More Chinese music, thanks to our pal Ricky, who's been bringing us all kinds of amazing music from overseas, this one from a guy called Li Dai Guo, a super skilled improvisor who's proficient on at least a dozen traditional instruments, and who fuses those with more modern sounds, samples, beatboxing (!), experimental vocals, the result is pretty fantastic based on this single, which apparently consists of a series of sonic advertisements for various locations he found appealing during his 6 year stay in the city of Chengdu, the buzz of a traditional Chinese stringed instrument, is laid over weird percussive burbling, and laced with fluttering flute like melodies, before blossoming into a strangely lush bit of choral drift, throat singing, beatboxing, and all manner of humming and crooning. Other tracks take the traditional instruments, and add a bit of propulsion, while others get downright far out, chirping birds, what sounds like prepared instrumentation, operatic vocals, moaning violin like melodies, moving and dramatic, and still others add horns and approximate what sounds a bit like Klezmer music. From there on out, the sound flits from modern grooves to minimal Chinese folk, to what sounds like a strange electronic musique concrete / traditional folk hybrid. So cool.
Housed in a super cool fold out map sleeve, with pasted on artwork. Probably quite limited too, and if/when we run out, be patient as we have to order more from China!
51 minutes, 1 track. 1 guitar, 1 guy: Li Jianhong. No, we didn't think we'd ever heard of him, either. But this is an aRCHIVE release, super limited and super swank, which means that we HAD to order a bunch in. We trust those guys, aRCHIVE. And we're glad we did, this is great! That is, if you're into distortion and feedback and heavy drone guitar like we are. This is extremely droney, very vast and very physical, sheets of glorious amped up fuzz. What's not to like? It moves forward with energy, building, swelling, keening, billowing. Rising and falling, at about 30 minutes in, subsiding from a dense, intense drone-tone into a mellower respite, before Li Jianhong leans on his amps/pedals/volume knob/etc. and dials up the distortion yet again.
He's the Chinese Keiji Haino perhaps, but without any of the shrieking vocals. Yep, this is some nice, thick, bleak psychedelia (it says so on the sleeve, "bleak" and "psychedelia" being some of the only text not in Chinese, and it's true).
Turns out Li's a member of PSF label noise band D!O!D!O!D!, reviewed here a while back, and has some other solo works out on his own label... we'll definitely look out for more from him in future... While D!O!O!O!D! was one for improv skree-lovin' noiseniks only, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend THIS to fans of, say, Boris's Feedbacker. And the likes of Suishou No Fune and LSD-march. Also Nadja, Fear Falls Burning, Birchville Cat Motel...
LIMITED TO ONLY 500 copies. Packaged in a tri-fold sleeve featuring live photos of an impassioned performance by Li, inside a tri-fold vellum wrapper bearing a image of a craggy mountain peak.
This is the first we've heard from this local synth pop combo, who manage to mix the lilting indie jangle of that Slumberland Records sound with old school classic eighties new wave into a sweet electro pop confection. Programmed drums, buzzing crackling synths, ethereal female vocals, occasional boy/girl harmonies, all sort of hazy and softly psychedelic. The sound is alternately crunchy and fuzzy and surprisingly aggressive, and wistful and dreamily shimmery. The A side title track is the A side for a reason, hooky as hell, and the sort of song former aQ staffer Irwin would claim would be just the thing to get your body moving. While the B side takes the same elements and crafts something a bit broodier, and almost ballad, that creeps and drifts darkly, but is peppered with bursts of wild squelching synths, and is laced with chiming melodies, reminding us a bit of Stereolab, and like minded retro-poppers. The included download adds another track, which fuses some seriously gristly rhythms, to acoustic guitars, and some wild, noisy synth splatter, but weaves it all into a driving electro-synth jam that's got some heft to it, while still managing to be dreamy and divinely poppy!
A new release on Profound Lore, featuring members of Wolvhammer, Nachtmystium and Mourner. Now it's just a question of what stripe of metal it might be. Grim black, warped death, filthy crust? You'd be wrong on all counts, cuz Liar In Wait, while boasting a serious metal pedigree, is not metal at all. It's still dark, and gloomy, and maybe a little grim, but it's actually death rock, or gloom pop, or some hybrid of the two. And really, it's not surprising considering most metalheads have a soft spot for gloomy old pop and goth rock, whether it be Depeche Mode or Christian Death, Fields Of The Nephillim or Sisters Of Mercy. And really if you like any of those, then this just might hit the spot. Four songs, of brooding bass driven gloom rock miserablism, Joy Division-y basslines under chiming minor key guitars, deep crooned vox, softly psychedelic, heavy at times, but much more atmospheric and gothic. While not as great as say Soror Dolorosa, it's still pretty good, and death rockers, gloomy metalheads and depressed goths should all be able to get into this. The perfect soundtrack for depressed wanders through a dark and decaying city, or just a night home laying in the dark.
Seems to be a lot of Liars haters out there. But hasn't the Right Wing taught us anything about hate? That when something is hated so much, it attracts people to see for themselves, and in opposition, not only like it, but defend it! Maybe in some kind of paranoid Machiavellian plot, the haters are actually on the Liars payroll, because we couldn't help but like Drum's Not Dead. Sure the flimsy "concept" about the creative process between two opposing figures, Drum and Mt. Heart Attack, falls a little flat. And they only have two ideas here (mathy percussive heavy clattery shreik and murky drony ambient murmuring), obvously inspired by sipping from the Black Dice / Animal Collective teapot. But at the end of the day it comes down to this, Drum's Not Dead is just a way more enjoyable listen than the latest outings from Black Dice (Broken Ear Record) or Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice (Gypsy Freedom) or a handful of other avant rockers. What can you do? They make the rain feel good. Check it out.
Liars are such a strange band, we've mentioned it before, but it definitely bears repeating, it seems like they get some sort of sick satisfaction out of gleefully subverting all expectations, some sort of thrill from annoying their loyal fanbase. Every record could go in any of a million directions, some far less appealing than others, and often, it's those less appealing directions that the band find most alluring. So it's usually best to approach a new Liars record prepared to be, at the very least disappointed, quite possibly pissed off.
Sisterworld however was immediately appealing, yeah, sure, a bit weird, but it's the Liars, this time they unfurl a sort of slow burning mystery of a record, super dramatic, with some gorgeous guitar playing and rough, whiskey soaked vocals, moaning cellos, sweet vocal harmonies, a twisted dark pop, with bursts of angular noise rock. Album opener "Scissor" might be one of the best songs they've written, with brooding, moody verses, a soaring bridge with lush harmony vocals, and a crashing synth driven breakdown blow out.
The rest of the record is sort of a schizophrenic mess, but in a good way, the band dipping their toes into woozy gloom pop, twisted cabaret, dreamy swirly string laden swoon, weird angular synth punk, hushed crystalline balladry, skeletal new wave, atonal noise flecked indie rock, furious buzzing dirge rock, but all the various shades and permutations held together, by that Liars vibe that's hard to quantify, but for being as scattershot as Sisterworld seems, it's also a weirdly cohesive set of songs, twisted for sure, but well crafted, and oddly and subtly catchy to boot.
While they last, we have the super deluxe, double disc, which comes in an incredible accordion foldout mini hard cover die cut book packaging, and a whole disc of remixes, from folks like Atlas Sound, Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio, the Melvins (!), Devendra Banhart, Thom Yorke, Boyd Rice and more! Most of the remixes are super radical, the songs all twisted up and reimagined, without losing the essence of the originals, a few add electronics, a couple get all chopped and screwed and looped, one or two are heavied up, and one even gets some female rapper action, pretty wacked, but what would you expect from a remix of a record that's already pretty weird to begin with? The more we listen to the remix disc, we almost might like it more than the record proper....
Well, here we have another band mining the whole 99/Y records arty disco punk legacy (see also: !!!, Rapture, etc). In this Mute re-release of their Gern Blandsten debut (a sign, perhaps, of blow-up potential), Liars certainly aren't trying to hide their influences; hell, they make a whole track out of putting lyrics over ESG's "UFO." Now that would be a criticism- only the Liars are really fucking good at what they do. Vocalist Angus Andrews has the perfect super tough shout/growl to pull of the hefty dose of bad attitude spewed by their abstractly funky tunes, home to the requisite dance beats and heavy bass alongside cold noise and drum machine. The short album of ass-shakers is topped off with a 30-minute looped epic, which is either hypnotic or dreadfully boring, I'm not sure. Anyway, "They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top" will find a cozy place in your record collection next to the Pop Group and Liquid Liquid, as well as a place in magazine articles about new hot shit bands from NYC. And hey, they deserve it.
It's tough being a Liars fan. They seem to exist to confuse and confound, almost every record dramatically different than the last, this new one is no different. That is to say, it's TOTALLY different. But it might just be our favorite on yet. Another dramatic shift in style and sound finds these guys conjuring up a strange, droned out electro-pop. Raspy Peter Gabriel sounding vocals over billows of synths, skeletal rhythms, that can be churning and robotic one second, krautrocky and propulsive the next, and then even sorta dubsteppy the next, with thick slabs of wobbly bass. The sound on the surface is spare, but there's a lot going on, with layered loops, vocal snippets that are sliced and diced and collaged into strange melodies, or made into rhythms themselves, some twisted mad scientist beats, but those beats tend to be engineered for maximum mesmer, instead of the dancefloor. That said, plenty of these tracks do have some groove to them, it's just that those grooves often act more as textural framework, for songs that without would otherwise drift aimlessly. Some of the tracks here have a sort of nocturnal downtempo Portishead style vibe, but most of the record actually sounds a bit like Radiohead, fusing a sort of alien future funk to some sort of minimal electronic pop, like an underwater Kid A, murky and muted, sort of laid back, but also kind of driving, and hypnotic and mesmerizingly addictive. Sans vocals, this could be some mysterious minimal electronica, but the Liars transform it into their own brand of electro pop minimalism.
Lp version includes a cd cope as well!
Every new Liars album brings with it some fretful hesitation as to what direction they'll venture into next. Not afraid of alienating their fan base in favor of exploring some obsessive but ultimately impenetrable concept, Liars have a love 'em or hate 'em relationship with most folks. After the atmospheric and rhythm-heavy Drums Not Dead, Liars bring the guitar riff back into full focus, and deliver for the first time in a while a relatively straight ahead rock record, but not in a way they've done before. There's no underlying concept to negotiate and the song structures are concise and compact. Yet they're still pushing these self-imposed limitations into kaleidoscopic realms that are sort of dubby, proggy, damaged and yet melodic. Lurching from furious and dissonant assaults into charged and sublime pop hooks. It's quite possibly their best record yet.
More frantic punk disco from the Liars. As we mentioned before, these boys wear their post-punk influences on their sleeve (Pop Group, ESG and the like), but they perform with such a raw, visceral intensity that they rise above mere redundancy. These three new tough, sweatily sexy tracks definitely hit the spot.
Not sure what to say about these guys. Wanted to hate 'em with all the hype and next big thing talk being thrown around, but damn if they aren't pretty cool and weird and kickass. With an obvious sense of humor, the Liars kick out atonal blasts of jagged post punk/new wave absurdism on this, their second album, that is sometimes annoying as fuck, but just as often has us bobbing our heads, tapping our feet and wanting to hit the dance floor and squirm and wiggle our contorted bodies to the sort-of-grooves and obtuse rhythms!
Don't know 'bout you, but we've found it a bit irksome (and laughable) how bands who've only released a couple of albums have been getting "Best Of" cds. Yes, it's true that audience attention spans have gotten so short, popular music fans are seemingly at their most fickle, and as a result the shelf life of bands has too. So shrewd record company marketing departments have adopted the "Best Of" release as a ploy to remind fans of the band/pop star they held so dear only a couple years or months ago (possibly the worst one to date? "The Best of Martika"). Often they have arbitrarily selected songs to pad up the 'hits'. Yeeesh, we guess it's not really lie if they really do think the chosen songs are the BEST of the artist's body of work, but...
Anyhoo, this is our longwinded introduction to The Libertines' Time For Heroes cd. Yeah, they were probably more known for band member Pete Doherty and Kate Moss' tabloid exploits than their music. That's sort of unfortunate because they were a pretty good U.K. band with two albums that had A FEW good, solidly catchy, swaggering songs that blended garage rawk revivalism and post-punk fervor... you get them all here. Time For Heroes features what someone (apparently some were fans) deemed the band's best material from their 2004 self-titled sophomore album and 2002 debut Up The Bracket along with some b-sides. Heck, both albums in their entirety could probably fit on the one cd... and then they could've called it "ALL Of The Libertines"! Hahahaha. So silly.
With the monstrous hype machine churning away for this UK band (there's even a glowing testimonial from The Clash's Mick Jones plastered on the shrinkwrap!), I was really braced for disappointment, but y'know what? The Libertines are a-ok! They're pretty darn fun, and just might have you sock-hoppin' around your living room in no time. Yes, they do get compare quite a bit to the aforementioned Clash, but it's primarily apparent in their gritty energy and Brit badboy posturing rather than in any social or political agenda. They actually possess more pop bounce making them more comparable to The Jam. Plus, they have the added charming attraction of an audible genuine Brit accent in the vocals.
A vinyl reissue of this rare '70s Italian horror movie soundtrack (for cult director Mario Bava's 1977 film "Schock"), composed and performed by a very Goblin-like band called Libra. Fittingly for the murderous, paranormal goings-on of Bava's flick, this album is full of gothic keyboards, eerie wordless vocal choirs, queasy prog-funk synth vamps, and ominous drum-scapes. Libra really rock out on the Schock theme, while elsewhere they deal in creepy electronic ambience. Bands like Libra can make sweet lullabies seem scarier than full-on screams and metal guitars, and yet their spooky piano instrumentals wouldn't be out of place if used as intros for Cradle Of Filth songs. Soundtrack/horror/Goblin fans will be pleased.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
On this solo venture, Ash Bowie (former guitarist for Polvo and Helium) rips it up and makes a quite a raucous din. Not unlike early-mid Sebadoh (a la "III" which I loved to bits). In fact on track #4 called "Toy Planetarium" Ash does his best whisper-y voiced, plunky guitared Lou Barlow. Then moves on into more strummy distorted chords and peculiar melodic mish mash. One moment gently emo-indie and the next noisy enfant terrible. 14 tracks in all.
Guitarist Licht (ex-Love Child, Run On, etc) indeed plays well (and then weirdly) on this new solo effort. Two long, half-hour-plus tracks, the first, "Remington Khan", is a dexterous display of hypnotic note-pickin' (and building backing drone)
We talk all the time about not judging books by their covers, which for us often means bands by their band names, cuz really, the Flaming Lips, Bitchin Bajas, Bathtub Shitter (ok, that one's awesome), Cream Abdul Babar, Scrotum Poles, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, so many kick ass bands saddled with unfortunate monickers. NOT that we're lumping Bay Area duo The Lickets in with those outfits, but they do actually bring up another part of that whole book/cover, band/bandname situation, in that we never would have expected this sort of gloriously blissed out electronic psychedelic drift from a band called the Lickets. We were actually imagining this would be some sort of roots rock, or stripped down pop rock sort of thing, but this is anything but, The Lickets traffic in the sort of stuff aQ folks go nuts for: dreamy transcendental, glistening, textured kosmische psych folk drift of the highest order.
The tracks her merge billowy clouds of wispy chordal drift with constellations of subtle glitch, the edges worn away, the various sounds bleeding into one another, like the soundtrack to a time lapse film of two solar systems merging, hazy and spaced out, touching on the krautdrone of Expo 70, the gauzy melodic shimmer of Tim Hecker, the dreamlike drift of Pop Ambience, infused with little bits of classic krautrock. Acoustic guitars surface amidst swirling abstract pulsations, melodies melt and ooze, the tracks slowly expanding and evolving, occasionally slipping into something more overtly shoegazey, wrangling jangle guitars into vast smears of melodic blur, laced with tinkling chiming melodies, looped and layered into blustery soundscapes, while other tracks sound almost like old soundtracks to mysterious filmstrips about the emptiness of space, one track even shrugs off the hazy shimmer entirely, leaving just a sweetly lovely stretch of fluttery seventies style folk, replete with breathy vocals and wheezing accordion, before quickly returning to the bleary buzzy drift that defines the rest of the record. And as varied as the record is, the sounds are all held together by a lush, dreamlike melodic component that turns this set of songs into some sort of divine celestial songsuite. So good!
Hmmm, sure sounds like these fellers have been chewing on something a bit more potent than licorice roots! While we're not sure about Shades Of Streamers' anti-inflammatory and expectorant properties we can confirm that the sound is strangely melted and slightly druggy. Originally signed to the more than appropriate New York art rock label Shimmy Disc (home to Bongwater, King Missile, early Boredoms, Ruins and Ween), Edward Moyse, Arthur Marks and Dave Milsom have been making experimental folk rock music for many moons that wavers and roams in the zone between Ariel Pink and Ween. Disarmingly warped.
If someone would have played this for us all 'invisible jukebox' style we would have sworn it was some '80s/early '90s lost gem in the same league as AQ favorites like Young Marble Giants, Vaselines, Shop Assistants, Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, etc. There is such a cool sound and energy to these songs, the vocals do really remind us of Amelia Fletcher (Talulah Gosh, Heavenly) which is a great thing, but the band does have a freshness to them which has kept this record on heavy rotation since it arrived in the store.
The way they draw from twee pop, garage rock, and girl groups to create such breezy and catchy delights is a wonder to behold. Lots of Survival Strategies reminds us of how much we loved the Aisler Set and how the time is ripe for them to reunite! Liechtenstein would make great tourmates for folks like Brilliant Colors or Vivian Girls or heck a reformed Aislers Set. We don't want to sound like a broken record, but man are we happy that Slumberland is back and putting out such great pop gems!
The 10" comes on colored vinyl and with a code for a free download of the album.
Local treasures The Lies know that on the one hand there's abject depression that's fun for no one including your audience, yet on the other hand there's the kind of romantic depression whose embodiment in musical form can be quite beautiful and delicate to
A veritable local super group: Sadie and Sarah from the Bonnot Gang, Casey from Weakling, Tracy from Heavens To Betsy and Flying Tigers, and of course Dale, from Blood Sausage, the Bonnot Gang, the Cut Throats, and the video store across the street! Bleak and dark and hypnotic, like a dirgey garage band playing World of Skin, Tindersticks and Joy Division. Recommended.
This is a bit of a weird one! Back in 2004 we reviewed a record by Life that originally came out in 1971. In that review, we gushed about what a kick-ass, underrated record that first Life release was. Proggy, psychy, heavy, but also poppy. Now, imagine our surprise when someone walked in the store out of the blue and told us Life had a NEW record! 45 years of silence between records usually isn't a great sign that you've still got it, and when the first track started up, we thought we had made a terrible mistake. But you know what, this isn't bad. Mostly poppy but with some really prog, psych, and the occasional proto-metal heavy riff. There are some really cringe-inducing lyrics if you're paying attention to those (listen to the lyrics to "Age," we dare you), the production is a little sterile, and it's a cd-r instead of a proper cd, but there are some downright beautiful moments on here! The last track especially, all lush strings and guitars and vocals blending into a blissful swirl. Yeah, it's not the self-titled Life album, but these are clearly some dudes that still have songwriting chops and spirit. We know this record won't be flying off the shelves, but we know a few of you out there will be willing to take a chance at Life, later in life.
All right. Now this is what I'm talkin' about. 1971, yeah! Andee's always kidding me that I (Allan) think 1971 is the best year for rock music ever. That's not true of course ('69 and '70 and '72 were no slouches either!), but I do rate it pretty highly. There were SO MANY great records that year, among them Tago Mago, First Utterance, Nursery Cryme, Music To Eat, Satori, Master Of Reality, Funkadelic, Neu! 1, Culpeper's Orchard, Demon And Eleven Children, Love It To Death, In Search Of Space, Stormcock...ohmigod...there's so many. I don't know how I would have survived if I was of a music-buying age in 1971. But I was only two years old. It's sure would have been tough to make a top ten list if I was working at Aquarius back then!! But I'm pretty sure that this Life album (if I even woulda known about it, I wonder if Aquarius ever stocked the original import LP?) would have made that list. Seriously.
Of course, even if folks back then probably didn't appreciate it (foolishly thinking that rock was in some sorta prog-clogged doldrums) they were living in some special times. Especially special if you like the hard/heavy/acid rock like I do.
Ok, more about Life then: they were a skilled Swedish psych-prog trio that spun songs that incorporate (sometimes in the same composition) two quite different but equally excellent extremes -- they do some light n' lush, very pretty pop with piano and full orchestration. But then there's also a lotta rib-rattling dirge-rock with glacial, gargantuan guitars! The combination is epic and elegant, and puts 'em (in my book) almost in the same league as Queen and Deep Purple and Uriah Heep! A quick n' dirty description might be Cream-meets-Queen. And this was before Queen ever released an album. For '71, the heaviness is right up there. Killer songs, stellar vocals, a definite stoner spirit. I can't imagine any of AQ's customers who are real '70s proto-metal freaks not digging this album, even if you don't normally get into the poppier stuff...just 'cause its SO GOOD. And the lighter fare is integral even to the slabs of heaviosity for which you're really gonna worship this album. Yeah, it's heavy, and even when not, it's damn bombastic. In a way that makes even the tracks that are the most doomy and downer definitely also have a lively, uplifting vibe. I'm telling you, if Life were British and had made more than one album (instead of breaking up 'cause of joining the cast of the Swedish touring production of Hair!), you'd know about 'em already. I mean, they'd be '70s classic rock royalty for sure, at least as famous as, I dunno, Nazareth.
Getting back to the whole 1971 thing: in actuality, this album was originally released in 1970 with Swedish lyrics, then released with English language vocals in '71, and that version is the only one to be reissued on cd. Normally I prefer bands to sing in their native tongue, but this guy is a such a good singer, and avoids any embarrasing accent-issues, and the lyrics are pretty cool ("Once I saw a castle / made by rocks and sand / I used to touch that castle / with my magic hand"). A couple of the bonus tracks are in Swedish, too (where they suddenly sound like Dungen gone arena!).
Now I don't want to freak out and make like this is the best record EVER or anything, but it's really really good and is something that should be much better known that's for sure. So we've ordered a few to try and spread the word...
None of us were surprised by how good this movie was. After all, we pretty much all love Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tennenbaums, and of course Rushmore. And really none of us should have been surprised by how great this soundtrack is either, since Wes Anderson movies are as much about the music as the movie itself. But somehow the soundtrack was a surprise. For the content as much as the way it was incorporated into the movie. The focus of the soundtrack has to be the gorgeous acoustic numbers by cast member Seu Jorge. There are 5 of them, and they just happen to all be Bowie covers, and are all sung in Portugeuse! I'm not a huge Bowie fan, but the minute we walked out of the theater, I was hoping that the soundtrack would have those tracks, and it did! Warm and languid, melancholy and dreamy, Jorge's tracks are absolutely beautiful, giving those classic rock and roll numbers a totally different nuance. And once you see the movie, those tracks will make even more (non)sense! But that's not all. Classic tracks by the Zombies, Joan Baez, Scott Walker, and the Stooges! The Stooges' "Search And Destroy" has always been one of those songs that makes you want to rumble -- that RIFF! -- and it's put to excellent use in the film! Plus a killer score by Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh. But a discussion of The Life Aquatic would not be complete without a quick digression into "The Cheadle". Not sure how many of you saw Ocean's Eleven, but Don Cheadle played a demolitions expert, with the WORST British accent ever. FOR NO REASON! Responding to every query with "Right guvnuh!" or "Cherrio!" Arghh. So infuriating. WHY WHY WHY? So consequently, pointless and poorly-performed accents are now referred to as "The Cheadle" (others refer to it as "The Kidman"). So in Life Aquatic, Owen Wilson is the one responsible for "The Cheadle", a Southern accent that at best is superfluous, and in execution is thick and impenetrable sometimes, totally non-existent at others. But fear not, that hardly detracts from how great this film is. Owen Wilson is still cute. Bill Murray still rules. The movie is still amazing and funny. And the music is still perfect!
Our pal Phil Manley (Trans Am, The Fucking Champs, Jonas Reinhardt, etc.) has done that thing where the title of his krauty, kosmiche, Schulze-y, synthy solo record from 2011, Life Coach, has now been made the name of his new band, Life Coach, a duo featuring Phil and drummer extraordinare Jon Theodore (Golden, The Mars Volta, Queens Of The Stone Age, etc.), both of 'em pictured cartoonishly on the disc's colorfully trippy cover. Guess Phil's really into the Life Coach concept, and we're into the music for sure, which does sometimes sound like it could be the background track on a New Age motivational speaker's VHS cassette, in a good way of course. And that's just sometimes, 'cause this rocks out a bit more than most real life life coaches could stand, harshing their ponytailed mellow with guitar riffing and pounding drums.
We'd always heard a lot about what a great drummer JT is, but it wasn't until we saw Life Coach play live a little while back that we really understood - man, he stole the show! No wonder everyone was always raving about his mad skillz. So, naturally, this Life Coach album is full of rhythmical radness, alongside the spacey guitars and synths of our man Manley. The results are fine listening indeed, as mood music and more. "Sunrise" serves as this album's intro, starting things off appropriately with lovely break-of-dawn, "Rites Of Spring" shimmer, prayer bells tinkling amidst quiet electronic drones, tambura strum, and gentle peals of electric guitar - but then, wham, Jon Theodore's drumkit kicks in with track two, the title cut, and it's all Trans Am bombast meets Michael Rother bliss now, a style of new agey krauty postrock that we'd be happy to enjoy for the duration, and while there's plenty of it throughout the album, Life Coach have a few surprises in store - with Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless/Golden Void dropping in for a couple guest guitar solos (he even appears, with his guitar, in that cover drawing), turning the track "Fireball" into a heavy rocker that sounds a LOT like the fuzzed out '70s-sounding California catchiness of Golden Void, easily a highlight here any devout Golden Void fan (like us) is gonna need to hear. There's singing on that one, by Phil we assume though it sounds much like Isaiah does in GV, but otherwise this album is a mostly instrumental affair, the other notable vocal track being the uptempo "Mind's Eye", lots of electronics swirling around the propulsive beats while Phil sings of inner consciousness, his words floating up above, and beyond. Good times, high times. "Ohm" winds things up with a lengthy wash of cymbals and synthesizers, a wonderfully droned-out finale to this varied and vibrant album.
Big thumbs up to Life Coach's brand of uplifting synth-splorations and stoner rock jamz!!
From the first few notes, we were totally sold. A wild freaked out psychedelic flute solo, why don't all bands start their records like that? Cuz we probably couldn't handle it! But it makes sense here, when you realize that Life On Earth just so happens to be dudes from Swedish psych rockers Dungen! Obviously Dungen fans are gonna want this, the sound is similar, maybe not quite as rocking, a little more laid back and hippified, groovy and space-y and definitely psychedelic, but still so so good.�
Fronted by Dungen-eer�Mattias Gustavsson, but with musical back up from other Dungen folks, and such unlikely musical bedfellows as Town & Country and Mia Doi Todd, Life On Earth is Gustavsson's musical tribute to, well, life on earth. The sheer exuberant joy of it, happiness and sunshine and love and brotherhood and wildlife and blue skies and nature and dreams and beauty and most importantly some super kick ass folky proggy psych rock bliss...
Flute is everywhere, and obviously for that we are truly thankful, but it drift and flutters amidst gorgeous and tranquil swirly folky forests of sound. Silky threads of acoustic guitar, swoonsome strings, harmony vocals, lyrics both in Swedish AND English, bongos and simple percussion, some slithery rhythmic grooves, some killer squalls of psych guitar growl, long stretches of hushed dreaminess, with cooing vocals and muted melodies and super tripped out heart-of-the-sun druggy jams, complete with slow motion riffing and reverbed outer space vocals, the whole disc is actually very Beatles-esque (albeit at their most experimental and HIGH) giving Dungen's sound even more of a sixties pop makeover.
Surprisingly (or maybe not so) the record finishes off with nearly 30 minutes of barely there lower case ambience, bits of percussion, keening high end glimmer, all drifting in wide open expanses of mumbled drones and hushed shimmer, a super longform abstract raga, that sounds like something you'd be more likely to find on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon or Pseudo Arcana than on a Dungen related record... Awesome.�
Life Without Buildings is the next big thing according to the often overzealous and easily bought UK music press, but this time, they just might be right. Definitely too weird to -actually- be the next big thing, Life Without Buildings does offer some new and appealing sounds. They have an indie-rock jangle somewhere between Sleater Kinney's urgency and The Smith's precious perfection;
Aha! Yet another installment in Robert Pollard's Fading Captain series. The mysteriously titled Mist King Urth is credited to the equally mysterious group known as Lifeguards. And just who do you think they might be? But of course, it's another Pollard collaborative effort. This time he's hooked back up with fellow GBVer Doug Gillard. Pollard sang and wrote the tunes while Gillard played the all instruments, and it's no surprise that the results are quite appealing. Ah yes, a rose by any other name.... Raw electric guitars crunch about while Pollard sings in a particularly strange, affected manner. Very fired up and rocked out.
MPEG Download: "Starts At The River" [/audio/lifeguardsstarts.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Starts At The River" [/audio/lifeguardsstarts.m3u]
Latest from Swedish blackened doom pop weirdos Lifelover, which we have been trying to get for a while, and it's a doozy, melding the twisted demented depressive black metal strangeness of their early records, with the more streamlined, lush heaviness of their most recent recordings, resulting in what might be their most full realized release yet.
Featuring members of Ondskapt, Hypothermia, Dimhymn and IXXI, one could be forgiven for expecting something much more grim and black, hateful and harrowing, but instead, the band have been moving more toward a sound much more akin to groups like Katatonia, epic, lush, depressive doom pop, the guitars and drums massive, the melodies melancholy and mournful, but with the unhinged maniacal vocals that defined the first few records. Live videos display the group's incredible (and incredibly bloody) stage presence, with the vocalist, wearing a white long sleeve dress shirt, and doing some strange herky jerky dances, but within a few songs, things get decidedly darker, that white shirt soaked through with blood, the band locked into a frenzied fierce assault, but STILL, the music manages to be lush and sprawling and epic and weirdly impossibly poppy. Not sure why it works, or even how, but Lifelover are not only master showmen, but masters of crafting off kilter blackened pop. And Dekadens is most definitely testament to that. Not nearly as weird or experimental as past records, the first four tracks are a practically flawless explosion of the sound these guys have seemed to master, the production loud and lush, the riffing incredible, the drums not blasting, but pounding, the vocals a shrieking caterwaul, all wound into some incredible heavy pop music, still with hints of blackness, some double kick drumming, chugging guitars, those vocals, but however much of that there is, this still is ultimately pop music.
The second half of the record, things get a bit weirder; "Androider" almost sounds like some sort of alien modern rock, if it weren't for those unhinged vocals, it's not hard to imagine a song like this ending up on MTV, with some woozy clean guitar breaks, a soaring chorus, and some clean crooning vox, eventually slipping into a gorgeous minor key lament. "Visomdsord" is all clean guitar and skeletal drumming, soaring melancholy melodies, weirdly processed spoken vocals, gloomy Joy Divisiony basslines, and a second half that gets more and more dreamy and abstract. And then finally "Destination: Ingenstans" has possibly the poppiest main riff of the bunch, total sugary sweet, still distorted and crunchy, but majestic and major key, before a brief hushed drifty interlude, and then a burst of mathy proggy blackened heaviness, maybe the heaviest thing on the record, before the song chills out again, returning to something much more meditative, clean guitars, jangly and shimmery, the only vestige of blackened weirdness, a still tortured hellish howl, creating something at once dreamlike and melodic, haunting and harrowing.
So goddamn good. Lifelover are probably one of the most original 'black metal' bands around. And one of our favorites, and it's hard for us to imagine anyone listening to Dekadens not agreeing wholeheartedly...
It's strange watching videos of Lifelover performing live. With the sound turned down, you would probably think you were watching the sickest, noisiest, grimmest band ever, the frontman in a white shirt, seemingly in some sort of trance at the front of the stage, cutting himself up until he's a sopping bloody mess, covered in scars, his mouth wide open, seemingly howling demonically, but as most of you already know, the sound of Lifelover is far removed from grim black buzz, or dirgey blackened sludge, instead, they traffic is a sort of doom pop, surprisingly melodic, still metallic, but often with piano, and synths, juxtaposing wild hysterical vox, with music that is frankly not that far removed from the mainstream. But that's the magic of Lifelover, they are a seriously twisted entity, sonic and otherwise, their records sprawling confusional free for all's that shift tone and timbre constantly, brooding and dark one minute, wild and heavy the next, the vocals over the top and super dramatic. A sound that's dark and depressive, but totally melodic and catchy. We've loved pretty much every record so far, and their records get played all the time in the shop, even by the non metalheads, especially by the non metalheads. That's not to say this is not metal, it most definitely is, just its own unique strain.
On first listen, we were tempted to proclaim Sjukdom the heaviest Lifelover yet, and while repeated listens do reveal the record's hidden melodic secrets, we definitely think the ratio of distorted heaviness to plaintive melancholy doom pop is definitely above average here.
The opener sets the tone, with some seriously chuggy metallic riffage, but laced over some mournful minor key piano, the vocals slipping from anguished shriek to more guttural howl, the song surprisingly catchy, the drums weirdly processed so they almost sound programmed, the track slipping into an almost punk rock blast before slipping right back into the more metallic midtempo crunch.
It's definitely the best sounding Lifelover yet, in terms of production, the guitars are massive, thick, super distorted, the vocals manage to be audible, bizarre, but not overbearing, the drums might be the only weak spot, triggered sounding, but as the record grows on you, the drums start to sound, right, somehow. And the songs, super catchy, melding the sort of Katatonia style depressive metallic melancholia, with depressive black metal ambience, the piano, which sort of defines their sound, as much as the guitars certainly, and the vocals, which are so emotional, expressive, tortured, bizarre, grunting to shrieking, to whispering to mewling.
And beyond the Lifelover 'sound', these guys do whip up some fantastic audio weirdness, peppering the record with strange samples, swirling snippets of other songs, haunting interludes, mysterious stretches of ambience, even whole songs that totally stand out, like "Bitterljuv Kakofoni", with its hushed backwards guitars, tortured growled vox, all over a weird super minimal, ultra distorted rhythm, laced with minimal piano, and haunting guitar twang, creepy and beautiful. There's also the strummy blissy "Utdrag", that sounds like Lifelover's take on jangle pop, sounding a bit like the singer's other outfit Hypothermia, minus the piano.
If you liked the other Lifelovers, you're gonna dig this one too, not their weirdest, but definitely their catchiest, and best produced, and it's a total grower. At first we were convinced it could never live up to Erotik or Pulver, but now we find ourselves listening to it like crazy, and digging it as much as those other ones if not more.
"Somebody needs to reissue this!" has been often uttered around aQ in reference to this 1983 gem by Lifetones, a one-off band created by Charles Bullen of This Heat. And finally, after years of praying and hoping and wishing, our wish has been granted! Our fellow music obsessives at Light In The Attic have stepped up to bring this all-time favorite the attention it so richly deserves. For A Reason is one of those rare records, that from the very first time you hear it, immediately seduces with its immediacy, uniqueness, and zoned-in sonic focus. And after that first listen, it's likely that you'll find yourself addicted, and craving more, as the record only hits harder and deeper with every listen.
It's shouldn't be a surprise to the aQ faithful that we would be raving about a This Heat related project (This Heat being a unanimous all time aQ favorite, their vinyl reissues being recent Records Of The Week here too!), we've gushed about other post This Heat music from both Charles Hayward and Gareth Williams in projects like Flaming Tunes and Camberwell Now. But really, Charles Bullen has always been the underrated/unknown/unsung part of the This Heat equation, as very little was ever written about him or his post This Heat endeavors. Just like those Hayward and Williams projects, the record Bullen made after the demise of This Heat somehow manages to transcend and creates its own distinct soundworld.
Influenced by dub, Indian rhythms and instrumentation, as well as the deep-in-the-groove elements of krautrock, Lifetones has this magical ability to sound like no one else while feeling strangely and warmly familiar. It's like the band/record we always imagined in our head, or wished existed, proof that experimentation and smart sonic vision can also be so totally enjoyable and utterly irresistible.
While this record has been a cult secret for way too long, it's undeniable that many of today's brightest altered-zone music makers have been touched greatly by these magical and mysterious sounds. We hear echoes in Sun Araw, Fabulous Diamonds, Panda Bear, Peaking Lights, Anika, Blues Control, and we can't quite put our finger on it, but there is an ineffable sonic sexiness, tension and tone that even reminds us of when we first heard Interpol's debut way back in 2002.
Imagine Public Image Ltd's Second Edition melted and warped into African Head Charge's Songs Of Praise, and then somehow dissolving into Can's Tago Mago - it's that sort of entrancing, exotic, indescribable sonic alchemy that might give you a clue of what For A Reason is all about. But really, beyond the intoxicating sound, there are the songs - each one rife with incredible hooks and profound lyrics that hit their mark and cut deep.
Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of our music nerd hearts to Light In The Attic for finally doing justice to one of our favorite records of the last 35 years!
The vinyl reissue comes in a gatefold jacket on high quality wax and both the vinyl and the cd versions come with an essay and a download card.
Pure Diva-Goth greatness! Light Asylum bring a much needed emotional weight and darkness to the current realm of left-field dance floor weirdos. Led by the striking and powerful voice of Shannon Funchess, who makes us think of Grace Jones being kidnapped out of Studio 54 and dragged to a dark and dirgy, gothy warehouse filled with whips and chains.
Funchess has paid her dues over the years, starting out in weird DIY bands in Seattle that played with groups like 7 Year Bitch and The Gits, before making her move to New York where she was quickly spotted and recruited by folks like !!!, TV On The Radio, and Telepath to guest on their albums and perform at live shows. With Light Asylum Funchess seems finally able to fully realize her unique vision. Probably one of the few black girls to be wearing a Joy Division t-shirt when she was a teen, she has a special ability to bring a strong sensuality to doom and gloom. Fans of Zola Jesus, Former Ghost, Blessure Grave, Bauhaus, early Nine Inch Nails, Joy Division, Magas, Gina X, Teengirl Fantasy, etc. will want to jump on this right away.
Besides digging the music so much, we have to say In Tension boasts one of our favorite record covers of the year!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
These here Texas drone rockers show that they have much in common with others in their homeland (Stars of the Lid, Ultrasound, Charalambides, 26, etc.) on this beautiful lp (white vinyl, if you must know). Each side consists of slow, hazy pieces that devolve from Mogwai-like explosive melodies into deep sleepy drones. Quite exceptional.
It's hard to believe it's been almost 4 years since the last Lightning Bolt record. It does seem like they've been touring pretty much nonstop for the last decade, and nothing compares to seeing these guys live, set up on the floor, right in the middle of the pit, the volume deafening, the energy contagious, the playing frantic and furious, these guys are pretty untouchable live, and the way they make such a din with just bass and drums, makes all other rhythm section duos sound sad in comparison. And while records rarely capture the intensity of live performances, LB records have been pretty consistently kick ass, heavy and complex, a bit murky and lo-fi. but if you've ever seen the band, their equipment looks like they built it from scraps, so one might imagine the recordings would be similarly haphazard.
Earthly Delights picks up pretty much right where Hypermagic Mountain left off. The bass buzzes and sings, somehow filling up the low end, while spitting out squiggly melodies, the drums galloping wildly, explosive fills, jumbled math melting rhythms, the vocals super distorted yelps, the songs weirdly catchy, or if not specifically catchy in the traditional sense, the repeated riffs and motifs get lodged in your head, and you pretty much want them to go on forever, and they sort of do. And the thing is, not a whole lot has changed in the ensuing years since the last record, but why should anything have changed? You don't fix what ain't broke, and anyway, NO ONE sounds like Lightning Bolt, and they were already insanely tight, so not sure things could get any tighter, if anything, it's just another batch of bad ass LB jams, which is more then enough. Of course there's the very metal 12 minute closing track, that will have you wondering how the fuck any one can play like that non stop for 12 whole minutes, which will then lead you to wonder how they play like that for a WHOLE SET. Better not to wonder, just let them do their superhuman noise rock thing, you just sit back and enjoy it, or better yet jump around like crazy and try to keep up.
When Lightning Bolt first emerged from a warehouse in Providence, it seemed like the initial impression was that the Brian's were some kind of snooty art-school rockers and that we just didn't "get it". Here's the thing, though: there's nothing highbrow about this shit. Fantasy Empire straight up rocks. There was a time when Lightning Bolt may have preferred the Ruins/Boredoms approach of chaos, noise, and silliness, and don't get us wrong, we love those albums, but now Brian (G, not C) is writing some of the chunkiest, heaviest RIFFS he ever has, and Brian (C, not G) is playing his most straightforward drums he ever has. That's not to say the Brian's have fully distanced themselves from their early sound - you'll still hear the absolutely one-of-kind, balls-to-the-wall drumming, wall-of-amp bass sound, and tripped out chanting/Boredoms-esque vocal work. It's just that now, these songs are stuff you can headband to, and we dare you to try not to.
There was something about the last Lightning Bolt album that fell a little flat - the production, especially, didn't give those songs the justice they deserved. That problem is long gone on Fantasy Empire. The sound is crystal clear; (or, as crystal clear as you can given what they are actually playing) in fact, this record almost has a live vibe to it (By the way, we all know at this point you HAVE to see this band live, right?). "Horsepower," especially, has this almost sped-up stoner rock jam quality to it, kinda like if you played a Sleep record at 45 RPM, right down to the wah-wah bass sound. "King Of My World" and "Mythmaster" both have a building, krautrock vibe to them that sounds like totally new ground for the 'Bolt, but totally works in a weird, fucked up way. The closing track is as straightforward as these guys will probably get, almost a punkish 4-chord vibe that builds and twists into a huge bombastic conclusion.
If you were like us and thought the last couple 'Bolt albums kinda missed the mark of earlier albums like Hypermagic Mountain or Wonderful Rainbow, don't sleep on Fantasy Empire. The Brians are back and in top form.
Hypermagic Mountain leaves the popular Rhode Island spazz-core duo Lightning Bolt's other records huffing glue and passed out in the dust, believe it or not. On the bass, Brian Gibson covers some of the same wandering scale build-up stuff he's always done, but with so much more intensity and concentration... and needless to say SO MUCH FASTER!! Hard to believe a bass can produce riffs and licks as insane as these. In fact, when the drums drop out and the bass is left to go nuts, it almost sounds like Van Halen's "Eruption". Woah. And drummer Brian Chippendale is as impenetrable as he's been in the past but again, SO MUCH FASTER. WTF?! Did they take some sort of vegan super-power pills? There's also a healthy smathering (a slathering? a lathering? more than a smattering) of hard-rock riffage all over the place that in conjunction with endless super-speed drum insanity (note drumnerds: only one kick drum), create an amazing and noise-manic rockin' sound.
And was ist dat? Woah again! Some choicest moments indeed start to reference a sense of "song", moreso than we've ever heard from them before. We're damn impressed! In so many different ways, this album is incredibly surprising. As mind-numbingly stand-alone awesome as they were before, they are so much more now somehow. LB records have always been a strange beast in terms of production, c'mon, how would YOU record a wall of ear melting bass and non stop spastic drum splatter? But it was never really about sound quality, the production was an afterthought really, who cares when you're soaked in sweat and pinballing around a dayglo pit. The recording quality here is a bit muddier than their previous, already sort of a little muddy sounding albums Wonderful Rainbow and Ride The Skies, but it suits this ultra riffy LB of new for sure. Longtime 'Bolt fans have probably been hankering for greater levels of grit and distortion anyway, like in the old days, so it makes perfect sense that their new sound only adds to their spiffy new riffier hard-rocking maelstrom!
We'd been wanting to list this new Lightning Bolt for ages now, their first since 2009's Earthly Delights, it actually came out on vinyl last year, but sold out before we could get enough to list. Well, the vinyl remains unavailable, but we do now finally have the cd, and as you might expect, it's a doozy, Oblivion Hunter showing no signs of the group mellowing with age, in fact, there seems to be a lot of sonic experimentation going on. And folks (like us) who dug the recent Black Pus record on Thrill Jockey, Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale's solo project, will find much of Oblivion Hunter to be quite similar: murky and muddy, but poppy and weirdly hooky. Not that that doesn't describe LB in general, but really, just give opener "King Kandy" a listen, classic Lightning Bolt for sure, but in places it's SUPER melodic, and Chippendale's weirdly tuned snare, makes the drumming sound like there's all kinds of strange percussion happening, and much of the track is spent churning murkily, the drums a tribal flurry, the bass grinding malevolently, while the vocals soar over the top. Great stuff for sure, not too far removed from the sound we love, but pushing their sound enough so that the new LB is definitely different and exciting. Most of the rest of the record seems to veer a bit more into classic LB territory, although things stay pretty strange, tracks like "Oblivion Balloon" are crazy melodic and catchy, and tracks like "Fly Fucker Fly", sound almost like fuzzy garage rock sped up and super charged, while "Salamander" is a super progged out 'Bolt, frenzied and melodic, but sounding like it could almost be some classic psych/prog jam re-done, and finally, the record ends with the 13+ minute "World Wobbly Wide", which is easily the trippiest of the bunch, a sprawling psychedelic freakout, wild tangles of distorted melody, sounding almost like a raga or alien snake charmer music at times, while the drums explode wildly underneath, the second half of the track getting way more blown out, blasting, super distorted psych-noise trippiness, that reminds us just why we loved these guys so much in the first place!
This is the long-awaited, highly anticipated full length release from Providence, RI's amazing bass and drums duo LIGHTNING BOLT! Imagine Tokyo drums/bass duo Ruins in their early years: way obvious prog influence and heavy as fuck, then subtract the zeuhl
Holy shit! The Bolt get a proper visual document for those of you who missed out on the live action! Or if you were there and couldn't see past the rabid flurry of sweat and flesh of the adrenalin charged audiences! Or if you did see everything and now you want to see yourself on film, you narcissistic bastard! Speaking of which, camera whore and AQ doorman John Dwyer makes his international film debut as himself and as Pink of Pink and Brown, he's all over this thing like flies on shit, relaxing in someone's backyard completely in costume or just bobbing along to the live action!! Anyway, the film takes us across America with one of the loudest bands on the planet. Join Brian Chippendale and Brian Gibson as they whip unsuspecting crowds into disco frenzied mosh pits. Rarely does a band make the audience bang their heads *and* shake their booties -- these kids do it right. Watch indie rock nerds get knocked over as they're trapped in the Bolt's surprise attack from the back of the room, opposite the stage. See scenesters get ridiculously stupid as Gibson's 3800 watt tower scrapes earwax outta their pretty little heads! If you couldn't really get into their records (since their music certainly has a physical element which could only be imagined whether you've seen them or not), this will definitely knock you on your ass! Bonus features include two hilariously animated music videos, a remix video by Libythth, a gallery of Brian Chippendale's wonderfully screenprinted poster art and a humorous clip of the duo rehearsing and discussing the relevance of their art. Very well done.
