Toiling in relative obscurity since 1987, The Necks are an Australian trio who play a hard-to-categorize blend of jazz and rock that's "experimental" yet totally accessible. Hanging Garden (from 1999, but new to me!) is more active than their stunning four-disc set, titled Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab, which we recently reviewed. The Athenaeum portion of that set, in particular, I found to be quite reminiscent of Keith Jarrett's wintry bare compositions. On Hanging Garden, however, while still making use of their customary piano, drums and bass in a hypnotically repetitive, circular, subtly shifting manner, The Necks colors its palette with a heavy dose of Miles Davis circa his electric fusion mid 1970s phase. The electric organ has an undeniable groove to it, backed up by the throbbing bass, and the drums are positively manic -- shimmering, tinkling and adding texture in a marvelously understated manner. They make you wait over 20 minutes for the stately, elegant piano to kick in with its *gorgeous* melodic theme, but until it comes on you didn't even know you were waiting for it because the sonic foundation they laid is already so satisfying. You've *got* to hear this record. It goes on for one hour and, I (Windy) guarantee, you just don't get tired of it. Yep, that's how good this is.
MPEG Download: "Hanging Garden excerpt 1" [/audio/neckshanging1.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Hanging Garden excerpt 1" [/audio/neckshanging1.m3u]
Sometimes it's a struggle to figure out what to write about a record, by a band, whose sound remains fundamentally unchanged from album to album. In many instances that would be reason enough to be patently unimpressed. But with a band like the Necks, 'change' is the last thing you want. Instead, you want their songs, and more specifically their sound, to stretch on and on and on into infinity. And we're getting close, with every release made up of one massive hour plus track. Mosquito / See Through is no different. Two discs, two tracks, an hour plus each! Gorgeous and epic, massive slowly shifting ambient jazzscapes. Drums, bass and piano circle each other warily, before finally engaging, slowly weaving and pulsing, swirling and skittering, until unexpectedly all three instruments are locked into an endlessly hypnotic groove, not like a GROOVE, but a dreamy, shuffling, on the verge of drifting into the ether sort of groove. Like Circle if you were able to slowly pull out sonic elements and distribute them spatially, creating some sort of droning ambient kraut-jazz, propulsive, but just barely, throbbing, but subtly so, ambient, but not ethereal. As always, totally brilliant!
Another labor of proto-metal love reissue here from the folks at Rise Above, who brought us the Steel Mill listed last list, and the Bang box before that. If you liked Steel Mill in particular, Necromandus is worth checking out too. Like Steel Mill, it's got a bit of left-field progginess mixed in with its proto-metal heaviness... or maybe the other way around. Really, on paper, you'd think this would be super heavy. First off, the name Necromandus sounds rather metal and evil doesn't it? As does the album title, and songs with names like "Homicidal Psychopath" and "A Black Solitude". And, this album, recorded in 1973 and intended for release on Vertigo (which ultimately didn't happen), was in fact produced by none other than Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi! He even contributes a guitar solo on the title track.
The album starts off with the striking of a gong, followed by a brief atmospheric instrumental intro, then, wham, does indeed get pretty darn Sabbathy with the galloping "Night Jar", a definite proto-metal classic as good ('n heavy) as anything by Jerusalem, Bang, Dust, Lucifer's Friend, Night Sun, May Blitz, Leaf Hound, etc. But after that, Necromandus suddenly take a turn and get all jazzy/proggy on us for the rest of the record, sounding more like Yes than Sabbath, really, which is ok by us as well. Good stuff, and definitely not altogether mellow! In fact, a lot of it is rather ripping. You'll still hear echoes of Sabbath, who had their proggy side too, after all. But folks looking for pure proto-metal / doom might be confused. Although we'd say "Night Jar" alone is worth the price of admission for them, anyway!
Plus, for this deluxe reissue (which comes in a slipcase, with lavish booklet, like the Steel Mill), Rise Above have added 9 bonus tracks, a good, raw recording of the band kicking ass at a live show from '73, featuring a bunch of the album tracks and more.
Too band Necromandus didn't "make it", hard to understand why not, they were definitely a talented group and you'd think their connection with Sabbath would have helped (they even momentarily formed Ozzy Osbourne's original solo band when he first left Sabbath in '77, before returning to do Never Say Die). Probably had they actually been more metal... but we like what they got up to here, regardless.
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While we wait for the cd to be restocked (hopefully, soon, maybe today!), we just got a few copies of a new VINYL reissue of this krautrock classic. It's an import, expensive and limited of course, but you're probably never ever gonna find an original LP at any price...not sure if it has the bonus tracks that the cd had, but it does have the liner notes. And more importantly, it's in packaging that folds out into a giant cross, just like the original LP sleeve apparently did!! Wow. Here's a portion of our review of this album from when we listed the Garden Of Delights cd version:
A masterpiece of suicidal, political Krautrock heaviosity from 1972. NECRONOMICON. Freaky then, freaky now. Psychedelic hard rock that was about as 'extreme' as it got at the time...definitely if Terrorizer magazine had existed back then, these Germans would have made the cover. Not that this extreme by today's blackened metal standards, as there's enough pretty and melodic elements included amongst the fuzz riffage to satisfy the mellower hippie types in the Necronomicon freak-scene. And, they're no Black Sabbath. Still, pretty far gone for '72. The title: How To Kill Yourself. Now that's a bad trip. The very first track, the seven-minute "Prolog", almost makes the remainder of this album superflous, as it's a full, epic encapsulation Necronomicon's heavy prog excess. Theirs is an album replete with stinging acid guitar, heady Hammond organ, and monkish chanting. Ecclisastical choirs wail over trudging, yearning guitar and organ -- shades of Magma and J.A. Caesar. It's like Amon Duul II murdering Pink Floyd and riding their animated corpses all the way to hell. Again, not in any way metal, but what you might call Wagnerian garage-psych... Definitely an obscure but A-list kraut/psych album for those with occult tastes...
While we wait for the cd to be restocked (hopefully, soon, maybe today!), we just got a few copies of a new VINYL reissue of this krautrock classic. It's an import, expensive and limited of course, but you're probably never ever gonna find an original LP at any price...not sure if it has the bonus tracks that the cd had, but it does have the liner notes. And more importantly, it's in packaging that folds out into a giant cross, just like the original LP sleeve apparently did!! Wow. Here's a portion of our review of this album from when we listed the Garden Of Delights cd version:
Aa masterpiece of suicidal, political Krautrock heaviosity from 1972. NECRONOMICON. Freaky then, freaky now. Psychedelic hard rock that was about as 'extreme' as it got at the time...definitely if Terrorizer magazine had existed back then, these Germans would have made the cover. Not that this extreme by today's blackened metal standards, as there's enough pretty and melodic elements included amongst the fuzz riffage to satisfy the mellower hippie types in the Necronomicon freak-scene. And, they're no Black Sabbath. Still, pretty far gone for '72. The title: How To Kill Yourself. Now that's a bad trip. The very first track, the seven-minute "Prolog", almost makes the remainder of this album superflous, as it's a full, epic encapsulation Necronomicon's heavy prog excess. Theirs is an album replete with stinging acid guitar, heady Hammond organ, and monkish chanting. Ecclisastical choirs wail over trudging, yearning guitar and organ -- shades of Magma and J.A. Caesar. It's like Amon Duul II murdering Pink Floyd and riding their animated corpses all the way to hell. Again, not in any way metal, but what you might call Wagnerian garage-psych... Definitely an obscure but A-list kraut/psych album for those with occult tastes...
Load strikes again! Amidst all the skronky arty punk costume rock bands indigenious to Rhode Island, Necronomitron rises above to play some actual honest-to-god METAL, and Providence's Load label was up to the task of bringing it to the indie-masses via this cd. Metal? Well, yeah, nasty, speedy, convoluted heaviness indeed. Besides their cool name, Necronomitron's got wretched chipmunk vocals, wheedily-wheedily guitar solos, frantic riff-mongering, and drumming that sounds like a panicked giant centipede barrelling down a particularily steep staircase. And lots of "parts". It's a bit like old Nuclear Assault or Voivod, with the treble cranked to eleven. Or imagine a Crom-Tech record that was truly heavy. Insane, punk, metal. The hectic tech-metal madness of songs like "Unscheduled Sunrise", "Incephalopod" and "Invading Assassin Is Dead" will dizzy and stupify you. After that excellent Usaisamonster record, another Load winner. Yay!
Killer reissue from Detroit via Ohio hardcore legends the Necros, who might be most famous outside of punk rock circles for counting among its membership, bassist Corey Rusk, who would go on to run the legendary Touch And Go label, and Barry Henssler who would go on to front Big Chief. But really, all you need to know was that these guys destroyed. Heavy and furiously fast, the songs feral blasts of thrashing chaotic punk rock energy, infused with plenty of melody and hooks galore, fans of classic punk rock from Die Kreuzen to Minor Threat, the Meatmen to White Flag, Black Flag to Negative Approach, Articles Of Faith to the Crucifucks, who have somehow not heard the Necros before now, holy shit are you gonna flip. And this lp is as good a place to start as any, the A side is the entirety of their 1981 self titled single, often referred to as I.Q.32, nine songs in about as many minutes, and the flipside is a whole live show from the same year!
Pressed on swirled grey vinyl. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
As was promised late last year when she and Thom (Moore of the Moore Brothers) released their Summerland album on Kill Rock Stars, here is her second solo album. Your initial impression might be that Nedelle's intimate, mostly acoustic songs are totally off the cuff -- a few barely reach the two minute mark -- but listen further and you'll discover that they're quite deceptively so. She's cozied them up with lush strings, a little whistlin' (on the sixth song "Our Little Selves") and sweet-sweet vocal harmonies. The highlight is perhaps the most fully developed tune of her repertoire, and it surfaces mid-album. The very lush Rufus Wainwright-esque "Oh No!" is a totally rollicking number, but surprisingly it not at all jarring amid the dreamy slower songs. A definite charmer!
Miss Nedelle Torrisi has one of those sweetheart voices that rings with such an air of youth and innocence. Super pretty and soulful, and sorta like Tracy Thorn's pre-Everything But The Girl band, the breezy Marine Girls. She and bandmate/honey Thom Moore's debut album Summerland definitely harkens back a few decades. The album title's more than appropriate 'cause whenever their poppy tunes are playing it seems like it's that time of year -- all warm and bright, filled with good stuff like a pretty gingham sundress, an old wooden rowboat or a tall glass of bracing lemonade. If you dig this, you should also check out Nedelle's solo releases (she has another one due out next year) and Thom's recordings with his brother Greg as yes, the Moore Brothers!
Rising from the ashes of Philadelphia art-psych-rock combo Bent Leg Fatima comes this eccentric quintet who play a jumble of experimentations in free jazz and art rock. Sax, organ, drums and other random percussive instruments are tossed into the mix with
Are you tired of mundane, regurgitated, redundant music that seems to be the only thing available these days? Well, Need New Body is the radioactive answer to your woes of uninspirational musical blahdom.
They combine frenetic percussion using drums, handclapping and any type of instrument they can make or find with organ, keyboards, bass, banjo, sax and retarded lyricism that fluctuates from power-alto to a crunchy Carol Channing to off-key group harmonizing all throughout oft-changing time signatures. Ugh. I know it sounds like it wouldn't be good. BUT IT IS. This band is not like any other, and you gotta love them for it. The only other ensemble I could link them to would be Sun Ra's Arkestra, with whom they've played with recently. Their sound is a broken free-jazz that comes together to form different ideas here and there (i.e. the electronic-arcade house-party energy of "Who's This Dude? / Tet No Eyes / Do You Want To Party With Me / Medley", or the arty noisy kraut jam of "Badoosh + Seagull War = Die", or the Dead Milkman sillyness of "SO ST RX") Yes, this record is all over the place but in an engaging way, even if it makes you feel a little embarrassed at tiny moments. An album from NNB couldn't be anything else. These guys rule a strange and infinite gap between Styx, funk, free-jazz, Nintendo 64 music and psychotic banjo art-rock.
Where's Black Ben is the first new record from this band of Philadelphian phreaks in two years! And well, if you've seen this album in the store, you'll notice that the artwork is, um... not all that enticing garish and dayglo, but it sure catches the eye! Problematic artwork aside, these guys totally rule. For fans of Sun Ra & His Arkestra, Hella, Deerhoof and Dada-ism.
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Olympia's The Need is someone named "Radio" and Rachel from Kicking Giant, this time with the addition of a DJ Zena who supplies scratching, plus Joe Preston (Melvins, Thrones, Earth) on bass and synths. Vinyl only. This is the follow-up release to their debut on Donna Dresch's Chainsaw Records.
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Portland's The Need is not dead, this is their new album.
With previous collaborator Joe Preston (Thrones) adding bass and "squiggle pen" on a couple of tracks.
Yes, we've got it! And you need it too. This is Radio and Rachel's first full length from '97. And yes, it kicks just as much ass as their second album "The Need Is Dead". With songs like "Pony 4 Honey" and "Rim Me Isabella", these two women mean business... and get down to it.
Long awaited debut from Bay Area hardcore heavies Needles, featuring members of Talk Is Poison and Limp Wrist, whose sound is a killer mix of classic punk rock pummel, old school Bay Area powerviolence and brooding, gloomy new waviness, the opening title track, starts off with a feedback drenched sprawl of new wave, bass heavy, gloom punk dirgery, before launching into a furious blast of pummeling hardcore crush, throat shredding vox, galloping drums and some fierce sinewy riffage. "Not Losing Faith" is a 30 second face melter all chaotic crumble and frenzied shred wrapped around a dense driving bassline, and then "Truth" which mixes the two, slipping easily from grinding hardcore heaviness to near metallic crunch, sounding a bit like a supercharged Rudimentary Peni. And so it goes, six songs in about eight minutes, catchy as fuck, heavy as fuck, and definitely has us hankering for a full length!
Oh boy. Any Henry & Glenn fan is going to flip for this. The four issues of the Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever mini-comic, now compiled into one thick trade paperback book, with A LOT of extra material added on - over 100 pages of entirely new comics and art!! It's epic. So even if you already have each issue in the series, you might want to give those as a gift to an impressionable youngster and get this for yourself. Includes an amusing introduction by none other than Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford (!), as well as a six page essay about "The Secret History Of Henry & Glenn Comics", as if they were actual comic book heroes dating back to the WWII era.
If you AREN'T already familiar with Henry & Glenn, well, the comic chronicles the adventures of these two punk rock icons - Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig - who (in the comic) are in a loving, same-sex relationship. By turns, sweet and surreal, always quite funny (unless your name is Glenn Danzig - somehow we doubt he really approves of all this, while Rollins at least contributes a blurb to the back cover). You can find our reviews of the individual Forever & Ever issues elsewhere on the aQ site.
256 pages, mostly b&w, but there's a 30 page full-color gallery of covers and other art in the back. Wow. The ultimate H&G book for sure.
Like the Poobah reviewed last list, here's another, though much moldier, oldie previously reissued by Monster Records, now made available again by Rockadrome. The Monster version had different art/graphics and was titled The Living Dead Years, but these are the same tracks. And since the main reason collectors are into Negative Space is probably because their 1970 private press album was called Hard, Heavy, Mean and Evil (aren't YOU intrigued?) it's a good idea for Rockadrome to use that title for this edition, which includes that very album plus bonus tracks from post-Negative Space act Snow and other related stuff.
Unfortunately, not much of this is actually all that hard, heavy, mean or evil. Unless you think garage psych covers of "Summertime" count (track two here, pretty laid back but for some sudden eruptions of fuzz guitar distortion). There's a song here with a title that would seem promising, "The Long Hair", but that one's actually way mellow. While this is still a cool underground artifact of grungy garage at the dawn of the seventies, let's just say Sabbath had nothing to fear from these guys. Negative Space at their heaviest are more like a scuzzy Steppenwolf. Rather than being proto metal, these guys were already sounding retro in 1970-71 (among the bonus tracks there's covers of "Light My Fire", "Purple Haze", "Johnny B. Goode", and also Hoyt Axton's "The Pusher", a hit for ol' Steppenwolf y'know).
The tracks that ARE heavy ("Calm Before The Storm" and "Forbidden Fruit" in particular) WILL get Blue Cheer fans excited. But the solo acoustic demos from NS leader Rob Russen tacked on at the very end of this disc might kill that buzz. Heck, we don't really mean to slag this, it IS cool for what it is. Just be aware, it's not exactly what the title and band name and wishful thinking might lead you to believe. It's certainly ultra distorted and wailin' at times, but only at times, otherwise just a bit bleak and moody. Their mean & evil, hard & heavy reputation probably had more to do with their live show. In the cd booklet (packed with lyrics and liner notes in thorough Rockadrome tradition) mention is made of a studio engineer asserting "how impossible it was to capture and contain the power and fury of Negative Space's music". Apparently so, since so much of this is not-so-hard hippie rock, with its own rough hewn charms however, plus ever-lurking fuzz blasts to tease those here only for the heavier fare.
We were introduced to these East Bay crust metal crushers via a split lp with Aussie heavies and long time aQ faves Whitehorse (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), but this right here is the Negative Standards' first proper full length, a relentless and furious onslaught of churning D-beat crust punk and epic, chugging, Neurosis style sludge metal heaviness.
No song titles just numbers, tracks I through V can be found on their debut ep, and tracks XII and XII are on the split with Whitehorse, but "VI" though "XI" make up this 12", and deliver a punishing barrage of sick riffage, and skull caving drum damage, and the vocals, a throat shredding demonic bellow, the whole thing a brutal chug fest, songs lurching from driving crust punk, furious and chaotic to tarpit, downtuned doom sludge crush, with some super blown out weirdness that gives the sound a seriously psychedelic vibe, the band equally adept at knuckle dragging, pit stirring, ferocity, and soaring, majestic sonic epicry, just check out the 8+ minute "X", which spends the first half of those minutes, unfurling a gorgeously morose and melancholic true doom crawl, moody and mesmerizing, somewhere between Bell Witch and True Widow, slowcore downer doom, that creeps and lumbers, before exploding into a noise drenched, punk metal blast, those two disparate sound somehow fusing together for the last few minutes, the guitars soaring, the arrangement a slow build toward a Godspeed / Neurosis style crescendo, but still punk as fuck, and seriously crusty. Killer stuff. Every track here, some sort of black-crust / punk-doom hybrid, that we can't get enough of. Not sure how we'd never heard of these guys before, but doing our best to make up for it now.
Released on the always great Vendetta label, with a super striking, creepy dead body / surveillance photo album cover. Sadly, there's no download (although you can get the digital versions for free on their bandcamp!)...
- MPEG stream: X
- MPEG stream: VI
- MPEG stream: XI
DICK VAUGHN IS DEAD! But that's old news by now. Moribund Music of the '70s is volume four in Negativland's Over The Edge series of live radio broadcasts. In this installment, Richard Lyons' (a.k.a Dick Vaughn) vainly attempts to be the first to cash in on
Listen and learn, kiddies.
The story behind this record is almost too outlandish to be believe. According to lore and the liner notes on the back of this album, David Neil was a Canadian acid-folk minstrel in the Gram Parsons mould, with an appetite for drugs as large as his capacity to churn out insightful, psychedelically tinged country tunes. During a four year period from 1970 to 1974, Neil squandered every penny of his advance from his deal with Anchor Records on drugs and various affairs with bored housewives in Hollywood and Long Island. Nevertheless, he and his band toured relentlessly, working out the material that never actually got released. During Neil's final tour in 1974, a young Steve Kilbey, the Australian bassist / vocalist who would later go on to form The Church in the early '80s, joined the band. This tour was cut short as Neil died an improbable death, according to the liner notes "the plane he was on crashed while at the time he was overdosing in the toilet while a jealous husband kicked in the door and gunned him down." Yes, those were the days before excessive TSA screenings. Jump forward a couple of decades, when Kilbey acquired the master tracks of Neil's unfinished album. Many of the tracks were just sketches but featured Neil's distinctive Marc Bolan styled falsetto; and others were lacking vocals altogether. Kilbey managed to piece together the missing vocal tracks from memory and from a long lost lyric book of Neil's. Kilbey and Ricky Maymi (of Brian Jonestown Massacre fame) went into the studio to flesh out these tracks, recording all to tape and using vintage equipment wherever possible to achieve as close to the original sound that Neil was going for way back when. The resulting album is a charming romp through Americana (or would that be Canadiana?) bittersweet, country-fried pop with bouncing basslines, gracefully rustic slide guitars, and a stoned-in-the-summertime vibe that's quite infectuous. Limited edition private pressing from Kilbey and Maymi, who put a lot of love and heart into these recordings... and it shows!
Two new releases on this week's list from Medical Records, both of which have us once again wondering, where in the heck do they find this stuff?? Paul Nelson was a Portland native, who was obsessed with analog synthesis, he was well versed in music and music theory, but was also into ELP and Brian Eno, and as the years went on gathered more and more synthesizers until he had the opportunity to record an album, which was Vortex, recorded in 1981. Limited to just 1000 copies and self distributed, over the years Vortex became quite the collector's item, and it's easy to see why. The opening track, the only non-instrumental track, is a primo slice of futuristic synth wave electro pop, complete with robotic vocodered vox, crazy catchy, and ultra poppy, it's not hard to imagine "Automated Man" as a could/should have been eighties hit.
But the rest of the record is way more spacey, the bulk of the album made up of the five part title track, which finds Nelson channeling Tangerine Dream and John Carpenter, swirling synths, pulsing arpeggiations, spaced out and sci-fi and cinematic, especially on the second part, where things get downright Carpenter/Goblin-esque, fans of Zombi and Majeure and Umberto will flip for sure. The rest of the "Vortex" movements drift from planetarium show style cosmic drift, to smoldering galactic Euro-synth shimmer, to ominous, brooding soundtracky synthscapery. The suite is interrupted by "Labyrinth", which is all eighties electro pop, pulsing rhythms, programmed drums, swirling ethereal shimmer, you can almost imagine the Human League like vox that would fit perfectly, but instead, it remains instrumental, blissed out and softly psychedelic.
As always, fantastic packaging, heavy full color jacket, the vinyl 180 gram white opaque splatter, with a printed insert featuring an in-depth interview with Nelson, and of course, it's also super limited...
Nemeth is the first solo outing from Stefan Nemeth who we know best for his work with Radian, one of the more compelling and stimulating electronic post rock outfits of the last several years. It makes perfect sense that he has also been hard at work scoring various films projects since he has such obvious skills for creating brooding sounds that sizzle with subtlety and mounting tension. Over the last several years Nemeth found himself creating soundscapes for experimental filmmakers and installation artists. He used those works as his source material in creating this debut solo work. This is by no means a laptop project, as Nemeth used lots of organic instrumentation like guitars, percussion and synthesizers along with his electronics and programming skills to create these chilling sounds. It's pretty impossible to tell which sounds are real and which are electronically generated in this work and that's what makes Nemeth's music so spectacular. He treats all of the elements he uses with a fluidity that makes all the disparate sounds wash into each other. Film reminds us a bit of the more subdued and ominous elements of Pan Sonic, the hypnotic qualities of Circle, the ghostly decay of Thomas Brinkmann. All great company to be in, Nemeth has created a record that uses all its layers and textures with mindful perfection!
Finally, a complete discography of this proto-Riot Grrl outfit from Portland, Oregon, who only released a couple of eps and singles in their 5 year life-span from 1978-1982, but who inspired generations of Northwest and West Coast bands with sharp-witted songs and disaffectedly casual delivery. Evolving from up-tempo punk to a more nuanced and politically moody new wave, Neo Boys operated heavy on the rhythmic tendencies similar to that of other bands of the day like Pylon, Delta 5 and The Raincoats, but with their own unique voice. Neo Boys were fronted by sisters Kim and K.T. Kincaid on vocals and bass respectively and their two friends Jennifer LoBianca and Pat Baum on guitars and drums. They often played at parties, basements and art galleries, but also opened for such acts as The Wipers, Nico and Television, and were the first all girl group of their kind in the heavily male-dominated Portland music scene. Sooner Or Later details both sides of their trajectory with 44 tracks from rough and dirty punk to the politically charged and complex rhythms of their later output. An amazing revelation and real treat for fans of Grass Widow, Slant 6, Casual Dots and Sleater-Kinney!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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There's a lot of '80s inspired indie pop coming out these days, and sometimes it's really run of the mill pop, doused in distortion and lo-fi weirdness simply to sound like the other hip-at-the-moment popsmiths (Ariel Pink, Ty Segall, Kurt Vile, etc.). And that can be ok. But, when a new band's delivery sounds natural and not so contrived, when the music is rife with subtle unique elements, creating a sound that is not easily removable from the song, then we are ALL ears.
Such is the case with Neon Indian, who have a sonic vibe similar to current blog phenomenon and Mexican Summer buzz maker Washed Out, among others, with their ability to take the colorful and catchy side of '80s electro-tinged pop and bring in a slightly warped yet totally contagious and psychedelic sound palette that taps into a parallel universe where Ariel Pink stole Daft Punk beats and stripped them down a bit to make the kind of swirling effortless sounding pop that's just pretty damn impossible to resist. The lush, skillful production gives these songs such a nice timeless feel, while it definitely is a record that speaks to this moment in time in its reflection and reassembling of pop's past, their sample of Todd Rudgren's "Izzat Love" in one of their songs is proof that Neon Indian mastermind Alan Palamo has a good understanding of the kind of pop production that pulls from varied sources to create such a satisfying, and unique sound. This one is proving to be one of our favorite fall jams of '09! Lots of other folks favorite too, and with good reason!
One of the more eccentric acts to emerge from the Belgian EMB scene in the late '80s, The Neon Judgement developed a stylized sound of electronics melded to an Americana swagger with patinas of country-fried twang working into leather-clad industrialisms. At times, Neon Judgement were brilliant in this approach, other times it was a contrived dud. Yet, this sound was one that was developed over time, as their earliest recordings took on the more of synth punk idioms that were held by contemporaries in Cabaret Voltaire, Absolute Body Control, Siglo XX, Suicide, and even bits of Gary Numan. This LP contains all the tracks from the two cassettes that Neon Judgement released in 1981-1982 (TV Treated and Suffering), and it makes perfect sense that the exceptional ears at Dark Entries would seek out the finest moments from Neon Judgement's beginnings. At this time, the band was considerably more raw, with jagged guitar riffs coupled to the overdriven synth chords and jabbing arppegiations. It sounds like Neon Judgement had been listening to that first Suicide record, and wanted to try to figure out how to reinterpret the zombified rockabilly through electronics as well, without resorting to a pure homage. The minimalist spiralling of Neon Judgement's electronics holds some of Suicide's simplicity, although Neon Judgement's rock sensibility is purely showcased through the guitar and not the songwriting, which is much more tuned (at least here) to the European approaches of coldwave detachment. A couple of the tracks (e.g. "Factory Walk" and "TV Treated") had made appearances on later albums with more polish on the production, but there's something better suited to the stilted gait and agitated guitar pluckings on "Factory Walk" that make these recordings more expressive. As with all Dark Entries titles, limited to 500 copies.
Finally able to get more of this classic psych pop gem back in stock!
It sometimes seems like, that if everyone stopped making music right now, we could coast along for years with all of the lost and undiscovered classics from the sixties and seventies that keep surfacing. It's definitely not a bad thing at all. Makes us wonder though about folks in the year 2040 and which of our current favorite bands will be re-discovered and reissued then. Neon Pearl was a precursor to legendary psych / prog outfit T2. You won't find much prog here, instead, Neon Pearl were a psychedelic soft pop combo falling sonically somewhere alongside groups like the Zombies, Sam Gopal, Kaleidoscope, the Association and other practitioners of sundazed sixties pop. Dreamy and sonorous, with liliting melodies, swirling organs, acoustic guitars and harmonium, and fuzzed out electric guitars, all supporting the rich almost-falsetto of lead vocalist/drummer Peter Dunton, with lots of 'lalala's and 'doodoodoo's. So so nice.
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SORRY.
"This CD contains one of the strangest ideas I've run across lately... an insane, angular, aggressive soundtrack for David Lynch's failed sci-fi beast of a movie, Dune. Trust me, though - as goofy as this sounds - this is a fantastic album. It takes more than human guts to dish out the beating that Louisville, KY's Nero gives the senses with the nearly 18-minute long improvisational album-closer, Kwizzach Haderach. Within this track, dialogue samples from Dune are alternately buried and brought to the surface, while Nero relentlessly tweaks and hacks away at building a colossal, disturbing drone. It's absolutely maniacal - which is the best way to describe Nero. With guitars, bass, drums and vocals all armed with razors and needles, and a really scary stab at an oddball 'concept album,' Nero has designed an inspired piece of unforgettable mayhem." -pillowfight.com
On their debut album -- a fully fleshed out rock production -- SF band Nervebox reveal many facets of their musical personality including a flair for the somber and the dramatic. Oddly enough on initial in-store play, Drawn swiftly drew comparisons to such diverse artists such as Arcadia (remember that project by Duran Duran's Simon LeBon and Nick Rhodes? check out "Out Of Line" which also hinted at shades of Portishead's pace and mood), early REM (on "All For The Best") or David Sylvian back in Japan days. And Nervebox certainly do traverse the vast rock terrain freely and confidently although they do tend to keep returning to the deep emotiveness of Japan/David Sylvian. Synths swoop and howl like menacing ravens on one song, decisively-picked guitar drives another, then suddenly you're immersed in a eerie carnivalesque rock number ("Monkey"). Nervebox keeps you on your toes.
Long overdue archival release from this '70s Texas punk rock combo, and like many seventies punk rock bands, their sound is a lot more pop than much of the punk rock that would follow in the eighties. The band made a name for themselves in the mid seventies, releasing a handful of eps, even opening for the Sex Pistols in 1978 (one of the only bands EVER to have opened for the Pistols), this here was meant to be their debut album, and was recorded in 1980 but never released until now - about time!! They start things off with a killer cover of Morricone's "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly", before launching into their 'hit', "My Girlfriend Is A Rock", with its crunchy fuzzy power pop riffage and absurdist lyrics, and from there on out it's all swaggery, buzzy, caffeinated, punked out power pop, a little bit psychedelic, heavy on the hooks, and while "My Girlfriend Is A Rock" was an actual hit, it's hard to believe most of the tracks here didn't follow suit. Totally hooky punk pop that should most definitely appeal equally to punk rockers and power poppers. We've been listening to this like crazy!
Drummer extraordinare Greg Saunier of Deerhoof and drummer supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Zach Hill of Hella kick up some noisy noise noise here. As you'd expect, there's lotsa drums in with their noise, plus...classical harp played by Joanna Newsom (of The Pleased, and solo fame)? Yep!
It's a hectic thirty minute wonderland of bipping bapping drumbeats and electronic fuckery, with some moments of mysterious beauty, strangely enough -- often courtesy of Newsom's harp pluckery. Like a lot of things Deerhoof-related, odd but good. And it's definitely got a great cover pic, we think.
Another mysterious disc that just showed up in the mail one day, and totally knocked our socks off. So we ordered a bunch cuz we wanted to share them with all of you, but then we realized we had to describe it, and damn if this isn't a tough one to figure out.
Dark and somber, rhythmic and minimal, a muddy, murky, sort of krautdrone drift. The rhythms are pulses, that drift in and out, the guitars moan and keen, electronics warble and rumble, lots of twisted bits of low end, changing speed and tone, super abstract and drifty and otherworldly, the band occasionally coalesce into a sort-of-groove, but even then, it's a sort of convoluted lumber, vocals, wrapped in reverb and echo, draped over the stuttering anti-funk, the melody carried by deep slow shifting swells, all around fragments of sounds tangle and untangle, their overtones creating strange minimal melodies.
When the vocals do come in, it almost sounds like some sort of avant coldwave, imagine a cold wave Starfuckers maybe, a little bit cold and clinical and machinelike, but Net Shaker are less concerned with song, and groove, and being new wave or cold wave or whatever. They definitely exist in their own fucked up and fractured world.
The sound may be hard to pin down, but it's definitely mesmerizing, hypnotic, cyclical, a woozy, warped, murky assemblage of cold Teutonic pop, layered drones, motorik krautrock, spaced out post industrial ambience, not to mention some fractured druggy sonic collage. Noise rock, post punk, avant pop, dirge wave, cold core, krautwave, not sure what to call it, or if it even needs a name, what we do know is this is one of the most original sounding records we've heard in ages, and we find ourselves listening to this cd-r all the time. Which pretty much says it all...
Finally, a brand new record from aQ pal Ernest Gibson, who as Net Shaker, and solo, creates some of thee most warped, and idiosyncratic music we've ever heard. And it seems like every record not only gets better, but somehow also gets weirder. It's always been incredible to describe Gibson's music, even after four releases, we still struggle to put into words, what he manages to conjure up out of a seemingly super minimal sonic palette. The first thing we notice on I'm So Cold, is the groove, the opening track is downright groovy, at least for Net Shaker, a sort of slowcore, downtempo dirge, all shuffling rhythm, wreathed in swirling murk and hushed vox, it's like Starfuckers covering Portishead, or something, but definitely super polished and dare we say, 'danceable'. But fear not, the second track returns us to the cracked sonic underworld that Gibson rules over. A sprawl of throbbing pulses, of heaving industrial moans, and echo drenched anguished voices, chopped up and layered into weird textures, and when the rhythm proper does kick in, it's just a trash can lid cymbal hit, monotonous and robotic, all the while, the sounds underneath swirl and sway, the whole thing on the verge of total collapse. Which is sort of what Net Shaker seems to be all about. A series of meticulously assembled sonic epics, which on some level, reveal an intricate array of inner workings, like the musical version of one of those visible man medical dummies, but in so doing, also reveals that all of these sounds, these melodies, these arrangements are balanced precariously on a knife edge, this impending doom, this black hole that seems to lurk beneath each of these songs, somehow imbues Net Shaker's music with a dark glow, a restless tension, that makes the songs exude a nervous energy, which is even more remarkable for the fact that many of the songs are near somnambulant, in a sort of circular stasis, yet still displaying some sort of warped gravitational pull to the surrounding sounds.
The cool thing this time around is that the loose abstract sonic mysteries, seem to be balanced by more composed jams, minimal dubbed out dirgescapes, the sort of sound that's even too slow and low for a label like WordSound. Tracks like "Be Back" are like Spectre on Thorazine, a creepy, murky crawl, a slo-mo space dub, that measures grooves in minutes instead of seconds. And once you're locked into Net Shaker's nocturnal flow, the record collapses and the sound is transformed into a field of Geiger counter flutter, or swirling smears of soft focus thrum, but before long, another beat surfaces, and Gibson hangs whatever bit of melodic murk or tortured texture he has handy, and away we go, tranced out and mesmerized, until the cycle repeats, and we tumble into the next sprawl of garbled sonic detritus, as we wait patiently for the next beat to pass by. And yeah, this record is another weird one, but some of the songs here display a surprising sonic mastery, that's beginning to make us think Gibson is working really hard to try and NOT make music that's more accessible. But his struggle makes for fantastic and twisted listening. ESSENTIAL.
Finally, the first proper NON cd-r release from the warped and wonderful Net Shaker, who in the span of one song, remind us again exactly why we love them so much, and demonstrate a knack for fucked up songcraft that enables them to conjure up these bleak minimal abstract dirges, that manage to be simultaneously difficult and damaged, haunting and hypnotic, and somehow, weirdly catchy to boot.
Fans of past NS releases will feel immediately at home, the song oozing from the speakers, a murky, moodily rhythmic creep, lugubrious and soporific, a slithery tarpit lumber, the music smeary and bleary, like listening through ears full of sand, but then the vocals, strangely clean and crooned, the result something like a pop song slowed down, and melted down into a black sonic blur. Minimal and muddy and abstractly doomy, the vocals gradually growing more garbled, drifting over rumbles and drones, a softly swirling sea of hum and thrum, all wedded to that omnipresent slo-mo shuffle. Awesome.
The B side is a new track from Swedish sisters the Ectoplasm Girls, whose track sounds like it could have come from their awesome (but sadly out of print) TxN lp on Ideal, and ends up being the perfect match from Net Shaker, super psychedelic and freaked out, but still minimal and abstract, an almost industrial churn beneath clouds of heavily delayed vocals, a dense dubbed out squall of tangled yelps and croons, all heavily effected, the whole thing laced with weird atonal synth melodies, and like the Net Shaker track, the whole thing anchored by a warped and woozy rhythmic stumble.
Been a while (8 years?) since we've heard from Nettle, or DJ /Rupture for that matter. Nettle is the live band project of DJ /Rupture, the amazing mix master (and self-described "border-crossing bass visionary") responsible for, as we put it, "plunderphonic dancehall turntable mashups" on his various rad mixes (2001's Gold Teeth Thief being THE classic). We know he's got a show on WFMU, still does music and mixes, but we didn't know that his band Nettle was still active, or rather that it had been reactivated. So this new Nettle album is unexpected, but nevertheless awesome.
El Resplandor is a concept album, the quite cool concept pretty much revealed in its subtitle: The Shining In Dubai. Yes, we're in imaginary soundtrack territory here - what if, Stephen King's The Shining were set in an abandoned luxury hotel in the Arabian emirate of Dubai, on the Persian Gulf? Musically, this turns out to be an excellent idea... you keep the spooky psychological horror stuff (family moves into isolated empty hotel, things get weird, dad loses his shit, etc.) and add an ethnic Middle Eastern music element as well.
DJ /Rupture, credited with "electricity, mudd", works with an ensemble of musicians, including guitarist Andy from The Ex. So there's guitar, cello (x2), violin, and guembri (an African 3-stringed skin-covered lute) - along with lovely, wordless female vocals, something that's always perfectly suspense soundtrack worthy!
While in the past, this outfit sounded something like a beat-heavy, uber-distorted Muslimgauze, with hiphop elements even, El Resplandor is more restrained, atmospheric, and eerily evocative, in keeping with the concept. There's much somber shimmer and string pluck, and of course tape manipulation and electronic glitchery, with DJ /Rupture applying his mixing/editing skills to what may have been improvised solos from the various instrumentalists - we're not sure of the compositional method, but it certainly involves some measure of computer processing. The eleven varied tracks all individually contribute to the haunted, alienated, edge-of-the-desert vibe of The Shining in Dubai idea... From the stately exotic dance of "Espina" to the buzz, crackle and chaos of "Simoom (Wasp Wind)", this is a beautiful and dramatic disc. One that makes for a good late night listen, excepting the presence of that "Simoom" track, where thing get a bit... disturbed... that might wake you up from your reveries!
The digipack packaging features scene-setting liner notes by none other than imaginative architectural essayist Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG fame (great blog, check it out if you haven't before) and equally appropriate photographs by Lamya Gargash. Quite recommended!
Seminal krautrockers Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger have at long last (after an uncomfortable decade-plus of legal wrangling) patched up whatever their differences were in order to allow their three classic '70s albums to be offical released on cd for the
For those of you not already Neu!-savvy, these are the guys responsible (along with Kraftwerk, with whom guitarist Rother and drummer Dinger once played -- that's how they met, before splitting to form Neu!) for the "motorik" beat, the propulsive, autobahn-friendly, proto-punk electronics hybrid that has influenced countless bands. From big fans Bowie and Eno back in the seventies to the hundreds of postrock/electronica acts that namecheck them now, Neu! are gods. Negativland not only got their name from a Neu! song off the first album, but even the name of their label, Seeland, comes from a track off of 75. Indeed, some bands have built their entire careers on, uh, paying homage to Neu! (Michael Rother, quoted in the most recent issue of MOJO: "I went to a Stereolab concert once. Suddenly I had the impression I was listening to myself -- very strange!")
Astralwerks has done a nice job with these reissues. No, there's no bonus tracks or extensive liner notes or anything "extra", but all the original artwork is included (not that we have an original Neu! lp handy to compare with, but anyway they look nice). We could have done without the stickers on the front with blurbs from famous fans, but that's discarded once you unwrap the cd so no big deal. We'd guess that Neu!'s first album will sell the most copies, as it's graced with the endorsement of Thom Yorke, whereas we hope that Neu! 75 won't suffer from the moronic blurb from John Frusciante.
In keeping with the generally fucked up saga of these records/reissues, we're already having trouble getting enough of these in stock (our suppliers getting one title, but not the others; very small quanities, that sort of bs), so act fast. Sorry for the high price, it *might* come down as the supply situation changes, but for right now it reflects what we have to pay for these. Argh. And the vinyl versions (YES! they're doing LP reissues) have been inexplicably delayed until the end of July! Double argh.
Neu! 1 (1971) is a stunning work of art, drifting back and forth between the stripped down minimal kraut-pop that they're most commonly associated with, to long, spacey and psychedelic forays with lapses into musique concrete like moments with lapping water, children and jackhammers. Their sound could be most closely compared to early Kraftwerk or Cluster. In fact, the track "Im Gluck" sounds an awful lot like both Kraftwerk's "Radioland" and, believe it or don't, the beginning preamble to Rush's "Xanadu." Whether these two had Neu! in mind when they worked these songs out remains to be proven, but it's nice to think of such dissimilar groups drawing from the same well.
Neu! 2 could possibly be considered the world's first "remix" album, as a good portion of it features "varispeed" versions of previously released Neu! material. They ran out of studio time/money, so the story goes, and after recording two songs for a
