One of the great things about doing our list, is reviewing reissues of stuff we LOVE that we never got to list before. Old faves from the pre-list days. Of course, it's always tough too, when you want to explain just WHY something is so amazing and essential. When it's a record you've loved for years and years, there's a lot of pressure to do it justice. This list, for instance, you'll find our review of Oxbow's King Of The Jews, These Trails, and surely a few other old faves, this Nels Cline album most definitely among them, and its hard not to just say, in all caps, BUY THIS DAMMIT, YOU WON'T BE SORRY, IT'S THE BEST!!!
That's our feeling about this for sure. The very first Nels Cline album we came across, and the first by his Trio, originally released on Enja in 1992, out of print for ages, now finally reissued in a spiffy new digipack. Nels Cline then was an underground jazz guitarist, who has since become an alt-rock guitar guy too, playing in Wilco, and with Thurston Moore, Mike Watt, Carla Bozulich, and others, amassing a diverse and impressive discography.
Silencer is "jazz" all right, and jazz too, without the quotes. Ten tracks, epic and exquisite instrumentals, full of out-there skree and sublime beauty, performed by Nels on guitars, with Michael Prusser on drums and Mark London Sims on bass.
This album eases the listener in, beginning with a take on Gil Evans' "Las Vegas Tango" (all the other tracks are Cline compositions), that's just lovely, Cline's guitar with soft edges on it... then as the album progresses, the "dangerous" side of his playing is revealed. The soft edges remain, but there's jagged ones too. But even when things get tangled and noisy, it's gorgeous, and still swings. The trio has great chemistry, it's not just all about Cline's guitar (though he's definitely the star). Some highlights: the bumptious "Broasted" (which gets heavy/distorted enough to almost pass for a Stinking Lizaveta track!), the spacious 14+ minute "Lapsing (Part 1&2)", the subtle skronk of "Silencer", and the moody hum/hush of "Exiled" (one we think Bohren fans would appreciate)...
This came out not long after the late, great guitarist Sonny Sharrock's final, brilliant album Ask The Ages (which really needs to be reissued too!!), we'd probably just discovered him about the same time we got clued into Cline. If you like Sharrock, Cline is certainly one of his spiritual descendants, in the realm of "free" "jazz" "fusion".
Maybe 'cause it was our first Nels disc, but also 'cause it's so good, this has always been our favorite, though you can't go wrong with anything the man has ever done as far as we're concerned. So very recommended, as if you couldn't tell already.
Clinic are a band who hit the scene with such a refreshing splash of perfected art-rock a decade ago and while they haven't really released anything bad, it can be argued that they did make the same record several times and the freshness that we once felt had turned a bit stale. But with Bubblegum the band seems to have injected a bit of new life and explored a broader sound palette to add to their distinctive sound. And while we can't deny that these songs sound cool there's still something that seems to be missing, that keeps us from getting too excited.
While our #1 Clinic fan (Sadie) is out on the road, we're gonna try our best to give you the word on the new Clinic release in her absence. This 3-song EP's title track comes from their most recent full length Walking With Thee and is accompanied by two non-album tracks. "Circle I" is really speedy garage-punk number that's just over a minute and a half long (note: this song is not included on the vinyl version). Frantic buzzsaw guitar and Ade Blackburn's sly guy vocals. Think the Cramps meet the Violent Femmes meet Plastic Bertrand. The third song is called "Christmas" and shows the Clinic's gentler side - slowing things down considerably with its strolling pace kept in time by clip-clop woodblock. Happy holidays in May? Heck, why not?
Having never really concerned myself with reading NME or Melody Maker, I'd have no idea if the hipster cliques at those two UK rags are raving about Clinic. But I'd be willing to put money (like a dollar or two) down that they are. Clinic emulates the avant-pop of The Fall but with a wavering vocalist much closer to the guy from Long Fin Killie. Potentially the second coming of the Beta Band. Import (hot hot hot).
Man, I am so into this band right now! This CD is a compilation featuring the tracks from the group's first three 7"s ("The Voot", "Monkey On Your Back" and "Cement Mixer" originally issued in 1997 on the Aladdins' Cave of Golf label). Clinic are four groovy
Clinic will never be accused of drastically changing their sound. In fact their last few records kind of turn into a blur as it's hard to distinguish one from the other. That said they have their sound down to a science and do it very well. Visitations is another album of short concise songs that blast their way into that driving, foot stomping territory that they've become known for. Kind of like if Can were still around and had to make records for the A.D.D. generation, requiring all the songs to be around 3 minutes, catchy and to the point. We still think Clinic are a really good band, and this is by no means a bad record, it's actually pretty great, we just wish they would push themselves a bit and explore some new territory.
Ah... at last the second full length record from this fucking amazing band from Liverpool. Driving, hectic drums, sinister vocals, Moogs, and either clarinet or melodica weave a sonic landscape of dance-y smartness, or smarty dance-ness. Obviously heavily
Their third full-length album, Winchester Cathedral offers a cohesion of the Clinic formula encouraging fan fidelity with their terrifically taut rhythm section (in the vein of This Heat) with North England-style folk arrangement and instrumentation and of course, Ade Blackburn's Liverpudlian-ly sexy vocals. Clinic seems to have honed their sound to a level of maturity and self-confidence that turns down a little of the art-angst heard in previous releases. Can't wait to see where they go from here!
Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres from Cornershop doing blippy offhanded material nobody here was impressed with. Sorry. Buyer beware.
If we didn't know better, we might have thought this was a new release on Load. At least at first. It's got moments of jumbled atonality and sonic chaos, super distorted vocals, spastic drums, furious crunch and grind. BUT, it also has a really intense moody pop element. Sort of gothy and dark, with throbbing low slung bass, tribal drumming, and crooned super emotive vocals, often heavily effected and sent careening though thick clouds of reverb or dubbed out delay. It also sounds a bit new wave, propulsive and herky jerky, almost danceable at times. Imagine Joy Division or the Birthday Party as young noise rockers circa 2007, if they had grown up on the East Coast, were raised on noise rock and toured with Lightning Bolt and Usaisamonster. Super dramatic and dense, epic and tribal�
As the record progresses the pop element seeps into even the noisiest moments, sounding more and more like Duran Duran or Icicle Works yanked out of the safe confines of their new-romantic/new-wave world and thrust into some strange modern world of noise rock and post-post-dance-punk. Pretty cool.
A bird of a different feather has joined the formerly very electrono-art-brat-centric label Tigerbeat6. Now based in Oakland, CA these former Minnesotans' sound is one of molasses-thick, raw, churning goth-industrial and post-punk. On this their second release (their first on Tigerbeat6), Clipd Beaks are heavy on the dank gloom and murk, leaving little room for breath. A full length is promised soon. Cool stuff.
In 2012, Vinyl On Demand published the first Horology box set from Clock DVA, a compendium of the early, self-published cassettes on the projects on Dvation imprint before they released White Souls In Black Suits on Industrial Records in 1980. There were six lps to that box set, and it proved to be an uneven collection with Clock DVA venturing into Crowleyian collage and electronic ritual on some of those recordings and more of a mutation of dank post-punk on others. While Crowley's influence can be felt throughout most all of the Clock DVA / Adi Newton discography, these were the weakest elements of Horology, with those albums of sludgy electronics and creep-crawling rhythms making for a very interesting precursor to the art-funk constructions on White Souls In Black Suits. 2nd stands out as the best of the albums from Horology, taking up this latter style of zombified synth-punk played at a slow-motion torpor. Think the earliest Cabaret Voltaire or Throbbing Gristle in their SixSixSixties vein, completely with spectral guitar meanderings, distorto-bass lines, and blank-stare atmospherics. So, very glad that this has been made available as a stand-alone album, given the unevenness of the full box set.
Latest blast of swampy, bluesy, clock-cleaning noise rock crush from these Philly noiseniks, who originally sounded way more noisy, channeling the Dead C and Harry Pussy through their twisted stumbling sonic chaos, but have gradually been shifting toward a sound that's more gothic and grim, and like we mentioned above, swampy and bluesy, situating them somewhere amidst nineties AmRep-ers like Lubricated Goat and King Snake Roost, not to mention some Swans, a little Damned, even some Misfits, but their sound is definitely all their own, mixing in some Western twang, some spidery angular psychedelic guitars, and a weirdly dour new wave vibe. They're barely recognizable as the same band, but we dig the new Clockcleaner as much as the old Clockcleaner, just for different reasons. This new CC sound like they could tour with the reformed Swans or Nick Cave's Grinderman, or Woven Hand, they have that same sort of slithery filthy blues vibe, the vocals especially, now, totally deep and dramatic, the first three tracks on this 4 song ep are total gothic swam blues, and should have folks who dig Nick Cave, the Holy Kiss, HTRK and the like all in a tizzy, but it's the record closer "Midnight Beach" that really has us thrown for a loop, Clockcleaner impossibly sounding like a dead ringer for Interpol. Yep, sure crustier and a bit more lo-fi, but the new wave croon sound remarkably like Interpol's Paul Banks, and the arrangement, the melodies, even the tripped out heavily effected guitars sound almost electronic. At first it was a little unnerving, but now we're loving it. And hell, as much as we dig Interpol, who can argue with a dirtier, more low fidelity noise rock version. We sure as heck can't...
Maybe the most aptly named band ever? Weird that when we first stumbled on Clockcleaner, it was in our search for more music from damaged drug addled caveman noisemakers the Violent Students, but it seems Clockcleaner is now the more viable band, with the VS sort of fading away, with only one proper record we know of. And where the sound of the Violent Students was more of a massive frontal lobe melting cacophony, Clockcleaner seemed to take that same aesthetic, and apply it to actual songs, the poppier Dr. Jeckyl to the Violent Students' Mr. Hyde...
And right off the bat, Clockcleaner up the ante with maybe their best song ever. A dense propulsive, grungy, filthy, swampy stomp, a malevolent, lascivious and lurching Swans slither, an ominous stumble and plod over Morricone Western twang, reverbed surf guitar, growled baritone vocals, sounding straight out of late eighties NY noise underground Copshootcop, the Swans, everything bathed in reverb, and swirling alien FX, bizarre little bits of melody... And the record sort of goes from there, adding damaged Jerry Lee Lewis piano pound, crumbling chest rattling bass, slippery drunken slide guitar, more super dramatic crooned vocals, still more reverb and effects, the whole thing a sort of hellish end of the world swing, plenty of groove, but gnarled and convoluted, dangerous and drunken, reminding us quite a bit of Lubricated Goat, King Snake Roost even Nick Cave, a blackened noise flecked confusional cabaret. Awesome.
Killer tape-faced cover art too...
Latest blast of post punk noise rock mayhem from this Violent Students offshoot. For those of you who may not remember, the Violent Students are a crazy, druggy damaged noise rock behemoth, a stumbling Butthole Surfers-esque freerock what the fuck glorious mess that we went totally nuts for.
We later discovered a few of those Students also did time in a band called Clockcleaner, who ended up totally cleaning our clocks (ahem) but for a whole different reason, their strange nineties indie noise rock, shoulda-been-on-AmRep stun and pummel completely hit the pot, and pushed all those dusty buttons bands like the Cows and the God Bullies and Lubricated Goat used to push.
So here we have a brand new 7" ep from these musical miscreants, and it's a bit of surprise. The A side is total post punk new wave pop, or something, propulsive jangly guitars, simple drumming, yelped vocals, we're hearing tons of the Misfits and the Damned... sort of new wave art pop, but filthier and a little more lo-fi, and it's awesome! Noisy and hooky and super duper catchy.
But before you start screaming sell out, flip the disc over and we're back into nineties aggro post punk snarl and swagger, echoey clangy guitars, thick chunks of angular noise rock, keening guitars, reverbed vocals, lots of scrape and wail, and we love it. These guys kick serious ass, wrapping you in a nineties style Halo Of Flies while simultaneously dipping you head in a good old fashioned bucket of new wave jangle!!
Plus "Frogrammer"? How rad a title is that for a song?!?!
Clockcleaner are the slightly less unhinged offshoot of the truly demented and damaged garage-noise-sludge combo the Violent Students. The recently released Clockcleaner cd was a killer flashback to the good ol' Amphetamine Reptile days, when we were all rocking to the Cows, the God Bullies, King Snake Roost, Lubricated Goat, Halo Of Flies. These guys sound like they were somehow transported from Minneapolis in 1995 to right here right now. And we fucking love it. I think when we reviewed the cd we said they sounded like the Cars meets Flipper which sounds fucked but pretty great too. This 7" feature an alternate version of our favorite song on the cd and an unreleased B-side. The cool thing is on this 7" the band are way slower and sludgier and filthier sounding, so instead of sounding like Scratch Acid or the Jesus Lizard, they sort of sound like Green River mixed with the Birthday Party. This alternate version of "Missing Dick" is a creeped-out blues crawl, with weird keening guitars, a way more lo-fi production and vocal totally doused in echo. Not as rocking as the other version, but so much more fucked up sounding.
The B side is super scary and dark, angular guitar lines over a simple plodding drum, with an INSANE growled/yowled vocal rant. Eventually the band kicks in HARD with a wild burst of fuzzy downtuned guitar growl, and launches into a sort of menacing post punk swagger that totally hits the spot.
A few lists back we went apeshit over some mysterious band of musical miscreants called the Violent Students, who made an unholy din like we hadn't heard since the glory days of the Butthole Surfers. Damaged and filthy and freaked out, a druggy chaotic punk sludge mess that just totally blew our minds. We recently discovered that some of those very same Students were doing time in the band Clockcleaner so we figured we oughta check them out as well, and so glad we did! For CC, the all out chaos has been reeled in a bit and while the result is less fractured and less completely unhinged, it's still pretty demented and manic, but way more song oriented with some KILLER riffs. When we first threw this one, the first thing we thought was the Cars meet Flipper. Which pretty much describes our dream band. But the more we listened the more we felt like we were slipping back in time, to that special moment, that only lasted a few years, where the Amphetamine Reptile label could do no wrong. Clockcleaner could easily have existed right there between the God Bullies, Halo Of Flies, Lubricated Goat, King Snake Roost and all the rest. The record starts off with some weirdly eighties metal riffing, like the intro to some Ratt song, before the whiney Jello like vocals kick in, and the whole thing lurches into action with plenty of Buttholes tribal pound, Jesus Lizard groove and a decade's (the nineties) worth of Amphetamine fueled fury. Plus some amazing song titles ("Missing Dick", "Gentle Swastika", "Interview With A Black Man", "Blood Driver") and some problematic poop smeared cover art, but they had us at the Cars meet Flipper!
Once there was the Dwarves. Now there's Clockcleaner. Similarly abrasive and snotty and puerile and oft banned, but where the Dwarves spat out short bursts of pop punk doused in liquid acid and then dusted with coke, Clockcleaner are a much weirder and much more unpredictable entity. Less punk sonically maybe, but no less punk spiritually.
Here, CC offer up twangy guitars, crooned dramatic vocals, frantic drumming, and all sorts of cool space-y FX, not to mention some demented lyrics. Within the song proper, there's a long stretch of super tripped out weirdness, with effects swirling everywhere and even some horns. There's a definite Lubricated Goat / King Snake Roost vibe going on, which is never a bad thing.
The flipside is a cover, by Australian punks X (not to be confused with the more well known L.A. X (get it?), a track called "Hate City" which according to the sleeve, the band couldn't understand the lyrics so they just made their own. But the song suits them, with crunchy guitars, growled howled vocals that slip into a strangled whine and then back again, and another killer bunch of unexpected horns.
And it is Clockcleaner, so even though the record is called Skinheaded Lady, the cover features a grainy old photograph of a nun. These were also apparently tour only 7"s, we got the last copies direct from the band, so odds are these will be the last ones we ever see.
Portuguese trance-rockers Clockwork have done a remarkable job in mirroring the motorik pulse of the earliest Stereolab recordings. In hiring Rafael Toral (who may be Lisbon's answer to Lee Ranaldo) for production and additional instrumentation, the band packs a lot more of a sonic punch than the majority of Stereolab-wannabes (and even the recent rigor mortis heard on the last few Stereolab albums).
Such pretty somber sounds! Instrumentals (sans one track with vocals) that so nicely travel through classical landscapes, while dipping feet in chamber arrangements and post rock bliss. Strings, piano, percussion, melodica, ukulele, bassoon are just some of the instruments Clogs employ in churning out their beautiful sounds. While two of the members of Clogs also do time in the rock outfit The National we have to see we prefer this side of their music output so much more. Every time we've played this in the store it gets such a strong immediate reaction from customers. They always remark on how beautiful it is and we must say that we totally agree.
This is another one of those records, that's almost too good, and too weird, to be true. Especially coming as it does from the Dead-Cert label, run by weirdo music obsessive Andy Votel. In fact, based on the description, AND the sound, we were pretty much convinced that this had to be Votel himself conjuring up some imaginary lost sonic artifact. How could it not be? Son Of Octabred is/was apparently a 'birthing' record, as in an album to assist/instruct with giving birth (?), recorded on primitive analog synths and 'originally broadcast' on a radio show in Anchorage, Alaska - its sound a strange hybrid of kosmische synthscapery, spaced out kraut-psych, minimal dronemusic, and percolating early electronica. But once again, whether it's all true or not, almost doesn't matter: if it IS true, what a ridiculous and impossibly WTF find, and if it's NOT, well, goddamn, total brilliant art prank / fictional sound conjuration.
The record begins with a female voice instructing the listener to breath and push, with some strangely poetic descriptions of having a baby, then a man's voice talks weirdly about 'his pregnancy', before in swoop some space synths, and we're off, on a cosmic journey, some alien planetarium show, swirling percolations, swooping FX, shifting textures, playful melodies, there's definitely a sort of John Carpenter / Klaus Schulze vibe, pulsing kraut-psych gives way to weird vocodered vocals, not singing so much as just humming/crooning more textures, and again if this is real, it's hard to imagine just flipping on the radio in the middle of the night and hearing THIS. Or, being born, and hearing it! Crazy.
The sound soon erupts into something much more sinister, thick swells of swirling shadowy rumbles, and staticky clouds of hiss, all over buried voices and keening melodies, some serious black ambience for sure, that sounds like birthing music for Rosemary's Baby. The flipside returns to the playful percolation of the opening, sounding a bit like Perrey & Kingsley, before devolving into a weird sprawl of dubby gamelan like percussion, and strangely processed abstract rhythms, all floating in the ether, before a Close Encounter synth melody surfaces, swopping wildly from speaker to speaker, the whole thing dizzying and seriously trippy, before once again drifting into darker sonic territory, some ominous shadowy drift, that eventually returns to the light, for a final bout of bouncy bloopy synthiness and one final burst of wild tangled psych-synth freakout. So cool, and so weird. Real or not, we love it! ----* ----* Highlights : ----*
It makes perfect sense that Closer To Carbon would qualify their experimental-chamber-pop opus II as 'scores for unmade films.' All of these instrumental numbers enjoy a theatrical sentiment, as expressed through a variety of strings plus a cavalcade of junkstore objects whose offkiltered quirkiness add many a Tom Waits / Sleepytime Gorilla Museum reference. When not exploring the eccentrically cinematic, Closer To Carbon finds themselves in much darker waters, more comparable to the maudlin Victorian waltzes of Rasputina.
The local label Out of Round has been laboring quietly in the background, not calling a lot of attention to itself yet turning out record after record that are consistently of similar mood -- due to the fact that they all play on each others recordings. The homegrown label's "sound", then, is one of a grimy circus atmosphere, like Fellini's La Strada if it was set in some dusty corner of an urban American metropolis. There are lots of slowed down polkas and depressed waltz time-signatures, dour vocals, sad accoridans, and dolefully plucked guitars. Great mood music for the Tom Waits fan in all of us who feels like Waits is just too hip for his own good these days.
Check out www.outofroundrecords.com -- we carry all of their releases. For a limited time only, get an out of Round Records label sampler free with purchase of this disc.
Another awesome French pop chanteuse gets resurrected from obscurity, thanks to the Born Bad label. Clothilde (whom we first heard through those awesome Sixties Girls and Swinging Mademoiselle comps of femme French pop) was the stage name of Elizabeth Beauvais, the daughter of an actress and writer who, despite wanting to follow her mother into the acting world, was pushed instead into the music business by producer Germinal Tenas.
Tenas, a producer known for arrangements involving unusual instrumentation, signed her to Vogue Records in the mid-sixties and rechristened her after the beloved medieval Queen and Saint instrumental in bringing Catholicism to France. Clothilde only recorded two eps for the Vogue label in 1967 (both captured here) before becoming fed up by the business and leaving it for good. Which really is tragic, because these are some of the most infectious French pop tracks we have heard in a while with swinging arrangements peppered with marimbas, flutes, violins, bells and Farfisas. Clothilde co-wrote a couple of tracks herself and they were noted for their shocking (at the time) use of sexual double entendres, perhaps adding to the sex-kitten image she really didn't want to have. Thus an untimely end of what could have been a promising singing career. Like so many French pop obscurities, we're thankful for the labor of love that goes into making sure these great tracks see the light of day once again!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This underground Japanese band surprised and delighted us with this crazy fuzzed-out stoner-rock meets grind metal release. Clotted Symmetric Sexual Organ (let's just call 'em CSSO) really kick 'em out, wallowing in total wahwah-happy heavy psych guitar overdrive. It's wild and distorted and super-energetic, a blend of '60s garage, '70s hard rock, and '90s noise-thrash. Forget Acid Mothers Temple, this is the real Japanese freak-beat! Indeed, CSSO could learn Kawabata Makoto a thing or two about over-the-top motorpsycho guitar. Imagine AMT or High Rise with a garagey Guitar Wolf edge, going nuts with that style of psychedelic freakout, then breaking into a speedy grind part with blast beats and cookie monster vocals! It's like a weird, wonderful mix of The Groundhogs and Napalm Death or something. When CSSO's stoner/grind rock attack isn't going full-tilt they throw in spacey sections of shoegazing drone tones, trippy electronics, and other cosmic krautrock inspired soundz -- sometimes sheer, blissful noise. Then it's back to the catchy rockin' stuff, like Hendrix gone grind. Like AMT or the Boredoms, they can be quite playful and confounding -- for instance, one song features what might be the world's longest fade-in, it's two minutes before you can really hear anything at all!
Partially 'cause this was so unexpected (we thought they might be a good but generic grindcore band) but also because it's so great, this just totally blew us away. A new favorite in the long line of genre-bending, rule-defying bands from Japan (Boredoms, Melt Banana, Boris, et. al.), and thus highly recommended!
Okay, so we have to admit that the first time we listened to this album, a customer was playing the Rastan game at the front of the store. The music from both sources somehow got enmeshed and became one crazy adventure soundtrack!
On its own, Cloud Archive's first album Left The Bright Opening... has its own fair share of epic dynamics. The band draws from some very familiar instrumental post rock traditions -- the loud/quiet bursts, the hypnotic cyclical guitar and basslines -- but they avoid the obstacles of triteness and redundancy. Sometimes it seems like the guitars are escaping in a getaway car separate from the rest of the band, but hang on tight, they weave and roam and find each other again. A terrific debut.
We loved the last record from these Cleveland fuzz poppers, likening their sound to groups like Yuck, Telekinesis, the Disciplines, all bands they shared space with on the aQ list, sharing also a combination of perfect pop jangle, fuzzy shoegaze, and woozy new wave, with a tendency toward bouncy frenetic almost punky pop
But something seems to have happened to these guys since that last record, cuz Attack On Memory is a much darker affair, in fact opener "No Future/No Past" is a dense minor key brooder, all pounding tribal drums, and spidery guitars, the singing raspy and a bit anguished, underpinned with strange deep almost chantlike background vocals, as well as droned out rumbles and layered buzz, and as the song progresses, the vocals get more and more blown out, becoming a near shriek, and pushing the sound into an almost emo/screamo direction, which totally suits them. It's definitely the darkest creepiest jam here, but that darkness and creepiness does seem to settle over all the proceedings, even the second track, which is much more intense and rocking, still oozes menace, sounding like a meaner more intense Strokes, there's plenty of jangle and hooks, but it's all wreathed in droned out guitars, and it is a nearly nine minute song, so the band are constantly stretching out into full on freaked out heavy psych blowouts, that we just don't remember from past record. In fact, we'd go so far as to say these guys sound pretty fucking fierce, and downright heavy, a sort of psychedelic post punk jangle pop, that while bears some things in common with other groups we dig, definitely puts it all together in a way that we've rarely heard, and it's a potent combination for sure. As the record unfurls, the group definitely slip into the sounds that defined their old record, and it still sounds as good as ever, but it's those tinges of darkness, and the more guitar heavy sound, that really make this into something else entirely. WAY recommended for sure!
Cleveland's Cloud Nothings began life as fuzzy jangle poppers, but even in those early days, the group displayed a knack for not just crafting killer hooks, but also for being pretty adept and serious psychedelic noisiness and blown out bombast, which all came to a head with their most recent full length, Attack On Memory, which was way darker and noisier than anything that came before. If anything, this new one splits the difference, still heavily indebted to that classic nineties indie/college rock sound, Cloud Nothings make it their own, crafting noisy, poppy gems that slip easily from hooky, fuzzy crunch, to wild, blown out shoegaze noise rock pound. Opener "Now Hear In" sounds like something you could have heard on the radio back in the day, roughed up a bit and doused in distortion. Which when we think about it pretty much describes the whole record. If you love that sound, and as we've established by now, most of us do, then Here And Nowhere Else is about as good as it gets, a perfect approximation of that sound, but cranked to high heaven, rife with impossible hooks, raspy vocal howl, wild tangled of buzzy guitars, sheets of noisy distortion, wild chaotic drumming, some tracks slowing it down a bit, but even those seem to always eventually explode into full on frantic and frenetic noise rock blowouts, that like on Attack On Memory, often verge on total emo/screamo, and all with a bit of gothy, gloominess running throughout, which means fans of Interpol, Ceremony, Holograms, Iceage and the like will dig this too.
Closing track "I'm Not Part Of Me" might be the catchiest jam here - which is weird, cuz what band tucks their catchiest potential hit way at the end of a record? A band like Cloud Nothings with hooks and potential hits to spare!
We loved this the very first time we played it, but with every listen we dig this record more and more, and for the noise pop nerds around aQ, this is fast becoming a contender for our favorite record of the year! Definitely a Record Of The Week.
So much awesome pop on this week's list, The Disciplines, Yuck, Telekinesis!, and this, the latest from Cleveland fuzz poppers Cloud Nothings. Just check out the first song "Understand At All", and odds are you'll be sold. Jangly fuzzy guitars, bubbly basslines, slightly snotty sounding vox, all sunshiney and crunchy, and but then the song slips into the chorus and it becomes transcendent, the vocals shifting to a sweet falsetto, the guitars muted, the drums holding it all together, which leads right into a cool stop start sort of proggy bit of mathiness, and then it's back to the verse, and right into that sweet sweet chorus again. The second song, "Not Important" is another winner, all super fuzzed out power pop, the vocals this time all raspy and Jawbreakery, changing the vibe of the song completely, but it's still so jangly and hooky, a little bit of mathiness, but still mostly crunch and fuzz and jangle. "Should Have" is all eighties style DIY pop, mixed with a little bit of new waviness, "Forget You All The Time" is washed out and shoegazey, reverby and hazy and dreamy, and "Nothing's Wrong" is all hyperactive nerd rock Ramones, frantic and bouncy and caffeinated, and so it goes, every song somehow totally different, the sound, the arrangement, the voice, but they all hang together pretty (im?)perfectly as a 'proper' album, a wild, slightly schizophrenic, super kinetic, ultra jangly crazy catchy, super melodic fuzz pop record we can't seem to stop listening to!
Nashville is best known as a magnet for songwriters, musicians, and performers looking to break into the country music business; at the same time, it continues to house a small yet viable collection of exceptional artists and outlandish freaks within its genteel Southern city limits. Nashville should be proud of its eccentrics, especially the atypical songwriter Dave Cloud, who can be regularly found parked at the Springwater (a dive bar which happens to be next to Hog Heaven which slow-cooks some the best BBQ in Middle Tennessee ... make sure to try the white sauce). Cloud's alcoholic croon caught the ear of the members of Lambchop who as the Gospel of Power helped Cloud realize his second album All My Best. Cloud affects a number of vocal styles; on occasion, it's a baritone that ripples with excessive vibratto like Isaac Hayes on a motley selection of prescription drugs; on others, he's stuck in a locked groove like Philip Jeck record picking unusual phrases to repeat a few too many times. It becomes quite clear that Cloud's head is not quite screwed on right; but fortunately, the Gospel of Power keep true to Cloud's outsider aesthetics, as opposed to the Wesley Willis albums which found him working with a bad metal-funk fusion band or later Daniel Johnston records which that suffer from too much production. All My Best includes a wide selection of idiosyncratic covers such as the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together" and KC and the Sunshine Band's "Get Down Tonight," plus a smattering of originals.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
During a humid trip to Nashville in the summer of 1998, Jim had the fortune to catch a 30 minute garage-rock-dirge made earlier that day in a basement by the The Legendary Dave Cloud. With just a simple request for information / recordings posted here on the AQL and some patience, we gleefully present the debut album from Mr. Cloud. Calling him a drunken poet may situate Dave Cloud on too high of a pedestal, but drunk would certainly suffice. Nearly delusional songs of true love found during drinking binges and of the profound abjection from the hangovers & lonliness the morning after are crooned by Cloud with his hoarse cigarette damaged voice. Musically, Cloud pens grimy garage songs that wouldn't have been out of the repetoire of the V-3, the Velvet Underground, early Dead C, and most certainly The Shaggs. While the purposefully lo-fi qualities from Siltbreeze bands may be interpretted as an avant-garde disregard for acceptible production techniques, Cloud's aesthetic couldn't really be regarded as such due to the drunken naivete that seeps through the songs like spilt beer seeping through polyester. Cloud's backing band features members of Lambchop though you won't find any of the sugary dixie pop here. Sadly the 30 minute drone-dirge mentioned earlier is not one of the songs he will always sing, but the album is a worthy meditation on alcohol.
aQ pal Kip Uhlhorn returns with another collection of psychedelic kraut-pop, even heavier on the pop this time around. Joined by members of the Flaming Lips, Big Star (!), LCD Soundsystem as well as M. Geddes Gengras, Ezra Buchla and Pete Kember (aka Sonic Boom), Uhlhorn and crew whips up some prismatic, propulsive dreaminess that sits somewhere between vintage krautrock worshippers Stereolab and krautrock legends Neu!. Just check out the opener, a loopy, pulsating groove, a gloriously wide eyed slab of rhythmic, synth soaked hypno-pop, with wild drumming, and all manner of sonic filigree. And that pretty much sets the template for the rest of the record, which almost sounds like it should have come out on Dark Entries or Italians Do It Better. There's some serious experimentalism happening for sure, but that mad scientist sonic tinkering is subtly applied to heady swaths of retro dream pop, gauzy, shimmery, hook heavy synth wave and dream-gaze Italo-disco, all of which are wreathed in billowy clouds of druggy, soft focus shoegaze psychedelia.
It seems like maybe it was inevitable, but SF's Cloudland Canyon have finally ditched the last remaining trappings of whatever sort of band they may have been before, and now emerged a fully fledged modern day psychedelic krautrocking combo who are masters of their craft. This new super limited, import 12" finds CC exploring that sound, opening with a serious kosmische kraut / new age trip out, a slow building pulsing shimmering synthscape, before driving synths take over and transform the track into a dizzying swirl of looped and arpeggiated synth cascades, cyclical and repetitive, tranced out and mesmerizing, a churning synth swirl beneath a sky full of tangled melodies.
The B side is much more laid back, a woozy cosmic groove with a pulsing house music throb, all swirly and cinematic, until a seriously crunchy beat kicks in, super dubbed out and almost industrial sounding, like some lost DHR jam or maybe early Techno Animal - whatever it reminds you of, it kicks ass, and turns the record into something else entirely. The record begins to wind down in another dizzying sprawl of throbbing synth swirl, this time over a stuttering New Order like beat, and driven by stuttery ethereal vocal loops. Sweet.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. In fact, we have less than ten, and it's very likely these will be the last ones we can get. Pressed on foggy clear vinyl!
Cloudland Canyon always seemed like some impossible classic krautrock / noise rock hybrid, their records equal parts German Oak, Faust, Amon Duul, My Bloody Valentine and the Dead C, a washed out sonic world of gritty hypnotic haze, of lumbering psychedelic grooves, of twisted FX drenched drift and looped druggy ambience, as likely to explode into a super rocking fuzzed out dronejam as they were to emit thick billowing clouds of swirling blurred psychdrone shimmer, but always, at the core of their sound was pop. Little hooks buried in the murk and the mire, catchiness subtly woven into the fabric of every bit of spaced out crush or raga-like skree, the thread that held their sound together was spun from melody and harmony, no matter how much those elemental forces were obscured.
Recently CC shared a split with Citay, both bands paying homage to fuzzy dream poppers Galaxie 500, CC's version was especially fantastic, drugged out and hypnotic, somehow transforming the original into what could have been a proper Cloudland Canyon jam, and in the process, revealing, more explicitly than ever, the warm glowing pop heart, that beat inside the buzzing, lysergic krautrock chest of Cloudland Canyon. Which it seems, lead to this, Fin Eaves, a fully realized exploration of pop music, filtered through CC's gloriously cracked kraut/drone/noise filter, the result, one of the fuzziest, most washed out, dreamiest noise pop / dream pop records in recent memory.
Every track a swirling morass of druggy effects, of muted melodies, of buried reverbed vox, of subverted jangle, muddy grooves, subtle hooks, a soft focus collision between My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Filmstars and Galaxie 500, a three way pileup where the various elements simply sink into one another, blurring and smearing into fantastically new shapes, a little bit of looped hypnotic Spacemen 3 style drug rock here, a little super distorted minimal Jesus and Mary Chain stomp there, slipping seamlessly from gauzy soft pop shuffle, to dense crumbling popnoise damage, to hushed loping slowcore haze, to soaring prismatic space psych bliss, each and every track is dense and spacious and layered, the various sounds constantly shifting, transforming, pealing melodies sloughing off only to reveal even more subtle melodies beneath, streaks of electronic glitch and clouds of warm whirling hiss drift amidst deep thrummed bass, and simple motorik rhythms, gorgeously out of focus vocal harmonies, and all manner of texture and timbre, a rare record as much about song as sound, strip away the sound, and you'd have a surprisingly perfect pop record, take away the songs, and you'd still have some fantastically abstract sonic earcandy, but combine the two, and you have this, an utterly gorgeous disc of otherworldly noise drenched lysergic dream pop. Fans of Teenage Filmstars, Beach House, Jesus & Mary Chain, Flaming Lips, Galaxie 500, Spacemen 3, Candy Claws, Mercury Rev, School Of The Seven Bells, and other psychedelic dream poppers, this is your new favorite record.
Lie in Light shows Cloudland Canyon wearing their Krautrock worshiping influences fully on sleeve.
We have previously mentioned their cosmic-kraut influence on their debut and follow-up ep. But on those, the lysergic free music of Ash Ra Tempel, Faust, Hawkwind, and Amon Duul II, mixed with more contemporary experimental shimmers of Dead C and This Heat were the key influential touchstones. On Lie In Light, with song titles like "Krautwerk" (how obvious can you get??), "You & I" and "Scheiss Schatzi, Auf Wiedersehn!", Cloudland Canyon this time around channel the Kosmiche and Motorik pulse of Neu!, Can, Cluster, La Dusseldorf and Popol Vuh. More song-structured than their debut, but no less cosmically atmospheric, Cloudland Canyon have upped the ante on their sound and production. While their Krautrock inspirations and tongue-in-cheek song titles may sound derivative on the surface, they bring enough of their own unique perspective on things to make for a highly engaging listen. Recommended!!
Folks who picked up the most recent record by Cloudland Canyon, Fin Eaves, will recognize the A side of this here single, as it's taken from that full length, and is a perfect sonic summary of the band's sound, drugged out and hypnotic dream pop, heavily effected, lots of groove and jangle, the sound both blurred and druggy, warm and epic and expansive, a little M83, a little Spacemen 3, laced with soft noise and electronics, all woven into something heavy and heady and hypnotic, and as an intro for someone new to CC, this A side could and most likely would make a believer out of anyone.
But the B side is the real reason to grab this, finding the band shrugging off all that lush production, and druggy dream pop bombast, in favor of something much more muddy and woozy and warped, an ultra lo-fi excursion into a sun dappled drugged out murkiness, drifty and ethereal, vocal harmonies seeming to melt into the roiling backdrop, the song a blurred sonic shadow of the A side, a shifting soft focus impression of the band's lush dreamy pop, transforming that sound into something more raw and mysterious...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Pressed on cool swirled black/grey/white/pink swirled vinyl. Includes a nice full color texture paper insert.
A short two song 45 rpm, 12" blast of kraut-synth blissout from these aQ faves, a variation on the distinctive CC sound we know and love, the A side, glimmering, glistening, pulsating synthscapery, prismatic cascades of dreamlike melodies, woven into a frantic krautscape, that sounds like classic krautrock revved WAY up, the sound still minimal and mesmerizing, but dense and driving, dizzying and swirly, vocals finding their way into CC's sound, like never before, chopped up and recontextualized, adding extra melody, but ultimately blurred into another layer in the already dense soundscape.
The flipside is more of the same, this time with even more vocals, and some serious beat action, more of a pulse, at least in the beginning, giving the song a serious almost house/techno vibe, the vocals way more prominent still blurred and indistinct, but almost like a proper vocal line, albeit sung like a robot speaking in tongues, the whole thing heady and psychedelic, the sound growing ever more chugging and churning, building to a wild percussive, psychedelic freakout finale.
This record totally knocked us for a loop. And the thing is, I'm not entirely sure we can explain why. This is one of those rare records that is darn near indescribable. The label suggest Cloudland Canyon would appeal to fans of Boards of Canada, Animal Collective, The Dead C., Ash Ra Tempel, This Heat, Gong, most of which we can definitely see (maybe not the Boards Of Canada), there is a definitely a far out krautrock vibe, some classic long lost, extra damaged super freaked out sixties or seventies psychedelia, but filtered through modern technology. It's almost like some super computer a million years in the future began picking up these strange transmissions from the old Earth, German Oak, Faust, Amon Duul, but after traveling billions of miles and being interpreted by some alien machinery, those songs and sounds came out sounding, well, completely fucking nuts!!!
It's like some sort of laptopped Dead C / Ash Ra mash up. Rich clouds of metallic shimmer surround looped guitars, creepy chanted vocals are submerged in demented spacey FX, dense deconstructed pop songs emerge from the chaos, rife with swirling vocals, and layer after layer of drone and processed harmonies, fuzzy shopping mall synth warbles beneath straining lo-fi vocals, the whole thing run through some intense stereo panning. Suddenly the band burst into some stomping propulsive psych rock jangle before the whole thing splinters into a gorgeous expanse of tranquil ambience, beneath delicately finger picked guitars, everything always within a cloud of mysterious sonic events. Dense cinematic soundscapes of keening high end and minor key pizzicato strings melt into super fuzzed out classic rock jams, with horns and pulsing basslines, but buried in a dense swirl of My Bloody Valentine haze, with relentlessly squiggly riffing, buried vocals, a dizzying array of chaotic sound, tinkling chimes and little bits of percussion. Strange collages of warped warbly sound drift into weird seventies circusy prog with calliope like organ, moody riffing, and awesome male / female vocals, like some totally drug drenched unhinged Fleetwood Mac. Nearing the end of the sonic journey, the record devolves into huge stretches of squiggly analog synth, tangled and intertwined into fuzzy warped low end drones, squirming and buzzing with the different layers constantly shifting and slipping in and out and around each other. Woah. Gorgeously and incredibly fucked. And thus completely recommended!!
Now on Vinyl! Here's what we said about the cd version when it came out in '07:
One of our most unexpected surprises last year came from Cloudland Canyon who totally blew us away with Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004, a shimmering sonic concoction, that sounded a bit like Ash Ra Tempel being channeled through the more melodic side of The Dead C.
They've followed that remarkable outing with a record that contains only two songs, but what it lacks in length it more then makes up for in cosmic-kraut brilliance. Listening to the two long tracks on this record is like being transported away on some otherworldly helicopter co-piloted by LaMonte Young and a very spaced out Hawkwind. We keep listening to these two epic tracks over and over and every time we do a customer is inevitably convinced that we're playing some obscure vintage kraut gem that they somehow have never heard before. Folks are always stunned to find out that this is brand new, but what makes Cloudland Canyon so great is that they manage to tap into that magical moment of cosmic kraut bliss, but do so without merely sounding like a tribute band, as there is something very immediate and timeless to the sounds they create. With another brand new full length coming soon on Kranky [Lie In Light] we predict that everyone blasting their Wooden Shjips records right now will be blissing out and taking off with Cloudland Canyon very soon. We sure are! You can start now.
One of our most unexpected surprises last year came from Cloudland Canyon who totally blew us away with Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004, a shimmering sonic concoction, that sounded a bit like Ash Ra Tempel being channeled through the more melodic side of The Dead C.
They've followed that remarkable outing with a record that contains only two songs, but what it lacks in length it more then makes up for in cosmic-kraut brilliance. Listening to the two long tracks on this record is like being transported away on some otherworldly helicopter co-piloted by LaMonte Young and a very spaced out Hawkwind. We keep listening to these two epic tracks over and over and every time we do a customer is inevitably convinced that we're playing some obscure vintage kraut gem that they somehow have never heard before. Folks are always stunned to find out that this is brand new, but what makes Cloudland Canyon so great is that they manage to tap into that magical moment of cosmic kraut bliss, but do so without merely sounding like a tribute band, as there is something very immediate and timeless to the sounds they create. With a brand new full length coming soon on the oh so hot Holy Mountain label we predict that everyone blasting their Wooden Shjips records right now will be blissing out and taking off with Cloudland Canyon very soon. We sure are! You can start now.
This is a match that makes perfect sense. As Lichens and Cloudland Canyon have both been making some of the most compelling and rewarding crystalline soundscapes of the last few years. One long track clocking in at around a half hour "Exterminating Angel" does sound like the sum of both of these artists' parts. With the first half sounding much more like Lichens, gorgeous deep in space hazy explorations while the krautier leanings of Cloudland Canyon come into focus in the second half of the track propelling the sounds into their kosmiche orbit. Fans of mid-late '70s Tangerine Dream and early Heldon will for sure want to jump aboard this cosmic adventure.
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.
One of the Cave In dudes (guitarist Adam McGrath) goes nuts with hard rock/punk/psych/dub side project. Yes, that's what we just said. And name-checks Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa in the thanks list. It's all over the place but actually pretty cool. In fact, it's one of those side projects that make you wonder why dude didn't save some of these ideas to spice up his main band's next album, y'know? Blowing off some creative steam on a "legendary demo" put together with some hometown friends is just psychologically easier we guess. So we're glad Hydra Head pressed this to cd, and even if you don't care about the proggy metalcore of Cave In you still might totally dig Clouds.
This starts off with a couple shitkicking tracks of behind-the-chicken-wire hard rock/metal with badass boogie '70s riffage and guitar wailing, a bit like Bay Area heroes Drunk Horse. As this goes on, a few short, sharp punk rock turns are taken, things quickly steaming back into the stoner rawk realm tho ("Party Grunge" being a minute-long, aptly titled blast from both angles). Penultimate track "Magic Hater" manages to segue from a hardcore intro into a freaked out, blues'd n' boozed Beefheart homage. That barely preps you for this album's psychedelic 20 minute finale, "Quartulli Dub", featuring Funhouse saxophone skronk, backwards guitars, and yeah, dubby rhythms and FX. By the time all's said and done, you'll realize your Comets On Fire albums have a new best friend.
The first Clouds record, the project of Cave In guitarist Adam McGrath, was a freaked out hodgepodge of stoner rock, hardcore, prog rock and seventies boogie rock with definite nods to Beefheart, Zappa, Comets On Fire, the Cave In mothership, it all worked, the result a heavy slab of FX laden riff heavy RAWK with lots of twisted detours.
If anything, this newest Clouds disc takes all that same stuff a little further, with a bigger focus on the riffrock aspect, and a huge infusion of POP. Not always obviously so, but some of these hooks slay. Think the beefy lumbering almost grunge of Scissorfight, melded to the pounding retro metallic pound of Karp or Big Business, some of that Cave-In magic and voila!
The second track, "Feed The Horse" sounds like it was yanked off a late era Cave-in disc and given a serious metal makeover, while the opener "Empires In Basements" gives Torche a run for their sludge pop money.
And then the band go all strange and angular and off kilter with "The Bad Seat", sounding almost like Randy Newman if he was 20 years old and signed to Hydra Head, and we know that sounds weird, but it's actually quite cool.
The record is all over the map for sure, exploding into frenzied punk rock as often as sprawling out into huge lumbering sludgey doom, offering up soaring metallic pop gems, or stripping it down to chugging classic rock grooves, but no matter what these guys do, or what sound they're tackling and making their own, the songs rule, and the band kick out the jams big time. And like we've said before, in a perfect world, instead of Green Day and the Foo Fighters, you'd be hearing Torche and Clouds all over the radio. Ahhh, maybe some day...
