When the Drinks album came out a while back, we were enamored by the Welsh half of that duo - the beguiling Cate Le Bon. And little did we know that she had three previous solo albums under her belt. So, Crab Day is our first exposure to her solo work; and is it quite the gem of eccentric avant-pop. The title references an imagined holiday by Le Bon's niece, who preferred celebrating Crab Day to April Fool's Day. The tales for her Crab Day spiral out as off-kilter / avant-psych tunes that hark to the discomforting jubilation that Syd Barrett would muster on his solo records. Many of the arrangements are sharply staccato in the rhythms that lock the bass, drum, piano, and even a xylophone onto a singular motorik, yet humanly played beat, with the guitars forming moire patterns of jangly, rhythm dissonance all of which allows for Le Bon's languid voice to glide effortlessly atop. As a chanteuse, she's not too far from Nico in terms of the cool and detached attitude she applies to her songs, though Le Bon is far more of a playful character.
(Note: released on compact disc too, but we're fresh out... maybe back in next week.)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another Detroit duo featuring Mr. Adam Lee Miller. Yes, prior to the awesomeness of Adult., he along with Ian Clark created music of the icily funky techno kind - demonstrating a wry wit and subtle pushing of the envelope on the dancefloor. Auto-biography is a very thorough retrospective of the brief existence of Le Car (1995-98) recounting each of their releases titled Autograph, Automatic and Autofuel.
If Lightning Bolt had boy/girl vocals and ditched the guitar for a couple of synths, the result might be something akin to Le Flange du Mal. The band, which existed in the early part of the 2000s and is finally, posthumously, releasing this record, had a somewhat silly exterior (hence the pun in the title) which veiled bombastic, danceable drumming, a political agenda, and excellent weird melodies. Carrion, My Wayward Son varies between frenetic Melt Banana-esque thrash and percussive dirgy marches reminiscent of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, especially when lead vocalists Liz Allbee and Chris Rolls team up and sing together. Allbee has since moved on to perform with Oakland's south-Asian songsters Neung Phak, and although the two projects have little to do with each other sonically, it's easy to picture Allbee's vocal skills finding a home there. The record comes with a digital download code (printed not on a card, but on the vinyl's center label) for not just this lp, but also the band's previous two lps and a video of an entire concert.
It really is kind of remarkable the amount of direct influence Animal Collective has had on music makers in the last several years. We heard their influence on the Le Loup debut from a few years ago and this follow up finds this East Coast band still very much indebted to the sound that Animal Collective have created with their multilayered dense pop doused in reverb and bursting at the seems with harmony and melody. This time around it seems they've tapped more into the Panda Bear side of the Animal Collective equation as Family really does have a similar sound and feel to PB's masterpiece Person Pitch. Some of the instrumentation Le Loup uses does help set them a bit apart from the flock of Animal Collective followers, laying down some pretty awesome sounds with the banjo. A friend of ours recently commented that so many of today's Animal Collective soundalikes will be remembered as the modern equivalent to the Dave Clark Five in the time of The Beatles, but hell, when it comes to knock offs, Le Loup have it down pretty damn well.
Le Loup is a group of artists & musicians led by Sam Simkoff, who plays the banjo and the keyboards. Coming from D.C. it's no surprise that there is a strong collective spirit heard on this recording with all eight members contributing vocals to songs which have a really organic disposition. Imagine if the Animal Collective slowed down a bit and took some deep cleansing breaths or if Sufjan Stevens was a little more rugged and less precious. After putting out the great Arthur & Yu record that we fell in love with earlier this summer, Hardly Art is proving to be one of the best new indie rock labels around. Banjo fans (like Andee) who have a pop soft spot might really dig this...
A Polish collective playing mysterious, moody and melancholy jazz-inflected music. This is apparently their 12th or 13th release! Tapes, synth, guitars, female vocals, etc. On Obuh, the label responsible for various Atman-related releases of avant-garde hippy
Release number two of gorgeous kosmische synth drift from this former member of Godspeed You Black Emperor and Fly Pan Am, whose previous release, a way too limited cassette on Root Strata, had most of the folks here flipping out. Le Revelateur, aka Roger Tellier-Craig, also performed at last year's On Land Festival here in SF, and amidst a pretty incredible lineup, managed, at least as many of us were concerned, to steal the show.
This new album plays like a single track, separated into movements, which is appropriate considering in some ways it's a modern reimagining of the classic seventies synth work of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and all the rest, and of course, the sounds of Le Revelateur will most definitely appeal to fans of other modern synth retro-revisionists, like Mist, Emeralds, Innercity, Oneohtrix Point Never et all, but there's something about Le Revelateur's sound that manages to elevate it above its sonic brethren, Tellier-Craig so adept at unfurling sounds and gradually building these epic, dreamlike celestial synthscapes, and the thing is, it's not all static tones, and long layered shimmer, no, the synths here are surprisingly active, emitting flurries of notes, glimmering squalls of psychedelic swirl, but those are all woven into these epic expanses of spaced out dreamdrone drift, the A side, an 18 minute epic, spends its first half drifting ethereally, before a pulsing synth rhythm finally surface, adding a bit of propulsion to the track, and transforming new age shimmer into swirling buzzing pulsating krautdrone bliss, the sound getting downright noisy near the end, the edges sharper and slightly more abrasive, only to then quickly dissipate in a gorgeous blissed out high end raga like coda.
The B side starts off with a whirling starfield of softly swirling notes, a blurry tangle of psychedelic synths, layered and textural, offering up brief flurries of soaring melody, getting darkly proggy and droney about halfway through, only to finish off with an epic sprawl of Sunroof! like upper register spacekraut raga, before finishing off with the comparatively more muted final track, which begins sounding a bit like the music from some seventies planetarium show, only to blossom into a gorgeously rhythmic stretch of percolating retro synthscapery, a pulsing futuristic soundworld that also builds and builds to a near psychedelic climax, before finally finishing off in a hazy cloud of soft focus synth swirl.
Released on the Gneiss Things label, run by Emeralds' Steve Hauschildt.
Now a visually-augmented dvd-r release, this music was originally released on vinyl via the Gneiss Things label, run by Emeralds' Steve Hauschildt (whose solo Kranky debut we reviewed here recently). Fictions is release number two of gorgeous kosmische synth drift from this former member of Godspeed You Black Emperor and Fly Pan Am, whose previous release, a way too limited cassette on Root Strata, had most of the folks here flipping out. Le Revelateur, aka Roger Tellier-Craig, also performed at last year's On Land Festival here in SF, and amidst a pretty incredible lineup, managed, at least as far as many of us were concerned, to steal the show.
And those who did see the show, also got to witness the accompanying visuals, a gorgeous collection of films created by Teller-Craig's partner Sabrina Ratte, whose fantastical prismatic impressionism is the perfect visual accompaniment for Teller-Craig's futuristic kosmische. synthscapery. Let's revisit the music first, as the music here is the same as on the lp:
The three tracks on Fictions plays like a single track, separated into movements, which is appropriate considering in some ways it's a modern reimagining of the classic seventies synth work of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and all the rest, and of course, the sounds of Le Revelateur will most definitely appeal to fans of other modern synth retro-revisionists, like Mist, Emeralds, Innercity, Oneohtrix Point Never et all, but there's something about Le Revelateur's sound that manages to elevate it above its sonic brethren, Tellier-Craig so adept at unfurling sounds and gradually building these epic, dreamlike celestial synthscapes, and the thing is, it's not all static tones, and long layered shimmer, no, the synths here are surprisingly active, emitting flurries of notes, glimmering squalls of psychedelic swirl, but those are all woven into these epic expanses of spaced out dreamdrone drift, the first track, an 18 minute epic, spends its first half drifting ethereally, before a pulsing synth rhythm finally surface, adding a bit of propulsion to the mix, and transforming new age shimmer into swirling buzzing pulsating krautdrone bliss, the sound getting downright noisy near the end, the edges sharper and slightly more abrasive, only to then quickly dissipate in a gorgeous blissed out high end raga like coda.
The second track starts off with a whirling starfield of softly swirling notes, a blurry tangle of psychedelic synths, layered and textural, offering up brief flurries of soaring melody, getting darkly proggy and droney about halfway through, only to finish off with an epic sprawl of Sunroof!-like upper register spacekraut raga, before finishing off with the comparatively more muted final track, which begins sounding a bit like the music from some seventies planetarium show, only to blossom into a gorgeously rhythmic stretch of percolating retro synthscapery, a pulsing futuristic soundworld that also builds and builds to a near psychedelic climax, before finally finishing off in a hazy cloud of soft focus synth swirl.
And Ratte's visuals, as mentioned above, could almost be described in the same way, the images and colors and moving shapes, are almost musical, flickering and slowly shifting, with rainbow solar flares, and vintage video game grids, mysterious shapes and flashing colors, it's like equal parts video game and fever dream, some of it looks like a James Ferraro album cover come to life, bold and bright colors and shapes, all retro VHS / late night cable psychedelia, a head spinning, mind melting feast for the (third?) eyes. Gorgeous, sonically AND visually.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, comes in a slim dvd style case, with full color art inside and out, as well as a printed clear plastic insert.
The crazed, genre-scrambling grindcore of Germany's Le Scrawl is, as threatened, back! This new 13-song, 16-minute cdep will either bring a big smile to your face or confuse and annoy you utterly. Imagine Napalm Death teamed up with Uz Jsme Doma. That is, political punk metal all fucked up with horns and a weird sense of humor. Keyboards and flugelhorn aren't normally part of an underground grind band's arsenal, but Le Scrawl aren't normal... Metal nerds should note that this was recorded by Harris Johns, whose previous credits include numerous Sodom albums as well as Voivod, Helloween, Coroner, Tankard, Pestilence, Saint Vitus, Therion, S.A.D.O., and more. But this definitely must have been a unique session for Johns! Scrawl are one of the original wacky grind outfits, and they sure know how to mix up the gruff and the smooth. Metal riff one moment, lounge groove the next. And having just seen 'em live on a rare US tour, I have to say I was amazed at their deadpan delivery of their complex and, well, silly material. Oh yeah, if you don't like ska...well just wait 5 seconds...every five seconds.
Ignore the "Le", that's just a silly way to differentiate this Scrawl from the '90s US indie rock girl group. And they are VERY different. "Le" Scrawl is a schizoid grind band straight out of the German peace punk underground, doing the rapid-fire genre-mash thing. They belong in the same record bin with the likes of Naked City, Exit 13, People, Mexican Power Authority, Spazztic Blurr, Alboth!, Boredoms, and Anal Cunt (whose Seth Putnam guests vocalizes on one song here). If you're thinking that's a very '90s list of mostly avantgarde/novelty grind bands well, yes, this Scrawl stuff was recorded between 1990-1999. And we'd all but forgotten this band until the excellent Oakland label Life Is Abuse (purveyors of metallic weirdness like Tarantula Hawk and Ludicra) took it upon themselves to put together this cd, the complete Scrawl discography on one disc, essentially a deluxe, expanded version of Scrawl's "Q" album originally issued in 1995 by Germany's Ecocentric Records. Expanded in that you get the original disc's 24 tracks plus *another* 42 songs (!!) including their self-titled 1993 album, live stuff, singles, demos, and incongrous covers (De La Soul, The Exploited, Terrorizer, Chic, and the Mission Impossible theme!).
Their humorous, herky-jerky musical juxtapositions plus their totally grim punk political lyrix (that you can't understand anyway 'cause they're all gruff and screamy) equals weird, radical, action-oriented artcore. Imagine the quirky European chamber prog of a group like Etron Fou Leloublan colliding with the 20-second blast beat grindcore of a Napalm Death, or Mr. Bungle gone crusty punk, or, when the horn section kicks in, some sort of ADD Fishbone/Uz Jsme Doma hybrid playing in the midst of a Drop Dead practice session. The booklet -- chock full of photos, flyers, and discographical information -- has a 2002 note from main man Mario Anders, promising some new (Le) Scrawl material coming soon! Yikes!
Hmmm, I could swear that they broke up recently... a few times. Southern California's art-punk spazz-wave brats Le Shok dish up three live-on-the-radio tracks including a Screamers cover and two of their own. Recorded on KXLU in LA and WNYU in NY, and with different line-ups both of which include Joey from The Locust. Noisy, confrontational and messy. Yes, this is a 6" record on denim
A band that continues to haunt us from the grave, it's the defunct SoCal art-spazz-punk assembly known as Le Shok. The very special feature of this record? Why they've pressed an additional track right onto the sleeve - a cover of the Chosen Few's "No Fun at the Beaches". The record itself contains two suitably hyper-garage-wave short spurts from the days when Le Shok were a
Now on cd! As we said about the vinyl: More spastic noisemakers from the GSL camp. With some truly astounding cover art (and if you're one of the lucky ones, some truly cool clear pink vinyl). Live, there's a strong chance of an abbreviated set due to on and off stage volatility. On record, it's like a cacophonous cattle prod to your ears. Plug in and rock, baby.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
More spastic noisemakers from the GSL camp. With some truly astounding cover art (and if you're one of the lucky ones, some truly cool clear pink vinyl). Live, there's a strong chance of an abbreviated set due to on and off stage volatility. On record, it's like a cacophonous cattle prod to your ears. Plug in and rock, baby.
Second full length from Le Tigre, the trio headed by ex-Bikini Kill wailer Kathleen Hanna, Johanna Fateman, and new member JD Sampson. While there's nothing here as ferociously kickass as Le Tigre's "Bang Bang" (off the From the Desk of Mr Lady ep), this
A jubilant mix of punk and new wave from Le Tigre (ex-Bikini Kill Kathleen Hanna, video artist Sadie Benning, Johanna Fateman). The band is completely aware of the music's raw, just-happened-to-press-record quality, so any nasty comments about its unprofessional sound are simply moot. That's not the point -- the point is in the lyrics and the joy in doing and making and having something really fucking worthwhile to say. Mix that with the fiery delivery of X-Ray Spex and the punk sweetness of Blondie, and you have Le Tigre. Listen to "Bang! Bang!"
Now on cd! Here's what we had to say about the 12":
Le Tigre gets the remix treatment. While somehow the cut 'n paste, deliberately lo-fi punk attitude to the making of the band's particular brand of electronic music is somehow endearing, these remixes, while similarly lo-fi and amateurish, don't pass muster. They're just mediocre. With other Le Tigre albums, there's an immediacy in relating some heavy political content, and that makes the ragged edges acceptable, but the remixers weren't even responsible for any political brain activity here, all they did was make bad, boring, predictable beats to go with Kathleen Hanna's righteous yowl. Buyer beware! With Analog Tara, Swim With The Dolphins (Johanna Fateman of Le Tigre), DJ Ham & Cheese on Rye, Reid Speed, Tim Goldsworthy (ex-UNKLE), James Murphy, and Lauren Flax.
Le Tigre gets the vinyl-only remix treatment. While somehow the cut 'n paste, deliberately lo fi punk attitude to the making of the band's particular brand of electronic music is somehow endearing, these remixes, while similarly lo-fi and amateurish, don't pass muster. They're just mediocre. With other Le Tigre albums, there's some heavy political content going on, and that makes the
With Analog Tara, Swim With The Dolphins (Johanna Fateman of Le Tigre), DJ Ham & Cheese on Rye, Reid Speed, Tim Goldsworthy (ex-UNKLE), James Murphy, and Lauren Flax.
There's much to cheer and jeer about Le Tigre's newest album, their first on Universal Records. For one thing, the fact that it was released by a major label has certainly raised the ire of devoted DIY grrrrls everywhere. A very puzzling decision coming from the outspoken and seemingly staunch indie artist Kathleen Hanna, eh? While we still admire this trio's enthusiastic mission to empower girls everywhere -- mixing the politics, the punky pop and the dance party into a funky lo-fi good time -- we're struck with a nagging question. Why does their battle cry have to come in the form of such a horribly shrill squawk? Truly paint-peeling? Yes. Confrontational? Yes. It's a total deterent. Definitely not something you'd think would appeal to the broader audience that a major label release is exposed to. Revolutionary or ground-breaking? Sorry, no. Aside from that, there's other things that are pretty unforgivable on This Island too, like the gawd-awful vacuous cover of the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited". Ugh, bad idea! Why didn't someone stop them? Sure to please irony-addicted hipsters and flagging electro-clashers one and all. Plus there's a lesser offense, we have the sneaking suspicion that they scooped the plinky melody from Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way" for the second to last song "Sixteen". If you like Le Tigre, this review will probably do little to dissuade you. Fans of Chicks On Speed will surely be lured by This Island's cacaphonic call too. Bottom line: It's sort of a messy step backwards for the group. While it is better than their self-titled debut, it's not as good as their last album Feminist Sweepstakes. Approach at your peril.
Hey Le Tigre fans, there's a chance you might already have these eight remixes as they were apparently originally released on two 12"s a whiles back, but if you missed 'em the first time (or don't have a record player), they've been released altogether on one cd. First up is Junior Senior's remix of "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo" (later on in the cd there's two other remixes of this song by Craig C and Arthur Baker), then starlet Peaches comes in with her raunchy treatment of "TKO" -- once again makin' y'all feel more than a little bit soiled. The song "After Dark" get's the most attention with four different remixes by the likes of Morel (one vocal and one dub), NDB and A Touch Of Class.
Note: to confuse matters further two 12"s -- This Island Remixes Volume 1 and 2 with four tracks each -- were also released at the same time, but there seems to be some slight variances with the track selection and running order. Please see each release's respective review for their track listing.
Hey Le Tigre fans, there's a chance you might already have these four remixes as they were apparently originally released on an earlier 12", but if you missed 'em the first time here they are again.
On one side, Morel offers up two treatments (one vocal and one dub) of "After Dark". On the other, "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo" gets a remixing by Craig C and Arthur Baker.
Note: a cd collecting together eight This Island Remixes was also released at the same time, but there seems to be some slight variances with the track selection and running order. Please see each release's respective review for their track listing.
Hey Le Tigre fans, there's a chance you might already have these four remixes as they were apparently originally released on an earlier 12", but if you missed 'em the first time here they are again.
On one side, Junior Senior offers up two treatments (one remix and one instrumental) of "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo". On the other, Peaches takes aim at "TKO" and NDB dishes out a vocal disco remix of "After Dark".
Note: a cd collecting together eight This Island Remixes was also released at the same time, but there seems to be some slight variances with the track selection and running order. Please see each release's respective review for their track listing.
Kathleen Hanna's new outfit! She of Bikini Kill, Julie Ruin, etc. formed this combo with videomaker Sadie Benning and writer Johanna Fateman. Political-garage-dance-rock music utilizing farsifa, a dj, beats, guitars, etc. Recently they've collaborated with Men's Recovery Project and Atari Teenage Riot.
Le Travo were a quick flash across the Belgian griddle of minimal wave, post-punk, and whatnot, releasing a short lp (or long ep, depending on how you want to look at it) and a split 12" between 1984 and 1985 only to disappear entirely. The principle songwriter for the project was Patrick Bollen who recruited Luc Van Acker (later of Revolting Cocks infamy) to produce the tracks on that split 12" along with a handful of other musicians sitting in on this track or that. But beyond the 10 tracks that Dark Entries has compiled onto this lp, Bollen never did anything else. For the most part, Bollen keeps his influences local, finding comradery in the lugubrious angst-pop of fellow Belgians Siglo XX, but there are more than a few hints of Modern English (who did write some memorable goth-pop anthems aside from the one that would immediately come to mind) and Colin Newman's re-engineering of The Virgin Prunes. It all speaks of decadence and despair with the midtempo drum machines dialing in a casual strut behind the disco-punk basslines, gloomy synths, and spidery guitar jitter. Whether or not the result of Van Acker's guiding hand, Bollen is at his best on the three tracks produced by that Revolting Cock, including the urgently marching plainsong of "Chiaroscuro" and the Xmal-ish drone melodies on the "Glow Of Gnome". Another gem from Dark Entries.
Last year we listed the cd reissue of an album called Growers Of Mushroom by England's Leaf Hound. Their Zeppish moves and overt druggy allusions have made that sole record of theirs from 1971 a sought-after classic for those into the stonery proto-metal of the era. The album's big hit (among connoisseurs of '70s heavy rock, if not in the singles charts of the day) was a hard-riffing song called "Freelance Fiend". So, here it is on vinyl, as re-recorded live in 2005 by the band's new lineup! That's right, and if you saw our review of that Growers Of Mushroom reissue, you'll remember that it included a brand new bonus track, meaning they were back in business. Original Leaf Hound vocalist Pete French, still in possession of wailin' pipes, hooked up with some youngsters to continue Leaf Hound's legacy in the present day. And as wary as we are of "reunions" (can you even call this that?), there's really no reason why Pete and the 'new' Leaf Hound shouldn't make music again, particularily with current '70s-sounding bands like Witchcraft to encourage them.
"Freelance Fiend" remains a killer track, and on the flip there's that new song from the cd reish, "Too Many Rock 'n Roll Times", also recorded live and now pressed to wax. And it's a pretty decent addition to the Leaf Hound songbook, we have to say... now we're wondering if there's more to come? Maybe even a -second- Leaf Hound album? Apparently so. We can only imagine how excited Rise Above would be to get to release that, as doing this 7" was probably already a big thrill for them. Limited to 500 copies.
Along with the likes of Captain Beyond, Bang, Dust, and Sir Lord Baltimore, the UK's Leaf Hound are one of the obscure '70s proto-metal acts often cited in the annals of stoner rock history. Heck they're called Leaf Hound and their (only) album is titled Growers Of Mushroom! Can't get much more stoner rock than that. Originally released in (you guessed it) 1971, Leaf Hound's album was a showcase for the powerful pipes of vocalist Pete French (who later spent stints at the mic for both Atomic Rooster and Cactus) and the heavy-duty hard rock riffage of guitarist Mick Halls (who, along with French, previously was a member of the Brunning Sunflower Blues Band and Black Cat Bones). And really Growers Of Mushroom is worth it to all '70s metal fans for the fierce "Freelance Fiend" that leads off the album. That track's a screamin' classic. If the whole album rocked as hard it'd be hard to beat as the heaviest thing from '71. But, while some other cuts on here approach a "Freelance Fiend" level of metal mania, such as "Stagnant Pool" (which sounds like anything but), there's some mellower material to be found as well, wherein French shows off his soulful side. But Led Zeppelin fans won't mind such bluesy workouts as "Drowned My Life In Fear", either. And Zep fans were probably just who Leaf Hound were hoping to hook when they recorded this record way back when. Too bad this was pretty much it for Leaf Hound (more on that in a sec), but their legacy lives on. A lot of AQ customers probably know that there's even a doom/stoner rock label in Japan named after this band! So, we're happy to have this swank 2005 Repertoire cd reish, remastered and complete with lyrics and liner notes in a nice digipack. And it's got three bonus tracks. Two non-album cuts (one wimpy, one pretty good) from back in the day, and a brand NEW track as well. Yep, that's right. Pete French has hooked up with some young 'uns to form a new, revitalized Leaf Hound, who've been gigging anew -- they even played a show with spiritual descendents Witchcraft! Normally we'd cringe at the thought of sullying the reissue of a cult album from 30+ years ago with a "bonus" track recorded recently, but the new Leaf Hound's "Too Many Rock 'n Roll Times" ain't that bad. The guy can still sing and it sounds like Leaf Hound, so why not?
Maybe you had some great bands in your town years ago that were amazing but never really did anything beyond playing parties and maybe making some practice tapes, and no one from anywhere were else ever heard 'em and now they're but (drunken?) memories. I can think of a few from where I'm from, and AQ-pal Glenn Donaldson remembers some too -- one of his faves being Leaf Yard, an outfit from the underbelly of the early '90s Santa Cruz scene who made some bizarre heavy artistic fucked up rock music indeed. Glenn is one of the guys who runs the Jewelled Antler cd-r label (he's a member of Thuja, Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, The Birdtree, etc.) and Pink Skulls is his newly-formed side label for more "punk" oriented material. Part of the reason he decided to start this new imprint, though, was 'cause he became convinced that Leaf Yard's legacy needed to be rescued from oblivion, and while Pink Skulls is still a pretty obscure entity, and this is a limited run of cd-rs, we'll do our part to help him promote this document of lost Santa Cruz rock weirdness circa 1990-1995.
The stuff on this 52-minute, 18-track cd-r is drawn from Leaf Yard's live recordings and demo tapes -- of course they never released a "real" album -- and the sound can be kinda rough, but that totally doesn't detract from Leaf Yard's music 'cause what they were about was ugly, raw, noisy skronk anyway. If they were around today, they'd probably get lumped in with the current scene of art-damaged punk like Black Dice and the Lowdown, or especially, AQ faves Comets On Fire. Some of this sounds a lot like Comets On Fire (hey aren't they Santa Cruz guys too?). There's a big chaotic psychedelic element, some of this even approaches the intensity/density of Japanese garage-psych feedback overlords Fushitsusha, almost. But then there's lotsa other things going on as well: you'll hear a definite SST influence (Minutemen, Gone, Saccarhine Trust), it's sorta unhinged post-punk hardcore psych. And then there also seems to be a strange, hidden inspiration taken from death metal, with some double kick drumming and evil atmosphere. The distorted-to-hell vocals are punk, ugly, the kind your mom won't like. (They sound kinda French, weirdly enough.) Not bad for some Santa Cruz college kids, eh? This is definitely just as worthy as lots of the "legendary" name-bands that get fancy reissues folks drool over. You can really hear what it was about Leaf Yard that made such an impression on Glenn, if you share certain sensibilities that is. So we're really happy that he, working with the surviving ex-members of the band (drummer Ryan Craiker unfortunately has passed away), compiled this material on disc and packaged it in a plastic sleeve with a stapled, xerox booklet full of photos, lyrics, flyers, and, best of all, pictures of Leaf Yard's cassette tape releases, making for a superb archival release of unknown twisted scuzz for twisted scuzz fans! Limited to 50 copies, fyi.
Debut tape from this Colorado crew, headed up by aQ pal Mike, who runs the Sleeping Giant Glossolalia label (responsible for recent lps from Vaz, Bobb Bruno and Shit & Shine) and who also plays in aQ faves Eptileptinomicon. But where Eptileptinomicon was a weirdly rhythmic experimental noise outfit, who trafficked in murky ritualism and kraut-drone soundscaping, Leather Sky is a much more fierce and feral proposition, an ugly, unhinged, hardcore, that owes more to groups like Black Flag, Infest, Void and the like. Neglected Prayer Rug Abomination is a short sharp series of sonic violations, misanthropic musical fury channeled into brief blurry blasts, the guitars angular, the drums tribal one second, a caveman pound the next, the bass a blurred low end ooze, the vocals a howled caterwaul, all but buried in the murk and mire, the sound here super lo-fi, but still dense and heavy and MEAN, recorded in some grim grey bunker, the production perfectly suiting the sound, that sound a pounding, filthy, crusty, chaotic, angular crush like like some unholy union between eighties DC hardcore and nineties Gravity Records post punk. Fuck yeah.
If you've had trouble tracking down the latest record from Swedish dirge-jazz sludge punks Brainbombs, or just wish there were more bands who shared that aesthetic, well, your wish just came true. LA duo Leather Slave sound so much like Brainbombs, it would be criminal if we didn't love that sound so much. The band lock into loping, lumbering doom-sludge-punk anti-grooves, the guitar blown out and super distorted, a single riff, grinding away, over a simple caveman beat, the vocals distorted, and sung-spoken, and again, a dead ringer for the Brainbombs, with lyrics about cutting off your fingers and then making you try on gloves, or lots of 'stabbing's, so much so that it almost sounds like these guys are taking the piss, especially when the word 'stab' is repeated, and then sort of dubbed out (or the word 'hell' on another track). But then there's something patently absurd about stuff like this anyway, which again, is probably why we dig it so much. Every track here essential a single riff, a single rhythm, with a second guitar adding some psychedelic counterpoint, very subtle though, almost like Neanderthal leads way down in the mix, the whole thing mesmerizing and menacing, like a filthy, crusty, dirgey, serial killing version of Finnish hypno-rockers Circle. Which is probably the highest recommendation we can give.
And disregard the label marking the record as 33 1/3 rpm, unless you want it REALLY sludgy, the vocals an almost death metal gurgle, while we dig that version of Leather Slave too, 45 rpm is the speed for maximum Brain-bombing. Ridiculous over the top cover art and full color insert too.
This is a reissue of a pretty obscure late 60's garage / beat outfit from Hollywood. Leathercoated Minds offer a number of covers: Donovan, Bob Dylan, the theme to "Puff The Magic Dragon," and The Count Five (of course, it's "Psychotic Reaction"). Their own
Remember back when Metallica didn't suck? In fact, they sort of ruled. Kill Em All, Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets, And Justice For All. All untouchable. STILL. And remember how they would pull out these obscure covers (at least to some of us), songs by Diamond Head and Blitzkrieg, that somehow sounded LIKE Metallica, but even better. Well Portland heavies Lebanon sound a lot like that. The whole Metallica-covering-classic-NWOBHM sound. Thrashing and heavy, but totally catchy and melodic, think Angel Witch, Diamond Head, Witchfinder General, Motorhead, Venom, but supercharged and modernized, hence the Metallica-covers thing. Born of crusty d-beaters From Ashes Rise (sonic compatriots of PDX outfits Tragedy, Warcry, etc.), Lebanon are all big riffs, and killer leads, throat shredding (but still melodic) vox, lots of pick slides and classic metal sounding licks, a little bit punkish, but more traditional eighties metal, and surprisingly good. So much so that these songs could very well be mistaken for actual jams from back in the day. Tall praise, but holy shit, we just can't stop listening to this. We need a full length SOON.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
Belgium 1982 or Brooklyn 2009? Dust On Common is one of those albums that could herald from either time and space with its dark-eyed synth-pop aesthetic complete with a wardrobe of black jackets and skinny ties. Yes, Led Er Est are New Yorkers of today, reclaiming the forgotten future with considerable aplomb and fitting in very nicely next to Cold Cave and fellow Wierd recording artists Xeno & Oaklander. The Led Er Est trio are quite deft at the synth melody, building terse and catchy, if minor key, tunes out of repetition & difference, and grafting those melodies onto uptempo mechanoid rhythm tracks. Guitars, bass, and vocals also make themselves known throughout the album, but the synths are the dominant machines at hand, marching along with icy detachment, primitive sparkplug buzzing, and occasional bursts of cinematic grandeur. Fad Gadget, Xymox, early Skinny Puppy (i.e. Bites), Dark Day, Chris & Cosey, and Cabaret Voltaire are all within the sonic vocabulary of Led Er Est. Another excellent release from Wierd. Vinyl only!
We can't blame Cold Cave for everything, but someone has to take the blame (or credit!) for the seemingly endless supply of cold wave / new wave / minimal wave that seem to be pouring out of the woodwork. Where were these bands a couple years ago, did they not exist? Or did they just exist in some radically different form? Thankfully, at least a handful of these bands, are doing more than aping their predecessors, and are taking the elements of those 'waves and turning them into something, if not wholly original, at least dark and catchy and kick ass.
The latest additions to the NU-new wave onslaught are this trio from NY called Led Er Est, we have their full length record reviewed elsewhere on this list as well, and it too is killer, but this is definitely the sort of band who sound perfect on a 7"s, two short hook filled gloom pop gems, 45 rpm, the sort of songs you play over and over and over, skittery clipped drum machines, swoonsome minor key guitars, throbbing joy division synthesized basslines, looped synth melodies, subtle guitars, a killer main riff, echoey vox, it's pretty irresistible.
The flipside is more spacey and psychedelic, with chiming guitars, crooned vocals and a woozy off kilter rhythm, like some lost eighties new wave gloom pop ballad. Led Er Est are balanced right between old school eighties new wave, and the current wave of Captured Tracks revivalists: Blank Dogs, Gary War, Girls At War, Silk Flowers, Mayfair Set, etc� which is not a bad place to be as far as we're concerned.
We were pretty into Dust On Common, the last record from these Brooklyn cold wave retro revivalists, but we're digging this new one even more. While much of the sound remains the same, some things have definitely changed, For some reason, we were utterly mesmerized by the opening track, "Animal Smear", which found the group sounding more post punk than cold wave, adding a sort of frenetic energy and dark propulsion to the icy detachment that defined much of the last record. The skittery skeletal drums and dubbed out production only adding even more of a dark psych vibe to the proceedings. One of those tracks, that we must admit, we probably listened to ten times before we made it any deeper into the record. But once we did, the rest of the record stacked up pretty well, sounding like it could have just as easily come out on Wierd as on Sacred Bones, finding common ground in the sonic vocabulary of Xeno & Oaklander and Cold Cave, but with a certain ineffable something that made this stuff resonate. The opening track is a killer of course, but so is the follow up "Housefire At Zumi's", a strange swoonsome synthy instrumental, all minor key, but slightly off kilter, lush swells beneath strange angular melodies, the beat stuttery and weirdly motorik. "Kaiyo Maru" too, weds dark synth drones, and chordal swirls to some dense programmed drumming, and some reverby vocals, and weaves all that into a gorgeous slab of dark electro pop, that manages to sound simultaneously modern, and like it was plucked right out of the eighties, and we hadn't even gotten to the weirdly angular chorus. The title track might be our second favorite jam here, sounding like a retro cold wave version of the Editors, deep crooned vocals, minor key, a little bit ballady, with some strange clattery percussion, and a main melody that is doleful and dour and totally mesmerizing. The rest of the record flits from pounding IDM, to playful electro-pop, from murky cold wave balladry to haunting skitter laced industrial, finishing off with some dreamy synth shoegaze that almost sounds like M83. Fantastic stuff, and another new favorite for sure!
We already dug Brooklyn weirdo cold wave minimalists Led Er Est, but their most recent record The Diver totally knocked our socks off. And hot on the heels of that record comes this, a super limited, gorgeously packaged one sided 10" ep with three more songs, all of which sound like they could have been plucked right off The Diver. Dark and minimal, haunting and rhythmic, the record opens with a skittery skeletal bit of droned out synth pop, that sounds like a sketch, or an unfinished rough draft at first, but soon reveals itself as a wholly formed bit of dark pop minimalism, subtly tripped out, utterly hypnotic, a little bit druggy and woozy, subtly sinister, a fantastic chunk of new/cold wave mesmer. After a brief interlude, a strange collage of spoken word and field recorded voices, the record concludes with a second track, another gorgeous sprawl of cold clinical minimal cold wave, this time much more soundtracky, a synthscape laced with softly psychedelic guitars, deep chordal swells, rumbling buzz, a total psych-synth drone pop head trip that is sinister and ominous and so so good!
The packaging is incredible, the B side of the record features a silkscreened image, visible through the inner sleeve, which is also silkscreened, both bundled with the cover, a thick printed purple cardstock insert.
Zep overload! Along with a stellar double dvd package, the gods hammer us with a triple cd dose of live audio, all completely different performances from what's found on those dvds! These discs create one virtual concert melded from two, one at the Long Beach Arena and and one at the LA Forum, both in June of 1972.
Like the dvd set, they could have come up with some better cover art. However, the music's what matters, and what you're gonna hear here is Zeppelin at their best, live and totally rippin' -- very impressive!!
Ok, first off, any real big Led Zeppelin fans don't even need to read any further -- trust us, just get this! Even if you don't have a dvd player, you should invest in one just to see this. And even if you're just a casual fan you probably should get this too. Really I'm not (or wasn't) that big of a Zeppelin fan myself, but I'm way more into 'em now after viewing this release... five and a half hours of rare vintage Zep footage, both pro shot and bootleg, all of it pretty awesome -- heck, for the clothes and hair let alone the music!
Breaking it down, disc 1 is mainly consists of a 1970 Royal Albert Hall concert, featuring a charmingly charmingly youthful Zep at an early peak, with the highlights there being Bonham's "Moby Dick" drum solo and the '50s rockers they cover towards the end of the show. With disc one you also get some other clips, including four songs in crystal-clear black and white from Danish TV (with kids sitting cross-legged on the floor, mere feet in front of the band, dangerously close to Page's amplifier -- did that kid ever hear again??)
There's lots of "Dazed And Confused" here, with their performance of that number on the British TV show "Supershow" being the best. It's the most EVIL sounding "Dazed And Confused" ever, Page's guitar *and* Plant's vocals oh-so-distorted just perfectly, due to the recording perhaps. With some crazy edits and the band becoming enveloped in a climactic fog machine miasma, this is worth $29 alone, seriously!
Disc two starts off with a brilliant "Immigrant Song" video constructed from 1972 Austrialian live video and 1972 Californian live audio. Then it's on to Madison Square Garden (1973) for some outtakes from The Song Remains The Same, the concert movie that this dvd blows out of the water. Good stuff though. Following that, you get their 1975 Earl's Court performance -- one of this dvd set's highlights, really. Just check out the blazing clavinet-and-Bonzo-driven mechanical funk workout of "Trampled Underfoot" -- damn! The dvd then moves on to Knebworth '79, their triumpant swansong UK performance where a band that has visibly aged in the four years since Earl's Court really smokes, with "Achilles Last Stand" standing out.
The non-performance footage on this set includes a young Page and Plant, very much the soft-spoken British rock aristocrats, fielding questions from reporters in NYC 1970, like what they think of the Beatles -- whom they just knocked out of the #1 chart position.
Really, about all we can complain about is the crappy dvd packaging. The so-called cover art is just lame, a Photoshopped mesa, desert plain, and Zeppelin-shaped cloud. Why didn't they just use a still from the footage on the darn dvd?? Watching it, you'll certainly see many a shot that would have make a much much better cover than what they used. However, the dvd itself is done with class, with an excellent interface -- the menus themselves feature additional looped Zep clips seen nowhere else in the dvd, so be sure not to overlook them while selecting the main features! Recommended, if you couldn't tell already!
Finnophile alert!!! Yet another amazing post-Circle / Circle related project!! What the hell?!? Do those guys ever sleep? And if they do, have they figured out some way to record in their sleep? But who's complaining? Certainly not us. This time around, it's two Finns and one -American- doing the hypno-rock drone damage. Janne Peltomaki, former Circle drummer, current drummer for Paine and the recently reviewed Stalwart, Jyrki Laiho current guitar player for Circle and Stalwart, and Jordan Mamone, guitarist for NY artrockers Alger Hiss. While Circle continually flirt with metal, guitars always getting a little heavier, vocals that veer into serious Rob Halford territory, and of course the increasingly metallic imagery, it's this here Lee Miller outift that has finally pulled out the metal stops. Not that this is a "metal" record. It's just undeniably heavy, big jagged distorted guitars, pounding rhythms, and strange growling baritone vocals. In fact it has a bit of an industrial edge to it as well, with plenty of teutonic ponding a la Swans, Copshootcop, or fellow Finns Worms. Occasionally things do simmer down, and the result is a much more Circular sound, but a bit less krautrocky and more arty and angular, due in no small part we imagine to the presence of Mamone. But Lee Miller is all about that crush and pummel, and The Futility Of Language pounds that point home. Dark and distorted, heavy and hypnotic! This will definitely please Circle fans who have been digging their gradual shift into heavier territory, and just might tempt some metalheads into the vast and wondrous land of glorious hypnorock!!
Brooklynite Chris Lee plays a very appealing style of singer songwriter material. His style lies quite pleasantly between the grave solemnity of Tim Buckley and the light lackadaisacal delivery of the Sea and Cake (only not as "lounge", he's more '70s FM
For her follow-up to her slightly lackluster Rogerio Duprat produced debut, Build Up, Rita Lee reunites with her Mutantes bretheren to create what is essentially an Os Mutantes record in all but name.
Lee's solo work in the seventies often traversed into the glam progginess of the later Mutantes catalog before veering into MOR territory in the eighties, but here on Hoje E O Primeiro Dia Do Resto Da Sua Vida from 1972, the antics and exhuberance of early Tropicalia return and rejoice! Awesome!
As producers, musicians, critics, and listeners alike seem to hail the traditional pantheon of landmark influences, like Can, Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle, Fad Gadget, et al, there are still plenty of fantastic, sidelined artists who just continually fall through the cracks. Such is the case with Thomas Leer. Sadly, outside of collectors circles, he is practically unknown, even though he kept company with some of the biggest names in 20th century pop and avant garde music. After releasing the seminal bedroom techno-pop-industrial classic "Private Plane" 7" on his own label -- Oblique -- he collaborated with Robert Rental on The Bridge, an LP on Throbbing Gristle's Industrial imprint. In fact, those recordings inspired Chris Carter -- of TG and Chris and Cosey fame -- and a pre-Whitehouse William Bennett to pick up a Wasp synth. Not yet acquainted with Robert Rental? If you can get your hands on it, check out Live at the West Runton Pavilion, his collaborative effort with Daniel Miller of The Normal, and the founder of Mute Records. A fantastic document, it mirrors Thomas Leer's work as it subverts the traditional punk/rock paradigm, utilizing newly emerging technology to create music completely outside of the guitar/drums/bass framework. Some might say that it's at least implicitly as punk as anything else. That said, let's talk a bit about this particular release. Firstly, it does indeed have both "Private Plane" and "International." Okay. But there is plenty to glean from the rest of his lesser-known catalogue. Picture a synth-happy David Bowie and Konk collaboration, with a restrained sense of composition. Picture a soulful robotic version of Marc Almond making 4-track recordings for himself. Not under-produced, but understated and playful. Shriekback caught in an algorithm. Picture Cybotron and Inner City chugging Robitussin and trying their damnedest to picture what acid house might sound like if it were made in 1983. This collection amounts to exactly what it sounds like on paper: a great collection of work from an incredibly influential and diverse artist. Uninitiated? Check it out! Already a fan? You know you want to grab it! Totally recommended.
Stereolab named a song after them, Belle & Sebastian and the Magnetic Fields have made careers of taking their influence from them, and we hope the Left Banke finally get the widespread love and attention they so deserve all these decades later. Born out of the orchestral pop strands of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", The Left Banke were the teenage pioneers of the Baroque Rock sound, marrying minor key melody with chamber pop arrangements of harpsichords, string sections and woodwinds. Though the sound ultimately took off more in Britain, The Left Banke were the sole innovators stateside giving them an edge as their two biggest (and sadly only) hits, "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina", propelled them towards a short-lived wider recognition. Sundazed has done a great service reissuing both of the bands records to show that they were much much more than just a two-hit band.
Too is the bands lesser known and last release from 1968 and while the band lost main songwriter and keyboardist Michael Brown for most of it (he returned to record the single, "Desiree" which baffingly didn't chart!), there is plenty to recommend it. Slightly more upbeat than the first album, the vocal harmonies (including the presence of Steven Talarico aka Aerosmith's Steven Tyler on backing vocals!) push the feel toward sunshine pop, sounding much closer to the Beach Boys than before. Yet the melancholy of Brown's contributions plus the beautiful but quirkily titled "Dark is The Bark" give the overall mood a complex prettiness. Lush orchestrations and studio wizardry (lots of backwards effects and psychish phasing) make this album just as gorgeous as the first, and we're glad its lost status is finally seeing some well-deserved light. Recommended!
Stereolab named a song after them, Belle & Sebastian and the Magnetic Fields have made careers of taking their influence from them, and we hope the Left Banke finally get the widespread love and attention they so deserve all these decades later. Born out of the orchestral pop strands of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", The Left Banke were the teenage pioneers of the Baroque Rock sound, marrying minor key melody with chamber pop arrangements of harpsichords, string sections and woodwinds. Though the sound ultimately took off more in Britain, The Left Banke were the sole innovators stateside giving them an edge as their two biggest (and sadly only) hits, "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina", propelled them towards a short-lived wider recognition. Sundazed has done a great service reissuing both of the bands records to show that they were much much more than just a two-hit band.
And that may be hard to gather from a debut record named after those two biggest hits, but Walk Away Renee / Pretty Ballerina from 1967 is one of the finest sixties pop albums ever! Fronted by vocalist Steve Martin-Caro and keyboardist/songwriter Michael Brown, The Left Banke were the more melancholy and introspective counterpoint to the Beach Boys sunny outgoing harmonies. We bring up the Beach Boys because both bands had further similarities. Both bands employed session musicians and both had managers who were also fathers of the main bandmembers that were subsequently fired when they started getting more successful. Further rifts occured right away when Brown, taking cues from Brian Wilson, didn't feel he had to to tour with the band, complicating band dynamics to the point of him leaving the band after this record, only to return to record one last single ("Desiree" featured on Too) that sadly didn't chart.
But band complications aside, this record is on par with the Zombies' Odessey & Oracle and Something Else by the Kinks. Seriously. Songs like "She May Call You Up Tonight", "Let Go Of You Girl", and "Barterers and Their Wives" show that their antiquated look and arrangements were far from a gimmick, but a means to get into some deeply complex and heartfelt songwriting. These records sound better than ever. Essential!
We carried a cd-r version of Temporal Exclusion a short time ago, but the Paradigms label has scooped it up for a proper cd release, albeit a limited pressing of 750. In the interim, mainman Kris Berry fleshed out the 4-track ep into a 7-track full length. It now comes in cardboard sleeve within one of the series' now familiar printed envelopes.
Berry is joined by Ronald Aveling (voices and samples), percussionists Ches Smith, Stephen Flinn and Mike Hoffman, Faraz Minooei on Santour, and Monica Aiken on cello. Their strings, percussion, vocals and collaged samples weave together and apart in this an industrial edged dismemberment which inhabits a dank, gloom filled theatrical setting. It's a work haunted by intercepted television or radio broadcasts and other mysterious transmissions encountering pregnant pause piano strikes, the chanting of monks, deep choral intonations and other anguished distorted voices which often offer more texture than words. Enshrouded and somber.
