Everything about this cool little tape that showed up in the mail one day hit the spot, the bright red tape, with silver metallic lettering, the eye popping crocheted cover art... Everything that is except the band name, not sure why, but the name Oxykitten just had us imagining the music would be way too twee, to cutesy, too fey, a sort of Hello Kitty vibe, but in the interest of not judging a book by its cover, or a tape by its band name, we threw it on, and BAM. Or POW. Or KABLOW. Or whatever sound would indicate you that you just stumbled on the bad ass, old school electro synth lo-fi party jam of the summer. Or whenever. The opening track is a killer, with super buzzy synths, some simulated 'meow's, retro drum machines, thick deep ominous synth basslines, the melodies weirdly haunting, a weird combo of mysterious and groovy, creepy and funky, with some rad squiggly synth freakouts, very soundtracky, or like the music to the best video game you've never played. The closest reference might be Black Moth Super Rainbow or Tobacco, that sort of lo-fi 8-bit bastardized hip hop, but the sound here is way more retro, and weird. That aforementioned opener throws in some creepy John Carpenterisms too, as if Carpenter had scored Castlevania for the Sega Saturn.
The rest of the record definitely mixed it up, from super stripped down electro grooves, to goofy vocoder driven electropop, to fuzzed out Ed Banger style synth blowouts, to full on 8-bit videogame music, to wild and seriously damaged eighties party jams, to awesome, creepy soundtracky creepscapes, and on and on and on. Definite contender for party jam tape of the year, odds are a bunch of these songs will end up on summer fun mix tapes, or get blasted at full volume from car stereos, or at the very least, get pumped through those headphones, rollerskates, parachute pants and satin jackets optional.
Bright red cassette, full color eye popping covers, and a download code for those of you who no longer sport that walkman clipped to your belt...
B-Music's "Anatolian Invasion" continues. We reviewed the Selda album a few weeks ago, now it's time for the one with the monkey on the cover, the incredibly groovy 1973 instrumental album from this super-obscure Turkish artist Mustafa Ozkent and his "orkestrasi". We're told (and we believe it) that this is one REALLY obscure album, definitely a find for any digger and a welcome reissue from the discerning heads at Finders Keepers/B-music. It's simply jazzy, sazzy, dancefloor fodder here folks, nothing but a party y'all. Fuzz guitar and Turkish trad. folk grooves like we like, but done all badass as if the JBs, "funky drummer" included, were ushered into the studio with a bunch of Turkish musicians, each teaching the other some new tricks. '70s funk, Istanbul-style! Totally full of beats and breaks that pioneering hip hop DJs woulda been all over, had hip hop originated in the on the banks of the Bosphorus rather than in the Bronx... The acid organ spasms and rhythmic workouts found here are still fresh and fun today. We know a lot of you dig the Turkish psych reissues we've been freaking on, this one should definitely appeal to those who liked the '70s cop show car chase sounding numbers found on the Edip Akbayram reish. Ten tracks, 30 minutes, and your body WILL be moving long before you need to hit "play" again to start it over.
Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites by Tower Recordings member P.G. Six (aka Pat Gulber), released in 2001, is definitely one of our very favorite albums from amongst the current crop of acid-folk revivalists, melding trad folksiness with 4-track DIY experimentation, something like the Incredible String Band checking into the Neutral Milk Hotel! And P.G.'s 2004 follow-up, The Well of Memory, was pretty great too. So that now the Amish label has brought out another P.G. Six album has us all excited. But wait, there's no singing? And no guitar?
Yet, what we're hearing is quite lovely, late-night string shimmer... dark and delicate... just something rather more abstract (and instrumental) than what we expected. Turns out that Music From The Sherman Box Series is all -harp- music, seven tracks for various sorts of harps and effects. For instance: "#2 For Prepared Wire Strung Harp With Tremolo Pedal", "#5 For Two Bray Harps", etc. We're told P.G. recorded these to accompany an exhibition of paintings and collages (made from Nat Sherman cigarette boxes, hence the title) by artist Christine Krol, on display in a Jersey City gallery for a month last year. P.G.'s mellifluous, electronically processed strummings and pluckings of these droning, buzzing harps must have sounded wonderful as a sonic installation, looped in the gallery space, but are surely just as nice heard on this disc. We're reminded of Steven R. Smith's work as Hala Strana, and also the unfolding atmospheres of James Blackshaw's steel string improvisations. Which means, quite recommended! And it still sounds like P.G., too -- in fact Kerry, not knowing what was playing on the stereo here, correctly guessed that this was the new P.G. Six just 'cause she recalled a particularly harp-y part from Parlor Tricks, and made the connection.
As a bonus, this disc concludes with two extra tracks. From P.G. Six's long out of print 1995 debut solo 7" there's the twelve-minute, hauntingly droney and drifting "The Book Of Rayguns For 6 Electric Guitars". And then there's also "Cartographies For Piano And Electronics", a stark piece in an avant-garde, 20th Century classical style. Both fit nicely with the seven harp explorations, which themselves bring some 20th century compositional (minimalist) adventurousness to folkier-feeling music.
Anyone into the magical vibe of late '60s/early '70s British psych folk must get this, the absolutely lovely solo debut from multi-instrumentalist and Tower Recordings founding member Pat Gulber. Together with percussionist/producer Tim Barnes, he's taken
We didn't get to reviewing this right away even though we've been big fans of P.G. Six in the past (especially his debut album Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites, an all-time fave here) maybe just 'cause the painting of the pink Cadillac on the cover made us a little wary. Someone should be "Slightly Sorry" for that artwork! But rest assured, the music on P.G.'s Slightly Sorry is again the mellow, melodic, timeless folk-indie-pop we expect from him, the influence of his '60s/'70s British folk scene inspirations still strong (the likes of Nick Drake, Fairport, Pentangle, Incredible String Band), with a Sandy Denny/Linda Thompson element added on two of the tracks by the guest female vocals provided by his Tower Recordings bandmate Helen Rush. But we also hear some Neil Young and Byrds too for sure, 'specially on the more "band" sounding cuts, though it's the hushed and intimate tracks with just P.G.'s acoustic guitar and his calm, plain voice that thrill us the most.
This album is definitely representin' the more polished side of the P.G. Six sound, and should please those who really loved Well Of Memory, as it's not so much about the rustic 4-track DIY experimentation of his Parlor Tricks disc, let alone the harp string dronology of last year's Music From The Sherman Box Series cd.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
P.G. Six is Pat Gubler from Tower Recordings and friends, and his 2001 debut album Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites was a stand-out DIY psych-folk album from that -- or any -- year. Melancholic, beautiful indie-folk music by someone whose battered 4-track seemed possessed by the spirit of '60s Brit-folk like the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention. So this new one was eagerly anticipated by quite a few of us and our friends, yourself perhaps included. Verdict: maybe it's not quite as magical as his first one...but then that's often the way it goes. Parlour Tricks we knew would be hard to beat. And this IS super nice. But just a little more polished sounding. The production is less Neutral Milk Hotel than before I guess you could say, more 'pro' (maybe he got a fancier 4-track, or went digital?)... But that's not much of a complaint when the results are this heavenly. The Well Of Memory is a fine, understated album, and can only add to what we someday may call the legend of P.G. Six. It's still full of both his old-timey acoustic folk stylings and electric guitar droning; a pleasant plethora of sad, slow psychedelic songs (and one incongrous rock number). Pat's tired, lilting vocals fit in equally well with trad. folk melodies and backwards guitar effects.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Now on vinyl! P.G. Six is Pat Gubler from Tower Recordings and friends, and his 2001 debut album Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites was a stand-out DIY psych-folk album from that -- or any -- year. Melancholic, beautiful indie-folk music by someone whose battered 4-track seemed possessed by the spirit of '60s Brit-folk like the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention. So this new one was eagerly anticipated by quite a few of us and our friends, yourself perhaps included. Verdict: maybe it's not quite as magical as his first one...but then that's often the way it goes. Parlour Tricks we knew would be hard to beat. And this IS super nice. But just a little more polished sounding. The production is less Neutral Milk Hotel than before I guess you could say, more 'pro' (maybe he got a fancier 4-track, or went digital?)... But that's not much of a complaint when the results are this heavenly. The Well Of Memory is a fine, understated album, and can only add to what we someday may call the legend of P.G. Six. It's still full of both his old-timey acoustic folk stylings and electric guitar droning; a pleasant plethora of sad, slow psychedelic songs (and one incongrous rock number). Pat's tired, lilting vocals fit in equally well with trad. folk melodies and backwards guitar effects.
We've been reviewing tons of amazing Chinese indie rock and experimental underground rock over the last year, we even made one record by the duo White+ our Record Of The Week, but have also raved about Boyz & Girl and Dear Eloise, and if you come in the store, you'll see a Chinese Rock section overflowing with artists and titles, that we're attempting to gradually get reviewed and up on the site. One of those groups is P.K.14, one of the longest running (going on 15 years now) and most respected bands in the Chinese underground, and beyond, having won lots of awards and performed with lots of big name bands, this newest record found the band flying to the US and recording with none other than Steve Albini. But don't be expecting any sort of noise rock, P.K.14 are more like Television, or maybe the Talking Heads, their sound stripped down and a little bit angular, the vocals in particular super distinctive, a keening croon, often soaring into a near falsetto, emotional and dramatic. But the music on 1984 definitely suits Albini's aesthetic, a darkly brooding hypnorock, that at times sounds a little bit like Nirvana, at others a bit like the Pixies, the sound slipping from angular jangle to moody minimalism, the traditional rock instrumentation augmented by piano, which is often employed in weirdly angular clusters, giving the sound a dark off kilter sound. And again, this is not super underground, not especially noisy or psychedelic or krautrocky or whatever. This is basically dark moody rock music, definitely bordering on mainstream, maybe an American analogue would be Radiohead, or the Editors, or something like that. But there's definitely some excellent songcraft going on here, and the production is fantastic. The lyrics are Chinese, which makes the sound more interesting as well, but on the lyric sheet are translated into English too, so you can (sort of) follow along. Very few copies of these, got them direct from the label, features some super twisted intense cover art, includes a printed inner sleeve with liner notes and lyrics in Chinese/English, and a download coupon as well!
We sold a whole bunch of the newest release from this Chinese outfit, one of the longest running and most respected groups in the Chinese underground, but as we explained in that review, not so underground. Unlike a lot of the other Chinese bands we've been championing of late, P.K.14 are extremely well known, and have won many awards, and performed with big bands at huge venues, but nonetheless, that record, 1984, was a big hit around here. Recorded in the US with Steve Albini, we described that record as sounding like Television or Talking Heads, so we were curious to hear what P.K.14 sounded like earlier on, assuming it would be more raw and less polished, which in fact proved to be true, but even here, several records before their 1984 album, the band sound pretty mature, dark and brooding, their sound more akin to maybe Radiohead or The National or the Afghan Whigs.
The opener is a ballady creep, all haunting piano, crooned vox, over a bed of distant static, and laced with little bits of electronic glitchery, spidery guitar filigree and barely there percussion, a brooding bit of minimal slowcore that leads directly into something a bit more upbeat, the second track laced with violin, guitars that jangle and chime, woozy wandering basslines, a little bit angular, all building to a soaring string laden chorus, dramatic and bombastic, and sonically very much more mainstream. And while they are essentially a mainstream band, that doesn't keep them from experimenting, the whole record rife with interesting sonic oddities, little stretches of hushed guitar texture, big booming drum blowouts, buzzing guitars processed to sound like synths, programmed drum machines, weird crumbling lo-fi riffs dotting more standard sounding rock songs, in fact while the songs themselves tend toward more standard rock forms, they're all separated by weird little experimental interludes, that experimentalism finding its way into many of the songs proper. Cool stuff for sure. Not nearly as freaky and far out as much of the Chinese stuff we champion, but if you dig modern rock, and wanna check out the Chinese equivalent, and/or if you dug their 1984 record, which we reviewed a while back, give this one a try (too)!
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Following their warm and wonderful chamber pop album The Den, P:ano shift gears into slightly more varied moods and an occasional peppier pace with Brigadoon. They kick things off in bright Beach Boys-y pop fashion for the first two tunes. Then, with its shining female vocals, the third song comes marching in sounding like it could be a Claudia Gonson-sung Magnetic Fields song. Nice! For the fourth "He Will Come Beck To Me" [sic] they hush things down a bit into their more familiar sounding slower lushness, but then it's right back into 'Fields-esque territory with synths and programmed beats. Plus we noted that much like Stephin Merritt, they'll (consciously or not) occasionally nab a melodic or lyrical phrase from an old tune and encorporate it into their own song. For example in the album's deliciously glorious tenth song "Pure Evil", the familiar lyric "break it to them gently when you tell them that I won't be coming home again" pops up. Hmmm, perhaps it's a sly fellow-Canuck nod to Burton Cummings (of '70s Canadian classic rockers The Guess Who) who originally wrote and performed the song "Break It To Them Gently" back in 1978? As well, they lyrically reference other songs by title -- slipping in mention of old classics like "I Only Have Eyes For You", "Ten Cents A Dance", and "I Could've Danced All Night" among others. They certainly apply all shades of the pop spectrum to their music, at times bringing to mind Danielson Family, Quasi, Rufus Wainwright (particularly the final song "The True Light") and a few of those Elephant Six Collective bands such as Of Montreal, Dressy Bessy, and The Minders. In a sense, the members of this band sing and play like learned music students who graduated at the top of their class, and this is their season finale stage performance. If you think of it that way, the broad selection of styles and references seems not at all surprising. The one tune that sticks out oddly is the very highschool musical sounding fourteenth song "Sweet Sweets". While P:ano certainly draw from stage-y theatrical influences (you might recognize the album title as also being the name of the old Lerner & Loewe musical), this single song comes across as a sorta wonky contrast to the more elegantly performances on the rest of the album. Ah, but there's 21 (!) other lovely, uplifting songs on the album that more than make up for it!
Warm up your chilly spring eves (at least here in SF!) with this cozy album. Vancouver's P:ano craft unassuming, pretty-pretty, lush chamber pop. This is the follow-up to their 2002 debut When It's Dark and It's Summer. It's definitely more confident and composed than its hushed, slightly shamblin' predecessor. Each song's melodies are carried mainly on... yes, piano! with some great horn and swirling string accompaniments and the gentlest of percussion. Lilting laidback male and female vocals melt sweetly like marshmallows in your hot chocolate drawing fitting comparisons to Scottish dreamies The Delgados. Recommended.
Shh! It's the debut P:ano album, and it's a quiet one! This Vancouver, BC-based group led by Nick Krgovich are hushed and somber, but not depressing at all, with muffled piano, sad drums foregrounded, non-cloying cello, and earnestly tooted horns. The dusty, reminiscing tone is quite similar to the Nashville collective Lambchop, and it also recalls the first, stellar Archer Prewitt (Coctails) album. The delicate, mostly male vocals totally remind me of Alan Sparhawk -- and that's not the only Low comparison that's appropriate with this very Low-inspired outfit, although P:ano is a little more sing song-y than Low is, a little lighter -- bittersweet instead of spooky, if you know what I mean. A trifle shambolic and about to fall apart, in a good way. A pleasant debut.
Many of us can still remember the exact moment three summers ago that the Finnish group Paavoharju entered our lives. Their debut album Yha Hamaraa seemed to have come out of nowhere and soon became one of those records that we turned to again and again for an enveloping aural escape. So needless to say we've been anxiously anticipating this follow-up, and we're thrilled to say it's finally here. And in a day and age where quality control has been thrown out the window, it's actually pretty refreshing to find that there are still some folks out there with the patience and commitment to take their time in crafting their art, ensuring that it will live on in our ears and hearts for years and years to come. Paavoharju have done just that with their follow-up to Yha Hamaraa. With the subtly familiar yet fresh sounding Laulu Laakson Kukista, they have somehow raised the bar even higher, with a record that truly inhabits its own world. A place that is filled with flashbacks to a romantic and tragic old world, an oceanic daydream and a wide aerial view of lush green open fields where down below a secret magical world exists. It's actually quite tricky to try to describe the sound of this record as almost every song offers another view of their deliciously unique soundworld. Listening to Laulu Laakson Kukista is sort of like watching a Guy Maddin film, as the songs and sounds on the album feel as if they are at times in classic grainy black & white and other times in the most stunning and vibrant technicolor. There are songs that you could actually kind of maybe dance to ("Kevatrumpu"), songs that should be the theme of the Olympics the next time it's in Finland ("Uskallan"), and songs that conjure images of lost fairytales, musical radio plays, epic voyages, fantastical moments and interrupted daydreams.
It's actually so damn rare these days for a group to truly have its own sound but you just can't really compare Paavoharju to almost anyone else around. It might have been subconscious but after listening to this record several times we started hanging out a lot with David Bowie's album Low. As the otherworldly second side of that album brings us to a similar space as Laulu. We also imagine Kate Bush, Bjork, Robert Wyatt, Edith Piaf and Kurt Weill at the twilight of their careers, transported into the middle of nowhere in Northeast Europe, and dosed with some magic mushrooms before entering the forest to record a record together.
It's been a long while since a new recording has captured our imagination and allowed us to get as lost in its vision as this one has. Once again Paavoharju have created a collection of magical sounds that will continue to keep us warmly embraced and mesmerized with each subsequent listen!
PS: The vinyl came and went and we're waiting for more...
We love so much music coming out of Finland these days. Last year Paavoharju's debut Yha Hamaraa on Fonal Records charmed us silly. If you haven't heard it yet, by golly you'd better get with the program! So we were mighty excited to hear that the group has returned with a 2-song vinyl 7", allowing us another fleeting glimpse into their unique gloriously hazy dream world. Side A features an enchanting blurry folk number with male vocals, while Side B has a delicate, contemplative instrumental. It seems almost cruel to release this group's music in such a short format, for their music is so immersive it's utterly addictive. More please.
Oh how we adore the Finnish label Fonal Records -- home to the likes of Kemialliset Ystavat, Islaja, Kiila and Es. And now, won't you please kindly welcome the newest addition to the Fonal roster, Paavoharju! We can say that that welcoming 'em is not such a difficult thing to do 'cause they sure do make some wonderful music! In fact, Cup (and Jim for that matter) has listened to it almost every day since its arrival. It's true!
Note: We don't want to deny anyone the pristine 'first listen' magic that we experienced. We can attest that it was a sheer delight packed with many surprises, and our fondness has only grown with each listen. So if you want your introductory spin to be 'pure', please be forewarned that this review contains what some might call spoilers... that means stop reading now!
In many ways Paavoharju can be likened to fellow enchanting Finnish artists Lau Nau and Fonal labelmates Islaja, but their finely detailed yet loosely strung music is considerably more melted and collaged and electronic. Listening to Yha Hamaraa is almost like eavesdropping on a dream... or having someone else's heartbreaking memories come back to hazily haunt you. Sounds, voices and melodies drift in and out of focus, occasionally overlapping and seeping into one another. Sometimes it seems like you're listening to a rickety old radio with the dial set between stations so that the sounds somehow magically fit together. Odd faintly familiar elements make their presence felt such as in the ninth song where the male vocal melody brought to mind a twisted folk (and of course very Finnish) version of "Stairway To Heaven". The swooping, trebly female vocals find their own special place between Indian film music singers and the Southeast Asian voices that surface on the similarly (un)structured Sublime Frequencies travelogue field recording compilations. And reference must be made to Bjork as well! Now after having read this far in our review, you might find the very first track with its swell of distorted static-y noise to be somewhat unexpected, disorienting even, but we encourage you to go with it (and with us). Allow the wash of sounds to transport you into Paavoharju's intoxicating world. Completely and utterly breathtaking.
FINNISH MUSIC FREEKS HEADS UP!!! A brand new release from a name you may not recognize, but you definitely know some of the bands he spent time in: Avarus, Anaksimandros, Maniac's Dream�
Fricara Pacchu may have a pretty illustrious Finnish underground musical resume, but weirdly enough, he began his musical career as a rapper, though you'd be hard pressed to tell from this, his debut solo 7".
And while you can definitely hear some of the above mentioned bands in these three songs, the sound is something else entirely, much more jangly and poppy, three little chunks of druggy, dreamy psychedelic confection. The opening track has a bit of a Krautrocky groove, some Eastern sounding sitar-like buzz, and swirling clouds of trippy FX, but they're wrapped around some sunshine-y jangle, it's like Avarus playing Olivia Tremor Control. The second track is more lo-fi and druggy, a gorgeously plodding tripped out drift of woozy piano, still MORE effects, spidery guitars, all coated in morning dew and dappled with sunlight.
The flipside is a bit less poppy, a sort of noisy soft industrial, lots of smeared grind and clank, but piled atop lovely melodies and hazy ambience, and distant moaning guitars, and with a strange staticky rhythm holding it all together. It definitely reminds us of our favorite Finnish free folk, but also like the Storm Bugs or some lost recording you might hear on one of those deluxe Vinyl On Demand reissues. A gorgeous slab of damaged experimental psychpop jangle, we can hardly wait for a full length.
The packaging is extra special. Included with the full color sleeve is a thick eye popping book of Pacchu's artwork, 7" x 4", stapled but on thick matte paper, drawings, collages, photos, squiggles, snakes, motorcycles, garish colors, intricate patterns, negative images and more. Folks who dug the Glomp books of Finnish art will definitely dig this too, and the images in the booklet seem like what you might see if you closed your eyes and played the record. The perfect visual analogue for Pacchu's druggy trippy soundworld.
Funnily enough, both Allan and Andee independently reviewed this, each unaware that the other was also writing a review. Whoops. The above is Andee's, below is Allan's for comparison (turns out their duplication of effort was remarkably similar, which is as it should be we suppose!):
First off, that cover art makes this pretty hard to resist. A simple painting of a weird-looking furry cat sitting next to a daisy... with the artist's incongruously black-metal suggestive logo floating overhead. That this 3 track, 11 minute 7" is from Finland, and on the ever-reliable Fonal label, is also a good thing. Fricara Pacchu being a member of such illustrious underground Finnish outfits as Anaksimandros, Avarus, and Maniacs Dream is further reason to be interested. But the proof's really in the pudding, or in our business, the music, so let's take a listen....
First track "Bianca's Beachparty" is an uptempo, uplifting utterly psychedelic instrumental home-recorded techno-disco number that immediately makes us think BOREDOMS. Crunchy, burbling synths zig and zag over a steady, insistent rhythm. Magic. We're sold. The other two tracks, "Upsidedown Wind" and "Text-Message From Beyond", are equally cool, woozy instrumental space-outs, not quite so "techno" tho. And what's also pretty cool is the 42-page, full-color booklet of Pacchu's cartoon/comic/collage art that comes with this 7"! Lots of insane eyeball-joy to be had here. If you liked those Glomp books we've listed, you'll dig this. This 7" package is presumably limited, we have just a few and may or may not be able to get more...
With countless miles of tireless touring under their belts, guitarist/vocalist Becky Black and drummer Maya Miller have honed their chops which has allowed them some freedom to explore other musical possibilities in and around their snarling rawk core. Claims of this album venturing radically from the pair's core sound have been bandied about plenty by both the band and their label, however we think it's a bit of an overstatement 'cause Unpersons actually doesn't sound like such a huge departure from their previous three albums. It definitely shows them stretching their lanky creative limbs - a bit more slick, a bit more bombastic, a broader range of tempos and temperaments - but Black's throaty soulful yowl and low slung guitar playing and Miller's primal pound are still in full effect. And wisely so, because the power of The Pack A.D.'s music lies in bluesy garage rock's sock-you-in-the-gut immediacy. Having garage rock producer kingpin Jim Diamond (White Stripes, Detroit Cobras, Dirtbombs, etc.) at the helm only strengthens those tethers. It's understandable that four albums down the line you'd get itchy to try something new, and we're sure they're tired of all of the comparisons to the White Stripes. Mind you, those same comparisons are also what likely drove plenty of new fans their way, right? And besides, it ain't like the White Stripe have released any new tunes lately! So, maybe this album does sound and feel different to them, maybe they did do things differently in the studio during the recording sessions, but the final results sound like the tried and true Pack A.D. If it ain't broken.... Just get yer bluesy garage rawk fix right here.
Barebones garage blues rock will never go outta style. The musical style's core balance of simplicities and rudimentaries make it fairly to easy for bands to get started. Likewise, that primal, from the gut quality is also a major part of the reason why its appeal is so immediate. Without question it's super fun to play, but just as elusive to really nail. Seems each year brings another revival. There'll always be a fresh bunch of upstart ne'er do wells to carry on the torch - especially in the wake of the White Stripes, The Black Keys and their legions of copycats - but just as many who soon falter and fall off the radar. That said, it seems like there's been enough breathing room for the Vancouver female duo The Pack A.D. to stomp out its own genuine garage grit in mighty fine form. Funeral Mixtape is their remarkably razor sharp and composed live-to-tape sophomore album. Their stripped down instrumentation of electric guitar and drums surely make it a breeze to play every nook'n'cranny on the road, and they've tirelessly done so! As a result singer/guitarist Becky Black and drummer Maya Miller have their chops pretty darn tuned into each other's. Be forewarned, initially from their press photos we thought they resembled a leather-clad Indigo Girls, but these ladies are an altogether different brooding beast. A few soulfully expressive phrases out of Black's lips made that perfectly clear. Funeral Mixtape is a fierce, loose rocker peppered with plenty of raw nerves and open wounds. Far more unrelenting than their piano interlude laced debut full length Tintype of only a few months earlier! Plenty of smokin' stomp, raunch and swagger.
Psst, we've also just gotten in a few other new and new-to-us titles on this fine Vancouver indie label by Neko Case's early band Maow, The Awkward Stage, Buttless Chaps and Immaculate Machine!
We'd been meaning to list this for a while now, the lp debut of Paco Sala, aka Antony Harrison, who normally does time in the outfit Konntinent. In Paco Sala, he indulges his love of hip hop and synth pop and Italo Disco, but in a way that obscures/obfuscates those influences, recasting them as part of a slightly darker sonic vision. The vibe hazy and ethereal, dubbed out rhythms, and woozy melodies, the sound a glorious slo-mo soul drag, synths drifting above chopped and screwed rhythms, whispered vox, softly psychedelic and ominously soulful, definitely reminds us of Burial and How To Dress Well, although Paco Sala's M.O. is definitely more home brewed and abstract.
The female vocals first surface on the second track, a lazy, sultry croon over a skeletal beat, and a dense swirl of swoonsome synths and fractured melodies, more dubbed out beats, and soaring strings, the whole thing infused with some pulsing electro skitter. Lush and lovely, late night electro soul dream dub that displays shades of Portishead, and other nocturnal purveyors of downtempo sopor, but again, the sound of Paco Sala is much more fractured, beats splinter and spin into the ether, melodies seem to melt and ooze, the vocals wraithlike, wind their way through these sprawling expanses of beat driven shimmer. In places, the sound does crystallize, and sheds some of that hazy murk, revealing more of a soul pop core, but inevitably, the sounds drift back into some woozy netherworld, where Harrison's mad scientist sonic alchemy results in some gorgeously lysergic, electro-soul witch-dub weirdness.
Brand new full length of hushed minimal pastoral psychedelia from the duo of Spencer Grady and Steven Lewis, who also do time in aQ fave Rameses III, and like we mentioned in the review of the cd ep we listed a while back, the sound of Padang Food Tigers is like a more minimal version of the sound of their main group, the songs lush layered expanses of hushed folky drift, laced with field recordings, the sound of rainfall seems to run throughout, as if the listener was eavesdropping on some intimate back porch rainy day jam.
Most of the songs here feature just a couple instruments, usually guitar, banjo, lapsteel, piano, even harmonica, the song a gradual unfurling of some lazy woozy melody, the sound rich with room sound, a lush natural reverb, a dream like echo, the opener introduces the record with the sound of rain, over which a haunting piano plays a funereal lament, accompanied by banjo, the two playing out a skeletal harmony, often making it difficult to tell which is which, the perfect intro to such an introspective record.
Much of the record is like some sort of abstract, Appalachia, subtle strum, slippery slide, all spread way out, letting notes flutter and fade, spinning surprisingly lush streaks of warm whirring buzz, the tracks with banjo sound like slow motion bluegrass, other tracks introduce more natural sounds, rushing rivers, chirping crickets, and suddenly the jam seems to have moved creekside, the notes bouncing off the porch and joining the sounds of the woods and water, a few of the tracks build and become epic and emotional, like the soaring majesty of "Right Up Rosster", a lush swirl of strummed high end steel strings and warm piano chords, the sound almost liturgical, but so dreamy and divine.
And the record finishes with a bit of music box like melody, woven into some spare late night folk, all warm and lit by flickering firelight, a darkly dreamy finish to a darkly dreamy record. So nice.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, already sold out at the label!
Another back room discovery, a little stash of these until-now-unreviewed discs, 2008's Pause For The Jet, from aQ fave Daniel Padden, whose solo records we ended up digging way more than his day job in Volcano The Bear. Not to slag VtB, but Padden on his own, manages to create gorgeously head spinning, fractured and fantastical worlds of sound, schizophrenic and chaotic for sure, leaping willynilly from all out noise assault to lilting folk, from murky drone to twangy ethereal drift, which in other hands could definitely be jarring and disorienting, and, well... hell, it still is in Padden's hands, but there's just something about the way he strings all those disparate sounds together that works. Although works in a way that will most likely not be obvious to the casual listener, but by now, anyone into weird homebrewed sounds, will no doubt find much to dig here (and anyone whole loved Padden's other discs, you're probably gonna want this too!).
Pause For The Jet seems to tend toward the drone and the drift, sort of, 17 songs most of them pretty short, some as short as 30 seconds, the longest almost 5 minutes, but the rest hovering between 1 and 3 minutes, which might frustrate some, looking for long, slowly unfurling dronescapes, but taken as brief bits of droning sound and twisted melodic weirdness, PFTJ is a pretty appealing listen. Stretches of ethereal shimmer, underpinned by plonking piano and low slung bass, slip into maddeningly fractured collages of varispeed tape manipulation, hazy blurred drift and disembodied pump organ, detuned twang flecked campfire folk gives way to hushed melancholic thrum, Tow Waits-ish back alley cabaret is peppered with Ribot like guitar buzz and still more tape weirdness, elsewhere strings keen and buzz and bombinate, Padden croons beautifully over skeletal melodies, dark swells of thumping upright bass pulse beneath Herrmann like strings and noisy percussion, the record lumbering back and forth between atonal skronk, and haunting avant lo-fi folk, psychedelic shimmer, and disembodied ghostlike creep.
Another one we have VERY few copies of, so act fast...
Daniel Padden, of English improvisational psych-folksters Volcano the Bear, creates meandering, lovely music that has received comparisons to artists as accomplished as This Heat, Soft Machine, and Art Ensemble of Chicago. Distant and spooky to warm and languid, "The One Ensemble Of..." features subtle improv mixed with sparse, repetetive, melodic piano, and manges to make kazoos sound sad and beautiful. Instrumentation also includes violin, cello, saxophone, harmonium, ballaphon (like a Ghanian xylophone), and other "little instruments." A wistful, gorgeous and strange album.
As much as we dig UK musical experimentalists Volcano The Bear and their disjointed sonic surrealism, VtB member Daniel Padden has always managed to take that sound of theirs even further, somewhere else entirely, to a place where his juxtapositions coalesce into a dark and highly personal, mostly instrumental melancholia. Meandering and thoughtful, like a twilight walk through a musical forest, just wandering, laying down on the ground when the mood strikes you, gazing at patches of sky through the dense canopy of leaves, feeling the wet earth soak through your clothes, shivering as small insects crawl all over you tickling your skin, squinting as you're blinded by a brilliant shaft of sunlight that breaks through the trees, then melts into the forest floor beneath while you're sprinkled with a fine mist as the wind looses the condensation from the branches. This not-so-precise effect is achieved with reverby pianos in vast expanses of space, slippery slide guitar, plinkety plonk keyboards, soaring minor key strings, Appalachian guitar picking over squirming beds of bombinating drones. Padden's dense buzzing ragas are all dreamy and melancholy and super intimate and personal sounding, but somehow at the same time are grandiose and epic, with occasional waltz-like marches, like chamber music for some outer space / otherworldly king and his court. Occasionally delicate and haunting, occasionally rambunctious and a little chaotic. But always totally beautiful and mesmerising and truly mysterious. Think somewhere between Eyvind Kang, the Sun City Girls, Kronos Quartet, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Jack Rose. All that and more is filtered through Padden's slightly skewed musical mind's eye.
From Cleveland, the land of Pere Ubu and The Electric Eels, comes the Pagans, totally essential, completely awesome late seventies scuzzed out punk rock. Noisy and sloppy and snotty and totally catchy. The lp includes 2 unreleased songs and two demos, one exclusive to the lp. The cd includes 3 unreleased tracks (as opposed to 4 on the vinyl) and tons of live stuff from 1979-1983
From Cleveland, the land of Pere Ubu and The Electric Eels, comes the Pagans, totally essential, completely awesome late seventies scuzzed out punk rock. Noisy and sloppy and snotty and totally catchy. The lp includes 3 unreleased tracks and 2 super rare tracks from 1979 including the studio demo of 'She's A Cadaver' which is only on the lp. The cd includes 4 extra studio tracks (as
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Twee folkster Michael Nau has such an endearingly bleaty voice sort of a cross between Daniel Johnston and John Lennon (especially on songs like "Bush"). But his voice also has a cool scratchy raspy Paul Westerberg quality, that adds even more emotion, like he's always about to break into a top-of-his-lungs croon, or like his voice is always just on the verge of cracking.
The songs are simple, but surprisingly lush, rife with impossibly memorable hooks, and lots of little melodic flourishes and subtle instrumental embellishments. Musically Page France is like a latecomer to the Elephant Six set with a SERIOUS Neutral Milk Hotel influence, from the guitar / vocal interplay, to the clever turns of phrase, even down to the not so veiled religious subtext. Lots of songs about Jesus and love and salvation, although not always obviously so. This could almost be some early Jeff Mangum project, recorded right before his voice changed. It has the same wide eyed innocence, the strange surreal psychedelia and the eclectic kitchen sink instrumentation as NMH, there's horns, super simple shuffling percussion, chimes, vibes and Nau also finds his perfect female counterpoint in the childlike croon of Whitney McGraw. So catchy and dreamy. Neutral Milk Hotel fans do NOT want to miss out on this...
Page France And The Family Telephone returns with another generous serving of twinkly twee pop! We liked his last album 2006's Hello Dear Wind very very much, so we welcome this new one with open arms. And it doesn't disappoint! Mainman Michael Nau's like a more child's view cousin of Destroyer or a prepubescent Flaming Lips. His toothsome storybook tales, singsong-y vocals and chiming melodies could easily have tumbled out of Mr. Rogers' Land Of Make Believe. Cute as a button!
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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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For those of you who dug their recent Satin Black release, here's Paik's sophomore full length from 2001 on which they harnessed their crashing post-rock waves of guitars and cymbals into something considerably more moody and space-y than its predecessor, the very My Bloody Valentine-esque Hugo Strange. Corridors aligns them more with bands such as Mogwai (who they themselves were an aural amalgam of MBV and Slint).
For those of you who dug their recent Satin Black release, here's Paik's debut album from 1998. Hugo Strange reveals that the band's beginnings were very much rooted in shoegazer territory. Upon reaching the center of the album you'll find the band applying some very noticeable My Bloody Valentine-isms -- lots of woozy, warped record guitar style effects. They stick in this hazy reverb and distortion drenched atmosphere for a few songs then take a turn into the land of post-rock fueled by a healthy dose of insistently down-strummed guitars.
This instrumental space rock trio from Michigan has been smoking heaping bowlfuls of the same stuff Hawkwind used to burn up and is thus churning out some serious space rock with mighty results. Spacious and sweeping, chugging with propulsive groove, but without the quiet-loud dynamics of post-rock bands like Mogwai, nor the shoe-gazing drone burners of bands like Growing and Belong. More like a 120 mph road-trip through Death Valley at sunset and the acid just kicked in.
On their newest 'full length' (although the cd only has five tracks, they're all nice and looooooong), Paik once again unfurl the darker, heavier and more ominous side of shoegazerin'. This Michigan-based space rock band pour on layer after layer of guitar washes which along with the thundering drums and crashing cymbals build to a hypnotic roar. An occasional melodic element will seep out from the dense creeping haze. Trippy, atmospheric and very much for fans of Bardo Pond, Kinski, Growing, Landing and Mogwai.
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First time on cd for this, the very first (1988) and long out of print album by Austin's Painteens. Even then, this industrial/experimental rock outfit (featuring the core duo of vocalist Bliss Blood and guitarist Scott Ayers) were no slackers at noisemaking. Painteens is a brutalist hybrid of Rhythm & Noise with Coil, cooked up in a Texas psychedelic punk laboratory. This cd also includes additional material from their fantastic early cassette releases.
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The Finnish band Paine (which in their language means not Pain, but Pressure) features at least three ex-members of Circle...and you can tell. Like Circle, Paine construct tight, repetitive riffs and rhythms, mostly instrumental. Darker and scarier though, with bombastic grooves and distorted vocal snippets. It's a sort of mechanical brutality, like Circle gone Industrial. Paine march in endless, relentless circles in a sci-fi wasteland. Paine, pressure, pleasure. This six-song cd-r is actually a reissue (with 2 additional tracks and new, fancy oversized packaging -- a blue vellum envelope with acetate inserts) of a previous limited cd-r release. This one's limited too (there's 150 of 'em), we've only got what we've got -- 12 copies -- and that's it.
Not many pop groups have won us over so utterly and completely as Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Their blissed out debut from a couple years back tapped into the best bits of '80s dream-pop and Sarah records glory, and the group created such infectious and fresh sounding songs that we've blasted so loud and so many times by now. With their follow up full length they return with an album that's a bit more meaty and fleshed out, featuring a much slicker production. Don't get us wrong the dreamy and breezy elements are still there, but they are accompanied by a more '90s sounding guitar rock vibe a la Smashing Pumpkins circa Siamese Dream, The Swirlies or Swervedriver. But under the ringing of the guitars is still that breeze and ease that makes POBPAH such the perfect band to listen to when you're cruising in a car on a sunny windy afternoon, or laying in the park with friends as you take a break from the harsh realities of the day to day. Carefree and rocking in such delightful ways.
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are responsible for one of our favorite albums of the year! Their debut full length which came out right at the beginning of 2009, was the sort of refreshing slab of pure pop bliss that we had been so starved for. It's a record that we still listen to with as much excitement and frequency as we did all those months ago. The way they are able to tap into that great dreamy '80s state of pop while still sounding so fresh and original has made it a record that's going to be on many of our year end favorite lists for sure.
So of course we were super excited to get a new ep from the Pains, they really are one of those rare bands that have made such an impact on us that just getting a handful of new songs from them is so damn exciting. What's even more exciting is that these songs are some of the best and most infectious they have written so far.
Influenced by that Sara records sound, Pains create songs that soar with such ease reminding you of being in the backseat of your best friends car with the window's down as you heard The Smiths playing for the first time. With the recent passing of John Hughes, these are the kind of songs you know he would have wanted to be on the soundtrack for a movie like The Breakfast Club or Pretty In Pink if they they been made today. So romantic and yearning and with a distinctly daydream spirit we've already fallen head over heels for. Another amazing set of songs from one of our favorite new bands!
The cd version comes with an extra track not on the vinyl which is a really cool remix of the title track by Saint Etienne.
We were super excited when we first heard about this single, assuming of course that it was gonna be a cover of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy", but once we got over our initial disappointment (or not), we were still pretty psyched to discover, that it was in fact still a cover, but a Magnetic Fields cover, and as you might imagine, the song suits TPOBPAH's sound perfectly, so much so, that had we not been familiar with the original, we would not have doubted for a second that it could have been an Pains original. Jangly, and propulsive, bouncy and hooky as hell, the vox here are handled by one of the boys in Pains, even though the cover apparently has deep meaning for Pains vocalist Peggy Wang, who found solace as a teenager in the music of the Magnetic Fields.
The flipside is another cover, this one originally by East River Pipe, and another perfect choice, supercharging the original, wreathing it in wild swaths of distorted guitar, and sheets of feedback, a heavy heady chunk of shoegazey jangle pop, that definitely finds Pains at their most rocking, and also had us thinking we should dig out our old East River Pipes, which is precisely what the best covers should do...
This gets us so excited for a new full length from Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, which we're hoping will grace our ears sometime MUCH sooner than later. These two songs are for sure up there with the band's most satisfying and addictive slabs of sweeping dream pop glory! "Heart In Your Heartbreak" sounds like a classic even the first time you hear it. Like the best of their songs it takes you to this place of carefree bliss, yet evokes memories filled with crashing waves, epic sunsets, and car-rides you hoped would last forever. The B side "The One", starts off with a rad Superchunk-like guitar riff and then mutates into a Creation records sort of sound which they have totally perfected and somehow made their very own.
Comes in a nice sturdy sleeve with beautiful cover art by Winston Chmielinski that was so immediately striking, it sent us in search of more of his work, realizing we had just discovered one of our new favorite artists!
Over the last couple years no pop band has won over our ears and hearts more then Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Their full length and follow up ep displayed a band capable of creating highly addictive, breezy and melodic pop crafted so meticulously. So two new songs from them is something to celebrate for sure. And they continue their amazing streak of not releasing a single dud yet. It's true every song on the amazing debut full length and the Higher Than The Stars ep were all absolute winners. The kind of records where every few weeks you listen, you have a new favorite song. These two new jams find the band at their most sun kissed, songs perfect for cracking the window and feeling the soft breeze on a warm summer afternoon. While it will always be hard to talk about them without mentioning the sound of classic romantic UK pop of the '80s like The Smiths, James, and The Field Mice, there is no doubt that Pains Of Being Pure at heart have employed those influences with greater results then so many others. And in the process they have created their own take on that classic sound, which all bands that follow in their footsteps will now be be judged by.
Oh how we've fallen in love with this band from New York. Not only are they one of the cutest bands around, but they have beautiful pop chops as well, making them not just nice to look at but so totally fun and engaging to listen to.
Their full length has become one of those records we've listened to more then almost anything else this year and is sure to find its way on to many of our year end favorite lists. Their take on the Smiths / Creation Records dreamy jangle pop with a punch is not only endearing, but also addictive, as we've grown to love their songs more and more with repeated listens. So if you already have the full length, you already have one of these two songs, the great, infectious stand out track "Young Adult Friction" but luckily the 'b' side which is a non album track called "Romana" makes this slab of wax well worth it anyway, especially for those of us utterly smitten by these Pure At Heart Pains. That track displays the more midtempo, daydreamy and lingering side of the band. The 7" comes pressed on cool reddish colored vinyl.
Hey Slumberland, where have you been? It turns out that the Oakland label didn't disappear after a lengthy hiatus from 2000 to 2007; and we'll admit that we didn't take too much notice of what these indie-rock tastemakers had been doing as of late until they released the Crystal Stilts masterpiece Alight The Night. And, after that ecstatic burst of noise & bliss pop on the Crystal Stilts disc, Slumberland delivers another great record that, well, sounds exactly like a Slumberland record should. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart hail from Brooklyn, but they could have easily been any number of the bands spawned by the C86 revolution of indie-pop around the likes of the Pastels, Heavenly, and of course My Bloody Valentine (circa Ecstasy & Wine, mind you). Within the not-quite-shoegazing wall of sound, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart craft a brightly jangling set of tunes, some of which get anthemic and punchy with all of the panache of a great power pop number with boy/girl vocals crooning all sorts of "oooohs" and "aaahs", and others smacking of a sugary '60s bubblegum jingle with all of the softened edges that Alan McGee wanted in every Creation band around 1990. For all of the British references that make their way into the Pains, they really sound a hell of lot like so many of those bands that made Slumberland so great to begin with: The Lilys, Velocity Girl, and Black Tambourine. We're not complaining one bit!
