Here's a private pressing from the enigmatic project The Candlelight Service, whose various members have a very minimal public profile, consisting mostly of some ubiquitously uninformative Twitter accounts. But musically, this project, which seems to be centered around the production of one Josh Kinney and a host of female vocalists, is a pretty intriguing concoction of goth oriented italo-disco and downer-pop witch house vibes. The leading track "Alchemy" has the decadent emptiness of those Johnny Jewel produced disco tracks for Italians Do It Better (i.e. Chromatics, Glass Candy, Desire, etc.), furthered along by the cool detachment of vocalist Zoe DuFault. "Comfort" pushes a buzzingly punk guitar chord well into the distance behind a downtempo slink from the drum machines and blown out Nord synth lines to go along with the ice-queen vocals from Sierra DuFault, who seems to be the primary vocalist here, presenting more of a Karen O snarl and theatrical warble. The album works through its sparse arrangements for synth, drum machines, guitars, and vocals, with that minimal wave approach to the less is more production values. This is even true for the relatively noisy guitar track "Drink For You" which reprises another track on the album but with the gritty lo-fi goth vibe of Chelsea Wolfe. There's just 100 of these kicking around, and the lp does come with a cd-r of the whole record as well.
We first discovered Colorado drone bliss pop-gaze duo Candy Claws via their last record, In The Dream Of Sea Life, a gorgeous collection of sounds and songs composed and recorded to sound as if they were in fact at the bottom of the ocean, warped and woozy, dark and aquatic, but for this new record, Hidden Lands brings the sounds of CC to the surface, lets them breathe, sprawl and blossom. Apparently based on a book called The Secret Life Of The Forest, these songs are meant to evoke all manner of 'secret lands', the worlds inside living creatures, the Earth millions of years before humans, all of the things that have gone on and still go on that we don't yet understand or can't yet observe. Pretty heavy, but fear not, the music is light in comparison, a washed out psychedelic dream pop, a little orchestral, a lot Elephant 6, chiming guitars, buried angelic voices, simple percussion, lush synths and singing strings, a sort of power pop blurred into something much more ambient and ethereal, there are hints of Neutral Milk Hotel, Beach Boys, Jellyfish, but in keeping with the science angle, it's like CC took scrapings from those bands and grew Hidden Lands in a petri dish, only to then plant the resulting lifeforms in the garden outside, in the shade of big oak trees, at the foot of some snow capped mountains, and then recorded the various growths, a hazy, slowly expanding sun dappled shimmer drenched fragmented pop. In some ways, the underwater element of the last record still feels present, it's like listening to jangly indie pop, broadcast through a hydrophone, the vibrations traveling through the water, and arriving at our ears, bent and twisted and beautifully warped. A little carnivalesque, a little psychedelic, a little shoegazey, this is some sort of otherworldly impressionistic pop, there may be hooks, and verses and choruses, but they're blurred and smeared and muted and mixed, the song structures seems to have come unglued at a fundamental level, allowing this dreampop to become even dreamier. So fantastic. And totally recommended for anyone into woozy, hazy, droney, dreamy blisspop.
Canis Dirus is a black metal duo from the appropriately frosty land of... Minnesota? Well, it certainly makes sense if anyone has spent winter in the Midwest, they will no doubt be aware of how oppressive and life denying that shit can be. And when you consider that Canis Dirus is comprised of the heads of the God Is Myth and Ars Magna labels, you can safely bet that this is some grim, brutal, and seriously cult stuff. The album begins with "Choking And Drowning", a surprisingly gentle piece of slightly ominous acoustic beauty that goes against what you might expect from such a song title. Next up is the title track, and at this point we're in full winter mode, as the band rides forward on hypnotic midtempo Burzum-styled rhythm. The vocals are a hysterical shriek, the guitars are like a fuzzy blanket of concentrated evil, and the drums (machines?) keep things going deeper and deeper into the woods. "Joyless And The Self Fulfilling Prophecy" is an awesome piece of murky black metal that moves slowly but surely, stopping for a cool ambient middle part, before heading back into the dirgey midtempo beat. The cool, slightly phased guitars almost sound like Alice In Chains for a second, but before long, sour, pukey sounding leads come in, giving the song a very disconcerting feeling. The vocals pretty much sound like a witch being tortured and serve as the perfect foil to the spacious instrumentation. The album closes with "In Deep Waters", a piece that utilizes negative space and some field recordings, that bookends the album perfectly. Really cool stuff, not that you would expect anything less considering the band's pedigree.
Holy shit! Some of the heaviest, most bad ass organ driven kraut-prog you will ever hear. Seriously, the four tracks that make up the bulk of this release, totally destroy. They're complex and heavy, epic and melodic, and totally rocking. Anyone who digs ELP or the New Trolls or most of the Italian prog we're always raving about, will flip for these guys too.
It's hard to believe a record this amazing never got released, but these tracks are indeed culled from some radio sessions that remained unreleased, until now.
Bandleader / organist Oliver Petry started playing organ after hearing Keith Emerson and it shows, his group is total ELP worship, but somehow, they manage to push it even further, upping the speed and intensity, like a supercharged ELP in their prime. Hell, they even do a 12 minute progged out version of Beethoven's 9th symphony, which needless to say also rules. Just listen to the sound samples. If within a matter of seconds you're not flipping out and hammering the add to cart button, you might as well just consider your prog cred REVOKED.
This reissue tacks on two tracks by post Cannabis India outfit Universe, which definitely has the same vibe, but the organ takes more of a supporting role, with the buzzing bass driving the first track, and the second track adding vocals, resulting in some classic seventies pop prog. But fear not, even with the organ dialed back, it's still pretty prog-tastic.
Deceptively haphazard, crafty indie rock is alive and well... and it's comin' at ya via this new band from Austin, TX called Canoe... and it's comin' by way of Amazing Grease Records, the label run by Scott Kannberg (formerly of Pavement -- arguably the kings of deceptively haphazard, crafty indie rock). Does that give you some inkling of what Canoe are up to? Listening to I Give You... Canoe! you get the vague sense that were you to witness them in the live setting, they'd be far more inebriated than you. Case in point, their song "Corndogs Are Our Friends"! A super trashy blown-out ode to deep fried weiners. Through the fuzzy haze of distortion, you catch a nifty keyboard hook here, a crunchy guitar riff there and some very GBV/Robert Pollard-ish vocals throughout. Loosely slung, devil-may-care, and fueled by many a six-pack.
***Grizzly Bear Alert***
Cant, is the solo project of Chris Taylor from Grizzy Bear. We got our first earful of his solo sound on the debut 7" that came out a while back on his label Terrible records, which was a split featuring an unreleased Arthur Russell song. Besides being in one of the most popular indie rock bands around, Taylor has also been busy working magic in the studio, producing records for folks like Twin Shadow, Blood Orange, and Solange. His debut full length is a woozy and rich sounding set of sounds that embrace electronics in creating such a strong sensual and brooding overall vibe. For sure classic Grizzly Bear sounds are present throughout, but they are showcased in a much more hazy, late night, steamy setting. Taylor has this wonderful ability to always create such thick and viscous sounds in all of his recordings. Much like his hero Arthur Russell, Taylor has such a great ability at creating psychic and sonic intimacy as well.
The debut release on what looks to be a new awesome label called Terrible run by Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear fame. This is the debut of Taylor's new solo project Cant and he pairs it up here with a previously unreleased Arthur Russell track!!! Makes so much sense as Taylor was one of the people responsible for putting together and producing last year's collection of songs displaying the more song based and folk/country side of Arthur Russell, Love Is Overtaking Me. And no doubt Russell's legacy has had a huge impact on the sound of Grizzly Bear over the years.
The Cant song is so good! Dare we say it, but it could definitely compete with all of the great songs on Grizzly Bear's super awesome Veckatimest, it doesn't stray too much from the Grizzly Bear sound but gets even more reverby and haunting and melodic.
The Arthur Russell track is quite sonically similar to the tracks on Love Is Overtaking Me, with its rustic twang, but it's infused with the more layered and textured aspects of Russell's sound which means shiver and chill inducing bliss. Needless to say this is a must have!
From Sundazed - the garage / psychedelic label that re-issued such notables as The West Coast Pop Experimental Group - comes Canterbury Fair: Renaissance faire-esque folk-psych from California circa 1969.
While there ARE lots of amazing reissues of all sorts of old records -- psychedelic, rock, folk, jazz, reggae, metal, etc. -- coming out all the time (and hopefully you've read about a bunch of 'em here, we do our best to keep up), it's also become evident to us that the vast majority of reissued obscurities were, well, obscure for a reason, and it's hard to understand WHY someone would choose to reissue 'em. But then there's reissues like this one, that make us wonder, why hadn't we ever heard of this band before? Why weren't they HUGE? Well maybe Miguel Cantilo Y Grupo were famous in their native Argentina, they should have been, we certainly can't imagine that there were all that many bands of this quality releasing records in that country back then (this dates from 1975). At any rate, we're pretty excited to learn about 'em now thanks to this reissue. An eclectic psychedelic progressive rock album, with songs ranging from acoustic mellow melodicism to heavy hard rockin' bombast, this is something that we'd rank with a few other '70s reissues that have become big favorites 'round here -- if you loved the Eduardo Bort from Spain, or the more-recently reviewed Tarkus from Peru, you'll want this too for sure! It's got strong songs, a charming heavy-duty hippy vibe (check out the cover art), exotic appeal (all songs sung in Spanish, very emotively), and is definitely Classic Rock worthy (reminding us of Led Zep, Budgie, and even Aerosmith at their most mystical, magical a la "Kings and Queens"). Miguel's vocals are a bit Bolan-esque as well. But what puts it over the top for us is the killer blend of exquisite prettiness and sudden, frantic rock n' roll action, a lot looser and rawer than some other progressives of the era. Very dynamic and surprising. It's weird in all the right places. It's always neat to discover cool stuff like this out of the blue, proving that there definitely are unknown reissues worth taking a chance on... Nicely packaged in a slim colorful cardboard digipacky thing, with the cd itself in a sleeve with the lyrics printed on it.
To tell ya the truth, Laura Cantrell could be singing the table of contents of a lawnmower manual, and still enchant the pants off of her listeners. Her newest album (and first on Matador Records) picks right up from where 2002's When The Roses Bloom Again left off. Her voice ringing as clear as a crystal dinner bell and as sweet as a bumbleberry pie at the state fair, and she's accompanied by a superb cast of players including those fellows from Calexico. Along with her original numbers she sings beautiful versions of an early previously unreleased Lucinda Williams' song "Letters", "Wishful Singing" a song originally sung by Skeeter Davis and penned by Wynn Stewart, and the old traditional murder ballad "Poor Ellen Smith". Actually if you like another lovely old tyme country style chanteuse who has great taste in cover material, namely Ms Kelly Hogan (or vice versa), this might be your new summer love.
A Year With 13 Moons is Cantu-Ledesma's first major release since his debut for Type, Love Is A Stream, back in 2010. Of course he has been busy in between those years, releasing limited tapes, cd-rs and split lps, touring and collaborating, co-running the Root Strata label and moving restlessly from San Francisco to Berlin, to Munich, back to San Francisco and finally settling (for the time being anyway) in Brooklyn. In many ways, A Year Of 13 Moons is the other side of the same coin of Love Is A Stream's glorious embrace of the shoegaze tidal waves of Flying Saucer Attack, Cocteau Twins and Lovesliescrushing. Sonically, they share a kinship. But where the first album appeared to be about the blossoming of new love and the changes it brings, this new one seems more about the dissolution of that love and the moving on from its aftermath; what disappears and what lingers.
Recorded during a residency at the Headlands Art Center he shared with filmmaker and visual collaborator, Paul Clipson, the first and longest track, "The Last Time I Saw Your Face" sets the tone with a slow-fading white-hot burst of solar distortion topped by a lilting electric melody that suggests the rushing in of a loving yet painful memory, but half-way through sputters, flickers and changes course in a way that the sound appears to move past you and gets farther away, leaving one adrift both aurally and physically. That trajectory of smoldering intensity, combining a soaring but battered angelic Cocteau Twins-ish guitar drift with the quasar-laden feedback void of magnetic static conveys us through the albums many peaks and valleys, which at times touch on the romantic melancholy of Durutti Column's pastoral guitar and drum machine as well as Main's ominous and sometimes airless ambience. It's a beautiful and heartfelt record, gorgeously realized but one that does not try to endear the listener to its many complex moods. In fact, its blown out acoustics seem designed to be played in big echoing halls as loud as they can. It's face-meltingly bittersweet. (Note: also on vinyl, but we're running low...)
Only got a little handful of these. 150 copies total, already out of print and we have less than 10. Latest bit of ultra minimal bliss out dronemusic from Cantu, he of Tarentel, the Alps and the mighty Root Strata label. On Bloodstream Sermon, Cantu creates softly billowing stretches of lush shimmer, using only a Roland Juno 60 synth, a pure wave oscillator and a handful of electronics, each of the two tracks gorgeous and hazy and warm, soft swells of dreamlike sound, constantly shifting tones and overtones, utterly tranquil and hypnotic, the first side much more dense and layered, a thick undulating sprawl of deeeeeep tones. While the second side/track is more abstract, a bit more whir and glitch, ambient and almost industrial sounding. A blurred symphony of muted machine-like buzz and rumble, peppered with little glimmers of glitch, all wrapped in a gauzy patina of washed out thrum. So lovely.
Before we blather on like we so often do, it seemed like it might be good to just toss out a first impression of Love Is A Stream, the fantastic new record from Root Strata label Head Honcho Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, his first for the type label. And heck, that first impression might be all you need:
Lovesliescrushing meets Flying Saucer Attack.
There. Hard to argue with that. Warped warbly, blurred shoegazey drift, long stretches of incendiary psychedelic guitar drone, streaks of soft noise, buried melodies, ethereal vocals, lush layered textures, dense and explosive, expansive and dreamily hazy, and in its own way, gorgeously heavy.
A new side of Cantu-Ledesma for sure, whose past records seemed to hover in a much more tranquil serene otherworld, unfurling hushed landscapes of whispery minimalism, of delicate crystalline shimmer, and of barely there soft focus ambient drift. Love Is A Stream is anything but, a fiery, fierce, yet ultimately lush and washed out series of bold shoegaze dreamnoise experiments, not so much pop songs swathed in distortion and effects, as carefully crafted sonic impressions, a series of gorgeous miniature epics, each a brief expanse of prismatic hypnogogic psychedelia, every one a unique a roiling concoction of fuzzpopbliss and murky melodic churn. On the surface, the record plays out like a series of textures, from warm whirling hum, to crumbling blown out white noise blur, to grinding muted pulse and throb, to gauzy bleary haze, to thick billowy low end rumble, to superdistorted effects-drenched synthnoise, and yeah, you're reading right, this is in fact a noisy record, but it's an artfully crafted, carefully sculpted noise. A thick, billowing, warm and gloriously enveloping melodic noise, like sinking into a swirling sea of burnished muted crush, a nearly overwhelming avalanche of whirling swirling crumbling throb and thrum, beneath it all lurk delicate melodies, tendrils of minor key guitar, ghostly voices, whirring synths, they rise to the surface here and there, but for the most part exist as shadowy impressions, infusing the noisy textures with a melodic core, a warm glowing sonic heart, which is what transforms these heaving slabs of shoegazey heaviness into something divine, and divinely dreamy.
There are brief moments, where the surface noise, and the distortion, and the walls of effects peel back, and we get to peek behind the curtain, which reveals the lush minimal underpinnings of the songs, a brief melodic smear here, a hushed little fragment of guitar there, but a glimpse is all we get, and really all we want, because it's how those bits of minimal songcraft interact with the intense sonic effulgence that is truly the magic that Cantu-Ledesma wields in conjuring up the sounds here. And like all magic, the joy is not in how it was done, but it how it makes us feel.
The lp version comes with a bonus cd, a collaboration with Type label mainman Xela, who took source material provided by Cantu-Ledesma, and fashioned his own bit of ambient dronemusic. Nearly 50 minutes of haunting drift, after a short burst of caustic super distorted crunch, Xela settles into a slow burning sprawl of washed out chordal shimmer, deep rumbling thrum and lush streaks of shoegazey buzz, a few moments as dense and psychedelic as the record proper, but for the most part, more of a chill out wind down coda, the perfect addendum to an already practically perfect record. Really quite lovely.
A brand new, brief and lovely missive from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, frontman of Tarentel, member of The Alps, The Holy See, Two Suns, head honcho of the Root Strata label and a pretty handy drone alchemist on his own, this little 3" is no different.
Utilizing a borrowed autoharp and a handful of electronics, Phantom Harp is all glistening glimmering solar flares, shimmering sunlight filtered through green fields sparkling with dewdrops, a gorgeous soft focus glacial drift, an otherworldly, slowed down Appalachia, the chords slowly drifting apart, notes carried skyward like leaves on a summer breeze, sleep, bleary eyed dreaminess, which all gives way to a washed out, lugubrious lowercase smear of fluttering drones, and creeping moonlit fog, hushed and dreamy, an oceanic seascape of twinkling muted melody and near static shimmer. All arranged into a single twenty minute track, multiple movements woven into an epic organic constantly evolving sonic dreamscape. Gorgeous.
Packaged in a beautiful black on black fold over thick paper sleeve, inside a 3" cd in a tiny plastic jacket, and a printed insert.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!
Another super limited sonic transmission from right here in the Bay Area, from AQ fave Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, the man behind Tarentel, and the Root Strata label. Those familiar with Cantu-Ledesma's music, knows that he usually speakers in hushed whispers, breathy and breathless, soft sonic shimmers allowed to drift like billowy clouds into your ears. But here, CL is no longer whispering, instead he's breathing fire, his guitar a newly minted incendiary device. A sonic flame thrower, each track a layered assemblage of thick peals of sound, glowing tongues of distorted flame. A sonic assault more similar to Total or Sunroof! Than CL's usual output. Makes sense that the first song is dedicated to Pete Swanson of the Yellow Swans (who also mastered it).
But all of this talk of fire and flame shouldn't scare you off, there is still plenty of delicate beauty to be had, it's just wrapped in thick sheets of sonic napalm, the guitar effulgent and glowing white hot, the chords washed out and the distortion crumbling. Melodies are jagged and dripping with hissy buzz, each track a glacial guitarscape turning your speakers to ash.
There are a few tracks, almost half of the 8 here, that drift in a soporific haze, and hew closer to CL's usual aesthetic, but here, they sound less like individual pieces, and more like interludes, brief moments of tranquility, a chance to catch your breath, let your ears heal, allow time for your speakers to re-solidify, before launching the next buzzing crumbling divinely distorted salvo of gorgeous blown out guitar bliss.
Fans of stuff like Nadja, the Yellow Swans, Tim Hecker, the Angelic Process, Fear Falls Burning, will be quite pleased with Cantu-Ledesma's visit to the sonic dark side.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in full color cardboard sleeves, with printed inserts.
After a couple of super limited cd-r's and tapes, a release or two as Colophon, and a bunch as records as a member of the Alps and Tarentel, The Garden Of Forking Paths is Cantu-Ledesma's first proper full length, and it's a doozy. A subtle and immersive sound that belies the huge array of instruments used. Electric guitars, acoustic guitars, gong, sruti box, harmonium, singing bowl, cassette, microcassette, reel to reel tape machine, electronics, sound booster and ride cymbal, with help on one track with percussion, tapes and electronics. Somehow, all of those bits and baubles are melted down into a gorgeously lush, yet minimal series of slow crawls, deep rich drones, each adorned with subtle variations and bits of sonic color.
The multitude of tape machines used in the creation of this record gives the proceedings a raw, fuzzy analog vibe that definitely hits our Jeck-Hecker-Basinski spot. Fuzzy and indistinct, thick smeared sonic drifts, that occasionally glow with some sort of diffused inner light, but for the most part, slither darkly through the shadowy corners of your speakers. Here and there, some of the sound will spill from your speakers like black ink, shiny and shimmery, staining you ears with a mysterious darkness. The final track is the only track where you can hear the guitar, a mumbling buzzy melody buried way down in the mix, creeping through a moonlit landscape of shimmering warble and distant barely-there hum. A gorgeously murky minimal world of slow moving tape, vibrating metal, creaking buzz, whirling whispers and abstract dreamy drift.
Packaged in a cool, sleek oversized digipak style folder.
Second dvd collaboration from film maker Paul Clipson and Root Strata / Tarentel head honcho Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. Another gorgeous and sonically blissed out tag team, Clipson's films this time around, again on Super-8, shot entirely in NYC, impressionistic shots of cityscapes, rolling hills, the texture of water, sun dappled evening skies, many of the shots textural, extreme close ups, patterns as much as images and shapes, sunspots, shadows, reflections, very active, the world flying past out the window of a train, power lines and bridges slipping out of eyeshot, setting suns and colored clouds, so lovely and dreamy.
Cantu-Ledesma offers up the perfect soundtrack, music culled from the same sessions that produced the huge aQ fave Shining Skull Breath, so even folks who don't care about the dvd, will want this for the sounds, which are thick and dense, whirring dronescapes, textured and layered, slipping from minimal shimmer to buzzing roar and back again, very much active, the intensity and propulsion of the sounds perfectly matching the motion of the visuals, in some cases, seemingly slowing it down, the drone dragging the landscape flashing by into sudden focus before letting it go again.
Either of these elements would be fantastic on their own, we can only imagine seeing these films projected against the side of a building, or on a huge movie screen, and these sounds would kill broadcast through some massive PA, the thick roiling drones washing over us, filling our ears with grit and grime, but together they work even better, even just viewed on the tiny screen of our computer, sonically and visually evoking all sorts of deep feelings and lost memories, of places never visited, of better times, of lost loves and of a past that keeps slipping further and further away. So lovely.
Packaged in an folded up origami style vellum sleeve with a printed insert. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES! Already sold out at the label so these are the last copies EVER!
In the age of YouTube and MySpace, the idea of the music video has changed dramatically since the days of MTV (or at least the days when MTV actually played videos). In the past, only bands on major labels could make a video, often hiring a real director and dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, plenty of bands have videos before they even have a record out. Super 8, digital video, Final Cut Pro, anyone can put together their own video and have it look as good if not better than the classic videos of old.
Old news maybe, but the thing is, most bands seems to use the video as simply a promotional tactic, or an excuse to fuck around and film it. Instead of, dare we say, ART. In the underground though, it's not at all uncommon for like minded musicians and filmmakers to join forces. In fact, with the advent of live performances featuring laptops and other sedimentary sound making devices (when is someone gonna make a laptop guitar, so left out laptoppers can windmill and leap about with the rest of the band?), often it's the accompanying films that are way more compelling. Often, a show is touted as some band performing "with films by so and so", but in fact, more often than not, it plays out more like seeing a film, that just so happens to feature live accompaniment by some band.
Few labels have really taken advantage of this new technology as much as Root Strata, who have quietly and steadily been releasing a series of super limited dvd-r's, each featuring new compositions by a small handful of artists, coupled with original films. The results have been pretty sublime, the films tending toward the abstract and impressionistic, the music following suit. When watching / listening to these, it's hard not to imagine laying on the floor, propped up on cushions, lights low, the film being projected on a huge blank wall, the band hunkered over their instruments in the corner, which makes sense as that's most likely how these films/sounds were conceived.�
So we have two new super limited dvd-r releases, one from Zelienople and one from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Paul Clipson, both limited to 100 copies, both already out of print, so these are the only copies we'll ever get.�
This is the third collaboration between filmmaker Paul Clipson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, who also plays in Tarentel, and runs Root Strata with his partner Maxwell Croy.�
The Phantom Harp, as the title might lead you to believe, is in fact a reworking of the piece of the same name, originally released as a 3" cd-r and now out of print. Not only has the piece been reworked, but no it is accompanied by Clipson's gorgeous abstract images. The Phantom Harp is a super minimal sun dappled stretch of glimmering shimmering dreaminess, soft notes float like leaves in the summer sun, smears of high end wreath each note in glimmering sonic haloes, the pace is glacial, the melodies stretched out over minutes instead of seconds, a little ambient, a little new age, a little free drone, all deftly blurred into one smoldering sonic dreamscape. The visuals are super striking, and manage to fit perfectly with the sounds, all black and white, images of rain slicked streets, sun shining through the treetops, car headlights at night, images sometimes overexposed, blurred, superimposed, but mostly left to just play out, cityscapes, buildings, people rushing to and fro, light reflecting on water, shapes and textures, walls, grills, neon signs, restaurants, a soft, a dreamy faded super-8 travelogue. So nice.
Packaged in printed, folded papers sleeves, and again, LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES, and already out of print.
Whoah! Amazing instrumental aggro tech metal from Georgia.
Got a handful of these three way split lps featuring some heavy rock outfits we hadn't heard before now, but are digging all three, pretty, umm� heavily. Four tracks from each, up first is Canyons who hail from Missouri, and who we had never heard before but who absolutely push all out mathmetalpunk buttons, reminding us a bit of local noise rockers Kowloon Walled City, but a bit more punky, their furious pound splintering into wild proggy mathiness as often as AmRep style head caving sonic swagger.
Tigon, who are from right here in the Bay Area, counter with their own brand of heaviness, much more murky and bass heavy, and way more wildly mathy, sounding almost like a super charged Nomeansno merged with a more lo-fi Unsane, furiously howled vox over the constantly shifting sonic churn below, occasionally slipping into something much more broody and stripped down, but those moments are balance by some seriously epic post rock infused metal majesty. The AmRep vibe is strong with these guys too. They also remind us a bit of Young Widows, which is most definitely not a bad thing.
And finally Foreign Theaters, who also hail from Missouri, round out the three way with their Melvins-y dirge rock, heavy hints of Black Flag, all woven into roiling brooding metallic punk, their songs much shorter, short sharp bursts of urgent heaviness, a noise drenched punk that occasionally slips into woozy slithery dirgery, but spends most of its time pounding and churning, the throat shredding vox wreathed in tangled droned out guitars that definitely make FT's punk more post punk and noise rock than punk proper, and we dig it!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, pressed on recycled black vinyl, and housed in a full color sleeve with a printed insert and a download coupon.
Posthumous release of material from the band that gave the world both Joan of Arc and The Promise Ring.
Reissue of this long out of print singles collection from this Bay Area fastcore institution, originally released on the now defunct Slap A Ham label. A timeless batch of grinding, thrashing, buzzing powerviolent brutality.
The latest musical assault from Bay Area political fast-core legends Capitalist Casualties. 3 songs and 6 inches of pounding, light speed grinding powerviolence. These guys just keep getting better and better.
Slip this new Capitol Years album up alongside the latest one from the Pernice Brothers, and you'll have the yummiest soft pop double scoop. Really, the two go together perfectly. Their lilting vocal harmonies and chiming guitars recall the splendor of Big Star and The Raspberries. Despite the album's title which might lead you to expect an electric dancefloor packer like Radio 4 or The Rapture, these eleven polished reverb-drenched songs will prolly have you swaying gently in the autumn leaves instead. Take it nice and easy. Soooooo good.
An absolutely smokin' new EP from Philadelphia's Capitol Years, whose Meet Yr Acres debut was a favorite of ours back in 2001. On that record my favorite songs were the two slow pretty ones, but after having seen Capitol Years live twice I've been totally converted to their rollicking rock heart -- and this new EP is comprised of six absolutely perfect upbeat tracks. This band plays psychedelic pop music with a totally infectious manic punk energy and in a perfect world they would be more popular than the Strokes... with whom they share a certain changa changa guitar sound, but Capitol Years're clearly far more naturally talented. Unforgettable pop hooks galore on each and every song! Should appeal equally to the indiepop-minded Strokes fan in you as well as the Nuggets-lovin' Ptolemaic Terrascope psychster you are behind closed doors! Highly recommended! Contender for Windy's favorite pop album of the year.
From totally out of the blue comes this surprisingly wonderful pop record. Capitol Years combines the gravelly-voiced lo-fi anthems of Sparklehorse and Tom Petty, the pristine pop of Paul McCartney, and the hazy vocalising of Pink Floyd, and comes up with a nice fresh take on that sound. The songs are instantly addictive, most featuring chord changes that twist the heart wonderfully, and if you're a little over the fey castles'n'rainbows aspect of the Elephant 6 posse (who we love!), know that Capitol Years is free of that. Highly recommended; I like this more every time I hear it. (Maybe I should pull "an Andee" on Andee and play this so often that he starts to like it as much as I do -- shh, don't tell him.) Just program out the one dud (a cover of "All Tomorrow's Parties"). Produced by Thom Monahan (Pernice Bros, Beachwood Sparks).
Okay, all you GOAT fanatics out there - and we're talking the mysterious Swedish afro-psych troupe, not the horned barnyard beasts (although we're guessing there's probably some crossover between fans of both) - Capra Informis is the project of the nameless Djembi player in Goat, and for his first solo outing, he doesn't drift too far from the sound he and his compatriots whip up as Goat. If anything, Capra Informis is less overtly rocking, less heavy psych, and more dense psychedelic tribalism, crafted from droned out synths, wild percussion and deep, monk-like vocal incantations, in fact most of the record sounds like it's being transmitted from some alternate reality sixties, where everyone is masked, and garbed in strange colored robes, and spends all their time creating ritualistic rhythmic psychedelia. The sound is dense and rhythmic, hypnotic and druggy, it's more spacey and woozy than hard rocking for sure, although "Womb Of The Wild" features plenty of psych stomp and guitar buzz, and sounds like it could actually be a stripped down Goat jam!
SUPER DUPER LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! We only have a handful and that's it.
On the same label that released the recent Monster Magnet tour only 10" (a label run by the band themselves), comes this, the debut release from Capricorn, which is the brainchild of current Monster Magnet axeman Phil Caivano, and pretty much sounds just how you might expect, some mix of MM, Kiss, Motorhead and Raging Slab, fat distorted bass, big heavy riffage, a little bit glammy, a little bit arena rock, but a bit more heavy and crusty and low slung, with gruff growled vox, big choruses, killer super melodic eighties metal style leads, all wound into two classic sounding jams, that should most definitely appeal to fans of ANY of the above mentioned outfits.
Be quick though, LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES, we got a tiny handful, not sure if we can get more...
Hurray, it's a new album from this Bay Area duo! Ever since Kirsten Capricorn brought in their debut cd In The Zone last February it's been a very consistent seller, and this sophomore effort seems primed to follow suit. Filled with bittersweet odes to sweethearts and heartaches, it's still keeping with their beloved lo-fi '80s Casiotone preprogrammed drumbeats and arpeggiated peppiness. Their vocals are much more self-assured and expressive this time around, but still within the same range as Corin Tucker's emotive warble. On a couple of songs though you might also find them a bit reminiscent of the GoGo's Belinda Carlisle too. Super fun and high spirited!
A new, lo-fi casiotone punky pop duo! The Capricorns are Kirsten Nordine of SF and Heather Lynn of Athens, GA (although she's soon to be Bay Area based as well). Both women tackle the singing and keyboard duties. With playful vocals very reminiscent of
This English instrumental act (NOT the lo-fi Casiotone-pop duo of the same name, from the Bay Area a while back) return at last with another heavy, atmospheric onslaught of their undefinable metallic post-rock/math-rock riffage. Their previous album, 2005's Ruder Forms Survive was quite interesting (and rockin'), full of cryptic historical allusions (in the song titles), stretches of soundtrack-y ambience a la Zombi, and a one-song-only vocal performance from Oxbow's inimitable Eugene Robinson. Coming from ex-members of various stoner/sludge/doom/punk combos, it was suitably heavy but also surprisingly strange. River, Bear Your Bones continues that tradition, once more a dark and moody affair, though without any vocal cameo this time. The instruments do all the talking, speaking a language that's both proggy and stonery... much of the time Capricorns' riffs come quick and jagged, these tracks sometimes soaring melodically, or viciously spiralling with sharp-edged aggressive energy. Elsewhere, an eerie not-so-calm pervades. The album's closing track, and longest at 10:55, "Drinking Water From The Skull Of A Hanged Man", starts off as an unusually relaxed, lo-fi psychedelic jam, with spacey guitars, looser and more laidback than most of the rest of the disc... but heavies up quite a bit before it's through! And once more there's more going on here concept-wise than you might immediately discern, as apparently all the tracks are "about" the River Thames (Capricorns being from London).
One of a couple releases reviewed this week proving the vitality of the instrumental, guitar-oriented heavy rock genre (the other being Serpent Throne). Again, for fans of the likes of 5ive, Zebulon Pike, Pelican, Hey Colossus... and good ol' AmRep noise rock, which a lot of this also reminds us of.
It almost didn't matter what this Capsule band even sounded like. The packaging is so gorgeous and over the top, we pretty much bought one before we even heard it. On the same label, and similarly designed as the Torche 10" from a while back, a cd and lp, with the cd, mounted on the inside of a super deluxe gatefold sleeve, this time, it's all black, with the whole thing slathered in shiny varnish, except the name of the band which shows up as a matte void, a leering blue ghostlike face on the cover, all very tripped out and mysterious, much like the music inside.
And as we've posited in the past, bands who spend this much time and energy on creating super striking visuals, often back it up with super intense sounds as well. Not 100 percent by any stretch, but we tend to have pretty good luck.
And thankfully that luck still holds with Blue, from this band Capsule, who seem to be some sort of grind band, at least on first listen, and we mean grind in that the songs are twisted and gnarled, and there seem to be a million parts, and the tempos are furious and chaotic, the vocals are a buried in the mix howl, BUT, the guitars sound super clean, angular and abstract, but not blown out and distorted. Lots of melody everywhere, even at it's most complex and convoluted, the melodies shine through, And while the guitars do chug and grind, they also jangle and soar. It's petty strange, in lots of ways it sounds like some classic nineties indie rock, Polvo or Pitchblende, but supercharged, run through some sort of chaos grind filter, there is still plenty of loping minor key melody, and waltz like tempos, strange arrangements, but they're all wrapped around a much more intense and furious core. In fact the more we listen, the more we're gonna go with 'grindmetal Polvo' as the simplest descriptor, and if that doesn't sound like maybe the greatest thing ever, then maybe you're reading the wrong list.
The final track appears to be about 10 minutes long, but don't be fooled, the song is actually 2 minutes, another gloriously complex jangle drenched slab of grinding metallic indie rock, with about 6 minutes of silence, hiding what sounds like a live track at the end, more blown out loping indiemathgrindjangle, this one heavy on the midtempo buzz and woozy riffage. Fucking awesome!
It's strange that Miami's Capsule managed to remain so below the radar, their grinding, short attention span math rock metal core post prog weirdness seems tailor made for folks looking for extreme obscure heaviness. We raved about their full length Blue, a dizzying chunk of million parts a minute chug/crunch/howl/shred/grind, a furious onslaught of extreme heaviness, but also surprisingly extreme tunefulness, summing their sound up pretty succinctly as 'grindmetal Polvo', that classic twisted math rock / post rock sound, complex rhythms, woozy off kilter chords, buried vox, lots of texture and mood, but sped up, super charged and blown out.
This lp collects all of the pre-Blue material, demos, splits, tour eps, cassettes, and amazingly it plays pretty much like a proper full length. Like Blue, but a bit more raw, a bit less polished, their ADD-core still fully intact, but with even more melody than the full length, still loads of stop / start lurching tempos, tangled gnarled riffage, blasting bursts of pummel countered with lots of cool, more restrained post rockisms, with the added strangeness of weird group vocals, not harmonies exactly, but it does sound like the whole band is singing simultaneously, which definitely gives the sound a super unique vibe.
Again not sure why these guys aren't huge, if you dig Dillinger Escape Plan, Hayaino Daisuke, Converge, Coalesce, Cavity, then Capsule should definitely be required listening.
Incredible packaging too, super nice design, thick colored vinyl, and yeah, probably WAY limited.
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.
Gee willickers! It's been what? TWO years since the second Grow Fins box set was released. We were pretty much convinced that Table of the Elements had given up on ever completing their promise to finish releasing this collection on vinyl. But hey, here we
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Like the Magnetic Hands cd on Viper that was released a couple three years back, this new double disc collection from OZit features live (and hence "rare") recordings of Captain Beefheart from performances throughout the UK between 1972 and 1980. Considering you get two discs for $23 instead of one for $20, it's a bargain. Like all the other live recordings of Captain Beefheart we've had here, the recording quality ranges from the fair to the not quite so fair. But what are you gonna do? This is way before the era of mini-discs and cheap portable electronics. Comes packaged in an oversized slip cover and includes six black and white postcards of Don Van Vliet on stage.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Long anticipated release of this 1980 live recording from England. The sound quality is not the best by any stretch, but suffices in a pinch. Touring shortly after the release of "Shiny Beast", this version of the Magic Band features Eric Drew Feldman on keys & bass, Jeff Morris Tepper on guitar, Richard (Midnight Hat Size) Snyder on guitar, Gary Lucas (guitar on one track) and -- I assume -- John French on drums.
12 live tracks and 4 rare demos of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band are the stuff of OZit's newest anthology. Not much information is included with this release, just a catalog of previous OZit releases. All the tracks are from the early to mid-seventies, so there's lots of French's Mirror Man drumming style here -- lots of toms -- and the songs tend to be long, jammy, and bluesy. The studio tracks included are "Moody Liz", "Beatle Bones & Smoking Stones" (split into two tracks), and "gimme dat harp boy". The live tracks are: "be your dog" (no, not the Stooges song), "upon the my o my", "keep on rubbing", "mirror man", "crazy little thing", "full moon hot sun", "sweet georgia brown", "this is the day", "peaches" (two versions), "sugar bowl", and "abba zabba". Limited (how many, we're not sure), hand numbered edition.
Viper returns with one last (?) collection of live recordings by Don Van Vliet a.k.a. Captain Beefheart and his various Magic Bands. Where the preceeding collection "Magnetic Hands" pulled together tracks recorded throughout the U.K., this time the label has put together recordings entirely from the U.S. The bulk of the tracks were recorded in the seventies, falling between 1972 and 1981, with one little gem recorded in 1966 at the Avalon Ballroom in our own fair city. Like the previous collection the fidelity is not the greatest -- all recordings seem to have been captured via cassette recorders from the audience.
Original 1967 album, plus 7 bonus tracks.
One truly amazing and fucked up album by Don Van Vliet. Though most Beefheart fans would probably site "Trout Mask Replica", "Lick My Decals Off", or maybe "Doc At The Radar Station" as his best works, there's really something compelling about "Shiny Beast" that just can't be ignored. It's pretty well known that Don and the music industry were pretty much like oil and water. Much of his works were fraught with battles between himself and record producers, and some turned into disasters: "Unconditionally Guaranteed", "Bluejeans & Moonbeams" (pure schmaltz) and "Strictly Personal" (wherein the producer thought he could spice up the album with reverb, delay and fade outs while the band was on tour). But there are a few situations where Vliet somehow managed to channel his insane creativity into brilliant pop records, and "Shiny Beast" is a fine example. The most concise description I can think of would be to imagine Jimmy Buffett dosing acid after having a fist fight with Mike Tyson. Songs like "Tropical Hot Dog Night" and "Candle Mambo" have a catchy, edgyness to them that's unparalled. The horn section on this record is really the icing on the cake though. "Owed T'Alex" is a great example of nice horn arrangements and Vliet's combining his obtuse instrument part writing with pure, catchy pop. Various ostinato clash and click in a rocking number that just begs to be arranged for a marching band!
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 CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Not a collection of rarities like the recent, massive box set Grow Fins is, this double cd is an anthology of primarily album material spanning Beefheart's career. Aside from the theme from the film 'Blue Collar' ('Hard Workin' Man') everything else has been readily available for some time. Having said that, this set is actually a good introduction for those who've had trepidations about diving into the Captain's oeuvre headlong. All the material is presented chronologically, with excellent documentation on track origins, and a 57 page color booklet replete with extensive liner notes.
