Brand new 7" from one the Blasted Canyons (that would be Heather, once a Bare Wire as well), their Castle Face debut was our Record Of The Week on last week's list, and weirdly enough, they're also on the quintuple flexidisc-book that is one of THIS week's Records Of The Week, needless to say we have mad love for Heather and all of her various projects, including now this one, Wax Idols, a solo project (although a proper band on this recording), and Wax Idols' sonic apple doesn't fall far from the Bare Wires / Blasted Canyons tree, which is just fine with us. The sound here is a little more sixties girl group though, a fuzzed out retro garage rock, but not as sunshiney and jangly as lots of those groups, more muscley, a little dark, and a little new wave-y, crunchy guitars, powerful echo drenched vox, snarly and sassy, over pounding drums and laced with glistening Cure like melodies. And hooks galore. Oh and that sixties girl group thing, we're not talking poodle skirts and sweaters, no we're talking leather jackets, ripped jeans and switchblades, in fact, it sorta sounds like the kind of band Pinky and Leather Tuscadero would start if they time travelled to the present day.
The B side gets even murkier and more new wave, the sound washed out and distorted, more plodding and dour and darkly gloomy. Really great. Definitely psyched to hear more...
The title Discipline & Desire refers to Wax Idols' Hether Fortune's day-job (or rather night-job) as a dominatrix, before her tenure in the San Francisco garage-punk scene. In other words, fuck with her at your peril. Fortune's also to be found in the beloved distorto-punk-pop trio Blasted Canyons, whose two albums on Castle Face have long been favorites around these parts. With the first Wax Idols record on Hozac, Fortune didn't wander too far from what she was doing in Blasted Canyons with the short barked punk numbers; but on Discipline & Desire, she's painting her nails black and digging out the old Bauhaus t-shirts from back in the day, for a much darker, death-rock vibe. As such, she's continuing in a line of strong-willed, goth-inflected female fronted bands from San Francisco over the past couple of decades. Obviously, one can look all the way back to Romeo Void and The Avengers, but also more recently to Veronica Lipgloss, Subtonix, and The Vanishing. The songs are driven by Fortune's ice-queen demeanor through which she bellows impassioned tales of lust and fury on top of the buzzsaw drones and primitive rhythmic propulsion. Think X-Mal Deutschland, early Siouxsie, and Killing Joke's Night Time... and you're getting pretty close. Wax Idols also got some production assistance from Marc Burgess of The Chameleons, adding some true black-clad cred to the album. It's a record that's been on pretty heavy rotation here at aQuarius.
Finally, a full length record from Heather Fedewa, aka one woman psychedelic jangle pop new wave garage rock combo Wax Idols, which seems to have been expanded to what essentially amounts to a full band for this full length. Fedewa is a member of aQ beloved recent Record Of The Week honorees Blasted Canyons, and she was a former Bare Wire as well of one of the punx in Hunx & His Punx, so with a pedigree like that it didn't really take a genius to figure out that we'd dig Wax Idols, and dig it we do, the first single we reviewed a while back was a big hit around here, with a fuzzed out garage rock girl group sound that didn't stray too far from the sound of her old band The Bare Wires, which was just fine with us, although as we mentioned in that review, the sound tended to be a bit darker, with more crunch, more murk, a definitely gloom pop vibe, although we have to say, none of that is present on the opening track here, which is fuzzy and crunchy and jangly, with plenty of tough girl swagger, reminding us a bit of the Runaways, especially with Fedewa's snarled echo drenched yelp on the chorus, although the rest of the song is pretty fuzzy and dreampoppy. "Hitman" too, could almost be Best Coast, or the Dum Dum Girls, raw and urgent, fuzzy and crunchy, with chiming guitar melodies over the fuzzy riffage, but then something strange happens, the chord progression of the chorus has this weird turn right at the end that's a little bit sour, and makes the hook have just a little bit of edge, which is probably a good description of this whole record, fuzzy, jangly, a little new wavey, but with just a little bit more bite than other sonically similar bands. In fact, if there was a girl group battle of the bands, that was in fact an actual battle, all of those other bands would get their asses KICKED. Just check out "Dilno", super rocking, blown out and fuzzy, distorted, rollicking and rocking, with some weird vox and a super dynamic stuttery chorus.
As the record progresses, the songs seem to get a bit more moody, the sound stretching out into gloom pop territory, which totally suits the songs, and balances the more sunshiney numbers nicely. And then the record finishes off with maybe the poppiest jam here, all echo drenched vocals, warm shimmery strum, and sweetly melancholy minor key melodies, but even there, the song has plenty of dynamics, the multiple guitars weaving a lush almost shoegazey haze over the second half, but not enough to obscure Wax Idols' fuzz pop perfection.
Fans of Bare Wires, Blasted Canyons, Thee Oh Sees, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, Best Coast, Girls At Dawn, Grass Widow, etc. this just might be your new favorite record.
This young band from Olympia craft some fine chamber pop and they suit it up in suitably lovely'n'artful homespun packaging. The disc comes enclosed in a fabric bound fold-out case encased in a fabric pouch. Their music is very floral with the arrangements driven by piano leads and ultra pretty female vocals. Imagine the doe-eyed sweetness of The Sundays and Madder Rose crossed with the more womanly worldliness of Tori Amos. Emotions and drama build gradually over the course of the album's ten songs from the near-lullaby nature of "Never" to the climactic "Annabelleigh". Quite gorgeous.
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Zappa-y hippie pop psych from Detroit, circa 1970.
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Hard to beat this disc if you like Beatlesy psych pop from back in the day! Very recommended to all Lennon/McCartney fans. A few years ago we used to stock cd reissues of the two albums released by this early '70s Peruvian outfit, a band who evolved from '60s psych act Laghonia and who obviously worshipped the Fab Four (and their solo efforts, especially, seeing as how they cover both "Band On The Run" and "Bluebird" by McCartney's Wings). It's a bummer that those two discs have been out of print for a while, but we're happy that the Repsychled label (Tarkus, Traffic Sound, etc.) has teamed up with another fave reissue label of ours, Lion, and put out this singles collection, basically a "best of" We All Together! Of the 13 cuts here, eight seem to be included on the band's two albums, leaving five we hadn't heard before. So even if you DO already have those cds you might want this, and if you don't, it's currently the best way to get acquainted with the magic of We All Together's sweet and sad pop psych music. Pepperisms abound, with studio experimentation and backwards guitar ("Soy Timido"), and as well there's some rousing rockers ("Sally"). The use of piercing ARP synth brings to mind that equally Beatlesy Malaysian band Truck whose reissue we reviewed recently... if you liked Surprise, Surprise you'll dig this for sure! Likewise if you like the Aerovons or Badfinger (also covered here). Not that the Beatles are their only influence...both Roy Orbison and Tchaikovsky are cited in the liner notes as songwriting inspirations! The liner notes by the way, are extensive, in English and Spanish, and the cd booklet also includes lots of vintage photos.
We've previously reviewed a singles collection by these early '70s psych-popsters from Peru, but somehow never reviewed the reissues of either of their two records, despite 'em being longtime aQ faves. But, we just discovered that we could still get copies of their first, self-tltled album, on vinyl, so figured we'd do a little write-up. Basically, We All Together were responsible for some of the world's best ever Beatles/Paul McCartney worship, this side of Wings. In fact, they cover two post-Beatles McCartney tunes here, as well as a song by Beatles proteges Badfinger. But you'd think they'd written 'em, the way their originals are totally in the same style of dreamy pop balladry Peppered (ahem) with psychedelic studio effects. All ten tracks here on their 1972 debut are replete with sad piano melodies, sweet backing vocal harmonies, and oh yeah they bust out some fuzz guitar too on the likes of "Hey Revolution".
Brilliant, affecting stuff, given some extra charm by virtue of being from Peru and not England or the USA. Super recommended, something we'll always love, up there with any Beatles-y thing from anyplace (Emitt Rhodes, Aerovons, Rainbow Ffolly, what have you). It you haven't heard 'em before, you're in for a treat.
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Some fresh blood arrives at the dance party already in full swing with the likes of The Faint, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers and Bloc Party. Well, we can say one thing, they can play the style really well -- heck, as shown above, there's already been plenty of bands to prep the genre's template of thumpin' kickdrum, jangly rock guitar and affected angst boy vocals. That said, their lyrics are pretty darn painful, but maybe you can somehow turn a deaf ear to the actual words being sung and just enjoy the punchy, catchiness of With Love And Squalor.
Post-rock gets a little metallic when We Be The Echo are around. Although their central sound is one of Chicago style mathy post-rock, the SF band does muscle its way outside of its boundaries from time to time. Whereas the music that falls under those two genre umbrellas is for the most part about precision, We Be The Echo play it loud and loose. Ultimately this serves to alternately benefit (high energy level) and hinder (somewhat muddled math parts) the impact of many songs on Stanislaw Stories. Nine propulsive instrumentals.
We quote from the right-on back cover blurb: "Rising from the crowded garage band underbelly of 1966 American suburbia, Florida's We The People prove to be an unbelievably dynamic aggregation; versatile in the true sense of the word. From punkish R&B screamers and eastern-toned proto-psych mini-masterpieces to soul and pure pop, this fivesome covered all of the bases with consistently amazing results."
Lodged somewhere between The Seeds garage aggression and The Kinks pop lyricism is Florida's greatest sixties "never-was" band, We The People. Supported by two strong in-house songwriters, We The People were almost too pop-savvy and musically accomplished to be called a garage band, but they could tear it up with the wildest proto-punk groups out there but also deliver smart and clever lyrics, killer pop hooks and dreamy psych vibes. The opening Morricone-ish guitar hook of "In the Past" (covered by The Chocolate Watch Band) is the clincher, along with the feedback rave-ups of "You Burn Me Up and Down" and "Too Much Noise" and the moody tremolo pensiveness of "(You Are) The Color Of Love" and "Alfred, What Kind of man Are You?". Unfortunately, they never received any wide national attention, despite being signed to RCA Victor, and after one key songwriter jumped ship, it pretty much sealed the band's fate. This anthology collects their best and most essential singles, a much needed pairing down from the completist 2cd set Sundazed issued a decade ago. While it has almost the same tracks as the early Collectables reissue, the tracklisting is greatly improved for better flow, making this feel like the album that was never made. Seriously, there's not a bum cut on here, and they're all original songs. Essential!
A few years back, there seemed to be a glut of dour angular new wave combos, many of which we dug like crazy, band after band of sharply dressed, angular hair-ed rockers kicking out some of the hookiest jams in ages, Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand, Frightened Rabbit, The Editors, Interpol and the like, and however much of a glut there may have been, we could never get enough. And We Were Promised Jetpacks, not only benefited from having a bad ass band name, but they also seemed to up the ante on guitar crunch, and heavy buzz, and they wedded that extra muscle to some killer songs, often ditching the whole short sharp new wave thing for brooding slow build post rock epics, all underpinned by a distinctly dark, low slung Joy Division gloomy undercurrent, it's like they read our minds and took Mogwai, Godspeed and Maximo Park and created some sort of Frankensteinian epic hook filled new wave band just for us, and then to top it off gave said band an awesome ridiculous name.
Needless to say we were pretty psyched for this new one, and the opening track instantly convinced us that the wait was not in vain, a wild progged out epic post rock opening with tumbling drums and crashing chords, all woven into some dizzying stop start mathiness, then the riff comes in, and it's a killer, and then the band come in and sound crazy heavy, the song shifting to bass / drum verse, peppered with bursts of crunchy guitar jangle, there's even a crazy majestic epic post rock crescendo finishing off in a blaze of new wave buzz and pound. And while we're tempted to proclaim that the best track here, pretty much everyone we listen to becomes our favorite, at least until we move on to the next one, "Through The Dirt And The Gravel", is some seriously heavy noisepop, with some thick buzzing bass, and a hook to die for, and closer "Pear Tree" is dark and heavy and brooding, the perfect new wave slow build post rock hybrid, the sort of song that sans vocals would sound right at home on a Mogwai record, but as is just might be the perfect finish to a nearly perfect record.
Fans of the above mentioned bands, as well as other sonically similar outfits like Kaiser Chiefs, Futureheads, Arctic Monkeys, Art Brut, Bloc Party and the like will go crazy for this. And if you've yet to hear these guys, this is the perfect place to start, just check out that first sound sample, odds are you'll be as smitten as we are.
Another killer brooding angular guitar-ed dour-ish hook filled modern new wave record from Scotland, this time from the awesomely monickered We Were Promised Jetpacks, whose sound will no doubt by now be familiar to fans of outfits like Maximo Park, Frightened Rabbit, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol and the like, and while WWPJ don't necessarily revolutionize -that- sound, they do know their way around a pop song, managing to wind taut chiming guitars, muscle-y drumming, buzzy synths, and yowled emotional vocals into slow burning epics, rife with crunchy guitars, epic post rock swells, some bursts of almost metallic heft, and plenty of low slung bass heavy grooves. The first song alone was enough, we were sold within seconds, a woozy muted dark riff, looped beneath a weary croon, building and building for nearly half the song, the guitars growing ever more insistent, tinkling chimes joining the nearly percussionless jam, before the track finally explodes into a massive Mogwai-ish blowout.
And so it goes. Crunchy guitars, anthemic choruses, a gloomy Joy Divisiony rhythm section, hooks like crazy, some songs hushed and intimate, but others wrapped in huge gauzy streaks of Godspeed / Mogwai / Sigur Ros epic post rock haze (and one of the songs even has a Conet Project sample!). Heavy and hooky, dark and jangly and a new favorite for sure.
Causing quite a stir with our neighbours to the north, it's the Weakerthans featuring former Propagandhi member John K. Samson. Don't be expecting any fiery political punk though, this is coming from quite a different direction. However, let it be known the attention and accolades are very deserved - often-brittle vocals convey poetic narratives from and about a depressed region around Winnipeg, Manitoba (a central province of Canada). Samson is a fantastic lyricist, nailing the most achingly personal sentiments and weighty political commentaries. Desolate, intimate and filled with heartache. From the first strains of "Everything Must Go!" to the final chord of "Slips And Tangles", this is some damn fine, melancholic, hook-laden emo pop. An all-time Cup fave, 'Left and Leaving' is their second full length and it stands head and shoulders above the rest... of their own releases and any other emo band's for that matter. Very very recommended.
Record number two from John Samson and his not-so-merry band of bittersweet pop punk minstrels. Samson cut his teeth in political punkers Propagandhi, but left to follow his own particularly personal pop path of minor key jangle, dreamy melody, not-overtly-catchy hooks (but hooks nonetheless) and lyrics that you could never imagine fitting comfortably in a pop song. But they do. Sort of. Like poems by Pynchon or Vollman set to music. Hyper literate but still personal and affecting. Samson's vocals are reminiscent of Robynn Hitchcock, as is his wordplay and penchant for meandering tales of love and loss, while the sound is like a punkier popppier version of recent AQ faves, the Decemberists. A dense and tangly first listen, but as you dig deeper, it grows and grows and starts to feel like a record you just can't live without.
On a regular basis, Andee and Cup armwrestle over which is the best Weakerthans album. Her heart has a special velvet rope spot for their second one, Left And Leaving. Their subsequent releases (including this one) are very good, no question. Yet they just pale in comparison to the greatness of one of her all-time favorites. Almost every one of its songs nails you right in the heart with their crushworthy emotive boy vocals, big guitars, irresistible hooks and near-anthemic refrains. John K. Samson's bookish yet immensely heartfelt lyrics appeal to all ages -- imagined highschool sweetheart scrawlings on looseleaf, latenight brutal and sweet bedroom ruminations, non-heavyhanded social/political commentaries, brainy academia -- and they never fail to trigger a yearning ache in the chest and pit of the stomach.
On the other hand, Andee opts for Reconstruction Site. It's a little more power poppy he thinks, but heck, as both Cup and Andee can agree, they're both pretty dang awesome.
Now four years later, their fourth full length enters the ring (fyi: it's not actually a reunion, they never broke up!), and it's aiming for our hearts right from the get go! Without a doubt, Reunion Tour is far more immediately engaging than Reconstruction Site, and is almost as endearing as Left And Leaving. In fact, it fits in comfortably and warmly familiar right between those two albums. Samson's voice is sounding its strongest, most self assured, and the rest of the band is right there with him. If we had our way, this band's songs would be on every highschool movie soundtrack and every bestfriend/sweetheart mixtape. Go on, shyly shuffle your feet, slouch your shoulders in a wellworn vintage cardigan sweater, and bob your head along to these fine tunes!
The awesomely (and super positively) titled Fuck Everybody, You Can Do Anything, is the third record from The Andrew Weathers Ensemble, a mostly improvised affair, masterminded by Andrew Weathers, but augmented by a constantly shifting cast of guest improvisers (including members of local dronefolk combo Common Eider, King Eider). Weathers and Co. offer up an extremely unlikely sonic hybrid, with a loose strain of modern minimalism as its core, but somehow incorporating both a spare, dusky modern Appalachia, as well as some warped avant R&B. And yeah, we know how ridiculous that sounds, but once you hear it, it makes all kinds of beautiful (non)sense.
The bulk of Fuck Everybody is laid atop lush fields of smoldering drones, slow shifting layers of sound, over which Weathers drapes shimmery steel string buzz, a melancholic twang flecked folk, occasionally swathed in sweetly swoonsome strings. But it's the vocals that really make this unique, a raspy, soulful croon, but one that's been processed, and vocodered, and autotuned, and suddenly, it sounds like some warped slo-mo-soul jam, all wound around hazy streaks of psychedelic folk.
Woodwinds drift in and out, as does the work of various guests, each supplying varying degrees of sonic filigree. Again, those elements are mostly ephemeral, wraithlike affectations that shimmer ghostlike around the core sound of softly pulsing chordal thrum, mysterious, muted percussion, those aforementioned subtle R&B-isms, sped up and slowed down vox, chopped and looped, and then, skeletal tendrils of steel string buzz and spare fingerpicked folk. That vintage blues folk feel, fused with the processed vox, not to mention a sky full of glimmering, crystalline FX, somehow manages to make two totally disparate sounds, sound like they absolutely belong together. And when multiple vocals intertwine, be they multiple vocalists or Weathers multi-tracked, they become a stunning group-style chorale, and the sound blossoms into what sounds like avant old timey standards or some alternate universe spirituals, a gorgeous, slow burning chamber folk, weaving psychedelic modern spaciness into more traditional folksong structures, and filtered through the cracked lens of modern minimalism.
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Cool new/no wave inspired rock jams. Angular and infectious.
With guests including Wendy from Wendy & Bonnie!
Contemporary British psych/folk singer Jane Weaver has never had a proper aQ review, though she has appeared on many of our reviews of various Finder's Keepers comps such as Bearded Ladies and Bird Songs, and she is part of the Pre-Cert label super group Neotantrik with husband Andy Votel and members of Demdike Stare. Her sixth full length, The Silver Globe, has finally got our undivided attention, largely because it's a wild departure from the pastoral folk-psychedelia of her previous solo efforts and embraces a heavier cinematic electronic kraut-rock sensibility akin to Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, The Sound Carriers, and Death and Vanilla.
Named after the polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski's (Possession) incomplete sci-fi masterpiece from 1988, On The Silver Globe, whichin turn was based on a 1901 polish sci-fi novel (written by Zulawski's granduncle Jerzy Zulawski) about an ill-fated moon expedition. The epic drama of grand fantastical desire and ruinous failure that mars both the fictional narrative and the actual real-life circumstances surrounding the making of both the book and film seems to be a perfect foil for Weaver's emotive vocals that are both cool and dreamy but have the ability to drive us through the various peaks and valleys of atmospheric lows and electric transcendent highs. Beautiful!
We listed the original version of this several months ago, if you missed it then, though, you're in luck 'cause it has just been issued again in a special deluxe edition, with a whole bonus disc added on! And, somehow, it's cheaper!! That's right, this widely-acclaimed 2014 album now is expanded to include a 2nd full-length disc entitled The Amber Light. Here's what we said about The Silver Globe proper, the first time we listed it:
Contemporary British psych/folk singer Jane Weaver has never had a proper aQ review, though she has appeared on many of our reviews of various Finder's Keepers comps such as Bearded Ladies and Bird Songs, and she is part of the Pre-Cert label super group Neotantrik with husband Andy Votel and members of Demdike Stare. Her sixth full length, The Silver Globe, has finally got our undivided attention, largely because it's a wild departure from the pastoral folk-psychedelia of her previous solo efforts and embraces a heavier cinematic electronic kraut-rock sensibility akin to Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, The Sound Carriers, and Death & Vanilla.
Named after the polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski's (Possession) incomplete sci-fi masterpiece from 1988, On The Silver Globe, which in turn was based on a 1901 polish sci-fi novel (written by Zulawski's granduncle Jerzy Zulawski) about an ill-fated moon expedition. The epic drama of grand fantastical desire and ruinous failure that mars both the fictional narrative and the actual real-life circumstances surrounding the making of both the book and film seems to be a perfect foil for Weaver's emotive vocals that are both cool and dreamy but have the ability to drive us through the various peaks and valleys of atmospheric lows and electric transcendent highs. Beautiful!
And then, regarding The Amber Light, well we just got it in, so the label's blurb on it will have to suffice: "The Amber Light carves a niche between new age motivational music, radiophonic folk, and snarling krautrock, echoing the kosmische stylings of The Silver Globe with the punk urgency of '80s domestic synthpop. The Amber Light's four original songs are accompanied by three exclusive instrumental themes (including a commissioned theme from an American vampire film), and three collaborative re-workings/duets based on tracks from The Silver Globe, with co-production from Tom Furse (The Horrors), Andy Votel, Suzanne Ciani, members of Demdike Stare, and original Silver Globe inhabitants Pete J. Phillipson and Martin King."
Ah, nepotism. And oh, to be the son or daughter of famous parents, guaranteeing you at least a shot, a movie, a record deal, whatever. So it's always nice when the offspring don't drop the ball and embarass themsleves and their folks. Such is the case
We love music. But even so, it's not like we love everything. Here at the store, we've all got different tastes and enjoy different things to varying degrees. Regular readers will notice there are only a few unanimous picks, but pretty much everyone here loves Windy & Carl!
This release veers into way different territory than might be expected, but will still please plenty of W&C's more adventurous fans. Before hearing the record, rumors were circulating about how harsh it supposedly was, and how it sounded nothing like what we'd expect. Well, after checking it out, that's true, and then again it's not. Many of the same sonic qualities are present: warm drones, whispy guitars, etc. But it's in the melodies where this really diverges from the norm. Whereas W&C typically go for major-key, pretty drones, this work has a truly sinister quality to it. To really engage with the music, you need to at least become acquainted with the general concept.
On the surface, I Hate People sounds very unlike what we'd expect from the kindhearted dog-lover, musician, and Michigan record store owner we've come to know and love. So let's talk more about this specific release. Well, the cover sports her 1987 passport photo, which shows a very Siouxsie and the Banshees-esque, punk-meets-goth Windy. On the inside there is a short musing on Sirens, which can be summed up by one particular line: "at one point or another, we've all wanted an island." I Hate People is a record that openly paints human relationships as being a Self versus Other paradigm, and then juxtaposes that with the relationship between sailors and sirens. Windy hates people because people are the only thing that can truly hurt us. Okay, you get it. We don't want to get all pedantic. So what does it sound like? Sonically, the release definitely reflects a musical exploration of those ideas. At times more or less frustrated, but throughout it evokes a certain feeling of anxiousness and alienation, but never apathy. This record maybe be best suited for Windy & Carl fans who can stomach the idea of truly disturbing drones, or possibly even fans of leftfield, ambient black metal. Yeah. So if none of that scares you, dare to delve in! This is a great release, and we hope to see more solo work from both Windy AND Carl! Recommended!
All gathered up here on one cd, odds and ends from the Wedding Present vault including acoustic versions, live tracks, and covers of Tom Waits and Butterglory. Dave Gedge and co. even take on the theme from Cheers. Is this a good thing? We're not sure, but fans of Mr. Gedge's furry muppet voice and pop song polish will surely want to round out their WP collection.
This is indeed the first Wedding Present album in eight years! While it's not like David Gedge has been sitting on his hands all this time -- he's had his share of other irons in the fire, one of them being the glorious band Cinerama -- but to that we still say, "Holy smokes!" The first AQ customer to buy it had this to say, "Gloriously heartbreaking. Makes me want to drink expensive liquor & sleep around." And to that we say, "Oh my!" While we didn't have quite the same reaction, we can wholeheartedly confirm that all of you Wedding Present devotees have certainly been rewarded for your admirable patience. Mr. David Gedge delivers his trademark top-notch pop goods with Take Fountain. Somewhat darker and more subdued than the WP of old, but no less captivating -- he's definitely brought a great deal of the smooth elegance of his other group Cinerama into the mix, and it blends super well. Happy to hear that even after eight years, Wedding Present pop songs continue to snap, sparkle and soar in that unmistakable Gedge fashion. Recommended.
In case you're a Wedding Present completist who missed 'em when they were originally released as imports over the last coupla years OR in case you're a bit of a neat freak who wants everything in one tidy package, here's a cd/dvd set of U.K. singles (released on the band's own label Scopitones) and videos from 2004 and 2005. Eleven of the fourteen songs were previously unreleased in the U.S., and three of the six videos were previously unavailable anywhere!
You might recall Bloodshot Records' rollicking frolicking children's music compilation The Bottle Let Me Down from a few years back. 'Twas fun for the whole family! Well, they've jumped back into the playpen for another go 'round. This time, the indisputable lord and lady of the label Jon Langford and Kelly Hogan have teamed up for this delightful collection of off-kilter kiddies' tunes. With songs like "A Newt Called Tiny", "Flies On My Taters", Ragtime Duck" and "Lightnin' The Turtle", who can resist? Hmmmm, wonder if they're available for babysitting.
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SORRY.
The opening minute or so of "Heal", the first track on Deserve, at first blush seems like it could give very much the wrong impression of these Canadian noise poppers, although the more we listen to Deserve, the more it seems like maybe it was in fact ultimately the all together RIGHT impression. The record opens with a squall of swirling feedback, what sounds like multiple guitars unfurling layer upon layer of feedback, and even when the song kicks in proper, it's mostly a crumblingly distorted single chord, over pounding caveman drumming, until all of a sudden, that noisiness coalesces into some impossibly perfect pop, a twisted chunk of nineties style indie rock jangle, wistful and super melodic and crazy catchy, albeit, plenty noisy and fuzzy, distorted and blown out, and from there on out, the song swings deliriously from lilting, loping, Sebadoh-style lo-fi pop, to a full bore, buzzing psychedelic sort-of-chorus/refrain, howled vocals over one of those chord changes that gives you chills, the sort of thing most bands struggle to come up with, but throughout the course of Deserve, these guys seem to toss off those moments like there was some limitless supply, and who knows? Maybe for these guys there is. Deserve gives us no reason to think otherwise. But before we can get to more of those moments, the band finish off "Heal" with a full two minutes worth of abstract psychedelic feedback noise drenched drift, almost as if in the studio, they just leaned their guitars against the amps, and stepped out for a smoke. But it's that willful, listener baiting noisiness, and the fact that of "Heal"s six and a half minutes, less than three is proper 'song', that helps balance the group's popsmithery, with a sort of sneering punk rock energy, that as you might imagine, finds its way into even the poppiest moments here. And there's something about two minutes of droned out noise, that when the second track "Set Me Back" finally explodes, there's a sense of sonic relief, that only adds to what is yet another glorious slab of blown out fuzz pop, big guitars, deep crooned vocals buried in the mix, melodies to die for, and another one of those choruses, that sounds like it was plucked right out of some classic Dinosaur Jr jam, but Weed's sound is more muddy and murky, and all the better for it, swirling and psychedelic, every song here, sounds like one of those songs or one of those bands that should have been huge, but instead, stayed your little secret, the best band nobody else knew about, understood, or in most cases had ever even heard, or heard of. And that totally taps into something most music nerds hold near and dear, and positions Weed, no matter how popular they get, as the sort of band, that could easily become YOUR band.
And while there's nothing nearly as chaotic and freaked out as the opener, there is most definitely no shortage of fuzz pop bliss. "Gun Shy" is rollicking and punky, but again, crazy catchy, mixing droned out guitar, furious buzz, tangled melodies, and some super heavy, almost emo sounding noiserock blowouts. "Silent Partner" almost sounds like a slightly punkier, more youthful Swervedriver, and that shoegaze vibe surface throughout, giving all of Deserve a fantastically dreamy, druggy vibe, a sound that shifts easily from hazy, fuzzy drift, to grinding punkish pound and back again, often settling somewhere right in between, and again, amidst all this noisiness and sonic chaos, all this crunch and fuzz, blast and pound, is some of the craftiest popsmithery we've heard in ages, the sort of thing, that recast, and super polished, could have the potential to be the next big thing, thankfully, these guys seem to have no interest in that at all. The poppiness of these jams more like some sonic artifact, the seemingly random result of nothing but loud guitars, sweaty, bloody basement shows, lots of booze, youthful exuberance, and just fucking rocking, it's the perfect mix of that classic nineties indie rock sound that we can't ever seem to get enough of STILL, home brewed fuzz pop, and wild, chaotic noise rock crunch, all woven into something more fresh and and raw and punk and poppy, and it's just about the best thing we've heard in forever.
Stoners and loners Weed are back with another full-length of dopey noise-pop sad jams, and once again, we're fully on board. You remember that episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer goes to Lollapalooza in an effort to be cool, and is met with a crowd of swaying Gen-X'ers mumbling to Sonic Youth? Yeah, this record kinda sounds like that, in the best way possible. Right off the bat, we get a quick modulating buzz before it kicks right in, and wouldn't you know it? The first line is a monotone "I don't wanna feel like this anymore". Running Back is that perfect nineties blend of mopey, noisey nihilism and sugary, perfect pop. "Thousand Pounds," for example, captures this blend perfectly; pounding rhythm, almost shoegaze-esque fuzzed-out guitars, and buried but melodic-as-hell vocals that brings to mind the last Nothing record, super bombastic and poppy, but also melancholic and despondent. "Meet Me With Ease" is the other side of the Weed coin, the faster, more punked up, more "rock" jam that will have every stoned twenty-something swaying with it.
There's a kind of no-nonsense, punkish approach on Running Back that distinguishes it from the wave of new shoegaze (is that called Nu-Gaze?) bands - everything's a little faster, a little more to-the-point, and it works so well on this record. If you still have a soft spot in your heart for the grungy, noisey, poppy sound of bands like Dinosaur Jr and Sebadoh (and why wouldn't you?), you'll be pumped on this record.
Obscure, awesome 1971 krautrock proto-metal reissued! And they're called Weed. Need we say more? As always, we will say more, 'cause we've got to mention that the heavy electric organ bombast on this album is cranked out by none other than Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep fame, over in Germany on vacation or something. He appears here under the fairly transparent pseudonym of "Ken Lesley"! Having mentioned that, we realize we should probably review some actual Uriah Heep albums on our site one of these days, but this did just get reissued so we're writing about it now. (Sooner or later we will write up some Heep, but suffice to say that their first five albums RULE, circa '70-'73, though they go downhill pretty steeply after that. If you dig Deep Purple and haven't checked out the early Heep, you should.)
Anyway, back to Weed. Thanks to Hensley/Lesley, they DO sound a bit like Uriah Heep, especially on the killer opener "Sweet Morning Light". Despite (sarcastic?) lyrics about "sun shining bright, on everything in sight" and other seemingly positive things, the singer's depressed delivery and the downer dirginess of the heavy, groovy music creates a much darker, doomier mood! It's kinda brilliant, that contrast. Elsewhere, this album features the more mellow, melancholic acoustic balladry of "Loney Ship", one blues rocker, "Slowin' Down", and several other sorts of organ-ornate melodic kraut prog jams. It ends with another heavy highlight, the song "Weed" itself, the album's longest track at 7:14. And it's an instrumental. With a crunching, exceedingly Sabbathy main riff, or is it Led Zep? Kicks ass anyways. For the first and last tracks alone, this disc is something anyone interested in proto-doom should hear.
Also, Weed should get some sort of award as one of the earliest overt "stoner rock" bands ever, just based on their name, right? Them and Leafhound.
Weed Diamond is an upstart, lo-fi outfit from Denver, which has grown out of the cracked bedroom project of songwriter Tim Perry into a full band that's just as wonderfully sloppy in the delivery of some pretty awesome melodic jangle. The Sweater Kids recordings originally appeared as a cassette in 2009, but the origins of the Carry On ep is not all that clear. It could be that Perry had some new material with his full band in tow when Bridgetown asked to reissue that cassette as a cd-r. In any case, the differences between Weed Diamond, the one-dude-holed-up-in-apartment, and Weed Diamond, the four-piece ensemble, are pretty minor, as everything has been recorded on a shitty 4-track with any given channel totally overblown and given ample doses of the cheapest reverb one can find. Weed Diamond revel in their untidy trimmings and primitive hiss; but on pretty much every track, there's an effortless, utterly catchy vocal melody that rises out of the noise-pop chaos. If this brings to mind The Oh Sees or Wavves, you're definitely on the right track with the mischievousness of those two projects occasionally begetting the wistful, downer paisley pop underbelly of Deerhunter or Beach Fossils. Really fantastic stuff that speaks well for the future of Weed Diamond!
Even being the sort of person who knows almost nothing about drugs, I do know the usual preferred delivery method for pot is inhalation, not ingestion (to the lungs, not the stomach). Not that you can't cook it up in a brownie, but the guys in Weedeater sound like they just shovel handfuls of weed straight into their gaping jaws, like some sort of drug crazed harvesting machine, or like a stoner rock engineer dumping coal into the engine of a locomotive, which makes sense, as it's obvious these guys need enough weed to power the relentless, downtuned, full bore stoner metal crush found on God Luck And Good Speed.
A relative stoner rock institution, Dixie Dave and company have been spewing their filthy, crusty, blown out, drug rock for going on 10+ years now, and before that Dixie fronted the equally heavy and even crustier Buzzov-en, so this man knows his way around a stoney riff and a druggy groove, and this shit sounds just as good now as it did a decade ago, and I don't even smoke pot. So I can only imagine how amazing this must sound high�
But even NOT high, Weedeater destroy! Like some impossible crossbreeding experiment gone hellishly wrong, one part Eyehategod, one part Sleep, one part Corrosion Of Conformity, one part Bongzilla, guitars tuned so low the strings drag along the ground, amps stacked so high, they need a ladder to crank those knobs to 11. The vocals a harsh demonic mewl, almost more black metal than stoner metal, the drums simple but massive.
Recorded mostly by Steve Albini, except for one track by CoC's Mike Dean, and that track is the weirdest of the bunch, just bass, banjo and baritone crooning, a creepy stoner country ballad, which somehow sounds right at home amidst the crushing low slung heaviness surrounding it on all sides.
Plus song titles like "Wizard Fight", "Weedmonkey" and they even cover Skynyrd's "Gimme Back My Bullets"!
Packaged in a cool mini gatefold lp-style sleeve, the art embossed and printed in gold metallic ink, with a little hymnal inside with all the lyrics, just like a mini stoner bible.
The smoking hot Mexican Summer label unleashes another new great band to the world, this one actually resides right here in San Francisco. Weekend blast out two songs on this 10" overflowing with a refreshing lo-fi rocking and shoegazey vibe. Kind of like a Woodsist band doing covers of Nowhere era Ride, or a less monochromatic Crystal Stilts letting loose on Unrest covers, or The Chills crossed with early My Bloody Valentine. They also remind us a bit of a more ramshackle and raw version of Desolation Wilderness who have also recently been creating great songs from a similar sonic perspective but with a bit more polish and fleshed out production. Weekend keeps things fuzzy and blown own and a bit raw which for sure works in their favor and also aligns them well with the likes of Wavves, Pearl Harbor, Grass Widow, etc.
Both songs on here are fucking great! But we wouldn't feel right if we didn't mention that it is only two songs (one of which will be on their forthcoming full length) which makes the $20 pricetag seem a bit, well, outrageous. Of course this is extremely limited and will be gone before the blink of an eye, and we really do love all the music Mexican Summer has been putting out but we do think the cost might be getting a little out of hand. That being said when it comes to the music in these grooves, we're totally sold!
Brand new blast of shoegazey fuzz pop jangle from this SF outfit, the A side just a slightly abbreviated 'radio' edit of the track "End Times" from their Sports full length, and while we're happy to hear that song again and again and again, for fans it's the B-side that's the big attraction here, which finds Sports' opening jam, the 6+ minute "Coma Summer", a blast of summery jangley shoegaze pop bliss, here transformed into something much murkier and gloomier, the sounds washed out and echo drenched, lots of softly swirling effects, the drums almost krautrock sounding in their motorik simplicity, while the vocals seem to have been transformed into streaks of high end sound, blurred into the whirling washed out background, the sound distorted and lo-fi, sounding more like something you might find on an Ariel Pink / John Maus record, that same sort of alien FM radio broadcast, via fucked up 4 track, and while it definitely sounds NOTHING like anything else on Sports, as a brief blast of warped lysergic weirdo krautpop, it's pretty goddamn great.
Comes with a download coupon as well.
At first you're greeted by the warmth of an ethereal new age synth that wouldn't sound out of place on a Vangelis record, and then the peace is broken by a repetitive staggered static echo, followed by driving throbbing bass and then pounding toms. Finally the plucked echo of guitar strings emerges and crescendos into an all encompassing wash. And then the vocals come in, almost like a distant echo. It's literally like hearing all the pieces of a band fall into place over the span of a couple of minutes. It's a great start to a record, and the perfect introduction to Weekend's brand of shoegaze drenched post-punk. Jinx is Weekend's second album, and since they're from our neck of the woods it's hard not to feel a little hometown pride as we submerge ourselves into their reverb soaked dreamscape. For those who are new to the world of Weekend, the quickest way to describe them would be: a shoegaze band you can actually dance to! A bit like if My Bloody Valentine had formed a few years earlier and hopped onto the Factory Records roster. There are serious hooky Joy Division/New Order bass lines aplenty, filling the songs with a sense of urgency that make it almost impossible to sit still, complimented nicely by some upbeat high energy drum work. But on the other end of the spectrum there are the guitars and the vocals - all ghostly echoes and sorrowful blanketing melodies. As soon as that first chorus kicks in with the repeated refrain of "I feel sick, sick, sick in my heart" it becomes clear that you may have just entered into the saddest dance party ever. The vocals are arguably the most classically 'shoegaze' thing about the record in fact. They drift in and out of the songs like some half forgotten memory. Only on "Celebration, FL" do they and the rest of the band ever approach something that could be considered joyful, and even then there's a lingering bittersweet wistfulness throughout. It ends up making for a really great mix, taking the best bits of both genres and using them to their fullest effect. While some shoegaze bands have a tendency to drag, Weekend's rollicking uptempo rhythm section never allow this to happen. And while post punk can often be overly tuneless or sparse, the wall of sound guitars and haunting vocals apply some much needed texture and melody to the proceedings. Clearly it's a good time to be 'gazing in the Bay Area with the likes of Deafheaven and Whirr currently making big crashing waves in the genre as well, and we certainly wouldn't hesitate to add Weekend to the leading lights of that ever growing list.
If you ever wondered what happened to Alison Statton from Young Marble Giants, then you might want to check this out. Early eighties jazz-lounge pop with saxophone in the vein of early Everything But The Girl, Antena, Carmen, and The Marine Girls.
Not as compelling as Colossal Youth, but really not that bad either.
Brand new ep from these SF shoegaze / jangle poppers, and it's a doozy, taking up right where their aQ beloved Sports album left off, launching right into it with the hazy, dirgey, dreamy "Sweet Sixteen", with its slow pounding beat, low slung bassline, reverbed ethereal vocals, and thick grinding swaths of guitar, which are soon joined by lush chiming melodies, the sound epic and expansive, moody and brooding, we've found ourselves playing it over and over and over. Which means it took us a while to get to "Hazel", which is a bit more propulsive, and very eighties sounding, almost like their take on this whole retro new wave thing, but holy shit is it the sort of song that would be a massive hit in a perfect world, a killer hook surrounded buy weirdly effected guitars, crunchy riffs, all wed to a killer groove, thick fuzzy bass, the sound occasionally exploding into sweetly psychedelic squalls. The rest of this 5 song ep follows suit, dipping into druggy dark shoegaze crunch on "Your Own Nothing", the sound thick and dark and fuzzy, but still rife with melodies and another wicked hook, or bouncy retro fuzz pop on "The One You Want" that sounds like it should be on the soundtrack to a modern John Hughes style teenage classic, and finally, the oddly titled "Golfers", with its thick, downtuned dirgey riff, echoey vox, tribal drumming, and melancholy guitar melody, a dreamy chunk of minimal gloom pop, that might be this ep's real gem.
Finally! The full length debut from these SF jangle noisepoppers, and it's as good as their two song Mexican Summer 10" had us hoping it would be.
Fuzzy, jangly, shoegazey, reverby, a little new wavey, a little droney, super catchy and buzzy and dreamy, pretty much everything we want a new pop record to be.
The first song "Coma Summer" is a dizzying collision of sounds and styles, that displays everything we love about these guys. Jangly Unrest style guitars chime beneath distant crooned oooooh's, eventually buzzy crunchy guitar rock wraps itself around the original guitar, the bassline buzzy and Joy Division-y, the sound repetitive and trancey, then still MORE guitars come in, some seriously MBV worthy buzzsaw blur, over which vocals keen in the distance, then the vocals proper come in, all deep and dramatic and new wavey, accompanied by woozy washed out warped sounding melodies that seem to melt before our ears, and so it goes, shifting from loping brooding jangle to soaring bleary psychedelic bliss to fuzzy minimal new wave pound, and it's not just that it sounds amazing, but that the amazing sounds have been crafted into a killer song, hooky and hazy and damn near perfect.
The second song is more of the same, we heard "Youth Haunts" on that Mexican Summer 10" which we then described as something akin to "a Woodsist band doing covers of Nowhere era Ride, or a less monochromatic Crystal Stilts letting loose on Unrest covers, or The Chills crossed with early My Bloody Valentine" and that pretty much still totally applies, and not just to this track, but to the whole record. Lush yet lo-fi, broody and propulsive, but also noisy and blown out, sunshiney and poppy here and there, but just often, dark and melancholy, easily one of our new favorite records, from one of our new favorite local outfits.
Yes! Rarely has a collection of four songs captivated us as much as this welcome reissue and first-time vinyl release of Weekend's '81 demos. When it was released on cd for the first time back in 1995 on Vinyl Japan, we couldn't stop listening and now hearing the tracks on vinyl nearly 20 year later, we are smitten all over again. Weekend was Alison Statton's band formed shortly after the demise of beloved British post-punk minimalists Young Marble Giants (whose Colossal Youth was a former ROTW, and one of our favorite albums ever!). Weekend ended up having more of a breezy jazzier vibe than YMG, closer to Marine Girls, Antena, Durutti Column and The Field Mice, putting out a sole full length, La Variete in 1982. While we loved that record (though not everyone here did, as the inclusion of saxophone in anything but a strict jazz context can be a real deal-breaker for some), the real discovery was the demos that featured 4 songs from La Variete, but much more stripped down (read: no sax!) and bittersweet, sounding probably close to what YMG would have sounded like had they continued. With Statton on voice and bass, and supported by chiming guitar, drum machine, violin and percussion, these songs are exquisitely executed and allowed ample room to breathe. The stunner being the 9 minute "Red Planes", which is given a beautifully slow instrumental build before the vocals come in and break our hearts. "Drumbeat" and "Nostalgia" are barely more upbeat, but carry the same sense of cool detachment that made Colossal Youth so damn charming. The final track "Summerdays" is an instrumental in the sunny pastoral vein of Durutti Column or the recently reissued Maurice Deebank. For fans of all of the above bands as well as Low, Galaxie 500, Heavenly, and Beach House. It may seem short, but trust us, you'll be playing this over and over and over again!
This is record number three for Greg Weeks, and the one that's really finally gotten our attention. His previous disc on Ba Da Bing! was a stripped down, boy-and-his-guitar folky singer-songwriter kinda record, and while he is still essentially playing folk
It's been a long couple years since we've had a Greg Weeks record proper. But those years weren't spent idle, not at all, instead he spent that time recording and performing with his group Espers, a much folkier and much more ethereal affair than his solo stuff. The Espers record was absolutely breathtaking, sweet and druggy and folky, with angelic female vocals alongside cellos, dulcimers and flutes. Thankfully Weeks' new record takes some of that more ethereal wispiness and weaves it into the darker, tenser psych-doom-folk he records under his own name. Fuzzy keyboards and warbling synths lay down ominous drones as a prickly sonic bed for delicately fingerpicked minor key guitars, moaning cellos, swooning mournful melodies, distant spacey blips, suffling understated drumming, heartfelt, multitracked vocals, all very hazy and druggy and otherworldly. Not quite as 'weird' as his previous full length Awake Like Sleep, Blood Is Trouble sounds, as much as I hate to say it, more mature. Which is not a bad thing at all. The songs are more fully realized, and don't rely as heavily on weird instrumentation. Beautiful and heartfelt, in different hands this could have been a classic singer songwriter sort of record, but Weeks manages to transform it into a hazy psychedelic gem, equal parts Incredible String Band, Low and Nick Drake. Or something like that. You get the drift. This is just an amazing and beautiful record. Psych folk fans will love it for sure, but it's just accessible enough to maybe 'turn on' the rest of you!
New ep from AQ fave Greg Weeks, on the tiny Spanish label Acuarela. "Slightly West" takes up right where Weeks' totally amazing "Awake Like Sleep" record left off. More lonely low key psychedelic folk (ala P.G. Six, Charalambides, Tower Recordings, etc.), wrapped in a wash of thick warm analogue-sounding synths, making for a sort of dark and melancholy, alien folk music.
Dreamy and gauzy, ethereal and wispy, warm and summery, but not in a Beach Boys-surfing-USA-fun-in-the-sun sort of way, more like a last-day-of-summer-before-the-girl-you've-spent-the-past-two-weeks-falling-in-love-with-leaves-forever-late-nights-wrapped-in-blankets-in-front-of-a-roarin-fire-crashing-surf-moon-reflected-on-the-water-broken-hearted sort of way. Gently plucked guitars and mournful sad-boy vocals (with occasional angelic female background vocals) weave gorgeously simple tales of love and loss, while tinkling pianos glisten on the surface and gossamer keyboards, sustaining on 2 or 3 notes, turn simple pop songs into dreamy late night psychedelic soundscapes (the same way keyboards transformed Yo La Tengo's "Painful"). Also features some really disturbing/amazing/sexy/demented cover art by Tracy Nakayama, featuring naked young people and a woman strangling an ostrich with a belt!
MPEG Download: "One Summer Night" [/audio/gweeksonesummer.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "One Summer Night" [/audio/gweeksonesummer.m3u]
The first thing we thought when we threw this one, was that these guys remind us quite a bit of the Rock-A-Teens, which is never a bad thing. They have the same sort of Southern gothic swagger, thick reverbed guitars, yowled throaty vocals, a little Southern rock, a little rockabilly, but jammed into more of a noise rock sound. The record opens with a serious blast of jagged distorted garage stomp, with plenty of stops and start, some noodly leads, but all wrapped around a hook that won't quit, and some killer guitar harmonies. But right after that the band slows it down to near-ballad territory, all lilting strums and chiming bells, until the track fractures into a weird rollicking buzz drenched sort-of-jig, that explodes into a rollicking rocker, with deep crooned vocals and sharp crunchy guitar chug and a total pogo rhythm and more leads squiggling all over the place.
The vocalist has some Nick Cave going on for sure, which perfectly suits the bands sharp noisy downer rock, like a super charged Dirty Three, or even a less Irish Pogues, or maybe a less fucked up Lubricated Goat, and of course the aforementioned Rock-A-Teens. We also hear some Paw, but odds are that one's too obscure and unlikely for most folks, which is probably for the best. But stir in some serious Southern rock tendencies, a little punk rock, polish it up a bit and you have the Weeks. Supposedly the average age of the Weeks is 18, which is pretty nuts considering that these guys sound like way more like old bearded dudes from the South sporting big old skull rings, and wearing pointy toed boots and rumpled old seersucker suits...
Unlike so many bands who want out of their major label contracts and so break up after one album, Ween just reinvent themselves. This record features instrumentation by several overlooked-by-all-but-the-most-devoted-liner-note-readers old time session musicians who played on Ween's favorite country records of yesteryear. Jen-you-wine hillbilly music? The lyrics are still ridiculous.
