New four song 12"s from these tropical lysergic fuzz poppers, featuring the title track, a reworked number from the last record, but this new version features none other than Panda Bear from Animal Collective, as well as a few other guests. How different is it? Well, not really all that different, the main change being some soaring Beach Boys-ish background vox, that add a bit of sunshiney shimmer to the proceedings, and we have to say, the song is in fact probably the better for it.
There's also a live version of the same song, this time performed live, with yet another set of guests, the Spectrals this time, and at first blush, it sounds almost the same, until you realize Ducktails here is augmented by a real band, and most importantly a real drummer, whose beats definitely give the song some heft, and transform it from woozy bedroom dream pop to proper indie rock crunch.
In between these two versions of "Killin The Vibe" are two new jams: "Sit Around With Ya" is a lazy slightly dubbed out bit of strummed dronefolk, the vocals laid back and weary, the song gradually growing more lush, as a second guitar swoops in and adds some dreamy jangle, while "Couch Surfer" revisits the murky 4-track lysergic Tropicalia of early Ducktails, all woozy warped loops, and the sounds of crashing waves, all wrapped around a bloopy bassline, eventually joined by some extra percussion, some shakers, the song muted and droney and mesmerizingly cyclical, until finally, with about 90 seconds left, the song blossoms into a rad psychedelic jam, all wild psych guitars, lots of swirling "ooooh"s and "aaaah"s, a perfectly hazy, dreamy, drugged out coda, and just enough to tide us over until the next full length, presumably coming soon...?
Ducktails is another one of those bands that went to zero to sixty in no time, in terms of releases. Before, it was a tape here, maybe a 7" there, now every week brings a new slab of Ducktails' twisted tropical pop, but hell, we're not complaining one bit.
Especially this time, as Landscapes might just be one of the strangest Ducktails record yet, The first track is what we've come to expect, and dig big time, swirling lo-fi, tropical soft fuzz pop, antiquated drum machine, warbly synths, playful woozy sun dappled melodies, plenty of tape hiss and amp buzz, definitely raw and muddy but also weirdly lush.
That, however, is just the first song, from there on out, Ducktails bounces wildly from sound to sound, all held together by a strange hard to describe thread that runs through all the songs here, keeping this from being just a mish mash of sounds and songs, and instead smearing it into a crazy yet cohesive dizzying drift through some seriously tweaked eighties retro future fuzz Ducktails dream pop. Weird buzzing Eastern sounding new age gives way to some groovy hard pop, with warped guitars, lots of flange, rad leads, like an alternative dimension instrumental lo-fi Loverboy (?), before switching gears and unfurling some looped almost African sounding warble, which then transforms into fuzzy jangly blissed out garage pop, then falsetto crooned jangle and swoon, then a bit of bluesy bedroom slow jam and finally a wicked, twisted late night infomercial soundtrack, all of the sights and sounds in Ducktails' soundworld hazy and shimmery and otherworldly and gloriously washed out.
Another glorious blast of summery hypnogogic exotica lo-fi garage groove from Ducktails, a session recorded live on WFMU back in 2008, and like the Ducktails records proper, these jams are hazy and washed out and otherworldly, hypnotic and fuzzy, spidery guitars draped over looped exotica rhythms, wheezing organs, plenty of soft wah wah guitars, surfy dream pop and blissed out beach ballads, from hushed almost Galaxie 500 sounding stretches of strum and drift, to killer groovy, sexy jams, that almost sound like weird takes on Ethiopian groove, to fuzzy bedroom folk, all sad boy vox and woozy organ, and more of those phasered/flangered guitars, to smoldering 'space' jams, brooding minimal hypnotic dronerock, that sounds like Ducktails' take on the Velvet Underground or Spacemen 3, obviously much more summery and sunshiney than either of those, finally finishing off the session with two long jams, the first, a 7 minute untitled bit of abstract drone-y bliss pop, strange exotic percussion, long washed out tones, some wild tangles of twisted FX and analog synth, and gorgeously hypnotic bits of tumbling percussive murk, with buried melodies and softly undulating textures.
The final track is "Surf's Up", from their self titled record, here again rendered in spaced out loops and druggy ambient drift, a sea of swirling sonic particles, tangled melodies, constantly shifting textures and layers, blurred and bleary and blissy and totally spaced out and dreamlike. So good.
And of course extremely limited! Some of the copies we got are on yellow vinyl, others black, they come in very old school looking bootleg style stamped covers, most of them have very minor cosmetic damage (dinged corners mostly, like REAL bootlegs!), they're all like that, but for most folks it shouldn't be an issue, comes with a photocopied insert too...
St. Catherine proves to be a triumphant return for Ducktails, the ever-changing hypnagogic pop project fronted by Matt Mondanile, also of the dreamy jangle pop outfit Real Estate. Matt's fifth Ducktails full length is filled with his usual gorgeously lilting, echoey loops. It feels as though they're floated towards us on refreshing, sun-dappled ripples of water. This album has found a wonderful balance between Ducktails' early woozy, psychedelic experimentation, as heard in this album's fuzzy, warm opener "The Disney Afternoon", and his more recent shift towards more structured compositions. The latter shows up in the second track, "Headbanging in the Mirror", which has such a smooth groove that we find ourselves moving and singing, if not headbanging, along.
The richness of this album is no doubt facilitated by producer Rob Schnapf, who has handled Mondanile's lovely sad boy vocals as deftly as he did Elliott Smith's on XO and Either/Or. The presence of Julia Holter also adds to the reverent fullness of this venture, her shimmery vocals delicately winding themselves around Mondanile's arrangements, particularly in accompaniment with the strings on the track "Heaven's Room", which builds to a point of serene grandeur so far above the clouds that for a moment we're left without air. "Krumme Lanke" rounds out this album with a shortened version of Ducktails' favored instrumental experimentation, sounding like a sugary, drugged-out version of the soundtrack from your favorite '80s movie set in the '60s. This hypnotic collection of jangly reflection is so very fitting as we begin to experience the slow transition of this summer's persistent warmth into autumn's cool brisk nights. Highly recommended!
The return of Ducktails finds this formerly 'hypnogogic pop' outfit, who previously trafficked in a warped, murky tropical surf pop, delivering their most polished and poppy record yet, one that sounds less removed than ever from Ducktails mainman Matthew Mondanile's other band, Real Estate. The opener is a sweet slab of warm, shimmery, classic sounding jangle pop, the guitars lightly flanged, the vocals soft and breezy, the drums simple and propulsive, the whole sound wreathed in a soft haze of echo and reverb, chiming, and dreamy, and pretty darn near perfect. The second track offers up more of the same, but with more of a seventies soft rock slant, right down to the electric piano, that definitely gives it a bit of a yacht rock vibe, but Mondanile, manages to overcome any sort of cheesiness and craft a warm slab of classic pop, that really does sound like some lost seventies B side. And that seventies vibe is all over The Flower Lane, from the disco drums and horns (!) on "Under Cover", to the string laden echo drenched piano driven shuffle of "Timothy Shy". Some of the tracks slip back into the modern day, "Planet Phrom" is all chiming, psychedelic jangle pop, replete with weird lyrics about other planets and alien wives, but then it's right back into some lost alternative universe seventies, with a track like "Assistant Director" that adds some new wave to the occasion, that track a twisted bridge between both sides of Ducktails divergent musical personality here. Oh did we mention the bongos? Those bongos though are wreathed in spacey effects and wah wah guitar. It's a weird sound, and a weird record, for sure, and would definitely not work if Mondanile weren't such a good songwriter, and such a master in the studio, managing to somehow merge the sound of Squeeze and Steely Dan with something more fuzzy and psychedelic, the result at once retro and weirdly psychedelic.
Here's some seriously warm, wobbly, surfy, tropical sounding lo-fi gems that have totally captured our attention! Dripping with such melty, melodic yet slightly tripped out perfection. Ducktails had a lot going for it before we even heard the music, the name obviously (!), the great cover art by Jan Anderzen (Kemialliset Ystavat) and the fact that it was mastered by Graham Lambkin of The Shadow Ring already lead us to believe there might be some kind of magic being brewed under the colorful, inviting cover, so we threw this on the stereo right away and it's been beyond the perfect soundtrack for the bright and sizzling sunshine days we've been baking in for the last couple weeks. Ducktails is the work of one person, Matt Mondanile who has found such a unique sound, melding elements of the lo-fi pop movement that came out of New Zealand in the '80s with a tropical undertone and wandering spirit that sounds like bits and pieces from some gem of a find on a Sublime Frequencies compilation, the kind of rare multidimensional sound that Pumice is able to achieve, or the more pastoral side of prog that folks like Bo Hannson explored, or a sun-soaked instrumental passage from an Ariel Pink record (actually this actually reminds us a lot of the great Holy Shit record Ariel Pink made with Matt Fishbeck a while back), or maybe White Rainbow shining their hypnotic rays through the bodies of a band on Woodsist. The album's closer "Surf's Up" is almost like a new generation's version of Terry Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air!
This record is like a soft edged maze that leads in a million different directions and takes you around on a sonic adventure that isn't as concerned with destination as it is in creating a totally and wholly encapsulating journey. While many in the new wave of one-man-band lo-fi noise pop combos have been focusing their sonic scope more on the fuzz, and burn, and rocked out side of things, Ducktails have a much more languid, dreamy and enchanting approach to finding lo-fi bliss through conjuring up so much warm sun soaked color in their hypnotizing sounds. Highly Recommended!
Yep, another Ducktails joint, and it's a goodie. Maybe our favorite mode of sonic Ducktalia, the sort of faux eighties outer space new age drift. These days nobody does it better. Bleary eyed, sparkly, glimmery, glistening, crystalline, otherworldly new-age-wave, bloops and bleeps and softly effected melodies, all woozy and warbly and oh so dreamy.
Julian Lynch is the garage bliss pop new kid on the block, but what we've heard so far has been pretty awesome, and these two jams demonstrate just why folks are suddenly all aflutter about this guy. The first track is a warped minimal soundscape, breathless vocal drones draped over detuned twang, which eventually builds to a sort of stumbly wah wah garage pop dirge. The second track sounds like a warped Beach Boys 45 spinning at 16 rpm, fuzzy and washed out, more of that twisted and looped wah guitar, some almost-funky bass, and some surprisingly lush harmonies that brighten up the murk just a bit.
Comes with a dvd-r, featuring a bunch of videos too...
The Not Not Fun label's Bored Fortress subscription split 7" series has been going on for a few years now, and is always killer, featuring a who's who of hip underground weirdo rock combos, not to mention some seriously fantastic packaging, and for whatever reason, this year, a handful of the previously subscription only singles have been made available to non subscribers, but not for long, as these babies are crazy limited.
Ducktails offer up another slab of wistful, summery lo-fi jangle and strum, all minimal drum machine and hazy melody, which shifts gear midway through and becomes something a wee bit darker than we're used to from DT, a slightly minor key lope, all distorted beats, fuzzy bass, laid beneath more spidery guitar jangle fuzz.
Rangers counter with some total lo-fi eighties retro pop, Simple Minds guitars drifting over bloopy basslines, tinkling chiming melodies, everything wreathed in a hazy dubbed-too-many-times-VHS-tape murkiness, the song gradually growing sweeter and more poppy, until it almost sounds like the music behind the credits of some lost eighties sitcom. A weirdly good match for the Ducktails jam.
Also, we have another Bored Fortress title, besides the ones we're listing now, the Infinite Body / No Age split 7", VERY few copies of that one, not enough to list, just ask if you want one and IF we still have some left, it could be yours!
We first heard Irish indie rockers on a split with Japanese heavies Boris, and even then we were a bit flummoxed, Boris delivering their usual monstrous slab of downtuned psychedelic Japanese fuzz rock, and The Dudley Corporation countering with some sweetly melodic indie jangle, not that we were complaining, we'd always rather hear lots of different sounds, on records, at shows, 5 bands playing sludge metal, are not nearly as entertaining as a weird metal band, a catchy pop band, a cool synth outfit, you get our drift, anyway, beyond the strange juxtaposition, we ended up digging these guys a lot, and it's been a while since we've heard from them, but here on their fourth full length, much of what we dug about the old DC sound is still present and accounted for, jangly guitars, hooks galore, bouncy rhythms, crazy catchy melodies, but actually, it does seem like their sound has darkened, grown a bit more intense and complex, with the songs more intricate and almost proggy sounding, with some electronics, some serious heft, crunchy guitars, and lots of moody, broody intensity, in fact, the vibe these days is almost more Radiohead or Cave In (during their Radiohead phase) - check out opener "DLQ", with its shuffling minor key main riff, its dense driving moodiness, proggy pound fused to almost new wave sounding crunch, maybe also reminding us of Franz Ferdinand or Maximo Park, not the sound we remember, but one we dig, a LOT, and one that seems like it should have these guys poised for some serious mainstream success.
And in the past we described DC as sounding a bit like Pinback, but now, along with this heavier sound, and more dense and complex arrangements, while that resemblance is still present, it almost sounds more like pre-Pinback outfit Heavy Vegetable, not nearly as tangly and super mathy, but with the vocalist still often sounding like a dead ringer for Rob Crow, and some serious mathiness creeping in, it's definitely closer, and pretty goddamn great (check out "Under The Lamb")! WAY recommended for folks who like their pop dark and complex, proggy and melodic, which we're guessing is a whole lot of you...
Indie pop/rock is alive and well at the Absolutely Kosher Records camp. Why, they've got a cabin for almost every ilk of pop music. Just like lil' Goldilocks, The Dudley Corporation slip under the cozy blankets of the bunkbeds previously and currently inhabited by the likes of Modest Mouse, Dinosaur Jr. and Pinback (as well as other Rob Crow projects such as Heavy Vegetable and Thingy). Knowing just how big a Rob Crow fan label head honcho Cory Brown is, it's not at all surprising that this seemingly very Crow-influenced Irish duo should find themselves so lovingly and snugly tucked in. In fact, they're playing a bunch of U.S. dates this month with Pinback! Anyways, if you do dig the abovementioned artists and are seeking more in a similar vein, you should definitely check 'em out!
And as promised last list, when we made the reissue of seventies Mexican psych legends Los Dug Dug's 1971 self-titled debut a Record Of The Week, here's their equally Record Of The Week worthy second album, 1972's Smog, now also reissued on both cd and, for the first time, vinyl! And as we said then, we love this band! Why? 'Cause Los Dug Dug's kick out jams that are part garage rock grooviness, part Beatlesy bliss, part power pop, part proto-metal, and part prog (with flute!!). What's not to love? And we haven't even mentioned the heavy dosage of FUZZ they supply, either!
Unlike the debut, which was Mexico's first rock record sung all in English, Smog is sung in Spanish, and sees Los Dug Dug's stripped down to an amped up power trio format, led as always by guitarist/vocalist Armando Nava (he's on the right in the cover picture, with the dyed grey long hair and beard, looking like some pensive psychedelic wise man or wizard). Pretty sure he's also the one playing the flute here, pumping up the progginess in a hard rock context that could kinda be likened to Jethro Tull meets the MC5, yeah, and reminds us of Italian prog faves Osanna, too.
Smog is one smokin' album, it's hard to pick favorite tracks, as they're all so good, but we'd have to mention both the lovely ballad "Voy Hacia El Cielo (Voy Hacia El Sol)" and the motorcycle revving, ecological protest rocker "Smog". Yep, just like their self-titled debut, this one's got plenty of both the heavy rockers and the gentler, poppier stuff, but leans towards the former, and seems more '70s than their first album, which had more of a '60s feel to it.
Air pollution is certainly a '70s theme, also something that any band based in Mexico City would be concerned about, and the title Smog gives this a heavier vibe than if they'd called it something like Flowers & Incense, eh? In keeping with their new style and attitude, they do a Spanish-language remake / update of the debut's frantic garage beat number "Let's Make It Now", stretching it to almost 12 minutes, as a totally progged out, flute-fortified five part suite, now titled "Hagamasolo Ahora (2a. Parte)", while retaining all the energetic excitement of the original. The energy level of this entire album is exhilarating, there's a couple pleasant acoustic numbers but otherwise it's quite rough, rhythmic, and riffy.
As we said when we reviewed the reissue of the debut, we've listed this album (and several others by the band) before, but it was always tough to keep enough of 'em in stock, they were Mexican imports and never reliably available, seemingly going in and out of print in quite random fashion. Hopefully these new editions will be around longer, and remain easy to stock. Also, these reissues are the very first time we've seen any Dug Dug's reissued on VINYL, yay!!!
As with the self-titled debut, the new cd version of this comes packaged in a handsome plastic-protected miniature lp style sleeve, complete with obi strip. Other than the text on the obi, there's no liner notes for this reissue, which we're told is a result of the difficulties inherent in licensing a release like this from a major label (it's owned by Sony BMG). In any case, we're glad it got reissued again, at all, and it's nice enough! Sooo recommended, equally up there with the debut, maybe even better, especially for folks who dig the cowbell-knockin', fuzz rockin' action.
This nice new reissue - and first time reish on vinyl - just HAD to be Record Of The Week. Boy oh boy do we love this band. An old, old favorite - in more ways that one, since these guys hail from the '70s. When we first discovered them some years ago, via their track on the Love Peace & Poetry: Latin America compilation, and then got their reissued albums on import cd, we were like, why aren't they famous?? Well, perhaps they are, or at least were, in Mexico where they're from (they're called Los Dug Dug's on account of being from the city of Durango, in the Mexican state of Durango).
Los Dug Dug's are, for us, a perfect blend of rock n' roll things we love: garage rock, psych-pop, power-prog. Lotsa cowbell, fuzz guitar, and flute, yes flute (especially on their second album, Smog). Part Tull, part Beatles, part Kinks, part Kiss...pretty darn kick ass really.
This self-titled album was their first, from the magic musical year of 1971, though sounding very sixties, and features English language vocals. It includes some of our favorite Dug Dug's songs, including the brilliant "Lost In My World" (also heard on the Mexican installment of the Love Peace & Poetry compilation series). There's also the frantic fuzzfest "Let's Make It Now" (which also boasts a drum solo), the groovy jangle of "I Got The Feeling", the equally groovy "It's Over" (with a nice JB's style intro), the very Beatlesy "Going Home", the lovely, spaced out "Sometimes", and the flutey, fanciful "Who Would Look At Me?", among other great flower POWER tunes. And when we say great, we mean really great. As in, this album is all-time favorite stuff for those lucky enough be clued in. Sure there's lots of wonderful obscurities out there, but Los Dug Dug's are one of those bands, like Q65, or Flower Travellin' Band, who you'd be hearing all the time on classic rock radio if they'd come from Detroit instead of Durango.
Now, we love ALL the Dug Dug's albums, and are happy to tell you that Smog (1972) will soon be getting the same reissue treatment by Lion/Get On Down soon, we should have it in a few weeks, and it'll probably have to be a ROTW too. Hopefully they'll also be reissuing Los Dug Dug's other albums Cambia, Cambia (1974) and El Loco (1975) eventually as well, one of these days.
Like we said, we've listed this album (and those others by Los Dug Dug's) before, but it was always tough to keep enough of 'em in stock, they were Mexican imports and never reliably available, seemingly going in and out of print in quite random fashion. Hopefully this new version will be around longer, and remain easy to stock! Also, this is the very first time we've seen any Dug Dug's reissued on VINYL, yay, and they've done a fine job of it.
Meanwhile, the new compact disc edition comes packaged in a nice, plastic protected miniature lp style sleeve, complete with obi strip... unfortunately beyond the brief blurb on the obi, there's no liner notes for this reissue, which is too bad 'cause we'd like to know more about this band who should be much better known north of the border. The obi alludes to the band's "failed trip to NYC" where they were hoping for their big break, that didn't work out but then they went back to Mexico and recorded this album, starting a sterling career regardless. We'd like to know more... according to Wikipedia, apparently they had some problems with the musician's union in New York, but upon their return to Mexico, bringing with them the music of the Beatles, they became one of the country's biggest rock acts, leaders in the new youth culture there. So it's unfortunate that some knowledgeable liner notes couldn't have been arranged, we're sure the Dug Dug's story is a fascinating one, but at least in all other respects the packaging is top-notch (though it would have been nice to have the tracklist someplace other than just on the obi, like on the back cover the way it is with the vinyl). In any case, it's the music that matters, and regarding that the obi has all the facts: "must have"... "essential".
'70s Mexican rockers Los Dug Dug's have been a big fave here at AQ for years and years, but for many of those years now we've had a hard time finding copies of the cd reissues of their albums to stock. Well, FINALLY just the other day we were lucky enough to get a batch of Dug Dug's discs back in, including (hopefully) enough of this one to list, which we'd never been able to do before! We also got a smaller handful of each of their other albums, already on our website.
El Loco originally came out in 1975, and was to be final Dug Dug's album. As you might guess from the cover, to an extent it emphasizes the power trio fuzzed out hard rock side of the band, but definitely not to the exclusion of the other elements that make Dug Dug's so great: the flutey prog, the funky grooves, the Beatlesy pop-psych... That cover photo, depicting the band jamming exuberantly amidst a cloud of dry ice fog, wearing glammy gear that in the case of the guitarist looks like it was borrowed from Ace Frehley's closet, is so cool though. How can you not dig the Dug Dug's looking like that? One thing you don't see in that picture though is the synthesizer, that makes its presence known in quite a trippy manner throughout the album, in particular on the appropriately crazy title track, all buzzing synth, choppy rhythms, and maniacal laughter!
There's a dozen tracks here in total, ranging from riffy rockers (like "Show Me", which might be what they're playing in that cover picture - or it could be "Stupid People" but where's the horn section?) to more gentle mellowness (such as "Quiero Verte"), some songs sung in English, others in Spanish. You get a flute-led instrumental, plenty of urgently uptempo acid rock grooviness, a bit of bubblegum pop, and dreamy psych... basically, like all Dug Dug's albums, El Loco is guaranteed to put a smile on your face one way or another!
Be warned, we don't really have a lot of these, and it might be a while before we can restock...
Man, with so much music coming through our doors every day... week... month... year, we try to stay on top of things as best we can, but it's inevitable that sometimes a wonderful release will slip under our radar and be sitting right under our noses. Case in point, William Duke's The Ghost That Would Not Be which we have carried in the store for the past couple years, but somehow never reviewed. 'Tis a fine folksy west coast pop album. Lush, earthy, sun-baked and just a little bit melancholic... just the way we love 'em! Better late than never though, right!? On this his solo debut, Mr. Duke certainly draws plenty of inspiration from pop greats The Beatles (he even does a rendition of "Baby's In Black"), The Beach Boys and The Byrds, as well as the classic rock of the '70s. For more recent touchstones, we can say that this is definitely for fans of the New Pornographers, Pernice Brothers, Grandaddy and Sloan. Y'know, bands who don't shy away from a clear-as-a-bell melody, an irresistible hook or a generous tug on the heartstring, but who also flesh out their songs into more elaborate arrangements. Actually, Mr. Duke's voice reminds us quite a lot of Sloan's Chris Murphy, New Pornographers' Carl Newman or a young Elvis Costello. It's got an earnest emotiveness and boyish charm that we dig. Sweet backing vocal harmonies and warm keyboards soothe and smile their way around the comparatively snarlin' gritty electric guitar and occasional quirky synth lines. Scattered throughout the album are a few brief instrumental, soundscape-y and collaged interludes, offering some nice pauses for reflection. Recommended!
Psst, letting the cat out of the bag... even though there's fifteen tracks listed on the digipak, there is actually a generous nineteen including the abovementioned Beatles cover, some demos, and alternate versions.
Hurrah! William Duke has hand-delivered his latest album to our doorstep. You might recall our recent better-late-than-never review of his 2007 full length The Ghost That Would Not Be. Well, we're getting properly up to date now with this, his follow-up to that wonderful debut, and y'know what? It's just as delightful. Carrying on in similar fashion, The Sunrise and the Night is a pop lover's dream. Such a perfect soundtrack to these late summer eves... or really any time you're feeling in a particularly wistful, reflective mood. His songwriting has a luster that echoes the finely crafted west coast rock pop of the '70s. On the surface it initially seems all breezy and honey sweet, but there's a subtle darker melancholic core. The whole album is lovely and downright swoonsome, but standout track "The Canyon" is its crowning jewel, a solid yearning yank on your heartstrings. Duke sings with an earnest, drowsy delivery which fits nicely against the instrumental backdrop, a glistening balance of acoustic guitar and synths that brings to mind Sparklehorse or Grandaddy. Interspersed with the vocal numbers are a handful of plush instrumentals. Recommended!
One of two new blasts of "True Sheffield Black Psychedelia" from one of our favorite labels, UK weirdo sound stronghold Frequency 13, the True Sheffield Black Psychedelia descriptor covering a whole lot of sonic territory, from groups as varied as Black Vomit (whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), Ice Bound Majesty, Rape Rack, Skultroll, not to mention these guys right here, Dukkha, whose latest, the awesomely titled Grim Disco, is a single, 70 minute sprawl, that merges Butthole Surfers like atonal guitar melodies, with thick swaths of churning low-end, and looped propulsive programmed rhythms, into something heavy, hypnotic and WAY tripped out.
A dirgey, murky, krauty groove, submerged in a sea of chug and buzz and crunch, wound up with all manner of spidery melodies, the 'riff's a sort of blurred black metal, tangled up with something much dirgier and noise rockier, the sound slipping from caustic distorted buzz to weirdly tranced out cyclical churn, but that's only the first 6 or so minutes, the rhythmic pound and chug fading out into a cloud of glitched out digital shimmer, a bit like Oval, hazy and hypnotic, before splintering into something much more ominous, a whirling cinematic stretch of buzzing epic synthscapery, all soaring low end buzz and haunting majestic melody, thick and lush and layered, seriously dark and creepy, before it too fades out, this time into a field of glitch and glimmer, which gives way to some Melvins-y detuned dirge-y pound, the guitars gradually growing more and more chaotic, streaks of feedback, shards of fragmented riffage, moaning melodies, jagged atonal crunch, swirling low end murk, all wound around some tribal rhythmic pound, a doomy, downtuned final sludgey, weirdly groovy coda.
Killer stuff, as always. CRAZY LIMITED too, ONLY 40 COPIES!! we got 20 of those, which are bound to go fast...
The return of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!!
A few lists back we listed two discs of mysterious blackened post rock ambient epic weirdness, one from a band called Skultroll, the other from a group called Ice Bound Majesty, both offering up tangled sounds not easily to pin down. The hypno krautrock of Circle, the dirgey black doom of Bunkur, mixed with epic space prog, damaged drones, and whatever the fuck else those weirdos could cram in.
So as we continue to fly through copies of both, it seemed like maybe it was time to dig deeper into this bizarre black scene of freaky fucked up musical madness, dubbed by these outfits True Sheffield Black Psychedelia, and needless to say, it is indeed black, most definitely psychedelic and oddly enough, also from Sheffield!
So this time around we picked up a split, two more mysterious Sheffield combos, Dukkha, and the appetizingly named Black Vomit.
The odd tracks are Black Vomit, three long ones, culminating with a nearly 20 minute closer. But what the heck does Black Vomit sound like? Not as black as you might think. The opening track is a gorgeous drum heavy krautjam, the drums plugging along, with little double kick drum flourishes, relentless and motorik, as a huge warm washed out black cloud of swirling fuzz and hissy shimmer drifts in, a bit like Tim Hecker, dense and layered and constantly shifting, thickening as the song progresses, shot through with streaks of feedback and speaker rattling low end pulses, little flurries of effects and grinding industrial whir, sounds like a dronemetal Necks or a way more blessed out and dreamy Pharaoh Overlord. The second Black Vomit track, clocking in at nearly eleven minutes, is a much blacker beats, the middle portion a chaotic psychedronemetal freakout, the drums a blurry blast, the guitars tangled and angular, all wrapped up in a throbbing low end buzz, eventually mellowing out and stretching out into a hissy buzz drenched static drone, beneath which the sounds of frogs and crickets, bits of TV or radio broadcasts, a drifting barely there bit of simple guitar strum, super intense and creepy and cinematic. The final track, The Black Vomit's closer, a bruising 19 minute jam is a long form ambient sprawl, beginning with some epic tribal drumming, some industrial clatter, and thick corrosive drones, before the drums drop out leaving just the low end to drift and throb, swell and shift, a gorgeous dreamy thrum, until the drums kick back in near the end, finishing off with a flurry of mathy chaos, the drones and buzz building in tandem, a corrosive final moments prog psych blowout.
Then there's Dukkha, who sound like Black Vomit's kissing cousins. Their opener is nearly 23 minutes long, and is a loping post rock dirge, the drums a simple pound, the bass looping and loping in the background, the guitar in thick sheets buzzing dronelike, and occasionally locking into weirdly groovy stoner jams and then unwinding again into static sheets, the vocals a demonic distant wail, the riffs surfacing and locking into endless loops and super hypnotic hypno metal jams, like a crusty black metal Gore. The second track sounds like the first one, with the drums pulled out, the whole thing dipped in a bucket of busted effects pedals, and dumped over a wall of feeding back amplifiers. Maybe the 'dub' version of the first track, a Dense cloud of fucked up electronics, jagged melodic fragments, freaked out FX, and massive groaning walls of crumbling ultra distorted slow motion riffing.
Fucking awesome. Black enough for the true grim kvlt, but rhythmic enough to appeal to folks who dig Circle, This Heat, Aluk Todolo and the like and who aren't averse to something equally rhythmic, but way more blackened and brutal.
Although the aQ site doesn't necessarily reflect it, we were HUGE fans of Cincinnati rockers the Afghan Whigs. The unfortunate thing about the list and our site, is we started posting reviews about 11 years ago, so many of our favorite records that were released before then haven't made it on to the site, or have with barely any review, or sometimes with no review at all. We each have huge lists of records we want to get reviewed and up on the site, because while a record may have been one of -our- all time favorites, there's probably loads of people who haven't heard it and NEED to. BUT, there's so much goshdang new music all the time, that it makes it really tough to go back and start reviewing records that came out almost twenty years ago. Anyway, way near the top of that list are the early records from the Afghan Whigs. 1990's Up In it is a gorgeously ramshackle jangly grunge, shot through with all sorts of existential angst and sexual confusion. The follow up, 1992's Congregation was more of the same, but darker and a bit more moody and sultry. Finally, Gentlemen, released in 1993, one of the greatest and most disturbing slabs of dark and moody, sexed up mope rock EVER. The first hints of AW frontman Greg Dulli's newfound obsession with soul music found it's way into the Whigs' angular garage jangle on that disc, but it was subtle enough that it just managed to infuse the music with a sexiness not found in most indie rock. Two more records followed, both pretty lackluster until the band decided to hang it up.
Dulli resurfaced a few years back with his new band the Twilight Singers, a very Whigs sounding outfit, who sort of took up where Gentlemen left off, which needless to say was exactly what we were waiting for. Moody and melancholy, creepy and haunting, like an American indie rock version of Arab Strap, lots of guitar jangle, rhythmic shuffle and seriously fucked up tales of sexual conquest and sexual dysfunction laid bare. Those records were so good it had us re-listening to all our old Whigs records and wanting to review them more than ever, and then suddenly we received this Greg Dulli record, Amber Headlights. We thought it was a new solo record, when in fact what it was actually, was a shelved recording from way back in 2001, recorded right after the end of the Afghan Whigs and right before the birth of the Twilight Singers. Thankfully, while sonically it does sound a bit like those last two Whigs record, it mostly sounds like a new band channelling the spirit of Gentlemen with a heaping dose of Up In it. Hard to explain -that- sound, the sort of ineffable thing we liked so much about prime Whigs, and what we like so much about Amber Headlights, big drums that sometimes shift into jazzy shuffles, jangly brittle high end guitars, supported by thick washes of downtuned chords, huge dizzying swirls of melody and guitar freak out. Sometimes it sounds like there are 3 or 4 guitars all tangled up and wrestling, sweaty and naked and flushed, those burst of impassioned psych-swirl is balanced by lots of gorgeous background harmony vocals. And then there's Dulli's voice, a reedy, plaintive wail, that soars and croons, the perfect vessel for his inner turmoil, full of anguish and passion. And the songs are so weirdly emotional and dramatic. A certain something we only hear in Dulli's songs, specific melodies, certain hooks, that make you feel so sad, and so depressed, and just so creeped out. So strangely moving. It's like a musical Rear Window. The ultra personal becoming public. Watching other folks' lives implode, passions flaming out, new loves born, violence perpetrated, primal urges explored, love, hate, loneliness, all rendered in killer slabs of super emotional indie slash and scrawl. So good.
The Dum Dum Girls' amazing debut, I Will Be, is still getting lots of play around here and is certainly one of this year's favorites for sure. Now we have the second single to come from the record, the smokin' second track, "Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout", a Ramones-meets-The Ronettes feast of garage-y girl group energy. But folks might more be into the B-side, the oft-covered Misfits song, "Last Caress", a perfect sixties sounding pop song with some seriously fucked up lyrics: "I got something to say/ I killed your baby today/ And it doesn't matter much to me/ As long as it's dead", which seem totally at odds with the lilting fuzz drenched melodic garage pop they're buried in, but that's precisely why it works. Yeah!
Latest from these aQ beloved fuzz poppers, and with every record, they seem to move further and further away from the fuzzy, scrappy girl group worshipping garage pop stomp we initially fell in love with. And while we still dig those old records, this new one continues the group's progression toward something much more polished and refined. Vestiges of that original sound still abound, but here those elements are part of something more grand, a lushly produced jangle pop epic, that's soaring, majestic, the opener "Mine Tonight" begins all brooding and stripped down, but soon blossoms into a lush, full blown chorus that sounds almost M83-ish, the perfect balance to the bass driven minimal verses. The bass heavy, low slung minimalism drives much of End Of Daze, "I Got Nothing" is all bass and drums, the vocals drifting over shuffling drums and a woozy bassline, with a super hooky vocal melody, before crunchy guitars swoop in, and coalesce into some seriously perfect fuzz pop. The record continues to push past the jangle and crunch, like on "Trees And Flowers", a blissed out guitar drift cover of a Strawberry Switchblade tune, with some incredible vocals, even some synthy strings, suitably drifting into the retro eighties territory of M83, the sound here subtly gristy and staticky too, reverby and softly echo drenched.
The last two tracks split the difference, the first spacious and girl group-y, all hazy and washed out, with some strange production, adding a bit of texture and grit, and finally, "Season In Hell", which is the most eighties sounding of the bunch, reminding us of something we might hear on Sacred Bones or Captured Tracks, but they make it their own, and it suits them. Fans of the older, fuzzier jams might be a bit disappointed, but odds are you've been along for the ride anyway, and have dug DDG's progression from ramshackle garage pop combo to lush, retro jangle popsmiths, in which case you'll probably dig these new songs as much as we do.
A quick four song follow up ep to the I Will Be full length that was a huge hit around here, and if anything, He Gets Me High is even better. The production is lush and polished, and the songs, best yet we think. "Wrong Feels Right" has a brooding bass heavy intro with dense tribal toms, that reminds us of Icicle Works actually, before launching into something more shimmery and reverby and jangly, hooks galore, and a lush, heavy, almost shoegazey chorus, not to mention some gorgeous hazy lead guitar. "He Gets Me High" then ups the ante, super crunchy distorted guitar, a groovy garagey stomp, all beneath lush multitracked vocals, everything still reverby, but here the guitars make it sounds like Spacemen 3 or something, a pretty bad ass combo or sure.
"Take Care Of My Baby" is a smoldering ballad, and sounds more like the DDG of old, the guitars wreathed in thick reverb, the vocals smokey and sultry, the sound like some sixties girl group B side, minor key and moody, and another to-die-for hook and an oh so classic chorus. And as if that wasn't enough, they cover the Smiths' "There is A Light That Never Goes Out", and they own it, sounding a bit like a meaner Best Coast, the song is obviously fantastic already, but the Dum Dum Girls makeover turns it into something even more intense, the verses so broody and dark, but then that chorus, soaring and catchy and so perfect.
We've been playing these songs to death, over and over, mix tape manna for sure, and most definitely has us chomping at the bit for a new full length!
We fell in love with the Dum Dum Girls at first listen, back when we heard their self titled 12" from a year ago, it was this awesome blown out girl group inspired garage pop that just totally satisfied. With their/her jump to Sub Pop they have cleaned up their sound a bit, but oh my god we think it's totally for the best. When it comes down to it, the songs have to stand up for themselves. You can pour all the reverb and lo-fi glory on top of your music but if that's all you got it's going to get old and tired pretty quick. Luckily that's not all Dum Dum Girls are about. I Will Be shows that what they are about is totally heartfelt, addictive and impactful songs. But don't worry, it's not like its gotten all slick or smoothed out, it's still totally immediate, rocking, punchy, sassy and also so sincere.
Dee Dee (who as it turns out is pretty much the fiery force behind Dum Dum Girls) recorded all these songs at home and then sent them to the legendary producer and hit maker Richard Gottehrer, whose resume is pretty damn drool worthy. In the '60s he wrote totally amazing songs that have become party of our cultural landscape like "I Want Candy" and "My Boyfriend's Back", and in the '70s he went on to produce the debut records by both Blondie and The Go-Go's as well as being a cofounder of Sire records (home of The Ramones, Talking Heads, The Dead Boys, etc.). So awesome to see how this collaboration turned out so damn perfect. Gottehrer knew it wasn't his job to sugarcoat or generically polish the Dum Dum Girls songs, but instead he did use his wisdom to help them jump out with so much vibrancy and color.
While his contribution can't be overlooked, it's still all about Dee Dee's songs and charisma. Whether she's totally rocking out, or melting hearts with her cover of Sonny & Cher's "Baby Don't Go", there's an authenticity and unhinged passion that can't be denied. She's also so smart and economic about her songs, no fat, no wasted notes, just the good stuff. The album is over before you know it but it works out just fine because all you're going to want to do is play it right over again. This one is going to be a strong candidate for record of the year!
In anticipation of their Sub Pop debut, our current favorite fuzz-inflected girl group unleash this monster single. "Jail La La" sees the girls riffing on New Order's "Age of Consent" through a much lower-fi but still boisterous exotica a la Stereolab's "Cybele's Reverie". A pop stunner that we'll be playing repeatedly for sure! The B-side flips the coin in tempo and mood offering a slow-motion burn version of The Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire".
Sure, it's an oft-covered song, but in the Dum Dum Girls' capable hands, it's a girl group dirge that cuts so deep. Killer!
It's amazing what a producer can do for a band. The first single on Captured Tracks found the Dum Dum Girls '60s girl-group pop tunes buried beneath an overblown spring-reverb fuzz that instantly offered comparisons to the Jesus & Mary Chain. In collaborating with the Blank Dogs as the Mayfair Set, Dee Dee of the Dum Dum Girls found herself swimming in that weird soup of off-kilter post-punk murk. Here and elsewhere, Dee Dee has always been an exceptional songwriter, penning great vocal melodies around simple jangles and garage-pop rhythms, but steadily the production of her work has been lifting the fuzz, the noise, and the distortion, allowing those pop-songs to shine through. As on the first record, Dee Dee worked with Richard Gottehrer on Only In Dreams, the man who produced Blondie and The Go-Gos back in the day. Only In Dreams finds the Dum Dum Girls embracing cleaner tones to pretty much everything, with Dee Dee's vocals striking more than a few similarities to Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, and the guitars being all bright in their jubilant jangliness and whose three-chord rock arrangements showcase plenty of influence from Johnny Marr's inventiveness back in The Smiths. No matter how you slice it, the Dum Dum Girls manage to always create fantastically catchy bubblegum pop - noisy or otherwise.
The fuzzy, lo-fi, garage pop of the Dum Dum Girls has gradually been drifting toward something more polished and poppy, arriving finally here, with Too True, an album which has essentially shed all of that jangly buzz and urgent garage-y crunch for a shimmery, surprisingly commercial dream pop, that at times sounds bit like newer Best Coast, but with a decidedly gothy, new wave-y bent. Just check out the opener, which is all low slung, and gorgeously gloomy, laced with spidery guitar melodies, some fuzzy twang, so, the drums sounding like they were lifted right out of some eighties MTV new wave classic, all reverbed and echoey, and then about halfway through, big guitars come in, the sound gets crunchier, and more rocking, but only briefly, before slipping back into a gothy groove, replete with handclaps, and shimmery, hazy vocal harmonies. To be fair, it's not all that removed from the early sound, and one could argue this is the sound they were shooting for all along, but were limited by experience, budget, etc. That said, this is a whole different beast, but not at all an unappealing one. It's not difficult to see this record being the one that gets the Dum Dum Girls the kind of mainstream attention currently heaped on Best Coast, and heck, it would be well deserved. Fantastically catchy, perfectly crafted, new wave-y jangle pop, Dee Dee Dum Dum sounding more like Chrissy Amphlett from the Divinyls than ever! The sound just retro enough to push all your eighties new wave MTV buttons, but shiny and modern enough to sound fresh and new. And while hints of the old Dum Dum Girls sound surfaces throughout, we're actually digging the new sound, and tracks like "Lost Boys & Girls Club", which finds the band adding programmed beats, and crafting cool anthemic gloom pop gems, that we find ourselves liking more with every listen!
'Tis the season of fuzzed out greatness! We gotta say we love the recent movement of way lo-fi and blown out garage pop being pumped out by the likes of Wavves, Crystal Stilts, Blank Dogs, Vivian Girls, etc. Now we can add Dum Dum Girls to that rad list of bands, as this 12" has become permanently affixed to our turntable. With pop chops that rival the great Pains Of Being Pure At Heart but with a much more fuzzed out and dirty disposition this is totally hitting the spot! Like someone locked The Aislers Set in a garage and ruined all their equipment and thus they were forced to record on the shittiest gear possible but ended up with the most amazing results. We're also reminded of a much underrated Slumberland band of the past, Black Tambourine. With such a keen sense of melody underneath the fuzz, and a seriously in-the-red production also brings to mind some of the more raw and rocking moments of Yo La Tengo. As the musical world around us seems to get more slick and savvy it's kind of nice to be reminded that sometimes sounds that are raw and primitive and rudimentary are the ones capable of making the biggest impact.
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Dump is, as he so clearly tongue in cheekly states in the first song, a One Man Band. Namely James McNew who also holds down bass duties in Yo La Tengo. McNew has been making solo records and singles as Dump for years now. This is basic bedroom indie rock, with McNew's bright tenor, just a bit fragile, just a bit steel, hovering over the sweet guitars and hummable melodies. As with most bedroom projects, there's drum machine, but it's thankfully not annoying. It's used in a deliberately lo-fi way similar to Tall Dwarfs' cobbled together appeal. A possible drawback of the album is that his choice of covers is so good! That's not a bad thing, in fact it makes for a much more interesting album as a whole, but I have to admit found myself listening to the Thin Lizzy and Gerald Levert covers over and over, which takes away just a bit from the pretty originals.
Cover art by the Sea and Cake's Archer Prewitt!!!
MPEG Download: "Sisters" [/audio/dumpsisters.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Sisters" [/audio/dumpsisters.m3u]
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Eagerly-awaited new cd from Yo La Tengo bass player James McNew. Thoughtfully-written pop songs, not nearly as dense as YLT.
The Dump reissue campaign continues! Dump being the one man 4-track bedroom indie rock solo project of James McNew of Yo La Tengo. A few lists back we reviewed Dump's debut, 1993's Superpowerless, a deliriously dreamy collection of indie pop gems, super catchy originals and unlikely covers, all delivered in McNew's warbly croon, the sound varying dramatically from fuzzy jangle to distorted crunch, hushed balladic shimmer to plaintive twee pop, but all of pretty goddamn great. So two years later, and it seems very little has changed in the musical mind (or bedroom recording studio) of McNew, with Dump record number two, 1995's I Can Hear Music, which strikes a similar balance between, sad boy, home brewed, Sentridoh style bedroom minimalism, and some surprisingly ambitious full band blowouts. The opening two tracks here display that perfectly. Warbly, woozy opener "Slow Down", all simple skeletal drum beats, acoustic guitar strum, and sweetly crooned vocals, not to mention all sorts of warble and tape drop out, the result a subtly catchy, super personal chunk dreamy and catchy indie pop, which leads directly into "Jury Duty", which opens with a squall of feedback, and soon explodes into some fuzzed out shoegazey noise rock, which seems a bit too rocking and noisy to have been bedroom recorded, and yet, it still retains much of the vibe that defines the rest of the more intimate tracks. And again, it's pretty goddamn catchy!
And so it goes, McNew whipping up another sweet batch of covers, our favorite maybe being his version of Ultravox's "Vienna" which is SUCH a great song to begin with, that even in its stripped down lo-fi form, it manages to be so haunting and moving and goddamn great! Elsewhere McNew tackles jams by Tuli Kupferberg, Bob Dylan, Fish And Roses, Refrigerator, Half Japanese, Mayo Thompson and the Beach Boys (the title track). And in between all those covers, a clutch of originals that more than hold up along side the covers, in fact, like on the first record, if you weren't familiar with the originals, the covers here easily could be McNew originals, which definitely speaks to not only his musical influences, but his knack for songwriting and lo-fi popsmithery.
"Invisible" is a hazy, washed out softly psychedelic slowcore ballad, "Liberty Spikes" is distorted Dinosaur Jr / Teenage Fanclub style fuzzed out indie rock, "Beyond The Door" is a gorgeous slab of 4-track bedroom folk, "Never Comes" is a dark brooder, organ driven, laced with primitive Casio drum machine rhythms, the vocals a hushed croon, droney and dreamy, and we could go on and on and on. Needless to say, fans of classic indie rock/pop and lo-fi 4-track bedroom jams, it doesn't get a whole lot better than this. And obviously Yo La Tengo fans will find much to dig here too.
This new deluxe version includes a ton of extra tracks (included as a second bonus disc with the cd), and a massive booklet, with new liner notes from McNew, as well as rare photos and drawings, and the original notes from the original release, not to mention hilarious illustrations of McNew's pedal set up, the usual distortion and delay pedals replaced with pedals like Boo Hoo, Mood Ruiner, Frequency Ignorer and Oops. Awesome.
Finally, after decades of being out of print and unavailable, the debut solo record from Dump is available again. Dump for those who don't know (or don't remember), was the bedroom 4-track solo project of none other than James McNew, bass player for indie icons Yo La Tengo. And back in the day, as in 20 years ago, Dump pushed all those buttons we couldn't seem to get pushed enough. Dump was like a less purposefully frustrating Sebadoh, sure quirkiness abounds, as do sonic experiments, and unlikely covers (Wreckless Erik, Sun Ra, Henry Mancini, Silver Apples, NRBQ), but at its core, Dump was fundamentally, heart on sleeve, home brewed indie pop, that indie pop sound varying dramatically throughout, from hushed folkiness, to rambunctious distorted fuzzy noise pop, to near metallic chugs, a few tracks are dead ringers for modern sounds (check out the impossibly Pinback like "Good Medicine", Pinback, twenty years before there WAS a Pinback), some not so modern, like "So Sedimentary", a track from a cartoon made by Georgia Hubley of YLT's parents, which just so happened to be composed by a young Quincy Jones! And others, like McNew's reinterpretation of a Shaggs classic, ostensibly not a cover, but deftly capturing the naivete of the original, and recasting at something that sounds like it could be a Dump song proper. Which is really the magic of McNew's Dump, if you didn't know the covers WERE covers, you'd think they were written by McNew himself, which speaks to a deft songwriting pen, and the collection as a whole, recorded in various locations, and of varying sound quality, over the course of several years, is often derided for being so all over the place, and yet, to these ears, it's the sort of early nineties patchwork style bedroom pop that we never get tired of. And considering this stuff is twenty years old, it sounds pretty great even today.
It's hard to pick favorites, and hard to resist going through the whole record track by track, but "So Sedimentary" the above mentioned cover, sounds like some lost sixties psychedelic gem, "Secret Blood" is total classic nineties indie rock, right down to the distorted noise poppy chorus, and McNew's strained sad boy vox. The Sun Ra cover is cool too, and again, if you weren't familiar with Sun Ra, it definitely sounds like a Dump original, albeit a pretty weird one. "The Sea Wall" is fuzzy and shoegazey, and Dump's cover of "Moon River" is pretty divine. "19 1/2" is the 'heavy' track here, all distorted dirgey riffage and squealing feedback, pounding drums and some rad psychedelic shred, "Pennies From Heaven" melds buzzy distorto guitars to lilting fuzzy indie pop, while Jaundice IS in fact a Sebadoh cover, and definitely points to the sonic connection, and finally, "Bus-Kicker's Theme" is fuzzy and playful, like the theme song to some alternate universe children's TV show. And that's really just scratching the surface.
This new reissue tacks on a bunch of bonus material, songs from comps, and collections, and an early ep, there's also expanded artwork and new liner notes, lots of photos too, odds are, even if you already own Superpowerless, and love it as much as we did and do, you're probably gonna want this new version for the extra stuff. And if you've yet to discover Dump, you're in for a treat!
Dump is the longtime solo project of James McNew (bassist w/Yo La Tengo). Tackling a heap of Prince songs in his own special way means loading them all into his super-sweet lo-fi machine and setting it to "stun." This cd is a reissue of a cassette (released a
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In which James McNew, bassist for Yo La Tengo and a fantastic songwriter in his own right, makes sloppy lo-fi pop variants of your favorite Prince songs. All hail the return of the Shrimper Casssette format. And now it's time to party like I've heard it for the thousandth time...
The latest collection of naive lo-fi pop experimentation from James McNew who also spends his time as the bassist for Yo La Tengo.
...not to be confused with the band called Herman Dune (which of course gets filed under 'H'). That group also happens to feature this fellow Mr. David Ivar Herman Dune (who gets filed under 'D'). Have I just confused things more???
Latest chunk of gloriously murky reverbed dark pop jangle from this LA trio, this one produced by Bobb Bruno of Best Coast, who knows a thing or two about reverb and echo, and helps Dunes swath their sound in as much as possible. A somewhat misleadingly dark and brooding intro gives way to something much more sunshiney and jangly, although that initial vibe runs throughout, with low slung Joy Division-y basslines, and washed out minor key guitars, that drift hauntingly but always eventually blossom into lush reverbed swirls of jangle pop.
The second track offers up more of that new wave-y bass, underpinning spidery echo drenched guitars and angelic vocal harmonies, like a more slowed down broody version of the opening track. The flipside, "Dream House" is in fact dreamy, but also dirgey and murky, the guitars muted, the rhythm softly propulsive, a little tribal, the bass fuzzy and distorted. The second half of the track shifts gears, and the sound transforms into something that sounds almost like African high life, with syncopated percussion and rhythmic vocal counterpoint, really cool.
Definitely for fans of Grass Widow, Best Coast, Brilliant Colors, Pens, Dum Dum Girls, and similarly reveby pop outfits...
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Another batch of new releases from perpetually hyped vinyl label Mexican Summer, this one, the debut (?) from a band called Dunes, definitely travels a sonic path similar to many of their labelmates, but they do manage to twist the sound up into something a bit more their own. That said, if you dug all or most of the Mexican Summer releases so far: Kurt Vile, Pearl Harbor, Valet, Campfires, Woodsman, Washed Out, Weekend, Wooden Shjips, then this will most definitely be right up your alley.
It only takes a few seconds before your swept away by Dunes' murky retro pop, the first track super lo-fi, washed out and hazy, gloomy and haunting, liquid guitars shimmering in blacks and greys, heavily reverbed and distorted vocals, even at 45, this still sounds almost like it's at the wrong speed, ghostly and warped and warbly. The rest of the record though is not so dark and mysterious, in fact much of it sounds a bit like a more post punk Cocteau Twins, simple drumming, Joy Division-y basslines, guitars wreathed in effects, the vibe ethereal and atmospheric, the vocals slipping from abstract croon, to yelped and distorted. There's definitely a heavy sixties girl group feel, as is all the rave these days, but Dunes makes it more skeletal and spectral, occasionally transforming into something more dense and noisy and ramshackle, although it always seems to slip back into the glorious gloom.
The vocals are also quite reminiscent of Siouxsie, which then makes the Dunes sounds bit like a more jangly lo-fi garage rock post punk Zola Jesus, which is not a bad thing at all. The record finishes off much how it started, with another sprawl of muddy, blurred, ghostly low fidelity drift, a soft sonic crawl laced with scraped guitars and abstract percussion, distant barely there vocals, clouds of crystalline shimmer, and a gorgeous slow motion drone out ending.
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In the last few years Dungen have gone from being a mysterious underground Swedish psych sensation to one of the most beloved bands in the indie music landscape. With 4 they prove they deserve all the acclaim and recognition that's come their way as they continue to evolve and expand their sonic horizons in such pleasing ways. It's not always how hard you hit but instead what kind of magic you can create with sound, thus this is probably the least rock sounding record Dungen have made, and we think the lush arrangements and warm texture suits them perfectly. While this could still pass for some lost gem from the Scandinavian psych underground of the early '70s there is something so unique and distinctive about their sound. They are one of those bands that after hearing only several seconds, their signature sound is already evident. But unlike folks such as Clinic who also have a sound we like but continue to make the same record over and over, Dungen have proven to be imaginative and skilled songwriters who move forward with each release, while remaining the Dungen we know and love. It's almost like they've been listening intently to the more nuanced and atmospheric psychedelic reissues from Ennio Morricone we've seen lately. Along with the new record by The Alps reviewed last list, this Dungen is more exciting evidence that that folks are still finding fresh (also lush and gorgeous) ways to enter a psychedelic state of mind. So great!
NOW LISTING THE VINYL...
It's been a long five years waiting for a new album by Swedish pop-psychsters, Dungen, but boy has the wait been worth it. Allas Sak doesn't see the band forging new territory, and really who would want that as they don't sound like any other contemporary band out there anyway. Instead, they expand upon the sonic palette they have forged over seven albums, but with a deeper concentration on nuance, instrumentation and song-writing. Flutes, horns, piano, vibraphones, congos have a more focused integration into the overall sound making this one of the richest sounding recordings the band has made. Done so without losing the signature drum sounds and psych guitar flourishes that have defined the band since the beginning, nor have they lost sight of the vintage global psych influence of fellow Swedes, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Pugh Rogefeldt and Turkish acoustic psych pioneers Mogollar. So great!
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SORRY.
Ready to space out and drift off into a Swedish psychedelic never-never land?? Well if you are, Dungen is back and will take you there. The sixth album from these Scandinavian faves delivers the usual Dungen goodies. 10 new tracks, some proggier, some soft-rockier, some straight-up poppier than others, all quite nice! Oh and let's not forget the searing psych guitar freakouts like the one that erupts in track 5, "Hogdalstoppen". So fans of Dungen will be pleased - and at this point we'd like to assume you all are already familiar with Dungen, and thus most likely fans... which means we can reduce redundancy review-wise by simply saying, yeah, get this, you'd like it! Dungen don't go in any strange new directions here, it's just more of what we dig about 'em, though perhaps compared to their previous album 4 (which was their fifth, oddly enough) they return a bit to "the rock" from where they were on that one. Certainly Dungen can make the loveliest of lovely music when they wanna, or indulge in urgent rhythms and bursts of distorted guitar jangle. And all of it is carefully arranged, everything in its place, even when they're doing the freakout thing. Somehow they have the ability, in the all-instrumental first track for example, to be both blissed out and kick up a garagey ruckus at the same time. Elsewhere, the bliss out is nothin' but, with gentle female vocals, strings, and handclaps keeping the beat.
Listening to this, for the first time we realized that Dungen reminds us a bit of XTC side project The Dukes Of Stratosphear; it's partly mainman Gustav Ejstes' voice (even in Swedish), partly his pop smarts, and of course partly Dungen's fantastical, effortless retroishness... but at this point maybe we can say that Dungen have moved from "retro" category into the one designated "timeless"!
NB. domestic vinyl out 10.5.10, cheaper than the import vinyl on Subliminal Sounds...
