NOW ON VINYL!
Love her or hate her, Lydia Lunch will make an impression on you. Given her venomous poems, constant invectives, and perpetual bad attitude, it's pretty obvious that Lydia wants you to hate her. While she's not an artist without her charms, she'll probably hate you for loving her. She began a career of transgression and teeth-gnashing in the mid-'70s when she was a runaway teenager slumming around the crappiest parts of NYC and pissing off more people than not. Yet, she managed to sequester enough people to support her in Teenage Jesus and The Jerks - one of the seminal bands who defined No Wave. They were also one of the four bands who appeared on the highly influential No New York compilation, alongside James Chance & The Contortionists, Mars, and DNA. Teenage Jesus only lasted for three years, probably due to the fact that no one could tolerate the musical dictator that was Lydia Lunch. But the music itself probably did a fair share of damage upon the participants as Teenage Jesus produced hyper-abrasive, hyper-condensed songs through militant rhythmic stomps, screechingly atonal slide guitars, and Lydia's sharply barked vocals. James Chance was in fact one of the early members of the band, offering his blood-splattering sax as a suitable duet for Lydia's caterwauling.
While Teenage Jesus never managed a full album (well, they barely managed to clock in a 20 minute live set!), there have been a number of collections of Teenage Jesus tracks. This compilation, Shut Up And Bleed, pretty much has all of the tracks from the band that were recorded to tape. It should be noted that the cd version of the same name contained tracks from Beirut Slump, another early Lydia Lunch project; but none of those cuts appear on this Cherry Red vinyl reish.
Love her or hate her, Lydia Lunch will make an impression on you. Given her venomous poems, constant invectives, and perpetual bad attitude, it's pretty obvious that Lydia wants you to hate her. While she's not an artist without her charms, she'll probably hate you for loving her. She began a career of transgression and teeth-gnashing in the mid-'70s when she was a runaway teenager slumming around the crappiest parts of NYC and pissing off more people than not. Yet, she managed to sequester enough people to support her in Teenage Jesus and The Jerks - one of the seminal bands who defined No Wave. They were also one of the four bands who appeared on the highly influential No New York compilation, alongside James Chance & The Contortionists, Mars, and DNA. Teenage Jesus only lasted for three years, probably due to the fact that no one could tolerate the musical dictator that was Lydia Lunch. But the music itself probably did a fair share of damage upon the participants as Teenage Jesus produced hyper-abrasive, hyper-condensed songs through militant rhythmic stomps, screechingly atonal slide guitars, and Lydia's sharply barked vocals. James Chance was in fact one of the early members of the band, offering his blood-splattering sax as a suitable duet for Lydia's caterwauling.
While Teenage Jesus never managed a full-album (well, they barely managed to clock in a 20 minute live set!), there have been a number of collections of Teenage Jesus tracks. The 2008 compilation, Shut Up And Bleed, is unique by including tunes from Lydia Lunch's other band at the time Beirut Slump. Some of these tracks had appeared on another Lunch compendium, Hysterie, released way back in 1988, but they've never been on cd. In Beirut Slump, Lydia played the part of the lead guitarist, leaving the vocal rants to Bobby Berkowitz, whose growling and grunts were uncannily similar to those of Michael Gira on the early Swans records. With the dissonant organ stabs, scraped guitar noise, and jackbooted stomping, Beirut Slump must have been one of the unsung templates for Gira and Swans. Even 30 years later, this stuff is damn impressive.
Latest blast of nihilistic Teutonic post punk from this Jewelled Antler offshoot, and while much of the TPK sound we've come to love is still present, in some ways the sound here is a whole different beast. Surprisingly poppy, lo-fi, and jangly, a little gloomy, yep, sounds right at home on a label that features Blank Dogs and Gary War. The music is all low slung and murky, not nearly as angular as other TPK records, instead, these guys whip up their own brand of lo-fi new wave pop, the main thing that still screams TPK are the vocals, an echo drenched Teutonic almost-shout, intense and booming, heavily accented, and in German as far as we can tell, a strange juxtaposition to the woozy bass heavy grooves underneath. The guitars are minor key and melodic, sometimes chiming and almost Cure-like, the combination makes this sound like it could be some last rarity reissued on Vinyl On Demand.
The side long B side is musically all washed out and dreamy, with a killer main riff, all fuzzy and doomy, the whole track laced with warbly organs, a sort of off kilter cold wave vibe, until those vocals swoop in and twist it all up. Awesome!
Pink Skulls is a new cd-r label run by Glenn Donaldson of Jewelled Antler, for stuff that's too "punk" for Jewelled Antler to put out. A recent list's Record of the Week, Leaf Yard, was one of Pink Skulls' first releases (if you've heard that, you know that what Glenn means by "punk" sure ain't Green Day). Now comes the Teenage PanzerKorps, a band which actually features Glenn himself (under the name Edmund Xavier) in its ranks. This lil' 3" cdr looks a lot like the stuff in the on-going Jewelled Antler "Library" series, but sure doesn't sound like Thuja or Tomes or even Dead Raven Choir. It's raucous, droney, arty rawk with a German singer (a 40-year old punker going by the name Bunker Wolf here). Bunker and Xavier and joined by drummer "Catholic Pat" Toves and Boy True on bass (quite possibly actually Jason Honea, who's a member of the Knit Separates with Glenn). Loud (or at least distorted), not too fast, and Teutonically snotty: nine songs in as many minutes, with titles like "Burma Crawl", "Chinese Machine Gun parts 1 and 2", and "Get Out Of My Shadow!". It references '80s downer artpunk (The Fall, Factory Records stuff I guess or maybe some of Savage Republic's tracks), '60s garage with fuzz organ, and the hardcore bands Boy True and Catholic Pat used to play in. Noisy breaks, abrupt edits, and poppy grooves are all important to Teenage Panzerkorps' sound, but it's Bunker Wolf's accent and delivery that stands out the most. No fake German here like Zeigenbock Kopf! Then there's Glenn. He proved in his old band Mirza's more loud, scree-filled moments that he can do the aggro guitar thing, yet his sensitive side is still in evidence here, so his 6 & 12 string guitar parts here betray an indie-pop influence as pretty as what he's come up with in such outfits as The Birdtree, The Knit Separates, Blithe Sons and even Thuja (with whom Teenage Panzerkorp at least share a partly improvised approach). An interesting blend of inspirations/expertise to be sure. These guys recorded this for fun a couple years ago, and have finally found a proper outlet for it, which is cool 'cause it's pretty great.
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Bunker Wolf, Catholic Pat, Edmund Xavier and Boy True are back with some more of the aggro lo-fi Teutonic art punk attack that only they are capable in this day, age, and state. And leave it to the Teenage Panzerkorps to come up with an automatically classic title like Nations Are Insane. Doesn't that sound like the title of some critically-lauded, obscuro punk rarity? Y'know, a seminal album cited by bands years later? Well anyway I think it's a great title. And the tracks on here are great too! If you liked TPK's Gleich Heilt Gleich 3" cd-r previously issued by Jewelled Antler punk offshoot Pink Skulls, you'll slaver over this. Total '80s DIY worship, sounding like something that coulda been on one of those Hyped2Death comps. Arty, punky noise rock that's equally into the Germs and the Germans (like Neu! and Neubauten). And singer Bunker Wolf *is* German so it's very authentic in that regard. Eighteen tracks that clock in at under a half-hour of murky, shambolic, distorted, somewhat-poppy urgh-splurge. Featuring members of Grim Reality, The Nazi Dogs, Thuja, The Knit Separates, The Birdtree, Blithe Sons, Skygreen Leopards, etc...
Ah, Teenage Panzerkorps. This confounding, transcontinental quartet has quite a punk / avant-rock pedigree. Edmund Xavier was born Glenn Donaldson, whose work within the forest-dwelling psychedelic collective Jewelled Antler spawned such projects as Thuja and the Blithe Sons, not to mention the paisley-pop project the Skygreen Leopards and Art Museums; and Boy True is the pseudonym for Jason Honea, who joined the leftist-punk band Social Unrest in the late '80s and Ten Bright Spikes in the '90s, before accompanying Donaldson and company on some of the more outre projects of Jewelled Antler. From the perspective of Jewelled Antler, the iconography of Teenage Panzerkorps makes a lot more sense, as a re-imagining of the childhood games playing with toy soldiers, where political and moral implications are lost within the wonder of play, all the while these childish ideals are smashed into the epiphany of hearing punk for the first time, with all of the social and political ramifications very much on the line. The Teutonic bark of vocalist Bunker Wolf and all of the militant iconography might give the impression of these guys being Nazi sympathizers, but this is hardly the case, as Der TPK's folding of symbols and metaphors is far more nuanced in its appropriation, pastiche, and parody.
German Reggae is album number four for Der TPK, and it exhibits some variation beyond the drone-punk propulsion which dominated their Games For Slaves and Nations Are Insane albums. Honea's basslines look back to the first couple of PiL records and Jah Wobble's thick punk-dub, and Bunker Wolf's delivery is a bit more understated, to which some have compared now to a Germanic Mark E. Smith. Even with these differences, Der TPK puts their collective head down for these propulsive, grimy post-punk numbers with plenty of references to the pre-Joy Division Warsaw recordings, Savage Republic, and Wire, not to mention contemporaries like The Soft Moon and Cult Of Youth.
Kauf Nicht Von TPK is a collection of oddities from the Deutsche-Americanische punk outfit Teenage Panzerkorps. Spearheaded by San Franciscan out-rocker Glenn Donaldson, Der TPK sports a German giant of a vocalist in Bunker Wolf, plus grizzled American punks Jason Honea and Catholic Pat Toves. Their sound is one of a forgotten bleak punk as if belted from some shitty squat in the shadows of the Berlin Wall circa 1981. Not the Neue Deutsche Welle sound of synth-based crooners nor of the Geniale Dilletanten crowd of Neubauten, Sprung Aus Den Wolken, etc; but the very dirty and very pissed-off punk sound of a group that wouldn't ever consider recording on anything with higher quality than a second hand 4-track. Even knowing this about Der TPK, we were caught offguard by the trainwreck pace of the first few tracks, which crash through 4/4 rhythms as the jangling guitars and throbbing basslines struggle to keep pace. Even Bunker Wolf sounds like he's pitched up his baritone barking just a bit. These couple of numbers sound as if the turntable was set to 45 rpm when the record's supposed to spin at 33. The tracks tend to return to a more manageable pace throughout the rest of the album which is still quite brisk mind you, with cuts rarely exceeding the three minute mark. These dark-gritty punk numbers drone through guitar, bass, and drums with Bunker Wolf chanting his way through each of the tracks, rounded out by the aptly named "Degenerate Disco." A few of the tracks are different versions of tracks found on the Harmful Emotions lp and the Nations Are Insane cd-r, both of which are way out of print, with plenty of unreleased tracks to boot. Limited to 300 copies, Italian import.
What began life as a straight up heavy psychedelic space rock band quickly evolved into something much more and much different, as UK psychedelic experimentalists Teeth Of The Sea began to push their sound in all sorts of uniquely directions, mixing eighties style soundtrackery with cosmic kraut grooves and loops and drones and all sorts of other weirdness. On the awesomely titled Highly Deadly Black Tarantula, the imaginary seventies giallo that the title evokes is made manifest in the distinctly soundtrack vibe, on the first track alone, with mariachi brass, twangy almost Morricone-esque guitar figures, pulsing synths, rumbling drones - by the end those sounds are doused in grit and distortion and augmented with wild programmed rhythms, not to mention almost black metal vokills. Confusing? Maybe, but also strangely thrilling. As is the rest of the record, the band truly coming into their own as they ditch all musical convention, for something that sounds fresh and original and pretty goddamn strange. The second track is all Throbbing Gristle style industrial crunch, replete with those distorted vox, and some frenzied drum machine, as well as swoonsome strings, and the brass returns, sounding at once totally out of place, like it's being piped in from a different record, but also impossibly perfect. And again the sound, at first amorphous, gradually coalesces into what sounds like it could be the soundtrack for the weirdest, coolest movie EVER.
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The first two records from this UK psychedelic space rock combo were primo examples of the current space/psych sound that we can't seem to get enough of - huge lumbering Hawkwind beholden sprawls of epic kosmische heaviness and tranced out kraut jams and blissful FX drenched atmospheric drifts. The band seemed to align themselves with the usual suspects: Carlton Melton, the Heads, White Hills, Mugstar, the Hills, etc. Those earlier Teeth Of The Sea records took that spaced out psychedelic sound and twisted it all up, adding near metallic heft in places, cheesy eighties soundtrack music, sci-fi electronics, swirling synths, raga like drones, heck even horns, so this new one came with lots of high expectations, but somehow, even as weird as those other records were, we weren't prepared for this.
After a weird bit of garbled vocals, the first proper track kicks in, with a pulsing, eighties sounding electro drum machine, then some percolating synths, reverbed percussion, weird electronics, processed horns, tinkling chime-like melodies, deep chordal drones, the band definitely dipping into the whole John Carpenter / Goblin sound, but making it totally their own. Immediately sounding like a WAY heavier version of our recent Record Of The Week from The Slasher Film Festival Strategy, and we were totally prepared for the whole record to unwind like some lost eighties soundtrack, but still in the first track, in come big, bombastic drums, some almost funky bass, the synths pulsing, a lumbering, loping cosmic soundtracky groove that's so good! All before the song EXPLODES into a wild, synth heavy, distorto guitar psych-prog blowout. Already worth the price of admission right there, and we're barely seven minutes in. Thankfully, it only gets cooler and weirder and WAY more far out.
Echo drenched horns are looped into a strange melodic cycle, sampled spoken vocals drift in and out, all over a skeletal electro groove, before the sound blossoms into some ultra creepy cinematic synthscapery, the synths buzzy and gristly, the vibe sinister and ominous, those looped, effected horns giving it a strange sort of almost Morricone gone Goblin vibe! From there, the sound devolves into a weird loose, super abstract almost-dub, reminding us of some old Adrian Sherwood record, via Muslimgauze or African Headcharge, but give a sort of heavy psych reworking, before in swoop swirling dizzying prog synth tangles and more spidery Morricone like guitars, the horns too, laying down a droned out brass backdrop, heady and hypnotic and really amazingly strange and original sounding. Pushing lots of our musical buttons, but turning those familiar sounds we love on their head.
At this point we're only halfway through, with the second part not letting up for a second, creepy atmospheric ambience, giving way to buzzing metallic crush, and blurred out slo-mo dooooom, laced with subtle synth and guitar filigree, shimmery outer space drift, ethereal and celestial that floats weightlessly, before some mariachi horns (!) bring it back to earth, gristly, grinding grey noise, and disembodied vocals, draped over a field of static, driven by buried pulsations, making for perhaps the most harrowing 2 minutes on the record, before launching into another psychedelic electro-dub excursion, all synth squelch and reverbed rhythms, which build to some seriously caustic crunch, before the record settles into the epic nearly 11 minute closer, a total eighties, soundtracky electro synth masterpiece, the perfect score for some lost horror art film, tribal rhythms, wheezing synths, tripped out vocodered vox, electronic beeps and trills, shimmery psych guitar, some driving propulsive grooves, and those horns, nearly driving the song at one point, and when matched to the grinding synth buzz, the swirling atmospheres, the fuzz guitar crunch, and the psych-kraut groove, make for something twisted and fantastically fucking far out. Masterful!
This came out last year, but somehow it managed to slip right by us, which is a shame cuz holy smokes is this right up our alley, and yours we're guessing. The first proper release (we think) from this UK instrumental space psych combo, who craft sprawling, smoldering epics, total kosmische psychedelic bliss out, not heavy and heady like the Heads or White Hills (at least most of the time), instead, TOTS let their songs brew and steep, like on the opening track here, the band unfurling a long stretch of warm washed out guitar buzz, haunting mariachi like trumpet, deep bass thrum, swirling sci fi FX, all woven into a super cinematic stretch of ritualistic psychedelic ambience. The second track offers up more of the same, but pushing the sound in a more Godspeedy, slow build direction, a minimal muted shimmerscape, wound around spidery guitars and a thick gloomy basslines, tribal drumming drives things forward, brooding and hauntingly intense, it's not until the final minute that the song explodes in a glorious burst of psych noise chaos.
The rest of the record offers up a series of miniature epics, haunting soundtracky ambience, mariachi flecked spaghetti western style psychedelia, occultic space rock infused krautrock, and just full on psychedelic space rock, all in varying measures, from the creepy soundtracky sci fi electronics of "Coraniaid", to the deserty drone rock of "Swear Blind The Alsatian's Melting", that transforms into a sort of mathy space rock part way through, rife with haunting twang, and metallic buzz, eventually blasting off, for the heart of the sun, all pounding dynamic chug and churn, and soaring psychguitar freakout. "Dreadnaught" is another one that's all cinematic and sweeping, that trumpet adding a little mariachi vibe to every track it touches, this one a hazy slow burn, the horn adding layer of buzz and thrum, before a brief bit of shimmery glitched out jangle, before the final jam, "Sentimental Journey", which is all wheezing electronics, and minimal tribal drumming, harmonica, gauzy washed out melodies, a droning dirgey drift, that builds to a pulsing hypnorock dronekraut groove, all murky and motorik, and the sort of thing you wish would go on for ages longer, but instead here finishes off in decaying swirl of hazy harmonica flecked shimmer.
The perfect mix of spaced out psych and slow burning post rock epic, which means you can probably figure out if this is for you (it probably is!)...
This is the second lp from UK psychedelic instrumental space rockers Teeth Of The Sea, their third record over all, and another twisted batch of heavy twisted psych, it makes sense that it would be on Rocket, home to other aQ fave space rock heavies like The Heads and Gnod, and these guys traffic in a similar sound, but one that is most definitely all their own, just check out opener "The Ambassador", one of THEE heaviest, trippiest slabs of space psych we've ever heard, thick low slung bassline, weird burbling electronics, tripped out processed vox, all hazy and buzzy and gristly, it sounds like a spaced out dirge rock Butthole Surfers almost, the guitars thick and distorted, the song a lugubrious crawl, until a second guitar swoops in, playing a slithery stoner riff, and the horns, the HORNS, bleating out a dark funereal drone, those freaky voices making everything way more druggy and demented, the drums come pounding in, it's not until about halfway through, that the guitars unwind wild peals of psychedelic leads, the drums grow more tribal, and yet, it never full explodes into conventional space rock, this is something else entirely, the song blisses out part way through, weird sci-fi squelches and more horns drifting in an expanse of distant guitar shimmer, and muted rhythms, everything gradually fading out leaving just tabla like drumming, subtle organs and swirls of electronic bloops and bleeps, and hell if that's not the way to start a record...
And the rest of the record, defies convention still by never quite settling down into anything even resembling proper space rock or psych rock, even compared to their last record we reviewed, this is as about far out as it gets. The next track is all drum machine, weird industrial electronics, processed voices, swirling synths, almost like some heavier take on Goblin / Carpenter soundtrack stuff. The title is all horn flecked slow burn drift, a gradual build to a more post rock crunch, building to a sort of Godspeed climax, but one that's all super high end guitar tangles draped over the otherwise seemingly sedate sonic background, dramatic and tense and surprisingly cinematic. The rest of the record continues to take the concept of psychedelic space rock and twist it all up, from pulsing kosmische synths, to almost cheesy, eighties sounding soundtrack music, like a more metal Beverly Hills Cop or Miami Vice (!), to murky hazy washed out ambience, all muted processed guitars and blurred gauzy melodies, to a weird final track that's a hazy shoegazey soundscape of minimal drumming, chiming guitars, and lots and lots of horns, again very haunting and cinematic, and really quite gorgeous.
Weird these guys seems to still lurk so beneath the radar, might be cuz they're just to far out and freaky for the psych/space rock crowd, which is a shame really, cuz this is some of the coolest stuff we've heard in ages.
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The Canadian twins' sixth full length! With each album they've gotten progressively sleeker and more styled. As a result, not surprisingly their music has definitely lost some of the gals' defining quirky personality, but they still have a knack for writing smart pop songs with catchy hooks and feisty vocal interplay. So, if you don't mind your punk-pop being a bit over-glossy, Sainthood may still hit the spot...
First things first, we're sure he won't mind us tellin' ya that this album comes with a hearty thumbs up from our pal Adam Pfahler (Jawbreaker, Lost Weekend Video) and our Ms Cup concurs. In a better world, these gals would be the ones sitting atop the Canadian teen pop throne currently occupied by Avril. Tegan and Sara have always exuded a remarkable level of confidence, composure and songcraft (particularly in their vocal arrangements) for their age, but now on their third full length, it's matched by more fully fleshed out instrumentation and production. Overall, So Jealous is quite a striking departure from their past earthier folk-focused releases. At times it's downright sleek, punchy pop -- imagine if Gwen Stefani had twin younger sisters... well, sorta! Co-produced by Tegan, Sara, New Pornographer John Collins and his JC/DC Studio partner Dave Carswell.
Girl power! Sister power! Twin power! Yay for the Quins! They've kept both the fans and fires stoked from their last album So Jealous with their fifth full length, the super confident and composed The Con. Their dynamic dual vocals are in top form, drawing comparisons to a young Stevie Nicks or those punchy '90s college rock gals Veruca Salt ("Volcano Girls"). And they've proven themselves to be no slouches in the heartstring-plucking lyric and songwriting department too. So many tunes here are irresistibly hummable and singalongable. Strangely appealing to all walks of life -- pop kids, hipsters. tough metal dudes, moms and pops.
FYI: This time around they chose to record outside of their homeland, travelling to the distant climes of Portland, OR where they were assisted in their mission by The Rentals' Matt Sharp, Hunter from AFI, and Death Cab's Jason McGerr and Chris Walla.
Tele:funken's second full-length is a follow-up to his collaboration with flying Saucer Attack a few years ago. This record reflects its title in that it seems roughly based on twinkly children's tunes with intermittent space-invaders sprinkles.
Just electric guitar and amplified cello making lush 'indie chamber math rock' or 'classical post rock' or...well, were not sure what to call it, but it sure is cool. Highly recommended!
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Full length number three from these guys (this guy?), and like the first two, we've been totally obsessed, and have basically wanted to listen to nothing else. Longtime readers of the aQ list are no doubt familiar with Telekinesis! (yep, the exclamation point is part of the name), whose sound is plucked right out of 1995, sounding like every indie rock and college rock band you loved back then, or maybe more accurately, like you WISHED every band back then sounded like. Huge hooks, crazy catchy melodies, the sound bombastic and fuzzy, jangly and totally rocking. The opening one two punch is tough to beat, "Power Lines" with its acoustic intro, which leads right into some seriously kick ass crunch, there's chiming synth melodies, and fuzzed out power pop indie rock jangle galore, perfect vocals that slip effortlessly into a falsetto, big drums, and again it's the sort of crazy catchy pop songs few folks can pull off, let alone this consistently. Then there's the follow up "Empathetic People", which is just as catchy, but has a whole different sound, pounding drums, chugging distorto guitars, heck, even the verse is insanely catchy, and when the chorus hits, it somehow manages to be even catchier.
Like 12 Desperate Straight Lines, Telekinesis continue to dabble with electronics and different sounds, never more effectively on "Ghosts And Creatures" which sounds like some lost eighties MTV pop hit, a little bit new wavey, drum machine, buzzing synths, minor key melodies, at least until the chorus which sounds like buzzy electro pop a la M83, but a bit more wistful. And then it's right back into it. More fuzz, crunch and jangle, and more hooks, more songs that will get stuck in your head forEVER. We should mention "Lean On Me" if only for its E.L.O like chorus, sooooooo crazy good. In some ways this record, and it's catchiness is almost self defeating, we'll pick a favorite, play it to death, and then move on to the next song, play that one, which supplants the one before, and the cycle continues, records with only one or two great songs definitely don't suffer from that problem, but then, as far as problems go, it's a pretty good one to have. And if you're like us, when you get to the end, you can just start over at the beginning. Like the other Telekinesis! records, all it should takes is a listen to the samples below, and odds are you'll be as obsessed as we are.
Why the heck aren't these guys (this guy?) huge? Their debut record, released on Merge a while back, was a practically perfect slab of nineties style indie pop jangle, lush and hooky and rife with glorious Elephant 6isms, and this follow up ep is more of the same. These tracks were mostly recorded lo-fi bedroom style, straight into a laptop, and somehow, even though it's noticeably more lo-fi, it still sounds surprisingly lush, and still catchy like crazy.
And how about that title? Sound tongue twistingly familiar, at least stylistically? It's cause this record is sort of an homage to Guided By Voices, the band having become newly obsessed with GBV's Alien Lanes, and to further that point they offer up a fantastic take on "Game Of Pricks" from that very same record. And it definitely speaks to the pop genius of Telekinesis that the originals barely even pale in comparison. There's also a killer cover of "The Drawback" by the pre-Joy Division outfit, and somehow here, even that chunk of dour buzzsaw punkiness comes out all fuzzy and crunchy and jangly and sounding like a Telekinesis original. So great!
If you're not already crazy obsessed with Telekinesis! (and yeah, the exclamation mark is part of the name), listen to maybe a minute of "Dirty Thing", and we're guessing you're gonna be totally smitten. Totally perfect, hooky classic indie pop, lush, and hooky, and so goddamn good. If these guys happened 15 years ago, folks would probably be talking about them the same way they talk about Superchunk and Guided By Voices today. High praise for sure, but well deserved we think. Their debut from last year was easily one of our favorite records, the song "Coast Of Carolina" still on heavy rotation, the perfect mix of Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples In Stereo, Death Cab... just the perfect fuzzy summery pop jam, and the thing was, the record was overflowing with similar jams, as was the cdep that followed, which brings us to this one, and guess what? Yep, another record filled to the brim with still more perfect indie pop, hooky and fuzzy and jangly, but there have definitely been some changes, it's a bit less sunshiney, a little more moody, a subtle darkness wrapped around what on the surface seems like similarly sunny sounds, some more electronics, a little bit glossier, some cool weird studio tricks, but all woven into that Telekinesis! sound we so love. And if "Dirty Thing" isn't enough to convince you, try "Please Ask For Help", which infuses jangle pop with a little bit of new wavey gloom, or "50 Ways" that pairs bug crunchy distorted guitars, with hushed delicate heartfelt vocals, lilting melodies, and super emotional vocals, or "I Cannot Love You" which sounds like some sort of Pavement / Sebadoh hybrid, all bouncy bass, start stop arrangements, and another hook to die for, not to mention some proggy distorto guitars and weird effects, we could probably go track by track through the whole record, which speaks to how great ALL these songs are. Total mixtape manna, indie rock bliss, made for both soothing bitter breakups and for soundtracking hand holding dreamdates, like all the best indie rock. A new favorite for sure!
They sure don't make pop music like this anymore. Or so we thought. A few months back, we heard just a tiny part of a single song from this record, and ever since, we'd been dying for this to finally come out. It was "Coast Of Carolina", first sound sample below, check it out, we'll wait....
If after hearing that, you're not totally in love with Telekinesis! (exclamation point part of the name!) then your pop heart is truly black and shrivelled.
That song is pretty much the ultimate fuzz pop super catchy summer jam of the year. These guys (or actually this guy!) oozes fuzzy Elephant Six style pop genius. Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples In Stereo, that sort of thing, crunchy and jangly guitars, slightly distorted drumming that pounds and swings, the songs soaring through fields of sizzling cymbals and sheets of ebullient pop glimmer and shimmer, the vocals heartfelt and boyish and swoonsome and just a little bit Death Cab, and the sound, a perfect mix of classic power pop, sad boy lo-fi bedroom strum and nineties style jangly indie rock. And every song here is catchy as all get out, hooks everywhere, if we were a bit younger and were going a courting, you know about half of these songs would end up on mix tapes for that special someone. Actually fuck it, we're gonna go make a mix tape right now. Courting or not, this is that rare sort of record that pretty much demands its songs wind up on a crushtape...
This is exactly what we were hoping the new Yeah Yeah Yeah's record would sound like when we first heard rumors that it was going to be a more synth based, dance oriented record, but sadly that YYY disc felt a bit flat to our ears.
But Telepathe do it right, tapping into hazy and silky dancefloor pop with enough interesting nuances and influences to make their songs stick! And to hold up so nicely on repeated listens. Makes perfect sense that TV On The Radio's Dave Stiek produced this as it's infused with the same kind of genre blending and avant meets pure pop aesthetic that he's perfected with his own band. You might be familiar with one half of this female duo, Melissa Livaudais who has been in tripped out and witchy outfits like First Nation, who put out a record on Animal Collective's label Paw Tracks.
It's definitely cool as of late for folks with very experimental backgrounds to embrace a more song based and catchy dancefloor aesthetic, as such, this reminds us a bit of the latest Gang Gang Dance outing, albeit with more sparkle and sleekness. We could totally see folks who dig on Italians Do It Better releases finding much to love on Dancemother. The high in the sky feeling of these songs makes for such a satisfying and captivating listen, just dripping with enticing pleasure.
A fantastic archival slice of early nineties Lousiville post rock / post punk, from this amazing, but virtually unknown outfit, who over the course of their brief existence, created a body of work easily on par with their Lousiville brethren, not falling that far outside of the sonic world inhabited by the likes of Slint, Rodan and the rest. But for whatever reason, these guys slipped through the cracks, with virtually none of their music seeing widespread release, and what little did make it out into the world, didn't make it much further than the merch booth at local shows. So this long overdue compendium is a godsend for fans of that era, and another supreme sonic feather in TRL's reissue cap (Bitch Magnet, Moss Icon).
Thirty seconds into the first track, "Automatic Pilot" and fans of that brooding, tense, strain of nineties style minor key math/post/noise rock will be wondering how the fuck they missed these guys. Spidery melodies, woozy angular guitars, loping rhythms, lush, and moody, darkly textured and super dynamic, the vocals a hushed crooned, nestled in dark shadowy sprawls of minimal strum and barely there drum skitter, bookended by dense mathy tangles of low slung bassline and jagged guitar crunch, and let's not forget the Slint-like spoken word, or the wild squalls of super distorted psychedelic guitar, or even the final shift into a killer off kilter mathy breakdown, set to plaintive sad boy emo vox. So good!
And it stays that good throughout, every song a haunting slow build soundscape of blurry chordal shifts, and muted rhythmic mesmer, super hooky, keening melodic sort-of choruses and long stretches of tense angular thrum, wild frenzied near metallic freakouts, and darkly lilting slow core mumble.
Some tracks like "Douglass Boulevard" get fully rocking right out of the gate, with soaring buzzing guitars, throbbing bass and wild intricate drumming, but inevitably slip into another chunk of woozy slo-mo post rock creep, before gradually working its way back up to another math/noise/post punk blow out. "Kelly" is a wild churning, chugging, grinding, metallic mathy workout that should definitely please fans of Don Cab and some of the heavier outfits along the post rock spectrum. The band unfurl awesome stretches of cyclical hypno-rock mesmer, locking into tranced out grooves that could/should never end. They also have an emo streak a mile wide, the wailing about-to-crack vox, the soaring majestic melodic epic-ness. At some points the resemblance to the post/math rock big boys is downright uncanny, which makes it even more curious why they weren't more popular, but these guys definitely infuse their own subtle twists and tweaks into the sound, and it's a sound some of us can't ever get enough of, and wish that more modern bands were still able to pull off. So goddamn great, even all these years later. Here's a list of bands, and if it reads at all like your collection you definitely need this: Slint, Rodan, Polvo, Bitch Magnet, Don Caballero, Drive Like Jehu, Giant's Chair, A Minor Forest, Sweep The Leg Johnny, Breadwinner, June Of 44, The For Carnation, Honor Role, Shipping News, Butterglove, Crain...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We made the first compilation of Telescopes singles a Record Of The Week late last year, so it would make sense, that the second volume might receive the same honors. As we mentioned back then, we've been pretty obsessed with that particular era in druggy space rock, be it the Telescopes, or Spacemen 3, or Loop, or Swervedriver. There seems to be a resurgence in interest, as more and more young bands discover that sound and attempt to make it their own.
We're not complaining of course, we love that blown out, druggy drone rock, looped riffage, and simple pounding krautrock rhythms, effects and drones, swirling and shimmering, and the recent spate of reissues drove that home, both Loop and Swervedriver getting the deluxe reissue treatment, and reminding us why they STILL rule, and why few bands could ever hope to create the same sort of druggy sonic space magick.
That said, this Telescopes singles collection offers up another side of the band, some of that old sound is still present, the pounding droning churning riffage, the swirling spaced out effects, the buried vox, the trancelike arrangements, but if anything the band have taken their sound even further out, ditching any semblance of proper rock arrangement, sometimes playing the same riff for 6 minutes, other times crafting a slow hushed drone-y crawl, dabbling in abstract slowcore, space-drone, and various other abstractions in sound we don't really have proper names for yet, and you know what? We love it. It's like everything we love about space rock and krautrock and slowcore but just smeared and blurred and pulled apart and reimagined as something way more psychedelic, way more minimal, and so much more compelling and arresting than another disc of fuzzy space-y rock jams (not that we wouldn't love that too), instead, these are explorations, experiments, but only to the degree that they digress from various space rock tropes, offering instead, something wholly other, a sound that is avant and challenging, but at the same time warm and enveloping and inviting. This is timeless trance music, even at it's heaviest, The Telescopes have created some sort of ur-rock, loosed from all the usual rock and roll strictures and allowed to ooze and sprawl and billow and shimmer and explode into ever expanding clouds of blinding glimmer and prismatic tonal shift, and it's ever so divine.
Even though this is technically a singles collection, none of these tracks sound like proper singles, instead, as mentioned above, they barely retain any rock or pop, instead existing as slow shifting fields of looped mysterious sound, infused with elements of the rock and pop that came before.
The opener "Winter #7" is absolutely stunning, a hushed bassy crawl, with ethereal barely audible boy girl vocals, distant horns, plenty of crumbling ambience and buzzing crackle, wheezing keyboards, fans of Crescent and Flying Saucer Attack and similarly abstract space rock will be smitten. Which leads directly and seamlessly into "The Perfect Needle #4" (a title that smacks of Spacemen 3, as does the track itself), a slow smoldering drift, all muted drones, mumbled vox, buried percussive thumps, a sort shimmering patina of glitch and crackle, totally space-y and meditative, which leads directly into the first 'rock' song, "Another Sky" which takes a woozy warbly Loop-ish riff, and then, yep, loops it, creating a totally mesmerizing riffdrone, while all around it effects swirl, voices hover, shards of squiggly guitar streak past sheets of blurred psychedelic supernovas, utterly entrancing and irresistible.
And so it goes, a trajectory set for the outer reaches of the galaxy, but it's not where we're headed, it's how we get there, and the soundtrack to the ride, from the murky muted jangle laced shimmer of "Household Objective #2", the pounding flute flecked effects drenched space garage groove of "Dsm-1v Axis", which gets almost industrial at one point, to the strange muted whirring dronescape of "Another Whip", to the buzzing guitar stasis of "The Blue Shroud Of Alkatraz", with its static charged sheets of crumbling high end, wrapped in tendrils of skree and softened crunch, underpinned by a deep moaning tangle of droneguitar, finally discharging in a warped burst of glitched out effects and fractured buzz. And there's still more to discover, with every listen. Headphones, while not required, will allow you to delve even deeper, allow you to escape your earthly bonds and get lost in the Telescopes world of bleary eyed fuzz, hushed minimal mystery, greyed out guitar grime, and looped outer space shimmer.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
If you follow the AQ list at all, you know we love all things space-y and druggy and psychedelic, especially when it's of the dirgey fuzzy grungy variety. Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, F/i, Monster Magnet, the Heads, Loop, and all that stuff. And now you can add the Telescopes to the list. And pretty damn close to the top if you ask us. Not because they're a new discovery, but because their gorgeously massive slabs of blissed out drug fuzz are finally getting reissued. Altered Perception is a compilation of sorts, collecting a handful of previously unreleased tracks as well as a few vinyl-only rarities. Part of the early nineties shoegazer scene, but only peripherally, the Telescopes took the dreamy bliss of My Bloody Valentine and dipped it in thick tarpits of distorted guitar, howled feedback, laconic vocals, landing them sonically much closer to Loop or Spacemen 3. In fact sometimes the similarities are uncanny. Which is not a bad thing. This is supreme drug/head music. Definitely music to take drugs to make music by. One of Andee's most listened to records of the last few weeks.
We've long been fans of the Telescopes, a veritable UK institution. A long running blissed out space rock outfit as adept at crafting dreamy billowy drone rock epics as they are spewing huge gobs of caustic guitarnoise and wild psychedelic freakouts. This ultra limited 7", in Trensmat's ongoing series of eps, finds the band dabbling in the latter. Two tracks of crumbling slowly decaying space rock ambience, washed out guitars, streaks of glittering feedback, rumbling drones, coruscating white noise guitar buzz, blurred disembodied chordal bliss and crunch slabs of fuzzy distortion, all stretched out into mesmerizing sprawls of dreamlike psychedelic space drone. Heavy and dense, noisy and divine!
Includes a cd-r with the same tracks as the 7", but also with a 40 minute cd-rom film. A gorgeous and super abstract black and white video and live performance recorded in 2006, all stripes and striations, static and video white noise, shifting and slowly moving and changing shape, crumbling beauty, abstract decay and distortion, the visual analogue to the Telescopes blown out ambient skree.
Pressed on opaque cloudy blue vinyl. Packaged in a cool full color sleeve with a half cutaway on the back revealing the single and the cd. LIMITED!!! Of course. Less than 100 copies worldwide...
One of those bands to emerge from the Creation Records class of 1992 that brought forth My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver, and Slowdive, The Telescopes hardly resemble a shoegazing Brit-pop band these days. Their slow-burning, hypnogogic engagement with psychedelia has blown out the final vestiges of the song which even by the time of their previous single on Trensmat had become a smeared deconstruction of Nick Drake's "Black Eyed Dog" through a smoldering space-rock mandala of hashish-laced guitardrone. Harm takes things even further, by tuning all of the instruments to a reference pitch of 444hz and letting everything drift towards oblivion. Yes, that is the vibrational frequency of the human body, often described as the 'healing' frequency; but no, this isn't some exercise in holistic wellness through sound. Sure, we have been getting more 'inner mind music' these days; but The Telescopes blast these frequencies through cranked distortion boxes which give these holy minimalist tendencies a serious White Hills / Bardo Pond crunch. With the multiple guitars swarming on this tone through sheets of buzz, fuzz, glisten, and grime, the drummer mostly glides across the cymbals and only sets up a thoroughly buried motorik kick-drum pattern on the second side. Similarly, the bass is handled as more of a sympathetic rumble than anything remotely structural. Supposedly, the only remaining original member Stephen Lawrie is present behind the microphone; but there's very little evidence amidst these gaping, drooling, totally drugged out ur-drones. Limited? Yeah, probably. The download code on this album also comes with an 8 minute video to boot!
We've long been fans of the Telescopes, who have been travelling a sonic path similar to Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, F/i, Monster Magnet, the Heads, Loop and assorted other psychedelic outer space drone rockers. This new 7" though has the band exploring new territory, and we must admit we are pretty dang pleased. If this was some weird Finnish cd-r limited to 50 copies people would be freaking out. But just because it's a new record from a band we know and love, don't let that keep you from picking this up. Might even be the best 7" we've heard all year.
The A side is a droning, buzzing raga-like dreamscape, flitting bird-like flutes that swirl and float over a blackened drift of guitar rumble and pulled apart riffs, until the drums kick in, and then it's like you've been launched into space, a full on drug drenched, FX heavy psychedelic space rock jam, with a thick bassy organ groove, wild flutes and effects EVERYWHERE. Dirge-y and groovy and dreamlike.
The B side is even more far out. A dense tangle of garbled guitars, slowly shifting, little squalls of layered distortion, muted blurry melodies, another sort of raga, this time reminiscent of SUNNO))) or Sunroof!, super blissy and abstract, but still heavy and dense and dark. WOW! Has us dying for a new record. Packaged in cool creepy skull cover art.
We won't go into too much detail with this as we only got 10 copies and we're pretty sure we won't be able to get more. A super limited (less than 100) lathe cut 7" from UK space rock institution The Telescopes. But don't be expecting any Loop like grooves (Loop the band, not loop the... um.. loop) or Hawkwind heart of the sun psychrock blow outs, or even any introspective shoe gazing, instead, this is the Telescopes at their most abstract and minimal, emitting a gorgeous multi-layered high end squall, very much like Sunroof! or Vibracathedral Orchestra. Sheets of wail and skree, keening streaks of feedback and wavering shimmering washes of glimmer and glisten. Two tracks, both barely shifting high end drones, and both quite lovely.�
The cool thing about this single is, that it comes with a cd-r containing the same tracks that are on the 7", so since it's a lathe cut, and lathe cuts lose a little on every play, you can play it like crazy, letting it degrade slightly with each listen, enjoying the every changing sound quality, allowing for more crackle and hiss and distortion, probably getting more and more beautiful, without sacrificing the original tunes. Plus the cd-r also includes a QuickTime movie of the band performing in 2006 in Ireland...
Awesome.
Here's an easy one, anyone who bought those Loop reissues we made Records Of The Week back on list 307, should probably pick this up too. If you dig Loop and Spacemen 3 and Jesus And Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, then the Telescopes druggy dirgey spaced out garage rock will definitely find an honored spot alongside those aforementioned outfits.
Formed in 1987, the Telescopes first release was a split with Loop oddly enough, a flexi disc released with a fanzine, pretty auspicious beginning for sure, yet ever since, they have constantly and continually been overshadowed by their drone rock brothers in arms Spacemen 3 and Loop. Which is weird considering how similar their sounds are.
Similar they may have been, but the Telescopes always seemed much more rocking and heavy and WAY more noisy that either, but were definitely not averse to the occasional blissed out Spacemen style druggy drift, or some metallic Loop-ed pound. But those moments were scattered amidst a minefield of amp destroying ear drum splitting spaced out noise rock, with a definite grunge element. Re-listening to these tracks now, it definitely sounds like the seeds that spawned Mudhoney and some of the more raw and rocking early Sub Pop bands.
Pretty much every Telescopes record is worth owning, but this singles collection is especially transcendent, gathering up some of their earliest singles, which means raw and lo-fi, and fuzz drenched, and noisy as fuck and gloriously poppy, and HEAVY, always on the verge of total collapse. Killer hooks doused in distortion, verse chorus verse imploding into a squall of psychguitar freakout and total off-kilter drum damage. Every space filled up with wild streaks of lightning bold feedback, drums and guitar locked into killer stop start grooves, the vocals drenched in distortion, yowling and growling, some serious Stooges infused space rock garage mayhem.
But the band did mellow a bit as time went on, so the second half of the disc offers up another side of the band, groovy tripped out almost paisley sounding sixties jangle drift, pretty strummed soft pop, blissy shoegazey shuffle, lush Beatlesesque shimmer, but still plenty of warbly organ, some surprising banjo, fuzzy reverb, everything in a softly druggy haze.
We reviewed the Telescopes Altered Perception record a while back, another collection of sorts, and while the first two tracks are indeed the same, those are the only two tracks to be found on both. Which means not only is THIS essential, but odds are you're probably gonna want that one too. Cuz as far as we're concerned you can never have too much blurry and buzzy and druggy spaced out noisy garage-y psychedelic drone rock in your life. EVER.
In the past we've taken every opportunity to rave like crazy about this band of British noise/space/psych/drone rockers, and with the current lust for all sounds psychedelic and spaced out, and the popularity of a new wave of psychedelic space rockers: The Heads, White Hills, Carlton Melton, Spyrals, Wooden Shjips, etc, it seems like the perfect time for folks who somehow missed out on the Telescopes to figure out just what it is they've been missing. And what better way than with this, a reissue of their very first full length, originally released way back in 1989, a year after their debut 7", a split with aQ beloved dronerockers Loop, and just the fact that they shared a split with Loop should tell you most of what you need to know. With a sound that veers from hushed, droney, druggy drift, to full on heavy, noisy, distorted dronepsychspace crunch, the Telescopes were like a super charged version of Spacemen 3, injecting some swaggery Stooges-y stomp into their hazy psychedelic mesmer. Think the classics, Hawkwind, Loop of course, Monster Magnet, Spacemen 3, F/i, but then mix in some My Bloody Valentine, and some Jesus And Mary Chain, a little Swervedriver, and the aforementioned Stooges, and what you're left with is a big beautiful noisy chunk of blissed out hypno-heaviness.
The record opens up with the very Spacemen 3 beholden "And Let Me Drift Away", with it's chiming melodies and simple acoustic strum, all hushed croon and sun dappled glimmer, laced with elegiac piano, violin and even French horn, a definite Velvets vibe happening too, but before you lay back and prepare for a warm whirling druggy drift off as the title implies, DO strap yourself in for the next track, "I Fall, She Screams", a pounding noise rock freak out, wild raspy vocals howled over wild squalls of tangled psych guitar, pounding drums and tons of FX, occasionally locking into some droned out repetition, but then veering right back into wah wah drenched sonic chaos. But then the sound shifts gears again, "Oil Seed Rape" wraps gauzy clouds of distortion around a strummy acoustic lament, all woozy and washed out, but of course peppered with brief blasts of full on noise rock crunch.
And so it goes, the record deftly juggling those two disparate sides of the Telescopes' schizophrenic personality, managing to fuse the two into something simultaneously heavy and heady, dense and dreamy, noisy and hypnotic, offering up some of THEE best droned out psych rock ever: the very Spacemen 3-like "The Perfect Needle" (a nod to Spacemen 3's "The Perfect Prescription?) alongside some of the hookiest heaviness of the era: "Please, Before You Go" which seems to foreshadow the punked out pop of Nirvana or the sludge pop of Torche, alongside full on extended amp destroying psychedelic space rock workouts that rival the masters: the 8 minute chaotic freak out "Suicide".
This reissues trades in the live tracks that were included as bonus material on the last reissue of Taste for the three tracks from The Perfect Needle ep, the band's 1989 ep, and it's a doozy, and is essentially cut from the same sonic cloth, "Sadness Pale" is a brief blast of slipper slide guitar laced Stoogesy stomp, while "S.H.C. Burn" opens with a wild blast of psychnoise before settling into something a bit more droney and hypnotic, but really never getting any less noisy, and finally, "You Can Not Be Sure" a twisted soundscape of wildly sawed violin over a woozy slithery bassline, wrapped in a haze of washed out shimmer, and pelted by a barrage of strange noises and shards of grind and crunch. Awesome.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In the past we've taken every opportunity to rave like crazy about this band of British noise/space/psych/drone rockers, and with the current lust for all sounds psychedelic and spaced out, and the popularity of a new wave of psychedelic space rockers: The Heads, White Hills, Carlton Melton, Spyrals, Wooden Shjips, etc, it seems like the perfect time for folks who somehow missed out on the Telescopes to figure out just what it is they've been missing. And what better way than with this, a reissue of their very first full length, originally released way back in 1989, a year after their debut 7", a split with aQ beloved dronerockers Loop, and just the fact that they shared a split with Loop should tell you most of what you need to know. With a sound that veers from hushed, droney, druggy drift, to full on heavy, noisy, distorted dronepsychspace crunch, the Telescopes were like a super charged version of Spacemen 3, injecting some swaggery Stooges-y stomp into their hazy psychedelic mesmer. Think the classics, Hawkwind, Loop of course, Monster Magnet, Spacemen 3, F/i, but then mix in some My Bloody Valentine, and some Jesus And Mary Chain, a little Swervedriver, and the aforementioned Stooges, and what you're left with is a big beautiful noisy chunk of blissed out hypno-heaviness.
The record opens up with the very Spacemen 3 beholden "And Let Me Drift Away", with it's chiming melodies and simple acoustic strum, all hushed croon and sun dappled glimmer, laced with elegiac piano, violin and even French horn, a definite Velvets vibe happening too, but before you lay back and prepare for a warm whirling druggy drift off as the title implies, DO strap yourself in for the next track, "I Fall, She Screams", a pounding noise rock freak out, wild raspy vocals howled over wild squalls of tangled psych guitar, pounding drums and tons of FX, occasionally locking into some droned out repetition, but then veering right back into wah wah drenched sonic chaos. But then the sound shifts gears again, "Oil Seed Rape" wraps gauzy clouds of distortion around a strummy acoustic lament, all woozy and washed out, but of course peppered with brief blasts of full on noise rock crunch.
And so it goes, the record deftly juggling those two disparate sides of the Telescopes' schizophrenic personality, managing to fuse the two into something simultaneously heavy and heady, dense and dreamy, noisy and hypnotic, offering up some of THEE best droned out psych rock ever: the very Spacemen 3-like "The Perfect Needle" (a nod to Spacemen 3's "The Perfect Prescription?) alongside some of the hookiest heaviness of the era: "Please, Before You Go" which seems to foreshadow the punked out pop of Nirvana or the sludge pop of Torche, alongside full on extended amp destroying psychedelic space rock workouts that rival the masters: the 8 minute chaotic freak out "Suicide".
This reissues trades in the live tracks that were included as bonus material on the last reissue of Taste for the three tracks from The Perfect Needle ep, the band's 1989 ep, and it's a doozy, and is essentially cut from the same sonic cloth, "Sadness Pale" is a brief blast of slipper slide guitar laced Stoogesy stomp, while "S.H.C. Burn" opens with a wild blast of psychnoise before settling into something a bit more droney and hypnotic, but really never getting any less noisy, and finally, "You Can Not Be Sure" a twisted soundscape of wildly sawed violin over a woozy slithery bassline, wrapped in a haze of washed out shimmer, and pelted by a barrage of strange noises and shards of grind and crunch. Awesome.
Killer split single teaming heavy shoegaze faves The Telescopes from the UK with Industrial death disco outfit Deadly Cradle Death from China, whose track is a weird combination of dubstep, minimal wave and NIN ferocity. Meanwhile, The Telescopes as usual crank it to 11.
Whether you're young or old, into rock or not, male or female, you gotta hear Marquee Moon. If you already know it, then you can skip down to the description of the bonus tracks below, but if you haven't heard it before, then know that Marquee Moon is simply perfection from beginning to end, and is here reissued with 5 bonus tracks. Television's masterpiece came out in 1977 and is inarguably one of the best albums to come out of the New York punk scene (which also included the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Heartbreakers, etc). Tom Verlaine's sinewy vocals are half-sung, half-spit out over his and Richard Lloyd's interweaving guitars, the solid bass of Fred Smith, and equally solid drumming of Billy Ficca. Richard Hell (later of the Heartbreakers and Voivoids) was also a founding member of the band who stuck around long enough to record their demo but got kicked out before the album, although his influence is definitely heard.
There's so much on this album to love: there's the rollicking guitar party of "See No Evil", the tender piano and epic melodic guitar solo in "Guiding Light", the stark, stunningly lovely twin guitar interplay of the album's 10 minute selftitled centerpiece, etc etc... dammit, this album is BRILLIANT and PERFECT.
As for the bonus tracks, there's the out-there "Little Johnny Jewel" from the band's debut selfreleased 7", alternate versions of "See No Evil" (amazing! -- Richard Lloyd playing quite different stuff from what ended up on the released take), "Friction", and "Marquee Moon" (again, fascinatingly different guitar solos -- and not terrible, thank goodness), and a sprightly, fun instrumental. If you already own this album and love it, I'd advise you to check out the alternate tracks -- they actually are worthy of trading in yer old copy (at least I, Windy, am going to!)
Long-awaited comeback record from British post punk psych jokers Television Personalities.
Believed to have either disappeared in a fog of mental illness or died mysteriously, frontman Dan Treacy has recently re-emerged after a long stint on a prison barge. Their sound is a hodge podge of noisy psych garage in the vein of Syd Barret, and the Pastels, The Manchester pop of the Charlatans, as well as the arch humor of Toy Dolls and Ian Drury and the Blockheads, that people seem to either really love or really hate. You decide.
First full length from these Swedish metalheads, after a 7" we reviewed a few lists back that kicked our asses, and like that 7" Tellusian, featuring members of late great grinders Crowpath, while still plenty grindy, are way more melodic metal, and it totally suits them. The songs heavy and furious and fast, but crazy catchy, epically hooky.
A long time ago, we reviewed a grind comp, and on it, a seriously sick grind band did a cover of an old track by pop punks Propaghandi, a it was the best, an impossible fix of incredible poppiness, and frantic heaviness, and we remarked, how come bands don't just SOUND like that, it's only when a band is doing a cover of another band, but that's the first thing we thought of when we heard these guys, and this record especially, it's exactly THAT, a super heavy grind metal band, not at all afraid of melody, who manage to merge those two elements seamlessly, without taking away from either. Check out opener "Rivalry", a sub two minute blast of everything that makes these guys so great, frenzied lightning fast riffing, impossibly chaotic mathed out drumming, loads of metallic chug, but killer harmonized guitars, crazy catchy melodies, a little churning downtuned doom, and heck even an extremely brief bit of (very) surprising almost funk bass, literally a second or two, before it's right back into the chug and churn. And it continues like that, dizzyingly flitting from tangled math metal, to churning metallic grind, to soaring melodic epicry, and usually some killer mix of all of those. But for a metal/grind band, the melodies and arrangements are pretty goddamn stunning, and the sound not as grind or metal as you might expect, instead, almost like a metallized noise rock band, or a super heavy, slightly grindy math rock band, so much so, that with a slight tweak, even with a proper clean singer, it would be a whole different kind of band, but as it is, Tellusian deliver some seriously addictive, and ultra catchy pop flecked, melodic grind metal, that KILLS, and that we've been listening to pretty much nonstop since we got this in. WAY recommended!
First we've heard from these Swedish grinders, who were born of the late great Crowpath, and who traffic in a similarly punishing sound, albeit a bit more melodic. The A side opens quite misleadingly with a brief bit of shimmery strum, bleary slowcore soft focus math rocky riffage, which quickly explodes into some churning, downtuned melodic grind-prog, chugging and blasting, with some wild little mathed out sonic curlicues, not to mention some crazy catchiness that had us thinking of all the classic Swedish death metal that came before. The sound flits from more metallic chug to the sort of post/math rock heaviness we can't ever get enough of. The B side is more of the same, dizzyingly agile math metal, prog grind, rife with blasts and chugging riffs, but shot through with still more crazy catchiness. Definitely dying to hear more from these guys...
We've been getting all riled up over some hot Afro-rock releases lately, first from those killer Nigerian comps put out by the Strut and Soundway labels and then The Peace's Black Power reissue. But the lo-fi fuzz that's really rocking our world is this gem from Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi family, 1974's My Ancestors. Though included on the Love Peace and Poetry African psych compilation, Chrissy Zebby Tembo may not be so memorable from that because their track was the one instrumental track from My Ancestors, and though it's great, it's not as good as the tracks where Tembo sings. Like an odd hybrid of Malcolm Mooney from Can and Sabbath-era Ozzy Osbourne, Tembo's English delivery over these fuzzed-out groovers is the reason to take notice. Hailing from Zambia, same as The Peace and The Witch (another Afro-rock group we'd like to see get more affordably reissued), Tembo wails over these rhythmically charged but largely western-style rock structures. The best being the Sabbath gone to South Africa "Trouble Maker". In constant rotation, since this first arrived a few weeks ago, we've finally managed to get enough to share with our customers. Don't hesitate, this whole record kills!
On The Steps Of The Temple is the debut from this Arizona duo, who offer up a killer slab of instrumental post-black metal, their sound thick and downtuned, the guitars MASSIVE, slipping easily from buzzing blast, to something more churning and mathy, the songs laced with soaring melodies, subtle swirling synths, grinding and metallic one second, with lots of stop/starts and tangled almost progged out arrangements, soaring and majestic the next, with a serious post rock vibe running throughout, at times sounding a bit like a blackened, more metallic Godspeed, and at others, ditching the metal completely, and unfurling some fantastically brooding musical moodiness that manages to be tense and intense without ever exploding into actual metal. That said, the bulk of the record IS spent in metal mode, somewhere between the doomy bombast of Neurosis, the epic slow build of Isis, mixed with some serious metallic mathiness and some furious blackened blasting, with much of the record mixing being a dizzying mix of all of those, the end result something melancholy and mesmerizing, moody and metallic, atmospheric and HEAVY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
3 krautrock albums (from groups you may want to first sample on the "Unknown Deutschland" comps, see below) that were supposedly issued in the 70s in tiny editions of, like, 50 copies or something. The Pyramid album sole track is a mysterious 35-minutes of spacy drone with mellotron, moogs, and Tibetan bells. The Nazgul cd, our favorite of the three, is from 1975 and features 4 long tracks of droning ambience that's easily as good as any current space rock outfit could put together; i.e. Magnog, Labradford or anything else on Kranky. Bonus weirdness: the bandmembers are named Frodo, Gandalf, and Pippin.
