The lo-fi, garagey, psychedelic "Zam Rock" scene that flourished in the southern African nation of Zambia during the mid '70s is now getting some long overdue exposure and appreciation over here, thanks to a bunch of recent reissues: Chrissy Zebby Tembo, Ngozi Family, Witch (highlighted last list) and now, also the lesser known but no less amazing Amanaz! Like Witch its reissue was facilitated by Egon of Stones Throw, who also wrote the liner notes, which make us realize how lucky we are to have these reissues, 'cause the original Zambian LPs are super rare and, Egon says, usually in about the same poor condition as an experienced frisbee. He also helps explain the genesis of the Zam Rock movement, suggesting that Zambia's Socialist government required a preponderance of "Zambian" content on the radio. Apparently the gov't also mandated a high fuzz content as well!
The Amanaz album, from 1975, certainly fulfills that quota, though at first listen we thought that maybe this one was mellower than some of the others like Witch, and parts if it are, in a stoned sorta way, and it's also somewhat more "African" sounding as befits its title, in its rhythms and vocal stylings, with some of the singing doing in the Bembe tongue, though most songs are in English. But still there's quite a supply of heavy fuzz here, with the likes of "History Of Man" being plenty brutal in that dep't. for sure!
And man is it beautiful, full of lovely, lovely grooves in a warm bath of lo-fi hiss and hum, maybe not as gritty as Witch and Ngozi but still gritty enough, and maybe even more memorably groov'd. There's fully a dozen songs here and it's hard to pick highlights, we dig 'em all, somehow so fuzzy yet so gentle, well, not always gentle, like how the otherwise laidback "Nsunka Lwendo" includes a phenomenally LOUD and PIERCING guitar solo, that wanders back and forth from left channel to the right channel, looking for a way to crack into your skull. Meanwhile the sizzling, syncopated "Green Apple" throbs with what almost sounds like a buried Geezer Butler bass line, and the exuberant "Making The Scene" features a part that we swear appears on a Witchcraft album, or close to anyway! Wow. More proof Zam Rock RULES. Recommended!
Leave Out The Sad Parts is the new cdep from this Swedish foursome who briefly went by the less fitting moniker Wichita Linemen. This U.S.-only release includes one song ("Firefly") from their fine debut album, 2005's This is Where Our Hearts Collide and two tunes previously only available on a UK 7". Amandine's sound is perhaps most characterized by the vocals of Olof Gidlof. He has one of those voices of which it's difficult to discern the gender. We believed it to be a female singer until we checked the band lineup. It sounds as though the weight of the world is preventing him from raising his voice beyond a low, muted register. Some of us thought this was quite reminiscent of '70s heavy hearts such as Bread. It's a disarmingly warm, melancholic assembly of piano, guitar, bass and drums accompanied by accordion, theremin, banjo and trumpet. The final song "Between What He's Saying And What He Regrets" is graced with some suitably sleepy fiddle... a definite highlight!
After their terrific Leave Out The Sad Parts cdep came out (now quite some time ago), we were left oh so eagerly anticipating the domestic release of this Swedish band's debut full length (which came out overseas in 2005). We waited and waited and waited. The sun came up the sun went down, seasons changed... but no Amandine album surfaced... until now! So if you dug the ep, dig into more of their beautiful, dark country rock characterized by prominent strings and piano and the charmingly caramelized voice of Olof Gidlof. Wonderful!
One of five new tapes from the awesome Austin based experimental tape label, Holodeck. Largely documenting the growing and diverse Texas underground scene of synth conjurers, drone lords psych meditators, and classical folk devotionists, each tape conceived as a unique listening experience with beautifully designed minimalist packaging. We listed tapes by Lumens, Smokey Emery and Thousand Foot Whale Claw awhile back, and this time around we have another tape from Thousand Foot Whale Claw as well as tapes by Survive, M. Geddes Gengra, Silent Land Time Machine, and this one from the mysteriously monikered Amasa Gana.
Like Lumens, Amasa Gana features members from other groups from this fervent scene though we're not really sure which ones. Using a mixture of electronic and acoustic folk instruments, Amasa Gana make cosmic vibrational sky ragas in slow motion dramatic arcs that evoke the feel of aerial flight or freefalling. Spiraling drones like circular breathing with bowed textures, bird calls, and a cinematically intense pastoral quality that comes close to meditative industrial music. Reminding us of Brian Eno's Apollo record yet with harder deeper edges. Limited to 100 copies!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Always interesting Aussie experimentalist Oren Ambarchi has been impressing us a lot lately, what with the excellent Audience Of One album on Touch we recently reviewed, and now this, another new solo disc via Editions Mego, which is also pretty fantastic, and different. What's Sagittarian Domain all about? Well, our customer and pal Gregg pretty much put it best, summing this up simply as "Oren Ambarchi's krautrock album". 'Nuff said for some of us, gotta get it, right?
Oren is a one man band here, playing almost all the instruments. He's credited with guitars, Moog bass, drums, percussion, and voice. There's also a (processed?) string section of violin, viola and cello that makes some appearances as well. We're not sure about the genesis of this project, the sleeve states it was featured in some sort of stage production in Sydney. It it was for a dance, it was a long one; the disc is 33 minutes, 37 seconds minutes long, a single track. A single-minded track as well. "Sagittarian Domain" is a mesmeric exercise in the power of the "motorik" beat, as previously practiced by kosmiche krautrockers like Can, Faust, and Neu!. Ambarchi's role as drummer here comes first and foremost, his guitar and FX etc. then wandering darkly over the motorik beat, the track gradually building and morphing, always maintaining Teutonic discipline, controls set for the heart of the nearest black hole�
Press play, and a tick-tick-ticking pulse emerges from the nothingness, its steady stutter joined by sudden fly-bys of keening electronic feedback and creaky drone-glitch. Then, a few minutes in, proper atmosphere established, Ambarchi goes into machine-like action on his drum kit, raising the volume and adding more crucial elements to the ominous rhythmic foundation of the piece, which continues its pulsating slow-build, crackling with electricity. With his syncopated and propulsive beats doing their thing, you're on your way into a hypno-zone where time has no meaning, your head nodding, eyelids heavy. The track becomes ever more primal and insistent, even dangerously sensuous, in a way (try this: start making out with your romantic partner when this disc starts, and see where that leads�).
As it goes, and goes, and goes, it gets louder and heavier and noisier; the grinding droning of Ambarchi's guitar washes in waves over his non-stop rhythm. Krautrock fanciers who like the more extreme stuff will be in heaven. When the beat finally stops, that classical string section alone provides a gentle, soothing chill-out coda for a few lovely minutes at the very end. Damn good!! Which aQ pal Gregg also said.
Cd comes in gatefold mini-lp style jacket.
Reissue of the debut cd from this atmospheric local group, that uses classical chamber music instrumentation to create dark, beautiful sounds akin to a black metal Rachel's. Black metal? Well, this was originally released this by Elfenblut, an imprint of now defunct British label Misanthropy, famous as the home of Burzum! And, for further "heavy" credentials, we should mention that band leader Kris Force has played with both Neurosis and the Swans. This was previously only an import, and now boasts three bonus tracks exclusive to this new version!
First we've heard from local moody metallic chamber ensemble Amber Asylum in quite some time. Rumor is there have been label problems, but you'd never know it from this amazing self released 10" (other than it being, um, self released). Three brand new tracks that take Amber Asylum's gothic strings and vocals soun even further out, having now expanded their lineup to include former members of the Gault and SF black metal legends Weakling. The opening track is quite possibly the best thing we've heard from them, a brooding dramatic soundscape of intensely moody strings, and anguished melodies. Locked in by simple almost programmed sounding rhythms with haunting operatic vocals drifting ghostlike through the mix. Sounds a bit like Skepticism with a string section, and you know that is a very good thing. The second track heads into almost Goblin territory at points with super aggressive pizzicato strings, bows sawing away at the strings emitting truly ominous melodies. Side B clocks in at a little over 12 minutes, and is far more tranquil, an expansive, romantic epic, melancholic yet hopeful, with delicate crystalline piano figures, very subtle strings and sweetly plaintive vocals. So nice. Available only on limited edition 10" vinyl!
Esteemed chamber music goddess Kris Force returns with what is quite possibly her most stark compositions to date. She's joined by some of the Bay Area's finest and most beloved of the indie metal and rock community including John Cobbett (Hammers Of Misfortune, Ludicra), Jackie Perez-Gratz (Grayceon), Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, Concentrick), Lorraine Rath (The Gault), and Sarah Schaffer (The Gault, Weakling). Still Point begins with three songs that slowly drift in on droning strings (violin, viola and cello) and ghostly choral vocals. From there the gothic proceedings build gradually with the entrance of minimal piano, guitar, flute, trumpet and percussion. As always, absolutely haunting and stunningly gorgeous!
Fourth album from this popular local chamber-rock outfit. Somewhere between Dead Can Dance, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and In Extremo (the more RenFaire parts). Gothic atmospheres created with cello, violin, drums, and wispy female vocals. Mournful instrumental acoustic string-drone embellished with electronic effects: a beautiful, depressive sound. The album concludes with their surprisingly straightforward cello-metal version of "Black Sabbath" (complete with rain and thunder intro). That cover, which seemed so suitable, is a bit disappointing, but the rest of the disc is quite nice and mood-inducing.
It's been a while since we've heard from the Magik Markers, but the way we remember MM frontwoman Elisa Ambrogio is as some kind of wild whirling dervish, screeching and caterwauling, crawling into the crowd, a disheveled demonic presence and most certainly the main musical motivator behind MM's sloppy, chaotic noise rock. More recent MM records found the group drifting toward a more polished, almost poppy sound; but that sound remained plenty wild and dissonant, which makes Ambrogio's first solo record that much more of a surprise, just check out opener "Superstitious", which sounds like Best Coast, or the Dum Dum Girls, a hazy, softly swirling, psychedelic gloom pop torch song, rife with classic melodies, gorgeous vocals, echo drenched piano, a pulsing minimal rhythm. A darkly dreamy slab of minimal garage pop beholden to sixties girl groups way more than the noise rock that spawned the Magik Markers. And while at first we thought maybe that first song was an anomaly, steeling ourselves for the onslaught of noisy chaos, it never really comes. The Immoralist is a dark-psych pop confection all the way through. Woozy harmonies drift amidst skeletal arrangements, some fuzzy guitar glides weightless over plodding beats and moaning sinister strings. It's all wound up in a grainy, gauzy production, rife with dubbed out FX, reverb and echo, those FX sometimes billowing into clouds of granular distortion, but again, instead of making it noisier, it just adds even more of a lysergic vibe, the record unwinding languorously, a gloriously dreamy dark pop that will definitely appeal to fans of all the Girl bands (i.e. Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, U.S. Girls, Girls At Dawn), as well as other psychedelic dream pop combos like Beach House, Brilliant Colors, Best Coast, etc.
Awesome reissue of this seminal crust classic. Heavy and noisy and brilliant. Includes 2 bonus tracks!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
When we first got this in, we were convinced it was some reissued lost psychedelic gem from the sixties or seventies. From the blurry red and black cover, the dearth of information, and heck it's on Locust, a label well known for killer reissues. So we threw it on, and we were still convinced, although we were blown away by its raw feral blown out psychedelic poppiness. Were there really bands making this sort of inspired and drug fueled racket 30 or 40 years ago? Perhaps, but Amen Dunes wasn't one of them. No, Amen Dunes is apparently the work of one man, a guy called Damon McMahon, who spent an extended stretch holed up in his house in the Catskills (although apparently now, he's holed up in his new house, in CHINA!) channeling some serious demons, and creating a brain melting, warped and distorted, fucked up and freaked out psychedelic classic.
There are definitely hints of the new wave of noise rock, all that shit gaze stuff, and lo-fi garage, Eat Skull, Psychedelic Horseshit, Wavves, Oh Sees, etc, but Amen Dunes' sound is much more old school, going all the way back to drugged out sonic visionaries like Roky Erickson and George Brigman and the like.
Super distorted, everything doused in reverb and delay and distortion, the recording super lo-fi, tape hiss all over the place, murky and muddy, and gloriously fuggy, the vocals slipping from feral shriek, to swoonsome moan, to almost Beach Boys like croon, but even at their most melodic, they remain a bit off kilter, slightly ominous, the rantings of some inspired lunatic right on the edge. The music is rough and raw, but catchy as hell, guitars buzz and jangle, detuned into bizarre Eastern sounding modalities or whipped up into a frenzied squall of Hendrixian freakout. The bass is a huge part of the sound too, rubbery and warm, thick and undulating, sometimes just offering up a layer of deep rumble, other times creating some truly haunting melodic counterpoint. The drums are simple and sporadic, a shuffling pound, a minimal skitter, a loose rickety framework for the Dunes' constantly-on-the-verge-of-collapse echo drenched drone pop, a sort of chilled out Dead C vibe permeates the proceedings as well, a way more damaged and even more druggy Velvets vibe too, all of this shit through with some old timey folkiness, it's a bit of a hodge podge, but it works.
The fractured looped psych drone weirdness of "Fleshless Esta Mira Wife Of Spades" is followed by the almost countryish "Patagonian Domes", before the woozy atonal Supreme Dicks worship of "By The Bridal", with some serious shades of Neutral Milk Hotel (we kid you not).
The rest of the record is equally as tripped out and all over the place, while managing to sound like an actual record, not just a collection of songs. "White Lace" is a gorgeous chunk of softly strummed murk, with super catchy vocals, layers of hiss and buzz, and a smattering of strange electronics, "Castles" is total Laurel Canyon country folk, but infused with just a little more pathos, the vocals a super gorgeous, on the verge of cracking wail, the hand claps, shakers and simple strumming underpinned by a warm wheezing organ. A handful of the songs sound almost Beatles-esque, super classic jangly pop, just barely psychedelic, with the guitars subtly warped, but the killer hooks totally intact, and then the record closes with "Breaker", maybe one of the most moving and intense tracks on the record, the musical accompaniment, minimal, simple softly strummed guitar, and some soft organ shimmer, but the vocals, so impassioned and emotional, raw and way up front, melodic and intense, howling and wailing, with multiple voices multitracked into a gorgeous wavery, fractured two part harmony, that ends up sounding like some sort of outsider gospel music. Totally inspirational, mind blowing, rocking, catchy, darkly mysterious... Easily one of our favorite records of the year so far!!
This is one of those records that seems custom made for aQ. Outsider psychedelic folk troubador Amen Dunes covers three super obscure Ethiopian pop songs, and it's not just the concept that's so perfect, the execution too is incredible. The originals transformed into something much more psychedelic and tripped out, but not so much that they don't still sound like Ethiopian pop songs. The guitars are a bit more buzzy, wreathed in effects, the rhythms murky and buried in the mix, the vocals doused in reverb, a gorgeous soaring emotive trill, that to these ears sound like he really is singing in the language of the original (Amharic? Tigrinya?), loping and dreamy, some heartfelt dark balladry that somehow sounds even cooler all roughed up and psyched out. Imagine some obscure Ethiopiques comp with a focus on lo-fi seventies Ethiopian psychedelia. If only there was such a thing. But until there is, get lots in these three gorgeous jams.
SO recommended.
Previous records from Amen Dunes, aka Damon McMahon, have been twisted collections of avant outsider folk, the skeletal songsmithery balanced by an experimental streak a mile wide. Even the prettiest songs on those records were buried in sonic murk, and consequently, hushed, delicately strummed ballads were generally stretched way out into spacey sprawls of abstract sound and wreathed in musique concrete filigree. On Love, however, McMahon seems to have ditched much of that weirdness in favor of crafting some straight up, almost baroque sounding, extremely lush and lovely folk/pop, that on first listen was almost too straight ahead, but gradually, with repeated listens, revealed itself as something much more, a truly and subtly dark little gem. The almost orchestral opener "White Child" combines simple strummed guitars, and achingly crooned vocals, all over a lustrous, undulating backdrop of moaning horns and woozy strings. While at first blush, it seemed that there's much unabashed Dylan worship going on, the record quickly blossoms into something much more mysterious, the production reverby and echo drenched, McMahon's super distinctive vocals sounding better than ever, the music too, deceivingly simplistic sounding, but rich with subtle nuance, and lushly layered, a softly swirling morass of psychedelic shimmer, and slow crawl dream pop balladry, blurred into a subtly mutated strain of spaced out, haunting and otherworldly alternative universe psych folk drift.
When we first discovered the timeless otherworldly space drone psych folk of Amen Dunes, we couldn't shake the feeling that it had to be old, some lost psych holy grail. For all its fuzz and warble and crunch, it had this strange timeless quality, at once personal and intimate, as if, like many small private pressings, the actual pressing was just going through the motions, a sort of validation that meant very little to the creator, but for the listener, the fact that these sounds were captured, it was perhaps as important as the creation itself. We of course eventually accepted the fact that Amen Dunes was not in fact some strange guru-like mystic, white bearded and black robed, living in a cave somewhere (somewhere that just so happened to have recording capabilities of course) and was in fact, a young guy, a music maker, band dude, who just so happened to be able to channel the spirit of some lost time, be it the sixties, seventies, eighties... the sound of Amen Dunes, was, and is, a soft cacophony of jangle and buzz, laced with elements of raga and drone, folk and country, all woven into an idiosyncratic whole, that somehow sounds like all of those and none of those. Ever since that record, which of course we made a Record Of The Week, we had been dying for more.
With the release of Murder Dull Mind, the reason for no new recordings is made obvious, as the man behind Amen Dunes, Damon McMahon, was in fact living in China for the last few years, where this ep was recorded in his apartment. Mostly improvised, these songs manage to capture the same spirit as the debut, but definitely takes the Amen Dunes sound in a new, more hushed and intimate direction.
That sound is still ritualistic and psychedelic, beginning with a strange incantation, alien vocal harmonies, sounding a bit like a more ominous Beach Boys vocal track, wound around deep synth thrum and mysterious flickering electronics, before giving way to spare skeletal acoustic guitars, all reverby and hazy, wrapped in tangled psychedelic filigree, echo drenched vocals, and some soaring distorted and blown out choruses. It's like some sort of woozy Eastern tinged raga psych-folk, a bit like the first record, but more stripped down, occasionally abstract and buzzy, but just as often downright poppy. While elsewhere, simple snare drum skitter shuffles beneath urgently strummed steel string guitar, the sound almost Latin, way blown out vox, also suggestive of seventies acid folk. The A-side finishes off with a caustic noise jam, a swirling squall of chaotic psych guitar noise, buried voices and gnarled string buzz collide with buried percussive stutter and howling Haino-ish freakouts.
The B-side features 3 tracks of soft spacious almost country sounding reverby folk, strange vocals drift amidst hazy streaks of washed out sound, atmospheric and weirdly lush, very rainy day sounding (in fact, on one of the tracks, you can hear what almost sounds like rain in the background), the whole thing simple and stripped down, personal and emotional, yet still somehow subtly lysergic and psychedelic, a gorgeous intimate sonic missive, a fervent fever dream in sound. So good.
A super limited new release from Amen Dunes, aka Damon McMahon, released on his own Perfect Lives label, and limited to just 300 copies. And it's awesome, and awesomely weird, a sort of avant deconstructed take on the old Amen Dunes sound, the vibe is super dark, a sort of bedroom loner folk or maybe a demented mad scientist Appalachia, whatever it is, it's woozy and off kilter and deeply and darkly psychedelic.
Here's a track by track play by play: 1) Creepy droney murk drifts beneath drowsy piano, wreathed in psychedelic shimmer, distant chant like vocals hover above subtle little melodic trills, the whole thing sort of Caretakery. 2) Dreamy Spanish guitar draped over a woozy varispeed backdrop, a murky reverb drenched slo-mo Appalachia. 3) Weird musique concrete, looped sampled breathing, skittery effected percussion and growled vocalizations, hauntingly abstract. 4) Fuzz guitar over warped and warbly vocals, detuned melodies and churning rhythmic skitter, the whole thing dubbed out and druggy. 5) Eighties echoey drumbeats suspended over muddy vocal loops, tripped out and darkly psychedelic. 6) An ominous Jandekian dirge, thick distorted guitar, and an almost Elvis sounding croon. 7) A dreamy melodic coda that almost sounds like some obscure Christmas carol, albeit one thoroughly deconstructed, all shimmering high end, clouds of cymbal shimmer and free jazz drum splatter. 8) A weird, lonely piano lament, with alien speaking-in-tongues vocals, all tangled up into woozy nonsense, all set to a haunting plaintive piano. Cool, weird stuff.
And again, we have VERY limited copies, so if you want one, order quick before they're gone, cuz they'll probably go fast...
Newest record from Damon McMahon, aka Amen Dunes. His first record, Dia, we made a Record Of The Week, describing it as sounding like some lost psychedelic gem from the Sixties, and the second Amen Dunes record, Murder Dull Mind, was more of the same, gloriously haunting, outsider bedroom psych, channeling the spirit of Syd Barrett and Skip Spence, a mysterious otherworldly folk-pop artifact steeped in druggy atmosphere and loosed from traditional folk music tropes, resulting in haunting sonic ritualism that seemed to exist out of time.
This latest record is a logical extension of its two predecessors, and if anything, it seems to be the poppiest of the bunch. Right from the start, "Baba Yaga" had us expecting something WAY more far out, but instead, it's a gorgeous slab of soaring folk pop, all sun dappled and dreamy, with some surprisingly powerful vocals, all wound up in blurry shimmer, and what sounds like tangled strings or heavily effected harmonicas, either way, it might be the best proper 'song' McMahon has come up with yet. And much of the record follows suit, taking the early Pink Floydisms and mixing those up with some Byrds-y twang, some Grateful Dead jamminess, all blurred into a hazy chunk of lost Sixties folk pop. We can even hear some early Bee Gees, some Zombies, some truly gleefully twisted classic pop moments mixed in (check out "Not A Slave", which sounds like it could have been some alternate universe hit), which makes Through Donkey Jaw a surprisingly catchy record. And we have to say it definitely suits them (him?). Not sure if it was a conscious decision, or a natural progression, but this record is most definitely about songs first, that said, the sounds those songs are created with, are pretty impressive, a dead ringer for records of the era, but here and there some strange synth, or some odd bit of production will give it away as something more modern that it purports to be.
And there's still plenty of experimentalism going on, it's just more subtle, either whole non-song-tracks, or subtly woven in amidst the hooks and weirdly proper verse chorus verse arrangements. The vocals are woozy and laid back, wreathed in soft effects, but still much more of a driving force than on past records, the sound shifting easily from jangle pop to gloom folk, tripped out psychedelia to jammy psych rock without batting an eye, and managing to make it all hang together like a proper record.
The final track (a bonus track) is titled "Tomorrow Never Knows". Is it a cover of THAT song? It's actually hard to tell, but what we do know is that it's one of the most gloriously far out moments on the record, a dark brooding bit of rhythmic propulsive krautrock, laced with pounding piano, swirls of distorted guitar crunch, bleating horns, shards of feedback, wild tribal freakouts, after the otherwise song oriented psychedelic folk pop of the preceding thirteen tracks, it's a pretty unexpected, fantastic, and sonically unhinged finale.
Not your laptop processing from Mille Plateaux or 12K, Amenti Suncrown prefer the increasingly antiquated arsenal of multiple keyboards, samplers, and color flashing gadgets to achieve their dark ambient / electronic soundscapes. Aptly released by World Serpent, Amenti Suncrown reflects a number of the same ideas held by World Serpent staples Coil and Nurse With Wound, with an
Following last year's wonderful compilation of this Austin, TX gentle pop combo's miscellaneous singles and unreleased tracks 'Through The '90s' and their warm'n'breezy album from '99 'The Golden Band' is 'Know By Heart' their fourth full length. Another batch of the lovely, hushed tunes for which the A.A.S. are well known and loved. Plentiful chiming organ tones, lightly strummed
Starting things off with lengthy cycle of a lil' drum beat and an off kilter organ melody, this new American Analog Set album sounds not unlike an indie, lo-fi Stereolab. Add some soft male and female vocals, a tambourine along with some electric guitars and the familiar AAS sound comes a little bit more into focus. However the next song stirs thoughts of Pinback and Portastatic. Perhaps it's because Promise Of Love is definitely one of AAS's most fleshed out albums. No great departures from past efforts, just positively brimming with mellow lushness. So pretty pretty pretty!
Wistful, blissful and oh so dreamy. The occasionally self-abbreviated AmAnSet hone their post-rock shaded indie pop stylings just a little bit more on Set Free. With their murmurred sleepy-boy vocals, smooth chiming tones and warm guitar interplay, they once again nestle in nicely right amongst the gentle likes of Sea & Cake, Low, Pinback and the slow Ira-sung songs of Yo La Tengo. Includes a suitably drowsy cover of Codeine's "Jr". Ahhh, no sharp edges here, just such soothing sweetness!
Dark and slow post rock; warm, laid back and a little bit fuzzy. Fans of The Sea and Cake: this is right up your alley. Breezy.
The soothing mellowness of American Analog Set is captured wonderfully on this collection of various singles and unreleased tracks (original sleeve artworks are reproduced in the liner notes). Conjuring lazy-summer-afternoon-in-a-hammock daydreams that bring to
Well, one thing's for sure, American Analog Set sure like their crash cymbals loud... at least that's how it seems from the first track "Desert Eagle (All I Want For Christmas Mix)". Rattled me right outta my seat. Luckily that doesn't happen too often on this six-song EP. Packed with reworkings and remixes, it features two tracks by the band themselves (one a remix, one a cover of a Her Space Holiday song), two contributions from their seeming electronic counterparts Her Space Holiday (actually those particular tracks also sound like there was some input from The Faint camp too... hmmm). HSH first stretch an already glistening, mellow AmAnSet pop tune out into an even more laidback, shuffling number, then picking things up a bit with an almost funky groovin' remix. The last two tracks are the re-workings of Belgian's Styrofoam who gently break AmAnSet's melodies apart and apply their own light, sparkling electronics to the picture.
Accounts of the music and sports worlds colliding should certainly have their own chapter in the rock history books - immediate visions of a putting Hootie and a soccerball-kickin' Robert Smith spring to mind - and oftentimes it seems a little questionable whether it was such a good idea. Case in point, this band's chosen moniker. Not to be confused with Death Cab For Cutie Ben Gibbard's side project All Time Quarterback! I admit I'm not aware of if the name has a story behind it or if they just thought it sounded good. All I imagine is them taking the stage with a "Hi, we're American Football!" But anyways, AF are a trio of lads namely Steve Holmes (on guitar), Steve Lamos (on drums and trumpet... just like in the movie "Waiting For Guffman" - well, sort of.) and vocalist Mike Kinsella (member of so many bands, we've lost count, some of which include Joan of Arc, Owls and Cap'n Jazz, not to mention his recent, lovely solo project Owen). It follows in very much the same path as all of Kinsella's other musical endeavours, that is, sensitive guy emo indie post-rock, with a bit of a jazzy feel. Pretty guitar melodies. Gentle, hushed vocals. Horns drifting in and out and all around. Quite nice, know what I mean? So, of course if you're a fan you won't be disappointed. Mike Kinsella completists: Collect 'em all just like baseball cards!
AMC's first 2 albums finally reissued on disc. This is Engine, the 2nd one. You still see Engine around in used LP bins, but Restless Stranger is really rare. I guess that's how Warner Bros justifies the price.
Hey, look what SF classic just resurfaced after many moons languishing in label limbo / out-of-print-ness. American Music Club's fifth full length Everclear! This album which was originally released fifteen years ago delivers Mark Eitzel and co. in fine form from the bittersweet heartache of "Why Won't You Stay" to the anthemic proportions of "Rise" to the hillbilly hilarity of "Crabwalk". Really makes you wonder how great albums like this could be allowed to go out of print in the first place. Don't blow it, grab one of these before they disappear again...
American Music Club's Mark Eitzel and Vudi are back with some new bandmates in tow, rhythm section Steve Didelot and Sean Hoffman. Golden Age marks this veteran SF/LA band's ninth album and it is perhaps their most elaborate and expansive to date! With freshly stoked fires, it overflows with burnished, well crafted earthy country pop/rock songs. The lushness of the vocal harmonies and arrangements is remarkable and unheard of prior to this album. They complement Eitzel's dusky vocals and words. Perpetually overcast in mood with a fevered furrowed brow, he cuts right to the heart... and to the heart of the matter with lyrics both politically insightful and intimately poetic. Recommended.
It's been just shy of a decade since this beloved Bay Area band parted ways with members pursuing various solo endeavors (most notably mainman Mark Eitzel) but the legions of patient American Music Club fans will surely extend a warm welcome to this, the group's reunion album, and it doesn't disappoint. Love Songs For Patriots is a suitably somber, burnished work that smoothly picks up where the band left off back in 1995. That means you can expect a consistently high standard of songcraft and musicianship on par with the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, mid-career Elvis Costello, and Red House Painters' Mark Kozelek. Really, the only thing that seems a bit out of place is the first song. It has a smoky, almost cabaret feel, but after that things settle into more familiar AMC achingly earnest, downbeat kind of mood.
AMC's first 2 albums finally reissued on disc. This is Restless Stranger, the first one. You still see Engine around in used LP bins, but Restless Stranger is really rare. I guess that's how Warner Bros justifies the price.
We had sort of given up on ever getting this in stock, which was killing us. One of our favorite records of last year (one of Andee's top 10), a record some of us listened to EVERY DAY, over and over. Heavy and buzzy, but so beautiful and relentlessly catchy. Sure we've had black metal records in the past that were 'pretty'. Catchy too. But those records took their hooks and their soaring melodies and wrapped them all up in spiky blackness, subtly catching our ear beneath all the buzz, the prettiness more a byproduct than a reason for being. But Amesoeurs are completely different. It's almost like some shoegazey, indie druggy drone rock band decided their blissed out indie jangle needed more, well, BLACKNESS, and thus enlisted a corpsepainted frontman, with a demonic banshee shriek, to wail and gnash his teeth over the band's nearly perfect buzzing pop.
From the first notes of the opener "Bonheur Ampute" you're hooked. If you didn't know what was playing, you'd probably be thinking it was some lost Swervedriver track, or some modern band channeling My Bloody Valentine and Ride. The music is that gorgeous. The guitars are thick and heavy, a little buzzy, but they glisten and sparkle, and well, jangle. The opening riff is so impossibly catchy, sort of minor key, but only barely, this is simply perfect pop music wrapped in a thin layer of buzzing blackness. There's no denying it. A loping riff, underpinned by strummed acoustic guitar, while over the top guitars keen and soar, melodies intertwine, harmonies drift and shimmer, even the black metal shriek starts to transform into something less evil becoming more just another element of the blissy poppy buzz. Near the end of the first track, all the other instruments drop out leaving just the acoustic guitar, and when the band kicks back in, they go for it, transforming the track into some otherworldy buzzpop, that original riff ringing out, but over the top some gorgeously melodic underwater, blooping Pinback like bass lines and soaring angular guitar melodies.
The second track begins with a haunting spidery Slinty guitar line, minor key and skeletal, hovering in a wide open expanse of dark shimmer, when the band lurches into action, the main riff sounds like some classic Maiden hook, transformed into a loping pop song, the band eventually ramp it up, the drums becoming a double kicking blast, the vocals shrieking, but the main melody remains and the song becomes a haunting emotional minor key buzz drenched slab of shoegazer black metal, complete with acoustic breakdowns and a mysterious percussive coda.
The final track opens up with another gorgeous tangled bit of clean guitar, that turns into straight up clean ringing indie jangle, but surprises us with ethereal female vocals, which transform it into some nineties sounding dark pop like Velocity Girl or something. Eventually, a buzzing guitar joins the fray, and by the end, it's another swirling blackened slab of blissed out buzz. So fucking awesome.
Black metal record of the year! Of forever! And that's assuming that this even counts as black metal... Either way, this is absolutely essential. Black metalheads don't be put off by the prettiness, we love us some Antaeus and Katharsis and Darkthrone and all that, but this is just so goddamn good. And all you indie rock mix tape makers, try blowing somebody's mind by slipping one of these tracks into your next mix, right there between Spoon and Pavement. The perfect black metal gateway drug...
(And be sure to check out -- if you can find 'em -- Amesoeurs mainman Neige's other bands, Alcest, who take the blissed out pop thing even further, and Peste Noire, a more black, but equally strange and pretty outfit. We'll try to track them down for the store, but who knows...)
Already another release from Brian Sokel and Michael Parsell? Yes, hot on the heels of their March 2001 debut "Mutilate Us" comes "Getting Into Sinking" which reveals a much more dreamy, harmonious side to this duo. Just check out "And Then I Got To Thinking
When I saw the cover of this cd (two clean-cut , young lads in front of a city skyline) I immediately thought "from Chicago, possibly post-rock", and I suppose I wasn't too far off on the first part at least. Finding their home on Danville, IL label
A couple of years ago these Icelandic faeries with gossamer Sigur Ros ties charmed us immensely with their first release, the Animamina cdep. Since then they've added another 'i' to their name, and now they've added another release to their young body of work. We're happy to report that their debut full length is just as lovely, if not more so, than their 2005 ep. To which we feel must be affixed the following warning:
Do not use while operating heavy machinery, driving a vehicle nor participating in any other activity that requires alertness.
Seriously, Kurr will lull you into a warm, inescapable, snuggly drowsiness. You might not even make it past the second song before you find yourself nodding off to their pure, gentle, chiming dreamscapes. Now, that's not a bad thing whatsoever if experienced in the appropriate, safe circumstances, right?
On the cover, the four ladies are shown hand knitting what looks to be an enormous muted hued woolen scarf. A fitting image for their cozy album Kurr!
We've been waiting oh so patiently for a full length from this delicate and beautiful Icelandic outfit ever since we were swept off our feet by their gorgeous debut ep a couple years back. Looks like there's more waiting to be done, as we wait for the soon to come full length, but at least for now, we have a brand new e.p. to keep us all warm & woozy until that fateful day finally arrives. Having spent the last few years opening for and playing with Sigur Ros, they've gradually managed to reach more and more ears, and that's a very good thing, as their lush and gorgeous, mostly instrumental and oh so melodic sound deserves a spot in all warm hearted record collections.
Amina is to Sigur Ros, as Silver Mt. Zion is to Godspeed! You Black Emperor. The four Icelandic women who comprise Amina have worked on the two more recent Sigur Ros albums, providing the additional strings to Sigur Ros' already symphonic ocean of sound. This short 4-track EP showcases their own compositions of lilting, romantic film-score music with heaving swells of violin, viola, and cello along with delicate notes upon piano, harpsichord, and small malleted instruments. Quite moody and wonderful!
Horrendously expensive new vinyl reissue of this krautrock semi-classic...
Originally released back in 1971, Tanz Der Lemminge was the third album from the second incarnation of Amon Duul. Where the first incarnations of Amon Duul (along with Amon Duul I, there was supposedly an Amon Duul 0 from the mid-'60s) had much more of a anarchist / socio-political bent, Amon Duul II was the vehicle for the more musically minded folk from the collective, fully embracing the sonic potential of psychedelia. Oftentimes under-appreciated in comparison to the Krautrock triumvirate of Neu!, Can, and Faust, Amon Duul II had more than a fair share of moments that could rival the works of those three! That said, Tanz Der Lemminge may be one of the lesser works from Amon Duul II, but is still better than most of their Krautrock comtemporaries. This album is a sprawling psychedelic mess of free-form songs that filter early-Pink Floyd space-folk wispiness through some occasionally heavy prog leanings. Of particular note is the epic improv track "The Marilyn Monroe-Memorial-Church" as a meandering freakout with lots of organs, pianos, and phasing guitars that will make fans of Acid Mother's Temple very happy. "anz Der Lemminge is recommended only after you've fallen in love with Yeti and Phallus Dei, which totally kick ass.
There's at least one good song on this mid-'70s AD album, but it's more of a soft folky pop number that you wouldn't guess was these guys.
Split apart from the more politicized fraction known as Amon Duul I (Psychedelic Underground, etc.), Amon Duul II emerged in 1969 when they released this fantastic debut album. It's a masterwork of drug-dazed guitar psych, long tracks, middle eastern
Seminal Krautrockers Amon Duul II are captured here on film doing what the title says, playing their debut (and perhaps 2nd best, next to their masterpiece Yeti) album. It's about a half-hour long, a psychedelic transmission from a far off time and place: Munich, Germany 1968. Fans probably need this, but we should give you a little more info. First off, it's more of an art film (Wim Wenders was one of the cinematographers!) than a live-in-concert document. In fact, while the soundtrack is very definitely a live performance of the mind-blowing hippie hoedown that Phallus Dei is, it's not exactly synched to what you see the band doing on the screen -- they're two different performances of the same material. Apparently the reason the audio and visual don't match up is because the band refused to stop playing, or do anything over, even when some of the cameras malfunctioned. So edits were necessary. But in a way it doesn't matter -- the weird disconnect just makes this all the more psychedelic, as you hear the violin before the musican starts playing it, or the bongos continue even when the drummer stops to get his hair out of his face. Not that this needs much help to be super psychedelic -- the colorful light show alone will trip you out, superimposed as it is over the long haired hippies in the band grooving out. Messing with your mind still further, the first part of the film (after a lovely opening sequence of the rising sun, later mirrored by shots of the sunset) is a fairly close up shot of just the band's two singers, and remains fixed on them even during a largely instrumental portion of the song. Renate Knaup looks bored (but sexy), while Shrat does his best to freak out on a tamborine which you can't hear. Then there's the portions of the film that show scenes of an artifically blue-toned German countryside as the camera drives past, that's fairly mesmerizing. The overall effect is enhanced by the scratches and spots on the time-worn film -- freeze-frame the opening sunrise sequence with your DVD pause button and you'll find many wonderful abstract compositions. Anyway, it's a historical musical document as well as an intriguing art flick -- when it screened at the 1969 Edinburgh Film Festival, American director Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor) was quoted as saying "It's rough, it's vicious, it's drama". And here's what that festival's program guide had to say, to put you in the mood: "This film will be shown without titles or credits. It is in colour and you will see the German rock group Amon Duul II -- which, apart from Amon Duul I, is the only true progressive and outstanding group from Germany -- on stage with their celebrated light show...Their sound is very heavy, weird, and wild. Imagine a cross between Hapshash, Spooky Tooth, Dr. John and Jethro Tull."
As a sort of bonus, this dvd also features a slide-show style discography featuring album artwork and snippets of songs from each of their umpteen releases. There's nothing else in the way of special features except for the surround sound in place of original mono option.
