As the witch house genre falls out of favor, bands that were part of the first wave (and second, and third�), seem to be reinventing themselves, often without changing their sound all that much, just rebranding it as something less flavor-of-the-month, but witch housers Pink Playground have definitely pushed past the strictures of witch house, and thankfully dragged much of what we loved about that stuff with them, and fashioned it into a sort of ethereal shoegaze dream pop, with skittery skeletal beats, angelic female vox, and lots of swirling synths, and billowy clouds of blurred melody, but they've also added some buzz and crunch, channeling classing noise pop shoegazers like Jesus And Mary Chain, as well as nineties outfits like the Swirlies, their jams delicately balanced between the sweet and dreamy, and the blown out and psychedelic. After a brief intro, that is definitely witch housey to these ears, the band launch into "Ten", that sounds like M83 if they were a bedroom dram pop band recording for Slumberland, the sound softly fuzzy and jangly, the sweet simple pop smothered in warm layers of buzz and thick tangles of melody, but as the track progresses the noise gets cranked up until the band are spitting out a serious din, bit even then, it's still impossibly sweet and poppy, which is pretty much how the whole rest of the record plays out, fuzzy, dreamy shoegaze noisepop, that should have fans of all things buzz and jangle, Slumberland and Spin Art, My Bloody Valentine and A Sunny Day In Glasgow, in buzzpop dream jangle heaven.
Pink Reason are another one of those bands we dig that for some reason has yet to make it onto the aQ list, but that changes now. Pink Reason is the work of one Kevin DeBroux (not to be confused with Quiet Riot's Kevin DuBrow, R.I.P), and seems to have found the perfect home on Siltbreeze, with a sound that's murky and jangly, a dirgey minimal noise rock, that's not so heavy on either the noise OR the rock, instead, the sounds are lo-fi and a little ramshackle, a bit folky, twisted and tangled, druggy and psychedelic, although the opening track on this new ep definitely threw us for a loop, with its weird glitched out electronic beats, which quickly erupt into full on drum and bass, all skittery and stuttery, wound around jangly minor key guitar, ghostly droney vocals, not sure it even works, but it's pretty cool, and on about our 2nd or 3rd listen we were digging it pretty heavily.
Nothing on the rest of the record is nearly so radical, although it's all pretty great, more like the other Pink Reason records, woozy Velvets-y drone rock with a distinctly hazy Shimmy Disc like production, all laid back vox, and warped druggy guitar lines, fuzzy almost classic rock sounding noiserock, the guitars so distorted and in-the-red the riffs seem to be melting and crumbling throughout the song, jangly reverb heavy garage pop, a little glammy and swaggery, sounding like eighties Australia or nineties New Zealand, and then there's some murky drugged out psychedelic space rock, and finally, a haunting bit of strummy abstract folk, all atonal strum and warbly whistled melodies, a little bit damaged and dreamily off kilter. Way recommended, as are the other Pink Reason records, reviewed or not.
Oh my God, yes! Finally the collected recordings of San Francisco's punk sweethearts Pink Section have been released to broader appreciation. Named after the San Francisco Chronicle's pink entertainment guide, the quartet of drummer Carol Detweiler, singer Judy Gittlesohn (both of Inflatable Boy Clams and Longshoremen), singer/guitarist Matt Heckert (Survival Research Laboratories) and bassist /keyboardist Stephen Wymore existed on the margins even in San Francisco's 1979 underground scene. Forming at the San Francisco Art Institute and haunting venues like The Deaf Club on Valencia Street and Mabuhay Gardens in North Beach, gigging with bands like Tuxedo Moon and The Units, their self-taught musicianship and songs playing up the dark side of domesticity and consumerism into an infectious and oft-kilter new wave artiness. Angular rhythms and infectious hooks, and alternating male and female vocals put them directly on a par with bands like Suburban Lawns, Devo and The B-52s, even if they were barely known outside of San Francisco. While they never released a full length, this compilation collects their 7" single, their 12" ep, unreleased demos and live material, even a Yoko Ono cover of "Midsummer New York". So great!!!! Download card included.
It's getting harder and harder to keep track of bands these days, considering how many have either 'pink' or 'skull' in their names, so it was inevitable that a band would finally combine both. So Pink Skull, another band mining the eighties, creating their own brand of new wave, Pink Skull's is tight and smooth and controlled, with a bit more of a house-y vibe than is usual with the new breed of retro 'wave revivalists, the beats propulsive and motorik, laced with fluttery flutes, horns, little flurries of falsetto vox, all wound into a sort of New Order / PiL space disco. Throbbing new wavey basslines, all sorts of chopped up samples and stuttery percussion, a bit psychedelic here and there, groovy, funky, definitely would sound right at home on DFA, but a bit more space-y and far out, with a few tracks getting all kosmiche, like Klaus Schulze with swooshing layers synths and crystalline melodies, mostly designed for the dancefloor for sure, but varied and interesting enough to merit some late night headphone exploration.
The covers seem to be different, with alternating titles printed on the front, also comes with two big fold out posters!
Record number two from weirdo eighties new wave revivalists Pink Skull, and it takes up right where their last record Endless Bummer, left off, mixing post punk with lysergic dream pop, eighties funk, and the occasional bit of housey disco, equally influenced by Television, the Fall, P.I.L, Lou Reed and New Order. Opener "Hot Bubblegum" sounds like something you might have heard some tight pants-ed spiky hair combo unfurl from the stage at CBGB's circa 1985, while "Mu" sounds like some sort of brooding summer funk ballad, laced with groovy synths, squiggly feedback, lo slung fuzz bass, thee's even a sax solo (those pop up all over the place). The awesomely titled "Either The Luminescent Wallpaper Goes, Or I Do" almost sounds like some sort of Zombi thing, pulsing soundtracky synths and programmed robotic funk, while "Janine Aubergine" sounds like later period David Bowie. "Bee Nose" is like a groovier M83, all shoegazey and blissed out, but still funky and fuzzy, "Summer Reading" sounds like something you would have heard on 120 Minutes, and "Late Night Eggs" is total Carpenter worship, woozy and moody and darkly dramatic, we could go on, but you definitely get the vibe, this is some twisted retro eighties synth pop weirdness, that should most definitely appeal to fans of James Ferraro, M83, Autre Ne Veut, D'eon, Greatest Hits, Gary War, Laurel Halo, Majeure, Trust, Soft Metals, etc.
You always gotta have a kick ass summer pop record. Even better if it's totally insanely glammy and catchy and bouncy and just a little snotty. And this latest blast of pink and black clad teenage kix hits the spot in a big way. We first heard the Pink Spiders on the internet as seems to be the trend these days. Their WAY big budget video for the insanely catchy Weezer-esqe "Little Razorblade" was making the rounds. Hard to resist for sure, not only was it a killer slab of synth drenched BIG guitar power pop, but the video featured a bevy of scantily clad ladies on roller skates. Summer indeed!
Teenage Graffiti may be heavy, with crunchy, slightly new wave guitars n' lots of fuzzy squelchy synths, and glammy too, with lots of snotty swagger, references to Hollywood and hairspray (and the band has a goofy over the top fashion sense, sort of bubblegum Melrose, always clad in black and pink), but at it's heart this is POP. Big bouncy super catchy POWER pop. Definitely shades of AQ faves the Stereo and post Stereo outfit the Let Go. And like most power pop the 'Spiders owe quite a bit to Big Star, Queen, the Posies, Weezer, Jellyfish, Sloan. But the Pink Spiders take all that classic pop and filter it through their own distinctly teenage vibe. Lots of playful melodies, handclaps, harmonies, jangle guitar, lyrics about girls and crushes and girls and Hollywood and girls, oh and girls and most importantly, big crunchy riffs and killer hooks. Fun and carfree and super rocking. If we had a big pink convertible Cadillac you know we'd be cruising Valencia street blasting Teenage Graffiti at full volume!! Pop record of the summer!!
Two idiosyncratic Southern California underground pop geniuses on one record! That's right, on this new, ostensibly 'solo' joint, everyone's fave, fey, formerly-lo-fi freakazoid, Ariel Pink, gets some help from his heavy friendz, including none other than the legendary Kim Fowley! Is that cool or what? It is. The Animal God Of The Streets adds an extra dose of cool, bringing more bizarre pop smarts to the mix (as if Ariel didn't have enough of that, but still!). Also on board, Don Bolles (Germs, 45 Grave) Jack Name, Shags Chamberlain, and various current and/or former members of Ariel's band Haunted Graffiti, among many others. As Ariel sez in his humble liner notes, this might in fact be his LEAST 'solo' album ever. In particular, Runaways svengali Fowley gets co-writing credit on five out of the 17 songs, and you can hear him on here too, delivering the spoken vocal on funky vamp "Sexual Athletics".
And basically, if you liked (we did, big time!) Ariel's last album, Mature Themes, this one offers up a similarly amusing and earwormy set of songs. Starting of with the '60s psyke pop stylings of "Plastic Raincoats In The Pig Parade", moving on into the '80s new wave inflected "White Freckles", Pom Pom covers all the usual AP bases, from dreamy love song (and sexy sex song) fare, to druggy gothy stuff, to even more wacked out rockin' weirdness.
Yeah, as you might by now expect, it's got its goofy side, for sure, with a lot of sound effects, funny voices, silly lyrics, and so forth, maybe sticking tongue too far in cheek with "Nude Beach A Go-Go". Though, that's not the most ridiculous song title on here, an honor that might instead go to "Dinosaur Carebears", a track that surprisingly shifts from sheer cavorting chaos into a slinky, dubby groove. Ariel's more earnest, emotional side is represented too, though - a track like "Put Your Number In My Phone" is fairly romantic, after all�
All in all, another very entertaining album from this one of a kind artist!! Dunno if you all have been following the latest AP controversy, but can't really imagine any of these songs on a Madonna album, somehow...
We really weren't sure what to expect from this, a reissue of a lost collection of 'musique concrete' from warped pop weirdo Ariel Pink, when he was in fact, still Ariel Rosenberg, and long before he would perfect his damaged pop-out-of-time style, fusing lysergic seventies beholden FM radio damage to classic pop music tropes all filtered through some woozy drug addled WTF/ADD sonic experimentation. That said, on first listen, these early tracks, from when Ariel fancied himself a "20th century composer", don't sound all that far removed from what would later become his signature sound. Which is not a bad thing at all. The whole 'musique concrete' tag just smacks a bit of pretentious artworld bullshit, lots of comparisons to Pierre Schaeffer and Xenakis and Luc Ferrari, and sure, some of the techniques here are definitely borrowed from those masters, much of Thrash And Burn assembled from varispeed tape loop experiments, abstract collages, processed primitive loops, home made electronics, all fashioned into a sprawling twisted minimalism, but one that to be fair, definitely looks forward to the warped outsider pop in Pink's future. In fact we'd opine that most ambitious underground music makers tend to employ musique concrete techniques, having grandiose ideas and a limited budget with which to realize them. Fucked up 4-tracks are the modern equivalent to the 20th century composer's tape machines. And if this is Ariel Pink's musique concrete record, then hell, 20th century composer Lou Barlow should get some serious kudos for his musique concrete masterpiece The Freed Weed! Cuz there's some seriously warped, tape damaged, fucked up avant garde sound art experimentation going on all over that record...
But really, fans of Ariel Pink, ourselves included, will find much to dig here, a sprawling collection of damaged, minimal lo-fi abstract art pop, much of it in sketch form, as it seems these were culled from piles of busted up old tapes and scratched cd-r's, recorded in the nineties, only recently found on the floor of Pink's Beverly Hills bedroom, the detritus of a crazy prolific composer, and it's easy to see how some of these could have become proper AP tracks, but here, in their super raw and skeletal form, they definitely display another side of Pink, and they perhaps do reflect his interest in 20th century composition, but it's all all filtered through his funhouse mirror warped pop aesthetic. Many of the tracks are really gorgeous, minimal and rhythmic, layered and textured, psychedelic and hauntingly austere, others are like AP pop songs, stumbling programmed rhythms, warbly organs, wavery crooned vocals, everything wreathed in hiss and hum, and still others definitely display an early form of that VHS tape/retrokitsch/eighties Z-movie score sound that folks like Pink and James Ferraro among others would transform into a modern genre. So yeah, all pretension aside, this is a fantastic glimpse into the early years of one of our favorite modern outsider songwriters, it's woozy and warped, dreamily druggy and fantastically fucked up, it's also abstract and minimal, and experimental enough, so that perhaps to certain ears, it could be cast it in a different light, less a weird pop record with experimental tendencies, and more an experimental record with pop tendencies. Either way, whichever you prefer, we like it a lot!
These previous aQ Record Of The Weekers return with album number three, and their sound, already a dense, nightmarish, metallic, gloom pop miserablism, seems to be even more washed out and weary this time around, ditching much of the heaviness of past releases in favor of more moodiness, but it suits them, and us. There are still bursts of psychedelic chaos, and crumbling, blown out throb, some fuzzed out crunch and churning blackened heft, but for the most part, Bottom Of The Morning is more a wasted sprawl of brooding goth rock and spaced out kosmische kraut, replete with swirling synths and dramatic vocals that land somewhere between Scott Walker and Acid Bath's Dax Riggs. Blackly beautiful, mesmerizingly atmospheric and hauntingly heavy.
Former aQ Record Of The Weekers Pinkish Black are back with album number two - surprisingly released by big metal label Century Media, their first was on Handmade Birds - and it's another lurching amorphous mass of droning psychedelic deathrock tinged weirdness! Though they may hail from Texas, Razed to the Ground is an altogether unearthly album - conjuring mental images of bizarre alien landscapes, black slime oozing from every pore. It's a sprawling cosmic nightmare, like H.P. Lovecraft chewing on a mouthful of rotten magic mushrooms. Pulsing black ambience throbs like leeches slithering up through damp soil - before erupting in a churn of dizzying cyclical noiserock, all while science fiction B-movie synths swirl overhead and a ritualistic voice chants emotionless in the distant void. Pummeling yet patient drumming recalls the hypnotic grace of latter era Neurosis. The vocals are an eerie lush croon, at times invoking the same kind of dead-eyed fanaticism of Peter Murphy or Rozz Williams but while maintaining a sort of detached ambivalence that actually doesn't sound too far off from Josh Homme. Bass distortion bubbles like tar while insectoid synths hum and whine like something from a monstrous Dr. Who horrorshow. Or maybe a demented zombified Gary Numan. Elsewhere, creeping haunted house piano sluggishly hammers out a funereal dirge before tumbling toms usher in an ominous slab of heavy spaced out synthesized doom rock. Near the album's end, a melody emerges that could almost be described as uplifting. Almost. But it only serves to accentuate the dystopian extraterrestrial bleakness of the rest of the album as the track abruptly fades to silence, before returning with the lonely haunting pluck of discordant notes and the sound of a chill biting wind, ending the record in a way that could be described as about the furthest thing from comforting. But it's certainly appropriate from a band who named themselves after the grizzly scene left behind by the suicide of one of their former bandmates. It's not a pretty journey, but damn is it a fascinating one. If the fringe synthetic avant-garde heaviness of Wreck & Reference or the decayed blackened death rock of Atriarch is your curdled cup of tea, then this is absolute essential listening.
We knew nothing about these guys when we first heard them, we were definitely intrigued by the band name, and the song title, "Tell Her I'm Dead", and then when the music started, thick, buzzing, almost synth sounding guitars (or maybe actual synths, hard to tell), with big booming drums, sound like some sort of metal / cold wave fusion, and when the song proper started, that only furthered that idea, the churning distorted bass line, soft focus synth swirl, churning propulsive rhythm, and super dramatic crooned vox, when all of a sudden, the song exploded into a burst of furious blasting, a sort of black metal cold wave, accompanied by some strange sci-fi squiggles, and as soon as it started, it was right back into that gorgeously miserablist mope rock. The second time that burst/blast surfaces, it's accompanied by hellish shrieks, and then explodes right into a crazy drum/synth jam, with the drums pounding wildly in a field of swirling new wave synths, a twisted hybrid that somehow is something we always wanted to hear, but never knew it. The song continues to confound, with creepy falsetto vocals, over a synth heavy doom creep, before finishing off in a squall of FX swirl and psych wave weirdness.
Holy shit, one song is all it took, and the rest of the tracks here are just as good. A little digging revealed that Pinkish Black is in fact a group with roots in an old aQ favorite, the late great Texas prog-psych outfit Yeti, and suddenly the sound of PB made a lot more sense. After Yeti, came The Great Tyrant, and it seems like every band these guys were in, endured all sorts of personal tragedy and loss of life, the sort of thing that would most definitely inspire the sort of gloom and doom Pinkish Black traffic in, and while based on Yeti, it's hard to see just what may have influenced the actual sound here, the last record from The Great Tyrant found them delving into similar territory, super gothy and dramatic, but not so fully realized, PB sounds like where The Great Tyrant might have eventually ended up, the whole record held together with that impossibly distorted buzz, be it synth or bass or guitar, it's a constant presence, whether churning malevolently, or droning blissfully, it's what gives the sound of PB its heft, it's grim black energy, and it's the drums that drive everything else, the playing dense and intricate, powerful and mathy, by turns metallic and brutal, deft and almost krautrocky, those two combined are the framework, over which all manner of soundtracky synth melodies drift and squiggle, and the vocals, a dark soporific croon one second, a washed out almost shoegazey reverbed bellow the next, the songs slipping from dense driving gloom rock to tripped out psych-goth space jams, often some dizzying mix of the two.
After Vaura's recent aQ Record Of The Week, we might not have been surprised to find this being released on Wierd Records, cuz for all its metallisms, and its punk/metal pedigree, this is essentially a super dark, super heavy new wave record, the synth melodies especially had us imagining what a Gary Numan record might have sounded like had he been making his first records 30 years later, and we definitely think they might have sounded something like this. Instead it's on the limited edition Handmade Birds label, run by the guy from Pyramids, who always bring us interesting stuff.
Haunting and heavy, brooding and brutal, imagine some sort of black metal / new wave hybrid, or perhaps a sort of noise rock / goth rock fusion, fans of all that Goblin / John Carpenter worship who might be into something much darker and heavier should check this out, but really, everyone who digs gloomy heaviness will dig this big time, and and if like us, the thought of a sort of metallic new wave gets you all riled up, then this just might be your new favorite record. It is ours!
Got a violent piece of vinyl here for all you proto-metal freaks - a reissue of a killer slice of science-fictional heavy rock, this obscure UK outfit's only album, a private pressing from 1974. Both proto-metal and proto-punk we reckon, heavy stuff with lots of psychedelic Hawkwindiness to it, basically everything you could hope for from a record that has both "Astral Traveller" and "The Ripper" as track titles!! And it does rip, the storming opener "Assasin" sets the tone, with throbbing riffs, wailing maniacal vocals, and wild soloing, reminding us of the Pink Fairies in particular when the guitarist tears into some licks from the old Ventures surf rock classic "Walk Don't Run", though with their amphetamine energy they'd remind us of the Fairies anyway. They also achieve Wicked Lady levels of guitar freakout. And with the use of Moog, and the sci-fi aspects of songs like "Cyborg", they have something in common with Simply Saucer, as well. There's dramatic organ runs, and strident marching riffage, and some softer sounds too - at their mellowest, on tracks like "Bad Omen", they can be fairly melodic and Wishbone Ash-y.
There's been a couple hard-to-find, long-gone compact disc reissues of this in the past (one on Little Wing Of Refugees, who changed the cover art and corrected the spelling of 'Assasin' to 'Assassin', and another on Killing Spell, who called it 'Cyborg Assassin', though that one also did include a few live practice space bonus tracks not found here). But this is the first time we've seen it reissued on vinyl, 180 grams to boot.
The latest single from local label Valley King comes via Pins Of Light, a local outfit featuring members of
Dead And Gone, Triclops and Hightower, who deliver a seriously dense slab of progged out metallic gloom punk that winds sinewy riffage, around super frantic intricate drumming and some wild soaring vocals, the A side sounds a bit like Voivod via Pink Floyd, the arrangement dense and constantly shifting, with a killer main riff, and some surprisingly poppy moments, dense and tense, there's even a little stonery groove to the proceedings, definitely psychedelic, but a sort of gothy mathy metallic psychedelia that kills.
The flipside begins with a sky full of swirling psych guitars, before they're joined by some busy drumming and a proggy bassline, eventually erupting into some full on prog metal crush, but once the vocals come in, the song is transformed into a sort of part two of the A side, catchy, weirdly subversively poppy, but still heavy and proggy and metallic, the outro gets seriously blown out and psychedelic, the band locked into some serious space metal churn, before the vocals come in again, and the sound becomes some sort of twisted Voivod / Judas Priest / Hawkwind hybrid, which is most definitely a good thing.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Killer spaceman skull cover art by Alan Forbes, each one signed and numbered, includes a printed insert, and a sticker too!
Latest in the super limited Type Records 7" series, that in the past has featured Goldmund, Machinefabriek and Paavoharju, which should give you an idea of the sound you can expect. Warm, glistening, shimmering, blissed out, sun dappled, These two tracks from Benoit Pioulard are all of those things, but unlike those other bands, Pioulard is a singer, and these two tracks are heavy on the vocals. He's got a lovely voice, deep and dramatic, not unlike Stephin Merritt, in fact these sort of sound like a more electronic Magnetic Fields. Acoustic guitars drift over electronic glitchery, bits of skitter here and there, but at its heart, some pretty pop music. Think Postal Service, Figurine, B. Fleischmann, Momus, Magnetic Fields, but filtered through the dusty lens of M83's fuzzy bliss. So nice.
We've given good reviews to several Benoit Pioulard releases in the past, but if you think you know just what to expect here, think again. Pioulard's fifth album shifts away from those languid dream-pop songs of bedroom folk melancholia sung with a maudlin, reverb-saturated baritone we'd often heard from him before, in favor of thoroughly abstracted numbers. He builds this lush shoegazing wash from field recordings and his responses to them through guitar and tape manipulation, with nothing digital getting in the way of all of this tactile, gossamer haze.
Sonnet is an entirely instrumental album, which is certainly not out of the ordinary for the roster of Kranky Records, the home for A Winged Victory For The Sullen and Tim Hecker, two heavyweights of blearily atmospheric music; but we have to say that the Pioulard (instrumental) voice is especially a thing of beauty. The sibilance of air conditioning vents, summer time lawn sprinklers, washing machines, and the mid-day rasp of a swarm of locusts can become indistinguishable from amplified tape hiss. That's where Pioulard (who sounds French but is actually a Pacific Northwesterner named Thomas Meluch) begins to shape the work of Sonnet. Guitars, loops, and some twinkling synths come into the mix all of which are firmly sympathetic and complementary to the bittersweet coloring from his tapestries of sound. These droning nocturnes reflect the shimmer and feel of a Cocteau Twins instrumental or the ambient interludes found on Boards Of Canada or the even more soaring numbers from Troum. Highly recommended, this gets asked about and purchased by customers nearly every time we play it in the store!
Portland? This doesn't sound like Portland! Hey, this guy isn't even French! What gives?
Well, Benoit Pioulard is but a pseudonym for a young avant-folk tunesmith named Thomas Meluch, who now lives in Portland, Oregon yet grew up in Michigan. His gauzy dream-pop has much in common with those sounds that spilled out of Michigan with Windy & Carl, Fuxa, Auburn Lull, and even Veronica Lake beginning just over a decade ago. There is a decided craftsmanship that further distances his work from the shambolic affairs that dominate his current hometown, yet this album is not without its narcotic impressionism through his gauzy smears of ambience across his wistfully strummed acoustic guitar numbers. Temper is his second album released through Kranky, and that's a damn proper place for the man. Well, yes, Windy & Carl do release records through Kranky; but his work also fits along very well next to Stars Of The Lid and Labradford. The album's opening cut "Ragged Tint" is atypically urgent in its doubletimed elliptical fingerpicking which speeds past Pioulard's vocals which are sort of like mumbling Stephen Merritt if we could make that sound like a very good thing. A heartbreakingly sad glockenspiel melody tumbles into the chorus of the song, tempered with reverb and delay to match the hue of his dreamy drone-pop. The rest of the album is set at a languid pace, more in keeping with the first Iron & Wine record, complete with lo-fi bedroom recordings and sad little ditties strummed across his acoustic guitar girded with softened Boards of Canada rhythms. Each of his songs are effortless, beautiful, melancholic, and totally worth getting stuck in your head. He brackets each of his songs with softly treated field recordings made on a well-worn walkman that has never had its heads cleaned. So the rainstorms and birdsongs are cast in a mottled gray fog of thick tape hiss, which turns bleary and sad through Pioulard's treatments. As one customer who bought this record from us said, "it's too pretty not to buy!"
Ooh! The vinyl version of Temper also comes with his first album on Kranky, Precis.
Portland? This doesn't sound like Portland! Hey, this guy isn't even French! What gives?
Well, Benoit Pioulard is but a pseudonym for a young avant-folk tunesmith named Thomas Meluch, who now lives in Portland, Oregon yet grew up in Michigan. His gauzy dream-pop has much in common with those sounds that spilled out of Michigan with Windy & Carl, Fuxa, Auburn Lull, and even Veronica Lake beginning just over a decade ago. There is a decided craftsmanship that further distances his work from the shambolic affairs that dominate his current hometown, yet this album is not without its narcotic impressionism through his gauzy smears of ambience across his wistfully strummed acoustic guitar numbers. Temper is his second album released through Kranky, and that's a damn proper place for the man. Well, yes, Windy & Carl do release records through Kranky; but his work also fits along very well next to Stars Of The Lid and Labradford. The album's opening cut "Ragged Tint" is atypically urgent in its doubletimed elliptical fingerpicking which speeds past Pioulard's vocals which are sort of like mumbling Stephen Merritt if we could make that sound like a very good thing. A heartbreakingly sad glockenspiel melody tumbles into the chorus of the song, tempered with reverb and delay to match the hue of his dreamy drone-pop. The rest of the album is set at a languid pace, more in keeping with the first Iron & Wine record, complete with lo-fi bedroom recordings and sad little ditties strummed across his acoustic guitar girded with softened Boards of Canada rhythms. Each of his songs are effortless, beautiful, melancholic, and totally worth getting stuck in your head. He brackets each of his songs with softly treated field recordings made on a well-worn walkman that has never had its heads cleaned. So the rainstorms and birdsongs are cast in a mottled gray fog of thick tape hiss, which turns bleary and sad through Pioulard's treatments. As one customer who bought this record from us said, "it's too pretty not to buy!"
Ooh! The vinyl version of Temper also comes with his first album on Kranky, Precis.
A record that demands the kind of attention a small novella might: short but intense... and you can't do anything else while you're listening to it but maybe smoke cigarettes and dumbly stare at the half-filled whiskey glasses left over from the night
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
SORRY.
The second US album from the Austrialian outsider Pip Proud who was 'discovered' by Alastair Galbraith a few years back. It makes perfect sense that Mr. Galbraith would have such an affinity for Pip Proud - simple spare instrumentation (mostly folky minor chords on a semi-tuned guitar) with Pip's Aussie-voice reciting a variety of poignant if at times disturbing tales.
From the same label that released Circulatory System (reviewed in a recent AQ-L), here's another Olivia Tremor Control related project, this time led by Olivias keyboardist Peter Erchick (although several of the Olivias appear on this record so you know
Stomp stomp stomp your feet! Clap clap clap your hands! There's another great group joining the rest of the pep squads on the pop playing field! For the first and title track of this 2-song cd UK gals The Pipettes come bursting forth with the most exuberant of pop ditties. What sets them apart from other current bouyant groups such as The Go Team and Tra La La are the sweet '60s girl group styled vocals. So delicious! You might've caught a glimpse of The Pipettes on the recent Rough Trade Shops Counter Culture 2005 compilation, but these fleeting encounters are simply not enough. More please!
The Piranhas hail from Detroit, Michigan and have amazing driving keyboard lines, crazy in your face vocals, and a killer guitar sound. Think art punk meets garage meets '60s punk. They were on the cover of Maximum Rock n Roll recently and already have a couple singles out but are still relatively unknown. The live shows are rumoured to be brutal and confrontational and FUN FUN FUN. All kinds of music fans will dig this, whether you like current no wave like the Numbers and Erase Errata or other members of the In The Red roster like the Horrors, Dirtbombs or the Cheater Slicks, or classic greatness such as Wire, Rocket from the Tombs, and Black Flag. This totally rocks!!
If you dug the slightly unhinged, new wave-edged punk carnival of the Phantom Limbs' Applied Ignorance album last year, you might dig Livonia, MI's Piranhas. Suitably hoarse and whiskey-soaked vocals on top of rough, garage-y, energetic punk guitar, bass and drums with surprisingly really good, uncomplicated farfisa organ-y keyboards thrown into the mix. It's these keys which in my opinion save The Piranhas from being obvious or generic. So we say "Yay for keyboards!" This album was originally released in 2000 on vinyl only. Now it sees its cd release on San Francisco's On/Off Switch label.
Numero Group strikes again! Why Pisces never made it into the canon of classic American psychedelic groups of the sixties like Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and The Grateful Dead is not so much a mystery as it is a latent lament. It's pretty clear why, since none of their music ever got released during their lifetime, but hearing this now, and it sounding so much more fresh and relevant compared to the overrated dinosaurs mentioned above, we sometimes wish the past could get a do-over, or at the very least we wish nostalgia could get a better soundtrack. Pisces would be at the top of our Summer of Love facelift!
Not just a curio from what might have been, the songs that this Rockford, Illinois group conjured could have made a classic album, had the core members overcame the obstacles of being an unknown band in the Midwest, perhaps toured or promoted themselves better, or at least hired themselves a decent manager. Focused so much on their sound, they were tireless studio workhorses, constantly augmenting their pop songs with innovative studio effects: delay, phasing, and layers of overdubs. Working with such blinders on is always a difficult proposition to long term success, plus having a sexy female guest vocalist that was never quite a core member of the band, steal most of the spotlight, only to be whisked away to start a failed solo career doesn't bode well for a band in dire need of a solid foundation.
But we think if they managed their image better, they could have been as big as Jefferson Airplane. Their songs are definitely better. Pisces were perhaps more influenced by British psych than the stuff that was happening on the west coast, but their darkly tinged lyrics full of creepy wonder and kaleidoscopic imagery are more chilling and beautiful, yet evoking the male and female harmonies of that more famous group. At times, it also reminds us of other obscure weirdo sixties soft-psych groups like Fifty Foot Hose, Neighborhood Children, Peanut Butter Conspiracy and H.P. Lovecraft, yet with a consistent sonic vision unclouded by annoying record label interventions and dated cliches. A Lovely Sight indeed!
Oh man. Seeing that immediately recognizable Sub Pop single logo/design bring us right back to the glory days. That black strip across the top, with the Sub Pop logo in the upper right hand corner. The white text, the songs split up by the 'b/w'. We totally remember collecting singles by Mudhoney and Tad and Love Battery and Nirvana. Joining the singles club and anxiously awaiting the next single to show up in the mail. Checking the mailbox every day. Seeing the little upcoming releases announcement panel in the single you just got telling you about all of the killer singles you would spend the next 6 months anxiously awaiting. Man, those were the days. That Sub Pop singles club was pretty fucking excellent. Sure there were a few lame entries, but even those were at least weird. And some of the best songs of the last twenty years were first heard via those 7"s.
Not sure if the club is still an ongoing concern, or if it's just a sporadic sort of thing, but how awesome is it to get a Sub Pop Pissed Jeans 7"!!! It just seems to fit. Pissed Jeans are like OUR Black Flag. Sort of. But c'mon, snotty and punk and super rocking. Perfect for a Sub Pop single. And it almost sounds like they purposefully made their sound MORE Sub Poppy for this release. The A side is a creepy dirge with moaning bass and keening high end feedback, with super tortured vocals, a feral crooned howl, the whole thing sexy and slithery and dangerous. It almost sounds like a bluesier, punkier Green River! The B side is a short blast of pounding sludgy garage rock scuzz, with buried vocals, simple punk rock drums, and a wildly grinding crunchy guitar sound that just kills!
Batten down the hatches, lock up your daughters, run for the hills, and/or break out the beers, 'cause Pennsylvania OG punk paragons Pissed Jeans are at it again, erupting with their 4th full-length of scuzzy ugly pounding filthy punk rawk action.
Opening cut "Bathroom Laughter" starts things off all uptempo, a hardcore blast that's almost jaunty even as the singer froths at the mouth all over your ears. Taking a different tack, the second cut, "Chainworker", delves into the depths of sludgey dirgepunk heaviness a la Flipper. The record then seesaws seasick betwixt these two extremes, always dishing out the raw riffs, choppy rhythms, and vocal vitriol. Flashes of Black Flag at times, as per usual, Jesus Lizard too, and some of the catchy bits here reminding us a little bit of Rocket From The Crypt, oddly enough. Oh yeah, and certain tracks, like "You're Different (In Person)" have a grunginess to 'em that makes us think of another (former) Sub Pop act, Tad.
In other words, another highly enjoyable Pissed Jeans platter, for those who like their rock noisy and their noise rockin'.
This Pennsylvania punk band's debut Shallow was a surprise, sleeper hit 'round here, scuzzy and trashed and oh-so-catchy, the likes of which we hadn't heard since the '80s, it was that good. Sub Pop obviously thought the same, and picked up Pissed Jeans for a single and also their sophomore album effort, now upon us, Hope For Men (what is that title, taken from some spam email subject line?).
So, do they deliver? Yes... and no... and yes. Yes this is MORE damaged and distorted and deviant than the debut. No, it's not quite as catchy, not immediately. But the level of artful anguished ugliness that they achieve here takes some doing and when you're in the mood, this album is gonna be your best friend, your friend who's been there, crawling in the gutter, screaming his guts out, the only friend who can understand how wrecked you are, how fucked up your life is, how shit sucks and you both need another drink. When you're thinking, where the fuck's Black Flag? How come they're not around for me anymore? Pissed Jeans is there for you, man. This is no good-time rock and roll, it's filthy puking punk dirge that you'll want to play LOUD. Parts of this even remind us of the mighty Oxbow, who are a lot more bluesy and avant-garde than Pissed Jeans but also are pretty much THE yardstick by which seriously fucked angst-ridden cathartic rock should be measured (along with, perhaps, Brainbombs), so that's no small compliment I'm sure you'll agree. All their self-loathing and fear of sex and yuppie-hating and general misanthropy, though, is channelled into some seriously primal sonics that may or may not be theraputic but sure as hell rock in the noisiest sense of the term, with some almost--ambient but still abrasive interludes amongst the more brutal tunage (the semi-spoken vocals on the former being the least-successful, trying-too-hard part of this album for us, however, even though it's also what pushes the Oxbow angle). And, they still have a sense of (black) humor, how could they go on without it??
King Of Jeans? Not sure what that title is about exactly. Now, King Of PISSED would make a lot more sense! What with all the scuzz and scowl found on this loud, noisy record. Though the Pissed Jeans aren't always pissed, sometimes just more, like, bummed. As on the album's final cut, "Goodbye (Hair)", a song about going bald.
By the way, just thought of this, is there some sort of pun going on the band's name, could it be read Pissed Genes as well? Dunno.
Anyway, this album, the PA punk troupe's third (2nd for Sub Pop, where they definitely belong, in the tradition of shitkickers like Green River), is another good 'un. On it, they bring back more of the catchiness that caught our ears on their debut Shallow, while not sacrificing any of the ugliness and avant-rock anguish heard on Hope For Men. Nope, this new slab of heavy punk pounding is chock full of all the feedback guitar skree and vokill rants that Pissed Jeans always bring to the party, sounding partway between Tad and the Jesus Lizard. Of course Black Flag is also another obvious comparison! And like we said, a lot of this is catchy as fuck, that is if you can call choruses consisting of barely-human "bleeeargh!" catchy. Or all the spastic lurching n' doomed lumbering. We also like the spacey FX that pervade "She Is Science Fiction". Most songs are in the 2-3 minute range, though there's exceptions, like the seven and a half minute "Spent", a Melvins-y, My War style dirge.
For fans of the Flag and other '80s punk past, contemporary scuzzers Vee Dee, some of the more extreme of the current "shitgaze" crowd, and of course Pissed Jeans' previous output. Duh.
Brand new blast of pissed off noise rock from these aQ faves, a modern take on the gnarled punk of Black Flag, a sort of supercharged art rock, damaged and demented and distorted, abrasive and chaotic but also plenty melodic, with pounding tribal drumming, squealing feeding back guitars and bellowed vox, all wrapped around a fucked up sense of humor, just take the song titles this time around, "Sam Kinison Woman" and "The L Word".
The A side is droney and hypnotic, the vocals howled and yowled and yeah, sounding a little bit Kinison-y actually, and the Oxbow vibe we mentioned in past reviews in full effect, as well as a definite nod to Fucked up, that sort of single riff over and over and over, the song subtly shifting from 'verse' to 'chorus' but really just churning out an awesomely heavy and hypnotic almost looped sounding riff/part, laced with some awesome leads and harmony guitars, giving it a distinctly pop vibe.
The B side is more dirgey and bluesy, the guitars super distorted, the tempo lumbering and lurching, sounding like Nick Cave singing for a slowed down Brainbombs, with a little Killdozer mixed in, the guitars churning and chugging, but occasionally splintering into strange little scraping feedback drenched tangles, the vocals slipping at one point into a super demented almost falsetto mewl, over that insistent, relentless thud and plod.
Awesomely twisted, heavy and dirgey, and yet still sorta hooky and catchy. Totally ruling, definitely has us hankering for MORE!
Now on vinyl!!
A punk record for people who haven't bought a punk record in a while. It's not a retro exercise, but still something about this young Pennsylvania band brings back memories of '80s hardcore, Black Flag or Flipper back in the day, nasty punk scuzz with lots of badass guitar distortion and feedback, shambolic rock n' roll with rabid bite. The lyrics are sadsack smartass dumb, yowled over the band's noisy, catchy trashcan stomp, the vocalist really letting it all (down-and-)out on such songs as "I'm Sick," "Boring Girls", "Ashamed Of My Cum", and "I Broke My Own Heart." Can you feel sorry for someone who's wallowing in it? Doesn't matter, just enjoy the careening chaotic entertainment that results. The packaging features cool cartoon graphics of surburan banality.
Sub Pop has just reissued these abject punks' debut album from 2005, originally released on the Parts Unknown label. Pissed Jeans kicked our asses back then when we first heard 'em - and have continued to do so throughout their career after they signed to Sub Pop. It's great to have this back, especially since Sup Pop has packaged this with extra tracks, the two songs "Throbbing Organ" and "Night Minutes" from an even earlier, long out of print 7" single. The vinyl version provides those on a separate 45, while the new cd version just provides a download code for 'em (the lp comes with a download of the whole thing too, by the way).
So, here's what we said 'bout Shallow when we listed it the first time around: A punk record for people who haven't bought a punk record in a while. It's not a retro exercise, but still something about this young Pennsylvania band brings back memories of '80s hardcore, Black Flag or Flipper back in the day, nasty punk scuzz with lots of badass guitar distortion and feedback, shambolic rock n' roll with rabid bite. The lyrics are sadsack smartass dumb, yowled over the band's noisy, catchy trashcan stomp, the vocalist really letting it all (down-and-)out on such songs as "I'm Sick," "Boring Girls", "Ashamed Of My Cum", and "I Broke My Own Heart." Can you feel sorry for someone who's wallowing in it? Doesn't matter, just enjoy the careening chaotic entertainment that results. The packaging features cool cartoon graphics of suburban banality.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here's the second full length from the Chicago trio known as Pit Er Pat. The band's name might conjure up docile thoughts of little feet, paws or raindrops, but their sound is much more substantial (psst, actually the name is in reference to a painting by fellow Chicagoan artist Jim Nutt). And while the winsome, expressive vocal delivery of Fay Davis-Jeffers might bears more than a striking resemblance to Mirah and Mary Timony, the music is something quite different. The band brings together the trademark Chicago style of post-rock jazziness with some off-kilter lilting folk pop and lounge-y exotica. The results are something smoky, brooding with a gentle yet insistent momentum. Quite enchanting. Recorded in Puerto Rico. Produced and mixed by John McEntire.
Those of you who loved Drive Like Jehu's Yank Crime which we listed a few lists back, might as well stop right here and just buy this, the finally reissued, first and only release from San Diego's Pitchfork, which features the unstoppable rock tag team of Rick Farr and John Reis, who between the two of them would go on to kick our asses with Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From The Crypt, the Hot Snakes and about a million more! And as the band that immediately preceded Drive Like Jehu, sonically, a lot of the elements that would gel so perfectly in Jehu are definitely present here, albeit in a little rougher form. Super dynamic intros, heart rending bursts of emotion smooshed between bulldozingly beefy guitar parts, and Farr's distinctive gravelly wail. Reminiscent of Fugazi in that the songs are tough and rhythmic and mean, but with hooks galore! This record was SO important to my (Sadie) development in musical discernin' and enjoyment. Hearing these songs again makes me feel so sentimental. But they stand the test of time SO well. In fact this stuff is so much more kick ass than most of the guitar-rock/post-punk/whatever-you-call-it that's come out lately. Comes with three bonus tracks from their long gone 7"!
Sounds like Hisham from Black Dice finally learned how to play the drums in a more traditional format. Devin and Mika (formerly known as Plate Tectonics) have brought him in to be part of Pixeltan. On this DFA release, the trio has made some super subby dubby death-disco with 4 on the floor beats and Mika's aggro-sexy vocals. Very polished. Very produced. Very DFA. But very recommended!
Four track debut from Brooklyn art punk outfit Pixeltan. Heavy, rhythmic, overdriven grooves recalling the no-funk of Downtown NY circa 1981, only faster, nastier, and pumped full of echo and fucked up electronics. Beats courtesy of Hisham Bharoocha of Black
What can we say? "Best rock band ever!" No, someone will take issue with that. "Best rock band of the eighties!" Someone will still take issue with that. Well, what about "Best rock band of the nineties!" Well, they really didn't release their best work in that decade. How about "best rock band from the eighties that broke up in the nineties and has recently got back together in the new millennium to do a final tour even though at least two of the band's members can't stand each other!" I still think someone might take issue with that. It's just plain hard to write about the Pixies now, especially about their classic material. So suffice it to say that we know you all know the Pixies and you either love them or you don't. And for what it's worth 4AD has gotten round to reprinting the vinyl of their first three releases and we're excited about seeing them grace our diminishing vinyl racks in all their 12" square glory. We'll stick to the facts here: Come On Pilgrim was, of course, The Pixies first release. The ep hit the streets in 1987 and includes: Caribou, Vamos, Isla de Encanta, Ed Is Dead, The Holiday Song, Nimrod's Son, I've Been Tired and Levitate Me. Awesome!
Long available only in variously expensive bootleg editions, the Pixies "Complete" B-sides is now available in legit form and at a reasonable price. 19 non album tracks (including the much treasured UK Surf version of "Wave Of Mutilation") each one annotated by
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
SORRY.
The first disc is a greatest hits collection, the second is a live show long distributed amongst the tape crowd.
