Brand new one sided flexi-disc 7" single from these aQ kraut/space rock faves, and it's a pretty sweet slab of spaced out psychedelia, the group laying down that immediately recognizable space-kraut groove, over which they lay down a fractured Rolling Stones style guitar riff, along with some woozy looped synth. Already locked into some serious psychedelic trance, then a second synth swoops in, weaving in an extra melody, even a bit of fluttery flute, the sound gradually drifting toward something less kraut-y or spacey and more toward something distinctly jammy, heck there's even what sounds like electric piano at one point, it's like Cave have decided to become a modern day jam band, fusing the classic old jam style (Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, etc.) to something more modern and kosmische and krauty, and it suits them big time. Too bad it's just a 7", cuz we're guessing this jam was way longer in the practice space. Super rad, and of course, super limited, only 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered, pressed onto a green flexi, includes a printed cover/insert.
The latest from these psychedelic krautrockers sees the band pushing in a decidedly different direction, at least on the opening track, which is straight up fusiony psych-kraut funkiness. And we're not talking slightly funky, we're talking total kraut-funk FUNK, groovy rhythms, wild percussion, slithery guitar jangle, woozy, burbly basslines, some spidery wah wah guitar leads, definitely pretty tranced out and hypnotic still, but definitely seriously funky. This IS however, Cave after all, so we were prepared for something twisted to maybe happen, yet after 4 or 5 minutes we were convinced maybe we were mistaken, and the band had decided to just go for it, but then, BAM, super heavy guitars swoop in, for some heavy rock riffage, still funky, but now a sort of seventies style heavy rock groove, like a super charged James Gang or something, totally psychedelic, and spacey, and yeah, funky and groovy, but more like Goat sort of, once those guitars kick in, a total heavy groove rock bliss out. But it only lasts a few minutes, soon, the guitars peel away, as does much of the funk, leaving just a super spare sprawl of pulsing, shuffling, grooving minimalism. Strange, but seriously cool.
From there on out, the band slip back into more familiar Cave territory, the groovy kraut-y hypnorock of "Silver Headband", that sounds like a more crystalline and sun dappled Circle, replete with constantly shifting sonic cycles, layered melodies, and again, near the end, some seriously heavy, almost metallic guitar crunch, the song exploding into yet another blast of rad riffiness. And the funk isn't gone, it resurfaces in "Arrow's Myth" but much more subtly, the band doing their best Bitches Brew, all murky freeform psychedelic space-funk, flurries of wah guitar, warm whirring organ, murky atmospheres and motorik drumming, plenty of percussion, but everything sorta blurred into a heady, druggy sprawl, until about three quarters through, when the groove proper kicks in, and in come the HORNS, and again, it's total seventies jazz-funk worship, and it KILLS. The last two tracks are classic Cave, two sprawling space groove epics, the first, sounding a bit like Stereolab crossed with Goat, and given a heavy psychedelic jazz makeover, the second more laid back and dreamily psychedelic, spaced out and droney, the band locked into one of those endless woozy grooves, that falls somewhere between psychedelic space rock, and drowsy, Spacemen 3 style bongsmoke fueled mesmer...
We always wondered if East Coast metallic noise rockers Cave In were named after legendary slowcore outfit
Codeine's ultra heavy jam "Cave In", and now we know! More on that in a second.
This collection gathers up a handful of unreleased jams and rarities from these post/metal/prog heavies, who over the course of their now lengthy career, have probably managed to alienate every single one of their fans, except maybe us. Starting out as a crushing downtuned noise metal juggernaut, the band gradually morphed into epic bombastic Radiohead style arena rock, and then inexplicably back again, and these days seem to hover somewhere between the two. And while that may have confused lots of folks, we frankly love BOTH those sounds, the heavy and the poppy, and we're pretty into a mix of the two. So we were psyched for this, as it gathers up a handful of tracks, some as early as Until Your Heart Stops, some later on toward the Jupiter record, not to mention some seriously bad ass covers.
The first two tracks are classic Cave In, epic and proggy, metallic and complex, the liner notes even describe "Mr. Co-Dexterity" as being a song they never played live cuz it has more riffs than any other Cave In song. Hell yeah! Next up is their Bad Brains cover, and weirdly enough they chose to cover one of BB's straight up reggae songs, and as hard as it might be to believe, they totally own it, transforming it into something closer to a heavier Radiohead (which is basically later period Cave In anyway), before letting the song sprawl into a super tripped out and psychedelic workout, all tribal rhythms, twisted guitar weirdness, loads of effects and electronics everywhere, dirgey and droney and bad ass.
The flipside starts off with their cover of the Cure's "Plainsong", which is again turned into something more heavy and psychedelic, the melodies super effected and swirly, the vocals appropriately deep and dramatic, with big BIG drums. They also tackle Black Sabbath's "N.I.B.", but totally reinvent it, and the result sounds more like Pink Floyd than Sabbath, shimmery and spacey, the only recognizable bit is the bassline. There's one more original, an alternate demo version of one of the songs from Jupiter, solidly in their Radiohead period, big bombastic stadium pop, but still proggy and metallic, and finally, the band pay homage to their namesakes, the mighty Codeine, and they tackle Codeine's "Cave In", and while we might have expected them to metal it up (as mentioned before, we dream of a FULL ON doom metal version of "Cave In"), they instead do it all pretty and acoustic-y, gorgeously hi-fi, with thick rumbling bass, stripped down and almost dream poppy, definitely a nice version, and the liner notes explain that the band did indeed name themselves after that song, and sent a copy of their debut to Codeine, but never heard back!
Totally essential collection for fans of Cave In, any or all eras, super limited, pressed on white vinyl, in old school bootleg style jackets.
Curiouser and curiouser. A radio-friendly Cave In? Yep, as hinted at by recent ep releases, these formerly crunchy, chaotic metalcore boys have gone totally...soft. Well, a lot of this still rocks but it's all melodic and pretty and taking no big chances. We thought it was cool when they came out with the career -making or -breaking "OK Computer" -ish album "Jupiter" on Hydrahead a few years ago, that was a radical move (imagine touring with Neurosis and singing in a Thom Yorke falsetto!) and really epic and excellent. But now that they're on a bonafide major label, they're REALLY emphasizing the pop, not the prog. The singer has dropped the falsetto, and things are going in a definite commercial direction. They're soon to be huge, we're sure, but now they sound like every band on MTV, when they used to be so weird and unique and metal-gone-arty. Now, at best, they're a guilty pleasure. Immediately poppy, anthemic, good at what they're doing, more power to 'em -- but do we need another Goo Goo Dolls? Really, these days the Foo Fighters are a heavier, more metal band than Cave In! And Cave In used to sound like Slayer. Still, we'll give this a chance to grow on us, maybe it'll be the next Queens of the Stone Age 'round here (note the Nirvana-y bit in track two).
Oh yeah, initial quanities include a bonus dvd with videos and bonus track.
MPEG Download: "Stained Silver" [/audio/caveinstained.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Stained Silver" [/audio/caveinstained.m3u]
A weird departure for the up-until-now brutally heavy Cave-In. 5 songs, very melodic, like a heavier Pink Floyd. 2 weird electronic ambient pieces, one acoustic song (sounding a lot like Simon and Garfunkel, really), one really catchy song, and a Failure cover!? This is a pretty good record, but don't look here for your usual Hydrahead fix.
Boston metalcore band Cave In was once described as being a mixture of Slayer and Radiohead. And usually the Radiohead part was just 'cause of some weird proggy electronic leanings, but the Slayer tag was the more accurate one. But now, with "Jupiter", they've gone and morphed themselves into a pop band. Seriously. And they're damn good at it. Amazingly, they still tour with the likes of Neurosis and Dillinger Escape Plan, playing their new, art-pop material exclusively! And the kids like it! Ornate, lengthy songs complete with falsetto vocals, and amazingly catchy melodies. Previously, we've enthused over Muse and Justin Clayton, as Radiohead clone bands par excellance, but this might just take the cake. But unlike the Radiohead clones, Cave-In don't seem so much like they're copying Radiohead, more like they're contemporaries, albeit way heavier and way more rocking. We're just so blown away by this band's transformation and metal-forged skill at creating this stuff. Perfect proggy pop, mixed with healthy doses of Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Yes, etc. Fans of the old Cave In might be a bit disoriented, but give it a chance. Heavy doesn't always mean distorted guitars and satanic growling.
So recommended.
Two new songs from the Boston-based formerly-metalcore band Cave In, who have morphed into a great heavy guitar rock band. They're as anguished and epic as Radiohead only less annoyingly arty. They're as anguished and epic as Jeff Buckley only not afraid to
Super limited ep from AQ faves Cave In. Having fully shed their metalcore skin, and become what can be best described as the heavy metal Radiohead, this ep moves even further to the proggy pop side of things. Four tracks from the their recent Jupiter record, one, very slightly reworked, and three radically different 'piano versions'. And obviously, the piano versions are the reason to
The return of Cave In. Or maybe more accurately, ANOTHER return of Cave In. We might be some of the only folks who never stopped loving this band. From their crushing metallic early years, to their epic pop prog Radiohead style flirtation with major label years, to their return to indie label / heaviness, to Cave In front man Stephen Brodsky's curious but totally compelling jangly psych pop solo records, and now this, another return that sounds a lot like the under appreciated Perfect Pitch Black record from a while back, the band melding their two disparate sides, the poppy polished side, and the chugging metal side. And fuck if it doesn't still sound great. In fact, it's the sort of thing that could, or maybe SHOULD find it's way on to commercial radio. As the climate is way more accepting of metal, and heaviness in general, and Cave In have a sort of Muse only more metal thing going on, with the right push, as we've said before, these guys cold be huge.
"Cayman Tongue" opens up with some soaring guitars, big stadium drums, and Brodsky's soaring croon, and some serious chug. We're definitely hearing some Muse, but with that distinct Cave In vibe and way with melodies, before it gets seriously crunchy and the gruff vocals come out, and things get mathy and gloriously chaotic, and then for MINUTES, the band get all spaced out and doomy, letting their guitars feedback and buzz, interrupting the tangled guitar gnarl every few seconds with a big metallic crush, before a seriously grinding intense Coalesce-style outro.
"Retina Sees Rewind" has a killer main riff, all tangled Maiden-y squiggles and crunchy chug, wild psychedelic leads, and a chorus that sounds a bit like Torche meets Rush meets Queens Of The Stone Age. "The Redtrail" is all frantic punk rock with shrieked vox and tangled guitars, Greg Ginn-ish riffage and a total old school punk rock breakdown right in the middle. And "Air Escapes" finishes things off with another perfect blend of mathy metallic heaviness and quirky psych pop, Brodsky's nimble vocals draped over angular guitars and tribal drumming, that gets more and more Voivod-ish as the track progresses which is never a bad thing.
We still love these guys, hard to understand why everyone doesn't. One of the few bands as adept at pummeling metal as they are at crafting epic arena pop, and the fact that they can somehow do both at once, only makes them that much more special.
Incredible packaging as with most Hydra Head stuff, gorgeous metallic printing on the jacket and on the inside sleeve, pressed on ultra thick vinyl, and most likely very very limited.
Originally released as a cd back in 2001, Sacrifice Poles was a collection of 4-track instrumental demos, jams and audio experiments crafted during the recording of Cave In's Jupiter record. This vinyl reissue came and went in the blink of an eye, but we did manage to snag a few copies, as in less than 5, so for a handful of folks, here's your chance to nab one of these before they're gone. And it's pretty great, and weird, most of the tracks are pretty much proper Cave In songs, albeit instrumental, and sound like they could have eventually ended up on a proper Cave In record, others are more abstract, isolated guitar tracks, weird ambient interludes, plenty of synths, weird programmed drums, fans of the proggier side of Cave In who have never heard the Sacrifice Poles record, are in for a treat. Sucks that it's so limited, but these are in fact, the last copies we'll be able to get, so best grab one quick, before they're gone for good. Again.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! Includes a download.
A fantastic burst of heavy pop from formerly metalcore band Cave In -- their last blast on Hydrahead as prelude to their eventual major label debut full-length. They're like a heavier Radiohead, less anguished and more into rocking. The melodies are epic and heartrending, the guitars are clean and bright, and the songwriting is excellent -- it's like you can trust them, they don't let you down with experimental bull that's best left to a Thom Yorke solo album or something. They continue to polish and refine their own developing sound, which ambles nearer pop with every release. And yet, the more 'produced', polished, or whatever that they get, the better they sound! The title track, I swear, sounds like Rufus Wainwright with bigger balls crossed with Queen. So good! Fans of the other heavy rock bands with pop leanings that're getting mainstream press -- like Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age -- should definitely give this a listen!
Brutal but occasionally beautiful metallic hardcore, for fans of Coalesce, Deadguy and that ilk. This has been described as a mixture of Slayer and Radiohead (!) and I can almost see why. Andee approved.
It's always difficult to know what to expect from these guys, every record seems to alienate their core fans. After years of being a caustic sludgey metallic behemoth, they abruptly switched gears and sounded like Radiohead style stadium rock. By the time everyone was used to that, they suddenly got heavy again, REALLY heavy. Then they tried a mix of the two. And the thing is, we love it all. These guys are incredible, whether it's a face melting blast of downtuned metallic sludge, or a soaring chunk of blissed out melodic bombast, few can beat these guys on either count. But what that DOES mean, is that with every record, it could go either way, heavy or hooky, crushing or catchy (although to be fair, all their records are heavy AND hooky, crushing AND catchy, but you know what we mean), and for whatever reason, we were guessing pop, even though they seem to have been heading heavy-ward lately, it seemed like the perfect time for them to confound again, and make another bid for mainstream success. But lo and behold, this shit is FIERCE, and fucking HEAVY, no pop pretense at all, harkening back to Until Your Heart Stops, right out of the gate, the record explodes, replete with harsh almost black metal vox, wrapped around super distorted guitars, and to be fair there's a cool melodic component, a good balance, that again could have these guys going either way, but then "Serpents" drops, and it's all out grind and crush and pummel and pound, Stephen Brodsky's vocals a glass gargling yowl, the guitars frenzied and frenetic, the drums crushing, but the whole thing laced with synths, adding a whole 'nother vibe to the sound, but not taking away from the heaviness in the least.
But you can't completely take the pop out of the band, so throughout White Silence, and amidst all the downtuned bombast, there are plenty of killer pop-isms, "Sing My Loves" is total Torche style sludge pop, "Centered" wraps glitchy electronics and thick grinding guitars around some soaring clean vox, and some serious hooks, "Summit Fever" too is pure pop but in sludge metal clothing, might be THEE heavy jam of the year, and is where the record begins to sound to us more and more poppy, the poppiness seeming to blossom as the record progresses, even at its heaviest, somehow still exuding some sort of hookiness.
"Heartbreaks, Earthquakes" harkens back to Brodsky's Beatles-esque solo records, and "Iron Decibels" defies its title by also being a chunk of super melodic jangly pop that again sounds like a Brodsky solo jam, and then finally, "Reanimation", is a gorgeously hazy bit of crooned acousticky drift with a bombastic almost Queen like crescendo, which of course leads to the obvious observation that the second half of the record is INDEED more poppy and less heavy, and after more listens, White Silence reveals itself as a pretty genius progression, from all out metallic onslaught, to hushed prettiness, each song an ever softening gradation, and as always, these guys are equally adept at both soft and hard, loud and quiet, pop and metal. And as always WAY recommended.
Warning! The singer's nasally singing style will be a dealbreaker for most folks so check the sound samples first! Comprised of a trio of folks from other bands such as Pretty Girls Make Graves, the Cave Singer's debut album Invitation Songs, actually does sound pretty inviting musically at first. However, we couldn't get past the singing which sounds like back porch caterwauling sung over music by Pinback or Modest Mouse. Almost cool, but not quite. Sorry.
Much has been made about Blixa Bargeld's recent departure from Nick Cave's backing band The Bad Seeds. With or without the Einsturzende Neubauten frontman, The Bad Seeds have faithfully rendered Ol' Nick's tunes, ballads, croons, and occasional barn-stormers, and the twin set Abattoir Blues and Lyre Of Orpheus (handsomely bound together in a clothbound slipcase) doesn't waver one bit from Nick Cave's previous songs. At times, the sentimentality of Nick's sadness and pathos can be pretty thick; but hey, it's Nick Cave, what do you expect?
Although five songs written by Nick Cave are featured, "The Secret Life Of The Love Song" is dominated by Cave's lucid and insightful explications on his songwriting, which has over his twenty-plus career of abject behavior, produced the malevolent fury of the Birthday Party as well as the sorrowful love songs of his last few albums with the Bad Seeds. The two surprisingly erudite lectures presented here tend to focus on the anger and dispair reflected in his later love songs. Of the five songs, one is an exclusive track, with the other four are different versions of previously released songs. And for these five songs, Cave has employed Jim White and Warren Ellis from the Dirty Three to accompany his often solitary piano.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
My goodness. 57 songs that span the full twenty-one year career of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (not including any of the Birthday Party or the Boys Next Door material that preceeded the Bad Seeds). Most all of these tracks have been released in some way, shape, or form as flexi-disc tracks for Australian magazines, b-sides to singles, compilation tracks, soundtrack contributions, etc; but unless your rabidity about Nick Cave is all-consuming, the likelihood of you having all of the previously released tracks is slim to none. Given Cave's dedication to the craft as a singer / songwriter, the acoustic versions and alternate takes that would soil most every other rarieties retrospective appear with new perspectives upon his recurring grim themes of love, death, and God. Pretty essential for Nick Cave fans.
A bit of a weird one here... from the glitzy title-in-lights cover art to the music contained within! It's Nick Cave all right - yes, we recognize his voice! - but for the first couple songs he's doin' a strange talk-sing over a Stones-y (circa Steel Wheels?!) loose swampy blues chug rawk rave up. After that he gets into more familiar territory. The third slow creep of a track titled "Moonland" sinks in with its seething brood as Cave delivers his moaned and hissed vocals. Then things speed back up to a standard rock driving pace for "Night Of The Lotus Eaters". Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is sort of a rollercoaster ride in which diehard latter day fans will probably find much to love, but it may continue to infuriate fans of his early music and probably those of Grinderman too.
Nick Cave's songwriting has steadily devolved (or evolved?) from the rock bombast that once dominated his early career fronting the purposefully confrontational Birthday Party. With "No More Shall We Part," Cave once again situates himself comfortably behind
Nick Cave may have stumbled slightly in trying to position himself as an elder statesman of mope-rock with his abject previous outing "The Boatman's Call." But here, Cave confidently stands tall and proud, older and wiser.
Nick Cave's partner in crime for the past decade has been the wild-eyed beardo Warren Ellis, contributing battered violin and scrappy guitar in an attempt to replace Bad Seed / Birthday Party mainstay Mick Harvey as well as the perennial malcontent Blixa Bargeld, both of whom left the Bad Seeds in the late '00s. While Cave & Ellis were responsible for the testosterone garage rock of the aptly named Grinderman, their collaborative efforts have also found them scoring beautifully maudlin yet rustic soundtracks for film. In many ways, the soundtracks that Cave & Ellis scored for The Road and The Proposition laid out a template of sorts, foreshadowing the arrangements that would end up on Push The Sky Away. Yup, this is still a mellower Bad Seeds record, but it proves to be more consistent than some of the highly acclaimed earlier records. Tender Prey is a monster of a Nick Cave record, but it is dotted with duds. The lyrics behind all of Nick Cave's cautionary tales and murder ballads demand attention, perhaps more than we can really do justice to here; but we can say that the ballyhooed song "Higgs Boson Blues" with its strange pop culture references isn't nearly as corny as the press has made it out to be. The opening number "We No Who U R" features a smart cyclical chorus that's long been a staple in the Nick Cave songbook; and the skeletal track "We Real Cool" is the only one that seeks a bit of menace through a throbbing monochord bassline that back in the day would have girded a stabbing Bargeld / Harvey guitar duet but which now swims beneath a sky full of maudlin strings and plaintive pianos.
Wish we had the vinyl too but it's already being repressed, you gotta wait a few weeks...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
When Nick Cave started playing piano full time on the Bad Seeds' records, a lot of people wondered at the softer direction Mr. Cave was headed. Though he has redeemed himself in the eyes of his more rocking fans with the Grinderman band (and with his increased skill at the keys), there is an eerie beauty to the almost entirely instrumental piano-and-violin tracks on White Lunar. This 2cd set contains music from numerous films, including The Proposition, The Road, and two rare documentaries scored by Mr. Cave and longtime collaborator Warren Ellis, violinist for the Bad Seeds and The Dirty Three. The melodies from these haunting tracks will stay with you, and even people who aren't fans of Nick Cave will appreciate them.
Once a monstrous hyperbole of the pretenses of rock, Nick Cave has nearly completed his transformation into the complete antithesis of everything The Birthday Party ever stood for. That's not to say that "Nocturama," the 12th studio album for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is a bad album; but only that there is very little connecting the Cave of today with the Cave of yesteryear. "Nocturama" finds old Nick seranading behind the piano, and these are mostly tender love songs that he croons with a bittersweet quiver that's more commonly heard from the Tindersticks than any of the psychosexually dark tales from his albums "From Her To Eternity" and "Let Love In." As strange as it may seem, Cave's voice is welcoming, friendly, and comforting with its dusky baritone complemented by arrangements that should sound somber and mournful, but don't. On a couple of tracks towards the end of the record, the Bad Seeds may appear to be reflecting on their swam-rock past, busting out their ramshackled, barn-bustin' numbers driven by caustic hammond organ and crashing cymbals. I think The Wire got it right, stating that these songs are "like a stompier Bob Dylan with the Band." Not exactly fire and brimstone; but a decent rock 'n' roll experience.
It's been several years now that Warren Ellis from The Dirty Three has been serving double duty as a part of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds but it really hasn't been until this score that the totally distinctive Dirty Three violin stylings of Ellis and Cave's dark brooding presence have totally meshed together to create something so strikingly gorgeous! While Cave's name will probably end up the focus in most people's eyes, the truth is this record is just as much and kind of even more about the sound of Ellis as more then half of the score is instrumental, which is very fine by us. The playing and mood is as good and at times even more grand and gorgeous then recent Dirty Three outings which of course we always adore. When Cave does step to the mic it's the more subtle and creepy and less crooning side of his delivery which for the mood of this record works so perfectly. Can't tell you anything about the film The Proposition but we can tell you the music in it is pretty damn stunning!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Melancholy song-action from Nick and co. Some say his best of recent years.
REPRESSED, AND NOW HERE ON VINYL TO LIST!!
This is the first thing we've seen from Tim Gane after Stereolab announced they would be on "indefinite hiatus" back in 2009 (though there was a previous album from his newly conceived Cavern Of Anti-Matter project in 2013 on an obscure German label, with not much in the way of Stateside distribution). Cavern Of Anti-Matter is primarily an instrumental trio featuring Joe Dilworth (the drummer from Stereolab) and analog synth wrangler Holger Zapf; and this should not disappoint any Stereolab fan whatsoever, as the band follows the motorik / Krautrock / experimental art-pop continuum that Stereolab mastered on Emperor Tomato Ketchup. The trio effortless weaves blorping electronic sequences, hypnotically chimed guitar melodies, and a spry array of machined drums, while tactfully marching through electro-grooves and bubble-pop, space-age disco. Two guest vocalists are to be found on the album, with Sonic Boom delivering sermonized monotone and vocoder dislocation amidst burbling motorik grooviness reminiscent of the Groop at their best; however, the appearance of Deerhunter's Bradford Cox crooning on his track is nothing to write home about, but it's only two minutes out of what should be seen a formidable return to form for Tim Gane!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Six tracks in seventeen minutes from Japan's mysterious Cavo, who just happen to be labelmates of the amazing (and amazingly monickered) Bathtub Shitter, and feature a member of Corrupted! The first two tracks are a bit misleading, a hazy pagan ritual of gutteral almost-throat singing, temple bells and slow chants. Reminds us a bit of Ghost or Comus. But the ritual quickly grow in intensity until it's a chaotic swirl of tribal drums, shouted vocals, sludgy low end, repetitive riffs, and thick viscous ambience. Like a primitive mix of the Boredoms and Crash Worship. The tribal melee continues, interrupted briefly with one more ambient interlude, all low end rumble and groaning vocalisations, sounding like Keiji Haino with strep throat fronting Earth. Toward the end of the record the sludge coalesces into a weirdly catchy Viking style sing-a-long, lots of WOOOAH OOH OHHH's until things wind down in a truly creepy ritual of spoken female vocals, clapping, manic chanting, shouts, screams and whistles. Comus meets the Boredoms? The Wickerman performed by Corrupted? Boris covers the Incredible String Band? More amazing and baffling Japanese weirdness!
The current homogenization and "clean up" of San Francisco has caused many of its coolest bands to depart, leaving many of us starved for the true weirdness and drugged out sounds of the city we fell in love with. But for the last few years, CCR Headcleaner have been one of a handful of groups helping keep San Francisco weird and warped, whipping up their dirty, scuzzy rock and roll. Loads of aQ customers freaked out over the totally helter-skelter sounds of the Viles lp by Jealousy a few years back, and it just so happens that the musical wonder/weirdo behind that that project is also at the helm of CCR Headcleaner (which also includes members of late great garage-noise misfits the Hospitals!).
With an acid-baked aesthetic that feels totally natural and never forced, CCR Headcleaner excel at creating damaged, synapse-frying rock that definitely seems to be channeling Royal Trux in their drug addled prime. These guys sound like they were weaned on the 13th Floor Elevators as much as Stiv Bators, Swell Maps and various '70s outsiders like Todd Tamanend Clark. Recorded with JR from Girls, Cokesmoker is a perfect bleary, blurry introduction to the band, and one that has us eagerly anticipating the forthcoming full length they're recording with Ty Segall!
Lily Cedar's debut album is comprised of nine pastel-hued tunes -- sweet and pretty like a bouquet of buttercream icing roses. From the fuzzy-soft female singing to the thoughtful guitar strumming, everything is ultra light and wistful with an air of daydreamy innocence. Very much in the K Records / Olympia, WA lo-fi pop camp.
We barely knew anything about Andrew Cedermark, other than that his record is on Underwater Peoples, whose releases we tend to dig, and that he was in Titus Andronicus, a band we never really liked all that much. In this case, it seems UP trumps TA, cuz this is a gorgeous slab of home brewed noisy shoegazey twang flecked dream pop. The production is super hot, a little blown out, the guitars buzz and jangle, the drums are distorted, but super minimal, and the songs, while somewhat understated and minimal, are peppered with bursts of distorted guitar, or lush squalls of swirling psychedelia, or blasts of sun dappled noisiness.
Simple steel string guitars, and plaintive vocals drift beneath clouds of explosive prismatic guitar, the drums locked into an almost techno like pulse. The sounds crashing and chaotic, but still warm and lush and melodic. Rocking yet introspective, these songs build slowly and then gloriously crumble before our ears, alternatingly personal and intimate, ramshackle and rambunctious, often impossibly swerving between the two, swoonsome garage rock collides with precious dreamfolk, before blossoming into a fantastical effects drenched noise pop. Synths add strange sireny color to some of the tracks, wood block percussion and tinkling chimes do as well, and it's precisely the balance between Cedermark's earnest and heartfelt pop songs, and his fractured kitchen sink soundscaping, that make Moon Deluxe so goddamn good. Hard to think of bands to compare this too, which is definitely a good thing, just listen to the sound samples, we're betting you'll be as smitten as we are...
Members of Unsane and Oxbow team up for some heavy, ugly avant rock, as you might expect!
The cool photos of the synths on the cover, and the band name might be enough for some synth obsessives, without any further coaxing. But also note the label: Sun Ark, home to Sun Araw. And that's who's on here: Cameron Stallones of way out dub masters Sun Araw (and Magic Lantern, let's not forget his other great psych outfit) with several of his usual cohorts, including M. Geddes Gengras. We only have the vaguest notion of the story behind this project - apparently there's a multimedia cultural center in Rotterdam called The Worm, and they have quite a collection of synthesizers, and they let Stallones et. al. have at 'em last year, and thus The Celebrate Music Synthesizer Group was born. Or something like that. Dunno if it's a one-off or what, but the sprawling double vinyl (-only) lp that has resulted is pretty nice, if gurgling whoosh and burbling bleep and rhythmic Geiger-counter clicks and other classic "synth noises" are what floats your boat. With cryptic track titles like "4P4C Slack" and "Worm = Spice" this is tech-head retro-proto-techno music, for gear lovin' sci-fi nerds, for sure! If the Creel Pone crowd went clubbin' this is the kind of synth jammage that they'd wanna get down to.
Lighter (less savage?) and more varied in tone than their 2005 debut, Celebration's The Modern Tribe possesses the druggy woozy spin of an old carousel planted very ceremoniously in the midst of a wee hours cabaret. The band has definitely honed their chops and their sound. Multi-instrumentalist Sean Antanaitis' saxophones and organ snake their way around Katrina Ford's throatily expressive vocals while David Bergander pounds out a, yes, tribal beat. Highlights include songs like "Hands Off My Gold" which seems deeply inspired by the manic genius escapades of Oingo Boingo. The band seem like they'd be just as at home in veils by a wild bonfire or ensconced in a candlelit bordello. Heck, they'd be at home anywhere alongside their comrades TV On The Radio and Yeah Yeah Yeahs (whose members make guest appearances here). Tempestuous to say the least!
Celebration features former members of Baltimore's anguished depressives Love Life who've brought an ample dose of volatile darkness to their new band. Although their more rollicking paced songs may bring them within spitting distance of current bands such as Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, methinks this heady band would like to lead you down a very different path than those predominantly 'up' sounding bands. Definitely more sinister and far less of a 'good time'. Slightly unhinged and perhaps intoxicated by some mysterious elixirs (Not boozily drunk, mind you! If that's what you're seeking, you should check out the latest Silver Jews album). If you like the formidable but sadly defunct band Pleasure Forever (or their predecessors Slaves and VSS), you're probably already familiar with these folks as they've shared plenty of stages... and if you're not, well, you should be! Jagged post-punk guitars and propulsive drumbeats slash through squalls from the organ and saxophone while lead singer Katrina Ford's howls, moans and slurs her blood-red vocals. Yeah, it's pretty darn great!
We listed a fairly expensive vinyl reissue of this not too long ago, but just managed to track down some copies of the double compact disc version too, for those of you who would prefer that format...
One of our most popular Records Of The Week of recent vintage was the double cd by ambitious UK ensemble the Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere, and in our review of that we mentioned this, an unjustly obscure classic from the early '70s, a joyous symphonic jazz prog outpouring from another HUGE ensemble, that the UOA reminded us of just a bit - it probably was one of their inspirations, in fact. Centipede was a robust 50-piece orchestra, lead by composer Keith Tippett, featuring a host of rock and jazz musicians from the Canterbury scene (Robert Wyatt wrote the original liner notes), including members of King Crimson, Soft Machine, and Nucleus. Heroically recorded & produced by King Crimson's Robert "Bob" Fripp, Septober Energy was originally released in 1971 (yep), and has now been reissued by Klimt in a gatefold sleeve on double vinyl, that barely contains this sprawling, vibrant masterpiece, which morphs continually through jazz and prog and 20th century avant classical idioms, incorporating droning wordless vocal choirs, violin and cello scrape and skitter, crazed crescendos of jabbering kecak-like chant, delicate piano passages, masses of trumpets, saxes, and trombones, and more... Imagine William Sheller's Lux Aeterna album with a whole bunch of Albert Aylers on board, maybe, especially with Centipede's dynamic shifts from driftingly pleasant melodic horn passages to total free jazz freakout to righteous, swinging "hairy funk" grooves. Moments might possibly get too "fusiony" for some folks, but not for us though.
Fripp was supposed to play guitar, but instead he was too busy with his recording duties, so the fat fuzz riffery that occasionally appears comes courtesy of Brian Godding of Blossom Toes (who, even more germane to this music, later on played with Magma!). There's also lyrics by (and singing from) Tippett's then-wife Julie, who now actually often collaborates with UOA's Martin Archer, see.
Ok first of all, let it be known that this band contains many Chicagoans who also play in such outfits as Town and Country, US Maple, Chicago Underground Trio, Brokeback, Manishevitz, and Lofty Pillars. But before you go writing them off like I (Windy)
Super limited one sided live lp from these psychedelic headz. One sidelong blown out dub drenched psych rock heavy freakout, a dense layer of blurred buzz and sprawled static riffage oozes into thick billowing clouds, over which the drummer lays down a heavy groove, spare but seriously powerful, the instrumental backdrop isn't so much riff and rhythm as it is heavy swirls of sound, pulsing and driving. We weren't actually expecting vocals, but they bubble to the surface, heavily effected, doused in delay and reverb an echo, occasionally dubbed like crazy, the last word of a line spend spinning into the murk, it seems like an obvious homage to Japanese psychedelic heavies Les Rallizes Denudes, this jam has the same sort of loose feel, the vocals weirdly feral and abstract, all of the various sounds gradually seeming to blur into one heaving wall of churning psych, total drugged out zoner bliss, and as the track/side progresses, the band seem to gradually crank the sound, louder, faster, more frantic, everything cranked, even the vocals, wilder and more maniacal, all building to a frenzied final freakout. Super rad. Obviously fans of Burnt Hills, Carlton Melton, White Hills, The Heads, and all of those sort of psych combos will flip for this. Housed in an old school black and white bootleg style paste on sleeve, with a photocopied insert. And super limited, as in LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
Cerberus Shoal's newest offering is a slow, strange, earthy beauty. On each of the ten ever-shifting avant-folk songs (some quite lengthy jams), notes from the horns, flutes and mellotron (we're guessin') slink and slide hypnotically while percussion comes in the form of warm melodic wood block tapping. The ensemble singing and chanting conjured images of a pagan ritual conducted by Brian Eno. Bastion Of Itchy Preeves is a precarious balance of the dissonant and the delicate.
Look out, Windy's got a new favorite band, and it's Cerberus Shoal. Never mind that I'm a latecomer to the group -- "Crash My Moon Yacht" is their _fifth_ album -- it's never too late to experience the crashing beauty that is Cerberus Shoal. High time, too, as this band, who live and make music together in Portland, Maine, has been grievously overlooked throughout their career.
On such Western and ethnic instruments as bowed guitar, balalaika, flute, trumpet, dholak, woodblocks, oud, quena, radios, whistles, electric bass, hammond organ, xylophone, etc, Cerberus Shoal plays a stretched out, intense yet langurous blend of mostly-instrumental drone-rock similar to many of the bands AQ knows and loves. They're equally epic and emotional as Godspeed You Black Emperor, but less weepy. They're as careful as Tarentel, yet much more complex. As for other groups who feature ethnic instrumentation, Cerberus offers a worthy challenge: far more consistent than the spotty Sun City Girls, they don't try to wrestle their ouds, djembes and congas into pop song structures like Macha does, and they're more accessible and varied than Pelt. Without meaning to slight any of those groups, hopefully comparisons will make it clear to you just how amazing and worthy of your time this group is. Live and on record, the band displays amazing restraint -- although the stage is crowded with dozens of instruments, at any one time only 3 or 4 distinct sounds will be in play, making for any number of possible sonic combinations, all the while keeping the music simple and utterly respectful of each instrument's unique timbre. There are even parts that remind us of music as disparate as Boards of Canada and prog rock, that's how evocative it is. Very late night soundscape-y. I can't say enough good things about this band. If you've got the patience and the desire for meaningful music that's as substantive as it is lovely, Cerberus Shoal will make you so happy.
Please note that we also have in stock "Homb" (on Temporary Residence), Cerberus' breathtaking fourth album and Caleb's (Cerberus' frontman) own personal favorite.
The always-inventive Maine collective releases a two-song cd single for those who can't wait for their next album. Although Cerberus' strongest moments are its multilayered instrumental climaxes that come after several minutes of murky, evocative
