Any pop lover knows that when it comes to suave and sassy pop perfection, you can't beat France in the '60s and early '70s. With this collection the focus is put on the Parisian pop-psych scene, and what's really refreshing about this compilation is that it's not just filled with the usual suspects. So many names we weren't familiar with giving us such irresistible gems, and enough fuzz and weird elements on lots of the tracks to keep things interesting and not just saccharine sweet. Infusing elements of West Coast pop, the mod scene, and funked out burners, these are sounds that are just pretty impossible not to get swept up by. Filled with decadence and charm from folks like Cristal, Elisa, Les Hamsters (best name ever?!), Les Rover, Pax Quartet, and tons more.
No need to stress about what to throw on the next time you have people over for a little party, as all you will have to do is blast this, and watch as feet start tapping, and drinks start spilling, and everyone starts smiling!
Can there ever really be enough Cambodian Rock?
Don't answer that yet. Because while this double lp compilation does feature the stars of the genre featured on other Cambodian rock comps: Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Sereysothea, and Pan Ron, it also has plenty of others including the heavy psych groove of the Thra Kha Band who have two amazing tracks that are totally worth the price of admission. Plus it's a double vinyl gatefold with copious liner notes about the amazing music and tragic legacy of many of the music's star figures. Rarely does music seem so truly hauntological. Sunny, fun, and grooving on the surface, but layered over tragic notions of the political brutality that would come later. We've covered that history in plenty of previous reviews, so we won't go down that rabbit hole here, but this is a worthy selection of psych rock and garage gems, that didn't immediately sound like the others. So if you're new to Cambodian rock from the sixties and seventies, or would like a really well put together compilation on vinyl, now's your chance!
We made the last Group Flex flexi-disc book thing Record Of The Week back in 2011, and for good reason, visually and design wise it was about the coolest thing we'd ever seen, a cool little book, where each page was a fricking record, and you just put the whole book down on the turntable and let it spin! Besides how goddamn cool it was as an object, it also featured exclusive tracks from some of our favorite outfits: Thee Oh Sees, Blasted Canyons, Fresh & Onlys, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin.
So a few months back we got word from Oh Sees mainman / Castleface head honcho John Dwyer that there was another installment of Group Flex brewing, and it was gonna be even better than the first. And true to his word, when it showed up, we were sorta blown away. This time around, the book is entirely transparent, with crazy, surreal, psychedelic artwork on the various pages, so when the book is closed, the multiple pages, and strange shapes and creatures, form a sort of 3D visual, little Strawberry men with guns, weird demons holding maces, a creepy scribbly purple mountain, tree-cats, bloody brick walls, snake headed skull doctors all woven into a dizzying tableau that sort of reflects the warped music within. Once again, plenty of faves: Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, The Mallard, Sic Alps, White Fence, Mikal Cronin, The Fresh & Onlys, Kelly Stoltz, Blasted Canyons, as well as a few surprises: Burnt Ones, Warm Soda, Running. And like the first installment, anyone into ANY of these groups is basically gonna need this. Warm Soda might be the biggest surprise of the bunch, their track "Lost For Words" definitely has us hankering for more, a super catchy lo-fi power pop, that sounds like some strange mix of Guided By Voices and the Shoes. Thee Oh Sees deliver a cool broody, fuzzed out garage pop dirge, spare and swaggery. Ty Segall's "Fucked Up Motherfucker" is a super distorted blast of howl and pound laced with plenty of horns and sax bleat, while Mikal Cronin's "King" is all druggy, droned out organ, and drifting acoustic guitar strum, washed out and gloriously woozy.
The Mallard are all lo-fi jangle and crunch, while Running prove themselves to be another new band to look out for, one that most definitely fits in with the rest of the Castle Face crew, sounding like The Oh Sees' snotty little siblings. The Fresh & Onlys drift through some laid back, softly psychedelic classic pop, Kelly Stoltz's "Double Exposure" sounds like some lost slab of seventies/eighties new wave power pop, and White Fence gets even further out, super spaced out, tripped out, space pop weirdness, lots of FX and crumbling distortion, echo drenched vox, and warped production, and somehow in there, some crazy catchy melodies.
Former Record Of The Weekers Blasted Canyons kick out the jams on a short sharp burst of warm, blown out fuzz drenched jangle pop, before Sic Alps do the same, infusing the same sort of garage-y pound, with some expansive psychedelic classic pop-isms, before Burnt Ones finish things off with a super trippy chunk of processed guitar chug and swirling psych pop, crazy catchy, and like Warm Soda, has us wanting more more more!
As you might imagine, CRAZY LIMITED! The whole thing comes in a thick, screen printed PVC sleeve, also clear, adding to the 3D-ness, includes a download code for all the tracks, as well as instructions for playing and care of your Son Of Flex flexi-disc book. Each one unique, everyone slightly different. So cool. And so absolutely recommended.
It's inevitable! Every few years someone gets a wild'n'craaazy idea for one of these kinds of guilty pleasures compilations. Non-commercial artists covering commercial artists how fun/sick/hilarious is that?! Very. As per the time honored tradition there's some complete song renovations (Banhart's interpretation of Oasis' "Don't Look Back In Anger"), genre switcheroos (Luna gives Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" the lounge croon treatment, Superchunk totally unsouls and unsexes the Destiny's Child hit "Say My Name"), and all-out silliness (Petra Haden's girlish a cappella version of Journey "Don't Stop Believin'") and Mike Watt's strange, loose bowelled and toothless take on Blue Oyster Cult's "Burnin' For You"). A totally mixed bag of coverers and coverees, other artists doing the covering include Will Oldham, Mark Mulcahy, The Concretes, Jim O'Rourke, Money Mark, Mooney Suzuki, and Geoff Farina. Other artists being covered include Shania Twain, Spice Girls, Mariah Carey, Take That, Fall Out Boy, Love Unlimited Orchestra, Cher, Eddie Money, and System Of A Down. Fun stuff.
A complete about face for volume 2 in the Folk And Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) series of discs. Remember that first one? The manic weirdness was unlike anything we'd heard, nor anything we've heard since. So it's striking that volume 2 is a disc we can at least put in terms we know. What's perhaps most ironic is that the recordings on Guitars Of The Golden Triangle come from a territory of Burma that, while roughly the size of New York State, has been almost completely un-explored by outsiders (Burmese or otherwise). The Golden Triangle (its proper name is the Shan State of Burma) is little known outside its own country, but it is the territory of smugglers, seperatist rebels and some extraordinary opium production. Since it is forbidden for foreigners to visit the Shan State, it's no surprise that its flourishing cottage industry of a music scene would be completely unknown to outsiders. How Mr. Bishop got these tracks is anyone's guess, but as we've seen before the Sublime Frequencies folks have their ways with picking up ripe fruit that others walk straight past. The 21 tracks here, recorded during the early seventies, range between heavy fuzzed out psych -- like something much more likely to have come out in the late sixties -- to sugary crooning pop -- much more akin to its decade. Little is known of most of the artists: for instance the most well represented here -- Saing Saing Maw -- is only known to have been a truck driver originally (shades of Elvis anyone?) and after striking his music career apparently returned to truck driving.
Thanks in part to the movie "24 Hour Party People" there's been quite a revival in the last few years in curisoity about and reflections of the Manhester party/music scene of the late '80s/'90s. The center of all this dancing, drugging, and going on and on till the break of dawn was none other then the Nightculb Hacienda founded by New Order's Peter Hook. It was within the Hacienda's walls that much of the debauchery, indulgence, and fun/wasted times went down. This 3-disc box set put together by Hook himself compiles the sounds that were blaring out the speakers during its heyday. 808 State, Happy Mondays, Primal Scream, Jaydee, Eric B & Rakim, Candi Staton and of course New Order are just some the groups found on this here collection. For those of you who have been craving th sights and sounds and tastes more tastes of that wonderfully wicked Manchester club-scene then this is a party in a box for you. Sorry no purple pills included.
Anyone, ANYONE, who likes their psych all spaced-out and sludgy, with guitars and (especially) effects in full, uh, effect will definitely want to wash their earholes with this excellent new space-rock comp. Compiler Mason Jones (whom you might know as the ex-guitarist of SubArachnoid Space, currently in project called Numinous) knows his stuff and has pulled together tracks from a stellar international cast of rockers who like to freak-out, drone-on, and/or toke-up. Here's who's here: Kinski, Circle, Gravitar, Overhang Party, Tarantula Hawk, Up-Tight, Vocokesh, DMBQ, Bardo Pond, Acid Mothers Temple, Yeti, ST-37, Escapade, Rubble, Abunai!, SubArachnoid Space, Numinous, Farflung, Primordial Undermind, Fuzzhead, Speaker/Cranker, and Transpacific! Whew. As you can see, with Mason in charge, of course the Japanese contingent is well-represented.
The tracks on here are mostly live recordings, and, as far as we can tell, all otherwise unreleased (with the exception of the Tarantula Hawk one, which is an edit from their now-out-of-print Live At KFJC cd-r). Pretty much a killer comp, ranging as it does from the groove of Circle to the grind of Gravitar, with some bands doin' stuff closer to stoner rawk, others more on the bliss-drone side of things. Now, I might have tried to put the more rockin' cuts towards the front end of the discs, to avoid disturbing the slumber of those of us who like to doze off listening to the more blissful stuff (or maybe left off one or two cuts) but that's just me. Overall, Hall Of Mirrors is fully droned, stoned, and ET-phoned. Recommended.
Managed to get another handful of these super limited lps, so act fast:
Super limited vinyl document of the Halleluwah Festival Of Enthused Arts that took place in September 1-2 of this year curated by the same folks who do the killer yeti magazine.
Two sides, one quiet, one loud, a bunch of instantly recognizable names, as well as a bunch of unknowns (at least to us) all of it pretty dang amazing, so much so that we were kicking ourselves for missing the festival.
The quiet side features folk legend Michael Hurley, folk legend Vashti Bunyan and Tara Jane O'Neil, as well as White Rainbow, Holysons and Alela Diane. The sound leans mostly toward subtle twang, simple strum, and dreamlike croon, but there are some moments of blissy foggy ambient murmur and some fuzzy murky psychedelic blues.
The loud side features Deerhoof, Sir Richard Bishop and Valet (whose cd-r we raved about a few lists back) as well as three weirdly named ensembles: Nudity, Romancing and Yacht. The loud side veers all over the place, from weird psychrock tribal freakouts to blown out angular indie rock buzz to damaged minimal punk rock bounce to fuzzy psychedelic heavy riffed rock jams.
The packaging is just as impressive, a thick, plain white sleeve through which are visible strange looking inserts, each printed on super thick semi transparent cloudy plastic, the loud side is red on white with an illustration by Kevin Arrow, the quiet side is white on black, and features an amazing illustration by Unica Zurn, the partner of Hans Bellmer! Wow!!
This isn't brand new, but we just managed to get a bunch, and if this isn't just about the perfect compilation for you free-folk, psychedelic, new weird America fans we don't know what is. The track listing should be enough to convince you: Acid Mothers Temple, Kemialliset Ystavat, Amps For Christ, Greg Weeks, Pelt, Martyn Bates, Currituck County, Fursaxa, Dead Raven Choir, Alasdair Roberts, Stone Breath, the Iditarod, Mason Jones, and more!
From Revolver Distribution's blurb: "Originally released by Drunken Fish in November of 1996 as a specially designed triple-LP boxset produced in an edition of 3,000 (which quickly sold out its one and only pressing and has remained unavailable since). Featured are six exclusive, extended tracks (none of which is less than eighteen minutes in length) from this generation's spacerock elite: Bardo Pond, Flying Saucer Attack, Jessamine, Roy Montgomery, Loren Mazzacane-Connors and the Charalambides. Includes a lovely eight-panel foldout booklet. Standup for spacerock, because artrock is dead."
Who doesn't get a wee bit wistful at the stringy, tinkly sound of the harpsichord? Well, here's 23 songs graced by the presence of the lovely harpsichord. The music of artists such as StereoTotal and Momus welcomes this instrument warmly into its fold. And yes, ever the fellow to throw in a witty bonus, Momus includes his ode to Jeff Koons. Other artists include The Make-Up, The Secret Goldfish, and Cinerama. Decidedly baroque, lounge-y, playful, and fun.
Similar to the now-impossible-to-get, vinyl-only "Turkish Delights" compilation (but on cd and in stock!) is this great collection of vintage psychedelic rock music from Turkey. With 22 tracks, spanning the years 1966-1975, this collection is a great
"Heat & Birds" is the second 'friends and family' compilation to emerge from the Jewelled Antler collective, offering an overview not only of the numerous activities that are constantly evolving within the collective but also of like-minded artists from across the globe. Common to Jewelled Antler sound is a magical wistfulness, which seeps through every sound within the label and draws metaphors to half-dreamt memories, impossible lands that only exist in the imagination, or the simple awe of nature. While the core members (Glenn Donaldson, Loren Chasse, Rob Reger, and Steven R. Smith) are present, they've presented themselves in a variety of unique monikers and projects: such as Hala Strana (an uncredited pseudonym for Steven R. Smith, recreating a manic Hungarian folk instrumental with his trademarked production style of layered sounds building repeated riffs up to bittersweet crescendos), Of (an enigmatic project of evocative etherialism by Loren Chasse), and The Floating Birthday Children (the duo of Donaldson and Kerry McLaughlin offering pensive folk meanderings). Other, better-known Jewelled Antler projects, The Blithe Sons & Daughters, Thuja, and Franciscan Hobbies, also make appearances.
Of the non-JA projects, "Heat & Birds" also features the Finnish avant-improv-rock bands Kemialliset Ystavat, the medieval sounding Markus, and the elusive Avarus. Also, the San Francisco band Golden Hotel have produced another brilliant, drugged-out folk song, but do they remember recording it? And, there's some wonderful field recordings by AQ's own Byram Abbott of the birds in rehabilitation at Fort Cronkite just north of San Francisco. I could go on, but why spoil the mysteries? "Heat & Birds" is a great collection from a great organization. Recommended.
Originally intended to be a Record Store Day release, this killer compilation from the Learning Curve label made it to aQ just under the wire, but seems to have maybe not made it anywhere else in time. So for those of you who couldn't make it to aQ on the big day, and love themselves some knuckle dragging, head banging, pig fuck noise rock crush, well then this here comp is for YOU. No doubt, a bunch of the names will be familiar to long time aQ-ers, Hex Machine (whose new record is reviewed on this week's list), Seawhores, Dead (whose new lp we reviewed here recently), Gay Witch Abortion (whose new record can also be found elsewhere on this week's list), but there's a bunch of new to us outfits, most with awesome names: Cars & Trucks, Decoupler, Bang The Favorite Raver and Spilling Fingernails And Blood Sap, and looks like there's even some sort of mega noise rock jam credited to Gay Whores Skoal Power, which we can only assume is a bunch of those bands crammed together.
Pretty much every track here rules, and anyone who dug the golden age of Amphetamine Reptile will be like a pig in musical shit, some highlights include the Seawhores track, which is SO goddamn good. Forgot how great these guys are/were, didn't even realize they were still a band, but hearing their track makes me pray to Satan they still are. A tangled churn of progged out noise rock heaviness, the sounds distorted and doused in FX, rhythmic and trippy, locking into almost looped sounding hypnorock jams, one second, sounding almost new wave the next, the sounds all blown out and in the red. There NEEDS to be a new record by these guys for sure.
Gay Witch Abortion never fail us, and their weird, distorto dirge here manages to fuse some obtuse poppiness to some crumbling dirginess, a weird little sludge pop doom nugget that will have you wanting to pick up their full length for sure. Cars & Trucks were an awesome surprise, total nineties heavy rock radness, REAL singing, hooks galore, melodies, harmonies, but plenty of tripped out weirdness. They're the kind of heavy that could actually be popular. Pushes all our heavy rock buttons, and makes us definitely want to hear more.
Decoupler are cool too, sounding like a super caffeinated, progged out Torche maybe, catchy, but frantic and frenetic. Spilling Fingernails And Blood Sap are the most metal here, channeling some Today Is The Day for sure. And Bang The Favorite Raver is some sort of pisstake, sounding like Missing Persons. And that final megajam, not the heaviness we were maybe expecting, instead some super noisy psychedelic collage, feedback, and grinding buzz, buried vocals, buried melodies, buried drums, warped samples, voices and screams, bits from the radio, all beneath a swirl of hazy druggy noisiness.
So cool. Such a killer collection, the rare compilation that actually leaves you wanting to hunt down more music from pretty much almost all the artists. Includes a download too!
Or rather, should the title should be "Here's To Old Edward!"? 'Cause this compilation celebrates the many musical faces of one Mr. Edward Ball which first surfaced back in the '70s and have frequently popped up through the past couple decades. Perhaps, you're familiar with his music on his own as a solo artist or in Teenage Filmstars (one of Andee's favorite bands of all time, rivalling My Bloody Valentine for sheer warped glorious guitar overload, there's even a quote on the front of the disc where MBV's Kevin Shields refers to Ball as "a modernist musical alcheemist"!), The Times, O Level, Boo Radleys and Television Personalities -- this comp draws from the first four. Lots of distinctly Brit references such as re-enactments of the intro dialogue to the wonderfully cryptic television series The Prisoner in the song "I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape" or a rendition of New Order's "Blue Monday" sung in French ("Lundi Bleu") or nods to different cities such as "Manchester", "Cloud Over Liverpool" and "This Is London". Groovy and trippy and jangly, very Beatles-esque bright and sunny power pop with occasional hazy clouds of shoegazer-ness and trippy psychedelia. But it's the Teenage Filmstars tracks that will kick your ass. Unfortunately we've been unable to get any of ther albums for a while. So for now, this sampler will have to do. It's within the TF tracks that the strummy psychedelic Beatles-esque pop of Ball's other outfits gets cranked up a notch, doused in liquid LSD and set aflame. Backwards drums, funhouse mirror guitars, distorted vocals, all twisted and tangled into massive MBV meets Jesus And Mary Chain mayhemic pileup. Just give a listen to the sound sample for "Physical Graffiti". Woah. And while the rest of the tracks don't pack quite the same wallop, it's all really cool hazy Brit-psych-pop of the highest order.
BTW: Really funny quote on the sticker: Noel Gallagher from Oasis: "Edward Ball is the second best songwriter in Britain today." Ha ha.
We've said it before and we'll say it again. It never ceases to amaze us how there can be such an endless supply of killer '60s garage-psych songs to fill up compilation after compilation. Sure, once in a while there's some overlap, but really, it's incredible how many obscure bands managed to release a completely charming 7" single or two and then vanished - but their music lives on, thanks to comps like this one! The appropriately named High All The Time features a whole bunch of turned-on, drugged-out sounds circa 1966-69, all of it fuzzy and freaky and sometimes beautifully melodic.
14 tracks, 11 bands, mostly from the US of A, though two bands are Dutch and one Swedish (The Shakers, doing "Who Will Buy (These Wonderful Evils)", a classic acid-guitar drenched track we know from another comp that took that for its title. But that Shakers song is the only thing here we'd heard before.
Opening the proceedings, Mammoth takes a Kinks "You Really Got Me" type riff and fuzzes it up big time, hinting at Blue Cheer style heaviness. Then, getting even freakier, The Hobbit tosses some musique concrete sound FX into their exotic "Author's Message". Next up, Dragonfly's "Celestial Dream" is indeed pretty dreamy, coming from a band who wore wild dragonfly-wing facepaint.... so, we won't describe all the tracks, but suffice to say they're all quite groovy, and varied, and definitely high all the time, yeah! No bummers here. Bad trips, yes, well, there's The Darelyck's track "Bad Trip", a propulsive sorta-rockabilly garage beat number with the vocalist mainly chanting "It was a bad trip, it was a bad trip" over and over, way cool... From start to finish, this is comp is our idea of a good trip. And the finish is a strong one, tracks 13 and 14 being both sides of The Beautiful Daze's "City Jungle Parts 1 & 2", with Part 2 being a particularly dense, droning, throbbing piece of work.
This compact disc edition (the comp itself is a reissue, apparently originally released on LP back in the late '70s or '80s we'd guess) includes in its booklet what meager information they were able to dig up about each band, with discographical information and sometimes graphics from the original 45's.
Naturally, this is the sequel to the excellent '60 fuzz psych compilation High All The Time Vol. 1. We reviewed that last year, it was a pretty darn killer comp indeed, and so is this follow-up! There's 14 cuts from 14 bands, from garages all across the US of A, circa 1966-'74. Like Vol. 1, this is the place to go for savage fuzz romps -and- trippy psychedelic excursions. And as before, it's all obscure stuff. The only artist we'd heard of before is J.D. Blackfoot, one of the few acts here who managed to release a long-player, most of the rest of 'em having but one rare 7" single to their name. However, the A-side (or sometimes B-side, let's hear it for B-sides!) to that single was often enough of a recorded legacy to earn 'em a pool of drool from record collectors and garage psych connoisseurs for ever and ever. Listen in, you can hear why.
This starts off plenty fierce with the aforementioned J.D. Blackfoot's gruffly-sung "Epitaph For A Head". Classic & wild! That's followed by "Time Out To Fly" by Magical Mist, almost as fuzzy but a bit more dreamily moody as befits their name, reminding us of the Electric Prunes by the end of the tune. But even the most melancholic and melodic cuts here tend to erupt eventually into at least one white hot blast of acid guitar soloing excess, if not totally freaking out into full-on scuzz stomp. Other highlights include the lovely "Sad Now" by Solid Ground, and a not-so-folky rendition of "If I Were A Carpenter" by Grant's Blueboys, among others. Another cool cover here is Chesmann Square's "Circles", originally by The Who. The line up also includes: American ZOO, Thundering Heard, ESB, Thorinshield, Odyssey, Ocelot, Jordan, World Column, and Catfish Knight & The Blue Express.
The glossy cd booklet contains brief (sometimes very brief!) liner notes and discographical information for each act, with vintage photos and 45 labels in some cases too. Yep, just what we were hoping for when we realized that Volume 1 of course implied a Volume 2... By the way, we've reached the point in time where we're seeing reissues of reissues, apparently both volumes came out on vinyl in the early '90s but now's the first time they've appeared on cd.
Aaaah, reunions are always a weird mish mash of emotions, the warm fuzzies and the uh-oh discomforts, aren't they? Lots of faces are fondly familiar while others don't register at all in your memory banks. Such is the totally case with High School Reunion -- A Tribute To Those Great 80's Films with both the selection of songs and the artists covering them. Some familiar notables are Matthew Sweet (American Girl"), Frank Black ("Repo Man"), Blake Babies' John Strohm ("Somebody's Baby"), Kristin Hersh ("Wave Of Mutilation"), and the odd fresh-faced presence of the Dresden Dolls ("Pretty In Pink"). Of course for whatever reason (a link to a warm memory, a personal turning point, a soft spot for the actual movie, or simply the fact that it was just a great song), so many of these songs are so near and dear to the teenage hearts in each of us... as are the '80s flicks from which they came. Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Pretty In Pink, The Breakfast Club, Some Kind Of Wonderful, Valley Girl, Repo Man, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Pump Up The Volume, Say Anything, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ah yes, we remember them all so well. It's a pleasure when the cover kicks as much butt as (or betters) the original, but extra painful when some band does a so-so (or worse) version. Fortunately few if any of the twenty tracks fall into the latter category, and most offer at least a respectful if unchallenging take on the oldie. A nostalgia'n'irony super-size extra cheese full meal deal!
Comp of Little Richard soundalikes!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Krautrock legends get their props with this comp, featuring Michael Rother (ex-Neu!), James Plotkin, Autechre, Legendary Pink Dots, Dead Voices On Air, and others...but no Stereolab! What?
As this jam-packed tribute compilation began, we thought, "hmm, sound like these aren't going to be straightforward renditions of Throwing Muses tunes". The lead-off song is a softly groovy version performed by Sharashka who was mistaken for SF's pretty popsters Loquat. The second by The Blood Group is somewhat more faithful to Hersh's unmistakable reeling voice and guitar. From there it scatters into many, many directions. The impressive array includes full-on power rock riffin' by Dirty Power, the distraught shifting angularities of Xiu Xiu, the electronic rock stomp of Hypofixx and thirteen others. The songs sound good in all fashions presented here. Perhaps what this really exemplifies and confirms (i.e, that these songs hold up in a such a variety of stylistic renderings) is just how fine a songwriter Kristin Hersh is. A truly eclectic and respectful homage to a fabulous band and songwriter.
Cool sampler of noisy experimental skronky ultra-hip or soon-to-be-hip electro-punk-noise rock from all over the place. Most of this stuff is previously released, so this is definitely better as an intro for the uninitiated. But there is lots of new names and new noise to discover for thos in search of buried rock treasure. Erase Errata, The Yeay Yeah Yeahs, !!!, Radio 4, Pink Grease, Whitey, Chrome Hoof, Queens Of Noize, Ex-Models, Part Chimp, Bane Overlord, Disastronaut (best name ever?) and lots more!
We were quite surprised by how rocking these renditions of classic (and already perfect) Blondie tunes were. Tough sounding girl vocals and chunky guitar sounds amke this sort of great. Bands from all over the place: North Carolina, Japan, L.A., Detroit,
There's another festival goin' on right now here in festival-healthy SF... and L.A., San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, and Calgary too. It's the How To Destroy The Universe Festival of extreme art and music featuring performances by artists such as Blixa Bargeld, The Living Jarboe, and F-SPACE. In case you aren't able to attend, the organizers (Mobilization Records) didn't want you to completely miss out so they've released this compilation of recordings by select participants - the abovementioned as well as Savage Republic, Soriah, The Centimeters, The Sixteens and Black Ice. Come to think of it, for those of you who are attending, this'll make a cool nicely priced souvenir, won't it?
A tribute to Antonioni's 1966 classic film "Blow-Up". Features a wide range of contributors including Matmos, Sun City Girls, Starfuckers, Dean Roberts, Richard Youngs, Arthur Doyle (!), Loren Mazzacane Connors, William Parker, Amy Denio, Dorgon, Mushroom and Birdsong's Air Force. Vinyl only.
The soundtrack to this Sean Penn / Michelle Pfeiffer tearjerker is comprised entirely of Beatles covers, and I'm sorry to say that it's pretty dire, except for the wonderfully earnest Rufus Wainwright rendition of "Across the Universe". Wainwright's voice just does not lie! Aimee Mann and Michael Penn romantically croon "Two of Us", and Paul Westerberg wails "Nowhere Man, and those're pretty good. But the rest of this stinks, including Grandaddy's version of "Revolution" and Nick Cave's embarrassing "Let It Be". Sigh. Other perpetrators include Eddie Vedder, Black Crowes, Sheryl Crow, Sarah Maclachlan, Ben Harper, the Wallflowers, Ben Folds, etc.
Paying tribute to one of the greatest musical beings of our lifetime is a pretty hefty challenge but luckily M. Ward, who put together this comp, did a really nice job of bringing together artists who have been greatly influenced by Fahey's guitar playing and legacy. You can hear in the these covers how deeply felt Fahey's music has been to the next generation of musicians who use guitar as their tool of expression. This is one of those rare tributes that doesn't feel like a haphazard hack job. Fahey's music is so spiritual and pure that there is no doubt everyone on here was honored to pay their respects and came through with excellent versions of Fahey originals. With people like Devendra Banhart, Lee Ranaldo, Howe Gelb, Sufjan Stevens, Calexico, Pelt, Cul De Sac, Currituck Co. and more all contributing covers, it's so nice to hear how they each came to a Fahey song with their own aesthetic at hand. Released on Vanguard who put out many of Fahey's classic albums, the packaging is really nice with each artist contributing a blurb about their relationship with Fahey's music. Tribute records aren't usually this thoughtful and well executed and we're so glad that for John Fahey it was done right because he deserves nothing less then excellence in his honor!
Everyone loves Guitar Wolf!
Lightning Bolt loves Guitar Wolf!
J Mascis + The Fog loves Guitar Wolf!
Jim O'Rourke loves Guitar Wolf!
Puffy Amiyumi loves Guitar Wolf!
Snuff loves Guitar Wolf!
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion loves Guitar Wolf!
Cato Salsa Experience loves Guitar Wolf!
Fast Fourier loves Guitar Wolf!
The Hellsquad loves Guitar Wolf!
The Wildhearts loves Guitar Wolf!
Porch Ghouls loves Guitar Wolf!
Autoramas loves Guitar Wolf!
Total Dork loves Guitar Wolf!
Yes, very much! And they show it in spades on this tribute to the beloved Japanese band! If you've yet to experience the wild wonder that is Guitar Wolf, there's Golden Black which is a rad new best of and rarities collection that Narnack also just released. It completely encapsulates their greatness!
Simply put, this is a covers album by indie-kids of '80s metal classics... with Reggie & The Full Effect doing Slayer (imagine "Raining Blood" with zippy new wave keyboards--it's amazing!), The Get Up Kids reworking Motley Crue, Jejune covering the Scorpions, and the much sought-after really weirdo experimental acoustic country rendition of Slayer's "South of Heaven" by Modest Mouse + Califone! Electric Frankenstein, Supernova, Less Than Jake, and others also contribute. Yeah, it's basically a fun, joke record, yet at moments kind of incredible (like The Killingtons' strange, unrecognizably spaced out take on W.A.S.P.'s "F**k Like A Beast"). It makes me wish that there were bands that actually sounded like this all the time! Put it this way: Allan never ever thought he'd have any desire to own a record containing a track by Modest Mouse, let alone a band with a name like 'Mephiskapheles', until he heard this one. (Mephiskapheles do a horn-free version of Celtic Frost's "Necromatical Screams" by the way).
This one shouldn't need much of a review at all. A killer 'local' band comp, featuring a bunch of our fave West Coast groups from San Francisco, Oakland, LA, and Portland: Warm Soda, Sonny & The Sunsets, Burnt Ones, Chris Cohen, the Sandwitches, Magic Trick, Little Wings, Cool Ghouls, Jessica Pratt and more. Warm Soda kick things off with a groovy blast of retro garage pop, all Yellow Pills style fuzzy, jangly power pop, that once again reminds us what a total genius Matthew Melton (Warm Soda, Snake Flower 2, Bare Wires). But there's plenty more good stuff here. Burnt Ones offer up their own retro blast, theirs significantly more murky and woozy and washed out. Ex- Deerhoofer Chris Cohen delivers an achingly lovely ballad, all distant shimmer, acoustic guitar shimmer, and glimmering harmonics, and those grogeous vox. The Sandwitches' track is all echo drenched lo-fi jangle, while Sonny & The Sunsets (whose Sonny curated this whole comp) give us some sun dappled, strum and jangle fuzz pop dreaminess, while locals Cool Ghouls get all sixties girl group, with reverby female vox, shimmery guitar strum and a hazy psychedelic production.
The best part about comps, for us at least, is as much about new discoveries as old faves, and Pure Bliss are the big discovery this time around, all shimmery jangle, deep dramatic vocals, classic old school dream pop that had us hankering for LOTS more. Speaking of which, there's lots more here too, tracks by the Memories, Fronds, Sunfoot, Wet Illustrated and Earth Girl Helen Brown!
Pressed on heavy, marbled slime green vinyl, that matches the zombie afro vampire cover art, includes an insert/comic, as well as a download code!
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Newest offering from Germany's Trikont label. Yet another genre spanning collection of music, this time devoted to Hank Williams. Featuring covers by such disparate artists as The Residents, Hasil Adkins, Killdozer, Isaac Hayes, Link Wray, Freddy Fender, Mekons, Al Green, Buckwheat Zydeco, Jad Fair, Charlie Feathers and much more!
It's hard to believe that Important Records have been around for ten years. Even harder to believe that in those ten years, they've released THREE HUNDRED records, thirty a year. No wonder we can barely keep up with them. But it's sure fun to try. This super limited lp celebrates this big anniversary with exclusive live tracks from a handful of Important bands, a list that reads like an aQ dream team: Mugstar offer up some seriously fuzzy psychedelic stomp, a Stooges / Hawkwind hybrid equal parts heavy and spacey, Cave are at their most krautrocky here, blissed out and rhythmic, the sound thick layered and epic, Grails get almost funky, doing their best impression of classic Can, thick basslines, groovy rhythms and a sound that's super distorted and blown out, Bardo Pond deliver their usual blast of swirling druggy psych, all warbly vox and swirling chaotic psychguitar bliss, Master Musicians Of Bukkake get all ritualistic, with gamelan like percussion, bleating horns and demonic gurgling vox, Chord get seriously mellow, unfurling a hazy bit of dreamy drift, hushed and surprisingly ambient, aQ fave Bass Communion teams up with someone called Pig for a thick dense sprawl of blackened guitar buzz and swirling atmospheres, a slow burning track that gradually gets noisier and noisier, and then finally, someone called NHK yx finishes things off with a super minimal chunk of lo-fi skittery insectoid buzz and squelch electronica.
All killer stuff, vinyl only, and most likely limited...
A friend of ours is a Canadian MC who often introduces himself with the line, "I'm quite popular in France... a country renown for its terrible taste in music." With that in mind, it's unsurprising that the treasures found on this latest compilation of French minimal/cold/new-wave and post-punk from the fine folks at Born Bad Records in gay Pareee never found much favor in their homeland the first time around, as a country immersed in accordions and Edith Piaf may not have known what to do with Warm Joe's synth-bleep-infused, art-damaged, poppity punk skronk ferinstance.
If you've been following the slow but steady trickle of French reissue compilations that we've been fawning over for the past year here at aQ HQ like So Young But So Cold, BIPPP, and Les Jeunes Gens Moderne (that one coming soon on an expanded double cd by the way!), you'll be pretty familiar with the basic formula for many of the tracks: primitive beat box drums pushed to their limits + fuzzed out guitar + synths that provide everything from squidgy bass to massively hooky lead lines to disco lasers to de rigeur blips, bloops and bleeps + vocals that manage to sing, scream, coo, croon and yowl all at once = insanely melodic, freaked out french synth-punk that hybridizes everything good about early electro, new wave, disco, punk, pop and even chansons francais. So yeah, if you liked any or all of those other comps then save yourself the trouble of reading any further and just buy this already. It rules.
Not convinced? Ok, fair enough. What if we told you that IVG not only digs as deep as if not deeper than the other comps (honestly, when a track you've never heard by Ruth is the most familiar thing on the tracklist, then you know that you're in for some serious obscurities...), but it also pushes the weirdo factor up exponentially? For starters, Dead Heat have a baby laying down vocals on their contribution, "Damnee Petite Sophie" and every single part of Crise de Nerf's over-caffeinated fuzz freak out, "Rock A La Tele," honestly sounds like it's about to explode spectacularly. Toss in some alternate reality soundtrack work by Stabat stable, not one BUT TWO soundscape-y tone poems by Theatre Commercial, and a song by Ruth that sounds frighteningly like Dr. Know from Bad Brains jamming with Sonic Youth and you know you are headed somewhere fantastic. Seriously, mes amis: up the volume, up the speed, up the fuzz, up the fucked up French punks. ALLONS Y!
Dang, we've got a good one here for followers of the whole "Wooden Guitar" crowd -- Wooden Guitar being the name of another compilation on another label, devoted to guitarists doing acoustic solos in the tradition of John Fahey and the other folky folks on his classic Takoma label roster. That's more or less the idea here too, except that in addition to contemporary flame-keepers of the form like Pelt's Jack Rose and Cul de Sac's Glenn Jones, this comp features quite a few veteran string pickers who were part of the '60s scene -- some of 'em just recently been coaxed out of retirement. There's a few archival cuts dating from decades back, but a lot of this is newly recorded, and much of it is as yet otherwise unreleased, live and studio tracks both. Not all the names are familiar but when you hear 'em you'll want to hear more. The line-up includes the aforementioned Rose and Jones, along with Sandy Bull, John Fahey, Harry Taussig, Harris Newman, Brad Barr, Bern Nix, Steve Mann, Janet Smith, Terry Riley and his son Gyan, Suni McGrath, Bob Hadley, Kaki King, and Max Ochs (whose Fahey-dedicated track "Inspirational Anthem" gives this collection its title, and appears here twice, once in a version recorded in '69 and another from just last year). Moods and techniques vary, from the more old timey to the Eastern-tinged to the jazz-flecked. But it's all totally entrancing, hypnotic, transportational music. Several generations of adventurous American acoustic guitarists are represented here and it's nice to know that this musical movement looks to be going on strong into the future. A fine comp indeed!
Second Volume of American Primitive guitar explorations from both the old and new schools, showcasing the diverse styles of its strongest players. While the patron saint of this movement is still John Fahey, the resonant strains between generations exemplify how far the movement has grown while allowing each artist to retain their own voice. Representing the old school this time around are Billy Faier, Michael Chapman, Peter Lang (re-doing a piece from the early '70s), Fred Gerlach and a rare live recording of Robbie Basho from the Venus in Capricorn era. The New school is represented by James Blackshaw, Jose Gonzalez. local Berkeley muscian Sean Smith, Christina Carter from Charalambides, Jack Rose (also featured on Vol. 1), Jesse Spearhawk, and British Banjo player Sharron Kraus. From traditional Americana, to eastern inflected ragas, shimmering 12 string washes to minimalist banjo odes, this is a fine set of excursionary guitar.
The second volume in local label Secret Seven's SF underground rock primer lp series, and like the first, it's jam packed with tons of aQ faves, including the Ty Segall Band (whose recent Slaughterhouse album we made our Record Of the Week), Tim Cohen of the Fresh & Only's and Magic Trick, Wymond Miles also from the Fresh & Only's, Paula Frazier of the late great Tarnation, Sonny & The Sunsets, Hannah from Grass Widow, Kelly Stoltz, the Papercuts, Vetiver, as well as a few new to us names including Bad Backs and Lucky Eyes. And while there are no huge sonic surprises here, that's not what this series is all about, it's either an introduction to a thriving scene for the uninitiated, or a killer mixtape of exclusive tracks from a who's who of SF indie rock combos.
And again, like the first volume, plenty of gems to be found, Vetiver's "Any And All" might be one of our favorites from them yet, sounding like some lost Kinks B side, all lilting jangle and twang pop chorus, Ty Segall offers up a bruising guitar heavy chunk of garage pop crunch. Papercuts deliver some hazy washed out slowcore blissiness, Hannah from Grass Widow offers up one of the best tracks here, a heady, home brewed bit of reverby slo-mo dream pop balladry, all multi-tracked vocals, and lush layered lo-fi loveliness. Bad Backs combine organ drive garage rock fuzz pop with classic power pop songsmithery that definitely has us wanting to hear more (which is not surprising once we'd discovered BB features Andrew from SF pop punk heroes Ovens!), and Lucky Eyes too are a nice surprise, their track a strange harmony vocal-ed dirge pop creep.
And there's more more more more, and like all good comps, will have you scrambling to pick up anything and everything you don't have already by all of these artists! Packaged in a swank full color sleeve with a printed insert.
Killer new collection jam packed with aQ faves, a vinyl only primer on the San Francisco underground. Most folks won't need to know much more than this:
EXCLUSIVE TRACKS FROM THEE OH SEES, TY SEGALL, THE FRESH & ONLYS, SONNY 7 THE SUNSETS, KELLY STOLTZ, TIM COHEN, THE SANDWITCHES...
But there's way more, there's also Hannah And Raven of Grass Widow, the Trainwreck Riders, the Exray's, Paula Frazier (of Tarnation), Dylan Shearer, Jacques Butters, and Donovan Quinn + The 13th Month (he of the Skygreen Leopards), a pretty stellar collection, and it sounds as good as you might imagine. Sonny & The Sunsets' offer up some warm summery jangle, the Fresh & Only's get all new wave with a song that sounds at first like Devo's version of "Working In A Coalmine", before getting all twangy and reverby, Thee Oh Sees track is a twisted garbled-vocal sixties shuffle, a twisted murky Monster Mash groove, Tim Cohen offers up a bit of classic Beatles-esque pop, haunting and stripped down, the Ty Segall track is a snotty noisy garage rock dirge that RULES, and we could go on.
Needless to say, fans of any or all of the above outfits are gonna want this, and it just might introduce you to some other local combos that could very well become new favorites...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Features the Melvins, Noisegate, The Spacewurm, Lesser, Concentrick, MSBR, Radiosonde, Non, Lockweld, 5/5/2000, Zipper Spy, Abdomen, Erik Core, Wizards Of War, Psywarfare, 3 Bloody Monkeys, and Deerhoof.
Featuring solo turns by members of Buffalo Tom, Helium, Karate, The Secret Stars, plus the Richard Davies band, Ida, and more.
A while back, we went a little crazy for a series of three limited edition (and now long out of print) 7"s, a series of Hawkwind tributes, by some of our favorite modern psych rock heavies, tracks from Kinski, Bardo Pond, Acid Mothers Temple, White Hills, Mudhoney and Mugstar, all of them amazing. So now finally, those 7"s have been compiled onto a cd, including not only all of those original tracks, but also some bonus tracks to boot, more Hawkwind covers by Moon Duo, Magoo and *another* cover by aQ faves Mugstar. More on those in a moment, first, let's talk about those original singles, and of course the mighty HAWKWIND!
Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked exactly these, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were simply a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was.
So how does each band fare? Pretty marvelously in fact, let's run through the track shall we?
Kinski are up first, and they definitely get their Hawkwind on, covering "Master Of The Universe", not so much making it their own, as transforming themselves into a vessel through which the spirit of Hawkwind can flow, and flow it does. That main riff is such a killer, all the band have to do is ride it out, adding plenty of freaked out effects and psychedelic leads, the vocals buried in the mix, not getting in the way of the endless spacepsych jamming.
Bardo Pond add female vocals to their take on "Lord Of Light", the vocals drifting ethereally, over a roiling black cloud of FX drenched guitars and some seriously pounding drums, even a bit of flute (we think), and maybe more than any of the others managing to meld the sound of the original with their own, plenty of wah wah guitar, loads of effects, most of the track spent drifting through space, cloaked in blown out super distorted psych guitar and shimmering outer space ambience. Surprisingly heavy and totally blissed out.
Acid Mothers Temple are an obvious choice to pay homage to a band who was doing the AMT thing 30 years ago, and in true AMT fashion, Kawabata and company go for it, covering "Brainstorm" although it's difficult to tell, as it's buried under sheets of wild freaked out psych guitar and blown out space rock effects EVERYWHERE. It really doesn't sound all that different from any number of other AMT jams, but that's basically because every AMT jam is a tribute to Hawkwind, isn't it?
NYC's White Hills ditch much of their usual spaceiness for something a bit harder, tackling "Be Yourself" with crunchy chugging guitars, pounding drums, wild tangles of distortion drenched leads over the top, the band not so much covering the original, as transforming it into an endless psychedelic hard rock loop, the band churning and grinding out a steady stream of psychedelia over that endless main riff, before drifting off into a cloud of glittering soft psych shimmer.
Mudhoney tackle "Urban Guerilla" and totally make it their own, so much so, that minus a little chunk of extended droney space rocking in the middle, those not well versed in Hawkwind would certainly be forgiven for thinking it was a Mudhoney original.
And finally Mugstar throw their space rock hat into the ring, and are a DEAD ringer for Hawkwind, their sound murky and muddy, squalls of psych guitar, clouds of swirling spaced out FX, droned out jams, all tangled up and slowly unwinding into a long sprawling space rock jamscape. Hawkwind would be proud.
Phew, even without bonus tracks, this would be a serious killer, but for the cd reissue there are three! The one most folks seem to be super excited about is the Moon Duo jam. Moon Duo, for those not in the know, is the two piece drum machine driven space kraut offshoot of SF psychedelic rockers Wooden Shjips, and they take Hawkwind's "Hurry On Sundown" and stretch it way out, skeletal drum machine, woozy organ drones, reverbed Suicide like vox, dark and hypnotic and spacey, only to erupt about halfway through into something way more rocking, grinding distorted tendrils of psychguitar smolder wrapped all around that unrelenting motorik groove.
Magoo, who we don't know too much about, tackle "Space Is Deep", and stay pretty true to the HW formula, thick fuzzy bass, fiery effects drenched guitars, stripped down and minimal, the vocals sounding very Geddy Lee, eventually the track builds to a seriously spaced out fuzzguitar stomp, unleashing that wild chaotic heart of the sun Hawkwind style extended outro that pretty much WAS the hallmark of every incredible HW space jam, and they nail it.
Finally, Mugstar gets another go, and they take on "Paradox" and like their version of "Born To Go", they might as well just fess up to being the reincarnated spirit of Hawkwind, cuz holy shit, for all thebands who ape that Hawkwind sound, few capture the mood and spirit and vibe and SOUND as well as these guys, crunchy fuzzy guitars, super melodic basslines, vocals buried in the mix, everything wrapped in swirling streaks of whooshing sci-fi effects, slipping easily from blissed out almost krautrock style groove, to fierce almost metalic crunch, culminating in, yes, another gloriously blown out, extended hypnotic space rock freak out finish.
It may be a comp, and it may be all covers, but this is still most definitely a contender for freaked out, psychedelic space rock record of the year!!
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Wow. The London based Soul Jazz label does it again. They've already documented the global history of funk and soul in several astonishingly well-executed collections including the universally loved "100-500% Dynamite" series of Jamaican soul, rocksteady, and reggae; the Philadelphia Roots collection; the Nu Yorica albums; that ESG reissue, and even an Art Ensemble of Chicago album. Yet none of these albums has been as highly anticipated or so spot-on timely as this new one from Soul Jazz, "In The Beginning There Was Rhythm."
This compilation succeeds in encapsulating that heady time between the years 1978 and 1982, when the "second wave" of British punk bands found inspiration in both the musical and political power of reggae. As the situationist propaganda of Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols spawned a global theater of anarchist shock tactics, even such right-wing idiots as the skinhead, white power, and neo-Nazi parties dared to embrace punk's celebration of chaos. Thus, those (mostly white) musicians within the punk movement who were *opposed* to such unsavory politics stood in solidarity both politically and aesthetically with their black brothers in Jamaica. Incited by the offbeat attack of The Clash and the huge dub bass production from Public Image Limited, the late '70s punk movement began a vast exploration into possibilities of bridging dance music with the revolutionary anthems of punk.
While neither The Clash nor PIL are included in this compilation, "In The Beginning There Was Rhythm" does collect some of the best tracks from the huge vaults of post-punk, many of which might have gone forgotten had it not been for this album! Even 20 years after their initial releases, the bands here -- including Gang of Four, Cabaret Voltaire, 23 Skidoo, The Pop Group, A Certain Ratio, The Slits, This Heat, Human League and Throbbing Gristle -- still sound fresh, often melding choppy rhythms with angular slash-and-burn guitar, spit out vocals, rubbery bass, and nascent forms of electronica.
We'll say it again -- the music here is simply perfect -- the punk holds back dance music's tendency to get too mechanical 'n boring, while the dance elements impart melody and groove to the punk. Highlighting the compilation are A Certain Ratio's urgent amphetamine funk on "Shack Up" and "Knife Slits Water", melding the unlikely combination of Joy Division's grim urgency with a George Clinton funk arrrangement. Gang Of Four's "To Hell With Poverty" marks their transition from the agitated punk grooves found on their classic (but impossible to find) debut "Entertainment" into a smooth dancefloor-friendly attack punctuated by Marxist rhetoric. The Human League -- who are unfortunately best known for their chart topping new wave singles -- had incredibly adventurous beginnings on the often forgotten punk label Fast (also early home for The Mekons and Gang of Four). Their early offering "Being Boiled" is a primitive piece of spartan electronics loaded with theatrical tension and dark arpeggiations more expected from people like Coil and Throbbing Gristle (who contribute their perverse fascination with ABBA in the subversive aesthetics of "20 Jazz Funk Greats").
But, why is this compilation so short? Judging from how few people today remember or even have heard Section 25, Tunnelvision, DAF, or Fad Gadget, there's plenty more work for Soul Jazz to do in compiling more compilations of this sort! Not just recommended, this is *required* listening. Strongly recommended to any and all!
