just as intricate, her delicate vocal arrangements in themselves quite complex, multi-tracked, as on the urban R&B influenced (???? no, we're crazy) "Touch The Moon" and the album's whispery coda, "Ordinary Miracles". And the focus of CA is still on the ominous grooves, ambient electronics, and battling horn bleats... tracks like "Alive Inside Eternity" and "Sentinel" are lengthy epics (12:36 and 16:49, respectively) of serious beats and blats and skree, in the challenging, compelling, militant manner to which actually only Combat Astronomy can truly lay claim. The vocals, when present, then take it into another, equally unlikely, atmospheric realm of twisted prog-pop. Pretty darn cool!
With the arrival of Combat Astronomy's fourth album, welcome once again to that unlikely alternate universe inhabited by us at Aquarius Records (and a few others too, like you?), where this intense instrumental outfit is as HUGE as their sonic footprint, their ultra-heavy hybrid of avant garde jazz and post metal industrial doom resounding planetwide in giant concert halls... if 21st century classical chamber deathjazz sludge were the next big thing, they'd be the biggest.
Whereas, heck, in real life, we don't even know if they tour, probably not, since some of the group live in England, with another crucial band member based here in the USA. When they get together (however they do it) it must be a cathartic experience for everyone involved. As they say themselves about this album, it's "LOUD BASS LOUD HORNS LOUD DRUMS MASSIVE RIFFS" all the way. Well, with some quasi-ambient interludes, and bits of melody amidst the mayhem. But for the most part, thick drone, rumbling bass, punishing programmed rhythms, screaming horn blurt. It's kinda like if Godflesh were to record an album for Tzadik, armed with an arsenal of horns and woodwinds. Combat Astronomy use and abuse a variety of saxophones and clarinets, various flutes, bassoon, bass recorder, reindeer horn (?), along with fretless 5 string bass, organ, electronics, zither, tambourine...
On Flak Planet, the formula has been perfected. The disc's opening track "The Stone Tape", is both cinematic and assaultive, it's jazz, but for the squelching sub bass and trudging jackboot rhythms. As the disc spins, there's outbursts of maniacal piano, jarring prog complexities, stretches of exotic atmospheric drone, and more monolithic thud.
Brutal yet beautiful, as we've said before, for fans of 16-17 (natch) as well as, we'd bet, possibly PIVIXKI, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Ehnahre, and assorted RIO ensembles.
A fine follow-up to 2011's Flak Planet, here's another hectic, headspinning batch of blat, bash, and blast from this unusual unit, avant-industrial-prog-jazz-doom titans Combat Astronomy, the collaborative project of American James Huggett (fretless 5-string bass, guitar programming, production, etc.) and the UK's Martin Archer (horns, organ, electronics). Archer also brings in the Juxtavoices choir for the disc's 13+ minute finale "Cave War", Juxtavoices being the vocal ensemble we last heard on the recent Record Of The Week outing by Archer's incredible Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere.
As any Combat Astronomy aficionado expects, 'tis total, tumbling heavy jazz-grind, the burble of Archer's clarinet or saxophones surfacing amidst the thick low-end rumble of Huggett's bass and jackbooted machine rhythms. Where else are you gonna get this fix? You'd have to go back to John Zorn's Painkiller or England's mighty God back in the '90s to hear something like this. Keeping it interesting, the iron fist of Combat Astronomy slips on the velvet glove, sometimes, with occasional snatches of sinister but blissful ambient drone or third-stream jazz or buried melody battling the propulsive chaotic crush of the riff/rhythm onslaught. The pounding power, freakout energy, and sometimes ceremonial-sounding beauty of these ten tracks have us fully entranced. Seeing 'em live (do they ever even play live??) would be amazing.
Never thought about this before, but we hope that the name Combat Astronomy doesn't mean that they're opposed to the science of astronomy, as in "fight against astronomy". Combat astrology, ok, but astronomy? Or maybe, it's a type of astronomy, the kind used in combat, like if you're a starfighter pilot or something. Anyway, not important, nevermind. What is important is that this band shouldn't be as under-the-radar as they are, 'cause they're pretty incredible.
On this, the 6th album from this unique transcontinental sludge/jazz/prog/improv unit, Combat Astronomy seriously bring the noise by providing not one but two whole discs of their extreme sonics, their most ambitious onslaught yet - part John Zorn style skronk, part industrial beatdown, part ambient dronology, part Magmoid symphonics, always reminding us of a certain strain of artists in the early '90s like 16-17, Painkiller, and God, all longtime faves of ours, as Combat Astronomy are now, too!
Disc one takes advantage of the potential to sprawl out in epic fashion that a double disc set affords, offering four pieces, all of 'em long ones, starting with the 17 minute "Tenser Quadrant", that opens with a stuttering, satisfyingly-distorted bass solo, soon joined by martial drumming, horns, and keyboard pulsations. It's a good intro to Combat Astronomy's incredible sound if you haven't heard 'em before: a powerful concoction of super thick heavy bass tones, rubbery rhythms, and suspenseful coloration from the horn section. By 'horn section' we mean Sheffield, UK's Martin Archer (known also to aQ customers also for his Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere project), who plays all the trumpets, saxophones, and clarinets on here, along with organ, electric piano, mellotron, glockenspiel, tuning forks, "snorks" (?), and more... Also on board, of course, is the other half of the usual Combat Astronomy collaboration, Minnesota-based James Huggett (5 string fretless and fretted basses, guitar, drum programming). Additionally for this release, drummer Peter Fairclough is employed as well, along with vocalists Julie Archer and Kelli Denoyer on selected tracks - but note, they are credited not with vocals but with 'voices', suggesting a more experimental, textural, abstract role.
Ok, back to our report on the first disc: Track two, "Unity Weapon", is even longer at over 21 minutes, and sounds like a BIG ensemble in full flight, a bunch of mekanik kommandos marching into an orchestral fray, lots going on, getting mesmeric in its repetition and layering, and then entering into a dense, atmospheric dream-space once a little past the half-way mark. The many moods of Combat Astronomy!
The intense skronk, distortion, and staggered rhythms then come roaring back on the nine minute title track, while disc closer "Hypnogeous" is a 14 minute descent into dark ambient drone, haunting and heavy, winding up in more-or-less power electronics territory.
If disc one wasn't devastating enough, there's another eight tracks in store on disc two. The second track, "SuperFestival", might be the most 'pop' thing we've ever heard from CA, while a lot of the others on this disc could vie for the most intense and speed-driven. Many moods, again. But in interest of not making the review quite as epic as the album, we'll skip the detailed rundown on all of 'em and let you investigate for yourself - which we recommend you do!!
Philip Best (Whitehouse, Ramleh, Skullflower) along with legendary noisemaker/producer Russell Haswell and the previously unknown to us Sarah Froelich, an American artist deliver this modern slab of abject, power electronics synth-noise. We originally figured this for an archival reissue, some lost gem from the Shock Records / Broken Flag axis, but it is in fact a brand new record, although sonically, it's not that far removed from CE's early releases, still obviously beholden to that whole Shock / Broken Flag sound/scene. The whole program is only about 20 minutes long, a double lp mastered specifically for vinyl, and to spin at 45rpm, the cd separately mastered for digital, but that's more than enough, CE's nihilistic onslaught directly descended from Bet's tenure in Whitehouse, feral and frenzied, caustic and confrontational. The music itself almost lovely at times, minimal synthscapes, blurts of gristly squelch, spread out into weirdly dynamic pulses, not so lovely at others, lurching from undulating walls of grumblingly distorted synth, to minimal cold wave electronica, to full on grinding, speaker shredding synthnoise. All of which is essentially just a backdrop for Best's venomous vocalizations, some seriously vitriolic spoken word, that again, fans of Whitehouse will definitely dig, on the more minimal tracks, Best's vocals are WAY up in the mix, and are harrowing and sort of terrifying, but as the record progresses, those vocals are subsumed into the chaotic, feedback drenched electronic squalls, and while we might not say it becomes more 'listenable', it does transform into something more musical, Best's voice, just another part of CE's harsh, electronic industrial puzzle.
Pressed on heavy 180 gram black vinyl. Housed in a glossy gatefold sleeve. First 500 copies include a cd version of the record, differently mastered than the vinyl.
This new duo from New York have us totally hooked, with just these two killer tracks, their debut on Captured Tracks. Rare is the band that can pull that off.
These two songs are dripping with a chic and sensual haze that we can't get enough of. Lo-fi synths, woozy lysergic vocals, and a stripped down DIY aesthetic that makes the Cosmetics' sonic silver clouds sound that much better. It's like they took the most rudimentary elements of early Gina X, Grace Jones, Eurythmics and Ruth, stripped away the gloss and shiny big production and brought it all into a seedy basement in the wee hours of the morning after a drug fueled wild night. In lots of ways its like a less glossy and more smoldery version of the Italians Do It Better groups (Chromatics, Glass Candy, etc.). Fans of all things minimal wave will definitely want to check this out!
Everything about this 7" works perfectly. Their name, the silver chromatic cover, all the visuals complement the two hypnotizing slow burners inside. We've been playing this over and over in the shop nonstop. We have a hunch that probably won't change any time soon. A sizzling debut for sure!
OMG!, as they say. It doesn't happen very often, but once in a lucky while, one of us here at AQ will suddenly find out about some impending reissue and just about jump up and down exclaiming, "AT LAST!!!" We're talking about holy grails, like Bruce Haack's The Electric Lucifer, and Moolah, and Joakim Skogsberg, and Pandemonium... All of which we made Records Of The Week, by the way. So, last week we had another such exciting moment, when it was revealed that THIS album had just been reissued on cd, for the first time ever (barring bootlegs).
Not to be confused with a host of other Covens out there, this Coven was a uniquely doomy, gothic metal band from Detroit, who released but one record, 1987's Worship New Gods. No, we've never ever even seen an original lp copy - this band is pretty obscure. You might find a track of theirs on a DJ mix by Darkthrone's Fenriz, but that's about it. To give credit where credit is due, we first heard of Coven thanks to the great metal collector nerd website The Corroseum [www.thecorroseum.com], who had reviewed and raved about Worship New Gods with enough enthusiasm to get us to, ahem, track down for ourselves personally one of those bootleg copies previously mentioned. That was several years ago, but now, though, thanks to Shadow Kingdom, we've got a legit version we can happily share with all of you.
The Corroseum review said of Coven that "they sound like no other metal band that ever existed", yet went on to explain how in FEEL Coven could conjure comparisons to the likes of Cirith Ungol, Celtic Frost, Bathory, and even Bauhaus (more on that angle in a minute). We may as well quote the conclusion of their write-up: "Some dark, cloudy, angst-ridden days you cannot listen to anything else but Coven." Quite a recommendation, we had to hear 'em! And when we did, we fell in love. To the extent, that, like the Pandemonium, this became something for Allan & Andee here to daydream about trying to properly reissue ourselves. Fortunately, Shadow Kingdom were a little more proactive about that than we were, and here it is.
Pagan-proud true martial metal, '80s steel that those into the epick, eccentric likes of Manilla Road and Max Planck ought to bow down to. But that's hybridized with even heavier, doomier fare, a la Black Sabbath and Candlemass (triumphantly lumbering opening track "The Riddle Of Steel" definitely shares some DNA with Sabbath's "Electric Funeral"). That's the metal side of it. But there's more: Coven also convey a strong post-punk, '80s gothic death-rock vibe, at the same time. Think Bauhaus, The Mission, Christian Death, and 45 Grave... And, thus, like The Corroseum said, they don't sound like any other -metal- band, exactly. There's just something so haunting and magical about 'em.
What really puts these songs of blood and fire over the top are the stirring, echoing vocals, they sometimes struggle and strain, but that only enhances their emotive appeal. And, again, goes a long way to making this band indeed not sound like any other, their music massive and murky and melodic, swirling and psychedelic. Their battlecries from a bygone age are doomy and druggy (well, if Vikings did drugs) and oh so atmospheric.
Reissued with a 16 page cd booklet full of lyrics and vintage photos in both b&w and color. No liner notes, though, but in some ways that adds to the mystique, in fact, maybe they should have left out some of the photos, too...
SO glad this has been made available. Until now, all we could do, was reference 'em in our reviews of the underground epic metallers Realmbuilder, and hope that somebody somewhere would know what we were talking about. Now's your chance to find out. Don't miss it. 'Cause Coven's record is definitely some under the radar weird genius, a truly lost gem of metal, and more...
Crash Course In Science is a quintessentially American synth-punk / minimal wave outfit, whose primitive use of electronics find sonic sympaptico with Devo and Suicide. These Philly weirdos met in art-school in the late '70s and toiled in the shadows of the industrial harbors at the Eastern edge of that city, revelling in the isolation and the refuse. The trio released a couple of singles at that time and were in the process of recording a full album, only to presumably dissolve before that album's completion. In 2007, Crash Course In Science re-entered the public consciousness once again thanks to the appearance of their cult hit "Flying Turns" on an early Minimal Wave compilation, later reprised on the Stones Throw anthology a couple year later. All of this warranted the much needed Vinyl-On-Demand boxset, which featured the Signals From Pier Thirteen EP, a completed mix of that aforementioned unfinished album, and a bunch of live tracks.
As strong as many of the tracks were on that compilation, Signals From Pier Thirteen is seen by the connoisseurs as the essential document for CCIS. While just four tracks, it is an absurd, vibrant romp of jacked-up / punk-speed rhythms of proto-techno and bracingly strident sequences of metal-dance noise. "Cardboard Lamb" sports a pretty damn catchy one-note bassline that is eeriely similar to LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge", but written some 25 years earlier. The instrumental "Crashing Song" is prescient of the Pan Sonic attack of accelerant rhythm as cast through the lens of Throbbing Gristle's Death Factory. CCIS next delivers "Flying Turns" with its tinny, flanged rhythms and the monotone vocals from Mallory Yago, who seems to have more than a few circuits that are shorting out in her brain as she chants through each of the songs. The propulsive electronics of "Factory Floorhead" is an exemplary work of unhinged paranoia sounding like warehouses filled with sirens blaring in lockstep to automaton robots going berzerk in their danse macabre in welding carparts to their human masters. Absurd and vibrant, this makes for yet another great blast from the past courtesy of Dark Entries.
The Creatures have been a project since the early 80's as the rhythmic outlet for Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees' drummer Budgie, but since the dissolution of the Banshees, Siousxie and Budgie have had much more time to concentrate on the Creatures project. The previous single "Eraser Cut" was an awesome outing that presented the Creatures with such potential as to possibly jumpstart the entire Goth subculture into finally making a good record again.
Unfortunately, Anima Animus does not live up to such potential. But that doesn't mean this is a bad album. Siouxsie's dark theatrics as the ice queen of the pop world are just as seductive and chilling as from Juju, while Budgie's rhythm section packs a punch of driving beats and eclectic Arabic flares. Glamour photos courtesy of Pierre & Gilles!
A great time for Siouxie and Budgie fans. Shortly after their stellar reunion tour come two incredible releases and a collection, indeed a beastiary of old ep's, lp's and singles from the early 80's. "Sad Cunt" is one kick-ass track (not on the 10") rolling-out Siouxie's pseudo tribal post-punk, without being retro; an amazing pairing with "Eraser Cut", four songs of Budgie's ecstatic, exotic percussion matched by Siouxie's theatrical chill. A Beastiary of includes the Wild Things ep, "Feast", and the "Miss the Girl" and "Right Now/Weathercade" singles. We are not only excited by these releases; we are grateful.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A great time for Siouxie and Budgie fans. Shortly after their stellar reunion tour come two incredible releases and a collection, indeed a beastiary of old ep's, lp's and singles from the early 80's. "Sad Cunt" is one kick-ass track (not on the 10") rolling-out Siouxie's pseudo tribal post-punk, without being retro; an amazing pairing with "Eraser Cut", four songs of Budgie's ecstatic, exotic percussion matched by Siouxie's theatrical chill. A Beastiary of includes the Wild Things ep, "Feast", and the "Miss the Girl" and "Right Now/Weathercade" singles. We are not only excited by these releases; we are grateful.
Having ventured to Japan for the "Seven Year Itch" reunion tour for the Banshees in 2002, Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie (who have also recorded a handful of albums together as The Creatures) had managed to arrange a recording session with Japanese Taiko drummer Leonard Eto. Budgie, already an accomplished percussionist known for his exotic flourishes and militant post-punk stomps, was thoroughly enamoured of Eto, and worked much of that extended session with multiple layers of marimba, gongs, hand drums, and big timpani crashes. But as with the Banshees, the Creatures focus upon Siouxsie's voice, which is as lovely, icy, and sensual as ever. Theirs is a simple formula that has worked well before with minimal accompaniment to Budgie's percussive mantras and Siouxsie's inimitable voice; and Hai doesn't veer off course at all, and is as good as anything that The Creatures have produced in the past.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A great time for Siouxie and Budgie fans. Shortly after their stellar reunion tour come two incredible releases and a collection, indeed a beastiary of old ep's, lp's and singles from the early 80's. "Sad Cunt" is one kick-ass track (not on the 10") rolling-out Siouxie's pseudo tribal post-punk, without being retro; an amazing pairing with "Eraser Cut", four songs of Budgie's ecstatic, exotic percussion matched by Siouxie's theatrical chill. A Beastiary of includes the Wild Things ep, "Feast", and the "Miss the Girl" and "Right Now/Weathercade" singles. We are not only excited by these releases; we are grateful.
This long time aQ fave now reissued on vinyl!!
Thanks to a fateful Joy Division gig, where Crispy Ambulance singer Alan Hempsal successfully and secretly subbed for a missing Ian Curtis, The Ambulance seemed to be cursed with a reputation as pale imitatiors of Joy Division. But while at moments, Crispy Ambulance *are* dead ringers for Joy Division's post-punk pop, they were even more adept at crafting truly creepy gloom and haunting sound sculptures. At their best, they could create unsettling almost sci-fi soundscapes, and at their worst they could hold their own with their early '80s cronies Joy Division, In Camera, Wolfgang Press, etc. Totally excellent. Still sounds as fantastic as ever!
Brand new single from this East coast, neo-folk post industrial outfit, whose first record, released on Sacred Bones earlier this year, was a big hit around here, channeling the spirit of industrial legends Death In June through the more modern vibe of their SB labelmates. And the A side here doesn't change up the formula all that much, urgently strummed guitars, deep dramatic crooned vocals, minimal martial percussion, reminding us as much of New Model Army actually as Death In June, mournful horns drifting over a surprisingly wistful melancholic folk, with that minimal percussion building over the course of the song, surrounded by swirls of tinkling melody, finally exploding into some seriously epic industrial folk majesty.
The B side is the big surprise here, a sound well removed from the strum and croon of the flipside, which made more sense once we discovered it was a cover of another aQ fave, Martial Canterel, that band's synthy cold wave reimagined sans synth, the resulting sound a strummy eighties style jangle pop / new wave hybrid, it translates surprisingly well, and it's easy to imagine CoY playing that sort of stuff all the time, but CoY's dour industrialisms definitely seep into the sound, which leads to the kick ass final stretch, a seriously heavy epic coda.
Comes with a download coupon as well.
Normally when we're reviewing a band on Sacred Bones, we find ourselves referencing cold wave or new wave, eighties goth combos or whatever, but Cult Of Youth requires a whole new set of parameters and comparisons. Think post industrial neo-folk, think Pagan sonic rituals, think the Wicker Man soundtrack, think Comus, think Death In June, especially that last one, cuz if we had to pick someone to compare CoY (originally a home brewed one man band, now a band proper) to, it would most definitely be Death In June, the same sort of charged mix of Teutonic bombast, martial percussion, acid folk strum, and booming chantlike vox. Dark and powerful and mysterious, and in its own way a pretty perfect fit for Sacred Bones.
The new multimember incarnation of Cult Of Youth, features mainman/mastermind Sean Ragon, joined by a performance artist/director/painter/occult scholar, a machinist drummer, and a violinist, who most recently arranged strings for the newest Zola Jesus single. Sounds like an eclectic assemblage of talents, but then Cult Of Youth is a pretty eclectic proposition.
The first song sets the scene for the whole record, dense tribal drumming, cyclical and hypnotic, thick distorted bass thrum, urgently strummed acoustic guitar, pounding drums, surrounded by swirling ambience, and moody, mournful minor key violin melodies, and over the top strident prosletyzing vocals, booming and emotional. There's also flute, that flutters dreamily throughout. And while this is essentially neo-folk, there is still a dark sort of cold wavey vibe happening for sure. It's not difficult to imagine these songs recast in a different light, replace the acoustic guitars with synths, program the drums, keep the vocals, we'd be talking some awesome chilly bit of brooding dramatic goth wave, so in one way you can almost imagine this as a folky acoustic take on cold wave, similarly dark and moody, gloomy and gothy and dramatic. There's also a bit of a swampy bluesy vibe, making us think of Birthday Party, Sixteen Horsepower, Woven Hand, especially on the more upbeat numbers, the sound transformed into a rollicking bit of shuffle and strum and howl, still peppered with strange bits of industrial crunch, but sweaty and heaving and overflowing with sonic vitriol.
The slower moments might be the most powerful, like on "Casting Thorns", one of the moments where the group is most obviously channeling seventies British outfits like Comus, Pentangle, Incredible String Band and the like, swoonsome steel string strum, muted low slung bass, the violin, soaring and lyrical, the link to the rest of the record being the vocals, which are even more dramatic and emotional, cracking and wailing, totally intense and over the top, but those folkier moments are fleeting, with the sound most often slipping back into something more propulsive and bombastic, epic and majestic and yeah, Teutonic.
Fans of any of the above mentioned bands should really check out Cult Of Youth, but especially folks into industrial / neo-folk outfits, especially Death In June, but also Current 93, Der Blutharsch, Sol Invictus, Blood Axis, Von Thronstahl, Toroidh and the like. Might also hit the spot for folks who dig seventies British folk and swampy slithery apocalyptic blues, and hell, Captured Tracks obsessives too, might just find a new sound they didn't realize was right up their alley.
This is what is supposed to be the last part in a trilogy linking the epic gloom of The Cure's "Pornography" and "Disintegration". The resident long time Cure fans find this a bit disappointing, while the Cure 'dabblers' think this is pretty darn good.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Disintegration is one of those albums, that pretty much all of us can distinctly remember when it first entered our lives and how much it impacted us then. Some of us were in college, some in high school, some in junior high, and it was one of those records that became such an integral part of our existence. It was yearning, and heartbreak, and sadness, and the most romantic kind of doom and gloom. It still stands as one of our favorite Cure albums, so we were super excited for it to get a deluxe expanded reissue, complete with two extra discs of music.
We probably don't need to talk much about the proper album itself as it's a classic, but the bonus stuff totally makes this worth buying again! The second disc is a collection of instrumental demos and rehearsal takes and the third disc is the 1989 live record Entreat Plus. But it's that second disc that really does it for us, the raw demos are just so damn good and beyond relevant to the current avalanche of lo-fi '80s-obsessed warped music makers. You could just imagine folks like John Maus, Blank Dogs, Gary War, etc. drooling with envy at the sound of those way stripped down untouched bedroom demos. And ultimately that's what they are, many of them recordings of just Robert Smith alone in his bedroom putting to tape the earliest incarnations of these classic songs.
Feels so nice to get to have a new moment with Disintegration, as it will always be one of those records that takes each of us to a special moment in our lives, when it was our soundtrack, one of many records that would play a huge part in determining out musical tastes, even to this day, and the demos are just further proof of what a lasting legacy and impact The Cure at their prime has had on us and so much of the music we love.
Seventeen Seconds from 1980. Faith from 1981. Pornography from 1982. These three Cure albums marked a steady descent from jet-black detachment into one of the most violently claustrophobic visions of all pop music. It was a trilogy of records that The Cure have always hoped to reproduce, and with the exception of their masterful Disintegration, this was a goal never attained. You may recall that several months back, Rhino Records reissued the first Cure album, Three Imaginary Boys, with plenty of demo material and live tracks from the same period to the acclaim of Cure fans around the world. Well, Rhino have done it again in reissuing this trilogy of goth-pop landmarks, again with bonus material of live cuts, studio outtakes, alternate versions, and rare cuts.
If for whatever reason you are waffling about which one of these reissues to get (which you shouldn't be!), the one to get is Faith. This is not because Faith is the best of the three records (that's too close to call), but because of Robert Smith wisely included the soundtrack to "Carnage Visors" as one of the rare tracks on this double CD set. "Carnage Visors" was an animated film produced by Ric Gallup as the opening act for the Faith tour back in 1981. 27 minutes long and entirely instrumental, it's a lugubious piece grounded by an elliptical, moody kaleidoscope of Simon Gallup's basslines, accentuated by a simple drum machine and chiming guitars from Robert Smith. If Rothko had extended their swansong "Roads Become Rivers" into a half an hour composition, it would be pretty close to the majesty of "Carnage Visors", which had first appeared as the b-side to the cassette version of Faith back in the '80s, and hasn't seen the light of day appart from unauthorized bootlegs. Lest you think that this is the only reason to get the double disc set, the original set of tracks of Faith is an exceptional manifestation of manic depression with the undeniably bubbly pop jangle of "Primary" set against the appropriately titled "The Drowning Man" and the equally somber "All Cats Are Grey."
Seventeen Seconds from 1980. Faith from 1981. Pornography from 1982. These three Cure albums marked a steady descent from jet-black detachment into one of the most violently claustrophobic visions of all pop music. It was a trilogy of records that The Cure have always hoped to reproduce, and with the exception of their masterful Disintegration, this was a goal never attained. You may recall that several months back, Rhino Records reissued the first Cure album, Three Imaginary Boys, with plenty of demo material and live tracks from the same period to the acclaim of Cure fans around the world. Well, Rhino have done it again in reissuing this trilogy of goth-pop landmarks, again with bonus material of live cuts, studio outtakes, alternate versions, and rare cuts.
Where Seventeen Seconds and Faith are clearly born of the same sensibility with grey, rainy production spaciously drizzled throughout archetypal mope rock tracks, Pornography is a considerably different beast. Smoldering with intensity and claustrophobic to a fault, Pornography is easily the darkest album that The Cure has ever produced. From the doomy opener "One Hundred Years" to the title track with cascading drum machine marches and relentless blasts of guitar noise, Robert Smith unleashes an anger in his self-loathing that doesn't manifest itself anywhere else in his signature gloomy romanticism.
Seventeen Seconds from 1980. Faith from 1981. Pornography from 1982. These three Cure albums marked a steady descent from jet-black detachment into one of the most violently claustrophobic visions of all pop music. It was a trilogy of records that The Cure have always hoped to reproduce, and with the exception of their masterful Disintegration, this was a goal never attained. You may recall that several months back, Rhino Records reissued the first Cure album, Three Imaginary Boys, with plenty of demo material and live tracks from the same period to the acclaim of Cure fans around the world. Well, Rhino have done it again in reissuing this trilogy of goth-pop landmarks, again with bonus material of live cuts, studio outtakes, alternate versions, and rare cuts.
Seventeen Seconds began the creative partnership between Robert Smith and bassist Simon Gallup which is essentially the foundation for all of the great work from The Cure. Where the previous bassist Michael Dempsey gave The Cure a spry, punchy sound that fit more in line with contemporaries like The Jam, Gallup's lumbering basslines presented themselves as a counterpoint to Smith's manic-depressive jangle. While much needs to be said for Smith's unmistakable whining voice, hurricane-shock hair, and smeared eyeliner in defining Goth rock, there is a clear reason why The Cure has been the salvation to millions of dour kids everywhere: Smith and Gallup came up with some damn great songs. "A Forest" has long been a favorite for anyone who at one time or another sported a little black lipstick, and one cannot overlook the minimalist pop bleakness of tracks like "Play For Today," "Three," and the title track. Of the rarities on Seventeen Seconds, the most intriguing tracks come from the side project Cult Hero, which produced more punky-pop tracks similar to those heard on Three Imaginary Boys. Along with this, you'll find plenty of live tracks and a couple of studio demo tracks.
"A Little Menstrual Night Music" is a remix of Current 93's "In Menstrual Night," a record that has long been thought of as the most oblique of Current 93's pre-folk recordings, dominated by liturgical choral loops and clunking rhythmic couplings of piano and drums. The original album was produced back in 1986, as an exploration of the question of where dreams go when they die; yet this remix, produced by Steven Stapleton and Colin Potter for Current 93's recent San Francisco performances, emphasize the dreaminess of the recordings, having filtered out most of the percussive aspects and allowing only a few vocal snippets from Ruby Wallis and Rose McDowell to emerge from the thick cloud of reverb that swallowed the original. And, the usually omnipresent voice of C93's David Tibet is surprisingly absent in this fantastic piece of sonic hypnogogia.
It's always a challenge to delve into the polyglot mythologies of David Tibet, as the visions in his lyrics reference a host of esoteric subjects: the gnostic Christian texts of the early 2nd Century, Thelemic citations from Aleister Crowley, snippets of Coptic, and plenty of Tibet's feverish dislocations of images delivered in stream of consciousness. The central protagonist here is Aleph, a character with a slippery persona, one that may be acting before God set the universe in order, one that may be acting as a dopplerganger to Adam, one that may be the murderous precursor of Cain, one that may spell out an alternate origin of Lucifer, or one that is unique to Current 93. To avid Current 93 fans, these mysteries and contradictions are commonplace; but the biggest shift for Current 93 is in the musical arrangements. Gone are the fairy-dusted madrigals for just piano, 12-string guitar, and violin. Tibet has now grasped onto a blistering, occasionally sprawling psychedelia centered upon heavy, proto-metal riffs. Amon Duul's Yeti, the psychedelic moments of Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, and certainly early Alice Cooper all factor into Current 93's arrangements. Given the '70s laden heaviness of this album, it's a little hard to believe that Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep) who had previously collaborated with Tibet isn't present. Instead, Tibet has brought on board Alex Neilson, Andrew WK, Keith Wood, Matt Sweeney, Rickey Lee Jones, James Blackshaw, porn-star Sasha Gray, and a host of others. Once again, Steven Stapleton is at the helm of the production with Andrew Liles adding his deft hand in the mix as well. Alex Neilson's presence on drums is of particular note, as his heavy-handed fills and lumbering gate does away with the taut precision which gave some Current 93 albums an anal retentive quality. Neilson in conjunction with the army of guitarists churning through these heavy, psychedelic riffs makes this album as good as it is.
"In a foreign town, in a foreign land, reaping time has come." Thus spake David Tibet on the 2nd album from his heretically-minded project Current 93. Those words became commonplace within the Current 93 pantheon of poetic allusions toward Tibet's horrifying visions of the end of the world. While his tireless research and spiritual development has found Tibet nowadays with a self-constructed theology that includes elements of Christian doctrine, Coptic Gnosticism, Crowley's magick, Buddhist transcendentalism, and far more esoteric subjects, the apocalyptic visions for Tibet in 1985 were centered firmly between dual, conflicting personalities: Christ and Crowley. These two play out in the Current 93 drama built not upon the taut acoustic folk as found on Tibet's more well known constructions, but through a darkly hallucinatory collage of monastic chanting looped against thudding percussive blows that are less structural and more of a protracted stomp of corporeal punishment. Tibet has always relied upon musical accompaniments for his visionary work, and Dogs Blood Rising is no different as Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound deftly shapes the slashing feedback and growling utterances into a hellish orchestration for Tibet's bellowing not only for the Antichrist but also for the weeping Christ who suffers till the end of time in his own theological reasoning. As commonplace as Tibet's voice is on all of the Current 93 albums, he has recruited a number of guest vocalists, including Steve Ignorant of Crass and Diana Rogerson, serving to de-center the album further. The five disquieting collages of Dogs Blood Rising are totally the stuff of nightmares, long standing as one of the pinnacles of industrial culture. Now back in print on vinyl with reproductions of the original fliers from the first edition of the album, but probably not for long!
Run by the former Deerhoof bassist Rob Fisk, the Free Porcupine Society has specialized in packaging all of their releases in msyterious paper sleeves that he's hand decorated with random paint streaks splattered across silkscreened illustrations of clunky anthropomorphic figures. Musically, the label defines their releases as "no wave hermit folk" and "eco-terrorist hobbit rock," with releases by Tom Carter, Scorces, Xiu Xiu, Badgerlore, and others. So at least when it comes to the music, a reissue of the pagan-folk classic Earth Covers Earth by Current 93 is a logical one. But when it comes to the meticulously construsted imagery of Current 93, the craft-cornered artwork of the Free Porcupine Society is a slightly mismatched pairing. That said, Fisk has certainly adjusted the idosyncratic design style of the FPS in repackaging the original artwork -- with its homage to the Incredible String Band as the cover photo and a plethora of drawings from Current 93's David Tibet. And considering that this is the first time that Earth Covers Earth has been in print for many years, vinyl or otherwise; this is a very welcome reissue.
Originally released in 1988, Earth Covers Earth was the second album in which Tibet ventured down the path of "apocalyptic folk", after numerous records of frightening hallucinations and occultish chants. Languid and mournful, Earth Covers Earth taps into the eccentricities and shadows that haunt the traditions of British folk music, best typified in the work of Shirley Collins and the soundtrack to the Wicker Man. Tibet's own fascination with Christian Gnosticism (at the time, a fascination just in its infancy) and his ability to surround himself with very talented musicians provided an exceptional framework for this Earth Covers Earth, which ranks as one of the most well developed albums of Current 93's death-folk facade. Tony Wakeford (Sol Invictus) and Douglas P (Death In June) provided the melancholic acoustic guitar strum, while Rose MacDowell occasionally delivers her creepy sing-song vocals alongside the ubiqitous Tibet waxing poetic about the existential collapse around him. There are reasons why Current 93 has such an iconic status, and Earth Covers Earth is one of them.
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With their two recent collaborations with horror novelist Thomas Ligotti, Current 93 has made a few detours from their magickal folk music to get back to the style of apocalyptic collage which marked their first and best records. "Faust" is another return to those terror-filled dadaist sonic assemblages, and like those Ligotti-inspired recordings, it is based on a literary text. This interpretation of "Faust" was written by the decadent Count Eric Stenbock at the end of the 19th Century. In working with texts other than his own, Current 93's ringleader David Tibet tends to keep his voice and ego out of the process. Rather, Tibet & Stapleton have collaborated to build mostly instrumental creepy hypnotic drones. "Faust" is 35 minute piece composed of the constant chatter of voices muttering, chanting, and whispering with a lulling rhythmic plod of heavy chimes. It is as if one is eavesdropping on some Crowleian incantation. Evil stuff.
As anyone with even a passing interest in the catalogue of Current 93 can attest, David Tibet's visionary poetry has always been a central facet to his work. The lyrics have gradually become more and more enmeshed into his deeper personal studies into the mythologies surrounding the Christian apocalypse, the various heresies involving Gnosticism and Patipatrianism, the texts of Crowley and other practitioners of the dark arts, and more recently, the ancient texts of Coptic Christians. The resulting imagery has become all the more convoluted beyond the pitting of Christ and Satan in existential conflict over the fate of the world. A brief bit of marketing states Honeysuckle Aeons to be "dreams of the crucifixion with Christ and two thieves ascending" and, we'll have to take Tibet at his word that all of his lyrical content is in someway revolving around this concept. Musically, Honeysuckle Aeons is a typically solemn affair, with the arrangements hedging towards the sparse end of the C93 spectrum (especially Soft Black Stars). The use of Theremin throughout the album is a novel one, interlocked with the delicate Satie-like notes on the piano from Baby Dee. We have to admit being much more partial to the heavier, darker, and / or more psychedelic incarnations of the C93 sound (e.g. Dogs Blood Rising, Thunder Perfect Mind, Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain, etc.), but here the Theremin-laced arrangements put all of the focus on Tibet's esoteric word (which is often "honeysuckle", he says that a lot here) and thought.
Over the past decade or so, Current 93 has steadily simplified their arrangements, moving from an impassioned psychedelic death-folk to a delicately scored sound for piano, guitar, violin, and the occasional tape loop. This transition obviously has focused the attention of Current 93 upon David Tibet, his voice, and his lyrics which become even more pronounced during their live performances. How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon is a double disc set of the two Toronto performances that Current 93 delivered in June 2004, and showcase the radical simplicity of Current 93's music set against the complexities of Tibet's mythological revelations. For these performances, Tibet brought on board Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) and Simon Finn along with Michael Cashmore, John Contreras, and Graham Jeffery. Many of the tracks from these two sets return to earlier work by Current 93, with a number of tracks from Earth Covers Earth and Thunder Perfect Mind, as well as revisitation of "Falling Back in Fields of Rape," which David Tibet wrote for both Current 93 and Death In June back in the mid-'80s. Unfortunately, there's no tracklisting for these two performances, although if you need to know a quick Google search will solve this dilemna. Regardless, these live performances are immaculated played, very well recorded, and certainly reflect the overall aesthetic of Current 93, making this a worthwhile document for all C93 fans.
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Ah, to be scared by Current 93 is a very good thing. The last time Tibet and co. put aside their trademarked renaissance faire folk was with their first collaboration with Lovecraftian horror novelist Thomas Ligotti. "I Have A Special Plan..." is the second collaboration between C93 and Ligotti to spine tingling results. Tibet recites a story written by Ligotti just for this release with Stapleton and Christoph Heemann providing the creepy droning and mutations on Tibet's voice. The only fault is the length, a short 22 minutes.
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You have to respect David Tibet for never wavering from the path that he started down some 15 years ago with his "apocalyptic folk and mentrual minstrals." Recently there hasn't been much malevolence in Current 93's vocabulary as of late, but it still retains the folkish minstral element. With tremolo guitar, harmonium, bass, and "the world" - as credited to Steven Stapleton - Current 93 follows several meandering signatures that solemnly march at the pace of a funereal dirge. Any musically implied gloom is quickly eradicated by Tibet's running narrative of arcane hopefulness. "Sleep Has His House" is not as anally retentive as "Soft Black Stars" and therefore a bit more enjoyable, but its still nowhere nearly as good as the bad-acid trip collages of "Blood Dogs Rising."
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During a recent illness, David Tibet had one of his earthmoving visions in which he was told to summarize his life's work in a singular recording. The powers that be instructed him that this life summary was to be a densely layered collage of all of his recordings as Current 93 and with Steven Stapleton all piled on top of each other. When Tibet recovered from his sickness, he and
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The 1991 companion release to a Nurse With Wound album of the same name, "Thunder Perfect Mind" is a stately album of C93's bleak reinterpretations of occultish '60s UK folk. Joined by The Bevis Frond's Nick Soloman on a few tracks along with other guests including Shirley Collins, this rather sorrowful sounding album from Current 93 has a definitively psychedelic overtone to it. One of the recommended Current 93 releases, now newly reissued and remastered in a fancy double cd digipack format -- the extra disc consisting of different live/studio versions of songs from the album proper.
Both Steven Stapleton and David Tibet have been working on each others albums almost since the inceptions of both Nurse With Wound and Current 93, and the two of them have collaborated as equals on a few Stapleton / Tibet albums. But both Tibet and Stapleton
Somehow this collaboration has reawakened the nightmare culture which both ensembles propagated during the beginnings of Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, so you'll find less of the anally retentive folk stylings which have populated Current 93 and less of the smug weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weirdness from the last couple of Nurse With Wound albums. Michael Cashmore -- Tibet's favorite guitarist to play on the Current 93 albums -- does make a few appearances, offering more of a high-lonesome sound of big single plucked strings than his normal 12-string affair. Behind these solitary notes, Stapleton gradually builds a sublime collage of slashing noises, mechanical vocal loops, and generalized ominous atmospheres which is very reminiscent of his work on C93's "Dogs Blood Rising" and NWW's "Homotopy For Marie." Tibet, of course, offers an bleak recitation of one of his prophetic revelations. As in C93's previous "The Great And The Small," Tibet's inspiration comes from the near-death experience he encountered after his appendix burst and went gangrenous. However, unlike "The Great And The Small," "Bright Yellow Moon" comes much closer to explaining Tibet's horrors.
One of the few contemporary projects from the crate-digging local label Dark Entries, Cute Heels is the work of the Belgian electronic music Victor Lenis, with Spiritual being his first outing in a physical format. Squelchy, almost acid-like syncopations glide through each of these mid-tempo yet steroid-injected drum machine grooves that maintain a retro-garde pastiche of the Robert Gorl / Chrislo Haas productions of early D.A.F. / Liaisons Dangereuses and the darker moments of early Detroit techno, especially those Model 500 and Cybotron singles from the mid-'80s. Going through each of the tracks on Spiritual, one can pick out very specific homages in his jagged, industrially-minded productions. "Watch The Neon" and the title track cop the same angular, fetish-club funk that Front 242 barked on albums like Geometry and Official Version, where "Metal Disco" pops its limbs out of joint with the cyborg jitteriness of Chris & Cosey's Songs Of Love & Lust. While many of the Lenis' influences used these types of arrangements within the context of popsongs complete with vocals, lyrics, and ego, Spiritual is wholly instrumental leaving the electronics to speak through the blacklight and strobe-fired grids of rhythm and modulated step sequencing.
Your second chance to get your hands on Cybotron's seminal proto-Detroit techno lp, Clear, has arrived. Lauded as one of the most anticipated vinyl reissues of 2013, they sold right off the assembly line, but we just managed to snag some more. This is one funky futuristic slab of electro that sounds as fresh now as Kraftwerk did back then, to the band's young members who also dug Detroit radio DJ The Electrifying Mojo, Afro-futurism, and science fiction. Perhaps noting members Juan "Model 500" Atkins and Richard "3070" Davis's affinity for P-Funk in the album's syncopations, Fantasy Records in Berkeley, California originally released it in 1983 under the title Enter. It was later reissued on cd in 1990 with a different track listing and the title changed to Clear, after the track on here with the percolating synth line that everyone from Missy Elliot to T.I. has sampled. It's as recognizable as Afrika Bambaata's "Planet Rock."
Prior to Enter/Clear's release, Atkins had issued many of the tracks as singles under his Model 500 moniker. A young musician just learning to use electronic synthesizers and sequencers, his obsession with Kraftwerk makes itself known on tracks "Clear" and "R-9", while tracks like "Cosmic Raindance" and "El Salvador" align more with Europen synth pop. All ironically depict the dystopic city of man-machines working on the line building America's cars, a future that was already being buried into the past as the late '70s recession and oil crisis lead to the decline in demand for U.S.-made autos. Though Atkins was familiar with the concept of DJ mixes, he aimed to make Cybotron a band with guitar solos (by Jon "Jon 5" Howsley) and traditional song structure. The overall effect is more electro, with a dash of new wave, than for-real techno (that comes later with 1984's "Techno City" or Derrick May's 1987 "Strings of Life," but we'll let you duke that one out amongst yourselves). Fair to say that Atkins would go on to develop Detroit's techno sound alongside Derrick Mays, and Cybotron's original output remains a classic blueprint of where the world of music was heading. This second reissue on vinyl best celebrates the spirit of the Detroit techno DJ scene.
British Goth outfit the Danse Society signed to Arista in 1983, in the wake of dour post-punk acts like The Cure and Bauhaus getting courted by the major labels with considerable success. The album that followed for the Danse Society - Heaven Is Waiting - was met with a tepid response, given the promise of their raw, commanding live presence and the strength of the two previous singles the band released through their own imprint. These recordings were made prior to the Arista album, with just five of the 11 tracks making the cut for Arista's commercially viable edicts and a few others relegated to B sides. The sound here is much more tempestuous, claustrophobic, and bleak through the band's ferocious rhythm section featuring Paul Gilmartin's tumbling, tribal drums and the spectral, heavy flange of Tim Wright's bass. This was the tried and true formula of many of the Bat Cave alumni: Sex Gang Children, Southern Death Cult, Siouxsie, Virgin Prunes, Specimen, Killing Joke, etc. The intensity of The Danse Society's sound is demonstrated in the differences between the demo version and the Arista version of "Come Inside" the former of which really does put the rock in Goth-rock, with Sisters Of Mercy inflected guitars swarming around that rhythm section and vocalist Steve Rawlings parading around the track with suitable theatrics and bravado. The title track of the Artista album could have been a Killing Joke track off of Nighttime with its death-disco basslines and metronomic percussion, flecked with atmospheric synths and droned guitars. In so many ways, The Danse Society never sounded better than they did on these demos. Another tip of the hat to Dark Entries for digging this one up!
Hands In The Dark was the first single for Robin Crutchfield's Dark Day, originally released in 1979 on the Lust/Unlust sublabel Strike It From The Records. At that time, Crutchfield had recently parted ways with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori, with whom he had founded the legendary no wave trio DNA; and he envisioned Dark Day as being something of an inversion of the gender paradigm by employing women to play drums and guitar while he relegated himself to the synths. His idea didn't entirely work out exactly how he wanted throughout the entire history of Dark Day; but he was able to recruit Nina Canal (who later went on to found UT) and Nancy Arlen (from Mars... the no wave band, not the planet) for the earliest incarnation of the band whose line-up only managed this one single. The lead track is a quintessential no wave song with Canal's hard-plucked guitar tones and Arlen's weirdo percussive march of sporadic rhythmic splutters on the snare syncopated with the steady kick drum pulse; but all of this serves as a backdrop to the creepy synth and vocal melodies from Crutchfield. It was this melody that inspired the Chromatics to re-invent the song as a sultry, faux italian-disco number; and we'll give credit where credit is due, stating that both versions are totally rad. "Invisible Man" - the B side on the original single is found on the A side here, and follows the savant drum-pulse, bloody fingered guitar work, and Crutchfield's serpentine voice & synth arrangements. On this pressing from the esteemed Dark Entries, the flipside features the side to the Trapped 12" which had 6 short excerpts of reworked synth lines from the Exterminating Angel lp. So, with this release, Dark Entries has issued everything that was done by Dark Day in the early '80s. As with the other Dark Day albums, this is a necessary reissue!
R.L. Crutchfield is best known as one of the pioneers of no-wave in his band DNA as well as a forefather of cold-wave with his first few outings as Dark Day. What lots of people don't know is that Crutchfield has continued to make and release records under the radar without pause for the better part of three decades. His newer recordings, including Strange Clockwork, find him working in an almost miniature style. Short tracks that have a music box fragility but also incorporate sort of renaissance fair elements, all transformed into sonic stop motion experiments. Primitive sounding drum machine beats under electronics heavily influenced by baroque classical music. In many ways reminiscent of some of the more recent work of another electronic music pioneer, Wendy Carlos.
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De Ma Vaere Belgiere was a black-clad Danish post-punk act, who kicked out a single in 1983 and played a couple of shows before calling it quits. That single has been reissued as a split lp with fellow Danes End Of Your Garden on Dark Entries, and yes, that single is featured on this disc followed by a pretty great live set also recorded in 1983. "Cirkler" is a deadringer for what Interpol had been producing at the beginning of their career with this impassioned, darkly tainted post-punk with death disco rhythms, galloping basslines, and spiky guitars. Siglo XX and Crispy Ambulance also pop up as a reference through the monotone vocals and the downcast mood set throughout the rest of the tracks, and a less obscure citation is made on "Synsforstyrrelse" which lifts Robert Smith's riff from "M" of Seventeen Seconds. Not a bad thing at all! On the live recordings, The Cure's influence is even more evident through the interplay between Jakob Leth's bass, which leads the songs much in the way that Simon Gallup drives so many of The Cure's greatest tracks girded by chiming rhythmic guitars. As is evident through so many of the live songs, De Ma Vaere Belgiere were gifted songwriters for urgent, moody songs that were on par if not better which any given post-punk ensemble circa 1982. The live recordings are pretty good as far as live recordings go, but had Martin Hannett gotten a hold of this band, things would have gone very differently.
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Yeah, Bernard Sumner may have claimed the computer as the ultimate punk instrument; but not everybody in 1982 could afford a computer to program samples while sipping cocktails at the Hacienda. Tape - now THAT is a punk as fuck tool. It was everywhere; it was cheap (not so much anymore, mind you); and the tools to edit tape could be as simple as a razor blade and a tape recorder. Andre De Saint-Obin was of this DIY mindset, a musician making the most out of the least, utilizing that aforementioned punkest form of technology. This Dutch fellow was home-taping for only a few short years in the early '80s, releasing a couple of singles and a cassette... and then he just disappeared. An impressionable Frans De Waard (the man behind Korm Plastics, Plinkity Plonk, Vital Weekly, and too many bands to mention) was smitten by that De Saint-Obin cassette back in the day, and years later, he embarked on a quest to seek out De Saint-Obin in hopes of reissuing the album. We'll skip forward through the bits about interminable internet searches and dropped conversations due to artist idiosyncrasy and flighty weirdo behavior; for here we have the glorious fruits of De Waard's labor of love - a minor masterpiece of Dutch post-punk / minimal-wave eccentricity: Sound On Sound by Andre De Saint-Obin.
The title refers to means-of-production, De Saint-Obin didn't have a multitrack recorder, but rather he could overdub tracks onto a single piece of tape in the tradition of Les Paul and the earliest of sound engineers. Yup, in mono! Built up from the bottom up, starting with drum machine, then bass, the guitar, and finally voice, each of Andre De Saint-Obin's songs required considerable foresight and architectural planning. The process was a destructive one, so if he fucked up on one of the last layers, he would have to start all over again. The fact that these songs are so fractured, so lysergic, so dystopian speaks to the cracked vision of De Saint-Obin. The opening number (eponymously titled "Introduction") is an instrumental cut with swollen basslines plucked with the swaggering panache of a Peter Hook or a Simon Gallup, punched with spark-plug guitar jitteriness and mechanoid electronic rhythms. It's pretty damn close to being a perfect piece of gloom pop, but fixed to a woozy DIY axis instead of a baroque goth polish. The spasmodic anti-funk number "Dance Till I Die" sports jagged guitar fuzz and exasperated vocals above a backbeat of machined click and churlish basslines, lending to visions of Pere Ubu or James Chance in a fit of epileptic delirium. The manic-depressive bounciness of "Hey You" sways toward sexual frustration, and "I Got Plopmusic" veers towards the truly bizarre in the vein of Fad Gadget or any of those synth-punk ditties that Colin Potter put to tape around the same time.
The accompanying cd, in addition to the record proper, features 5 bonus tracks, including the predatorily creepy yet captivatingly catchy "Stay Tonight" and the much sought after "Everytime We Say Goodbye" originally released on one of Alain Neffe's Insane Music compilations. Sound On Sound finds company with a few contemporaries in the head-scratching Factory Records ensemble Crawling Chaos and Pete Shelley's aptly named Strange Men In Sheds With Spanners; but was very much a precursor to what the Blank Dogs and Ariel Pink attempted several decades later.
We should note that aQuarius is the ONLY shop in North America that you can get one of these, and get one you should!!! Fuck yeah!!!
