Brand new three song single from psychfolk troubadour Kurt Vile, this one a teaser for his upcoming full length, which finds Vile in full on American singer/songwriter mode, channeling Springsteen and Big Star, lots of acoustic guitars, softly reverbed crooned vocals, plenty of jangle, simple spare drumming, a definite sort of seventies/eighties classic rock / power pop vibe, the opener especially has that Big Star feel, heartfelt and just a little bit melancholy, peppered with lush bursts of swirling melody, but for the most part a sweet slab of stripped down, sunshiney old school FM radio pop. The A side finishes off with a little bit of acoustic balladry, softly brooding and darkly dreamy.
The B side lands somewhere in between, offering up big jangly guitars like the A side, but set amidst strange almost eighties sounding drums, drawled vox, and woozy minor key melodies. The track is laced with gorgeous moody tendrils of Beatlesesque guitar filigree, and that pop sweetness is offset by some subtle dark droney elements, and an overall mood of melancholy mystery. Nice stuff as always. Definitely has us looking forward to the full length...
Kurt Vile can seemingly do no wrong. The momentum of the last few years has only strengthened the Kurt Vile-ness displayed on Smoke Ring For My Halo, full length #2 for Matador after the not-so-surprising success of his asskicking Childish Prodigy album. Kurt's increased stature was enough to bring in hotshot producer John Agnello, who ups the fidelity a bit while retaining the DIY approach and style that brought Kurt to everybody's attention in the first place. Yep, the results are pretty stellar, further solidifying this dude's standing in the rank of current American songwriters. He somehow manages to sound both contemporary AND classic. The guy is for real, and this is by far the best thing he has released... so far, anyway.
Smoke Ring For My Halo is the kind of album that gets better with each listen. It's production is laid back but totally pro, and the cast of supporting musicians includes Meg Baird from Espers, Mike Polizze of Purling Hiss / Birds Of Maya fame, and of course, KV's band the Violators. The camaraderie of this Philly crew totally shines through, and boy does it sound fucking GOOD. A skillful use of noise and other bits of experimentation are worked effortlessly into these impeccably crafted songs, the result of someone who can turn any simple melody into a bad ass classic.
The album begins perfectly with "Baby's Arms", a beautiful heartfelt number with a nice dose of melancholy that immediately announces its author's total confidence in his abilities. Next up is "Jesus Fever", riding out with an easy rocking groove that should explain why Matador snapped KV up. You can see how Kurt just oozes out music when you read the lyrics to songs like "On Tour", which one would imagine are a direct reflection of what it means to be Kurt Vile. Many - wait, scratch that - ALL of these songs are presented as hazy and coolly detached from reality, like "Society Is My Friend" with its lonely western vibe carried forward with shimmering 12 string guitar and spacey mellotron, and the solo fingerpicked number "Peeping Tomboy". The record closes with "Ghost Town", which is dramatic in a Midwestern sunset kind of way. YEAH! In a music world filled with more imitators than originators, Kurt Vile occupies a unique place and his identity is unmistakable. That is why he, and this record, completely rule.
Kurt Vile's most recent full length has been reissued as a deluxe double version, the second disc a brand new ep (also available on its own as a vinyl 12") featuring tracks recorded during the same sessions, including a Bruce Springsteen cover! Read more about the ep at the end of the review, but first let's reiterate what we've said before about the record proper...
Kurt Vile can seemingly do no wrong. The momentum of the last few years has only strengthened the Kurt Vile-ness displayed on Smoke Ring For My Halo, full length #2 for Matador after the not-so-surprising success of his asskicking Childish Prodigy album. Kurt's increased stature was enough to bring in hotshot producer John Agnello, who ups the fidelity a bit while retaining the DIY approach and style that brought Kurt to everybody's attention in the first place. Yep, the results are pretty stellar, further solidifying this dude's standing in the rank of current American songwriters. He somehow manages to sound both contemporary AND classic. The guy is for real, and this is by far the best thing he has released... so far, anyway.
Smoke Ring For My Halo is the kind of album that gets better with each listen. It's production is laid back but totally pro, and the cast of supporting musicians includes Meg Baird from Espers, Mike Polizze of Purling Hiss / Birds Of Maya fame, and of course, KV's band the Violators. The camaraderie of this Philly crew totally shines through, and boy does it sound fucking GOOD. A skillful use of noise and other bits of experimentation are worked effortlessly into these impeccably crafted songs, the result of someone who can turn any simple melody into a bad ass classic.
The album begins perfectly with "Baby's Arms", a beautiful heartfelt number with a nice dose of melancholy that immediately announces its author's total confidence in his abilities. Next up is "Jesus Fever", riding out with an easy rocking groove that should explain why Matador snapped KV up. You can see how Kurt just oozes out music when you read the lyrics to songs like "On Tour", which one would imagine are a direct reflection of what it means to be Kurt Vile. Many - wait, scratch that - ALL of these songs are presented as hazy and coolly detached from reality, like "Society Is My Friend" with its lonely western vibe carried forward with shimmering 12 string guitar and spacey mellotron, and the solo fingerpicked number "Peeping Tomboy". The record closes with "Ghost Town", which is dramatic in a Midwestern sunset kind of way. YEAH! In a music world filled with more imitators than originators, Kurt Vile occupies a unique place and his identity is unmistakable. That is why he, and this record, completely rule.
Vile's latest ep of gorgeous downer folk / classic rock psychedelia, So Outta Reach, is included as the bonus disc here, and as mentioned above, features a handful of tracks recorded during the same sessions that produced Smoke Ring For My Halo, so it should come as no surprise that these tracks sound exactly how you might expect, as if that record were just six songs longer (which in this cd version it essentially is), and listening to these tracks now, all of them pretty great, it's hard to figure out just why they didn't make the cut at the time. Opener "The Creature" is so good, we might like it more than anything on the record proper, all dark fingerpicked guitar over shimmery drones, simpler shakers and pounded kick drum rhythm, Vile's vocals laid back and weary, the song dark and melancholy and so catchy, the bridge especially, a gorgeous tangle of fuzzy folk, which leads right back into the droned out psychedelic folk drift. The rest of the record follows suit, mixing Vile's underground leaning with a sound much more mainstream, big guitars, classic rock arrangements, in some ways this reminds us a little of a fuzzier more psychedelic take on the latest Arcade Fire, which makes sense as both Arcade Fire and Vile have an unabashed love of Bruce Springsteen, which Vile indulges here with his own version of Springsteen's "Downbound Train", which is pretty true to the original, just a bit more fuzz guitar, and Vile's distinctive slacker vox, and of course the wild psychedelic freakout at the finish, but if you can imagine Springsteen via Vile, you'll get a pretty good idea of what's going on here, and odds are if you dug Smoke Ring, you're gonna want this too. Even if it means buying Smoke Ring all over again...
This latest ep from downer folk / classic rock troubadour Kurt Vile, features a handful of tracks recorded during the same sessions that produced Vile's most recent full length Smoke Ring For My Halo, so it should come as no surprise that these tracks sound exactly how you might expect, as if that record were just six songs longer (which in the cd version it essentially is, since it was included on a new version of Smoke Ring), and listening to these tracks now, all of them pretty great, it's hard to figure out just why they didn't make the cut at the time. Opener "The Creature" is so good, we might like it more than anything on the record proper, all dark fingerpicked guitar over shimmery drones, simpler shakers and pounded kick drum rhythm, Vile's vocals laid back and weary, the song dark and melancholy and so catchy, the bridge especially, a gorgeous tangle of fuzzy folk, which leads right back into the droned out psychedelic folk drift. The rest of the record follows suit, mixing Vile's underground leaning with a sound much more mainstream, big guitars, classic rock arrangements, in some ways this reminds us a little of a fuzzier more psychedelic take on the latest Arcade Fire, which makes sense as both Arcade Fire and Vile have an unabashed love of Bruce Springsteen, which Vile indulges here with his own version of Springsteen's "Downbound Train", which is pretty true to the original, just a bit more fuzz guitar, and Vile's distinctive slacker vox, and of course the wild psychedelic freakout at the finish, but if you can imagine Springsteen via Vile, you'll get a pretty good idea of what's going on here, and odds are if you dug Smoke Ring, you're gonna want this too.
So Outta Reach is available on its own as a 12" single, but if you want the cd version, you'll have to buy the new double disc version of Smoke Ring, which includes the ep as the second disc.
NOTE for mailorder customers, if you're considering ordering this: Unfortunately this week's shipment from Matador/4AD/XL arrived today with one corner of every single piece of vinyl in the box slightly bent, argh. So, don't order this now if you're super anal about such things. We'll get replacements next week. Folks buying this in person in the shop, of course, can see for themselves if they mind the bent corner or not. Sorry!
Latest from this singer / songwriter psych folk troubadour, a seven song ep, originally released as a free download, now available as a super limited 12", and perfectly showcases Vile's sonic breadth, beginning with some stripped down folkiness, rife with Beach Boys melodies, but delivered in a lazy drawl, the whole thing underpinned by some muted synth squiggles and electronic drones. Super catchy, but also raw and rough and intimate. Which sort of describes Vile no matter what sound he's conjuring up. And on it goes from there.
Like on past records, Square Shells blends subtle psychedelia with bedroom folk and jangly indie pop, adding some druggy ambience, swirling spaced out effects, simple minimal drum machines, the result is a little shoegazey, a little twangy, with plenty of buzz and shimmer, and long stretches of instrumental ambient dronescapery, songs like "Losing Momentum (For Jim Jarmusch)" unfurl gorgeous swells of blissed out slowcore, reminding us of Roy Montgomery, or an even more minimal Spacemen 3, or maybe a soporific non propulsive Wooden Shjips, the sounds blurred and smeared into gauzy dreamscapes, all beneath a glimmering crystalline latticework of spidery guitar. "The Finder" is similarly spaced out and prismatic, a muted buzzscape, darkly psychedelic, and sweetly contemplative, hypnotic and mesmerizing, steel string buzz nestled amidst warm organ wheeze. While in between these chunks of gorgeous abstract minimalism Vile offers up some more traditional songcraft, mostly just acoustic guitar and voice, sometimes crooning over reverb drenched Appalachia, other times delivering almost traditional folk songs, finishing off with "Hey, Now I'm Movin", a Dylan-y jam, with stream of consciousness lyrics, simple strumming, even harmonica, and lots of 'yeah yeah yeah's, but Vile sends that 'classic' folk drifting through a hazy cloud of soft focus ambience, giving the whole track a druggy otherworldly feel, the perfect finish to this intimate, dreamlike ep...
American rock troubadour Kurt Vile continues his slow march back in time, as if he wants to actually be playing classic rock, instead of being a modern indie rocker just channeling that classic rock. His sound has always displayed hints of the old classics that came before, the magic being in how masterfully he made them his own, and essentially erased the border, real or imagined between modern indie rock and classic radio rock. Cuz really, if you removed all the non musical signifiers from Kurt Vile, the cool indie label, the punk rock pedigree, the cool underground rock royalty who guest on his records, the various high profile tour mates, the blog hype, the look, the shaggy longhair rock and roller, what you'd be left with, would be JUST the music, and really, it's absolutely the kind of music you could play for your Dad, not to say this is necessarily Dad-rock, but it IS sort of some modern mutant strain of classic rock. Not beholden to punk, or post punk, or new wave or metal, but to classic songsmithery. And it's all on display, the songwriting obviously, but the production too, the arrangements, the sonic palette as a whole. And sure, there are plenty of unlikely, and very UN classic rock moments, but somehow, Vile weaves them into something that DOES really sound classic. Check out the weird skittery programmed sounding beats at the beginning of "Was All Talk", at first it sounds like it's turn into some weird Ariel Pink outsider pop thing, but instead, that skitter is deftly woven into warm guitar strum, swirling synths, and Vile's laid back vox. Speaking of which, it's hard not to hear a little Dinosaur Jr in Vile's music, which makes sense, as Dinosaur's Mascis was an unabashed lover of classic rock, and was often compared to Neil Young himself. But if you can imagine Dinosaur minus all the incendiery guitar heroics, it might not be all that far removed from Kurt Vile.
The nine+ minute opener definitely sets the stage, pastoral and laid back, strummy and summery and breezy, reminded us a bit of the Woods at first, only to late learn that the guy from the Woods guests on this here record. As do folks from Beachwood Sparks, Warpaint, Royal Trux, and others, all of whom to be under Vile's thrall, aiding him in crafting this gorgeous slab of jangle and strum, the sound warm and comfortable, and just a tiny bit raw around the edges. That said, this is most definitely his least 'underground' and 'indie' sounding record. If labels and the radio and MTV still worked the way they used to or in some cases even existed, this is the sort of record that would be bandied about as Vile's 'breakthrough', and who knows, maybe it still will be. And it should be, cuz it's gorgeous. The songs are CRAZY catchy, it's a total top-down, cruising down the coast on a summer afternoon kind of record. The songs already sound timeless. There's no doubt Vile is a songwriter of formidable talent, one who just follows his own muse, and it just so happens that that muse is some strange hybrid of Tom Petty, Neil Young, Jackson Brown, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison, which to most underground music punks might sound horrifying, but the proof is right here in Wakin On A Pretty Daze, which might just be our favorite Vile record yet. Classic indeed!
The cd comes in a full color four panel digipak, with a full color printed inner sleeve, and a booklet with lyrics, but while they last, we have the ULTRA limited, already out of print, super deluxe blue vinyl version, which features the same cover as the cd (and regular lp), with Vile standing in front of a big wall, covered in graffiti, but on the deluxe vinyl version, there is no graffiti, instead, it comes with a special sheet of stickers, with which you can use to apply the graffiti yourself, however you want! How cool is that?
Ever wake up from a late night out on the town with that hazy, fucked up feeling in the head? Of course you have, so imagine that feeling translated into a an album of super damaged, super woozy garage filth. Kurt Vile and his boys the Violators bring us the Hunchback EP, an unholy combination of mid '70s Stones and a more gritty Spacemen 3. And even though the first couple tracks don't veer to far from the new wave of lo-fi garage rock, as the album plays through it dips into more cosmic and spacey realms of dreamy guitar. Makes us think of nighttime alleyways, smokey barroom depression, a drugged-out fried-out bad trip kinda vibe, all nicely put together with catchy riffs and tough guy in a leather jacket at-all-times kind of vocals. Dingy parking lot car show rock n' roll, with a fitting black and white photo of Vile on the cover in some empty lot in Philly (looking quite damaged himself). It's a perfect match for any fan of Thee Oh Sees, Wavves, or Wooden Shjips. Oh and make sure you play this sucker loud, definitely something you'd hear blasting from the rager next door. Recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
To coincide with their recent summer tour, these two aQ faves offer up this awesome little split single, which really hardly needs a description, as at this point, both bands can seemingly pretty much do no wrong. That said, the first Woods song might be the best thing they've done, total classic sixties pop, which reminds us of the Kinks, and the Bee Gees, but a little bit quirkier and more psychedelic obviously, but it's just so warm and sunshiney and hooky, and the vocals sound better than they ever have, and the harmonies, so divine, cool weird drumming, catchy, but not traditionally so. One of those tracks we find ourselves listening to over and over and over. The second track is more of a trifle, a brief bit of bedroom folk, that sounds skeletal at first, but in its 1:40 manages to get weirdly lush and a little bit tripped out.
Kurt Vile kicks his side off with a brief 39 second opener, jaunty and a little bit silly, before getting into it proper, with some dark brooding moody folk, the first track hushed and intimate, just voice and guitar, some classic sounding folk, while the second track gets a little shoegazey, draping the acoustic guitar with some crumbling washed out haze and warbly organ, the perfect slab cloudy day dreamy folk drift. Awesome.
Probably crazy limited, we have a bunch, but not entirely sure we can get more when we sell out, so if you want one, don't dawdle.
Yay, it's a live recording from one of AQ's fave bands, the Bavarian post-rock combo known as Village of Savoonga! It seems, sadly, that they've broken up (too busy with Notwist, Lali Puna, Tied and Tickled Trio, and all their other projects, perhaps?) so this disc might well be their final release. Probably the last, or only other, chance anyone reading this (outside of Germany) got to hear VoS live was at the Aquarius Records 30th Anniversary party at the Bottom of the Hill here in San Francisco three years ago. Remember? We flew the Savoogan Villagers over here to play with Circle, Milk Cult, and Outhud. Kinda crazy, but *that's* how much we like this band! So, how's this live disc stack up to our memories (and their other albums)? Recorded at one of their final shows, at the annual Hausmusik Festival in September 2001, it sounds great, the band plays great, it's sheer post-rock mastery a la Slint. And it also sounds like maybe VoS had been revisiting... nay, scrutinizing their old This Heat records even more than usual. Their percussive rhythmic attack and live looping sound displayed here have that nervous energy we love. While drawing material from their albums Score, Philip Schatz, and their self-titled debut, this live show yet demonstrates an especially powerful, sinewy side to VoS, an intensity we recall from their performance at the AQ-party. Noisy, hypnotic, gritty. Talk about going out with a bang!
We rewrote/expanded the our old, original reviews of these two fantastic VoS albums for our special "Records Of The Week Revisited" in-between list last week, and so we figured why not list 'em again on this new list too, as we want to make sure people see 'em...
Gotta write a little bit more here for this one, since we apparently haven't ever re-listed it since first reviewing it back in 1996, so the original review we wrote, that may have predated our website even, is just TWO sentences long. And that's crazy since this was and IS one of our favorite records EVER. So, here's what we wrote about it so briefly, many years ago:
Dark and lovely, abrasive tapes with interludes on piano and cello. Delicious, an absolute AQ favorite. The Village is a modern German post-rock combo, part of the burgeoning [circa the late '90s] Hausmusik scene, here making soundtrack-worthy music (some pieces written for actual soundtracks, in fact) that certainly stands by itself, as well.
Yep, just two sentences. Doesn't really do it full justice, since we failed to mention the wonderfulness of the album's indie-pop element, with fragile, accented vocals. There are songs here, memorable, melodic, moody songs, not just soundtracky soundscapes and heavy post-rock jams. Though there's that too and those parts are also wonderful.
These days, Village Of Savoonga may be somewhat forgotten, so perhaps we should mention some other faves you might know that this makes us think of, everything from Tapes-era Faust and This Heat (both probably influences) to contemporaries Circle, Tortoise, and even A Minor Forest.
Ok, we'll stop there, but not before reiterating that this is an all-time AQ essential - and one of our best sellers back in the day, seriously, from a band that we loved so much we even flew 'em out here to play at our 30th Anniversary show/party in the year 2000!
Murky drama played out on guitars, tapes, electronics, and samplers, with a heavy dose of clanky percussion to remind you of their roots, Germany's Village of Savoonga possesses an enviably original sound that owes much to their krautrock forefathers, not the ultra-structured Kraftwerk, but the loose sound experiments of Faust. Spacerock fans will find so much to like, too, but expect more than just easy ambient layers, this record climbs mountains and fords streams. Totally excellent. This is their third album, and the record we've been recommending people buy if the new Tortoise just doesn't do it for ya...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is the CD reissue of the first Village Of Savoonga album (which was previously available only on vinyl through Hausmusik / Kollaps) and also features 5 extra tracks from hard-to-find singles and compilations. For those of you familiar with the brilliantly dark neo-krautrock on "Philip Schatz" and "Score," this early work from 1991-1994 may appear a little naive (with big ideas that haven't yet manifested into the grand statements of their later work.) These tracks have a Throbbing Gristle / Einsturzende Neubauten industrial flavor (grinding samples and banging metal percussion) topping off a Pavement-like jangliness. Yet for every track that plods with a heavyhandedness, there is a track that shines with a lot of great sonic ideas and fractured almost Faust-ian song snippets. This is a mixed bag, but there's enough good stuff on here to merit more than a few listens.
A very nice split release from Hooker Vision, who are introducing us to these two outfits from Asheville, North Carolina. Villages (aka Ross Gentry) actually had a release on Hooker Vision a couple years back and has a more recent LP on Bathetic. We can report that the 25 minute offering from Villages on this tape is pretty killer stuff. After a desolate piano interlude, the tape swells with a fuzzy, shimmering treated guitar drone akin to those wondrous blurred noises from Tim Hecker and Christian Fennesz, gradually giving way to a somber interlude for plucked banjo and maudlin Appalachian fiddles. These moments locate the production as harkening from the south even with all of those digital pixel smears and melodic abstractions.
Divine Circles, we know even less about, but the opening melodies plucked on a violin are joined by complementary slow guitar riffs that do recall some of the more introspective moments of Godspeed You Black Emperor or even some of Aidan Baker's hypnotic dronework, before either party were to rip into a full-frontal, pathos laden crescendo. Here, Divine Circles keeps their sounds intimate and calm, slowly building the track in the round, with the violinist taking up the bow later on with gorgeous swells of arboreal melodies along with those slow dirgy guitars and some haunted female vocalizations. Definitely looking forward to more from both of these outfits. 50 minute in total for this cassette; and again with all those Hooker Vision tapes, this one is super limited to 100 copies.
It's a good week for rock n' roll. Uh huh, look out, Baltimore (or as they prefer, "Baltamont") psychpunk badasses Vincent Black Shadow (the REAL Vincent Black Shadow) are back! If you heard their AQ (and Julian Cope) recommended debut, you know exactly what to expect. If you're new to the VBS, well, think wretched rawk action and psychotic reaction. Simply put, this is trashy Stooges worship at its uber-distorto, heavy-ass best!!! Just take a listen... that vocalist is a streetwalking cheetah with a heart fulla napalm, am I right?! Goddamn right I am. He's backed up by reckless riffing, the guitar strangulation plenty raw and primal. You're not gonna need to be told that this is obviously meant to be played loud. It's a throbbing testament to bouncing off the walls and breaking shit (and maybe rolling in broken glass and peanut butter). Ah, life's simple pleasures. File with such outwardly bound jams-kickers as The Heads, Cope's Brain Donor band, and Boris (circa Pink). But with more of an ugly attitude. Like maybe the Pissed Jeans wrestling with Plastic Crimewave.
Nine tracks, a little over a half hour. On the short side maybe, but that still means the cops are gonna show up to tell you to turn it down (and stop stomping around, jumping off the furniture, disturbing the neighbors, etc.) long before the record's over. Which means...fuck the neighbors, fuck the cops... you're going to jail.
Just got a handful of these limited, lathe-cut (by Peter King in NZ, natch) seven inches directly from the now defunct Baltimore band Vincent Black Shadow, an outfit whose two full-length records we've previously raved about for bringing the Iggy-influenced, ugly ragin' raw rawk action with such authentic energy and attitude. Too bad they broke up, sadly before completing their third album which was to be called Baltamont. Some of the VBS boys are in a new band, called UNNH, and others in one called Murder, so we'll look out for those. In the meantime, we've got this final farewell 7" slab of VBS's psychotic party pleasing punk... Hear 'em kick out the jams in their usual Stooge-ly style on the A-side, "Nazi Gold". And then on the flip, you get their frantic interpretation of Queen's catchy speedster "Sheer Heart Attack", from News Of The World. With VBS singer's snotty sneering snarl, and their relentless rhythm section's careening drive, here it sounds almost like something by the Sex Pistols - more "God Save The Queen" than Queen! Well, the Sex Pistols meet The Sweet... which might have been what Queen was going for too, on the original, it came out in '77 after all.
LIMITED EDITION, clear vinyl, last copies.
Here's a vinyl only release, limited to 500 handscreened numbered copies natch, of this the debut platter from Baltimore psych-punk heavies Vincent Black Shadow. Piquing our interest, Blue Cheer and Boris are name-checked by the label, but what you'll really hear (and the press materials also mention this) is a heckuva lotta Iggy influence. The raw Iggster vocals and the grungy grooves hit that Stoogey sweet spot for sure. Julian Cope needs to hear this... the label would be wise to send him a promo. Definitely up the (grimey, dark, piss-coated) alley of anyone into Cope's Brain Donor band... or Thee Hypnotics (remember them?) or, of course, The Stooges themselves. Which reminds me, we've still gotta list those new deluxe Stooges reissues with the bonus discs... anyway, if swaggering drug-addled rawk with cowbell and blown out bass and wah guitar does it for you, that's what VBS does here pretty darn well. And it's true that describes some Blue Cheer and Boris too...
We'd like to hear more. Bet they might be a decent, drunken live proposition as well. And tho it's LP only, we'd encourage a cd release someday. For now though you gotta grab the LP before it's gone.
We can't tell you if these Aussies are the next big thing or not, but they're definitely the next potentially big thing. And before overexposure and hype and all that end up making you hate 'em, you should at least give 'em a chance. Sure, they're being positioned as The Strokes Part II (and while they do have a song or two that remind us The Strokes, as well as the 'look', they're just as much on the Hives or White Stripes tip), and we know everyone's got an opinion about The Strokes. But whether you approve of those NYC'ers or not is irrelevant here, 'cause what The Vines really sound like (to these ears) is a cross between Nirvana or Mudhoney and Redd Kross. And, hey, that's not a bad thing. No complaints here. And besides, if the commerical plastic pop music you've got to endure on the radio, at the 7-11, the barber shop, the juice bar, at the mall, wherever, is totally fun, catchy, garagey rock with actual songs and guitar jangle and fuzz, that's a lot better than boy bands or Britney Spears or nu-metal ain't it?! More power to 'em. And hey -- the singer's accent is for once authentic. (Note: it's at a "nice price" for now, but we'll be you anything that the list price will get jacked up to $18.98 in a few months when and if they do become a bonafide big thing).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
First off, Violence Fog is Allan's new favorite band name ever (sorry, Dirty Lust). As soon as he (me, I) saw it listed in one of our supplier's catalogs, I had to order it. Plus, the description said that it had flutes on it, so I knew that Andee would
We were pretty bummed out when psychedelic metallic space rock new wave weirdos Lansing-Dreiden decided to call it quits, all of their records were twisted and genius and were huge faves around aQ land, but we were psyched that at least some of those L-D's recently resurfaced in a new group called Violens, whose sound is way less obtuse and challenging, and way more poppy.
The new wave element is still in full effect, with a sort of eighties UK indie rock vibe, lots of jangle guitar, thick rubbery basslines, lush vocals, lots of harmonies, and while it may not seem weird on the surface, there are lots of sonic subtleties that keep Violens from being a straight pop band, moaning bleating horns, squalls of crunchy psychedelic guitar, wild tribal drumming, streaks of electronic buzz and that's just on the first song.
The vibe is definitely new romantic, with shades of the Smiths, Style Council, Simple Minds, OMD, even Duran Duran here and there, and barring the tripped out production, and weirdo elements, this really could be some eighties artifact dug up and reissued. That said, the songs here are pretty great, the opening track "The Dawn Of Your Happiness Is Rising" is the opening track for a reason, the retro pop hit of the season, and the one flecked with the most weirdness, without losing sight of the pop prize. "Trance-Like Turn" is another good one, a more broody washed out ballad, sounding more like Talk Talk, with lots of rumbling ambience, and swirling guitar shimmer and murky jangle. The record is just so full of eighties signifiers, sax solos here and there, deep new wave reverby crooned vocals, big lush production, but the way those elements are melded to the modern weirdness is what makes this work, whether it's the thick undulating low end buzz and fuzzy distortion that flows throughout "Another Strike Restrained" (which in every other way is pure eighties pop) or the Animal Collective flourishes that color "Acid Reign", or the distorted backwards guitar psych-out that closes "Are You Still In The Illusion?", it all manages to sound just right, the weirdness doesn't sound tacked on for weirdo alt cred, and the pop doesn't sound forced, it's lush and hooky and emotional and sincere, and those two disparate elements of the band somehow manage to balance, creating a pretty fantastic slab of modern retro pop, that we're digging BIG TIME.
In our review of the first Violens records, we spent a lot of time talking about how weird it was to listen to their music, in particular because in their previous incarnation, they were such a different sounding outfit, but since then we've actually gone back and re-listened to that old stuff, and can definitely see the connection, and the path from there to here doesn't seem nearly so unlikely. That group, Lansing-Dreiden, was definitely weirder, and while even back then they definitely had an eighties new wave MTV style pop thing going on, they mixed it with all sorts of more modern conventions, but it seems like maybe we've been basing that whole idea of Violens being so dramatically different on a single song, our favorite L-D song, which melded eighties MTV pop and crushing death metal, which to be fair, WAS pretty goddamn awesome. If anything, Violens are more of a real band, less of an experimental collective, so while that meant shedding some of the cool weirdness, it definitely meant these guys got a lot better, tighter, more polished, their songs gorgeous and lush and catchy, jangly and so melodic, where other bands of a similar stripe seem to be aping the eighties doing their best to sound like they actually were from the eighties, Violens seem to take a much more mature approach, obviously influenced by those bands and that sound, but instead of crafting some sort of homage, they simply make their own music, which definitely stands on it's own as modern jangle pop, but if you're old enough to remember the eighties, and all those bands, then that somehow makes it even better, the best of both worlds, fantastic new songs that are fresh and modern, but that are inherently infused with a bit of nostalgia.
And really Slumberland is the perfect home for this new record, the band actually moving away from the overt eighties new waviness into a sound that's much more classic pop, fuzzy and jangly, dreamy and divine, sounding weirdly a little more nineties this time around, and very much like a band that would have been on Slumberland back in the day as well!
Full length number two from these local post punk noise poppers, and according to the liner notes, it might also be their last. But with VC, it's pretty hard to tell if they're taking the piss, usually safe to assume they are. And while their self-titled debut was gloriously lo-fi and ramshackle, noisy and chaotic, enough that we made it our Record Of The Week, A Celebration Of Taste manages to be even MORE, with much of it sounding like it was recorded in a cave, or a huge metal box, or underwater, on what we can only assume is probably a broken 4-track, everything with dying batteries, but then out of some impossibly impenetrable murk, will emerge a burst of crunchy, fuzzy power pop, that sounds like an unearthed gem from back in the day. So we figured this one too had to be another Record Of the Week...
Check out the opening 1-2-3 punch, "(I'm A Star) In Outer Space" is some seriously classic songsmithery, jangle guitar galore, some impossibly catchy guitar melodies, plenty of background buzz, keening vocals and hooks for days, but the tinny, no-fi production makes Guided By Voices sound like U2, but then there's "Micro Flesh", which takes that same sound, and piles on the murk, treble turned to zero, bass to ten, then slowed down, so it's a muddy, woozy, warmly creep, grinding, and gristly, before suddenly, "Faster" explodes into action, sounding like some weirdo lost Mod outfit from the sixties, this still lo-fi but cranked up, gloriously noisy and psychedelic, feedback everywhere, and buried under all that noisiness, a fucking killer, classic jam.
And so it goes, these guys dipping their toes into seventies power pop ("I Was Never Young" sounds like an outsider Purling Hiss), glammed out punk rock stomp ("Malleable Love"), all swaggery hip shaking crunch, total experimental noisescapery ("Abductors Pt. 1"), fifties style balladry filtered through cracked modern noise rock, and crumbled into something barely songlike ("Hairline-esque"), super distorted fuzz pop a la GBV ("Someone In This House")... Needless to say, we could go on and on and on. But if anything, this new one is somehow both more fucked up and damaged, and more catchy and well crafted, than their debut, that well crafted-ness pretty much entirely disguised by all the noise, and weirdo production, and detuned damage, and constantly in-flux production, and the varying degrees of shitty sound, but it's all glorious, and freaky, and psychedelic, and catchy and freaked out, and we're really really really hoping this isn't the last we're gonna hear from these guys, cuz this record is some seriously next level outsider pop genius! Fucked up and utterly confusional obviously, but then that's a big part of what makes it so goddamn great.
Includes two inserts and a download code.
For those who missed out on the super limited demo cassette from this SF lo-fi noise pop / post punk outfit, four of the tracks from that tape, have been re-recorded with a full band for this 7", and sound even better now. As we mentioned in our review of the now out of print tape, VC were born from late great punk pop weirdos the Sopors, who basically went mostly unheard outside of their little scene (which also included tUMULt pop heroes the Ovens!). And while Violent Change, at the time of that tape, was essentially a solo record by Sopors mainman Matt Bleyle, has since then, become a proper band, and now also includes Tony from the Ovens. And all of the above mentions of the Ovens is not for nothing, cuz Violent Change definitely has the same sort of pop vibe as the Ovens, but where the Ovens take the Beatles and Weezer and the Champs, Violent Change are a much more twisted and lo-fi proposition, an obvious comparison is definitely Guided By Voices, in fact, we'd imagine fans of GBV would flip for these guys, who kick out perfect pop jams at the drop of a hat, but don't shy away from getting more punky, or twisting a perfectly good pop song into a gloomy chunk of deeply crooned post punk dirgery. That said, the bulk of this four song 7" is some of THEE catchiest lo-fi pop you're bound to hear EVER, with excursions into blasting punk rock, noisy freakouts, and a moment or two here and there that position VC as a dead ringer for the Ovens, but the whole thing is way more fuzzy, and ramshackle and gloriously lo-fi, and punky and catchy and is definitely convincing us that Violent Change might be our (and possibly your) new favorite local band!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, includes a download coupon as well.
Debut release from this new SF band, born from late great punk pop weirdos the Sopors, who basically went mostly unheard outside of their little scene (which also included pop tUMULt pop heroes the Ovens!). And while we're doing our best to track down copies of the Sopors lp to review, we've got this new record from Violent Change, at the time of this tape essentially a solo record by Sopors mainman Matt Bleyle, although since, the band has been expanded to an actual group that includes Tony from the Ovens. And all of these mentions of the Ovens is not for nothing, cuz Violent Change definitely has the same sort of pop vibe as the Ovens, but where the Ovens take the Beatles and Weezer and the Champs, Violent Change are a much more twisted and lo-fi proposition, an obvious comparison is definitely Guided By Voices, in fact, we'd imagine fans of GBV would flip for these guys, who kick out perfect pop jams at the drop of a hat, but don't shy away from getting more punky, or twisting a perfectly good pop song into a gloomy chunk of deeply crooned post punk dirgery. That said, the bulk of this tape is some of THEE catchiest lo-fi pop you're bound to hear EVER, with excursion into blasting punk rock, noisy freakouts, and at least one track that is a dead ringer for the Ovens, but the whole thing all fuzzy, and ramshackle and gloriously lo-fi, and punky and catchy and probably the most listened to tape in the shop!!
First, ever-popular album from this band, featuring such songs as "Blister In The Sun", "Please Do Not Go" and "Gone Daddy Gone". Rhino's deluxe edition tacks on eleven demos and singles tracks, plus a whole extra disc of live material!
When we reviewed the last record from fucked up noise rock weirdos Violent Students, here's how we summed them up:
Dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding repetitive, caveman gar(b)age scuzz-rock weirdness. And very little has changed since. This new record, if anything, is even more spectacularly shitty sounding, impossibly lo-fi, a crushing, crumbling avalanche of crust and filth and sonic grime. We love this band so much, that we're desperately afraid it's all a put on. Like it's not possible for a band to be this naturally demented and inspired, for a band to create a record like this by happenstance. We tend to think it must be a noise rock prank like Faxed Head, a bunch of super talented musicians, slumming, purposefully creating utter depraved sonic sickness. But we hold on to the hope that these guys are for real. That they live in some fucked up squat in some nowhere town, and rock out in their own filth, busted amps and out of tuned guitars, the mic plugged into the shitty stereo, the floor covered in beer bottles and broken glass and used condoms, al the windows busted, and the neighbors desperately afraid to call the cops, cuz these guys are UNHINGED.
Equal parts vintage Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Black Mayonnaise, Liquorball, the guitars not so much riffing as spewing gouts of buzz and howl and squeal, the drums in a constant state of being hurled down the stairs, a blown out cacophony, and the vocals, a dizzying effects drenched caterwaul, malfunctioning delay and reverb and echo, all every howl and hoot and bellow exploded into a barrage of swirling tripped out abstract noise, the recording impossibly lo-fi too, the sound on the verge of crumbling to pieces, the loud parts clipping constantly, making everything even more muddy and murky, and then there's the random sampled audience applause throughout. For all its primitive amateurism, it's also sort of next level, high concept, the final track, "A Handy Magician", nearly 18 minutes long, is barely a chunky noise rock dirge, instead it sounds like some weird mix of This Heat and No Neck Blues Band, and accidental art rock, swaddled in black smears of noisy, and thick swaths of sonic filth. These guys, whoever they are, have created some seriously inspired, and fantastically fucked up and fractured avant minimal noise rock whatthefuck.
Which needless to say, means this is so entirely and utterly recommended. Includes a download coupon AND a poster!
These Philly based sonic screw ups are back with a live record (unless that's a lie and they're just fucking with us, which is very likely) that somehow manages to make all of their other releases sound tame in comparison. In the past we've described these guys as Dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding and repetitive, and we mean all of that in the best way. Gloriously scuzzy garage rock sludge stomp, like the Buttholes crossed with the Brainbombs dosed with acid and PCP. According to the liner notes, Street Banger was recorded "Live in front of horny girls who also shriek" and it definitely sounds live. But live like recorded in an airplane hangar onto a microcassette and mastered by Merzbow. This is some sort of whitenoise freerock buzz. As blown out and in the red as any recording we have ever heard. So much so that some parts literally made our eyes water when we were listening to this on headphones. When the guitar explodes the drums DISAPPEAR completely, the vocals make everything else drop out. The bass does nothing but make a huge endless rumble that gets sucked under every drum hit and hyperdistorted riff. It's like Faxed Head but somehow even more fucked up and noisy, damaged and demented. And obviously, AWESOME!
You want to know just how dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding and repetitive this latest tape by the Violent Students is? Well, it made short work of not ONE, but TWO different tape decks. Just sent them cowering and crying to wherever it is that broken and emasculated tape decks go. We recently discovered these Philly based dirge-scuzz caveman freenoise weirdos and were immediately smitten, well as smitten as you can be with a group of brain damaged Neanderthals beating you to death with feeding back guitars. Which in our case is VERY!! So if you need another blast of damaged Buttholes influenced drug drenched stomp and stumble, then act fast, we got a bunch of these tapes the band pressed up themselves but they won't last long.
Dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding repetitive, caveman gar(b)age scuzz-rock weirdness. Phew. In the grand tradition of the Butthole Surfers, Liquor Ball, Rusted Shut, Black Mayonnaise and every other drunk and drugged dirge rock band that tried deperately to channel the Germs, Black Flag, a million out of tune guitars, a trunk full of warped drums with broken heads, and a suitcase fulll of broken effect pedals into a snarling, seething glorious mess, equal parts spastic octopoidal drumming, blown out blunderbuss bass and howling moaning vocal anguish... we bring present to you the Violent Students. A gorgeously unsightly, fabulously revolting head on collision between trashy druggy broken-instrument junk rock, spaced out Siltbreeze free noise splatter and slow motion doom drenched sludge, the Violent Students sound like a swimming pool full of broken amps and feeding back guitars, while a dumptruck empties its entire payload of cracked cymbals in a ear splitting golden shimmering shower, and the punk kid next door practices bass in the backyard while that weird drunk who's always hanging out on the corner is screaming nonsensically through a broken bullhorn. Imagine some sort of super group made up of the Butthole Surfers and the Jesus Lizard, but while they were sleeping, someone snuck in and gave them all full frontal lobotomies. The next night on stage you'd get something that might be a loose aproximation of the Violent Students, that is if you also dosed them with Thorazine and PCP and filled the room with automobile exhaust until the whole thing became a swirling, snarling, stumbling mess of drooling, gibbering, dim-witted, backward, besotted, imbecilic retarded BRILLIANCE! Believe it or not, we're told these guys (from Philly) toured with AQ fave folk-drone guitarist Jack Rose not long ago!
Hmmm, me thinks this sounds a wee bit like Portishead... no, on second thought me thinks this sounds a shamefully lot like Portishead and the Cocteau Twins, but terribly terribly watered down. The disappointment is only exacerbated by the fact that one half of this duo is Robin Guthrie formerly of the Cocteau Twins. Oh dear. The other half is Mono's Siobhan De Mare. Thumbs down.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Meh. Didn't like so much. Lo-fi hillbilly rock, sort of a softer version of Henry Flynt and the Insurrections.
You might recall the sunshine-sweetened sounds of SF pop band Morning Spy from a few years back (we carried two of their releases Subsequent Light and The Silver Age). Well, since then the fella from that band up and started an indie label Abandoned Love Records and a new solo project Virgin Of The Birds. Jon Rooney is his name and this is his debut album. In our reviews of Morning Spy we likened his vocal stylings to Daniel Bejar (Destroyer, New Pornographers) and John Darnielle (Mountain Goats), and with Mixed Choir we can utter the same refrain. The resemblance is often striking similar, and the results strikingly good!
Virgin Passages are a UK trio who rose from the ashes of the UK quintet Wardrobe. Mandalay is not an album proper, this is actually a compilation of early odds'n'ends (4-track recordings, demos, live cuts, cdrs, cassettes, and the like). The band's official debut album is still forthcoming, but it's clear that they're primed and ready to win over many new friends and fans in the earthy, mid-fi, ambient, psych folk freak scene. Hey Wooden Wand, Vanishing Voice and Ariel Pink, scoot over a bit and make some room for Virgin Passages! Their loosely structured 'kitchen sink' arrangements are haunting and a little eerie. It's all pieced and patched together into something that threatens to tumble into 'bad trip' territory. Can't wait for the full length!
In the mid '70s, three disaffected Irish kids named Derek Rowen, Paul Hewson, and Fionan Hanvey devloped the idea of the Lypton Village, which was something of a clubhouse of likeminded miscreants. Within these friendly confines, the three encouraged each other's preternatural attraction to the absurd in renaming everything around them in accordance with a Dadaist logic. Rowen became Guggi, after the way that his faced looked while hiccupping, Hanvey transformed into the gender-bending dandy Gavin Friday, and Hewson emerged as Bono after the Bonavox hearing aid shop, which Guggi insisted he looked like.
While Bono obviously went onto world domination thanks to U2, Guggi and Gavin developed a far more bizarre form of artpunk through their band The Virgin Prunes. The origin of the band's name is a little vague, possibly being Irish slang for mastubation or somebody with a sexual hang-up. Either way, the band developed a reputation for being madmen as their transgressive performances and freakish attire came close to reincarnating Antonin Artaud's Theatre of the Absurd. In many ways, The Virgin Prunes were much more art than punk especially in their thematic inversions of religion, beauty, and language; but at the same time, their ability to provoke and threaten was unmatched, with the notable exception of Throbbing Gristle (another band named for jerking off).
A New Form Of Beauty was a very early conceptual project for the Prunes, originally conceived in seven chapters: a 7", a 10", a 12", a cassette, an installation, a book, and a movie. This double disc set comprises all of the audio works in that series; with the installation completed back in 1981 at a gallery in Dublin, and the book and film still unreleased. Despite their initial connection with Bono and company, The Virgin Prunes have very little in common with the musical sensibility of U2. In fact, their wildly imaginative and unorthodox style has very few accurate comparisons, although they had often been uncritically pegged a Goth band, I guess because they wore black eyeliner. Admittedly, A New Form Of Beauty is a gloomy and claustrophobic affair spun with a peculiar delirium. As on the propulsive "Come To Daddy," Gavin and Guggi twist their neo-babble duets into demented screams alongside air-raid siren guitars and metronomic rhythms; but on "Sad World," they dissolve a maudlin piano driven ballad into a oblique drone for the vocalists' empathic miserablism. Idiosyncratic and bloodied with scars, A New Form of Beauty revels in the poetry of abjection.
For many years, I (Jim) have treasured the few separate components that I've been able to find from this series, and I'm delighted that all of the audio components have been collected onto one disc. And yeah, it still sounds incredible after all these years...
In 1984, The Virgin Prunes' vocalist Gavin Friday made a guest appearance on Coil's debut album Scatology. His hair-raisingly cathartic vocals on "The Tenderness of Wolves" seethed with a lurid expressionism to what would have been a potentially puerile theme of vampirism. Friday was a perfect addition to Coil's early masterpiece of abjection and transgressive behaviour. A few years earlier, The Virgin Prunes were commissioned by the French label L'Invitation au Suicide to score an album "concerned with insanity and its connection to art and filth." No wonder Coil wanted to work with Mr. Friday! Originally published as a double 10" box set, the resultant commissioned album Heresie featured one disc of new studio material and one disc of live material, culled from a performance at the Rex Club in Paris from 1982. During the studio sessions for Heresie, the band never slept and even allowed much of the ensuing delirious babble to bracket the more structured musical offerings. Their self-induced hallucinatory state certainly produced some amazing results, as can be heard on the exhaustingly furious tracks "Rhetoric" and "Loved One" which sort of sound like the Pathological stable of Terminal Cheesecake, Skullflower, and God with overloaded bass and pummeling tribal percussion driving the maniacal vocals and spidery guitar lines. The seasick parady of a traditional Irish tune on "Down The Memory Lane" typifies the bizarre counterpoints that the Virgin Prunes had used throughout their career. The live material on Heresie shows just how amazing they were as performers, even though none of these songs are vastly different than those found on their studio counterpoints.
Although they produced numerous singles and elaborate art editions, The Virgin Prunes only released two proper studio albums; and If I Die, I Die... was their debut released in 1982 on Rough Trade. Adorned with torn Victorian ballroom dresses and smeared black eye shadow, the Virgin Prunes were often lumped into the British Goth scene, although their music was clearly in a world of its own. If there was a Virgin Prunes album that most closely aligns itself to Goth glam posturing, If I Die, I Die... would come the closest. This curiously baroque post-punk album centers upon the shrill interplay between the band's vocalists Gavin Friday and Guggi who come across as half-crazed, drunken Dadaists purposely undermining the traditions of the vocal duet. As idiosyncratic and unorthodox as these two often sound, their single-minded focus on emoting an aesthetic of pure delirium pulled everything together. It didn't hurt that the Virgin Prunes also had a knack for dark pop subversion, which was enhanced by the production courtesy of the Wire's Colin Newman. With brittle shards of guitar accentuating the Gavin / Guggi vocals and a plodding rhythm section, The Virgin Prunes don't immediately strike us as as having the chops to write post-punk pop songs; but tracks like "Walls Of Jericho" and "Baby Turns Blue" are undeniably catchy, if something of an acquired taste. Not to worry, there's plenty of classic Virgin Prunes dementia on If I Die, I Die... as on the viperous "Sweethome Under White Clouds" and the jagged antagonism of "Caucasian Walk." After If I Die, I Die... the band began to strain under their eccentricities and never managed to produce anything as truly great as this record.
Released on their own Baby imprint in 1985, Over The Rainbow was the last album that The Virgin Prunes released before the band broke up, as founding member Gavin Friday ventured out on his own, fellow vocalist Guggi took up a career in painting, and several other members held onto the Virgin Prunes legacy in renaming themselves The Prunes with little or no success. Over The Rainbow -- a compilation of rarities and unreleased tracks -- was a fitting epitaph for the band, demonstrating the multifaceted nature of the unusual post-punk sound the band explored during their eight year career. While most compilations of rarities and unreleased tracks come across as an incoherent mess of throwaway tracks, Over The Rainbow actually features some of their best material, which was often composed for very specific purposes outside of their eccentric album concepts. Nightmarish drone tracks like "Red Nettle" and "Jigsawmentallama" nestle against the acerbic art-punk blasts of "Twenty Tens" and "Greylight" which come across as oblique versions of The Fall or Teardrop Explodes with two delirous Irishmen ranting over the top.
This reissue from Mute digs a little deeper into the vaults to pull out a couple more unreleased tracks that weren't on the original Over The Rainbow (or the Artfuck compilation which was essentially the same as Over The Rainbow). Even if you're not a completist, Over The Rainbow is a great overview of this baffling band.
The amazingly beautiful, highly anticipated first full album (after a couple of 10"s and a compilation of those 10"s) from this popular SF trio composed of Mary O'Neil and Brad Johnson, both ex-Wannabe Texans, and Greg Freeman of Lowdown Studios and Pell Mell. Good ole fashioned Americana that sounds like an alt.country version of the Velvet Underground or the Young Marble Giants playing Freakwater songs.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
7 wonderful new songs.
A special new four-song ep from hometown favorites Virginia Dare. This trio combines autoharp, delightful twang guitar, and simple percussion with the seen-it-all, slightly gravelly, defiantly feminine voice of Mary O'Neill. Includes a great X-Ray Spex cover ("Art-i-ficial"). If you're a fan of the Dare, place your order now because we've only got about 10 copies of this ep which was
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Out-of-print/hard-to-find import debut from AQ-faves Virgina Dare. We got a few copies of this '94 cd back in stock so grab 'em now while you can.
Listening to Virulence, you'd never guess that these guys would eventually become the stoner rock outfit Fu Manchu, cuz this stuff is pretty far removed from what we think of as stoner rock, twisted furious metallic punk rock, equal parts Melvins sludge, Black Flag gnarl and old school hardcore punk. Not to mention other varied heaviness like Swans, Bl'ast, Neurosis, Posion Idea... The riffs are Greg Ginn-ish for sure, tangled and angular, the songs lurching and lumbering, the bass fuzzy and distorted, vocalist Ken Pucci howling and yowling over start stop churning metallic crunch, shrieking feedback, sludgey grungy low slung punkmetal thud, with the band occasionally digressing into those awesome sort of late period Black Flag jazzy metal dirge meanders, the stuff that alienated the punks, but totally hit the spot for a lot of us. Serpentine melodies, wrapped around grinding angular riffage and chaotic drummage, bursts of old school punk pound butted up against woozy dirgey heaviness, fucking awesome stuff for sure.
This disc collects their debut album, along with a handful of live tracks, and their original demo, which is way more punk, but sounds as heavy and kick ass as ever.
Includes a massive booklet with tons of liner notes, reflections for the various band members, photos, old flyers and more...
Remember how excited we were a few months back about the reissue of the album Written In Waters by 'post-black-metal' weirdos Ved Buens Ende?? VBE were one of our favorite Norwegian bands EVER, all avantgarde and sorta-metal and proggy and just plain strange. Well, at long last VBE have finally made a new record! Well, not exactly. The name is different, the lineup too -- only Carl-Michael Eide (aka Czral) remains, with we think new guys rounding out the trio, though we can't be sure 'cause they all use pseudonyms anyway. But, despite all that and some further experimentation with electronics and even pop, this really does still sound like ol' Ved Buens Ende! Oh happy day.
Their math-metal songwriting definitely will still draw comparisons to Voivod, and despite reports that there's a Talking Heads influence you'll still hear more echoes of Ulver and Satyricon than you will of David Byrne, though it's certainly art rock, of a sort. Some parts remind us of Swans, or even This Heat's Charles Hayward's solo records! Other possible comparisons: Arcturus, Don Caballero, Dodheimsgard, Guapo, Enslaved, Codeine, Ulver, Solefald... All very 'different', just like Virus, who are capable of being powerfully complex or lullingly pretty, always creating a sense of unease and disquiet. It's dismal, it's distorted, it's as sad and beautiful as a dead white swan floating on a misty lake. Carheart has perhaps added more sampling and electronics to the VBE equation, but it's still got all the stuff we liked about Written In Waters. Hectic drumming, twisting, atonal guitars, psychedelic drone, rubbery bass, swooning, dramatic vocals, monk-chant vocals, atmospheric, uh, atmosphere...including field recordings of wind and water that suggest the mysterious lake we spoke of above. Lyrically, it's equally as cryptic, and the cd graphics only spawn further confusion. Carheart? Cars? Dog-headed men? What's going on? Can't figure it out and really we don't necessarily want to. It's enough that VBE are back in the guise of Virus. It IS different (Carl's playing guitar instead of drums, though it's still his vocals and vision) enough to be considered a new band, but VBE fans will not be disappointed! Recommended.
Carl-Michael Eide, aka Czral, of the illustrious Ved Buens Ende is back, with a 2nd Virus album, the band which continues the eccentric, eerily dissonant, darkly psychedelic sound once unique to VBE. And being back is pretty big deal, 'cause Carl-Michael very nearly died three years ago from a 4-story fall! Thankfully, he's recovered enough to mastermind this excellent Virus disc and also participate (under his guise of Aggressor) in the making of a new Aura Noir album too (also reviewed this list).
The late great VBE actually only made one proper album (1995's Written In Waters, sadly again out of print) plus a demos disc. At the time, we compared 'em to Slint, Don Caballero and Voivod - but somehow also black metal. Taking up where VBE left off, Virus in 2003 released the even quirkier Carheart album, that added extra electronic elements and a more prominent role for the bass, leading some to cite Talking Heads (!) and The Birthday Party as further-from-black-metal influences on their sound. And there's no denying that this ISN'T your usual black metal, or maybe black metal at all. With 'jazzy' bits, deep voiced vocal speak-singing, no wave grooves, and some vaguely techno-ish drum beats. But we'd say this one sounds more like old VBE than Carheart did, maybe 'cause some of these songs were originally written for an abortive VBE reunion attempt, heavier and less "pop", the guitars "smeary-er".
Regardless, even if VBE means nothing to you (yet), this new Virus is highly recommended for adventurous metal and non-metal listeners both, who'll appreciate its sonic similarities to Ulver and Arcturus, This Heat and the Swans... can you imagine a mathrock Amesoeurs perhaps, with Garm or Gira on vocals? It's dark metallic art rock with weird atmospheres, redolent of claustophobia and vertigo. Twisting, seasick and sinuous - not for everyone at all - but utterly compelling if you've caught the Virus.
We're so so psyched to finally be getting everything that comes out on UK heavy space/psych label Cardinal Fuzz, and this week's list brings two more goodies, elsewhere is the latest from Dead Sea Apes, whose collab with Black Tempest from a few lists back was a heady dose of psychedelic drift, and these guys, who we had never heard of before, but who sound right at home on Cardinal Fuzz, their sound a bit more tranced out and angular, just check out "Heavy Saddles", that almost sounds like a heavy psych Television, a woozy angular main riff repeated over and over, draped over a super motorik unwavering rhythm, the band locked tight into a total head nodding trance-out groove, while in the background, synths whir and thrum and effects swoop and swirl, it may be about 5 minutes, but it feels epically endless. And that's pretty much what these guys do, the guitar locks into a weird little melodic tangle or a woozy riff, sometimes jangly, like on "Natural Faze", sometimes murky and detuned like on "Drag", both sides of the band given plenty of space, "Natural Faze" sounds like some Velvets outtake, stretched even further out, with echo drenched vocals, the melodies spidery and the notes sort of melty and bendy, trance inducing and super hypnotic. That melty bendiness is all over "Drag" too, making it sound like Polvo gone space rock, which as you might imagine is a VERY good thing. More vocals surface here, the song slipping easily from blown out synth buzz, to murky motorik psych-groove and back again.
"In My Father's House There Are Mansions" jacks up the tempo a bit, and cranks the buzzing synth, to conjure up some snake charmer melody infused garage dirgery that should have Moon Duo and Liminanas fans freaking out in equal measure. And finally, "Black Ocean Glow", slows things back down, and unfurls some sprawling mid-tempo hypno-rock moodiness/broodiness, which churns and roils mesmerizingly until some surprise horns swoop in for the last couple minutes, giving the proceedings a seriously downer-jazz vibe, especially when all the other instruments drop out, and the horns lock into a dreamy, reverbed slo-mo outro, that could have stretched out forever.
Fans of all things Cardinal Fuzz (Dead Sea Apes, Hills, Janitors, Cosmic Dead, Heads, etc.) as well as other psych space combos (Carlton Melton, Moon Duo, etc.) will dig BIG time.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Freefolk ensemble from Portland Maine
Not sure when/where/how we first found out about Visitors and their 1974 self-titled album, but for the prog lovers here at Aquarius, it was love at first sight - literally, check out that cover art! A hyperencephalic space alien standing in a glowing doorway, the open door labeled "Sesame". The back cover is pretty freaky too: the disembodied heads of members of Visitors floating in front of an atomic mushroom cloud that's exploding out of a giant egg! And, yes, the music lived up to these silly-strange images. The album's heavy opener, "Dies Irae", with backwards effects, faux-Gregorian chant, wild synth flourishes, and wailing psych guitar, among other outre ingredients, is a grand(iose) introduction to the Visitors' over-the-top prog pleasures, coming off like a hybrid of Magma and an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. The tracks that follow maintain the same majestic/eccentric momentum. Imagine our favorite, craziest '70s Italian prog (Osanna, Area, Museo Rosenbach, etc.) meeting up with groovy orchestrations of a Serge Gainsbourg or Jean-Claude Vannier album. Visitors being in fact French, hence the latter comparisons.
Both Andee and Allan acquired copies of this cd for themselves as soon as they could, and always wanted to get it for Aquarius too, but only recently did we manage to contact the label in France and were able to order a bunch of this reissue to highlight. At the same time, we also finally figured out that a lot of AQ customers might be interested in this for another, specific, reason - Visitors was an exploitation-prog project of musical mastermind Jean-Pierre Massiera, whose surreal pop productions were the subject of two recent, quite popular collections we've been selling: Psychoses: Freakoid (1963-1978) and Psychoses: Discoid (1974-1981). Visitors actually appeared on both volumes, with "Flatwoods Story" (from this album) on Freakoid and "V-i-s-i-t-o-r-s" on Discoid.
Now's your chance to hear, from start to finish, an entire cult sci-fi concept album as envisioned by Massiera, unabashed prog bombast that's often haunting yet groovy at the same time. Although, at the time of its release, Visitors was a one-off album intended a cash-in on the progressive rock fad of the early '70s, its sci-fi concept probably not meant to be taken seriously either, nowadays it seems as valid, and certainly as enjoyable, as any other of the fabulous prog excesses of its era.
The cd booklet with this reissue includes photos, and liner notes in English giving a detailed history of Massiera's career, and includes full credits for all the twenty musicians and singers who participated, left anonymous on the original release. Among them, you'll find a future member of Magma, virtuoso violinist Didier Lockwood. And we were interested to learn that the "deep vocals" that occasionally pop up on the album were by Massiera himself.
