Finally, the third volume in Ulaan Khol's epic free-psych-drone trilogy. For those who don't already know, Ulaan Khol is in fact Steven R. Smith, a beloved core member of the Jeweled Antler family, who has recorded on his own as Hala Strana, and with the first JA outfit Thuja, among many, many others. Much of Smith's music is hushed and darkly romantic, folky and introspective, he does know how to rock though, and Ulaan Khol is where he really lets loose. The first two installments in the series were both loud and heavy and psychedelic in their own ways, but number three definitely pushes the sound about as far as it can go. The opening track is a dense shapeless cloud of furious effulgent psychedelic guitar, warm and thick and gnarled and epic, the kind of guitarnoise that could fill up a whole record, but there's more to Ulaan Khol's third outing, as is evidenced by the second track, an incredible, super rocking, crazy catchy burst of blown out psychedelic stomp, the drums pounding, beneath a sea of swirling guitar buzz, while way over the top, Smith unfurls wild soaring leads, pealing feedback, dense tangles of notes, long drawn out wailing tones, it's like the perfect frenzied end to some classic space psych jam except it's the whole song.
But fear not, III is not all blown out psych rock for headz, some of the tracks are humid, smoldering raga like dronescapes, buzzing guitar swells, spidery melodies, delicate and crystalline, others take that same ambience and wrap it around urgently strummed acoustic guitars, creating a sort of dark psychfolk, but it's not too long before the record explodes into another incendiary blast of full on speaker shredding freakout.
The second half of the record is heavy on the dark blissy drift, the slow burning drifts, the blurred desert-y shimmer, all of which culminate in the super melodic 10+ minute closer, which sounds poised to explode, but instead channels that energy into something much more sublime, a long drawn out spacedrone/krautrock drift, the guitars thick and distorted, churning and roiling, but laced with gorgeous streaks of melody, dreamy, but still heavy, and pretty much the perfect way to close out Ulaan Khol's epic psychedelic songsuite. Even though this is the third in a trilogy, we're hoping S.R.S. will do an Ulaan Khol IV anyway, or maybe start making prequels, or something, 'cause we want more!
Huh, what, wow!? A fourth album from AQ fave Steven R. Smith's AQ fave epic free-psych-drone Ulaan Khol project! After the "Ceremony" trilogy of I, II, and III released on cd by Soft Abuse circa 2008-2010, the 2nd volume of which we even made a Record Of The Week, we thought that's all we'd be getting outta Ulaan Khol. It was a trilogy after all. But lo and behold, Soft Abuse now brings us a new album, this time cassette only, that once again sees S.R.S. exploring the spacey outer limits of droned-out guitar psych in his Ulaan Khol guise. The six smouldering tracks here, with titles like "And I Dreamt the Sky Was a Great Ocean of Blood" and "Watching From the Cave of My Skull" are quite lovely, actually, with lots of "the dark blissy drift, the slow burning drifts, the blurred desert-y shimmer" we heard on the second half of UK's III.
Uber-limited to just 200 copies. Comes with a digital download for those times when you don't have your Walkman handy.
Ulaan Markhor is the latest sonic incarnation of longtime aQ fave Steven R. Smith, who over the years has given us some amazing records, from projects and groups as varied as Thuja, Hala Strana and Ulaan Khol. Ulaan Markhor seems to be a continuation of Ulaan Khol, focusing on the same sort of heady psychedelic kosmiche musik, but where in the past, those sounds would drift and shimmer, smolder and sprawl, here they are given some propulsion, rhythm playing a bigger part than ever, whether it be simple campfire percussion, shakers and hand drums, or full on motorik drumming, the sound of UM is easily the fiercest we've heard from Smith, the opener, "Pharoahs" immediately launches into a sprawling stretch of pulsing propulsive mesmer, the guitars smoldering, the rhythm insistent, the sound super hypnotic, which leads directly into "White Markhor", which lays down loose abstract jazzy drumming, and wraps it in dense clouds of distorted buzz and swirling psychedelic shimmer, the track gradually building to an almost Sunroof!-like ur-drone, before launching into "100 Birds" which is full on psychedelic rock, a loping stripped down groove, slithery sinewy bassline, and chugging hypnorock riffage.
And so it goes, the whole record a killer collection of dark drone-flecked psych-kraut, which Smith deftly fashions into all manner of variants, from the majestic "Half Ricochet", with what sounds like a horn section, but could just be processed guitars, and whirring organs, to tripped out lo fi hippy jam of "Kites", and from the dense almost shoegazy laid back psych rock bliss out of "Hand In Circles" to the 6 + minute closer "Dancing", a sprawling, slow building, almost post rock sounding psychedelic coda, all lush chordal whir and simple spare drumming beneath thick swirling clouds of psych guitar shimmer and smoldering buzz. Awesome.
Two new releases this week from aQ pal, and longtime favorite Steven R. Smith, in his latest Ulaan guise, the other is a reissue of a long out of print double cassette originally released on Brave Mysteries, and this one, which is a brand new recording, two sprawling, nearly twenty minute tracks. The first opens with a soft cacophony of bells, before some mournful fiddle, wreathed in reverb, and set atop soft billows of low end thrum, a gorgeous, haunting threnody, which gradually blossoms into a sort of swampy folky dirge, immediately reminiscent of Woven Hand / Sixteen Horsepower. But soon, the strum dissipates, leaving, long tones, lushly layered atmospheres, abstract percussion, and soft shimmers, the vibe dusky and windblown, a little bit twangy, easy to imagine, a landscape painted in reds and oranges from the setting sun, and the slowly encroaching shadows. Soon the strings sweep back in, and the sound is transformed into an almost baroque sounding darkfolk drift, underpinned by swoonsome chordal swells, and sitar like drones, giving the sound an almost raga like vibe. After a bit of distorted psychedelia, the sound settles into a strummy, drifty finale, again, lots of twang, and some crackling electric guitar buzz. Moody and mesmeric. The second track starts off all campfire Appalachian folk, before quickly mutating into a droned out tribal drift, muted pulsing rhythms, beneath soft swirls and layered drones, another sort-of-raga, but with some psych-kraut like propulsion, which gives way to some broody gypsy folk, still wreathed in drones, washed out and woozy, a hazy sprawl of dark dream-drone psych folk ambience, that gradually becomes more and more Appalachian again, lots of buzzy twang, long tones, and lush overtones, all over a bed of softly roiling rumbles, and a hushed, distant, slow fading soft psych finale, before those opening bells return...
Housed in super swank, silkscreened Stumptown cardstock sleeves. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered.
Originally released as an ultra limited (just 100 copies) double cassette on Brave Mysteries in 2013, this sprawling songsuite from longtime fave and aQ pal Steven R. Smith, gets new life in the form of this not so limited cd, and finds Smith, slightly altering his constantly in flux Ulaan monicker, conjuring up 4 side long (at least on the original tape) sprawls of haunting, contemplative, abstract, psychedelic drift. Fans of Smith's other recordings will immediately feel right at home, plaintive piano, soft shimmering swells, chiming bells, softly moaning strings, the sound slowly unfurling and blossoming, moving from a freeform psychedelic dronescape, to a brooding dark folk balladry, to a murky minimal softnoise drift, to hushed droned wreathed steel string strum, a sort of droned out Appalachia, to lush string swaddled epic psych folk majesty and finally to a lush, layered raga-like ambience, that gradually fades into silence. And that's just the first side/track! The other three tracks are equally epic and mesmerizing, darkly melodic, hauntingly psychedelic, lush and lovely, the sort of endless epic psychedelia that is so easy to get swept away by, a few minutes into any of the tracks here, you'll find yourself gloriously lost in Smith's mysterious soundworld, drifting weightlessly above fields of Appalachia flecked droned, or softly submerged beneath dreamlike billows of serene psychedelia, or propelled by heady sprawls of minimal psych-kraut mesmer. As always, FANTASTIC!
Housed in super swank, silkscreened Stumptown cardstock sleeves. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered.
"Ego : Echo" is certainly one of the mightiest, ahem, 'post-rock' records of the year, simply because every other post-rock band has unfortunately followed the Thrill Jockey (Tortoise, Isotope) path to jazz fusion. Ulan Bator is a French trio who employed the talents of the Swans' Michael Gira to produce this, their latest album. Gira -- who also released this through his Young God label -- makes his presence known with a majestic yet depressed sound that permeates the strangled grooves of Ulan Bator. If you take both the mellowest and most thunderous extremes of the best Mogwai and filter it through Circle's patented rhythm hypnosis and the Swans' bleakness, and factor in the Frenchness aspect, you'll get close to what Ulan Bator sounds like. Pretty great. Their previous records didn't get much notice over here in the States, but perhaps things will change with this release. And you might also recall seeing a favorable review of their recent remixes disc on AQ-L #97 -- if you were wondering just what this band was that Carl Stone, Otomo Yoshihide, et.al. were messing with, then "Ego : Echo" is the thing to check out.
Ulan Bator's previous album Ego: Echo was released over here on Michael Gira's Young God label in 2000, and we liked it quite a bit ("one of the mightiest, ahem, 'post-rock' records of the year"). Well turns out that UB made a new album just last year, 2003, but being an import-only item from their home country of France we've only just discovered it. And instead of having Gira at the helm, they've enlisted the help of another '80s alt-rock artist, Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, to mix and master Nouvel Air. Dunno if it's his influence or what, but this new UB has got to be their most 'pop' album yet. Smooth, mellow and melodic French language indie rock, really quite lovely but not immediately encouraging the comparisons to Mogwai and Circle we applied to Ego: Echo's weighty grooves. Languid, sad, romantic...sure it's less post- and more pop, but it's hard to argue with how pretty this is! UB just have a more subtle majesty than before.
U.B.'s second album of Tortoise/Sonic Youth/krautrock stylin's, as featured in the recent Wire magazine article on French post-rock bands.
Initial has been heading toward Vagrant territory putting out way more pop than punk lately. But who are we to complain. Especially if it means we get records this good. Super produced, kick ass, totally catchy power pop. Haven't dug a straight up pop record this much since the last Get Up kids record or since we discovered The Stereo. Think midwest emo, blossoming into gorgeous four chord pop punk, but not pop punk like Green Day/Blink 182, but punky pop like Weezer or the Posies or any of the Vagrant bands (GUK, the Anniversary). Huge guitars, hooky melodies, scratchy Elvis Costello-ish vocals, and a great production. For anyone in need of a fresh dose of pop, this will definitely hit the spot.
Thin Lizzy meets ZZ Top, basically. Ultra was a mid-'70s quartet of hard rockin' Texans featuring a twin lead guitar attack through some big ass Marshall stacks. Like a lot of Monster Records' other '70s re-discoveries (Truth & Janey, Winterhawk) Ultra's
The latest in Noiseville's Outer Bounds Of Sound series (past installments have come from Wicked King Wicker, Burnt Hills, Kleistwahr) comes from Ultrabunny, aka the trio that was borne from the demise of legendary noiserock freaks the Bunnybrains.
Ultrabunny are heavy and minimal, repetitive and super rocking, a bit like a krautrock Harry Pussy, after a slow build, the band lock into a super repetetive single riff groove, solid and mesmerizing, the sort of sound you wouldn't mind filling up the entire side, soon the vocals come in, a feral caterwaul, the band lurching and pummeling, a sort of looped sounding drug rock, that pounds away, those cracks in your skull slowly spiderwebbing, your grey matter dribbling from your ears.
All the tracks here were improvised and recorded live, most are a single riff, maybe two if you're lucky, the vocals yelp and howl, sometimes moan, on one track they just sort of hold a single note, adding another layer of drone to the proceedings, it might be a guitar too, but either way, the track just churns and pounds, the various elements subtly shifting and tangling, creating a sound that seems slightly warped, as if some greater power was holding his finger down on the band, as if they were a record, altering the speed, making everything seems woozy and melty and tripped out and WAY psychedelic.
The B-side is a lot heavier and more distorted, wild and on the verge of collapse, channeling some of that classic Japanese psych noise, but still filtered through a cracked lo-fi dirt rock vibe.
Killer noise drenched spaced out psychedelic hypnorock, which tells you all you need to know, us, we're digging this big time, especially the B-side.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
The late great Bunnybrains were definitely an acquired taste. One usually only acquired by folks who already had a taste for Harry Pussy, Liquorball and other purveyors of a similarly difficult sound. With the death of Bunnybrains, thus was born Ultrabunny, a band that on the surface, seemed to be less fucked up, and less jokey than the Bunny that came before, their sound more noise rocky, more spaced out and psychedelic, heavy and druggy and more musical. But fear not, it's still plenty fucked up.
On this latest full length, presented as two side long song suites, each meant to be listened as a whole, the band begin the first movement with a hazy bit of tripped out drone swirl, some deep, blackened drift, which quickly erupts into some seriously cacophonous rhythmic churn, super tribal rhythms pelted by sheets of hiss and skree, a bit like some strange Crash Worship / Merzbow mashup, but soon the sound transforms into some heavy, fuzzed out noise rock, droney and hypnotic, a sprawling bit of almost-groove, the guitar gnarled and tangled, twisted and psychedelic, a sound not all that far removed from groups like Burnt Hills or The Heads, equal parts space rock, krautrock, and that classic Homestead Records Midwestern pigfuck noise rock, culminating in a glorious spaced out buzz drenched psych jam outro. The second side/movement is way more relentlessly rocking, slipping from Butthole Surfers style dirgey rhythmic freakouts, replete with helium-ed processed vox, to trippy psych drone ambience to pounding druggy space/noise rock pummel.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, packaged in old school paste on bootleg style sleeves.
Back in stock! Got a very limited number of these from the label, at a way cheaper price. Bunnybrains 88 are now called Ultrabunny, but the sound is still as Bunnybrained as ever. Read on...
You know how much we love the Bunnybrains around here. Their chaotic retarded garage rock chaos gets us everytime. We were blown away by the recent Box The Bunny release, that collected all their old recordings and included a dvd of insane and ridiculous footage. So you can imagine how psyched we were to learn that there was a brand new Bunnybrains record! So why the 88 you ask? Well, apparently there were two separate bands that joined forces in 1988 and became the Bunny brains we know and love. After 17 years or so, rock and roll took its toll and the Bunnybrains split back into two separate units. Both bands are 100% Bunnybrains (or at least 98%) and both bands kick ass! This new 10" from Bunnybrains 88, now ULTRABUNNY is ULTRA limited, to only 333 copies, the first 88 of which came in super fancy boxes and were $50 or more and are now out of print. But do not fear, the other 245 copies are nearly as cool, gorgeously packaged in custom letterpressed Bruce Licher sleeves, an elaborate cardstock interlocking foldover, with lovely maroon and white text and filigree. The vinyl is breathtaking as well, half clear, half opaque red, and the sleeve has a nifty sparkly pink stick affixed to the front. One track on one side, and two simultaneous tracks on the other! Includes a bunch of inserts including a sticker and FAQ that goes into greater depth about the whole multiple Bunnybrains thing. Each copy is also hand numbered! WOW!
New on Rune Grammofon, the latest relaxed blast of atmospheric instrumental improv from Ultralyd, the Norwegian extreme "jazz" outfit that features folks from Load label noiserockers Noxagt (old AQ pal, bassist Kjetil Brandsdal) and Rune G electronic spazzcore duo Moha! (guitarist Anders Hana and drummer Morten J. Olsen). The quartet is rounded out by another Kjetil, last name Moster, on saxophones. Together they stir up some trouble in the vein of countrymen Supersilent, Shining, and Jagga Jazzist, filtered through several spins of John Zorn's Morricone tribute The Big Gundown, perhaps. Ultralyd swing haunting cinematic soundscapes packed with percolating grooves and eerie drones, tense guitar skree and jaunty horn tootin'. We like.
While previous albums from this extreme Norwegian instrumental ensemble could be kinda be considered (skronky) jazz, and their previous cd release, 2007's Conditions For A Piece Of Music had its moody, Morricone-ish elements, this one is not so jazzy and not so melodic, coming closer to bass player Kjetil Brandsdal's noiserock act Noxagt in brutal effect. Make no mistake, jazz instrumentation (sax, vibraphone) is still present, but takes a back seat to the heavy duty, and ultimately hypnotic, repetitive rhythmic assault laid down by the bass and drums, over which the synth, electric guitar, sax, and vibes provide additionally apocalyptic coloration, but never truly sidetrack or slow down the chaotic yet cyclic rumble and tumble of these six lurching, long tracks. If it's jazz, it's droog-stomped jazz, muscled up with crunching low-slung bass, and martial, punishing drum beats... imagine maybe if 16-17 and Supersilent teamed up to do something that sounded like Circle... but scary. There's skree and squall, for sure, but it's all focused on the rhythmic imperative, and damn if this isn't as utterly enthralling as it is urgent and ugly. Except that it's not really ugly, just distorted and oppressive. As Rune G's "jazz" bands go, Ultralyd is the one for those who hate jazz, and love hate. Or something like that. Recommended to all you sickos, go on, get it out of your system!
Apparently full length number three from these Belgian experimental heavies, though the first thing we've heard from these guys, and it's kicking our asses big time, but then, really we shouldn't be surprised, hell, it's on Riot Season, home to Shit And Shine, Skull Defekts, Black Boned Angel, Aluk Todolo, Todd, Hey Colossus and loads of other aQ faves, and Ultraphallus fit right in, with their twisted avant doom and experimental sludge, a sort of twisted sprawling avant noise rock, that should most definitely appeal to fans of any or all of the above mentioned bands. The cool thing about Ultraphallus is that their sound is al over the place, when we were just cranking this in the store, someone thought it was Unearthly Trance, someone else though it was some nineties noise rock band, both of which could very well have been the case, instead it's a twisted, fucked up hybrid of the two, along with some creeping blackdrone ambience, some blown out ultra doom, some grinding blackened crust and whatever other fractured heaviness these guys can cook up.
The record swings wildly from black ambient noisescapery, thick clouds of swirling crumbling distorted sound, massive buzzing bass, and strange processed vox, to pounding almost Melvins-y sounding noise rock crush, heavy but hooky, with shrieked vox and some seriously catchy melodies, to mathy dirgey droned out doom, all downtuned riffage and pounding dirgey rhythms, to creepy swaggery swampy slither, sprawling and spacious, the vocals a croaked growl, the guitar sinewy, all laid over a grim black expanse of rumble and drift, to full on speaker shredding, crumbling blacknoise, to twisted free jazz drone sludge, squalls of skronking horns over clouds of cymbal sizzle and staticky hiss, to lumbering banjo (?!) flecked sludge pop, to experimental ambience, all layered drones and creepy atmospheres (with some wailed vocalizing by special guest Eugene from Oxbow), to one last jam, a haunting expanse of rumbling, shimmering dark dronemusic, laced with strange samples, stretched out into a hellish landscape of buzz and whir and creep and blur.
Awesome stuff, and most definitely a worthy addition to Riot Season's ever expanding roster of twisted and damaged heaviness.
Three adorable Italian boys playing mellow instrumental post-rock. Lots of soaring guitars in the background, with anguished minor key figerpicking up front. More about creating a real mood than about verse-chorus-verse, y'know. Not as loud as Mogwai, not as quiet as Sonna, but drawing from both of those band's vibes. Unremarkable but quite pleasant. It'll be interesting to hear future
Ulver. Once one of Norway's black metal, Viking wolfpacks. Worshipping at the dark throne of, ah, Darkthrone. But those days are long past... Ulver have evolved. You know this. Electronica. Techno. Goth. Post-rock. Soundtracks. Pop. Drone. All these things, good things...but no longer black metal. If you've followed the chameleons known as Ulver this far, and you've liked *everything* they've done, then you're gonna like Blood Inside too. But if you've had your doubts, then maybe this is gonna be the toughest one to swallow yet (despite what we heard pre-release about how "heavy" it was gonna be). 'Cause now they kinda sound like Tears For Fears. Tears For Fears at the circus.
Ok, it's not all like that. But there is a lot of singing. And gently gloomy pop atmospheres, and filmic orchestration, and weird progginess, and yes, some heaviness. Maybe later we'll realize this is Ulver's Faith No More's Angel Dust. However, one track features what sounds like an unanswered cell-phone ringing...and ringing. Who needs that on a cd??
Sorry, at first blush we're just not feeling it. Yet maybe Ulver have evolved beyond us. We'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt. But, we can definitely say that if you gave up at their last true studio-recorded full-length album before this one, Perdition City (as did Andee), this won't bring you back. And even if you liked that or subsequent releases like Teachings In Silence (which Allan considers the best post-black metal Ulver) or the A Quick Fix Of Melancholy ep you should check this out but it *might* be too Tears For Fearsy for you nonetheless. Of course, we're sure there's a whole audience for this (Tears For Fears fans?) that have never even heard of Ulver before... but we doubt they're reading this. It's tough. We want to like this. And maybe you will. But the ultimate test had to be, if it didn't say Ulver on it, would we even be listening? The textural glitch improv loveliness of Teachings In Silence definitely passed that test. This, though, well, it might take a few more listens...therein lies the paradox. I guess I'd better take one home just to be on the safe side.
Additional note: this comes enhanced with a video track for your computer.
Those genre-defying former black metallers (a long long time ago, now!) Ulver return, with an unusual even for them detour into all-covers territory! Specifically, a collection of (mostly) obscure sixties psych faves, as it says on the cover, "lost & found from the Age of Aquarius".
They do 16 such nuggets, all moody, kaleidoscopic treats originally recorded by the following artists: The Pretty Things, The Byrds, Bonniwell's Music Machine, Chocolate Watchband, Jefferson Airplane, Gandalf, The Electric Prunes, 13th Floor Elevators, Troggs, Left Banke, Beau Brummels, Common People, Music Emporium, Curt Boettcher, Les Fleur De Lys, and The United States Of America.
And they do them well. Not totally straight, but not black metal versions either (which, really, might have been even more interesting!). No, this is a respectful tribute, Ulver emulating the originals fairly accurately, but boosted with some modern prog rock power & polish, presumably with the mission of introducing 'em to a new audience, though we'd venture to guess that folks who listen to Ulver these days already have pretty wide ranging musical tastes...
Comes in nice hardback digibook packaging, though we don't know if the use of the iconic napalmed naked Vietnamese children running in the street photo is in such great taste, though it makes sense with the title of course... Ulver definitely demonstrates good taste in their musical selections here, however! We were especially stoked to see the Gandalf pick. It's all great stuff, Ulver's versions reminding us a little bit of another Norwegian fave of ours (also with some black metal connections), Lars Pedersen's When, who also digs the '60s sikepop.
The band formerly known as a black metal band Ulver, now known as arty WTF? band Ulver, has morphed and morphed again over the years. Black metal, folk, electronica, pop, techno... some of Ulver's metamorphoses have worked better than others. They've gone through phases influenced by both Portishead and Radiohead. But lately these Norwegian tricksters have seemingly settled down to something stable, an avant-garde, electronica-infused, gloomy pop-prog identity. Their previous album Blood Inside was a bit too Tears For Fearsy for our tastes, unfortunately (though we know lots of folks loved it). Or maybe that would have been ok, but the circus-y bits really lost us. However, Shadows Of The Sun, while charting a similar course, veers mostly to the languid and lovely, which we rather like. The nine tracks here tend to flow together calmly, never breaking the twilight mood. Hints of glitchiness and distortion are interwoven with yearning melody, smooth almost New Agey blissfullness, deep breathy baritone vox. Also, a warning (to some): saxophone. A little. And at this point, needless to say, there's nothing remotely metal about any of it. Well, there is a Black Sabbath cover, but they chose one of the Sabs' most delicate and torpid songs, "Solitude", in keeping with this album's sad mood, Garm's vocals wearier even than were Ozzy's originally, uncheered by the jazz inflections included in Ulver's arrangement. Those who have followed and remained fans of Ulver thus far, though, should find this latest melancholic manifestation quite satisfying. Oh, and considering his following among the AQ crowd, we should note that Christian Fennesz makes a cameo appearance on this record.
Spooky vibes here, folks, spooky vibes. Of course, cuz it's the new one from soundtrack-ish synthesizer maven Umberto! Alienation takes things into some especially bleak and beautiful territory, turning up the ambience, doing something a little different. Yes, this could still be the soundtrack to a horror movie, but only a few tracks fully dive into the creepy, claustrophobic giallo groove Umberto usually conjures, fuzzed and frenetic. Instead, a lot of this is as blissful as it is eerie, with ethereal swirling synths and echoing beats also occasionally joined by male and female monk-like vocals, drifting and droning in the mix on certain tracks (apparently singing lyrics "inspired by condemned Russian poet Anna Akhmatova"). Some songs, like "White Light", are positively lovely; others, unsettling. All in all, Alienation is some kind of 'new age nightmare' music, with dynamics that encompass both the bombastically cinematic and the serene. A good Umberto album (as they all are, really) for fans of Emeralds, Steve Moore, or stuff on the Miasmah label.
Another batch of unabashed Goblin / John Carpenter worship from this aQ beloved synth wrangler, and really not sure what to say about Umberto that we haven't already, from song one here, you're immediately ushered into some creepy, lost world, of ominous spirits and glimmering starlit skies, of long lonely winding roads, old abandoned buildings, and mysteries lurking in the shadows. The sound evokes wandering down dimly lit roads, or late night car chases, pulsating rhythms, swirling synths, throbbing drum machines, chorale like textures, squiggly melodies, lush chordal swells, dark and ominous one second, soaring and dramatic the next, super cinematic and soundtracky, all Umberto needs is a time machine and he could definitely go head to head with Goblin back in the day. Moody retro cinematic synthscapery and tense, dark, electronic moodiness that never fails to evoke a glorious sense of sonic dread, and inevitably has us imagining some outlandish scenario, these sounds playing while we desperately try to elude a mystery killer, or escape from some haunted house. Fantastic!
The latest chunk of seventies/eighties faux giallo soundtrack John Carpenter / Goblin worship from longtime aQ faves Umberto comes in the form of this EXTREMELY limited one-sided silk-screened 12". Umberto, aka Matt Hill, who is one half of psychedelic spacekraut explorers Expo 70, offers up another glorious slab of brooding cinematic ambience, this one a lot more ambient that past outings. More on that in a second. Final Exit is packaged in a super striking fold over sleeve, which features the image of one unlucky man's final exit, laying on a bed, suffocated with a plastic bag over his head, the sleeve also bears the legend: "This record is intended to accompany the last moments of your suffering." It also features a seal, adorned with a flower, and the words "good life / good death". The record itself is one sided, the flipside featuring another image of that same man, this time eyes opened and bulging! Morbid for sure. And the music follows suit. Sort of. In some ways it almost sounds more like a slightly more sinister and soundtracky Expo 70, with warm swoonsome synth swirls, a sort of darkly new age-y drift, moody and broody, with lush swells that sound almost choral, the vibe is definitely majestic and cinematic, but is also minimal and restrained. A few minutes in, percolating synth melodies surface amidst the dark swirls, and then a simple heartbeat like pulse, motorik and minimally propulsive, near the end the sound changes tone and timbre becoming much more gristly and distorted the hum and thrum transformed into a crumbling buzz, ominous and sinister, the whole sound hazy and gauzy, and gradually fading to black.
The record sounds great at both 33 and 45rpm, but we tend to like things slower, so at 33 it definitely sounds much creepier and gloomier.
LIMITED TO JUST 150 COPIES!!! Each one is hand numbered. When we run out, we will NOT be able to get more, so if you want one, act fast.
Word of warning: These come in those super brittle plastic picture disc sleeves that, to be blunt, kinda suck, so every single one of the sleeves is slightly damaged, whether it's cracked on the corner, or with a seam split, it's the nature of those sleeves, and of having them shipped from overseas too (which also resulted in some some bent corners and so forth), so if you're super anal, or a nit picky collector, you have been warned, everyone else, you should be fine, they're all housed in a second polybag anyway, and the records themselves are in perfect condition (and look amazing!), so grab one before they're gone!
Doubtless many movie (and music) buffs would agree that Italian '70s and '80s "giallo" (horror/thriller) cinema, from directors like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, had soundtracks usually as evocative and inspirational as any visual aspect of the films, soundtracks which often stand as effective works of art all on their own. The scores by prog band Goblin being perhaps best known, influencing such modern day bands as Zombi and Crime In Choir. Now here's another, utterly blatant and most excellent example of Italian giallo soundtrack worship by a current artist: Umberto!
Umberto is actually a one-man band, that man being Matt Hill, live collaborator / touring member of AQ faves Expo '70! Under his guise of Umberto, he has just released his first album as limited edition cassette and cd-r on the Sonic Mediations label run by Expo '70 mainman Justin Wright. While Expo '70 has proven to be especially adept at channelling the heavy kosmiche bliss of prime '70s krautrock a la Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, Umberto is equally savvy at conjuring the dark, suspenseful soundtrack-y sounds of Goblin and the like. With, some cosmic Klaus-y krauty-ness thrown in as well. This definitely sounds like it could be an actual soundtrack, in fact, someone should MAKE a film just to use this as a soundtrack. You can certainly do so in your imagination, aided perhaps by the cinematically suggestive track titles, which include "Running Blade", "Intermission", "Dream Sequence", "Shower Scene", and "End Credits" (the only track here with vocals, otherwise it's all instrumental... and the vocals on this last track are some sort of hard-to understand, chant-like invocation). Listen with the lights off for best results.
Umberto has a heavily synthesized sound, keyboards buzzing and droning and squelching, crunchily distorted or eerily ethereal, sounding at once like ominous Gothic organ music and also spacey futuristic electronica. Mechanical drumming plods along, propulsive beats adding to the menacing atmosphere. There's also plenty of fat disco synth-bass, and we bet folks into Italians Do It Better 12"s, or Black Devil Disco Club, or even skweee would get a kick out of this too, not just Goblin fanatics... but yeah Goblin fanatics (and John Carpenter and Zombi fans too) REALLY ought to check this out! Very cool, very creepy, and even at times kinda catchy-groovy.
We LOVED the previous Umberto album, From The Grave, and are stoked that he/they/it have finally returned with another full length packed with oodles of Goblin-y goodness, just in time for Halloween!!
But the sound of the Expo 70-associated Umberto is not strictly that scary, at least not all the time, in fact, like Goblin and other '80s Italian fright-film soundtrackers, most of the scary stuff here is really just an *underlying* un-ease, a sinister suspenseful undercurrent over which more "groovy" stuff gets down. And way more groovy this one most definitely is, some serious haunted dancefloor action, or horror movie disco, or whatever you want to call it, but Umberto has for sure upped the funk/groove quotient, lacing the usual cocktail of thick, tense, pulsing synth throb, minimal motorik rhythms and heavy ominous drones with plenty of funky basslines, crunchy modulated keyboard buzz, soaring synths, chanted voices and propulsive grooves... Here and there, the sound gets all stripped down leaving just gurgly, crumbly distorted low end peppered with spaced out booming rhythms, or creepy ambient atmospheres, but the songs tend to slip quickly back into haunted shuffly rhythms, woozy horror movie atmospherics, ominous strings laced funky grooves and dark descending bass blarp.
The second side begins with one of those tracks that sounds like the music that always introduces us to the main character in all those seventies thrillers, the little girl playing with her dollies, the old woman in the garden, the sound is tranquil but subtly sinister, here it's a music box like melody, plinking dreamily beneath haunting strings, and soft swirls of creepy voice like synth, total horror movie soundtrack shivers for sure.
After that it's back to wah guitars, chiming bells, groovy Italo funk haunted dancefloor grooviness, but this time with some cool washed out M83 style female vocal textures, a shoegazey gauze over that propulsive Goblin-y groove.
If we had to pick a single song that was THE ONE here, it would probably be "Someone Chasing Someone Through A House" which sounds exactly LIKE THAT, pulsing throbbing synths, electronic squelches, deep ominous drones, dark swells, foreboding and creepy and tense and SCARY!
The album ends with an upbeat track entitled "Everything Is Going To Be Ok", all sun-coming-up, yay we survived the zombie onslaught good cheer & cheesiness. The sort of music that plays over the closing credits, or even better, over the final shot which lulls you into a sense of false security, before a decaying hand bursts through the ground, or a beast explodes from the water and drag our heroine out of the boar, some sort of shock to let you know that evil won't stay buried... which of course usually leads to a sequel, and we are definitely looking forward to the next installment of groovy Gobliny sonic scares from Umberto!
The lead track from Umberto's 2010 album Prophecy Of The Black Widow gets an extended "disco" remix here on this new 12".
It took a while, but last year's Umberto release for Mogwai's Rock Action label finally got some decent US distribution, and we're pretty glad since we've been bugging the label and import distros about it for months now. 'Cause as you know we're huge Umberto fans, we absolutely love his Goblin-worshipping, giallo-inspired sinister cinematic synthscapes and this one's another spinetingler. And it's the (alternate) soundtrack to an actual movie, too! Most Umberto releases have been of the -imaginary- soundtrack variety, but The Night Has A Thousand Screams was composed and performed as live accompaniment for a 1982 slasher flick called Pieces, by cult Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon, as screened at the 2012 Glasgow Music And Film Festival.
As you'd expect, The Night Has A Thousand Screams is rife with the subtle menace of spooky, spacey synths, and lullaby-like melodies plinked out amidst haunting, harrowing drone/groan. There's also often the thump-thump-thump of a bass drum as the beating tell-tale heart of it all. That booming percussion can be pretty prominent in the mix, but we like the "live" sounding urgency of it when it occurs. Many passages leave aside the rhythms for long stretches of pure synth textures, however. Others get really rhythmic, like "The Investigation" with snappy drum machine beats that brings in shades of Umberto's other big influence, John Carpenter, natch.
Not having heard the film's original soundtrack we can't compare it, but we're betting Umberto did at least as good of a job scoring such scenes as "The Dance Studio" and "The Waterbed", and it's one that works just fine for home listening minus the visuals as well. Another wonderfully groovy and atmospheric Umberto creep-out!
You're not imagining things, that skull in the rearview mirror is looking at you. Expo 70 sideman Matt Hill, aka Umberto, is back... eerie as ever! Following his recent, limited, and now out of print one-sided 12" entitled Final Exit on Italian label Black Moss, comes this strikingly-sleeved 45rpm 12" via UK label The Great Pop Supplement, also quite limited (500 copies only), vinylizing a cassette put out by Solid Melts in an even scarcer edition a year ago. Welcome To The Chillzone consists of two tracks of equal 10:03 durations, really one piece split over two sides, both quietly brooding and creepy, side A slowly unfolding, building up to the somewhat more intense but still restrained side B... which ends, though, as side A begins, the whole composition looping like the original tape. Umberto's sinister sonics are indeed chilling here, full of blissful yet shivery synthwork, like hushed melodic whispers drifting above an ominous hallucinatory hum... eventually there's sequenced rhythmic pulsations, but gentle, this 12" as compelling and effective as any suspense film soundtrack we can think of. As with Final Exit, 'tis more ambient and icy than the deathly disco of Umberto's more electro beat-driven earlier efforts, so next to Goblin and John Carpenter among the giallo-obsessed Umberto's influences, have been added the zoned out cinematic synths of Tangerine Dream, perhaps.
As we said, limited edition of 500 copies, already sold out at the label!! We got a couple dozen, but when they're gone, they're gone, we won't be able to get any more...
A two hour plus anthology of rare digitally remastered studio clips and live footage by various groups from the archives of Factory Records, Factory Benelux, Les Disques du Crepuscle between 1979 and 1987. Featuring Antena, A Certain Ratio, Josef K, Caberet Voltaire, Section 25, Durutti Column, New Order, Crispy Ambulance, Tuxedomoon, Paul Haig, Quando Quango and many, many others.
There's a lot of talk about intensity in music -- hot guitar licks, fast drumming, empassioned vocals. But then you hear something like the entire recorded output of the mighty Umlaut and from then on you realize that everything you thought you knew about limits of musical ferocity was bullshit. There is no aural equivalent to this raging onslaught of blasting, anthemic hardcore/grind.
Mostly unknown outside of their Scandinavian hinterlands, Umlaut is a secretive outlaw collective of hard-drinking hard-riding anarchist Finnish biker punks who pause only long enough on their ceaselessly marauding cross-tundra doom rides to destroy squats with a typically brief 10-minute set of their incendiary brand of hardcore-crust-grind. Suspiciously evasive in interviews as to the nature of their identity, they espouse their violently radical political beliefs with a vehemence matched only by their loathing of customs agents (on the song "Denied at Customs" sung to the tune of S.O.D.'s "United Forces") and a certain American metalcore band coming to their native land and expecting everyone to speak English.
Most tracks here sound like first-take recordings, and I mean that in a good way -- there's a raw unbridled natural live feel to the songs that make them sound like they're about to disintegrate into chaos at any moment. It is a work of no small heroism on the part of the drummer to keep these songs contained into concrete, if not surprisingly tight, structures. The vocals are positively seething, the guitars the perfect blend of heaviness and rawness, the drums near-death-metal fast and the songs are surprisingly catchy even in their rarely-over-30-seconds length. You could play this on the lowest volume setting and the Finnish motorcycling death squad that is Umlaut will still sound like they're positively charging out of your speakers, ready to run you down and grind your guts into the spokes of their burning wheels.
The real question though is how could a band this amazing actually exist? Seems to good to be true!! I mean, c'mon, Finnish, bikers, metal, hardcore, it's almost like someone deliberately designed the coolest band ever. Weird.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
It's a big mystery.
This Chilean band holds the distinction of being the first band to get an Aquarius CASSETTE Of The Week award. Their Bestias Solares tape on Black Horizons so blew everyone here away, we couldn't not make it thus. And we later reviewed their double cd on Beta-Lactam Ring too, both of those records displaying this strange group's sound, a sound which found us describing the group, not at all succinctly, as an "occult prog-metal / angular post-punk / psychedelic free noise / black ambient orchestra". That's a pretty crazy and over the top description, but the this is a pretty crazy, over the top outfit, and we're happy to report, that they haven't gotten any less crazy this time around, in fact, to these ears, they keep getting weirder and weirder. The brief opener is all chanted monk-like vocal harmonies wrapped in warped, woozy electronics, hand-clappy drum machines, witchy female vocals, garbled speaking in tongues, strange FX, and while you might think it was just a weird intro, the next song continues down into the sonic rabbit hole, murky bass squelch, a pulsing almost techno beat, more swirling electronics, grunted demonic vocals, accompanying atonal piano pound, that piano exploding into wild psychedelic squiggles, while the rest of the track sounds submerged in fields of static, the result is a sort of warped, woozy, blackened, electro avant techno chamber music? Or something. It's sort of gothic, definitely freaky and fucked up, sort of electronic, whatever it is, we dig it, a LOT!
The third track is a creaking, crumbling drone, that sounds like it could be some lost Nurse With Wound outtake, all deep dirge-y tectonic thrum, sounds like recordings of motorcycles or moaning docks, blurred into dense sonic swells, shot through with distant minor key melodies, dark and meditative, and a bit haunting as well. And finally, things finish off with another brief blast of WTF weirdness, deep drone-y thrum, under spacey synths, plucked pizzicato melodies, swirling wind like whirs, bizarre glitchy percussion, and near the end, primitive drum machine, and glimmering fields of sci-fi planetarium show electronics. So twisted. And so good.
And like all Black Horzions tapes, super fancy packaging, four panel J-card, offset silver printing on bronze metallic paper, purple tapes, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
This South American blackened dark-prog doom-noise psychedelia collective holds the distinction of having been the very first, and to this day only, CASSETTE Record Of The Week. And at the time, we were so blown away, we really had no choice, everything about Un Festin Sagital pushed all of our (and presumably your) buttons, occult prog metal meets creepy black ambient soundscapery, haunting minimal moodiness meets, propulsive post punk crush, howling metallic heft meets gently psychedelic folkiness, all wound up into one dizzying tangle of heady heaviness. Since then, we've dug deeper into the bands catalog, with much help from local label Black Horizons, who brings us yet another amazing collection of the group's tripped out sound, this one not that far removed from the others, if anything more of an extension, the sound sprawling and expansive, the opener especially, the group slipping into something more space rocky and dreamy, sounding almost like something you might expect to hear on Cardinal Fuzz, loping sinewy basslines, clouds of cymbal shimmer, fluttering flutes, minimal percussion, almost like a jazzier, soundtrackier Spacemen 3, hazy and hypnotic, before the sound builds to some seriously lysergic heavy psych, billowing clouds of FX drenched melodies, the drums more driving, eventually swathed in some seriously caustic noise guitar crunch. Holy shit, fans of the Heads and Carlton Melton and White Hills and all the rest, you might just want to check out these weirdos too.
Cuz goddamn if the rest of the record doesn't fall in line, the second track two, laying down a dark, motorik groove, wreathed in sonic swirls, and with a huge krautrock vibe, again, following that tried and true space rock sonic template, the sound eventually building to a wild freak out, but instead of straight up shred, it's all wild scrabbly tangles, and distorted chugs, roiling piano rumbles, scalding arcs of white noise psych swirl, seriously epic space/psych rock for sure. But these guys are NOT space rockers, they just happen to do it better than most. So there's plenty of other mysterious moodiness happening. The sound devolving into some churning slo-mo-doom, still folk flecked, a cinematic sprawl that lurches from noisy crashing pummel, to hushed whispery drift, the whole second half sounding like the score from some lost Italian seventies giallo. From there on out, the band whip out some mathy stop start post punk angularity, more distortion drenched spaciness, some groovy organ soaked fusiony prog-jazz, again pocked with bursts of wild distorted noise rock crunch, until finally, things finish off with the epic 21 minute title track, the unfurls like the bastard child of all those space rock bands we love, the usual zoner drift, is transformed into what sounds like 3 or 4 bands playing at once, a frenzied cacophony, somehow held together but a buried rhythm section, the end result a sort of kraut-noise, that about halfway through settles into one final stretch of noisy, motorik kraut-prog mesmer, psychedelic and hypnotic, and really fucking great.
As with all the Black Horizons tapes, super fancy packaging, this time an 8 panel J-card, silver metallic ink on green matte paper, inside a folded up mini-poster/insert, and as always, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
Last list, you may recall, we had as one of our Records Of The Week, what was more precisely a Cassette Of The Week, a tape on the Black Horizons label by a band of sonic surrealists from Santiago, Chile known as Un Festin Sagital. In that rave review, we mentioned that Un Festin Sagital had a full-length upcoming on the Beta-Lactam Ring label - which made perfect sense, what with Beta-Lactam putting out such weirdness as Nurse With Wound reissues among other things. Well, what we hadn't realized, is that Un Festin Sagital ALREADY had a couple Beta-Lactam cd releases to their credit, that we'd somehow overlooked. So, naturally, we need to review those too. This one's their most recent, from actually just a few months ago - a sprawling double cd set, one studio, one live, packaged in nice gatefold mini-lp style sleeve.
And it's just as crazy and compelling as that tape that turned us on to 'em. We previously described UFS as a "occult prog-metal / angular post-punk / psychedelic free noise / black ambient orchestra" and that's still a good, broad description of what this experimental musical collective is up to - namely WTF? weirdness with a dark, moody vibe to it.
The first disc's epic eight-part, 22+ minute opening track, "El Nino Ateo" should thoroughly infect you with Un Festin Sagital's lysergic musical sickness - or else cause the less stout of heart and eccentric of taste to flee in terror! It's like a sinister soundtrack, part symphonic 20th century classical, part distorted industrial churn, part krauty synth throb. There's eerie Magma-esque choral parts, mumbled incantations, screams, Satanic-sounding chant (shades of Igor Wakhevitch for sure); ominous haunting stretches of avant-classical murk replete with groans and drones and sudden, stabbing piano chords... Clearly "RIO" avant-prog chamber rock a la Art Zoyd is an inspiration, but Un Festin Sagital take it to absurd extremes. You could kind of imagine this is what modern-day aQ prog faves Guapo (who also have a fine new album reviewed this list) might sound like, if only they dwelled in some far off South American mountain village, wore animal masks, and chewed on hallucinogenic jungle plants all day.
"El Nino Ateo" ranges from sheer mesmerism to utter mayhem and back again, as does the rest of this disc, the other three tracks dabbling in gentle acoustic folk ritual, exploding with spastic prog nuttery, and experimenting with atmospheric neo-classical soundscapery. And then there's the second disc, entitled La Muerte Solar, which was recorded live, but you wouldn't know that but for the occasional outburst of applause from the audience - which in UFS's strange sound-world, could easily be mistaken for just another intentional, sampled element of their collage-like compositions. Their 12+ minute rendition of "El Nino Ateo" here is a true tour de force, and the whole disc is easily the equal to the set's studio half.
At their heaviest, they kind of remind us of Orthodox or Blizaro, at their spazziest of Uz Jsme Doma or The Ex, and at their weirdest of NWW or even Reynols (whose Alan Courtis has in fact guested on one of Un Festin Sagital's other albums). Throw in some Circle at their most "operatic", and one of Tatsuya Yoshida's improv groups, roll all that into a ball and smoke it, and you've got some idea of how freaky this shit is! Not every single moment here "works" but overall, yeah, it sure does.
Hell yeah, at last! When this now-semi-legendary album was first released by UK heavy psych doom metal specialists Rise Above in 2011, it came out in an ultra limited edition of just three hundred vinyl-only copies, which proved almost impossible to come by. That first edition sold out instantly and those lps started trading for seriously ridiculous amounts of money on eBay and elsewhere. Even though, really, who the heck were Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats? Well it wasn't just the cool band name generating a buzz, the music was awesome, as we later were able to ascertain. Eventually Rise Above did a repress, of which we were able to get a few, though those were expensive too and we were never able to get enough of 'em to actually list. But, we did figure out why this record was in such demand (as we'll discuss in more detail in a moment). We also learned that Blood Lust had also come out on compact disc, but oddly enough via a small Finnish label instead of Rise Above, and again we never were able to get enough of those to list, either. But we had hope that someday, somehow, we'd be able to review this for you, 'cause eventually most Rise Above stuff gets released in the USA by licensees Metal Blade, and while its been a damn long time, we're now pleased to, ta da, finally have Blood Lust on cd at a domestic price. Record Of The Week? You bet!
So, what we thought we were in for, way back when all we knew about band was their name & label, was some lysergic sludgey doomy jamming, like maybe Electric Wizard (another Rise Above band) or UFOmammut. Which we would have been perfectly happy with, of course. But, instead, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats proved to be a lot more song-oriented and more melodic than we expected, with a kind of poppy '60s garage psych rock side to 'em, amidst their heavy fuzz-filled riffage. The singer (that's ol' Uncle Acid himself, natch, also on guitar in this power trio, and mellotron and synths too) croons his twisted tales of witchburning, black magic, and murder, in a languid whine, his voice nasally pinched and reverb effected, reminding us a bit of Kyle Thomas of aQ faves Witch (and King Tuff and Happy Birthday too by the way). His delivery lends a delicate, decadent touch to the band's brand of both despondent plod and swinging catchiness, able to render lines like "I was born a bitter man, no hopes or dreams / I get my kicks from torturing and screams / I lust for womens blood, and their evil ways / I twist my words to what the good book says" with sick sincerity -and- showmanship, in a way that is surprisingly not very much metallic, instead staying (despite the music's undeniable heaviness) more in the pop realm, though one obsessed with vintage horror films.
These rollicking, but dread-infused tunes are further full of ripping fuzz guitar leads, and lumbering downer riffs. Without a doubt, doom originators Black Sabbath are a major factor in this band's sound, but they're doing something rather different with that particular inspiration than most do. And we're also reminded of some other British '60s/'70s proto-metallers like Stray, High Tide, T2, and May Blitz, who were quite heavy but psych-pop catchy as well. Perhaps very early, very psychedelic Alice Cooper could be added to Uncle Acid's roster of influences too, we're thinking of the way the song "Ritual Knife" marries a pounding tribal beat and urgently chugging ominous riffery with glorious bursts of shining melody come chorus time.
One much more recent band that these guys also remind us of, is Swedish occult rock sensations Ghost, another act whose "pop side" is so effective as to possibly threaten their "metal cred" among the more closeminded. We'd also recommend Uncle Acid to fans of that other recent, equally retro stunner from Rise Above, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. And, like last week's Record Of The Week by Golden Void, this has that laidback classic sounding '70s psychrock vibe, immediately familiar, though Uncle Acid comes across as much more dark and sinister to be sure. And lastly, fans of Witchcraft should pay attention - we'd rank this up there with that band's celebrated Rise Above debut, we're pretty sure this is gonna be considered a classic too. We're sooooooo glad they didn't just press only those 300 vinyl copies and leave it at that!! You will be too.
This cd reissue includes a bonus track not on vinyl, which provides a nice coda to the record proper, relinquishing the fuzz guitar for acoustic strum and hand percussion, Uncle Acid doing their doom-pop-psych in a more folky style a la, say, Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Now available on domestic PICTURE DISC vinyl!
Hell yeah, at last! When this now-semi-legendary album was first released by UK heavy psych doom metal specialists Rise Above in 2011, it came out in an ultra limited edition of just three hundred vinyl-only copies, which proved almost impossible to come by. That first edition sold out instantly and those lps started trading for seriously ridiculous amounts of money on eBay and elsewhere. Even though, really, who the heck were Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats? Well it wasn't just the cool band name generating a buzz, the music was awesome, as we later were able to ascertain. Eventually Rise Above did a repress, of which we were able to get a few, though those were expensive too and we were never able to get enough of 'em to actually list. But, we did figure out why this record was in such demand (as we'll discuss in more detail in a moment). We also learned that Blood Lust had also come out on compact disc, but oddly enough via a small Finnish label instead of Rise Above, and again we never were able to get enough of those to list, either. But we had hope that someday, somehow, we'd be able to review this for you, 'cause eventually most Rise Above stuff gets released in the USA by licensees Metal Blade, and while its been a damn long time, we're now pleased to, ta da, finally have Blood Lust on cd at a domestic price. Record Of The Week? You bet!
So, what we thought we were in for, way back when all we knew about band was their name & label, was some lysergic sludgey doomy jamming, like maybe Electric Wizard (another Rise Above band) or UFOmammut. Which we would have been perfectly happy with, of course. But, instead, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats proved to be a lot more song-oriented and more melodic than we expected, with a kind of poppy '60s garage psych rock side to 'em, amidst their heavy fuzz-filled riffage. The singer (that's ol' Uncle Acid himself, natch, also on guitar in this power trio, and mellotron and synths too) croons his twisted tales of witchburning, black magic, and murder, in a languid whine, his voice nasally pinched and reverb effected, reminding us a bit of Kyle Thomas of aQ faves Witch (and King Tuff and Happy Birthday too by the way). His delivery lends a delicate, decadent touch to the band's brand of both despondent plod and swinging catchiness, able to render lines like "I was born a bitter man, no hopes or dreams / I get my kicks from torturing and screams / I lust for womens blood, and their evil ways / I twist my words to what the good book says" with sick sincerity -and- showmanship, in a way that is surprisingly not very much metallic, instead staying (despite the music's undeniable heaviness) more in the pop realm, though one obsessed with vintage horror films.
These rollicking, but dread-infused tunes are further full of ripping fuzz guitar leads, and lumbering downer riffs. Without a doubt, doom originators Black Sabbath are a major factor in this band's sound, but they're doing something rather different with that particular inspiration than most do. And we're also reminded of some other British '60s/'70s proto-metallers like Stray, High Tide, T2, and May Blitz, who were quite heavy but psych-pop catchy as well. Perhaps very early, very psychedelic Alice Cooper could be added to Uncle Acid's roster of influences too, we're thinking of the way the song "Ritual Knife" marries a pounding tribal beat and urgently chugging ominous riffery with glorious bursts of shining melody come chorus time.
One much more recent band that these guys also remind us of, is Swedish occult rock sensations Ghost, another act whose "pop side" is so effective as to possibly threaten their "metal cred" among the more closeminded. We'd also recommend Uncle Acid to fans of that other recent, equally retro stunner from Rise Above, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. And, like last week's Record Of The Week by Golden Void, this has that laidback classic sounding '70s psychrock vibe, immediately familiar, though Uncle Acid comes across as much more dark and sinister to be sure. And lastly, fans of Witchcraft should pay attention - we'd rank this up there with that band's celebrated Rise Above debut, we're pretty sure this is gonna be considered a classic too. We're sooooooo glad they didn't just press only those 300 vinyl copies and leave it at that!! You will be too.
This cd reissue includes a bonus track not on vinyl, which provides a nice coda to the record proper, relinquishing the fuzz guitar for acoustic strum and hand percussion, Uncle Acid doing their doom-pop-psych in a more folky style a la, say, Bolan's Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find our review of the new full length, Mind Control, from UK psychedelic stoners Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, but this right here is the teaser single that came out a few months back. We got a bunch and sold out, and just managed to get a handful more, most likely the last copies we'll be able to get. We won't go into too much detail, as a single like this is mostly for the rabid fans, seeing as it's $15 for two songs, one of which is on the new full length. So basically you're paying for one exclusive track, but it's a doozy, and as we've discovered, Uncle Acid fans are an obsessive bunch, so if you are one, might want to grab one before they're gone.
The A side is "Poison Apple", from the new record, which pretty much takes up right where the last record Blood Lust left off, sounding like it could have been a deep cut plucked from that first record, a woozy, slithery main riff, that kills, the vocals sing-songy and crazy catchy, lots of swirling psychedelic organ, if anything a little bit darker than the first record, but that's most definitely not a bad thing at all. The B side even more than "Poison Apple" sounds like it could have come straight off Blood Lust. swaggery and swinging, groovy and stonery, a wicked main hook, and a kick ass almost classic metal sounding riff. And unlike much of the new record, that does tend toward a sound that's darker, and slower, and more laid back, "Under The Spell" sounds like what Mind Control could have sounded like if the band just made a Blood Lust part two, a poppy heaviness that few bands can pull off as well as these guys, and the more we listen to this track, the more we think it just might be worth the $14.98. Obviously recommended, mostly for fans, but odds are if this ends up being the first thing you hear from Uncle Acid, you'll end up wanting everything else as well!
As we wait anxiously for a new full length from these aQ beloved psychedelic stoners (as well as their first ever SF show coming up soon!), for now we have one new track to tide us over. And fear not, it's a groovy good one. Nothing new really, but then we didn't actually want any sort of massive seismic sonic shift, we just wanted MORE, and that's just what you get. A new track called "Runaway Girls" that sounds like it could have been plucked right off of either of their albums proper, with a cool slithery riff, distorted wailing vocals, super melodic Sabbathy basslines, shambolic drumming, wild psychedelic leads and gorgeous guitar harmonies, the whole thing all warm and washed out and dreamily distorted, sounding like it could have been transported from some hard rocking alternate universe sixties, the song twisting and turning, from almost metallic riffing, to shimmery, melodic drift and back again.
The flipside is an acoustic version of what might have been our favorite track from Mind Control, that record's closer "Devil's Work", here recast as something darkly dreamy, and hauntingly folky, the track still fantastic, but more hushed and moody, like some lost Wicker Man track, or some deep cut by an ultra obscure seventies British acid folk combo. Cool!
SUPER DUPER LIMITED!! The batch we got is on blue vinyl, but hard to say if we'll be able to get more when we run out, and what color the next batch will be. And oh yeah, it's a pretty pricey import!
Clear the foggy cobblestone streets! Curfew is in effect! The streets are no longer safe. For around every shadowy corner and in every lonely lamplit alley may lurk... The Night Creeper!!! And accompanying this dark spectre is none other than Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats. That's right, crawling once more from the pale artificial B-movie light comes the return of everyone's favorite occult stoner garage popsters. The Night Creeper actually marks album number four for these psychedelic psycho-derelicts (although album number one seems nigh unattainable and has yet to be reissued, c'mon guys), and once again it slinks and oozes with a palpable lo-fi Hammer Horror dread, even when its wealth of catchy hooks seem ready to strike from nowhere, like a glistening blade hidden in a Victorian aristocrat's overcoat! Many of the same hallmarks of Uncle Acid's sound are here in full force: Roky Erickson, Manson-esque subliminal imagery, swinging Sixties pop, and of course Black Sabbath (whom the band recently fulfilled what we can only assume to be a lifelong dream in opening for). Also we note the Sabbath influence here seems to come from the sounds of their mid-'70s Sabotage era rather than the very early daze.
But compared to 2013's Mind Control, The Night Creeper seems perhaps a bit more concise - less conceptual, doomy and atmospheric - more straight forward and groovy. In a sense a bit closer to their modern classic, Blood Lust! Not to say there aren't some moments of quiet moody gloom, most notably the instrumental "Yellow Moon" and the gentle morphine-swing of 8 minute album closer (the very appropriately titled) "Slow Death". Not to mention the acoustic secret bonus track "Black Motorcade". Another highly enjoyable notch on the cellblock wall for these drug devil deviants!!
PS also on vinyl, we're just waiting for more...
So I'm going to try and not gush too much. I don't want to come across like a 13 year old girl reviewing the newest N-Sync record. But it's kind of hard to be objective when you're trying to turn people on to one of your all time favorite bands. And Uncle
Their debut, 'No Depression' was a furious amalgam of punk rock and country, with guitars on 10, crashing drums and some totally intense songs (check out the sound clips for 'Whiskey Bottle' and 'Graveyard Shift' from that record). They managed to capture a midwestern working man's hopelessness so perfectly that the songs spoke to you even if you lived in the city and had never even seen a tractor.
Their second record 'Still Feel Gone' continued along the same lines but with a little less aggression and a little more melody. Their third record marked a big shift in their sound and direction, when they enlisted Peter Buck of R.E.M. to help them record a record of traditionals (Coal Miners songs and the like) as well as some acoustic (traditional sounding) originals (check out the sound clip for 'Fatal Wound').
Their fourth and sadly last record 'Anodyne' is the record where everything fell into place. The music was pefect. So was the production, and they were finally selling lots of records. A lot of folks criticise 'Anodyne' for being too professional and too polished, but it seems to me, that's where they were headed all along. Top rate players, a gorgeously lush production and probably the best songs of their career helped push them even further into the public eye (check out the sound clip for 'Chickamauga'). But unfortunately for us, that was to be it. The two main songwriters (who by that point essentially wrote their own songs and brought them completed to the band) just needed to follow their own muses. So Jay Farrar went on to form Son Volt and now performs solo, and Jeff Tweedy went on to start Wilco, who are currently in major label hell with an finished record that the label stupidly deemed unreleasable. (The album in its entirety is available for download from Wilco's website, and reportedly over a hundred thousand people have downloaded it!)
So while there -are- plans to eventually release their first three albums, those of you who have never heard Uncle Tupelo might want to pick this up, at least until the original albums are finally released. And those of you who, like me, are Uncle Tupelo obsessives, will find plenty of reasons to own this (two bonus tracks, a demo and a thouroughly Tupelo-ized version of the Stooges' 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' as well as loads of photos and liner notes). And anyone who is at all into "alt. country" and listens to the Palace Brothers, and Songs:Ohia and Red Red Meat and Califone really owes it to themselves to check out Uncle Tupelo. You won't be sorry.
And if you decide to heed our advice and look for the full albums, Uncle Tupelo's last record, 'Anodyne' , their last and perhaps best, -is- still available and we can not recommend it highly enough.
The late great Uncle Tupelo's fourth album is my (Windy, and Andee's too!) favorite. It's SO AMAZING, the perfect marriage between country and rock. Dare I say that even Gram Parsons would agree!
Despite the fact that Anodyne, originally released in 1993, was Tupelo's major label debut and everyone was nervous that it would suck, somehow everything came together and they recorded their most mature and perfect album (and that's sayin' a lot since their first three records are also stellar). Artistic differences eventually broke up the band, with Jeff Tweedy going on to form WILCO and Jay Farrar forming SON VOLT. But listen, if you're a fan of either of those two groups but *haven't* heard Uncle Tupelo yet, do yourself a favor. Ditto if you're a fan of "no depression" style Americana -- most of today's bands will point to Uncle Tupelo as main inspirations.
This record is absolutely classic in flavor, staying power, talent and songwriting. Farrar's downtrodden and minor key heartstring-tuggers alternate with Tweedy's lighter ditties; upbeat fiddle-led numbers are nestled amongst slower tunes. And everywhere is the undeniable tug of the bittersweet to give it incredible depth. I have been listening to this album probably every week for the last ten years and have never gotten tired of it.
Lyrics! Five extra tracks: a Farrar tune, a Tweedy song from 2003(?), and a Waylon Jennings cover; plus live renditions of "Truck Drivin' Man" and "Suzy Q."
MPEG Download: "Slate" [/audio/tupeloslate.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Slate" [/audio/tupeloslate.m3u]
Some of you may have heard of Unholy Cadaver. But a LOT of you have heard of Hammers Of Misfortune, San Francisco's best rock-operatic political power prog metal (and more) band, featuring members of Ludicra and (formerly) The Lord Weird Slough Feg, among others. Our own Andee's tUMULt label put out their first album, The Bastard, in 2001. That's been followed by three (or four, depending on how you count, 'cause one was a double!) albums for Cruz Del Sur and Profound Lore. Their entire discography was then recently reissued by Metal Blade, who also signed the band for a new, upcoming opus.
Well, not quite their entire discography... 'Cause before The Bastard, Hammers Of Misfortune were known by another name - Unholy Cadaver. Who recorded an unreleased album back in 1997. They put out a rare demo cd-r at the time, with just three of that album's nine tracks on it, none of which sound like "demos" despite being recorded in the band's practice space. But until now, the entire hour-long recording - which includes a song called "Hammers Of Misfortune", by the way, a nearly 15 minute epic, all of side C here - has never been properly released. The always on top of it (when "it" is cult metal) Shadow Kingdom label has rectified that, and then some, with this limited, deluxe edition of what's essentially the real Hammers Of Misfortune debut, done as a double vinyl lp with cd version also included!
This is where it all started, mastermind John Cobbett & Co.'s unusual, amazing mash up of epic / traditional stylings with "extreme" metal mayhem, with loads of guitar shred, dramatic dynamics, majestic bombast, and an influx of avant garde / black metal weirdness. Unholy Cadaver's line up consisted of Cobbett (guitars/vocals), Chewy Marzolo (drums), still the core of Hammers today. They enlisted several guests for the male and female "operatic" singing parts: Mike Scalzi (of Slough Feg), Erica Stolz (of Lost Goat), and Lorraine Rath (currently in Worm Ouroboros, formerly of The Gault), who also did the cover art and logo. In some sort of quid pro quo, Cobbett joined up for a stint in Slough Feg on 2nd guitar not long afterwards, and Scalzi stayed on with Hammers for their first three albums, playing guitar live as well as singing.
The prototypical Hammers herky-jerky stop-start loud-soft songwriting style is already in full effect, incorporating glorious guitar harmonies and bludgeoning brutality both... with social commentary (and a sense of humor) hidden, or not so hidden, in the often allegorical fantasy lyrics. Signs of their origin in "abso-futurist" metalpunk band Thunderchip remain, both the presence of John's rasping black metallish (and guttural death metallish) vokills (which were dropped entirely after The Bastard), and seemingly silly (but actually serious) song titles/concepts like "Fuck The Galactic Police".
John and Chewy also do clean, sorta chant like vocals on some of the tracks, presumably written/recorded before they had availed themselves of Mike's triumphant baritone, the inimitable sound of which you'll hear here, appropriately enough, on the aforementioned epic "Hammers Of Misfortune", that's where they really become Hammers Of Misfortune! Not that the rest of this doesn't sound like Hammers, it sure does, but the male-female mock-operatic thing utterly comes to the fore, on that tour-de-force of a track (which also features a surprising amount of profanity from Rath's "caged princess" character).
We should also mention the final cut, all of side D, the nine-minute "Kloven Septum", which is more of an experimental, freaked out "noise" composition, but still metal. We expect the unexpected from 'em, but yet it's unlike much else in their discography, and actually we could do with a whole album of this, too! It and the other extreme metal aspects of Unholy Cadaver perhaps could be seen as feeding in to Cobbett's Ludicra project later on, as well.
Eventually Janis Tanaka took over the female vocalist/bass player position from Erica, and with a solid, full band lineup instituted, they relegated these early recordings to the vault, changed the name (good call) and plunged ahead into forging The Bastard... but Unholy Cadaver's long lost album was definitely more than a warm up, hearing the whole thing now we wonder why it took so long for this to finally see the light of day.
Considering that The Bastard happens to be our favorite of the Hammers albums, and this is what led up to it, a most welcome and highly recommended release! And we're guessing it's kind of limited, too. The packaging is quite fancy, a double gatefold lp, with one of the inside panels holding the compact disc version. There's also a 12"x12" insert on some sort of glossy photo-paper, with old b&w pictures of the band back then, complete lyrics, and new liner notes giving the history of UC/HoM. The cover features L. Rath's painting, originally used for the demo cd-r, bigger and better than before, 'cause it's now in full color. Oh and both the vinyl and the cd versions have been individually remastered! Nice work. Epically recommended!!!
The first release on Grindfreaks Records, the record label affiliated with the Grave record store in Osaka Japan, run by Takaho from Unholy Grave (but often manned by Chew, the drummer from Corrupted!) Grave only sells grind, grind and more grind (oh, and ok, a little hardcore and black metal), so what better way to launch the label than with the latest release from one of the longest running and most infamous Japanese grind bands of all time (and most prolific with nearly 70 releases, nearly all of them splits!!).
Unholy Grave are going on nearly 15 years of grinding destruction, and they still sound as fierce, and fucked up as ever. And even though it's 2007, in the world of Unholy Grave, it still sounds like it's 1987. Falling somewhere between Napalm Death's Scum and Carcass's Reek Of Putrefaction, but filtered through their own Japanese grind filter, the sound of Unholy Grave is gloriously guttural, furiously fast, and ultra distorted, with some of the most bad ass riffs EVER, and everything sooooooooo completely in the red, occasionally the band blasts into full on Japanoise territory. At their fiercest, it's like sticking your head in a dryer full of rusty nails, a relentless barrage of crusty sludge and blown out brutal blasts. But the band does slow down here and there, into weird moshy grooves, super intense doomy stomps and tangled mathy breakdowns, but never for long, always returning to a super fierce, face melting white hot rrrrroooooaaaar. The vocals are all over the shop too, from hysterical shriek, to growling gurgle, nimbly balancing on a musical bed of jagged glass, everything battered and bloodied and so gloriously kick ass and heavy. Some of us have been listening to this NONSTOP since we got it...
The booklet is awesome too, a full on old school punk rock collage of lyrics and slogans and clip art (including an obi of course!) and some seriously awesome art inside the tray card, a Russian leaflet, of which supposedly a million copies were distributed in 1941, with the legend: "GRINDCORE Against Terrorism" along side a Hitler moustachioed monkey behind bars, wearing an iron cross and a swastika armband... and in the corner the words "Gorilla Adolf", and in German: "Caution! Rabid!"�
Montreal, Quebec has spawned a vast array of eclectic and eccentric artists - many being the more 'serious' and intellectual kind. However here comes a young 'n' spritely new indie rock combo called Unicorns to shake things up a little. They're a quirky jumble of ramshackle, tweaked twee fun. Gleefully lo-fi and full of woozy whimsy, they even have a Unicorns anthem of sorts ("I Was Born (A Unicorn)"! Imagine a kiddie-pop meeting of Olivia Tremor Control and Flaming Lips, and you might have some idea of the toothsome songs that make up Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? Now, that's not to say they've reached the wondrous heights or either of those pop greats, but they certainly show much potential, and offer up a good time while doing so. Kooky and charming!
Fans of UOA, The Great Unravelling, Fifth Column, The Helikopters, and/or The Thumbs (whew!), take note. Members of all of those bands are present in the ranks of The Uniform (and they're only a trio!). They've already got a couple 7"'s and a few full lengths out, and here's another! They've been described as no-waveish, angular, and agitated, but to be honest my first impression was...
First/best from these Swedish Stooges worshippers, reissued. Features members-to-be of Soundtrack Of Our Lives.
For their second cd and first full length, The Union Trade's previous post-rock leanings are embraced by their fuzzy indie rock selves. Definitely brings to mind the slouchy, slightly dour charm of '90s college rock kingpins Sebadoh and Seam... for sure a good thing in our books! They've stripped back quite a bit of the guitar effects which dominated their previous release 2007's Now The Swell ep (or perhaps have more thoroughly integrated them), and have retained a nice warm blanket of reverb and gentler squalls of distortion. They're much more vocal heavy too. Eleven terrific songs for these overcast drizzly days!
