Another unlikely match up, one that sounds a lot less unlikely once you hear it. Wet Hair, formerly known as Raccoo-oo-oon, and Aussie gloomy noise rockers Naked On The Vague, both mixing it up a little for this split (released on Wet Hair's Night People label), expanding their sounds, and dipping toes into new sonic territory.
Wet Hair start their side out with some Tangerine Dream style synths, which drift dronily throughout all the tracks, before giving way to a loping bit of psychedelic drift, equal parts minimal psych rock and keyboard heavy krautrock. Layered synths, softly reverbed distorted vocals, spacey FX, all over a simple post rock-ish real drumming, mesmerizing and hypnotic and reminding us a bit of a more blissed out synth heavy Wooden Shjips. The other tracks follow a similar pattern, but gradually grow more abstract and chaotic, tangles of keyboard melodies, spidery guitars, wheezing chordal drifts, tripped out deep dramatic vocals, swirls and whirls and sixties style sci-fi electronics, everything warped and warbly and fantastically spaced out and bizarre.
Naked On The Vague don't necessarily veer too far from their minimal gloom/drone noisepop, but the sound drifts a bit more toward the psychedelic drift of the Wet Hair tracks, a sort of Velvets vibe for sure, blurry muted guitars, simple programmed beats, bleating trumpet like melodies, swaths of hazy keyboards, boy girl vocal harmonies buried in the murk and the mire, a minimal psychedelic krautdrone drift, super reverbed, the electronics and various background sounds growing more and more frenzied, more atonal, before eventually mutating into a brooding electronic laced doomfolk flecked bit of slowly decaying psychedelic dronemusic.
Pressed on clear vinyl, housed with a nice thick printed insert, silkscreened, purple on yellow, all housed in a thick PVC sleeve, and of course, quite limited...
Glasgow trio who waver between traditional folk structures and experimental drone using a wide range of exotic instruments including harmoniuum, and singing bowl, as well as field recordings of water and birds. Lovely!
We had never heard, or even heard of Jack Name, a mysterious avant/outsider psychedelic popsmith from LA, who could apparently sometimes be spotted on stage at White Fence shows making crazy noise on an old beat up laptop, but really all we knew about this guy was what we heard via John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees, who describes the music of Name thusly: "Light Show lifts off over an alien plane - immediate, skimming the surface of the landscape where the story unfurls. Whiffs of young Brian Eno, Gary Numan, Chrome, ELO, Bruce Haack, even Richard O'Brien and Stefan Wul stain the sleeves of this story. A powerful and inspiring message to all who will give ear to it." High praise from a man who knows his warped weirdo pop. And we'd have to say, Dwyer sorta nailed it. Total Joe Meek kitchen sink garage glam psych pop genius, opener "My Own Electric Ladyland", sounds like an impossibly lo-fi Olivia Tremor Control, all swirling and majestic, murky and blearily power poppy, while "Do The Shadow" sounds a little like the Dickies doing The Rocky Horror Picture Show! "Born To Lose" wraps thick buzzy guitars and echoey vox over a muted krautrocky rhythm, smoldering and moody, a little bit swaggery, droned out and darkly psychedelic, which leads right into "Sound Was The Castle" a primo chunk of home brewed baroque pop, chiming and ethereal, with some woozily processed vox. We could go on, and we usually do, every track here, a fantastically hooky WTF twisted pop gem, some tracks sounding like James Ferraro doing his best Oh Sees impression, others like they could have been plucked right off some Yellow Pills power pop collection, some possibly genuine lost art-pop artifacts, others are more psych folk, all strummy and fluttery, some even add horns, bleating and moaning, woven into swoonsome almost funereal ballads, and some sound like the second coming of UK avant pop geniuses the Cardiacs. Needless to say, weirdo pop nerds, this is your new favorite record!
In Nanang Tatang, main members of Ida, Daniel Littleton and Elizabeth Mitchell take their dreamy, soothing sound into the electronic realm. Although Muki starts off with a drifting ambience of the most delicate twinkling chimes and whirring digital vapors, as things progress the acoustic and electronic elements entwine effortlessly with Ida's familiar hushed female and male vocals taking center stage. Twelve songs crafted from a palette of feathery guitar strums, soft repetitive piano lines, warming organ, viola and harmonium drones, and occasional subtle programmed beats make for an altogether intimate, wistful affair. Check out "Oldest News" with its Elvis-Costello-on-a-super-drowsy-downer vocals as well as the dreamily meandering "The Fullness Of Time". Simply lovely. Certainly for fans of Ida, but also those of Julie Doiron, Mum and Low.
Record number two from these Northwest post punks, whose first record was a huge favorite with some of the aQ-ers around here, but sadly we seemed to catch on way too late to give the record its proper due on the list. Much like that debut, Television Man is a gloriously murky, dirgey, muddy, twisted gem, a lo-fi, urgent, tension filled garage punk blowout that's minimal, but super rocking, noisy, but super catchy, the kind of record that sounds like it was recorded on a busted 4-track on old melted tapes from the dashboard of your car, but somehow was transformed into some mutant strain of fuzzed out noise pop, given a damaged sort-of high fidelity makeover, and thus given some heft and some dark frantic energy, fused to the group's druggy dirgery, which is maybe why, somehow, all that sonic grime and filth is barely able to disguise the pure pop wonder that lurks beneath.
We're definitely reminded of former Record Of The Weekers Weed, who similarly took crazy catchy nineties style indie rock, wreathing it in loads of noise and feedback, and blown out psychedelic squalls, but Naomi Punk are something else all together, on the surface sounding like they're cut from the same musical cloth as outfits like Iceage and Holograms and all the rest, and they definitely sort of are, fans of either of those groups, or like minded outfits like Cold Showers, His Electro Blue Voice, Rank / Xerox, War, etc. will be immediately smitten, but the songs here take that post punk template and pull it to pieces. The groop is as happy crafting some catchy pound and crunch, as they are adding some unlikely 'oooooh's to a wildly angular anti-groove, or chopping a song up into an impossibly mesmerizing super dynamic, psychedelic dirge, one that somehow retains an impossible amount of poppiness. It's that innate poppiness that can't help but shine through, not to mention a weirdly experimental streak that goes beyond just the murky production, and minimal arrangements, with some of the tracks locking into strange almost looped sounding grooves, stuttery stop start workouts that somehow manage to be just as catchy, or weird little ditties like "Plastic World No. 6", which sheds all that murk, and instead pairs a jaunty little synth melody to a simple fuzzy strum, along with some buried eighties electronic percussion, whipping up a super cool sound that we wish was more than just an interstitial jam, but those weird little parts/songs work really well alongside jams like "Eleven Inches" which on the surface unwind as super tranced out, repetitive dirges, but gradually reveal themselves as still more deft hookiness, especially when it slows down, and gets sort of moody for a minute, only to lurch right back into it. "Eon Of Pain" is another track that sounds simpler than it is, but manages to take a little and do a whole lot with it, winding it all up into some fantastically tense post punk minimalism, that for all it's seemingly lacking in the first half, is more than made up for by the bombastic noise pop second half.
We could easily break down the rest of the record, track by track, but needless to say, every jam here is a gem, one of those rare records where we have trouble picking a favorite song, and if we really had to, it would likely be a different one every single time...
Another essential grind metal classic available on vinyl for the first time in years. Exact reproduction of the original sleeve and on colored wax! Just like the Carcass vinyl reissue last list, if you don't already know who they are, you probably don't need this, but 'Scum' is definitely Napalm Death's finest moment. Short sharp bursts of ripping, pounding super political sort-of-lo-fi crusty metallic grind. A classic! And for those of you turntable-less fools out there, it is of course still available on cd!
So, the current psychedelic garage rock revival scene extends around the world, as well it should, since so much of the exciting vintage garage psych being dug up for reissue of late has been been of international origin, right? Which brings us to this present day band, Napolleon, and their quite promising debut four-song ep released by Hong Kong label Metal Postcard. Napolleon aren't from China, though, they're from Bandung, Indonesia. These four young Indonesian guys have a dronier, spacier, somewhat noisier sound than some of their Nuggets-worshipping peers. Very stoned sounding stuff, really - nicely poppy but also mesmerically tripped out. They'd probably fit in on the Castle Face label pretty well, alongside the likes of Thee Oh Sees, White Fence, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, for sure. While they can get heavy and frenzied, doing the fuzzed out stomp, they simultaneously have a gentle and very melodic side too - but everything is always cloaked in plenty of echo and other electronic FX, swirling and swooshing amidst the crashing guitars and druggy vocals. Good stuff, and we look forward to hearing more from 'em. Besides the Castle Face bands mentioned above, we'd also cite Acid Baby Jesus, the Black Angels, and some Wooden Shjips as 'recommended if you like' comparisons. Plus a host of bands back in the '60s, of course. It's cd only, limited to 500 copies, and features some weird artwork by someone in the band, on individual sheets of sticker paper in lieu of the usual sort of cd booklet.
First off, this is going to be a good review. Maybe even a great review. But first we have to talk about something. I was in New Jersey a while back, in a little rock club, out in the middle of nowhere, and there was a flyer on the wall looking for a lead
If you've been following the escapades of guerilla interviewer, garage rawk maestro, indie radio / TV personality and proud Canadian Nardwuar The Human Serviette, you already know that he mystifyingly gets himself into the most coveted and cursed of situations. And while in the heat of many moments he's had plenty of things seized and/or destroyed -- videotapes (Quiet Riot, Sebastian Bach, Tom Green), records (Sonic Youth), touque (Sebastian Bach) -- he's also been on the receiving end of some truly amazing stuff (a piece of art by and from David Lee Roth to name just one!). And for this calendar, he's gained an all access pass to the photo archives of legendary punk rock photographer Bev Davies. She was once hailed by Stiff Little Fingers as "The best photo taker in the whole world". Yup, the great championer of all things Canadian and old school punk (as well as innumerable other subjects of course) follows up his crowning achievement -- the stupendous Nardwuar The Human Serviette 'Doot Doola Doot Doot' double dvd -- with this cool document of the pre-'82 punk scene as shot through the shutter of Ms Davies. The 40 pages contain so much more than a 13-month calendar! There's an ongoing interview/commentary from Nardwuar and Davies with loads of hilarious 'back in the day' stories, extra photos, stickers... oh yeah, and the photos!! The Subhumans, Motorhead, Avengers, Black Flag, Adam and the Ants, D.O.A., Johnny Thunders, The Clash, Pointed Sticks, The Go-Gos, Dead Kennedys, Gang of Four, Ramones and Duff McKagen (eons before GNR and Velvet Revolver, back in his Fastbacks days)!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
FINALLY, BACK IN STOCK!!!
There's something about Bellingham Washington. Not sure what it is. But bands from there seem to always be really really strange sounding. But strange in this completely undefinable way. It's like they have the same influences as the rest of us, listen to the same music, but when it comes time to get down and rock, what comes out is totally twisted and unique. There's the Reeks And Wrecks, whose twisted take on indie rock comes out sounding more like a New Orleans funeral march, and now the Narrows, who seem to be rooted in early nineties math rock / slowcore a la Codeine, Seam and stuff like that, but somehow the sound they produce is a chugging, metallic, emotionally supercharged blast of minimal minor key moodiness. Hard to explain just why this stuff resonates so intensely but it does. Could be that the band used to be faster, but a horrific tour accident/injury and months of songwriting on pain killers morphed them into this chugging super dynamic behemoth, or again, it could just be Bellingham. Seriously, this band is so good they actually got Andee to leave the house and go to a show! Ask anybody who knows Andee, that's a major accomplishment.
Alligator is a reissue of the Narrows' first two releases, Days Are Numbered from 2000, and Six Ten from 2001. Seven tracks, the shortest clocking in at a fairly substantial 7 minutes, the longest a massive 17 minutes. All the songs are total epics, with moody stretched out verses, mumbled vocals, loping rhythms, and fuzzed out melancholy melodies -- and then crushing pummeling pounding choruses, massive distorted slabs of heartbreaking intensity with wailed anguished vocals. This is the kind of stuff you wish you had back in your good old mixtape days to let that girl/guy know just how completely fucked up and miserable they made you feel. So fucking great.
It's been ages since we've heard from Bellingham Washington's Narrows, whose last two (and only two) records, Alligator and The Skull At Life Size, were huge AQ favorites. Our Narrows obsession was solidified by a mindblowing show at the Hemlock where the band laid waste to all post rock past and present in a matter of 30 or 40 minutes, managing to rock so hard, even with the frontman / guitar player seated the whole time. A mix of lurching loping metallic bombast and lilting whispery post rock moodiness, not like the current crop of metallic post rockers though, no the Narrows were something much more unique... all the best parts of nineties mathrock, June Of 44, Slint, Rodan, but filtered through that weird Bellingham outsider vibe (also responsible for Reeks And The Wrecks) and lovingly wrapped in some serious skull crushing riffage. And of course songs. Killer songs. Moody and mournful, personal and emotional, and catchy as all get out.
We had sort of given up on the Narrows, we knew there was a record in the works, but they sort of seemed to drop off the musical map completely, until all of our fears were assuaged by the sudden appearance of this here brand new full length, that is somehow even better than their first two discs, heavier, prettier, weirder....
Beginning with the nine minute near perfect post rock epic "The Sasquatch", a sequence of big groaning downtuned riffage, huge pounding drums all wrapped around a strange insistent loping groove, with wailed super emo vocals, like a prettier Melvins almost, or a resurrected Engine Kid, some Unwound, a little bit of Sub Pop, a little Amrep. These super dynamic nine minutes might as well go on for 90 minutes as far as we're concerned.
The second track, the even longer "Last Of The Norsemen", is all slithery slowcore, with crooned sadboy vocals, spidery guitar melodies, shuffled drums, until the crashing chorus, a gorgeous minor key stop start lurch, along the same lines as Codeine's "Cave In", with burbling underwater bass added to the mix, and a convoluted mathy arrangement, before drifting back into the moody lope of the first few minutes, peppered with strange slippery guitar chords and unexpected dynamics, somehow totally off kilter and alien sounding, but super catchy and melodic and surprisingly pretty!
"Quellish" is up next with its serpentine distorted crunch and crashing blown out drumming, letting up here and there for some muted shuffle and croon, before the bombast is brought in again, a super emotional musical seesaw, that manages to subvert the tired loud-soft-loud-soft thing and turn it into something new and exciting sounding.
As if the deal wasn't already sealed for best post-math-whatever-rock / slowcore record ever already, they finish it off with the heartwrenching "Over and Out", a sort of damaged Pinback on horse tranquilizers mathy groove, with big booming Albini-ish drums, over blooping underwater bass, and slithery minor key distorted guitar melodies, and a super subtle hook to die for. The song has a wicked, super dramatic coda with crumbling distorted riffing, and super emotional leads, yeah LEADS, what self respecting post rock band can whip out the leads and bring you to your knees without sounding the least bit cheesy? Can't think of very many (or any really)... but The Narrows pull it off effortlessly. There's an "Over and Out" part two, but it's more sort of a coda, that now burned into your ears/heart/soul melody is pulled apart, wrapped in some twangy Morricone-ish guitar, some tinkling music box like keyboards, and allowed to unfurl lazily into the distance, becoming more and more abstract and indistinct, culminating in seven minutes of silence... Needless to say one of our favorite new records, pushing all our buttons, old math rock, new post rock, metal, pop, heavy, pretty, strange... Absolutely and utterly recommended (as is seeing these guys live if you get the chance)!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
There's something about Bellingham Washington. Not sure what it is. But bands from there seem to always be really really strange sounding. But strange in this completely undefinable way. It's like they have the same influences as the rest of us, listen to the same music, but when it comes time to get down and rock, what comes out is totally twisted and unique. There's the Reeks And Wrecks, whose twisted take on indie rock comes out sounding more like a New Orleans funeral march, and now the Narrows, who seem to be rooted in early nineties math rock / slowcore a la Codeine, Seam and stuff like that, but somehow the sound they produce is a chugging, metallic, emotionally supercharged blast of minimal minor key moodiness. Hard to explain just why this stuff resonates so intensely but it does. Could be that the band used to be faster, but a horrific tour accident/injury and months of songwriting on pain killers morphed them into this chugging super dynamic behemoth, or again, it could just be Bellingham. Seriously, this band is so good they actually got Andee to leave the house and go to a show! Ask anybody who knows Andee, that's a major accomplishment.
The Skull At Life Size is a massive thirty minute epic that live, is often stretched out even further to fill up the Narrows' entire set. A churning slow motion dirge, spare and hypnotic, dark and miserable. The bass and guitar float eerily through a haze of minor key overtones and above a sparse skeletal framework of simple drumming. Occasionally, the intensity builds into a massive wave of furious chaos, all crashing cymbals, roaring distorted guitar, and keening heartfelt wails belting out a ridiculously catchy (and unlikely) hook, before the whole thing dissipates and settles back down into its original lugubrious crawl. So completely amazing. The Narrows are one of those groups who can do so much with so little. Guitar, bass and drums, one or two parts, and the results are sublime. It's all about shadings and subtleties. A perfect economy of composition and performance. Minimal and perfect.
This is not new, wasn't just reissued, but was just discovered. And sometimes the process of discovery with music, or movies or whatever, can be just as interesting and strange as the music itself. And sometimes that process enables you to discover music you might not give a second listen to otherwise, and lets you be more objective, lets you disregard your normal musical biases. Thus... we've never been that big into Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young. And yeah, before you email all in a tizzy, we've already gotten plenty of suggestions for CSN+Y records we NEED to hear, but for the most part we were just never really big fans. Consequently, we tended to ignore the various members' solo records (not counting Mr, Young of course) as well.
We recently (re)discovered Terry Reid via the soundtrack to Rob Zombie's killer 'killer' flick The Devil's Rejects, which is already sort of a random way of getting turned on to an artist we had at least known about for ages. But there was something special about those specific tracks Zombie chose for the soundtrack. Further exploration of Terry Reid's various releases, revealed that those three tracks were all from the same album, Seed Of Memory, and while we love pretty much all the Terry Reid records, Seed Of Memory is by far our favorite. The dreamiest, the catchiest, the most country (and somewhat frustratingly, the most difficult to get). So what was it exactly that made that record so special. Well, and here's where it connects, it was produced by Graham Nash, who also played and contributed various parts and pieces. So, recently an aQ customer suggested we check out Songs For Beginners, which they told us was Nash's best solo record, and while we haven't heard enough of Nash's releases to say for sure, we can at least say we really really like it! A LOT!
To begin with Songs For Beginners was originally released in the mystical magical year of 1971, a year when pretty much every great record was released (at least according to Allan) from Black Sabbath to Flower Travellin Band to Van Der Graaf Generator to Comus and on and on. While Nash's record is obviously not as weird or heavy or psychedelic as any of those, it's still pretty fucking awesome. Sunny, sweet, singer songwriter soft rock dream pop. With a streak of dark melancholy moodiness. Think Billy Joel, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Bread, America, Donovan and even more esoteric folk folks like Bill Fay, Terry Reid, Fred Neil and the like.
Each track is a gorgeously simple folky pop gem, with harmony vocals, lilting melodies, gentle piano, lush strings, soaring lap steel, a little bit of twang, a little bit of swoonsome sweetness, all dreamily draped over minor key Beatlesque pop or soft shimmery folkpop ballads, While the sound is immediately recognizable, that ubiquitous seventies FM radio soft rock from our childhoods, it's just weird enough, and the songs are just so goddamn good, that it totally transcends the seventies schlock that surrounded it. And by now we've all been blessed with a healthy diet of modern psychedelic folk, bizarre Finnish forest folk, neo-Appalachia, folky droney pop weirdness, plenty of Six Organs and Current 93's and Vetivers and Banharts and Newsoms and Feathers and Wooden Wands that we can look back with wide eyes at the sort of folky pop that was the seed for the dense folky foliage we love rolling around in these days...
We listed the Graham Nash record Songs For Beginners a few weeks back, having only just heard it for the first time recently. Not soon after we decided to check out this one as well and were just as blown away. Our introduction to Graham Nash came not via Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but by the soundtrack to Rob Zombie's Devil's Rejects movie. You can read all about it in our review of Nash's Songs For Beginners record elsewhere on the AQ site. But in a nutshell, no, Graham Nash wasn't on the soundtrack, but Terry Reid was, and the three Terry Reid tracks on the soundtrack were taken from his best record, Seed Of Memory. And while all the Terry Reid records rule, Seed Of Memory is the most beautiful, the most country, the most haunting, due in no small part to Graham Nash's arrangement and production work, which, along with a recommendation from AQ pal Shayde, was enough to get us to check out some Nash records. Those in the know, tell us that Songs For Beginners and this one, Wild Tales are his best, and are both essential, and we'd have to agree.
Don't be expecting any far out weirdness. Nope this is just gorgeous, dreamy, sunny, singer songwriter soft rock, but with a definite dark, minor key and melancholy dreaminess running through it.
If you're familiar with the Devil's Rejects soundtrack, and for chrissakes you should be, any of these songs would have fit on there perfectly alongside tracks by the Allman Brothers, Terry Reid, the James Gang, Elvin Bishop, Joe Walsh and Lynrd Skynyrd. Perfect seventies FM radio rock, you can just imagine sitting in the backseat, on the way to Death Valley or the Grand Canyon with your folks, watching the desert fly by outside, just sort of daydreaming and drifting off. Sun dappled and windblown and sweetly fuzzy and totally evocative of lost childhood. Each song somehow carries the listener off to a world of starry skies, grassy fields, dusty roads, broken down cars, slow moving trains, long highways, all conveyed through a deft arrangement of soft jangling riffs, slippery lap steel, tinkling piano, Dylan-esque harmonica, totally dreamy harmonies, plenty of twang, but some serious rocking mixed in there too. The Eagles obviously comes to mind (as Nash's voice is often a dead ringer for Joe Walsh), as does Elton John, but it IS weird and dark enough to make us think of more esoteric folk troubadours as well.
But the bottom line is this is just a perfect pop record. The songs are totally catchy, sweetly melancholy, they sort of lope and drift, occasionally rocking out, but for the most part, Wild Tales is hot summer day, back porch, radio playing through the open window music. Or music for driving aimlessly along rainslicked streets, the radio on low, the streetlights casting strange shadows, driving all night, no particular place to go. There is a definite sadness about all of these songs, even when they're wrapped in the sunniest of pop. And a lot of it has to do with the idea of this as 'radio' music. Reminiscent of a time where the radio was where we went to hear new music, to be emotionally moved, to rock out, to listen to while parked and making out, to feel sad about a breakup or get pumped for a rock show, and because most of us experienced most of our radio listening in a car, the music seems to have evolved into a sound that inherently evokes feelings of displacement, travel, wandering and being lost as much as it does a loose and free rock and roll world of hooks and drums and guitars. The perfect soundtrack to any sort of journey, physical or metaphorical. Which is what makes Wild Tales so appealing. A musical look back, that sounds as fresh coming out of this computer, or your stereo at home as it did blasting out of the radio with the blown speakers in that crappy old car you got when you turned sixteen, just you and your friends driving around, windows down without a care in the world, thinking that there is no place in the world you'd rather be than right there. Nothing you'd rather be listening to. Than this.
A glorious first-ever reissue of this legendary Moroccan band's third album from 1976. Cited by Martin Scorcese as the Rolling Stones of Morocco, not because they sounded like the Stones per se, but because their music, a mixture of contemporary and folk traditions (especially Gnawa trance music and Sufi mysticism), identified with disenfranchised youth increasingly critical of the conservative government. Their concerts were known to start riots, though this is largely due to the lyrics more than the music itself. Nass El Ghiwane were a five member band that used traditional acoustic instruments, banjo, guembri, and hand percussion in long trance-like songs that played a strong influence on the modern Rai movement in Algeria. Fully remastered and limited to 500 copies.
The new album by critically acclaimed folk singer Nina Nastasia ia brimming with lush instrumentation and pretty Lilith Fair folk vocals. Didn't strike me as anything really special, but I know that some people would absolutely love it. Touching and pretty, it
Nina Nastasia's latest album has arrived (a little while ago, actually) and it's pretty darn great. On Leaving's one dozen Spartan folk-pop arrangements of her strong, lilting voice with simple piano or guitar accompaniment are imbued with absolute heartfelt yearning. Check out the potent "Counting Up Your Bones". She really nails it. This darkly beautiful album is graced with intricate, suitably stark black'n'white paper-cut cover art. Fans of both Cat Power and Lisa Germano's more recent recordings should definitely lend an eye and an ear to Ms Nastasia and vice versa.
What's this?! New N.O.U. on Dischord? Yes, it's true. These are 4-track recordings from back in '92 committed to tape at their Embassy. Be forewarned, the sound quality isn't perfect. As you probably know the members can now be heard in The Fucking Champs and The Make-Up, but back then the tightly-wound musical chemistry between these four young men was undeniable. The results were an awesome, furious collection of songs and a live show that kicked my ass... hard. Ten songs of volatile, untethered music.
Yes, it's that time of year again, where all we hear outside the store is the worst Christmas music imaginable playing incessantly everywhere. Luckily over the years, we've been able to find a few select holiday gems to play in the store that don't make our skin crawl. Like John Fahey's The New Possibility, A John Waters' Christmas, Basinski's Silent Night (now sadly out of print) and Low's beautifully solemn Christmas album. This year we got a new treat in the form of this strangely monikered National Jazz Trio Of Scotland. We say strangely monikered because this is neither a trio nor is it jazz, but really what it is is Scottish musician Bill Wells and a handful of like-minded musical compatriots taking apart and rebuilding (respectfully) the traditional Christmas carol canon. Musically, Wells brings an eerie hushed chill and a charming vibrant peacefulness to the proceedings that sound like carols heard shortly after a quiet early morning snowfall. With just keyboards, piano, viola and voices, this is definitely great for keeping the ire of holiday tension down to a sedate manageable minimum. Lovely!
Oh man are people freaking out over this one. Admittedly, we hadn't heard this record, but people kept coming in the store and asking for it so we decided to give it a go. With a name like The National and having seen pictures of the five well-dressed boys from Brooklyn, we half expected another bland '80s rock redux sound that has continued to get more and more popular over the last few years. It started out innocently enough with some good records from The Rapture, Interpol, Bloc Party etc. but it's gotten a little tired by now. We're guessing many agree with this assessment considering all of the hype surrounding The National's Boxer which might be a much needed variation on the theme started by the aforementioned bands and continued on and on and on and on and on by many others. Boxer contains a coupla songs that push the post-new wave cart, but most are slowed down considerably. Some songs border on Americana folk, while others see the band painting a perfect alt-rock picture pairing chugging rock with arranged orchestral strings, piano, and horns to compliment the beautifully baritone voice of lead singer Matt Berninger. Berninger's voice may be the selling point for many (as it was for some of us) and could easily be compared to Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits at times, with moments where not only the tone but bittersweet stream of consciousness lyrical style of Stephen Merritt come to mind. Overall, we were pleasantly surprised and highly recommend this record for fans of Magnetic Fields, Midlake, Antony and The Johnsons, Arab Strap or Deerhunter.
The National broke out big with their last album from a few years ago, Boxer, so we are always nervous/excited to see how a band follows up a record that hurl them into a whole new world, with a new level of attention and acclamation. And guess what, they've done it totally right, making a record that might even surpass Boxer. Right from the stunning opener "Terrible Love" we were stopped in our tracks as it's one of those songs that you know when you hear it for the first time you are about to become totally obsessed with it and play it for everyone you know, as we have in the last couple weeks. Luckily the record maintains the strong emotional and driving quality of that song, managing to create songs that are bittersweet, brooding and dour, yet which flow which such ease.
High Violet captures a similar spirit to so many of our favorite '90s records by folks like Red House Painters, American Music Club, Tindersticks and Low. And we even think about what Interpol or The Editors might sound like if they were doused with a healthy amount of valium and brought in a much more stark, emotional quality to their music. We've got a feeling this is going to end up on a lot of year end best lists and it will be totally deserved!
Now reissued with tons of bonus material (1 alternate version, 2 new songs, 2 B sides and 3 live recordings) and slightly altered packaging...
The National broke out big with their last album from a few years ago, Boxer, so we are always nervous/excited to see how a band follows up a record that hurl them into a whole new world, with a new level of attention and acclamation. And guess what, they've done it totally right, making a record that might even surpass Boxer. Right from the stunning opener "Terrible Love" we were stopped in our tracks as it's one of those songs that you know when you hear it for the first time you are about to become totally obsessed with it and play it for everyone you know, as we have in the last couple weeks. Luckily the record maintains the strong emotional and driving quality of that song, managing to create songs that are bittersweet, brooding and dour, yet which flow which such ease.
High Violet captures a similar spirit to so many of our favorite '90s records by folks like Red House Painters, American Music Club, Tindersticks and Low. And we even think about what Interpol or The Editors might sound like if they were doused with a healthy amount of valium and brought in a much more stark, emotional quality to their music. We've got a feeling this is going to end up on a lot of year end best lists and it will be totally deserved!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of the more anticipated records of the late spring 2013, The National's Trouble Will Find Me continues with their world-weary mope-rock that garnered such critical acclaim on records like Boxer and High Violet. The somber moods that touch on Americana songwriting amidst the occasional flares of mega-watt bombast hang entirely on the delivery of frontman Matt Berninger, whose rich baritone parallels that of Leonard Cohen. Fans of Tame Impala and Magnetic Fields would be well served to check this out, if they've not done so already.
Natural Dreamers is made up of Chris from Deerhoof and Curtains, John from Deerhoof and Gorge Trio, and Jay from Dilute. Their first release makes a lot of sense in terms of a sort of instrumental midway point between Curtains and Deerhoof, containing the open spaces and pauses of Curtains' minimal approach grafted onto the chunkier, fuller sound of two guitars. A French website enthused (via automatic translation): "One likes this small end of spring freshness, these small airs which do not pay a mine but which exploits the naturalness of people, without claim, where all is based on the listening of the other! Power, naturalness and emotion..." Ahh, naturalness, emotion and spring freshness indeed! A really nice, satisfying record from some very talented Bay Area players.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In past reviews of other records from psych-folk duo Natural Snow Buildings, we often mentioned that theirs was a sound that would benefit being unrestrained by the restrictions of format, the sort of epic jams that could and likely should go on for ever and ever and ever. And while that's still likely not possible, this SIX cd set is about as close as we'll get. And as we predicted it totally suits their sprawling soundworld.
Originally released as an insanely limited five cassette set in 2009, Daughter Of Darkness has now been reissued on cd, still pretty limited, just 500 copies, but thankfully a chance for everybody who missed out the first time around (including us!) to get lost in these epic sonic drifts. And epic they are, no tracks shorter than 6 minutes, most closer to 20, or 30, a handful 40+, but again, these sorts of amorphous psychedelic drifts are meant to unfurl and unwind leisurely, lush, majestic slowburns, even from the very first track, the title track that opens up disc one, you'll immediately understand, a swoonsome, softly undulating, buzz drenched ur-drone, steel string shimmers over warm chordal swells, tangled melodies in the distance, shards of feedback, lots of overtones, a weirdly wonderful sound that manages to be both nearly static, a hazy tranced out drone, and yet in constant motion, slowly transforming and morphing before your very ears, lulling you in, and then wrapping its warm musical tendrils around you, until you're nearly totally enveloped, and believe us, you will have absolutely no desire to extricate yourself.
It would be difficult to describe the sound of NSB, or to go track-by-track with such a description, but imagine a warm, minimal, psychedelic folk, blurred and smeared into something more abstract, into hazy, gauzey drifts of dreamlike sound, a glancing listen reveals warm shimmers and softly kosmische drifts, but dig deeper, and let the various layers wash over you, peel back melodies, and textures, dig deep and get lost in a dense world of carefully constructed sound, a sound that seems to draw equally from seventies acid folk, and modern avant garde minimalism, from Eastern ragas, and experimental noise music. Each track a dizzying concoction of abstract vocals, of buzzing strings and buried melodies, of epic soaring string like majesty, and fuzzy riffy psychedelia, ritualistic and trance-like, abstract and melodic, moody and mesmeric, seven plus hours of utterly divine, deep listening drone-folk kraut-psych dreaminess.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Includes two bonus tracks NOT on the vinyl version (which was mailorder-only direct from the label, sorry), each cd in a stickered sleeve, and all housed in a hand painted box, every one unique!!
If there was ever a band to masterfully manipulate the whole 'insanely limited release' thing, it's French duo Natural Snow Buildings, whose early releases were so limited, it's a wonder anyone even got to hear them, case in point, 2008's Night Coercion Into The Company Of Witches, which was released as a triple cd-r in a run of just TWENTY TWO copies!! Over the last few years, many of those old NSB records have been getting reissued in much more reasonable editions, and while that sort of hype can often backfire, especially when way more people have heard OF your band, than actually heard it, every NSB release we get simple confirms what a remarkable duo they actually are, and what a shame it is that it's taken this long for more people to actually hear them.
It wouldn't be an NSB review without the 'limited release' rant, but now that we've got that out of the way, we can luxuriate in this fantastic collection of lush layered folkdrone psychedelia and ritualistic psychedelia soundscapery. Coercion is in fact the group's first proper domestic release, and thus might be the first many folks hear, and we have to say, you couldn't ask for a better introduction. Three discs, nearly three hours, six tracks, the shortest clocking in at 17:59, the longest at 57:47, which is exactly how NSB are meant to be experienced, their tracks epic, sprawling, lush and organic freeform explorations, guitars and percussion, woodwinds, bells and chimes, lovely vocals, all woven into something mesmerizingly transcendent.
There's definitely a sonic link, intentional or otherwise, to the Finnish forest folk we hold so dear, fans of groups like Avarus, Anaksimandros, Uton, Kemialliset Ystavat and the rest, will definitely discover kindred sonic spirits here, the foresty campfire vibe looms large, but NSB aren't afraid to take that muted minimalism, and let it blossom into something massive, gloriously lush and layered ur-drone tranceouts of the highest order, taking elements of Flying Saucer Attack, Astral Social Club and classic kosmische krautrock, and tangling it all together into something sublime and divine. While some tracks, like the record opener, "Kadja Bosou", are rhythmic and trancey, others, like the title track, are much noisier affairs, dense squalls of chaotic sound, reminiscent of Birchville Cat Motel or Our Love Will Destroy The World, but often foregoing the rhythmic component for something freer and more abstract, keening high end melodies, shards of heavily effected guitar howl, over a softly roiling backdrop of shimmer and thrum, the sound slipping easily from drifting loose and free to something more directed, tethered to a simple pulse, or some minimal percussion, but even then, the rhythms seem less an anchor, as a pulse, a loose demarcation, guiding the wild psychedelic swirls overhead.
Theirs is definitely a sound that's difficult to describe, especially on a record as vast and varied as Coercion, but somehow, each epic track, as different sonically as some of them are, manage to all sound like NSB, whether it's crumbing and noisy and atonal, or lush and layered and lovely, or driving and hypnotic and strangely propulsive, NSB imbue their sound with some ineffable sonic thread that runs not just through these songs, but through all of their songs.
This record (or perhaps more accurately, THESE recordS are) is an epic journey, one that requires patience, and perhaps headphones, to really get the full effect, the thought of a single three hour session might seem daunting, but these are the sorts of songs that suck you in, that are so easy to get lost in, truly psychedelic, and at times it's difficult not to fall into some sort of trance listening to this stuff, it's gorgeously zoned out, darkly melodic at times, almost purely textural at others, but always utterly mesmerizing, and some of the most unique and moving modern music you're likely to hear.
We love super limited collectable releases as much as the next person, but it really does seem to be getting out of hand. Cd-r's, tapes, vinyl, limited to 1000, to 500, to 50, 33, even 12 in some cases. Sure it makes sense that there is a limited audience for a lot of music, so maybe 12 or 33 or 50 is enough, but once it's obvious that you've moved beyond such a limited fanbase, it's time to ramp it up. A band who routinely sells thousands of records, can not (or at least SHOULD not) release a record limited to 100 copies. All it does is piss off all the fans who love your music. And by the same token, bands who DO release ultra limited releases, well, when those releases begin to sell out in a matter of hours, or minutes, or if those releases end up on eBay the next day and sell for hundreds of bucks, well, then similarly, it's time to give up on the limited release. It's partially the listeners' fault, clamoring for ANYTHING limited, sometimes it seems like how limited something is, is vastly more important to folks than what it sounds like.
But why discuss this here, in a review of dynamic drone duo Natural Snow Buildings? Well, because these guys have LONG surpassed the point at which they should be doing pressings any smaller than 500, heck, any smaller than 1000. So far, every NSB record or NSB sideproject record we've gotten, has been so limited that A. We were not able to get as many as we wanted. B. They all were practically out of print by the time they landed at aQ, and worst of all, C. Loads of folks who wanted the music and could care less about collectability and were just big fans of the band ended up shit out of luck, and had to buy it on eBay for some crazy amount of money, if they wanted to hear it at all.
Shadow Kingdom is not as limited as many of the past NSB jams, but is still limited enough that we could only manage a smallish chunk, and it's yet to be determined if we can get more once these sell out, but we'll for sure try.
Which when you break it down is really a bummer, cuz music this good, sounds this dark and intense and incredible need to be heard by as many people as possible. Shadow Kingdom is at its core, a drone record, but NSB's take on the drone is so lush and expansive and epic, slow burning, but burning bright, effulgent and incendiary, guitars blurred into thick glimmering streaks, the various layers, pulse and throb and undulate, and those drones are shot through with flecks of folk, bits of twang, dreamy vocals, buzzing sitar, shimmering ambience, and those epic swaths of dronemusic are set amidst more song based sounds, the record slipping from nearly half hour walls of drone, to delicate fluttery folky ambience, to skittery sun dappled free folk, to washed out new age whir, to warm gauzy dream pop, all of those various permutations constantly drifting into one another, overlapping, intertwining, changing shape, melodies bleeding into other melodies, tones and chords drifting and whirling, it's all very otherworldly, and mesmerizing, meditative and so so so dreamy. A double cd is perfect for NSB, as they can indulge themselves, letting pop songs sprawl into disembodied hazy space-y anti-pop, allowing warm bits of forest folk, to blossom into ever expanding fields of flickering fluttery sonic shimmer. It's hard to listen to music this beautiful, and emotional, and exquisitely crafted, and imagine it only being heard by a handful of people. So yeah, another fantastic disc of drone folk loveliness from this French duo, grab one if you can, and c'mon guys, make as many copies as there are people who want to hear it, at the very least, someone should gather up all the out of print tapes and lps and cds and assemble a massive bargain priced boxset, for all the fans who missed out on so much music from a band they love. So gorgeous, and in case you hadn't figured it out by now, very, very, very limited.
Yes, there are a plethora of insanely limited editions published for and by Natural Snow Buildings and their satellite projects; but with their recent dealings with Ba Da Bing, the problematic availability has been alleviated somewhat. Of course, there was a tiny cd-r bonus edition that was coupled with this album but only available in pre-order direct from the label. No shops got any of those; so, we apologize in advance that we cannot offer that version. HOWEVER, we do have this amazing album itself, from aQ fave death-folk explorers Natural Snow Buildings.
There's long been a haunted thread that traces through all of the work from the French duo of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte, whose long-form tangles of ritualist drone-rock minimalism and sprawling, opiated psychedelia harks back to International Harvester, Flying Saucer Attack, and Kemialliset Ystavat. Here on Terror's Horns, Natural Snow Buildings plumb the depths of an emotional gloom and shuddering despair with this epic, cinematic album. The two have long specialized in expansive tracks of shimmering guitars, woodwinds, and bowed instruments that could be psalters, zithers, and / or violins, all of which blossom into sublime masses of dronological impressionism; and on Terror's Horns, Natural Snow Building engage in a sound far more elegiac and funereal and heavier than heard on any of their previous recordings. The freak-folk transcendence of NSB still will embrace the unsettling falsetto of Ameziane and the percussive clatter of Gularte, with the swirling psychedelia tumbling downward in lush cinematic collapse, with heavy minor-key chords and reverb saturated rhythmic plod providing plenty of parallels to the early days of Barn Owl and the latter days of Earth. Beautiful as always, these Natural Snow Buildings, if much darker than in days gone by.
We got a tiny handful of these a few weeks back, the brand new record from this French psych folk drone duo, and we were happy to get even those, considering how criminally limited NSB releases usually are. Those flew out of here and we figured they were just gone for good. But lo and behold, a batch somehow made it across the sea to one of our distributors and we snatched up all the copies we could, although that wasn't really all that many, so if you're an NSB fanatic, best act fast.
And if you're not a fanatic, well, then why the hell not. This duo conjures up some of the most fantastic otherworldly psychedelia we've ever heard. Long tracks that ooze and sprawl and drift, folk songs blurred and smeared into ambient outer space shimmer, drones undulate beneath clouds of slow swirling melody, effects whir and thrum, meditative and tranquil and dreamily druggy, the songs slipping from that sort of untethered psych drift to something much more earthbound, a woozy forest folk, tangled steel strings, minimal percussion, but still wreathed in the same sort of spaced out haze that seems like at any moment could blossom into full on heart of the sun ambient abstraction, and often does.
The one thing we can say about NSB, is that their records all sound like they were cut from the same sonic cloth, a glorious, fantastical, psychedelically colored cloth sure, but the sound remains quite similar, as if each record is less like a proper new album, and more like the next movement in some multi part epic, which is fine with us, this must be part 10 or 11 by now, but the sound remains so hypnotic and enthralling. The perfect blend of dark witchy psych folk, and deep shimmering dronemusic, of swirling psychedelic new age and ritualistic foresty primitivism, sun dappled and dew scented, all the sounds prismatic and crystalline, whether floating weightlessly in a field of hushed minimal thrum, or roiling darkly in a cloud of reveberating low end, Natural Snow Buildings are masters at creating this other world, conjuring up a soundtrack to takes us there with them and as always, the results are utterly breathtaking, and fantastically captivating.
ALREADY SOLD OUT AT THE LABEL!! These could very well be the last copies we get...
The self-titled album by this lengthily and peculiarly named* obscure early '80s band has been reissued by Vinyl On Demand. If we were taking the label's name at face value, we'd wonder who has been demanding this vinyl. Heh Heh, just kidding.
Anyways, The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor were a group from Sheffield whose music sounds like Human League tangled in a knot with David Bowie. Or if you're lookin' for a contemporary reference point, you might wanna imagine Ariel Pink going full-on new wave! Off-kilter, breezy tunes filled with analog synthesizers, drum machines and strings too! Limited pressing of 600!
*FYI: their name is actually the title of an Enid Blyton book!
From reading the recent article in The Wire about this new Nautical Almanac record we weren't sure whether to expect some noisy free rock phenomenon, or a frustratingly average noise record. Sadly it's a little closer to the latter. Talk of "anti-knowledge" and "chance experiments" cannot disguise the fact that this is just a noise record. No different than that RRR cassette you ordered through the mail 10 years ago. Bragging about how one knows nothing about music and can't play any instruments and doesn't ever want to learn, is the sort of rhetoric that only works if the result somehow transcends the equation. But, unfortunately, this DOES in fact sound like two people who can't play and don't know what they're doing. A sloppy, noisy, chaotic mess. Ear piercing shrieks, super distorted howled vocal skree, kitchen sink clatter, and just all sorts of abrasive noxious noise. Could be impressive if the bar hadn't been set much higher by countless other noise records (even the earlier NA records had a bit more to offer). But as with any improvised music, it's hit or miss, that's part of the excitement and urgency. This just happens to sound a bit like a miss. One of those records that ineveitably has you scratching your head and wondering why YOU aren't in your basement making a horrible racket and getting written up in The Wire. Well, why aren't you!? Depending on how you answer that question, you might actually want to check this out.
Described by some as a "Sunday morning Mogwai", this group is closer in style to some of the quieter Kranky releases. Soon-to-be-impossible-to-find import.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The first outing for Navigator since their stunning Nostalgie album from last year is a remix single of their bleak and gritty 'rock' minimalism. Both Third Eye Foundation and Fulcrum Overhaul extend the 4-track / analogue grit to their breakbeat experiments. It's sorta hard to say which speed its to be played at, and it doesn't really matter as this is a fucking great single.
Everybody has this record - but do you? When's the last time you listened to it? It's a '70s hard rock classic and it's only five bucks now on cd, so... Time to crank!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A krautrock album supposedly issued in the 70s in a tiny editions of, like, 50 copies or something. The Nazgul cd is from 1975 and features 4 long tracks of droning ambience that's easily as good as any current space rock outfit could put together; i.e. Magnog, Labradford or anything else on Kranky. Bonus weirdness: the bandmembers are named Frodo, Gandalf, and Pippin.
A furious blast of frenzied venomous pounding punk rock fury, nine songs, eleven minutes, these Tampa, Florida punks kick out the trebly lo-fi jams, seriously raw hardcore rife with corrosive blown out guitars, throat shredding vox, pounding chaotic drumming, short sharp bursts of caustic hateful sonic crush wreathed in plenty of amp buzz and tape hiss, think Siege, Crossed Out, SSD, Drop Dead and the like. Some hidden hooks and some hints of gloom, but for the most part this is just a fierce chunk of angry, pissed off, punk rock, fuck off energy that KILLS. Gorgeous packaging too. Punk rock record of the year (well last year anyway) hands down!
All right, if you were excited a few months back when we listed the Imikuzushi album by Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, and Jim O'Rourke (that group's second release), we imagine you'll be equally chuffed about this: the debut from a quite similar trio consisting of Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, and Stephen O'Malley! Yeah, the guy from a little band you may have heard of called SUNNO))). Also KTL and Khanate and a bunch of others. Suddenly, is Keiji Haino still the darkest lord in the room? Well, yeah. But O'Malley has some cred in the blackness-of-soul category, and his presence helps make this even heavier.
And as you should expect, much like with the Haino/Ambarchi/O'Rourke lineup, this grouping is also, again, pretty much Haino's show. Even though he's recently reactivated his seminal outrock power trio Fushitsusha (on the intense Hikari To Nazukeyo album, reviewed here not long ago), Haino seems happy to have other outlets for Fushitsusha-esque stuff, and this is one of 'em, his shamanistic self taking the lead on guitars, vocals and synth. With O'Malley on bass and Ambarchi on battery, he's being ably backed up by guys who, y'know, dig his trip. And since Ambarchi has experience playing with Haino already, and O'Malley for his part has previously collaborated with Ambarchi, they're definitely "on" here, even though Nazorani had only played together a couple times prior to this this particular recording, which documents a live performance in Paris, France November 2011, altogether improvised "real-time" music we assume.
There's 72 minutes of their harrowing music here, four tracks, all obviously titled by Haino, though they almost could be parodies of his typical titles� The set begins with "Feel The Ultimate Joy Towards The Resolve Of Pillar Being Shattered Within You Again And Again And Again", starting off with stretches of near-silence, pregnant with electricity, occasionally single chiming notes ringing out in the vast void from Haino's guitar, accompanied by sparse suspenseful skitter and pendulous plod too, from the percussion, while O'Malley's bass is a eerie, echoing, subtle shivering of low-end in the darkness. Haino's vocals, as always, are anguished, true cries from the heart, torn from the throat. O'Malley and Ambarchi have performed with Mayhem's Attila Csihar before, in Gravetemple, but even the "vokills" of that notorious black metal singer weren't as vokill as these! Let's put it this way, the AQ staffer writing this review is at this very moment suffering from a severe toothache (root canal pending) and Haino, whatever he's saying, seems to be expressing something even deeper and stronger than the merely physical pain that this reviewer is currently suffering�
And then, wow, we won't tell you at exactly what minute of this lengthy track the apocalpyse is unleashed, but eventually it is, Haino's amp suddenly the fount of epic floodwaters of cavern-carving distortodelic guitar volume. And it's sheer manna from above (or below?) for fans of Haino/Fushitsusha and any other out-there heavy duty guitar skree.
The album's other three cuts are constructed from similar sonics, ambient ominous battlefields that provide the gripping backdrop for Haino's moans and wails, via either voice or guitar, but make for good gripping listening in an of themselves, like for instance the many moody minutes of final cut "Not To Leave Everything To The Light Outside Of You But To Be Aware Of The Prayer 'What Do I Want To Do?' That Exists Inside You, And Let That Go Out Of You As A Light, Or Things Might Get Worse, No?" even before Haino's amp really gets warmed up�
Another awesome Haino showcase, featuring great work from all involved, released on an obviously honored O'Malley's Mego sub-label, Ideologic Organ, with (of course) gorgeous packaging & design.
MPEG Stream: "Feel The Ultimate Joy Towards The Resolve Of Pillar Being Shattered Within You Again And Again And Again" [/audio/nazoranaifeel.m3u]
MPEG Stream: "Not A Joy To Come Closer But So-Called A Sacred Insanity Has Finally Appeared" [/audio/nazoranainotajoy.m3u]
Listening to this obscure eighties chunk of electro pop new wave, you'd never guess this outfit hailed from Columbus, Ohio (and in fact the liner notes describe Near Paris as being the only synth pop band in Columbus, which is perhaps not all that surprising), sounding instead like they must hail from someplace like Sheffield in the UK. The fine folks at Medical Records have once again rescued a fantastic artifact of dark synth pop. The release compiles the group's only 12" alongside a handful of tracks from various cassettes and demos. And it's fantastic stuff, dark and moody and poppy, the sort of sound that most of the new Sacred Bones / Captured Tracks band are shooting for - just check out the opener "Visions", all handclap beats, pulsing synth bass, flurries of cascading synth melodies, robotic programmed rhythms, reverbed guitar shimmer, deep dramatic male vox tangled up with equally dramatic female vocals, there's a very Human League vibe, which definitely is a good comparison, as is Section 25, who the group occasionally played with. And there's lots of guitar, unlike many of the electro-pop and synth-pop groups of the era. On tracks like "Why Baby", Near Paris lace their moody synthscapes with chiming harmonics, some cool distorted spidery leads, heck there's even harmonica! At times the vibe is almost more eighties LA gloom pop, than UK synth pop, it's not hard to imagine Near Paris playing at the Scream in LA with a group like Red Temple Spirits, that same sort of gothiness infuses much of NP's sound, the reverby guitars and swirling moody atmospherics, but at its core, this is pulsing synthy new wave pop, flecked with just enough dark brooding energy to give it an edge over many similar sounding bands at the time. And some of the tracks here are SO catchy, it's a wonder Near Paris didn't find more success, "Visions" is a gloomy gem, that given the right exposure could have made these guys huge. We're guessing being the only synth pop band in Columbus Ohio might have been part of the problem.
LIMITED TO 650 COPIES!!! Pressed on 180 gram oxblood colored vinyl, and includes an insert with photos and liner notes.
Another new Nebula record. Definitely their best record although not a whole lot has changed. These ex-Fu Manchu folks play fuzzed out, drugged out, groovy stoner rock and play it well. And just because this is nothing new, doesn't mean it isn't still loads
Windy's off in Vietnam and unable to contribute to our review of this, but she did leave the following simple and to the point note: "I LOVE this album."
We all do actually. Even jazz-phobic Jim has been caught blissing out to The Necks! And everyone we know seems to have at least one record by Australia's Necks, but why didn't any of them tell me how fricking great this stuff is?!?!? This is a new 4 cd set featuring 4 separate hour-long performances, and once you're familiar with their sound, you'll understand that 4 hours, in hour long chunks, is the perfect way to experience The Necks. It's sort of jazz but not exactly. Sort of 20th century classical, but not exactly. Imagine Charlemagne Palestine or Steve Reich composing for a jazz combo and you might be getting close. Or a more lively Bohren and Der Club of Gore, maybe, at times. Hypnotic shuffling jazz rhythms, skittery high hat and ride cymbals, build a skeletal foundation for throbbing monochromatic bass and chiming, cyclical piano. Repetitive, blissed out and totally hypnotic. Drummer Tony Buck we used to know from Peril and Kletka Red amongst other projects, but now we'll consider The Necks his primary claim to fame. Recommended.
The Necks are one of those rare bands that we could literally listen to forever. Their sound is just so perfectly hypnotic and so well suited to extended listening. If they invented a new format, where a band could release say, a 24 hour long song, the Necks are the first band we would think of. In fact they actually have played a 24 hour show. We keep hoping it will get released, although the epic scope might be lost split up over 24 discs.
This here is the Necks 13th release in about 20 years. And for a band to stay true to their sound for that long, while remaining viable and listenable and exciting is testament to the Necks' unbelievable skill. For those new to the Necks, imagine a three piece jazz ensemble, bass, drums and piano (although, on Chemist, for the first time ever, guitar is introduced, played, oddly enough by drummer Tony Buck), who specialize in extended longform pieces. Ultra minimal, slowly shifting epics, a single riff, a single motif, repeated and looped and subtly colored over the span of ten minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes even 24 hours. Totally mesmerizing and hypnotic.
Chemist is the most rocking Necks record we can remember. At least the opening 20 minute track. The groove is much more upfront, driving, propulsive, like a stripped down jazzed up Can or Faust. Loping, groovy, mesmeric, small flurries of piano drift and flutter over a super solid bass and drums groove. In fact, this almost sounds like a jazzier version of Finnish drone rockers Circle. The same sort of endless riffing and perfectly propulsive rhythm. The second track is much more spare and straight up jazzy, a soft shimmery shuffle, the final track while not quite as aggressive as the opener, does have a similarly relentless rhythm that turns the jazzy drift into something almost 'rocking'. Hard to say this is our favorite Necks record, as we pretty much love them all, but this is definitely the most aggressive and thus pushes a different set of buttons. Necks fans obviously need this. But some of you Circle / Salvatore fans who are up for something a little more dark and jazzy and moody might just dig this A LOT.
Here at Aquarius, you might say that 2003 could have been called The Year Of The Necks. Sure, that sounds a bit funny, but what we mean is that this year is when everybody here either discovered or re-discovered this amazing band. We gave rave reviews to four of their older records, after falling in love with a four-cd live box of theirs back in December of last year. And judging from sales, a lot of you have gotten acquainted with The Necks this year as well, and liked 'em. This Aussie trio of piano (and/or organ), bass, and drums can't be easily catagorized: they're not exactly jazz, not ambient, not rock, not post-rock, not electronica...but they are some of the above, and more. Less too, 'cause what they do is so understated, and so specifically Necks.
So, what better way is there to celebrate The Year Of The Necks 'round these parts than to revel in the release of this brand new Necks opus, Drive By? And it's definitely the equal of any of The Necks' prodigious output, doing all the things we now expect from them...creating a mesmerizing, hypnotic musical trance-state over a lengthy playing time (in this case, one track, 60 minutes and seventeen gorgeous seconds long). Drive By is a pulsating wonder, steadily building over an hour, the drums becoming more active and restless but always "on", underpinning the constant throb of the bass. Drive By is bejewelled with bright tinkling piano, electronic effects, and other sonic elements, including what sound like crickets joining in around the 11 minute mark. 45+ minutes later, The Necks are still in the groove, channelling ancient rhythm into their extremely modern format. I'm beginning to think that the compact disc is too limiting for these guys. They need a DVD-audio release, so we can hear 'em play for seven hours straight!
So, what comparisons can we stretch to make? Some sort of NPR-ized Circle? A prettified Bohren? Steve Reich meets Miles Davis? Ah, hell with that. It's The Year Of The Necks. No comparisons necessary. Just check 'em out.
