Precision. Exactitude. Mechanization. These have been the traits of Windsor For The Derby's previous explorations into surgically tight post-rock minimalism. This is not entirely the case with their 4th full album "The Emotional Rescue," which finds the Austin / NY trio embracing the traditions of the singer/songwriter. Similarly, little of the agitated melancholia from the preceding "Difference And Repetition" can be heard on this relatively optimistic album. Guitarists / vocalists Dan Matz and Jason MacNeely intertwine arpeggiating guitar chords and back-porch fingerpicking in forming a diverse selection of songs ranging from elegantly fragile ballads to uncharacteristically punchy pop-grooves. The production on these songs has also noticeably changed, embracing a far more hazy and humid warmth than the chilliness of some of their earlier records. A pretty solid indie-rock album for fans of Papa M and early Bedhead.
Once the most calculating of the math-rock bands, Windsor For The Derby gave the impression of being joyless band as they executed their tight metronomic rhythms countered with clinical guitar ellipses. The intrinsic dourness of their music reached its apex with their Difference and Repetition album, which was appropriately produced by Michael Gira when he still fronted Swans. While that record is probably their most realized album in their brief catalogue, We Fight Til Death finds the Texan expatriates warming up a little bit. Well, it is a relative warmth, as they've moved from gloomy miserablism to a detatched bittersweetness; or perhaps its the difference between Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures and the underappreciated Movement by New Order. As on their earlier recordings, Windsor retains the shifting Slintish patterns colored by the aforementioned emotional timbres; but a few tracks venture into more lighthearted affairs such as the pleasantly lazy summertime tune "A Spring Like Sixty" or the surprisingly uptempo opening cut which exhibits shades of The Rapture or Interpol with their spry rhythm sections.
A really nice debut from Izaak Schlossman, a young man from here in the bay area who makes music perfect for long roadtrips on the open road or an afternoon in your bedroom with the windows cracked while hot water boils in the kitchen for your morning tea. It starts of sounding like some lost Neutral Milk Hotel demo hidden in Jeff Mangum's attic for years and years. And then a more electro-acoustic sound comes into play making for a great meeting of worlds between indie-folk song writing and more expansive instrumental and atmospheric passages that hint at what it might sound like if Iron & Wine was way more lo-fi and joined forces with Fennesz. Or something. Its pastoral beauty and earnest delivery also reminds us a bit of folks like Mountains, Rickard Javerling, Grizzly Bear and Horseback. A very DIY affair, the cd-r is packaged in a beautiful hand sewn cover.
And we can definitely see this being one of those cd-r's that a few years from now you'll be bragging to your friends about, how you were digging this stuff well before he became a big name...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Previously available only as an import 10", this CD is also a limited edition release but adds an extra track. Three shimmering tracks of dense guitar washes that give way occasionally to the faint residues of psychedelic structures.
Utterly beautiful, velvet-warm blankets of sound unfold simply and slowly on just a guitar and a bass. "Womb-like" is an overused adjective, but in Windy & Carl's case it's really quite apt. Mix the blissed-out rough strum of Flying Saucer Attack with the
(Windy and Carl also have a record store, www.stormyrecords.com, tell 'em we sent ya.) (And btw, Windy of Windy & Carl is different person from me, Windy of AQ.)
Here we thought exquisite dronesters Windy & Carl were paying tribute to Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist, but no! This limited edition release is dedicated to their dearly departed doggie, Flea. It features two lengthy tracks of their trademark glistening guitar and keyboard drone compositions embellished with some scuttling sounds from recordings of their pup. Just over 37 minutes long. We just have a few, and it's a LIMITED PRESSING OF 500!!!
More music to fall asleep to, which Windy & Carl call the highest compliment. The cover looks like Willie Wonka's chocolate river.
So Windy and Carl just rolled through our neck of the woods (we had the pleasure of sponsoring their show here in SF!!) and aside from unleashing an absolutely gorgeous set of dreamy pop-ambience, they dropped off a few hand painted, special edition tour lps for our lucky aQ W&C worshipers. This cool little lp comes complete with unreleased instrumental versions of songs from their latest Kranky full length, Songs For the Broken Hearted. There's even one track we've never heard or seen before called "I Won't", that could be one of our favorite instrumental tracks from this Michigan husband and wife dream duo.
These tracks are so spacious and beautiful in the usual Windy and Carl way, it's easy to tell they've been perfecting their dreamy sound long before the drone was even in style. Daydream inducing and wondrous, the album immediately provides a distant, cloudy headspace to get lost in. Housed in hand-painted, hand-stenciled, hand-numbered recycled LP sleeves, each with it's own unique design and look, these will be gone super super quick, so act fast if you want one. Limited to an edition of 500 on translucent green vinyl, so nice and so essential!!
Within the sweeping orbits of the Michigan space rock community, Windy & Carl (whose Windy is not the same as AQ's Windy, thank you!) have continued to count as one of the best and most consistent projects to emerge from that fertile scene. With an incredibly simple template that finds Carl on effects laden guitar and Windy on bass and occasionally singing, the duo crafts gentle washes of blissed-out, shoegazing haziness which is lazily structured by the sparest of songwriting elements -- a vocal melody whispered on one song, an acoustic guitar strumming on another, or a bass steadily progressing through a simple chord progression on another. It seems a little hard to believe that so much of their dreamy output was through tiny edition 7" singles and EPs; yet as this triple cd compendium is filled with tracks from those early singles, as well as compilation tracks, and live / unreleased tracks. Fantastic sleepytime music.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is not me! Rather, it's layered bliss-out from Michigan spacerock duo who boast the distinction of being the band who opened for Destroy All Monsters at recent famous reunion show.
Dream-drone, slow-slowcore uberwunder duo Windy & Carl are long-time favorites of Aquarius, and by long we mean looooong. As in, we've been with them the whole way, and this fall marks 19 years for the project. So anyway, we were plenty excited when we finally got a copy of this, their newest record. Hot on the heels of Windy's lovely (and haunting) solo record, these tracks were actually started at the same time and nearly went unfinished. Thankfully they were saved! Press releases mentioned vocals, vocals, vocals. Those who know W&C probably understand that "lots of vocals" is relative. Two or three songs a record with Windy singing is kind of a lot! Yeah, so when we got this we were totally blown away. Again! Man, there's definitely a reason we hold them in such high regard: they never fail to take us exactly where we want to go. If you're a fan, you already know that W&C can conjure up the dreamiest six-string drones, never, ever drums, and the sweetest daydream vocals, employed sparingly and pretty damn perfectly. Fans of Labradford, Stars of the Lid, maybe even the quietest Low, this is already - or soon to be - your favorite band! We love Windy & Carl, and we want you to have the chance to love them, too. This is definitely a great place to start. Oh, and check out "Snow Covers Everything," it might be our favorite track on here. If you couldn't tell already, recommended!
While the term Pop Ambient was coined by the good people at Kompakt to describe their own particular strain of electronica, it aptly defines Windy & Carl. The husband & wife duo emerged out of Michigan's space-rock scene in the mid '90s, producing a steady stream of singles and albums, as endless variations on weightless guitar drones, soft-focus basslines, and mumbled lyrics buried in piles of reverb. They eventually shifted the space-rock model of lift-off through vibrant drug-fuelled propulsion to the freefloating orbits of perpetually shimmering tones. In their bright shimmer and glistening ambience, they even push beyond the shoegaze mope into a blissed-out, pop narcotic almost wholly devoid of the pop song itself. But wisps of the song are there, and as the title of this album alludes to, those glints of pop will always be there even if the melodic hook has been reduced to a sustained, gentle wash. As such, We Will Always Be is as magical, gaseous, and beautifully familiar as every Windy & Carl album that came before hand. Yup, it's pretty much inevitable to get lost in these tracks as they are so enveloping and soothing.
Gorgeous 4 song, 35 minute 12" ep from this Michigan husband and wife dreamdrone duo, released for this year's Record Store Day, which means, these were probably meant to be gone already, but we managed to get a bunch extra for mailorder folks who might not have a record store nearby.
Like other Windy And Carl records, this self titled RSD 12" is another fantastic collection of billowing soft focus droned out drift, subtly processed guitars, blurred into lush dreamlike swells, rumbling and whirring, shimmering and softly pulsing, a mesmerizing bit of late night kosmische drift. Opening track "Shadows" is a darkly dreamy sprawl of layered guitars, a swirl of subtle overtones and slow shifting tonal color, hazy clouds of hushed chordal thrum hovers in a gauzy expanse of muted melodies and abstract ambience, pretty much the perfect late night drift off soundtrack. "Columns" is much more brief, but no less hypnotic, a meditative stretch of softly keening high end and warm wispy low tones, woven into a lush layered bed of warm woozy spaced out shimmer. "The White Birch" is even more brief, not sure if its title is an homage to slowcore legends Codeine, but it does capture the same sort of hushed melancholia, the guitar tones dark, the melodies minor key, the sounds all bleeding into one another, the most active track of the bunch, but like some sort of sonic black hole, all the sounds seeming to drift inward, contemplative, and darkly dreamy. And finally, the record finishes off with the epic nearly 16 minute "Baby Alpaca Wool Pulled Over My Eyes", which opens with spare guitar strum, left to hover weightless alongside softly crooned wordless vocals, a swoonsome lament, a drowsy slowcore dirge, that doesn't build, but instead smolders contemplatively, the sound cyclical and circular, the chord progression subtle and haunting, the track trancelike and utterly mesmerizing, softly reverbed, and in a perfect world, the sort of song that would be allowed to play on forever.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, pressed on green vinyl, with a download coupon. Another Record Store Day release, sold out at the source, which means these are the last copies we're able to get.
Regardless on the time of year, we usually have a handful of Christmas-y cds in stock, and now we've got some holiday themed music on vinyl too! Here's a limited edition split 7" from a couple of Midwest music makers, one of whom we know and love so well, Windy & Carl! Their side has two suitably frosty songs "Christmas Time Is Here" and "Snowing". The flip side features one track, the cut'n'paste sample-icious "Spanky The Christmas Elf" from Frankie & The S.E.M.M. The clear green vinyl platter comes in a pretty handmade watercolor-y paper sleeve which comes in a clear plastic sleeve festooned with round colored stickers which bring to mind Christmas tree balls. But wait, there's more! Accompanying the record is a bonus (Mac/PC compatible) cd-rom with some strange footage of an early nineties call in Santa Christmas television show, with the sound a little chopped and remixed giving the whole proceedings a very tripped out surreal vibe.
A very limited edition "tour only" four song split EP: one track by space rock vets Windy and Carl and three by no-slouch upstarts Landing. Enveloping mists of blissful drones, gentle twinkling guitar and an occasional sleepy boy murmur. With sleeve art hand-painted by Windy.
P.S. Windy of AQ is not Windy of Windy & Carl!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Space rock stalwart outfits The Lothars and Windy & Carl have both played all four of the annual Terrastock music festivals to great acclaim. The recording is a document of live performances culled from the vast Terrastock archives. The first track features The Lothars (three theremins!) and Carl on guitar, an extended improvised jam that wouldn't be out of place on the Harmony of the Spheres box set -- lush, minor key, wistful -- although at 27 minutes it's far too long for my admittedly short attention span. There are two tracks of Windy & Carl by themselves, warm and melodic and fuzzed out, at the San Francisco Terrastock in 1998. Those of you that were there will remember this truly killer set. And the final track is the grittiest of them all, the full Lothars lineup (three theremins, guitar, accordion) with the stunning violin work of Alastair Galbraith. There are no drums on the entire record, so get ready to bliss out more than (space)rock out.
If you're already a fan of blissed-out space-droners Windy & Carl and or the Kranky record label, this release will probably need no introduction nor description, and will surely please many ears and calm many frazzled nerves. If you're not already familiar, well, this Dream House makes quite a wonderful introduction. There are no sharp edges in this duo's enveloping music, their washes of drones slowly and gently undulate like wisps of seaweed deep on the ocean's floor. Soooo sooothing.
Now, the following bonus disc news might be considered good (if you missed it the first time around) or a not so good (if you already have the disc and don't like redundancy). Accompanying Dream House is their tribute to their dearly departed doggie, Flea. It was originally released as a limited edition cd on Brainwashed earlier this year, and features two lengthy tracks of their trademark glistening guitar and keyboard drone compositions embellished with some scuttling sounds from recordings of their pup. Just over 37 minutes long.
If you have been paying attention to the British tabloids and gossip blogs lately, then most likely you, like us, have heard about Ms. Winehouse's drunken antics (her ongoing feuds with white Brit soul-sister Lily Allen, her heckling Bono at a recent awards show, or her oddball sense of fashion), long before you would have actually heard her sing. But who doesn't love a Hot Mess these days, especially one who can surprisingly deliver the classic soul goods as forcefully as she. Seriously, every time we play this, customers do double takes when they see her skinny frame on the cd and hear this big ballsy voice, they just don't match up. At least not until you hear the lyrics, especially on the opening track, the very timely "Rehab", and you can see that her rough charm belies some hefty emotional damage. Backed by the Dap-Kings (well, the band sounds like them and she's touring with them, so we think it's them) and featuring a cameo by Ghostface Killah, Ms. Winehouse's second album is a lovelorn soul cocktail made from the tawdry shards of a broken gin bottle.
Why it has taken so long for this to be reissued is baffling, but we're just so glad it's finally here. We have raved about Leslie Winer's musical work on two previous archival releases from Tapeworm and its offshoot label Wormhole, but those really only hinted at the genius of Witch, her only previously released record, from 1993 (though much of it was recorded in the late eighties). Records don't get more cult than this. Released on a white label, using the copyright symbol as her moniker, here designed as a circle of Ourobouros that was originally hand stamped onto blank white sleeves. Even the album and song titles with their alphanumerical wordplay ("N1ear", "1nce Upon A Time") would fit right at home with the obscurant syntax of witch house, even though this was recorded nearly 20 years before. Witch has been labeled as "proto-trip-hop", which it sort of is, as this record predates what Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky were doing just a year or two later, and even Winer herself has been called by NME "The Grandmother of Trip Hop", a label she has rejected and rightly so. "Grandmother" doesn't have the same aura of respect as what the music press names male musical innovators such as "Godfather" or "King", and Winer, a poet and formal model with a chic androgynous style who was close friends with both William S. Burroughs and Jean-Michel Basquiat is hardly a little old lady.
Witch is both a product of its time and far ahead of it. On the surface, it's not that far removed from Sinead O'Connor, especially her song "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" with its James Brown drum sample and spoken intonations, but Witch is much darker, cooler and more subdued. It has a very London feel to it, a feeling of frustrated action against cultural stagnation and trying to create something new out of nearly nothing. Winer doesn't necessarily sing as much as observe and respond with cool detachment, a sort of soundtrack of her experiences relayed poetically to an unknown listener as beats, dub rhythms (from Jah Wobble no less), and musical samples and snippets of dialogue coalesce around her. It's a heady mixture, definitely dreamy and druggy, but she refreshingly doesn't try to endear the listener to her own personal entanglements and positions on gender, beauty and social norms. It's more like she's having a searching complicated conversation with herself.
Musically, what Witch really predates is the contemporary woozy and warped electronica of Peaking Lights and Maria Minerva, especially in the layering of breezy dub rhythms in hazy reverb and abstract murk. It's a beautifully extraordinary work that continually rewards the more we listen. Big thanks to Superior Viaduct for making this more widely available. Incredible and soooo recommended!
This is Aaron Calvert (of the L.A. band Evergreen) and Mikel Garmendia of Cars Get Crushed. Which is why I was surprised by this cd. I was expecting that post punk late 90's sort of thang. Instead I found some good ol' Americana with a healthy dose of No Depression with interesting production, at times reminiscent of Tom Waits or Vic Chestnutt. EP length at 35 minutes.
There is nothing groundbreaking here but it's done really well. Totally captivating and charming. The vocals are slurred and lazy and drunk sounding, maybe even a bit too much... Really pretty nice.
Wonderful! This group of community singers number just three and their names are David Grubbs (Gastr Del Sol, Bastro, Squirrelbait), Hannah Marcus and author Rick Moody. If you dig the down-homey country folk feel of Freakwater or Virginia Dare. Ms Hannah's voice is in full, sweetly lilting bloom and the fellows chime in every so often in warm welcoming fashion. Most of the songs are of the slower ballad kind such as the achingly lovely "Blue Daisy", but the trio also prove that they're not against kickin' up the dust a bit on more rollicking numbers such as "Fishnet Stockings". An ideal album for a picnic down by the creekside, or simply hangin' out on the porchswing one lazy Sunday evening.
If you were like us and exclaimed, "Wow, a new Wingtip Sloat album?!" And then after listening to it thought that the Wingtip Sloat of new sounded remarkably like the Wingtip Sloat of old... well, silly gooses all of us! This is not a new album, but a generous collection of thirty rarities and compilation tracks from their heyday. Wingtip Sloat's music fits the textbook definition of the truly alternative indie rock dislocations that ruled the college radio waves for a spell back in the early '90s. Mildly eccentric and destined for obscurity if not for the fine folks at VHF (who are the folks who released this), the cd includes a bunch of great covers of tunes by fellow obtuse indie rockers Tall Dwarfs, Sun City Girls, The Clean, Swell Maps and World Of Pooh.
Doom legend Scott "Wino" Weinrich, front man for Saint Vitus and The Obsessed, and member of Shrinebuilder, offers up a new solo album, the vinyl of which we have via Volcom. But don't expect heavy stoner doom here. It's passionate, and earnest, yeah, but not heavy - this is an all-acoustic album, just voice and guitar pretty much. So, it's kinda the coffee house version of Wino, we'd have to say. He's gone all singer songwriter on us. And that's not bad, after all he's got a cool voice and is a talented guitar player, as capable with the delicate country folk flecked acoustic stuff as he is with the shredding psychedelic electric leads that sometimes intrude over the acoustic strum. It might not be fair to say that this is his Book Of Shadows (this IS better than that Zakk Wylde acoustic album) but it's definitely a far cry from Born Too Late or The Church Within, as well, doomhounds should note. Maybe Jar Of Flies would be a better comparison? Oh, and if you ever wanted to hear unplugged versions of Motorhead's "Iron Horse" and "Born To Lose", the album ends with such a medley. There's also a Savoy Brown cover too. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! ACID MOTHER'S TEMPLE / STEARICA "Sterica Invade Acid Mothers Temple" (Homeopathic) cd 17.98 ACRYLICS "Lives And Treasure" (Hot Sand / Friendly Fire) cd 13.98 ANAL CUNT "Fuckin A" (Patac) cd 11.98 ANBB (ALVA NOTO & BLIXA BARGELD) "Mimikry" (Raster-Noton) cd 17.98 ANIKA "s/t" (Stones Throw / Invada) cd 21.00 BANJO OR FREAKOUT "s/t" (RBR) cd/lp 15.98/16.98 BEACH FOSSILS "What A Pleasure" (Captured Tracks) cd/lp 10.98/13.98 BEE MASK "Canzoni Dal Laboratorio Del Silenzio Cosmico" (Spectrum Spools / Editions Mego) lp 21.00 BICK, ANDREAS "Fire And Frost Pattern" (Gruenrekorder) cd 16.98 BIRDS OF AVALON "s/t" (Bladen Country) cd 14.98 BLOOD OF HEROES, THE "s/t" (Ohm Resistance) cd 17.98 BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER "Skeletal Coupla Remains" (Gnarled Forest) lp 16.98 BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER / WICKED KING WICKER "split" (Gnarled Forest) lp 14.98 BRIGHT EYES "People's Key (First Edition)" (Saddle Creek) cd 14.98 BURZUM "Fallen" (Byelobog) cd 14.98 CASSLE "s/t" (Shadow Kingdom) cd 13.98 COHEN, TIM "Bad Blood" (Captured Tracks) 2x7" 10.98 COVER STORY VOL. 2 "Cover Story Volume Two: Odd, Obscure, and Outrageous Album Art" (Waxpoetics) book 24.95 DANAVA / EARTHLESS / LECHEROUS GAZE "s/t" (Kemado) lp 19.98 DARK DAY "Strange Clockwork" (self-released) cd 12.98 DECEMBERISTS, THE "The King Is Dead" (Capitol) cd 17.98 ELECTRIC VOYAGE "Flight of No Return" (Kemado) 7" 5.98 ESG "Dance To The Best Of ESG" (Soul Jazz) 3lp 59.00 EXPO 70 "Center of the Earth" (Sonic Meditations) 2lp 33.00 FABRIC "A Sort Of Radiance" (Spectrum Spools / Editions Mego) lp 21.00 FATHER BEFOULED "Morbid Destitution of Covenant" (Relapse) cd 14.98 FEAR "The Record" (Slash / Rhino) lp 14.98 FINCHES "On Golden Hill" (Ulrike) cd 10.98 FLOATING BRIDGE "s/t" (Aurora) cd 17.98 FRIMPONG, K. & HIS CUBANO FIESTAS "s/t" (Continental Records) lp 17.98 GANG OF FOUR "Entertainment" (Rhino / Warner Bros.) lp 24.00 GRAYCEON "All We Destroy" (Profound Lore) cd 13.98 GREEN DOOR KIDS, THE "Muzikal Yooth" (Optimo Music) lp 16.98 GROSSKOPF, HAROLD + VARIOUS ARTISTS "Synthesist / Re-Synthesist" (Rvng Intl) lp+cd 22.00 HAINO, KEIJI, JIM O'ROURKE, & OREN AMBARCHI "In A Flash Everything Comes Together As One There Is No Need For A Subject" (A Black Truffle / Medama) 2lp 29.00 HAMMER, JOSEPH "I Love You, Please Love Me" (Pan) lp 36.00 HELEN LUNDY TRIO, THE "s/t" (HLT Records) cd 11.98 HUMAN INSTINCT "Kiwi Psych Heads : Singles 1966-1971" (Groovie) lp 32.00 HYPE WILLIAMS "One Nation" (Hippos In Tanks) 12" 25.00 INDEX "Black Album / Red Album / Yesterday & Today" (Lion Productions) 2cd 27.00 JOHANNSSON, JOHANN "Virdulegu Forsetar" (Touch) 2lp 22.00 JOKERS "s/t" (Fading Sunshine) cd 14.98 JUV "s/t" (Miasmah) cd/2lp 16.98/23.00 KALEIDOSCOPE "s/t" (Shadoks) cd 17.98 KVELERTAK "s/t" (Indie Recordings) cd 14.98 LARD FREE "Gilbert Artman's Lard Free" (Wah-Wah) lp 30.00 LI, LYKKE "Wounded Rhymes" (Atlantic) cd 13.98 LIFELOVER "Sjukdom" (Prophecy Productions) cd 16.98 MAJUTSU NO NIWA "Ecstatic Crystalization" (Musik Atlach) cd 16.98 MANDELBROT & SKYY "OD-Axis" (Digitalis) lp 14.98 MARATHON MAN / THE PARALLAX VIEW (MICAHEL SMALL) "OST" (Film Score Monthly) cd 17.98 METABOLISMUS "Mauser Ok" (Amish Records) 7" 10.98 NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS "Waves Of The Random Sea" (Blackest Rainbow) cd 19.98 NATURAL YOGURT BAND, THE "Tuck In With..." (Now Again) cd 18.98 NEUMEIER, MANI & KAWABATA MAKOTO "Samurai Blues" (Bureau B) cd 17.98 NIGGAS WITH GUITARS "Ethnic Frenzy" (Digitalis) lp 16.98 OSWALD, JOHN + 1,001 VINTAGE POP STARS "Perplexure" (Fony) lp 14.98 OUTER LIMITS RECORDINGS "$20 Bill" (True Panther) 7" 6.98 PSYCHIC REALITY "Vibrant New Age" (Not Not Fun) lp 14.98 PUCE MOMENT "Avoiding Certain Topics / Essence Of Mann e.p. / Puce Moment" (self-released) 3 x cassette 9.98 PULSE EMITTER "Spiritual Vistas" (Cylindrical Habitat Modules / Expansive) lp 14.98 PURO INSTINCT "Headbangers In Ecstasy" (Mexican Summer) cd/lp 13.98/16.98 PURO INSTINCT "Stilyagi / Put Medved To Bedved" (Mexican Summer) 7" 5.98 QUICKSAND DREAM "Aelin - A Story About Destiny" (Planet Metal) cd 10.98 RIVAL SCHOOLS "Pedals" (Photo Finish) cd 12.98 RONETTES, THE "Be My Baby : The Very Best Of The Ronettes" (Legacy) cd 10.98 ROSE, EDEN "On The Way To Eden" (Lion) cd 16.98 RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE, THE "Departing" (Saddle Creek) cd 14.98 SAXANA - THE GIRL ON A BROOMSTICK (MICHAJLOV, ANGELO) "OST" (B-Music / Finders Keepers) cd 16.98 SCALE THE SUMMIT "The Collective" (Prosthetic) cd 14.98 SHIFLET, MIKE & DANIEL MENCHE "Stalemate" (Sonoris) cd 13.98 SHIVER, THE "Walpurgis" (Garden of Delights) lp 34.00 SIMONE, NINA "At Newport" (Doxy) lp+cd 26.00 SIMONE, NINA "The Legendary First Recording In New York City, 1957" (Doxy) lp+cd 26.00 SLITS, THE "In The Beginning" (Vinyl Lovers) lp 27.00 SLOATH "s/t" (Riot Season) lp 17.98 SPACEMEN 3 "Take Me To The Other Side" (Fire) 12" 13.98 STEEL MILL "Jewels Of The Forest" (Rise Above Relics) cd 16.98 TEAMS VS. STAR SLINGER "s/t" (Mexican Summer) 12" 19.98 THX 1138 (LALO SCHIFRIN) "OST" (Film Score Monthly) cd 17.98 TORO Y MOI "Underneath The Pine" (Carpark) cd 14.98 V/A "Brazil Bossa Beat! Bosa Nova & The Story Of Elenco Records, Brazil" (Soul Jazz Records) cd/2lp 23.00/24.00 V/A "Cartagena! Curro Fuentes & The Big Band Combia And Descarga Sound Of Columbia 1962-72" (Soundway) cd 16.98 V/A "Casual Victim Pile II" (12XU) lp 14.98 V/A "Funky Chicken" (Trojan) cd 15.98 V/A "Groove Club Vol. 3: Cambodian Rock Intensified!" (Lion / Get On Down) 2lp 22.00 V/A "Guitar Mood 2" (INST) lp 10.98 V/A "Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat, & Bossa Nova 1966-1970" (Big Beat International) cd 19.98 V/A "Rhythm" (Gruenrekorder) cd 16.98 V/A "Riddimentary : Diplo Selects Greensleeves" (Greensleeves) cd 12.98 VACANT LOTS "Confusion b/w Cadillac" (Mexican Summer) 7" 5.98 VAMPILLIA "Alchemic Heart" (Important) cd 14.98 VENA "Nomadic" (Paradigms) cd ep 11.98 VESTER, HEIKE / OCEAN SOUNDS "Marine Mammals And Fish Of Lofoten And Vesteralen" (Gruenrekorder) cd 16.98 WILLIAMS, LUCINDA "Blessed" (Lost Highway) cd 15.98 _______________________________________________________________________ Please place your order via our website. [1] We will contact you to verify your order and let you know when it will be shipped. Please note that occasionally it may take a day or two for us to reply. We are not a faceless bunch of computers replying to your order -- we are human beings! [2] If we are out of some of your items and we think we will get them within the same week, we can wait to ship. Or... If it's going to be more than a few days to complete your order, we will ship what we have and then will contact you as the remainders arrive. [ note ] Due to the everchanging nature of the independent record business, we are not responsible for listed price changes (due to supplier price changes) and often cannot update our site fast enough to reflect these changes, but we will always try to let you know of any differences.
It's about time that stoner rock guitar god Scott Weinrich, better known by his nickname Wino, former vocalist for Saint Vitus, just up and called his band "Wino". After all, The Obsessed, Shine, Spirit Caravan, Hidden Hand, they were all Wino projects with drawing card, Wino. So, at last, here's the man's "solo" album. Unlike at this year's Southern Lord SXSW showcase, where he did indeed play an entirely solo (and acoustic!) set, Wino is in fact a band on Punctuated Equilibrium, a power trio that also features the talents of Jean Paul Gaster (of Clutch) on drums and Jon Blank on bass.
And guess what? Wino sounds pretty much like Wino's other bands! Which is exactly what we hoped for. A mix of '70s style heavy rock, aggro punkishness, and technically badass instrumental interplay, with of course political-mystical-conspiracy lyrics delivered in Wino's trademark gravelly croon. Wino's other trademark, his distinctive fat guitar tone, is also present and accounted for.
Loping, bellbottomed opener "Release Me" sounds a bit like Captain Beyond, born too late. Then things get a bit frashter for the next tune, the title track. And the album rolls on, an eclectic, electric trip through, well, what Wino is all about. Making music that's part Mountain, part Mahavishnu... doomy, psychedelic, often esoteric and instrumental (among the latter, there's a song called "The Women In The Orange Pants" that almost could be Stinking Lizaveta...and considering the title, it's probably just as well there's no lyrics).
Speaking of track titles, who else but Wino would call a song "Gods, Frauds, Neo-Cons and Demagogues"?
A new group on Low's label! Slow to mid-tempo janglin' folkish pop very much along the lines of mid-'90s college radio standby Lois. The male and female vocalists sing with a seeming bittersweet hesitance, each straining a bit pitch-wise in their efforts to
Originally released as a super limited edition cassette, Blood In The Coffin is now available as both a cd and an lp, and is most likely the first glimpse most folks will get of Winter Drones, aka Leon Dufficy, whose day job is playing guitar in Hush Arbors, a group better known for psychedelic hippy folk space jams, and while some of that sound is definitely still present in Dufficy's solo project Winter Drones, the sound is stretched WAY out, blurred and smeared into gorgeous expanses of buzzy shoegazey bliss, murky moody psych pop, swirling ambient ur-drones, and all the various combinations and permutations inbetween. From hazy ethereal crystalline drift, to pounding rhythmic tribalism, WD shift effortlessly from loose, free sonic exploration, into blissy, noise drenched shoegaze perfect pop. "Winnie Coopers Bones" sounds almost like the Swirlies, with its muddied vox, smoldering guitars, tangled Sonic Youth like melodies, and the sweet soaring harmonies. But just as soon as you're riding that sweet pop wave, the gears shift again, and you're set adrift in a sparkling landscape of gauzy new age shimmer, or buzzing, warped and warbly Hecker/Jeck like ambience.
The 10+ minute "Stiff Wizard" begins as a brooding, rumbling bit of SUNNO)))-like creep, all distorted and menacing, growing more and more ominous and distorted, the sounds crumbling, and wreathed in tense high end drones, before finally the drums kick in, and the song begins to lift off, bliss out, and blossom into some sort of psychnoise space rock shoegaze blowout, somehow impossibly getting prettier and prettier and poppier and poppier without shedding any of its buzz and crunch.
Two shorter tracks finish things off, one another dreamy bit of lysergic drift, the other, a gorgeous lilting bit of buzz drenched indie pop psychedelia that wouldn't be out of place on Elephant 6. AWESOME!
This came highly recommended from one of our distributors, but we were wary at first, as we've generally had bad luck with the whole spoken word / band combo. There are of course exceptions, and this is definitely one, Winter Family whipping up a gorgeous expanse of brooding, smoldering, slow building post rock ambience, heavy on the harmonium and organ, seeing as one half of the WF duo is keyboardist Xavier Klaine, who has partnered with 'vocalist' Ruth Rosenthal, for this haunting series of songscapes, that as the label suggest, do in fact harken back to groups like Godspeed You Black Emperor and A Silver Mount Zion. Mournful and melancholy, haunting and ethereal, just check out the opening track, the oddly named "Searching Donkeys", with its thick layered minor key organ, the sound rich and lustrous, Rosenthal's vocals settled down in the mix, her mysterious intonations peppered with brief bits of proper singing, lush little bits of harmonized vocalizing, the sound almost chorale, perfectly matching the ever intensifying music, the vibe strangely liturgical.
The title track unwinds a thick, slowly pulsing sprawl of crumbling buzz, warped and a little bit seasick, throbbing ominously, Rosenthal's mush mouthed lyrics delivered in a creepy deadpan, the track peppered with bits of abstract ambience, field recordings of crowds and tolling church bells, distorted voices, broadcast through what sounds like a bullhorn, always returning to that thick ominous buzz, creepy and so sonically unnerving.
The record is super varied, a few moments definitely veer dangerously close to 'spoken word' for us, but Rosenthal pulls it off, her delivery intense and moving, and quite lyrical, even slipping into actual singing now and again, the music in those moments is darkly delicate, with elegiac pianos, chirping birds, hazy and ethereal, the sound occasionally jazzy, other times more post rocky, but our favorite moments are definitely the more drone based tracks, Klaine layering sound upon sound, weaving lush, slow building, ultra tense soundscapes, cinematic and mysterious, Rosenthal's voice, drifting atop, within and beneath Klaine's lush otherworldly drones, the two conjuring up something so much more than its constituent parts, mysterious and eerie and lovely.
We have to admit that when we saw Winter Flowers' ruffled gown and dandy fop garbed band photo, well, our skeptic and irony meters went through the roof. But after giving the album a trepidatious first listen, we happily discovered that much like similar current songbirds LA's Lavender Diamond, their hearts seem to be genuinely earnest and in the right place. Winter Flowers weave a beautiful, dewy tapestry of stunningly authentic old tyme folk. Actually our immediate aural reaction was that the fictional but truly great folk duo Mitch & Mickey from the movie A Mighty Wind had stepped off the screen and into our welcoming ears. Their heartwarming, honey-gold vocal harmonies also brings to mind 'real world' counterparts such as Peter, Paul & Mary, The Kingston Trio and Simon & Garfunkel. Sweetening up the proceedings even further are guest vocalists Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark, Mia Doi Todd and Miranda Lee Richards! So lovely!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hey kids, want something to look at and read while you listen to your records by Black Dice, Melvins, Lightning Bolt, Godspeed You Black Emperor, The Locust, Rocket From The Crypt, KK Null, Drive Like Jehu, The Rapture, Erase Errata, Jesus Lizard, Fugazi, Nation Of Ulysses, Acid Mother's Temple, Phantom Surfers, Man Is The Bastard, Slant 6, Karp, Zeni Geva, Unwound, Boredoms, Three Mile Pilot, Orthrelm, Animal Collective, Men's Recovery Project, Crash Worship, Avey Tare & Panda Bear, Damo Suzuki, Get Hustle, Black Heart Procession, Rovo, Pixeltan, Antioch Arrow, Lowercase, Fucking Champs, Punishment, Cows, Shudder To Think, Hot Snakes, Clikitat Ikatowi, Truman's Water, The Contortions, Heroin, Young Ginns, Oxes, Tight Bros From Way Back When, Thrones, Jawbox, OOIOO, Arab On Radar, US Maple, Melt Banana, Shellac, !!!, Universal Order Of Armageddon, The VSS, Don Caballero, Quintron, Rachel's, Magma and... Iggy Pop? Well, you might want to check out this cool soft cover book (12"w x 8"h, 150 pages). It's jam-packed with color and black & white photography by Jeff Winterberg. The bulk of them are live rock and candid shots taken between 1991 and 2003, and the subjects run the music gamut. On an initial quick flip-through we spotted all of those mentioned above. Whew! Jeff Winterberg went to a lot of shows! And guess what? The price is listed at $25.00, but we've got 'em for 17.98. Neat!
Yeah, this has been out for a while. A long while actually, but due to random distributor problems which resulted in us being unable to get more than a few of these at a time, we were never able to list it, UNTIL NOW. And we were dead set on listing this, because the three records that make up Box Set contain some of the most intense, brooding and rocking post punk EVER. The Wipers are one of those bands that never got all that popular, but were definitely a band's band, the kind of group that gets namechecked by everybody, and thus influenced everybody, but still remained way below the radar.
Formed in 1978, the Wipers spent their career toiling away in obscurity, seemingly adverse to recognition or popularity, even turning down the opening slot on several Nirvana tours, worried that it would seem too opurtunistic. And Cobain was probably the Wipers' biggest supporter, even covering a bunch of their songs. In fact, lots of people who hear the original versions of "D-7" or "Return Of The Rat" think it must be some punk band covering Nirvana, instead of the other way around. And the more Wipers you hear, the more you realize Cobain did more than just cover their songs, his songwriting style and melodic flair is definitely heavily indebted to the Wipers. Some of the more brooding less rocking Wipers songs sound just like Nirvana tracks that could have been. Minor key mope rock that sort of builds and builds, not necessarily getting louder and faster (although sometimes they did) but getting more and more intense, threatening to explode, the kind of genuine angst and fury that can NOT be faked and imbues music with that sort of emotional charge that turns good music into great music. Cobain had it. So did Greg Sage. And these records prove it. Dark and driving. murky and moody, rough and totally rocking. One of the best bands you may have never heard. And if you picked up that recent Nirvana box, there are a couple Wipers covers on there, and they drive the points home that, not only did Kurt Cobain owe a huge debt for the 'inspiration' but also that Sage was a songwriter on par with Cobain himself, who many consider to be one of the best songwriters of the late eighties / early nineties. Box Set contains the first three Wipers records, Is This Real?, Youth Of America, and Over The Edge, all remastered. A total of 51 songs, 23 of them never before released. Liner notes by Greg Sage himself!
Now available (again) on vinyl, one of the best records EVER, from one of the greatest, most intense, brooding and rocking post punk band of all time.
For those who are new to the Wipers, these guys were one of those bands that never got all that popular, but were definitely a band's band, the kind of group that gets namechecked by everybody, and thus influenced everybody, but still remained way below the radar.
Formed in 1978, the Wipers spent their career toiling away in obscurity, seemingly adverse to recognition or popularity, even turning down the opening slot on several Nirvana tours, worried that it would seem too opportunistic. And Cobain was probably the Wipers' biggest supporter, even covering a bunch of their songs. In fact, lots of people who hear the original versions of "D-7" or any of the Wipers' tunes Nirvana usually covered, think it must be some punk band covering Nirvana, instead of the other way around. And the more Wipers you hear, the more you realize Cobain did more than just cover their songs, his songwriting style and melodic flair is definitely heavily indebted to the Wipers. Some of the more brooding less rocking Wipers songs sound just like Nirvana tracks that could have been. Minor key mope rock that sort of builds and builds, not necessarily getting louder and faster (although sometimes they did) but getting more and more intense, threatening to explode, the kind of genuine angst and fury that can NOT be faked and imbues music with that sort of emotional charge that turns good music into great music. Cobain had it. So did Greg Sage. And Is This Real? proves it. Big time. One of those record where EVERY track feels like a hit. Like a classic. "D-7", the title track, "Tragedy"... all dark and driving, murky and moody, rough and totally rocking. But at the same time impossibly catchy and poppy. Big time pop. Hooks all over the place. But of course wrapped in all sorts of minor key murk, and fuzzy distorted heartbreak. One of the best bands, and best records, you may have never heard. Until now!
At this point, the saga of Greg Sage and the Wipers is so much a part of the American rock canon that it hardly needs restating: maverick, hermetic genius shuns the mainstream; makes a holy trinity of blown out garage punk; leaves an indelible influence on every young turk with a guitars and chip on his/her shoulder over the next two+ decades. Similarly, the story behind Youth Of America itself is equally well known. After being pressured by their label into a professional studio to re-record their debut, Is This Real, prior to its release, Sage and Co. opted to record Youth of America entirely on their own in Sage's home studio. The result is a sprawling work of guitar sturm und drang layered over wiry pre/post/peri-punkitude that references everything from Neu!-style space riffage, to vintage '80s new wave skitter, to the best possible blissed-out-fuzz-soaked psych. There are faint touches of Joy Division and The Buzzcocks lurking in the shadows of this record, what you'll be struck by more than Sage's influences is the degree to which this record (perhaps moreso than any other in the Wipers' catalog) has influenced others; it's hard to imagine bands like Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, or Hot Snakes (to name but a few) existing without the groundwork laid down on the first three Wipers LPs.
It's a shame that the backstory behind The Wipers is perhaps more oft-heard than the band's records, but this wicked nice deluxe LP reissue provides a great chance to rectify that. You get heavy 180g vinyl and a version free of the terrible gradeschool-quality goth/ghoul painting that has inexplicably graced the covers of previous reissues. If your exposure to the Wipers is limited to watching The River's Edge or hearing them name-checked ad infinitum by Kurt Cobain, then pick this up immediately and discover exactly why Youth Of America is a seminal work by one of the most important and influential bands in the American punk canon.
While we're not sure we would really want to do it, had we been asked Continuum Press to write one of their 33 1/3 mini books about a favorite album, we just might have to choose Wire's third album 154. Partially, this choice would be something of a compromise as we doubt that a book on Nurse With Wound's Homotopie To Marie would make for a saleable product. 154 stands in our minds as the epitome of what post-punk should be: a bold fusion of post-situationist / punk antagonism and legitimately experimental methodologies with an undercurrent of smarty-pop to keep the kids bouncing up and down.
I (Jim) actually came to Wire somewhat late in my record nerd existance, and I actually grew to admire the band through a reverse history of sorts, as I didn't really start enjoying the first three Wire albums (Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154) until other Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert projects entranced me with thier experiments in proto-electronica. This was especially true for the ghostly post-structuralism found on their Dome records. And those Lewis / Gilbert projects took their genetic code for shadow and gloom from elements of 154. An album that was made under personal duress, 154 drips of disintegration. In fact the band split apart for almost 7 years after the making of 154, pursuing a variety of projects -- traces of which are quite present in this album as Colin Newman's pop sarcasm continued through his solo records and the vast array of Lewis / Gilbert projects.
Recorded in 1979, 154 marks the band's third radical reinvention in three years. Wire's pacing has slowed to a lugubrious, Factory-esque crawl but lost none of their punk antagonism. The slower pacing better suited the baritone vocals of Graham Lewis, who had penned many of the lyrics that Colin Newman sang. In lesser hands, the patchwork of forboding atmospheric dirges and punchy power pop numbers would appear disjointed; but Wire's deft use of synthetic coloring, exquisite timing, and simply great songwriting smear the whole album into a wholly convincing masterpiece. "I Should Have Known Better" and "A Touching Display" represent a few of Graham Lewis' baritone marches through plodding drone and heavy basslines, which have more in common with the late '80s, proto-doom of Swans than of the snarl of the Buzzcocks. Newman's pop brilliance also shines on 154 through "The 15th," which sadly more people recognize from the tepid Fischerspooner cover than by this punk-pop gem. Of the first three Wire albums, 154 proudly stands as the most challenging and most rewarding. So good, we may have to buy it, yet again.
In 1978, being qualified as "the Pink Floyd of the New Wave" might have come across as something of an insult; and by today's artistic strategies of rampant revivalism such a pithy remark may ring true to many a listener. That statement was, in fact, the critique prescribed to Chairs Missing, Wire's second album, as the album decelerated the pogo punk minimalism found on their first album with an increasing use of experimental production. In hindsight, Chairs Missing is the perfect transition between the high-strung velocity of Pink Flag and the staggering gloominess of 154; yet most transition records have a clunkiness about them, like a lanky teenager not quite able to fit into his sunday best. But Chairs Missing is miles above the average transition album. To many a listener, Chairs Missing stands as the ultimate Wire album, with near perfect pop songs alternating between anthemic punk and eccentric production techniques (i.e. atonal synth drone, staccato guitar chops, overdubbed guitar distortion, etc.). Where Pink Flag kept many of the songs under a minute and half, Chairs Missing is downright baroque in its presentation of 3 minute tunes. The genius of Chairs Missing is how Colin Newman, Robert Gotobed, Bruce Gilbert, and Graham Lewis manage to steer through the diverse songwriting landscape, in how the album's opening track "Practice Makes Perfect" transitions from a delicate prance for jangled guitar into a precise expression of menace, in how "Outdoor Miner" creates the catchiest, Beatlesque chorus you'll never be able to sing back to yourself given the complexity of its rejoining, nonsensical syllables, in how jaggedly clean the guitars of Newman and Gilbert attack each other, in how Lewis' bass is fluid and effortless, in how this run-on sentence seems to have lost its way trying to fathom the complexity of Wire. If you believe that the length of Aquarius' reviews directly correlate to how good the record actually is, then we have failed as we would need to write a fucking a book about how stunning this album is. Yeah, Chairs Missing is incredible; and if you don't have it, you really should.
Okay, one thing to bitch about the reissue of Chairs Missing is that the cover is curiously bleached out of its color; the reissue also doesn't come with the (really great!) bonus tracks found on the EMI cd version of the album. Come on Wire, you released this album on your own label. At least you could give us all the bells and whistles found on other versions of this album! This is our only complaint, and a minor quibble for sure.
Now over 30 years old, this British art-punk trio has released their 47th recording, whether that be a single, a concert document, a compilation, or a full-length album. Yup, this one is a full album, but something is missing on it. And we aren't simply referencing the absence of guitarist Bruce Gilbert from the band. Wire - now the trio of Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, and Robert Gotobed - have sought to sound a lot like Wire, but their mimesis of themselves is not for the classic sound of Pink Flag or 154 but rather the quasi-angular, plasticine collage-rock of the late '80s which did produce a handful of legitimately great singles: "A Head," "Kidney Bingos," and "Drill" being the most noteworthy. Lyrically, Wire are just as punk-smart as ever, twisting the banal vernacular of daily life into something slightly sinister and misanthropic; but where Graham Lewis had previously penned some fine basslines in the past to augment the drone-plus-chime of Colin Newman's guitar, many of the songs aspire to a punchy pogo-pop, but Lewis lets us down with some less than imaginative riffs. For a man whose work in Dome and in collaboration with John Duncan have produced some ecstatic experiments with sound, this is a bit of a head-scratcher. To be fair, Object 47 is an entirely different beast than the extremes found on many Wire related releases; but this could have been a whole lot better.
As much as we may extoll the virtues of Wire, Dome, He Said, and any / all other Wire side projects, those albums would have never seen the light of day had Wire not released the ultra classics Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154. Infinitely smarter than the Sex Pistols and not as gloomy as Joy Division, Wire initially appeared as a bright 3-chord punk band on Pink Flag, but quickly authored the template of a post-punk ethos that moved beyond simple rock structures and orchestration on Chairs Missing and 154. As distinct as each of those album are, Wire connected the dots with a very strong signature that they didn't really exhaust until the early '90s. While the latest reincarnation of Wire has boasted a return to their early glory, we haven't been entirely convinced.
Fortunately for big Wire fans like us, there's On The Box: 1979, a DVD / CD set of a live set that the band performed for the German television show Rockpalast. Recorded in between Chairs Missing and 154, the band was at that point experimenting with more obtuse songs; but given the live context and their apparant dissatisfaction with the rather placid and polite audience, the songs that would later appear on 154 (i.e. "The 15th" and "Map Ref. 41 N 93 W") have a definite edge that's not found on the studio recordings. For a live recording, this is as good as you'll find: great performance, tight and aggressive, great song selection, and good sound quality.
The DVD also features an interview in which the four are particularly difficult and curt to an increasingly confused journalist, and the CD just houses all of the audio from the show.
Really, what more can we say about Wire's Pink Flag that hasn't already been said? The album is so good, so burned in the retina of our brains (even though we still cannot for the life of us unscramble Graham Lewis' lyrics), so nearly perfect that it's sort of hard to write about. In a perfect world, whatever nonsense we may have to say about the record would be moot, as you should already own this record (along with Chairs Missing and 154, Wire's second and third albums respectively). But for those of you who may be enraptured by the recent flurry of post-punk revivalists who continue to make quite a stir, let the reissue campaign of the first three records introduce you to the band that Interpol, Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand, and Bloc Party only wish they could be.
Recorded in 1977, Pink Flag is an immaculately concise punk record, even as Wire recognized that punk was becoming a self-parody and willed themselves to develop through experimentation with structure, technology, and process. Pink Flag's 21 songs cover a mere 35 minutes, many of themclocking in around 90 seconds or "when they ran out of words" as bassist / vocalist Graham Lewis once quipped. Energetic and volatile, each of the songs on Pink Flag thrash through the repetoire of reductivist power-pop riffs as immediately catchy and aggressive as anything by the Damned, the Ramones, and the Sex Pistols. But even on their first album, Wire demonstrated an uncanny ability with chord changes and melodic shifts that by '70s standards were much artier than their punk bretheren. Of course, in the aftermath of math-rock's acrobatic twists and turns, Wire's Pink Flag hardly sounds unpredictable... but if it weren't for Wire would we really have Laddio Bollocko? Probably not. The album's opening track "Reuters" is an anxious introduction to Wire's provocation with lead vocalist Colin Newman over-annunciating a polemic against government's abuse of propaganda (sound familiar?) on top of an increasingly agitated metronomic blast of bass, twin guitar, and drums. Elsewhere near perfect pop songs develop out of the angular punk slashing, as heard on "Ex Liontamers" and "Mannequin." Wire ends the album with the monotone anthem "12 X U" which many have declared their "Anarchy In The UK." With a motorik rhythm punctured by concise punk riff, the track simultaneously decries homophobia and censorship with the song's entire lyrics "I saw you in the mag kissing the man / 1 2 X U!" So yeah, Wire are a seminal band for a reason, and it all started with this album. If you don't have it, please do yourself a favor and buy this album. You won't regret it!
Wire were never a band that tried to rock. If anything, the quartet of Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, Bruce Gilbert, and Robert Gotobed made their best music when they struggled to escape the trappings of punk rock they initially embraced on their debut 1977 album "Pink Flag." Their constant investigations into electronics, adventurous songwriting, and lyrical complexity resulted in several pinnacles in the history of punk with "Chairs Missing" and the willfully obtuse "154." The band then parted ways in the early '80s to pursue a huge number of side projects, only to reform as a mildly entertaining new-wave pop band in the mid-'80s that relied far too much upon cute lyrical surrealism and clever idiosyncracies. Wire would like for you to believe that the band split up, but there was the ill-fated Wir project with all members present except Gotobed. Regardless, "Read & Burn" is the result of Gotobed rejoining the band after a number of successful gigs in which the all four blasted out the classic tracks from those aformentioned early albums. It needs to be said that during the late '70s when Wire was making huge leaps towards experimental rock, the band was outwardly antagonistic towards live audience requests for their punk anthem "12xU." So their return to such numbers needs to be viewed with a certain degree of skepticism. Such is the case for the six songs on "Read & Burn," which finds Wire trying very hard to rock. This is pretty much straight forward monochord punk dating back to '70s, but with the production techniques of today with an emphasis on heavy low-end thuggishness and very cleanly defined distortion. The success of this album is wholly based upon how much the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief that "Read & Burn" doesn't sound like Graham Lewis and a generic Nu-Metal band trying to sound like old Wire. An entertaining experiment, but inherently flawed.
"Return to form" is the ubiquitous tag granted to aging rockers who enjoy a certain cultural cache from way back when even when the new material may pale in comparison. Yet, the problematic "return to form" claim doesn't really stick for Wire, even as they've never attempted to rewrite the punk and post-punk textbooks they penned with their first three records, Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154. Since the band has split and reformed numerous times with a bunch of commendable side projects filling the gaps (i.e. Dome, He Said, Duet Emmo, etc.) and with numerous stylistic changes, each with their own merit, Wire doesn't really have a stylistic norm, to which "return to form" applies. So with the third (and probably best) chapter of the Read & Burn saga, Wire "return to form" only in the fact that they managed an edgy, post-punk set of recordings that continue to follow the adventurous trajectory set forth from Pink Flag. Clocking in at almost 10 minutes, the first track parallels the opening of 154, with Graham Lewis deepening his slightly sinister baritone voice to that of Nick Cave's. But when the slow acceleration of bass / guitars / drums hits cruising speed, Wire find themselves in familiar territory -- perfect pop-punk choruses with tonguing tying lyrical twists. The production on the entire 4 song ep enjoys a digital polish, and on the introduction, when Colin Newman takes over on vocals from Lewis on the pogo-punk chorus, his voice is smoothed from the spittle and snarl of Pink Flag into what is found here. For the other songs, Wire pull in the long-form art-rock reigns for three equally nice tunes with Newman alone at the vocal helm. Well done.
Because Wire were so influential to so much of the punk and post punk music that followed in the wake of their amazing 1977 debut album Pink Flag, there's no surprise that any millenial efforts by them will be regarded with doubt and worry. Well, although I've heard from the camps that love it and the ones that hate it, I have to say I find their new material decent, even excellent. And ferociously intense, with throbbing bass, thick layers of guitar, spit out lyrics (plus occasional singing). Send resides somewhere between Pink Flag's early punk ferocity and the cleaner production of their mid-career experiments like "Drill". Listen to the soundclips to see for yourself. This appears to share seven (!) tracks with Wire's 2002 pair of EPs, Read & Burn 01 and Read & Burn 02, so buyer beware if you already own those two. If you don't already have those two, then buy now! And if you've never heard Wire before, buy Pink Flag NOW, you'll be glad you did.
MPEG Download: "Spent" [/audio/wirespent.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Spent" [/audio/wirespent.m3u]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
New 7" from these AQ favorites. Side one is a peculiar pop concoction of Beck-ish funky drummer and Sparklehorse-style distorto vocal, while the B side is the real winner, a dreamy desert travelogue, as if Boards of Canada were from Arizona and neighbors of Giant Sand or Scenic. Really nice.
Once an AQ favorite, with their bizarre mix of bedroom folk ala Smog or Sentridoh, and stuttery lo-fi electronica, Wisdom of Harry have slowly evolved into something pretty different...instead of sounding sweet, introverted, and melodic, they now get described as murky, soundtracky, dramatic, and certainly not song oriented. And that's fine -- we're not going to pooh pooh anyone's right to change their sound -- but this particular brand of murky soundtrack music smacks of a questionable move towards the mainstream, sounding like a mess of Pop Will Eat Itself, Garbage, Nine Inch Nails, and Tricky. And we have to admit missing bedroom lonely guy stuff cos Wisdom of Harry did that so well (see their singles collection Stars of Super Eight for that). Oh well, times change -- Badly Drawn Boy is now the bedroom lonely guy du jour. (His album comes out domestically 10/3.)
