THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
So, sure, "experimental/improv/psych" bands based outta Brooklyn are probably a dime a dozen these days, so what makes the debut from this new Thrill Jockey signing worthy of glorious Record Of The Week status here at aQ? Well, for one thing, Thrill Jockey have had a pretty good track record in that area lately, with aQ fave bands like White Hills and Barn Owl, and fans of either ought to check out Rhyton. At least, we had to give it a listen, and when we did, WOW! Totally tripped out and hypnotic, stonery psych explorations embraced our ears - and we think gently tingled any mystic sixth or seventh senses we may possess. Their jamming has a fuzzed-out edge, and a definite exotic, Eastern vibe, buzzing with electric saz for one thing... as if they're not from Brooklyn, they're from Brooklynistan!
The mesmeric music of Rhyton is a mind-melting mind-meld involving three well-matched musicians, a supergroop of sorts, the trio consisting of D. Charles Speer from the No Neck Blues Band, Jimmy SeiTang of Psychic Ills, and Spencer Herbst from some bands we confess we've not heard of before. Speer is on the strings, playing electric saz, electric mandolin, and baritone guitar. SeiTang is on bass and tape delay. Herbst is on drums and percussion (and videocassettes, we read somewhere?). A good set up for playing something that's rock, but not.
Over the course of the five, mostly long, mainly instrumental tracks here, Rhyton easily convinced us to make this Record Of The Week, or maybe hypnotized us into doing so! We just couldn't say no to their repetitive, reverby bath of shuddering soundwaves, sub-bass pulsations, meandering raga-like "split stereo, dual amped" leads, and loads of oscillators, loops, n' effects.
Relatively mellow opening track "Stone Colored" eases us in, giving us a sense of, if not where Rhyton is going, at least how they're gonna get there. And, as the cliche says, the journey is the destination. That's before the 12+ minute "Pontian Grave" heavies things up even more, and the raw side of Rhyton's experimentation is revealed. And so it goes, Rhyton getting into outre modes of instrumental psychedelic possession, centerpiece "Teke" being the perhaps the most druggily dubbed-out of the album's varied transmissions...and then, on the fantastic final cut, "Shank Raids", we REALLY hear the Middle Eastern influence come to the fore. It's not just the electric saz they've been making use of, on this one the rhythms n' melodies sound straight out of the Turkish psych songbook, stately and spacey, but also gnarly, warped and distortion-damaged, almost what it would be like to Greg Ginn's Gone, or Black Flag circa The Process Of Weeding Out, attempting a Mogollar or 3 Hur-el cover, yeah! There's a whiff of Sun City Girls to this as well.
Eastern aspects aside (or not), Rhyton's unique vibrations are on roughly the same wavelength as those of such outfits as Carlton Melton, Davis Redford Triad, White Hills, Titan, Bardo Pond, etc., and thus this should appeal to quite a few of you. So we say, get it! And get it quick, as the compact disc edition, packaged in a slim handmade sleeve (abstract art glued on front, hand-stamped text on back), is ultra limited to only 200 hand-numbered copies!! We got a bunch, but that bunch is probably all we'll get. Meanwhile, the similarly-appointed vinyl version is just a bit less limited, 500 copies made, and it comes with a postcard insert and free download code.
Blast off! Have a close encounter here with some spaced out, switched-on analog synthesizer overload from the early '80s, total DIY Moog madness for fans of Bruce Haack, Gershon Kingsley and Dick Hyman. Amazing how there ALWAYS seem to be totally, totally obscure records out there still to be reissued, Rocket Robert's eponymous 1982 album (142 copies pressed, originally, on his own label) being the latest discovery we think you'll flip over, if you're into swooshing, whooshing, throbulating electronics and hyperkinetic video game soundtracks! It lives up to the sci-fi name and sleeve artwork for sure, and ranges in mood from totally playful to darkly sinister. First time reissue from master tapes, includes liner notes and 2 previously unreleased bonus tracks of quirky, new wave synthpop w/ vocals.
As archival collections of "lost tapes" by hitherto unknown musical geniuses go, Strut's release last year of Rodion G.A.'s The Lost Tapes was the creme de la creme. The bomb. Top of the pops. We made it a Record Of The Week and it's still steady sellin'. Fuzzed out, Eastern Bloc electro-prog funk madness from the late '70s / early '80s that's super catchy, melodic and motorik; a lo-fi, synth-laden outsider kraut-groove delight all around. Then, this year, for Record Store Day, Strut was like, check it out, there's MORE! They released a limited edition 12" consisting of Rodion's previously unreleased (and apparently, unused) soundtrack music intended for an animated science fiction series on Romanian television, circa 1983, called Misuinea Spatiala Delta (Delta Space Mission). Wow. It was limited to just 1000 copies, we got as many as we could for Record Store Day (a whole bunch) and they sold out immediately. Never got to list it. BUT, yay, somehow some more copies were just made available to us by one of our suppliers. Don't know if it's a repress or what, pretty sure we can't get more in any case. So we brought in a bunch for all of you who missed it on RSD, grab 'em while you can.
As with The Lost Tapes, this 12", which plays at 45rpm, is highly recommended! Featuring lots of swirling, spacey synth (of course!), all pew-pew-pew zip-zip-zap, this also of course includes some funky electro grooves with tick-tock electronic beats and nicely melodic synth-swoosh. Come to think of it, it's not unlike the music of T.R.A.S.E., another recent Record Of The Week. And of course if you liked The Lost Tapes, you'll like this. Let's hope they keep digging in Rodion's vaults, a Lost Tapes Vol.2 would be cool!
LIMITED! Record Store Day leftovers (???) while they last!!
(By the way, you can find some of the Delta Space Mission animation on YouTube, supposedly with the Rodion music. Looks pretty cool!!)
Wow! Ok, this is pretty darn amazing. We ordered a copy of this based on a brief description we read, something along the lines of: "long lost futuristic funky proggy electronic music from behind the Iron Curtain". That was enough for us. And maybe for you too, though we're gonna go on and on about this anyway. But yeah, if that description piques your interest, let us just say that you will NOT be disappointed. However incredibly weird and cool you might imagine this could be from that short synopsis, it is probably even better!
And we were listening to it, and loving it, before we delved into the detailed liner notes and found out what it was all about - or when exactly it was from. So that's another recommendation, the music stands on its own without prior awareness of its quite interesting historical aspects.
What you get here are ten killer tracks drenched in echo effects, dense with percolating beats, uber-distorted analog synths, and eerily ear-catching melodies, a sound utterly full of "flanged, phased, and fuzzed electricity". They're previously unreleased reel-to-reel recordings, circa 1978-1984, from the vaults of this pioneering Romanian DIY electro-prog-pop groop who only released two tracks officially during their career, on a state-sanctioned compilation lp in 1981, before fading into obscurity. Rodion G.A. was founded in 1975 by a fellow named Rodion Ladislau Rosca, who had been collecting prog records and experimenting with homebuilt electronic gear since the dawn of the '70s. The G.A. comes from the names of the other two founding members of the band, but it's really composer Rodion Rosca's show, the material here recorded in Rodion's home studio in Cluj, most instruments played and programmed by Rodion himself, with occasional 'real' drumming contributed by one of the other guys.
Despite the deprivations of living in an oppressive Communist dictatorship, Rodion's creativity flourished, and this music still sounds super fresh and ahead of its time, venturing even into full-on proto-techno with the likes of "Diagonala", though always in its own unique hybrid form, on that track ferinstance mixing in what sounds like Eastern European folk motifs and Goblin-y giallo soundtrack spookiness. Krautrock influences shine through too, Kraftwerk and Cluster for sure, plus we can't help but think of odd outsider aQ faves Bruce Haack and Wicked Witch - cool company to be in!
Rodion's bombastic "hairy funk" prog grooves are melded to melodic pop hooks, always cloaked with a wonderfully miasmic layer of lo-fi grime. Everything here has its unique charms, ranging from the sinister, grittily distorted bunkurfunk of "Citadela", to the motorik delightfulness of "Salt 83", so strangely warped and sunshiney, to "In Linistea Noptii", wherein lovely piano playing mixes it up with the electronic elements. Some tracks are instrumentals, some have catchy vocal choruses - and some are visited by what sound like the echoing cries of a prehistoric pterodactyl, presumably another synth effect, sizzling stabs of which are always swooshing around.
So THIS was the sound of underground Romania back in the day, who knew? We are so thankful this freaky music didn't stay a secret forever. Yep, these "lost tapes" are quite the discovery, minds have been blown for sure. Automatic Record Of The Week.
Packaged with extensive liner notes by Andy Thomas, illustrated with vintage photos, telling the whole fascinating story of Rodion's stunted career, and recent reemergence as the "Godfather of Romanian electronic music". Oh, and the vinyl version also comes with a cd!
Woah! Francais Metal de Proto!!! Dunno if y'all remember a cd-r mix that was floating around a few years ago, featuring such obscure & amazing early '70s French proto-metal, heavy psych acts as Docdail, Les Variations, Chico Magnetic Band, Quo Vadis, Zoo, and this band, Rotomagus. It caused a bit of sensation 'round these parts. Seriously, there was some incredible, ahead-of-its-time heaviness on there. So whenever we track something down by any of those bands we get pretty dang excited. And this is the best reissue related to that to come along yet, an anthology of the complete recorded works of this group, responsible for the raucous, more proto-punk than proto-metal really track "Fighting Cock" on that comp, which also featured Rotomagus' equally radical singles tracks "Eros" and "Madame Wanda". Those are all here, of course, as well as five more tracks from 45s, and entirety of the band's even more maniacal final unreleased 1971 demo session, which includes rawer versions of "Fighting Cock" and a few of the other singles cuts too... 17 tracks in all. Quite a treasure trove!
Now, as we've previously discussed, a LOT of awesome music came out in 1971. But very little if any of it was quite as freaked out and fucking punk as "Fighting Cock"! Elsewhere, among the tracks here, there ARE some poppier, melodic moments, which only make the aggro acid rock explosions of most of the rest of the disc seem even more insane. Certainly the two flowery tracks from the band's debut 1969 single, lush and la-la-la filled, don't provide any warning of how crazed Rotomagus would sound just a year or two later. Too bad the band never got to record a proper album, but presumably the record company heard the full-length demo found here and, shocked, pulled the plug on Rotomagus's career, robbing the world of an early entree into a realm of Raw Power that it would take Iggy & the Stooges another couple years to achieve... Seriously, this stuff is proof that Rotomagus belong in the annals of the "early heavy", high energy division, alongside the likes of the Stooges, MC5, Sir Lord Baltimore, Jerusalem, Night Sun, Crushed Butler, Colored Balls, Cerebrum, May Blitz, and Detroit's Death.
So, if you want a disc full of distorted stomp, wailing wah-wah'd out geetar, and wild vocals, look no further! There's fuzz and FX a-plenty, plus schizoid proggery and other weirdness (like the chipmunk vocals of the single version of "Laureline"). The Hendrix-y title cut is almost tame by comparison to some of the rest of this stuff, which comes off like the Pink Fairies at their most punk... It's funny, France turned out some bands in the late '70s who sounded like the Stooges (Angel Face, Soggy) but who knew they had one this early too?
As with all Lion reissues, nicely appointed, with a 32 page booklet full of liner notes, in both English and French, including the (practically frothing with amazement and disbelief) review of the "Fighting Cock" single that the Seth Man originally scribed for Julian Cope's Head Heritage website a few years ago...
FYI there is also a double lp vinyl version of this planned for release sometime this fall.
Relisting this in case you missed it on our mystery themed in-between list last week (we gave it a new, expanded write-up just for that).
"Japanese duo on John Zorn's domestic label." Good grief, is that ALL we wrote about this when we first listed it way back when (1995)?? Might as well say that the Beatles were "a British quartet on London-based label Parlophone". There's a lot more to the story.
First off, bass and drums two piece Ruins are/were probably our favorite crazy underground Japanese band, next to the Boredoms. Drummer/mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida is a musical genius, and if you've been paying attention to our site over the years you're read our raves about many, many of his various albums and projects, from Ruins to Koenjiyyakei to Korekyojinn to Zubi Zuva... etc., etc.
Hyderomastgroningem (that's a mouthful!) was the first Ruins disc to come out on Tzadik. It features bassist Ryuichi Masuda, who also played on their out of print classic Burning Stone (1992), and may in fact be the only Masuda-era Ruins disc still in print, as well as being the last one that he appeared on (Ruins has had several bassists over the years, all of them amazing, but Masuda was our fave).
There's 20 tracks here of the Ruins' complex, heavy, stripped down Magma-inspired prog madness, some continuing the catchiness of Burning Stone and earlier works, others getting more imrov-like and experimental and noisy... super distorted bass, faux-operatic (and nonsensical) vocals, Yoshida's usual octopoidal drumming, repetitive rhythmic bludgeon... it's all here, along with unique touches to this album, like a track where Masuda plays a radio, for instance.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Back in print! And a "Special Edition" to boot, meaning Skin Graft have made some slight changes to the artwork and, more importantly, tacked on five previously unheard bonus tracks! That makes for 25 tracks in total of frantic riff-packed precision prog punk on this collection of unreleased studio (4 and 8 track recordings) and live material from one of Japan's most amazing bands, the heavy & hyper drum/bass duo led by Tatsuya Yoshida. Originally released in 1997, this disc featured four songs with former bassist Ryuichi Masuda, while the rest heralded the debut of then-new six-string bass man Sasaki Hisashi (since departed, from Ruins that is). The live tracks also have guests from Boredoms/Omoide Hatoba, Tipographica (a saxophonist, for maximum jazz-Ruins dementia) and other bands, jamming on some of the Ruins' "greatest hits", including such favorites as "Hyderomastgroningem", "Burning Stone", "Dhaskrive", "Del Fanci Kant," and "Infect" (that one particularly enhanced with some intense synth keyboard action). The studio material includes some songs originally written as far back as 1988 but never before recorded, all super killer stuff to say the least! We should mention the track "Still Life", a good portion of which almost sounds like something by Italy's Sinistri, it's so abrupt and sparse. Fittingly, the disc ends with their now notorious prog-rock medley, referencing dozens of obscure riffs -- from King Crimson, Yes, Gong, Goblin, Rush, ELP, Samla Mamas Manna, PFM, Caravan, Area, Magma (of course), and many more -- in a lightning-fast fury. Recommended for all Ruins fanatics of course, probably even if you already have the old version, thanks to the bonus tracks...
Attention Ruins fans! Attention fans of hyperkinetic bass and drums prog-rock insanity! (Them's one and the same, we're pretty sure.) Here's something for ya, which you may not have already and/or may need again. Previously only available as a French import (and Japanese edition in Japan), Chicago's Skin Graft label have now re-issued this 1998 Ruins album domestically, in a freshly remixed form. And there's two bonus tracks to boot!
Previously we called this "demented", and a "showcase" for their style of "utter-insane-complexicore". We'll stand by those hyperbolic statements today as well. Vrresto and its follow-up Pallaschtom saw the Ruins go to the edge and beyond of acrobatic/athletic musical extremity, undeniably impressive (though, it must be said that we found their scaling back of the spasticity on 2002's Tzomborgha album to be a welcome move). Vrresto was the first proper album recorded by the line-up of founding drummer/mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida and (at the time) new six-string bassist Hisashi Sasaki (who despite the onslaught of Yoshida's octopoid drumming can hardly be said to play second fiddle in the band). Cool to have this back in print, just in time for Ruin's 20th (!!!) anniversary.
Fans of the Japanese underground progcore "Zeuhl" two-piece Ruins have been waiting... and waiting... it's been a while since the last Ruins album. Probably 'cause mastermind (and drummer) Tatsuya Yoshida, busy with a million other projects, has apparently never found a suitable replacement for the other half of the duo, bassist number four Sasaki Hisashi having left after 2002's Tzomborgha. But now, he's decided, he doesn't need another bassist. He doesn't need anyone. That's right, he can simply (or rather, complexly) play all the parts his own self!!! Now, we'd not have thought it possible if we hadn't seen him perform solo before, octopoidally attacking drum kit, bass pedals, keyboard, headset microphone, guitar, etc. But he's a maniac, and he can do it. Sure, presumably this studio recording utilized overdubs (it must have) but we wouldn't be at all surprised if he's able to do pretty much the same thing live, Thrones style, somehow.
So, here's the record. 23 tracks, about half of 'em brand new, utterly over the top compositions, the other half being "alone" versions of earlier Ruins tracks (including such old faves as "Grubandgo", "Cambodia", "Dharskrive", "Hyderomastgroningem", "Stonehenge", and "Sanctuary")... plus, as bonus tracks, two of the Ruins' now obligatory medleys - a "Prog Rock Medley" and "Hard Rock Medley", both gleefully ADD insane. Oh, and as another bonus, the surprisingly lovely & placid piano piece "Notturuno".
So, we're not sure if Ruins Alone is the way Ruins will be from now on, or if he's still just waiting for the right bass player to turn up, but for now anyway, if you want Ruins, this is it. And Yoshida (of course) pulls it off! Pretty freaking amazing. Y'know how Ruins already sounded like way more than just 2 people? Same goes here, dude's a one man multitude. While hyper-spastic as always (doing it all by himself sure doesn't slow him down!), Ruins Alone IS a wee bit different sounding than most previous Ruins, in that instead of heavy 5-string bass you get shredding, sizzling keyboards, and that's what makes the many tracks here that are renditions of past Ruins numbers especially interesting to hear for those familiar with the originals. The sound is still quite heavy and fuzzy but also uniquely synth-y, it's like some sort of crazy new wave, Nintendo version of the Ruins here, retro-futuristic in a remarkably "now" sounding way.
IF you're new to Ruins, you certainly could start with this, but we'd recommend checking out the proper duo recordings as well (Burning Stone, if you can find it!!). This as a taster, though, would help determine if you're crazy enough to become obsessed with this "band" or not. And longtime fans, YES you want this. More proof that Yoshida rules, even alone!Which we've known since his solo debut, Magaibutsu, back in 1991...
Ok, the first thing you need to know about this, if you haven't guessed already: it's indeed a brand new album spawned from the combined efforts of Japan's Ruins and Omoide Hatoba. These two equally insane outfits got together for a cd once before, about ten years ago, and now I guess they've determined that the world is ready for more of their merged musical mania. Bring it on we say! This installment of Ruinzhatova sees Tatsuya Yoshida and Hisashi Sasaki (of hyper-prog duo Ruins) teaming up with Seiichi Yamamoto and Atsushi Tsuyama (members of weirdo noise-pop-jazz combo Omoide Hatoba). Yamamoto you probably also know as the guitarist from the Boredoms, while Tsuyama is a member of Acid Mothers Temple, and collaborates with Yoshida in the highly conceptual and crazed Akaten duo. So, as you might well expect, this is some wacked-out, noisy, frenzied, chaotic (but doubtless totally tight and composed) stuff!! One hour of prog-spazz insanity. Don't attempt to listen to this if you already have a headache, that's for sure. Not that there aren't moments of pleasantly quiet quirkiness on here as well.
The second thing you need to know: these guys are definitely into overtly indulging their prog-rock obsessions here -- the cover photo (a cow in a field) seems to reference Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother, and the album's very title is derived from the Yes LP Close To The Edge. And that brings us to one of the most amazing things on here, actually: this disc's finale is a completely reverential, kick-ass, 18 minute version of that Yes album's incredible title track. Really, they do it remarkably straight (that's what's really so thrilling, they pull off every little nuance from the vocals on down), especially considering that earlier in the album, they do some other covers, not nearly so respectfully. For instance, they cover both James Brown and King Crimson -- at the same time! That's right, on track five on you get "Sex Machine" in your right speaker and "Larks Tongues In Aspic Part II" in the left channel. Then there's the over-the-top, wild and wooly version of Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express" that begins the album... The originals on here also veer wildly and crazily about, making full use of Yoshida's This Heat/Magma inspired drumming, Yamamoto's guitar squiggles, and Tsuyama's vocal histrionics, among the other talents of this always-over-the-top ensemble. Now, like the original Ruins-Hatoba get-together, this album is certainly not the equal of a 'proper' album by either band, but still, there's lots for Ruins/Omoide Hatoba/etc. fans to enjoy on here. And it's worth it for the "Close To The Edge" cover alone, really!
Japanese underground music nerds (you know who you are) should start salivating right about now. Ruinzhatova aka Ruins-Hatoba, the melding of the formidable talents of two of the Tokyo avant-rock scene's most veteran and insane bands, the Ruins and Omoide Hatoba, is back with a (presumably) improvised live album that offers 110 percent of what's already a Japanese underground music nerd mindblowing potentiality. The Ruinzhatova trio -- drummer Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins), bassist Atsushi Tsuyama (Omoide Hatoba, Akaten, Acid Mothers Temple) and guitarist Yamamoto Seiichi (Omoide Hatoba, Boredoms) are in raging good form here, playing live like their lives depended upon it yet of course sweating it not one wit. From the git-go, with the 11 minute, 12 second track "Everywhere", this album is a jazz-flecked, hard-rock-damaged maelstrom of geetar licks and percussive frenzies and vocal eccentricity. They pull out all the stops. Rather than the jokey hokeyness of some previous RH releases, this one is positively HEROIC, each player here simply going for it to the utmost of their undeniably amazing capabilities. From start to finish, an album of hyperkinetic exhilaration, with breathing room for such things as weird flute blowing and electronic fx... Each of the long (7-13 minute) tracks is varied and eventful and impressive!
Meanwhile, Pam says: Middle Eastern Muppet music. Sorta silly but interesting! You be the judge.
Thirty or so years after first blasting off, the band known as Simply Saucer soars into view once again. Truly a twisted gem of the '70s pre-punk art-rock underground, the *Canadian* '70s pre-punk art-rock underground no less, this Hamilton, Ontario band was freaking people out back in 1974 with the material you'll find on this spiffy new cd reissue. The lucky and enlightened among you might already have the long out of print early-'90s cd version of this album, or even the original LP posthumously released in 1989, but this new edition of their half-studio, half-live "Cyborgs Revisited" adds 8 bonus tracks, including lo-fi demos, additional live stuff, and both sides of the Saucer's lone 1978 single. With or without these bonus tracks, it's a great fuckin' record, boldly owing allegiance to (early) Pink Floyd and the Velvet Underground and The Stooges. They've also got much in common with the likes of the Pink Fairies, Faust, NYC no-wave a la Von Lmo, and the contemporaneous crazy Ohio underground scene of the '70s (Rocket From The Tombs, Electric Eels). Yep, all these inspirations are immediately evident, not too far into side one of "Cyborgs Revisited": witness the the lengthy amazing repetitive Floydian effects instrumental "Mole Machine" as it segues into the acoustic intro of "Bullet Proof Nothing", Simply Saucer's idea of a love song, with lyrics like "Treat me like dirt/drive me insane" delivered in a sloppy Lou Reed drawl.
S.S. (unfortunate initials, hopefully nothing to do with their song "Nazi Apocalypse"!) were formed in '72 by a bunch of Canuck weirdos, notable among them lead guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Edgar Breau, and Sun Ra/Eno inspired electronics dude John LaPlante, aka "Ping Romany" -- Ping being a good stage name for the guy playing the primitive oscillators, tone generators, and theremin! They fought the good fight for a few years, cranking out freakish, space-fx laden proto-punk rock n' roll with sci-fi titles like "Dance The Mutation", eventually dabbling in Toronto's nascent "new wave" scene.
It's certainly no surprise that the Saucer never "made it" -- though that '78 single seems like a stab at poppier (or at least goofier) sound -- and, with no successful commercial career in the offing, they eventually disbanded. Dunno if they could ever be cited as an influence by anyone 'cause they were so obscure, but hypothetically anyway S.S. could be the warped template for today's garage artisans -- Comets On Fire, especially -- totally punk *and* psych, with skronked out guitar, snotty vox, oscillating noise waves and tumbling drums. Glad to have this back in print, and it's certainly a timely reissue considering how well this fits in with some of today's art-punk retro-electro trends!
MPEG Download: "Nazi Apocalypse" [/audio/simplynazi.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Nazi Apocalypse" [/audio/simplynazi.m3u]
In the annals of the "early heavy", the Sir Lord Baltimore (from Brooklyn) is up there with the likes of Dust, Bang, and yes Blue Cheer. Too bad their two albums have been pretty much out of print for ages, the last official cd reissue, a two-fer, was back in the early '90s. But, proto-metal fans rejoice, 'cause now both SLB records are back in action, individually, on vinyl! 1970's Kingdom Come and the self-titled 1971 sequel, both of 'em essential slabs of heavy hard rockin' from this seminal band in heavy metal history.
The debut, with the spooky trippy "ghost ship" painting on the cover, alone justifies SLB's cult status. Very few bands in 1970 were this heavy (though, it must be said, Black Sabbath were on an other level entirely). Aside from the primly pretty, baroque ballad "Lake Isle Of Innersfree", this whole record is pretty much a frenzied fuzz blaster par excellance. And when we say fuzz, we mean FUZZ! Just check out the title track, a majestic six and half minutes mixing tripped out lyrics with savage bursts of ultra distorted guitar. There's definitely a sixties vibe to the proceedings; you can imagine bikers totally digging it. And it's as energetic as the proto-punk coming out of Detroit at the time, too.
The follow-up album is a little fancier, more diverse, and dramatic, the band expanded from a trio to a quartet, with extra instrumentation (acoustic guitar, organ). There's a 10+ minute prog epic called "Man From Manhattan" (which still gets heavy!), but also ragin' rockers like "Woman Tamer". And you get to hear SLB kicking out the jams in concert on the live track "Where Are We Going".
What's not to love about this band? They're a Sir, they're a Lord, they even have a singing drummer! So if you haven't yet been flattened by SLB's fuzz, time to add these to your collection, especially if said collection already includes the likes of High Tide, Tiger B. Smith, Highway Robbery, Leaf Hound, Toad, etc.
Even if we didn't make this Record of the Week, we'd probably still be selling quite a few of 'em, as we're sure we've got a lot of knowledgeable record-collector-type customers for whom adding this to cart will be but the work of a second, the second after their eyes bug out upon seeing the artist and title listed above. But since this reissue is not only of an incredible rarity but also of an incredible record, we wanted to make sure everybody heard about it, besides those for whom it's already a "holy grail". Yep, Joakim Skogberg's original 1972 Jola Rota LP definitely falls into the highly obscure "holy grail" category, a lost treasure for lovers of weird, wonderful acid-folk and underground psychedelia. The sort of thing that develops a legend that it can't possibly live up to... but then DOES, blowing minds when it's finally reissued. The sort of thing that's whispered about among connoisseurs of psych, written of in a few select fanzines and blogs, heard only by a lucky few who got an Nth generation cassette dub or cd-r burn from a friend, who got it from a friend, and so on. The sort of thing, that even a few years after a brief exposure to its wonders, will make you stop and think every once in a while, dang when is someone finally gonna reissue that amazing obscure album??? Some other recently excavated examples would include Moolah's Woe Ye Demons Possessed, Bobb Trimble's Harvest Of Dreams, and Gary Higgins's Red Hash... and before that, once upon a time Comus's First Utterance too would have fallen into that category. Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer as well, though originals of that were and are much MUCH easier to come by. Whereas *this* album was originally pressed in an edition of around just one thousand copies -- of which only a few hundred were ever sold back in the day, with the remainder of the pressing being, gasp, melted down to be recycled into other LPs!
So, here it is, artist Joakim Skogsberg's lone album Jola Rota finally, officially reissued for the very first time! Our hearts went pitter pat when we found out. We first heard this when our friend Loren Chasse (of Of/Thuja/Jewelled Antler/etc. fame) floated us a cd-r burn he had gotten from a pal overseas a couple years ago, as per the scenario outlined above. He figured we'd like it, and of course he was right. What's not to like? Swedish-forest-folk hippie ritual mixed with droned-out psych guitar. Truly strange, and captivating, vocal mumble. And, get this, it was actually mostly recorded out in a forest, on portable reel-to-reel gear!! Once out of the woods, the raw recordings were overdubbed (Skogsberg being responsible for all sounds on this album) in studio, but remain quite raw, the mystery and majesty of northern landscapes, dark shadowy places, placid lakes, tall trees and moss-covered rocks utterly alive in the music of the nature-loving Skogsberg.
Side One starts off with "Jola Fran Ingbo", which introduces Joakim's unusual "Jola" singing style derived from Swedish trad folk, also heavily influenced by Buddhist chant, accompanied by staccato bowings of ominous violin. Immediately this is waaaay darker than most other Swedish folk/psych we've heard! Seriously droney and austere. That's followed by the more freaked out, rockier "Offer Rota", which finds Skogsberg singing whilst pounding away on percussion and unfurling a thick layer of distorted guitar murk, with what sounds like a Jew's Harp warbling in the background. The next piece, "Fridens Lijor", on the other hand, is an unaccompanied vocal piece, close-miced and intimate, all about Skogsberg's fragile Jola babble...
Beginning side two, "Besvarjelse Rota" builds up a dubby, bassy electronic rhythmic whomp-whomp throb beneath its damaged psych guitar wail, that (in our warped imagination) foreshadows modern minimal techno a la Chain Reaction, "heroin house" beats.... could almost be Pole jamming with Algarnas Tradgard or something! Later, the lengthy "Jola Fran Stensate" harkens back to the solemnity of the album's first track, and then "Jola Fran Leksand" winds up this unique, amazing trip with something of a pagan campfire dance piece, for folky fiddle and rattling hand percussion.
Overall, though, Jola Rota's mood is solitary and ceremonial. Skogsberg not a guru leading his followers, but rather one man, inspired, singing devotional songs to nature, in personal communion with the ancient deities of Sweden and the universe... it IS universal, probably why it sounds simultaneously like krautrock and Tibetan worship and Native American prayer-songs. The universality of the drone, and the human voice in spiritual reverence regardless of language. At its droniest, many moments here recall Parson Sound or the aforementioned Moolah. Totally, magically mesmeric. Wow... EVERYONE who's heard this since we got it in has been entranced.
And we're extra happy that not only has this been reissued, but that the reissue was done by our pal Johan's Tokyo-based Tiliqua Records (along with EM Records, one of our absolute favorite reissue labels from that part of the world, or anywhere else). Which means, it's done up deluxe, packaged in a swank miniature gatefold LP-style sleeve, and it's been remastered from the original tapes with the help of Skogsberg himself. There's also new liner notes and previously unpublished photos of the long haired and bearded (of course) Skogsberg included. Nice! Sadly, this too is limited to a one-time pressing of only 1,000 copies... and unlike the original vinyl edition, we doubt the label will be left with any unsold copies to recycle!
FYI there will also be a super, super limited (and expensive) vinyl version of this coming on on Tiliqua in May, not sure if we'll be able to get any of those at all or if they'll be a label-direct preorder thing only...
Some early '70s vintage, groovy orchestrated French psych-pop sound good to you? Maybe even better if created by a very hip, mystic-minded musician (Skornik) inspired by LSD and the esoteric writings of a controversial Gurdjieff disciple (Louis Pauwels, author of counterculture bestseller The Morning Of The Magicians)? Well then have we got a reissue for you!! Guy Skornik's Pour Pauwels is a fantastic progressive pop opus, its symphonic, psychedelic sounds mixing together dramatic French vocals (both spoken and sung), romantic piano, moody melodies, jaunty horns, sudden curlicues of psych guitar wail, and more. A song-based soundscape, almost cinematic, it's for fans of the freakier side of the Serge Gainsbourg oeuvre for sure, a la Historie De Melody Nelson. Freakier than that, really - this was originally issued in 1970 by the Pathe label, who around the same time also released records by Igor Wakhevtich and Gerard Manset, and this fits right in with the likes of them. If you're like us, oui oui this sounds good, in fact it's pretty much irresistible.
The thick cd booklet, in both French and English, features very interesting and extensive liner notes, delving into the careers of both Skornik and Pauwels, including an in-depth, present-day interview with the former.
Up from the ashes of the beloved and astounding spectacle known as Idiot Flesh comes Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. At times, thunderously heavy carnivalesque metal like Mr. Bungle wrestling with SlipKnot. At others, minimal piano plinketry, disjointed
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are in a league all their own, and have been since their beginnings back in 1999 when they rose out of the ashes of the equally indefinable, incomparable Bay Area ensemble Idiot Flesh. Truly inventive, imaginative and way the hell 'out there', who else has successfully integrated rock, pop, black metal, prog, Dada, Futurism, Butoh, puppetry, high falutin' art school-isms, utter madness (you name it!) into their monumental being? And yet the disparate elements all come together to form a cohesive elaborate body of work. It'd be easy to conclude that the members of this quintet live sleep and breathe SGM, but they all somehow have energy and time to do numerous other highly regarded creative activities too. Wow.
Their fourth album is even more guerrilla than gorilla. It's an aural assault from the get go. The opening song "Helpless Corpses Enactment" blasts your tender ears in true black metal fashion. Then they move swiftly into wildly skewed territories that other artists would dare not tread, least of all as deftly and fearlessly as this group.
Perhaps too monumentally strange and strangely monumental for some, In Glorious Times is not for everyone. It is not an album that you just slap on while your washing dishes or yakking on the phone. No, you must enter into it with focus and fortitude. Even still, be prepared for your ears to be dumbfounded and downright confused.
Still active in the San Francisco avant-drone-improv-rock ensemble Thuja in spite of his move down to Los Angeles, Steven R. Smith quietly presents another fantastic solo album of his distinctively cinematic psychedelia. In a better world, Smith's work would get the same universal acclaim as the syrupy melodramatic glop of Sigur Ros or the socially conscious marches of Godspeed! You Black Emperor. But as it stands, Smith's revelatory instrumentals of bittersweet leitmotifs and sublime crescendos remain one of the greatest secrets in the expansive realms of avant-rock. Where Thuja explores the theatre of atmosphere, Smith's solo work is firmly grounded within a simple, yet very expressive use of melody. Smith announces the beginning of each of the songs on "Lineaments" (as with his previous recordings) with a lilting melodic stanza for fuzzed organ or drone guitar which repeats itself throughout the entirety of the song. Around this basic structure, Smith builds incremental layers of sound through complementary overtones, golden applications of spring reverb, and scribbled flourishes from additional organs, guitars, violins, and other less typical instrumentation. While Smith's solo process involve a considerable amount of multi-track production, he -- like Thuja and the interconnective Jewelled Antler gaggle -- relies upon spontaneity in the construction of these scores to give his music a floating effortlessness. "Lineaments" is no exception to Smith's outstanding body of work, and definitely gets the thumbs up from Aquarius.
Got a couple of these in, the first album from the '70s Greek hard rock/psych outfit Socrates Drank The Conium. If you dug their On The Wings album that we listed a little while back, you may also want to check out this reissue. Originally released in 1972, their debut isn't quite as ripping as the totally off-the-hook On The Wings, but it's got plenty of wailing kick ass guitar work nonetheless. Unlike On The Wings there's only one guitar in the mix, but when he gets cooking with the bands' driving rhythm section backing him up he really takes off. There's also some more laid-back, rural psych moments on here, but mostly hard boogie-blues-acid-rock numbers harking back to Cream and Hendrix, assuredly big heroes of Socrates Drank The Conium. They've got something to say through their music as well, as titles like "It's A Disgusting World" and "Underground" indicate, although the band's lasting message might not really be one of radical politics but something more basic: rock on!
Yet another archival release of stuff by this still-relevant 'Canterbury' band, one that wedded jazz fusion to prog rock to pure avant-garde invention (file 'em between Miles Davis and King Crimson, unless you're a stickler for alphabetization like me). The majority of this disc (three tracks, about 40 minutes) is live material from 1970, circa their album "Third", recorded by the 'classic' Soft Machine line-up of Elton Dean (sax), Hugh Hopper (bass), Mike Ratledge (electric piano, organ) and Robert Wyatt (drums and vocals). That's followed by two more live tracks, from 1969, recorded by the barely-documented septet version of the group (more sax, and trombone). This disc wraps up with an epic 20-minute demo version of the Wyatt-penned "Moon In June" from '68/'69. This composition was later recorded for "Third" and also appears in an abridged live form as track two of this disc. The 1970 live stuff sounds great, the '69 tracks a little rougher (but very immediate). The "Moon In June" demo was rescued from an apparently quite fucked up acetate, but is miraculously listenable. Liner notes and photos enhance the experience. Ok, that's the basic info...if you're a Softs fan you probably want this. If you have yet to investigate this band's voyage from British psychedelic/prog rock to experimental jazz realms (a voyage also undertaken by many Krautrock bands, probably inspired in part by these guys), you probably want to get "Third" to start with (other suggestions welcome, but that's the one I'm most familiar with). But, as this stuff is from that era, it's also recommended. True, the Soft Machine's style of fusion has its dangers, but whenever the jazz element threatens to get too polite, or the prog too twee, some distorted bass or organ or sax wailing saves the day.
A short sharp blast of killer garage rock / post punk / power pop from these Aussie bashers, featuring a member of aQ faves Total Control. Originally recorded back in 2005, armed with two guitars and a drum kit (no bass), these songs are lean, fuzzed out, punky and poppy, only one breaking the three minute mark, most hovering around 120 seconds, the opener "Zip" is Soviet Valves at their punkiest, super charged and swaggery, but it's on the follow up, "Carrion Luggage", where the band display a wicked pop sensibility, channeling classic Yellow Pills style power pop, and sounding like some lost seventies/eighties artifact ripe for reissuing. And throughout Death Trumps Romance, the band delicately balance between the two, snarly punk and hook heavy pop, the finest moments, as you might imagine when the two collide. Fans of the current crop of garage rockers, and of course who already dig Total Control, will find a lot to love here as well!
Here's another reissue of a '70s obscurity that we wanted to hear simply on the basis of what we'd read about it: apparently Space Opera were a band from Texas who blended Byrdsian 12-string psych pop with proggy avant-gardisms. They made just one album, released in 1973 on Epic, which has now been reissued on cd. We got it in and gave it a listen and...yes! It turns out what we'd read about Space Opera was pretty accurate. We hear some Beatles too, and Southern rock Skynrd-worthy balladry. It's probably the distorted fuzz guitar harmonies -- especially when employed in epic "minature symphonies" (like the progtastic seven-plus-minute instrumental "Guitar Suite") -- that are the highlights of this album for us, but the band's lighter moments are exquisite too. So impressive. They've got pop vocal harmonies, jazz and classical flourishes, country roots, complex arrangements, inventive effects, wow. We can understand why this band was once the biggest thing on the scene in Forth Worth... and may be again, as we hear the original members have reunited. Recommended. And, need we say again: hurrah for reissues (when they're as good as this)!
We were quite smitten with Sparks' latest album Hello Young Lovers which came out earlier this year. Their over-the-top grand weirdo-orchestral-pop is just so hard to resist. While many of us were hoping we would get to see them live, they haven't really toured the states in a while. But this ep will tide us over for a little while, with 3 live tracks from a rare concert in LA recorded around the time they appeared on the TV show The Gilmore Girls along with Sonic Youth. This ep also includes two non-live tracks: a different version of "(Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country, and the album version of "Dick Around". The cd ends with a radio interview hosted by Steve Jones of Sex Pistols fame. Also included are two videos, one for "Dick Around", the other for "Perfume"!!!
Talk about simultaneously awesome and obscure. Delving deep into '80s metal buried treasure, Stormspell's Days Of Yore division has come up with this double cd, rollercoaster ride of a reissue, that anyone into technical thrashing prog metal ought to utterly enjoy. It's from a Massachusetts band, Spectral Incursion, who never even released an album, just a bunch of demos and one ep. Way underground, mathy metallic music-making mania on display here, jawdropping and headbanging.
Unrestrained, raw and ripping stuff from young guys more concerned with coming up with cool new parts for their twisting, turning songs than in being popular. We're lovin' it. The jagged, splintered riffs and tricky time signatures multiply throughout these heavy, hectic compositions, with leads spiraling up alongside vocals that scream, soar, and roar. Each over the top track seems designed by/for the ADD afflicted, shooting off in a new direction every few seconds, yet not neglecting melody and a rock n' roll vibe. Intricate, eccentric, exhilarating - and we really like how the DIY-ness of this mitigates against any potential pretentiousness a la big time prog metal like Dream Theater. This really is some kids tossing their faves like Rush, Priest, Sabbath, Maiden, Slayer, and Fates Warning into a sharp-bladed blender on high. If you're a fan of such bands as Confessor, Atheist, Watchtower, Coroner, or Hellwitch, you should definitely check this out!
Disc one consists of demo tapes from 1988 and 1991, their four song ep from '88, and four tracks recorded in 2010 by the reunited band, doing old songs by pre-Spectral Incursion incarnation Graven Image, whose demos circa 1986-'87 occupy disc two, which also contains some video clips for your computer.
Super cool, constantly surprising, what this lacks in production polish they make up for in precision - and sheer insanity. As always, great to see a forgotten band this good (and gonzo) get their due. Complete with thick, slick cd booklet full of liner notes, lyrics, etc.
With a name like Spirits Of The Dead and an album title like The Great God Pan, you'd think this would be something super dark and occultic, probably metal, but this new Swedish outfit has more of a gentle, pastoral vibe to 'em than you might expect. Pagan prog rock, really, more than metal, even though they're on metal label The End in the States. Everybody remember wonderfully melodic, McCartney-esque AQ faves Elope, who also hail from Sweden? Well these guys sound kinda like Elope if they took their retro-'70s trip to an extreme and went totally prog! (Well, ok, not too totally prog, since none of the song lengths here get into the double digits...)
It's a dramatic (but at the same time laid back) mix of dreaminess and distortion, with sweet singing that reminds us of Burke Shelley from Budgie's mellower moments. Guitarwise, there's lots of blissed out psychedelic soloing full of light and hope, mixed appropriately with fuzzy riffs on the "retro-proto-metal" side of things, a la fellow Swedes Witchcraft, Graveyard, and especially Dead Man... Title track "The Great God Pan" is appropriately folky, with flute, and achingly beautiful singing as heard all throughout.
Oh, and of course there's the other Swedish retro psych prog sensations we haven't mentioned yet, Dungen. Yep, Dungen fans who think they might like something just a bit more wicked and Wicker Man-ish should check this out. Likewise if you weren't thrilled about Opeth's new all-prog, no-metal one, Heritage, which we haven't reviewed yet and might not... this is what that album should have sounded like!
This side project from members of UK dark prog acts Guapo and Miasma & The Carousel Of Headless Horses presents a second album, following one from last winter on Aurora Borealis, and it's quite aptly titled: Shivers and Voids. That's what this sounds like. Creepy, soundtracky, dramatic droned out weirdness under the stars... stirring and sinister stuff, with martial drums and ominous keyboards. Stargazer's Assistant takes much more of an abstract, soundscapey approach to "prog" than do either Guapo or Miasma, though you will certainly hear some similarities.
This disc, which clocks in at just under 25 minutes all told, consists of 3 tracks but it may as well just be one long, programmatic piece, beginning with the nine minutes or so of "Night Soil", a seductive nightmare that finds the listener sleepwalking on a ghostly, imaginary battlefield somewhere, with explosive detonations and snare rolls violently sundering the heavy-drone-gloom that undergirds the track, making it even scarier. The title track then provides a 4 and a half minute interlude of clanking chains, acoustic guitar, and melodic, monkish chant, heavily layered and effected, delving a bit into Richard Youngs experimental folk territory, quite nice... And then "Dream Kingdom", at 11 minutes long this disc's truest epic, also serves up its most baleful bombast.
Should appeal to fans of the aforementioned acts, as well as the likes of Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, Darsombra, and anything else you can imagine that would mix field recordings and doomy organ and electronic noise and droning loops... in other words, right up our alley, obviously!
Holy shit, does this RULE. This is the sort of stuff we LOVE, and miss, and wish more bands could still pull off. And these guys at least, most definitely can. Heavy, heady, intricate, proggy, instrumental old school style math rock, the bass thick and distorted and low slung and massive, the drums wild and pounding and octopoidal, the guitars crunchy and chuggy one second slithery and spidery the next, the songs constantly shifting gears, from gnarled and frenetic to spacious and epic, locking into super propulsive post rock churn, before slipping into weird tangles of melody and then back again. The band compare themselves to Keelhaul, Mahavishnu Orchestra and ALL, that last one seeming out of place until you actually hear these guys, they lace their chuggy churn and dense mathiness with super catchy little melodies that do in fact sound a little like ALL (or maybe the Descendents), although if we had to come up with some sonic references, it would probably look more like this: Don Caballero, June Of 44, Rodan, A Minor Forest, Bastro, Dazzling Killmen, Breadwinner, Crain, Rumah Sakit, yeah, you probably get an idea of what this stuff sounds like, but maybe just not how goddamn good it sounds, or how good these guys really are, check the sound samples, if it was 1995, these guys would be THEE band, catchy and heavy and hooky, with a massive Albini style production, it takes a lot to keep instrumental rock from being boring, but there's NOTHING boring about the 3 long songs on this disc, so tense and intense, intricate and complex, but not simply for complexity's sake, all the instruments busy as fuck, but not overplaying, instead, just a relentless and dizzying blast of hooky heaviness and majestic mathiness, another record we have been listening to nonstop since we got it in, and one we're probably gonna regret not making Record Of The Week... So totally great!
Ever wonder what it would sound like if Tatsuya Yoshida, drummer extraordinare and mastermind of Japan's hyperkinetic Ruins, somehow collaborated with classic, keyboard-fronted prog rockers E.L.P.? Well, Steamboat Switzerland essentially provide the answer. This instrumental, avant-garde trio of drums, electric bass and Hammond organ say, "Hell yes!" to that concept.
From, yes, Switzerland (not sure how the Steamboat part of their name derives, though), these guys have several prior releases of crazy improv-jazz-prog that we've liked, and some others we still need to find. On this album, and not for the first time, they're doing all pieces composed by their colleague Michael Wertmuller, who knows a thing or two about extreme, insane music, after having been the drummer in the amazing '90s jazzcore act Alboth!, who along with 16-17 were basically Switzerland's answer to John Zorn's Naked City. Wertmuller is currently the drummer for Nohome, feedback guitar wrangler Caspar Brotzmann's new Massaker-like trio, whose debut we highlighted last list, and he also plays in Full Blast with Brotzmann's famous father Peter, among much else on his c.v. of course.
As mentioned in our Nohome review, Wertmuller is a pretty impressive percussionist, so you'd expect the drummer in Steamboat Switzerland to be darn good too, and he is - thus garnering the comparison to Yoshida at the top of this review, his octopoidal playing pounding and precise. Indeed everybody in Steamboat Switzerland plays with virtuosic passion and precision, presumably taking Wertmuller's music to the level he must have expected, and beyond. Zeitschrei is a spectacular attack of avant-prog, with bombastic organ frenzies ably aided and abetted by the energetic, ADD rhythm section. At its most dizzying, this is some intense, "Flight Of The Bumblebee" skree. Heck, the manic, choppy organ runs here would make Keith Emerson stab himself, not his keyboard! There's also some semi-ambient passages of high end droning and skittering drumscapes, but those moody pulsations are often, if not always, violated by sudden machinegun outbursts of volume and violence. So it's not a mellow listen, but it can be a gripping one. Imagine a bass-heavy mathrock mashup of spooky Hammer Horror / Carnival Of Souls soundtrack music. Or, like we said, Ruins with E.L.P.'s organ. Wowzers!
The '60s/'70s psych reissue label Akarma comes through once again with this gem! England's Steamhammer had a heavy name and lotsa chops, but never really made the big time. Their first three albums were British blues rock incarnate, real good at that but not our cup of tea really. THEN came "Speech", their swansong. Something happened (lots of drugs, maybe?) -- it was real different. This is an unusual album for sure. Probably not what Steamhammer fans at the time were expecting: Psychedelic doomy prog-tastic epic instrumental slaying, with fuzz fx, jazzy percussion, and emotive vox. It's not metal but it's got a lot of what we like about metal that's for sure, and kicks ass on most of what came out in '72. Fans of some of the real heavy underground bands from the era like the Groundhogs, Lucifer's Friend, Socrates Drank The Conium, even Il Balleto Di Bronzo ought to check this out for sure! Unfamiliar with those obscurites? Well just imagine Led Zep gone off the rails. Creative, deftly timed/structured songs full of psychedelic atmosphere. From quasi-religious 20th century avantgarde interludes to manic guitar rippage, from gorgeous vocal lamentations to jammy improv spaciness, this is AQ-approved prog weirdness for sure. The 22 minute "Penumbra" that opens the record erupts from a spooky three minute intro into sheer pulse-pounding rock trio shred, then dives into a bass-heavy dirge from which a vocal chorus emerges...and on they go. Everytime we play this for someone who we think *might* like it, boy, they *really* like it. This gets a big thumbs up from all the heavy/psych/prog heads here at AQ!!!
You were warned. We reviewed this Circle side project's insane debut ep a couple weeks ago. Now, here's the full-length follow-up. The battletoads are back!
Not Sacred Steel, Steel Attack, Ritual Steel, or Steel Assassin. Not Wooly Mammoth. Or Mammatus. Or Mastodon. Or Pelican's "Pink Mammoth". Not Titan Steele, or Virgin Steele, or Steeler. It's STEEL MAMMOTH!! A metal band, presumably? Well, no, not quite. It IS another example of the many flirtations our favorite Finnish prog-psych band (Circle, including offshoots like Pharaoh Overlord and Krypt Axeripper) has always had with the elements of heavy metal (sonic, visual, lyrical). But the high-concept of "Circle does '80s metal" that you might expect from the band name and cover graphics and band pics with spikes and leather isn't quite what you actually get here, these guys being too clever and creative and crazy to do the obvious thing. Really, if you want to hear Circle-goes-metal, they come a lot closer on certain songs from Circle albums like Sunrise and Tulikora, and the recent, ever so slightly black metal bewitched Katapult. Not to mention, way back on their debut Meronia, with all its Helmet-style heaviness. And probably the most metal they've ever been is on Pharaoh Overlord #4.
So no, Steel Mammoth isn't a metal band, or even a joke metal band (though there's definitely some tongue in cheek joking going on). It's pure WTF? weirdness in the guise of a metal band. More catchy than crushing, it's a hitherto unheard hybrid of Circle's trademark hypnotic pulsations, a relaxed pop sensibility, tossed off hard rock riffing, moody tension, and sensitive vocals delivering ridiculous lyrics. Lyrics that are so ridiculous they're genius, lyrics that would make Monster Magnet or Manowar laugh and crumple up their notebook page if they'd written them. For instance, lines like: "barbarian lords/we ride alone/until we're just a pile of bones", or "lonely banzai rhino blackout leather/volcano hideout of the mountain owl/masterplan suicide war machine/lady death on the steering wheel", or "black diamond thunder dragon/beast of vampire torture/silver locusts on the desert sky/acid rain wasteland"! We also hear about a "multiheaded lion", "switchblade messiahs of hate", "midnight witches", a "metal infant", and the "powersweat of the demonwolf" to pick some other gems at random. Wow. Death and destruction and kicking ass seem to be the themes... yet there's some thought and depth to it all, extending to a self-constructed cosmology for these "nuclear barbarians" on their journey to the center of the "atomic mountain", that's depicted in a schematic in the cd booklet. We even detect a sincere sentimentality to some of this -- when album closer and title track "Atomic Mountain" finds the band sweetly crooning "Down, down, down I go" you FEEL it on some meaningful level, really.
As for the music, most of the songs share a skeletal Judas Priest vibe, stripped down and mellowed out and infused with effects. The opener, "Black Team", reminds us more of a handicapped Rolling Stones, fronted maybe by Danzig, but odder even than that would be. Several tracks later, "Nuclear Barbarians" is reprised from the ep, not really sure why they did that, though it is a cool song -- love how they pronounce nuclear, "nuck-leeyer". But it's followed by something completely different, the 11 and a half minute "Commando Leopard", an instrumental that starts off with primitive krauty rhythms before entering into a long beatless stretch of atmospheric, electronic spookiness. Like we said, WTF? Or should we say, NWOFWTF?
Attention fans of '70s heavy hippie rock!! Another primo proto-metal reissue from the fine folks at Rise Above Relics, who brought us the fantastic Bang boxset we listed not long ago. 'Tis a band/album well deserving of the deluxe treatment given here, especially welcome since only other Steel Mill reissue we've seen in the past was somewhat shoddy looking. THIS, though, is really nice, packaged with an elaborate illustrated 32 page booklet, in a slipcover adorned with new art (while the original, quite effective, surreal cover painting remains preserved within). They've renamed it too, the original lp from 1971 (there it is again, brothers and sisters, Nineteen Seventy Freaking One!!) was called Green Eyed God, this gets a new title of Jewels Of The Forest (Green Eyed God Plus) on account of all the bonus tracks included, and the remastering job, and other improvements.
So, with a name like Steel Mill, you'd expect this British band to be industrial-strength HEAVY, maybe even coming close to Black Sabbath territory. Well they do... and they don't... heavy, yeah, but opting for artier, more progressive atmospheres a lot of the time. Opener "Blood Runs Deep" is a good example, combining big, loping, rather urgent guitar riffage with passages of much mellower, jazz-inflected psychedelia via languid saxophone. Give that one a listen, and if you're like us, you'll know you want this right away. That "jazz" element, represented by what sometimes seems like pagan riot of horns, gives Steel Mill a vibe of mystic, exotic grooviness, putting 'em rite in there with underground tribes like Comus and Cromagnon. Some of these songs sound like rock rituals, like "Treadmill", with its fuzz and (literal) grunt.
Ultimately, they're an excellent, eccentric "heavy progressive" outfit, a la early King Crimson (you can be sure they loved "21st Century Schizoid Man"), Gnidrolog, Gravy Train, Tucky Buzzard, Wild Turkey, Sweet Slag, Steamhammer, East Of Eden, Murphy Blend, Amon Duul II, Culpeper's Orchard, Blackwater Park, Necromandus, etc.
Their acid rock guitar solos and lumbering riffs lean towards the Sabbath, but there's also gentle ballads ("Turn The Page Over") and fluttering flute (featured on the moody "Black Jewel Of The Forest", and elsewhere). Not that, as we've pointed out before, Sabbath themselves didn't indulge in some of their own flute flutter now and then! Steel Mill balance the light and heavy with aplomb, often in the same song. Darkly dreamlike and outre, yes, but also heavy enough for any proto-metal head. If someone were crazy enough to try and compile a collection of 1971's heaviest riffs, they'd definitely have to give Steel Mill some attention. (Er, although technically, some might quibble, as while this was recorded in '71 and the "Green Eyed God" released as a single then, the lp itself was apparently not released until 1972, and then just in Germany, with a UK release only appearing in '75.)
The original album is great all by itself, but we're also digging the bonus tracks. There's 9 of 'em, including songs from a 1972 single, as well as five unreleased studio demos of garagey popsike recorded in 1970. And, one last song - a new one, recorded by a reunited Steel Mill in 2010, "A Forgotten Future, A Future Past". And you know what, it's pretty good! Better than you might expect, actually, fitting in remarkably well. Nice how a lovingly done reissue like this can give an long lost band a new lease on life.
High-adrenaline, deliriously complex, hard-hittingly heavy multidimensional power trio music that's part metal, part jazz, part punk, part prog. Gorgeous stuff played with supreme power and passion. Telepathic precision, improv awareness, and hella guitar heroics. They've been around forever and just get better and better. But they started off pretty good in the first place, as you'll hear here!!
That's right, one of our favorite bands, the ever-touring, ever-incredible Stinking Lizaveta (name taken from Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov), have themselves reissued their first album of f'n amazing drums/standup electric bass/electric guitar instrumental action. Post rock, metal, jazz, hardcore -- these terms don't matter, it's Stinking Lizaveta from Philadelphia and they rule. One of the best live bands we've EVER seen. They've done two AQ instore performances in the past, two of the best. And when they played in SF and Oakland last year, they destroyed. Don't fail to see them if you get the chance. If you like Gone, King Crimson, AC/DC, Mahavishnu, The Fucking Champs, Don Cab, Melvins, Gore, Breadwinner, Ruins, etc. get with the program and get anything and everything you can find by Stinking Liz. Especially including this, the new reish of their debut disc. It looks pretty much the same as the original release on Compulsiv, but it's got an unlisted, hidden bunch of previously unreleased tracks tacked on!! Five songs from the same Steve Albini overseen sessions as the album proper. They got left off the album's original release back in '96, but now the band can't figure out why (and we can't either, they're prime Stinking Liz awesomeness), so they've been added on for your extra listenin' pleasure.
Is there any other band that's SO GOOD live that I (Allan) would actually plan a trip somewhere thousands of miles away almost entirely on the basis of getting to see 'em play? 'Cause that's what I'm doing for Halloween -- flying to New Orleans, which would be fun anyways but is gonna be extra-awesome 'cause this Philly-based, all-instrumental power trio will be tearing down the house at Checkpoint Charlie's on the edge of the French Quarter, as they apparently do every Halloween. And as if to pile on the excitement, what shows up at Aquarius this week but a brand new Stinking Lizaveta opus? Yay! Their fourth album finds 'em doing what they do best, adhering to their math rock + jazz + exotic flourishes + sheer rock and roll exuberance formula, with perhaps a little bit more stoner rock added to the equation this time around. Imagine an instrumental Spirit Caravan melded with The Fucking Champs and Gone...something like that. Heavy, sinuous, emotive, grandiose, intimate, anguished, epic, melodic, HEAVY. It's not a perfect album, though -- the drum sound could be better (or at least the drums could be not so loud) sez Andee, and it suffers as all Stinking Lizaveta records do in comparison to their spectacular live performances. Basically, they are SUCH a good live band that it's just hard for them to ever make an album that's nearly as good as they are in person. I love their records, but they really don't compare to the band on stage. Their intense playing, telepathic interplay, and sheer energy are all there...but not as much as you get live. That they're such a formidable proposition live works against their recordings in another way: they probably just assume that if they just go in the studio and kick ass like they do on stage, they'll make the best album ever. Of course, it's not quite that easy. Still, Caught Between Worlds is worlds above almost everything else in the post/math/instro/stoner rock realm... Recommended -- get this and also don't miss 'em if you get the chance, they're on tour right now!
Oh, Stinking Lizaveta, why do we love you so? We'd count the reasons but it's tough to write about a band that's like, one of the best bands EVER, we'd have to say, particularly if you ask Allan. We'll wax poetic about 'em, for sure, but it's gonna just sound like fanboy hyperbole. And having said that, can you expect an unbiased review here? Hell no, we're proudly biased regarding this virtuoso instrumental three-piece (rock god guitar, Energizer drums, upright electric bass) from Philadelphia. What we'd really like to do is just humbly suggest that you GO SEE THEM PLAY whenever you get the chance, which is more likely than you might think, since they're indefatigably touring pretty much all the time. If only like five percent of the people reading this right now are moved to sometime go see Stinking Lizaveta for the first time on our recommendation, we can feel like we've done y'all a service, since we're super duper sure that anyone who does will be amazed and become big fans too. Who can resist the exuberant, enthralling instrumental prowess displayed by this telepathic trio playing their unique blend of mathy metal, post rock, and heavier-than-thou hippiepunk jazz?? (They call their music "doom-jazz" by the way.)
This new album, their fifth (as always, engineered by Steve Albini) is an excellent demonstration/distillation of everything that's great about Stinking Liz (though we'll offer our usual caveat that they're EVEN BETTER live, you just can't entirely bottle/record that magic). These 16 new songs are some of their best yet, full of the ponderously head-nodding riffage, gorgeous arcs of lead guitar, and explosive rhythmic excitement we expect from 'em. There's moody tension throughout, with clusters of dense note-spirals building to ultimate release. Slow-burners like "Willie Nelson (Tired Of The War)" coexist with the sheer metallic chug of "Indomitable Will" and the darkly psychedelic storminess of "Cyclops", to offer a few examples, these elements prevalent all across this disc, no tracks lacking. And despite being an all-instrumental band (but for Yanni howling into his guitar pickups upon occasion, as on "Soul Retrieval") this isn't just a techy display of chops, it's passionate creativity drenched with sweat and emotion. Another all-instro trio y'know we love is The Fucking Champs, but Stinking Lizeveta are waaaay more soulful. They come a lot closer to the aesthetic of Earthless (another of this list's highlights), but instead of untethered interstellar exploration they compress and complexify that jamminess into tightly-wound compositions. Stirring stuff. And soooooo recommended.
Though it may not always seem like it, these are blessed times in which to live. That is, in regard to the cd reissue of various record collector "holy grails". Sooner or later, it seems like every highly coveted, whispered-about psych/folk/prog masterpiece gets a reissue - recently, for instance, records by Joakim Skogberg, Bobb Trimble, Moolah, and Cold Sun. Of course, these reissues often as not go right back out of print all too soon, but that's the way of the world. The point is, at least we get a chance at 'em. We mention this on the occasion of this cd reissue of the privately-pressed Stone Harbour LP from 1974, not to imply that it's of uniformly mindblowing, out of this world quality, no not quite, but still it's pretty good. And when it's bad, it's maybe even better, 'cause this basement hippie multi-instrumental duo from Youngstown, Ohio had the shambolic, stoned DIY thing down, this album achieving a primitive, fucked up brilliance despite (or because of) the hissy lo-fi homebrewed production and the musicians' lack of technical chops. Imagine Bobb Trimble jamming with George Brigman, perhaps after listening to records by Syd Barrett and Uriah Heep, and getting super wasted and emotional, that's what a bunch of this sorta sounds like... well we mention Uriah Heep 'cause they do, this album's typewritten thanks list specifically highlighting Heep's keyboardist Ken Hensley, definitely an inspiration for all the ornate spacey synth sounds zapping in and out of the songs here.
We'll admit, though while the holy grail hype is mostly right, Emerges IS a bit hit or miss. Not every Stone Harbour song is a brilliant gem. But when they hit, they hit! You could happily buy this for the haunting likes of "Grains Of Sand" and "Summer Magic Is Gone", alone. But there's plenty more besides. With lots of lovely lalalas, acoustic strum, and lysergic electronic effects, this is a weird, magical mix of melancholic murk (drifting soundscapes like "Thanitos") and more grunged-out, garagey rock n' rolling (on the likes of "Rock & Roll Puzzle"). Heck, they fully boogie it up on "Still Like That Rock & Roll" (one of the aforementioned misses, but not without its charms).
As usual, Lion provides a jam-packed cd booklet, with lyrics and pics and as much background info as they could dig up (Stone Harbour's Rick Ballas blessed this reissue, but declined to be interviewed for the liner notes). This disc also includes four additional bonus tracks, recorded in 1975, that fit in quite nicely with the album tracks, the highlight among 'em being "Witch To You", a song that sounds sooo much like a lo-fi, real-deal version of the doom-prog vibe AQ faves Witchcraft are conjuring today. Most likely, it's 'cause on that track, Stone Harbour were heavily influenced by both Black Sabbath and Roky Erickson, much like Witchcraft are too, albeit from the further remove of a couple extra decades.
What more to say? Psych fans, we've done our duty, please check out the long lost Stone Harbour and be amazed.
We just found a small cache of this presumably out of print record at one of our suppliers, a 2001 reissue of the 1976 debut solo album from the late Egyptian-born singer Demetrio Stratos, famous as the frontman for the Italian "International Popular Group" Area. That avant-prog ensemble was rather more experimental than most, bringing in jazz improv, electroacoustic composition, and more - including what we have previously referred to as "dramatic and bizarre vocal experiments". Despite our love for Italian prog, we've never had an opportunity to review much by Area, but they were one of the best. Just ask Tatsuya Yoshida, he'll tell you that next to Magma from France, Area were probably one of his biggest inspirations for his band Ruins.
This solo album from their singer doesn't really sound like Area, though. Or rather, it appropriately focuses only on one specific aspect of Area, taken to an extreme - Stratos' vocals. We won't say "singing" though, not exactly. This is an album of CRAZED acoustic voice-only sounds, along the lines of later efforts by Phil Minton, Jaap Blonk, Makigami Koichi, and Mike Patton. Heck, we're pretty sure Mike Patton must own a copy of this record, it's basically the blueprint for his debut solo album on Tzadik, 1996's Adult Themes For Voice. We like this better though (sorry Mike).
On Metrodora, Stratos, who considered himself a "vocal researcher", presents the results of his research into what he can do manipulating his voice acoustically. Dramatic and bizarre indeed, as well as interesting and amusing. Gurgling groaning hissing hooting croaking shrieking. Overdubbing and multitracking (as well as extended techniques) allow him to do call and response with himself, to create dense droning hums and carry on nonsensical conversations in multiple voices (on the rhythmic, repetitive title track sounding like Tatsuya Yoshida's a cappella Zubi Zuva group). At times it's like a zooful of primates gone wild, at others much more 'musical', Stratos eventually doing some wailing, undulating singing in more typical Area-style on "Mirologhi (Lamento d'Epiro)" parts one and two, where he also manages to create what sound like synthesizer and percussive sounds in the background. Definitely a classic in the field, and, once you're into it, remarkably listenable.
Don't laugh. I didn't think I (Allan) liked Styx, either. But these four early Styx albums, now reissued as one handy double-cd, are actually pretty cool... I'm not saying they're not at all cheesy (they are) but at least these records predate the era of mega-AOR-stardom after Tommy Shaw joined the band -- this was long before "Come Sail Away". This is Styx as America's answer to British prog-rockers like Yes. There's definitely a lot of Yes-isms here, but also Styx, chamelon-like, take on aspects of all sorts of other rockers of the era too, bringing in Southern/boogie rock like Foghat, classical prog like ELP, and grandiose proto-metal like Uriah Heep. Put most basically, this early Styx was basically a blend of the James Gang and Yes, if you can imagine that! Their four albums recorded for the Wooden Nickel label (1972's Styx, 1973's Styx II, 1973's The Serpent Is Rising, and 1974's Man Of Miracles) were indeed proto-Pomp Rock, but heavy on the rock. So if you're into '70s hard rock, you should investigate, despite the Styx stigma. Of the 35 tracks here, you're gonna find some faves. Yeah, you'll find their first hit "Lady" here, and a rock version of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" but also some kick ass, almost metal tunes like "Witch Wolf", "Southern Woman" and the bombastic "Young Man". Plus some decent prog epics (mostly from the pen of Dennis DeYoung) and even random weirdness like their frenetic cover of the Knickerbockers' 1966 garage rock nugget "Lies" and even an experimental musique concrete piece ("Street Collage") found on their first album. Packaged with detailed liner notes and original album cover art in the 16-page cd booklet, this double cd set could make a nice, if for most of us, unusual purchase... it did for me.
And in case you're a diehard Styx fan reading this, firstly we apologize for implying that there's anything wrong with liking Styx in the first place, and secondly FYI there's a bonus track on here, "Unfinished Song", the b-side to "Young Man".
Why look it's a 20th cent. new music/electronica classic.
Any one lucky enough to visit hypnorockers Circle in Finland, besides being showered with hospitality and crazy adventures, hockey games, private concerts, lots of record shopping, reindeer dinners and Finnish pizza, also is quite likely to be invited to record with the band, as they seem to be in a constant state of ready-to-record-ness, as our very own Andee can attest to: just check http://www.tUMULt.net to hear Jaappollot, the results of several sessions he shared with the boys in Circle!
Seems a similar thing happened to abstract free rock collective Sunburned Hand Of The Man when they were in Finland, and it's hard to imagine a better match. Sunburned seems to have lured Circle back into the murky woods, for long languorous stretches of slow burning psychedelia. The metallic sheen of recent releases has been rusted and caked with mud and old dried branches, the result a trancelike folk flecked tribal krautrock, the perfect mix of what we like best about both bands.�
The sound on first listen is like some sort of�alien world music, with dense, but laid back�tribal drumming, swirling serpentine guitar lines,�whispered chanted vocals, all wrapped in a cavernous production, making the tracks sound warm and wide open, expansive and endless, there is clatter and clang, but for the most part it's smeared and blurred, buried in sonic murk, wrapped around abstract krautrock rhythms and chunks of angular guitar riffage. Some of the tracks get wild and chaotic, but even then, the sound is still restrained, not jagged or harsh, more swirling and washed out.�
One of our favorite tracks ever, by maybe either band, is the super hypnotic�"Heinavelho", another growling ambient sprawl, but strangely rhythmic and musical, still�murky and muddy and super hypnotic, but with ultra subtle�repetitively strummed guitars, held in check by martial drum rolls and little squalls of brushed snares, eventually building to an FX drenched gothy cabaret crawl, all moody and drunken, lurching and downtuned, staggering through a thick cloud of chirping bleeps and bloops and dense swells of rumble and shimmer.�
Fans of either band will definitely dig, and a good gateway for anyone into one, but not yet so into the other...
Supersister were a seventies Dutch prog group who released a quartet of classic albums, but none more classic than this, their 1970 debut. And this, Present From Nancy, is so goddamn good, if we had our way, we would have ordered a ton of these and made it a Record Of The Week, or at least PROG Record Of The Week, although it's more like a contender for Prog Record Of The FOREVER!! But sadly, we've been unable to get more than a few at a time, even now we have less than ten copies, and while we should be able to get more, it might take us a while, but we figured it would be better at least that a few of you prog freaks were able to get your hands on these, rather than no one at all.
So what's got us all hyped up? What's so great about Supersister? Just listen to the three sound samples, easily one of the best one-two-three punches in classic prog. A dense relentless, super technical ELP-ish workout, with manic piano, fuzzed out organ, incredible complex drumming, impossible time signatures, killer melodies, some amazing flute leads, and yet even at its most manic and relentless it manages to be both jazzy, groovy, heavy and catchy as hell! In the title track, flutes flutter wildly over the bass piano drum jam locked in beneath, with the band occasionally exploding into awesome flurries of piano and flute before the band bursts back into action. Then there's "Memories Are New", with its warm looped fuzz organ, and lilting vocal, thick crunchy fuzz guitar, and again some incredible drumming, and a way with composition that manages to make even the most obtuse time signatures and strange arrangements flow perfectly. Finally, "11/8", named for the time signature we suppose, is another dense acrobatic instrumental workout, the organs and synths fully fuzzed out, even the pass is super distorted, working through rapid fire flurries of notes, the drums somehow locked in tight, with the synths occasionally stuttering into skittery buzz, before the track devolves into heavy downtuned chords and tinkling piano, so dynamic and varied and again, the rare sort of prog that gets stuck in your head like a pop song. AND THAT'S JUST THREE SONGS.
The rest of the record continues in a similarly proggy vein, but gets even weirder, adding all sorts of dark shimmering drones, bizarre bits of a capella, pounding fuzz guitar jams, dreamy drifty almost new age sounding soundscapes, and this reissue tacks on two singles, the first one sounds like the Zombies or some other sixties/seventies dream pop outfit, with a B-side that is SO bizarre, a woozy organ driven jam, with a heavily accented spoken word story about an alien or something, complete with processed alien voices. The other single is an Elvis style honkytonk jam that is also truly bizarre, while the B side is a Doors-y groove, with weirdly crooned vocals and warm organs, and what can only be a kazoo solo. This band did get increasingly goofy with each record, almost too much to take by the end, but Present From Nancy is Supersister at their heaviest and grooviest and proggiest. And definitely remains one of our favorite prog jams EVER.
The "Icelandic Invasion" continues, as Shadoks reissues some more crucial '60s/'70s psych-prog action from that island nation. Last time we highlighted the groovy "hairy funk" heaviness of Odmenn. This time, two more: the debut from Trubrot (1969), and this one, the sole album by Svanfridur (1972). Both bands demonstrate definite Beatles influence, and do so well, but also are quite eccentric in their own right, which perhaps can be ascribed to their Icelandic heritage?
This group was definitely musically talented, hot stuff on the live circuit in their native Iceland, though the sales of this self-released lp were disappointing. And thus it ended up being their only album. Too bad, it's a good 'un after all, considered a Nordic prog classic by many collectors today, and something we think that fans of the modern day Swedish group Dungen might totally dig, for that same sort of Scandinavian prog/pop/psych blend only this is the real deal, not a retro remake.
Svanfridur, like Odmenn, is also fairly heavy and fuzzed out, often enough, on acid blues rockers like "My Dummy", whilst being simultaneously super catchy on the pop side of things too, exemplified by opener "The Woman Of Our Day", which sounds like a hit to us. It's a diverse album though, Svandfridur happily mixing things up, getting moody with flute and strings on the title track "What's Hidden There?", and moodier still with the strange synth atmospheres of "Did You Find?"... Then there's the staccato folk violin into acid rock distorted guitar rippage of "Finido". Great stuff all over.
Like most Shadoks reissues, this includes extensive liner notes in the cd booklet (revealing, among other things, that members of Svanfridur, like SO many other bands of the day it seems, had been involved in a production of the musical Hair), along with tons of photos and graphics. The original sleeve bearing the lyrics (in English) and recording credits is reproduced, and if you look close you'll note the presence of the classic admonition that this record is "To Be Played Loud"! Indeed.
Conceived as a soundtrack for a 1980 Amnesty International short film against the Death Penalty, French electronic music maverick, Bernard Szajner (pronounced Shy-nerr) came up with one of the most geniusly bizarre concept records ever made. Imagine if Suicide, David Bowie, Conrad Schnitzler, Bruce Haack, Giorgio Moroder, and Magma made a record together about the de-humanizing extremes of an existentialist Death Row, it might sound something as cold and freaky as this! A minimal wave Magma is definitely not that far off the mark, as Szajner was the lighting and visual effects designer for Magma's live shows in the seventies, and Klaus Blasquiz and Bernard Paganotti of Magma guest here.
The opening track, "Welcome To Death Row" was featured on the awesome compilation of French coldwave, "So Young But So Cold" and Detroit techno producer, Carl Craig has claimed this to be his favorite album of all time! It's definitely got the slow disco vibe down, even though it's hardly a dance record. Add some crooning David Bowie in his Low period moments, but it's way weirder with creepy synth elements, robotic vocals, radio collages, electronic pop and tight, proggy guitar solos added in to highlight a more distasteful side to what Szajner felt to be the all too pleasant quality of synthesized sounds coming out of Germany at the time. That might mean for some, on a first superficial listen, parts of the songs may go to questionable places you may not wish them to go (it was made in 1980, after all!), but it's a much more satisfying listen to follow the songs down all the rabbit holes they go with an open mind. It's definitely one of those eccentric missing link records that crosses through many genres but doesn't sit easily in any one of them.
Bernard Szajner made five records of avant-garde electronic music in the late seventies and early eighties before sadly abandoning music for good, but none of them are quite like this! (His 1981 follow-up Superficial Music has also been reissued and we'll hopefully review it in a future list.) But for all those into such sundry bands as Daft Punk, Droids, Cold Cave, Air, Kraftwerk, Heldon, Arthur Russell, Lindstrom, Gina X, Jonas Reinhardt, the weirder sides of Serge Gainsbourg or any of the bands or artists mentioned above, you need to check this out now!! Oh, and this also includes three bonus tracks, previously unreleased!
