Proto-metal fiends, give praise to the fine folks at Rise Above Relics. They've been doing a great job lately reissuing some crucial obscurities from the early '70s - Necromandus, Steel Mill, that Bang box set - and now here's another one we were excited to get in. The one and only, and quite collectable, album from 1973 by a band of heavy rockers from England who went by the somewhat silly name of Incredible Hog (apparently a porcine variation on the Incredible Hulk??). There's been songs of theirs included on a few comps we've had (A Visit To The Spaceship Factory, The Electric Asylum Vol.4) but this is the first ever proper cd reissue of the full album, authorized and remastered and all.
The first track is called "Lame" but the 'Hog definitely ain't. If you like your psychedelic blues rock big and burly, raucous and rollicking, the 'Hog are the seventies heavies you're looking for. That lead-off cut, "Lame", is an excellent intro to the album in general; a stomping, distorted rocker with loads of swingin' riffage and wailing vox, that sounds a whole lot like Led Zeppelin mixed with a bit of glitter/glam a la Slade (with the hey hey hey's and handclaps). The next track, the dazed 'n' confused dirge "Wreck My Soul" is even more on the Zepped-out blooze rawk tip, with some blues harp blowin' showing up. They venture into folkier territory on the following cut, "Execution", one of a few quite affecting, mellower melodic compositions found on the record. But mostly they're about banging out the heavier stuff, and they're back at it with the next number, "Tadpole", an uptempo stormer laced with sound FX samples (crashing thunder, crying babies, crazy laughter) giving it a bit of a proggier vibe, which is followed by the cowbell-knockin', Eastern-tinged "Another Time"... and so it goes, Incredible Hog kicking ass all up and down this album, one that any fan of the Led Zeppier side to '70s heavy rock oughtta lay their ears upon pronto. So if you dig bands like Leaf Hound, Budgie, Granicus, Lucifer's Friend, Jerusalem, Possessed (UK), Tucky Buzzard, and Stray, then prepare to add Incredible Hog to that list of proto-metal awesomeness. Bands today can't compare (although, Rise Above's Gentlemans Pistols come close, and no doubt are big 'Hog fans).
As always, Rise Above Relics does a bang-up job with the cd packaging, it's ensconced in a slipcover with fat 40 page cd booklet full of detailed notes and vintage pics, all put together with the help of the original band members. They've also managed to dig up four long lost, unreleased bonus trax (hence the "+4" in this reissue's title), recorded back in the day, some of which were meant for a second 'Hog album that never happened. At least one of 'em, a rip snorter called "Burnout", is easily up there with anything on the album itself in terms of sheer proto-metal power, and the others are worthy bonus trackage too.
All hail the 'Hog! Incredible, indeed.
Here is the DVD release of "Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending", the film about the Incredible String Band. Hugely influential (the Stones tried to sign them, they played Woodstock, Van Morrison covered them), the band played a psychedelic folk music that
1969's "Changing Horses" sees the ISB stretch out with two of their longest compositions/jams to date, both songs around the quarter hour mark, along with a handful of shorter tracks. The exotic, barmy hippy folk of the sixteen minute album closer "Creation" should appeal to today's Terrastock psych-folk fans into Ghost and Six Organs of Admittance and the like! It also reminds us a bit of ISB's quirky contemporaries Twink and Tyranosaurus Rex, or even Comus and the Wicker Man soundtrack. Mystically over-the-top. This might not be an essential ISB album, but if you like this sort of thing you'll want it for that track alone. "I Looked Up" from 1970 is similarily a decent but not crucial ISB effort, meaning don't get it first, but do get it if you are or become a fan. From the trad country-folk stylings of opener "Black Jack Davy" to the many moods of the ten-minute plus folk-prog rocker "When You Find Out Who You Are", this visits all of the ISB's colorful bases...
This is a nice treat for fans of the freakiest of the sixties British acid-folk scene, Incredible String Band, as this two disc set covers rare and unreleased tracks from the band's golden era. Due to some amazing research and archival sleuthing, this compilation of tracks recorded between 1966 and 1972 unearths lost outtakes from various albums, alternate versions, live radio performances as well as an early rehearsal recording of a Leadbelly cover. Though all the tracks have merits on their own, the range of line-up changes and fidelities don't make for a completely consistent listen. But the highlights are pretty fantastic including "Secret Temple", a beautiful track sung by Licorice McKechnie that was only available as a BBC recording, a 13 minute live radio version of "Maya", complete with sitar(!), and a six minute multi-epic suite composed for a mime troupe performance ("Poetry Play #1"). Probably not the place to start for unfamiliar beginners, but for fans, there are jewels aplenty!
1970's sprawling "U", almost two hours long, was the ISB's soundtrack to a stage show -- a "surreal parable in song and dance" according to ISB's Robin Williamson -- that combined the String Band's musicians with the performance of underground dance/happening group Stone Monkey. Must have been pretty wild, based on this psychedelic music, and the photos crammed into the disc's tiny booklet. It's a bit much to get a handle on -- possibly why this is apparently one of the ISB's more obscure releases. But there's great songs on here, hitting all of the prime String Band motifs: the folk, the raga, the rock, the country... Essential for fans, and recommended to newcomers too, if unafraid of ISB overkill.
This two-fer 2cd is consistent with these albums' original UK release in 1968, as both "Wee Tam" and "The Big Huge" were issued together as a 2LP set. Again the ISB mix their Celtic and Appalachian folkie roots with "world" influences, and although this is quite mellow and gentle, they also brought in some electric amplification at this point. With female vocals n' whistles n' fiddles n' sitar etc. this is quite pretty stuff, great summer morning sitting in a sunny meadow music. Both records are ISB fan favorites, with gorgeous four-part vocal harmonies, whimsical but sometimes dark moods, and of course lots of Incredible String-ed instrument playing.
Back in print!
Remastered with new liner notes, in a swank digipak with all the elements of the original packaging, these look heaps better than the Collector's Choice twofers that were the last reissued incarnation of these classic albums. The 5,000 Spirits and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter have been released separately this time around, while Wee Tam and The Big Huge are still bundled together as a 2cd set.
Here's what we said about them previously:
England's Incredible String Band were a late sixties/early seventies outfit who blended folk rock, psychedelia, and Eastern ethnic musics. Very sixties, very hippy - they played at Woodstock, in fact. With their folky male and female vocals and expertise with a plethora of exotic stringed instruments, a shorthand description might be that ISB was kinda like Fairport Convention with sitars, and crazy costumes. Perhaps less truly traditional than Fairport, they made a bigger splash with the LSD crowd of The UFO Club where they played often with the likes of early Pink Floyd, Tomorrow, and Procol Harum. Their music encompassed British folk, Indian ragas, Dylan, blues, country, hoedowns, etc. - an eclectic stew indeed. Sometimes ISB can come off as a little *too* varied: you might be digging some Eastern drone track and find an abrupt switch to, say, music-hall country a bit jarrring. But that just means there's plenty of different things on these discs to like.
5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion dates from 1967 - it's their second album, featuring only the core duo of Robin Williamson and Mike Heron (Clive Palmer left after the first record to form his own band, C.O.B.) - and was the first solid fulfillment of their Brit folk + Middle Eastern + Indian raga equation, as they added the ouds an' sitars to their original Anglo-American folk interpretations with some wonderfully moody results.
We're always mentioning ISB in reviews of other folk-psych albums past and present, from Forest and Trees to P.G. Six and Tower Recordings, so it's nice to finally get these listed in our catalog once again...definitely if you're into that British folk-psych vibe you need to investigate this band if you haven't already!
Back in print!
Remastered with new liner notes, in a swank digipak with all the elements of the original packaging, these look heaps better than the Collector's Choice twofers that were the last reissued incarnation of these classic albums. The 5,000 Spirits and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter have been released separately this time around, while Wee Tam and The Big Huge are still bundled together as a 2cd set.
Here's what we said about them previously:
England's Incredible String Band were a late sixties/early seventies outfit who blended folk rock, psychedelia, and Eastern ethnic musics. Very sixties, very hippy - they played at Woodstock, in fact. With their folky male and female vocals and expertise with a plethora of exotic stringed instruments, a shorthand description might be that ISB was kinda like Fairport Convention with sitars, and crazy costumes. Perhaps less truly traditional than Fairport, they made a bigger splash with the LSD crowd of The UFO Club where they played often with the likes of early Pink Floyd, Tomorrow, and Procol Harum. Their music encompassed British folk, Indian ragas, Dylan, blues, country, hoedowns, etc. - an eclectic stew indeed. Sometimes ISB can come off as a little *too* varied: you might be digging some Eastern drone track and find an abrupt switch to, say, music-hall country a bit jarrring. But that just means there's plenty of different things on these discs to like.
Their 1968 follow-up to The 5,000 Spirits, The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter is one of the ISB's best-regarded efforts, taking the sound of their previous effort to more free-form extremes. Dolly Collins (sister of Shirley) helps out on this one. One of the pinnacle acid-folk records to inspire the likes of many modern bands from Current 93 to Devendra Banhart.
We're always mentioning ISB in reviews of other folk-psych albums past and present, from Forest and Trees to P.G. Six and Tower Recordings, so it's nice to finally get these listed in our catalog once again...definitely if you're into that British folk-psych vibe you need to investigate this band if you haven't already!
Back in print!
Remastered with new liner notes, in a swank digipak with all the elements of the original packaging, these look heaps better than the Collector's Choice twofers that were the last reissued incarnation of these classic albums. The 5,000 Spirits and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter have been released separately this time around, while Wee Tam and The Big Huge are still bundled together as a 2cd set.
Here's what we said about them previously:
England's Incredible String Band were a late sixties/early seventies outfit who blended folk rock, psychedelia, and Eastern ethnic musics. Very sixties, very hippy - they played at Woodstock, in fact. With their folky male and female vocals and expertise with a plethora of exotic stringed instruments, a shorthand description might be that ISB was kinda like Fairport Convention with sitars, and crazy costumes. Perhaps less truly traditional than Fairport, they made a bigger splash with the LSD crowd of The UFO Club where they played often with the likes of early Pink Floyd, Tomorrow, and Procol Harum. Their music encompassed British folk, Indian ragas, Dylan, blues, country, hoedowns, etc. - an eclectic stew indeed. Sometimes ISB can come off as a little *too* varied: you might be digging some Eastern drone track and find an abrupt switch to, say, music-hall country a bit jarrring. But that just means there's plenty of different things on these discs to like.
This two-fer 2cd is consistent with these albums' original UK release in 1968, as both Wee Tam and The Big Huge were issued together as a 2lp set. Again the ISB mix their Celtic and Appalachian folkie roots with "world" influences, and although this is quite mellow and gentle, they also brought in some electric amplification at this point. With female vocals n' whistles n' fiddles n' sitar etc. this is quite pretty stuff, great summer morning sitting in a sunny meadow music. Both records are ISB fan favorites, with gorgeous four-part vocal harmonies, whimsical but sometimes dark moods, and of course lots of Incredible String-ed instrument playing.
We're always mentioning ISB in reviews of other folk-psych albums past and present, from Forest and Trees to P.G. Six and Tower Recordings, so it's nice to finally get these listed in our catalog once again...definitely if you're into that British folk-psych vibe you need to investigate this band if you haven't already!
Index was a band like thousands throughout the '60s, encouraged by the birth of rock 'n' roll a decade earlier and fueled by the waves of British bands that would hit the American shores. This quartet was born in the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe in 1967, at a time when the country was beginning to experience the pangs of turmoil and Detroit itself could be seen almost as a microcosm of the social unrest that was beginning to unfold. The heritage of Index is certainly notable, as the lead guitarist of the band was one John Ford. While the liner notes penned by drummer Jim Valice never overtly state that John's family was THE Ford family which spawned the automotive empire; the implication is quite clear that it is. While the affluence of John and fellow guitarist Gary Francis certainly helped in getting some great gear and recording equipment, the sound of Index is one of adolescence entering adulthood with an awakening disbelief that so much could be wrong in the world. At least on their first album, Index played with an urgency that sounded like the end of the world was near, as an underlying horror of bleakness lies beneath Index's punchy garage-pop beats and spring-reverb overloaded distortion. Their amateurish production that stumbled upon a cavernous sound certainly helps with this assessment. Think Jandek trying to mimic the sound of Martin Hannett's classic production sound for Joy Division.
The band drew from the '60s songbook, covering the Byrds' "Eight Miles High", The Supremes' hit single "You Keep Me Hanging On", and The Bee Gees "I Can't See Nobody", and the band claims Hendrix as a huge influence on their sound, with an incendiary feedback encroaching into their beat pop tunes, at times coming across like Davie Allan and at others looking forward to Ron Asheton's work on The Stooges' first album. All of this came to fruition on what would become known as The Black Album, which was recorded with a single microphone in a large empty ballroom, whose acoustics gave the album its unusual sound. The spring reverb drips upon the overdriven guitar leads and forceful rhythmic guitar jangle, which for 1967 would have been pretty damn heavy. The vocal duties of Index rotated from song to song, occasionally finding all of the members singing these emphatic, if monochordal harmonies that oozed with bittersweet energy and late-teen angst. This is typified on one of Index's best songs "Fire Eyes" and furthered along through their cover of "Eight Miles High". Another great highlight of note is the proto MC5 oil'n'motorcycle grind found on the instrumental track "Feedback".
When Index recorded their second album in 1968 later pegged as The Red Album, they had picked up a sound-on-sound cassette recorder, which seemed to be something of precursor to a 4-track. Unfortunately, in this technological jump, Index lost the cavernous murk of that single microphone recording in that ballroom, but they still managed some great songs dominated by Ford's spring-reverb soaked guitars, including a reprise of "Eight Miles High". "Paradise Beach" is a wonderfully downer, '60s pop number, and "Break Out" is a spry instrumental with a fine backbeat lifted from Booker T & The MGs. The band stumbles with the one boogie-rock blues number, but otherwise, The Red Album makes for a great listen.
The second disc of this set is a collection of tracks from an unreleased third album in 1970, recorded mostly by Ford and Vallice. A paisley-pop jangle settles into the mix with less of the expressive feedback that drove so much of The Black Album, and the songs show a maturation in the vocal harmonies as well. But the band broke up with the various members torn by their commitments with college, girls, and work. So the world turns.
A highly recommended find!
While we missed their recent show here in San Francisco we kept hearing rave reviews and many of our most trusted customers felt similarly, so much so that we knew we had to hear the new record. We're very happy we listened because Free Gold grabbed a hold of us on the very first listen and we've been hooked hard ever since.
Falling somewhere between Spacemen 3 and Jesus & Mary Chain, Indian Jewelry totally hit the spot in creating sounds that are both shoegazy and dangerous sounding at the same time. If we do get to see them live in support of this record we would want it to be in a really sparse room with nothing but a shitty PA and a really intense strobe light. Free Gold is one of those records that no matter what your history with the band is, you can tell that this is a record that finds the band really hitting their stride. They tap into so many things we love but with their own slight tweak on things that makes it totally their own. Like Loop or Wooden Shjips with a dash of mascara or a more fucked up and DIY version of the latest Raveonettes record that we've been so into. And much like the two Psychic Ills records we love so much, this hits the spot big time, especially when you are looking for that up to no good, slightly drugged out and sexy late night soundtrack.
Indian Jewelry's Free Gold emerged as a minor masterpiece of off-kilter neo-psychedelia back in 2008. Synths, drum machines, a sparse use of guitars, and way tripped-out effects spiralled throughout, but it was the vocal melodies - all ghostly, sexy, slightly confused, and daydreaming - that turned the record from becoming just another interesting diversion. For the 2010 album Totaled, the Houston duo turn inward for a more sinister take on their woozy, dreamtime psychedelia, that comes across almost like a ghetto-tech reanimation of the Flaming Lips' Embryonic. Indian Jewelry's fried electronics transmit throbbing, dirge-like sequences and skeletal rhythms, augmenting the fried neurons of zombified vocals, alternately delivered by Tex Kerschen and Erika Thrasher. The vocals are less of a focus here, positioned as an undercurrent of narcoleptic bad-vibes sort of like the sounds of a transistor radio murmuring in the apartment next door. The atmospheres throughout have the feeling of getting dosed /stoned on (insert drug of choice) and then wandering around an industrial wasteland at twilight. The colors beautifully serve to highlight the more rundown parts of urban living.
While we have yet to review any Indian Jewelry records on the aQ list, most of us here are pretty big fans. Their Invasive Exotics record was an awesome chunk of tripped out droniness, that probably would have been a really good fit on the aQ list. We'll have to remedy that soon. But before they were Indian Jewelry, they were called NTX + Electric, and had a pretty dramatically different sound.
On We Are The Wild Beast, the soon to be Indian Jewelry sounded less like some wacked Texas free psych dronewave outfit, and more like some NYC no-wave skronk combo, complete with squawking saxophones, thick gristly synth, haunting new wave grooves, lots of electronic bleepery, but also some more modern sounds, some of the melodies sound like they could have been plucked from Interpol songs, there's definitely some garage-y stomp, some shoegazey droneouts, the core sound though is the simple clattery percussion, the huge thick slabs of buzzing synth, and the saxophone, which spends much of its time in the background, unfurling hypnotic snakecharmer grooves.
Buried amidst all this skronk and skree and buzz re some fantastic pop songs, and some killer hooks, but they're usually obscured by clouds of FX, or wrapped around spiky angular riffing. The opener is a killer, a modern sounding dancefloor killer, with it's sax refrain and the blown out synth buzz, a total new wave groove that would have the girljean set frugging madly. But then there's songs like "Looking At You", a dreamy krautpop jam, with that same sax refrain from the first song resurfacing, all under thick sheets of crumbling psych guitar. The nearly 14 minute "S-O-S-O-S" begins like some sort of Spacemen 3 bliss out, but soon transforms into some off kilter Unrest style jam, insistent guitar jangle, Beatles-y croon, and simple lo-fi pop hooks, all wrapped up in loads of distortion, and more amp frying FX.
It's really not that hard to hear a lot of later Indian Jewelry in the sound of NTX+Electric, but they have more of an old school electro / no-wave thing going on, which means fans of folks like Glass Candy and the like might also dig. Cool, weird, awesome stuff.
We first heard Pat Maher's Indignant Senility project via last year's Plays Wagner, where he created haunting and murky atmospheric compositions sourced from a thrift store copy of a Wagner opera, which we loved. Maher, who also creates music under the guises of DJ Yo-Yo Dieting and Diamond Catalog, returns with his second Indignant Senility release and his source material is wider, but even more mysterious. Industrial ambiance is still the primary mode of his music making, but the sounds take on a more tweaked concrete mode of vintage avant garde composition, sometimes invoking the metallic shard like sounds of Iannis Xenakis or Harry Bertoia. Towards the end of the third track, "No One", the listener can make out the far off plaintive strands of a string quartet seeping through the foggy murk, adding a funeral tension and gloom to the proceedings. Beautifully bleak!
Groovy collection of stuff by this great Patrick Cowley related band from back in the day.
If the White Stripes were a goth band? Perhaps. Industrial Park are the Portland duo of Emma Barnett & Nick Makanna, who produce their dour post-punk songs with only guitar, voice, and drums - and the opening number seems to be the only track with a bass (which is certainly unusual in the land of the goth). Very little production, and certainly no synths to speak of what so ever. The songs themselves brace themselves between Christian Death and the March Violets with the gloomy vocals from Barnett cast in the sparest of echo; and Industrial Park offers up a rather uptempo cover of the Sisters Of Mercy's mega-dirge "Valentine." Beautifully smeared black & white vinyl, and limited to 300 copies.
A few years back we were intrigued and amazed by a disc entitled Case Studies In Bioentropy, the debut from this very strange band. Experimental drone prog noise textural rock weirdness. We went on and on about how "strange" it was. Now Infidel?/Castro! are back, on the Crucial Blast label, with what might be an even stranger album. Maybe twice as strange in fact 'cause it's two discs instead of one! An overwhelming sprawl of chaotic geek-tech glitch abstraction, lovely melodic improvisations, and conceptual nerdy noisenik metal-riffed surreal insanity... is it serious? Is it science? Can't tell. The music is accompanied by equally hard-to-grok computer art and text. Song titles include "Temporarily Desolving Into Plasma During A Moment To One's Self" and "Bedsores (for G.W.B.)". Hmm. At least we know who G.W.B. is.
These two discs are certainly interesting, sometimes beautiful, and yes most definitely strange. Recommended to anyone who doesn't mind spinning from ambient drone to fractured prog to electronic mayhem -- like a collison of Fantomas and irr. app. (ext.), maybe. Or Isis, Merzbow, MBV, and Behold The Arctopus, perhaps. The latter of which features Colin Marston, also a member of Infidel?/Castro! by the way. So that might give you an idea...just an idea... of what this is all about. The real answer, we're still looking for. But in the meantime, we're enjoying this album!
Just a few copies are available of this vinyl only release from Kyle Parker's Infinite Body project, from which we got a nice introduction into his soft-noise / heavy-ambient sounds on the split LP with Emaciator. He picks up where he left off there with a blissed-out distortion billowing out of a glistening cyclical drone from what sounds like a overdriven pump organ. The heavy waves of distortion gradually fade away, and a pastoral, Cluster like melody is left behind to effortlessly glide through a warm set of ambient melodies. This gives way to a crunchier version of what Oneohtrix Point Never has been offering through luminous arpeggiations that trick themselves out of anything remotely new age sounding; and here, it's the heavy patina of distortion which saves Infinite Body's mantra. Parker furthers the shimmer with some floating-in-outer-space driftscaping bristling with bleary noises just beneath the surface, only to find these collapsing into a throbbing drone that reconstitutes itself through a kaleidoscope of that same pump organ sound. At first this emerges as a eerie fog horn only to overtake the sound field in a growing mass of crunched noise. Limited to 300 copies and pressed on clear vinyl.
Over the last few weeks, we've reviewed a bunch of 7"s, previously only available to subscribers to Not Not Fun's long running Bored Fortress Club 7" Subscription series. For whatever reason, the singles have finally been made available to non-subscribers, and feature a pretty killer line up of bands: Wet Hair, Peaking Lights, High Wolf, Gnod, Robedoor, Ducktails, Rangers, Sex Worker, Psychic Reality, and The Savage Young Taterbug. The only one we weren't able to list, UNTIL NOW, is this one, a split between two longtime aQ faves, noise poppers No Age, and psychedelic post noise dronescapers Infinite Body.
No Age unleash a squall of gnarled distorto guitar, muted drums, and buried vox, a swirling cloud of sound that finds the various elements blurred into a single heaving washed out noisepop mass, here and there shimmering guitars ring out through the murk, while near the track's end, the rhythmic pulse transforms into a metallic industrial pound, and the guitars grow hazier and more ghostlike, until the song blinks out with a short blast of grinding crunch.
Infinite Body counter with a woozy loopscape, all burnt guitar thrum, and circusy melody, a pulsing hypnotic landscape of gristly distorted smears, reminding us of Tim Hecker or Philip Jeck, a gloriously lysergic, gently blown out bit of dronefuzz ambient dreaminess.
As with the other installments in the series, killer eye popping packaging, and of course VERY LIMITED!!
It should be noted that this group is entirely comprised of experienced and popular pop punk musicians like Jody Bleyle (Team Dresch, Hazel), Tamala Poljak (Longstocking, Automaticans), Whitney Skillkorn (Little Deaths, Fighter D) and Scotty Walsh
Well, this is a first for the aQ list, at least as far as we remember. We're hitting list #469 so forgive us our senility if it's happened before, but we do believe this is the very first 7" we have made Record Of The Week! And it's not just any 7" but a double 7", one that hasn't seen the light of day since it was first released in 1981 right here in San Francisco by Subterranean Records, containing the sole recordings (five songs) of legendary all female art punk eccentrics, Inflatable Boy Clams. Long sought after by collectors of bizarre music and fetching indecent prices online, it's amazing to have this left-field punk artifact available again.
Featuring Carol Detweiler and Judy Gittlesohn of local new wave heroes Pink Section (whose collected recordings were just released as well and reviewed on this list), Jo Jo Planteen and saxophonist Genevieve Boutet de Monvel of Longshoreman and Club Foot Orchestra, Inflatable Boy Clams were not so much a traditional band as they were a performance art collective, rotating instruments and vocal duties for each song. Barebones arrangements with minimal musicianship of carnival organ, saxophone, angular bass riffs and incredibly oft-kilter singing put them in a kinship with bands like Monitor, Flying Lizards, The Art Bears, and The Raincoats, and later with bands like The Double U, Thinking Fellers, and Smack Dab, but the Inflatable Boy Clams were even weirder, funnier and much more cooly deranged.
The first 7" features "Skeletons", a Halloweenish children's song made by what sounds like very unhinged children, with the B-side "Snoteleks" being, you guessed it, "Skeletons" played backward making a weird surreal song even more fun-house like and disorientating.
The second 7" has three songs, starting with the satirical "Marin", a sort of send-up of richness and comfort of the affluent county north of San Francisco, sung by Gittlesohn in an arch French accent. The next track, "I'm Sorry", was perhaps the Clams most well-known song, often getting airplay on Dr. Demento's radio show. A sort of cover of Walter Donaldson's 1926 hit "What Can I Say After I've Said I'm Sorry" (Donaldson gets a writing credit), a chorus of voices sing a slow refrain of the main lyrics, while Gittlesohn and Planteen trade confessional stories of mutual bad friendship to each other (stealing boyfriends - or maybe girlfriends, electrocuting pets, ruining a dress, destroying beloved cassette tapes), with very disingenuous apology. The final song on the B-side, "Boystown" is a curious martial dirge about boys going back to Boystown with their guns and knives as the gals sing with slow sinister "good-riddance" tra-la-la glee.
But really, words and descriptions can't quite quantify what a bizarre, hermetic and wholly contained piece of DIY musical art from content to packaging this is. One whose mystery and unexplainable attraction would likely have been diluted had the group attempted to continue and make more recordings. That shirk of commercial success brand identity and skewering of gender politics is in turn what makes San Francisco punk stand apart and sound so fucking great right now. Thanks to Superior Viaduct for making this and the Pink Section recordings available again! Highly Recommended!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Vampiric emo-no-wave-techno-metal. Listen to them. The Philadelphian children of the night. What beautiful music they make. ...Take the weirdest keyboard black metal (Arcturus/Septic Flesh), the prog-post-punk & male vocals of Dischord band Circus Lupus, occasional Cradle of Filth style female vocals, and gothic corpsepaint (really) and add a little Autechre & you've got Ink & Dagger, more or less.
Long, long awaited final release from this now sadly defunct Philadelphia band, who blazed their own musical trail combining emo punk rock, math-core, electronics, and no-wave...that unique formula, not to mention their kick-ass guitarist and of course their band-defining obsession with vampires, made Ink & Dagger a big AQ favorite. This self-titled album, released after many months delay, sees them incorporating more of a riffy '70s metal influence, while still retaining their moody, complex mix of weirdness. For fans of Circus Lupus, Ruin, Coalesce, Fugazi, and, let's face it, Led Zeppelin! In other words, recommended.
This is one of those records that we always thought we were just going to hear about, maybe hear a song or two on some compilation, but never actually get to hear in its entirety. So we're THRILLED to see this pre-CAN album, a soundtrack to a film that never came out (how come those are always the best?!), finally seeing the light of day. And what a tripped out, acid soaked, free-pop-jazz-rock odyssey it is!
Recorded in 1968 by a lineup that included Irmin Schmidt, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit who a year later would make their debut as Can with the release of Monster Movie, listening to these sounds one for sure can hear the seeds of what would become Can's distinctive krautrock sound, but this also displays a much more fried, disjointed and mind altering side to these way ahead of their time music makers. While mostly an instrumental affair that at times reminds us of the equally colorful and fucked up Jean Claude Vannier concept album L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, there are a few tracks which have vocals courtesy of Irmin Schmidt, but the true show stopper is when Rosy Rosy, a film actress in Germany at the time, takes the mic for "Kamerasong", a track we imagine folks like Broadcast and Stereolab have played on repeat a billion times (like we have now!). While plenty of the songs here hint at the more song based Can records to come, lots of Agilok & Blubbo is much more about sprawling, scrappy, tripped out and fucked up delight, the kind of sounds modern day colorful noise makers like Kemialliset Ystavat and Sunburned Hand Of The Man would bow down to. What makes the record so enjoyable is how its paced, just when things have gotten way deconstructed and abstract they snap into more of a catchy, driving melody and then continue on in more bizarre directions and into outer dimensions. Warped, damaged and engaging in all the right ways!
The latest release from Pacific City Sound Visions, the label run by Spencer Clark, one half of the late great floorcore noise duo The Skaters. He's in Inner Tube, joined by none other than Mark McGuire of Emeralds, and the results are pretty baffling, but brilliant in their own way. The sounds of Inner Tube seems to hew much closer to those of the OTHER Skater, James Ferraro, with a wildly fractured recapitulation of the cheesiest music of the eighties, in this case, what sounds like the theme music from BayWatch or Miami Vice, but with more shredding guitar. What? Yep, imagine Joe Satriani via Ariel Pink, and you'll be getting warmer, fuzzy guitars, propulsive beats, synthy swirls, some seriously retro eighties pop, but with endlessly shredding psychedelic leads, total shredfest, but wedded to old school sort of electro pop synth rock. There are a few tracks, where things get a bit murkier and moodier, and a little bit soundtracky, but the majority of the record sets itself firmly in shredding eighties retro pop, but suitably warped and weird. Might shed some light on the proceedings to have Clark himself explain the impetus / genesis of Inner Tube:
"The bliss and ecstatic power of Australian beach music has kept me in this positive mental attitude that I wanted to communicate to everyone around me. Mark and I began to be in touch, and started to really connect in our exotic fascination with Australia and its surf culture. We decided to record an album together with impressions from these private movies and their tunes. Mark travelled numerous times to Pacific City Studios so that we could make this album together (and eventually moved here). At one point, a woman visiting Hotel California who I hadn't met before, mentioned she thought it was strange that I played so much Australian music. I told her about my fascination with Storm Riders, the sickest Australian movie of all time. She immediately told me that her Uncle had a big part in the movie.�The guy's name is Rabbit Bartholomew. He is a magical person in this Storm Riders movie and has been an inspirational to surfers everywhere. He wrote this letter to Mark and I: 'Hey Spencer, Great to get ya letter. Christel gave me a bit of insight. Really cool how you guys were talking about Storm Riders and our family connection, that's meant to be bra. For sure, send me a demo, I'll give ya some feedback. That's really cool about Inner Tube and the beloved zone, that's it mate, right on the money.' We then realized that we were to travel to the Gold Coast in Australia to record Inner Tube Part Deux, and play a Surf Festival put on by Rabbit Bartholomew's sister. The story just keeps on going, so Mark and I are really stoked to have you guys check this out with us..."
Ummm, yep. Doesn't make a whole lot more sense now does it. Or does it? Regardless, we dig it!
Comes in suitably garish dayglo surfer style jacket, and includes a huge equally garish / dayglo poster of Clark and McGuire.
The Innocence Mission have been around the block a few times - since 1982 actually in some shape or form. Problem is, so much time passes between each of their releases that their fans have often been left fretting that the band is no more. This collection
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
UK DIY lo-fi avant-punk, with home-made synths and drum machine, utterly distorted guitar n' bass, and some rather clever, sardonic lyrics pertaining to both society at large and their friends in particular -- yup, it's another one from the Messthetics vaults, as it were (see our reviews of Messthetics Greatest Hits and Animals & Men on our last two lists). Lincolnshire's Instant Automatons got their start as a schoolboy band in 1974, with early influences like Hawkwind and Kraftwerk, and suitably futuristic "instruments" sourced from their school's physics lab! The punk rock revolution of '77 came along just as they left school and pretty soon they'd picked their "vaguely self-mocking" name (out of a hat) and started recording in earnest, becoming pioneers of the nascent cassette music scene -- they were one of the first to advertise that if you sent 'em a blank cassette, they'd dub their album onto it and send it back, free of charge... the pre-internet precursor to downloading it seems. They kept at it for a few years, and so here's a sort-of "best of", consisting of 26 tracks, some previously unreleased, others compiled from various rare cassette and vinyl releases circa 1978-1982, including such numbers as "Short Haired Man (In A Long Haired Town", "Violence", "New Muzak", and "Gillian Is Normal". Lots of wise-ass wisdom to be found in the words to these and other songs. The Instant Automatons surely liked to take the piss, which makes for an entertaining listen. For instance, the atonal, spaced-out track "Electronic Music", with lines like "electronic music is the curse of the working classes" and "electronic music makes you unfit" is still pretty amusing today.
We just got done raving about the brand new record from weirdo garage-pop punks The Intelligence, when what should show up, but ANOTHER new record, well, not actually new, but new to us! Originally released in 2009, on the French label Born Bad, and only showing up here for the first time in the last few days, but we're not complaining, in fact it's like some sort of garage punk Christmas. And like Everybody's Got It Easy But Me, Crepuscule With Pacman is another killer chunk of whatthefuck garage pop that manages to be catchy and jangly and fuzzy, and yet totally bafflingly bizarre. Crepuscule is much more raw and low fidelity, but it definitely suits them, the songs super stripped down, and repetitive, a but minimal, a little murky, but still impossibly catchy. the more we listen to these guys, the more we're surprised so many people dig em, cuz they are definitely difficult. The songs here run the gamut from frenetic angular almost new wave, to Velvets-y dronedirge, from crunchy atonal post punk noise rock to stripped down classic sixties style jangle pop, but really, whatever these guys are doing, they're just a little bit off, a little bit twisted, making the tracks here sound like some sort of alternate universe garage pop band, whose very existence and interruption of the space time continuum, cause their music to warp and warble, but every time we begin to think that (and yes, we think that a lot), they'll slip into some totally perfect pop, or unveil a ridiculously masterful hook. Mixing synths and surf rock, twisted guitars, and warped outsider pop into something that we can't get enough of, and should definitely appeal to fans of groups like Thee Oh Sees, Bare Wires, Ty Segall, White Fence and all the rest, who like their garage pop on the seriously skewed side of the sonic spectrum.
Brand new record from these aQ beloved lo-fi garage rock noise poppers and right off the bat they're in full-on confuse mode. Instead of a wild rollicking blast of crunchy guitars and pounding drums, we're treated to a woozy bit of druggy minimal drum machine driven folk, all steel string strum and Casio skitter, laced with tinkling melodies, it's actually pretty cool, definitely a dramatic shift. But there's more going on that meets the ear. Soon the song devolves into a repetitive groove, the drum machine rhythm now sort of fucked up and skipping and glitching out, with a single strum every measure, over which the vocalist sings a number, starting with one, then two, and he keeps counting, and we honestly had no idea when he would stop, but he does, at 44 for some reason, and then says "Ladies and gentlemen, the band", at which point the band proper kicks in, playing a properly garage rocking version of the song, and suddenly it's all perfect. and that weird whatthefuck intro only makes us love these guys all the more.
From there on out, the band kick down another clutch of twisted garage rock weirdness and warped jangle pop noisiness, but barring a few seriously far out jams, the band are surprisingly polished, as are the songs, fuzzy and hooky and jangly, slipping occasionally into strummy folkiness, or soaring epic shoegaziness, but always returning to some crunchy catchy pop, that for all it's outwards normality, is still quite twisted, whether it's bizarre arrangements, strange effects, maddeningly repeated parts, new wave-y angularity, all deftly woven into a seriously addictive slab of outsider garage pop that while crunchy and fuzzy and jangly enough to appeal to the whole Thee Oh Sees / Bare Wires / Blasted Canyons crowd, might just be a little too weird and warped for heavy rotation with casual listeners, but because of that, seems to transcend the classification of simple 'garage pop', and becomes something much more fucked up and weirdly arty, which makes this a new fast fave.
To the list of lo-fi noise popping shit gazing garage rockers, Thee Ohsees, Mayyors, Psychedelic Horseshit, Times New Viking, Blank Dogs, Wavves, and the like, you can now add the Intelligence. We've seen some live footage of these guys on YouTube, and they kick up a pretty crazy racket, but on record, they're much more subdued and trippy, crafting dark brooding echoey gloom pop, with muted drumming, soft focus jagged guitar crunch, woozy weary vocals, everything surrounded by a haze of delay and tape hiss and amp buzz, positioning these guys closer to groups like Ariel Pink, Holy Shit, and the like, but then when you think you have 'em pegged, they kick out a surfy, groovy hand clappy jam, that sounds surprisingly like "Walking On The Sun" by Smashmouth (we know, we know, but it's true!) although somehow in their hands it sounds WAY cooler. Crunchy guitars, distorted vox, big booming drums, clanging and chiming chords, warm whirring organ, it's also the closest the Intelligence get to sounding like Thee Ohsees weirdly enough. The rest of the record is a much more twisted lo-fi jangly proposition, with many of the songs sounding like creepy sixties garage rock (Fuzztones?) or skiffle-ly reverbed soft pop, but even then, the songs sound fragmented and twisted, with circusy keyboards adding a definite haunting vibe, and some really odd, but oddly catchy hooks. Acoustic guitars, rubbery basslines, trashy practice space drums, and weary deadpan vocals, all woven into some cool, laid back garage jangle, occasionally exploding into a bit of pounding crunch chug, but usually slipping back into something more washed out and groovy.
Not sure what it is, but we just can't stop listening to this. Which is pretty much the best recommendation we can give...
We first heard The Intelligence on a split with Thee Oh Sees, which makes sense, considering both bands traffic in the same sort of stripped down, raw and sweaty garage punk, and we were pretty nuts about The Intelligence's first full length, Fake Surfers, which demonstrated that these guys weren't nearly as blown out or in the red as many of their compatriots, their sound more low slung, reminding us of groups like the Wipers and the Leaving Trains as much as groups like the Mayyors, Blank Dogs, Wavves and the like. The guitars muted and muddy, a crunchy jangle, the vocals less a distorted wail, and more a reverbed croon, the songs simple and stripped down, but catchy as fuck, and super poppy, raw and urgent, most hovering around the two minute mark, short sharp blasts of fuzzy reverby garage pop, replete with buried in the mix synths, and some fuzzy background vox... and what on the surface sounds pretty straight ahead, will crumble right before your ears as the band unleash some sort of insanely hook filled chorus, or a bad ass earworm of a bridge, like on the awesomely titled "Tuned To Puke", which features a pounding rhythm and a looped sounding cyclical woozy main riff, the vocals sticking close to the main melody, but then the guitars soar, unleashing a shimmering bit of jangle, laced with some 'ooooh'-ing vox, and then it's right back to the churn and crunch again. But it's those moments that make The Intelligence so special, and make their songs stick in your head. And like Fake Surfers before it, every listen of Males just makes us want to hear more...
Latest blast of garage pop noise rock radness from one of our favorite outfits, and like the last however many records of theirs, it's equal parts hook heavy crunch and jangle, and more tripped out sonic experimentation. The first two tracks are straight up reverb rocking garage. Opener "Sex" is a bit fuzzier and crunchier, while "Nocturnal Admissions" is more smooth and slippery, and the weird thing is, either we never noticed before, or something's changed, but the Intelligence sound a LOT like aQ beloved weird pop nerds Jaill. Which is not a bad thing at all (and BTW, Jaill has a new record we have in stock, which rules! And which we'll review soon, but we digress)!
"Cleaning Lady" is where the band start mixing it up, with a noisy bit of programmed rhythm, wound around a low slung bass line, and some snake charmer synth melodies, and eventually some fuzzy guitar, and some swirling FX. It's a pretty heady and hypnotic jam, that manages to be both psychedelic, and sweetly poppy. And honestly the deeper we get into Vintage Future, the more we're convinced these guys have honed their songwriting chops significantly. While before it was a lot about the sound, and sometimes the sound was so cool or weird or noisy or chaotic, that the sound didn't matter, here the sounds, still cool, are in support of some of the best Intelligence songs to date. "Whip My Valet" is a frantic punky poppy blowout, "We Refuse To Pay The Dues" is all swagger garage-blooze stomp, "Tourists" is another weird one, drum machine, acoustic guitars, and swirly psychedelic filigree, while the title track begins all bass heavy and woozy, before blossoming into a super catchy slab of melodic jangle pop garage rock.
On first listen we did dig this a bunch, but the more we listen, the more it's revealing itself as not just good, but really fucking great. The Jaill vibe pops up a bunch, and at times we're even reminded of another aQ fave, Mrs. Magician. It's not nearly as weird as the other records, and in most cases, for us at least, less weird often equals less good, but Vintage Future might be their best (and suprisingly least weird) yet!
Finally in! This is the all-star K Records/Olympia, WA scene collaboration/compilation. Is that enough 'slashes' for ya? A recording project co-ordinated by a gentleman by the name of Paul E. Schuster. These are all his songs which he asked his musical friends to augment and accessorize. Kinda like Stephin Merritt's project The 6ths, but maybe a bit more diverse in the ensuing interpretations and outcome. Calvin Johnson, Lois Maffeo, Kathleen Hanna, Slim Moon, Carrie Brownstein... they're all here.
International Airport is comprised of Glasgow indie-scene veterans Aggi of the Pastels (as soon as the vocals began, I knew it was her) and Tom Crosley of Drag City folk duo Appendix Out (Tom is also in Pastels). But, International Airport is much less singsong pop than Pastels. Softly floating pastoral goodness, mostly instrumentals but with a few vocal tracks. It will not blow you away (it's far too demure for that) but it may make your dreams sweet. With appearances by members of Incense and Belle and Sebastian. What a lovely world it would be if the masses looking for the new Sea and Cake album would turn their attention to International Airport.
The late sixties Swedish musical aggregation that was Parson Sound / International Harvester / Harvester / Trad, Gras Och Stenar (really all one evolving band) was basically an example of the genre we've decided to call "international krautrock". Like a
Silence has added an incredible, lengthy (24 minute!) bonus track called "Skordetider" ("Harvest Times") that the band originally intended for an album B-side but never used. It's hypnotic, powerful jam that could have fit well on that Parson Sound release. In other words: wow! Additionally, this cd features extensive liner notes documenting the group's history (the same essay is also found in Silence's reissue of the Harvester album, but with different photos). Along with the Parson Sound double cd, this is definitely one of the reissues of the year for us.
Sophmore records are so tricky. Especially when they follow the HUGE BREAKTHROUGH MASSIVE HIT RECORD. What can a band do? Why do you think there are so many amazing debut records? It's because the band has been waiting their whole life to release that record. Years and years to work on those songs. Years and years of playing those songs, until they are perfect and tight. The second album is cursed by the fact that it has to be written and conceived beneath the fallout of the first, often written on tour, in hotels and on buses which for most bands is not at all how they are used to writing songs. Such is the case with Interpol. Their debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, was perfect. Dark and catchy and funny and gloomy and chock full of perfect post-punk post-new wave pop classics. Everyone we know loved that record. Metalheads, punk rockers, whatever. It didn't matter. It was that good. So then the question is how did Interpol weather the sophmore slump. Disappointment is inevitable right? Well, track one definitely threw us off, a slow maudlin tail dragger, a lot like our least favorite track on Bright Lights. The next track "Evil" was definitely a return to form, but there was still something a little off, not as good maybe? We couldn't put our finger on it. We were all a little bit bummed. Sure it sounded pretty good. The whole record did, but we were all disappointed and sort of wrote it off as an 'oh well' and figured we'd just go back to Bright Lights. But a funny thing happened. We all kept putting Antics back on the stereo, all of us. And gradually we all came to the realization that Antics is a fucking amazing record!! Maybe more subtle, a little darker, not so immediately catchy, but isn't that what a second record should be? No one wants to hear the same record again, and lord knows the band doesn't want to play those songs over again. So yeah, this record is awesome. As good as Bright Lights, just different. Which is a good thing. A great thing actually. It takes some growing, but all great records do. "Evil" is punky and funky and about as upbeat as Interpol get, with sing songy, over ennunciated vocals, super reverbed guitar and a irresistable rhythmic bounce. And once you get to track five "Slow Hands", the single, you're definitely sold. "Slow Hands" definitely sounds like it could have come straight off Bright Lights, but with a decidedly more Strokes-like jangle that gives way to classic Interpol minor key chug and haunting reverbed piano chorus. After that you might as well just give in and admit that this is probably going to be one of the best records of the year. Antics has quickly turned into one of those rare records (New Pornographers, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc.) that we have to -force- ourselves not to listen to so we won't burn out on it! So good!
