For her latest album, the Italian-Icelandic Ms Torrini reconfirms her lithe, limber voice's chameleon-like nature. She's shunned both her early personas -- the tweaked arty nymph persona a la Bjork and the smoldering chanteuse a la Portishead -- as well as her more recent Tori Amos-esque ivory-tickling songstress guise. No, you might've guessed we weren't fans of that turn of events! This time though she has opted for a much more swooning elegance a la Nina Persson and The Cardigans. Me And Armini offers an ultra dreamy, languidly groovy, and sleekly produced blend of late night pop and flowing folktronica that also brings to mind Beth Orton. That said, she takes a chance on an unexpected detour late in the album on the comparatively gritty song "Gun". Nevertheless consider it to be a minor bump in an otherwise lovely listen (and it's actually Allan's favorite track here, though it does stick out). Wonder where she'll go from here!
It feels weird to be reviewing a Tortoise record in 2006. There was a time, way back in the mid nineties, that Tortoise was one of our favorite bands. Everyone we knew loved Tortoise. Not since Slint, had a band so captivated the world of indie rock, and so distinctly defined post rock. And not since Slint had a band been the impetus for the formation of so many similar sounding bands. Makes sense. Tortoise were an amazing and ingenious mix of instrumental post rock, dub, jazz, free jazz, electronica, and anything else that sounded good to the band, all deftly woven into a super unique and utterly distinctive sound. Their self titled debut was near perfect, dubby rhythms wrapped up in moody lilting post rock soundscapes, blissed out and hypnotic. And if their debut was merely -near- perfect, their next record, Millions Now Living Will Never Die was absolutely perfect. Everything we loved about post rock, post punk, post everything, melted down into simple, mesmerizing krautrock laced rhythmscapes. Jazzy and dubby and dreamy, subtly propulsive, expansive and epic. No record could touch Millions, although hundreds did certainly try (and still do). There was also the way too limited remix record, Rhythms, Resolutions And Clusters, featuring alternate versions of classic Tortoise tracks by Steve Albini, Brad Wood, Bundy Brown, Jim O'Rourke, John McEntire and more. Many folks consider that to be Tortoise's finest moment, since most of the remixers were in fact in Tortoise, or had in some way contributed to past Tortoise recordings, it was almost like the band simply reimagined and reinterpreted their own songs, a sort of meta-Tortoise record.
After that though, it was a gradual downhill slide, the band continued to release records sporadically, but nothing they did after that had the same resonance. All of it was pretty good certainly, but where they were once the ones creating the post rock template, a freejazzdubrock sound for others to emulate, it just seemed like the band was treading water, creating more out of obligation than passion. And it showed.
This greatest hits / out of print rarities collection reminds us just how amazing Tortoise were, while serving as a perfect introduction to those who missed out the first time around, or for all the post-post rock obsessives into Isis and the Grails and the Red Sparowes and all of that stuff who might not have realized that none of those bands would exist if it weren't for Tortoise. Plus, this box collects lots of vinyl only tracks, compilation tracks all in one place for obsessive fans, as well as finally reissuing the remix record in its entirety while adding one of the tracks that was cut from the original release.
All we can really say is wow. WOW. This stuff sounds so amazing, so fresh, so alive. Weird and wonderful. Droney and dreamy and hypnotically catchy. Some of our all time favorite tracks are here: "Gamera", a killer 12" track never on cd before, a couple of Autechre tracks from the 12" only remix series, as well as the Tortoise tracks from the Headz 2 comp, the Red, Hot + Indigo comp, a Yo La Tengo remix, a Joy Division cover. A bunch of singles and Japanese bonus tracks round out the first two discs. Our only complaint is that this isn't EVERYTHING. Anyone willing to pay $25 for 4 discs, would probably be willing to shell out $40 for 6 or 7 discs if it meant that this set collected ALL the random Tortoise tracks instead of just a lot of 'em. But what the heck, this still kills.
Disc three is the remix record Rhythms, Resolutions And Clusters, originally released in 1994, well before we were fed up with remix records, and sounds so goddamn amazing. The added track is a Mike Watt remix with Mike and his partner Kira from Dos adding extra basses, and extra basses can never be bad! The Albini remix is a killer, as is the O'Rourke mix. In fact ALL of the mixes are amazing, and they flow perfectly unlike most remix records. If you didn't know better, you might think it was just an actual, albeit much more experimental proper Tortoise release. Worth the price of admission alone for sure. Although if you dig RR+C you'll obviously love almost everything on the other two discs too.
The dvd has a handful of music videos, all very striking and perfectly matched to the music, from a slow motion procession of floating spheres, drifting stuffed animals, and contorted band members, to manipulated grainy super 8 footage of cities and seas, to gorgeous expanses of sped up nature footage, swirling clouds, and snowy forests, to strangely primitive computer animation, to super abstract video collage. So nice. Also included are a whole bunch of live performances, often filmed super creatively. Some are super high tech, recorded in some sort of huge venue, with multiple camera angles and video screens, while others are obviously in small clubs filmed on grainy super 8 and edited with random live projections. There's also some live footage of Tortoise with the Chicago Underground Trio at some jazz fest, a pretty amazing piece, like a jazzy Reich. There's also what looks like some sort of cable access show, with the band obviously lip synching, all wearing plastic monkey masks, and a wild crowd dancing cartoonishly in the background on a tiny TV sound studio, and finally a Tortoise performance recorded for the Burn To Shine project, where bands play in abandoned and about to be demolished houses.
The whole set is housed in individual printed sleeves and a cardboard box, all adorned with cool creepy super striking traffic accident photos by Arnold Odermatt. And if you couldn't tell from all of the above, this is WAY RECOMMENDED!!
Now this is indeed a pleasant surprise. The return of Tortoise. A band we were OBSESSED with in the beginning, whose first few records are classics, undefinable masterpieces that managed to totally transcend their classification as mere post rock. Tortoise's self titled debut still sounds classic and timeless, a loping hypnotic blend of math rock and krautrock and jazz. Their Millions Now Living, which was released in the very early days of the aQ list, so it only has a barely descriptive two sentence review, was a mind blowing meld of Oval like electronics and abstract jazziness, of brooding post rock and almost orchestral arrangements. The remix record, which found the band being reimagined by Steve Albini, Brad Wood, Bundy Brown, Jim O'Rourke, John McEntire and others, still ranks as one of the few examples of how a collection of remixes, in some ways can even transcend the originals. But from that point on, the band seemed to lose their way, it's hard to explain just how, but their record, often literally years in the making, surprisingly enough didn't sound fresh anymore, the sounds tired and played out, maybe meant to be 'mature' or 'academic' but instead mostly sounded boring, and in some cases bad.
There was always a spark, and every record had brief flashes, little musical moments that reminded us what they were once capable of.
Which brings us to the awkwardly titled Beacons Of Ancestorship, which while not a total mind blowing complete return to form, is pretty dang good. A handful of the tracks ranking up there with some of their classic jams from years back.
Most folks have been focusing on record opener "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In", and rightfully so, the band definitely had something to prove, some lost ground to make up, and some fans to win over again, and hell, "High Class Slim" is just the song to do it. It still sounds like Tortoise, but it's all revved up, skittery jazzy drums wrapped around deep woozy bass and reedy synth buzz, before in swoops some tripped out Stereolab / Tangerine Dream keyboard swirl, and then some super out of place buzzy keyboard groove, but it somehow works, the track gets more intense, the sounds smolder and throb, blissy and subtly psychedelic, a little bit funky, a lot bit space-y, even a breakdown that gets all cybotronic robot funk, washed over by some new age shimmer, and sparkely space-y effects... it was almost too much to hope for that the whole record would sound like that the whole way through, but then it wouldn't really be Tortoise, for these guys it's just a launching point for their latest exploration of sounds both simple and sinister, serene and cinematic, jazzy and funky.
There are definitely a few moments where things lag, where it definitely sounds like they're back to doing Tortoise by numbers, some Morricone-ish guitar, that while we usually love, here doesn't do much, some of the stretched out jams bog down more than bliss out, but those moments are few and far between, the rest of their time is spent weaving pretty fantastic flights of instrumental fancy, mathy jams rife with melodic curlicues and warm whirls of warble and whir, cool skittery almost dancehall sounding bits of buzz and blurt, wrapped around some truly funky rhythms, long stretches of stuttering almost African sounding grooves, laced with sitar like buzz, and cool psychedelic flourishes, and at least one track that starts off with some looped Afterschool Special music that is transformed into what sounds like the perfect backing track for a Kanye West song. And then there's the unpronounceable "Yinxianghechengqi" which finds Tortoise getting their Trans Am on, fuzzed out, snarling guitars wrapped in crumbling distortion, pulsing bass, John McEntire pummeling his kit like he probably hasn't since his Bastro Days, but then this IS Tortoise, so over the top they drape some atonal modal Return To Forever sort of buzz drenched melodic weirdness which ends up turning the song into something else entirely. And minus those few aforementioned lulls, the rest of the record continues on, and manages to hold our attention, and definitely has had us returning again and again.
So while it's not quite Millions, Beacons is definitely the best Tortoise record since the mid nineties, and once distanced from the legacy and the expectations and all the non musical bullshit, on it's own as simply a record by a band, a collection of songs and sounds, Beacons is really pretty fantastic.
If you're like us, one sentence is all it should take: Best song from the new Tortoise record, remixed by Eye from the Boredoms. We'll pause a second so most of you can just add to cart and move on to the next review...
Seriously though, Tortoise were one of the few bands, rock bands especially, to RULE the remix. So here we go again, years later, and this two track reinterpretation, does again, in fact, rule.
Hard to go wrong really getting Eye to remix your track, especially when it's a song as bad ass as "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In", which isn't just a great NEW Tortoise song, it might be one of their best tracks ever. So get Eye to twist it all up and well, you just sort of have to hear it. The Tortoise original basically becomes a Boredoms jam, all sundappled and super spacey, rhythmic and hypnotic, the drums become the focal point (of course), tribal and heavy, while the bass buzzes intensely, and peppered throughout are little processed squalls made up of fragments of the original. Electronic squiggles, weird warped effects, swirling synths, all take a backseat to those pounding rhythms. And if you weren't super familiar with the original, you could easily believe this was a jam off a new Super Roots, groovy, hypnotic, space-y, psychedelic and awesome!
The B side is remixed by some guy we've never heard of, Mark Ernestus, and most folks would blanch at the idea of sharing a split with the mighty Eye, but nope, he steps up and offers up his own mix of another killer track from the new Tortoise, and gets all This Heat, complete with the handclaps. Stuttery acoustic guitars and looped skeletal drumming, buzzing dubstep bass warbling intensely over the skitter, somehow super minimal and abstract, but also strangely intense and aggressive. If you can imagine a slightly jazzy stripped down dubstep This Heat, well, then you might come up with something like this. Both mixes kick ass.
Part of the new Thrill Jockey singles series, not sure how limited these are, but probably safe to assume VERY, and snag one before you're kicking yourself later...
The first of the two audio tracks on this li'l single (meant for sale on Tortoise' recent tour, so we don't have many) is pretty interesting and engaging, smatterings of lightly-wielded Autechre-style drum'n'bass whispering amongst arpeggiated guitar and
Tortoise pretty much defined post rock in the nineties. And rightfully so. They took all those indie rock and 'rock' rock conventions and turned them on their ear, adding lush orchestration, vibes, improvisation, extended song lengths, inventive instrumentation, jazz, and all sorts of stuff that never really found its way into mainstream indie rock/rock. And for a couple records Tortoise kept at it, pushing boundaries, stretching definitions making great records. They kind of lost us after a while, as their sound got more bland and watered down. Too much studio fuckery and not enough playing instruments, too many gigabytes and not enough blood sweat and tears. So here we are a few years later, the indie rock world is a whole different beast, with bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor taking on the post rock champions mantle and pushing the boundaries of rock even farther. So how to Tortoise fare? Not as bad as you might think. The new record is very mellow and dreamy, very lite and almost adult contemporary at times. They still suffer from too much time to mix, too much money to take as long as they want, and too much after the fact mixing and tweaking. A lot of the immediacy and intensity is lost. But that may just be us, maybe Tortoise are not about intensity anymore. Maybe they're about chilling out, sweet smooth sounds to let drip easily into your ears. And if that's the case, then hell, they hit the mark. The sound is immediately recognizable if you've heard any of the recent Stereolab records, as John McEntire's 'sound' was all over those, very glossy, glistening and sort of euro, sleek and streamlined, no rough edges. It's pop, but on a grand scale, with little electronic smudges here and there, a rumbling bassline once in a while, some cool shuffling drums, sweet lilting melodies, and some definitely interesting song ideas. Somewhere between Tortoise of old, Calexico, Friends Of Dean Martinez and that sort of evocative, ambient pseudo-soundtrack stuff. Lots of simple guitar lines over gentle vibes and simple drumming, occasional glitched stuttery soundscapes, occasional sweet female vocals, all very nice. But that's it. Very nice. And I know it was a while ago, but we got used to Tortoise being more than very nice. So every new record is another little diappointment. Granted this record is pretty good. And it sounds great. It's just really really lite. Very little substance. Like Godspeed if they weren't stoned fucked up hippies and instead were white sweatered Yalies. Or like a 21st century Free Design. For such a technologically and sonically savvy band there are a few serious missteps, the occasional super cheesy Peter Gabriel flute sound (you know the one) and some string parts that sound really midi and kind of hokey. But all in all, a pretty decent record. Perhaps a perfect late night cocktail chillout record, maybe after rocking out to Stereolab, the perfect winding down sound. But it still leaves us a bit cold, longing to hear "Onions Wrapped In Rubber", "Tin Cans And Twine" and especially "D'jed" From Millions Now Living... quite possibly Tortoise's Finest moment.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Tortoise' first 2 singles (one from back when they were called Mosquito), long out of print and unavailable (not even on the rare Japanese compilations). Thrill Jockey printed just 1000 more of each of these, so they'll be gone too before long. Buy now or cry later. Coming first week of April: Soul Static Sound reissues what may be Tortoise' best single, "Why We Fight."
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Tour single on opaque white vinyl. Very limited.
Gorgeous packaging holds a 20-minute tour de force called "DJed," which by now has been remixed to death! And it still sounds good. Better than 90 percent of what's out there, believe me. To this day.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Tortoise' first 2 singles (one from back when they were called Mosquito), long out of print and unavailable (not even on the rare Japanese compilations). Thrill Jockey printed just 1000 more of each of these, so they'll be gone too before long. Buy now or cry later. Coming first week of April: Soul Static Sound reissues what may be Tortoise' best single, "Why We Fight."
Another special Record Store Day release, one that we managed to get few extra copies of, for our mailorder customers unable to make it out in person for RSD, a double 7" reissue gathering up two early singles from legendary post rockers Tortoise, in fact, their first two proper releases, both from 1993, the Lonesome Sound 7" and the Mosquito 7", which were released just months before their seminal self titled debut.
And sonically, these five songs definitely point what was to come on that full length, and were the songs that made us go nuts for these guys in the first place. Strangely enough, "Lonesome Sound" is in fact a Freakwater cover, and it's definitely Tortoise at their most twangy, sounding a bit like old Palace Brothers actually, a shuffling, hushed ballad, with just a hint of the group's usual post rock jazziness. The flipside, though, is a bit more post rocky, still woozy and washed out, shuffly and jazzy, but darkly skeletal, with a weird Slint like spoken word, and some dubby melodica wheeze, the gives way to some super minimal droned out bass heavy creep.
"Mosquito" is more 'classic' Tortoise, a shuffling groove, beneath thick swells of smoldering distorted guitar, and all maner of swooped backwards effects, and some dubbed out jazzy horns, while "Gooseneck" gets downright funky, lacing a loping looped bassline, over a shuffling rhythm, and subtle chiming melodies, all wreathed in soft smears of shimmery thrum. Awesome.
And super limited of course, A Record Store Day release that might not be long for this world, so grab one while you can, we've only got a handful left....
Here's the thing. Nobody here at AQ likes this record much. No, we're not trying to be all contrary-like -- we just honestly can't seem to figure out why everyone's wetting their pants over it. Proclaiming it to be the last word on modern music/jazz/post rock/the avant garde/whatever. Now, the record does SOUND fantastic, production-wise. Everyone here loves Tortoise's first two records plus that cool remix one, and there's no doubt they're great musicians. But when you're a post-rock band (and face it, that's what Tortoise is, they'll tell you themselves they're not trying to be jazz), and you decide to add ever more moody layers of complexity and percussive polyrhythms to your sound, and you wanna venture even further into "out" (-jazz!) realms of experimentation -- all that only works if you leave your audience something to sink their teeth into. It doesn't work here. The "funky" elements of this record are pretty cringe-inducing. That said, Tortoise fans that liked TNT may also like Standards, and fans of their first couple of brilliant records will still find a track or two that fulfills the promise of sublime understated melody mixed with subtle groove and lots of texture.
But if we can be allowed to wonder out loud for a moment... This is a band that has everything (and has earned it) that any band could hope for but will probably never get: all the time in the world, access to a state of the art recording studio, talent, a world class producer, a hip successful label, a public clamoring for new music -- with all those wonderful things also comes a responsibility to deliver. There's no rule that every record by every band has to make some huge leap in quality, but c'mon, it'd be nice if the "standards" Tortoise previously set were at least met here. Maybe if you make everything safe and easy and remove the need for sacrifice and exhaustion, the music itself becomes safe and easy. Maybe that's what happened here. But then again, maybe not. Standards doesn't *completely* suck. So... Buyer Beware. The emperor has no clothes. Trust your own ears. Don't believe everything the rock critics tell you.
Rumors of Tortoise's premature lameness have been greatly exaggerated.
Chicago's potentates of post-rock, Tortoise, are back with their first new album in seven years. In the past, we've been fairly wishy-washy about how much we like Tortoise (or don't), but this gets the thumbs up, despite the deliberately unappealing cover art, and equally puzzling choice of cover song (they do a version of "Rock On" by David Essex), both of which suggest to us a Trans Am album, not Tortoise! But in any case we like it, 'cause it's got plenty of the sort of fusion-y, electronics-infused post-rock grooves that we haven't heard since the last Tortoise album that we really liked, with the buzzing, hypnotic "Gesceap", the album's longest track, being a particular highlight among these burbling, languid offerings. And the "Rock On" cover, well, it reminds us what a cool, weird, dub-glam '70s hit that was! Tortoise don't even have to mess with it much, for it to fit right in - they even include vocals, courtesy of US Maple guitarist Todd Rittman. A departure for Tortoise, but it's not the only non-instrumental on this album, by the way - the gentle "Yonder Blue" was cowritten and sung by Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Take note, this is a very limited pressing of all the tracks from the Tortoise 12" remix series. You've seen the expensive Japanese import cds that have these tracks (and more) but now they're finally at a domestic price. Tortoise is selling these on tour but a few indie stores who order direct from Thrill Jockey have been able to acquire these discs. You can't live a second longer without owning U.N.K.L.E.'s remix of "Djed", really, it's so good. Buy now or cry later.
We've had a sort of love / hate relation ship with Chicago post rockers Tortoise. Their Millions Now Living record will probably always have a spot in our All Time Favorite Records, and the boxset compilation A Lazarus Taxon, collecting all of their early records, is pretty dang tough to beat, but then something happened, and their records just stopped sounding as good as they once did, we couldn't be sure if it was the band, or if it was us, but for a long stretch, we just weren't digging much of what was coming out of the Tortoise camp. That is until the recent Beacons Of Ancestorship, a definite return to form, lots of the classic Tortoise sound was present, but it sounded like the band were exciting to be making new sounds, exploring, pushing and expanding, and we have been listening to that record like crazy, anxious to hear more from the reinvigorated Tortoise. And voila, a new 4 song Japanese import, that totally surpasses anything we could have hoped for, it doesn't really sound all that much like Tortoise, at least the first 2 of these 4 songs, instead, they sound like some abstract super distorted Autechre, all electronic sounding beats, lots of beeps and glitches, streaks of electronic buzz and hum, stutter and skitter, weirdly dubby and groovy, a little electro, the beats dropping out and leaving long lush drones, layered and textural, moody and mysterious, and that's just the first song. The second track is even more far out, a swirling collaged glitchscape, subtly industrial, hauntingly ambient, lush and droney, and meditative and seriously dense and heavy, processed vocals, thick bursts of grinding glitched out electronics, wow. It's not until the third track, that the organic Tortoise sound shows up, but even then, it's a sort of remix, the bands skittery jazzy lope, transformed into a sort of post This Heat workout, complete with that very This Heat hand clap, a similar rhythm, steel strings buzzing, looped and hypnotic and really awesome, especially the second half that features a weird sort of multiple drummer / synth duel. Finally there's the 13 minute closer, a dark, moody bit of post rock, still with that This Heat feel, that same sort of groove, the track shifting from skittery, to jazzy, to almost funky, and finally to blissed out and serene. So good. Even better than Beacons maybe!
If that weren't enough, there are three bonus videos, two live tracks, with Tortoise in more traditional Tortoise mode, and a super stylized music video. Cool!
The first 'classic Tortoise records. Easily one of their best (along with Millions Now Living Will Never Die). Gorgeously melancholic, hypntoic and gently propulsive.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
As this collaborative all-covers effort sets sail, our initial reaction was that it sounds like a bunch of really good musicians taking a cruise together to cut loose and be a little silly after a long career of 'serious' musicianship -- an odd tropical vacation of sorts from their normal proceedings. In the first half of the album there's lots of messin' around with bloopy synthesizers and effects. It reaches its apex of questionableness with their eyebrow-raising rendition of Elton John's "Daniel" and reaches its pinnacle of wild goofiness with the seventh song, Devo's "That's Pep!" From that point The Brave And The Bold (fortunately) settles down into something that more closely resembles the recent Bonnie Prince Billy recordings, but executed expertly by a stellar cast of players. In fact, the interplay between these artists brought to mind the recent pairing of Iron & Wine and Calexico in which Burns, Convertino & co. took on the role of what was essentially backing band for Sam Beam, and 'twas with fantastic results. Don't miss the sobering final two songs -- Richard Thompson's beautiful "Cavalry Cross" and Quix*O*Tic's "On My Own"! That pair are simply terrific and serve as an effective memory eraser for the abovementioned winceful moments. Also included in this eclectic selection of covers are songs by Melanie, Lungfish, Milton Nascimento, Minutemen, and Bruce Springsteen!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
SORRY.
The second remix 12" from Tortoise's TNT album.
From the liner notes: "Konkurrent invited Tortoise from Chicago to contribute some of their hypnotic, catchy instrumental pieces to our series. They gladly accepted and asked The Ex to join them. Both bands began from very different points when constructing songs. The Ex work with dynamics and tension building while Tortoise work at a more introspective and subdued level, adding layers and texture to their sound. Where they meet is in how they work with repitition and introduce very specific atmospheres into their songs."
Fortunately, there's more of The Ex than Tortoise.
Two new slabs of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!! Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find a new cd-r from Astral Womb, but this right here is record number two from Torture Gnosis, a duo whose first record seemed to slip right by us, for which we are now definitely kicking ourselves, cuz this stuff is seriously ruling.
Fans of the Frequency Thirteen label, the home of 'True Sheffield Black Psychedelia', and the various TSBP bands we've gushed over in the past: Black Vomit, Dukkha, Rape Rack, Ice Bound Majesty and Skultroll, should probably just stop right here and add this to your cart, but for everybody else, imagine a sort of twisted more lo-fi and sci-fi Expo 70, the same sort of psychedelic bliss out, long expanses of cosmic shimmer, but not rendered in the typical tropes of 'kosmische' music, instead, these are weirdo lo-fi metallers crafting a gorgeous fractured songsuite of intergalactic ambience. Their first record was a much noisier beast, with many of the tracks leaning way more toward a dizzying chaotic confluence of black metal, free jazz, and industrial clatter, but even then, the band would pepper these blasts of blacknoise and tangled metaljazz skree with hushed expanses of druggy drift and mesmerizing shimmer, and for II, it seems the band have jettisoned the blackness, ditched the rhythms, and instead opted for something much more tripped out and tranquil, soft focus swirls drifting weightless through clouds of effects, raga like drones layered into lush swells, all the tones stretched way out, meditative and dreamlike. But fear not, there's still plenty of darkness, with a handful of tracks playing out like soundtracks to some low budget VHS Alien knock-off, and we mean that in a good way, creepy ominous cinematic sprawls laced with weird sounds, is that some creature chewing human bones, or the footsteps of some mysterious figure trudging though some alien graveyard, or a mad scientist in a cave assembling some infernal machine, the synths rumble and thrum, occasionally blossoming into something that sounds more like the music from a seventies planetarium show. Killer stuff. And definitely recommended for all you into the current crop of psychedelic space synth and retro-futuristic Carpenter / Goblin worship who might be up for something a bit more fucked up.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!
Torus is Adam MacGregor, formerly of technical grind outfit Creation Is Crucifixion. Recorded in 1998 and 2001, 'phlogistics' is a collection of noises ranging from metallic tinkerings to guitar-based feedback excursions.
Much like the Dead C and Vibracathedral Orchestra, the Belgian trio Toss purposefully seeks to bathe their avant-drone rock in the nervous haze of cable buzzings and various terminal disconnections. For the most part the amorphous terrain is shaped by improvisational meanderings past screwdriving-the-guitar-strings vibrato, gentle guitar strum evolving in the distance, spluttered jazz-rock percussion as in No Neck Blues Band or Jackie-O Motherfucker, sporadic emergence of voices sounding more like unregulated bar room banter than intentionally placed lyrics, and on occasion a groovy Crescent organ blast. Certainly will appeal to fans of Corpus Hermeticum and the sound reminds Andee of Philip Jeck in with its hiccuping rhythms and old fashioned sepia tone haze.
Holy shit! Skullflower / Matthew Bower / Broken Flag / early industrial music nerds rejoice! A long overdue reissue of the debut release from Matthew Bower of Skullflower's solo project Total, originally released on cassette way back in 1986 on the Broken Flag label, and now available on cd for the first time EVER. And it's a monster. Amongst fans of this kind of stuff (which we most certainly are, and we imagine many of you are too), this ranks up there as holy grail sort of stuff, and many folks' favorite Bower recordings ever. And it's easy to see why. Even after all this time, the stuff on Hard + Low, still sounds totally fresh, and way ahead of its time. With new bands today conjuring up similarly mysterious murk, with no idea that Bower was doing the same thing, and doing it better more than two decades early.
Sonically, this is a tough one to pin down, the record begins with a live track, which is essentially a squall of blown out white noise guitar skree, through which can barely be discerned the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK", but soon even that disappears beneath a barrage of feedback and industrial clatter, it's the sort of noisiness that would have the listener battening down the hatches preparing for the onslaught that must no doubt be coming. But instead, the rest of the record, while still plenty pummeling and brutal, shows a surprising amount of restraint, whether it's the weird pulsating dirge folk noisescape of "Transfigured Night", which transforms skronking horns into bagpipe like bellows, all over corrosive drones and strange detuned guitar strum, sounding not unlike an industrial free jazz version of Amps For Christ, or "Charnel House Revisited", which is a woozy Philip Jeck like turntablescape, all warped loops and crackly records spinning over a strange stuttery beat. Or there's "You'll Get Yours Yet", which sounds like some lost cold wave gem, the guitars stretched out into droning buzz, laced with plenty of strange sonic streaks and tangled melodies, over which a darkly dramatic vocal bellows and growls, a sort of ominous drumless doom and gloom drone-noise creep.
The record's centerpiece is the nearly 14 minute "The Sound Of Music", which is essentially solo piano, super lo-fi, and with tons of echo and reverb, wreathed in subtle swaths of haunting buzz, the whole track rife with weird bits of static and tape hiss, and more detuned guitar buzz. Surprisingly lovely, but at the same time, still slightly sinister. There's a studio version of the opening live track too, which is GORGEOUS, driven by what sounds like organs, but must be processed guitars, tranced out and droney, drifting on a bed of static and hiss and gristly buzz, all manner of strange industrial filigree in the background, but weirdly tranquil, and dreamily mesmerizing, easily one of the prettiest 'noise' jams EVER. And finally, the record finishes off with "Terminator", another tripped out psychedelic samplescape, all looped and cyclical, an early industrial Jeck, unfurling a softly noisy, layered loops, and wrapping them in warm swirls of blunted noise and blurred gauzy thrum. Wow. Absolutely essential.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Total Abuse, a rare modern hardcore band that isn't afraid to turn their amps up, are back with their first full length since 2011's Prison Sweat, and the first we've reviewed since their debut back in 2007. Excluded is the perfect punishing blend of the passionate fury of '80s hardcore, the bleak crunch of Amphetamine Reptile/Touch & Go noise rock, and the moshable energy of '90s powerviolence. Total Abuse aren't concerned with the progression of hardcore, only with the cathartic release it can provide. Violent, heavy, unrelenting, and one of the better hardcore albums in recent memory.
An utterly punishing onslaught of hateful hardcore and feedback drenched punknoise from this Texas outfit, 27 songs in 39 minutes, opening with what sounds like an unholy union between the Dead C, Harry Pussy and the Brainbombs, a full on, downtuned, stumbling, free noise, avant punk crush, and fuck, we would have been happy if that track stretched out past it's already sprawling 3:51 and filled up the whole record, but as the title suggests, this is just the "Introduction". From there on out it's a full on Black Flag / Void style blowout, blistering hardcore fury, vitriolic vocals, frantic riffing, fuzzed out bass, a wild, unhinged, bloody knuckled, sweat soaked hybrid of eighties thrash punk, grind, powerviolence, classic hardcore and new/no wave heaviness, all blurred into a monster blast of skull crushing punk rock pummel.
This cd collects the self titled record proper and tacks on 15 bonus tracks (!) from their Sex Pig 7" and demo!
Man, they just keep starting 'em younger and younger, don't they? Pretty soon we'll be hearing covers of old punk classics emanating from the womb (which reminds us of that Mr. Show sketch about pre-natal beauty pageants, but we digress...). This Bay Area trio join the likes of Rock Jack, Eyeball Skeleton, The Stinky Puffs, Evil Wicked Warrior, Mark Shit and of course Old Skull in their prepubescent mission to rock you. Total Annihilation are ten year old Eddy Demon on vocals and guitar, thirteen year old Pietro D'Amato on drums and a young at heart 35 year old Dorkmeister Harmoniak on bass. Noggin is their garage/bedroom lo-fi punky rawk debut cd-r which includes four originals and a cover of "I Wanna Be Yr Dog"!
NOW ON CD!!
After two totally kick ass 7"s, these Aussie electro-punks return with a full length that manages to trump them both. Thee Oh Sees head honcho John Dwyer warned us how good this was, and boy was he was right, a killer collision of dark, brooding retro garage punk and vintage electronic new wave, melded into something totally tripped out and irresistible, weirdly krautrocky, spacey and psychedelic. Opener "See More Glass" could go up against Moon Duo for pure blissed out psychedelic hypno-drift, the monotone intoned vox over the pulsing electronic throb and swirling layered buzz, all wreathed in streaks of muted feedback, the sound slipping from crunchy and caustic to muddy and murky, the electronics glitchy and distorted, all draped over a warm, whirling bit of kraut infused abstract psychedelia, like a fractured new wave take on Spacemen 3, peppered with dreamy little synth squiggles, adding a touch of kosmische to the proceedings. Follow up "Retiree" is a bit more straight ahead rock, but even the, the riffing is locked into these droned out arrangements, and the vocals again hauntingly monotone, making even punkier jams sounds tripped out and spacey.
And so it goes, the sound slipping from loose garagey jangle, to super catchy new wave pop, from weird low slung gloomy synth heavy drum machined electropop to old school power pop, from fuzzy hooky downer pop to creepy primitive abstract electronics, from doomy slow core balladry to tripped out psychedelia, all somehow strung together into something cool and cohesive. The pop songs definitely tapping into the classic Aussie post punk of the past a la the Scientists, Hoodoo Gurus, Celibate Rifles, as well as similarly minded outfits like the Wipers, but the magic is in when those two sides mix, the garagey punk jams laced with electronics, and the crunchy synth electronic workouts that seem to be fashioned into something more rock and roll, and even when those bits remain separate, there's something cool about a wild rambunctious jam devolving into a spaced out bit of celestial shimmer before slipping right back into some gloomy jangle. This is most definitely a new favorite!
We went nuts for the last 7" by Total Control, a side project of Aussie garage rockers Eddy Current Suppression Ring (who we just can't seem to get into), that record was a total ear shredding blast of classic old school synth punk a la the Screamers, Nervous Gender etc. This follow up, while still in the same electronic ballpark is somehow stylistically a huge shift, all the punk has been stripped away, leaving 2 tracks of minimal, robotic, old school electro, stripped down and spare, the beats programmed and clipped, the synths woozy and fuzzy, with some Radiophonic Workshop sounding melodies, occasional deep ominous crooning way down in the mix, bits of jangle guitar, some FX drenched vocalizing, but all wound around super sparse and skeletal beats and arrangements, resulting in some strange super hypnotic alien krautrocky robo-funk. Awesome stuff. Definitely time for a Total Control full length!!
The first track on this new record from Aussie new wave garage punks Total Control had us thinking for a second that they had ditched their garage side completely, in favor of going all 'wave all the time, just check out the first sample below. Sure the last record, Henge Beats, was laced with little bits of new waviness, but "Glass" is straight up new wave, sounding remarkably like New Order, all programmed beats, swirling eighties synths, moody, swoonsome melodies, and deep, crooned vox, it almost sounds like it could be some lost gem reissued on Medical or Dark Entries, but fear not, the next track, "Expensive Dog", is all knuckle dragging old school punk rock, a chugging, churning main riff, the vibe swaggery and sloppy, the vocals a mush mouthed bellow, way down in the mix, it's hard to believe it's the same band even, but then in swoops "Flesh War", which somehow melds the two, channeling some synthy post punk via a serious John Hughes soundtrack flashback vibe, a fuzzy riff, a pounding beat, but then over the top, swirling synths, ethereal textures, and the vocals reverting to that new wave-y croon. And so it goes, the band seemingly a little sonically schizophrenic, leap frogging from synth pop, to garage punk, and back again, with plenty of stops in the nebulous region right in between, which for us is really the sweet spot here. Although the more we listen, the more we're smitten by the even weirder, harder to pin down tracks. Like "Liberal Party", which sounds a lot like some actual obscure post punk/pop rarity, replete with angular guitar, kazoo-like buzz and horns! Or the murky electro-pop dirgery of "The Ferryman", which sounds like some lost Flying Nun B-side. Or "Hunter", which is a fantastic blast of swirling-synth, electro-wave bliss out. And while we were prepared for the record to finish with one final burst of bristly punkiness, these guys instead deliver what might be the poppiest jam here, hook heavy, synths galore, a soaring chorus, another nod to the sound of classic John Hughes movie music, and the sort of track that would be all over MTV if it was 1985...
For whatever reason, we could just never get into Aussie garage rockers Eddy Current Suppression Ring. And we wanted to, really, lots of folks we know swear by em, but they just never hit the spot for us. THIS, however DOES, big time. Featuring members of ECSR, Total Control is a modern version of classic synth punk, think Screamers, Units, Nervous Gender, that sort of thing, short sharp furious blasts of pounding angular synth driven punk rock, distorted and snotty and snarky, raw and in-the-red, hooky as hell, the songs averaging about 90 seconds, the verses chuggy and new wavey, the choruses explosive and heavy, shards of synth pop punk crush that totally kick ass. Every time we throw this on we end up playing it like 10 times in a row. Definitely a new favorite. So good that it has us thinking we might have to give the Eddy Current Suppression Ring another chance. But until then, we'll just go ahead and listen to this again. And again. And again...
This head spinning psychedelic collaged freakoutscape is by none other than Total Life, aka Kevin Doria, aka a member of aQ fave dronerockers Growing, but on Ken Bradshaw, Total Life veers well away from the drone and drift of Growing, crafting a totally trippy pulsing sonic barrage assembled entirely from clipped and looped and recontextualized samples of Pet Shop Boys songs. Sounds like it could be a mess, or a play-it-one-time novelty, and it is maybe a little bit of both, but it's also a totally mesmerizing barrage of loops and drones and rhythms, hypnotic and cyclical and repetitive and totally mesmerizing, the sounds swirling and whirling, but always the main beat pounds on and on, some twisted alien dancemusic, the little bits of vocal becomes a strange refrain, the pulsing synths, blur and refocus, wash in and out, the whole sound slowing down and speeding up, blissing out and then snapping right back into a propulsive pound.
It takes a few minutes to let yourself get lost, but once you do, it's pretty fantastic. And the best part, is the sound continues to expand and develop and sprawl and become more noisy and more distorted, until it sometimes sounds like some fucked up noise rock band lock grooving their way through a field of pound and chug, all blown out and freaked out and pretty goddamn great.
Available on both tape and vinyl, the tapes are red and blue polka dot cassettes, and packaged in super thick, silkscreened blue and red J-cards, the lps are housed in eye popping blue and red almost 3D looking jackets. Both are ULTRA LIMITED. And unfortunately, the lps sleeves are all a bit dinged up, mostly bent corners, so be warned, vinyl nerds and condition obsessives steer clear, or just grab the tape!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Total Shutdown. If you live in San Francisco and you've been following the contemporary music scene with even a smattering of interest, you've no doubt encountered this post-emo / screamo hardcore 'art' rock noise band. And it seems that Total Shutdown has been amassing a sizeable audience of ardent followers. And while we weren't all that impressed in the beginning, they have
But TS -are- one of the few local bands trying to kick up a shitstorm of some kind, and for that we salute them. You can't take it lightly since our once vibrant scene is slowly being whittled away to nothing (fewer bands that don't suck, fewer clubs period, jaded show go-ers, etc.) So keep your eye on these kids, 'cause one of these days everything's gonna hit at once, and maybe then we'll be singing their praises, but for now, recommended only for those with iron ear drums, bowels of steel and a not too discerning taste for skronk, chaos and noise.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Totalitar's functionally titled Wallbreaker: 1986 - 1989 is a 30 track long glimpse into this d-beat legend's early output. That's right, more crusty, political Discharge and Motorhead worship from Sweden's finest. If you need a two minute catharsis, this is it. Oh, and interestingly, Totalitar shared some members with AQ-favorite Brainbombs!
Okay, seriously, how could we resist? The band is called Totally Radd. That's Radd with two D's. That's like the rad version of Hott with two T's. The record is called Shark Attack Day Camp, and features eye poppingly garish artwork depicting two kids playing video games in an arcade full of bloody zombies, including one who has been pushed head first through the monitor of another game. Oh and that game just happens to be called Hammer Hamsters. Inside the illustration is of kids in full Lord Of The Flies mode, wearing animal skins and heads, also covered in blood, in a grassy field peppered with dead elks and bears not to mention a huge pile of dead bloody rabbits, not sure how any band would expect to live up to the promise of all this ridiculousness, but somehow Totally Radd do, delivering totally over the top eighties soundtrack, NES, 8-bit keytar, glam rock, dork pop cheesiness that is hilarious and totally dumb, but crazy fun and way catchier and funnier than it has any right to be. But the second we threw this on in the store, we were immediately obsessed, and have been playing it non-stop, much to the chagrin of some people no doubt, but fuck 'em!
If you've been paying attention to the aQ list lately, you may have noticed us referencing eighties training montage music, several records we've gotten in recently have sounded inexplicably like that music, from cheesy VHS tapes, the sort of inspirational RAWK that always accompanies training for the big fight, or the big race, well, this stuff REALLY does sound like that. It also sounds a bit like metallized video game music, it also sounds like a brain damaged Sparks, falsetto vox slip into monstrous demonic vokills or screamo shrieks, total Legend Of Zelda 8-bit sputter collides with chugging metal guitars, super catchy punky pop becomes wild video game music and vice versa, the lyrics are completely silly, about cross dressing, and video stores, and all kinds of random stuff. There are songs named after video games, and we originally assumed those would be covers, but instead are simply songs ABOUT those video games! And speaking of covers, our favorite part might be the bonus 7" that comes with the lp, which starts off with a killer version of Phantom Planet's "California", given a sort of bubblegum synth / electro pop makeover, with vocodered vocals and squiggly synths, wrapped around a Weezer-ish power pop core. Then there's a cool, goovy, broody chunk of ballady electro-pop, a sort of video game Weezer slowdance number, before the awesomely titled "2 8-Bit 2 Quit", which is the most 8-bit of the bunch, sounding like Perry And Kingsley by way of Donkey Kong...
The B side of the 7" starts off with a jam that almost sounds like nineties era black metal, via 8-bit pop nerd dorkiness, brooding and dramatic, with Rob Zombie vocals, which goes right into a cover of Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" with a very misleading intro that's essentially a pitch perfect take on beginning of "Just What I Needed" by the Cars, before slipping into a dangerously straight ahead version of the Soul Asylum original, with extremely overly dramatic vocals, and a swirly psychedelic synth solo in the middle, but otherwise, a pretty straight rock (piss?) take...
It's all dumb and fun, and falls somewhere on the sonic spectrum between Steven Schultz and that MSG Songs From A Gated Community lp we reviewed a while back, but with more Mario Brothers, more pixie stix, more gratuitous violence, more blood thirsty zombies, more after school specials, more boobs, more masked serial killers, more BMX bikes, more gleaming the cube, more lost boys, more revenge of the nerds, more� well, you get it. GET IT!
It's fun to look back at reviews we've written and see how we feel about them after some time has passed and we've spent more time with the record in question, records that we sometimes had to write about way too soon after first hearing. While we gave the latest outing by Australia's Cut Copy a favorable review we didn't gush and really rave about it as much as we might now. It's a record that became and still is one of our big pop addictions of the year. We've lost count of how many times we've listened to that record and it's looking like label mates The Tough Alliance are on their way to achieving that same state of pure dance pop bliss. Hailing from Sweden, where they've always known a thing or two about producing pleasing pop perfection, this is a record that channels eighties sounds from the Happy Mondays to OMD to The Human League. Breezy and infectious equal parts Manchester scene, indie pop, nu-rave, electro-pop and hi-energy, it's a whole album that sounds a little like some of our favorite songs stretched out into a whole record, like the Vaselines cover of Divine's "You Think You're A Man" or Death Cab For Cutie's most infectious song ever "Soul Meets Body". A New Chance doesn't reinvent the wheel but it sure makes us jump and spin and swirl in pure bliss and you can't ask for much more than that in a pop album. So fun and and so good!
Three boyz. Two bands. Two albums.
Toughguy Fantasy is an aural onslaught of noise insanity. Barely keeping up with itself, it's sorta in the vein of Lightning Bolt but with more musical toys and much more disfunction, making for an intangible attack from all angles.
Arctic Boyz is the slightly quieter sibling. Still chaotic for the most part, imagine Hella without "songs" with much clattering feedback. Starts off with a slightly middle-eastern flavor, and ramps up into a scratchy non-sensical maelstrom.
Features members of Hella, Chrime in Choir, The Appreciation and Holy Smokes: Zach, Carson and Justin.
Previously available only as a limited-to-300-copies one-sided piece of vinyl, Tower Recordings' "Folk Scene" now sees an expanded (14 more tracks!) compact disc reissue. Avantgarde cosmic bedroom psychedelia as these New Yorkers do best. Longtime TR members
Comparisons are being made to British psych-folk of decades past, a la the Incredible String Band and the pagan folk of the Wicker Man soundtrack, comparisons that work well for that wonderful P.G. Six album from earlier this year, but TR on "Folk Scene" is so much more wasted and kosmische, blurred and drugged, more like krautrockers Amon Duul than Fairport Convention!! So good! But of course, if you've got their previous cd on Siltbreeze, the wonderful "Furniture Music For Evening Shuttles", you already know that and are on your way down here to buy this...
Beautiful homerecorded avant-folk-pop-psych from this crew of NYC apartment-dwellers. They even do a lovely Mutantes cover! Recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Basement drone and experimentation for both morning and evening drug-ingestion. When TR gets into songs, it's comparable to early Smog.
Fans of all things psych-folk, and space rock and everything in between get all in a lather when talking about Tower Recordings. Rightfully so. Few bands have managed to capture the lilting dreaminess of seventies British psych, the otherworldly bliss out of modern space rock, and the transcendental urdrone of skree and shimmer outfits like Vibracathedral Orchestra and Sunroof!. The Galaxies' Incredible... is the first proper Tower Recordings record in three years and much has changed. Thankfully, none of those changes have affected TR. They continue to plot their own meandering trajectory through their unique hazy sonic world, managing to outdo almost all of their contemporaries in the process. The first track is a massive mellow jam / drone, huge chordal washes build and build into a massive slowly shifting whir, while ephemeral female vocals and various instruments float lazily by, bobbing in the spacy ethereal current. The second track is more straight up folk, with keening falsetto vocals, fingerpicked nylon string guitar, but with all sorts of weird bits, clapping, keyboardy bleeps, throbbing low end pulses. The rest of the record sort of drifts back and forth, more often than not resting right in between, with sweeping drones and warm ambience washing over dreamy folk melodies and delicate instrumental filligree. Absolutely gorgeous.
