This is the musical project of artist Marcel Dzama, who you should know if you're at all clued into the hipster art world. His drawings are Henry Darger-esque and he seems to have a thing for vampires. This limited edition 9" ep is part of a larger project that involves a custom made miniature log cabin, a beaver pelt, 20 limited signed prints, and this here record. Well, if you'd prefer not to drop the $10,000 the deluxe version will set you back (really!), then just the record is the way to go. Colored vinyl, packaged in a full cover sleeve, with an original Dzama painting depicting a morose looking black and white vampire family perched amidst a full color collage. The music of Albatross Note is a ramshackle, home recorded, chaotic indie pop. Damaged blues collides with sweetly soulful melodies, plaintive folks songs stumble and struggle through a thicket of amp buzz and tape hiss. Weird and wild and pretty wonderful. And buying just the record you save $9,980!! But if anyone -is- actually interested, there are a few of those Dzama cabins left....
Switzerland has more to offer the unruly noiseniks than just the Young Gods. Alboth, while having the same sort of pompous air as the Gods, approach their music with a little less bombast. This outing finds them sounding less like a piano fronted Naked City, and more like a computer generated post rock soundtrack, infused with a drug induced paranoia, and an exagerrated sense of otherworldliness. Allan and Andee both recommend this record highly.
Alboth! (yes, the exclamation point is part of their name, and deservedly so) was once known as the Swiss answer to Naked City (replacing Zorn's saxophone squalls with some amazingly fucked piano playing, however). Here they continue in their explorations of sonic extremity. Post-industrial jazzcore progrock? The current lineup dispenses with their signature piano, although there is use of a xylophone, as well as drums, guitar, vocals and electronics. Intense, crazy, like nothing else. But still recommended to fans of Naked City, Ruins, Oxbow, 16-17, etc.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The Album Leaf and Bright Eyes are the first contributors to this 7" series from the label that just recently brought us the new Track Star album. The Album Leaf, perhaps most noted for being the opener on Sigur Ros' first U.S. tour last year, is the solo side project of Mr. Jimmy LaValle (guitarist for San Diego based post-rockers Tristeza). Bright Eyes is Mr. all-by-his-lonesome Conor Oberst. Jimmy provides the instrumentation (lightly scritchy electronics, samples of children's voices), and Conor, the weary voice. Sounding just as one might expect... mellow, pretty and more than a little doleful. The only problem I found was the brevity of this record. Really, if you're gonna blanket the listeners in fuzzy indie bummerness, you gotta let 'em wallow in it a while.
Another outing of pleasant post-rock with electronics from San Diego's The Album Leaf.
You can always count on a pretty, wistful melody from Mr. Jimmy LaValle both on his own as The Album Leaf as well as in his other band San Diego post-rockers Tristeza, and his newest full length is chock full of 'em. Sooo soothing. Perhaps you saw him perform live when he more than fittingly opened for Sigur Ros a couple of years ago. If so, then you've got an inkling of the dreaminess you're in store for with In A Safe Place. It was even recorded at Sigur Ros' studio in Iceland! Each song is primarily centered on gentle guitars, contemplative piano and usually a shuffling drum beat, but he'll also add some strings, an occasional murmurred vocal or in the case of the eighth song "Streamside" an accordion! After listening to this a few times we've come to the conclusion that it would make the perfect soundtrack for the outtro montage of a coming of age movie about figure skaters. Guests include members of the aforementioned Sigur Ros as well as Pall from fellow San Diegans Black Heart Procession. Very Nice!
The Album Leaf has made a name for themselves as the American counterpart to (and comrade of) those grand glistening soundmakers Sigur Ros and Mum. Over the years his music has drawn more and more from the same wintry palette as those Icelanders. However on his fourth album Album Leaf central force Jimmy Lavalle's mellow post-rock roots from his days in the San Diego band Tristeza resurface more prominently than on previous albums. Gently grooving songs like "Writings On The Wall" also bring to mind an American Notwist. To boot, Lavalle is singing more than ever. Oddly enough we initially though he sounded a lot like a less morose Pall Jenkins of Black Heart Procession (bringing back to the fore another element from his past -- he played with them too), however we soon discovered that the voice actually was Jenkins'. Yup, the BHP singer contributed some backup harmonies to his buddy's album. The overall results are not such a vast departure from his past recordings, but they do cut some welcome fresh glistening facets into his lovely resonant tried and true. Recorded at Sigur Ros' Sundlaugin studios.
Hey there Album Leaf fans! This is a domestic reissue of his glistening 2003 ep that was previously released in Spain. The big whoop about this particular release though is that there's twice as many tracks as there were on the original... that makes for a 10-track EP! The five bonus cuts are live recordings from the tour they did with Sigur Ros (one is from Portugal and the other four are from Atlanta), but there really isn't that much difference between the studio recorded tracks and the live ones. It's a pretty seamless shift from the fourth to the fifth song -- which simply makes for a smooth listen. His blissed out electronic pop sounds as dreamy and delicate as ever.
No, not the '80s metal band, featuring Yngwie -- that Alcatrazz had two zz's in their name. This Alcatraz was a krautrock outfit from Hamburg, who released this album, their debut, in 1972. At last it gets a cd reissue -- we've always been curious about 'em 'cause the striking/silly LP cover painting (the lips and teeth of a vampire, with the bloody fangs being two inverted Empire State Buildings) always shows up in books of krautrock lore like Cosmic Dreams At Play and The Crack In The Cosmic Egg. AND, they're one of those Nurse With Wound list bands too! In fact, Nurse With Wound and Stereolab 'covered' this album's brilliant lead-off track "Simple Headphone Mind" on a collaborative ep some years back.
Alcatraz prove to be one of those wildly jamming, kinda-heavy bands, with some bluesy Zeppelin-esque riffing and powerful, fuzz-psych lead guitar (love that tone!) cutting through their fusionoid, jazzily-rockin' songs, which also feature sax, flute, piano, drums, bongos, and (on two tracks only) vocals. Reminds us of some way-out Traffic or Santana type of thing. Really, the mostly instrumental songs on here don't really sound like 'songs', just a lot of improv parts and crazy playing, which is of course cool by us. It totally makes sense that they started out playing covers of stuff by the likes of Savoy Brown, Vanilla Fudge, Black Sabbath, and Uriah Heep before getting into Soft Machine and Tony William's Lifetime -- the liner notes mention 'em blending Cannonball Adderly and Deep Purple!
While by no means a newly unearthed krautrock classic of Can or Faust proportions (though it was recorded at Faust's Wumme studio, during a police raid on suspected terrorists no less), this is a cool album of eccentric, sometimes epic, hippy jazz-rock. Reissued from the master tapes, with bonus track, and the aforementioned liner notes in both German and (more-or-less) English.
Metalheads are definitely a weird bunch, their likes and dislikes, what is considered true and cult, versus stuff labeled poser or false metal. In some cases it's definitely cut and dried, but in others, there's really no rhyme or reason. For instance, take Depeche Mode. Almost every metalhead we've ever met, loves Depeche Mode. Why? There seems to be no metal connection, other than a sort of darkness or gothiness. Yet, DM remain a fast favorite, with more than a few metal bands covering songs by them as well. Which brings us to Alcest. For the life of us, we can't figure out why these guys are so beloved by black metallers, even the ones who go on about frosty grim kvlt hordes and generally listen to only extreme buzzing blackness, they all seem to love Alcest. Not that there's not plenty to love, it's just Alcest are barely metal at all. Sure there's some harsh vocals now and again, some distorted guitar, even some blast beats but that's about it as far as it goes metalwise. And the thing is, even when Alcest do dip into some blasting blackness, it's more shoegazey and dreamy and washed out and melodic, which speaks to why we love this band so much, their ability to create this glimmering blown out dreampop using tropes usually reserved for musics much more harsh and heavy.
This latest record finds the band perfecting their ever evolving formula, merging a sort of depressive melancholic black metal, with total blissed out shoegaze jangle pop. On Ecailles De Lune, even the heaviest moments are infused with an undeniable poppiness, a sort of ethereal dreaminess, that turns this into one of the least likely black metal records ever.
The band can be perfectly summed up sonically in the nearly 20 minute two part opening salvo, jangly guitars, hushed vocals, explode into a sort of prismatic shoegaze post pop, all big chords, pounding drums, everything wrapped in a soft psychedelic haze, crooned sad boy vocals, way down in the mix, slow builds to Godspeed like crescendos, angelic female background vocals, lush harmonies, spidery tendrils of minor key guitar, finally within the last minute of the first part, slipping into a buzzing blast, but as mentioned above, it's not so black and grim as if is epic and effulgent and soaring and majestic and beautiful. The second part opens with spare chiming guitars, before some almost actual black metal erupts, a woozy descending minor key melody that quickly shifts into something much more moody with harsh vocals showing up for the first time. It's frenzied and buzzy, but still more dreamy and druggy than black, and then just as quickly as it started, the blackness fades, leaving a loping rhythm, sweet chiming clean guitars, and then the rhythm drops out too, and the song plays out with just a soft tangle of reverby guitar notes and ethereal female vocals.
"Percees de Lumiere" begins all Lifelover-y, with swoonsome soaring shoegaze pop and harsh vox, only to splinter into prismatic dreampop partway through, dreamy female vocals over softly churning chords underneath, so nice.
"Solar Song" is some sort of Slowdive / Swervedriver / My Bloody Valentine hybrid, warm lush chords, soaring vocal harmonies, a killer main melody, total classic pop wreathed in layers of washed out fuzz and swirling sonic gauze, maybe the 'hit' here if there was gonna be one.
An 8+ minute closer might have you expecting a blasting metallic finale, but instead, we're treated to a smoldering sprawl of soft strummed, chiming gloom pop, no drums, just layers of glistening guitars, warm lush vocals, a slow burning chunk or rainy day post-metal dreamfolk balladry. woozy, washed out, hazy, dreamlike and utterly gorgeous.
While they last, we've got the limited digi-book packaging version of this fine album.
Long before melodic post black metal or blackened shoegaze metal, or whatever you want to call it, became the flavor of the month (a flavor we continue to find delicious by the way), Alcest's 2 song debut came out of nowhere and blew minds. Not just ours, although ours were indeed sufficiently blown, but the metal world at large, the BLACK metal world, notoriously averse to innovation, especially of the poppy and melodic variety, with pretty much everyone freaking out over this French one man band, whose sound was a blend of Slinty post rock, spidery, shimmery shoegaze, and buzzing black metal. Since then, hundreds of bands have taken on the mantle of blackened jangle buzz pop, from Amesoeurs to Les Discrets, Deafheaven to Lantlos, but few releases, even later Alcest records, have managed to capture the same energy and intensity as these 2 songs.
The opening track "Le Secret", began long stretches of crystalline reverbed guitars, that goes on and on, 3+ minutes before the song proper begins, but then the guitars come buzzing in, thick, and crumbling, wrapped around an impossibly poppy melody, and then the vocals drift in, vocals which we initially thought were female, hazy, and washed out, high and softly plaintive, the track slipping easily from pounding blast, to loping midtempo, but always warm and washed out, softly buzzy and so divinely dreamy. Black metal perhaps, but smooth out some of the metallisms and you'd have a Lovesliescrushing tune, strip away the distortion and it might sound like Cocteau Twins.
The second track might be even better. "Elevation" begins with another long intro, this one all woozy shimmery synths, and when the 'band' launches into it proper, it's definitely buzzy and blackened, but again, infused with impossibly catchy melodies, and the vocals here are more black metal rasp, but somehow, the combination works perfectly, the riffs seeming to grow ever more epic and majestic, the pounding beats, blurring into another layer of pulsing buzzing sound. The sound does shift, from folky, clean guitar interlude, to lumbering midtempo chug and churn, which is when Alcest is at 'their' most metal, but the song drifts back toward the soaring majesty of the first half, droned out and hypnotic, buzzy and melodic and just about as sweetly warm and lush as black metal can get.
Even six years later, after hearing a million different bands employ this same strategy, these two tracks sound so fresh, so impossibly heavy and simultaneously so infectiously hooky, total fuzzpop blackbuzz dreamgaze bliss.
For this long awaited reissue, both songs have been rerecorded, these new version accompanying the originals, the liner notes explaining that Alcest mainman Neige was always unhappy with the sound, and the two new versions do sound a bit different, not necessarily better, but in some ways more lush and warm, less brittle and buzzy, even a bit more expansive and rich, although the originals were pretty dang perfect to begin with. Hard to say which versions we like more, but the fact that very little was changed besides the actual recording quality, means it almost doesn't matter!
Really, what can we say at this point about French shoegaze / post black metallers Alcest, that hasn't already been said, by us, and pretty much everybody else? Alcest are pretty much the gold standard when it comes to soaring emotional melodic shoegaze black metal (along with Amesoeurs, but they're both fronted by the same guy anyway), and with every record they move further and further away from actual buzzing blackness, but at the same time, they keep getting better and better (production, arrangement, songwriting) and in the process, their ability to blend their dreamy jangle and black buzz far surpasses any of the other groups out there trying for the same effect. There's no jarring shift from crystalline shimmer, and hazy dreamy drift to blasting buzz, it's totally organic, and sure, in the process, perhaps the black and the buzz becomes muted and less, well, buzzy and black, but the strange thing is, no one is complaining. Even the grimmest of metalheads seems to love Alcest (and Amesoeurs). It's the Depeche Mode principle again, like Depeche Mode, all metalheads love Alcest. Not that we can blame them, what's not to love? Especially here, on what is arguably the group's masterpiece, so epic, and melodic, and sweeping and soaring, lush and textured, alternatingly heavy and majestic, dreamy and drifty, heavy on the post rock and the jangle, with the black metallisims making up a relatively small part of the sound, and when the band do get into some buzzy blackness, the infuse it with an impossible melodic sense, and the fact that the sound is so lush and the record is so well produced, it makes it sound heavier than most proper black metal bands, not brittle and buzzy, or chaotic and furious, but epic and crushing and MASSIVE. It can only really be a matter of time before non metalheads catch on. There's plenty here that would not sound at all out of place alongside Explosions In The Sky and Godspeed You Black Emperor and M83 and Mogwai and all the rest, and we wouldn't be at all surprised if this had come out on Temporary Residence, or even Matador. Maybe that's in the cards, but for now, we can all continue to bathe in Alcest's glorious sonic glow, while they still remain, at least tenuously, in the underground. At this point, this can't really be a contender for black metal record of the year, cuz it's finally just too far removed, but it's still so goddamn good, we're having a hard time imagining very many records this year, metal or otherwise, will top it.
Sweater not included.
We've been gushing over French black metal outfit Ameseours for a while now. Their amazing blend of buzzing blackness and indie jangle. Like nothing we'd heard really, but was exactly what we always wanted, nay needed to hear, just didn't know it. As we mentioned in our review of their record, various members of that group also do time in the much more black metal Peste Noire, whose most recent record FolkFuck Folie we also reviewed recently, and in both reviews we lamented the fact that we were never able to get the ep by yet another related band, the even less metal, more blissy Alcest. And while that 2 song disc does in fact seem to be out of print, this here is the brand new full length, and besides being amazing, and one of the prettiest records of the year, it's absolutely and entirely not the least bit metal. AT ALL.�
Which is in no way a bad thing, it's just perplexing that black metal folks have been touting this as one of the best metal records of the year, even ever. Much like Ameseours, Alcest is all about indie jangle, and blissed out shoegazey pop, but where Ameseours, mixes that sound with a more traditional buzz and blast, resulting in some strange blackened hybrid, a sort of indie jangle black metal, Alcest, jettison the metal entirely, leaving nothing but gorgeous, dramatic, epic, blissful pop perfection. And this is simply that, perfect pop. The guitars are still distorted and slightly heavy, and there is some double kick drum action, but that stuff is so wrapped up in dense smears of glistening chordal thrum and breathy emotional vocals, simple acoustic guitar picking and buzzing fuzzed out grooves, that it just sort of gets absorbed into Alcest's divine dreamy drift.�
We talked about Justin Broadrick channeling the spirit of early nineties shoegaze pop in Jesu, but Alcest sound like they were transported directly from that era, yanked from a field of similarly minded sonic explorers like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Swervedriver, Chapterhouse, and the like. It almost seems pointless to mention anything about the band's black metal pedigree, since if you were going on sound alone, you would be hard pressed to not imagine this was some legendary college rock record from 1992, each track glorious and glistening, the guitars�soaring, epic and majestic, all�major key, a walls of sound, rich and thick and lustrous, the�bass mirroring the guitar, simple subtle harmonies, everything tangled into lilting bliss pop epics, while over the top drift�soft fuzzy vocals, both male and female, that almost even more than the music recall that specific musical era.
Absolutely the finest slab of blissed out, post My Bloody Valentine dreampop indie jangle drift we've heard in forever. Just listen to the sound samples and we think you'll be just as smitten as we are...�
I think El Bobo at Revolver Distro describes this better than I can: "A psychedelic chunk of the brain's ugliest regions torn from the skull and fried in a deep vat of sizzling rock oil, as Britain's skull chefs of garage-skree, guitar-psychosis prepare a dramatic post-love-vibe, punkadelic meal." Playing Terrastock!
The latest release from Andy Votel and Demdike Stare's Dead-Cert label comes in the form of a rare industrial oddity from Alessandro Alessandroni, who is either most famous for whistling that iconic melody from Ennio Morricone's "A Fistful Of Dollars" or for playing that oh so memorable riff on Morricone's "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly". We've reviewed some other Alessandroni records before, those more in keeping with the sound of a frequent Morricone collaborator, but this 1976 chunk of experimental weirdness is even more far out than anything you might expect from a guy who we already had pegged as pretty far out. Twisted tape loops and sinister synths are wrangled into pulsing sprawls of spaced out mesmerism, prepared pianos and acoustic guitars are recontextualized into some sort of heady kraut-psych styled avant groovery, and fractured melodies and stuttering rhythms are collaged into strangely pastoral and woozily lysergic stretches of motorik and minimal avant hypno-pop. Fantastic!
And extremely limited, we have less than 10 copies and after that it's apparently out of print and gone for good!
Last time, we listed some excellent Swedish psych reissues on the Silence label, all Parson Sound related bands like International Harvester, Harvester, and Trad Gras och Stenar. But those weren't all the great LPs Silence has dug up for cd reissue recently!
It's quite a bit different from Algarnas' approach on "Framtiden", being heavier, proggier, and more structured. The drifting, freeform improvisational aspects of the previous disc are overtaken by progressive rock compositions that incorporate eastern ragas, western classical music (there's a quote from Holst's "The Planets" in the first track), and folk ballads -- but Algarnas' roots in droning psychedelia aren't ignored either. Third Ear Band is referenced in one song, while the album ends with a gorgeous female-sung folk ballad. On the whole, "Delayed" is pretty great, but it seems that it comes from a more familiar '70s Prog Rock aesthetic than the truly otherworldly magic of its predecessor. So, unless you're more into prog than psych, definitely get "Framtiden" first, but then check this out -- it's a worthy, if lesser, successor to that album (BUT if you're someone who likes psych but can't cross the line at all into "prog", then maybe this isn't for you at all). When we first heard about "Delayed", we were hoping perhaps for a live disc with more of the material that formed the great bonus tracks on the "Framtiden" reissue, but the actual content here is far from disappointing!
This is one of those essential reissues that remind us that everything cool was already done about thirty years ago. Yep, these Swedish hippies sure knew what they were doing. Timeless psychedelia from 1972. Certainly everybody who gets worked up over the
This reissue (which actually came out back in '95 and we've had before, but never in big enough quanities or at low enough prices to list until now) adds two amazing live bonus tracks that Byram will tell you are worthy of the price of the disc alone!
These live tracks, along with the whole of the album proper, reveal Algarnas Tradgard as creators of dark stoned driftdrone every bit as cinematic as the best GSYBE! and even more authentically psychedelic than AMT leader Kawabata's beard. It's lovely, blissful, transportational stuff indeed. Our quick AQ-guide to the crucial Swedish psych essentials definitely includes this disc, along with the Parson Sound double cd, Bo Hansson's "Lord Of The Rings" opus and the International Harvester album. (Those are the top of the list, but once you've gotten into those you'll need to investigate Harvester, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Kebnekajse, and others from the Silence catalog, including Algarnas' lost-until-now second album, "Delayed", reviewed nearby!)
Algebra Suicide was an oddball, avant-pop project from the mid-'80s, whose first album actually landed on the legendary noise label RRRecords; but the DIY ethos of Algebra Suicide was clearly an anomaly even for RRR! This outfit was a Chicago-based, husband/wife duo of Lydia Tomkiw and Don Hedeker, with the former being the lyricist and the latter the engineer / songwriter / guitarist. Musically, Algebra Suicide was incredibly primitive with lots of space around the drum machine, synth, bass, and guitars all of which would lend towards a Young Marble Giants reference, with a fragile naivete to these machined click tracks and the chicken-scratch guitars. But on first exposure to Algebra Suicide, you'll quickly realize that it's all about Lydia. Her recitations are a cross between Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, and Karen Finley delivered in a coy monotone all with a very Midwestern accent, ruminating on death, modern love, clever-as-fuck malaise, urban boredom, and misrecognized mythologies. The band received a considerable amount of press by the late '80s through airplay on WFMU (where else, of course?) and some choice reviews in the Trouser Press guide, but by the early '90s their marriage faltered and the band collapsed. Feminine Squared is a collection of works from all of their albums as well as a compilation track or two. Dark Entries has issued this album with a booklet filled with articles, interviews, and reviews from back in the day as well as a live dvd from a performance in Chicago from 1984.
Despite what I am about to say, this is indeed an ultra groovy dream of an album and is well worth picking up. Really! It is unfortunate that these associations do tend to cloud the listening experience, but even without being much of a TV watcher I have to say that this new collaboration between Alias and his little brother Ehren (particularly the fifth track) really reminded us of that (albeit great) Aphex Twin track that was used in a bank commercial... alas! What distinguishes Alias & Ehren from Richard D. James here though is that they direct their spotlight to the sounds of saxophones for the melodic elements in their music. Overall, they're sound is more in line with the likes of Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, Postal Service), Canada's Caribou, or the artists on the German pretty pop-tronic label Morr Music. Breezy and blissful, but not unexpectedly with a little more rhythm and bass presence.
Yup, it's another vintage Alice Cooper album, and it's worth grabbing for the title track alone. After the recent reissues (Pretties For You and Easy Action) spurred her to revisit Billion Dollar Babies, the song has been stuck in Cup's head for weeks! So sinister and bizarre... kinda makes you feel as though you've been crawlin' the back alleys of Detroit or crashin' out in a decadent Laurel Canyon mansion. So dirty. So good. Amazing rock musicianship and composition. Gnarly grungy bass and guitar riffs. Multiple awesomely strange vocal leads. An unexpectedly delicate piano interlude ("Mary Ann"). Social programming methods for patriots ("Generation Landslide"). Plenty of creepy cold sweat moments (the epic sprawling "I Love The Dead"). Although this album may be most remembered for the anthemic pop rock of "No More Mr. Nice Guy" - itself quite a snapshot of the mysterious 'fame' underbelly - the album is truly a vivid document of the burgeoning Detroit / LA glam / shock rock scene circa '72-'73... most importantly, Alice Cooper as a strictly kick ass band, not a celebrity!
One of the Alice Cooper Band's most successful albums, from 1973, gets the Rhino reissue treatment, complete with a bonus disc of rare stuff (mostly live cuts, plus a few outtakes that really maybe should have remained outtakes and a non-LP single track). While not our favorite of all Alice Cooper albums, "Billion Dollar Babies" is still a classic and this is certainly the version to add to your collection. But, if you already have it, you'll have to decide if you want to buy it again just for some pretty decent live versions of, mostly, the same songs. Someone out there definitely needs to get this, though, just to sample Alice's intro to 'Raped And Freezing': "This next song is DIRTY, you'll love it!" The main cd, in case you don't know, contains such hard-rock and glam-horror hits as 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' and 'I Love The Dead'. (Note, this is filed under A, as we hold that up until "Welcome To My Nightmare", the Alice Cooper Band LPs should rightfully be filed under A, since Alice wasn't yet a solo act and the other original band members should get their due.)
Ok, we know what you're thinking (maybe). Alice Cooper? Aquarius Record(s) Of The Week? Two of 'em?? If you're not familiar with these albums, you might be wondering... and while we know that many loyal AQ customers are of course extremely knowledgeable about all sorts of cool music, just as much or more so than any of us who work here, we also wouldn't be surprised if more than a few of you had never been exposed to these first two Alice Cooper albums before. Which is why we HAVE to list them and make them Records Of The Week!!�After being out of print for far too long, they've now been newly reissued on cd (in limited editions, see below for more about that), and we're excited to be able to tell you about 'em.
So, when most people think of Alice Cooper, what comes to mind? The big '70s shock rock act, up there with KISS, the guy who was the Marilyn Manson of the '70s, or maybe the regular on Hollywood Squares, or even the early '90s hairmetal Alice, of Wayne's World "we're not worthy" fame. Campy and kitschy and scholocky and alcoholic, with snakes and blood. All good things of course. But even if you are a fan of the Alice Cooper classics from the '70s, albums like Love It To Death, Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, the Alice Cooper Band's 1969 debut Pretties For You and its 1970 follow up Easy Action are often overlooked, and underrated. Originally released on Frank Zappa's Straight label (and whatever you might think of Frank Zappa, he had a good track record for releasing freaky music by other folks, Captain Beefheart ferinstance!) this early Alice Cooper stuff is NOT the heavy metal hard rock you might be expecting. That was a direction AC went in really only after moving from LA to Detroit and hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin. There's hints of heaviness, of course, but this is waaay more psychedelic and poppy and proggy. And weird. If you think you know what to expect, think again. You're in for a bizarre treat indeed. (Some Alice Cooper fans might not agree, but we hope most open minded AQ customers will!)
The front cover of Pretties For You has a painting that make it look like a Robert Wyatt record. And on the back cover, the band, posing in a gallery of strange modern sculptures, show off a visual style that makes 'em look something like a cross between Blue Cheer and Roxy Music. Intrigued? Throw the album on, and you're confronted with the first of this album's many non-sequiturs, the orchestral fanfare of "Titanic Overture", which segues into the why-be-normal, twisty-turny psych piece "10 Minutes Before The Worm" (actually only 1 minute, 40 seconds long). They weren't trying to ease anybody into their "thing" it seems. Better yet is track three, "Swing Low Sweet Cheerio", the album's first true pop gem, and still plenty weird. And that's what this is, a pop album, full of great pop songs, super Beatlesy, hummable stuff. But it's Beatlesy in a tripped out Sgt. Peppers way. And wait a second, Pretties For You? The Pretty Things' "SF Sorrow" might also have been an influence. There's a lot of quirky dynamics, theatrical art rock gestures, cryptic humor, wild psychedelic effects, screaming fuzz guitar, strange stops and starts... it can be off-putting at first, probably difficult listening for some, with as much in common with Amon Duul II or even Olivia Tremor Control as they do with Alice Cooper's later million-sellers. But, you like '60s garage psych right? Well early AC were really a Nuggetsy garage band (originally called The Earwigs, then The Spiders, and then The Nazz, finally settling on Alice Cooper following a legendary Ouija board session). Doing their thing on the Sunset Strip in LA, they gradually got nuttier and nuttier, more psychedelic and experimental. If AC hadn't gone on to such later success, we're certain this would be regarded by psych lovers as an obscure cult classic of late '60s freakdom, like 50 Foot Hose or West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band or something. Instead, it's the record that probably confuses average Alice Cooper fans, and isn't heard by anybody else, which we think is a shame...
Alice Cooper's swaggering second effort, Easy Action, is just a bit more straightforward, more of a "rock" album, proto-glam in fact, AC maybe trying to take on T-Rex? On it, with some wicked lyrics, Alice starts to develop his better known, "mentally ill" or "evil" sick humor persona, in a wittier way though than the cartoonishness that later took over in later years. His ever-so-slightly-raspy, steeped-in-decadence voice, of course, always had star power from the very beginning, but here he occasionally breaks out a snarl that never surfaced on Pretties, amidst more melodic crooning. And one of the tracks, the spasmodic tour de force "Still No Air", foreshadows Alice Cooper's later West Side Story obsession on School's Out.
And Easy Action proves to be still pretty darn trippy and weird, with plenty of progtastic twists, just like Pretties. Heck, "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye" is 7+ minutes of pretty much just sound FX laced freakishness. This album boasts several more glorious psychedelic pop gems like "Laughing At Me", the piano ballad "Beautiful Flyaway", and the very Beatlesy "Shoe Salesman", alongside the harder rockin' likes of "Return Of The Spiders"... Oooh so many good tunes. Compared to the debut, it's perhaps a more confident, slightly less confusional record, that set them up for major label success of their next album, another huge favorite of ours, Love It To Death, recorded with Ezrin after their relocation to Detroit - a move that made sense, considering they did have a lot in sonically common with The Amboy Dukes and even the MC5. You'll also hear parallels to very early Blue Oyster Cult and David Bowie... And (moreso on Pretties) an American version of Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett era mind you...) or even a more obtuse The Doors...
While Alice Cooper (both the man and the band) made a lot of classic music in their career(s), no other Alice Cooper records were ever quite as arty and bizarre, with the unique one foot in the psychedelic sixties mix of throbbing manic energy and melancholic moodiness that's found on Pretties For You and Easy Action. Are we going out on limb by making 'em Records Of The Week? Nope, what could be more AQ?? These have been favorites here for a long time, but rarely available. And Jim and Allan bonded over these back when they both first started working here years ago. Also, we know the guys in Harvey Milk will have to be stoked to find that their new album got ROTW honors alongside these two!
And by the way, we insist on filing these under A, not C. It's the Alice Cooper Band dammit. Alice himself didn't go solo 'til Welcome To My Nightmare in 1975. The original act, featuring guitarists Glen Buxton and Mike Bruce, bassist Denis Dunaway, and drummer Neil Smith, alongside the former Vincent Furnier on vocals and snake handling, deserves their due! One of the great American rock bands.
One final note: these reissues on this new Rhino "Encore" imprint are based around the (dumb) idea of doing releases that are only available for a limited time. It's like the way Disney puts out DVDs. So, all the more reason for us to shout from the rooftops about these two albums -- in six months, according to the label, these reissues will be out of print, again!! Argh. So get 'em while you can, if you don't already have them in your collection!! And buy a copy for a friend!
Here's a long lost gem of a concert film -- anybody remember concerts? We mean CONCERTS!! Full on pull out all the stops, real rock and roll show concerts!!
In 1973 the Alice Cooper Band were a hard-charging unit that packed just the right sort of killer riffs and creepy crawly sleaze that would make them one of the biggest tour draws that year, out-grossing Grand Funk and even the Rolling Stones (and we do mean out-GROSSING, um... sorry)! This "midnight movie" shows the band onstage plowing through the hits with plenty of power and tightness to spare. Alice wears the filthiest of stage outfits, at one point sporting a big dirty toothbrush chasing down and trying to 'brush' some leggy young ladies all dolled up like "female teeth"! Hmmm...
We probably oughta mention too, that this is not -just- a concert film, there IS a plotline to the film. Well, kinda.
Seems there is a German Film Director and Alice and his gang don't like the production and proceed to trash the set, and much hilarity and chaos and all out weirdness ensues. The film goes from a few minutes of this stilted storyline improv back to a few songs performed live, and then back again to the "acting". Lucky for us the DVD has a "play concert only" option so after viewing the movie in its entirety, you can just enjoy just the music, as the band fires up and totally delivers the goods to a very "saucer-eyed-for-some-reason" young audience who just eat it all up, the props, the theatrics, the power riffs and the chaotic insanity for which Alice "the Eighth Wonder of the World" Cooper was legendary.
Also included on this (the original cut) of the film is a new surround sound mix of the audio as well as some theatrical trailers that feature that guy who did all the stark & scary voice-overs from the horror thriller previews back in the day as well. Good to see you again, Alice! Close window [javascript: window.close()]
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Here's another $5 sale cd that, well, you must buy if you don't have it already. An utter classic - albeit one of the many classics that came out in 1971. Probably the original Alice Cooper band's best album, though that's a tough call. A lot of folks mistakenly think of this as their debut, 'cause it featured their first big hit, the anthemic "I'm Eighteen". But while it was the debut of Detroit-era Alice, it was actually the group's third album, following the two somewhat weirder and artier, more Sgt. Peppery poppy psych ones they did for Frank Zappa's Straight label before they moved to Detroit from LA (those being Pretties For You and Easy Action, the reissues of which we made Records Of The Week here!).
Love It To Death is plenty psychedelic too, and weird, but also really established the band's hard rock bona fides. They heavied up when they moved to the Motor City it seems, delving into high energy Detroit rock action in the vein of the MC5 on "Long Way To Go" amongst others here - heck "I'm Eighteen" could easily be a Stooges song. It's the record too where the Alice Cooper shock rock horror show image really came into focus for the first time. It includes such creepy cuts as "Black Juju" and "Ballad Of Dwight Fry", also their curious cover of Rolf Harris' catchy "Sun Arise" from the early '60s to end the album and demonstrate it's not all darkness. We'll also mention "Caught In A Dream", "Is It My Body" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name", but every song here is great. This album belongs in our 1971 top ten for sure, which is no mean feat!
Note: filed under A, not C: singer Alice hadn't gone solo yet, and the original band is called Alice Cooper, dammit!
Ok, we know what you're thinking (maybe). Alice Cooper? Aquarius Record(s) Of The Week? Two of 'em?? If you're not familiar with these albums, you might be wondering... and while we know that many loyal AQ customers are of course extremely knowledgeable about all sorts of cool music, just as much or more so than any of us who work here, we also wouldn't be surprised if more than a few of you had never been exposed to these first two Alice Cooper albums before. Which is why we HAVE to list them and make them Records Of The Week!!�After being out of print for far too long, they've now been newly reissued on cd (in limited editions, see below for more about that), and we're excited to be able to tell you about 'em.
So, when most people think of Alice Cooper, what comes to mind? The big '70s shock rock act, up there with KISS, the guy who was the Marilyn Manson of the '70s, or maybe the regular on Hollywood Squares, or even the early '90s hairmetal Alice, of Wayne's World "we're not worthy" fame. Campy and kitschy and scholocky and alcoholic, with snakes and blood. All good things of course. But even if you are a fan of the Alice Cooper classics from the '70s, albums like Love It To Death, Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, the Alice Cooper Band's 1969 debut Pretties For You and its 1970 follow up Easy Action are often overlooked, and underrated. Originally released on Frank Zappa's Straight label (and whatever you might think of Frank Zappa, he had a good track record for releasing freaky music by other folks, Captain Beefheart ferinstance!) this early Alice Cooper stuff is NOT the heavy metal hard rock you might be expecting. That was a direction AC went in really only after moving from LA to Detroit and hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin. There's hints of heaviness, of course, but this is waaay more psychedelic and poppy and proggy. And weird. If you think you know what to expect, think again. You're in for a bizarre treat indeed. (Some Alice Cooper fans might not agree, but we hope most open minded AQ customers will!)
The front cover of Pretties For You has a painting that make it look like a Robert Wyatt record. And on the back cover, the band, posing in a gallery of strange modern sculptures, show off a visual style that makes 'em look something like a cross between Blue Cheer and Roxy Music. Intrigued? Throw the album on, and you're confronted with the first of this album's many non-sequiturs, the orchestral fanfare of "Titanic Overture", which segues into the why-be-normal, twisty-turny psych piece "10 Minutes Before The Worm" (actually only 1 minute, 40 seconds long). They weren't trying to ease anybody into their "thing" it seems. Better yet is track three, "Swing Low Sweet Cheerio", the album's first true pop gem, and still plenty weird. And that's what this is, a pop album, full of great pop songs, super Beatlesy, hummable stuff. But it's Beatlesy in a tripped out Sgt. Peppers way. And wait a second, Pretties For You? The Pretty Things' "SF Sorrow" might also have been an influence. There's a lot of quirky dynamics, theatrical art rock gestures, cryptic humor, wild psychedelic effects, screaming fuzz guitar, strange stops and starts... it can be off-putting at first, probably difficult listening for some, with as much in common with Amon Duul II or even Olivia Tremor Control as they do with Alice Cooper's later million-sellers. But, you like '60s garage psych right? Well early AC were really a Nuggetsy garage band (originally called The Earwigs, then The Spiders, and then The Nazz, finally settling on Alice Cooper following a legendary Ouija board session). Doing their thing on the Sunset Strip in LA, they gradually got nuttier and nuttier, more psychedelic and experimental. If AC hadn't gone on to such later success, we're certain this would be regarded by psych lovers as an obscure cult classic of late '60s freakdom, like 50 Foot Hose or West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band or something. Instead, it's the record that probably confuses average Alice Cooper fans, and isn't heard by anybody else, which we think is a shame...
Alice Cooper's swaggering second effort, Easy Action, is just a bit more straightforward, more of a "rock" album, proto-glam in fact, AC maybe trying to take on T-Rex? On it, with some wicked lyrics, Alice starts to develop his better known, "mentally ill" or "evil" sick humor persona, in a wittier way though than the cartoonishness that later took over in later years. His ever-so-slightly-raspy, steeped-in-decadence voice, of course, always had star power from the very beginning, but here he occasionally breaks out a snarl that never surfaced on Pretties, amidst more melodic crooning. And one of the tracks, the spasmodic tour de force "Still No Air", foreshadows Alice Cooper's later West Side Story obsession on School's Out.
And Easy Action proves to be still pretty darn trippy and weird, with plenty of progtastic twists, just like Pretties. Heck, "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye" is 7+ minutes of pretty much just sound FX laced freakishness. This album boasts several more glorious psychedelic pop gems like "Laughing At Me", the piano ballad "Beautiful Flyaway", and the very Beatlesy "Shoe Salesman", alongside the harder rockin' likes of "Return Of The Spiders"... Oooh so many good tunes. Compared to the debut, it's perhaps a more confident, slightly less confusional record, that set them up for major label success of their next album, another huge favorite of ours, Love It To Death, recorded with Ezrin after their relocation to Detroit - a move that made sense, considering they did have a lot in sonically common with The Amboy Dukes and even the MC5. You'll also hear parallels to very early Blue Oyster Cult and David Bowie... And (moreso on Pretties) an American version of Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett era mind you...) or even a more obtuse The Doors...
While Alice Cooper (both the man and the band) made a lot of classic music in their career(s), no other Alice Cooper records were ever quite as arty and bizarre, with the unique one foot in the psychedelic sixties mix of throbbing manic energy and melancholic moodiness that's found on Pretties For You and Easy Action. Are we going out on limb by making 'em Records Of The Week? Nope, what could be more AQ?? These have been favorites here for a long time, but rarely available. And Jim and Allan bonded over these back when they both first started working here years ago. Also, we know the guys in Harvey Milk will have to be stoked to find that their new album got ROTW honors alongside these two!
And by the way, we insist on filing these under A, not C. It's the Alice Cooper Band dammit. Alice himself didn't go solo 'til Welcome To My Nightmare in 1975. The original act, featuring guitarists Glen Buxton and Mike Bruce, bassist Denis Dunaway, and drummer Neil Smith, alongside the former Vincent Furnier on vocals and snake handling, deserves their due! One of the great American rock bands.
One final note: these reissues on this new Rhino "Encore" imprint are based around the (dumb) idea of doing releases that are only available for a limited time. It's like the way Disney puts out DVDs. So, all the more reason for us to shout from the rooftops about these two albums -- in six months, according to the label, these reissues will be out of print, again!! Argh. So get 'em while you can, if you don't already have them in your collection!! And buy a copy for a friend!
West Side Story meets '70s glam metal.
With the release of Freaks In Love, from weirdo New York noise rockers Alice Donut, we realized we had never reviewed a single Alice Donut record. Ever. Most likely because most of them predated the list, but even so, that's no excuse, considering Alice Donut are one of our favorite bands EVER. And we know, it's a little like crying wolf, constantly trumpeting bands and releases as being the best ever, but we have loved, and been borderline obsessed with these guys for almost 25 years, playing every single record to death, seeing them live every time they played in San Francisco, and since they were on Alternative Tentacles, and played here so much, for a while, we just assumed they were an SF band, which really they might as well have been, cuz they were, and are, just the right amount of freaky and heavy, noisy and catchy, and are responsible for some of our favorite jams of the eighties and nineties, and many a mixtape has included at least one AD jam, often their kick ass cover of "War Pigs" with the vocals replaced by TROMBONE!
Anyway, recently a documentary about the band came out, and is presented here along with a two disc sort of greatest hits, which for the uninitiated, might just blow your mind, some of the finest weirdo rock EVER. And not just weird, but catchy as fuck to boot. Just check out the samples below for "Egg", and "Mrs Hayes", and "Dorothy", and of course the best titled song ever: "The Son Of A Disgruntled X-Postal Worker Reflects On His Life While Getting Stoned In The Parking Lot Of A Winn Dixie Listening To Metallica". Frontman Tomas Antona has one of the weirdest, coolest voices ever, and the songs, so twisted and weirdly hooky, this stuff sounds as weird and wonderful now as it did the first time we heard it. And while this 'greatest hits' is missing some of our favorites, odds are if you end up digging this, it won't be by half measures, and you'll find yourself tracking down all the records anyway.
But the real reason for this release is the documentary, which is actually super entertaining, we even watched it with someone who knew nothing really about Alice Donut, and not only dug the movie, but ended up wanting all the records afterwards. It's a pretty standard rock doc, notable for being super fun to watch, even though there were no deaths, or drugs, or overdoses, as dramatic as it got, was people getting kicked out of the band or tours getting fucked up, but all the band members are super cute and likable, and that only makes the music that much cooler.
The packaging is super sweet too, a weird oversized digipak, with a strange fold out triple disc holder, as well as a massive full color booklet, with liner notes and lyrics, and every available surface adorned with Antona's awesomely disturbing illustrations.
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.
If you have a radio or MTV you're probably already familiar with this band's cover of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal". It's actually pretty great. Too bad they didn't do a whole record of MJ covers. Instead, the rest of the disc is fairly standard nu-metal that *sounds* good but isn't super-catchy. Maybe it'll grow on us if we give it a chance, except that we keep skipping
Record number two from these weirdo psychedelic outliers, their first under the newly hatched moniker Alien Ballroom, after jettisoning their previous name, Koolaid (Global Tyranny). Not sure if it was some sort of cease and desist from that giant pitcher after smashing through their practice space wall, or they jut decided this new name better suited their sound, but either way, if you dug that Koolaid record, you're gonna dig this one too, and the new name is definitely pretty apt, this just might be the kind of thing that would get played in an alien ballroom, assuming it was some fucked up alternate sixties there, where everyone was out of their gourd on alien drugs, and wanted to get totally lost in clouds of tranced out caveman psych.
Just get a load of the opening track here, the sidelong "The New Revelation", which ditches, at least initially, much of the random sampled weirdness that was all over the Koolaid record, in favor of a simple, fuzzed out, knuckle dragging garage dirge psych groove, that sounds a bit like a Cro-Magnon Wooden Shjips, warbly organs, tribal drumming, a simple motorik groove, a killer main riff, the vocals laid back and a bit washed out, the whole thing wreathed in clouds of effects and layers of buzz and hum and thrum, it's not really until 5 or 6 minutes in that the samples pop up, but instead of taking over, like on the Koolaid record, they drift into the background, taking that main riff with it, the drums switching to a simple pounding pulse, the song transforming into something way more freeform and tripped out, the bass slithery, the guitars drenched in effects, and drifting through an expanse of druggy haze and tangled melodies, the sound gradually regaining momentum, not to mention some HORNS, which sound amazing, the sound blossoming into something weirdly stately and majestic, before resolving in a final squall of psych garage crunch.
The flipside is all shorter tracks, and way more varied, the horns returning on the dreamily psych-poppy "banks Of The Dee" that almost sounds like some long lost Elephant Six outtake, minus the warped samples and fucked up FX, "Hogs Are Coming", is all droned out dirge, driven by big reverbed drum pound, and an absolutely KILLER heavy psych breakdown that sound like it must be a sample, murky and blown out, and wreathed in fragmented samples of the same freakout. "Street Beacon" is a dizzying heady backwards guitar / dubbed out vox freeform psych-drone freakout, while "Instant K" adds some woozy sitar shimmer and echoey vox, to a loping garage rock groove. "Ringstone Round" is all murky proto-metal garage punk dirge, woozy and washed out, and finally, "Forty Ton Rock" finishes things off in a blaze of freaked out glory, a swirling tangle of chaotic sound quickly coalesces into a tribal drum driven dirge, all reverbed guitar and deep crooned vox, laced with some soaring surprisingly sweet melodies, which pepper the otherwise woozy swaggery murk.
Killer stuff for sure, fans of all things heavy psych and weirdo space rock, the line starts here. Might be even better than the Koolaid record, which is most definitely saying a lot!
Also includes a download!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A beautifully packaged display of contemporary (but retro-flavored) pop-psych from Finland, from a band some might recall from that swell Fonal label comp Surrounded By The Sun. Alien Heat's Awake In A Dream is the brainchild of Teemu Elo, formerly guitar-player for (y)our Finnish faves Circle. This isn't at all like the space-prog weirdness of Circle, though. It's rather more like Swedish band Dungen, who mine similar influences: Syd Barrett and '60s SoCal sunshiney soft sike pop. Sometimes it's dusty and folkish and a little dark, and there's a wee bit o' flute which always appeals to us. Alien Heat's gentle, toe-tappingly melodic songcraft is certainly less "damaged" and abstract than fellow Fonal folksters Kemialliset Ystavat, but we'd imagine a lot of the same people'd like this as well, though it might be too "normal" for some of the real avant-folk heads out there...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The long overdue return of these Belgian musical miscreants, whose last release, the super limited tape and then not so limited cd Luizig, was a huge favorite around these parts, and why the hell not, a blown out blackened smear of in the red doom dirge weirdness, that we compared to folks like Ash Pool and Akitsa and Ancestors. But that had a lot more to do with the quality of the sound, the timbre and tone, the brutally lo-fi recording, the music itself was much more twisted and blurred and tangled and whatthefuck.
For this two song follow up, Alkerdeel change gears pretty dramatically, opening up with nearly 4 minutes of super spare stripped down doom. The guitar distorted, but surprisingly clean by Alkerdeel standards, the drums a simple funereal plod, until finally the vocals swoop in, a hellish shriek, WAY up in the mix, before just as quickly drifting off, leaving the same skeletal doom, but this time, the guitar explores a bit more, more melody, more sprawling ambience, and again, the vocals come in and the track shifts gear into a pounding lo-fi midtempo dirge, all buzzy guitar, stumbly drumming, growled howled vocals, even a stretch of buzzing blastbeat blackness, before fracturing into something more mathy and woozy and off kilter, and for the remainder of the track (a long one at 13 minutes) slipping from super dirgey atonal crawl, to furious frenzy of chaotic buzz, to blurred washed out blackness. Pretty awesome stuff. This time we might add to the above mentioned bands outfits like Moss and Bunkur and the like, much doomier this go round.
But then band go and follow up with an Ildjarn cover, total raw and primitive buzz drenched black metal d-beat pound. As crusty and punk rock as it is kvlt and grim, simple pounding drums, hypnotic almost looped sounding riffage, even a sort of double time more punk rock second half, the whole thing laced with perfectly yowled whiskey soaked crusty vokills.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! We managed to get the last 20, it's already out of print, so once these are gone, they are gone forever. Packaged in a cool mini 3" dvd style plastic clamshell case, full color insert, each one hand numbered of course.
Sprouting up out of the thawing pre-springtime earth like happy lil' crocuses is this new retro-pop quartet starring Jen from The Softies. Join them under their beach umbrella as they warm things up with their breezy, janglin' guitar melodies and sugary-fun harmonies heavily influenced by the '60s Brill Building pop like the Shangri-Las or the Ronettes. If you were/are a fan of that
It's a freeform pop LA fantasy from these moonshadowing members of Beachwood Sparks! All crazy colours and psychedelic effects. Modern indie-pop soaked in a blurring watercolor bath, with big '60s influences obviously, ending up a bit like Olivia Tremor Control and (hey!) just a bit like Beachwood Sparks. Maybe Flaming Lips and Beck too. These are loose lazy songs fulla sunshine, echoing vocals, ambient interludes... They've got a freaky kitchen sink approach to their arrangements, mixing in pedal steel, strings, horns, electronics, etc. And they're not afraid of piling on the reverb. While no one song entirely stands out as a hit here, the whole thing is still ear candy. Nice! (NB not to be confused with the band just called All Night.)
We'd been hearing about this new project for a little while, a duo featuring Katy Goodman from Vivian Girls (and La Sera, reviewed elsewhere on this list!) and Gregg Foreman of Delta 72 fame (as well as being a regular player in Cat Power's band). Watch out Best Coast, as this is another awesome duo featuring an indie rock veteran and a younger female vocalist creating totally warm and fuzzy timeless girl group inspired garage pop. We like how Foreman gets some really cool sounds with his organ and treated guitars, which create the perfect hazy backdrop for Goodman's reverb soaked enchanting vocals. It's a bit more dreamy and washed out then what many in this terrain have been making lately. Releases on Art Fag don't tend to stick around too long, so act fast on this one!
All Smiles is the new project by Jim Fairchild aka the former guitarist of the sadly defunct band Grandaddy. Ten Readings Of A Warning is his brand new indie rock album. It's considerably more stripped down and straightforward than his old band was, but no less charmingly slouchy and hook filled. Reverential nods towards the Beatles and Bread abound with gentle pop sweetness. You'll surely take the band name and these eleven songs to heart. So nice!
NOTE: If you buy this cd you'll also get a free 7 inch while quantities last!
We're so stoked to get our hands on this limited edition release (on cassette, or black vinyl, or deluxe clear vinyl, take your pick) by this fantastic San Francisco goth/gloom duo. While there's been no shortage of new bands inspired by the sound of bleak '80s goth/industrial as of late, All Your Sisters stands way above the crowded pack as they infuse tons of raw emotion in their songs instead of just being concerned with nailing a particular sound/style.
It doesn't hurt that they do nail that sound/style so damn perfectly. Comparisons we've heard, bringing up records by folks like Clan Of Xymox, Skinny Puppy, and Ministry for sure hit the mark. We also hear hints of early Neurosis, Sisters Of Mercy, Bauhaus, and a dirty/nastier Nine Inch Nails. As the record goes on there is more of a dazed & doomy sound that will make fans of Lustmord and the like want to raise their ears to this.
But for us it all comes back to the feeling we get when we blast this record, as it gets right to our core and leaves no doubt that it was made with lots of guts, sweat, blood, and tears. So fucking good!
The cassette & both versions of the lp all come with a digital download, btw. And the 'deluxe' lp, besides being clear, comes with a special metallic printed insert.
All-Time Quarterback is a quirky side project of Death Cab For Cutie, which picks up Trio's knack for factory presets and a more naive song writing approach. In the end All-Time Quarterback's imminently more bizarre behavior ends up being catchier than the majority of the Elephant Six bands.
Awesome! You can always count on Sundazed to do retrospective compilations right! Here's a super comprehensive collection of Davie Allan's music. You might already be unknowingly familiar with him 'cuz he did countless songs for numerous '60s biker b-movie soundtracks. Some of them even treat you to a rumbling motorcycle intro. His fantastic guitar sound comes tearing outta your speakers with a fierce energy. Who can resist "Blue's Theme"? You can almost smell the gas fumes and feel the bad guys closin' in behind ya. Most of the tracks are pretty straightforward surf garage instrumentals, but there are a few that are more abstract and trippy (such as the piano-laced "The Ghost Story" that brings the first disc to a close) as well as one with vocals too (the woozy "Glory Stompers" on the second disc). Forty badass tracks in all! Killer!
Here's the expensive import, for those that can't wait 'til this comes out domestically, in January we believe... At the crossroads of Kylie Minogue, Bebel Gilberto, Puffy Ami Yumi and Lady Sovereign sits this lady Ms Lily Allen. What does that mean? Sleek girlish fun, of course! Have to say though that the cover art made us a bit wary. With all the bling, lightning bolts and boomboxes it looks like it fell out of the pages of Vice Magazine. This is a candy-colored, gleeful tilt-a-whirl of an album! One weird listening moment came during the intro to the eighth song. We actually were expecting her to break into a little Cat Stevens, but she didn't. The tune "Littlest Things" does seem suspiciously infused with "Wild Life"-ness. It's almost as though she removed Stevens' vocals and lyrics and dropped her own over top. That oddness aside, ya gotta stick with her 'cause the flouncin' final track "Alfie" just might be the best! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
Here's a project with some connections to AQ-fave band Village of Savoonga, featuring the original compositions of Munich's Michael Heilrath (Couch, Blond) written as the score for a 1920 silent film version of Hamlet. The fractured rhythms of Markus Acher (VoS, Tied and Tickled Trio, Notwist) are juxtaposed with dramatic string arrangements while tasteful post-rock styled guitar, bass and drums round out the mediatative loops.
