Huh, now this is a pretty cool, totally unexpected collaboration! Austria's Radian, longtime aQ faves who specialize in their own unique strain of instrumental, improvised, computer-processed post rock, have teamed up here with Tuscon-based indie singer-songwriter Howe Gelb of Giant Sand fame (both artists are Thrill Jockey alumni, that's probably the connection). So you get the desert-country-folk-Americana stylings of Gelb, set amidst the abstract, electronic, glitch-and-distortion infused, fractured soundscapery of Radian. Aesthetically & methodologically, this record is definitely Radian's; yet Gelb's acoustic guitar, piano, and especially voice are crucial components, spiced and edited into Radian's atmospheric, oddly rhythmic sonic constructs. It works really, really well, Gelb adding a very human, ghost-in-the-machine element to the proceedings, with his melodies, hushed spoken commentary and non-sequitur storytelling. Always intriguing, often moodily beautiful, with a sometimes-sinister undercurrent, this reminds us a bit of mysterious UK post rockers Reigns at times, also a bit of Bill Callahan's recent dub album, in a way. Highly recommended!!
Though we sold out pretty quick, some of you aQ-loyalists might remember a super killer cd-r we got awhile back from local guy Matt Erickson, otherwise known as Radiant Husk. Aside from also playing in the free-psych noise duo Sudden Oak, which is equally as awesome (although most of their releases are now out of print), Erickson has been busy conjuring a fantastic offering of ritual saxophone sorcery. In relatively the same vein as Terry Riley's alto sax work in the seventies, Beyond An Endless Swale explores the more damaged, far reaching capabilities of the sax. And despite any reservation you might have about the sax, take it from us, there ain't nothing smooth or soft about Radiant Husk. Beyond An Endless Swale will lure you to the twisted outlands of grey shorelines where distant foghorns coax you into hypnosis, improvised melodies hover above richly layered drones and singing overtones, reverbed sax riffs lull into the dreamy horizon. An endless journey exploring all kind of sonic territory, at times Erickson pushes his sax on the verge of fiery collapse, piling dense layers of blistering noise and feedback, bird-like squeaks and wails, only to let it all melt away into the soft-droning sky. All housed in hand made tape inserts assembled in a very limited quantity, this cassette is a gem and should really not be missed!
Radical Cemetery is actually a pretty awesome name for a band, and while we have no idea who these guys are, or where they come from, we're pretty into their tripped out zoner doom murk. Squlechy synth blurt, and rumbling, crumbling buzz, over minimal drum creep, and disembodied free-rock moan, all coalesce into some sort of abstract freeform doom-drone jazziness that besides the above description, is pretty tough to put into words, especially when the track explodes into something like the Dead C crossed with Daniel Higgs by way of No Neck Blues Band, which really, sounds like pretty good rock math to us. But which doesn't quite describe the rest of the record. The second track conjures up a sort of swirling kosmische shimmer, but laced with grinding clunks, and heaving thunks, a dark tranquility on the verge of collapse. And the track after that is all free jazz drum skitter, wedded to feedback shards and weird laser beam squiggles. The track after that is all lilting dayglo noise drenched slow-pop creep, a bit like a lobotomized Black Moth Super Rainbow dosed with horse tranquilizers, and then after than, we're back to another murky organ driven slither. The record reveals itself as some warped lo-fi, outsider drone-noise / free-rock chimera, slipping easily from minimal mumbly mesmer (reminding us at times of aQ faves Net Shaker) and drugged out brain damaged, sci-fi slowburn psych jams. But some surprises lurk amidst all of that. Like the churning guitar heavy dope-dirge of "Nice RVINS", the John Carpenter by way of Wolf Eyes, ominous synth dirge "From Musk To Defrog", and the woozy swirling cosmic underwater-orchestra mesmer of closer "Concrete Dunks / Heat Distortion". Cool.
New York's Radio 4 receive a heap of remixification on Electrify - transforming the funky, already danceable tunes of this clean cut, mod-ish post-punk band into gothy industrial-dance stomps and more straightforward techno rave-ups. Just like the Astralwerks remix album of The Faint's songs drew much puzzlement from these parts, so does this. Granted the remixers here seem much more aware and respectful of band and their original songs... heck, there's even a remix by The Faint! Includes five versions of "Dance To The Underground" (by The Faint, Playgroup, and hotshit producers DFA), one for "Start A Fire" by Justin Robertson, one for "Struggle" by Adrian Sherwood and Mark Stewart, as well as a video for "D.T.T.U." Although the DFA mix in particular sure is a tasty snakecharmer, as a whole, can't say this is essential. We'd definitely recommend checking out Radio 4's Gotham album first, if you haven't already. Now *that's* plenty exuberant and danceworthy!
On Enemies Like This, the Radio 4 boys continue their remarkable hybrid reincarnation of The Clash and Gang Of Four for the hip NYC party set. After the somewhat disappointing last album Stealing Of A Nation back in 2004, they get a little closer to the punchy sound of their 2002 DFA produced album Gotham -- that was a match made in dance-punk heaven. This album was appropriately and deftly produced by Jagz Kooner (who's that?! the producer for sleek dance-rockers Kasabian and Primal Scream), the guitars are full and sinewy, the vocals are sneeringly present with lots of hooky lines, the drums smart like the snap of a tight elastic waistband and the bass maintains a deep dub-inflected grooviness. No, not original, but very catchy and well done.
If you're expecting the total retro pop catchiness of Radio 4's debut album "The New Song And Dance", you might be a bit disappointed with "Gotham" (as we initially were). That's not to say this is a disappointing album. It's just that after the first
Pssst, we've discovered the recipe for the new Radio 4 album, and we'll share it with you: Combine 2 cups of The Rapture with 2.5 cups of The Faint. Mix well. Allow to rise for approximately 15 minutes. Add a generous dollop of Oasis, and a smidge of INXS. Aaah, all kidding aside, it does seem to be the pattern for Radio 4 that on each album they end up sounding very much like one of their musical forefathers/heroes (in the past it's been The Clash, Gang Of Four and early Elvis Costello). Heck, their band name is taken from a Public Image Limited song title! Granted they've done this very well, kicking out some really addictive punchy tunes. Their last full length Gotham and its predecessor The New Song And Dance (both on the Gern Blansten label) were filled with sharp songwriting and non-stop good times. Needless to say we were looking forward to this new offering. So, it's somewhat disconcerting that this Brooklyn band now sounds like an edgeless, house-y rehash of a more recent dance punk rehash (i.e, their contemporaries the aforementioned Faint and Rapture). What happened?! Well, for one thing there's the noticeable absence of the hot-shit DFA production crew which could account for some of the changes. All in all, it's alright if you don't listen too hard and just get swept up in the slick dance beat and groovy bassline. The album's thumpin' lead-off track "Party Crashers" has undoubtedly already infested hipster dancefloors across the nation (actually the bonus disc includes a bunch of remixes of this song as well as "Absolute Affirmation", some videos and a making-of-the-album documentary film in QuickTime format). However on closer scrutiny, Stealing Of A Nation sticks to the shallow end and doesn't really inspire repeat listens which is disappointing considering the efforts they seem to have taken to give this album some depth and political gravity. We'd definitely recommend (re)visiting the DFA produced Gotham instead.
It would be sooo easy to simply say "for fans of Elvis Costello...", but let's say more than that. Well done power pop with a lil' bit of emo thrown in the mix. Yes, lots of Costello-esque melodies and vocal inflections as well as some songs that sound like the perkier poppier moments of Joe Jackson. Seriously, when this release was played in the store, a customer even mistook it for some old lost Costello tapes. Really. Good though.
Hailing from Vancouver, BC, are these synth-pop youngsters. An almost eery rendering of the late '80s synth-wave sound (when these boys were mere tots). Think "Hanging Garden"-period Cure or Echo and the Bunnymen around the time of "The Cutter". Dark, mournful and moody.
Radio Berlin's new full length is a much tighter and more propulsive effort than their promising debut album "Sibling", but still retains the swirling, sirening synth and guitar sounds and lamenting, angstful vocals popularized in the early '80s by British
We've been lucky, with the resurgence of vinyl, there's been lots of "essentials" reissued on lp lately, and this is one of 'em!! As we've noted before (we're cribbing a bit from our own review of their 'best of' cd on Sub Pop), Radio Birdman were the mid-'70s Australian re-incarnation of the MC5 and The Stooges, lead by Detroit-transplant Deniz Tek (guitarist, songwriter, and later a fighter pilot and doctor!), and damn were they good. Being half a world away and several years removed from Detroit ground zero, Birdman's homage to their proto-punk Grande Ballroom heroes was no rip-off, their penchant for surf-guitar licks being but one point of departure. Other influences include VU, BOC, and Alice Cooper. Legends in Australia, they're more like an obscure rock footnote over here, but once you're into 'em, you'll be really into 'em!
This 1977 album was their first full-length, and a total classic (whichever edition you get, there were actually two with slightly different tracklists, this is the '78 overseas one). It includes their cover version of The 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me" along with Birdman classics like "Aloha Steve & Danno", "Murder City Nights", "Do The Pop", "New Race", and "Man With The Golden Helmet". Apparently the 4 Men With Beards who put this out like a little rock action now and then, not just beard-stroking jazz, folk and kraut...
Thank you, Sub Pop! It's about time these classic Radio Birdman tracks got a decent Stateside reissue -- this their first in over 20 years! One can always quibble with "best ofs" but this really IS pretty much the essentials: at 22 tracks, 70 minutes, it's
Comeback reunion album from this seminal '70s Australian punk outfit. Not bad, definitely better than The Weirdness!
LP number two from Sam Goldberg, aka Radio People, who traffics in the same sort of spaced out psychedelic synthscapes as other aQ faves like Mist, Emeralds, Le Revelateur, Bitchin Bajas, Gatekeeper, Stellar Om Source and the rest, weaving expansive landscapes of lush chordal swells, and shimmery melodic drift, wreathed in a gauzy thrum that gives the sound a distinctly retro feel, as if this really could be some long lost krautdrone artifact unearthed and reissued. Besides the cosmic synthscapery, the sound also borrows from seventies Italo soundtracks, and krautrocky new age ambience, the sort of thing modern groups like the Alps and Expo 70 have also explored.
Radio People does what he does very well, whether it's weaving warm swirls of synth ambience, kicking out the John Carpenter like jams or conjuring up gorgeous melancholy soundscapes that sound like they were plucked from old lost 45, or crafting creepy faux cold wave soundtracks,but what he does that no one else does, is SING. We really weren't expecting it, but on the last track, when the vocals came in, it really changed everything, warm and softly crooned, subtly processed and wreathed in effects, they add a wistful pop element to the proceedings that definitely makes this something special. The vocals adding a bit of emotion and pathos that can sometimes seem missing with all this retro electronic synth stuff. A pretty great record all around, and fans of the above mentioned bands will most likely flip for this, but that last track left us hankering for more tracks with singing. Here's hoping for a future record of creepy krauty synth pop from Radio People. But until then, this'll do just fine.
LIMITED TO 750 COPIES! Each one hand numbered. Includes a download coupon.
The highly anticipated companion album to "Kid A", "Amnesiac" should not disappoint those who picked up last year's release. Many are sure to write this one off as "more of the same" and to be sure, the production quality, as well as the electronica laden
On "Amnesiac" as on "Kid A," Radiohead finds inspiration in electronica, especially the hard-disk crunch of Lesser or Kid 606, and the slippages of melody and rhythm that occur in minimalist techno where there is no bridge, chorus, verse structure, only modulations and transformations of a sequence of leitmotifs. When applying electronica to their pop sensibility, Radiohead do not lace a pre-existing pop song with a slinky house groove; rather they write a pop song as if it were electronica. Thom Yorke's vocals meander through each of the tracks as if some piece of granular synthesis found on Chain Reaction. Which isn't to say that Radiohead are simply jumping on the electronica bandwagon. With "Amnesiac" Radiohead use the studio and its limitless resources to do much more; like emulating an early jazz vocalist like Billy Holiday in "You And Whose Army?", or including a seemingly incongruous New Orleans-esque drunken horn section at the end of the album for "Life In Glass Houses." As always, totally breathtaking.
We are often jealous of how much cool stuff there is in Japan, they even got a Radiohead record a few years ago that wasn't available here in the states...until now. Com Lag is a collection of b-sides, remixes (by Christian Vogel and Four Tet!) and live tracks recorded around the time of Hail To The Thief. While we all wait with giddy anticipation for the next Radiohead album (hurry up guys it's been 4 years!!!) this has been giving us a nice Radiohead fix. It's easy to forget that when it comes right down to it, these guys are just a totally great band who also just so happen to be quite popular and famous. A must have for all Radiohead fans!
What needs to be said about the new Radiohead? One of the few bands that manages to captivate the avant garde as well as having massive pop/MTV appeal. Most of you already want this anyway. Or already have it. And you should. Because it's great.
Seems like now that Radiohead have gone through all the different 'rock' stages, typical angst filled rock band, experimental critical darlings, electronic/rock avantgarde hybrid whatever, they're now ready to settle down and make music simply because they love making music. And write songs. Songs that can be played by a rock band and that don't need a million dollars and a bank of computers to sound the way they're supposed to. Allan thinks it sounds like a mix of the "new" electric Radiohead and the old rock Radiohead which pretty much sums it up. I think it's pretty much unanimous around here. A great new record from one of our favorite bands, with enough experimental bits to keep it interesting, but enough good songwriting to even lure back some of you folks who jumped ship in search of less challenging fare after The Bends.
Now for Byram's two cents on a related subject:
You know by the time this record came out I'd pretty much gotten sick of it by listening to the supposed "rough mixes" that had been floating around the web these past several months. And while I was thoroughly familiar with the album by its official release date, sucker that I am, I picked it up anyway and will continue to listen to it at home. It's a testament to the fact that it's not filesharing that's destroying the music industry (remember home taping?) but shitty record labels putting out crappy new albums (Madonna, Creed et al) and expecting us all to pay top dollar to boot. And if file sharing is indeed hampering sales, then once you factor in that loss, then I bet you Hail To The Thief's total for its first week would have most certainly topped Metallica's phenomenal totals.
Special wallet/poster version. Dunno if it's really any better than the jewel case one, but it says "Special Edition" right on it, and it's VERY LIMITED. In fact, we might not have any by Saturday night! (So if you order this one and they're gone, we'll just send you the regular unless you specify not to.)
What needs to be said about the new Radiohead? One of the few bands that manages to captivate the avant garde as well as having massive pop/MTV appeal. Most of you already want this anyway. Or already have it. And you should. Because it's great.
Seems like now that Radiohead have gone through all the different 'rock' stages, typical angst filled rock band, experimental critical darlings, electronic/rock avantgarde hybrid whatever, they're now ready to settle down and make music simply because they love making music. And write songs. Songs that can be played by a rock band and that don't need a million dollars and a bank of computers to sound the way they're supposed to. Allan thinks it sounds like a mix of the "new" electric Radiohead and the old rock Radiohead which pretty much sums it up. I think it's pretty much unanimous around here. A great new record from one of our favorite bands, with enough experimental bits to keep it interesting, but enough good songwriting to even lure back some of you folks who jumped ship in search of less challenging fare after The Bends.
Now for Byram's two cents on a related subject:
You know by the time this record came out I'd pretty much gotten sick of it by listening to the supposed "rough mixes" that had been floating around the web these past several months. And while I was thoroughly familiar with the album by its official release date, sucker that I am, I picked it up anyway and will continue to listen to it at home. It's a testament to the fact that it's not filesharing that's destroying the music industry (remember home taping?) but shitty record labels putting out crappy new albums (Madonna, Creed et al) and expecting us all to pay top dollar to boot. And if file sharing is indeed hampering sales, then once you factor in that loss, then I bet you Hail To The Thief's total for its first week would have most certainly topped Metallica's phenomenal totals.
First ever live record from Radiohead, and for a person who typically hates live records, I ended up liking this quite a bit. Radiohead tend to mix it up live quite a bit, re-arranging songs, playing them all slow and stretched out, rocking out a bit more, unfortunately, there's not too much of that on this disc. A lot of the songs -do- rock harder, but I think that's just a function
Never before has a record been so completely overshadowed by it's delivery method. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year, you no doubt have read or heard about Radiohead, offering their album for download, at any price the customer deemed appropriate, whether it be $20 or nothing at all. Needless to say, this sort of thing can't really be pulled off unless you're one of the biggest bands in the world, but since Radiohead ARE, it seemed to be an unmitigated success. They haven't revealed how many copies they sold, or what the average price paid was, but it's probably safe to assume, they made out okay.
And then there are the Radiohead fans who don't like downloads, and who want every bit of music that they can get, and thus shelled out $80 for the deluxe double lp, double cd set, with a whole extra cd of outtakes and unreleased tracks (at least one aQ-er did! As did lots of aQ customers). We personally thought, for a band like that, it almost would have been cooler to NOT release an MP3 version, have it ONLY available in stores. After all, without indie stores they wouldn't have been where they are today. People are so worried about record sales, imagine if a handful of bands skipped the online release entirely, and you HAD to buy it in an actual store. Sure, we're sort of biased, but hell, we love records and cds and tapes, and even if we didn't have a store, we'd feel exactly the same way.
Well, look at that, we were just talking about how everything BUT the music on the new Radiohead has been discussed to death, and we go and spend the first half of our review doing the very same thing...
Anyway, now available on cd, and as a regular lp, Radiohead's latest, in case you haven't heard it in one way or another, is actually really quite good. Not immediately experimental, and a bit more rocking, with lots of fan favorites that have been in the works for years, the sound reminds us a lot of Hail To The Thief, but with definite nods to Kid A and Kid B (Amnesiac), it's hard to imagine these guys making a BAD record. They have such a distinct sound, and such a way with sonics, and melody, whether rocking furiously, or drifting dreamily. And In Rainbows covers pretty much all the bases, the opener, "15 Step", begins with an Autchre-ish electronic skitter, but then in comes Thom Yorke's falsetto croon, and soon the band is shuffling through swirling guitar melodies and children's voices, strange FX and dubbed out drums. "Bodysnatchers" is a serious rocker, and is one of the oldest songs here (we think), with a killer crunchy riff, distorted bass, a very motorik Neu!-like rhythm, and big chiming U2 like guitars. "Nude" is a hushed whispery ballad, but just weird enough to stay interesting, a haunting high end drift, with a super gorgeous vocal line. The rest of the record seems to slip back and forth, from rock to ballad, from swoonsome epic crashing bombast, to hushed intimate whisper. Finishing off with the amazing "Videotape", a slow soft piano dirge, with another delicate and haunting vocal melody, but underpinned with some weird muted electronic drum loop, the whole thing so hypnotic and repetitive and dreamlike.
But who the heck needs to review a Radiohead record anyway? Especially this one. If you didn't download it, you're probably already gonna buy the cd or lp. And in fact, we bet half the people who downloaded it are also gonna buy the physical version. Radiohead are one of the few bands with such a crazy universal appeal, regular folks dig 'em, indie rockers of course, lots of metalheads do too, and loads of 'experimental' and 'avant' music lovers like them as well. Which makes sense, cuz, hell, they're a great band, they write great songs, they're not afraid to experiment and take regular songs and twist them all up, and this is just another great Radiohead record.
Comes in cool 'green' packaging, designed so you can take the various parts and stickers and stick them in a RECYCLED jewel case and voila!
Collection of rarites and live stuff. Contains "Stop Whispering" (U.S. version), "Thinking About You", "Faithless, The Wonder Boy", "Banana Co.", "Killer Cars" (Live), "Vegetable" (Live), "You" (Live), and "Creep" (acoustic).
Radiohead is a band whose mythology has gotten much bigger than they are. The pop giants have steered their fate from being one hit wonders to being the elegant masters of balancing full albums with excess and economy. Like all great artists, Radiohead understands that a key tenet of the artistic process is the necessity of risk-taking. And "Kid A" is an album full of risks. It is also the album that has the unfortunate burden of needing to follow up "OK Computer" -- one of the few records on which a band has managed to perfectly realize all of their intended musical ideas.
The success and failure of the risk taking on "Kid A" is measured by the lack of Radiohead's big melodic hooks which have been replaced by rolling electronica laced grooves, Rhodes organ drone chords, and a generally gorgeous production. Radiohead has wanted to create an album full of exquisite details that are supposed to draw the listener into the record to discover all of the tiny sonic jewels that are so effectively hidden throughout. But without the pop hook, Radiohead hasn't anything else in their repetoire to seduce the listener into the rich production. As a result, the band has made a nice record... one that may inevitably grow on you, but one that is far from genius. With that said, we have to commend Radiohead for their experimental spirit.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Limited edition version of Kid A. Comes packaged in a booklet by Stanley and Tchock.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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This is it, the limited edition packaging of "Kid A". Radiohead is a band whose mythology has gotten much bigger than they are. The pop giants have steered their fate from being one hit wonders to being the elegant masters of balancing full albums with excess and economy. Like all great artists, Radiohead understands that a key tenet of the artistic process is the necessity of risk-taking. And "Kid A" is an album full of risks. It is also the album that has the unfortunate burden of needing to follow up "OK Computer" -- one of the few records on which a band has managed to perfectly realize all of their intended musical ideas.
The success and failure of the risk taking on "Kid A" is measured by the lack of Radiohead's big melodic hooks which have been replaced by rolling electronica laced grooves, Rhodes organ drone chords, and a generally gorgeous production. Radiohead has wanted to create an album full of exquisite details that are supposed to draw the listener into the record to discover all of the tiny sonic jewels that are so effectively hidden throughout. But without the pop hook, Radiohead hasn't anything else in their repetoire to seduce the listener into the rich production. As a result, the band has made a nice record... one that may inevitably grow on you, but one that is far from genius. With that said, we have to commend Radiohead for their experimental spirit.
There's a video making the rounds, of a Radiohead support group, where one man has to be coaxed into saying how he really feels, that he likes OLD Radiohead better, as he admits to not getting King Of Limbs, the group leader prompts him, "was it really JUST The King Of Limbs?", other contributions include "where are the choruses?", "the choruses? where are the verses?!" and "Give Johnny Greenwood his bleeding guitar back!" (the punchline being when the man admits to thinking OK Computer was overrated, at which point, he is asked to leave, everyone looking disgusted).
And while it's funny, it's also frankly true. Radiohead are not the pop band they once were, heck, they're not even the 'experimental pop' band they once were. They have essentially ditched choruses and verses and traditional song structure and from what we can tell most traditional rock band instrumentation. They've made no bones of their love for electronic music, that love having found its way into their sound as far back as OK Computer, but manifesting itself more and more with every record, on Thom Yorke's solo record The Eraser, and no more than here, on King Of Limbs, a collection of ethereal, musical trifles, but only in so much that they don't adhere to pop song tradition, for while they feel like trifles, they are hardly trifling, instead, they are impressionistic, abstract, based more around texture and rhythm, opener "Bloom" almost sounds like Yorke singing over a Boards Of Canada track, the sounds woozy and smeary and washed out and glimmering, the drums looped and motorik, Yorke's croon an echo drenched ghost. "Morning Mr. Magpie" is a bit more 'rock', but only a bit, with actual guitar, but again draped over a rhythm that in its repetition becomes more like a loop, the guitars following suit, and instead of slipping clearly from chorus to verse, the songs seems to just drift, but that's enough, the sound lush, and dense, layered and a bit dark.
"Lotus Flower" is the single, and it makes sense, a bit of stripped down skeletal dubstep flecked minimalism, softly swirling and again fairly abstract, but Yorke's voice is quite nice, slipping into a higher register, and adding a bit of pathos and drama to the otherwise minimal skitter. And so it goes. The one complaint might be that it doesn't really sound like a record made by a proper band. Even the drums sound programmed (perhaps they are), the guitars are often replaced by swirls and swaths that sound more like synths, but really, if you're a fan, and have been over the last few records, then King Of Limbs is not the radical unexpected step so many are claiming it to be. And heck, if you were never into Radiohead's stadium rock bombast, as experimental as it may have been, maybe this is the record for you, a modern minimal avant dance music disc that manages to fuse a sort of ethereal abstract pop to more modern minimal electronica. We dig.
Wow! Do NOT (as I did for years) write off this English band as bad alterna-rockers. This is a KILLER album, conceptual in scope, consistent in quality and yet each song has an element that sets it apart from the others. Like JEFF BUCKLEY FRONTING QUEEN (all you who lament not hearing another of Jeff's albums, try this one) with elements of Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, and U2, we kid you not. Highly highly recommended.
As Radiohead have evolved into a band much more connected to electronica than guitar rock, we knew it was just a matter of time until they released a remix album. And their latest album King Of The Limbs, really was the Radiohead record most ripe for remix, so after several 12" releases featuring many of these remixes, they've finally put together a great two disc collection of those tracks, all songs from King Of Limbs, remixed by folks like Caribou, Four Tet, Actress, Jamie XX, SBTRKT, and lots more. While there should have been no doubt, we were relieved to find this wasn't about making cheesy dance remixes of Radiohead songs, but instead they all honor and respect the mood of the album from which these tracks come and create nuanced remixes much more suited for dark rainy nights than brightly lit dancefloors.
Moody and moving, just the way we like our Radiohead.
In addition to the various Silence label restocks we've listed in the past month or so (Algarnas Tradgard, International Harvester, Harvester, and Trad Gras Och Stenar) we've got another, first-time reissue of "Scandinavian krautrock" for y'all. Radiomobel ("radio furniture") were an enthusiastic, if amateur, band of teenagers coming along a few years after the aforementioned acts, circa 1975, operating in a similar psych-prog space... Basement-recorded with minimal equipment (much of it home-built), the languorous songs found on Radiomobel's rare (100 copies pressed) private-label debut LP feature lots of rhythmic chug, meandering acid rock guitar leads, and chant-like vocals. Tramsebox is often gentle, but also capable of bearing down and getting heavy, always with a similar stoned vibe to the Trad Gras Och Stenar stuff... of course, this is something for those who already have explored all those great bands mentioned above and want more of that sound, just like these guys did (or should we say, still do, as it seems they were more-or-less active thru 'til the '90s and maybe even today!).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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After five albums on Scandivanian majors (hey, Refused have found their way on the Swedish majors), Radiopuhelimet return to their original label - Bad Vuguum - for their latest album, that maintains their well established razor sharp double guitar fire and imaginative rhythmic attacks. See Rapeman or Jesus Lizard for more sane stateside comparisons.
Radius is the new collaboration between Mr. Mark Edwards and Mr. Jeff Ray (also of SF band Zmrzlina and one of the main organizers of the Mission Creek Music Festival). This cd-r features nine pretty acoustic folk songs laced with some very subtle electronics. Quite akin to N. Lannon... actually we put this on right after playing Lannon's Chemical Friends album and they fit together almost seamlessly. Very nice!
A heavy, hard rocking Dungen? From actually back in the day? That's kind of what this newly reissued (first time on cd) Swedish hard rock rarity sounds like. Recorded in 1975 by a teenage band with big league chops, equipment, and ambition, the sole album from Rag I Ryggen (Strength And Courage, in English) is what collectors/dealers like to term a "fuzz monster". And it is full of that fuzz we love. The Rag I Ryggen boys were basically trying to be Sweden's answer to Deep Purple and Uriah Heep. And while they've got all the guitar heroics, heavy riffs, and Hammond organ action required, they're a heck of a lot more Swedish sounding, in part 'cause they sing in Swedish (and sometimes English too, on such tracks as "Queen Of Darkness") and also because they bring in a lot of folkiness on tracks like "Jan Banan" that remind us of bands like Kebnekajse. It's very rockin' mix of melody, folkiness, Moog-ed symphonic prog bombast and '70s heaviness. What's not to like? And this reish comes with three live bonus tracks, detailed liner notes, etc. Nice.
It's about fucking time! This is one of the best and most overlooked hard rock/metal records of the past 15 years, a big fave of Andee and Allan here at AQ. Its obscurity might have something do with the fact that that they were, as frontman Greg Strzempka
But the bottom line is always the songs. And Raging Slab, at least on this record, has SONGS coming out their ass. Unforgettable hooks and sing-along choruses. So catchy and fun (and funny) without being stupidly ironic. Bizarre lyrics that are sung so forcefully and with such emotion that you find yourself singing along full force: "GET OFF MY JOLLIES!!!!" or "I can bust a gut on Heebie Jeebies and holy rollers poppin wheelies", or "Just try and shave my wooly bully, I'll use the fur as fuel for folly." In fact all the lyrics are almost nonsensical but oddly satisfying and completely compelling (especially when you're in full on air-guitar, or 'air lead vocalist' mode). This should have been the "Nevermind" of groovy boogie stoner hard rock, but the money and success and fame somehow didn't happen. But now with this reissue, folks have another chance to catch on to this slab of truly unique, Southern-fried metal-rock nirvana.
Joseph Raglani has released a handful of micro-editions on cd-r, cassette, and lp during the past four or five years, operating in a Klaus Schulze / Cluster vein of synthetic orchestration before catching the attention of Kranky Records. With all of the swoop and sweep of Raglani's electronics that parallel the drone-rock of Growing and Stars Of The Lid, Kranky is a good fit for Raglani. He casts a wide net of aesthetics on Of Sirens Born with some lovely pastoral moments coaxed from sampled harp and strings not that far removed from Colleen's lilting sound; and later on, he ignites a powderkeg of Merzbowian noise which disintegrates into atonal bowings of metal. But his deftly rendered ambience is rife with plenty of squiggle and slow-burning crescendos from his patch bay synthesizer, forming the crux of this enjoyable album.
Wow! This record totally knocked our socks off. It's not at all what we were expecting. We remembered the Rah Bras as some sort of Ruins worshipping sorta Lighting Boltish art punk freak out sorta thing. And while some of those elements linger on here, their sound is way different. This is full on blown out fuzzed out electro synth weirdness, but don't get all down on these guys for any perceived bandwagon jumping cuz this is nothing of the sort. Sure they would probably hit the spot for all those big haired, tight pantsed, white belted elctroclash kiddies, but this is WAY weirder. Some sort of unholy collision between, X Ray Spex, Essential Logic, Six Finger Satellite, Trans Am, Stereolab and Fischerspooner but with a fully Chipmunked male vocalist singing in an impossible falsetto wail, like Geddy Lee on 45. Huge buzzing synths battle with snarling guitars, wrapped up tight into BIG riffs, big BOOMing, pounding drums (REAL drums as far as we can tell) and those vocals. Yowza! Those of you who remember post Butthole Surfers group Drain, this is a bit like a synth pop version of that group's pulsing industrial weirdness, albeit with the fuzzy dance punk quotient turned WAY up. This is big and loud and wild and fun, a little goofy, but also a tiny bit menacing. The vocals have a certain snarl to them and the synths have as much BITE as the heaviest of guitars. But this is not merely an all out black light, coke fueled, all night, outerspace electro dance party, no the 'Bras sort of spin out into even stranger sounds, super thick, almost Krautrock rhythms that build into ferocious squalls of dark and sort of melancholy epicness, some full on foot stomping synth glam, like Sweet on helium, and even some haunting balladry a la Kate Bush, although even in ballad mode, the musical backdrop is still a dense swirl of fuzzy drones and bleeping blooping swoosh, spacey and shimmery and sort of creepy.
OK kids, put down your White Stripes records, and your Clinic records, and your John Spencer Blues Explosion records, and burn your Strokes records, and your Yeah Yeah Yeahs records. This is the real shit: gritty, cocksure, whiteboy blues, junkyard
As much as we love the Beatles (and we do), we don't really find ourselves putting on Rubber Soul or Revolver on a daily basis. No, if we're gonna listen to Lennon/McCartney compositions, we'd rather hear 'em done a bit differently, like for instance rearranged by an obscure psychedelic orchestral jazz-rock ensemble from Norway, as found here. Recorded circa 1969-70, Rain's album features epic covers of Beatles classics "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day In The Life", as well as John Lennon's own "Isolation", amidst a bunch of impressive progged-out originals, all heavy on the sweeping Hammond organ, fuzz guitar, horn arrangements, and grand Nordic vocals. The ambitious musicians in Rain shift from jazzy grooves to delicate '60s psych to electro-acoustic avant-classical experimentation (as on the stark and strange "Norsk Suite"), all except the latter staying nicely melodic as well as quite technically complex. George Martin & the Beatles were an inspiration of course, but also apparently Varese, Stravinsky, and Vanilla Fudge too!
This Shadoks release includes a 20 minute bonus track of free improvisation, as well as extensive liner notes in the form of an interview with Rain's guitarist/violinist, and plenty of vintage photos.
Does technology exist that instantly turns the rapid random wanderings of the mind into music? Listening to Street Lights sure makes us think it must! It's as if someone's gone and plugged that machine directly into the (we're guessing bong-luvvin') brain of one Mr. Jordan Rain. His new album jumps about so wildly it'll have you puzzledly scratching your own head at every turn. Hell, we felt we almost had to roll ourselves a fatty just to review it!
If Jordan looks / sounds somehow familiar to you, there's many possible reasons why. A veritable North Western underground musical legend, he's been a member of Reeks & The Wrecks (whose sole posthumous release came out on Andee's tUMULt label a while back), Behead The Prophet No Lord Shall Live, Alamo Social Club and Robert Blake's High Wide & Handsome Band. He's also been spotted recently as the frontman for his eight member Yogoman Burning Band.
Anyways, Street Lights is Jordan's second cd of tunes he wrote, played, and recorded all by himself. The instruments and vocals were recorded through the pinhole mic in his iBook directly into the Garageband computer program, where he overdubbed and mixed everything. The aural effects laden grab bag contains everything from answering machine snippits and non-verbal vocalizing to white boy soul falsetto crooning, trippy dubbed out reggae, slow burning laid back grooves, wild percussive freakouts and even a sing-a-long with a baby. Weird and warped, and maybe best listened to under the influence...
Rainbow Ffolly? Sounds ffunny... maybe ffantastic! And it is, for what it is. For those who dig Sgt. Peppery British pop-psych from the '60s, what you've got here is a kaleidoscopic pop concoction whipped up in 1968 by some bright, Beatles-lovin' students who sent their demo in to Parlophone, hoping to score a record deal. The label ended up releasing their demo on vinyl just as it was, which is what we've got here, reissued on cd with a couple of bonus tracks. It's a bit like Yellow Submarine on a student budget, complete with bits of silly dialogue interspersed amidst the songs, but it has some fuzz bite to it as well. Definitely a colorful curiousity (and not just the cover) from a ffar-off but still ffabulous time, in the vein of the Beatles, Blossom Toes, Kaleidoscope, early Floyd...
Rainbows Are Free? Did they really name their METAL band that? Really? Well, they are on the psychedelic/stonery side of things, so that sort of thing kinda makes sense, just like the local band called Glitter Wizard, but still. You gotta really kick ass to pull off having a name like that. And, they do! Bottom heavy, fuzzed out, swinging riffage explodes out of the gate on opener "Slow Train". They don't really let ever let up, with wild, even more fuzz-filled soloing and a vocal style that surprises by morphing from a stoner drawl into what sounds more like a frothing rabid Rob Halford from Judas Priest! Really, on the second track the singer busts out a gruff, staccato style that's more metal than thou, over the top like Halford singing "The Ripper" with a frog in his throat, not at all what we were expecting but pretty damn awesome. That's actually when we knew we really liked this band, that they were willing to roam outside the standard stoner rawk template, the singer especially, screaming and/or crooning as the mood strikes, while the band RIPS right along. As a result, there's moments here that remind us of everything in the stoner/psych/doom/grunge realm from Kyuss to Reverend Bizarre to Skin Yard (or Gruntruck) to Goatsnake to Danava ... From their name on down, it's hard to peg these guys, but we like 'em and their chunky grooves and freaky ways. They get particularly far-out and bad-trippy on "Sinking Ship", and the singer's yowl on "Are You Dead?" even conjures up the shade of Saint Vitus' Scott Reagers.
Recommended to anyone into all the killer stoner stuff we've been giving the thumbs up to lately from the MeteorCity and Small Stone labels, for instance the Solace we listed last week. And, everyone who dug Freedom Hawk oughta dig the heck outta this too!!
