Music for fans of Coil, made by fans of Coil, and released with the blessing of Coil. "The Plastic Spider Thing" is a remix of Coil's past works by Drazen from Black Sun Productions, a Swiss outfit that follows the Coil's aesthetic with incredible precision (often to the point of losing their own personalities to Coil's spell, when Coil themselves emphasize the necessity for individual expression). Originally, this piece was a soundtrack to a sexually explicit performance between the members of Black Sun Productions. Drawing mostly from the lunar ambience of modern Coil (i.e. post "Love's Secret Domain"), Drazen ran Coil's occultish ambience through multiple delay machines and re-sampling techniques to attain a fractured collage of pulsated loops that point back to the original Coil numbers. The lack of John Balance's whispered vocals (which were once Coil's biggest strength on early albums like "Horse Rotovator," but now are the band's weakest link) is welcome for "The Plastic Spider Thing;" but, this album never strives to escape its orbit around Coil's little black sun. If you love Coil, here's another fine album for you. If you're only curious, try the aforementioned "Love's Secret Domain" first.
No sophomore slump for this band, as it just seems like the other day we were praising the driving dark beat of their debut, Over Me. But in the relatively short time since that was released, the band has expanded their sonic palette and production while letting a bit more warmth and lightness shine. You can feel it immediately in the string tones that open the first track here, "Bruno", also because singer Hannah Lew (previously of Grass Widow) is stepping up more to the front of the mix, and why not, her voice is great! At times, it sounds uncannily like Deborah Harry from the early days of Blondie ("Broken Lines"), and overall, the band seem to be channeling the production of late-seventies Sire catalog, without obviously aping those specific bands (Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads). In essence, they've taken all the things they already do well and have assembled them with a polish that bumps them to the next level without taking away any of their edge. Recommended!
We were sad to learn of Grass Widow's break-up after releasing their amazing Internal Logic album back in 2012. Though they are calling it a "hiatus", we're pretty much convinced it's over. Time will tell. Anyway, bass player and vocalist Hannah Lew has spent the past year forming a new band that shares Grass Widow's penchant for enchanting harmonies and song-craft but wrapped in a tighter, sharper and much darker package. Cold Beat reshapes the dark post-punk drive of Joy Division and The Sound with haunting but infectious vocal harmonies and melancholic imagery in a more metallic polished gloss. Like The Mallard's last record, Finding Meaning In Deference, Cold Beat inject a dose of off-kilter energy and damaged beauty into their debut that sets it apart and gives it a fresh feel, like a brand new scar.
While Grass Widow are on a hopefully temporary hiatus, bass player and singer Hannah Lew is staying busy with her brand new outfit Cold Beat. Worms/Year 5772 is their punchy debut single and it's augmented by a remix of each track by Pow! and Mikey Young respectively. Cold Beat has a harder driving beat and garagier gloss than Grass Widow, but the dreamy vocal harmonies of that band have translated over well to this new project.
We're assuming they borrowed their name from a song by the post-punk band The Sound who had similar affinities with guitar driven urgency and high energy rhythms. The remixes mechanize the music by switching out the guitars with synths and providing a dreamier and poppier sheen to the songs. Looking forward to hearing more from this group for sure!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A sorta freejazz freakout from members of Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Heathen Shame, and No Neck Blues Band, featuring alto and tenor action from saxophonist Paul Flaherty.
The first new release in a while from these Dutch black metal shoegazers, who even at their heaviest, were barely black metal at all, existing on a plane only tangentially related to the typical BM buzz and blast, with a sound more akin to post black metal experimentalists like Alcest, Les Discrets and Amesoeurs, and even in that company, CBR were way on the poppy side of the spectrum, their sound lush and lovely, more 4AD and MBV than anything, and very little has changed on this new single, if anything their sound has grown even more lush and lovely. There's still some buzz, but it's washed out and drowsy, dreamy and ethereal. Crystalline guitars, warm woozy basslines, thick swaths of billowy shoegaze guitar, achingly melancholic melodies, clean, crooned vocals, there's definitely a Nadja feel to the sound, although it's much more blissed out and dreamy.
The B side here is a bit more propulsive and rocking, with some subtle electronic filigree, but even with a bit more crunch and buzz in the guitars, it's still the same gloriously dreamy, washed out sun dappled shoegaze poppiness. Black metal fans who dig the above mentioned bands, and have no aversion to shoegaze pop, might take a chance, but for folks who love My Bloody Valentine, The Swirlies, Teenage Filmstars, and all the rest, these guys definitely belong in your collection too, don't let the black metal classification dissuade you, this is pure fuzzed out shoegaze heavy pop bliss.
Packaged in a nice full color jacket. Sorry, no download.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This new one from cold wave gloom poppers Cold Cave definitely threw us for a loop at first. Although really, we shouldn't have been all that surprised, as the sound of Cold Cave has definitely seemed to be moving away from the underground for a while now. And it seems this is the record where they're finally going for it. Big time. The sounds are essentially the same, classic eighties synth pop, but here, that sound is delivered with such vitriol and bombast. And given such a massive shiny production, and hell even the songs are poppier and catchier and more commercial sounding. Folks were shocked when Cold Cave's "Life Magazine" wound up on a Radioshack commercial, and Cherish The Light Years takes that whole thing a step further, positioning themselves as a sort of stadium rock version of their former selves. It's still gloomy synth pop, but now the synths are epic and majestic, the arrangements too, and the vocals, even more dramatic and strident and ready to lead sing alongs at Madison Square Garden. If you didn't know this was Cold Cave, you might confusionally cycle through the various possibilities: Interpol, Maximo Park, The National, The Editors, yeah, seems weird, and it is, but this is the new Cold Cave, stadium rock era Depeche Mode merged with the new wave of, well new wave. We've seen folks mention New Order, and even Scott Walker, and those definitely could apply, but the Depeche Mode vibe is huge, imagine classic DM with a super modern production, and that's pretty much Cherish The Light Years. Lots of folks around here hated this at first, but once you get over the disappointment that there won't be any more Cold Cave records like Love Comes Close, and just embrace this new sound, this is actually pretty rad.
Cremations is a collection of previously released tracks from the darling noisenik / minimal wave project Cold Cave, the bulk of which had been so painfully limited that they might as well have not been at all. The first three cuts should be familiar to most Aquarius readers, being from Cold Cave's awesome 7" single Painted Nails. The other tracks came from a cassette and an LP, both of which Cold Cave's Wes Eisold released through his Heartworm Press as editions of 100 in 2009 and 2007 respectively. The description we gave to the Painted Nails single is still apt: a morose and melodic blast of blown out noise-wave, a corrosive chunk of Cure-meets-Whitehouse or New Order-meets-Wolf Eyes. The tracks that follow the Painted Nails single on this collection certainly live up to the hype of that single, standing as lo-fi, scribbled new wave tunes for simple bass-synth lines, eerie-as-hell melodies, tinny drum machines, and alienated vocals with plenty of megaphone noise and 4-track scratchiness embedded into the mix. Cold Cave also tosses in some incidental music tracks which sort of sound like the interludes from Christian Death's Elektra Descending redone for Brian Eno's Music for Airports. It should be noted that none of the tracks here have been fleshed out like the incredible The Trees Grew Emotions And Died 12" which came and went a couple months back, and we don't mean that as a negative. Seriously, how many times have we championed the shittiest recordings on the crappiest media: flexi-disc, microcassette, wire recordings, shortwave, etc. And much of Cold Cave's grit and grime on Cremations appeals to that very aesthetic of ours. In fact a lot of these tracks remind us of some of our favorite electronic punk acts of the new dark age: The Screamers, Primitive Calculators, early Severed Heads, Dark Day, etc. You won't just be hearing it from us: this is incredible!
(This IS coming out on vinyl too, eventually, but we have no date for that yet...)
Synthesized Philly gloom pop merchants Cold Cave continue their winning streak here, offering a nice companion piece to the recent (as in, like, "this list" recent) Matador reissue of the unanimously agreed upon Love Comes Close. Curiously, Death Comes Close actually kicks off with the song "Love Comes Close", a cool New Order-esque track, which as we mentioned in our review of the album, is "a DEAD RINGER for the melody in the infamous mirror dance scene in Silence Of The Lambs." Next up is "Double Lives In Single Beds", where CC mainman Wes Eisold waxes gothically over a catchy little synth groove with spacey sustained chords and a simple programmed drum beat. The B-side begins with the upbeat "Theme From Tomorrowland", probably our favorite song here. The title is apt, with its futuristic synth pulses and throbs, with Eisold backed up by catchy girl vocals for a nice ethereal effect. "Now That I'm In The Future" rides with a cool fuzzy synth groove. We were gonna say it's "dramatic", but, uh, that's sort of Cold Cave's thing. Either way, it's awesome, and even without soundclips, we probably don't need to do too much convincing as everyone is going crazy for these guys, with good reason.
On one end of the Cold Cave spectrum, there is the blistering terror of low-fi electronics with sparse hints of new wave flecked through a sound better suited to Wolf Eyes; and on the other, Cold Cave can effortlessly toss out a darkly pop-eyed, minimal wave gem that wouldn't out of place next to Depeche Mode or Gary Numan. So far, Cold Cave (aka Wes Eisold) has not done us wrong no matter what he ends up producing. The hyper limited Etsel And Ruby 12" is of the latter, poppier sensibility, in the footsteps of the terminally catchy single The Trees Grew Emotions And Died from 2008. The production values here are a little higher than the gutter-punk scratchiness found on the Cremations collection; and while punchier drum machines and upfront vocals give Cold Cave a gloss with a broader appeal, we seriously hope that he doesn't leave the nastier sound behind.
The A side "Love Comes Close" is a jangly, jaunty number that could very well be a lost track from The Cure's The Head On The Door, with Eisold's croon almost sounding like Stephin Merritt. The first of two B sides finds Eisold handing over the vocal duties to an unknown female singer, whose detached, cold vocals fit perfectly with the Cure / Joy Division basslines laced around the darkened electronics. The cut is like the best Fad Gadget song you've never heard before, with an insistent electroid melody that builds and builds throughout the track. Great stuff. Limited to 300 copies!!! Available only from the label and right here at aQ!
We mentioned that Cold Cave threw us for a loop with all of the roccoco flourishes that adorned the gloomy synth-pop of their 2011 album Cherish The Light Years. Since then, Cold Cave has steadily released a handful of singles through their own Heartworm imprint, many of which have disappeared almost as soon as they were released. We might have had one or two of those singles at one time or another, but we were never able to get enough stock to list any one of those. Thankfully, Wes Eisold, the man behind Cold Cave, has compiled all of those singles, recorded from 2011 to 2014, on to this single disc right here. These singles represent the simpler, skeletal sound of Cold Cave that struck our fancy way back when. A drum machine, a step sequenced melody, an icy yet harmonic counterpoint, and Eisold's deep monotone croon. That's pretty much the successful formula for a great Cold Cave song, and Eisold pretty much sticks to this strategy. The one notable exception is the Jesus & Mary Chain distorto-crush electronics of the Oceans With No End single. The other singles that round out the compilation include A Little Death To Laugh, Black Boots, God Made The World, and a handful of digital only cuts.
You wonder about a vinyl version? The answer now is a resounding maybe...
"Life Magazine" stood as one of the big hits from Cold Cave's incredible darkened synth-pop album Love Comes Close from 2009. With its squelchy synth lines and monomaniacal drum machines, this was also the song that curiously enough, appeared on a Radio Shack commercial shortly after the release of the record. Here, Cold Cave gets remixed by Arthur Baker, Optimo, Pantha Du Prince, and Prurient. The Arthur Baker connection is quite a nice coup for the band, as Baker was the producer who amped up many a New Order track throughout the '80s certainly influencing Cold Cave's retrogarde sound. Baker's remix stays true to the original, maintaining that amazing synth melody and the vocals from Jennifer Clavin. Optimo strips everything except for the vocals on this prickly techno workout. It's hard to pick much out from the Pantha Du Prince remix with his signature bells sliding over the post-Kompakt shuffling drum programs. Prurient has been moonlighting in Cold Cave's live ensemble and collaborated with Cold Cave on the awesomely bleak Stars Explode LP. This is not the sheer hellish noise facade of Prurient, but rather the one who must still be obsessed with Cold Cave's gnarled electronics on Painted Nails and Cremations. A dour two-note melody and mid-tempo galloping drum machine settle above a seabed of distorted gristle and Ms. Clavin's vocals. Gotta say that the Prurient and Arthur Baker mixes, as opposing as they can be, are the reasons to pick this up! Comes with a download card.
Cold Cave have really been making the rounds as of late, but unless you were one of the lucky few to obtain some of their super limited vinyl only platters or their recent Cremations collection (which is still available), you may have been left out in the... cold. HAHA! But anyway, Love Comes Close is the first official Cold Cave record, though it does include the three songs (re-recorded?) off the band's disgustingly limited Etsel and Ruby 12" which we had for about 5 minutes, as well as the song "The Trees Grew Emotions And Died" from the ep of the same name, all of them winners. We are happy to report that this baby more than ably lives up to all the hype. It's not that the sound of Cold Cave is revolutionary or progressive... nay, in far less skilled hands, this could easily be filed under the "derivative shit" category, but Cold Cave's remarkable melodic sense and keen understanding of songcraft are so expertly handled that their tunes come off more like lost synth pop classics. It's actually a bit unbelievable just how darkly catchy these songs are, and how they will just pop into your head at random moments like they've been there for ages. Cold Cave's music is the perfect combination of everything that is great about '80s synth based music with none of the dated cheesiness, or maybe more appropriately, just the right amount of dated cheesiness. OMD styled melodies and uber dramatic vocals from the school of Ian Curtis meld with throbbing rhythms, awesome life denying lyrics, and a pronounced gothic element, but goth as interpreted by hardcore kids. All of these combined are enough to make Cold Cave stand out from the rest of the pack. Plus, you know it's gotta be good when various folks may *want* to dislike something but can't muster the hate in their hearts simply because it's so great.
The album kicks off with "Cebe And Me", with super minimal percussion and murky, distorted female vocals that weave around a repetitive synth buzz. This sets things up perfectly for the next track, "Love Comes Close," with CC mainman Wes Eisold's deadpan vocals and music that manages to be both upbeat and melancholy as hell. The real kicker with this one, however, is the fact that it is a DEAD RINGER for the melody in the infamous mirror dance scene in Silence Of The Lambs. So now all you dudes can fashion a mangina and prance naked in front of your mirror within the comfort of your own home, just like Buffalo Bill. "Life Magazine" utilizes a blown out buzzy keyboard to hold the foundation while more down to earth programming and amazing female vocals courtesy of one time Xiu Xiu collaborator Caralee McElroy help to make this maybe our favorite track on the album. A reedy little synth melody sits atop everything else, and the dreaminess of it all sends things way off into the clouds... Goddamn, it's so good.
Naming a song "Heaven Was Full" definitely sets the bar pretty high, you're pretty much obligated to make it awesome, and that's just what Cold Cave did with this one. Subsonic oscillations swirl below what sounds like wispy winds made by a synthesizer, accompanied by Eisold's low croon and some of the catchiest and most beautiful melodies on the album. The slow movement of this piece really strikes an emotional chord, it's a real downer, but it's so irresistible it hurts. "The Tree Grew Emotions And Died" features some cool clanky drum machines with staccato boy/girl vocals and an ever present layer of super blown out guitars (we think), with a nice, slightly bouncy keyboard melody carrying the song forward. Album closer "I.C.D.K." is a quirky yet slightly ominous dance number that will certainly keep many an ass shaking all night long, and when it's all over, you first instinct will be to put Love Comes Close on for another round.
Undoubtedly Cold Cave will have trouble escaping comparisons to bands like the Cure, Joy Division, and even the Magnetic Fields at times, and not without good reason. But the band's greatest strength is its ability to go beyond their influences and deliver music that is too amazing and well written to be ignored. If you don't dig it, it doesn't mean people will respect your supposed impeccable taste and appreciation for groundbreaking music... it means you're missing out.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Seven inches of awesomely depressive distortion drenched new wave downer pop. Imagine a couple of old school synth pop classics, dipped in a vat of white noise, then rolled around in shards of fractured synth buzz and crumbling distortion, a morose and melodic blast of blown out noise-wave, a corrosive chunk of Cure-meets-Whitehouse or New Order-meets-Wolf Eyes. The surface is a prickly wall of in-the-red lo-fi fuzz, a curtain of soft focus blacknoise, but just below that surface lurks a secret heart of classic eighties new wave, the programmed rhythms, the swirling synths, the deep dramatic vocals, but taken together, this is everything we always wanted new wave to be, harsh and heavy and dark and deliriously catchy, buzzy and brutal and abrasive but still fuzzy and hooky and weirdly melodic. The B side takes CC's noisy new wave even further out, the sound generously doused with heaps of that blissy Tim Hecker-ish blur of which we can never get enough.
In listening to the few releases from Cold Cave (to date, just this 12" and the "Painted Nails" 7" on Hospital), we can easily see Cold Cave becoming huge. Maybe not as megalomaniacally huge as Coldplay or U2; but maybe there's a Wire or XLR8R cover for Cold Cave to grace sometime in the future. The Trees Grew Emotions And Died predated the heavily acclaimed Painted Nails single; and like that single, this gem of crunched noise mingling with retro-garde synth pop has gone in and out of print several times. It's still a limited pressing of 500 copies, so be forewarned!
Cold Cave is the work of one Wes Eisold, who fronted a couple of East Coast hardcore bands before starting a collection of thrift store samplers and synthesizers. In wiring all of these half-functioning devices through various effects and distortion pedals, he's arrived at an abrasive minimal wave sound that has two feet firmly planted in the worlds of New Order and Wolf Eyes. Had Eisold added a guitar into the mix, Cold Cave might have ended up not all that far from those brilliant bliss pop mutations from Woodsist (i.e. Crystal Stilts, Blank Dogs, Wavves, etc.), but he's admitted that part of his frustration with hardcore was over his two-decade losing battle in learning the guitar. So, the synthesizer is the instrument of choice for Cold Cave. This three track EP showcases his pop genius with minor key melodies bobbing along insistent drum machines and sinister atmospheres. "Heaven's Gate" and "Our Tears Help The Flowers Grow" start with the minor-key synth melodies which buttress Depeche Mode's Violator and The Cure's Faith, with megaphone distortion crackling the detached male / female vocals. The title track is considerably up-tempo and up-beat with a bouncy melody that WILL get stuck in your head in all the right ways, like those incredible singles which made their way onto the first Adult. album. Very highly recommended!
Originally released as an insanely limited cassette tape to coincide with a tour, this collaborative recording is now available as a spiffy, and still limited, lp, and includes a bonus track NOT on the original tape.
What might one expect from this match up, some cool cold wave grooves with howling noise drenched vocals, or better yet some heavy harsh noise shot through with dark moody melodies, and cold synths? Well, the weird thing is, this doesn't sound like either band, together or separate. Instead, this is swirling psychedelic synth space drone ambience, a little blissed out, a little brooding and ominous, all starry shimmer and blackly abstract, but plenty dark and definitely a little malevolent. Huge expanses of muted feedback, processed rumbles and whirs, buried melodies, all softly heaving in deep black swells, shot through with ever shifting textures. The B-side though gets downright poppy, still space-y and abstract, but infused with some seriously shoegazey shimmer, melodies much closer to the surface, glimmery and gauzey, with a distant rhythms, skittery and hushed, that over the course of the side, builds to a fairly aggressive industrial pound, while the sounds around it grow more and more bleak and caustic.
And then there's the extra track, which is easily the poppiest of the bunch, a soft focus M83 / Nadja / Jesu bit of blissy pop ambient drift, swirly and abstract, with wordless vocals adding to soft space-y psychedelia until some super strange vocals come in, a little harsh, heavily processed, distorted and menacing, wrapped around distant grinding guitars, and for a few moments it suddenly does sound very much like we imagined it would.
And of course, EXTREMELY LIMITED.
Although, from their not particularly atypical name and logo, you might expect just another business-as-usual Nordic black metal horde, corpsepainted and kvlt-y, this is NOT just another BM (or, USBM in their case as they hail from New Hampshire) band. Nosirree. We figured that out right away, when the vocals started up on "A Dangerous Wayfaring" and weren't a grim rasp, but rather a faux-British accented chorus. The more usual sort of guttural gruffness also soon appears, but CNV had piqued our interest, and we kept listening with curious anticipation that was quickly rewarded by this album's unexpected and unusual blend of underground black metal, goth rock, and industrial. Actually CNV also had our attention 'cause this comes from the same label, Bindrune, who last brought us Blood Of The Black Owl's A Feral Spirit, another unique and experimental metal offering.
This isn't quite as weird as that record, but this eclectic effort certainly captivates chaotically with majestically catchy riffage, Gobliny soundtrack synths, clean vocal singalongs, and even all-acoustic mellow moodiness ("The Shores Of New England"). Our favorite element though is what might be termed their Satanic industrial sound, with sampling and sequencing, the best example of which is "The By-Paths To Chaos", a rhythmic exercise in sinister, cut-and-paste percussive clockwork. Very cool. Hail Cold Northern Vengeance!!
An absolutely killer blast of gloomy post punk from these new comers on Mexican Summer, with an A side that might just be our new favorite jam! Buzzy, noisy, jangly, a little murky, dour low slung noise pop with deep vox, reminding us a LOT of Crystal Stilts, and sounding a bit like a more jangly Interpol. Warm jangly guitars wrapped around jagged riffage, thick Joy Division basslines, and then part way through some surprise female vocals, which changes the vibe completely, as the two vocalists do a little call and response before joining in some seriously divine boy/girl harmonies, and let's not forget the super hooky effects drenched guitar refrain, that seems to function as the chorus. So catchy, and so goddamn good. We listened to the A side about 20 times before we could bring ourselves to flip the record. But guess what? The B side kills too, like a more dirgey version of the flipside, even more gloomy, reminding us of the Wipers, Crystal Stilts again, Naked On The Vague, and all those old Aussie post punk bands we love so much (Scientists, Celibate Rifles, etc.) So good, can't wait for the full length!
Debut full length from this LA outfit who fuse shimmering shoegaze blissouts to churning, taut, cold/new wave rhythms, everything murky and synthy, taut and sinewy, tribal drums and crooned heavily effected vox, a little bit gloomy, a lot gothy, all driven by some punkish pound, and crazy catchy, a rad retro sound that's equal parts classic Factory Records, 4AD gloom pop and urgent low slung post-punk crunch. We can't help but be reminded of some other bands mining similar territory recently, most notably the Holograms and Iceage, and of course we hear plenty of Interpol here as well, but Cold Showers traffic in something much more murky and dramatic, brooding and intense, less wiry and punky, more hypnotic and tranced out, with the songs locking into super mesmerizing cyclical grooves, which stretch way out, before blossoming into some impossibly hook melody, or swirling psychedelic squall. The vocals especially add a different dimension, way more croony and moody, which along with the soaring spidery melodies, and the driving Joy Division-y basslines give Love And Regret a serious classic new wave vibe, and when the female vocals swoop in sparring with the male, we can't help but think of a cold wave X, which is most definitely a good thing. Cold Showers could easily have ended up on Captured Tracks or Sacred Bones, and fans of either/both will very likely dig, as will anyone into dour gloomy new wave pop, and obviously fans of all the above mentioned outfits. Definitely a new favorite around here...
Latest blast of brooding shoegazey new wave gloom pop from this LA combo, and like their Love And Regret full length, the sound is all chiming guitars, swirling synths, driving rhythms and Joy Division bass lines, but the A side here blossoms into something noisier and buzzier, the sounds blurred and distorted, the vocals swooping in trailing a cloud of crumbling distortion, heavily effected, buried in the mix, a dramatic croon that's transformed into something a bit more fierce, but without taking away any of the tracks melancholic Cure-ness. The flipside is a smoldering gothic torch song, a piano driven dirge, moody and haunting, darkly psychedelic and softly swirling, an atmospheric Nick Cave like creep that's laced with some well placed saxophone which buzzes and bleats, adding some angular tension to the otherwise downcast proceedings.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Dark shadows is right, dark shadows from a cold, old sun. Long dark shadows stretching across decades... This legendary 1970 demo recording from Austin, Texas psychedelic rock group Cold Sun has never before been on cd, and only just barely been on vinyl. There's record collectors sitting on desert islands somewhere out there, wishing they had a copy of this to keep them company. It's one of the most cult and obscure and oh so welcome psych reissues in recent memory, that's for sure. Well worthy of its whispered rep, Cold Sun is dark, spectral, tripped out garage-psych in the '60s Texas vein of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators. Indeed, the guys from Cold Sun went on to back up Roky in his band the Aliens, not much longer later.
Band leader Bill Miller sings, in an fragile yet urgent drawl, sounding rather like Roky himself, and also plays acid-rock leads on an electric, amplified autoharp (that's right, autoharp, a zither that's usually more of a country/folk/bluegrass instrument) which really gives Cold Sun an outsider edge... and while there's also the requisite dose of fuzz guitar here, Cold Sun can't be reduced to the "fuzz monster" category. It's all together weirder and more affecting than that. Aside from Miller's autoharp, part of what makes it so strange and so special are his lyrics. Take for instance the opening few lines of track one, "South Texas" (if we've transcribed 'em properly): "You have seen the eyes of the geko staring out watching from the crack in the wall you were thinking of going right through but it's outside it's not you you have heard the voice of the gekos telling each other here comes another robot it's a swarm of night climbing dragons crawling out searching just walking cross the ceiling..." Except when he says "robot" it sounds like someone else is saying "human" at the same time. And it just goes on and on getting weirder and weirder, its emotional essence aided by the outsiderishness of the delivery, acid-serious and plaintive. Goes so perfectly with Cold Sun's lysergic layers of sinuous sound. Yep, you can see that this is an example, perhaps thee ultimate example, of that unique Texas, desert psych style... they've got their own, otherworldly, feverish tradition of that down there.
The Cold Sun demo (and not even all of it) was pressed to acetate in 1973 in an edition of just ONE copy. And then it was lost to the sands of time, until reissue label Rockadelic did an LP version in 1990 that caused a bit of a stir amongst psych-hounds... and was limited to only 300 copies itself. But THIS cd edition is the definitive one, including all the music from the demo tape -and- two live bonus tracks! (The live tracks, recorded in 1972, are of songs not on the demo, and are quite worthy, being just a bit hissier and lower-fi than the demo itself, and maybe slightly harder rocking.) It's also got enthusiastic liner notes from noted psych nerd Jello Biafra (!), and also from Cold Sun's Bill Miller himself. World In Sound has done a nice job with this holy grail reissue, we're sure they took the responsibility pretty seriously. Now everyone, at last, can hear these truly psychedelic, (cold) sun-baked sounds...
Cold War Kids are like the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Before you or I have even heard a single note of music, we've already read about them in every magazine, every blog, we know we're supposed to be prepared to love them more than any band we've ever heard. It's weird, good bands do deserve to be hyped, but at some point that sort of hype does as much damage as it does good. We were pretty much prepared to hate these guys. But you know what, fuck it. We don't care what we're supposed to do, or like, or think. We threw this on and tried to forget everything we'd heard and read, and you know what, this is pretty darn good. A groovy slinky bluesy indie rock heavy on the piano, guitar jangle, simple shuffling percussion that sometimes builds into a serious thump, but it's the vocals that pretty much define their sound. A gorgeous high wailing croon, a mix of Jack White, Robert Plant, the guys from Wolfmother and Rufus Wainwright. Going from slithery to super dramatic, whispery to campy, but always super emotional, wrapped languidly around any melody that comes its way. You can definitely see these guys getting huge. They're simultaneously a jangly indie rock band and a very theatrical chamber rock performance troop. They probably kill in tiny clubs, they sound huge and flamboyant and wild, but they'll probably end up in theaters and galleries, performing for the upper crust and art elite. But maybe you'll get lucky and see them before that happens. Might already be too late.
Be sure and stick around for the hidden secret track, a killer lo-fi gospel blues jam that sounds like Wainwright via Dylan! Nice.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Think Section 25 meets Stereo MCs, or the Happy Mondays with a mild case of Chain Reactive heroin house addiction suffused with a bleak monochrome whine. For fans of Suicide, Kraftwerk, Joy Division and other moody new wave darkness.
While many would cry "over-rated flavor of the month Brit pop band!!", me thinks there's more to this band than the hype. They're certainly not bland, nor are they formulaic radio-fodder. Their last full length Parachutes was replete with a number of passionate, glistening'y poetic songs. Coldplay possess a knack for composing the loveliest of complex heartstring-pulling melodies and performing them in a lushly artistic, deluxo-produced fashion (check it out in headphones - nice!). Aww heck, its sounding good should just be a given these days - what with Capitol Records footing the bill! Most likely they had abundant access to the toppest notch recording technology, but obviously good production doesn't necessarily equal good record. Case in point, that damn Planet of the Apes movie remake. Looked amazing, but ugh, what a stinker! Alright alright, I digress, but lemme just say that's not the case with this album. It's more than a little bit folky and down to earth, laden with highly emotive lilting male vocals and subdued piano, just as their last album was. Very pretty and well-crafted. And also just as their last album did, I think A Rush Of Blood is gonna grow on me.
If you've worn thin your Rush Of Blood To The Head album, and are in dire need of more Coldplay, do not panic! Brothers And Sisters is their new domestic ep which contains three songs previously unreleased in the U.S. It originally came out in the UK back in 1999, and as can be expected it's an bit more spartan and less lush than their most recent works. Very nice nonetheless!
Coldplay are a melding together of today's best! Radiohead, Pulp, and maybe some Red Hot Chili Peppers balladry (complete with falsetto) backed by lush piano and guitar melodies, a shuffling drumbeat, and the occasional loud guitar wash. All polished to a
9The latest release from that very very popular UK band for whom we've had a soft spot is a limited edition mini-album. Not sure just how limited it is though (especially on the major label scheme of things!), so keep in mind snooze = lose! Five new songs as epic and liltingly gorgeous as ever plus a head-scratching special guest appearance by Jay Z (???).
Having built their sound on cribbing Radiohead's abandoned early recordings, Coldplay's new release seemed poised to tackle U2's mantle of grandiose emotive narcissism. From mimiciking Bono's soaring-while-singing stance on a recent iTunes commercial to having Brian Eno produce their record, everything seems to scream, "We're taking it to the next level". But it's really the same old Coldplay. Contemporary wallpaper for mediocre television dramas and advertisments.
Don't hate them cuz they're beautiful... love 'em! Yes, this band is obscenely huge and popular, but for once it's deservingly so. Really, they've yet to disappoint. Coldplay make some of the most elegant, evocative music coming out of mainstream radio these days. It stands in such a contrast to the constant glut of blandness and mediocrity that floods the radio and video dials. The earnest emotional drench of Coldplay's music always verges on the sappy, but somehow never stumbles across the line. On X & Y all the pieces of Coldplay lock in magically -- catchy choruses, richly atmospheric layers of guitars, synths and piano, and of course those unmistakable vocals. Chris Martin has one of the most effortless swoop-up-to-falsetto voices around. Depending on what time of the year you're listening to this album, you might find many songs on X & Y capturing that end of the school year or end of summer romance wistful ache... which pretty much guarantees their inclusion in an upcoming teen movie soundtrack. However, the band continues to buck the obvious or easy routes. Take for instance the album's immediately engaging third song "White Shadows", it seems like it would've been the obvious pick for the first single instead of the less hooky seventh song "Speed Of Sound". Striking a balance between instant treats and more involving ones, this is a work that invites repeat listens, and we're happy to oblige. Grand and gorgeous.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We had a little bit of trouble making sense of this seemingly unlikely collaboration, at least conceptually, between legendary krautrocker Roedelius and Lloyd Cole. Yeah, THAT Lloyd Cole, as in '& The Commotions'. Apparently, Roedelius was a fan of Cole's music, and remixed one of his records, which he presented to Cole as a gift. Cole was so impressed, he suggested the two work on a proper record together, and voila, Selected Studies Volume 1 was the result. The sound definitely ends up landing closer to Roedelius than Cole, at least the Cole we remember - there are no vocals, the sound is blissy, playful, melodious, and sort of krautrocky definitely New Age-y. The opener "Pastoral" is just that, all percolating melodies, swirling shimmering ambience, soft swaths of chordal thrum, and chiming prismatic tones, dreamily glitchy, with a definite music box / lullaby vibe. Some tracks though are darker, and slightly more brooding, like "Selbstportrait-Reich", which wraps theremin-like minor key melodies around a looped, slo-mo Reichian backdrop, subtly tense, and a little cinematic, with a teensy bit of a futuristic / sci-fi vibe, but ultimately still quite lovely and ambient. "Wandelbar" adds some grit to a an amorphous swirl of droned out sound, the feel sort of Expo 70, all dark and kosmische, while "Still Life With Kannyu" sculpts tinkling pianos and blurts of analog synth into something washed out and tranquil that ends up not all that far removed from classic Eno ambience.
And so it goes, a sprawling selection of dreamlike electronic experiments, ethereal ambient shimmer and spaced out soft focus psychedelic drift, most definitely rhythmic at times, always lush and textural, swirly and serene, hushed and haunting here and there, peppered with occasional bits of slightly sinister darkness, but tending toward a blissed out kosmische New Age dreaminess, albeit with at least one blast of surprisingly rambunctious, analog synth driven space aged grooviness. All in all, pretty cool stuff, and a surprising (at least to us) new side to Mr. Lloyd Cole!
Not sure why, but we never really paid much attention to Louisville sluggers Coliseum, they maybe seemed too punk, or something, whatever it was, we're sort of kicking ourselves now, cuz this new one, their third, is a serious barnburner, although from what we hear their sound has changed quite a bit, still punk for sure, but super melodic, a bit metallic, and catchy as all get out. Maybe somewhere between the pop sludge of Torche, the muscly cock rock of Turbonegro and the post Kyuss hard rock of Queens Of The Stoneage, big chugging churning guitars, crushing powerhouse drums, killer hooks, thick fuzzed out bass, and the vocals, probably the most distinctive element, a harsh raspy howl that manages to be fierce and melodic, rough and raw, super intense and emotional, perfectly paired up with the throb and crush of the music pounding away beneath. The more we listen to this, the more these songs get stuck in our heads, and the more we dig 'em!
Features guest spots from Bonnie Prince Billy and members of Jawbox, Rodan, Squirrel Bait, Shipping News and Rachels, a sort of who's who of Louisville underground rock...
Holy shit these guys just keep getting better and better. Record number four finds this Louisville trio about as melodic as they've ever sounded, but still pretty goddamn heavy, and a lot more punk than last time around actually, with a massive production courtesy of Jawbox's J. Robbins, which perfectly suits their sound, giving even the poppiest jams some serious heft, and making the whole record sound equal parts classic nineties math/noise rock, chugging post punk and sludge pop heaviness a la Torche. In our review of the last Coliseum, we compared their sounds as being a strange mix of Torche, Turbonegro and Queens Of The Stone Age, which might still apply a bit, but to these ears, the new Coliseum has definitely shifted to something much more punk, managing to fuse their new found poppiness, with the urgent, punk fury of their earlier records, and while not as overtly and immediately catchy, it's a sound that suits them, the crunchy guitars, the gruff yowled vocals, the dense, hard hitting drumming, the thick buzzing bass, and the songs, super reminiscent of another era, the nineties, a sound/era/scene that we (and they) seem still pretty connected too. Not hard to imagine this record coming out on Homestead or Touch And Go back in the day, there's lots of brooding gloominess going on too (check out "Love Under Will"), lots of low slung bass driven groovery, and chugging churning punkiness, it's the sort of sound we often lament doesn't really exist anymore, and when bands do try to channel it, they often fail spectacularly, but these guys kill, and are out of time masters of that sound, a sound we love now as much as we did then.
Like their last record, Coliseum called in all sorts of favors so the guest roll call is a serious indie who's who, Wata from Boris, Jason Loewenstein from Sebadoh, Jason Farrell from Swiz and Bluetip, and Elizabeth Elmore from Sarge - her contribution maybe our favorite, her vox a good balance for Ryan Patterson's gruff bellow, almost wish she sang with him on all the tracks...
Has it been really eight years since we reviewed a Colleen record? We were never able to get her last release from a couple of years back, The Weighing of the Heart, which may explain some of the long gap, but Captain of None, her first for Thrill Jockey is a big change in direction and sound. Her main instrument of choice is still the viola de gamba, a baroque gut-string instrument that was said to be the one that closest resembles the sound of the human voice. On Captain Of None she plucks and processes the string sounds instead of using bowing techniques to get resonant and echoing harp and bass tones, in compositions influenced by Jamaican dub and West African songcraft. But even more of a new element in Colleen's sound is the use of her voice as a focus point. Delicate and dreamy, Captain Of None is some strange hybrid of Arthur Russell and Grouper with a tropical otherworldly vibe, and one of our favorite records released this year so far. Highly Recommended!
Here's the debut from this French dreami-tronica artist aka Cecile Schott. Ultra blissed out and lovely compositions crafted from an array of keyboards, music boxes, glockenspiels and guitars. Nice!
Golden Morning Breaks is the second album from Parisian electronic-folk abstractionist Colleen (alias Ms. Ceclie Schott). Her first record -- Everyone Alive Wants Answers -- made use of a plethora of keyboards, music boxes, glockenspiels and guitars, astounding many a listener with her playful if occasionally dark constructions of post-Harold Budd / Brian Eno ambience. Golden Morning Breaks picks up where that earlier album left off with gentle music box-y electronica that depending on your state of mind can be thought of as light'n'summery or creepily unsettling a la '70s Italian horror movie soundtracks. Regardless, this is lovely stuff.
With each subsequent release, Colleen (aka Cecile Schott) finds a new idiosyncratic path in approaching the sounds of her desires. Having an immense love for the sounds of antique medieval and renaissance instrumentation but without the classical training or the presupposed musical discipline required to master them, she has taken artfully slow and gradual steps backwards into the learning process. She first began to sample her friend's classical record collections to create electronic looping compositions, then armed with effects pedals she began playing borrowed instruments and sampling herself. Last year's experiments with augmented antique music boxes has bolstered her confidence into further distilling the electronic "crutches" from her work and learn not only to play but to compose on some of the antique instruments herself. Les Ondes Silencieuses (The Still Waters) is the wondrous result of her latest efforts with studying the viola da gamba, (an ancestor to the cello but with seven strings made of gut instead of four strings made of steel), and the spinet (a baby harpsichord). Sometimes her pieces are accompanied by classical guitar, clarinet and crystal glass, but most of the time the pieces are spare letting the singular instruments sing out their sweet melodies all alone. Haunting and subdued, these post-classical and post-minimalist compositions are unique in the way that gazes backward and forward in musical time without fitting neatly into a specified place. We need a new genre to place her in. Loner Classical? Antique Folk? Whatever you want to call it, this is highly recommended!
Colleen is the only music maker we can think of who can so perfectly crawl into our hearts, curling up and making it feel like home, with such delicacy and the softest sweetest touch. While not the official follow up to her gorgeous sophomore outing, The Golden Morning Breaks, this is a collection of recordings she made when commissioned by the French national radio station to record music for a special broadcast of Atelier De Creation Radiophonique (Radiophonic Workshop Of Creation). In taking on this commission Colleen decided to use the opportunity to further explore her love of and work with music boxes. Using everything from miniature music boxes hidden in 1940's birthday cards to huge Victorian parlor boxes, she hijacks and tweaks these boxes to create even more melodic, haunting, and beautiful creations. Whether playing them with her fingers or using a mallet, resampling, adding delay, reverb or pitch shifting, Colleen is one of those rare souls who can somehow make the sound of music boxes even more precious, delicate and dreamlike. Luckily she was happy enough with the results that she allowed Leaf to release this under the name Colleen Et Les Boites (Colleen and the Music Boxes). And once again we wish we could commission Colleen to make music for all of our dreams. So totally beautiful!
Really excellent Czech prog rock from 1973. Collegium Musicum were an instrumental organ-bass-drums trio in the best classically-influenced tradition. In other words, E.L.P.!!! This live album (their best release) is full of extended, virtuoso soloing from all three members. Energetic, kinda heavy, sometimes happy, sometimes dark, great music. Full-on '70s prog with a nice Eastern-European vibe. And we love the cover shot! (Not new, but we got a couple and wanted to list it, along with the equally awesome Fermata disc, for the Iron Curtain prog freaks we know populate our mailing list!)
If you've only recently plugged into the Canadian indie music scene, you may know this fellow only as the guitarist of Broken Social Scene, but his music-making past stretches far back beyond his days in that band -- first and foremost as a solo singer/songwriter in Toronto but also supporting and collaborative player with a few fellow Canadians that you may or may not have heard of (Hawksley Workman and Andrew Cash to name a couple). This is his follow-up to 2003's Motor Motel Love Songs which was a collection of early recordings also released on the Arts & Crafts label (home to Broken Social Scene, Stars, Valley Of The Giants and the most recent American Analog Set album). What this all means is that Collett's certainly no rookie. His chops and songwriting quill are sharp, but his manner and mood are comfortingly well-worn and easy-going. Warm and casual and frequently reminiscent of (but not totally a replication of) the sounds of '70s soft (and not so soft) rockers such as Bread, Joe Walsh, and America. The third song "Brownie Hawkeye" even reminded us of the theme to Welcome Back Kotter... which we're not sure is a good or bad thing. Well, we're leaning more towards the latter actually, but it's redeemed by the punchy pop of the sixth song "I'll Bring The Sun" (in our opinion, it's the album's standout and a shining single if there were to be a designated one for this album), Then, Collett turns on a dime and delivers the hushed, achingly pretty "Tinsel And Sawdust". Nice. Sure to please fans of his more well-known Canadian connection or those of the recent '70s soft rock revivalists.
Our in-house mycologist (how many record stores can claim one of those?) identified the cover star of this album as an Amanita muscaria, a very colorful and toxic mushroom found throughout the globe. While deaths are uncommon to this particular mushroom, it's also known for its psychoactive properties whose chemical compounds are not actually processed by the human body. So, after consuming one of these mushrooms, you can drink your pee and trip for days. Well, that's what Nick the resident mycologist tells us.
The cosmic trip from Colored Mushroom & The Medicine Rocks comes by way of Cleveland, starring the seemingly ubiquitous John Elliott (Emeralds, Mist, Imaginary Softwoods, Outer Space, etc.) with three other dudes who got together Christmas time of 2009 jamming out a bunch of tapes. This hyper limited LP is a best-of collection from those tapes, whose linear structures of percolating synths, post-Suicide drum machinations, and shimmered tone resembles much of the zoned out work from early Emeralds crossed with the glistening properties of those Mist LPs. Given that this album was released right before Emeralds embarked on a huge US tour opening for Caribou, most of these lps had been sold out on the road. It remains to be seen if we'll be getting any more copies from this pressing which counted less than 500 copies...
We love when folks usually associated with a certain sound and style step out and show off a different part of their make-up. Best known as the drummer for the mighty Comets On Fire, Utrillo Kushner lets his breezy sunny side shine through with his new project Colossal Yes. Perfect for those lazy days when all you wanna do is lay in the grass and stare into the rays of the sun. With really well crafted songs that incorporate lush piano into a more traditional folk/rock mix, this has made us think of the prime pop of Elephant Six related bands, early Mercury Rev, a dash of Beachwood Sparks' relaxed twang, a hint of Vetiver, the blissed out mellow hooks of Mojave 3 and the warmth of early 70's Beach Boys. There is a level of confidence in the playing that helps make this record flow so seemlessly and rise above so many others outfits going for this same sound and style with less satisfying results. Nice stuff!
Here's ten more piano-pop gems from Colossal Yes. Both catchy and somehow laid back, this is a record for outdoor barbeques and conversations with old friends. Not overly sappy, the record walks right through sweetness and sentimentality and emerges on the other side without the ickyness of either. The ubiquitous vocal/piano/guitar combination is fleshed out nicely with the occasional flute, organ or horn, especially noticeable in "They Feast on Us / We Feed on Them" and the penultimate jazzy track, "Outskirts of Radiant". Listening to the album on headphones (always recommended) allows the give and take between guitar (panned left) and piano (panned right) to stand out. Although at times the mix feels like the piano and guitar are fighting amongst themselves for sonic hegemony, they usually compliment each other in a way that shows quality musicianship and songwriting.
