True to all the projects we've heard from Andrew Broder, aka The Fog, there's a laid back, almost meandery approach to the pacing of his albums. You never know where they're going to go but you sorta trust 'em, as on his selftitled first record (IMO still his best), which switched between manic samples, hip hop beats, hazy turntable scratching, and impassioned indie rock. This album is similar only waaay turned down, and inward, and slow. No explosions, but definitely some gentle swells amidst the quiet glitchiness. In fact, whispers, bird calls, wintry piano are all that make up some of the songs. It's good, just not your typically beats-oriented Ninjatune album at all. Get this and listen from the standpoint of expecting a bedroom indierock album -- and in this way it shines.
MPEG Download: "No Boys Allowed" [/audio/fognoboys.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "No Boys Allowed" [/audio/fognoboys.m3u]
This seven-song EP is the follow-up to Fog's 2003 album Ether Teeth. Fog (aka Andrew Broder) has constructed (or should we say deconstructed?) an eclectic affair of strange melodic and textural bits'n'pieces, acoustic and electronic fragments and laidback, intimate vocal musings. Stream of consciousness or disorganized jumble? You be the judge.
Way back in the beginning of 2001, we came across the selftitled debut from Fog, a one man band out of Minneapolis, and Windy took a real liking to it, thinkin' it one of the best-executed examples of rock-meets-scratching (and we all know how often that combo
In early 2001 Windy got really into the original release of the Fog record, which I guess we and a few stores in Minneapolis carried, and that's it. Well, the fine and talented folk at Ninjatune signed Fog, and here's a re-release of the album, plus three
Fog is a one-man project out of Minneapolis that takes you on a journey through said guy's twisted brain. As evidenced by the preponderance of mournful, epic guitarwork on the record, Andrew Broder's background is certainly with guitar-based rock music, but hey it's the new millenium now and samplers have changed everything. Thus the record begins with a spoken piece by hip hop emcee MF Doom, followed by a lengthy tornado of manic samples and swirling percussion. The tension's got you half expecting the breakbeats to kick in at that point (yeah, that's how much this record's first few minutes sound like a DJ Shadow or other Mo'Wax record), but instead you get Beck-like stuttering beats and languid, albeit heavily processed, vocals. In fact this reminds us a lot of Beck (who in fact came in a few weeks ago with Dan the Automator and they both bought the Fog 12"). A bevy of swiped genres battle one another throughout the record, turntablist scratching overtakes doom-laden moans, Broder indulges his inner DJ's penchant for using sampled vocal snippets to carry on an album-length narrative, and it all finally culminates in a nine minute impassioned aching guitarsong at the end that reminds us of Joel Phelps or Rex. Eclectic indeed! In a good way. It's not perfect, but we still recommend it.
BTW, this The Fog is no relation to J. Mascis' similarly named band.
Every time this gets played in the store, we rush up to the front to see what the heck they're listening to. And every time we're convinced it's some classic bit of math rock heaviness. Rodan? June Of 44? Lynx? And every time we're wrong. Fog In The Shell are from Italy and this record is brand new, but man, how it reminds us of the glory days of math rock and post rock, Shellac, Tortoise, Slint, Don Caballero, Breadwinner, Hoover, A Minor Forest, Bitch Magnet, Crain, you know what we're talking about. Thick crunchy guitars, long sprawling serpentine arrangements, epic stretches of brooding loping minimalism, bursts of anguished howled instrumental catharsis, tangled angular melodies, hushed sung spoken vocals buried in the mix, pounding mathy drumming, just check out the first track, "They", beginning with some quite minor key guitars, and thick blasts of crushing metallic heaviness, stop start, staccato, before lurching into some pounding keyboard laden post rock (we're hearing some Tarantula Hawk for sure), before mellowing way out, and letting the drums drift into the background, the bass pulsing darkly, the guitar offering up soft focus chords, the vocals hushed and moody, so awesome! It eventually builds to a cool chugging mathy riff, eventually taking off in a sort of Trans Am krautrock / space rock jam. Man, it's worth it for the first track alone. Definitely the best post/math rock jam we've heard since back in the day.
And so goes the rest of the record, exploring all facets of post rock, from crunching Neurosisy heaviness, to skittery, almost jazzy Tortoise style krautrockiness, to soaring slow building Godpseed sort of epic-ness, it gets downright poppy at times, the vocals melodic and emotional, hints of Stereolab here and there, Blonde Redhead too, but for us, it's when the songs get heavy and the guitars crunch and grind and chug, and the drums get all chaotic and the band lock into dizzying blown out math rock workouts, these guys destroy. Funny too, we had been hankering for a post/math rock resurgence, and to these ears it sounds like Fog In The Shell might be the first band capable of making it happen.
Released on the always kick ass Paradigms label, and like all their releases, limited to 500 copies!
With this sophomore album it's nothing but onwards and upwards for this great SF band! These fellows sure do have a knack for the hooks 'n' harmonies. As opposed to their strong 2002 debut, the scales lean even more generously on the buoyant pop rather than twangin' Americana this time out. Perhaps they're following a similar path as that of Jeff Tweedy and co., as Don't Let Your Baby Down is reminiscent of Wilco's country tinged pop (as well as that of their pop cohorts The Minus 5 or in Andee's opinion, the Old 97s), whereas their first album Just Now Finding Out more closely resembled Wilco's predecessor Uncle Tupelo's pop-tinged country. Yes, it's a subtle shift of gears, but a notable and good one at that. The rollicking third song "Dusted" also brings to mind the frantic guitars and slouchy vocals of the Strokes. Wisely keeping the energy high and keeping their soaring multi-part vocals and full, warm guitar blend of crunchy electric and strummy acoustic intact, Fojimoto have offered up a much more consistent and catchy album. A perfect sunny day driving disc. Recommended!
Two Dollar Guitar head honcho Tim Foljahn, lays down said guitar and dips his toes into the field recording/drone/improv pool, coming up with somewhat ho-hum results. Kind of a shame too, since as a HUGE Two Dollar Guitar fan, I was so excited for this, thinking we'd be treated to more depressive back porch twang, but instead, Foljahn takes ambient sounds and turns them into raw
Sticking to pretty much the same recipe, rhythm and meter that made Natural One such a groovin' tune, Lou Barlow and John Davis serve up 13 new soon-to-be-heard-on-a-hip-film-soundtrack cuts. Don't come 'round here expecting any major twists or turns in the F.I. sound. It's smoooth.
With this new Folk Implosion album, Lou Barlow has further blurred the sonic lines between his various projects. Really, there's very little distinguishing this from any of his solo or Sebadoh releases. Since 1999's One Part Lullaby, it's all become a big Barlow indie rock stew. The man cannot be stopped. In the case of Folk Implosion, the shift can surely be pinpointed to the date John Davis (the other half of F.I.) departed. Whereas their early songs were quite groovy and electronic driven, this is all guitars, murky and somewhat lo-fi. Indeed, as the title states this is "The New Folk Implosion", but unfortunately "new" doesn't necessarily mean fresh. Sadly, this just doesn't measure up to past F.I. nor does it really stand up to other Barlow work. As a result, this may only find its way into the collections of Barlow completists, and leave the rest of us feeling more inclined to revisit his/their earlier releases.
Not sure what exactly required the name to change from Spectre Folk, to the Folk Spectre, but fear not fans of all things folky and droney, fuzzy and drifty, this is still indeed the work of Mr. Pete Nolan, of the Double Leopards, GHQ, Wooden Wand and we're sure a handful more. At first we were tempted to think the name change had to do with a slight shift in sonics, as the first few tracks are totally stripped down lo-fi folk. No noise or drone or buzz to be found. At all. Just skeletal guitar, plaintive vocals, wrapped around sad sad melodies, and allowed to drift in wide open expanses of record crackle and tape hiss. But then the closer on side A finds some squealing feedback entering the fray, and simple Velvets like drumming, distant chanting, the main riff sort of wobbly and warbly, a gorgeous laid back stoned and droned drug jam, that while slightly noisier than the tracks preceding it, still falls well within the groovy hippy bliss we've come to expect from Nolan and his folky Spectre-d outfit.
The B side offers up more of the same, but varied a bit, a few tracks of hushed folkiness, but then a long stretch of high end hissiness draped over the lilting guitar beneath, a track of Middle Eastern style melody, with a distinct raga-like vibe, and the record finishes off with a gorgeous muted muddy slo-mo drone-jam, that sounds a bit like a much more mellow Wooden Shjips played at 16rpm, and a little bit like a folkier Spacemen 3. As usual, killer stuff.
Packaged in hand screened black and white sleeves with photocopied inserts, covered in drawings, lyrics and liner notes.
Folkstrom is the solo project from MZ.412's Mr. Nordvargr, although it could be some lost leftfield recording from odd black metallers Abruptum or Vondur. It's a weird hyrbid of death industrial / power electronic brutality and Norwegian black metal misanthropy (though it only hints at that sound). Recorded live at Nar Mattaru, "Hurtmusic" is a punishing record loaded with landmine samples, electro-shock blasts of energy, and warbled megaphone shouts. The highlight of the album is a loose reinterpretation of the song "No Place" by notorious Swedish misanthropes the Brainbombs, complete with a slow grinding guitar chug perverted from the classic Stooges sound.
Sixties Big Beat Classics with Sitar. "Paint It Black",
"Hey Joe", "Time Won't Let Me". They're all here. Hip!
Once again, these two Chilean psych bands, Follakazoid and The Holydrug Couple, each sharing a member with the other, release their records at the same time, giving us a glimpse of two sides of a similar sonic personality. Elsewhere on the list you'll find the latest from The Holydrug Couple, but here, we revisit the psychedelic modern space-kraut sprawl of Follakzoid, whose sound is equal parts classic psych/space rock, and more modern garage psych mesmer. The opening track here definitely had us thinking of Wooden Shjips, the looped and loping low slung bassline, the sonic swirls and laconic vocals, everything drenched in echo and reverb, a hazy, druggy, droned out psychedelic space dirge laced with weird little synth squiggles, and dense clouds of crumbling distortion. Like a darker, more rocking Spacemen 3, which is most definitely not a bad thing. A lot of the rest of the record drifts way more into old school jam band territory, think Hawkwind, Santana, Pink Floyd, just hazy, washed out stretches of hypnotic, rhythmic mesmer, the core sound a bass and drum groove, very propulsive and motorik, the krautrock vibe is huge, then all around that groove, synths, and guitars, and voices, swirl and swoop and drift. It's heady hypnotic stuff, in fact, some tracks, like "99" sound a lot like Circle at time, that same sort of kick ass hypnorock churn, but Follakzoid definitely make that sound their druggy, laid back, tripped out own. And be sure and stick around for 15 minute closer "Pulsar", which is the sort of heart-of-the-sun psych groove bliss out we could listen to forever.
- MPEG stream: 9
- MPEG stream: Rivers
- MPEG stream: 99
The most recent release from these Chilean psychedelic space/kraut rockers gets a couple tracks remixed by some likeminded outfits you might have heard of. Stoned psych rockers Psychic Ills get all Spacemen 3 with their version of "9", not deviating too much from the original, but stripping away a lot of the effects and psychedelic noise, the result much more murky and moody, laced with lots of cool subtle backwards effects, both guitars and rhythms, droned out and trancey and super hypnotic. Be warned, you might already have this remix since it was included on the Todo Muere Vol. 3 special Sacred Bones Record Store Day Release.
Exclusive to this, though, Moon Duo tackle "Trees" - the original was pretty heavy, a spaced out stoner rock groove, but Moon Duo slow things down too, stripping away the excess, leaving just a woozy bass and drum groove, and then wrapping it in spidery tendrils of buzzing guitar melodies, the vocals even more laid back, all drifting atop a sprawl of droning thrum and distant swirling synths. Both reworkings here seem to cast the more rocking originals as zoned out late night versions, total droney, druggy, dreamily dirgey, hypno-rock space-kraut chill out!
Sacred Bones brings us another captivating transmission from Chilean trippers Follakzoid, their third album (duh), this one consisting of 4 lengthy tracks of hazy, minimalist, mesmerizing grooves. This is the sound of super spacing out, over and over and over, in the dankest of South American garages.
Opener "Electric" sets the stage, if you dig it, you'll dig Follakzoid, it's typically repetitive and echoing, blissed out but with a hint of menace, ending in a curious episode of distortion/glitch fuckery. That distortion is ramped up on track 2, "Earth", which gets a bit heavier and is also more insistently melodic, adding some effects-laden vocals as well, reverberating with cosmic/karmic meaning and mystery. The thump-throb of the third track, "Piure", with bells and gongs, takes on even more of an ancient, ceremonial air, and once again cycles forth slowly, the sound coming in waves, subtly building up the volume and drone. Need we even mention the last track, "Feuerzeug"? You can guess, even more hypnotic krautdronedrug action there, Follakzoid leaving the listener well and truly hooked, and lost in space (inner or outer, same dif).
Gently motorik, laced with shoegaze guitar squall and strange synthesizer noise, naturally this reminds us of some Circle output, and even more so of Salvatore, these tracks suffused with a twilight darkness, nicotine stained and narcotic. Other reference points of course would be Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, Psychic Ills, Carlton Melton, and also some of the 'krautier' electronic/techno artists around. By the way, we noticed Atom(tm) in credits to this, dunno if he's always been adding his "analog and digital synthesis" to the Follakzoid sound or not?
One of two new modern Chilean psychedelic outfits on this week's list, both on Sacred Bones, and both sharing a member, unlike the spaced out psychedelic of The Holydrug Couple, Follakzoid traffic in a sound much more krautrocky, two ten minute side long jams, totally mesmerizing blissed out, cyclical, circular hypnorock, the drums and guitars locked into a super tranced out groove, while all around, strange vocals and voices swirl and swoop, effects shimmer and glimmer and other guitars jangle and chime, the sound changes subtly, stripped down and skeletal one minute, crunchy and distorted the next, but that hypnotic core riff remains locked tight, the sort of thing that should have fans of Circle and Lumerians and Cave and White Hills and 3 Leafs and Mugstar all freaked out.
The flipside starts out much more minimally, a sprawl of effects drenched warble, warped melodies draped over a lumbering beat, less a rhythm and more a pulse, all washed out and muted and muddy and bleary and blurry, before launching into another stretch of super hypnotic krautrock chug and churn, but this time, the sound is way more minimal, the main riff sounding more like the throb of a helicopters spinning blades, whump whump whump, wreathed in softly swirling synths, laced with chanted vocals, all wound into a super tight chunk of super muted sci-fi krautrock psychedelic space rock, that RULES.
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Great breezy indie pop sounds from this new San Francisco band. Foma explore a few different directions, from more spacious and dreamy sounds to a more straight ahead and catchy onslaught. Fans of folks like Arcade Fire, Grandaddy and Terror Twilight era Pavement will find lots to love on this debut. A few of the tracks here have caused customers to come up and ask what Death Cab For Cutie record we were listening to, as the vocals can definitely get into that super sweet Ben Gibbard territory. A very nice debut.
Around these parts (Aquarius), 'post-rock' has become sort of a dirty word, synonymous with 'adult contemporary' or worse 'really bad jazz'. Yet a few gems have escaped the black hole that is Tortoise's all encompassing influence on the current state of indie rock, and done something interesting... Fridge's latest album "Eph" being one, and another being Fonn's "Field 831". Fonn's sonics do touch on the jazzy rhythmic elements of the Chicago scene, but employ the experimental spirit of Faust and bring a number of space rock guitar tricks to the realm of electronica, not unlike Bowery Electric.
Fonoda is a German post-rock quartet that leans heavily on the blissed-out precendents of that genre, with plenty of nods to Seam, Low, Mogwai, Slint, and other proponents of cinematic, melancholic intrumentals. Quite pleasant.
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One of Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth's very favorite artists, Brigitte Fontaine did a kind of acid-folk French pop thing (from the early 70s) that's just delicious. These are reissues.
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Brigitte Fontaine may get filed next to yeh-yeh girls like Francoise Hardy and Chantal Goya, but the eclectic avant-folk records she has been making with the help of percussionist Areski Belkacem since the seventies take the pop seed and mutate it far beyond the reach of any other French chanteuse. She cut a record with Art Ensemble of Chicago in 1971, and is making amazing records to this day, as evidenced by last year's excellent "Kekeland," featuring collaborations with the likes of Sonic Youth in addition to Areski. This is a reissue of her self-titled album from 1972, and it moves through the sounds of gorgeous pychedelic folk, string and organ-backed polyphonic liturgical-style chants advocating power to the people, medieval prog stylings, bizarre poetics, spoken word, barnyard avant-jazz, and the odd bout of screaming or anti-capitalist rallying. Her seductive voice grounds a kind of dada futurism that emerges alongside the deft navigation of styles, a hallmark of her work. Brigitte Fontaine's brand of cerebral pop experimentalism puts her in a strata attained by few artists. What reference points I can dig up-- Art Ensemble (of course), the best Os Mutantes records, Yoko Ono as a French situationist-- don't really suffice to explain Briggitte Fontaine's haunting oeuvre. Let me just say that listening to this album makes me giddy with joy (seriously!), and comes highly recommended, as does the reissue of 1971's "L'incendie."
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An awesome, quirky slice of French hippy avant-pop with lots of ethno-electronic action. Allan's favorite of Fontaine's ouvre.
We do declare this "Tortoiselab". Second album from these ex-Jessamine boys. Faux-krautrock groove/ambience.
Fontanelle is the band comprised of ex-Jessamine folks attempting to evoke the wide open spaciousness of 1970s electric Miles Davis, such as "In a Silent Way" or "Get Up With It". But, no matter how much they may love jazz, face it, this is merely instrumental post rock with mighty pretensions. A disappointment.
As we all know since the last Foo Fighters' album Dave Grohl has kept himself knee-deep in high profile projects -- drumming for Queens Of The Stone Age, Tenacious D, and Killing Joke as well as his own 'metal' collaborative monstrosity Probot. He's certainly contributed much to the other bands he's played with and they in turn have left their influential marks on him. Unlike the likes of Keith Moon or Bill Ward, few drummers these days have honed their own distinct personal sound. Grohl is an exception. His drumming and songwriting both have an unmistakable Grohl-ness. This is apparent right from the lead-off track of In Your Honor. That song (which is also the title track) sure sounds like he nicked a few useful cues from the awesome force that is Killing Joke and encorporated them into the Foo Fighters realm. It introduces a much more unforgiving pummel to their already thoroughly punchy sound. In Your Honor has a loud/heavy disc and a quieter/gentler one -- embodying the two sides of Grohl. Where both sides of Grohl stumble a bit this time out however is in the lyric department. He's pulled out some serious cliche rhymes. But for fans who want some big catchy glossy rock (and maybe some more moody subdued mellow glossy rock to go along with it) this will probably hit the spot!
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Sounds like Mr. Grohl's been hangin' out with Queens Of The Stone Age... oh, he has. Seriously though, if you dug the most recent QOTSA album "Song For The Deaf" (which we did), this newest Foo Fighters record will probably also tickle your fancy. While not as 'weird' as the Queens, the Foo Fighters here mine similar territory, playing melodic and poppy hard rock, even flirting with full on metal (but never quite going all the way). This is definitely their heaviest, "grungiest" (!) album yet, again quite like QOTSA -- though the Foos' own trademark heartbreaking pop smarts shine through as well. We've loved Grohl & Company's previous albums too, and if there's a band you're gonna have to hear on the radio and in the mall and on the plane, might as well be an ass kicking rock and roll band like the Foo Fighters and not Celine Dion or O-Town! Recommended. (The copies we've got right now come with a limited bonus DVD disc with a video & live footage, dunno how long these will last though).
We love the Foo Fighters... but this acoustic record blows.
Another bad ass chunk of pounding post punk math rock heaviness from Virginia. We raved about Tigershark a while back, some seriously chugging riffery, then The Catalyst more recently, who knocked us on our asses with their weird post hardcore stoner grunge screamo (we still have a few of those left, check elsewhere on the aQ site), not sure if Food are related, but they might as well be, they're heavy as fuck, and offer up a similarly supercharged post punk, but while The Catalyst and Tigershark both channeled AmRep (The Catalyst mixing in plenty of Sub Pop), Food take that sound even farther, with their super thick distorted fuzzed out guitars, pounding caveman drums and thick ropy bass, they weave a pretty thick, almost dirgey at times, post punky metallic garage rock stomp, but it's the vocals that seal the deal, a wild feral howl, falling right between Rick Froberg of Drive Like Jehu / Hot Snakes and Mudhoney's Mark Arm, plenty of vitriol and swagger, and a paint peeling yowl that perfectly compliments Food, chug and churn.
Dense loping grooves give way to stripped down tribal workouts, give way to complex mathy jams, which give way to seriously murky, dirge-y, almost Brainbombs-ish sludge, slathered with plenty of squealing Eyehategod style feedback, and all locked into pounding metallic repetition. Some seriously killer garage-y metallic post punk for sure.
Incredible packaging, eye popping cover art, all recycled materials, heavy printed insert, and pressed on INSANELY thick vinyl. And probably pretty limited too.
Another reissue of heavy psychedelic weirdness from early '70s Japan, in the same series as the Flied Egg and Flower Travellin' Band discs we've listed lately. Food Brain features the Hammond organ excess of Hiro Yanagida and the acid fried guitar of Shinki Chen (names you might know from other outfits like Speed, Glue and Shinki, Love Live Life +1, April Fool, and solo too). As well, Hiro Tsunoda (the Jacks, Strawberry Path, Flied Egg) is on drums, and Luis Kabe (Golden Cups) on bass. Together on this, their only album (1970), they cook up a progressive, confusionally avant-garde feast of bluesy riffage, freeform improv, drug-addled humor, and hippie rawk heaviosity. There's plenty of raw jamming, the sort of stuff these guys would probably have loved to bring to the ballrooms of San Francisco... but amidst and among, there's lots of weirder moments too, more at home in the krautrock realm perhaps. For instance, the brief track five, "The Conflict Of The Hippo And The Pig", what sounds like a guy maniacally playing a straw. Or the entirety of the epic quarter-hour 8th track, "The Hole In A Sausage", which features a horn-grunting free jazz freakout in collision with a near-metallic distorted bass riff on a famous classical symphonic theme.
Mango Sunrise is the latest release from these Minneapolis electronic psychedelic kraut-inspired-rockers, and the first release of theirs we've gotten in sufficient numbers to review/list, and we're guessing lots of you will dig these guys as much as we do, cuz FP's sound is definitely the sort of thing we can't seem to get enough of, heady and hypnotic, sun dappled and mesmeric, reminding us quite a bit of another aQ fave, the Cave offshoot Bitchin Bajas. Like BB, Food Pyramid, approach their psych jams with a kind of wide eyed innocence that seems to come through in the sounds. The pulsating synths, the cascading melodies, the lush landscapes, it's the sort of kraut influenced mesmer that also reminds us of another long time aQ fave, Stereolab, the same sort of dreamy repetition, so easy to get lost and carried away, but Food Pyramid seem to position themselves more alongside folks like Tangerine Dream, but this is not straight up krautrock worship at all, these guys definitely have their own thing going on, just check out "Orange Alert", which sounds like some bastard offshoot of witch house, that is minus the tripped out psychedelic guitar and the SAX, sounds weird, but somehow it works. Then there's "Oh Mercy", which is a serious slab of cheesy eighties style synthfunk, touching on the whole Goblin/Carpenter axis, but way more concerned with booty shaking than mood making, and there's the strange sampled vocal too. The rest of the record unwinds in a similarly unpredictable manner, from dubbed out weirdly psychedelic almost reggae, to blissed out ur-drone psychnoise, and from Muslimgauze like Eastern tinged synth soaked groove, to blown out super distorted synthbuzz electro skitter, and then there's the closer, a sprawling field of in-the-red kosmische ur-drone swirl and shimmer, that is totally dreamy and blissful and the sort of track we find ourselves playing over and over and over.
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Eagerly-awaited new release from this Chicago ex-Slint combo (John Herndon, Brad Wood, Brian McMahon, etc.). 6 dark, tense, quiet tracks of gorgeous foreboding for the depressed.
Slint may arguably be the most important, influential indie rock band of the last two decades, their album Spiderland, still one of the best selling records�on Touch And Go, is almost directly responsible for about a million math rock bands to come after. And rightfully so. Their sound was delicate and dark, intense and ultra personal, super dramatic and incredibly evocative. Dynamic and simply incredible. From the angular bombast of their debut Tweez, to the epic song cycle that is Spiderland, their swan song, the band had few peers, and those records, still, to this day, are pretty tough to beat.�
Weird then, that post Slint ensemble The For Carnation (which also happened to include several folks who would go on to form Tortoise) seemed to sort of slip under the radar, releasing two eps, then calling it a day. But for those who heard them, Fight Songs and Marshmallows, those records were nearly as important as the Slint records that came before. When we first discovered that half of Slint were in a new band, that did sort of sound like Slint, we were thrilled, and when we finally heard Fight Songs, we were blown away, it WAS like Slint, but even darker, and quieter, less dynamic, and more brooding, but just as persona and intense. Now both of those eps have been compiled on a single disc, and sound as good as ever.�
Opening with "Grace Beneath The Pines", the band drift, barely moving through a vast expanse of simple muted minor key chords, and hushed vocals, like the quietest part from some unreleased Slint track, stretched out into a whole song, with only one or two dynamic swells, with much more time spent just sort of hovering, and shimmering, lots of silence, and plenty of strange distant low end rumbles and whirs. The melody bittersweet, and so subtly catchy. The next track, "How I Beat The Devil" is about as rocking as they ever got, a brief minute and a half of minor key math rocking, instrumental, a sort of almost surfy riff, over a convoluted rhythm and some wild guitar squalls, before the band settles back down into the lazy loping shuffle that is "Get And Stay Get March", a super hypnotic riff, repeated over and over, simple sing song lyrics, incredibly mesmerizing, a sort of math rock drone, slowcore stretched out into a late night slow motion drone jam.�
The second ep, Marshmallows, continues on the same trajectory as Fight Songs, brooding, minimal, sort of sun dappled and sing songy, a dark slow motion post rock crawl, creepy yet pretty, haunting and dreamy. The stand out track on Marshmallows is "I Wear The Gold", a weird almost This Heat style rhythm jam, based around a looped bass riff, and some super intricate drumming, the whole thing smeared into a seemingly endless hypnotic groove. The rest of the record is a dark whispery shuffle, the vocals hushed and tip toeing across, delicate landscapes of thrum and skitter, until the final track "Preparing To Receive You", another sort of krautrockish hypnorock jam, with a super spare mathy drum line, a looped repetitive riff, with super subtle shifts and variations, the sort of song you could imagine stretching out to 15, 20, even 30 minutes, but for those nearly nine minutes, it's absolute minimal mathy slow motion drone rock bliss.�
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SORRY.
Brian McMahon is becoming the indie-rock equal to Leonard Cohen - cool, measured, suave, and theatrical in his abbreviated deeply whispered delivery. In his first record in 4 years (due in part to spending over two years recording this album in six different studios), McMahan and the For Carnation still pack all the wallop of his former band Slint, but with much more grace and subtley. This was rumored to be the For Carnations 'soul' record, but don't expect Afghan Whigs style indie rock white boy soul. Sure this record has soul, but it's way more like the For Carnation's trip hop record. You can hear Massive Attack and Portishead and Mo Wax in their sound as much, if not more than Slint or any other indie rock references. Though the structures remain firmly rooted in rock, what was probably one of the most anticipated indie *rock* records of late, turns out to be a beautiful, dark and langorous accidental trip hop record. Nice
For Stars have done it again -- improved on that which came before. Their third album unfolds gradually, both expanding on and refining the already wonderful lush pop melacholia of their last full length We Are All Beautiful People. Their mellowness is sounding at times a little more 'shoegazer' than 'slowcore' this time out. On each of the eight songs, they take a contemplative pace as if that's all they can muster under the weight of their collective heart's burdens, and they don't hesitate to add a dissonant tone here and there effectively building tension and atmosphere. Their soaring, lilting multi-part vocals and textural flourishes are in many ways very post-Radiohead's OK Computer, and Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin. As well, the seventh song also brought to mind a more elaborate Guided By Voices, but they're by no means simple soundalikes. Their well-crafted achingly lovely songs glow in their own right.
Wow. For Stars have always been a pretty cool band, playing a quietly melancholic brand of sadcore that pleases fans of Low and Nick Drake, etc. But on this third album their sound appears to have matured exponentially, developing into a newer better creature. Their songs now have a hushed majesty to them, with hookier (yet still minor key) melodies, and more dynamics, a lot
Honestly, the moment I heard the first few strains of the opening track of this album, I was transported back many a year to my childhood. Summer days spent listening to the radio, strains of Carly Simon or Bread. Not a bad thing... no, this album nudges you into bittersweet reminiscence with its slowly creeping, lonely melodies. Local slowcore, for fans of Smog and Palace; recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hyper fast, blazing growling death-grind/fast core from members of Hellchild. This record takes the fury of Hellchild, and ups the rpm. Essential.
The second album from Providence Rhode Island art darlings Forcefield (the band who knits sweaters that they sell in art galleries for thousands of dollars, apparently, and who also performed at the Whitney Biennial!) is the second Bulb release we've noticed after the Mind Flayer album bearing a logo saying "Bulb Underworld" and a crude drawing of a twenty-sided die. Allan's D&D senses are tingling. Thus the following conversation in our office...
Allan: Hey this new Forcefield is a pretty cool, textural electronic noise record! It sounds like angry rats, squeaky balloons and exploding synths. Very listenable though. Wasn't their other album a herky jerky arty rock punk kinda thing though?
Andee: Yeah, I think so.
Allan: Well, I like this album.
Andee: Uh, I think the world's seen enough noise records...
Allan: But this one's called Lord Of The Rings Modulator!!
MPEG Download: "track 2" [/audio/forcefieldlord2.mp3]
Channel Pressure is a record that seems wholly devoid of irony, even though everything indicates that it should be dripping with it. Daniel Lopatin is the mastermind behind the polygon electronica of Oneohtrix Point Never, and together with Joel Ford, he recorded one hell of an electro-pop single as Games that could have been lifted from any club circa 1986. That sense of time travel is still being dialed in for Channel Pressure (authored by Ford + Lopatin, who have dropped the Games moniker for something more in keeping with Stock, Aiken, and Waterman, although their sound is firmly American). This album is completely unashamed of its mid-'80s electro-pop aesthetic, with many of the boyband falsetto vocals popping out of the slick, urban-pop productions like ghost-jams of forgotten MTV wannabes of that time period. The spry electronic rhythms and bent-synth melodies become all the more ridiculous with the hair-metal guitar solos that spring to life for no good reason other than because they could. Ford + Lopatin even managed to convince Mexican Summer to spring for them to record in Jan Hammer's studio. Yeah, the same Jan Hammer who scored the Miami Vice theme song! Where Oneohtrix Point Never expresses some dripping emotions through the mainframe of sci-fi computing, Channel Pressure has its head buried in a pile of cocaine, imagining itself as a sci-fi lovestory with robots and super-computer, but comes across more as a pretty straight homage to the production styles of Nile Rodgers and Harold Faltermeyer. A new New Jack Swing awaits.
A couple years ago, San Francisco minimal-wave / shoegaze outfit Foreign Cinema handed us a 4 song ep - Non-Synchronous Sound - which quickly became a staff favorite around here, with its wintery atmospherics wrapped around sublime songs that reminded us of The Cure (circa Faith / Seventeen Seconds), Slowdive, and Crystal Stilts. With just four songs, we did keep on wondering (sometimes aloud to the band when they dropped off more and more copies of Non-Synchronous Sound), when a full album would come out. While we're totally stoked that the band has finished a full album, we're still somewhat scratching our heads why Foreign Cinema hasn't caught the attention of somebody like Sacred Bones, Captured Tracks, or hell 4AD for that matter. Yeah, they really are that good!
Anyway as for Monochromatic, the spatiousness and spectral songs which we loved so much on Non-Synchronous Sounds continue here. The songs all have a complexity that along with those earlier references seem to meld the artful tumble of Wire with the post-rock dynamics of Bark Psychosis. Rolling basslines that slide out of noir-tinged melodies into a low-slung, darkened dub countering the synth and drum machines, all given a good old Martin Hannett style production. The spindly guitars of Dave Han leap out of the songs with a simple, graceful sadness to match his distantly mixed, minor key vocals. For all of the referecnes to darkened atmospheric pop, Foreign Cinema conjure a sound that is pretty much all their own. We'll be ballyhooing this one as much as we did the earlier ep, until they sell out of the 300 copies they pressed up for the lp, which also comes with a cd-r of the entire album.
You can probably imagine that we get lots of bands sending and dropping off their cd's for us to check out. As painstaking and time consuming as it can be, we really do try to listen to every single thing that ends up in our hands, even though it sometimes takes us forever to do so. But damn we've been reminded why all that listening is worth while, as buried deep in a stack of cd's to check out from months ago laid this absolute shoegaze gem from a local San Francisco duo who deserve to get some major attention with this stunning ep.
Reminding us in equal parts of Slowdive and The Cure circa Faith, these are songs to get lost to, bathing the listener in a perfect seductive daze. We've got to say we've become big fans of ep's as of late, a format that requires the musician make the most of every single moment, as the four songs/twenty minutes of music on Non-Synchronous Sound are all absolutely hypnotic and satisfying. Reminding us of the heyday of Sara records or a more shoegazey Pains of Being Pure At Heart joining forces with a less rock minded and more blissed out Crystal Stilts.
Slumberland, Matador, 4AD, Captured Tracks, if we were your A&R reps we would be begging you to sign this duo, as this is a band who deserves to get their music out to a way wider audience. Totally stunning!
Foreign Cinema's debut ep was a huge hit around here, about a year ago when we finally realized it had been sitting in a box of cds to check out for way to long, we put it on and were totally blown away. In fact it's become one of those cds that pretty much gets played in the store every week at some point. It's just so perfect in its shoegaze, daydream perfection. They seem to be taking their time crafting a proper first full length (The Soft Moon were equally wise in releasing a handful of 7"s before their first album). These two new songs show there's plenty of wonderful, dark and breezy shoegaze pop to come from this awesome duo in the near future (we hope). We gotta give them extra props for naming the A side "Palace Of Fine Junk" after our favorite random junk/thrift store in the Tenderloin. In fact listening to Foreign Cinema is a lot like taking a dazed and hazy late afternoon walk through this city. "Velvet Sky" may be on the B side, but damn if it's not one of the most seductive and sensual slow burners of the year!
Beautifully packaged, hand stamped, and limited. So grab one while you can.
