[ aquarius records — Rock Pop ]

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Showing results 14651 through 14700 of 19388.

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SORRY. Bellingham via Ohio twangy post rock slowcore. Beautiful and hypnotic. Recommended.

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SORRY. Imagine the desolate and dreary stretches of highway leading from wherever you are to nowhere. Imagine the perilous climb from the bowels of hell, in search of redemption. Imagine the violence and hardship of life in the bayou or the unsettled West at the turn of the century. Imagine that mysterious drifter, lurking around town, exuding a magnetic pull, dangerous but irrestistible. Imagine tragedy, forgiveness, the world as a wasteland, the world as hell, the world as nowhere. The music of Sixteen Horsepower is all that and more. Dark and mysterious, heartbreaking and ominous, hopeful and tragic, timeless and unforgiving. Southern gothic dirges, shivering dark waltzes, and creeping midnight melodies. Vocalist David Eugene Edwards has a startling voice, trembling and plaintive, but at the same time ferocious and strong. Backed by a shuffling funereal ensemble of banjo, mandolin, acoustic guitar and brushed, minimal drumming, the effect is claustrophobic, suffocating, but with just the faintest glimmer of hope and happiness on the horizon. Some may be troubled (as I am) by Sixteen Horsepower's overt Christianity, but thankfully the lyrics are more subtle and spiritual than preachy, focusing on the human condition, hope, despair, love, hate, misery and joy. Four originals, four traditionals and two covers, 'Alone And Forsaken' by Hank Williams and 'Single Girl' by the Carter Family. This is record number six from these Colorado transplants (via L.A.) and I'm not entirely sure why we haven't listed them, since they're all stunning. If you're interested, inquire cause we should be able to get any of them. The closest comparison I can come up with is Nick Cave, but 16HP are an entirely different beast, jettisoning the drama, bombast and pagaentry that has plagued Cave in his later years, and instead stripping everything down and adding extra layers of murk and must, fog and frost. A gorgeous and cautionary Biblical tale told by wandering minstrels, as they slowly make their way toward salvation. So totally essential.

RealAudio clip: Hutterite Mile
RealAudio clip: Outlaw Song
RealAudio clip: Blessed Persistence
RealAudio clip: Alone And Forsaken

After being out of print for WAY too long, this amazing live document finally sees the light of day once more. Or more appropriately maybe, the dark of night. Even more appropriately, the star flecked deep dark night, viewed through the dense canopy above the deep dark swamps of the South. This is 16 Horsepower after all, southern fried, revivalist, back woods countrified gothic stomp. Bleak tales of salvation and damnation. And what better way to experience the fire and fury of 16HP than live, beneath the ol' patched up tent, set up on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere, pouring rain, with mudcaked boots and huddled townsfolk jostling for a chance to be saved, a night of testifyin' for sure, live and sweaty and fearsomely intense, fierce as fuck, but still moody and dark and really, really creepy. Sort of like Deliverance:The Musical or something. Squeezebox, acoustic guitar and drums never sounded so good. Or so menacing. Those of you who know 16HP know exactly what this disc has in store for you. For those of you who have yet to discover the dark joy of 16 Horsepower (now sadly defunct) you just might just find your musical souls saved. Or damned. Either way, a treacherously brilliant musical path lies ahead, numerous 16HP releases all amazing, two Lilium records (2/3 of 16HP), as well as several Woven Hand records (the even MORE Biblically brutal and emotionally menacing post-16HP efforts by mainman David Eugene Edwards). A handful of covers get the 16HP makeover. John Fogerty, Gun Club, and Joy Division all have their tunes somehow made even darker and more bleak. Fans of Nick Cave, who were disappointed with his new shinier direction of late, and who still yearn for that misanthropic gloom, might find just what they're looking for with 16 Horsepower. And of course essential for fans of all things dark and swampy, who want their music steeped in fire and brimstone, confusion and misery, death and misery and the long hard road to salvation and the inevitable fall into damnation!

MPEG stream: South Pennsylvania Waltz
MPEG stream: Day Of The Lords (Joy Division)

Lots of bands can 'rock' live, performing their record, their set, a little bit louder, a little bit wilder, a little more shambolic, feeding off the energy of the crowd, but rare is the band who can create a mood, evoke emotions, make standing in a smoky club feel like standing knee deep in the mud, in a swamp, watching the black night sky, thinking back over your life and just waiting' around to die. The music of 16 Horsepower is like that, a swampy backwoods bluegrass, hellfire and brimstone, Biblical damnation and spiritual salvation. A creepy campfire blues steeped in haunting late night misery and rainy day malaise. Banjos, and double basses, accordions and brushed drums, and the haunting soulful vocals of David Eugene Edwards. On record, closed eyes and open ears reveal a world long gone, preachers in tents set up in muddy fields, beat up old pick ups, the open road, the wrath of God and the loneliness of existence, all revealed through the slow slinky crawl of 16HP's funeral folk dirge, a murky gloomy beauty that is hard to describe. Live it's like watching a band possessed. Edwards grimaces and grits, strains and clenches, the accordion, banjo or bowed guitar like a serpent in his hands as he testifies, and tries to save our souls. This dvd conveys all the power and mystery of 16HP live. Disc one features a live show from 2002 in its entirety, recorded at Le Cirque Royal in Belgium, the sound is dark and dolorous, the stage set up is the same, dark and muted, Edwards up front bathed in a halo of muted yellow light, with soft blue light on the rest of the players, each in their own little corner, all summoning personal demons and exorcising them right there on stage. SO totally amazing. Disc two features a handful of odds and ends. A live performance on German television show Rockpalast, complete with cheesy intro music and eighties neon logo, but a fiery and super intense set, the band possessed and inspired. Also a cool six minute montage of footage from their last tour, live performances, radio interviews, backstage, in the van, etc. as well as some footage of the band in their practice space rehearsing for their final tour. And maybe the most moving, live footage from a show in Antwerp, Belgium, intended for a documentary, but never used as that ended up being the band's last show ever. A handful of songs played in a cool dome-like outdoor amphitheater, with a strange fountain, right in front of the stage that sends up a tiny jets of water. A handful of songs, including a cover of "Heart And Soul" by Joy Division, which is the last song 16 Horsepower ever perform. Comes with a big booklet of liner notes/photos. This disc is NTSC and region free.

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So this is where it all started. Those Woven Hand records we've raved about, the Sixteen Horsepower records that totally blew us away. All started right here. Olden collects Sixteen Horsepower's first two demos, as well as an early live show and some brief interview snippets with 16HP/Woven Hand front man David Eugene Edwards. Much more raw and immediate, and a little more lo-fi and less sonically adventurous, but lacking NONE of the biblical fury or musical brimstone that made later 16HP records so powerful. The two demo sessions on Olden are stripped down, loping waltzes, drunken slide guitars and wheezing bandeneons, shuffling drums and palpitating double bass, with banjos, jaw harps, and Edwards' Screamin' Jay Hawkins-meets-Michael Gira caffeinated preacher wail. Minor key and melodically tragic, dirgy and hypnotic, wild and calamatous, and occsionally slow, sad and creepy. This is gorgeous, timeless, American music. Equal parts country, folk, and rock, but delivered with such fervor, so intimate and personal, and with such brutal musical intensity, that the songs take on the gravity and urgency of sonic directives from some higher power.

MPEG stream: American Wheeze
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**SALE **SALE* *SALE**

We've long been champions of Mr. David Eugene Edwards, in both of his swampy apocalyptic folk ensembles, first the late great 16 Horsepower, and then later, his more personal, and seemingly more spiritual Woven Hand. As long time readers of the aQ list know, Edwards is like a modern day revivalist, conjuring up demons and darkness, death and pestilence, but simultaneously light and hope and sometimes even redemption. With a sound that shifts from stripped down and intimate, to dense and heavy and ominously rocking, the music of Edwards is easily some of the most powerful and passionate we've heard. Woven Hand played the aQuarius SXSW showcase, and our first impression was holy shit, these guys are HEAVY. And loud. And so intense. In fact, considering how many actual metal bands and super heavy rock bands played that showcase, it's pretty remarkable that WH might still have been the heaviest band in the lineup. Secret South is one of our favorite 16HP records, originally released way back in 2000, and out of print for AGES, this was their first record after leaving their major label, and thus seems to be infused with an extraordinary amount of anger and darkness. This record is FIERCE, the classic 16HP lineup is on fire, the vocals incredible and impassioned, the guitars raw and rough, the drumming powerful, the bass thick and enveloping, strings moaning and singing, but the magic of 16HP is how all those elements are woven together, it's difficult to imagine a mere band could evoke this sort of ominous atmosphere, this sort of dread and darkness, this is so much more than music, it's energy in sound, it's sweat and blood rendered in notes and melodies. A swampy mysterious gothic folk, but infused with elements of classic bluegrass, dramatic cabaret, plenty of doom and gloom... You can check the aQ site for other reviews where we rave on and on and on about both 16HP and Woven Hand, needless to say, both bands are all time favorites around here, and Secret South ranks right up there as one of the best by either. Both the cd version and the lp comes with a bonus dvd featuring the whole record in 5.1 surround sound DVD audio.

MPEG stream: Clogger
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Austin, Texas, bootgazers formerly on Trance.

Now here on cd! Here's What We Had To Say about the vinyl version a few years ago: This 3 piece from Oakland CA play arty, chaotic, somewhat dark, noisy sort-of-punk-rock. The influence of electro, goth, darkwave, new wave and post-punk all do battle in a Sixteens song, and the outcome is inevitably a draw. Not surprisingly the trio are friends and musical allies of SF local scary ones The Vanishing, The Phantom Limbs, and Black Ice. Intense girl and boy vocals over hectic, deranged sludgy noise. 8 songs = 51 minutes.

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Here's a four song follow-up to the Sixteens' album Casio which was release a few years ago on Bay Area label Cochon Records. This release has found its way across the country (and maybe across a border too) to the Montreal, Quebec / New York City label Hungry Eye (who've also released recent stuff by Saros, Black Ice and Bellmer Dolls). This Oakland trio continue to churn up their dark wave post punk torment. Sort of the musical equivalent of conjunctivitis... uh, in an inflamed, good way. We'd venture a guess that the Sixteens wouldn't shy away from (or maybe even take particular glee in) popping a few pus-bloated boils and brewing the residue up into a cauldron full of song. Such is the feeling we get from their particular musical disfigurement. With cover art by Genesis P'Orridge.

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Sweet indie rock of the Elephant Six / Kindercore / post-Beatles / post-British Invasion variety. Mostly acoustic, with melodica, tambourine, boy and girl vocals. Unpretentious but also unexciting in any way. With members of the Essex Green.

RealAudio clip: Up the Country

Here's something else that would have been been perfect for last weeks' Christian-music-themed in-between list, a lost-in-time '80s Xian psychfolk gem now dug up and reissued on vinyl by the folks at Numero Group. Deep Night (nice title!) is deep all right, the inspired work of a musically-inclined priest from somewhere in Illinois and a few local musicians he recruited, conjuring a desolate burned out California vibe, like something hippie out of Laurel Canyon in the '70s - despite being from the Midwest a decade later. And don't worry, it comes across as more universally spiritual and mystical than outright preachy. We like this for the 12-string guitarwork in particular, and of course the sincere, heartfelt, outsidery, trippy vibe. There's some kind of flange or phaser effect on the guitar that gives it a very psychedelic feel! As for the vocals, well, they could draw comparisons to Bob Dylan and Norman Greenbaum. Apparently this was "recorded during a single pre-dawn marathon, and mixed live-to tape in an isolated chapel", and it sure sounds like it.

The very very much-anticipated second collection from Stephen Merritt's 6ths. In case you aren't familiar with this particular project of Mr. Merritt's, well here's the deal: all the songs are written by the man himself and sung by various notable chanteurs and chanteuses. The first album "Wasps' Nests" instantly became a favourite of mine with its beautiful songs beautifully sung by the likes of Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo, Lou Barlow, Mary Timony, and Mac McCaughan of Superchunk. Quite simply, it melted my heart. This time around Stephen Merritt has rounded up a less indie-pop crowd of voices. Among them are Odetta, Gary Numan (yay!), Melanie, Clare Grogan (remember Altered Images?), as well as the ultra-melodramatic Momus, Dominique A and Marc Almond. Not as immediately infectious as its predecessor, but a very lovely and intriguing collection nonetheless. And you have to laugh upon learning that Merritt picked 6ths as the name cos it's the hardest word to say, as are the 6ths' album titles.

RealAudio clip: I've Got New York
RealAudio clip: Kissing Things

Songs composed and played by Magnetic Fields mastermind Stephen Merritt, but sung by a variety of wonderful artists including Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Folk Implosion), Georgia Hurley (Yo La Tengo), Amelia Fletcher (Heavenly, Marine Research, Tender Trap), Chris Knox, Mac McCaughan (Superchunk, Portastatic), Dean Wareham (Luna), Mary Timony (Helium) and more. Can music possibly get more bittersweet and lovely?

Some sort of psychsploitation artifact, all Floyd covers!

Bay area black metal masters Von were responsible for two of the most important USBM documents ever, the Satanic Blood and Blood Angel demos, considered by many to be the first US black metal record(s), and to this day, those records continue to inspire a legion of musical hordes, who strive to emulate that furious idiosyncratic raw that few can reproduce. What few people know, is that right after the release of those demos, the members of Von shifted their focus to another project, with a way different sound and vibe, called Sixx, which was anything but black metal, instead a dark, creepy, brooding, gothic deathrock, think Bauhaus, Christian Death, Specimen, all minor key spidery guitars, swirling dark ambience, pounding new wave drums, and of course, super dramatic crooned vocals. It seems almost prescient, considering that this sound is enjoying a pretty serious resurgence these days: past Record Of The Weekers Soror Dolorosa, Hateful Abandon, Factums, Dial M For Murder, Cold Cave, Crystal Stilts, etc. But this demo, recorded in 1991, was as mentioned above, recorded hot on the heels of two of the most grim and raw, blasting black metal records ever! And while it may not directly inform the actual sound, it does speak to what a strange and special record the Sixx demo was and is. Chiming guitars and krauty rhythms, lots of reverb and delay, a dark brooding ambience, we hear lots of classic goth and darkwave and new wave, Kommunity FK, Human Drama, Tones On Tail, and the more we listen to it, the more the link between Sixx and Von crystallizes, both bands trafficked in simple stripped down songs, most with only one or two parts, vocals repetitive and mantric, in fact, in some ways, Sixx almost sounds like Von with all the distortion removed, right down to those classic Von goaty grunts. That said, just 'cause you like Von, doesn't necessarily mean you'll like Sixx, but if you dig that sound, and any of the above mentioned bands, then Sixx's Sister Devil might just be your lost reissue / rediscovered gem of the year.

MPEG stream: On The Dead

Anarchic is the long in the works second full length from Cascadian black metal duo Skagos, and unlike their debut Ast (which for some reason never got reviewed here) it's less about blown out black buzz onslaught and more about, well, it's hard to say. Metalheads will definitely be a bit confused by the opening few movements of the 35 minute, 4 part opener. The record begins with dense swirling swells of feedback, preparing the listener, one might presume, for a barrage of blasting drums and insectoid riffing. A gorgeous haze of feedback and spare drifting acoustic guitars, but instead of launching into it, what sounds like pulsing synths surface, and then the vocals, a lush, reverbed croon, and suddenly, we're in shoegaze dream pop territory, and not HEAVY shoegaze either, drifty, and wispy, and hushed, the vocals almost a whisper, the instrumentation barebones, and the harmonies, WOW, who would have thought these guys had it in 'em? At this point we were sort of hoping there would be NO metal, cuz what a total mindfuck, some Cascadian black metal that actually sounds like Low or Stars Of The Lid, it's really quite lovely, and we would have been perfectly happy had the whole first track unfurled similarly. But fear not, the song soon explodes into wild chaotic drumming, soaring swirling black buzz, the vibe appropriately epic and majestic, and the heaviness retaining much of the melodic wistfulness of the unlikely opening. Like many like minded bands, Skagos' sound is obviously informed by so much more than black metal. Post rock, math rock, indie rock, it all finds its way into the sound, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much. And when those harmonies resurface during the blasting buzz, it's a gorgeous combination, we almost wish the harsh vokills weren't there to obscure what is essentially a swoonsome shoegaze black buzz that's crazy melodic and catchy, but even with the rasping howls, it's still pretty stunning stuff. Alcest and Amesoeurs are definitely apt comparisons, although Skagos are WAY heavier and noisier. And so it goes, the first 'track' moves through its movements, melding hazy dreamy driftiness to blurred furious riffing, devolving at one point into some super hooky post rocky riffing, before exploding into probably the most chaotically black passage on the record. There's so much going on here, the sound shifting constantly, the composition epic and seriously proggy, the music itself, tending to always drift back toward the more melodic, as if instead of this being a black metal record with weird shoegazey bits and pretty melodies, it's exactly the opposite, some twisted heavy dreampop shoegaze record with black metal bits. In fact in the whole last ten minutes of the first track there's no metal to be found at all. Loping drumming over acoustic guitars, swirling psychedelic drifts, backwards melodies and distant rumbling drones beneath crystalline melodies, and then when the vocals come back in, holy shit, it sounds like Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat or Woven Hand or something, the vocals passionate and emotional, super dramatic, all over what sounds like accordions, everything underpinned by a hushed black ambient drift, a weird tangle of apocalyptic folk and psychedelic ambience that is pretty goddamn great. And more to have many metalheads scratching their chins. The second track, and the three remaining movements, follow a similarly unlikely sonic path, starting out with a bit of hushed ambient shimmer, which is soon joined by muted pulsing drums, shot through with softly squiggly psychedelic theremin like melodies, it's a slow build to, yep, you guessed it, more sort of drifty, dreamy post rock jangle pop, a little bit slowcore, chiming melodies over a skeletal rhythm, the vocals a soft chantlike croon, again the vibe sort of darkly folk, and druggily dreamy, and then finally, at about the ten minute mark, the song dramatically splinters into a seriously dense blackened onslaught, a swirling chaotic frenzy, utterly at odds with what came before, but then sort of not, again the band deftly weaving the melody of the non metal part into the grim black buzz, at which point the band spends the most time they have yet on Anarchic in full on metal mode, but soon, they slow down to a slithery black doom crawl, buried double kick stutter under woozy riffic churn, and belched black rasps, before the metal peels away, leaving softly swirling steel string shimmer, shuffling jazzy rhythms, sing songy and melodic, the drums played with brushes, the group locked into a mesmerizing psych pop drift, that does get heavy, but barring the return of the rasp, is more like some sort of Godspeed / Explosions In The Sky sort of epic melodic coda, the soaring clean vox return, and it's pretty dramatic and intense, and not all that black metal sounding, the whole thing gradually settling into a slow shifting, hazy, washed out soporific slowcore dreamgaze fade out. Such a fantastic surprise, and as you may have surmised by now, not so much for the true grim hordes, as folks into epic experimental, VERY melodic heaviness. Definite contender for year end top ten lists. Ours most certainly!

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SORRY. One of the more poppy releases to come out on Type. Very breezy & flowing indie folk along the lines of Kings Of Convenience.

Originally released on Skelton's own Sustain-Release Private Press Imprint in 2009 as a sonic accompaniment to a collection of writings bearing the same name, both were made over a period of 4 years in the landscape of Lancashire's West Pennine Moors. The chilly Arcadian climate sets the perfect tone for Skelton's oblique investigations into memory, displacement and loss. Made with huge washes of long-form bowed string drones and piano tones in a deep engagement with the natural surroundings, you can feel the all-encompassing frost, the cold water on falling leaves, and the harsh blanket of wind through a threadbare shelter. Attempting to resolve the delicate boundary between intense loneliness and tranquil solitude, these recordings take off from the personal memorial to his wife of his last release under the moniker A Broken Consort, and into a beautifully larger dialogue of place, history and perseverance.

MPEG stream: Noon Hill Wood
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Even some New Zealand music fanatics haven't heard (or heard of) the Skeptics, a band that featured one of the Gordons, and a member of Bailter Space (the same guy actually), but that's the sort of NZ pedigree that should have most Flying Nun / NZ underground rock nerds flipping their lids. But don't be expecting the murky thud of the Gordons, or the blown out shoegaze heaviness of Bailter Space, the Skeptics occupied a whole different sonic realm, fusing the NZ sound we all know and love to something much more avant grade and experimental, with programmed rhythms and samples, the vibe almost industrial at times, the resulting sound twisted, damaged, demented and totally genius. Both III (1987) and Amalgam (1990) have been insanely hard to track down for years now, reissued briefly in 1992 in a 4cd box set, which quickly went out of print, and immediately surfaced on the collector's market, and was not surprisingly, outrageously expensive, so we were so psyched to discover that Captured Tracks was including these records in their ongoing Flying Nun reissue campaign (and here's hoping they reissue all the other Skeptics stuff too!). So for now, we can revel in the group's 3rd and 4th records, that 4th record released after the death of David D'Ath, and the group's subsequent dissolution, but what a sonic legacy, one that long deserved the sort of love heaped upon so much other NZ music of the time. III begins with a twisted smear of looped samples and stuttering sonics, which soon blossom into a lurching creep, snarly crooned vocals over big booming drums, wound up in streaks of distorted guitar buzz, the vibe, gloomy and dark, a sort of post industrial downer rock, that lumbers ominously, and is peppered with weird fragmented samples, melodic shards, super heavy, ominous, and intense, but also weirdly catchy. And it doesn't get any less weird, the sound veering dramatically, from the piano driven post punk of "Agitator", again peppered with strange sound FX and distorted electronics, sounding almost cabaret, like some mutated balladic torch song. "Turnover" slips back into the woozy, murky creep of the opener, the guitars thick and viscous, the vox slithery and blackly sexy, all anchored by a looped rhythm, and again, laced with strange electronic squiggles and twisted blurry samples. And so it goes, "La Motta" almost sounds like Scott Walker via the Butthole Surfers, but with a damaged industrial makeover, "Notice" too is a sort of drugged out industrial noise rock dirge, with some jagged shards of guitar, over a muddy moody downer rock murk, with the rest of the record splitting the difference between home brewed industrial goth and grinding avant post punk crush. While Amalgam has a similar sonic template, it's a bit more polished, the vocals more prominent, the drums more driving, the pop element more up front, there's even a bit of a new wave vibe, just check out opener "And We bake", which sounds like some lost new wave classic, fused to some girding metal buzz, and twisted mechanical rhythm. But the sound remains sonically sick, the second track, slipping right back into a woozy, warmly dirge, lurching detuned weirdness, clouds of FX and squiggly alien electronics wreath rubbery bass billows, melting riffs, and mush mouthed vocals, seriously trippy and gloriously fucked up. Amalgam is a lot more varied than its predecessor, some tracks super electronics, others smeary buzzscapes of layered guitars, and super creeped out vocal samples, new wave electro pop and grim, noise drenched sprawls of grim, harrowing, psychedelic noise. It's that balance that makes the record so cool, twisted poppiness, colliding with speaker shredding weirdness, often the two bleeding into each other, creating some unholy hybrid of avant industrial post punk psych-noise, the sort of thing the should appeal equally to weird music obsessives, adventurous goths and fans of experimental twisted noise pop. Which really is pretty much most everybody we know!

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Ski Patrol was a shortlived British post-punk project, formed in 1979 by vocalist Ian Lowery, guitarist Nick Clift, Peter Balmer on bass, and a revolving door of drummers. They crafted an angular, paranoiac sound which equally mined the dub-inflected manic jitteriness of Gang of Four, The Scars, and Killing Joke. After the band self-released their first single, they garnered the attention of Malicious Damage, which had actually released the first handful of Killing Joke singles. By 1981, the band had undergone considerable changes with Balmer splitting to join Fad Gadget and Clift moving into the more business side of things by taking a gig at Rough Trade. The band members who found themselves around Lowery rechristened themselves as The Folk Devils. Versions Of A Life is an abridged collection of Ski Patrol's recorded output including the band's first two singles, previously unreleased mixes of their third single, and some unreleased songs from their final studio session. "Agent Orange" was the lead track on their second single and featured Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke on synths. This track with its slow building death-disco rhythm section of dub-punk basslines and motorik drums is simple, effective, and super catchy in a deathrock kind of way, complete with macabre / socially critical lyrics. "Everything Is Temporary" was the A side to the band's first single, holding court with the sparse art-punk leanings of Essential Logic or maybe In Camera (the pre-Wolfgang Press project). The whole collection is an eye-opener, introducing us to a band that had escaped our knowledge almost entirely and made us more than curious as to what Lowery, et al had done in Ski Patrol's wake. Another gem from Dark Entries!

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When over the course of many years a cutting edge band's signature edge has been shamelessly pillaged -- and in turn become a mainstay of the edge-of-mainstream -- what are they to do when they decide to reunite? March out the old standards? Hopefully not. Resurface with a potent new strain? Perhaps. Ideally not end up sounding like a shadow of their former selves and a sound alike of younger upstarts. Unlike other veteran bands who've reformed after lengthy absences, Skinny Puppy fortunately haven't done the former. However, unlike other groundbreaking phoenixes such as Killing Joke, they also haven't returned to their fiery pulpit to school the new generation. SP has always been detailed, monumentally monstrous and rich in intriguing sounds, but for Mythmaker, the group's interplay of chance/cut-ups and spin-the-radio-dial distortion adventures seem to have vanished. The difference seems to mostly lie in the choice to stop using tapes of media sources -- documentary television, radio, European and Canadian underground psychological horror films, and underreported war-reality-radio-broadcasts as surrealistic textures. This is most noticeable in two vital areas: the group's trademark collaged soundscapes crafted by Cevin Key -- now so few and far between, but markedly more than on 2004's reunion album The Greater Wrong Of The Right -- sound much less 'hands on' sculpted and more reliant on software rubik's-grids. In general, there's an absence of friction, tension and of ill-tempered spectral presences. As well, Nivek Ogre's 'singing' (i.e, not his former textural guttural Artaud-isms) are almost completely audible, being processed through a vocoder, with a heavy dose of 'stutter-edit' and auto-tune set to 'death grip' (we actually wish that they were even further effected, preferably to the point of incoherence because some of the rhyming lyrics are shockingly simplistic. Hard to believe that they came from the same poison pen as "Testure", "Harsh Stone White" or "Who's Laughing Now?" from VIVIsectVI, 1988). Ultimately, Mythmaker's atmospheres feel something like Richard Devine's industrial IDM processed through a faux-metal 'zombie America' video game soundtrack. One thing that has returned to a more prominent and welcome role is Key's artfully crafted drumming and percussion sounds. No playing shows up like the mesmerizing kraut-funk of Tear Garden's Last Man To Fly era recordings, mind you, but it's nice to hear some wood and metal mixed in with the filter swept electro-raindrop snares. Some of Ken Marshall's best mixing work can usually be found on Cevin Key's projects, and as usual, it slams. Overall, Mythmaker is a better record than its predecessor (although it does have a couple of 'oops' songs unfortunately and weirdly one is the opener "Magnifishit"!), and shows the group to be at the stylistic apex / end of this particular version of the 'Puppy sound. Yep, SP are doing things they haven't done before, and for better or for worse -- you decide -- they've moved on, and are leaving the Skinny Puppy of old on the mantle to continue its disembodied haunt.

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Here it is... the long overdue, highly anticipated, never expected to actually happen new album from the reunited Skinny Puppy! Yes, the surviving bandmates' differences appear to have been set aside. So now, eight long years after their split and fifteen after their masterpiece, VIVIsect VI, what does the 'Puppy sound like? Well, one word that might be fitting is "reinvented", as thankfully this is not a memory lane trip. Actually, it seems as though The Greater Wrong Of The Right could have been called the third 'Ohgr' album rather than the return of Skinny Puppy. For one thing (much like on his solo albums) Nivek Ogre is mostly singing rather than vocalizing in gutteral gasps and inhuman hisses. Whereas the vocals used to often be another mysterious texture, they are now up-front and decidedly 'songy'. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the noses of hardcore Puppy fans might get a little out of joint when they also discover that their beloved band's former trademark unsettling / confrontational elements are for the most part absent from this album. Heavy and dramatic, yes. Sinister and atmospheric, no. Skinny Puppy with the lights on? Also gone are the soundtrack-style interludes which gave previous albums such an intense bad-dream setting. Nonetheless, Cevin Key's mastery of sound craft is in full effect, and he's given an excellent, detailed mix by long-time Puppy (and more recently I Am Spoonbender) collaborator Ken Marshall. Producer Mark Walk (Ohgr) is clearly responsible for the vocal range leap achieved here by singer Ogre, and demonstrates the most visible break between 'now' Puppy and 'then' Puppy. Not surprisingly, the results are huge, intricately detailed works. However, whereas this band's recordings used to be some of the most difficult, groundbreaking and influential mood music around -- somehow both genre-defining and genre-defying -- on a vast number of these tracks they now sound more like 'one of the (nu-metal / modern rock) gang'. Very leather'n'latex, Matrix / Blade 2 movie soundtrack-ready, by way of the Schematics Records IDM camp. Still, quality stuff. Appropriately, guests include Otto Von Schirach and weirdly, members of Static-X, Tool, and Collide.

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We've been flipping out over all the Chinese indie rock that's been coming our way recently, including a killer slab of shoegaze noise pop from a group called Boyz & Girl, which we reviewed a while back, and maybe unsurprisingly is made up of several boyz and one girl. Well, that one girl also plays in this group, Skip Skip Ben Ben, and also maybe not so surprisingly, the sound of SSBB is not that far removed from B&G, channeling nineties indie rock, shoegaze pop, noise rock, even some twee pop into something that melds big fuzzy guitar, classic jangly shimmer, blissed out shoegaze, and dreamy ethereal female vox. Where B&G seemed to fuse the Pixies and Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, SSBB is more washed out and dreamy, the sound more moody and minimal, bass driven, with the vocals buried in the mix, the whole thing druggy and hypnotic, some songs, like opener "Last Night" are super rocking, driving and propulsive, while others, like "La' Lasta" are hazy and hushed and darkly dreampoppy, which tends to be the vibe of most of the record, minus some super kinetic rockers ("Walkmen"), but even then, the vibe is minor key and a bit wistful. Sometimes SSBB sound like a female fronted Crystal Stilts, other times like a more druggy and dour Dum Dum Girls, and at others like a heavier, broodier Beach House. But we find ourselves digging it as much, if not more than that Boyz & Girl record, which we loved! Obviously WAY recommended! Housed in a super striking oversized full color jacket!

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Ultra limited picture disc 10" from this damaged and demented avant black doom outfit featuring former Mayhem frontman Maniac, Niklas Kvarforth from black metal outfit Shining, and Current 93's David Tibet among others. One side features an introductory collage created by David Tibet / Current 93, that the band used for an intro at their shows, and it's classic Current 93, a sort of demented slowly decaying gypsy folk, with Tibet's increasingly anxious and frantic vocalizing, his vocals multitracked so the track builds to a frenzied climax, with multiple Tibets howling and shrieking "Who will deliver me from myself?!". The other two tracks are alternate versions of tracks on Skandinavisk Misantropi, one a demo, and one an alternate mix, but they kind of sound better here, the guitars more raw, the sound more fierce and feral, the vocals SICK, the band unfurling lurching lumbering doomy blackness, but laced with unlikely melodies, "Slow Pain Coming" manages to be fucked up and hateful, the vocals especially harsh, but the music is surprisingly melodic, and there's an awesome breakdown partway through where the band lurches and starts and stops, while the vocals just gargle and rasp and howl. The demo of "A Valley Below" is way more low fidelity, but again, it sounds so much more fucked up and frightening, the vocals especially again, even more inhuman, makes you wonder what they did on the record proper, cuz here, they just ooze and drip, super intense and freaky, perfectly suiting the low slung slither underneath. Makes us want to go back and listen to the full length again, Or just keep listening to these two tracks over and over. Super nice artwork on the picture disc, an appropriately gruesome painting on one side, and an original David Tibet painting on the other. LIMITED TO 777 COPIES!!!

New full length of twisted, groovy, outsider Neanderthal dance rock post punk whatthefuckery from these Minneapolis knuckle dragging, dancefloor deviants, whose sound is a splatter of synth squelch and analog blurt over dubbed out Load-rock style grooviness. Think Butthole Surfers or Chrome, but via Foetus or ESG or something equally preposterous, someone here thought it sounded like a mash up of some obscure Nirvana Bleach demo and the soundtrack to Cafe Flesh (!), although the closest noise rock analogue would obviously be Six Finger Satellite. Kryptonym Bodliak is all sci-fi eighties retro club music and raw post punk funkiness, roughed up a bit around the edges and flecked with subtle noise rockisms, the least subtle of which are the vocals, super fucked up and heavily processed, alternately barked and howled, moaned and garbled, apparently the result of a contact mic-ed gasmask, transforming the vocals into a stuttering, mush-mouthed speaking-in-tongues sort of alien Make-Up style testifyin', all draped over lo-fi drum grooves, skronky sax, junkyard percussion, primitive keyboards, and thick slithery basslines. The band definitely seem capable of pulling off some true old school style post punk funk, but they're obvious noiseniks at heart, so that stuff is wreathed in plenty of cacophony and crunch, the results surprisingly rad, and the sort of stuff that must get a crowd of sweaty punks to shake their rumps, which is never a bad thing.

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Oh yeah! Sweden strikes again! The great Subliminal Sounds label (who brought us Dungen, as well as reissues from the likes of Baby Grandmothers and Trad Gras Och Stenar) seem to have revved up their faux-way-back machine to bring us what sounds a heck of a lot like an early '70s proto-metal reissue but in fact isn't, the longhaired young rockers of Skogen Brinner belonging to the here and now, somehow. But man this sure sounds like 1971, sheer hellacious FUZZ filled heaviness, wild wailing retro-proto-metal-punk-garage action. The Skogen Brinner boys don't hold back at all, and this stuff sounds too raw and real to be for calculated effect, it's not mere 'cool' retro posing. No, playing what you hear here clearly comes quite naturally to them - maybe their parents raised 'em on steady diet of Black Sabbath, Pentagram, and Wicked Lady? And the records of Swedish '70s proto-metal masters November for sure. The singing is almost all in Swedish, and is performed with manic, aggressive attitude, though both vocals and music don't lack for melody when required - track eight, "Vargen Till Forvirring", being a nice brief acoustic respite from all the fuzzed out madness. Mostly though, yeah, it's hard hitting psychedelic freakorama, with lotsa fuzz guitar, some organ, echoing studio effects, and "hairy funk" grooves that would get Finders Keepers DJ Andy Votel all hot and bothered if he found this music on some vintage 45. Oh, and there's even saxophone on two tracks, "Odjurtets Hamnd" and "Farsonas Berg", riffing just as hard as the guitars. The only song with an English title and lyrics is called "Speed Freak", if that tells you anything. That track somehow sounds kinda like Mainliner gone medieval & martial. Total biker metal brilliance, there! Belongs in the collection (and in heavy rotation on the playback devices) of anyone who also loves Kadavar, Burning Saviours, Troubled Horse, Horisont, Danava, La Ira De Dios, Scorpion Child, and other current bands bringing these heavy '70s sounds back. Ok, look - you know we love this sort of stuff. And we say Skogen Brinner have got the goods, get it! Digipack cd or gatefold vinyl, both adorned with band portraits in '70s underground comix style, perfect.

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Admittedly expensive, import 7" from this amazing band of Swedish throwbacks. Retro '70s heavy rockin' with tons of FUZZ, these guys are dang good at sounding like it's 1973 and they're the ones inventing punk and glam and heavy metal while partying hard at the same time. The A-side, "Mr. Fantastic", sounds kinda like one of the happy songs on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, but with a Swedish singer and lots of drum fills. It goes through a bunch of changes, eventually it taking off into space with plenty of synth squiggle, but also intensifying the headbanging quotient too. Bonus points for the toilet flushing at the end. The B-side is called "Hickory Dickory Dog (Song Overheard In The Night)", and that gets bonus points for its title alone!!

Even if we didn't make this Record of the Week, we'd probably still be selling quite a few of 'em, as we're sure we've got a lot of knowledgeable record-collector-type customers for whom adding this to cart will be but the work of a second, the second after their eyes bug out upon seeing the artist and title listed above. But since this reissue is not only of an incredible rarity but also of an incredible record, we wanted to make sure everybody heard about it, besides those for whom it's already a "holy grail". Yep, Joakim Skogberg's original 1972 Jola Rota LP definitely falls into the highly obscure "holy grail" category, a lost treasure for lovers of weird, wonderful acid-folk and underground psychedelia. The sort of thing that develops a legend that it can't possibly live up to... but then DOES, blowing minds when it's finally reissued. The sort of thing that's whispered about among connoisseurs of psych, written of in a few select fanzines and blogs, heard only by a lucky few who got an Nth generation cassette dub or cd-r burn from a friend, who got it from a friend, and so on. The sort of thing, that even a few years after a brief exposure to its wonders, will make you stop and think every once in a while, dang when is someone finally gonna reissue that amazing obscure album??? Some other recently excavated examples would include Moolah's Woe Ye Demons Possessed, Bobb Trimble's Harvest Of Dreams, and Gary Higgins's Red Hash... and before that, once upon a time Comus's First Utterance too would have fallen into that category. Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer as well, though originals of that were and are much MUCH easier to come by. Whereas *this* album was originally pressed in an edition of around just one thousand copies -- of which only a few hundred were ever sold back in the day, with the remainder of the pressing being, gasp, melted down to be recycled into other LPs! So, here it is, artist Joakim Skogsberg's lone album Jola Rota finally, officially reissued for the very first time! Our hearts went pitter pat when we found out. We first heard this when our friend Loren Chasse (of Of/Thuja/Jewelled Antler/etc. fame) floated us a cd-r burn he had gotten from a pal overseas a couple years ago, as per the scenario outlined above. He figured we'd like it, and of course he was right. What's not to like? Swedish-forest-folk hippie ritual mixed with droned-out psych guitar. Truly strange, and captivating, vocal mumble. And, get this, it was actually mostly recorded out in a forest, on portable reel-to-reel gear!! Once out of the woods, the raw recordings were overdubbed (Skogsberg being responsible for all sounds on this album) in studio, but remain quite raw, the mystery and majesty of northern landscapes, dark shadowy places, placid lakes, tall trees and moss-covered rocks utterly alive in the music of the nature-loving Skogsberg. Side One starts off with "Jola Fran Ingbo", which introduces Joakim's unusual "Jola" singing style derived from Swedish trad folk, also heavily influenced by Buddhist chant, accompanied by staccato bowings of ominous violin. Immediately this is waaaay darker than most other Swedish folk/psych we've heard! Seriously droney and austere. That's followed by the more freaked out, rockier "Offer Rota", which finds Skogsberg singing whilst pounding away on percussion and unfurling a thick layer of distorted guitar murk, with what sounds like a Jew's Harp warbling in the background. The next piece, "Fridens Lijor", on the other hand, is an unaccompanied vocal piece, close-miced and intimate, all about Skogsberg's fragile Jola babble... Beginning side two, "Besvarjelse Rota" builds up a dubby, bassy electronic rhythmic whomp-whomp throb beneath its damaged psych guitar wail, that (in our warped imagination) foreshadows modern minimal techno a la Chain Reaction, "heroin house" beats.... could almost be Pole jamming with Algarnas Tradgard or something! Later, the lengthy "Jola Fran Stensate" harkens back to the solemnity of the album's first track, and then "Jola Fran Leksand" winds up this unique, amazing trip with something of a pagan campfire dance piece, for folky fiddle and rattling hand percussion. Overall, though, Jola Rota's mood is solitary and ceremonial. Skogsberg not a guru leading his followers, but rather one man, inspired, singing devotional songs to nature, in personal communion with the ancient deities of Sweden and the universe... it IS universal, probably why it sounds simultaneously like krautrock and Tibetan worship and Native American prayer-songs. The universality of the drone, and the human voice in spiritual reverence regardless of language. At its droniest, many moments here recall Parson Sound or the aforementioned Moolah. Totally, magically mesmeric. Wow... EVERYONE who's heard this since we got it in has been entranced. And we're extra happy that not only has this been reissued, but that the reissue was done by our pal Johan's Tokyo-based Tiliqua Records (along with EM Records, one of our absolute favorite reissue labels from that part of the world, or anywhere else). Which means, it's done up deluxe, packaged in a swank miniature gatefold LP-style sleeve, and it's been remastered from the original tapes with the help of Skogsberg himself. There's also new liner notes and previously unpublished photos of the long haired and bearded (of course) Skogsberg included. Nice! Sadly, this too is limited to a one-time pressing of only 1,000 copies... and unlike the original vinyl edition, we doubt the label will be left with any unsold copies to recycle! FYI there will also be a super, super limited (and expensive) vinyl version of this coming on on Tiliqua in May, not sure if we'll be able to get any of those at all or if they'll be a label-direct preorder thing only...

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Some early '70s vintage, groovy orchestrated French psych-pop sound good to you? Maybe even better if created by a very hip, mystic-minded musician (Skornik) inspired by LSD and the esoteric writings of a controversial Gurdjieff disciple (Louis Pauwels, author of counterculture bestseller The Morning Of The Magicians)? Well then have we got a reissue for you!! Guy Skornik's Pour Pauwels is a fantastic progressive pop opus, its symphonic, psychedelic sounds mixing together dramatic French vocals (both spoken and sung), romantic piano, moody melodies, jaunty horns, sudden curlicues of psych guitar wail, and more. A song-based soundscape, almost cinematic, it's for fans of the freakier side of the Serge Gainsbourg oeuvre for sure, a la Historie De Melody Nelson. Freakier than that, really - this was originally issued in 1970 by the Pathe label, who around the same time also released records by Igor Wakhevtich and Gerard Manset, and this fits right in with the likes of them. If you're like us, oui oui this sounds good, in fact it's pretty much irresistible. The thick cd booklet, in both French and English, features very interesting and extensive liner notes, delving into the careers of both Skornik and Pauwels, including an in-depth, present-day interview with the former.

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Swedish post everything weirdos the Skull Defekts continue to mutate into practically unrecognizable shapes, once we think we have them pegged, they go and change things up drastically and dramatically. Drone Drug was the last Defekts record we reviewed, and as the title might suggest, that record was made up almost entirely of thick snarling buzzy dronemusic, while before that, they veered from rhythmic experimentalism to abstract soundscapery, never making one song long enough to really pin them down. Yet we were still unprepared for this latest incarnation. The record opens with a weird post punk jam, a looped riff, some pounding tribal drums, streaks of feedback, and some actual singing. At first we were feeling some Black Dice action, mixed with a little Six Finger Satellite, but then in true Defekts fashion they locked into a groove and then hammered away at it, a single part, a killer part, but repeated over and over and over. A sort of post post post rock new wave or something. The second track is more of the same, a buzzy distorted main riff, super tight heavy hitting rhythm, and more singing, reminding us in this instance of Swiss sampling rockers the Young Gods. And that we've come to discover is the Skull Defekts new sound, their current incarnation, is some freaked out druggy and damaged, swaggering new wave garage stomping groove machine, that remains just a little too tweaked, their sound just a little too repetitive and left of center to allow them to fit in, and so they remain freaky fractured underground groove rock alchemists. There are some moments that hint at past incarnations, the chaotic and dense all drum marching band free-for-all of "Unholy Drums For Psychedelic Africa", but especially "Urban Ritual", that unfurls like some fucked up downtempo slowcore Bohren, laced with hiss and glitch, the drums a distant patter, tons of low end, bits of skitter, deeeeeeeeep rumbles, really ominous and creepy, a cool way to finish off, especially after the mesmerizingly hypnotic looped new wave garage stomp that came before. Weird, for sure, but we're still digging it pretty hard... Think Black Dice, Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance, that sort of groovy druggy rhythmic trancemusic, but a bit more fucked up and freaked out. Plus in the liner notes someone gets credit for "shoe styling"... wow!

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Swedish rhythmic post everything combo Skull Defekts have always been tough to pin down, their sound changing dramatically with seemingly every release, although it seems that gone are the days of the dense and brutal drones that defined their early records, the band blossoming into their current form, meditative and repetitive, rhythmic and sort of post rocky actually, this latest record culled from a single day's recording session, undertaken mid US tour, with Daniel Higgs accompanying them on vocals, and aQ faves Zomes opening up, so given the opportunity everyone piled into the studio, and recorded three tracks, the first of which is a loping, drum heavy groove, with Higgs laying down his unique and twisted vocalizing over the top, even bellowing at one point "The Skull Defekts salute you!", the music lush and gorgeously mesmerizing, with organs swirling, guitars churning, loping and hypnotic and trancelike. The second track starts off with just drums, then some detuned dirgelike riffage, again Higgs in full shaman mode, delivering another selection of cosmic wisdom, crooning, bellowing, mewling, the music slithery and lugubrious, all manner of random percussion peppering that dirgelike groove, like the first track, all about repetition, circular, cyclical, total ritualistic sonic trance out. Finally, the last track, which is a gorgeously understated bit of meditative mesmer, hazy organ drones, wheezing harmonium, a minimal mini raga, Higgs practically whispering, his delicate croon wreathed in those lush, layered drones. So lovely. And as if that wasn't enough the whole record is repeated on the B side in reverse, the record playing from the inside out, as if the B side is literally taking up right where the A side leaves off, and as you no doubt know about us by now, we love backwards sounds, they just make everything sounds more tripped out and psychedelic, which is true even here, the backwards versions somehow also darker, and more intense, more demonically harrowing, the perfect balance for the A side, forwards and backwards, light and darkness, good and evil.

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Fuck yeah! Another Skull Defekts record. Hard to believe they were once one of those super obscure bands with practically no releases outside a cassette or a cd-r or two, considering now it seems like every decent label around wants a piece of these guys. And for good reason. SD are a total AQ sonic dream team, heavy and hypnotic, looped and rhythmic, clattery and chaotic. Usually we get a bit fed up when a band suddenly releases record after record after record, but in some cases, we're willing to make an exception, and we'll of course make one for these guys, since we're dying to hear more and more. Every label around wants a piece of these guys and that's just fine, cuz every disc we've heard we love, and this one is no different. Well, no different in that respect, but sonically, there is a big difference. Whereas all the other records we've heard have been super abstract affairs, rooted heavily in rhythm for sure, but mostly ambient and drone-y and looped, with the various rhythms part of a bigger whole, dark soundscapes of creaks and groans and rumbles and whirs, all held firmly in place by fragmented rhythms, and looped percussion, this one sounds more like the work of a band. A -rock- band. Not to say it isn't still dark and hypnotic, looped and rhythmic, it's just this time, there's, well, there's singing for one, and while vocals may have been present on the other discs, here's it's as much a part of the music as the riff or the rhythm. The fact that it's a quartet, two guys handling guitars and "machinery", two other guys handling percussion and drums and again "machinery", the sound here starts to make more sense. Essentially two drummers and two guitarists, who lock into killer hypnotic grooves, that slowly mutate and spread out, change shape and transform. The core rhythm stays the same, with subtle variations, the guitars too remain mostly static, with little flourishes and filigree here and there, but they seem to be traveling through a world of sound that is constantly changing, thick washes of distorted grime, flurries of glitchy static, haunting alien FX, and of course the occasional bit of new wavish sounding vocals. The opening track is the perfect example of this, an extended nine minute jam, totally motorik and hypnotic, the background noise building and building to a frenzy, a the drums pound along relentlessly. Like Dutch hypno metallers Gore crossed with Australian minimalist jazzbos the Necks. But then something strange happens in track two. The track starts off with just drums, then some angular guitars, then the vocals kick in, some cool percussion, and suddenly we're not so much in some European art rock mathrock jam, or some avant minimal kraut groove, no we're on some late eighties post punk dancefloor. All black lights and throbbing bass, downright funky, the vocals a snarling sneering punk rock scowl. Not hard to imagine this sound fitting right in between Television and Suicide and ESG. Or maybe imagine some modern day East Coast post punk mathrockers getting their Wire on. Weird, unexpected, but it sorta suits them. The next track, combines the two, an awesome angular postpunk riff, some more distorted new wave vocals, over a churning bass and some pounding drums, into a churning repetitive metallic post punk groove. The rest of the disc continues in the same direction, the band spewing out some killer looped repetitive post punk metallic new wave pound. Makes you want to pogo and bang your head at the same time. Each track only one or two parts, transformed into extended dronedirgedancefloor workouts, the highlight being the nearly 11 minute "The Sound", a static jagged stab of sound repeated metronome like over a chugging distorted guitars, a simple pounding snare, wreathed in lots of low end bass rumble and guitar noise and some slithery sexy vocals, which made us think of a much heavier, more abrasive Girls Against Boys. We've been digging this record like crazy, after we got over the initial surprise of the new songier sound, and while that might alienate some of the more industrial dronescape folks out there, the rest of you should definitely check it out, and maybe this 'Defekts record is just the thing to get some of the kids digging all this postpunknewwave revival stuff, into something a bit more fucked up and far out. Either way, we love it!

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Another new one from Swedish noisemakers Skull Defekts, who like much of the new breed of cd-r underground outfits, have gone from unknown to prolific in the blink of an eye. This latest comes courtesy of the Cut Hands label, and is crazy limited, only a hundred copies� And while past Defekts records have been strongly rooted in rhythm, this two tracker is much more about texture and mood, timbre and ambience, with any rhythm merely a muted pulse, a submerged throb, or a bit of dizzying skipped looping. The opening track is 21 minutes of low end murk, soft shimmering drift, smeared pixilated glitch, moaning bass tones, a distant swirl of disembodied voices, croaks and creaks, blurred into another buzzy layer, the track building in intensity, the tones growing thicker and more corrosive, streaks of feedback draped over sonorous tones, all wrapped in a whirring cloud of soft insectoid buzz. The second track, also 21 minutes, is much more chaotic and confusional, voices swirl dizzily, chunks of glitchy electronics suspended in a roiling sea of constant low end buzz, smears of malfunctioning effects, sine wave skree and crumbling distortion, all looped into some haunting post industrial collage, eventually smoothing out into a long stretch of layered rumble and whir, but still shot through with jagged shards of percussive clatter and sizzling electronic grind. Sort of Pan Sonic meets Wolf Eyes which is most definitely a good thing. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in cool oversized, textured paper, three color silkscreened gatefold sleeves, the disc attached to a nub on one of the panels, a printed black and white insert, each disc hand painted.

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Holy drone!! This is not at all what we expected from these guys, but then, most Skull Defekts records tend to confuse or confound. Which is pretty much why we love them so. And who are we to turn up our noses art a sonic surprise, especially when that surprise is DRONES. Big thick buzzy snarling crumbling blown out low end buzzing writhing brain melting, ear drum crushing, rib cage rattling, speaker destroying drones. Skull Defekts are no stranger to the drone, and the fact that they called this record Drone Drug, should have been a clue, but the band, who in the past have been heavily rhythmic, have discarded pretty much everything except for the drone. No beats, no riffs, no recognizable instruments, nothing but deep dark drones.� This is a seriously heavy record. Dense and brutal, four extended tracks, each an exercise in tension, long form extended tones, but within these, stretched out sounds, much like dronelord Phill Niblock, the various layers are surprisingly active, throbbing and pulsing, and twisting and slithering and buzzing and whirring and shimmering, the sounds rough and raw, bits crumbling and emitting grit, slipping into fuzzy drift and then slipping back into a solid endless throb. The power of the drone is divine, and when harnessed, like this, with volume, and texture, and timbre, the music is a physical presence. Headphones come to life and encase your head in an organic black cocoon of sound, speakers unfurl thick flows of sonic tar, laying supine, eyes closed, you're soon buried alive, beneath layers and layers of resonant rumbling sound. And it is divine. This is powerful, earth shifting, massive minimal music. Not sure if these sounds come from synths or guitars, electronics or sine wave generators, malfunctioning effects pedals or a microphone lowered into the center of the Earth (we're leaning toward the latter), the result is something so primal and organic, so primeval and timeless, the act of listening seems to alter the listener's molecular structure, transporting the listener to an alternate universe, made entirely of sound, where our bodies are transformed into sound waves, our souls escape their mortal shackles and reveal themselves to be pure, deep drones. So awesome.�

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It's like the second coming of late great rhythmic post rockers Lungfish. This latest disc from Swedish hypno rockers Skull Defekts finds the group teaming up with modern musical shaman (and former Lungfish frontman) Daniel Higgs, for what is easily the groups most 'rock' record yet, which is no bad thing, and with the addition of Higgs, the band's sound is transformed into something that to these ears sounds remarkably like a modernized, supercharged Lungfish. Skull Defekts, like Lungfish before them, are obsessed with rhythm, and repetition, and their songs bear this out, often comprised of just one or two parts, repeated over and over, trance-like and mesmerizing, the band locking in tight, and getting all droned out and hypnotic and krautrocky, constantly shifting but minimally and subtly, so on the surface, it's total zoner psychedelic drone rock bliss, but closer listening reveals a constantly mutating underbelly innercore, and on Peer Amid, Higgs acquits himself nicely, taking an approach not that dissimilar to his Lungfish days, short shards of lyrics, more like mantras, repeated over and over, he's in full shamen mode, the band his high priests, the normal Skull Defekts fleshed WAY out, lush and layered, with tons of extra effects, electronics, percussion, the guitars super thick and distorted and heavy, the perfect bed for Higgs' inspired lyrical rants, the overall sound slipping from the noise rock/krautrock hybrid of the title track, to the almost Bleach era Nirvana sounding "No More Always", to the Eastern tinged midtempo dirgery of "Gospel Of The Skull", that is probably as perfect a realization of the Skull Defekts / Daniel Higgs hybrid as to be found here, the main riff sounding almost like something off Sun City Girls' Torch Of The Mystics, and Higgs' vocals all over the place, nearly operatic, super intense and over the top. The rest of the record offers still more inspired, next level, spiritual hypno noise rock, rhythmic mantra drone psychedelia, in the form of the creepy vocal driven drag of "The Silver Ring", with its brooding ambience chant-like vox and crashing distortion, and the tribal buzz drenched "In Majestic Drag" with its huge drums, crackling crumbling distortion, strange shimmering ambience, and still more crooned moaned vox, and "Fragrant Nimbus", with a main rhythmic groove that almost sounds like the Ex, Higgs, sing/speaking over the top, sparring with extra percussion, squalls of super intense psychedelic freekout, the vocals multi-tracked creating strange harmonies, and "What Knives, What Birds", another -almost- funky sounding jam, that wreathes the rhythms in distorted processed vocals, winding tangled distorted guitar melodies, and finally, "Join The True" with a killer bass heavy rhythm, circular and mesmerizing, Higgs, vocals an ominous spoken word, the vocals and instruments locked tight for a nearly unshifting 3 minutes, before exploding into a majestic bit of melodic crashing and soaring, again, reminding us a bit of Nirvana's Bleach, albeit filtered through both Lungfish AND Skull Defekts, the result a glorious slab of super rhythmic, catchy and melodic, heavy and trancelike hypnorock bliss!

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MPEG stream: Gospel Of The Skull
MPEG stream: What Knives What Birds

Not only is this limited 3" cd-r release on one our our newest favoritest labels, Sweden's Kning Disk (who brought us both the Erik Enocksson Record Of The Week and Balroynigress reviewed on our last list) but it's also by one of our newest favoritest bands, The Skull Defekts (also Swedish). You know why we love Kning, and if you read our reviews of a handful of their previous releases, you also know what we think is so great about The Skull Defekts... they're abstract technicians of noisy mechanical rhythm n' glitch, masters of repetitive industrial improv thrum n' stutter. Like their Stateside colleagues (and Kning labelmates) Wolf Eyes, they've also been quite prolific (we have several other new Skull Dfx titles in stock and awaiting review, in fact!). Polonium (named for a rare, radioactive element, used in the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning) is a heavy, hypnotic electrical noise construct about 20 minutes long, recorded live on the radio (Resonance FM) in London, England, January 6th 2007. Although performed by a stripped down duo version of the band, normally a quartet, it's a good example of what we love about this outfit and would make a good introduction to their sound, though we're listing it now mainly 'cause we know fans are gonna want to get their hands on this before it's gone, as this release, in its second and possibly final edition, is LIMITED TO 100 NUMBERED COPIES. We only have a few...

The Skull Defekts are another one of those bands that seem to have gone from some unknown entity with just a cd-r and a tape, to a serious band, with an avalanche of releases, in the blink of an eye. So much so that it's been tough for us to keep up. This is the first of maybe three cds that have come out in the last little while, but the first we're actually getting around to reviewing. In the review of the only other SD release we've listed and reviewed, a now out of print lp on Conspiracy Records, we said that "if there was any justice in the world, these guys would be battling Wolf Eyes for the hipster noise rock crown for sure," and this record, along with all the others we have yet to review, but will soon, only reaffirms that sentiment. But whereas Wolf Eyes are lo-fi and murky, using piles of junk and damaged electronics and instruments that look (and sound) like they were sitting in a garage rusting for 20 years, The Skull Defekts seem to approach their noise with a bit more technical savvy, to the point of sounding mostly electronic, which they may very well be, but it's a testament to these guys and their sound that it's pretty difficult to tell what exactly is going on and what manner of soundmaking devices could produce this glorious racket. But who cares really, when it sounds this amazing, and mysterious, fucked up and so beautifully damaged. The opening track here sounds like a Oval, but after being stored on decaying tape in William Basinski's attic for 20 years. A hypnotic looped soundscape of glitched electronics, haunting electronic melodies, crumbling distorted textures, alien beeps and bloops, all strung together into haunting melodies, and lurching barely perceptible rhythms, the song constantly crapping out, being swallowed up by distortion, as if it was being played back on a broken tape player, a skipping cd player and blown speakers simultaneously. A gorgeous chunk of decayed beauty. Of modern electronic corrosion. The second track is a slow growing drone, a warm electronic warble, a resonant thrum, drifting beneath shimmering metallic melodies, like Niblock covered by Wolf Eyes, a barely shifting series of sounds and layers, the various components becoming more and more distressed as the piece progresses, more distorted, less cohesive, but weirdly enough, more and more lovely. The last half of the record is split into two parts, the first is a cloud of chaotic high end, a little bit Sunroof!, a little bit Vibracathedral Orchestra, but anchored by looped electronics and a relentless klaxon pulsing in the background, giving the track a strange sort of momentum, not at all unlike Avarus or Anaksimandros on Kompakt. The second part, and final track on the record, is a long dirge-y drone, of thick corrosive electronics and warm whirring low end, always on the verge of erupting into full on sludge, but instead, grinding glacially through a landscape of dark rumble and thick rib cage rattling throb...

MPEG stream: Sex Fracture
MPEG stream: Carved In Bones

Pretty much every review of Skull Defekts begins with some comment about how confounding these guys are, or what a big surprise the record is, so at this point, having these guys surprise us is exactly what we expect! Yet we're still surprised and confounded every time. This lp finds Skull Defekts both live and in the studio, with their lineup augmented by some surprising (yep!) additions. The A-side is live, and finds CM Von Hausswolff becoming an honorary Defekt, along with someone called Jean-Louis Huhta, augmenting the core duo of Joachim Nordwall and Henrik Rylander, and we were expecting something, well, noisy, but instead, this is a gorgeous, ultra minimal side long dronescape, hushed layered drift, muted high end sine wave shimmer, the sound growing gradually more dense, thickening, sprawling, the high end more incendiary, the low end more crunchy and distorted, finally building to a bit of a noisy climax, before slipping right back into more minimal dronedriftskree. Quite cool. The B-side finds the Defekts welcoming Leif Elggren to the group, along with Kent Tankred, this quartet created their sidelong 'jam' live in the studio, and again, it begins as a hushed, barely there field recording, static and hiss, a bit of clatter and scrape, weird distorted buzz, streaks of feedback, tiny buried melodies, sonic fragments drifting in the ether, sonic motes settling on some greyed expanse of blurred mystery, the B-side is definitely headphone listening, the sounds of daily life will for sure overpower the sounds coming out of the speakers, but with headphones, one can enjoy the deep sonic mysteries of this epic chunk of minimal ambient dronemusic.

The long awaited debut from ex members of Circus Lupus and the Delta 72. Trashy sorta lo-fi punk rock with the unmistakable Circus Lupus yelp of Chris Thomson.

Three (sometimes four) chord punk slop with screeching girl / boy vocals from members of Circus Lupus and Delta 72. The cover has a man with a hot dog for a head. Six songs.

Massive dose of divine Skullflower noisiness this time around, a brand new vinyl only release reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this right here, a long in the works, super limited, hand assembled TRIPLE cd (not cd-r) boxset featuring all new material, over three hours or buzzing noise, abstract riffing, and all manner of brilliant sonic fuckery. Not sure which disc comes first, but we'll start with Circle Of Serpents, and right off the bat, we're greeted with a glorious looped riff, reminiscent of Exquisite Fucking Boredom or Orange Canyon Mind, locked and looped and played over and over and over, while in the background all manner of melodies and melodic fragments, swoop and swoon and howl and keen, a swirling abyss over which a fuzzy minimal metal loop is locked on repeat. But don't expect the whole disc to be riff based, the second track explodes in a wall of grinding crumbling blown out noise drenched chaos, and as if we weren't already mixing it up enough, track three offers up some full on ultra grim blasting murky black metal, Skullfower style! We knew Bower dug the black metal, and always hoped something would come of it, so here you go, raw and buzzy, a stuttering drum machine blast beat, riffs blurred and smeared into abstract streaks, vokills buried in the mix, all barreling though clouds of effects and crumbling noise. The rest of the disc slips from epic, sun dappled Sunroof! like effulgence, tortured Abruptum style black ambience, thick distorted classic Skullflower wall of rrrrooooaaaar, strange fractured bagpipe industrial rhythm noise jams, thick warm blissy shoegazey guitar drones, and more. Easily the most varied, the weirdest, the most listenable, and quite possibly the best Skullfower record we've heard in years, and that's just the first disc. And thankfully, the other two discs hold up just as well, super varied, and noisy and heavy, rife with drones and riffs and ragas and blasts of black metal, strange rhythms, mysterious percussion, doomy dirges, layers of guitars everywhere, dense and thick and corrosive and abrasive and warm and pretty and fucked up and furious and dreamy, all over the map, somehow all held together by some nearly impossible to decipher masterplan, but why try to understand, it's not necessary to enjoy this, in fact it's better to just luxuriate in the massive soul swallowing sound, and simple give in as you drift further and further, deeper and deeper. Matthew Bower who is Skullfower describes it like this: "Leitmotivs and keys get twisted and mangled and return with the dread anticipation of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence in a cycle of upheavals and lacerations, beginning and ending interwoven in an occult pantheistic tapestry that posits a gateway from the rational universe of gods creation into universe b, for spirits that can tune to the bleak, gorgeous vision SF has been channeling since tribulation. Comes in a cardboard box with silver foil blocked slipcases featuring sigils/glyphs/runes that are both symbols and aspects of the working, and 15 visual fragments that can be arranged in conjunction with the sounds to make spells, koans, traps, resonances to help bring about the sacred alignments that the music aims toward.... indeed a valuable tool for dark meditation, and lefthand tantra". That's right, 3 cds in silver embossed sleeves, in a hand painted cardboard box, each hand painted by Bower himself, also included a bunch of color inserts, as well as liner notes, the whole thing LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!

MPEG stream: Vexed Abyss
MPEG stream: Lungs Of Hell
MPEG stream: Xipe Totec

First release in 7 YEARS from mighty UK heavy/drone/psych gods Skullfower. Matthew Bower (Sunroof!, Total ) resurrects his slumbering free-noise behemoth with this gorgeous blast of hypnotic, pummeling, droning crush, equal parts shimmering skree, damaged motorik rhythms, murky and druggy psych-rock riffs and swirling fuzzed-out guitars. The album's core is the epic, expansive and never ending, four part suite "Celestial Highway", a sludgy sabbathy seventies rock riff, repeated adinfinitum, a dangerously unstable entropic jam wherein the riff slowly drifts apart, sinking into a churning tarpit of abstract whir and hum, gradually mutating into a drifting, throbbing pulse, as warbly synths, chirping birds, and thick washes of dreamy sonic turbulence overtake and subdue any traces of the original riff. Mesmeric and hypnotic and totally otherworldly. Like UK mantric rockers Loop, on repeat play, while your boombox runs out of batteries, or a sweeter, prettier version of Dutch minimal metal gods Gore, or imagine Steve Reich or Terry Riley composing for Black Sabbath. The remaining tracks retain their Krautrockish propulsion but drift closer to Sunroof! territory, loosening the psychedelic electronic riffscapes from their moorings, letting them float lazily through a gauzy soundscape of buzzing melodies, luminous shards of shimmering feedback and rumbling waves of drowsy, druggy drone. Like Neu! or Kraftwerk, doped up and drifting off, run through a bank of cheap effects, and broadcast out of an underwater leslie speaker, the lo-fi rhythms suffocating under a thick blanket of gossamer guitars and sonic detritus. Hypnotic and savage, dreamy and otherworldly, quixotic and godlike! Featuring sonic contributions from Vibracathedral Orchestra's Neil Campbell and produced by Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound, Ora. Monos, etc.).

MPEG stream: Celestial Highway I
MPEG stream: Celestial Highway II
MPEG stream: Celestial Highway III
MPEG stream: Saturn