The Not Not Fun label's Bored Fortress subscription split 7" series has been going on for a few years now, and is always killer, featuring a who's who of hip underground weirdo rock combos, not to mention some seriously fantastic packaging, and for whatever reason, this year, a handful of the previously subscription only singles have been made available to non subscribers, but not for long, as these babies are crazy limited.
We've yet to review anything by Peaking Lights, but this chunk of murky bass heavy jangle dronepop has us definitely hankering for more. Big thing low end throb, beneath distorted drums, weary woozy vox, and some glimmering jangly guitar melodies, the song constantly drifting into full on psychedelic dub territory, everything wreathed in reverb and echo and delay, totally spaced out and druggy and divine. More more more!
Wet Hair, formerly known as Raccoo-oo-oon, deliver some spacey, minimal almost kraut sounding hypnorock. Beginning all super hushed and skittery, before building to a gorgeously motorik jam, rife with whirling organ melodies, and super dramatic over the top vocals, all very proggy and psychedelic and way way druggy. Seriously good stuff, sounding almost like a way more tripped out lo-fi Circle, which is most definitely not a bad thing.
Also, we have another Bored Fortress title, besides the ones we're listing now, the Infinite Body / No Age split 7", VERY few copies of that one, not enough to list, just ask if you want one and IF we still have some left, it could be yours!
Debut full length from this awesome San Francisco band who are bringing a much needed shot of carefree energy and exuberance to the current crop of lo-fi and garage pop peddlers. We loved their 7" from last year which while being right at home in a stack of records by such likeminded folks as The Fresh & Only, Nodzz, and Woods, also had its own really cool unique energy. 1x1x1 proves that while these guys do have a lot in common with the new wave of indie pop greatness they also tap into the golden age of indie rock with melodies as bright as Superchunk and the charged rhythm of The Feelies. They also have this really cool ability to merge different elements into their overall sound. Somehow bridging the gap between the all out party raucousness of bands like Hunx & His Punx and Shannon & The Clams, while having an ease and breeze to their sound similar to Beach Fossils and Melted Toys. Snotty without being obnoxious, and so catchy without being saccharine. This is how we love our pop music to sound.
Rad slab of very limited wax from this awesome San Francisco duo who serve up some totally exciting raw and supercharged garage psych pop. Recorded by Tim Cohen from The Fresh & Only's, Wet Illustrated prove they belong right there alongside other awesome like minded bands from SF like Nodzz, Bare Wires, Ty Segall, and The Fresh & Onlys. You can feel the sun shining down, the wind blowing, kites flying free. This is music made for blasting while drinking your favorite beverage of choice and letting go of inhibitions as these are songs that just take a hold of your body and you can't help but smile uncontrollably while these infectious songs get stuck in your head. As well as having a classic garage pop sound there is this really cool early SST vibe in these songs as well, reminding us of the Meat Puppets, and "Born Stoked" has this rad guitar sound that's like a dubbed cassette version of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation. Only 300 of these handsome 7"s were pressed so best to act fast on this one!
Hell yeah! We knew just a short time ago when we heard their 7" on Captured Tracks, that these females from the UK were going to be a band we were gonna end up digging BIG TIME. With a full length hot on the heels of that 7", we are indeed digging this like crazy, as Frauhaus! is some totally immediate and addicting off-kilter post punk. Taking their love of greats like the Raincoats and The Slits and infusing so much of their own energy, vision and charisma into the songs giving them a very unique sound. In so many ways they feel like the perfect band to carry the torch for the great Erase Errata who sadly seem to have broken up (though we would be thrilled if that wasn't the case!). Herky jerky rhythms, songs that cut out all the fat, yet are full of such melodicism and incredible songwriting chops, something that so many groups who usually pull from similar sources of inspiration seem to be lacking. In fact there are some totally rad moments here that make us think of a scrappy DIY version of The Breeders or a way punkier Electrelane.
It's been so cool to play this record and then figure out what would be so perfect to play afterwards, as you can go in so many directions. We've rocked Chin Chin, Kleenex/Liliput and early Bow Wow Wow right after playing Wetdog and it seems to keep the same energy and spirit going pretty much perfectly. Short but sweet these fourteen tracks clock in at just under a half hour, but every single moment is filled with such energy and exhilaration!
Not sure where these gals are from, but they have a definite Raincoats / Slits sort of classic old school C86 sound happening, on this, their debut (?) on Captured Tracks. But it's not just those bands we hear, we also pick up on some Toto Coelo, some Belle Stars, heavy groovy bass, a sort of angular new wave pop, funky drums, low slung bass, minimal guitar (if there is any at all). It's a propulsive prickly pop tangle, that most definitely gets bodies moving. The A-side switches from angular and skittery, to more propulsive and back again, with super commanding call and response bad ass vocals, and a wicked main hook.
The B-side has the same sort of vibe, but the vocals are dialed back, buried in the mix a bit, letting the drums drive the songs, with some cool stylophone melodies and some tangled woozy riffing. And of course delay and reverb all over the place!
We had been hearing about this band for ages, and our mail order customer Greg just happens to play guitar in the band and was kind enough to send us cd-r's in the past so we were super psyched to finally get their first actual official cd release, and we were equally psyched when we realized what an absolute monster of a record it was!
Ultra dense, super heavy and relentless Dazzling Killmen / Meshuggah / Voi Vod style tech-post-rock/metal weirdness. Complex and convoluted song structures assembled from jagged metal riffs, crazy drumming and weird atonal guitar freak outs, all woven together into a completely kick ass, impossibly labrynthine metallic math rock headfuck. Occasionally, the action lets up, allowing glimpses into some alien musical world behind the curtain, made up of almost mosh-worthy half time breakdowns, shouted stop start stutters, pretty melodic interludes, blasts of ADD Melt Banana-ish chaos and shimmery droned out space rock. But always returning to Wetnurse's brainmelting, spinecracking metallic calculus core. And then there's the vocals. Bizarre and beautiful (sort of), veering from grunted death metal howls to gutteral Pantera-ish hardcore shouts to shrieked almost-goofy demon-like warbles, usually in the same song! Woah. Definitely heavy enough and weird enough to be a new favorite! Guest vocals by Mike Olenader (ex-BURNT BY THE SUN), and recorded by the legendary MARTIN BISI!
Even if you think you've heard enough of the new weird acid folk underground to last you for a spell, you should check out this full-length debut from Brooklyn's Mike Wexler, a singer-songwriter who (with a little help from his friends, members of Psychic Ills and The Occasion) has recorded a remarkable song-cycle in the form of Sun Wheel. It's set apart from others in this burgeoning genre by the immediately noticeable, uniquely affected nature of Wexler's voice. Ok, maybe that makes him a male Joanna Newsom... and of course Devendra Banhardt too has a distinctive manner of singing. But Wexler sounds like neither, and once you get used to his nasal exhalations, his intentionally elongated enunciations, you may find his singing to be curiously compelling, complementing the crystalline guitar picking and gentle piano motifs of his melodic, majestic prog-folk music quite well. And Wexler's vocal style is also indicative of a very personal, seemingly spiritual lyrical vision, fixated on sun, shadow, paradise, lots of lines like "Sun shadow dilating in the eye" and "Falling through the sunshine's ray in a dream of water". It's gorgeous, moody yet strangely uplifting stuff, glowing with lightbeams amidst its shadows. Something that fans of P.G. Six, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Robert Wyatt could find of eerie interest for sure.
Although the front cover photo suggests Ms Whalen has transformed from Squirrel Nut Zippers' retro-styled swing jazz lead singer into slightly taudry, contemporary shag haircutted Sheryl Crow or Lucinda Williams (an image that doesn't quite fit her, much like it didn't Sally Timms on her last solo album cover photo -- both seem unintentionally uncomfortable), musically Dirty Little Secret situates itself more in the elegant slightly clubby female chanteuse territory populated by the likes of Bebel Gilberto. She's joined on songwriting duties by multi-instrumentalist David Sale who also played all of the music and produced the whole affair. Perhaps it's his presence that spurred Whalen to embrace such a surprising blend of easy-breezy fruity cocktail sippin' resort numbers ("Meet Me By The Fire") occasionally embellished with saucy '70s soft rock horns and pretty, slower piano-driven ballads ("Follow"). On the latter occasionc it recalls her heartmelting performance of The Sixths' song "You You You" on their Hyacinths And Thistles album. That said, her sweet voice is unmistakable throughout and although there are definitely some 'ouch' songs on this album where she gets a bit uncharacteristically funky, her vocals' enchanting loveliness still somehow makes everything alright.
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Local fastcore/bandana rock/metalcore/hardcore/straight edge/crossover. Or something. Devon (of local metal/toyshop Howling Bull and of the late All You Can Eat), Max (drummer of Spazz, Plutocracy and more), Craig (formerly of Your Mother and All You Can Eat), and Robert (of Fuckface and Artimus Pyle), got together, drew X's on their hands, donned their bandanas, and set pits a spinning all over the world. This local 'super group' plays a wicked strain of eighties bandana thrash/ metal-hardcore crossover that is fast and furious and kicks total ass. Complete with positive lyrics, extensive and heartfelt explanations of said positive lyrics, and tons of photos of all the band members leaping and stage diving. Hard to tell how tongue in cheek this all is, but regardless, you may have to pull out that old bandana, X your hands and GET IN THE PIT!
Wow. When it rains it definitely pours. Especially when we're talking pop. And a lot of this recent downpour of pop goodness comes direct from the perfect pop headquarters of Barsuk Records, who in the past, have given us Death Cab, Nada Surf, Rocky Votolato and more. We've got two new Barsuk releases this time around. Elsewhere on this list you'll find the latest release from weirdo smartpop combo the Starlight Mints, and here we've got the debut from moody jangly dream poppers What Made Milwaukee Famous. We know, not the catchiest name ever. But it's sure as heck a lot better than calling your band Beer.
And the name doesn't really prepare you for the jangly bouncy new wave classic pop sound these guys effortlessly conjure up. We knew it would be poppy since it was on Barsuk, but the name had us thinking HARDCORE!! Nothing could be further from the truth. What Made Milwaukee Famous take all that classic pop, you know... Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson (especially Joe Jackson), the Cars, and gives it a modern retro makeover. You'll hear some Maximo Park (and thus some XTC), some Modest Mouse, a smidge of the Arctic Monkeys, some Weezer, even some Strokes. And a little Postal Service. Especially on the first track, a gorgeously lilting gem assembled from bits of moody melancholy guitar drift and dreamy keening falsetto vocals, all draped over warm stretches of crystalline electronic skitter. And while that sort of Postal Service vibe surfaces subtly here and there throughout the rest of the record, for the most part most of the record leans way more toward that perfect mix of classic pop and modern indie jangle. Alternatingly rocking and lilting, crooning and swooning, bouncing and grooving. Just imagine Maximo Park channeling Joe Jackson instead of XTC, or a less quirky, more AM radio influenced Modest Mouse, and maybe you'd be getting close. Big guitars that jangle and crunch. Bouncy basslines. Some strings here and there, some piano. Warm warbly organs. And gorgeous vocals that croon and wail one minute, emote dreamily the next. A little bit retro, a little bit new wave, a little bit indie rock, which I guess would make this a killer retro new wave indie pop record. Which it most definitely is. Catchy as hell, hooks everywhere, moody but not maudlin, one of the coolest pop records we've heard in a while. And who knows, maybe one day what made Milwaukee famous will be What Made Milwaukee famous. Or... maybe not.
Released in 1987, 'Drowning But Learning' keeps many of the same soundtracky elements as his earlier 'The Black Death' album, with the sound of rain, eerie strings and moaning horns, etc. but this time adds some pop sensibility and seperates the record into 14
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The follow-up to the smash AQ-hit The Lobster Boys -- dozens upon dozens of copies sold here, and counting, no petite potatoes considering that the disc only sold 500 in all of Europe! -- is in fact a follow-up in the best sense. When doesn't return to the dark soundtrack stuff a decade ago that made earlier When albums so beloved of the black metal community. No, When gives us what we want -- sunshiney sike-pop n' electronica incorporating international ethnic sounds into a heavenly yet weird pop concoction. Pretty much The Lobster Boys part II, but with lyrical concepts taken from The Arabian Nights! Those fables and proverbs are rendered with gentle, even gently twee, self-harmonized vocals with a British accented lilt. You'll hear the Beatles, XTC, and some Bowie too. Combine that vocal-pop capability with sampled, shambling Middle Eastern bazaar musicks, jangling exotica and electronics, and you've got When's winning formula on Pearl-Harvest. It's a bit like Tipsy on a magic carpet ride with Andy Partridge doing the vocals. There's some darker, cartoon-wacky surreality thrown in that echoes old, disturbing When stuff, but that's almost a warped Disney element that works in perfect contrast to the pop-perfection of most of the songs.
If you're not already one of the many AQ customers to have acquired a copy of The Lobster Boys (or Psychedelic Wunderbaum, or WriterCakeBox, or...) then you maybe unaware of the who and what of When. It's the project of Norwegian Lars Pederson, an eclectic eccentric musical mastermind if there ever was one. Here he sings and plays almost all the instruments -- keys, zither, flute, xylophone, programming, etc. -- with a little help from friends making guest appearances on accordion and guitar. We've liked all his stuff in the past, but this sampledelic pop niche he's been exploring recently is most impressive, and certainly the most sweetly satisfying.
'Prefab Wreckage' was release between 'The Black Death' and 'Drowning But Learning' and shows Pederson's gradual move towards songs, not so much the pop of 'The Lobster Boys', but more a sort of structured chaos, as opposed to When's more abstract
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Before When's recent AQ record of the week 'The Lobster Boys' was released, When's sole member Lars Pederson had already been making amazing experimental music for almost a decade. We first heard about When from the completely baffling Norwegian metal magazine Nordic Vision, who heaped nothing but praise on this band we had never even heard of. And while this older stuff doesn't necessarily sound all that much like poppy 'The Lobster Boys', it's still pretty intense stuff. 'The Black Death', released in 1992, is a single 40 minute piece, that blends military percussion, strings, foot steps, a choir of angelic voices, weird orc-ish growling and muttering, jaw harp, rain, rattles, chimes, woodpeckers, and all sorts of unexpected sounds. Sounds like it would be perfect incidental music for a Dario Argento film, or City of Lost Children, or a movie about Jack the Ripper, or any sort of mystery/thriller set in the grimy dangerous streets of some 19th century city. Dark and ominous and eerie. Tense and creepy, swirling musical malevolence.
The band's name is When, but the question really is *What?* As in, what the hell is this? Totally amazing, for one thing, but beyond that...? One thing we can say about When is that we NEVER know what to expect from 'em. On this new album, the music is a
When is the brainchild of Norwegian musician/sampler artist Lars Pedersen; he's been at it since the early '80s (after quitting a new wave/Industrial band called Holy Toy) and has released 8+ albums that have ranged from ambient soundscapes to prog rock, yet have steadily grown more and more pop. When's previous full-length release, "Psychedelic Wunderbaum", dabbled in pop sounds, if you consider Carl Stalling cartoon music meets crazed electronica "pop"! But on The Lobster Boys, Lars really lets his Beatles / Beach Boys inspiration come to the fore. His British (not Norwegian) accented singing is placed into some far-from conventional settings -- over, say, an Ethiopiques sampled loop (really!), or over crazy wild drumming most pop songs never get to feature.
Lars and several friends handle sampling, organ, guitar, bass, xylophone, drums, vocals, melodica, viola, etc... all culminating in an utterly amazing final unlisted bonus track, 15+ minutes of trancey middle eastern samples and effects that build up into a distorted storm of loud electric guitar feedback skree, noisy and yet blissfully rhythmic throughout.
Lastly, we have to say: how weird is it that we can only get this album from heavy metal distributors? Because it's on the Norwegian label Jester, which is run by Garm from (former) black metal legends Ulver, some from the metal community have noticed the record, but we worry it may go under-recognized by other intrepid listeners (except for, of course, AQ and you!) Truly, we never imagined how much we'd come to love this decidedly non-metal, fantastic band.
(And if you want to catch up on When's previous work, we also stock "PW" and the When best of/rarities double cd compilation "The Unblessed World Of When: WriterCakeBox".)
When is the (mostly) one man project of one Lars Pederson, who has been recording as When for almost 20 years now. This two disc collection (released on Garm from Ulver's Jester label) gathers songs and pieces and parts spanning When's entire existence. From
Hopefully we've already turned you on to the wonders of When, the sample-happy, electronics-enabled psych pop project of Norway's Lars Pedersen. If not, you've got some other reviews to read on our website, look 'em up! Please do! Because this new album, as with its immediate predecessors, are must haves for anyone into the more eccentric side of Beatles-influenced stuff, like Olivia Tremor Control and the Dreamies. This is super sunshiney pop with an experimental twist, or make that twistedness.
We've been into When for years and years, way back to the late '80s when When made dark prog soundscapes (beloved of Nordic black metallers). But starting with all-time AQ fave album The Lobster Boys in 2001, or maybe even a bit before that, When went all colorful and catchy and kaleidoscopic, keeping the darkness in a subconscious reserve to psychologically augment the poppiness with its opposite -- the dreaminess always has nightmare lurking at its edges... And so as we expected, Trippy Happy is all about totally brilliantly crafted surreal symphonic sound collages, with Beatlesy vocals and music box melodies, pleasant guitar strum and mysterious textures, weirdness and melancholia... and so much genius POP that we don't understand why When isn't huge. Well, When's big around here anyway!!
"Whenever" is a fairly blase title for an album that we were rather excited to get! It's the latest from cult Norwegian song-writer/sound-scaper Lars Pedersen, whose solo music-making under the name When has fascinated us for some time now. His earliest work back in the '80s was full of sinister ambience, embraced by the black metal scene in his home country, as well as by avant prog heads like Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, Art Bears, etc.) who has written lyrics for When, including those found on this album. But then Lars took a left-field turn into sample-delic pop music -- total sunshiney, ethno-electronica unlike anything else. His 2001 album The Lobster Boys demonstrated his genius and was (and is) a bonafide best-selling AQ-hit. I think we've sold more copies of The Lobster Boys than any other store in the world. Follow-up album Pearl Harvest continued with The Lobster Boys sound, as does the brand new Whenever. So, of course we're happy. It's not BETTER than The Lobster Boys but that would be a tall order anyway. It IS another fab When album doing the stuff we like from Lars -- as we expected, a lot of the tracks here sound kinda like a club DJ mixing XTC or Olivia Tremor Control songs with Middle Eastern and African rhythms, recklessly, deftly, juxtaposing different exotic and electronic elements. You get soundtracky bits, world music, lilting vocals, droning layers of electronics...often all in the same song! It's whimsical and weird avant pop...or is it? Like the red egg yolk on the cover (or the black egg yolk inside) there's always something just a little "off" and odd about When's music, best illustrated here perhaps by the fourteen minute "Some Apocalypses" that interrupts the relative poppiness of the rest of the album with a descent into noisy, metallic, industrial, indeed apocalyptic madness. If this wasn't When, we'd be REALLY freaked-out. But there's always been danger lurking in When's work... and it serves to make the gentle melodies of the very next track even sweeter.
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First we've heard from this trio from Portland, and if this 7" is any indication, we hope to be hearing more SOON. The Whines are led by Karianne, whose vocals come across as both so earnest, strong and sexy, imagine a young Exene Cervenka, teaming up with a ramshackle crew of garage psych players and recording in a damp and dusty attic. We really like how the Whines throw in some unexpected elements like the gritty harmonica on the B side's "Straybird." While they for sure could fit along fine on a bill with bands like Vivian Girls, Grass Widow, Dum Dum Girls, etc., there is something more emotional about these songs and the group's aesthetic in general. We can't wait to hear more!
There's a certain kind of voice that we're just sucker for. That frail, fragaile, about to crack keening sad boy, dusty, dusky, twangy croon. You know it as well as we do. Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy, Palace), Jason Molina (Songs:Ohia), Joel Phelps, Sam Beam (Iron & Wine), Chris Grigoroff (Souled American). Take any of those voices, back them up with just the barest of instrumentation and you've got a dark and devastating, soul baring smear of ultrapersonal songcraft that just breaks your heart. A few years back, we stumbled upon a group called Timesbold, who trafficked in the same sort of dark twang as the above mentioned artists and ended up becoming a huge favorite around here. One member of Timesbold was and still is moonlighting as the sole member of Whip, taking Timesbold's sound in an even more spare and ultra personal direction. Hushed acoustic guitar, banjo, jaw harp, clanking clattery Tom Waits-y junkyard percussion, delicate brushed drumming, haunting theremin, strange ambient loops, and that anguished, whiskey soaked, sweet and sorrowful drawl. If you didn't know better you could certainly be forgiven for thinking this was some lost Palace or Songs:Ohia record. Fans of those guys, as well as groups like Rex, Calexico, Sparklehorse, Red Red Meat and like minded mournful twang will have yet another perfect record for those long and lonesome nights.
11 tracks in 25 minutes, Whip's "Song Song" seams to much more an extended drawl than a collection of songs, in another slight variation of the Palace / Songs:Ohia style of plaintive alt.country guitar strum and meandering hoarse vocal whine.
Two crushing bursts of pummelling, sludgy lo-fi punky metal, with bulldozer riffs, howling snowstorm production, yelped vocals and crushing drumming. Sounds a whole lot like the late great Karp which is NOT a bad thing. And also makes sense as this recording features Scott who used to drum for Karp and who tragically passed away recently.
So far we've only heard a couple of singles from these twisted psychedelic soundscapers, both on Trensmat, one a split with Tlaotlon, and what little we've heard from these guys, pretty much knocked our socks off. A sort of layered psychedelia, droned out hypnorock space-kraut, like a lot of the other bands on Trensmat, but WAY weirder and more tripped out, and that doesn't seem about to change on their first full length, which opens with a wild squall of gristled noise before settling into a serious sprawl of droned out space rock mesmer, all churning organ (processed guitar?), tribal drumming, swirling FX, the rhythms buried in the mix, so it almost sounds like a super distorted drone-prog, that almost gets metal for a second before collapsing into full on crumbling noise, transformed into a long stretch of distorted zoner drift. That track alone, most psychedelic space combos would kill for, but we're only getting started.
The 10+ minute "Alternate Devil (Dvaita)" sounds like Gnod with a heavy dub makeover, all lurching big beats, and swirling clouds of caustic buzz, heavy and heady and super tranced out, it almost sounds a bit like the Boredoms or Shit And Shine, super churning and rhythmic, a wild tribal rhythm pelted by sheets of roiling noise, the drums eventually dropping out, leaving just the noise, but that too recedes, leaving a hazy droned out noise-psych drift, all tangled synths and swirling FX, buried voices and stretched out guitar buzz. So good.
Nothing on the rest of the record is quite that sprawling and epic, but WHOK do manage to kick up a seriously collection of kick ass sonic skree, processed guitardrones, and swirling blown out psychedelia, gives way to noisy kraut-drone lumber, rife with weird almost choral vocals, whorls of white noise, and of course some seriously dense drumming. There's also plenty of minimal druggy drift, like an even more heavily sedated Spacemen 3, as well as some super blown out guitardrone buzz, washed out and woozy, and finally, the WHOK version of techno, a grinding noisescape of noise blasted beats wreathed in droned out guitarbuzz and crumbling in-the-red distortion, pulsing and throbbing malevolently, before splintering into a total trip out free form soft noise psychedelic coda. Cool!!!
Includes a link to a digital download of the whole record, and like all Trensmat releases, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!
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Along with the Carlton Melton / Mugstar split 7" reviewed elsewhere on this week's list comes another new 7" from the fine folks at Trensmat, this one another split, but this one from two bands we had never heard of before, the first, Whirling Hall Of Knives, already had us kicking ourselves, their track a gorgeous droned out chunk of brooding slow building psychedelia, layered tones, looped rhythmic fragments, all manner of buzz and swirl and thrum, pulsing and throbbing, hypnotic and mesmerizingly sinister, until suddenly a beat surfaces right in the midst of all this swirling hypno-psych noisiness, a sort of squelchy acid-y groove, that transforms the sound something else entirely, a sort of spacey electro kraut-drone groove, that seems to dissipate as quickly as it was conjured, leaving just a bit of washed out drone-drift shimmer to finish things off.
A NZ band called Tlaotlon counter with their own sort of abstract psychedelia, less dense and ominous, a little more looped and rhythmic, right out of the gate the sounds swirl and beats stutter and pulse, reminding us a bit of a more electronic, slightly less noisy Our Love Will Destroy The World. As the track progresses, it becomes more Goblin/Carpenter soundtracky and synthy, woven into the band's psychedelic swirl, heady and dreamy and really great. We'll definitely be after more from both of these outfits.
And as with all Trensmat 7"s, there's a link on the sleeve to a download, which in this case includes a 30 minute tripped out live video from WHOK, as well as two extra tracks from Tlaotlon. SUPER LIMITED as always, already sold out at the label, so these are the last ones we'll ever get.
There's been a bit of a mini-explosion of bands from our neck of the woods as of late, all of whom have been specializing in their own unique take on shoegaze. There was Deafheaven's recent lp which we reviewed a couple of lists back, that masterfully collides classic shoegaze/post rock with ferocious black metal (Whirr does feature an ex-Deafheaven axeman in fact). Elsewhere on this list you'll find a review of Weekend's latest, an infectious blend of shoegaze and driving post punk. Now we can add to that list of our gazing hometown heroes a brand new ep from San Francisco's very own Whirr (formerly Whirl, naturally). Whirr deal in a bit more traditional strain of shoegaze. The songs are minimal - sparse, but also drenched in that wonderful, all encompassing reverb - and melodically quite mournful. There's certainly a wistful sorrow running through Whirr's music, at times maybe even sounding like Red House Painters run through a million effects pedals and cranked to 11. What's immediately apparent about Whirr in fact, is how heavy they can be. There are moments here that could almost pass for funeral doom - like the airy coo of a My Bloody Valentine vocal cut fluttering over the crushing heft of Asunder. This is thanks in part to an enormous cavernous drum sound as well as some seriously weighty guitar tones that thankfully set Whirr apart from some of their airier peers. Around is a dense immersive set of songs, so much so that the term ep doesn't really seem to do it justice, as that seems to imply some kind of stop gap release - something a bit disposable. But this is as crushing, consuming and satisfying as any full length you'll hear this year, and is surely essential listening for your most dreary-eyed late-night comedowns.
At indie rock's dreamiest summit two titans of neo-shoegaze convene! One our very own hometown heroes Whirr, and the other Philadelphia's Nothing, both of whom we've raved about at great length in lists past! (In fact, Nothing's Guilty Of Everything was this particular aQer's fave album of 2014!) Seeing as these guys both deal in a pretty similar brand of hazy yet heavy, morphine-drenched shoegaze, and even share members, it seems a split was somewhat inevitable, but instead of simply phoning in some half-cooked studio outtakes or cover song fillers both bands deliver material easily amongst the best of their respective careers. Whirr especially sound revitalized here, their tracks have a newfound uptempo energy not often seen on their more downcast older material, sounding like a punched-up Slowdive aiming straight for the heart of early to mid '90s 120 Minutes, the driving rhythms at perfect odds with the bleary eyed anesthetized vocals. Nothing's contribution is a little chunkier in contrast, a little less shoegaze and a little more Hum-style soaring '90s alt-rock, but still with those breathy ghostly vocals to infuse the songs with a nameless, formless melancholic haze. And as always they masterfully bridge the gaps between hooky and spacious, heavy and melodic, bittersweet and plain rockin'. Highly recommended for baggy-teed stoned out gazers everywhere, and a great introduction to these two fantastic bands for anyone not familiar. And really a great place to start in general for anyone looking to investigate this whole new shoegaze renaissance the kids are all raving about.
An oldie but goodie! This deluxe reissue of Whiskeytown's awesome Stranger's Almanac album has renewed the love side in our love/hate relationship with the music of Mr. Ryan Adams. In fact, all the bonus tracks (alternate takes, demos, etc) that accompany their 1997 major label debut album seem superfluous (yet fan-pleasing!) when held up to the solid original baker's dozen songs. To be honest we spent far more time revisiting those thirteen tunes than all of the bonus ones! Alt-country, new Americana... label it what you will, but when the tempermental Whiskeytown were 'on' their feisty, yearning songs were picture-perfect example of the genre's finest.
Don't know much about this UK black metal trio, other than they have a killer, and nearly illegible logo, and an amazingly ridiculous 7" cover, and that their debut 7" was recorded by none other that Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers) when you hear what these guys have cooked up, a weird hybrid of primitive, grim black buzz, and blown out chaotic noise rock skree, the label suggests Ildjarn meets Harry Pussy, or Ulver crossed with Black Dice, and we definitely hear that. It's like the sounds are black metal, but the arrangements are noise rock, or vice versa, but either way, it's a pretty heady proposition, loose and chaotic, grim and black, and pretty twisted, a stumbling, lo-fi, damaged noise drenched sonic assault, that pairs relentless caveman pound with Mick Barr like squiggle shred, the sound abruptly shifting into a churning death march dirge, the vocals following suit, transformed from blackened screech, to monstrous gurgle. The B-side opens with some soaring fast picked riffage, anchored by some stiff, robotic drumming, the guitars and drums conjuring up a seriously tense backdrop for the hellish vokills, until the sound collapses into a twisted, droned out, static black buzz, guitar skree, double kick drumming, and growled vocals, all stretched out into some sort of knuckle dragging black metal minimalism, only to eventually erupt into some loping, knuckle dragging metallic churn, only to lurch right back into that cool droned out minimal noise/skree part, that we sort of wish stretched on even longer, but instead, the band finish off with one final stretch of filthy black buzz and pound.
Killer stuff for sure. Can't wait for the full length. Pressed on blue vinyl, probably limited too, and housed in a nice thick sleeve with the aforementioned ridiculous and amazing cover art.
A while back we made a record by a Chinese duo called White+ our Record Of The Week. And folks flipped for it. So much so we could barely keep it in stock. A dizzying collection of droned out psychedelic krautrock style grooves and experimental electronic hypnorock. A drummer and a synth player with all kinds of weird FX and noisemakers. Originally described to us as sounding like Neu crossed with Yellow Magic Orchestra, to us it ended up sounding much weirder. Ever since that review, we'd been wanting to list this, an earlier record from these two, but only just now did we manage to get enough. Talking more to our friends in China, we're beginning to think this band is simply called White, and maybe that other record is titled White PLUS. But really, it hardly matters, we'll keep calling them White+, and keep digging their crazy sounds, which are even crazier here, processed vox, churning sheets of synth thrum, clouds of swirling FX, buried pulsations, shimmering strings, minimal percussion, some tracks dense and dizzyingly dark ("Space Decay"), others dreamy and almost raga-like ("Spring House"), some tribal and percussive, angular and abstract ("Conch Crunch"), some like kraut-age electro-pop ("Build A Link"), and some others minimal and rhythmic, rife with junkyard percussion, and mysterious vocals/FX ("Train Song").
Fans of the other White+ will want this for sure, and really, anyone into tripped out electronic minimalism, psychedelic krautrock, experimental ambience, and twisted rhythmic hypnorock, this will definitely be a new fave. We have a bunch, but once we run out, we have to get more from China, which can sometimes take a while, so please get one quick, or be prepared to wait patiently. We also have a few copies in stock if the other White+, you can find it elsewhere on the site, or just ask if you want one of those too...
"So it was that three hundred electric moons cancelled the ancient green queen of loves with their blinding chalk rays..."
So concludes one of the obscure, occultic pieces of text excerpted in the cd booklet of this new disc (in this case the Futurist prose poem "Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna" by Filippo Marinetti) and is to us a suitably evocative and cryptic description of the beautiful, distorted drones conjured by White/Lichens, a collaborative project staffed by Rob Lowe (aka Lichens, who records for the Kranky label in his hometown of Chicago) and Matt Clark and Jeremy Lemos of the Chicago heavy ambient guitar duo White/Light (who have a cd on Rebis).
Lichens' previous disc The Psychic Nature Of Being on Kranky (lp version on Holy Mountain) we described as "delicate" and "crystalline", constructed mainly from electronically-treated live improv loopings of his own voice, abetted with guitar and percussion. But the scary dronescapes of White/Lichens are more dense than delicate, the added weight of Clark and Lemos' guitars "heavy-ing up" the Lichens sound. You'll hear rumbling low-end and keening highs in this most satisfying set of billowing electric drone, what distantly sounds like a Morse code transmission buried beneath the destroyed residue of 1,000 doomed violins... It's like the Vibracathedral Orchestra scoring an opium induced nightmare, or the organic decay of an claustrophobic early Kluster track exposed to alien moonlight for the past 40 years. There's five tracks here, the first and last being the longest (19 and 16 minutes apiece, approximately) with the middle three around four minutes each. At its most dense and distortion-filled, as on the final track "Bael", this could be a glitchless version of the murky Merzbowian Sheer Hellish Miasma stirred up by their pal Kevin Drumm. Or KTL's most Earth-y moments tempered by the homebrewed, gentle freeform folk-psych of a Jewelled Antler recording.
We don't doubt for an instant that if this was a limited edition cd-r from some mysterious Finnish forest dweller, or lathe cut 10" by a kid in New Zealand, we'd be assured of selling fistfuls of 'em. And therefore, since the well-respected Holy Mountain label judged this to be deserving of not-so-limited cd status, that should indicate it's even MORE worth picking up, than if there were just 50 copies made, intended solely for collectors...
Last year these guys teamed up with Robert Lowe, aka Lichens, for a killer collab on Holy Mountain that left us floored. Black Acts harbors the same type of synthy, visual drones that come reeling out of White/Lichens, only this time around the White/Light boys weave their brand of bliss into more desolate territory. The Chicago duo manage to conjure an impressive brand of dark analog hypnosis, like waking up in the middle of the desert to a shimmering pyramid mirage made of sound and light. Even while parts of the record hint at the early minimalist legacies of dudes like La Monte Young and Henry Flint, there is a subtle buzzy edge to these songs that set them apart from the work of their predecessors. The record opens with creeping high end crunch that builds into a pulsing haze of all-encompassing droooone. More low-end, distorted swells of heavy bass kick in and, man, talk about headphone dreamland. These dudes really know how to rocket a listener into another dimension. As the record spins the duo cover all kinds of territory, cosmic feedback bleeps from the cockpit of a spaceship, orchestral beams of long-winded swells, single note droners that leave you dazed and entranced. A heap of bodies on the cover and a heap of guitars, pedals and amps on the back, the artwork is cryptic and elusive, perfect for a beautifully arranged record of analog dreamscapes for the mellow minded.
This week brought us a gathering of sumptuous dark pop albums from around the globe which all fit together incredibly well! Sure to keep you completely soothed and enchanted: Edison Woods' Nest Of Machines, this the fourth album by this Norwegian trio known as The White Birch as well as the as-yet-unreleased solo album Leaving Songs by Tindersticks' Stuart Staples (we got an advance listenin' copy, but rest assured it's comin' out June 6th).
Come Up For Air is filled with all things gently lulling and ethereal. In addition to drawing comparisons to Sigur Ros and Mum, The White Birch is also sort of like Tindersticks but with soft male and female vocals in place of Stuart Staples deep baritone. Lead vocalist Ola Flottum sounds like a more sullen or sleepy Stuart Murdoch of Belle And Sebastian, while guest vocalist Susanna Wallumrod provides the well-suited female vocal counterpart on two numbers. Dreamy dreaminess.
We make a LOT of things "highlights" on our list, you've doubtless noticed. So, what if we separated out a special section of MEGA-highlights? We're not gonna, but if we did, this would definitely be one of this list's MEGA-highlights, indeed. Our pal Brian from WFMU turned us on to this band a while back. So we were stoked to finally see a (vinyl-only) reissue now! Why so excited? 'Cause this oddly named band from Toledo, Ohio made one of the odder, yet enjoyable heavy metal rarities we've ever heard, this their only album, originally released in 1980. Well, it's nominally "heavy metal", though at times it's a bit like Devo doing heavy metal, with geeky sci-fi new wave inflections (as on "Sector 387"). At other times, it sounds more '60s and psychedelic, in fact psychedelic enough to get a review in that Acid Archives tome we just listed. Really White Boy and The Average Rat Band ought to appeal to anyone into the stranger side of late '70s hard rock, post-punk, proto-metal, poverty grind.
It all begins with a shimmering synth "Prelude", then... "Neon Warriors"! A tumble of drums, followed by a rapidfire, flash-rockin', fuzzed out riff onslaught, kinda like a low-budget Judas Priest. Oh yeah, that's the other thing, there's an ass-ton of FUZZ on here. Probably that's how they wound up in Acid Archives. "Maybe I'm A Fool" sounds more like Motorhead... sorta... then "The Prophet Song" harks back to Hendrix... and they even do a weird, broken down acoustic blues jam instrumental called "Blue Moon" before the record's over. Both rockin', and bizarre enough, to make both the AQ and WFMU warped hit parade for sure. Heck, they were basically making NWOFHM music (a la Steel Mammoth and Krypt Axeripper) long before those Finns came up with the idea. Or, imagine early Manilla Road meets George Brigman, maybe... Also probably for fans of Zolar-X, Todd Tamanend Clark, and the Happy Dragon-Band, amongst other eccentrics. Though this IS more metal than those. Closest perhaps to the likes of Dwarr, not that there's much like Dwarr.
This reissue on Roach is limited to 400 copies, by the way.
Twisted eighties style new wave electro industrial electronic pop from this duo, a dizzying mix of old school synth pop and industrial crunch, with a teeny bit of Chicago house swirled in. And some straight up eighties MTV style pop. But it's not the parts, it's what they do with them, and what these guys do is pretty bizarre and fantastic.
Imagine Oingo Boingo but way more minimal and druggy and psychedelic, or a way more industrial version of The Fixx, think old Ministry, Foetus, Coil, Severed Heads, even Portion Control, it's poppy, but dark, warped and electronic, new wavey but also a little witch housey here and there.
Woozy melodies are wrapped around stuttery beats, deep super dramatic vox drift over angular off kilter synths, strange sound effects swirl in the background, while the beats skitter and pound, keyboards buzz and pulse, all somehow molded into some retro dancefloor destroying electronic industrial pop weirdness, that manages to totally hit the spot, referencing all of those bands we grew up with, but also twisting that sounds into something fresh and new and gloriously tweaked and tripped out.
Pressed on super thick white vinyl, and probably pretty limited too...
We weren't really sure what we'd get from a band named "White Denim," but we're happy to report that it's not only better than we expected, but pretty damn rad. White Denim hail from Austin, TX, and they whip up a frenzied chunk of heavily grooving guitar rock with a nice psychedelic feel and some cool moments of skronky (sometime sax inflected) weirdness that come as a nice surprise. The songs on Fits are energetic and fun, and the super tight production really makes things stand out. This band must just own it live. At times they comes off a bit like the post-Karp/pre-Big Business band Tight Bros. From Way Back When, meaning pretty much that this is a group of indie rockers taking a stab at a MC5/Stooges/Grand Funk thing, we know it sounds shitty on paper, but this is actually hitting the spot quite nicely, and you probably won't even mind when the band busts out a sitar solo... everything just blends together really well, even though things are all jagged, noisy, and frequently atonal. These guys definitely rock hard and they certainly satisfy our hunger for dumb (in a good way), testosterone fueled rock. Fans of the aforementioned Tight Bros., the Estrus records roster, and Monotonix will totally dig this.
Oh, yeah! The vinyl contains a free download card, PLUS their first album as a second slab of wax!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Limited cassette from the scrappy dudes of White Fang. Got a couple of these when they were in town on tour so grab one fast cause once their gone you know.....
Here's what we said about their lp Whatever, from which ALL of these songs on this tape are taken:
Bands like White Fang really make us wanna be young again, really young, with their carefree attitude, snarky and scrappy aesthetic and all out blasts of fucked up fun! The opening track on Whatever sounds a bit like today's lo-fi garage burners covering Bad Brains, and throughout the record we also hear wonderful hints of the really raw and noisy early years of Pavement or what it might sound like if Wavves covered a song off the first Neutral Milk Hotel record, especially on the songs where WF rock some distorted trumpet.
Freewheeling, eclectic and on the verge of falling apart, White Fang really are all over the place, but in ways that make perfect sense to our warped ears. They have some of the awesome charm of those damaged early SST records by folks like Saccharine Trust and the Meat Puppets (their first record!) as well as modern day kindred sonic spirits like Eat Skull or Silver Daggers. These kids have wisely tapped into the more twisted and cracked side of punk and garage rock, we're sure they would be so rad live at some out of control house party or warehouse show.
Ha, what a (intentionally misspelled?) title! The songs are short and sweet and sound like they were recorded with a boombox covered with a towel in their practice space after smoking more than a few bongloads. What's not to love about that? Garagey-punk a la Black Flag should not sound heavily produced or overdubby, it should be raw and fucked up and a little loose. It's obvious that these guys don't take themselves very seriously (see: "Can't Find My Weed"), and therein lies the charm (think: a less skilled but more stoned Turbonegro). The title track totally rips off Elton John's "Saturday" in the most glorious way for about ten seconds. "Funny Disguises" and "Fuck Up a Fascist (I'm Down)" have maybe the only actual guitar shredding on the whole record and half the time it's so buried underneath layers of midrange skrawnk that you might stop banging your head to notice, but then again you might not.
Bands like White Fang really make us wanna be young again, really young, with their carefree attitude, snarky and scrappy aesthetic and all out blasts of fucked up fun! The opening track on Whatever sounds a bit like today's lo-fi garage burners covering Bad Brains, and throughout the record we also hear wonderful hints of the really raw and noisy early years of Pavement or what it might sound like if Wavves covered a song off the first Neutral Milk Hotel record, especially on the songs where WF rock some distorted trumpet.
Freewheeling, eclectic and on the verge of falling apart, White Fang really are all over the place, but in ways that make perfect sense to our warped ears. They have some of the awesome charm of those damaged early SST records by folks like Saccharine Trust and the Meat Puppets (their first record!) as well as modern day kindred sonic spirits like Eat Skull or Silver Daggers. These kids have wisely tapped into the more twisted and cracked side of punk and garage rock, we're sure they would be so rad live at some out of control house party or warehouse show. The record comes on really nice thick vinyl with a coupon for a digital download as well as a cool little zine filled with photos, flyers, and drawings.
NOW AVAILABLE AS A DOUBLE LP!!
Latest release from Tim Presley, aka one man lo-fi garage rock / noise pop band White Fence, a sprawling two volume collection of jams, culled from supposedly over 80 tracks, and this collection is a doozy, like past WF records, a collection of super varied pop weirdness, from super catchy indie jangle, to super fuzzy Kinks worship, from damaged zoner psych, to in the red garage punk swagger, and pretty much every stop in between. We're tempted to compare this to the Sopors, whose 7" we reviewed last list, another rad blast of weird pop from a twisted loner genius, and while the Sopors record is seriously damaged and on the verge of collapse, the sounds here are significantly more polished, but only some of the time.
The first volume is the poppier of the two, just check out the opening one-two punch, "Swagger Vets And Double Moon", with its programmed drums, psychedelic leads, reverbed vocals, fuzzed out guitar, shuffly rhythm, and then "Long White Curtain", which is total British Invasion worship, with a seriously strange lo-fi mix, the leads practically bursting from the speaker, while the rest of the sounds are dialed way back. And so it goes, wherever Presley's twisted sensibilities take him, there's the lilting dreamy fuzzy twee pop of "Do You Know Ida Know", which sounds almost like Ween, with its weird processed vox, or the fuzzy organ driven shuffle pop of "It Will Never Be", that locks into a hazy krautpsych loop and warbled and warps, while spidery guitars coil themselves around that main groove, or "Hey! Roman Nose", which is total lo-fi bedroom pop, with a little bit of that Purling Hiss style seventies power pop mixed in, and the first volume finishes off with "Daily Pique" a fuzzy psychedelic groove with weird vocals, and an even weirder production.
The second volume seems decidedly weirder, although it starts off with a dreamy bit of synth driven balladry, that sounds weirdly like the Frogs, which is most definitely not a bad thing, "She Relief" wraps some garage pop in squiggly leads and all sorts of piano pound and psychedelic freakout, before "I'd Sing" brings things back down, unfurling as a little stretch of psych guitar laced bedroom pop murk.
Things do definitely become more and more unhinged, lots of weird synths, and strange experimental song structures, noise guitar freakouts, even the poppiest jams are all twisted up, doused in effects, tangled up into weird arrangements, but somehow it suits them, and we find ourselves digging the second volume as much as the first, if not more.
Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin and John Dwyer might be getting most of the love (rightfully so), but folks who like their garage rock and indie pop a bit more fucked up and fractured, twisted and confusional, White Fence might just be your cup of spiked tea.
We were pretty blown away by the last White Fence record, a sprawling double album spread out over two lps (or one cd), which found one man band WF aka Tim Presley, spitting out a dizzying barrage of fractured jangle pop and warped garage rock, an already massive collection of songs, supposedly culled from more than 80 written for the record, which only confirmed what we sort of already knew, that White Fence was maybe the weirdest and most idiosyncratic outfit in the SF garage rock scene, which is full of genius weirdos (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, etc.). On this new one though, Presley manages to both get even weirder, AND dip into much more traditional songsmithery. It's almost as if instead of working on songs in his garage, Presley assembled a rickety old time machine, which he used to travel back to the sixties, which is definitely where this record seems to find most of its sonic inspiration, but it's almost as if that rickety time machine only barely made it back, jumbling up all of Presley's perfect sixties garage pop songs in the process, so all the lilting melodies, fuzzy, strummy dreaminess, spidery psychedelic leads, hazy crooned vox, swirling acoustic guitars, came through the portal just a little bit fucked up, sounds that seem to melt before your ears, weird blurts of damaged effects, sounds swooping backwards, drums doused in delay, fuzz guitar cranked and jammed WAY above the mix. The mixes all over the place, raw and brittle one second, lush and lovely the next, drums loud, guitars howling, melodies muted and muddy, vocals barely there in the background, then cooing in your ear. In a way, it almost reminds us of Faxed Head, the way their caveman metal was defined by the recording, the tape drop outs, the weird varispeed pitch changes, everything woozy and crumbling and falling apart. Which is basically how Cyclops Reap sounds, BUT, all of that weirdness and fucked up damage, can barely disguise the sheer pop brilliance on display here. Total retro jangle pop garage fuzz genius. Total sixties hippie hookiness, hazy power pop shimmer, swaggery blooze garage stomp, all tangled into some of THEE best and catchiest pop songs EVER. Minus all the damage, this could have easily been some lost sixties artifact unearthed and reissued, in fact, the whole time machine thing above, could easily be swapped out for someone ACTUALLY discovering Cyclops Reap in an old dusty, moldy box, in the basement of some SF flat, the tapes warped and mildewy, that damaged translating into some of the more psychedelic sonics here.
Needless to say, we've loved every White Fence record, and this one's no different, in fact it's fast becoming our new favorite. And as hard as Presley seems to be trying to obscure his perfect jangly fuzz pop masterpieces, that sonic obfuscation only serves to make them that much more warped and wonderful.
Note: the vinyl version already sold out but is soon to be repressed, we're told.
First we've heard from these sixties psych channeling, garage pop retro rocking locals since last year's awesome Cyclops Reap (and not counting the recent equally awesome Live In SF disc). Cyclops Reap took White Fence's already twisted sound and somehow made it even more far out, while at the same time upping the ante on pretty much everything else (song craft, production, etc.), and now on For The Recently Found Innocent, WF mainman Tim Presley teams up with his buddy Ty Segall and drummer Nick Murray (Mikal Cronin even pops by to play a little piano), for a record that continues Presley's quest to craft some impossible sixties beholden, modern retro-psych masterpiece, and gets closer than he ever has. In the process, Presley and crew dial back a lot of the weirdness that defined the sound of Cyclops Reap, and come up with some of the best WF songs yet. Certainly the best sounding, the production is massive, just check out "Anger! Who Keeps You Under", which somehow sounds properly from back in the day, but modern as well, jangling guitars, soaring vocals, hooks galore, powerful drumming, all sorts of effects and textures, the sound lush and majestic, a little bit fuzzy and crunchy, and so so catchy! And it pretty much doesn't let up, every track here a fuzz pop retro garage gem, "Like That" features Presley's keening falsetto, with some fantastic harmonies, all set amidst lush jangle and some pitch perfect sixties-isms, what we really need to do is get Presley together with Matthew Melton (Warm Soda, Bare Wires)!
But until that happens, we get to revel in Presley's alternate sonic sixties, conjured up here and now, with all the musical references to might imagine, Bee Gees, the Monkees, the Zombies, some of the tracks here do genuinely sound like they were plucked from some reissue compilation, while others find WF indulging in some experimentation, but even then, they manage to make it sound totally genuine. As always, fantastic stuff, and pretty sure we probably say this every time, but might be our favorite White Fence record yet!
For those of you who didn't get enough warped garage rock / lo-fi noise pop on the recent sprawling two part collection from this local one man band, snap up one of these quick before they're gone. Originally intended to be a Record Store Day Release, these only showed up a few days ago, but fans of WF won't be disappointed, three more songs, that sound like they could have been plucked from the same 80 songs that the above mentioned collection was culled from. Fuzzy and jangly, a serious sixties pop vibe, with dreamy harmony vox, lots of fuzz and echo and reverb, hooks galore, the second track a bit more druggy hippie folk, while the sidelong title track is a pitch perfect blast of super catchy retro pop radness, just a bit warped, all the songs here held together by weird bloopy basslines, and some super distorted wild way-up-in-the-mix leads, not to mention some seriously tripped out vocals. Another gem from this SF outfit who should definitely have a place of honor on your shelf alongside The Oh Sees and the Sic Alps and the Bare Wires and Blasted Canyons and all the rest...
If you're anything like us, you can't get enough of the woozy, '60s laden sounds of White Fence. And if his latest release on Woodsist isn't enough to quench your thirst for psych-pop jangle, feast your eyes (and ears) on this hot new 7" featuring a stellar, unheard, unreleased song. Released by our friends After Life (rad clothing shop across the street from aQ), this slab of washed out psychedelic pop is exactly in line with past WF releases. Blaring fuzz guitar, catchy hooks and diluted melodies, all melted and warped into a unique brand of 'white light, white heat' drug-rock.
"The Pool" is completely new to us, a relaxed, slow burning trip into a blurred summer afternoon. Reminds us of Texas trippers Pure Ecstasy. Distant tambourine, chiming guitar and layers of tape hiss drift together into a wash of melodic goodness. Our favorite thing about WF is beneath all these layers of grit and haze are well crafted songs that only leave us wanting more. Don't miss out on this gritty pop gem!
