Now available on vinyl!
We have been hearing about Little Dragon for quite a while now as lots of folks around here had seen them live and been blown away and kept urging us to check out their stuff and to see what an amazing presence their Swedish-Japanese singer has. Unfortunately, most of LD's releases where hard-to-track-down imports up 'til now, but luckily with the release of this newest album Machine Dreams we get to hear why all our friends were so excited about Little Dragon.
Machine Dreams is completely refreshing, bright and colorful electro-pop that eschews all the detached and cold cliches that so many in the scene rely on, opting instead for elements of soul, house, downtempo, and an overall warmth and sincerity of sound that really makes LD stick out.
Imagine a more uptempo and cheery Fever Ray, or if Lali Puna stopped navel gazing and reached their hands and hearts to the sky, or if Matthew Herbert got to produce a record for Gwen Guthrie! We hear wonderful hints of LD's influences too, everything from Massive Attack to Pizzicato Five, yet they manage to really shine with their own identity, displaying a really great range, from uptempo catchy dancefloor moments to more drowsy, sultry bittwersweet slow burners. We are feeling this so much!
We have been hearing about Little Dragon for quite a while now as lots of folks around here had seen them live and been blown away and kept urging us to check out their stuff and to see what an amazing presence their Swedish-Japanese singer has. Unfortunately, most of LD's releases where hard-to-track-down imports up 'til now, but luckily with the release of this newest album Machine Dreams we get to hear why all our friends were so excited about Little Dragon.
Machine Dreams is completely refreshing, bright and colorful electro-pop that eschews all the detached and cold cliches that so many in the scene rely on, opting instead for elements of soul, house, downtempo, and an overall warmth and sincerity of sound that really makes LD stick out.
Imagine a more uptempo and cheery Fever Ray, or if Lali Puna stopped navel gazing and reached their hands and hearts to the sky, or if Matthew Herbert got to produce a record for Gwen Guthrie! We hear wonderful hints of LD's influences too, everything from Massive Attack to Pizzicato Five, yet they manage to really shine with their own identity, displaying a really great range, from uptempo catchy dancefloor moments to more drowsy, sultry bittwersweet slow burners. We are feeling this so much!
Without a doubt one of the most creative and pleasurable groups making electronic tinged dance pop these days. What sets Little Dragon so far ahead of the crowd is that they are such innovative music makers as well as having the amazing talents of lead singer Yukimi Nagano, who really does have one of the most soulful and seductive voices around. Ritual Union is one of the most perfect electro pop albums of the year. The songs and sounds on the record let you go deep into you body. But it's not just a surface high that makes you shake it for a moment, but instead something you feel dig into you deeper and actually grab a hold of your spirit and soul. Like some of the best work that Herbert & Dani Siciliano made together, or if Prince in his prime teamed up with Lykke Li to make a record smart enough to want to spend intimate time with, yet fun enough to want to blast so loud when your friends are around. Colors, shapes and melody all swirling together into something so intoxicating, and so totally good for you. This is becoming our absolute summer jam!
Shimmy up, down and all around! The first few playful bars of Little Fuzzy's sophomore album made us think we'd stumbled onto Sesame Street... but Sesame Street for grown-ups, mind you! This SF gang keep on rollin' out their pop infused groovy goodness. Hey folks try this one on for size... new genre: 'twee funk'! Little Fuzzy, we thusly dub thee.
On their self-titled debut, Little Fuzzy do not unfurl what everyone expected from their name and album art -- that being bright fuzzy-wuzzy bouncy twee-pop. NO! Instead this SF quartet (whose membership includes former members of Mission neighborhood music vets Fantasy) bust out a highspirited, funky breakdown complete with much lighthearted silliness in lyrics and song titles. Sorta reminiscent of '70s Sunday morning variety show staples the Bugaloos or the Banana Splits but with a faux Prince falsetto vocalist.
We kind of slept on this record when it came out a few months ago but when we finally gave it a chance we totally fell in love. Most supergroups tend to be kind of all hype and no substance, but the opposite is the case for this trio consisting of Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes), Rodrigo Amarante (Los Hermanos) and Binki Shapiro. Seems like being in Little Joy really let the players truly have fun and create sweet and breezy songs that make you want to get lost wandering with your friends or that special someone as you lay in the park or daydream on a hammock letting the weight of the world just drift away.
Injecting lots of tropical sounds influenced by Hawaiian, Brazilian & Latin American soft-psychedelic pop with such great results. Makes a lot of sense that this was produced by Noah Georgeson who's had a strong hand in the works of folks like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. Devendra adds his voice to a few of the songs and you can tell that Little Joy have a strong feeling of kinship with him, as this record really taps into the more laid back sound of Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon and Cripple Crow. Breezy, easy and so delightfully catchy and assured.
The perfect red apple featured on the front cover of this new Little Wings album seems promising of things bright, crisp and sweet, but the music is considerably more bittersweet and muted. On what is perhaps his most fully realized album to date, Kyle Field roams deeper into the ever-darkening path of autumnal somberness and melancholia tread by the likes of Tindersticks, Black Heart Procession, and the late Vic Chesnutt. And we couldn't help but note that, to both the eye and the ear, his lilting, withered voice making its way through a burly beard stirs a fond familiarity with fellow indie folk troubadours Will Oldham and Sam Beam. During one recent in-store listen, a customer also commented that this album sounded much like early J.J. Cale.
Field pens and sings achingly heartfelt songs of earthy introspection just right for those overcast days when the grey clouds stubbornly refuse to allow the sun to shine through.
Little Wings' Kyle Field has this warbly, almost on the verge on breaking voice -- similar in a way to Will Oldham, although they don't actually sound alike -- which he lets go into huge, room-filling fullness when playing live. On record, far more restraint is exercised, which is unfortunate, but what's lost in immediate impact is replaced by gentle subtlety and the added textures of instruments besides Field's trusty kid-sized nylon string guitar --a bit of bass, soft drums, a melodica melody here and there. All of the songs on this record feel incredibly intimate, although not in an annoying emo sharing-my-pain way. Rather, these songs are comforting and real, like a gathering of your closest friends. Several of Little Wing's friends (including Hugh from the Lowdown) are gathered here, in fact, to lend backing vocals, in (& out of) varying degrees of tune, but always with warmth & enthusiasm. The songs on "Light Green Leaves" aren't as super catchy as some on his last record "Wonderue," but they are still fine examples of Field's songcrafting skills. Included is perhaps the final chapter of the "Shredder" saga, truly heartbreaking tales of the obsolescence of an old school skater. This is sweet, charming stuff, fans of Little Wings pals Microphones as well as of the sunnier Palace & Bonnie Billy moments should check it out.
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Controversial as always, Brooklyn's Liturgy, the band 'troo' black metallers love to hate, is back. And it's not just purists who have found Liturgy's self-proclaimed 'transcendental black metal' (and accompanying manifesto) to be way too pretentious, arty, overly intellectual and dare we say hipsterish. And yeah, sure, Liturgy ARE intellectual and/or pretentious, but they also make some freaking amazing, weird music. So let's get all that out of the way by saying, they can call it whatever they want, just don't expect us to read the manifesto. To us, ok, maybe we wouldn't really consider them a bonafide black metal band, but the music they make wouldn't exist (probably) if there weren't such a thing as black metal. It's a part of their sound that they, well, have transcended? They're definitely their own 'thing' whatever it might be, a thing that beyond the black metal elements also incorporates math rock and academic new music and IDM electronica and other strange stuff besides. Totally up our alley in other words - although making The Ark Work an aQ Record Of The Week was also was a wee bit controversial here, 'cause we'll admit right off the bat that this isn't an easy album to sit through all at once. It's just so tripped out and CRAZY and exhausting, as you mentally process what you're hearing. But even if you can't take it all in one sitting, it's the sort of thing where we swear you'll be compelled to play individual tracks on repeat, over and over, just to get your head around 'em, and because certain parts can be so intense and mesmerizing, you want to really try to fully absorb/understand the awesomeness of them before experiencing the next draining yet uplifting track. So Record Of The Week it is, none can deny that it's an impressive piece of work and unlike anything else really. It's gonna have you going, what IS this? Very aQ-worthy, indeed.
Liturgy's bandleader, guitarist/vocalist/composer Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (whose name is only slightly less plausible than, say, Guy Mann-Dude, anyone remember that '80s metal shredder?) is one ambitious & talented dude... man... guy. Some pretentiousness may be a side effect of that, but whatever. It's not like we're paying attention to the conceptual lyrics about who knows what (though you might, they could be worthwhile). We're just busy being blown away by all the choppy stop-start arrangements; the symphonic horn parts; the insectoid guitar buzz that sounds like a Glenn Branca guitar orchestra made up of a whole bunch tiny, tiny, pygmy-like black metal guitarists; the mesmeric, trance-inducing drumming by the inhuman Greg Fox (Guardian Alien); the glitchy digital stutter that, seizure-like, grips bits of these tracks occasionally; the post-rocky, sea-saw way these tracks can build and build; the sheer proggy/mathy grandiosity of the whole thing, and all the other surprises, including, despite this music's difficulty-factor, some really beautiful, blissful parts too.
There are bagpipes, too, along with the trumpet and trombone, all played by guest musicians, but in addition there are also synthesized MIDI horns on here, the latter giving a bit of the vibe of an outsider composer realizing his epic opus with DIY bedroom recording technology. Then there are the processed vocals, also kinda melodic, but chant-like, a mantric supplication, sorta sounding like Om, but with the tape sped up perhaps or otherwise manipulated, and still quite emotive.
Yeah, we said they sure came up with something that doesn't sound like anything else, at least not anything that exists, though we can come up with some this-meets-that, hybrid of this-and-that esoteric band math equations to try to describe it, like, um, Orthrelm doing their version of Om (if Om attended the Church Universal and Triumphant), or Phantomsmasher goes to conservatory... or how 'bout this: the track "Vel Valhaal" sounds like a song by outsider epic metallers Realmbuilder, remixed by Venetian Snares, with a gamelan thrown in for good measure, mashed up with a Herman Nitsch aktion. How's that? We're trying.
If all that's not ridiculous enough, oh then there's the fact that Liturgy recently they appeared on an episode of NBC TV show The Blacklist, with freakin' Peter Fonda behind the drum kit. WTF? If haters gonna hate anyway, you might as well cash in with surreal shit like that.
You've got your whole life to listen to this Liturgy album, so don't delay, get it now! While maybe we can't say yet for sure, we think it's one we will be coming back to when some other, more acceptably 'troo black metal' albums are long forgotten.
Oh, and 'cause we told 'em we were making it a Record Of The Week, Thrill Jockey has kindly offered a special BONUS for folks who buy it from us, and only us, this week. While they last, we'll be including a download coupon with each purchase that gets you an mp3 of the crazy remix that Soft Pink Truth (Drew from Matmos) did of the track "Vitriol", which is otherwise is only available on the version of the cd released in Japan. It's not as if Liturgy isn't already insane and fucked up enough sounding, but you can imagine what SPT does to 'em.
FYI the swank gatefold double vinyl version includes a download of the full album, too, while the gatefold cd version has no need of that.
The eighties noise rock scene in New York may have been all about the Swans and Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore, but Live Skull were just as potent as those bands, and most definitely carved their own sonic niche, one that maybe actually influenced those other bands. Bringing Home The Bait was the group's second record, and first full length, and found them harnessing dissonance into something lush and layered, the tribal drum pound (courtesy of James Lo, who would go on to play in Chavez!) and slithery low slung bass wove a dense churning backdrop for the tripped out almost psychedelic guitars, that would alternatingly unfurl roiling atonal riffage or chiming minor key chords, or spew gouts of hauntingly textured noise, the sound dark and moody, gloomy and gothic, often slow, lumbering, almost doomy, but just as often wildly careening noise rock blasts, the sounds oozing and melting, the guitars tangled into strange shapes, the songs almost sounding like those guitar lines gradually untangling, heady and hypnotic, an early strain of hypnorock that now almost three decades later, seems to have been predicting so much of what's going on now. The sound of Live Skull was so subversive, but weirdly musical and melodic, the band applying an almost avant sensibility to their knuckle dragging crush, the dueling boy / girl vocals, the dour gloom rock, that also made them sound less NYC noise rock, and more West Coast goth-rock, at times sounding like the sort of band that would play at the Scream, or would open for Jane's Addiction back in the day. In fact, anyone who dug the recent Red Temple Spirits reissue, will find much to dig here as well, with some of the tracks sounding like the Abecedarians or Kommunity FK! And really, for being classified as 'noise rock' much of BHTB is surprisingly not noisy, sure the guitars are dense and layered, and the band do weave thick swaths of 'noisiness', but most of the time, that noisiness is blurred and smeared into moody chordal thrum, or almost shoegazey blissouts, a sort of post punk noise rock new wave that sounds as good now as it did thirty years ago!!
This is the first time Bringing Home The Bait has ever been available on cd, and includes a bunch of rare bonus tracks, as well as a big booklet with rare photos and new liner notes!
The latest installment in this long overdue reissue campaign for eighties New York noise rockers Live Skull, this being their second full length, Cloud One, originally released in 1986, the last album before Thalia Zedek (Come, Uzi) would join and take over lead vocals, and like their debut, on Cloud One, Live Skull still sonically fit pretty perfectly alongside their NYC brethren (and sistren) in Swans, Sonic Youth (especially Sonic Youth) and the rest, but on Cloud One, the band made great leaps both sonically, and with their songwriting (and the matching more polished production), the new(ish) sound definitely hewing ever closer to the minor key melancholia infused angularity of SY, but mixing in long, droned out passages and slow dark blooze creeps, adding an element of brooding mesmer, and dark psychedelia. That darkness also represented by a sonic shift toward something gloomier and gothier, with many of the tracks here more reminiscent of the West Coast sound of the time, the Scream Club, and bands like Janes Addiction, Kommunity FK and the Abecedarians (especially on the live bonus tracks!). Hints too of outfits like the Wipers, the Gun Club, the Flesh Eaters, a sort of swaggery psych blues crossed with noisy experimental rock, there's still some junkyard percussion, a little Pussy Galore here and there, but the band definitely had their eyes on the musical prize, whether by design or not, Cloud One is a tightly wound, complex piece of noise/art rock, that even now sounds impossibly prescient of a sound that so many bands would go on to mine in their wake. It's actually a bit shocking that Live Skull's career trajectory wasn't more like Sonic Youth's, on this record for sure, but even more so on their 1988 swansong, Positraction, the band seemed poised for success, and an eventual move into the semi-mainstream, but for whatever reason, they remained firmly entrenched in the underground, and would only make it another couple years/records before calling it quits.
Fantastically curated reissued, with a whole mess of bonus tracks, unreleased, demos and live, as well as a massive booklet with tons of rare photos, old flyers, live shots, and extensive liner notes by the band, as well as extensive track by track notes on the extra songs as well!
The reissue campaign for these eighties NY noise rockers culminates with this, the final EP featuring the original lineup, released immediately after 1986�s Cloud One (the reissue of which was reviewed on the aQ list recently), and was the last record with the original lineup, after this record drummer James Lo would leave, and vocalist/guitarist Thalia Zedek would join, changing the sound of the band, and moving them in a new direction. A direction that was definitely hinted at here, originally a three song 12�, the band (according to the liner notes) were convinced that Pusherman was a vast improvement, even over Cloud One, which had just come out, and while it might be more polished, and a bit more honed, songwriting-wise, it sounds like the logical extension from Cloud One. �Swingtime� is all low slung swagger, the production, thick and noisy, multiple guitars wound into tense tangles, the groove a lumbering churn, the sound rife with spidery melodies and strange fragmented riffage, the vocals a deep bellowed croon, the whole thing a fierce gothic blooze, far removed from the early noise rock days for sure. �Raise The Manifestation� is more of the same, another bass driven dirge, slow and loping, moody and brooding, this time female vox to the fore, the guitars once again swirling in psychedelic squalls, all anchored by some muscly bass and drums, droney and tranced out, and to these ears, like much of Cloud One, still reminiscent of what was happening on the opposite coast, with the Scream Club, and groups like Kommunity FK, the Abecedarians, Janes Addiction and the like.
The big surprise though on Pusherman was the title track, a cover of the Curtis Mayfield classic, which at the time, seemed kinda crazy, and while much has been made of the track�s �funkiness�, it really doesn�t sound that much funkier than the Live Skull tracks proper, tribal drumming, and a woozy, slithery bassline, wreathed in all sorts of guitar noise, and some surprising percussion, the vocals sultry and bewitching, a little bit haunting, the guitars delivering all sorts of wild sonic filigree, a dense soulful noise rock dirge that positioned the song, and the group to an extent right alongside all those other doom and gloom outfits.
The original ep is fleshed out with a bunch of bonus tracks, most live, a few alternate versions, all of varying quality, but a good impression of the band at their peak, right before the band would reconfigure and embark on phase two of their career. Like the other reissues, fantastically put together, with a massive booklet, featuring extensive liner notes from the various band members, and lots of rare photos and flyers. Best part of the liner notes: when the band recalls returning to Madison, Wisconsin, only to discovery that their last visit had inspired their host�s toddlers to start a band, that band was Old Skull! (And did you know two of the three kids from Old Skull are now dead?! Crazy!)
We pretty much thought the well had run dry as far as great lost tropicalia gems goes. A few years back there was an explosion of amazing finds from this fertile era in Brazilian music history, with records by folks like Som Imaginario, Ronnie Von, Paulo Bagunca and Alceu Valenca & Gerardo Azevedo.
While there has been totally essential reissues of many of the biggest names of tropicalia (Jorge Ben, Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, etc.) it was looking like we were going to have to concede that there might not be anymore totally obscure gems left. Of course time after time we're always blown away by unearthed discoveries that just sound way too damn good to have remained obscure and unheard for so long. Such is the case for Liverpool, who released this record in 1969 and of course by their name you know they were influenced by some of the paisley sounds coming out of the UK, and they incorporated that influence into their own take on breezy and driving tropicalia. With a vocal delivery and arrangements that would sound right at home on some of Caetano Veloso's best outings, Liverpool were just as potent mellow and sun baked as they were rocking and psychedelic. We're so happy this has been unearthed for us to finally appreciate, an absolute classic!
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As the cover art proclaims: "The group from the future is here now! Advance yourself!" And well, Von Lmo has actually been bringing the future to us for quite some time now. This CD reissue of his classic early 80s LP includes the awesome track "Leave Your Body" that certain list-recipients might be familar with from the re-recorded version on one of Lmo's 90s underappreciated (but great) "comeback" efforts. Von Lmo exists in a futureworld not of synths, robotics and electronic blips'n'bleeps. No, it is instead one of skronky saxophone, raw garage-y guitar mayhem, balsa wood spacecrafts, and raging positivity. After all, "this album is dedicated to the advancement of the United States space program". And who can resist music that comes vacuum-packed in silver suits with giant red snowboots?
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Includes a full 31 minutes of "X+Z=0." -Advance Yourself.-
The reissue of this bizarre figure's collected sonic disturbances comes by way of Munster Records in Spain - licensed from the man himself. It includes the 1981 album "Future Lenguage" (or "Future Languaje" or "Future Language" depending on which edition you're looking at, previously available on Flemish Masters) as well as "Tranceformer" which was his compilation of demos, rarities and live stuff. The electrifying packaging is chock full of slogans ("Advance Yourself!"), info tidbits (this group is "from the future" and this music was "recorded in space"), not to mention mad mad silver spacesuits and huge red moonboots! Von Lmo's impassioned singing style often brings to mind the untethered energy of Jello Biafra, Tomata Du Plenty, and Lux Interior. And when he chants "Leave your body!", look out! It's absolute frenzy. The music is just as frantic. Propulsive sax a la James Chance over raw garage punk guitar, bass and drums. There are a few songs where the group slows it down somewhat, but it seems that it's then that things get even more tense, eccentric and strange. The aforementioned packaging includes a fold-out filled with extensive, entertaining liner notes written by Von Lmo.
First solo album in the burgeoning career of guitarist and Holy Mountain hero Steven Wray Lobdell, best known for his work in the recent incarnation of seminal krautrockers Faust, as well as his bands The Davis Redford Triad and Sufi Mind Game. Oh, yeah, and he played on that weirdo Baseball Astrologer LP too. Like all those projects, this is as psychedelic as all get out, but not at all freaky, distorted and overdriven: rather, this is acoustic, folky instrumental stuff, including a beautiful cover of a tune by Chilean folkie Victor Jara as well as much cosmic improv. It's the combination of wondrous playing and studio overdubs and effects that play the tricks on your mind. Lovely & recommended.
This live show from an actual establishment called Club Doughnut, features Lobdell, sometime Faust member and head of the mighty Davis Redford Triad, all by his lonesome, with just an electric guitar but holy fuck can this man wrangle amazing sounds out of those six strings. From acid fried Eastern tinged raga, to super effected psych freakout, to massive walls of Skullflower like skree, to full on riff destroying sonic mayhem to warm rumbling ambience, all assembled from the unlikeliest guitar sounds, crumbling super distorted throb, crystalline angelic shimmer, and flat out head caving crunch. Fans of Jack Rose, Pelt, Skullflower, Total, and all things massive gorgeous guitar will be floored.
The duo of Andre Foisy and Terence Hannum, aka Locrian, may have started life as purveyors of grim black ambience, and even with the addition of drummer Steven Hess, and an expanding sound that found their black buzz dronescapes blossoming into more rhythmic, and fully realized sonic sprawls, we still weren't entirely prepared for Return To Annihilation, which finds the group's crystallizing into something surprisingly melodic, what in the past might have been slow shifting fields of static rumble, and churning dark psychedelia, here has been transformed into something, dare we say poppy. Opener "Eternal Return" begins with some sinister synth buzz, darkly sci-fi and ominous, so we were prepared for more classic Locrian, but then BAM, the song explodes into some seriously prismatic, synth heavy dirge pop bliss out, think M83, Jesu, Mogwai. Minus the shrieked black metal vokills, this could be any of those groups, super melodic, dense and lush and layered, crazy melodic, epic and majestic, almost a crime it's over after less than three minutes.
But fear not, there's plenty more of this 'new' Locrian to be found. "A Visitation From The Wrath Of Heaven" begins like the opener, all crumbling, pulsing synths, woozy minor key swirls, again, seemingly setting us up for some droned out black mesmer, but instead, in come the drums, some swirly backwards melodies, and the track gradually settles into a sort of dreamy, drifting slow-core, something you might expect to be on Kranky, everything wreathed in psychedelic shimmer, but all smeared into a softly fuzzy, hypnotic rhythmic churn. Although they do drop in some harsh vox right near the end, really, again that's the only thing keeping this from being some weird minimal experimental drone pop. That and the crushing minute long doom/sludge finale, that soars majestically, the buzzing guitars wrapped around wordless vocals, and draped over some seriously crushing drum damage.
And so it goes, the record unwinding in all sorts of sonic directions. "Two Moons" is all softly tangled acoustic guitar, over a buzz drenched post rock lope, a sort of Mogwai / Tim Hecker hybrid, heavy certainly, but more heady and hypnotic than anything, then there's the title track, which begins as a brooding gloom pop, before blossoming into a freeform bit of black metal riffing, but blurred into something much more abstract, a gorgeous sprawl of minor key distorted guitar crumble, before returning to a sort of Mogwai / Godspeed style post rock slow build, albeit augmented with some extra metallic heft and more vokills. The final three tracks drift from hushed buzzy thrum, beneath soft curlicues of reverbed guitar shimmer, noisy blown out freeform guitar noise, laced with wild drum splatter, and harsh howled vox, to the final 15+ minute sprawl of "Obsolete Elegies", which begins as an acoustic guitar / piano threnody, dark, twang flecked swirls, set amidst billowing clouds of soft psychedelia, brooding and dusky, a little bit of Barn Owl maybe happening, moaned vocals, buzzing sci-fi synths, the sound transforming part way through into some strange dubbed out synth-prog, before once again launching into some epic, super distorted post rock majesty, soaring melodies, churning drum crush, all of which fades out into a field of synth swirl and disembodied sitar buzz, muted and haunting, only to eventually explode into a final blast of heaviness, of blasting black metal in fact, chugging and churning at first, before in swoops a second guitar transforming the sound into some insane and epic black prog heaviness, and suddenly we find ourselves wishing for a whole record that sounds like the last two minutes. Fingers crossed for next time.
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How many times can you re-release the same record? Many times it seems. So here is yet another version of the Locust's ultra-brief masterpice of spazzy, keyboard-flecked new wave grind. The twist this time is that the tracks are split up over 4 colored vinyl 7"s that just happen to be shaped like puzzle pieces, that all fit together to form.....a four colored...ummm...square! Kinda hoping for some sort of picture or something, but it's still pretty cool. AND VERY COLLECTABLE of course!!!! Limited to 3000.
Finally on cd (the 7" got a headstart earlier this year) and with bonus tracks to boot! This ep also includes their songs from the puddle-shaped split 7" they did with Arab On Radar. If you're familiar with this San Diego quartet, you already know that their
A reissue... well, sorta. Two of these early songs from San Diego sonic assault circus The Locust (along with the peculiar 'nose removal' cover art) were formerly available on a split 5" vinyl picture disc with their pals Jenny Piccolo. It was released on Justin Locust's label Three.One.G. back in 1999. The pair o' eardrum blisters now re-emerge with one more song on an odd little roundish square cdep (those boys love their novelty shaped records and cds, don't they?!). Total running time of these three songs? Just over three minutes!
A mysterious release from the Seattle-based fanclub of San Diego sonic assault team The Locust. This lathe-cut 7" is one side sight (a screen-print of The Locust's one-winged logo), and one side sound (six uncharacteristically spartan, yet suitably
Holy shit... New Erections indeed! While in the past The Locust have been frequently typecast as just another obnoxious, bratty, fuck-you band of perpetual malcontents, they've grown to be one of the most tight, virulent units around. This album's first track alone ("Aotkpta") turns the hardcore and metal contingents on their collective ear. Old Locust fans fear not, there's still plenty of splatter and thunder, but there's also a fierce precision that sets them apart from the pack. If there was any question, New Erections confirms that the band's four members have got chops to spare. Unlike many of their contemporaries who equate the punk rock ethos with rushed and raw sloppiness, The Locust slice through your ear cartilage with speed and exacting mathematics, leaving them a bloody heap of complex tatters. Exceptional musicianship at every turn coupled with their consistently concentrated tenacious count-that-shit! fury, not to mention Joey Karam's obvious thorough knowledge of analog synthesis makes for a huge, awesome sounding end result. With regards to the latter, Karam's synthesizers are all analog which means each gnarly sound (of which there are many!) needed to be individually dialed in, honed and crafted. Furthermore, it's not an overstatement to say that at this point Gabe Serbian can go toe to toe with any of today's top drummers. Another new development that was immediately noticeable was that their multi-part vocals have been pitched down from their trademark screech-bark making the nihilistic lyrics somewhat more decipherable.
Still as short-winded as ever, The Locust are the lean mean masters of succinctness, executing all of the above in less than twenty four minutes. Fucking great!
Who would have thought that The Locust and Tom Waits would ever be on the same label? And that that label would be run by the guy from Bad Religion? Certainly not me. But it's true. San Diego's The Locust (the 'the' is mandatory) find their new home on Anti, part of the mighty punk rock label Epitaph, and have thankfully made the always daunting major label leap with their stupid/funny song titles, camoflage bug-boy costumes, and grinding new wave hyperblast pummel intact. Twenty three songs, averaging about 55 seconds each, all with song titles like "Identity Exchange Program Rectum Return Policy", "Earwax Halo Manufactured For The Champion In All Of Us", and "Late For A Double Date With A Pile Of Atoms In The Water Closet." The Locust are a crushing grindcore juggernaut, that somehow ended up with new wave keyboards, that bloop and bleep and fart over everything, turning what could have been run of the mill grind into a wild circus-y funhouse of splattery blast beats, riffs that slither from metal to no wave and back again in the span of seconds, and rumbling, fuzzed out synths that make the whole thing sound like Adult or Fischerspooner having the shit beat out of them by Agoraphobic Nosebleed. If only!!
Have those blisters on your eardrums finally healed from listening to The Locust's 2003 full length Plague Soundscapes? Good... 'cuz the boys have returned to do some more damage. Their Safety Second, Body Last EP threatens to tear right through your eardrums and get to gnawing on those cochleas. Mmmm. Each of the two tracks is remarkably lengthy (well, at least for this band whose songs usually clock in at under a minute long!). The first is just over six minutes long, while the second is just under four. Mind you, there are quiet moments in each track that sorta breaks things up into more familiar Locust-y shorter spurts. Plus to make things even more puzzling, printed on the back of the cd are not two but four (!) song titles complete with subtitles (happy to see that their song titles are still in top form, if a little uncharacteristically short-winded). Overall, this is a bit slower, more sludge-y and more grinding than usual, but it still offers up their trademark acid-spit screamo vocals, blurble-fart synths and rapidfire drumming. That said, this is by no means�simply a no-brain, messy pile of noise. No! In case, you're not familiar with�this band,�there's definitely a degree of precision and order to The Locust's music. There's rhythmic switch-ups and twisted synth melodies that�make their presence more than felt�throughout the ten minutes.
FYI: This time they come via Mike Patton's label Ipecac Recordings, home to many likeminded auditory system abusing artists.
Not to be confused with The Locust's self-titled 3"cd *album* from 1999, this self-titled 3"cd is classified as an EP... it only has eleven songs after all! It was originally released back in 1997 on 7" vinyl. So all of you that missed out the first time around, and all of you who are new to the spasmodic surging splendor and analog assault of this fierce San Diego foursome (perhaps via their considerably more widely available Plague Soundscapes album on Anti Records), strap your tourniquet around this baby!
Finally on cd! Originally released as a double 12": one record containing less than a minute's worth of the trademark sonic pummelling by San Diego's The Locust plus an ultra stunning etched b-side, and the other record filled with the same song getting all remixed and electronically fucked up by a variety of their friends, from Christoph De Babalon (a 109-second carnivorous nightmare) to Kid 606 (much more Kid than Locust) to Bastard Noise (a truncated 47-second splatter) to I Am Spoonbender (abducting us on an epic 6-minute Locust adventure), and others. The only disappointment with this cd version would have to be the packaging. Let's face it, visually the military green camo cd is no match for the twin toxic lime, etched vinyl attack, but if you need some good morning music...so much better than an alarm clock.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We stocked up on this one, but it'll probably still go real fast 'cause, well, the word for fans of either band is "rabid". You know what I'm talking about if you're one of 'em. And it's on colored vinyl, a nice marbled orange color. The music? Extreme hardcore. 5 songs from San Diego screamo kids The Locust and 2 from Japanese spazzers Melt Banana. With disturbing cover art from Born Against's Sam McPheeters.
Best known as the bass player for Sebadoh (he also joined Will and Ned Oldham on Palace Music's "Viva Last Blues"), Jason Loewenstein sets out on his own with his first solo album. In Sebadoh, it was inevitable that his songwriting skills would be overshadowed by the irrepressible works of Barlow. Nevertheless, he did contribute an increasing number of songs on later albums. Unfortunately it seems what made those songs work more often than not was the presence of Barlow. Left to his own devices, Loewenstein veers into straight-up indie rock terrain full of loose and stringy electric guitars and trundling bass ("Circles"). There's driving numbers that fit well with the current crop of Hellacopters and Hives rock'n'roll ("Codes"), and strange grungey "heavy metal" guitars ("H/M"). The songs that seem to click here (like "Upstate") are the ones you soon realise sound just like Sebadoh crossed with Sonic Youth.
Led by Michael Krassner of Boxhead Ensemble, The Lofty Pillars deliver a rich, earthy second full length. Considerably less pop than their "When We Were Lost" album but no less lovely and orchestral. If you liked their previous release or perhaps the beautiful, moving sounds of Calexico, this is for you. The Lofty Pillars also feature folks who play with Wilco, Simon Joyner, and
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SORRY.
Michael Krassner, known as the leader of the tangentially Tortoise/Chicago-scene-related soundtrack "supergroup" the Boxhead Ensemble, debuts his new band, also featuring songwriting partner Wil Hendricks. The Lofty Pillars don't play the doleful chamber-music stuff that Boxhead Ensemble specialized in though: this is much more of a pop thing.
Solo project from member of Doo Rag, and that's exactly how it sounds.
The strangely monikered Logh are a Swedish outfit who traffic in slightly dissonant indie post rock a la Sonic Youth. In fact they sound quite a bit like Sonic Youth at times. Not sure how they ended up on Hydra Head, but what the heck, we all have our soft side, and we know the guys at HH love more than just metal, so now they're finally opening up and showing us their secret sensitive side. But Logh are not -soft- really, just softer than their Hydra Head labelmates. A lot of the Sonic Youthisms are due to frontman Matthias Friberg's very Thurston-like laconic drawl, vocals almost spoken, in that immediately recognizable indie sing-song, but where Sonic Youth veer into atonal guitar skree, Logh sort of drift through various stages of jangle and lilt, at their most propulsive and rocking, they could be mistaken for Blonde Redhead, but they spend way more time droning dreamily along, warm washes of guitar over shuffling simple rhythms, guitars chime and ring out. At times Logh sound like an indie doom band, with lots of plodding tempos beneath blissed out guitarscapes, vocals sprawled lazily over the top. Really dark and shimmery, moody and angular. A Sunset Panorama is a haunting late night soundscape of dark indie jangle and lazy post rock guitar scrawl, sunny on the outside, but the songs reveal their ominous and creepy darksides a little bit more on each listen. Which is definitely what makes Logh so appealing and presumably what makes them feel right at home on Hydra Head, nestled firmly between Oxbow, Old Man Gloom, Pelican, Discordance Axis, Cave In and Jesu, which, the more we listen, doesn't seem like such an odd thing after all.
If you're anything like us, all it will take is three simple words to convince you that you need this: FLUTE. FINLAND. NINETEEN SEVENTY ONE. Okay, so that last one's not really a single word, but yes, this fantastic chunk of Finnish Flute heavy jazz folk was indeed released in that musically mindblowing year, and is pretty much everything you could hope for from a seventies Finnish flautist, it's groovy, jazzy, folky, a little bit rocking and a lot bit pretty goddamn weird. Just take the opening track, after some field recordings of seagulls and lapping waves on the shore, Loiri whistles along to some simply strummed acoustic guitar, and suddenly you realize it's essentially a jazzed up cover of Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home", hand drums and flutes swing in, some deep wordless "la la" vocalizing and then it's back to the waves and birds. Definitely an odd way to start a record, but these guys are Finnish after all.
The rest of the record is not so obviously strange (or is it?), the second track is some groovy flute driven folk, the flute playing is stellar, woozy stand up bass, intricate hand drumming and more steel string strum, there's some bluesy psychedelic guitar leads, and then there's a drum solo, accompanied by humming (or is that kazoo), and then it's right back into it, Loiri often singing and vocalizing through the flute (a la Roland Kirk), which makes it even more far out.
The record shifts gears constantly, the next track begins playful sing songy lullaby, suddenly transforming into some sort of gypsy folk music the next, what sounds like a drunken tavern sing along, and then it's right back to the lullaby like fluttery flute of the opening, and then a strange old field recording of a carnival or circus. All a single track. The next track is more straight ahead jazz, some incredible flute playing and amazing drumming, the next track too, sounding almost Latin Jazz, but then along comes "Mummon Kaappikello" a groovy bit of big band jazz, backing up some sped up chipmunk vocals, turning the otherwise trade jazz into something totally warped, and then it's right back into it, some seriously swinging seventies jazz funk, and still more kick ass flute.
The final three tracks are more folky jazzy grooviness, some serious strum heavy drum driven rhythmic jazz, gives way to some jazzy cabaret, with deep crooned dramatic vocals, and finally finishing off with a brief bit of folky flute and acoustic guitar that returns to the opening bit of Blind Faith. Wow. Awesome, and bizarre and amazing and easily one of the coolest things Porter has dug up. And again: FINLAND. FLUTE. 1971.
Eye popping pop art cover with a big foldout poster, both depicting Loiri in aviator's helmet and goggles, with a painted on bright yellow and red bullseye shirt and little angle's wings!
A beautiful reissue of spacey melancholic chanson from this Belgian chanteuse who notably won the Eurovision song contest in 1968 a year before this debut release. But what sets this apart from standard '60s Euro-pop are the electronic, almost avant-garde arrangements made mostly with an Ondes Martenot, a theremin-like electronic keyboard famously used in the Star Trek theme and championed at the time by French avant-classical composer Olivier Messaien. Fans of Stereolab and Broadcast as well as Linda Perhacs and Brigitte Fontaine will surely find lots to love here, and we would love this even more if the reissue retained the original cover which is more haunting and ethereal than the nineties /sixties space-age bachelor pad design featured here, but that's a very small complaint. Limited stock!
The one man band Lone Pigeon is a project of Gordon Anderson, one of the co-founders of the Beta Band (who were originally called The Pigeons, hence his current moniker) but who left in 1996 before they hit the big time. You can definitely hear the specific flavor that he imparted to the Beta Band -- the happy-go-lucky melodies, the repetitive, echoing, lonely vocals -- but this record is much more lo-fi, stripped down, and thus incredibly intimate. You really feel as if you've been offered (whether ya want it or not) entry into the guy's twisted brain, like the weirdo solo Skip Spence record, Oar, also did. I like this a lot more than the the Beta Band's later efforts made without him, and if you prefer the early Beta Band songs, sweet McCartney-penned Beatles tracks, Smiley Smile, Syd Barrett, etc, and can handle a little meandering, then you should listen to this record.
