Almost 30 years ago, Brian Eno caught wind of a bunch of nihilist musicians in New York's East Village, who were turning the punk revolution on its head in constructing a rock polyglot of mangled free-jazz, Theatre Artaud histrionics, sex-crime funk, and teeth-gnashing rage. Eno gathered together the four major projects from this scene -- The Contortions, DNA, Mars, and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks -- and brought them into the studio in order to document the messy dynamics of this short-lived community. The resulting compilation was the legendary No New York compilation. Depending on who you ask, these four bands on the No New York comp were the only bands to truly inherit the much ballyhooed No Wave throne, much to the chagrin of like-minded projects coming from other neighborhoods of New York City. For reasons that by now have long been forgotten, No New York has remained out of print for decades, thus attaining a mythological status not only for collectors but also for hundreds of art-rock bands who so badly wanted to wear the No Wave badge of honor.
Eno had deliberately engineered these recordings buried in grit and mud, hoping to reproduce the frenzy of the Velvet Underground; and even he admitted that these bands had made better sounding recordings for various other labels. Eno's strategies paid off in unifying each and every band through a anxious kineticism that each band would later take in different directions. Led by the spasmodic James Chance, the Contortions overdosed on James Brown's swagger in their sharp funk grooves bloodied by Chance's vocal phlegm and spittle. Teenage Jesus & The Jerks had a 16-year old Lydia Lunch at their helm, scraping air-raid sirens violently across her guitar and adding equally ear-splitting vocal shrieks on top of The Jerks' sweaty militant march. Mars may have been the most sonically adventurous of the four in their toxic psychosis that evolved from throbbing avant-punk riffage into narcoleptic improviation. For the No New York compilation, DNA was in their monstrous synth plod and guitar shard phase which sounds so intesne and so so good.
Shitty Japanese bootlegs of No New York have surfaced from time to time, sporting poor digital transfers of roughly handled vinyl, so it's nice to have this offically licensed Russian import which is quite nicely packaged and has much improved sound quality.
Obviously, we listen to all sorts of music here, and maybe also obviously, a lot of it is way outside the mainstream, whether it's psychedelic space rock, cinematic avant doom, dirgedronedrift, but when we're totally honest with ourselves (some of us at least, sure you can guess who), there are two genres that we always go back to. The stuff we listen to when we're NOT writing reviews, for pure pleasure, on roadtrips, on iPods, the soundtrack to many a journey, and those two genres would be eighties metal, and grunge. And for sure it has to do with our ages, and when we grew up, and what we grew up listening to, but grunge was HUGE for some of us. We subscribed to the Sub Pop singles club, we hunted down obscure 7"s on C/Z, and other smaller labels, we of course dug the usual suspects, Tad, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Green River and all the rest, but we were (and are) pretty obsessed, digging way deeper, and trust us, we could go on and on about our favorite super obscure (and sort of obscure) grunge outfits: Swallow, Cat Butt, Sprinkler, Thirty Ought Six, Malfunkshun, Love Battery, The Fluid, Green Magnet School, Gruntruck, Best Kissers In The World, Truly, Blood Circus, and yet not a single one of them are found here, nope, the folks at Soul Jazz dig REALLY DEEP, so much so, that even the grunge nerds around aQ only recognized EIGHT of the bands included on this comp, so we were super psyched to get schooled on one of our favorite genres. And to be fair, not all of this is strictly grunge, some of the stuff here is more straight up punk rock, some is pretty experimental, but some is seriously and fantastically grungy. Things start off with a band we knew and loved already, Starfish, whose girl grunge dabbled heavily in shoegaze, sounding to us at least, like a grunge version of Team Dresch, which is most definitely a good thing. Vampire Lezbos are pretty grungy too, and before now totally unknown to us, but all swagger, snarly riffage, some hard rock shreddery, that is until the song explodes into full on punk rock bash and howl, the rest of the song seesawing back and forth between the two. Nubbin are pretty great too, definitely grungy, a little bit jangly and Nirvana-esque, their song "Windyyy" borrowing the opening riff from a much more famous sing with the same (sort of) title. Saucer, who we had never heard before, are total grunge, all sort of hard rock swagger, and laid back riffage, heavy but also sort of stone-y. The first real WTF moment comes from Hitting Birth, who we were of course familiar with, but who we never considered grunge, and they're not grunge here either, more sort of early lo-fi industrial, to be fair it is SORT of grungy, but the metallic rhythms, the strange percussion, there's even some turntable scratching, makes it an interesting sonic reference point for the movement, and we do have to say, it's the coolest Hitting Birth song we've heard.
Other favorites include Pod, the pre-Mudhoney, pre-Tad outfit Bundle Of Hiss, the very Skin Yard sounding Helltrout, who were considered one of the heavier bands in Seattle at the time (late eighties to mid nineties), then there's the fuzzy jangle pop of Chemistry Set, that seems to owe more to R.E.M. than anything, and My Name, who are almost like funk-grunge (and we mean that as a compliment), the all female grunge-chug of Shug, and the noisy girl-grunt post punk of Calamity Jane, and so much more. Anyone into grunge will dig this like crazy, and a bunch of these bands have full lengths, well worth tracking down, and of course, it's Soul Jazz, so there's a huge book, full of extensive liner notes, with rare photos, and a blurb on each band, as well as some appendices, like a list of various band members still active today and what bands they play in now, as well as a six degrees of Nirvana chart, that connects each band on the comp to the godfathers of grunge, in some cases in just one move, with a handful of band members having actually played in the group, and at least one having had the group play their birthday party!
Available as a double cd, or a fairly pricey 4 lp set, sold in two separate 2lp volumes.
LISTED THE DOUBLE CD EDITION OF THIS COMP LAST WEEK, ALSO NOW HERE'S THE VINYL VERSION, IN TWO PARTS...
Obviously, we listen to all sorts of music here, and maybe also obviously, a lot of it is way outside the mainstream, whether it's psychedelic space rock, cinematic avant doom, dirgedronedrift, but when we're totally honest with ourselves (some of us at least, sure you can guess who), there are two genres that we always go back to. The stuff we listen to when we're NOT writing reviews, for pure pleasure, on roadtrips, on iPods, the soundtrack to many a journey, and those two genres would be eighties metal, and grunge. And for sure it has to do with our ages, and when we grew up, and what we grew up listening to, but grunge was HUGE for some of us. We subscribed to the Sub Pop singles club, we hunted down obscure 7"s on C/Z, and other smaller labels, we of course dug the usual suspects, Tad, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Green River and all the rest, but we were (and are) pretty obsessed, digging way deeper, and trust us, we could go on and on about our favorite super obscure (and sort of obscure) grunge outfits: Swallow, Cat Butt, Sprinkler, Thirty Ought Six, Malfunkshun, Love Battery, The Fluid, Green Magnet School, Gruntruck, Best Kissers In The World, Truly, Blood Circus, and yet not a single one of them are found here, nope, the folks at Soul Jazz dig REALLY DEEP, so much so, that even the grunge nerds around aQ only recognized EIGHT of the bands included on this comp, so we were super psyched to get schooled on one of our favorite genres. And to be fair, not all of this is strictly grunge, some of the stuff here is more straight up punk rock, some is pretty experimental, but some is seriously and fantastically grungy. Things start off with a band we knew and loved already, Starfish, whose girl grunge dabbled heavily in shoegaze, sounding to us at least, like a grunge version of Team Dresch, which is most definitely a good thing. Vampire Lezbos are pretty grungy too, and before now totally unknown to us, but all swagger, snarly riffage, some hard rock shreddery, that is until the song explodes into full on punk rock bash and howl, the rest of the song seesawing back and forth between the two. Nubbin are pretty great too, definitely grungy, a little bit jangly and Nirvana-esque, their song "Windyyy" borrowing the opening riff from a much more famous sing with the same (sort of) title. Saucer, who we had never heard before, are total grunge, all sort of hard rock swagger, and laid back riffage, heavy but also sort of stone-y. The first real WTF moment comes from Hitting Birth, who we were of course familiar with, but who we never considered grunge, and they're not grunge here either, more sort of early lo-fi industrial, to be fair it is SORT of grungy, but the metallic rhythms, the strange percussion, there's even some turntable scratching, makes it an interesting sonic reference point for the movement, and we do have to say, it's the coolest Hitting Birth song we've heard.
Other favorites include Pod, the pre-Mudhoney, pre-Tad outfit Bundle Of Hiss, the very Skin Yard sounding Helltrout, who were considered one of the heavier bands in Seattle at the time (late eighties to mid nineties), then there's the fuzzy jangle pop of Chemistry Set, that seems to owe more to R.E.M. than anything, and My Name, who are almost like funk-grunge (and we mean that as a compliment), the all female grunge-chug of Shug, and the noisy girl-grunt post punk of Calamity Jane, and so much more. Anyone into grunge will dig this like crazy, and a bunch of these bands have full lengths, well worth tracking down, and of course, it's Soul Jazz, so there's a huge book, full of extensive liner notes, with rare photos, and a blurb on each band, as well as some appendices, like a list of various band members still active today and what bands they play in now, as well as a six degrees of Nirvana chart, that connects each band on the comp to the godfathers of grunge, in some cases in just one move, with a handful of band members having actually played in the group, and at least one having had the group play their birthday party!
Available as a double cd, or a fairly pricey 4 lp set, sold in two separate 2lp volumes.
LISTED THE DOUBLE CD EDITION OF THIS COMP LAST WEEK, ALSO NOW HERE'S THE VINYL VERSION, IN TWO PARTS...
Obviously, we listen to all sorts of music here, and maybe also obviously, a lot of it is way outside the mainstream, whether it's psychedelic space rock, cinematic avant doom, dirgedronedrift, but when we're totally honest with ourselves (some of us at least, sure you can guess who), there are two genres that we always go back to. The stuff we listen to when we're NOT writing reviews, for pure pleasure, on roadtrips, on iPods, the soundtrack to many a journey, and those two genres would be eighties metal, and grunge. And for sure it has to do with our ages, and when we grew up, and what we grew up listening to, but grunge was HUGE for some of us. We subscribed to the Sub Pop singles club, we hunted down obscure 7"s on C/Z, and other smaller labels, we of course dug the usual suspects, Tad, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Green River and all the rest, but we were (and are) pretty obsessed, digging way deeper, and trust us, we could go on and on about our favorite super obscure (and sort of obscure) grunge outfits: Swallow, Cat Butt, Sprinkler, Thirty Ought Six, Malfunkshun, Love Battery, The Fluid, Green Magnet School, Gruntruck, Best Kissers In The World, Truly, Blood Circus, and yet not a single one of them are found here, nope, the folks at Soul Jazz dig REALLY DEEP, so much so, that even the grunge nerds around aQ only recognized EIGHT of the bands included on this comp, so we were super psyched to get schooled on one of our favorite genres. And to be fair, not all of this is strictly grunge, some of the stuff here is more straight up punk rock, some is pretty experimental, but some is seriously and fantastically grungy. Things start off with a band we knew and loved already, Starfish, whose girl grunge dabbled heavily in shoegaze, sounding to us at least, like a grunge version of Team Dresch, which is most definitely a good thing. Vampire Lezbos are pretty grungy too, and before now totally unknown to us, but all swagger, snarly riffage, some hard rock shreddery, that is until the song explodes into full on punk rock bash and howl, the rest of the song seesawing back and forth between the two. Nubbin are pretty great too, definitely grungy, a little bit jangly and Nirvana-esque, their song "Windyyy" borrowing the opening riff from a much more famous sing with the same (sort of) title. Saucer, who we had never heard before, are total grunge, all sort of hard rock swagger, and laid back riffage, heavy but also sort of stone-y. The first real WTF moment comes from Hitting Birth, who we were of course familiar with, but who we never considered grunge, and they're not grunge here either, more sort of early lo-fi industrial, to be fair it is SORT of grungy, but the metallic rhythms, the strange percussion, there's even some turntable scratching, makes it an interesting sonic reference point for the movement, and we do have to say, it's the coolest Hitting Birth song we've heard.
Other favorites include Pod, the pre-Mudhoney, pre-Tad outfit Bundle Of Hiss, the very Skin Yard sounding Helltrout, who were considered one of the heavier bands in Seattle at the time (late eighties to mid nineties), then there's the fuzzy jangle pop of Chemistry Set, that seems to owe more to R.E.M. than anything, and My Name, who are almost like funk-grunge (and we mean that as a compliment), the all female grunge-chug of Shug, and the noisy girl-grunt post punk of Calamity Jane, and so much more. Anyone into grunge will dig this like crazy, and a bunch of these bands have full lengths, well worth tracking down, and of course, it's Soul Jazz, so there's a huge book, full of extensive liner notes, with rare photos, and a blurb on each band, as well as some appendices, like a list of various band members still active today and what bands they play in now, as well as a six degrees of Nirvana chart, that connects each band on the comp to the godfathers of grunge, in some cases in just one move, with a handful of band members having actually played in the group, and at least one having had the group play their birthday party!
Available as a double cd, or a fairly pricey 4 lp set, sold in two separate 2lp volumes.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Found a couple of these killer comps stashed in the closet. Figured there would probably be one or two noiseniks out there would flip for this. Just have a look at the groups/folks involved: Oren Ambarchi, Thurston Moore, Noxagt, Lass Marhaug, Volcano The Bear, Neil Campbell, Dylan Nyoukis, and a whole bunch more. House in a cool oversized cover. Pretty sure this is long out of print so these are definitely the last copies ever. And on sale to boot!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This three CD boxset documents the post-punk scenes indigenous to Liverpool and Manchester from the 70s and '80s. Most of the tracks can be found kicking around (i.e. Buzzcocks, Smiths, The Fall, Joy Division, Magazine, A Certain Ratio, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, OMD, New Order, etc.), but there's enough rare tracks to make this collection an interesting listen (i.e. Yachts, Pink Industry, Lori & The Chameleons, etc.).
Talk of this compilation has been making the rounds for months, and now that it's here we can see why. We can also see why it took so dang long. But it was well worth it. The final product, the lineup, the songs, the packaging, the cause, WOW. The bands are a who's who of indie / avant / alternative rock / folk / electronica / experimental, all over the map. It's dangerously close to being SO eclectic that it's just a mess, but if you approach it as the worlds longest mixtape, made by your coolest friend with the best record collection it all starts to make some sort of skewed sense. But who cares? Look at this lineup:
Angles Of Light, Michael Yonkers, Antony And The Johnsons, Thighpaulsandra, Devendra Banhart, William Basinski, Bevis Frond, Teenage Fanclub, Sundial, Six Organs Of Admittance, Suishou No Fune, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Richard Buckner, Vashti Bunyan, Damon And Naomi, Shock Headed Peters, Isobel Campbell, Dolly Collins, Shirley Collins, Bill Fay, Marissa Nadler, Tom Recchion, Colin Potter, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Linda Perhacs, Max Richter, Current 93, Jad Fair, Simon Finn, Edward Ka-Spel, Pearls Before Swine, Nurse With Wound, Jarboe, Charlemagne Palestine, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Mirror, Matmos, Alex Nielson & Richard Youngs, Larsen, Faun Fables, James William Hindle, The Hafler Trio, Keiji Haino, Allen Ginsberg, Howie B, Ghost, irr.app.(ext)., Cyclobe, Fursaxa and more more more!
The liner notes make it impossible to tell just which tracks are exclusive or unreleased and which are album tracks, but again it hardly matters in this context. Like borrowing some cool kids Ipod and setting it on shuffle. And of course the most important part of all this, and the whole reason this compilation exists is that all proceeds go to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) to support their work in fighting HIV / AIDS in Africa.
Packaged in a cool slipcover box, with individually printed cd sleeves, a HUGE book with liner notes from Mark Logan who runs Jnana records as well as information about Medecins Sans Frontieres, as well as track by track notes from each band.
Let's not forget the blues. New buget-priced label sampler from badass blues champions Fat Possum (now distributed by big punkcorporation Epitaph and set to conquer the world). Features some wild and wooly tracks from R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough (R.I.P.), Hasil Adkins, T-Model Ford...i.e. lots of old fellers who'll put a boot up your backside. Plus some young 'uns, including Jon Spencer Blues Explosion side-project 20 Miles. So don't just get the blues and sit there depressed, get the blues, put this on, and break things! An excellent introduction to the many somewhat sensationalistic but genuinely non-crap artists on Fat Possum.
This is another one of those compilations that seems custom made for aQuarius. And one that needs very little in the way of a description except for a list of the bands who contribute exclusive material to this sprawling quadruple lp celebration of Three Lobed's tenth anniversary. The packaging is out of this world, totally over the top, but before we get to that, let's give you that list, and odds are, some of you can stop there and add this gem to your cart and be done with it:
SUN CITY GIRLS
SONIC YOUTH
BARDO POND
COMETS ON FIRE
ETERNAL TAPESTRY
STEVE GUNN
MOUTHUS
D.CHARLES SPEER / WOODEN WAND
Not too shabby for sure!
Each band gets a whole side, and here's some more details on the contributions. The Sun City Girls tracks are live recordings from Emo's in Austin Texas from their final US show EVER. The Sonic Youth tracks were recorded over the space of 10 years, one in 2010, the other in 2000. The Comets On Fire side is a collage of various recordings made between 2006 and 2010. The Bardo Pond side is a 20 minute long exclusive track recorded in 2010. The Eternal Tapestry side is a reworking of an old track, slowed down, with lots of added organ! The Mouthus side features two new exclusive tracks recorded in 2010. The Steve Gunn side features a new recording, made earlier this year of a live staple, and finally, D. Charles Speer & The Helix and Wooden Wand share a side, the Speer tracks feature Dave Nuss from No Neck Blues Band. Phew. And that's just the music. This box is also a serious chunk of musical art.
The vinyl is all pressed on super thick 140 gram vinyl, and each lp is housed in a full color printed inner sleeve. There's a big folded insert with liner notes from Wire / Pitchfork scribe Marc Masters, there is also a download card for mp3s of all the music, and the whole thing is stashed in a gorgeous, heavy Stoughton lp box. It's definitely incredible, and well worth the price. It is HEAVY though, so if you order this, it will NOT count as a single item, whatever your shipping, whether it's just this box, or this box along with other stuff, it will ship by weight.
And besides all that, this thing is CRAZY limited. We got a whole bunch, but we're not sure how many are left, or how many we will be able to get (if any) once we run out, so best to grab one quick before they are gone for good.
Let's face it, most tribute albums suck. I can count on one hand the number of tribute albums I have *loved*. (Well, actually on one finger, namely the Roky Erickson trib.) Now along comes this FANTASTIC collection of songs performed by a perfectly-chosen array of alt country musicmakers, all paying their respects to Kris Kristofferson with achingly gorgeous renditions of his songs. I'm hard pressed to even name highlight tracks, because *all* of them are lovely. The mood is consistently downer, the performances retain the flavor of the individual contributing bands, but let the brilliance of Kristofferson's songwriting show thru. And who doesn't love "Me and Bobby McGee", "Help Me Make it Thru the Night", and my personal fave "Sunday Mornin' Coming Down"? If you're not a Kristofferson fan (yet), get this anyway -- it serves as a wonderful intro to the perpetual outsider with the progressive politics who mopped floors at a Columbia's Nashville studios just so he could slip Johnny Cash tapes of his songs! (The liner notes go into his life story a bit -- quite fascinating -- he was involved in the Central American conflicts, visited the Sandanistas, is working to free Leonard Peltier, etc.)
Participants include Souled American, Calexico, Radar Brothers, Zmrzlina, Virgil Shaw (Dieselhed), Richard Buckner, Howe Gelb (Giant Sand), Grandaddy, Deanna Varagone (Lambchop), Court and Spark, Califone, Handsome Family -- all artists already established as wonderful. Hear them pay tribute. Take it from me, the picky tribute listener -- this one is GREAT. It will make you love Kristofferson while also providing a stunning snapshot of the current alt.country scene. Highly recommended!
DFA Records thrives on the past. The debut track by label bossman James Murphy's band LCD Soundsystem, "Losing My Edge," humorously exposed his healthy record collection and grinningly unveiled current day, hipster cynicism. But one of the conundrums about DFA is that while their influences are timeless, much of their output simply isn't. This collaboration release with Rong reifies that sentiment. And while Notwave is certainly a catchy term, it isn't immediately obvious what it means, or what the common thread is that holds it together. Styles range from the Kraftwerk musique of Nonstop's "Hydration Explosion" to the New Romantic meets The Slits-ness of Striplight's "No Search No Entry," to the abstract, paranoid peyote-soul of former !!! members Free Blood to the Gwen Guthrie-style, b-side dub of Research. Everything is fine really, nothing is great. The Nonstop track is the only one that seems to standout. It's solid bedroom krautpop. Speaking of the past, Sal P of Liquid Liquid is present on a perfectly fine early '90s acid house-style Tussle remix, and James Chance & The Contortions live freakout/meltdown "King Heroin" shows up second to last. Then out of nowhere, we're right back in some mid-'80s electro-soul for one final track. DFA completists, desperate disco revivalists, or those looking for an extraterrestrial, extraneous house/dub cover of Spoon's "I Turn My Camera On" may want this.
Who better to put together a killer compilation of great covers then the modern day masters of the new wave cover, Nouevelle Vague. Having made quite the name for themselves reconstructing new wave and post punk classics (obscure and famous) into irresistible bossa nova and carribbean tinged concoctions, they are the perfect folks to dig into their record collections and pick out some of their own favorite covere versions. This 2-disc set is so damn fun! OMD doing The Velvet Underground, Antena's classic take on Astrud Gilberto, The Stranglers tackling Dionne Warwick, The Slits amazing version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", The Flying Lizard's doing Curtis Mayfield proud, Nico's dramatic take on David Bowie, the list goes on and on. Put together so well and pretty much an instant party!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Possibly the most non-sensical compilation ever, this Japanese import features tracks from Costes (French vulgar vaudeville), Gastr del Sol, several Japanese hardcore/funk/metal units (including Gaji, who sound very similar to Melt-Banana), and improv music by Ikue Mori and others. Truly a bizarre item.
Marking their 10 year anniversary as THE purveyor of quaint, vintage, obscure and unflinchingly British ear candy, Trunk Records has released a splendid compilation of the cream from *most* of their best releases from the past decade. Most is the key word here as three of their best releases, the awesome soundtracks to "The Wicker Man", "Psychomania", and the unreleased film music of "Dawn of The Dead" are not represented. But Trunk has always been a mixed bag label, and odd horror scores were only one facet of their obsession, the others being pastoral jazz, long forgotten children's songs, off-kilter ad jingles, library music, documentary film scores, and cosmically avant-garde electronic compositions. If you were curious about any of their past releases such as the Fuzzy Felt Folk compilation of obscure children's folk, or the Sven Libaek anthology of underwater documentary soundtracks, or the Michael Garrick Trio's lost cosmic jazz, or any of Basil Kirchan's sublimely eccentric compositions (all of the above are awesome BTW!) but wary to commit to a full album then this compilation might be a smoother introduction to Trunk's unusual tastes. What's even better is that 7 of the 22 tracks are previously unreleased with inclusions from Delia Derbyshire, Herbie Hancock, Douglas Wood and Paul Lewis. Please note that the sound samples are from the unreleased selections because many of the Trunk releases we had already thoroughly reviewed, so if you are curious about what Michael Garrick, Sven Libaek or the Fuzzy Felt Folk comp sounds like, check out the reviews and samples elsewhere on our site. They are all worth your time. Congrats Trunk!
This brilliant cd box set lives up to Rhino's slogan "We collect records so you don't have to." Covering the nether regions of 1964-'69, Nuggets II is a virtually hitless, yet absolutely priceless, collection of mod, psychedelic, British R&B, freakbeat,
You know those Obey/Giant (Andre the Giant has a Posse) stickers? Well for some reason here's a compilation of currently hip bands (indie, garage, pop punk, electronica) such as The Hives, Peaches, Gonzales, International Noise Conspiracy, Icarus Line, and Modest Mouse aligning themselves with that strange subcultural phenomenon. Maybe they're all skateboarders. The tracks on here don't seem to have any particular bearing on the "subject" nor are they all exclusive or anything. But obsessives into the Obey/Giant street art thing may want this.
Seems like every few months we're blessed with the release of another cool psych rock reissue compilation full of obscure gems... Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word, Neurotic Reactions, Cherrystones Word, Cambodian Rocks, the entire Love, Peace & Poetry series, just to name a few... It's amazing what can be dug up by the dedicated collectors and DJs who put these mixes together, folks who trawl the dusty record shops and flea markets of the out of the way corners of the globe looking for the freakiest sounds. In that tradition, this week's excellent example is entitled Obsession, a compilation named for the reason it exists! And the groovy, swirling, often harder-edged fuzz attacks found here are certainly worth obsessing over. Just little bits of flat plastic to some, but the best things in life to others!
Obsession also sorta sounds like the name of a perfume, and if this was a perfume, it would be a very exotic scent indeed. We can kind of imagine that the Sun City Girls would have found a lot of this fairly inspirational to the "international rock" side of their output. Circa 1967-'73, the tracks here come from all over the world. A whole bunch from South America: Brazil's Quarteto Nova Era, Flavio Kurt, Novos Bahianos, Arnaud Rodriguez, Suely E Os Kantikus. Peru's Sonora Casino and Jean Paul. Uruguay's Ovni 87 and Los Chickichaka. And Argentina's La Barra De Chocolate. Then there's three from Turkey (Ersen, Arif Sag, and the beloved Erkin Koray, with a cut from his Bunalim-related band, Ter, meaning Sweat), and even outfit from India (Atomic Forest, whose track "Obsession '77" is actually what gave this comp its name).
Best of all, most of 'em we'd never ever heard of before -- and yet the killer to filler ratio is muy excellente. You get everything from jungle sounds and loungey vibes to Middle Eastern bellydance fuzz guitar to Mutantes-style tropi-delic pop to slamming go-go dancing beats to swinging horns... and let's not forget the plethora of wild wah-wah'd psych guitar soloing found here. And this comp gets further points for including in the cd booklet full-color sleeve art from the rare original singles, and some textual information too, pertaining to each track.
Some folks love it, some folks despise it. The latter have to grin and bear it 'cause it's pretty inescapable this time of year. We're talking about holiday themed music. The folks at Yep Roc have corralled a dozen members of their colorful musical family for this decidedly less conventional Christmas compilation -- you need only check out the song titles (example: "Your Christmas Whiskey" and "Something Funny In Santa's Lap") . to figure that out! Lots of garage rawk, Americana and pop levity from the likes of Los Straitjackets, Marah, Reverend Horton Heat, The Minus 5, Cities, The Moaners, and The Apples In Stereo and more!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've said it before and we'll say it again... "Yay Merge!" They've always dished out the delightful (and very nicely priced) compilations. Well, this new one kicks things up a notch or three! In celebration of the label's fifteenth anniversary, they present Old Enough To Know Better, a triple disc compilation, with chucklesome liner notes by none other than the Rock Rot and Rule guy, Ronald Thomas Clontle!
Discs #1 and #2 offer a fantastic stroll down the Merge memory lane with FORTY TWO (!) of your fave songs by Neutral Milk Hotel, Magnetic Fields, Lambchop, Buzzcocks, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, M. Ward, Destroyer, Pram, The Clientele, Versus, The Clean, Spaceheads, Breadwinner, Rock*A*Teens, The Beatnik Filmstars, Pipe, Butterglory, 3D's, Ganger, Matt Suggs, Portastatic, Third Eye Foundation, Spent, Ladybug Transistor, Imperial Teen, Ashley Stove, Bricks, Mad Scene, Karl Hendricks Trio, Seaweed, Music Tapes, The Rosebuds, Guv'ner, Annie Hayden, Polvo, East River Pipe, The Essex Green, David Kilgour, Erectus Monotone, Paul Burch, Spoon and of course Superchunk.
The third disc contains NINETEEN (!) more songs of the rare and previously unreleased kind by many of the abovementioned artists as well as Camera Obscura, Shark Quest, Crooked Fingers, Richard Buckner, Radar Bros and Angels Of Epistemology.
To boot, the label is donating all profits from the sale of this comp to the Future Of Music Coalition.
Oh yeah! I'm sure you all remember in your youth, just going nuts on the dance floor, shaking and frugging and getting down to the latest smash from the likes of The Shock Absorbers ("It's Your Thing"), The Keith Mansfield Orchestra ("Soul Thing"), or Ken Woodman's Picadilly Brass ("Mexican Flier"), right? Whew, those were the days! What, you weren't making the scene in swinging sixties London? Well this comp should give you some idea what it maybe might have coulda been like, it's called On The Brink. Subtitled: Return Of The Instro-Hipsters. And the cover blurb goes on to state: "A happening and eclectic mix of vintage instrumental grooviness from the UK, with sitars, flutes, organs, horns and fuzz guitars." And that's no lie. This cd, compiled by none other than noted psych record collector Nick Saloman of the Bevis Frond, is a veritable cornucopia of late '60s/early '70s instrumental toe-tappers from studio-bound big bands and nightclub combos letting their hair down and getting their funk on, swank stuff that could be the soundtrack to the coolest cocktail party ever. Delightfully goofy, some of this, dated of course, and verging on the psychedelic for sure... especially Stanley Myers' "Organ Fantasia In D Major", now that's an awesomely groovy freakout. Myers is one of the few names we already know here, session sitar guy Big Jim Sullivan being another, but it's nice to also become acquainted with the often ephemeral likes of The Chris Barber Soul Band, Trax Four, The Mike Cotton Sound, The Les Reed Orchestra, The Fidd, The Vic Flick Sound, and all the rest. 20 bands, 20 tracks, jazzy and snazzy, lush and bombastic, racy and romantic... not a clunker in the bunch, though we might have to frown about how much The John Schroder Orchestra's "Nightrider" sounds sooo much like the famous theme to Batman. Definitely if you love library music, or those In-Kraut compilations, this is kinda like the UK version of the same sort of thing, almost... and being British and from the swinging sixties, it's also no wonder that a lot of this could fit nicely in a spy movie, some of it very James Bond/Austin Powers sounding. The cd booklet includes notes on each track, photos, and lots of bright color. Right on.
French import, a vinyl-only comp of some excellent Japanese psych stuff from the Seventies!! We weren't able to get very many, it's now out of print, and we've got like 3 copies left, first come first served!
13 tracks, circa 1969-1978, including cuts by Les Rallizes Denudes, JA Caesar, Kuni Kawachi & His Group, The Apryl Fool, Sadistic Mika Band, Stomu Yamash'ta's Red Buddha Theatre, Akiko Yano, Toshiaki Tsushima, Harry Hosono & The Yellow Magic Band, Osamu Kitajima, Karuna Khyal, and more... Some we'd heard before (the ones that have seen full album reissues in recent years) but others we'd never even heard OF, and are utterly new finds for us. There's a very "Japanese" vibe indeed to these particular psych acts, and an arty one too. Cool!
There's a sequel too, Ongaku 80: Alternative Waves From Japan, that we sold out of already, but that one we're told we might see more of again in a few weeks...
We've been trying to list this for ages now (we listed its predecessor, the Ongaku 70 comp, late last year), but our distributor kept running out, and then eventually it sold out totally and went out of print. Well, it's finally repressed and available again, but who knows for how long, so grab a copy before they're gone, cuz this stuff is so good, and so crazy, some of the coolest and weirdest minimal electronic and no wave music we've ever heard, and most of the groups were totally unknown to us. Sure there's Phew and Riuchi Sakamoto and Tako, but then there's also Daisuck & Prostitute, Gunjogacrayon, Lizard and so many more. For those of you who remember that awesome So Young So Cold compilation of seventies and eighties cold/new wave music from France, well, imagine an even more warped and whatthefuck Japanese version and you've got Ongaku 80.
The sounds here are so varied and so all over the map, there's no way to really describe it as a whole, so might as well go track by track. EP-4 starts things off with "Robothood Process", which is in fact quite robotic, sounding a little like Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" at 16rpm, a funky bassline, little flurries of percussion, a weird machinelike voice, streaks of feedback, tolling bells, all wrapped into ramshackle groove. Sakamoto's "Riot In Lagos" takes the new wavey prog of Yellow Magic Orchestra (Sakamoto's group), and pulls it apart into something more robotic, unwinding long streaks of dubby rhythms, and a stuttery almost hip-hop groove, wreathed in all manner of beeps and bloops and synth blurts. "Modern Beat" by Lizard might be one of our favorites, a militaristic beat, some spidery guitar melodies, buried crooned vocals, lilting melodies, but over the top super loud dubbed out drums and a thick super distorted low end buzz, that erupts every once in a while like a squelchy rib cage rattling pppppthhhh, not to mention some squiggly Bollywood melodies. Portray Heads offer up "Elaborate Dummy", which is a killer slab of futuristic electro-punk with sweet crooned girl vox over the top, pulsing and pulsating synthscapes that should have fans of Zombi, Umberto and all the rest flipping their lids. Gunjogacrayon channel early P.I.L. and the Slits for a noisy chunk of super rhythmic punkfunk, wreathed in all sorts of effects and guitar scrabble and garbled wild vox.
Flip the record over, and things start off with "Urahara" by Phew, a weird bit of stiff robotic funk, with cold sung/spoken female vox over theremin like melodies and an almost Kraftwerk like arrangement. Tako's "Funk Of The Hostage" is indeed funky, bit a sort of sinister soundtracky funk that slithers and swaggers, a creepy bit of stuttery broody psychedelic spacefunk, with processed vocal garble and shards of squealing feedback and fractured melodies, as well as flurries of atonal piano, and bursts of distorted yelps and swirling FX. The awesomely named Daisuck & Prostitute almost sound like they could be some sort of proto-Ruins project, progged out scrabbly lurching grooviness, peppered with horn bleats and strangled guitar squiggles, all beneath dramatic vox, the song slipping from frenetic skitter, to grooving post punk. Shinobu's "Earth" is another track that sounds like a mutated version of HH's "Rockit", this time pelted with all manner of spaced out swirl and stuttering swoosh, a collage of sliced and diced sonic fragments raining down on a mesmerizing sci-fi synth groove, with some bizarre bellowed vox. And finally, PTA's finish things off with their epic "Woo-Guy After Dark", which weds post punk guitar jangle to tribal percussion, swoonsome synth swells to sweetly crooned female vocals, a slow build to something that more resembles a lost Bollywood soundtrack or some strange Southeast Asian cassette reissued on Sublime Frequencies, the song slipping from dense and percussive to swirly and ethereal and back again, all the while super rhythmic and hypnotic.
Phew! So good, and so awesomely crazy and over the top! So totally recommended. We definitely can't say how long these copies will last, or if we can get more once they're gone, so better probably to not risk it. You have been warned!
Another amazing archival release from the seemingly infallible Honest Jon's, the fourth in their series of compilations collecting early 78s held in the EMI archives.
Open Strings, is as the title suggests, a collection of songs by virtuoso stringed instrument players, hailing from Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey, all recorded in the 1920s, an incredible selection of tracks, almost entirely unheard since they were first released. And wow. Every single track here is fantastic. Folks who have been obsessing over the Sublime Frequencies series best start paying attention to Honest Jon's as well, absolutely riveting, emotional, idiosyncratic, passionate, from wild musical flights of fancy, flurries of notes, tangled melodies, to warm whirring droning ragas, to playful folky lullabies, to wild, almost psychedelic workouts, to frenzied freakouts, to dark contemplative ballads, all warm and crackly and gorgeously aged, but at the same time absolutely timeless, this is some seriously magical music, lost treasures for sure.
And although it's really unnecessary, considering how sublime the first disc is on its own, the bonus material, featuring contemporary raga / drone string players responding to the originals (without which there music would not exist, or if it did, it would be in an extremely different form) is also pretty fantastic. And no doubt, folks with very little interest in Middle Eastern string music from the 20s will probably pick this up anyway for the folks doing modern versions of said music, just check out the lineup: SIR RICHARD BISHOP, SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE, STEFFEN BASHO-JUGHANS, MICHAEL FLOWER, CHARLIE PARR, BRUCE LICHER, PAUL METZGER, RICK TOMLINSON, MV & EE AND MICAH BLUE SMALLDONE. Not bad. And their interpretations/versions are quite varied and all quite cool, from dark hushed whispers, to effects laden psychedelic blowouts to longform raga buzz to delicate folky flutter. Hopefully folks who pick this up for the modern stuff, will dig deeper and discover a whole new world of sound.
The cd comes in a gorgeous printed gatefold jacket, with thick printed inner sleeves, and the vinyl, WOW. Super extravagant printed box, 4 lps in printed inner sleeves, heavy and deluxe and thus, a bit expensive, but for vinyl obsessives, probably well worth it.
Tigerbeat6 offer up a stunningly eclectic compilation to make your head spin, and with a price tag that won't make your wallet whimper! Two dozen tracks ranging from the hi-tech to the lo-tech, the sophisticated to the positively nerdy. Starring DJ Rupture, Stars As Eyes, The Bug, Com.a, Numbers, Cex, Total Shutdown, Electric Company, The Rip-Off Artist, Crack We Are Rock, Knifehandchop, Nudge, Terminal 11, Nathan Michel, Caro, Dwayne Sodahberk, Max Tundra, Original Hamster, Zeigenbock Kopf and of course Kid 606.
One of the guys in the Jimmy Cake (see past lists for gushing reviews of both their full lengths) hooked us up with a few copies of this compilation that one of his bandmates released and it's really pretty great. Features a live track from the Jimmy Cake, a droning buzzing ambient minimalist epic, as well as a new Nurse With Wound track that is a gorgeous burbling, slowly modulating low end rumble. Also features the Tycho Brahe (Cocktails meets Arab Strap with female vocals), Daniel Figgis (glitchy Oval-esque soundscape), Artificial Memory Trace (barren and cinematic, minimal and haunting), King Camera Meets Volcano The Bear (quirky, rhythmic electronic weirdness, with horns!), Aranos (jaunty, creepy gypsy folk) and more!
Pipes You See Pipes You Don't, Great Lakes, Lovers, Good Ship, Instruments, Boom Box 2000, Major Organ, Jeff Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel, amongst others. 16 tracks, since it's a sampler I guess all are previously released on other Orange Twin records.
Seventeen tracks including stuff by The Lookers, Cannanes, Some Velvet Sidewalk and others, notably the much-raved-about Japanese contingent of Kirohito, Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her and Loud Machine 0.5.
For a long time, this record was a Japanese psych holy grail, originally a super limited double lp, later a double cd, originally released to commemorate the closing of a club in Tokyo called Oz, where presumably all of these bands were recorded. The main reason this was such a sought after artifact is no doubt the presence of not one, but TWO all time Japanese psychedelic legends, Les Rallizes Denudes and Taj Mahal Travelers. In fact those of is who did manage to track down a copy, never even really listened to the first disc, since the second disc was so goddamn good. And odds are, most aQ Japanese psych obsessives stopped reading about two sentences ago and lunged for the 'add to cart' button. Cuz while this is/was quite a rarity, we just discovered a source for a bunch of copies, incredibly cheap too, and snapped 'em up, cuz we figured that there were enough folks out there like us, who would definitely be keen on more from either/both TMT and Les Rallizes.
Juts in case you actually need to know what it sounds like (as if you couldn't guess), Les Rallizes offer up their usual dose of super distorted psychedelic blues, opening with a droned out guitar thing, before slipping into a surprisingly pretty and folky, and distortion free bit of strum and croon, might be a big surprise for Les Rallizes fans out there, in fact it almost sounds like a Japanese Grateful Dead, until about the last minute, when the guitars come out, offering up a surprisingly, sweetly distorted lead. The second track too, opens up with a wild squall of distorted guitar, only to slip right back into mesmerizing bit of dirgey folky drone rock, this time sounding more like the Velvets, with some seriously emotional wailed vox and more sweet psychedelic leads. And then finally, the appropriately titled "The Last One", find the band returning to much noisier distorted realms, thick wandering basslines, super distorted guitar crunch, pounding drums, an explosive intro, and while the rest of the song dials it back again, it's awesomely dirgey and droney, laced with lots of tangled guitars and swaths of distortion.
Taj Mahal Travelers do what they do best, unfurling a long minimal dronescape, all sawed violin, distant chanted vocals, swirling muted melodies, wheezing harmonicas, all blurred into lush sonic swells, Kosugi's violin driving the sound here, but with all the other various instruments contributing their own more subtle elements, a hazy, drifty, tripped out bit of druggy psychedelic drift that is perfectly divine.
Like we said before, worth it just for the second disc, but heck, there's a whole other disc, which we actually never dug into until NOW. Up first is Miyako Ochi, who are a sort of Group Sounds, Beatles worshiping rock band, all British style rhythm and blues, the songs could very well be covers, one sounds exactly like "Twist And Shout", then there's Minami Masato, who are a lot like Miyako Ochi, at least with their Beatles-esque opener, but after that, the sound shifts to a more contemplative folk music, again looking to the UK and the US for inspiration, subtle simple strummed acoustic guitar and woozy croon, again quite cool, but a strange mix to be paired up with Les Rallizes and TMT. But then there's Acid Seven, who we were already hoping would be a bit more bad ass based on the name alone, and while they are ANOTHER band that is doing that Group Sounds sound, they manage to inject it with some grit and swagger, shouted gang vocals, super distorted production, wild psychedelic leads, and a vocalist who has a pretty bad ass raspy bellow. The following track is a strange sort of jaunty sing along, with some rad slippery slide guitar and there's even a KAZOO SOLO! Finally, they finish things up with a bit of brooding dark folk, urgently strummed acoustic guitar, and some heartfelt almost anguished sounding vocalizing, surprisingly pretty, especially considering the wild biker rock bellowing that preceded it.
All in all pretty great. Japanese psych obsessives NEED this, and heck for $12, dabblers can definitely afford to give it a chance. But don't dawdle, pretty sure we got every copy our distributor had, so not sure when/if we'll be able to get more. Packaged in a slim sleeve with brown paper wrapper, duplicating the presentation of the original lp.
No doubt about it, there is so much great music and art coming out of Portland lately. Not to sound bitter, but we here in San Francisco have lost some of our most talented folks in recent years to the cheaper rent and more laid back lifestyle up in Portland and some of them (Yellow Swans, SubArachnoid Space) pop up on this great two disc collection, which features a wide variety of PDX music including talented folks like Yacht, Valet, Au, New Bloods, Pink Martini, Panther and a bunch more. Forty songs in all and for sure something for everyone on here. Compiled by the folks at PDX Pop Now, a really cool nonprofit in Portland that helps provide resources, venues and facilitate a true sense of community amongst the musicians and audience members in the independent arts scene in Portland. So cool.
Oui, apparently French people pronounced the word punk like "paink" when it first erupted circa '77, and you can hear just what "paink" sounded like, on this tres killer comp, kind of a French Killed By Death. Who better than the Born Bad label to hip us to the who's who of the best '70s and early '80s French punk? It was a pretty darn underground scene, with some pretty crazy and hard-edged bands that seem somehow more dangerous and perhaps less potentially commercial than many of their contemporaries over in New York and London. We had only previously heard (or heard of) a handful of the bands on here, but the ones we recognized we knew as being really badass, especially the mindblowing Soggy, so we had high hopes for the rest, and they indeed deliver. Soggy's song here is their devastating, more-Stoogesy-than-thou, almost metallic "Waiting For The War" - so awesome to have that utterly heavy track on cd (and/or on vinyl, for those who missed out on the now out of print and expensive Soggy vinyl reissue some years back). It's not just Soggy, The Stooges (and the MC5) are definitely a big influence on a bunch of these Frenchies, most of whom traffic in totally revved up rocknroll, anarchic freak action, riffing and snarling. There's variety - some have female singers, some provide lashings of new wave synth, some are buzzier, some popper, but all definitely have an edge. You may never have heard any of these bands or songs before, but it's pretty clear with just one listen that this IS all classic punk material. Besides the mighty Soggy, the other bands found here are: Les Nouveaux Riches, Strychnine, Electrochoc, Gasoline, Sexe A Pile, Soggy, Marie France, Ruth Elyeri, Coronados, Dogs, Warm Gun, Gloires Locales, Guilty Razors, and Les Olivensteins (themselves the subject of a great Born Bad anthology a while back). Get this, crank it up, and paink out en Francais!!
FINALLY!!! Hard to believe this thing is actually done considering how long and how seemingly cursed this project has been. Started almost 5 years ago to be released on AQ staffer Jim's now defunct Petrol label, then bequeathed 3 years ago to AQ staffer Andee to release on his tUMULt label where the lineup and concept went through many changes (possibly because what was begun as an homage to a song Jim really liked, had become a deconstruction of a song Andee really hates) and then an endless procession of waits, mastering, pressing, re-recording, battles with other labels over 'rights', as well as 4 different cover concepts that all had to be scrapped because they were seemingly too difficult for any printers to confidently take on. -sigh-
So here we are. Was it worth the wait? Obviously we think so. Look at the lineup, a veritable who's who of AQ favorites: Acid Mothers Temple, Circle, Hrvatski, James Plotkin, Kit Clayton, Loren Chasse, Troum, the Tape-beatles, Mieskuoro Huutajaat, Fennesz, and Stilluppsteypa. And that's just the cream. Lots of tracks were left off, according to Andee in order to avoid the spotty/uneven flow of most compilation/tribute/cover records. He even opted to leave off the Melt Banana track, which was a tough, but important choice, since the spazzy grind of their track disrupted the droning meditative, hypnotic flow of what is now less just a compilation of random tracks, more an epic and gorgeous hour of dreamy droney creepy blackness.
So what does it sound like? Well, while it does flow, and could perhaps pass itself off as a record by a single (quite eclectic) group, each track offers something unique, while still culling the sinister spirit and nihilistic 'rock' from the original (the inspiration for this comp). Finnish shouting choir Mieskuoro Huutajaat start things off with a brief, and shouted, acapaella version, in Finnish, and delivered with gusto! James Plotkin's Joy Of Disease turns it into a burbling, stuttering, electronic soundscape with hiccupping beats and backwards vocals. Somewhere between Boards Of Canada and Coil. Stilluppsteyppa took back their original track, a wash of glitchy yet melodic, musique concrete, and re-recorded/re-mixed it, removing most of the melody and adding even more space, resulting in a dark abyss of gorgeously perplexing minimalism. The Kit Clayton track is an ultra catchy, beat heavy SF glitch core workout, that obliterates the original melody but manages to keep the minor key tension and dark ambience. Ultra prolific Japanese space rockers Acid Mothers Temple turn the original into a wild pagan ritual, starting out with several minutes of Tsuyama's throaty chants, skipping nervously around that oh-so-familiar melody before the band stumbles in to join him for the remaining 10 minutes, with splattery percussion, freaked out reverb/retard guitar and squealing feedback. Hrvatski (aka Keith Whitman) claims that this Painted Black contribution is his favorite track that he's ever recorded and it's easy to see why: he actually sings, plays guitar, and weaves a thick wash of warm, langorous tones before it all crumbles beneath a speaker shredding cascade of sputtering drill and bass. Iowa's masters of plunderphonia, the Tape-Beatles use found sounds and actual lawsuit-baiting chunks of the original to create a tense and unnerving, noirish dreamscape, with disebodied screams, curious snippets of overheard conversations, and the sliced and diced original which all end up adding to the creepy vibe. German drone-sters Troum incorporate 'that' melody into a totally overpowering and molasses-thick drone, assembled from multiple tracks of guitar and accordion. The Fennesz track was previously released on an ep via Jim O'Rourke's Moikai label, and to us seems like Fennesz at his very best. Melodies and textures are spit out, stuttering and hiccupping from the cold, digital craw of the laptop, but somehow come out all warm and thick and coil around you like stuffed snakes and deliciously fragrant pipesmoke. Amazing. AQ faves Circle, do what they do best, taking the skeletal remains of the original, holding on to the barebones melody, and constructing a motorik, unwavering rhythm, that sounds like Tony Conrad and Faust's Outside The Dream Syndicate with just a little more melody and umph. And the record is finished off perfectly, spiralling slowly into 'black'ness, by AQ pal Loren Chasse (who as you probably already know is a pillar of the Jewelled Antler Collective, as well as a member of Thuja, the Blithe Suns, etc). He uses snippets of the original, slowed down hundreds of times until it is a lugubrious almost-melody, and contact mic-ed strobe lights to create a static-y, humming, nighttime dronescape, like a otherworldy forest, complete with clattery insect buzz and moaning winds in the ancient trees. An almost perfect compilation and an amazing gathering of some of our favorite artists doing some of their best work. Essential.
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The New Rubble series hits volume six with this collection of rare '60s pop psych singles, entitled Painting The Time. We haven't reviewed all the volumes in the series so far but this one's worth a mention, with enjoyable tracks by twenty different artists (the few we've heard of before being Aphrodite's Child, The Velvet Opera, The Orange Bicycle, and The Nashville Teens).
The truth is, though, that we expected to sell a lot more copies of volume FIVE in this series than we did -- that was the girl-fronted freakbeat comp Scratch My Back we reviewed here last list. So go back and review that review, folks! It's a damn good comp.
Not that this isn't pretty cool too, but doesn't have quite the same level of thematic unity as Scratch My Back. The common denominator here is that these tracks, many but not all of 'em by bands from the UK, have for the most part never been compiled before. So says complier and liner notator Nick "Bevis Frond" Saloman, at any rate, and he's obviously knows more about this stuff than you or I! So even if you're a rabid '60s psych comp collector maybe you haven't yet heard the songs by The Twilights, Andy Ellison, Abel Fletcher, Chris Kerry, Cats Pyjamas, The Bystanders, Herbie's People, The Executives, The Shame, and all the others found here. And the good news is that though obscure, these songs are definitey better than mere barrel-scrapings, many of 'em excellent uptempo fuzzy finger-snappin' popsters. So '60s fans, check this out...and definitely think about picking up vol. 5 too while you're at it!
Here is a compilation of obscure British psych groups that, with the exception of a couple semi famous artists (the Flying Machine, the Status Quo), is comprised of a bunch of bands that never really were recognized here in the U.S.. There is quite a variety here, ranging from trancy, drugged out slow ones, to out and out goofiness with silly meaningless drabble, and then there's some great songs that illustrate what 60's psych / garage are all about. Some very Syd Barrettesqe moments. This is ideal for British psych fans that want to get their hands on some rare songs.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The king of the Patty Duke fan club has just gotta be Mike Dereniewski of Detroit, MI. He's the man behind this musical mammoth ode to Ms Duke. His Patty Duke Fanzine has evolved over the last decade from a traditional cut'n'paste paper zine to one that included a 7" compilation with bands covering Patty songs to its current and final state, this double cd compilation. Talk about goin' out with a bang! Likewise, Mike D's musical periscope has stretched out beyond his early ultra pop focus, discovering and sharing sounds of all shapes and sizes from around the globe. Mind you, a big part of his record collection is still clearly reserved for the sweet sounds of girl groups.
These two cds collect together tunes from past Patty Duke Fanzine releases and a whole lot more. You get an astounding fifty four tracks of music and almost as many dialogue snippits of Patty Duke from her tv shows and movies! Allow us to give you a mere sampling of the artists included: Asobi Seksu, Gore Gore Girls, His Name Is Alive, Jessica Bailiff, Kevin Blechdom, Mark Robinson, Rose Melberg, Slumber Party, Stereo Total, V/VM, and Windy & Carl. Wow!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here's something we thought we'd NEVER see - the 8 volume boxset of 3"cd-rs from Peasant Magik. Peasant Magik was one of the exemplary freakfolk / feral drone imprints during the aughts which has all but entirely disappeared over the past four or five years. The contributions include Natural Snow Buildings, Gregg Kowalsky, The North Sea, Valerio Cosi, Fabio Orsi, Andrew Paine, Super Minerals, Big Blood, and Pillars Of Heaven. This was limited to 200 copies; and we managed to get just THREE copies. THREE!!! As such, we won't be going into too much detail about the sounds of each of the recordings. Expect dreamy, narcoleptic, glistening, magical tracks of half-melodic psychedelic dronings.
Quite simply, this is a collection of bands from around the globe circa 1969, who have done their best to emulate "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with very pleasing results. Quirky psychedelic pop from We All Together (Peru), Prudy (Czechoslovakia), Quentin E. Klopjaeger (South Africa), The Twilights (Australia), and more. From the same label who produced the "Peace, Love, and Poetry" compilations!
ATTENTION JESU OBSESSIVES!!! If you're -really- and -truly- obsessed with Jesu, and maybe money is no object, then you just might want to pick this up. A pretty cool version of "The Funeral Party" all done up Jesu style, a little bit blissed out and eighties sounding, definitely a good match, Jesu and the Cure. And as far as we know, this is the only place to find that track. 7 minutes = $21.00, you do the math. "But what about the rest of the tracks" you ask? Well, it's all Cure covers which could be cool, and the money made goes to charity, but quite frankly, the rest of the compilation is pretty bad. Some of it, just so-so to middling, but some of it GODAWFUL. Totally cringeworthy.
Only a few bands we'd heard of: Dandy Warhols, The Muslims, Kaki King, Bat For Lashes, Indian Jewelry, Ex-Reveries. And sure there are a couple ok tracks tucked away in there, but for the most part, minus the Jesu song, you'd be much better off not wasting any of your valuable listening time here.
But back to you Jesu freaks, if you'd pay $20 for some rare 7" on eBay, this might just be the same difference...
Perhaps you have to be of a certain, somewhat advanced age to have the same nostalgic memories of huddling up next to your radio late at night, the record button on your tape deck ready to fire, listening for that one perfect song that perfectly captures every semi-embarassing angst-ridden teenage emotion you've felt that day. You might not even know the name of the band, or maybe you misheard the name of the song, and you're pretty sure that you're never going to be able to find the 7", but there is no doubt that the song will inhabit every mix tape you make for the next couple of months. You'll listen to that song over and over until the tape wears out or the radio brings you the next in a hopefully endless series of best-songs-ever. If there's one thing that the radio will always have over MySpace or YouTube or any other latter day source of musical instant gratification, it's that feeling of being secure in the knowledge that no matter how shitty your day was, or how much you hated your school, there are dozens or hundreds or thousands of other kids just like you, listening to those same songs at the same moment.
Perfect Unpop harkens back to a golden era for DIY pop deliverance, when John Peel was the high priest of impeccable taste, bringing together the unwashed, spotty-faced masses every night through the power of BBC Radio. Much of the music on this collection falls neatly into the spectrum of spiky-haired, skinny tied, frenetic, punched up power pop, perfected by better known acts like The Jam, The Who, Elvis Costello, The Undertones, and Joe Jackson. However, a few tracks do veer more towards the brash, bratty sneer of the Sex Pistols (Eater's "Thinking of the USA" for one), while others opt for a darker, more austere, occasionally drum-machine backed groove that recalls Joy Division, Wire or some of the French cold wave bands that were undoubtedly starting to trickle across the channel.
If you have even a passing interest in late-'70s DIY power-pop/punk, then there will be some familiar treats (The Vibrators, Swell Maps, Young Marble Giants, Kleenex, The Monochrome Set, Au Pairs, Vic Godard and the Subway Sect), but there are enough rarities here to keep all but the most obsessive reaching for the lovingly assembled liner notes from time-to-time. The music compiled on Perfect Unpop is awkward, fumbling, scrappy, (check out the unintentionally Coleman-channeling sax 'solos' on The Outcasts' "Self-Conscious Over You" or The Prefects "Going Through The Motions" to get a sense of bands definitely working at the outer limits of their technical abilities) but all the better for it - the roughness and lack of polish make the songs engaging and evocative in a way that more perfectly polished pop gems could never be. This is a compilation packed with perfectly fleeting moments of lo-fi perfection that will make you long for those late nights when a song on the radio could make you feel invincible. Essential!
A very strange and obscure tribute to the Fall featuring a handful of folks we know: Chris Knox, Chris Brokaw, the Black Eyed Snakes, Preston School Of Industry, Chris Cacavas and Barbara Manning as well as loads of bands we no nothing about: Egoexpress, S.Y.P.H., the Creeping Nobodies, Locust Fudge, Boy Division, Like A Stuntman and tons more. Super in-depth liner notes letting you know who all those bands are and why the heck they're so into the Fall.
Giddy up! Let's rumble! It's a plethora of twangorama on Phantom Guitars, the new disc from the fab Psychic Circle label, who have brought us a ton of cool comps of '60s and '70s prog and psych grooviness (some recent highlights including White Lace & Strange, Blow Your Cool, and Return Of The Instro-Hipsters). This one, like several of those, was compiled by Nick "Bevis Frond" Saloman, who we're beginning to think must have the most amazing record collection ever. This disc wanders back a few years earlier than usual for these comps, to delve into the way out world of British instrumental guitar combos circa 1961-'64. Well it's mostly instrumental, but for some non sequitur exhortations of excitement that might lend a song its title...
Basically, before the Beatles, one of the biggest pop sensations of the era in the UK were The Shadows (sorta analogous to The Ventures over here in the USA, with a dose of Duane Eddy and a lick of Link Wray). The 25 tracks here are from some of the groups that followed in their wake, with monikers like The Falcons, The Champions, The Executives, The Cougars, The Players, Group X, The Gladiators, The Vengers, The Planets, The Hunters, The Violents, and The Phantoms, just to name a few of 'em. Generally awash in reverb, these cooler-than-thou guitar twangers specialized in surfy, cinematic Spaghetti Western suspensefulness and galloping grooves. Nick's picked a bunch of winners, not a duff track in the bunch if you're into these sort of vintage sounds. Zounds! If these bands were from Indonesia or Cambodia or someplace more exotic than the British Isles (or Sweden, he's included one Swedish band actually) we're sure we'd sell a ton of this disc, so c'mon why not give it a go anyway?
FYI, one of the tracks was written by John Barry, another one produced by Joe Meek. How do we know? Well the cd booklet includes notes on each track, for which we are always grateful, though learning that for instance Group X was actually The Martin Jay Five and that they made only two singles but did manage an appearance on a TV show called Thank Your Lucky Stars isn't really as interesting as just groovin' to their catchy beat (in their case, boasting some jazzy sax along with the six string bendin'). Darn cool.
Before we get going with this review, we figured we oughta just get your attention with the words NEW 30 MINUTE DANIEL HIGGS TRACK!!! That's right, we'll get to that in a minute though...
Phoning It In is a radio show in Boston, where musicians call in and perform songs over the phone, which makes for super intimate performances, but which also give the recordings a cool, alien, lo-fi vibe (remember the vocals-recorded-from-jail on Bad Brains' I Against I record?!). This disc collects three recent guests on Phoning It In, The Caribbean, Don Zientara and Mr. Daniel Higgs. The first three tracks are solo acoustic numbers from the frontman of The Caribbean, and are quite nice, falling somewhere between the Mountain Goats and some more traditionally indie. The vocals lilting and sadboy, the guitar minor key, the tracks simple but quite lovely. Don Zientara, a legendary producer (whose name has graced almost every DC punk record you've ever owned) as well as performer, and here offers up two haunting acoustic numbers, long drawn out steel string tangles, simple strumming and angular fingerpicking, a sort of Appalachia / indie jangle hybrid, with a high croon that is actually quite reminiscent of Charles Manson or Captain Beefheart. The whole thing sounding like some unearthed demo tape from Laurel Canyon in the late sixties / early seventies.�
Most folks are probably gonna buy this for the Higgs track, and it's well worth it, a massive sprawling buzzing distorted raga epic, 25 minutes, total blown out super distorted lo-fi trance inducing beauty. It sounds like a pump organ (and at times like a guitar, and at others a Jew's harp...), wheezing out thick dense chords, with notes overlapping and beating against each other, pulsing and buzzing, some ancient primitive ritual, timeless and divine, completely mesmerizing, like alien bagpipe music, a keening high end drone that twists and changes shape, various notes peeling off in little curlicues of feedback, or flurries of jagged scrape, but always being reabsorbed into this surprisingly lush organic rumbling buzzing divine drone. Absolutely amazing of course.�
Packaged in a cool hand printed cardstock sleeve, with a mini printed insert.
YEEEEAAY. What a wonderful service Load provides, bringing awesome musicians/artists from the dregs of Providence (and elsewhere) to all of us. Those guys live there so we don't have to. Well, Load's Pick A Winner compilation cd features some of our favorite artynoisebands from Prov: La Machine (ex-Six Finger Satellite and Landed), Lightning Bolt, Forcefield, Pixeltan, Pleasurehorse and even a tiny little glistening nugget of a song from (sadly, now defunct) Thee Hydrogen Terrors. The Load artists are not your typical noise bands, mind you. They are 100 percent a pertinent cataclysm of talent and ideas. And then there's the dvd. Holy shit! It's so great to see these videos. Most of the featured artists typically use whatever they have or can use around to make totally genuine two-dimensional magic with, and to see their work transcend into pure video conjury is truly inspiring. The package even comes with a deck of cards, each specially designed by Load artists, just to show they care about you, the consumer. So buy this cd/dvd now! In fact, buy three!! (Not advised for people with heart problems.) Oh, but unfortunately Load doesn't care as much about their artists, as there is no tracklisting to tell you who is what, etc. So our mp3 samples are listed as track numbers only.
