**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Just wanted to get the attention of the growing legion of Mississippi Records obsessives, as this week we have not one, not two, but THREE new releases from this PDX based all vinyl, mostly reissue label.
In addition to unearthing rad rarities and reissuing them on vinyl, or putting together perfect mixes of blues, gospel and African music and releasing those amazing mixes as proper lps, Mississippi also does their bit to support their local scene, with a series called appropriately enough the North Portland Series, this being volume 2! (And no we never got, nor can we get volume 1, so don't ask)
We know almost nothing about Sad Horse, other that what's to be found right here. And what that is, is 6 short sharp blasts of angular lo-fi punk rock stumble and garage-y pound and crunch. The drums simple and straight ahead, the guitar raw and fuzzy, wild shouted boy/girl vox, super energetic and fun.
Beyond the musical component, Mississippi Records fanatics might also want this for the sleeve, a strange hand made, origami style jacked, with an extra little booklet affixed to the front, which just so happens to be a no frills, super lo-fi, partial Mississippi Records catalog! C'mon, know you want one...
Hefty 70-minute documentation of Sade's 2001 world tour. If you can get past the annoyingly extra-loud crowd enthusiasm, you'll find this is a nice collection. Sade's chilled out, smooth-as-silk vocal delivery is perfectly matched by the easy-listenin'
Solo record number two from Stereolab frontwoman Laetitia Sadier, and like The Trip before it, Silencio finds Sadier's solo sound not that far removed from that of the Stereolab mothership, if anything, she trades in some of the cosmic krautrock worship for something a bit more sixties and French sounding, a dash of Tropicalia, plenty of shimmery guitar jangle, lush orchestrations, the vibe for the most part lush and languorous, all warm and woozy and washed out, with swoonsome strings, and simple shuffling rhythms, dramatic vocal harmonies harkening back to a different time, her voice so lovely, heavily accented, perfect for conjuring up a lost era, subtly psychedelic, all vibes and warm whirling organs, the record rife with subtle space age effects, and peppered with bursts of more rocking jangle, that sound like a mix of some lost Teen Beat band and aQ faves The New Lines, in fact, fans of the New Lines will find much to love here, as will anyone into classic lush timeless pop.
As lead singer for Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier's voice is instantly recognizable, so suave and sensual, able to effortlessly create such colorful and swaying sensations, with just her voice. Along with Stereolab Sadier has also released gorgeous records with her side-project, Monade, and finally she goes at it solo with one of the most emotional and ethereal sets of songs she has ever created. While The Trip will immediately remind you of Stereolab, the difference is that it's not so much about the dynamic scope of sounds and colors that Stereolab swirl in and out of, but instead, The Trip, is much more languid, allowing Sadier's vocals to sway in a soft breeze while she sings about loss, memory, and grief, dark emotions, but the record was made after the suicide of her younger sister. What has always made Sadier's voice so special is the way that even when the subject is somber and sad she still can evoke a dreamlike aura around it that allows for sparks of hope and enlightened acceptance.
So sad to think of how much loss Sadier has had to suffer in the last few years, not only losing her younger sister, but the tragic death of her Stereolab comrade Mary Hansen. We could all learn a thing or two from Sadier's ability to remain so graceful and elegant after such painful loss and sadness and finding a way through her music to carry on and pay tribute to the legacy of people who have meant so much to her. A record we know we will be turning to even more when the days start to turn cold and we need warmth that we can count on.
After four solid albums (plus some great collaborations with Andre Williams and Jon Langford), we've grown accustomed to counting on The Sadies for their sorta chaotic blend of spaghetti western, surf guitar, country twang, psychobilly and murder balladry with equal nods to Ennio Morricone, Link Wray and Nick Cave. However, on their fifth album Favourite Colours (that spelling reveals their true Canadian-ness), the latter film score maestro's influence is much less pronounced, seemingly in favor of some new untrodden territory for the band. The fellows are lookin' a bit ragged around the edges. Well, at least half of them are... take a gander at the cover photo... who are those two mountain men?! Oh! But we must quickly emphasize that it in a good way! If anything the band is sounding more refreshed and composed than ever. Definitely not tired nor worn out... not at all! Their playing is as tight as ever, and it doesn't take long for them to make that clear. Just check out the hot guitar work on the lead-off track "Northumberland West". They're a band totally capable of playing it as loose and lanky as they please. The most noticeable change in the band's sound is the increased presence and range of the vocals -- from a Pink Floyd-ish contemplativeness on the second song "Translucent Sparrow" to the droll storyteller tone on "1000 Cities Falling" (akin to their Canadian forefather Gordon Lightfoot... "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald", anyone?) to the retro 60s Yardbirds / Animals-ness of the excellent finale "Why Would Anybody Live Here?". Another welcome detour is the seventh song "The Iceberg" which is as the title suggests a somber, galacial instrumental. Gorgeous! As usual, this Sadies album is comprised of a veritable grabbag of styles and moods, however there's a newfound fluidity and focus to the proceedings. Recommended!
Oh and by the way, keep your eyes peeled in the coming year for The Sadies. They are tireless! The fellows have been busy working on new material with Neko Case. You might recall they were her backing band ('Her Boyfriends') for a spell and looks like they'll be rekindling their touring magic this fall.
Not only are two of the band members brothers of a musical family (Dallas and Travis of the Good Family), but The Sadies as a whole are a formidable branch of a bigger musical family which includes the likes of Neko Case (whom they back up on her own live album The Tigers Have Spoken), Kelly Hogan, Blue Rodeo, Jon Langford, members of Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet and Rick White (of Eric's Trip, Elevator, etc.) not to mention many Bloodshot Records brethren. All of them along with Jon Spencer, Gary Louris (of Golden Smog and the Jayhawks), Steve Albini and a whole slew more got down to business on this live recording which took place over two nights at Lee's Palace in Toronto back in February. Whew! Whoa! As you might already be aware, the core Sadies all by their lonesome kick some serious wall to wall ass live each and every time. So entertaining. So lanky'n'loose and razor-sharp at the same time, effortlessly roaming from Morricone western soundtrack to frenetic surf guitar to murder balladry and back. Now with all the other folks in tow, hot damn, they very well cause a meltdown. 2 discs, 41 tracks, 110 minutes!
Known to veer wildly from style to style, tempo to tempo, mood to mood, those lanky Canadian troubadours The Sadies keep things at a relatively dour faced, slow creep this time around.
Less sprawling too, notably absent on New Season are their trademark excursions into Hawaiian guitar, garage rawk and Morricone spaghetti western territories. Still they're as great as ever because these boys know just how to hit that perfect so-lonesome-you-could-cry pace'n'vibe time and time again. Awesome effortless musicianship, slightly tweaked and twisted takes on age old musical traditions injected with an ever affecting spookiness.
Another full length from those tireless, sharply suited gents, and who's complaining?! Whether they're in one of their loping or galloping moods, it just doesn't matter 'cause they smoke either way. The Sadies will hit you one way or another like a stampede of cattle or a stiletto knife in the back. Often labelled simply as a country or garage or surf band, this Canadian quartet is all of this and more. While they can definitely deliver the goods solidly in any of these departments alone, unlike many bands these days they don't just regurgitate a style. They incorporate aspects of one into another, making music that echoes of a different time, but sounds distinctly of the Sadies. Visions of the ol' west with its trusty steeds, dusty desert sunsets and ten gallon hats may come to mind but are swept away by images of scorned lovers, shifty speakeasy figures with smoking guns.
Screeeeeeeech! That's the sound of this hot rod peelin' out of the lot. What a perfect match -- Torontonian psychobilly hepcats The Sadies doin' the soundtrack for the film documentary about Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (perhaps better known as the man behind the bloodshot'n'buggy eyed rebel comic character Rat Fink)! Unlike their usual studio albums which careen across a vast and varied musical landscape, The Sadies for the most part takes a direct route to the surf, veerin' and huggin' a few curves in the process. Like lil' critters that dart out into headlights, their instrumental rabble-rousin' is flashed with a few dialogue snippits from the film. Super cool! What's that smell?! Burnt rubber, baby! They're smokin'!
Heads up! Here comes another wave of limited edition 7"s from 333 Records! Each release in this series is pressed in an ultra small quantity of 333! The latest additions are this one by Sagan and one by Girl Talk. Plus: The first 100 of this Sagan single comes with a little extra something -- a bonus 3"cdr! Don't fret too much if you do miss the first 100 though 'cause we've been assured that the track will be available online for download too. The ever mischievous and crafty trio of Jay Lesser, Blevin Blectum, Wobbly pour out the prickly tickles, thick bass thuddery, and druggy effected vocals for these two short heavily processed and distorted tracks. Always entertaining! We've only got a handful of these. Snoooze'n'loooze, kiddie!
This was another one of those records that just showed up one day, and knocked us on our asses. And while all the descriptors pointed to something that would be right up our alley, spacey and psychedelic, krautrocky and kosmische, heavy and hazy, which all do definitely apply, the music manages to embody all those adjectives, while tangling them up into something all its own.
This one man band opens up the proceedings with some droned out psychedelic synths, sounding like Amps For Christ or Daniel Higgs, the sounds undulating and spiraling into little tangled melodic squalls, there are bells, and a deep crooned almost chantlike vocal, very hypnotic and almost new agey, those droning synths (or are they effected guitars?), get more and more wild as the song proceeds, a wild woolly freakout over that deep sonorous drone. Great stuff, and we would have been perfectly happy had the whole record sounded like that, but instead, the second song starts off all low slung slither and wah guitar, it's got 'boogie' in the title, and it shows, sort of. Loose and ramshackle, the guitars again blossom into soaring streaks of high end skree, the drums pound and stumble, the vocals wreathed in reverb, the sound insanely dubbed out, everything swallowed up in echo and send swirling into the ether before landing again and reengaging with the in-progress kraut-dub space rock freakout. This is the sort of shit Burnt Hills would conjure up if they wrote songs instead of endless jams, infusing sort-of-proper song structures with all the elements of an unhinged drug addled jam, and the results are pretty wild.
The rest of the record though is all over the place, feet firmly planted in psychedelia, and Appalachia, but exploring pretty much every disparate strain, from clattery, foresty free folk, sounding almost like No Neck Blues Band or Avarus, to back porch bluegrass Fahey-y style American primitivism, from strummy, synthy, noise drenched darkdrone balladry (maybe our favorite track, sounding like a muted Merzbow / Portishead slowburn mashup woven into some Appalachian psychedelic creep), to blown out, in-the-red, Japanese psych style White Heaven / Les Rallizes / Fushitsusha grinding guitar freakout, finally finishing off with another bout of melancholic minor key Appalachia.
Killer stuff, most definitely recommended for fans of modern psych, neo-Appalachia, psychedelic dronemusic and the weirder side of space/psych/drone rock.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Includes multiple inserts.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The latest mysterious musical missive from now local label Moon Glyph comes in the form of this gorgeous bit of collaged ambience from M. Sage, who sound hovers in the shadows between the Caretaker, Philip Jeck and Tim Hecker, a woozy loopscape of random radio snippets, of treated instruments and muted moody melodies, processed guitars drift wraith like over haunting field recordings, wreathed in hazy swirls of static, the various sounds all blurred into soft focus impressionistic drifts, that just seem to fade in and out, like the flickering of an old filmstrip, or the world viewed through the dusty old window of a beat up car, driving through empty towns and long abandoned neighborhoods. Sound become distorted, gristly and crunchy, shards of caustic buzz surface here and there, but are quickly smeared into another layer of sweetly swirling sound. And when proper instruments do surface, they give the sound a haunted otherworldly twang, or a glistening prismatic cosmic shimmer. The sound constantly shifting from sun dappled dreamlike glimmer, to murky, faded drifts, softly churning dronescapes, all slowed down sounds and softly keening melodies, warm whirs and hushed crackle, to darkly cinematic mesmer, the crackle almost becoming a physical presence, the dreamy lilting thrum beneath almost wholly obscure by this glorious patina of crunch and crackle, turning sound into something impossible tactile, a blissed out sprawl of heavenly soft noise. So utterly, and hauntingly gorgeous.
Sweden's Sagor & Swing are an instrumental drums and Hammond organ duo. HAMMOND ORGAN! We know some of you are crazy for the Hammond organ. We are too. And Hammond-freaks or not, this is a lovely, lovely record. Super melodic and dreamy, calm and mesmerizing. Eric Malmberg (organ) and Ulf Moeller (drums) take much inspiration from dark and sleepy Swedish forests, we're told, but we're sure the music of legendary Swedish '60s Hammond/drums duo Hansson & Karlsson is also a big influence! Malmberg actually plays a Hammond that Bo Hansson used on his beloved 1970 Sagan Om Ringen (Lord Of The Rings) album! Not only that, but he writes a comic strip published in a Swedish newspaper called -- get this -- Hansson & Karlsson In Outer Space. The duo's H&K obsession serves them well, without them becoming mere copyists at all. Some tracks are lively and spirited, with stick-in-your-head folk-derived hooks a la fellow Swede Bjorn Olsson (himself a sort of Bo Hansson protege), while others are more like slightly sinister Dario Argento/Goblinesque lullabies, that combine music box melodies with one-note ambient minimalism a bit like that one Aphex Twin-esque track on Burzum's Filosofem. Just a bit. Some Kraftwerk rhythms are hinted at as well, and Magyar Posse's cinematic epics too. This is definitely a universal AQ-staff fave, and we think you'll love it too. Apparently it's S&S fourth album, so we'll have to track down their other two asap!
Second album from the fab Swedish drums and Hammond organ duo, preceeding Allt Hanger Samman which was such a hit around here. And this is just as nice!
The first, totally wonderful album from this Swedish organ/drums duo. Along with their other releases, solid AQ fave material.
The AQ-fave instrumental electric organ and drums duo Sagor & Swing return! These Swedes' previous disc Allt Hanger Samman was a big hit here, especially among those of us (like Byram and Allan) for whom the dulcet tones of the Hammond organ are a siren song. This new disc, Orgelplaneten (not to be confused with their 2nd album Orgelfarger), is actually a bit different from Sagor & Swing's earlier recordings. The line up of course is still the same -- Eric Malmberg on organ and Ulf Moeller on drums -- but the mesmeric mellow folky aspect of their sound is played down (though not gone entirely), and their more uptempo rockin' side is played up. This album is jazzier, punchier, louder. It seems that they've left the dreamy Swedish forests and headed for the bright lights of the big city. It's a playful, brassy, swinging affair that reminds us a bit of Finnish Casio-hipsters Aavikko. And it still reminds us, even more than before in fact, of '60s Hammond n' drums combo Hansson & Karlsson, whom we already knew were Sagor & Swing's biggest inspiration. This is very Hansson & Karlsson indeed! Total retro-cool. So, while other Sagor & Swing cds might be a good soundtrack for an intimate dinner, this one's meant for a real party. Recommended.
Yay! It's been a while since we've heard from this wonderful Hammond organ and drums duo from Sweden, but now they're back with a vinyl-only release on longtime label Hapna. Has it really been almost ten years since their last album? It has, and we've missed 'em, being big fans of their jazzy and dreamy and folky instrumental sound.
Looks like Eric Malberg has found a new drummer to play with, Fredrik Borling of Dungen replacing Ulf Moeller on the kit. Malmberg also lays down some swirling synth textures as well as playing his trademark Bo Hansson-influenced organ, the delightful results range from bright and jaunty uptempo pieces to more moody melodic reveries...
Moments make us think of Hansson, of course, and another great Swedish '70s organist, Merit Hemmingson (she of the "Swedish Hammond Folk Groove") but with the playful synths also of Joe Meek Telstar type stuff at times too. Altogether lovely, so glad to have 'em back!!
Limited to 500 copies, comes with digital download code.
These girls kick so much ass. Four 20 year old Swedish girls kicking out the motherfucking jams like a more metal Runaways. They've been playing together since before they were teens, touring like crazy in Sweden and releasing two full length records. This is their first available in the U.S. and the timing is perfect what with the Hives/Vines/garage rock mania. Sahara Hot Nights spit out punky garage-y rock and roll, equal parts Kiss, the Helicopters and the Runaways. They sound a little like the harder, meaner sister of the Donnas. Heck, with the boyish garage rockin' good times boiling over on both sides of the Atlantic, it's high time we finally heard from the gals!
NOW ON VINYL! Extra nice since the cd version of this great collection has been AWOL of late.
We can't deny we've been quite smitten with so many bands in the last couple years who have blasted onto the scene playing inspired, raw, wild and blown out garage rock. But it may take going back to Peru to the years 1964-1966 to find the most riveting and TRUE origins of garage proto-punk, done to perfection. The first time we ever heard Los Saicos we couldn't believe our ears, this was the kind of garage sound we had always imagined in our mind. Gritty, spirited, and filled with charm and soul. And some pretty gnarly vocals for the time. It's not overstating the case to say they make other '60s dirty garage peddlers like The Sonics or The Monks seem kind of tame. This is the kind of blood, guts and charisma that helped create bands latter on like The Cramps, The Mono Men, The Coachwhips, and Davilla 666. With a primitive surf undertone, and an undeniable tough and cool sensibility they really do have a sound so many bands in the decades to follow tried (and continue to try) to emulate. Los Saicos are like the Peruvian version of a gang of bad kids from a Luis Bunuel film, forming a band and creating electric energy together amongst the harsh realities of the streets they roam.
We're so so so thankful Munster has given Los Saicos the proper reissue and long overdue respect they so deserve. If you like rock n roll in any form, you NEED THIS!
We can't deny we've been quite smitten with so many bands in the last couple years who have blasted onto the scene playing inspired, raw, wild and blown out garage rock. But it may take going back to Peru to the years 1964-1966 to find the most riveting and TRUE origins of garage proto-punk, done to perfection. The first time we ever heard Los Saicos we couldn't believe our ears, this was the kind of garage sound we had always imagined in our mind. Gritty, spirited, and filled with charm and soul. And some pretty gnarly vocals for the time. It's not overstating the case to say they make other '60s dirty garage peddlers like The Sonics or The Monks seem kind of tame. This is the kind of blood, guts and charisma that helped create bands latter on like The Cramps, The Mono Men, The Coachwhips, and Davilla 666. With a primitive surf undertone, and an undeniable tough and cool sensibility they really do have a sound so many bands in the decades to follow tried (and continue to try) to emulate. Los Saicos are like the Peruvian version of a gang of bad kids from a Luis Bunuel film, forming a band and creating electric energy together amongst the harsh realities of the streets they roam.
We're so so so thankful Munster has given Los Saicos the proper reissue and long overdue respect they so deserve. If you like rock n roll in any form, you NEED THIS!
Not one, but TWO brand new records, brand new BANDS in fact, from the man behind avant black metal weirdos Pyramids, Sailors With Wax Wings and White Moth, both heavy and weird in their own way, and both featuring incredible ensemble casts, not so much guests and collaborators. In some ways it does both of these records/groups a bit of a disservice to lump them together, as most reviewers (including this one) do, but it's sort of unavoidable, for as different as these two records may sound, there are quite a few similarities conceptually and even sonically.
For those unfamiliar with Pyramids, we've been pretty smitten with these guys ever since we first heard their double disc debut on Hydra Head, a dizzying sonic concoction that infused black metal blasts with washed out shoegaze glimmer, swirling dreamy ambience, blurred slowcore drift, actually it might be more accurate to describe Pyramids as some sort of blissed out shoegaze slowcore outfit that flecked their dreamy sound with bits of black metal buzz, but either way, the sound these guys cooked up was heady and psychedelic and pushed our buttons BIG TIME. Everything we could want in a weird heavy band seemed to be all smeared into this gorgeously indistinct entity called Pyramids. And the interesting thing about that debut, is that it already sort of foreshadowed the genesis of these two new projects, by including a discs of remixes/reworkings featuring Swans drummer Ted Parsons, Toby Driver of Kay Dot, Colin Marston of Behold the Arctopus, James Plotkin of OLD and Khanate, Justin Broadrick of Jesu / Godflesh and French industrial black metal crushers Blut Aus Nord. And the recent 5 cassette box seemed to be another sign pointing at Pyramids' mainman R Loren's restlessness, and need to keep creating and collaborating, featuring hours and hours of interpretations and reimaginings. Which brings us to Loren's latest projects, a simultaneous release of two different record, by two different groups, each sonically disparate, yet inexorably linked, Sailors With Wax Wings, whose sound is like a more abstracted shoegazey Pyramids, and White Moth, whose sound has been described by Loren as "digital hardcore", but also infuses its drill and bass and industrial crunch with plenty of Pyramidal blissed out black metalisms (including vocals from John Gossard of Weakling and Asunder!).
Sailors With Wax Wings, is the one that will most immediately appeal to fans of Pyramids, or fans of blissy avant black metal and experimental heaviness, and as mentioned above, White Moth is Loren with a pretty incredible collection of collaborators, which we might as well just list: Ted Parsons (Swans, Prong), Colin Marston (Krallice, Behold�The Arctopus), Aidan Baker (Nadja), Simon Scott (Slowdive), Dominick Fernow (Ash Pool, Vegas Martyrs, Prurient, Cold Cave), cellist Hildur Gudnadottir Vern Rumsey of Unwound (!), Aaron Stainthorpe (My Dying Bride), Jonas Renkse (Katatonia) Marissa Nadler, James Blackshaw, and the cover art should look familiar too, courtesy of David Tibet (Current 93). Phew! If there was ever the potential for too-many-cooks, but somehow, Loren and crew pull it off, crafting a slow burning world of soaring dreamlike buzz, thick black shimmer, epic explosive energy and brooding mystery, right away, with "Soft Gardens Near The Sun, Keep Your Distant Beauty", we're transported to some otherworld, where sound is light, and gorgeous chords come cascading from on high like some sonic waterfall, thick swaths of sound whirling and swirling, peppered with delicate piano melodies and powerful drumming, shoegazey for sure, but also intense and urgent and emotional, which is spotlighted even more on the second track "There Came A Drooping Maid With Violets", with the introduction of sorrowful crooned clean male / female vocals, buried in the mix, nestled amidst warm glimmering guitars and lumbering drum plod, like a more crystalline and dreamily doomy Nadja or a softer more spare My Bloody Valentine. Which is the sound that seeps into all the other tracks, like a continuous song suite, a single multi part epic, slipping smoothly from barely there hushed drift, to blackened sheets of soaring high end, to minimal whispery creep, to bleary pop ambient shimmer, to hazy, utterly lush sweet fuzz flecked dream pop, a song like "There Was One Who Sought A New Road" should have fans of groups like Beach House in a tizzy, with its delicate gauzy atmosphere and warm languid melodies. In fact, the more we listen, the more the black metal elements seem to recede, sure there's buzzing and fast picking, and maybe even some blasting beats, but here. those elements are reimagined as parts of some otherworldly abstract blurscape, wreathed in whir and crackle and buried under billows of layered drones, soft swaths of angelic drift, everything rendered in slow motion, slightly out of focus, a lush atmospheric expanse of blackened slowcore dreampop bliss. So gorgeous!
Man, does this record remind me of Scrawl.
And I feel like no one in the band is probably that into Scrawl, but it's definitely a good reference point for St. Andre's sound. Kind of a weird mix of that classic 80's Homestead Records sound, meandering Polvo-ish detuned guitars, noisy walls of guitar (ala Sonic Youth) and soaring female vocals that start as a smooth croon and occasionally leap out in a fit of Sleater Kinney yelps. Melodies and scraggly guitar lines battle pounding drums and bursts of noise, and occasionally dissipate into dreamy droning post rock. This may be their last recording, as they are all going their seperate ways (one to watch making school!).
Whoa! Is this the new Saint Etienne? Sounds like they've become even more deeply ensconced in slick clubland than I remember. Granted they've always been sleek, polished, danceable pop, but on Finisterre they often seem aligned with the much more accessible glossy likes of Kylie Minogue or Garbage (the band) than ever before. The ultra prettiness simply seems to be less present and less distinctly their own. The focus continues to be shifted away from Saint Etienne's trademark - Sarah Cracknell's dreamy satin voice - in favor of bigger thumpin' beats, dialogue samples and *gasp* a rapper bustin' out rhymes. Is it just me or does anyone else find this somewhat strange?! Mind you, their seventh full length is not without its blossoming, lush flutes'n'strings moments. They just surface more sporadically, making for a less smooth'n'swooning experience than their past efforts, and more of a fun, groovy affair.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
When we saw this new album from those beloved Brits Saint Etienne we were puzzled by the fact that it was released on the Savoy Jazz label. We thought maybe they were aiming for a more adult contemporary audience or something... and/or maybe the label was in turn aiming for a hipper audience. When we heard this new album from those beloved Brits, the first track, while bearing the unmistakable stamp of Saint Etienne, conjured thoughts of an imaginary collaboration between Astrid Gilberto and Brian Wilson -- lush, sparkling and super pretty -- but a lot of the other tracks might just as easily appeal to fans of Gilberto's daughter Bebel. There are stretches of smooth, sophisticated lounge-iness and just as many of curvy house beat dance-iness. Positively swoonsome!
"Welcome to darkness!!" It's a red letter DOOM day here at Aquarius, with the arrival of this long awaited reissue! For some reason, SST had never before released these essential Saint Vitus records on compact disc. Now they're here, officially together on one cd, the LA doom legends' 2nd full length album Hallow's Victim and subsequent 12" ep The Walking Dead, both first unleashed back in 1985! Plus, a bonus track!!
There were other great underground metal bands in the '80s who practiced what doom messiahs Black Sabbath preached: Trouble, Candlemass, Witchfinder General, Pentagram... But it was LA's Saint Vitus who took the Sabbath sound to even further extremes. They were heavier, slower, doomier than anyone else. Psychedelic, wasted, DOOM. Both of these essential doom documents boast the unique vocal presence of Vitus' original singer, Scott Reagers. As we've no doubt mentioned in other reviews, it's been a subject of some debate 'round here about who was the best Vitus vocalist, Reagers or his replacement, Scott "Wino" Weinrich. Whatever your preference, we'd hope you agree that Reagers was pretty AMAZING, his dynamic, dramatic banshee wailings somehow like an unholy hybrid of both Ozzy and Dio! But way more twisted, wretched, and over the top than even that would sound. And although the recent Vitus reunion lineup is with Wino, when we saw 'em, Wino made a point of paying tribute to Reagers, talking about how awed he was to have to try and fill his shoes back in the day. (Man, we wished we'd been at the show in LA, where Reagers did show up on stage to sing a few songs!).
Containing classic tracks like "White Stallions", "War Is Our Destiny", and "Mystic Lady", we can't recommend disc this highly enough to any traditional doom fan who doesn't have this stuff! Druggy frizzy fuzzy punk rock burn out Black Sabbath worship doesn't get much better (maybe Vitus's self-titled debut from '84 edges this out). While guitarist Dave Chandler is technically a mess, he sure had a knack for writing a riff, and his demented wah-happy soloing makes up in sheer psychedelic chutzpah what it lacks in chops. Drummer Armando Acosta and bassist Scott Adams revel in the slow and low, respectively (though Vitus do crank up the speed at plenty of spots on this disc, actually). And then there's the mournful cries of Reagers on the mic, delivering the goods, proving that a scuzzy band of stoners from LA playing the '80s hardcore punk rock circuit might just have had the best metal vocalist of all time EVER... well that's what some of us here think, anyway. Hear for yourself.
The bonus track happens to one of our favorite songs in the Vitus catalog, "Look Behind You". This is the original recording of that tune, as sung by Reagers, taken from SST's 1986 Blasting Concept Vol.II compilation (it was later redone with Wino on the Thirsty And Miserable ep in '87).
Heck yeah. For all you proto-metal lovin' freaks out there, we've got another treat for you this week. Finally, a nice legit reish on both cd and vinyl of this New Jersey power trio's sole slab of raw, wailin', fuzzed-out action, originally released on their own wonderfully named Zonk label back in 1970. Of course back then they didn't know it was proto-metal. They'd have called it heavy, though!
Heavy bluesy zonked out acid rock to be precise. As private press hard rock rarities go, this is a good 'un. Gotta agree with all the "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeahs" of the album's opening salvo, "Love Over You", a blistering, blown out Hendrix inspired headbanger. The rest of this eight-song album is also an LSD-fuelled rave up, with plenty more Hendrix-y guitar soloing, gravelly vox, and rhythm section shake appeal to the max. Imagine an "extreme" sixties garage rock band, that's the brand of proto-metal/acid rock on offer here, for fans of Blue Cheer, Fraction, Stonewall, Zipper, Frijid Pink, Bolder Damn, Speed Glue & Shinki - and their modern day descendants like SF's retro-proto-metallers Dzjenghis Khan ("Lone Soul Road" could easily be them). Yup, this is a savage "fuzz monster" that lives up to the hype.
The cd booklet includes detailed liner notes, lyrics, vintage photos, press clippings and other ephemera - including those "wish we were there" concert posters and ticket stubs for shows where Sainte Anthony's Fyre, apparently a live band of some repute, appeared alongside the likes of Grand Funk Railroad, the MC5, and "sensational English group" Wishbone Ash! The lp version has a poster and insert, as well.
We didn't realize this was still available until someone happened to order one the other day. And being so easy to get, we had to get more to share with everyone.
Easily one of our favorite folk rock records from the day, probably our favorite Buffy Sainte-Marie album ever, Illuminations is truly strange and beautiful. A heady brew of gothic folk elements, Native American invocations and bewitching electronic effects and magical drones. Her vocals sometimes soft and saintly, othertimes heavy, rocking and intense. Originally released in 1969 on the awesome Vanguard label, no other Buffy Sainte-Marie record is quite like this one, with songs that are poetically beautiful dealing with themes of love and injustice through esoteric supernatural imagery of vampires, angels, mystical rites and creation myths, and with music that is equally beguiling. From the first spiraling electric vocal warbles that open "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot", the Cluster like drones on "The Angel", the witchy folk-funk of "He's A Keeper of The Fire" to the final track, "Poppies" that presages Grouper by nearly forty years. Fantastic!
Before we get into our usual wordy meandering, hyperbolic gushing and tangential ruminating, we oughta come right out and say it first thing, this record is fucking incredible. One of the coolest weirdest records we've heard in ages. Twisted and blown out, weirdly melodic and groovy, dense and washed out and otherworldly and fucking bizarre, equal parts blissed out hypnogogic shoegazey drift, lurching, chopped and screwed style Southern crunk, majestic choral dreaminess, blurred beat heavy collaged electronica, and sample heavy blown out synthbuzz epicness. In some alternate universe alien world, THIS is the music that comes blasting out of booming systems in tricked out lowriders, some sort of glorious, blindingly blissy club music that fuses stuttery stumbly beats, to crumbling distorted low end, and thick swaths of synths so blown out the whole record sounds like it might collapse, mix in soaring operatic vocal samples, low slung bass buzz, jittery drum skitter, and mush mouthed slowed down 'rapping', smear and blur it all into one glorious, warped and warbly cough syrup fever dream epic, and that's basically Salem's King Night.
By now, most folks have at lest heard of 'witch house' a new 'genre' that Salem seem to represent, willingly or not, it's hard to say, but alongside other groups like oOoOO, witch house has received the sort of blog hype (and mainstream press) that immediately turns us off, and made us want to hate it, but so far, everything we've heard, we've dug, big time, but nothing has kicked out ass as much as this Salem record. It's so weird, and twisted and bizarre, it's sort of hard to believe that THIS is the record people are talking about, it makes sense that we'd love it, and that it would be an aQuarius Record Of The Week, but the New York Times? John Q. Public? Fuck it, like we always say, we'd way rather here stuff like this on the radio anyway. But regardless of the hype, or the backlash, or any of the nonmusical stuff, it all boils down to how ingenious and utterly OUT THERE this is. Just check out the title track, some weird garbled voices, some skittery drum machine, some ravey synths, choral voices, and then BAM, the song explodes, the bass a throbbing slab of rumbling crunch, the drum machine weirdly awkward, but the perfect compliment to the tangled melodies, and those soaring distorted operatic voices, the track a total epic, building and building, like the score for some insane alien sci-fi slow motion dancefloor martial arts battle, you can almost visualize fishtanks exploding into galaxies of exploding glass shards, while bodies fly threw the clouds of glistening sparkle, everything seemingly floating weightless. So good. We could listen to this track FOREVER (and pretty much have since we got it). But then comes "Asia" with its fat stuttery beat, and girlish vocals buried beneath a miasma of crumbling distorted crunch, and woozy synth melodies and confusional drum programming, sounding a bit like some over the top M83 jam gone haywire, or maybe some lost Cocteau Twins B-side remixed by Alec Empire and Black Moth Super Rainbow, everything fuzzy and washed out and gauzy, murky and dark, but still suffused with a weird sort of sunshininess. "Frost" is more of the same, even prettier and blissier, taking Sigur Ros and dipping it in a vat of gristly distortion and Carpenter sci-fi synths, and then stretching it out into a billowing sheet of diaphanous dream pop.
It's not until "Sick" that we get a glimpse of Salem's other side, their chopped and screwed, sippin' sizurp, alien slow motion shoegaze hip hop side, the music remains essentially the same, maybe not quite as dense, still swirls of female vocals, a strange otherworldly chorale, but over the top of this sonic cotton candy , a 'rapper' delivers his mutated pitch shifted flow, mouthful of marbles, finger on the record slowing it do a crawl, creating a weirdly dreamy draggy druggy hip hop / dream pop hybrid. And the rest of the record seems to drift lazily between those two sounds, "Release Da Boar" finds Salem offering up another cloud of dopesmoke dreaminess, fuzz drenched dirge pop bliss, which gives way to "Trapdoor", another slow motion, DJ Screw style cough syrup remix, laid over a warm warped and warbly bit of lysergic ambience and buzzing rave synth swirl. "Hound" is like the title track redux, so thick and crumblingly distorted, but so blown out and beautiful, "Tair" is a gloriously weird spaced out, handclapped chunk of shoegaze rap, and "Killer" sounds like Joy Division or Interpol run through a million distortion pedals, and set to a Casio keyboard drum machine beat, only to shrug off some of the crunch and warble, leaving a gorgeous stretch of plaintive low slung doom pop, that hints at the poppiness that lurks beneath the surface on King Night, only to finish the record in a squall of synth buzz, mumbled vox and drum machine chaos.
Wow. What else can we say. This sounded so good in the store, and even better in headphones, but it wasn't until we got in the car, and cranked this as loud as it would go, that it finally sunk in, and suddenly, we were bouncing up and down in a tricked out lowrider on some alien planet in some alternate universe, our booming system BOOMING, getting totally lost in these twisted and gorgeously damaged sounds. WAY WAY recommended.
If we didn't tell you that Salem's Pot was a heavy, stonery, very Electric Wizard-y psychedelic doom metal outfit from Sweden, the band name kinda shoulda already given you a good idea of what they might sound like - and also an idea of their sense of humor. Yep, they like puns - an earlier album was called Sweeden... geddit? S-WEED-en. Heck, the title of this new disc could possibly be a pun too; we don't know Swedish so we can't be sure. But anyway please don't let the pot-themed punning dissuade you, Salem's Pot aren't just some bogus toker jokers, no, they really ARE damn heavy and occultishly effective at the slow, low, Sabbathy psychedelic sludge thing.
There's three looong tracks here, "Creep Purple" (egad, another pun!), "Dr. Death", and "Nothing Hill", and they're all creepy, crawly, brainwrecking doomfests with wasted, wailing vocals (Ozzy-ish but super distorted) and hypnotically lumbering grooves. Yep, if you wanna call it Electric Wizard worship, well, sure, and it's done damn well. But they have their own weirdly woozy angle on this sound, really. The heavier-than-thou guitar riffage and plodding percussion is augmented with droning organ and, at one point, even some sinister, warbly accordion!! Going back to the guitars, gnarly feedbacky soloing is another essential element of their sound. Yeah, we like how Salem's Pot really accentuate the creepy vibes - it's a 3am hazy Satanic drug thing you wouldn't understand, quite compelling and almost (almost) serious sounding, puns aside.
So of course recommended big time for fans of Electric Wizard, but also to for fans of Uncle Acid, Blood Farmers, Satan's Satyrs, Monster Magnet, Windhand, The Wounded Kings, Sourvein, fellow Easy Riders HORNSS, and all others into witches and weed�
FYI, there's vinyl, we had some but sold out and are waiting for a restock (or repress?) soon...
A few years back, bassist Zak Sally decided to leave the band Low, to pursue his true loves, printing and book making, and thus La Mano was born, an incredible publishing / print house run by Sally, with some amazing books, many made by hand, a few of which we've had for sale at aQuarius. But it was inevitable, that he'd feel the itch again, to play music, and so Sally recorded his own record, played all the instruments, and then printed and assembled the super cool covers by hand at La Mano, total DIY all the way, which is only made cooler by how good this record is.
The sound is a rough and raw amalgamation of all the rad nineties rock we (and probably Sally) grew up on, specifically Rex, Red Red Meat, Codeine, and yeah, even Low, there's a definite twang too, that makes much of this sound a bit like a heavier Calexico, but Sally's voice is a dead ringer for Red Red Meat's Tim Rituli, so the less rocking, more dark and brooding tracks here definitely sound a lot like Red Red Meat.
But this record is all over the place, with blown out drum machines, distorted riffs, dreamy acoustic guitars, vocals that go from raspy howl to hushed croon, wheezing keyboards, opener "St(R)Utter" is killer, with super distorted chugging guitars, pounding programmed drums, swirling glitchy effects, and moody impassioned vox, "How I Did What I Did When I Did It" is a stripped down acoustic stunner, with really gorgeous multitracked vocals, a gorgeous main melody, and some wild psychedelic guitar, the title track too is acoustic and intimate, but underpinned by swirling buzzing weirdness way off in the background, and of course record closer, the awesomely titled "Corpsegrinder!", begins all acoustic, with distorted vocals, and strange muted percussion, all moody and meandery, before building to a full on, emotional, soaring indie rock ballad.
Definitely for fans of any of the aforementioned bands, or just cool homebrewed DIY indie rock.
And again speaking of DIY, the packaging is amazing, printed on thick textured paper, the front cove image glued to the booklet, same with the little 'band' photo on the back, the insert with the track listing is oversized, houses the disc itself, and has a tab sticking out, signed by Sally and hand numbered, LIMITED TO 900 COPIES!
Now reissued on vinyl! Here is what we said about it when the cd version was available (which it isn't anymore, sadly):
Hippy Renfaire Britfolk from 1968, featuring a 15 year old, pre-"Tubular Bells" Michael Oldfield and his older sister Sally Oldfield! This was really Sally's project -- apparently she had some sort of sudden spiritual revelation that caused her to break off her University studies in literature and philosophy, and pick up a guitar to write what became the "Children of the Sun" album! Of course, musical talent and creativity wasn't unknown to the Oldfield family, as history later showed.
This brother-sister duo both sang (Sally better than Mike) and played acoustic guitar, accompanied by session musicians -- flute, and harpsichord and chamber string arrangements on two songs. While much of this album is quite twee indeed, portions are rather dark and melancholic... A song title like "The Murder of the Children of San Francisco" kinda tells you where they were at. Sadness, beauty, blue birds and evening mists...that sort of thing. Contacts with British folk-rock act Pentangle got the determined Sally the recording deal for The Sallyangie's one and only album, reissued now as a delightful artifact of a long-lost era, when lush psychedelic pagan madrigal music was at its prime!
Sally sang on several of Mike's popular albums in the early/mid seventies before striking out on a successful solo vocal career of her own in the New Age field. But this album, with Sally's lovely wavering voice, Mike's adept guitar picking, and an abundance of youthful, period charm, is certainly worth checking out regardless of the Oldfield siblings' later careers.
After the breakup of the much-loved floor-core noise duo, Yellow Swans, Pete Swanson has carved quite a solo career for himself, but we haven't heard as much from fellow YS member Gabriel Saloman. As it turns out, Saloman has been rather busy himself over the past few years in Vancouver working on various solo projects of his own under the monikers of GMS and Sade Sade and with collaborative projects Diadem and Chambers. Most of his projects have taken on a conceptual form of social resistance like his Music for Prisons project, which employed field recordings of protests for imprisoned Tamil refugees with original music to be broadcast at extreme volume outside of prison walls as a form of political protest against authoritarian-imposed incarceration.
But Adhere, his vinyl debut for the Miasmah label, is the first time we're getting a full sense of the range of Saloman's sonic vision, and it is uniquely compelling and powerful. Composed in collaboration with a contemporary dance group, Adhere reads as a modern classical composition in seven parts with intense builds and pregnant silences, centered around reverberated piano, bowed strings, ambient guitar, percussive woodblocks and martial drumming into a captivating and beautiful soundscape. Sometimes the intensity is restrained by minimal piano stabs in a big empty room, in the third part, we hear some gorgeous Robin Guthrie-ish guitar washes, still later some dramatic yet solemn percussion. The entire composition toggling back and forth between quietly pensive dynamics and voluminous crescendos that give a sonic drama to an obviously visual accompaniment. Perfect for the Miasmah label which has always had a strong focus on marrying works of experimental classical forms with dark penetrating ambience.
Another year, another Salt. In fact it's been way more than a year, maybe almost two, but it's always well worth the wait. No one does zines any more, which is a huge same, loosed from the binds of relying on advertising, and someone else's money, a zine can cover anything, explore music, art, even wrestling, can opt for any layout, but the problem is, that without that monetary support, sometimes you are forced to wait years between issues, which is criminal. Especially with zines like Salt. Every time we review a Salt, we always end up sending out a request for somebody, ANYBODY, to get in touch with Sal mastermind Kevin, give him a bunch of money and set him up with a real magazine. All the other mags out there can breathe easy since that is probably unlikely to happen any time soon. But if it did. Decibel, Terrorizer, the Wire, Signal To Noise, your days would be numbered�
So issue 8, as is the pattern, is even better than 7, which was already kick ass. On the cover, a super striking drawing of Diamanda Galas, done by Kevin Salt himself, and inside, well hell, it's like a zine custom made for aQ. A Pharoah Sanders live review, a Suishou No Fune / RKF South By Southwest tour diary, an interview with comedy grind masters 7000 Dying Rats, an interview with aQ beloved dronescapers Hywl Nofio, Finland's masters of hypnorock and kings of the NWOFHM, Circle, a handful of record reviews, an interview with Malefic from Xasthur, an interview with the Clientele, and since Kevin is strangely fascinated with Professional Wrestling, there is an elegy for the now defunct ECW, including an interview with author, journalist and ECW expert John Lister, and finally, an interview with our very own Andee about tUMULt, a follow up of an original label spotlight in one of the earlier issues.
The mind boggles what this guy could do with a real magazine. Not that we really want anything to change with Salt. But we sure wouldn't mind if it came out every month. Heck, every week!
And for the first time, this issue comes bundled with a super limited, exclusive 3" cd-r from Hwyl Nofio. A fourteen minute track called "Christ Distort", another gorgeously sprawling expanse of metallic shimmer and blissed out buzz. Exclusive to this issue of Salt.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES. Each mag/cd hand numbered.
It's hard to believe it's been two years since the last issue of Salt, but we're willing to be patient, after all it is possibly our favorite zine going, and as in our reviews of every issue of Salt, we really can't heap enough praise on this kick ass DIY zine, and as always, lament the fact that it somehow remains a zine, it seems like by now, Salt should be up there with Terrorizer and Rock A Rolla and Decibel. But you know what, fuck it, we love Salt just the way it is, virtually unchanged since issue #1, still black and white, a little oversized, same style layout, most of the illustrations done by Kevin, the guy who pretty much IS Salt, and the stuff he chooses to focus on, as always is weird and wonderful, varied and unlikely. Always something we're super into, always something else we've never even heard of, and even the stuff that seems like it would be of little interest, ends up being a fantastic read, always the sign of a great magazine.
This issue is especially exciting as it contains perhaps the first interview EVER with aQ fave and tUMULt recording artist, the mysterious Korean teenage black metaller Pyha, talking about life in Korea, black metal, mandatory conscription, protest music and more.
There's also a killer interview with Alicia from legendary crust doom outfit 13 (which also featured Liz Buckingham, now in Electric Wizard). There's a feature on doomdrone juggernaut Korperschwache, an extensive and WAY in depth review of the Some Bizarre Album, an extensive guide to getting drunk on cheap vodkas, a feature on indie poppers Grandaddy, and a guide to their best B-sides, a lengthy interview with comic artist Carla Speed McNeil, and an interview with the man behind new label The Great Pop Supplement (he also once upon a time ran both Enraptured and Earworm!). All that for five bucks! This time around there are no record reviews, and less pieces, but as Kevin explains in the intro, that's so the interviews and features could be longer and more extensive. Which they absolutely are.
What more do you need to know? You love music. You love reading about music. You love underground music, and underground zines, if you haven't been reading Salt, you've been missing out big time...
Norway strikes again! The amazing Salvatore (not to be confused with the cryptic No Neck Blues Band offshoot K. Salavatore) is a mostly instrumental five piece band from that Scandinavian country. They share a lot with their Finnish neighbors (and AQ-faves)
But Salvatore's urgent, headnodding music possesses a gorgeous charm of its own, as there's a lot more in the way of psychedelic guitar burn and use of feedback in their compositions than is usual with Circle. Some other bands that Salvatore seem to reference along with Circle and Neu!: Can, Pell Mell, Flying Saucer Attack, Village of Savoonga... not bad company.
From the first moment we heard this band, we thought: wow, we've *got* to get more of these, Salvatore is a natural for Aquarius! It took us a couple months, but we were finally able to import a bunch of both their first and second albums at a good price direct from Europe. And, after playing them in the store, we're pretty sure we were right about 'em -- we sold some immediately! So good. Both discs are totally recommended, with "Clingfilm" (2000) being overall more structured and melodically catchy and "Jugend" (also 2000) being perhaps more heady, intense, and soundscapey. And both, of course, are not just recommended, but *mandatory* for fans of Circle!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
