So somber and emotive, Worthington craft slow country-tinged songs for you to unwind to. Imagine 10,000 Maniacs fronted by a male singer and joined by Guided By Voices later in the album, and you might have an inkling of Worthington's warm, moody sound. He Was Not A Micromanager is an impressive sophomore release, definitely infused with a well-worn ease and confidence. Beautifully packaged in an intricately folded screenprinted cardboard sleeve (which sadly didn't scan very well so our website pic won't do it justice).
Of all the new bands coming out of Austin, TX, we think Woven Bones just might be our favorite. Their dark & punky garage rock just comes flowing out with such pure conviction. We're stoked to see that Hardly Art took notice of the great music the band has been making and added them to their roster. This new 7" finds the band at their most catchy, without losing any of their dark chops. So driving and full of gusto, and there is something so timeless and true about these songs. It's cool how Woven Bones can make as much sense next to todays lo-fi garage rock peddlers like Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Fresh & Onlys, yet they have much more of a primitive post-punk driving vibe a la the Wipers. If you loved the last full length as much as we did, then for sure you need to grab this, and if you haven't had your moment with Woven Bones yet this is a great way to jump into the fold.
Woven Bones are an awesome band from Austin, TX (see the Casual Victim Pile comp) who bring a more punky and dark vibe to the recent wave of great garage rock we've all been getting swept up by as of late. They are for sure one of those bands who could have been from almost any time, '86 or '96 or now, as there isn't that certain specific sonic flavor of the minute, the reverb and the feedback and the noise and the irony that seems to be part and parcel of much of the current garage rock pack. This is more meat and potatoes, dark and gritty classic garage rock, with plenty of fuzz and a distinctly gloomy overcast feel. They kind of remind us of what it would sound like if Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees covered classic punk bands like The Wipers, Fear, Angry Samoans, The Dicks or The Urinals. It's a thick and chunky sound delivered with total conviction and an almost understated aggression. We're also reminded of total garage rock legends like The Mummies and The Gruesomes. Woven Bones is one of those bands that will totally appeal to old school garage punkers who could care less about the recent wave of lo-fi weirdo rock hipsters, as well as winning over younger folks who do love all that new stuff but know the real deal when they hear it. This is fucking great!
Seems like only moments ago, my favorite record of last year came out. Maybe that's just because I still listen to it almost every day!! It's that good. If you read the AQ list you know I'm talking about the totally amazing Woven Hand record, a solo project of David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower. Let's quickly recap for those who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Sixteen Horsepower make weird backwoods gypsy folk, augmenting normal instrumentation with fiddles, accordions and mandolins. Dark and swampy tales, campfire stumps and lugubrious dirge folk crawls. Sound good? Well that's 'cause it is!! A huge AQ favorite. We weren't sure what to expect from Edwards solo record. We certainly weren't expecting it to surpass 16HP in every way, but it did!! Darker and creepier, tales of apocalyptic doom and Biblical salvation rendered in dreary, droney folk, lit by the fire of a bayou campfire. SO SO SO GOOD!!! One of the few records that really moved me. Seriously, like to tears. It's so gorgeous and passionate and sinister and perfect. Yes, PERFECT. So here we are a year later and a new record from the Woven Hand. Blush Music is music composed for a modern dance performance by the Belgian dance troupe Ultima Vez. It's about half re-worked songs from the first record and half new material. At first I was a little disappointed that it was different versions of old songs, until I heard the new versions. GOD!! This record perfectly complements the songs on the first record. One of the highlights from the first record was the cover of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine", a perfectly gut wrenching, tear jerking slow motion valentine to lost love. On Blush Music, "Ain't No Sunshine" reappears as the 12+ minute "Animalitos", with the original stretched out into an entirely new shape, complete with dark, mornful ambient passages, wheezing organs, bombastic percussion, rumbling drones, bird calls, and forest sounds, with the vocals and melody occasionally surfacing only to be immediately overwhelmed by the turbulent soundscape. A couple songs from the first record get this treatment and the results are sublime. The new tracks, while not as immediately catchy as a lot of the tracks on the first record, still capture the same dread and dark hope. A good way to imagine this record in relation to the first, is imagine the first record as the -soundtrack- to an epic biblical southern love story equal parts Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Southern Comfort and All The Pretty Horses. Now imagine that Blush Music is the -score-, all the incidental music, the theme reworked and stretched out to hover emotionally beneath dialogue, or to guide the viewers emotions. I think this record works better if you already own the first one (thankfully the first one was just released domestically), but that isn't to say Blush Music is not a perfect slice of dark and droney, fire and brimstone, forlorn and forgotten, gorgeously damaged, gypsy psych-folk. 'Cause it is!
So far, we've reviewed two Woven Hand records, and each time, we invariably slipped completely out of objectivity and giddily gushed about the sheer brilliance of this band, and we hate to break it to you, but this time is going to be no different. In fact, it's bound to be way worse (or better) because if you can believe it, this record is even better, and darker, and more suffocatingly apocalyptic, more biblically brutal, more overtly religious, more instrumentally obstuse, more sonically unpredictable, more soul-shearingly heart-breaking and quite possibly the best record of the year.
Woven Hand is David Eugene Edwards, who fronts the equally brilliant Sixteen Horsepower, a dark and doomy swamp folk outfit that peddles gorgeously dreary ballads of death and destruction. Woven Hand takes the sound of Sixteen Horsepower even further down that dark and seldom travelled path. Tales of an angry God, fire and brimstone, confusion and misery, the coming Rapture, lost souls, death and misery and the long hard road to salvation, all set inside mini epics of biblical proportions, acoustic guitars, mournful piano, throbbing upright bass, shuffling drums, weeping strings, creepy fuzzy ambience, and Edwards' gorgeous throaty moan of a wail. But it's not just pretty and sad and creepy, it's absolutely menacing, and intense and as heavy as a band like this can be. Imagine the Swans playing country ballads or a born again Nick Cave with a bayou pick up band forced to play the devil for their souls.
Not sure what else to say about this record. It's just so goddamn good. And so utterly soulful and important. It's everything music should be. You don't need toagree with his spiritual bent, or even understand what he's on about. This is passionate and pure and heartfelt and disturbingly personal and is thus more important than 90 percent of the music that gets made these days. Listening to the Woven Hand, you can't help but imagine them playing atop a crumbling mount, as the cities below them lay in ruin, flames and famine, death and pestilence ravaging the land, while the band, suffused with a heavenly glow, plays one last dirge, a skeletal ode to death, a bittersweet funereal lament, as the human race sinks into oblivion and the world prepares to begin anew.
As any avid reader of the AQ list can no doubt attest to, we have long been huge fans of Mr. David Eugene Edwards, formerly of Southern Gothic swamp folk outfit 16 Horsepower, currently performing as Woven Hand, a band that takes the swampy folk of 16HP somewhere even darker, a world of imminent damnation, and dreams of glorious salvation. The music of Woven Hand is a dark and brooding, fire and brimstone, apocalyptic doom folk, with Edwards testifying like his life depended on it. And maybe it does. Edwards makes no bones about being a Christian, and the music of Woven hand plays like the Old Testament come to life. Damnation and suffering, a cold cruel world, the only hope of life everlasting is to somehow weather the harsh and hellish, to bow down and be lifted up. And the thing is you don't necessarily have to be religious to be terrified of death and suffering, or eternal torture, and even the staunchest atheist might think twice if offered a chance at eternal life, and eternal happiness. Typically, the word of God, the usual messages from on high, repent or die, do unto others, are hugely heavy handed, granted, they are meant to be as they do concern your eternal life, but when delivered in the context of the Woven Hand, some of us find our agnostic selves chilled to the bone, the fear of God, -some- God anyway, gets us quaking in our boots. But it's more about the delivery than the message for us, and from a purely musical approach Woven Hand's music is gloriously grim, an expansive and minor key world of darkness and drama, lost souls and true love, simple strummed guitars, dramatic understated strings, fiddles and wheezing accordions, haunting arrangements, bizarre percussion, strange FX and incredibly intense ambience, and of course Edwards' gorgeously affecting croon: dramatic, intense, emotional, but so obviously troubled, conflicted, hopeful too, yet streaked with a dark despair.
So although Woven Hand's chillingly morose gothic twang is perfect on its own, when tangled up with Edwards' moody tales of punishment and salvation, of love and death, it takes on even more emotional weight. And compared to the first Woven Hand record, Edwards seems to slowly be moving away from the sound of 16 Horespower, the first Woven Hand could have been another 16HP record, but such is the way with records like that, a 'solo' record from the band member who wrote most of the music for the band he just left. But each record has been getting darker, more personal, disturbingly so, but at the same time, more epic, more cinematic, and more and more beautiful.
So far, we've made EVERY record we've reviewed, but one, from post 16 Horsepower apocalyptic swamp-blues folk-gospel proselytizers Woven Hand a Record Of The Week. And really, we're not sure why we didn't make that other one (Blush Music) a ROTW as well, and for that matter, this new one too, a stunning collection of songs that displays David Eugene Edwards and co.'s continuing shift toward a sound more heavy and bombastic, while still managing to retain the gut wrenching moodiness and soul stirring sonic fire and brimstone of those other records. That shift is even more evident this time around, as Edwards' back up band on Refractory Obdurate is made up of members of hardcore heavies Planes Mistaken For Stars!
Just check out the opener "Corsicana Clip", which perfectly lays out the new WH musical math, beginning like a classic David Eugene Edwards jam, all brooding, and twang flecked, shuffling and loping, hypnotic and darkly majestic, brooding and harrowingly haunting, and we'd be perfectly happy if that's how the track played out, but then about halfway through, the song explodes into something seriously heavy, thick chugging guitars swoop to the fore, the drums get more bombastic, the echo drenched vocals wilder, a furious psychedelic blowout that's not at all what we've come to expect from WH.
A bunch of the tracks here are more restrained, playing out like just another great Woven Hand record, but others are fierce slabs of twisted post punk, some are smoldering slow build epics, and still others are super distorted hard rocking stomps, but they all sound perfectly and classically Woven Hand. The production is massive as well, giving the sound some serious heft, the new players injecting serious venom into the songs and sound, and consequently, Edwards also sounds more intense, his vocals snarling and feral, his guitar playing wild and frenzied, the dynamics dense and dramatic, the sound careening wildly from hushed haunting mesmer to furious almost noise rock crunch. Awesome.
Oh, how we wish sometimes that we had more time to spend with some of the records we review. In some cases, it's an hour or two, maybe 2 or 3 times through an album, sometimes, unfortunately, it's even less than that. With so many records, it's not always possible to totally immerse yourself, and some music requires that sort of immersion, for it to be fully appreciated, for the sounds to open up, the layers to peel back, revealing the music's beating heart. Such is the case with the music of David Eugene Edwards, formerly of 16 Horsepower, now spreading his dark apocalyptic folk gospel via Woven Hand.
The music of Woven Hand, as is evidenced by past aQ reviews (3 of the past 4 WH albums, well, now 4 out of 5, were aQ Records Of The Week, and when we try to figure out why the other one wasn't, for the life of us, we just can't), is the rare music that moves and inspires, sends shivers down our spines, gives us goosebumps, brings us to the edge of tears, a music powerful and personal, and so so intense. The sounds of Woven Hand, while gorgeous, are also ominous and haunting, the message even moreso. Edwards' lyrics deal almost exclusively with death and damnation, sin and salvation. He, more than any modern performer is the rock equivalent of a revivalist preacher, testifying like his life depended on it, and perhaps it does. The music backing up Edwards' passionate vocals, is a dark swirl of backwoods folk, of gothic rock (not to be confused with goth-rock), sweeping cinematic soundscapes, old time blues, lush and almost orchestrated, strings moan, sweet sad melodies are plucked out on old pianos, or unfurled from wheezing harmoniums. Woven Hand is the sound of some old dusty ghost town, or some strange traveling minstrel, set up on the back of a rickety old wagon, playing for coal miners, and forest folk, lit from below by flickering firelight, shadows dancing behind the band like some sort of mysterious back up band of spirits.
Ten Stones remains true to the first few books in the Gospel of the Woven Hand, from the first few notes, this could be nothing else, Edwards' super dramatic rich velvety croon, the tone of the guitars, those melodies, minor key yet shot through with some sort of hopeful warmth, some ineffable otherworldly glow, the one thing that is different, is just how rocking some of this is, almost heavy at points, the guitars thick and growling, the drums pounding and frenzied, strings singing, but all kept in check by Edwards' vocals. This new found heaviness is not a new direction, just another arrow in Edwards' musical quiver, as many of the songs still slither and crawl through those lost backwoods of tarnished souls and wasted lives, the twang left to drift in wide open spaces as often as it's wrapped around the heft of crunch and bluster. The record does manage to move in unexpected directions, the accordion driven filthy blues jam that is "White Knuckle Grip", or the moody torch song shimmer of "Quite Nights Of Quiet Stars", the pounding bluegrass buzz of "Kicking Bird", but even those anomalous excursions, somehow fit perfectly into the long winding musical road of Ten Stones. The last three tracks finish off things about as perfectly as possible, "Kingdom Of Ice" is total apocalyptic drama, the twang of banjo beneath a buzzing drone, Edwards's spitting fire, "His Loyal Love", a swoonsome, murky drift of soft smeared guitar buzz, shuffled percussion, and haunting reverb drenched vocals, the entire song wreathed in a swirling gauzy fog, and finally the untitled closer, a deep whizzing, nearly static drone, long tones slowly shifting, thick distorted guitar rumble and sweet soft tones, shimmering and spread out into a kaleidoscopic soft focus blur.
Another stirring apocalyptic missive, from one of the few, true remaining musical prophets, and even if your soul doesn't need saving, Ten Stones will have you wishing it did.
Musical salvation is at hand!
We've made at least FIVE albums by David Eugene Edwards and his group Woven Hand our Record Of The Week. We even had WH play our inaugural South By Southwest showcase, and it was easily one of thee most intense and powerful shows we've ever seen, and somehow Edwards played SITTING, and still exuded the sort of frontman intensity that most singers who spend their whole sets leaping around wildly can barely conjure. There's definitely something special about Woven Hand, their dark brooding strain of swampy born again apocalyptic folk is a sound that is definitely beholden to other groups that came before, but is ultimately all its own. A few weeks ago we saw Woven Hand again, and were surprised to see Edwards standing, guitar strapped on, moving around the stage and gesticulating wildly, with a new band, who definitely seemed to be imbuing the sound of WH with a bit more heft, the sound way more rocking, the brooding slo-mo intensity of the older material transformed into something much more fierce, which is reflected on The Laughing Stalk, which finds Woven Hand in full on rock mode. Which is not to say, the band don't unfurl some seriously soul curdling blackened balladry, they most definitely do. But those moments here are few and far between and more often than not blossom into tribal rhythms and churning swampy crunch. In fact the first time we heard this record, we were sort of taken aback, cuz it really is pretty fierce, the drums dense and powerful, the bass throbbing and thick, and the guitars more howling and fuzzed out than ever, those elements woven into some serious slabs of swaggery revivalist swamp blues stomp, check out the super rocking heaviness of "King O King", snarly and super distorted, a furious, gnarled, tribal drum driven swam blooze, or the roiling low end chug and slither of "Closer", or the droned out gypsy blues dirge that is "Coup Stick". Then there's "As Wool" which sounds as much like an old Woven Hand reimagined in the new style as anything here. It took us a while to get lost in these songs, we were so used to the group's hushed minimalism and haunting balladry, but once we did, the power an energy of Woven Hand's new sound, along with their message of death and destruction, apocalypse and redemption, seemed like a perfect fit.
LP only, but the lp includes a cd version of the record as well, and a super deluxe jacket, that is also a poster.
When we hosted our first South By Southwest showcase last year, with our pals at WFMU, and were preparing out dream lists of bands to play, Woven Hand was right near the top of our list, after all, we'd made 4 of the 5 Woven Hand records our Record Of The Week (5 of 6 counting this one), and had somehow never seen them live. So when they confirmed, we were ecstatic, how could it not be totally amazing? But the biggest surprise wasn't that it WAS in fact, amazing, or that it was powerful and moving and intense, it was that they were so LOUD and so HEAVY, the room packed, the sound ALIVE, a crackling energy coursing through every note, the volume deafening, but somehow it was perfect, just a huge swirling mass of intense apocalyptic swampy doom folk, the drums thunderous, the guitar jagged and howling and heavy, and the vocals, on record it's some sort of testifying, but live, we were almost ready to convert, and become born again. It was that intense, that inspirational, that emotional.
And the thing is, Woven Hand records do a pretty amazing job of capturing that emotion and energy on record, no small feat considering how many of the most amazing bands live, fall flat recorded, but that has never been a problem with David Eugene Edwards and his Woven Hand, or even Sixteen Horsepower, the band that came before (and was also a Record Of The Week honoree). The records are holy documents of sound, Edwards' fundamentalist Christianity, that would normally rankle, in the context of Woven Hand becomes so much more, the power of belief, the power of the spirit, of faith, rendered in sound. It helps that the sounds is a harrowing, brooding, apocalyptic swampy folk, rife with tales of damnation and salvation, hellfire and misery and suffering, the music simultaneously a cautionary tale, and a song of praise, the two often wound up tight, making the message, and the music, that much more mysterious.
On The Threshingfloor, Woven Hand sounds as dark, and haunting, and heavy as ever, the various Eastern and world music elements that were definitely present on past records, here are much more of an essential component, adding an exotic vibe to the already intense doomfolk. The record begins with a haunting almost acoustic ballad, lots of buzzing steel strings, a moody minor key melody, minimal percussion, and Edwards' powerful vocals, all underpinned by thick droning swells. It's on the next track, the title track, that we revisit the power of that live show we witnessed in Texas, a frantic chunk of jangle and strum, lots of extra percussion, anguished super powerful vocals, an acoustic guitar wielded like a battle axe, Eastern melodies woven throughout, a seriously powerful bit of musical conversion. "A Holy Measure" is more stripped down and folky, but no less powerful, followed by the doom folk dirge of "Raise Her Hands", creepy and menacing and yet still utterly lovely.
One new element, that we never noticed before was what seems to be nods to groups like Joy Division, low slung gloomy basslines, deep tortured vocals, on one hand it seems like maybe it was always present, but here, that vibe is huge, try to imagine some sort of Christian apocalyptic doom folk cold wave, and you'll be getting closer to tracks like "His Rest", or "Behind Your Breath", gothy and grim, but still flecked with twang and shimmer and strum.
Elsewhere, "Singing Grass" is a gorgeous and utterly heartbreaking ballad/dirge, all acoustic guitars and moaning cellos, and the vocals, so dark and mournful, easily the most moving track on the record. "Wheatstraw" is only a minute long, but it's darkly evocative, a haunting dronescape, gauzy and hazy and ghostlike. "Orchard Gate" is a gothic folk epic, fire and brimstone made sound, but again, for all its darkness and misery, it's just so breathtakingly beautiful.
The strangest moment is the record closer, "Denver City", a weirdly rocking skiffle folk rocker, with distorted vocals, and surprisingly major key chord progression, which sounds more like Railroad Jerk than Woven Hand, it perhaps doesn't fit the dour mood of the rest of the record, but maybe that's why it's at the end, the light at the end of the tunnel perhaps. But if light is the last thing you want from Woven Hand, then bail out before "Denver City", and you'll emerge from The Threshingfloor still wholly under its dark spell....
I hate to gush, but gush I must. This is my (Andee's) RECORD OF THE YEAR. Done deal. It doesn't matter what happens for the rest of the year. Kurt Kobain could come back from the grave and record a new Nirvana record. Laddio Bollocko could get back together. Earth reunion. It doesn't matter. This is it. THE ONE. It's magical, dark, mysterious, sinister, gorgeous and moves me like very few records do. But I digress.
Woven Hand is David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower's solo project. If you're anything like me, you're always wondering why people have solo projects that sound just like their 'actual' band, and often not nearly as good. But fear not. While Edwards' Woven Hand is similar in many ways to 16HP, it takes things in a direction even darker, dreamier, creepier, and more religious (more on that later) ending up sounding EVEN BETTER than 16HP. Hard to believe, especially if you loved 16HP's 'Folklore' that we made record of the week a few weeks back as much as we did! Woven Hand is like a Cormac McCarthy novel put to music. "Blood Meridian" arranged for rock band. "All The Pretty Horses" sung by wandering minstrels. Desolate and dreary, violent and cathartic, but not obviously so, more like a creeping seeping sickness, death and destruction and human sin as it swallows souls and destroys lives. The instrumentation is similar to 16HP, a dark and dreamy gypsy swamp-folk, but more lush, with thicker, richer atmospheres, and murky, almost impenetrable instrumental backdrops, underpinning Edwards' tales of redemption and forgiveness, sorrow and apocalypse. The lyrics are way more blatantly religious, biblically themed, and aimed at touching our souls. Which for some reason doesn't bother me as much as you think it would. The words are poetic and symbolic, simple and timeless, just beautiful stories and poems, like much of the Bible. Removed from the Christian tradition (thousands of years of hypocrisy and murder and keeping people from thinking for themselves), Edwards' biblical testifying almost has me bowing prostrate hoping to appease a stern but ultimately forgiving God. It helps that Edwards delivers these parables in a rich, throaty rasp, a gorgeous gruff tenor, like a mix of Mark Lanegan, Chris Grigoroff (Souled American) and Nick Cave, that sounds like it has the power to make men sob and women swoon. It all comes together, sound and fury, voice and instrument, in a rich tapestry of fear and hope and death and the cycle of life and desperate dreams of an afterlife. It's rare to really hear music so powerful and so evocative that it manages to become more than just 'rock music' or 'that pretty cool band.' This record brings me to the verge of tears, makes me shiver...I feel it in my brain and in my heart and in my soul. Seriously. This is what music should be to me. Intense and emotional and heartfelt and brutally powerful. There's a creepy crawly version of Bill Withers' 'Ain't No Sunshine' that manages to be even better than the original, due in no small part to the dark, funereal treatment it gets from Woven Hand, that under the right circumstances (or wrong circumstances) could crush me into a weeping, sobbing heap, with my heart broken into a thousand pieces. I wish all music could do that...
We listed this last time around but it has come to our attention that our review, despite our best intentions, contained, shall we say, at least one major inaccuracy (duh...it's not 11 minutes long! sorry!) so we thought, especially since we DID quite like it, we ought to re-list the Wrangler Brutes album with a slightly revised write-up...
Raging like a tens-years-later update of the mighty Born Against (which makes sense 'cuz it features ex-Born Against singer Sam McPheeters), Wrangler Brutes burst forth with a collection of short fast angry and utterly pissed-off noisy hardcore punk. Guitars buzz like a swarm of hornets, drums clatter like a Neanderthal rock fight, bass rumbles like Kobe, Japan circa '95, and the singer spits out venomous vitriol in a style reminiscent of such early '90s hardcore bands as Circus Lupus and of course Born Against. Fans of recent Record of the Week Hot Snakes should definitely find something to like in these tunes, as elements of indie, garage, and just good old-fashioned RAWK seep into songs amidst the sound and fury. A record to throw on before you head out to the Sunday Night Monster Truck Rally at the local Fairground! Right before you head out, 'cause it's only 22 (but not 11) minutes long -- that's right, 22 minutes, total hardcore -- still worth it but we're a little surprised that KRS didn't make it (a little) cheaper...
Final release from one of our favorite one man black metal bands, who if you regularly read the aQ list, you may remember us describing as possibly THEE buzziest black metal band we had heard, so buzzy in fact, that the sound actually became LESS black metal and more sorta shoegazey and tranced out and trippy, which is obviously not a bad thing at all. So here is the final missive from WOTW, and it's exactly what we wanted, a huge swirling mass of blurry buzz and buried melody. After a bit of haunting organ drift, the sound explodes into a squall of swirling white noise, beneath which, lilting melodies drift and shimmer, there are some vokills too, but it's almost like a black metal Caretaker, dreamy and drifty, all of the caustic crunch and black buzz balanced by the haunting dreaminess beneath. And so it goes, each track here is dreamy and darkly melodic, it just happens to be swathed in crumbing distortion and swirls of black buzz. We're guessing that folk into Lovesliescrushing or Leyland Kirby or Tim Hecker, who aren't averse to some buzz, might be seriously smitten. This just might be the prettiest black metal record EVER. Sad it's the last. RIP WOTW...
CLASSICS!!! Rock and roll starts here, at least, the good stuff with guitars.
Link Wray, the mortal being, may have passed away late last year at the age of 76, but Link Wray, the legend, lives on in his body of groundbreaking music and its incredible influence on the music world as a whole. Seriously, anyone and everyone who straps on an electric guitar owes this man EVERYTHING. We're talkin' The Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, The Cramps, Jimmy Page, The Who... they all bow down in deep reverence. Please see our reviews of his other releases that we've carried for more glowing words. This cd compiles fifteen demo tracks from a very very early recording session for Swan Records and includes raw renditions of some of his most renowned songs ("Rumble", "Deuces Wild", "Ace Of Spades"). This is rock at its most blistering and wild.
The best single-disc Link Wray comp. Twenty tracks, including all-time classic "Rumble" (the birth of rock n' roll distorted guitar), "Raw Hide", "Ramble", "Jack The Ripper", "Run Chicken Run", "Ace of Spades", "Batman Theme", "Switchblade", etc. All great, mostly-instrumental, slices of early rock n' roll from the master.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Wow!! One year after his death at age 76, Link Wray lives on!!! It's good to know his legendary sound will never die. And it better well never die either, since he pretty much wrote the book on raw garage/surf rock guitar rock. These lost sessions from 1958 once again demonstrate his supreme mastery, and show that no matter how great any of the surf rock he inspired was, from the sixties to the seventies to now, on labels like Estrus, Empty and Dionysus, Wray's could blow them out of the water. This is the real deal. It would almost be kind of depressing to try to play instrumental garage-rock/rockabilly knowing that there is just no way you could ever come close to the pure fire brilliance of Link Wray and his golden guitar.
Wray dealt with extreme health problems most of his life but in a weird way they actually helped shape his distinct style. He was partially deaf so of course he had to play extra extra loud. He had TB and lost a lung making it very hard for him to sing, so he did it all mostly instrumental. Which worked perfectly because there is nothing words could say that his playing style, charisma and fiery passion couldn't. It's so cool to hear him as a young man really coming into his own on these long lost recordings. Classic, timeless and so totally great!
Wonderful and extensive (two cds worth!) historical documentation of the Epic Records-period ('58-'61) works of the unquestionable grandfather of rock 'n' roll. Includes many previously unreleased tracks, alternate takes and demos. Everyone from Elvis, The
Hell yeah! Here's the absolute rock'n'roll O.G. on the appropriately O.G. format! This is the way you wanna hear Link Wray... the man who invented amplifier distortion... the man who invented the power chord... the man whose electrifying rock'n'roll energy and passion still puts men who are half (a third? a quarter?) of his age to shame. Whether they realize it or not, virtually every band you can think of owes a truckload of guitar picks to this man. He planted the seeds that allowed a multitude of musical genres to sprout. His totally influential, totally inspiring, fierce gritty guitar instrumentals have been pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl from the original Swan mono master tapes. In fact, this beauty is an exact reproduction of the original 1963 LP. Slap it on yer record player and show 'em who's boss!
Another killer chunk of dark brooding gloom prog post metal creep from this Los Angeles duo, with the A side, "Absurdities & Echo" sounding a bit like Godflesh via Pinkish Black, with a little This Heat going on too, which actually sorta describes their sound in general, killer mathy drumming, thick swaths of rumbling buzzing synths, the vibe super sinister and atmospheric, the vocals an ultra dramatic anguished howl, this is the sort of sound we imagine would have gone over gangbusters back in the hey day of the LA goth scene, not hard to imagine these guys playing at the Scream, a dense crowd of black clad kids swooning and tranced out, headbanging really slowly. Heavy as fuck, but with lots of space, the drumming driving things for sure, murky and moody, a tortured slab of gothic metallic downer-rock that reminds us once again why we dig these guys so much.
And while we often wonder why these guys ever got classified as black metal, it's tracks like the B side "Abhorrence", that reminds us that these guys can actually kick up a pretty serious black buzz, but of course even then, it's their twisted version, with flurries of drum splatter, swooning soaring synths (or are they guitars? Hard to tell...), the vokills a hellish rasp, the arrangement, like the A side weirdly mathy and proggy, with some cool stop / start breakdowns that ooze into thick tarpit trudges, before returning to the shrieking swirling howling blackness.
Hark! Courtesy of the ever reliable Flenser Records comes the gravely unsettling return of this boldly unclassifiable unit, hazily haunting the very outermost fringes of metal, goth, noise rock and industrial, and most certainly on our shortlist of bands that everyone should be listening to that not nearly enough people are (although a current stint opening for Deafheaven will hopefully change that!). For those uninitiated, W&R are a two piece loosely based in Los Angeles comprised solely of a live drummer and a man with a sample pad (live it looks like he's playing a giant light up calculator!), both gifted with a talent for terrifying screams, howls and yelps, who manage to sound as dense and textural as any full band. Want assaults you immediately with a burst of disorienting percussive soundscapes, the vocals an exhausted world-weary yell, the music (if it can be called that) a collage of white noise, Hawkwind style cosmic swirling dust, and a synthesized monolithic chanting that is either coming from a human or a machine, it is almost impossible to say. And that's just the first couple minutes of a wildly dense, emotionally ravaged technological avalanche of a record. There are moments of relative restraint, but these are perhaps even more emotionally intense. Funereal piano lilts under stream-of-consciousness spoken word, clattering cymbals and agonized screams. Sparse robotic percussion hammers cold and steadfast under unnerving atonal singing and a shrieking digital cacophony, like musical notes malfunctioning, rotten with cancerous programming. Lonely nocturnal melodies drift above spidery rhythms eerily offset by freeform howling. The songs can be lush, almost beautiful in their own oily alien way, but never without a sense of foreboding, a constant dissonant creep leaking into the foliage. They can be contemplative and desolate, like some sort of future wasteland, all barren metals and burned out circuitry. At other times the record is almost operatic and martial, sounding like some warped Soviet anthem infested with insectoid parasites, pulsating like an anxious transparent heart - an orchestra sucked of all its triumph and hope, sometimes even recalling something from Burzum's Filosofem, but completely rewired - sparking and glistening in a damp windowless room. Want is like a collage - some tracks feeling like snippets or fragments of ideas and memories, the kind we do our best to keep buried. It is a lonesome technological assault, the black oil of crackling urban despair seeping into the pores of every moment. The ominous hungry march of progress that will consume us all! Very highly recommended for fans of Pinkish Black and other recent Flenser faves like Have A Nice Life and Planning For Burial...
Wreck And Reference's Black Cassette record was a big hit around here, a blackened gloomy, electronic flecked sludge, that managed to infuse it's outsider metal with plenty of goth pop weirdness, haunting slowcore creep and industrial post rock churn, so much so that an argument could be made for whether it was in fact a metal record at all. And really it hardly matters to us. In fact, it was precisely, all the non metal elements that really made it so distinctive and cool. And if anything, the duo's new record No Youth moves even further from a sound that could be considered 'metal'. The opening track is the perfect example, the only bit of actual metal, a brief bout of blackened screeched vokills, but other than that, it's all creaking industrial crunch, processed FX heavy loops, psychedelic ambience, muted guitar strum, clean vocal croon, distorted buzz stretched out into pulsing drones, tribal, almost jazzy drumming and then a wild chaotic squall of noise rock freakout. Bam. That's it. And it's great! The second track too, a creepy gauzey slowcore drift, al crumbling muted thrum, and muted feedback, again some metal elements surface, this time a blast beat, but it just so happens, the blast beat is blasting away beneath a creepy crawly droned out melody, and darkly dramatic crooned vocals, the song winding down into a slow fade, before launching into another non-metal jam. A loping post/math rock lope, all snarly, gothic vox, and processed background, the final few minutes slipping into a near metallic churn, but again, it's more dark and woozy and gothic and hauntingly heavy. Okay, now that we've established that W&R are NOT a metal band, at least by any traditional definition, we can simply enjoy their wonderfully warped, super progressive, experimental avant heaviness, and wonderful and avant it is. We're most reminded of Pinkish Black, a recent aQ Record Of The Week, whose sound also took metal as their launching point, and then stopped concerning themselves with anything other than making heavy, tripped out, amazing music.
And Wreck And Reference have definitely blossomed into something special, a band that we imagine must be pretty divisive, even though they're dark and heavy, and near metallic at times, they have a pop streak a mile wide, and a similar gloomy gothy streak, not to mention a thing for electronics, and programming, and transforming perfectly serviceable riffs into stuttering progged out blurs, and they obviously like real singing, and they like that singing to be dramatic and intense and melodic most of the time, and the thing is, when the band to indulge in some pure metallic crush, they do it so convincingly, it's easy to think they were a metal band who got weird, instead of the other way around, which is how they sound to us. Even better than the Black Cassette, which we dug big time, and everyone who bought that Pinkish Black record, even though this doesn't sound at all like it, seems like something most of you could very well end up digging A LOT.
It's been quite some time since The Wrens' acclaimed and beloved Meadowlands album, hasn't it? Three whole years! Fans of the band have probably worn their cds thin. Sadly their early, far lesser known albums have languished in the out-of-print / record label dispute department for years... until now. Dear patient devotees, you are rewarded with two reissues! Both albums were originally released by Grass Records, Secaucus in 1996 and Silver in 1994 (that one was briefly reissued by Wind-Up in '97). This is the former, more low-key one. The Wrens skillfully achieve a fine balancing act between heartfelt emo-pop mellowness and fiery energetic indie rock.
Fans of Modest Mouse or Doug Martch in his Built To Spill years should definitely check this out!
Nineteen songs total!
It's been quite some time since The Wrens' acclaimed and beloved Meadowlands album, hasn't it? Three whole years! Fans of the band have probably worn their cds thin. Sadly their early, far lesser known albums have languished in the out-of-print / record label dispute department for years... until now. Dear patient devotees, you are rewarded with two reissues! Both albums were originally released by Grass Records, Secaucus in 1996 and Silver in 1994 (that one was briefly reissued by Wind-Up in '97). This is the latter and it's the more crunchily abrasive of the two. The Wrens skillfully achieve a fine balancing act between heartfelt emo-pop mellowness and fiery energetic indie rock... and they're not afraid to throw in a curveball here and there. Great stuff!
Fans of The Pixies or Doug Martch in his Treepeople years should definitely check this out!
Twenty five songs total!
It was ineveitable that we'd be skeptical about this latest record from the Wrens. It's a little hard to be objective about a record that's as intensely praised/hyped as The Meadowlands. Not one, but TWO features in the New York Times! How often does that happen to a seemingly perpetual second string introspective indie rock band? Then Magnet magazine makes it one of the best indie rock records of the last decade! And it had only been out for a matter of months. Add to that a litany of ridiculously effusive critical praise, the sort usually reserved for the second coming, or a Pixies reunion. I guess for indie rockers that amounts to the same thing? Anyway, it made it difficult to approach the new Wrens record with an open mind. So we didn't, and on first listen, we all sort of had the same reaction: pretty good. But just pretty good. God knows no band could live up to that sort of hype. But then a strange thing began happening. It kept getting played in the store. We all found ourselves listening to it more and more. It found its way onto some of our ipods, and we decided that this record was really something special. As with lots of great records (and this IS a great record) it blossoms with repeated listens. In a big way! Revealing itself as a relentlessly, insideously catchy pop gem, embedding hook after hook in our brains until we find ourselves humming Wrens songs like crazy and wanting to put this record on all the time. So what is it exactly about this record that makes it so fucking good? On the surface it's an unassuming indie pop amalgam of all things Pavement, R.E.M., Neutral Milk Hotel, and Guided By Voices. Especially Guided By Voices. Like the last 15 years of college/indie rock boiled down into it's essence and then squeezed into perfectly subtle pop songs. And as always, it's THE SONGS, beautifully melancholic epics that are at once personal and introspective, but also grand and sweeping. Epic and wordly but also totally insular. Irresistable indie pop jangle camouflages amazing sonic complexities and dark rich textures, strange chords and shifting minor key melodies. The most obvious sonic precedent seems to be Guided By Voices, but an alternate GBV, raised on Pavement and the Pixies instead of the Kinks and the Beatles, and with a big ol' dose of ritalin, keeping them from yanking away the sort of hooks most bands spend a lifetime dreaming about writing after only thirty seconds, instead allowing us to sink in and luxuriate in the droning, ringing choruses that repeat and repeat, lulling us into a sweetly narcotized melancholy pop coma. So good. Pretty amazing that this went from a ho hum pop whatever to a contender for pop record of the year in the space of about 2 weeks. So make sure and give it plenty of time to grow on you. You won't be sorry.
Surely you've loved your copy of The Meadowlands to bits, and are desperately seeking more Wrens' pop goodness. C'mon admit it! Well, they must've heard your cries, 'cause they've gone and released a handful of new material, and they've brought along pals The Five Mod Four for the ride too. We found the four Wrens' songs to be quirkier, grittier and more frantic than those on Meadowlands, but no less infectious. The Five Mod Four are witty songtitle-writers and Brit style guitar pop songsmiths to boot. Their contributions to this cd are four bittersweet jangly pop tunes that recall Robyn Hitchcock or Morrissey. Clever, wry lyrics sung with a long face that counterbalance the bright melodies and perky drumbeats.
Despite the jarring loudness suggested by this release's title, Corbi Wright's music is utterly hushed and contemplative. Her voice swoops from a withery whisper to a raw PJ Harvey-esque emotiveness. The loose weave of her barebones, unstructured folk sits well alongside the recent likes of Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice or The Alps. We know this to be true 'cause we've played them back to back a few times, and it made for a very enjoyable listen that flowed exceptionally well. So there. And to tie things neatly together, AQ pal Mr. Jefre Cantu (member of The Alps, Tarentel among many others) assisted Ms Wright in the recording of these songs. Very nice.
We've raved about New Zealander Peter Wright in the past, numerous times, we've even now that we check back at past reviews, raved ABOUT raving about Peter Wright, but we really have no choice now but to do it again. For someone as prolific, and as talented as Wright, he seems to continually to fly well beneath the hipster radar.
Which is maybe good for us, but at the same time, it's hard not to root for someone who seems to effortlessly conjure up such beautiful sounds. But the thing is, we KNOW it's not effortless. The world is filled with folks who have a microphone and some effects, and think they can be soundscapers, field recordists, ARTISTS. And while that sort of spirit is to be applauded, the truth of the matter is, just like with anything, flying a jet, swimming the English Channel, playing the trumpet, racing Formula 1's, some people are just more talented than others. And Wright is just about as talented as they come.
Weaving field recordings into longform drones, creating soundscapes from found sounds and processed guitars, Wright manages to create dreamlike expanses of sonic wonder.
Take the first track here, the title track, it's hard not to imagine Pretty Little Mushroom Clouds. The sounds of birds, and wind, maybe branches rubbing against each other in the distance, while all around these sounds of nature, deep buzzing swells ebb and flow, dark, slightly ominous melodies, swell and recede, a super minimal pulse, a gorgeous cloud of shimmer drifting across verdant hills and blue blue sky. You can almost imagine, lush rolling hills, dotted with wildflowers, cute little houses, scattered copses of trees, birds soaring in the sky, while way off in the distance, huge black mushroom clouds blossom in the sky, but from here, they just look beautiful, the music capturing that moment before everything is turned to ash, a brief vacuum, where even the vilest of objects is transformed into a vivid picturesque sonic snapshot.
Over the rest of the record, the field recordings are much more subtle, relying more on the processed instrumentation, guitars are ground into muted walls reverberating buzz, rife with disembodied melodies, streaks of high end and bits of rumbling drone, some tracks are massive and pitched down, the sound of drifting beneath miles of ice in the Arctic Circle, everything glowing some unearthly blue, all the sounds muted and warbled, others are nearly ebullient, like the perfectly titled "The Devil Wears Sunroof", which from the sound of it we can only assume is a nod to Matthew Bower and his Ur-drone unit, all glistening high end shimmer, and long stretches of buzzing upper register guitar. The final track finds Wright taking all of his various sounds and assembling them into a super hypnotic, strangely heavy looped take on, well, Loop actually, a repeated riff, a static groove, totally mesmerizing and space-y, eventually building to a full on blast of almost Japanoise, before petering out, leaving just the sound of an airport terminal or a train station, or a huge sparsely filled performance space as it's revealed to be, when the crowd finally offers up some applause, for what may have been a live performance, or may have been just a random bit of live crowd sound sampled and woven into Wright's mysterious sonic sprawl.
As always, amazing packaging from aRCHIVE. Six panel full color glossy gatefold, the cd affixed to a nub on the middle panel, while around the jacket, an outer sleeve of printed vellum. Super nice.
Limited to 500 copies, single one time pressing.
Shannon Wright returns with a dozen new songs of dark, winding torment. Filled with deeply emotive and visual lyrics - poetic and bittersweet. Envision her wringing her hands, walking the floor - a dusty threadbare path the proof of her paces - as the lovely,
Shannon Wright and her trusty piano (and guitar) are back. Oddly enough on this, her sixth album, she could easily be mistaken for a more melancholic Mary Timony. Considerably more stark and less tormented than her last album Over The Sun, Let In The Light is nonetheless still very heavy in mood and emotion. Her lyrics continue to be rife with puzzles of troubled relationships and despairing betrayal. Each of her songs puts forth a brave face, but when you glimpse away, it allows an aching sigh as it brushes aside a stubborn tear. A richly poetic rural cabaret.
One customer described this as "vaguely like Liz Phair on lithium." It's not nearly that bad! Shannon Wright plays acoustic guitar, harmonium, hammond and wurlitzer organs -- basically almost everything on this quiet yet urgent album full of amazingly literate lyrics that work as poetry even without the music, for instance: "this background is so vague / this falter much too strong / a slew of reluctance / makes the focus warble on / for every laden vein / is a grim pail of prey / the true are open / they wrestle with this state"
We weren't too sure what to expect from this record. One thing we do know, is we didn't expect to dig it so much! Not sure why, but we always just ignored Wright's past efforts, but we're beginning to think we best go back and reinvestigate. Over The Sun starts off with hiccupping, stuttering almost-funky (but not) basslines with simple pounding drums and brittle scrabbly guitar. The verses are hypnotic and looping, with crashing bombastic choruses and Wright's powerful throaty wail sounding not at all unlike PJ Harvey. The weird bass heavy loopedness of it all reminds us a bit of Pinback, albeit a much more murky and melancholy Pinback. The sound is actually more sort of nineties college rock a la Codeine or Scrawl (it is on Touch And Go sublabel Quarterstick after all) with its minor key miserablism and dour melodies, wrapped in thick propulsive aggresive indie rockisms. Outside of the first two tracks which are pretty rocking and intense, and a track or two later on, the bulk of the record is actually a creepy crawly collection of slow and moody, ultra personal torch songs, again painting Wright with serious shades of PJ Harvey. Augmented by weirdly fingerpicked electric guitar melodies, dark and rumbling cellos, empty bar piano, Wright's vocals take center stage, whispering one moment, erupting in an anguished wail the next. So intensely dark, and personal and really really good.
Inspired perhaps by that brief moment in 1968 when Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi was a member of Jethro Tull, German throwback psychedelic blues rockers Wucan specialize in bellbottomed HEAVY FLUTE JAMS MAN!!!!!! Or wo-man. 'Cause Wucan is one of those female fronted retro-proto-metal bands that are so happenin' today. Female-fronted (she sings, in English and German, and is the one playing the flute) but not as "occult" as a lot of the other groups that have jumped on this particular bandwagon (a bandwagon we aren't at all opposed to, by the way). They've got the flute and the tough heavy fuzz riffs, but Wucan's jams come to reveal more of a funky/groovy vibe rather than a witchy one. And they bring in some of their trippy native krautrock heritage, as well (being German they also think it's ok to use the punning song title "Face In The Kraut" on here), wrapping things up with the 15+ minute "Wandersmann" filled with blues licks and lotsa spacey, freaky FX, choogling along, space truckin' all the way far out. So stuff here for Blood Ceremony fans and Acid Mothers Temple types too.
These local indie popsters finally release a full length. Super soft and pretty, the songs range from slowly drifting lullabies with bursts of fuzzy cardigan MBVish feedback that threaten to sweep away the often barely audible, fragile vocals to perky, upbeat, poppy numbers with gentle jangling guitars. The sighing, shy girl vocals really reminded me of Rose Melberg's (or those of her Gaze bandmate, Miko Hoffman), but perhaps a bit more hesitant and not quite as note-perfect. One question though... Did they really need to cover the Beatles' "I Will"? Sure, it's a beautiful song (one of my all-time favorites), but their slowed down, K Records folk pop version doesn't really capture the song's magic. Definitely for the shoegazin' indie pop crowd (The Pastels, Ida, The Softies or artists on Slumberland and early SpinArt Records).
A Danish prog / power metal band named for Emily Bronte's classic gothic novel? Scoff if you must, but much like their last record The Shadow Cabinet, Salt is another classic chunk of over the top, epic, folk-flecked power metal. As we've mentioned before, the true test of a record is the 'why do you like it' test, where when you hear a song, or a record, without any knowledge of who it is, and thus no preconceived notions, you're forced to decide based simply on the sounds. Which is why at aQ, if we ever ask another employee what's playing, we can expect the response 'Why? Do you like it?' Which has most definitely resulted in someone claiming that yes, they do indeed like something, only to discover, that it was something they hated, or at least thought they hated.
Well, one of us was in a record store in another country, and Wuthering Heights was playing, the whole record, and it was incredible, enough that it was quickly purchased, and then obsessed over, which also meant returning home and buying EVERY record these guys ever made.
So we were pretty thrilled to discover a brand new Wuthering Heights, and we're happy to report it's just as great, bombastic, epic, majestic, over the top, like power metal should be. But Wuthering Heights definitely do their own thing, sure there's nimble super technical leads, wild rapidfire chugging guitars, soaring super dramatic Iron Maiden style vocals, but WH slip into strange folky breakdowns, breakdowns that often continue right on into the heavy bits, resulting in blasting portions of heaviness, that almost sound like super charged folk music, or death metal jigs or black metal polka... As if that weren't enough, they're also super proggy, with tons of parts, complicated arrangements, and they do all this while crafting super catchy songs. Obviously if you're into groups like Lost Horizon, Blind Guardian, Hammerfall, and other power metal purveyors, then this is right up your alley, but if you're into classic metal, epic and heavy, with killer vox and lots of solos, this might be worth checking out. And again, for power metal, this stuff is pretty weird, and thus we find ourselves digging this big time!
Some time ago (in the fall of 2006) our Andee took a trip to Japan. When he was there, he happened to visit a few (ok, many) record stores. In one of 'em, there was some amazingly epic power metal music playing. Andee and his travel buddy Josh both were instantly intrigued. It was like, the best thing they'd ever heard. Turned out it was a Danish prog-metal band called, believe it or not, Wuthering Heights. Andee bought a copy immediately. Josh too. When Andee got back to the States, Wuthering Heights was one of the "finds" that he gloated about, though his pleasure in doing so was tempered by the fact that mere weeks later, a (much cheaper) domestic USA version was released, with an entire bonus DVD disc added on! (The dvd featuring a live performance at the ProgPower USA fest in '04.)
This is that cd, and dvd. Andee can chalk up the extra expense of the Japanese version he got as going towards the greater good of finding out about this so we can share it with all of you... Stirring, sweeping, truly powerful power metal played with virtuoso precision, blazing away at 100mph, the speed taking nothing away from their grandiose, folky melodies. And best of all, the vocals. Nils Patrik Johansson has a commanding voice, his soaring singing with a rough edge that reminds us a lot of Ronnie James Dio himself!
So, technically superb. And Wuthering Heights are also eccentric and individual enough (with their proggy/folky parts), conjuring their own fantastic world, to stand apart from the generic Euro power metal hordes. And plus, they kick ass. Heck they're even unafraid of some harsh guitar skree now and then. Definitely worthy, on the strength of this album at any rate, to join the manly vanguard of the non-cheesy (ok, slightly cheesy) and less-generic Euro power metal hordes alongside the likes of AQ faves Blind Guardian, Falconer, and Lost Horizon (RIP).
Latest from the great Mr. Wyatt.
Easily the BEST album whose tracks contain of a lot of seeming nonsense baby babble and backwards tape manipulations (that was originally improvised for Italian radio) we've ever heard. Even if you already think you'd like babbling vocals and tape FX, this is even better than you think. Why? well it helps that it was done by Robert Wyatt, who is a bit of a genius, you know. Of course, if you're a Wyatt fan, you already know you want this 'cause it's basically an UNRELEASED ROBERT WYATT ALBUM FROM 1981.
Now, the title is Radio Experiment as it definitely was an experiment, a successful one, fortunately. Wyatt was invited to come to Rome and spend a week at this radio station's studio, recording his spontaneous creative process during that time frame, whatever might transpire.
The radio people picked the right artist to participate in this project, as Wyatt fully embraced the concept, working in a "blank frenzy", willing to let the end results remain secondary to documenting the work in progress of music making, though as it turned out, the finished music is pretty cool. And strange.
There's seven completed compositions presented on this disc, along with a final 10 minute track that was assembled and edited by the radio program's staff from recordings made surreptitiously during Wyatt's initial "rehearsals" in the studio. He's a one-man band here, playing piano and keys and drums and Jew's harp and other "objects". And singing, overdubbing his voice, which is all over the place, from playfully chopped up burble to weird whisper to high pitched whine to mumbled chatter to, well, actual singing that's quite fragile and pretty. There's plenty of wordless ba ba ba la la la, and other more coherent parts where you can understand the lyrics, in some cases read from political/historical texts. Multitracked and layered, all these pieces have a dreamy, hazy, hallucinatory aspect, somewhat abstract but pleasant, moody and melodic too. Being to a degree improvised, some jazz seeps in from Wyatt's Soft Machine days, and one track in fact is an interpretation, of sorts, of Charlie Parker's "Billie's Bounce".
Overall, a week well spent! Wyatt fans of course should enjoy this, and it also sounds to us like something perhaps This Heat related, and there's lots of current underground, cd-r scene activity featuring fractured pop and rhythmic lo-fi psychedelia and the textural use of the human voice that unknowingly harks back to these archival recordings from 28 years ago, long hidden away but thankfully now issued on cd and vinyl. The way this combines both beautiful pop-iness with really weird methods and sounds seems like something fans of, say, Panda Bear would be totally into. Very recommended!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The commie genius ex-Soft Machine drummer's first post-paralysis record, circa '74, an all time melancholic prog pop art rock classic and probably our fave Wyatt album ever.
Pretty much everyone at The Wire magazine loves this ex-Soft Machine member's latest solo record.
Whetting our appetites for the brand new Wyatt album Cuckooland (due out next week), comes this fab collection --curated by Robt. himself-- of material mainly drawn from BBC radio archives circa 1972 and 1974, at the beginning of his solo career, post-Soft Machine and Matching Mole. But the British eccentric's charisma and radical worldview is just as compelling today as back in the '70s, as the two cuts recorded in 2002-2003 with former Soft Machine bandmate Hugh Hopper prove. Also there's a wonderful 2003 demo version of a song that may be appearing on Cuckooland, called "The Verb". If it is any indication, Cuckooland will be a great album -- in fact, we'd like to hear demos of the whole thing, 'cause the home-demo production almost seems like a significant compositional element, the tape hiss drone something that would be intentional in a modern experimental/electronica context. The majority of this disc is the older stuff, though, and there's a diverse batch on offer, everything from the mostly instrumental soundtrack to the short experimental film from whence this disc's title is taken (which is also included as a Quicktime video!) to a live version of his unlikely hit Monkees cover "I'm A Believer" to a take on one of Matching Mole's best, "God Song". Then there's novelties like the Monty Python-esque "We've Got An Arts Council Grant" silliness, and Wyatt's affecting version of Danny Kaye's "Little Child". Don't play those for any dour Wyatt-doubters among your friends -- instead make sure they hear the gritty, lofi "Solar Flares..." which could be something from a New Zealand artist on the Celebrate Psi Phenomena or Psuedoarcana labels, when it's actually a 1974 recording by the ex-drummer of a pioneering jazz fusion band! Definitely an essential collection for fans, who will be delighted by the music as well as the copious notes and photos in the booklet. For those new to Wyatt, it's a good sampler, showcasing his trademark untrained vocals and his quirky songwriting craft. Nice!
This double cd set celebrates the work of UK music legend Robert Wyatt (who started his career in Soft Machine and went on to have quite a cult following with his solo career). He hasn't performed for over twenty years, but with his consent and guidance a group of musicians who have collaborated with him in the past (including musical director/trombonist Annie Whitehead, vocalist Julie Tippetts and guitarist Phil Mazanera) got together to perform his songs live in London and Nottingham in 1999. Features music from his solo albums, up to and including his most recent, "Shleep". Interesting and kinda weird to hear these songs without Wyatt's unique vocals, definitely something for fans to check out.
