Killer second album from Pure Ground - the minimal wave / EBM analog synth fetish project of Greg Holger and Jesse Short, who have been touring both the States and Europe pretty relentlessly over the past couple of years. Holger is best known as a feral noise technician working as Hive Mind (amongst many other pseudonyms), along with running the inimitable Chondritic Sound label. Jesse Short doesn't have as extensive a discography as Holger, but has honed an impressive synth-pop sound through his sporadic work with New Zealand synth-wrangler Max Brotman, who also popped up on a couple of choice minimal wave albums in recent years. They maintain an aggressive sound of feverish, machined rhythms and lacerating electronic sequences with barked vocals of dystopian slogans for a fractured society - futuristic, contemporary, and / or anachronistic. Standard Of Living adheres tautly to a structuralist electro-pop approach with microwave pulses of flinty synth bursts shaping the most minimal of melodies. The assertiveness of the album lends to plenty of very complementary similarities to Klinik (and pretty much all of the Dirk Ivens catalog for that matter), Nitzer Ebb, Snowy Red, and even contemporaries like Youth Code or Xeno & Oaklander.
We missed out on Pure X's second album Crawling Up the Stairs, but the band has taken on some major shifts in sound since 2011's Pleasure. Angel finds the band less brooding and more summery, really delving into the sounds that made seventies soft-rock such a guilty pleasure, but at least Pure X has the musicianship and production to really deliver the goods. Opener, "Starlight", could easily have been a lost track by America or even, Seals and Croft, but Pure X redeems the sound by really focusing on the breezy effervescent pop hooks and falsetto vocal harmonies and steering clear of the cokey yacht rock indulgence. The songs continue in this infectious vein, crafting beautiful pop confections from the nostalgic ashes of Fleetwood Mac and the Beach Boys in their best moments, putting their own unique atmospheric ambiance and song craft on them. Summer Breeze indeed!
After a long string of now out of print 7" singles, cassettes, 12" eps, and a name change from what was Pure Ecstasy, The Austin, TX trio Pure X finally deliver their debut full length, aptly titled Pleasure. In previous reviews we recommended all the hip boutique labels such as Woodsist, Captured Tracks, Sacred Bones, Mexican Summer that were signing all the real good lo-fi murk-pop bands to sign these guys quick. But true to their nature, the band stayed loyal and stuck with the local Austin labels Light Lodge and Acephale who released their previous singles as well as releases by connected bands in their circle, Silver Pines, Sleep Over and Survive. That was a smart move, because instead of feeling pressure to polish their songs with better recording equipment or add more complicated arrangements, the band was really able to stretch out their already established dreamy and hazy pop sound. Pleasure does see some of the songs from their 7"s, such as "Dream Over", "Voices", and "Easy", re-recorded, but not necessarily all that different, perhaps with a new layer of hazy feedback and slo-mo guitar fuzz, as these songs were all recorded live with no overdubs. A bold move for sure, but Pure X has long nailed their economic sound into something so wonderfully self-sufficient and unique. And besides those 7"s are so far out of print, that most folks are lucky to get any versions of these songs at all. Imagine Friends-era Beach Boys way slowed down to a molasses pace with crashing lo-fi waves of shoe-gaze guitar strums, buttery rhythms and space walking basslines with sleepy but impassioned vocals. Pleasure is a beautifully dirty dream-pop heaven! Highly Recommended! Vinyl to follow next month, fyi.
If you happened to miss out on their super limited tour tape, from a few months back, Pure Ecstasy have returned with a beautifully remastered vinyl version (the tape split into two ten minute tracks, one on each side), and with it a new name: Pure X. Guess there was already another group that shared the name and so they took the high road and modified theirs. Reminds a little bit of the detergent though...
Anyway, Chain Reflection shows off the bands more experimental side, a side we haven't seen as much on their pop singles. The bands slow motion grooves are intact, but the overall effect is more collage-like, chopped in a blender style. Sometimes veering into foggy dub experimentations a la Sun Araw, or lo-fi distortion squalls, murmured voices, and pretty ambiance. It reminds us of all the reprises they put at the end of their singles, that sublime moment that fades out too soon. Here though, those moments are stretched way out and turn in on themselves into something much more tripped out and elusive, but still allowing us to laze in their bright and sunny haze.
These come on translucent smokey vinyl in a layered hand-drawn mylar package.
Super beautiful and super limited! Don't sleep on this one this time around!
In the not so distant future, there will be classes at Evergreen State (perhaps sponsored in part by K Records) such as 'Indie Songwriting 101: Malkamus and Barlow.' The Northwestern outfit Puritan (who may have some association with AQ favs Death Cab For Cutie) have seen the future and matriculated from this class with honors, by demonstrating a working knowledge of not only Pavement and Sebadoh, but also their respective influences Capt. Beefheart and Neil Young.
With equal parts Don Caballero, Breadwinner, Shellac, and Turing Machine, The Purkinje Shift flexes their muscular heaviosity as an instrumental math-rock / power trio who has all the complexities down to a science and is a force to be reckoned with. Recommended.
The return of bedroom psych rockers Purling Hiss, who we've long been sorta obsessed with, in fact we made PH's Public Service Announcement lp our Record Of the Week back in 2010. And really it's not so much a return, since this is not a new record, but is in fact a vinyl reissue of a super limited cd-r, released in an edition of 50 copies way back in 2006 (and reissued on tape in 2011 with some extra tracks). The interesting thing is that for some reason, we thought the other Purling Hiss records, including our favorite, Public Service Announcement, were more recent, but Public Service Announcement was recorded just a year after this one, so if you dug that record or any of the Purling Hiss records, as much as us, then you're gonna want this one too.
It's the same mix of 4-track home brewed loner psych folk, and fuzzed out psychedelic power pop, with most of the tracks landing somewhere right in between. "She Don't Mind" is all hushed strummy loner pop, but then the sound blossoms into the hard rocking psych fuzz of "Icelator", which barring the low fidelity, sounds like it could be some lost seventies power pop lost classic, replete with groovy leads, aching vocals, and a killer main hook and bad ass chorus. From there on out, the sound shifts constantly, from the blown out noise drenched lilting dirge pop of "Digh High" to the strummy, lo-fi Yellow Pills fuzz and crunch of "Sifting Through My Hands". And so it goes, the B side is chockablock with buzz and jangle, warped noisiness, soaring melodies, lilting psych folk ballads, groovy garage rock, and some seriously and impossibly classic sounding songsmithery.
Sadly, no download code, and thus, no sound samples. But trust us, if you dig any/all of the other Purling Hiss records, you're gonna LOVE this one too!
Purling Hiss's Public Service Announcement was our Record of The Week a while back, a fantastic and unexpected collection of lo-fi eighties style power pop, super catchy bedroom brewed folk, and lazy, lysergic psychedelic drug rock drift, all sounds that were apparently at odds with their 'normal' sound, which was a heavy blown out super in-the-red psychedelia, which was on full display on their s/t lp on Permanent, which indeed was white hot and freaked out and heavy, and awesome, just WAY different then PSA.
So we really didn't know what to expect with this 4 song ep, and we were surprised to discover, that while it definitely leaned sonically more toward their heavy psych, they also managed to infuse plenty of pop into these jams, the result being a sound that is essentially a mix of the two. The guitars are heavy, the vocals buried in the mix, the drums pounding, the sound looped and repetitive and hypnotic, but within this Stooges-y / White Heaven rocking out lurk all the little things that made PSA so killer, hooks, melodies, the opening track "Passenger Queen" is pretty heavy and swaggery, but then the sound shifts and the band whip out a brief bit of total tangled pop, only to slip right back into it. Obviously folks who are looking for more of the introspection and hushed strum and folkiness, or even the lo-fi psychedelic space jams, might be overwhelmed by the rock, but we're digging this big time.
Check out the second track "Whipple Dam" with an absolutely killer, super stonery main riff, accompanied by ooooooh-ing vocals, another glimpse of the hidden poppiness, before the moaning reverby vocals and mathy almost tech riffing take over. "Space Roots / Limerence" is more of the same, heavy, psychedelic, subtly poppy. The record finishes off with the slithery blues boogie of "Down On The Delaware River" which sounds like s super blown out, lo-fi, in-the-red take on classic Bowie, a little bit glammy, with more oooooh's and some seriously bad ass leads. Awesome! Maybe not immediately as catchy as PSA, but way heavier, and crazy hooky in its own way.
Thus, RECOMMENDED!
We made Public Service Announcement by Purling Hiss our Record Of The Week back in October of 2010, and for good reason, it was a fantastic collection of classic old school power pop, dreamy tripped out psychedelia and lo-fi bedroom 4 trackery, all woven into a blurred murky bliss out, a gorgeously confusional record that fused tape hiss and weird sonic dropouts to some of THEE catchiest classic rock sounding pop music EVER, all peppered with long stretches of hazy bongsmoke psych guitar trip outs. And while the records since have been great as well, they seemed to focus more on the heavy psych side of PH's sound, a blown out white noise psychedelia that had more in common with Fushitsusha or White Heaven or Liquorball, that the oddball power pop and home brewed bedroom folk that PSA referenced, but even then, PH couldn't seem to shrug off that keen pop sense entirely, which is what made those records so goddamn good as well.
But we're happy to report, on this new ep, PH have returned to that murky washed out classic pop that had us so smitten in the first place. Just give opener "Voices" a listen, all hazy humid guitar buzz, tangled psychedelia, muted and smeared into hazy swirls, the vocals lazy and laid back, a woozy drawl, the melodies impossibly lilting and catchy, a practically perfect slab of slo-mo psychedelic power pop dirgery, complete with lots of "ooooooh"s and plenty of wah wah'd guitar leads, same with track number two "The Hoodoo", a gorgeous heady collision of squiggly distorted guitar leads, warm washed out riffage, simple pounding rhythms, and those laid back vox, the vibe here a bit more Stooges-y but still distinctly classic poppy, especially with the crazy catchy chorus and more "oooooh" falsetto back up vocals.
And so it goes, the whole record unfurls in a hazy, blurry, druggy power pop haze, almost like an ACTUAL power pop record, only playing slightly too slowly, on a busted up old turntable, woozy and warped, the lo-fi murk and sonic warble only adding more warmth and druggy dreaminess to Purling Hiss's already blissed out power pop psychedelia, and sort of the perfect sonic addendum to their (his) beloved Public Service Announcement record!
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Includes a download coupon!
WOW, did this record pretty much immediately blow us away! We had never actually heard these guys (this guy actually, he also plays in Birds Of Maya), but had always thought Purling Hiss was a pretty awesome name, so not expecting too much, we threw this on and then BAM, we were sold, smitten, obsessed even, finding ourselves playing this to death, getting these songs stuck in our heads, and not just the songs proper, but even the weird little recording anomalies and random bits of musical glitchery. For a record that sounds, and is maybe meant to sound, so lo-fi and tossed off and just sort of half assed, a druggy murky muddy home brewed pop record, it's impossibly catchy and well crafted and AMAZING.
A heady mix of classic pop songsmithery, blown out psychedelic drift, abstract tape experiment fuckery and fragmented bedroom 4 track alchemy, Public Service Announcement plays at times like some classic rock record that's been dubbed a million times and then played back in your crappy car stereo, the one with only one speaker and no bass knob, and at other times like some inspired Guided By Voices mini pop epic, and occasionally like some super baked, basement psych jam blowout, wasted and lazy and drifty and divine.
The record opens with "Run From The City", which within 5 seconds establishes itself as some impossible instant classic, with a totally killer guitar lick that IS the song's hook, the track sounding like some lost punky pop gem from the seventies or eighties that somehow got left off of every compilation since, the verses crunchy and muddy and melodic, those guitar leads just sealing the deal. In fact, we could barely get to the rest of the record cuz we just wanted to keep playing the first track.
"Porch Dude/Slight Return" offers up our first glimpse of Purling Hiss as wasted and stoned psych jam drifters, shuffling drums, swirling flanged guitars, everything hazy and wreathed in pot smoke, little spidery leads surfacing here and there, bit otherwise a blurred and bleary drift, the slight return of the title being the revisited melody from the album opener.
And then there's "Don't Even Try It", the other song we can't seem to keep from just playing on repeat, with it's folky guitar and vocal intro, the tape speed constantly shifting, the sound warped and warbly, like someone with their finger on the record as it spins, and then the chorus comes in, with it's "woo ooo ooo" refrain, and the song suddenly reveals itself as some pretty perfect pop. Lo-fi yet lush, vocal harmonies, guitar melodies, a hook to die for, all hazy and sun dappled and catchy as all get out.
After a brief (but AWESOME) minute long Van Halen loop, that manages to be totally twisted yet totally catchy, the record slips right back into fuzzy lo-fi pop, more oooh's and aaah's, summery steel string strum, dreamy harmonies, and sweet pop hooks, before unfurling some serious psychedelia in the form of "Gypsy", a sprawling droned out chunk of druggy spaciness, and at that point if you're not already under the record's spell, you bliss out and drift off and let the record carry you wherever it will, whether it be to "Zor" a thick buzzing, swirling, yet still dreamily melodic bit of dark drone, or to "Beautiful Earth Creature" which is another perfect chunk of jangly pop, replete with those warped speed fluctuations that end up becoming irrevocably part of the song, or to the heady spacepsychjam freakout of "Malice In Wonderland" or to the twisted Ariel Pink-ish warbly fuzzy FM radio pop of album close "1976".
Warped and wonderful and definitely one of our new favorite records.
Holy shit, these guys just keep getting better! Since we first laid ears on Purling Hiss, we were totally and utterly smitten, whether they were kicking up squalls of wild noisy psychedelic freakout, or crafting impossibly perfect Yellow Pills style seventies era power pop. But nothing could have prepared us for this, easily their catchiest, most overtly poppy, and somehow rockingest record yet. All vestiges of their lo-fi past have been completely shed, their sound is now massive, the production HUGE, the guitars thick and crunchy and fuzzy, the vocals way up in the mix, it's dare we say, downright commercial sounding, but only in that it sounds like it SHOULD be all over the radio, the sound equal parts fuzz guitar freakouts, psychedelic wah wah riffage, blasts of feedback, cool harmonized guitar licks, cool falsetto vox, killer choruses, hooks galore, what started out as a super lo-fi power pop/psych rock hybrid, has blossomed into a full on hook heavy, indie jangle classic rock radness, that will no doubt bum out lots of folks who freaked out over those other records, but as far as we're concerned, this was pretty much the way they were headed anyway, but we definitely could not have predicted how kick ass the final destination would be.
There are definitely still nods to their noisier earlier incarnation, take the angular, post hardcore, angular guitar jam "Face Down", which starts off sounding like some lost SST rarity, but quickly, as if the band can no longer help themselves, the song blossoms into something crazy poppy, and then from there on out, it's a sort of push and pull between the serpentine punk rock swagger, and fuzzed out hook heavy pop, replete with rad shredding leads, and some Zeppelin-y vocal wails. That's a weird one for sure, maybe the weirdest jam here, but then there's the title track, which definitely dips back into a more lo-fi sound, the whole track sort of muted and muffled, a driving classic rock jam looped and locked, beneath wild squalls of super distorted blown out psych guitar freakout, swaths of squealing feedback, a fantastically fractured psychedelic noise jam, but like the rest of those sorts of moments here, it's bookended by two crazy catchy fuzzy jangly jams, the Dinosaur Jr like fuzzed out indie psych pop of "The Harrowing Wind" and the garagey jangle of closer "Mary Bumble Bee", all the songs here just a wee bit druggy, with just a bit of that droned out Velvetsy druggy buzz, but when that gets peeled back, it's total jangle pop nirvana. And while plenty of PH's classic rockisms abound still, the sound this time around here is pretty much pure pop, albeit a pop that's tweaked and twisted in places, but the songs are so great, and while those old records still rank among our all time faves, this new one is definitely making a seriously strong case for best Purling Hiss record yet!
Latest batch of lo-fi '60s style retro-psych paisley-jangle garage-fuzz from these Philly phreaks, although this time around, the sound is actually a lot less lo-fi, and while we thought up until now, Purling Hiss was a one man band, this time around, they sound more like a proper group (which according to the liner notes they indeed now are). In fact, where past records often sounded like super stoned bedroom 4-track jams, or wasted zoner-psych via old school power pop, the new record almost sounds more like a weird mix of early Sebadoh and Guided By Voices, some mutant version of the British Invasion via the early American indie rock underground. But there's still plenty of seventies style Yellow Pills-y power popisms, loads of fuzz and buzz, jangle and crunch, hooks galore, but the sprawling jammage of past records is definitely dialed back a bunch, minus the occasional slow psych smolder or wild shreddy blowout, shifting into something more like some druggy strain of downer power pop, or maybe some outsider indie-psych gem that could have come out on Homestead back in the day, although these guys occasionally let loose and do some hard rocking, peppering their fuzzy jangle and psych garage thrum with bursts of swaggery, garage pop crunch.
Some will miss the murk, we do a little, but with all that noisiness, all that hiss and hum, stripped away, these guys reveal themselves as an indie rock force to be reckoned with, maybe a group out of time, who could be beaming these sonic transmissions from some alternate universe, where it's always 1992, or heck, maybe even 1978, and all the bands come from the Midwest, armed with 4-track recorders, big amps, beat up old vans, long hair, lots of weed and a clutch of killer jams, and until someone can actually find that glorious place, Weirdon might just be about as close as you can get...
List 357's Record Of The Week, Public Service Announcement, by Purling Hiss, was a huge hit around here, an awesomely hooky lo-fi collection of home recorded GBV style 4 track pop, mixed with slow, shimmery lysergic psychedelia, but apparently, that record was a bit of an anomaly, as all of PH's other recorded material seems to be super heavy and freaked out psych rock a la White Heaven or Burnt Hills or Acid Mothers Temple or Comets On Fire. Sure the pop element is still present, but it's buried under glorious squalls of psychguitar and pounding drum damage.
The tracks here are long too, so once the vocals fade and the song proper disappears, the songs keep on going, stretched out super extended heart of the sun psychedelic space rock excursionism, incendiary sprawls of white hot guitar freakout.
But, as mentioned above, the songs do still retain some of that poppiness, albeit in seriously small doses, but the presence however slight of that pop, manages to imbue the rest of each song with a subtle pop element, that keeps things from devolving into full on wankery. "Woo hoo" vocals abound, but they're wrapped in hazy streaks of buzz and howl, there are hooks too, they surface here and there, and occasionally, one of the shredding distorto guitars will start playing one of those perfect pop melodies, before letting it splinter and explode back into a psychedelic frenzy.
The B side is weirdly tracked, with several super short blasts of blown out psych heaviness, but right in the middle is an awesome, extended space-psych jam, the guitars explosive and white hot, but underpinned by super melodic looping, walking basslines, which sort of remind us of Redd Kross at their most psychedelic, but again, that little bit of melody, grounds the rest of the song, and transforms a sidelong blast of shreddery, into something weirdly poppy and melodic and listenable, and fucking AWESOME!
Maybe a bit too fierce and fiery for folks who were mainly into the pretty pop side of that first Purling Hiss record, but anyone into the above mentioned bands, or at all into freaked out psychedelia, then this is most definitely the shit.
As these young ladies from Los Angeles settle into their new moniker (they first hit the scene known as Pearl Harbor) they continue to evolve their hazy take on breezy and washed out shoegaze pop. There is something about the overall sound on Headbangers In Ecstacy that induces in us such a swirling and cloudy state. With songs that seem to exist in worlds that bring to mind The Swirlies, The Feelies, Chapterhouse, Lush, and Blondie. Or what it might sound like if Ariel Pink got to produce a record for Julee Cruise. It's dream-pop that's detached enough to let your mind take it wherever you want. This is the perfect album for those days when you can't tell whether you are happy or sad but you know that you just want to keep floating somewhere in-between.
We really loved the Pearl Harbor record on Mexican Summer, which is sadly already out of print, there was something about it that stuck out from the onslaught of new lo-fi minded garage pop bands. With this new record, the band is transitioning into a new moniker (Puro Instinct) because of catching some grief from the '80s SF band Pearl Harbor, but luckily while the name is changing their sound is only evolving and getting more entrancing and seductive. We recently caught them opening for Ariel Pink and it was such a perfect hazy swaying daydream experience. And we have to say we have never seen a band with collectively such amazing flowing blonde hair!! Vidal Sasoon should really jump on board and sponsor them. But beyond their mesmerizing hair, their music actually feels very similar to that folicularly glowing and flowing sensation. These four new songs continue their smart take on mixing a 4AD sensibility with a washed out pop aesthetic. Like Beach House covering the Cocteau Twins, or Nite Jewel stepping away from the late night dance floor and entering an even more smoke filled blissed out world of moody mystery. Makes us want to sit in our bedrooms lit only by candles, as we lay so dazed, eyes closed, letting the sounds from the vinyl just seep into our skin and course through our veins.
We listed a reissue of this on cd a while back, that's long out of print, but we're happy to see it's now been done on vinyl...
When we first put this on, we were like, damn! Opening track "Living In The Ghetto" is some kick-ass, fuzz-filled, freak funk/rock from this all-black '70s act from Cleveland. And it was perhaps too much to ask for the whole of their eponymous 1970 album to keep up with the heavy acid rock like that track. No, soon Purple Image take a turn into some smooth and tender R&B territory, though weird synth interludes and psychedelic effects keep our interest, and there's definitely some more nuggets of tough fuzz rockin' to be found on here. The album ends with "Marching To A Different Drummer", a meandering fifteen minute mostly-instrumental garage psych R&B fusion jam, with shrill guitars, funky horns, phased drums, wild harmonica... Definitely cool, though they're no Funkadelic. Still, at least a couple of the cuts on here, particularly "Living In The Ghetto" would for sure make this worth it to any big fan of the much beloved Chains And Black Exhaust compilation from way back when!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Newest in Dark Beloved Cloud's series of clear-vinyl albums cut on that famous New Zealand hand-run lathe. We've got the West Coast exclusive on these and it's limited to 100 copies worldwide. A well-crafted, desolate sort of folk/pop, the singer's voice reminds us of, like, a cross between Richard Hell and Allen Callaci from Refrigerator, very evocative.
Ok, how can you go wrong with a record called Fantasy Quest, that features awesome, high school binder, D&D fantasy pencil art, with a dog headed warrior princess wielding a shield and a tiny mouse with a sword waving a pennant, some ghosts, a winged rabbit headed warrior, a creepy forest, a castle, even harder to resist when you realize it's a compilation of all female, mostly instrumental, fuzzy, psychedelic hard rocking, metal bands from the Northwest! FUCK YEAH!
First up is Purple Rhinestone Eagle, whose record we went nuts for a while back, and their track here is just as good as anything on the full length, pounding, groovy, garagey, a little stonery, a lot space-y, riffy, metallic psych rock with a pinch of NWOBHM, so so good!
Here they're teamed up with Northern Swords, whose track is a two parter, you gotta flip the disc to hear the whole thing, and it slays, like a more loose Fucking Champs, still tight and technical, with killer harmonized guitar leads, killer drumming, the second part is super aggro and WAY technical, and relentlessly rocking, both parts sound like they COULD, or SHOULD have lyrics about dragons and swords and sorcerers, you can almost hear the airbrushed seventies van, and leather pants, the fringed jackets and feathered hair, the big amps and smoke machines.
Finally, Forsorcerers (awesome name btw!) finish things off, kicking out the only jam with vocals, total hard rocking classic garage rock, like Thin Lizzy crossed with the Runaways, more awesomely tangled guitar harmonies, and bad ass female vox.
Not sure what's going on up North, but we definitely want more.
Pressed on super striking white / black / grey splatter vinyl, with a printed insert, and the aforementioned bad ass cover.
At first we assumed this UK combo was gonna be another witchy female fronted doom outfit, they're on the same label as Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats after all, but have a lovely lady singer, and there's plenty of hype surrounding their debut (Pentagram meets Pentangle is the tagline), but folks looking for something truly heavy might be a bit disappointed, as Purson owe more to seventies British acid folk than they do any strain of metal, doom or otherwise. That said, for everyone else, there's a lot here to dig, it is sort of witchy, but also has a kind of medieval vibe, definitely some classic rock and vintage folk going on too. Seems like fans of Ghost's style of retro hard rock will be the ones most likely to dig Purson, their sound sultry and slithery, lots of acoustic guitars, swirling psychedelic organ, and to be fair, while it's not METAL, there are some heavy parts, some distorted guitars, plenty of buzz. Check out "The Contract", which might be our favorite track here. The verses driven by a thick fuzzed out bassline, beneath little flurries of folky steel string strum, and vocalist Rosalie Cunningham's sultry croon, but when the chorus kicks in, it's all buzzing guitars, swirling effects, the song splintering into some full on heavy prog, a hook to die for, the vocals soaring, the music following suit, the organ leaping to the fire, totally trippy and psychedelic, definitely hard rocking, and when the bridge comes in, the bass is wickedly distorted and thick and slithery, joined by FX drenched guitar swirl and wild tribal drums, and then it's right back to that killer chorus. We were definitely sound after that song, and while the whole record is not that hard rocking and proggy, there's definitely a sonic thread that holds it all together, and makes it a good fit on Rise Above / Metal Blade.
"Spiderwood Farm" is another exotic hard rocker, with some spidery wah wah guitar, over dense drumming, circusy organ, and when it shifts into the main riff, it's definitely a riff we could imagine in a Ghost song, the vocals sinister and intense, with Cunningham delivering her lines like some evil sonic sorceress, intense and sort of evil.
Tracks like "Sailor's Wife's Lament" are more folky and laid back, but those tracks are inevitably butted up against tracks like the oddly titled "Leaning On A Bear" which is total hard rocking seventies style prog, with a killer chorus of swirling organs and processed vox, and when the band lock into the mathy grooves on either side, it totally pushes all our old school prog buttons. We could go track by track, as we're writing this, we keep finding tracks we dig and want to describe, and with every listen we end up finding a new favorite, the deeper we get into the record, but really, if you like retro leaning modern heavies like Ghost and Uncle Acid, and love classic proto metal, hard rock and prog, odds are Purson will definitely end up a new fave...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Sweet, practical, Beatlesesque pop from Northeasterners who we predict will be huge, probably soon after the release of their second album. On the Dambuilder guitarist's label. Read recent SF Bay Guardian for a spot-on review from smart AQ-l subscriber Gabriel Roth, one of the very very few local writers we trust (well, since you asked -- other critics we trust include Alvin Lu, Chuck Stephens, and the much-missed Sia Michel who was recently wooed away to NYC by SPIN -- we wish her well and know she will not forget, as so many have, what real music writing -and appreciation- consists of.)
Besides having an awesome name for a metal band, Pushing Up Daisies is also an eight piece. A goddamn EIGHT PIECE! Vocalist, keyboardist, bassist, TWO drummers and THREE guitarists! And it shows. The guitars are everywhere, serpentine and slithery, jagged and ear peircing, downtuned and crushing. The dual drum attack is a pummelling unstoppable force. But it's not just about the instrumentation. Pushing Up Daisies are a fierce metal hybrid, equal parts screamo, metalcore and even a dash of black metal, with brain bendingly complex arrangements leaning WAY towards the prog end of things and plenty of weird breakdowns, from super reverbed dubbed out space rock to strangely loping Three Mile Pilot like bass driven melodic passages, to James Gang wah-guitar funk, but always bookended by crushing hook filled METAL. Lots of stops and starts, high end guitar melodies weaving in and out, punctuated by massive and muffled three-downtuned-guitar chugs that rattle your fillings they hit so hard. Lots of two guitar bands don't take advantage of their extra axe and waste it by having both guitarists play the same thing, but Pushing Up Daisies utilise their triple threat to full effect and it really adds a unique edge to everything with all sorts of slippery intertwining melodies, strangely haunting guitar harmonies and layer upon layer of sonic weirdness. One of our favorite new metal records!
We know a LOT of you are familiar with the band Jerusalem, one of thee ultimate holy grails of '70s proto-metal, thankfully reissued by Vintage/Rockadrome a couple years ago. We made it our Record Of The Week at the time, and still sell 'em steadily, every week!! And this list, you'll also find the vinyl version of that reissue, repressed. One of the heaviest, doomiest proto-metal finds ever, coming closer to the gods Black Sabbath than most, but with their own primitive, almost punk charm!
Jerusalem only put out that one rare lp, but that's not the end to the story. Rumor had it that there was a second album in the can, never released. Well, as we mentioned in our Record Of The Week write-up, the actual fact was that when Jerusalem broke up, sometime in 1972, 3/5ths of the ex-members immediately formed another band, Pussy, and what we've got here is Pussy's entire recorded output, finally seeing the light of day!!
Not to be confused with another British band called Pussy, a psych pop outfit from the '60s (what's with these young men liking Pussy as a band name so much? Cat fanciers, huh?), this Pussy were a power trio, consisting of Jerusalem's rhythm section plus their lead guitarist. Apparently, the lead singer and 2nd guitarist from Jerusalem had wanted to go in a more progressive/polished direction, which lead to the split, and resulted in the formation of Pussy, by those who wanted to keep things rather more raw and rockin'. However, Pussy do sound somewhat different from Jerusalem, and not just 'cause bassist Paul Dean took over on vocals (on the other hand, he was also always the main songwriter in both bands).
While their songs are full of throbbing rhythms and crunching distorted guitar riffs, Pussy don't come across quite so doomy and dark as did their previous incarnation. There's a bit more of a poppy "glam" thing going on here, Pussy sounding something like a heavier T.Rex at times! Banging a gong, getting it on, boogying down, complete with handclaps and cowbell. Slade and The Sweet could be other influences/comparisons, which means this has something in common with the proto-metal treat we listed last time, by Incredible Hog... Some songs remind us of Stray ("I Keep Remembering You"), others of early UFO ("Moonshine"), and one ("Pig Mansion") even hints at a proto-metal version of early Brian Eno. There's even a number on here that Andee thought sounded like something from the first Duran Duran album, though we're not sure if anyone else thinks so. These rollicking tracks are all energetic and fuzzed out, with lots of bouncy, rubbery riffing. Definitely a good time, and thus getting played in heavy rotation here at the store ever since it showed up!
There's a total of 16 tracks on this cd, including both sides of their only previously released record, a 7" single from 1972, the great "Feline Woman" (inspired by Sabbath's version of "Evil Woman"?) backed with "Ska-Child" (definitely NOT a ska number, though it does feature groovy hard rockin' horns!). Then there's four more songs from demo sessions circa '73, plus the ten tracks, with a new guitarist, from what was meant to be their full-length album, all produced (as was Jerusalem) by Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, who also sings some backup. So cool that this long lost gem is finally available! The 20 page cd booklet includes lyrics, photos, and detailed liner notes about the Pussy story...
This release from Hertfordshire UK band Pussy was overlooked upon its release in 1969 but over the years it has become a valuable find for prog/psych enthusiasts, selling now for over hundreds of dollars when originally it languished in the bargain bins. Now
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The late-80s lineup of Pussy Galore was Bob Bert, Neil Hagerty, Jon Spencer, and Kurt Wolf; this live show is from CBGB 8/5/89. Includes a cover of the Twilighters' "Nothing Can Bring Me Down".
The 1987 full length debut from these infamous noiseniks gets the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment. A white hot blast of lo-fi basement blues, slithery stomps and druggy creeps, driven by clanging clattery junkyard drums, strangled angular guitar and bellowed reverbed vox, courtesy of noneother than Mr. Jon Spencer. The songs are short, sharp, urgent, noisy and chaotic, Bob Bert, former drummer for Sonic Youth, provides the beats, the songs lurching and lumbering, a swaggery, staggery sprawl of noise rock punk blues that still sounds so fucking great. The band at this point was rounded out by Neil Hagerty, who would go on to form Royal Trux, and Julia Cafritz, who would later play in Free Kitten, and for as dysfunctional and drug addled as this foursome was, they were a seriously fearsome sonic unit, managing to capture much of that druggy dysfunction on tape, and it's magical. We were arguing about why some of us here LOVE Pussy Galore, but Royal Trux not so much, when someone joked that the key was, that in Pussy Galore they somehow got the heroin just right, just enough to send them spiralling into some sort of drug fueled manic psychedelic blooze zone, but not so far that it all fell apart. Right Now! is frantic and furious, wildly passionate and so twisted and soulful, and somehow, crazy catchy to boot. The record spends most of its time in a full on drugblues noiserock pound mode, but occasionally, slips into some slow, swoonsome dirgey bluesiness that has no right sounding as good as it does.
Obviously recommended for fans of all the post Pussy Galore bands (Royal Trux, Boss Hog, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Free Kitten, Howling Hex, etc.) but really anyone into other twisted strains of weirdo blues (Railroad Jerk, Bill Orcutt, Doo Rag, King Brothers, etc.) who have yet to discover the warped world of Pussy Galore, is in for a treat...
Yes! Pylon's second and last record (with the original line-up) from 1983 has finally got the same expanded and remastered reissue treatment that their first record received from the hip folks at DFA. It's been a bittersweet couple of years for Pylon, emerging from years of relative obscurity, reuniting for a tour and seeing their records released once again to a legion of new fans, but sad because guitarist and founding member, Randall Bewley passed away suddenly this year. While never as popular as their Athens, GA contemporaries, R.E.M, and the B-52's, Pylon's post-punk influence has remained sturdy and can be heard in many bands from the Riot Grrl era to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. Pylon's distinct guitar angularity, propulsive dance rhythms and lead singer, Vanessa Hay's seductive growl whipped audiences into a frenzy in the late seventies and early eighties and finally the original version of "Crazy" can be heard for the amazing spitfire track it is. R.E.M.'s more famous cover version just doesn't compete. Way Recommended!
DFA delves into the past to resurrect a lesser known American post-punk classic, the debut of Athens, Georgia scene-makers Pylon. Less famous than their fellow Athens compatriots, The B-52's or R.E.M., these four University of Georgia art students nevertheless mined a powerful influence. With their jangly angular art pop with dub influences and yelping female vocals, Pylon felt more in line with British bands Gang of Four and Delta 5, than the sixties/eighties retro of the B-52's or R.E.M.'s mumbling verbosity. Gyrate Plus collects their first album and singles from 1980 and listening to it now, it's surprising how timeless it feels, coming across as a precursor to bands like The Yeah Yeah Yeah's and The Gossip. So Good!!
We've been exploiting the writing talents of Jewelled Antler's Loren Chasse a bit lately, and now Glenn Donaldson (Thuja, Skygreen Leopards, Blithe Sons...) wants to get into the action too, volunteering to write something about this here disc, an archival release on Last Visible Dog of the clanging and banging of the pre-Avarus outfit Pylon (which is NOT to be confused with the Athens, GA Pylon of the early '80s). Or, to be accurate, he offered to let us use what he wrote about it on the Jewelled Antler email-list, as follows: "Damn, another breath of fresh air blowing over from the Finnish cloudfort. Pylon sends echoing flutes & ram's horn trumpets over fragmented folk & space-rock marching junkshop drums. Maybe there's a detuned guitar flailing along or a fuzzy Casio organ, someone beating out a Morse code on an oven tray or a an old typewriter. Muffled abstract vocals are performed with earnest by muppets, zombies & monks & are shrouded in effects pedals. This shares something in common with related-groups Avarus/Anaksimandros/Maniacs Dream, but with just two members there's more space around each clang & groan. With its joyous clatter, pylon seems to be urging us to dance with goats & green maidens, run wild with robots & monsters." Pretty much sums it up, thanks Glenn!
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3 krautrock albums (from groups you may want to first sample on the "Unknown Deutschland" comps, see below) that were supposedly issued in the 70s in tiny editions of, like, 50 copies or something. The Pyramid album sole track is a mysterious 35-minutes of spacy drone with mellotron, moogs, and Tibetan bells. The Nazgul cd, our favorite of the three, is from 1975 and features 4 long tracks of droning ambience that's easily as good as any current space rock outfit could put together; i.e. Magnog, Labradford or anything else on Kranky. Bonus weirdness: the bandmembers are named Frodo, Gandalf, and Pippin.
It's been ages since we've heard from these groovy doom sludge Swedes, and very little has changed. The riffs are still massive, distorted, and Sabbathy, the vibe is still druggy, and groovy, and heavy as fuck. As always, harsh vokills are draped over surprisingly melodic riffage, there are swirls of feedback, squalls of tribal percussion, and the occasional soaring lead, the drums crushing and bombastic, the arrangements a bit proggy, especially on this new one, the songs much more varied and dynamic, their sound having definitely progressed from the early days, combining the caveman crush of those early records with something much more ambitious, with long stretches of slow build heaviness beholden to stuff like Godspeed and Isis as much as classic sludge and doom, with some classic metal-isms throughout. But really, these guys have managed to take downtuned, knuckle dragging sludge, old school true doom, and epic post rock drama, and fused it into something that manages to transcend what at this point is a very overcrowded genre. While we were expecting another disc of decent sludgy doom, Saga reveals itself as something a bit more, a sort of progressive doom, infusing all manner of non metal, or at least not so overtly metal, elements into their sound, without losing an iota of their bludgeoning brutality, which is a rare thing indeed.
First we've heard from this particular group called Pyramids in quite some time (though we did wait for the cassette version to appear before reviewing it - the cd and lp formats of this actually came out earlier this year, which we're also now belatedly listing). Pyramids' self-titled record on Hydra Head garnered a lengthy (and quite favorable review) from us back in 2008 for its avant-black weirdness. On A Northern Meadow, Pyramids once again confound anyone thinking they've settled into a sound. The presence of Colin Marston (Gorguts, Krallice, Dysrhythmia) and Vindsval of Blut Aus Nord, and the fact that this release is (with the exception of the cassette) on Profound Lore might give you an idea of what you're dealing with here, but that idea is probably wrong! Shoegaze dreaminess, strange vocals that alternate between straightforward reverbed-out cleans and strange black metal wails, and bizarre drum machine rhythms (provided by Vindsval, obviously) are all blended to something that resembles Blut Aus Nord without the black metal ferocity.
As much as we love that Hydra Head sound, huge churning riffage, pummeling drums, crushing metallic dirges and all things heavy heavy heavy, we're becoming more and more obsessed with the releases that don't fit so comfortably on HH, don't necessarily embody that classic Hydra Head sound. Although that's not necessarily fair, as the more bands HH sign that sound different, the more diffuse and varied that HH 'sound' becomes, which renders this whole theory moot. But whatever, stick with us for a second, there is a point. It's sort of how we were with Sub Pop, sure we loved Green River and Soundgarden and Mudhoney, THAT sound, but we got crazy obsessed with stuff like Rein Sanction and Hardship Post, the stuff that stuck out, that sounded WEIRD, maybe almost more than the regular Sub Pop stuff.
It might be just that for a band to kick someone's ass SO much, that they're willing to release a record by them, even though sonically it's a whole different ball of wax, means that the record in question is that good, that fucked up, that unique, or could be that we just like to be contrary. Either way�
Whatever. We love Isis and Cavity and Pelican, but lately, we, like a lot of you, have been obsessing over Jesu, Hayaino Diasuke, Austerity Program, Torche, Pet Genius and now Pyramids, who hail from Denton Texas, and who sound like nothing on Hydra Head. If we had to pick one band, it might be Jesu, but even then, the similarities are minimal. Pyramids are blissy and fuzzy and gauzy and pretty, almost ambient at times, drifting dreamily, their sounds shimmering and glistening, everything blurred and washed out and totally fucking gorgeous, BUT, they do have some surprises up their sleeves. And it's those surprises that make this record such a mind blower.
But let's start at the beginning. The first three tracks here are totally lovely, guitars are wisps, vocals are fluttery shadows, melodies are delicate and fragile, the production is warm and sun dappled, rhythms are muted shuffles, effects swirl and sway, here and there, the sound thickens into something almost heavy, but never quite gets there, remains on the pretty drifty side of heavy. It's like a more avant freaky version of Mazzy Star or Galaxie 500, that same sort of windblown washed out blissy vibe. Until the fourth track.
Beginning with some minimal guitar buzz, amidst a whirl of chiming harmonics, shortwave interference, and blown out buzz, the drums kick in, and the riff locks into an insectoid buzz, and suddenly the Pyramids are some sort of black metal band, still bleary and blissy, but with pounding drums and buzzing guitars, eventually vocals come in and it's like a metalgaze Sigur Ros, which is most definitely awesome.
The next track too offers more of the same, a sort of swirling chaotic shoe gaze-y black metal, and in fact the rest of the record continues on in that vein, each track a twisted convoluted take on blissed out black metal, sometimes grinding and furious, but even then swathed in a warm sonic glow, sometimes more poppy and swirly, like a more abstract Swervedriver. As you can tell, it's pretty hard to describe. Not sure it's really black enough to appeal to black metallers, it's more like some shoegaze ambient metal pop band just borrowed some black metal tropes and wove them into their gorgeous blown out soundworld.
There's a second disc too, of remixes, by the likes of Jesu, James Plotkin, Loveliescrushing, Birchville Cat Motel, Blut Aus Nord and more, and we would have assumed that remixes by those folks, of this sort of music, would just render them more blissed out, but instead, at least the first two, transform the songs into furious blown out black jams. The first, remixed by Toby Driver of Kay Dot, Ted Parsons of Prong and Swans and Colin Marston of Behold the Arctopus, begins all soft and swirly, but by the end has added super distorted drums, and all manner of fried buzz. The Plotkin remix up next, strips away most of the bliss, and leaves a seriously fucked sounding lo-fi in-the-red black metal blast. The Jesu remix sounds just like you might imagine, a gauzy slowcore drift, with the vocals jacked way up, soaring through the ether, a fluttery falsetto. The two Loveliescrushing mixes bring out the soft blurred ambience of the originals, making them even more tranquil and serene. Birchville turns his mix into a virtual BCM track, using bits and pieces of the original, creating a thick slow growing drone, that builds to a buzzing crescendo before fading back into a dark moody drift. Blut Aus Nord is the most fucked up remix. Not sure if they added tons of stuff, or just did some crazy mix, but the guitars groan all dizzy and woozy and angular, the drums, pounding and machinelike, the vocals a hissy evil howl, the whole track a lurching black lope. All the mixes here are amazing, utterly transforming the originals, but in doing so hewing to the spirit of the original record, which was already pretty schizophrenic and all over the amp as it was.
Way way way recommended. A new aQ favorite for sure...
Another record that was slated for release on Black Friday "Record Store Day" and was delayed, only finally reaching us well after the day, and one that we have VERY few copies of, and it's unclear whether we'll actually be able to get more, so this might be your only (non eBay) shot at it, if you're quick. A sprawling collaboration between black metal / guitardrone soundscapers Horseback, and abstract sort of black metal ambient alchemists Pyramids (whose mainman also runs the Handmade Birds Label), a sprawling epic spread out over SIX sides (a 7" AND an lp), which finds each band offering up their own little thing, and then putting their heads together for the bulk of the release.
The 7" comes first and features Pyramids on the A side, who after a chaotic stuttery programmed drum into, slips into a dreamy blissed out stretch of cinematic ambience, all softly swirling effects and hazy melodic drift. Horseback handle the B side and counter with a blast of black metal, a frantic blast beat beneath buzzing guitars that almost sound more like blackened gypsy folk than black metal proper, until the vokills come in, and the demonic shriek clears that all up, before changing gears half way through and transitioning into a gorgeously decayed crumbling distorted dronescape.
So when it came time to throw on the lp, we were imagining some sort of black metal / drone hybrid, or something similar, instead, the epic 4 part album length A Throne Without A King, plays out more like some lost Nurse With Wound album, heavy on the abstract soundscapery and mysterious collaged atmospheres, the processed garbled vocals, and truncated melodies, lots of drones and textures, and strange industrial filigree, it's haunting and hypnotic and very abstractly cinematic for sure, and finds a mysterious middle ground where neither band's influence is obvious.
Woozy industrial thrum drift beneath sine wave tones and fluttering high end melodies, all over fields of crackle and whir, mysterious voices doused in effects intone some ominous warning, as the listener is slowly pulled under, swallowed whole by deep drones and ethereal melodic drifts, wild squalls of white noise and grinding machinelike textures, the track most often settling into long stretches of UNsettling ambience, sounding not unlike Philip Jeck or The Caretaker, ominous and sinister, cinematic and haunting, the various textures constantly subtly shifting and transforming, as much a part of the sound as the melodies, everything floating in some epic expanse of nothingness, tethered to one another by thread like slivers of fuzz and buzz and thrum.
Vinyl and cassette only for now (although we have yet to receive the cassette), cd in January...
Killer combo for sure, blissed out doom metal shoegaze duo Nadja, and sort-of-black-metal Hydra Head weirdos Pyramids, we weren't sure what to expect, heavy? Spacey? Trippy? Would it be more Nadja? Or more Pyramids? Having listened to this a bunch now, we can safely say, we have no idea.
There are definitely elements from both bands, but the two entities seem to have merged into something wholly new. Which seems ideal, why bother starting a new band just to sound like your old band. Four long tracks, each one a slow burning, gradually sprawling experiment in blown out sound, the opener definitely more toward the blissed out and ambient side of things, with ethereal vocals, huge sweeping sheets of shimmer, sun dappled and psychedelic, until three quarters of the way through, when the team up gets HEAVY, and suddenly we're in Nadja territory, a slow billowy lumber than pushes all out Jesu buttons, the vocals buried beneath an avalanche of swirling buzzing sound.
The second track starts off a bit more aggressively, with some crunchy FX laden guitars, only to drift off, the sound thickening, some skittery rhythmic splatter, some keening melodies, moody and ephemeral, the beats get a bit more caustic, almost jungly, super clipped and jagged, while underneath the soft sounds continue to swirl, and then vocals, LOUD vocals, way up in the mix, total keening indie boy croon, dreamy and heartfelt, before a big heaving swell of low end, and then a gradual drift to silence.
The 22 minute "Sound Of Ice And Grass" seems to be the centerpiece of the record, beginning with delicate piano, deep rumbles, ghostly vox, and swooping backwards effects. Dark and hushed, until those vocals return, sounding more choral this time, and laid over big distorted doomy guitars, reverb and delay pushing everything closer to chaos, before a blast beat erupts, but way down in the mix, the rest of the song continues to plod and drift, the vocals soft, the ambience muted and minimal, while the drums thrash wildly beneath, a strange juxtaposition, but cool sounding for sure. The second half of the song is a series of string laden, effects drenched chordal swells, and fractured melodies, gauzy vox, and all manner of buzz and crackle and whir, eventually building to a wall of grey sound.
The record closes with what sounds to these ears the most like a distillation of the two bands' sounds, beginning with layered melodies, Animal Collective like vocals, layered drones, downtuned guitar buzz, thick slabs of rumbling riffage, and some blasting metallic drum action, again muted and washed out until it's almost textural more than rhythmic, but the stretch with the bast beats is divine, dreamy, ethereal and gorgeous, eventually exploding into a full on Nadja+Pyramids drone / shoegaze / post metal / dream pop blow out. Cool!
Gorgeous packaging too, a min lp style gatefold sleeve, adorned with lush landscapes of trees and forest and streams on the outside, a strange drawing of trees and an owl on the inside, with a printed full color booklet featuring more abstract foliage.
Super limited one sided collaborative lp from avant metal weirdos Pyramids and blackened noisesmiths Wraiths, featuring Clay Ruby from Burial Hex on piano. It's a sprawling 25 minute side long single track, that starts out all dreamy and drifty with female vox over pounding reverb heavy piano, before the song kicks in proper, big chiming distorted guitars, and martial drumming, which instead of launching into blasting blackness, devolves into some strange glitched out droniness, all crumbling distortion, and crooned almost chant-like vox, and that piano from the opening few seconds. The sound is almost liturgical, certainly ritualistic, and for the next 10 minutes, the track drifts woozily, those female vocals return, the piano drives the haunting ambience, a funereal dirge of sorts, that finally explodes again at about the 15 minute mark, the drums, the bombastic crashing chords, but again, the song quickly devolves, this time into a blurred blackened squall of smeared noise and crumbling heaviness, obviously the work of Wraiths, who pull the song apart into a roiling tangle of grinding heaviness and blurred blacknoise, the whole thing laced with weird effect-ed guitars and the occasional stray melody, before, settling into a weird outro, all distant feedback, blasts of feedback, strange electronics, minimal percussion, and that haunting female voice, intoning some strange incantation, as the noise gradually dissipates leaving only emptiness...
Pressed on clear vinyl and housed in a gorgeous vellum sleeve with super striking artwork from tattoo artist Simon Erl. LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!!
This album has the word "synthesizer" emblazoned on its cover, in letters as big as either the artist name or the album title. And when you hear it, you will know why. This album is all about Pyrolator putting his several synthesizers through their paces. Inland was the debut lp from Germany's Kurt Dahlke aka Pyrolator (also a member of DAF and Der Plan), originally released in 1979 on his own Aka Tak label, and its synth-noise experimentation belongs both to the spacey electronic krautrock genre and to the (currently in revival) '80s minimal-wave scene. Think DIY Kraftwerk. It encompasses the abstract experimentation of someone like Asmus Tietchens, as well as other stuff that's much more melodic and Cluster-y. There's shortwave static, distant schlager transmissions, rhythmically buzzing glitchwerks, musique concrete tape edits, some blissed out white noise soundscapes... For folks who like difficult, mad scientist music, you've got squelchy distortion laced with whining, high end tones ("Inland 1"), and for the new wavers, there's trax with burbling sequenced beats, pulsing like something Zombi or Majeure might do today ("Minimal Tape 3/7.2"). Indeed, Inland is a veritable cornucopia of such ear candy for those of us enamored with the minimal coldwave synth sorta thing, the more experimental side of which, especially. You could file this with your Axxess album (that recent Record Of The Week) though a lot of this is scarier than that - Inland apparently intended as cutting edge "protest music" (those were radical days in West Germany, the Red Army Faction running rampant). But its claustrophobic character is abstract enough for us to enjoy today without any explicit political aspects made plain. Another good reference, perhaps, being Bernard Szajner.
The compact disc version of this reissue comes with 6 worthwhile bonus tracks. Oh, and Bureau B has another early but much poppier Pyrolator reissue we'll try to get to soon...
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Iceland's synth-punk outfit Q4U issued their one and only album Q1 back in 1982, and now those recordings (along with a bunch of tracks from the same period) get a glorious makeover courtesy of the premiere, minimal wave reissue label Dark Entries. Inspired by the British punk scene, Q4U adopted an aggressively propulsive rhythm section and maniacally jagged guitars all fronted by the snarled vocals of Elinborg Halldorsdottir. She was definitely listening to her Siouxsie & The Banshees and X-Ray Spex records, slanting towards the detached gothic monotone that would also develop out of the under appreciated X Mal Deutschland. Had Hallsdordottir sung in English and not Icelandic, the band might have developed a much broader audience, but she was committed to speak to the political inequities of Iceland in her own language. While the band originally began as an archetypal punk four-piece, the drums were abandoned by the time they recorded Q1 in favor of a drum machine (christened Elisabeth II) and plenty of synths. These icy synth melodies and motorik rhythms were much better suited to the Teutonic belting from Halldorsdottir. The 'deluxe edition' of Q1 does feature a bunch of the tracks that featured their original drummer, with the band caught in a spirited if sloppy punk furor. By the time, the electronics entered the mix, Q4U was a sharpened, synth-punk machine. It's a shame the band called it quits by the end of 1983, but at least we have this lost gem! Highly recommended!
Q: Do you love '60s psych/beat/garage stuff?
Q: Do you have any Q65 records?
If your answer to Q1 is Yes, and your answer to Q2 is No, then YOU MUST BUY THIS, NOW! It's that simple.
Q65 were Holland's version of the Rolling Stones, seriously just as good. They had the hair, they had the hooks, they had the attitude. Even though they somehow never got huge outside of their own small country. Other good comparisons would be to the Yardbirds, and especially the Pretty Things. If you like the Pretties, make sure you get hip to Q65, and here's just the ticket. This brand new compilation brings together 24 crucial cuts from the Q65, spanning their career from early 1966 singles and their magnificent debut album of killer R&B freakbeat entitled Revolution, to the even more mindblowingly psychedelic stuff they cut afterwards, up through '68. It's a true labor of love from Q65's fans at Rev-Ola, as you can tell from the fancy full-color, 22 page cd booklet, and you'll know why when you hear their songs. There's 24 good reasons here that the back cover blurb so accurately states: "You need this cd more than you need food"! From crunching garage fuzz stompers like "Cry In The Night", "Summer Thoughts In A Field Of Weed", and the Who-ish "I Got Nightmares" with its Bo Diddley beat to the much moodier, more melancholic vibes of the likes of "World Of Birds" and "Sour Wine"... wow, man. Feast on this.
They could easily compete with any of the British bluesrock acts of the era (witness their fine covers of "Spoonful", "I'm A Man", etc.), and also any of the most savage Nuggets action out there. When they tripped out in post-Sgt. Peppers agonized ecstasy, they were just as effective. With the tough but melodic vocals of Wim Bieler leading the charge, backed by the wailing axe of guitarist Frank Nuyens (responsible for the post-Q65 solo album Rainman, the reissue of which we highlighted here not long ago), Q65 were a raw, energetic, psychedelic force to be reckoned with. We recommend you reckon with them now if you haven't already.
No, it's not a typo, that's a Q and not a C, but this is in fact a new recording featuring Roedelius of Cluster fame, alongside new sonic sidekick Onnen Block. Block has served as musical assistant and audio engineer for the Berlin Philharmonic, and has collaborated with the likes of Zeitkratzer and Christina Kubisch. Together these two have created a record that is so ominous and engaging in its tones and texture. It continues to blow us away, how even well into his '70s, Roedelius continues to create such compelling, thoughtful and dynamic music. What's equally inspiring is his openness to collaboration, this time working with someone forty years his junior. (Hopefully Cluster partner Dieter Moebius is cool with the "Q").
The sounds of Fragen evoke a sense of slight unease, with a beauty laying just beneath the surface yet still cloaked in a mysterious darkness. It's easy to make work that makes a listener feel either happy or sad, but Roedelius has shown over the years a mastery that transcends the black and white and moves boldly into something so much more fluid and wholly satisfying. A stunning outing, and without a doubt one of the best electronic albums of the year!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Debut release from this local all girl garage pop combo. A killer mix of classic nineties style jangle pop and more frantic punk rock, reminiscent of classic Riot Grrl for sure, especially when the band bust out and get super rocking, the ultra distinctive vocals definitely harken back to Corin Tucker's more feral wail in the early days, the music, by turns super minimal and stripped down, jangly and melodic, furious and fuzzed out, complete with some almost Greg Ginn like angular guitar leads, check out the first two tracks to get a feel for the two sides of Quaaludes, the opener, "Blood On The Ice", sounds like some classic K Records releases from back in the day, broody, strummy verses giving way to stomping, fiery choruses, while "Call You Up" is a sweaty, snarly blast of raw girlpunk energy, beholden to classic punk rock, but filtered through the sound of current garage poppers. And so it goes, the group splitting their time between raw punk rock energy and almost dreamy poppiness, the best moments, when the two are crammed together into dizzyingly, and fantastically schizophrenic blasts of furious, wildly energetic jangle punk ("Mistake", "I Don't Care", "Stiff Little Single").
Fans of Heavens To Betsy, Huggy Bear, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, will dig big time, and at times will feel like it's 1991 all over again, but folks who dig current outfits like Grass Widow, Brilliant Colors, Brave Irene, Super Wild Horses and the like should check this out too!
1997 solo project of Gary Ramon from British spacerockers Sun Dial. Ambient electronics mixed with krautrock rhythm structures.
