A split cd between Christian Kiefer and Jeff Pitcher's project Above the Orange Trees. Both musicians add to the canon of super sad singer songwriters: Jeff Pitcher's completely heartbroken songs are lushly melodic and quietly epic, bringing to mind Joel Phelps (ex-Silkworm) and Talk Talk; while Christian Kiefer's tracks are even more anguished than Pitcher's (if that's even possible), similar to the stillness of Low, the warm earthiness of Mark Kozelek, and the macabre twang of Songs:Ohia and Will Oldham/Palace. The artists also each contribute a cover of one of the others songs. Depressing in a good way.
Second full length by this outfit led by Scott Hull (of Pig Destroyer and formerly of Anal Cunt). The distinction between Hull's other project Pig Destroyer and ANB (both are furious grind metal units) is maybe a little nebulous, but the most obvious differences are: ANB uses a drum machine instead of a live drummer, and their songs are way more varied and for the most part, WAY weirder. Totally inhuman, lightning speed hyper-blast beats, harsh and brutal guitar tone, insane riffing, and super distorted totally sick vocals. Most of the tracks are blazing fast and brutal as fuck, but occasionally they slow it down to a midtempo old school thrash attack (speaking of old school thrash, there's even a Nuclear Assault cover with Dan Lilker on bass/vox!). The production is really bizarre with lots of samples, weird electronic bits, and lots of digital fx and processing on the vocals and guitars. There's even a weird almost techno number that manages to be just as fearsome as the rest of the more metal tracks. All the production craziness and occasional electronic bits remind us a little of James Plotkin's WAY far out glitch-grind Atomsmasher album we dug so much. And the cover art courtesy of Hydra Head honcho and member of Isis, Aaron Turner, is also very cool. So far, "Frozen Corpse" is easily the best grindcore record this year, as far as Andee and Allan are concerned!
Once closely affiliated with the Bristol post-rock crowd alongside Flying Saucer Attack, Movietone, Third Eye Foundation and the underappreciated Crescent, Amp has all but completely dissolved the post-MBV guitar luminescence found on their first records. Nevertheless, the core duo of Richard Walker and Karine Charff has held onto strains of that scene's sleepy miserablism in the form of languid, vaguely trip-hopped rhythms swathed in hazy atmospheres, distant guitar delicacy, and Charff's pleasantly downer voice. Strange as it may seem, Amp has slowly been turning into a rougher version of Coldplay or Doves.
As metal band names go, Argile has got to be the least scary one since Chinchilla! (Yes, there's a German band on Metal Blade called Chinchilla). These guys -- the duo of S.A.S. de l'Argilere and Jean-Jacques Moreac -- are from France, actually, but the band Argile reminds us of the most, in spirit and in sound, is Swiss: the legendary Celtic Frost, eccentric and adventurous. Jean-Jacques and S.A.S. play technically proficient, weirdly baroque, darkly dark, black but melodic metal, with plenty of those over-the-top Children Of Bodom -style keyboard flourishes we love. Like their name and album title, a bit absurd, but never admitting to any overt humorous intent. And Argile even do a cover of "In The Shadow Of The Horns" by Norwegian black metal stalwarts Darkthrone, showing that despite their proggy, avantgarde tendencies, they appreciate the more primitive powers of metal as well. Despite their odd name (or perhaps because of it) we can't help but like this a lot.
A 3" cd-r from this obscure & primitive Finnish psych-folk entity. Stumbling psych jamming spread over two tracks, nearly twenty minutes. Imagine the Dead C playing Finnish forest music. Or Tower Recordings covering International Harvester next door to Reynols' practice space? Droning, damaged clatter, like the cavorting of drugged out hippy carpenters. This band may or may not have members in common with labelmates Kemialliset Ystavat, that OTHER amazing damaged Finnish folk combo (of which we have a new release, see nearby for review) -- but any rate, fans of Kemialliset will like this too. Numbered and limited to 100 copies.
Beneath The Lake is the new ambient drone project of Nicolas Lampert, who was one third of AQ faves Noisegate, a bay area crusty, death-drone-ambient project with two records out on Andee's tUMULt label. Beneath The Lake finds Nicolas and new partner Dave Canterbury exploring similar sonic space as Noisegate did on their last full length 'Suspended Animation', but with more emphasis on the nature of sound and a much more dense and heavily layered approach. Utilising cello, guitar, pedals, processors and environmental recordings of sea lions, water, whales, wasps, wolves, owls and wind, Beneath The Lake manage to create rumbling pulsing drones that feel somehow alive, with organic thrum and cavernous shimmers, sounds slipping in and out of the sonic landscape, sparse and desolate one moment, lush and overpowering the next. Haunting and chillingly beautiful. One of our new favorite drone records.
Copenhagen's rock scene in the early 1970s was so small and fertile that bands formed and reformed in various combinations of the same people. Case in point -- Blast Furnace came together in 1970, released a single great LP in 1971, and by 1972 3/4 of Blast Furnace had joined the band Culpepper's Orchard. It's kind of amazing that this record has been lost to all but the most die hard fans of Danish progressive rock, because it's so clearly great. The angst-filled (almost Faust-ish) vocals of Brit singer Tom McEwan take turns with super-expressive organ lines. And there are flutes eveywhere (which fills our flute obsessive Andee with joy).
And the arrangements are really good, making the most of minor key melodies so that nothing need be overstated. There aren't extended wanky instrumental passages here, for a prog band Blast Furnace edited themselves so well, leaving us wanting more. And, in fact, there is more -- a non-album track intended as a single has also been included on this cd. The disc starts off as classic and firece seventies prog, with complex melodic passages and some instrumental spacy jamming, but as the record progresses, the record veers dramatically from mostly instrumental prog, to super dramatic, almost goofy (in a good way) balladeering. The vocalist's deep baritone waxes poetic on ridiculous and far out subject matters, like the plight of Toytown, or poor sad Bobo the Clown. Sounds silly, and it sort of is, but it's really really good. Reminds us a little of AQ faves Paternoster (although not nearly as insane) or some super melodramatic seventies singer songwriter. But the combination of heartfelt ballads and searing prog action make this a weird and great find. Windy's new favorite record.
I came to love folksinger Kath Bloom's frail, plaintive, birdlike voice through her recordings with the avant guitarist Loren Mazzacane Connors -- the pair made 5 gorgeous LPs in the '70s which are no longer available, but from which a current best-of cd has been compiled. (Highly recommended.) I've since been sort of obsessed with tracking down Kath Bloom and have finally succeeded. She is still making music, thank goodness, and thus we're proud to be carrying her self-released Come Here cd-r (I think we might be the only store to do so). Kath's voice is as fragile and trembly as ever, and the instruments accompanying here are likewise light -- airy guitar, harmonica, bittersweet fiddle. Most of the pieces are from the mid-'90s. Very nice, but an acquired taste, so make sure to listen to the soundclips.
"Heavy Rocks" is -- to state the obvious if you've heard it -- a more than apt title for this newest (and long-awaited) collection of tuneage from everyone's favorite Japanese heavy rockers, Boris. Yes, the thunderous Tokyo trio of Takeshi, Wata, and Atsuo are back! We promised last year in our write-up of their amazing (but uncharacteristically mostly mellow) album "Flood" that Boris' next disc would be a return to the ROCK. And it is. No acoustic stuff here, nor even the lengthy droning dirges in which they have also indulged in the past. Nope, this one simply rocks hard and heavy, start to finish. Fans know that every Boris album is different, and this one can perhaps be characterized as Boris' "stoner rock" effort. Total Kyuss action! Still, with some grizzled nods to their all-time heroes, the Melvins. The first track, "Heavy Friends", is VERY Melvins (metallic, thudding, glacial) -- and even has a walk-on spoken contribution from Melvins drummer Dale Crover's ex-wife Lori (of Acid King). Speaking of heavy friends, guests pop up all over this release, actually -- there's some lead guitar by Eddie Legend of Japanese garage/rockabilly band The Mad 3, a track with analog synth twiddle courtesy Maso Yamazaki (Masonna/Christine 23 Onna), and another with some laptop computer fuckery from Masami "Merzbow" Akita (who also just completed a full-on collaborative album with Boris, see nearby for a review of that opus, the drone yin to this album's rock yang).
With or without the help of noiseniks Merzbow and Masonna, noisy, fuzzed-out psychedelic atmospheres abound here, but generally in the context of high energy, superheavy rockin'. Really, the album relaxes only for the spaced-out guitar bliss of "Soft Edge" halfway through. Tracks like "Korosu", "Dyna-Soar", "Death Valley", "Rattlesnake", and "1970" are all catchy, riff-laden showcases for Boris' brand of kick-ass rock n' roll. Even if you aren't into stoner rock, you should check this out because it easily surpasses most of the other bands operating within the genre. Irresistable. Honestly.
AQ faves Boris (masters of Melvins-esque slow-motion dirge metal) team up with sometime AQ fave Masami Akita (who as Merzbow basically invented 'noise' as a genre) to unleash this three track cd of monster drone! Both camps represent with some of their most gorgeous work. Boris contribute what sounds like the prettier more minimal stuff from their moody album "Flood", with guitar only evident on one track, and even then it's slowed down, stretched out and buried under a thick blanket of Merzbow-y haze and Boris-y rumble. Akita keeps his noise side in check (although there are some truly caustic moments) opting instead for dark, processed low end with the occasional sonic flare. Created using guitar, e-bow, space echo, Powerbook and feedback conduction (!), "Megatone" finds itself situated closer to the drones of Coleclough or Karkowski than it does to the metallic pummel of the Melvins or the Corrupted. The opening track is a deep 20+ minute rumble, with white noise spread thinly above, while Akita's Powerbook gradually becomes more and more sonically intrusive and the processed guitars form subtle melodic overtones, throbbing and pulsing in ultra slow motion. The second track is constructed out of far away, psychedelic, Keiji Haino-esque guitar leads, buried under some Merzbowian ear piercing skree, allowing Akita to unleash some of that 'noise' he is so famous for. The final track lets the guitars do the talking one more time with huge walls of distortion, still heavily reverbed and distant sounding, but much more serene and almost ambient, with Merzbow's noise contributions much more complimetary and distinctly less harsh. A massive, gorgeous totally enthralling collaboration from two of the most exciting artists in music today!
Oy vey! What ever happened to releasing albums one at a time? I guess maybe there's more fiduciary sense in splitting up a double disc as two separate albums (it seems to have done indie rockers Appleseed Cast well.) Or maybe it's that Mr. Killer is hoping to continue riding his recent world fame acquired thrugh his association with duder rock band No Doubt. With 20 tracks on each one though, you've got to wonder if maybe a little culling may have been in order. Still, rough and tough gangster dancehall man Bounty Killer makes the attempt. The thing that makes Bounty Killer more successful than most of his dancehall contemporaries might be in attempting this feat (in our humble opinion) is that, with Ghetto Dictionary, he avoids the slow jam ballads *almost* entirely. But then again you've probably come to realise that the style of dancehall vocals most appreciated by us AQ folk are ones that are spoken, not sung and preferably by someone who's voice is not entirely suited to sing vocals even when attempted. Of the myriad dancehall vocalists out there today Bounty Killer is on the short list of people who fit this job description. With an almost asthmatic, wheezing voice, Bounty Killer has a way of forcing all his words through his chest that's like a voice instructor's textbook scenario for how not to sing. And that's the way we like it. One of the things that keeps these two discs from becoming stale throughout their extremely long run time is the varied production in the rhythm department. On both albums there's a decent mix of reggae, dancehall and hip hop rhythm tracks here which breaks up what often makes many dancehall albums monotonous.
With its hip hop album intro beginning, one would think that 'Art of War' was going to be either more of a hip hop influenced album, or at least harder than 'Mystery', but actually this is not the case. Weighing the two albums 'Art of War' is perhaps more firmly ensconced in the dancehall tradition. And although it possibly lacks quite as many 'hits' as its companion, it also has nary a single crappy ballad, of which 'Mystery' has three or four.
Oy vey! What ever happened to releasing albums one at a time? I guess maybe there's more fiduciary sense in splitting up a double disc as two separate albums (it seems to have done indie rockers Appleseed Cast well.) Or maybe it's that Mr. Killer is hoping to continue riding his recent world fame acquired thrugh his association with duder rock band No Doubt. With 20 tracks on each one though, you've got to wonder if maybe a little culling may have been in order. Still, rough and tough gangster dancehall man Bounty Killer makes the attempt. The thing that makes Bounty Killer more successful than most of his dancehall contemporaries might be in attempting this feat (in our humble opinion) is that, with Ghetto Dictionary, he avoids the slow jam ballads *almost* entirely. But then again you've probably come to realise that the style of dancehall vocals most appreciated by us AQ folk are ones that are spoken, not sung and preferably by someone who's voice is not entirely suited to sing vocals even when attempted. Of the myriad dancehall vocalists out there today Bounty Killer is on the short list of people who fit this job description. With an almost asthmatic, wheezing voice, Bounty Killer has a way of forcing all his words through his chest that's like a voice instructor's textbook scenario for how not to sing. And that's the way we like it. One of the things that keeps these two discs from becoming stale throughout their extremely long run time is the varied production in the rhythm department. On both albums there's a decent mix of reggae, dancehall and hip hop rhythm tracks here which breaks up what often makes many dancehall albums monotonous.
On 'Mystery' one particular highlight is a toast over Morgan Heritage's excellent classic "Gunz In the Ghetto" smack dab in the middle of the album and whose production style makes it stick out as though someone has suddenly changed the disc in the player. By the time things slow down on 'Mystery', you've pretty much got your album's worth already. One of the more amusing bad numbers "Evil's of the Mind" is worth going through once at least for kicks. The track features Curly Loxx 2 Loxx who sounds like a cross between fitness guru Richard Simmons and white rapper Eminem. You gotta wonder where Bounty Killer found this guy.
Local electronic duo Broker/Dealer hustle out new tracks for German minimal tech house label Traum. Not unlike the snap, crackle and pop of labels like Kompakt, Shitkatapult and WMF.
Legendary free jazz giant's first record, remastered and available for the first time on cd! Originally released in 1967 on Brotzmann's BRO label, he is joined by bassist Peter Kowald and Sven-Ake Johansson on percussion. This remastered version also tacks on a bonus cut featuring pianist Fred Van Hove. Raw and edgy, though not as demanding and brutal as Brotzmann's subsequent "Nipples" and "Machine Gun".
The summer issue of Bust magazine is dedicated to motherhood. Articles about helping your friends in the delivery room, visiting your mother in jail, being a cool punk mom, how Rufus Wainwright much loves his mommy, when the father of your child is an anonymous donor, and much much more. I happen to have a lot of punk liberal moms around me lately and I kept feeling the desire to buy them a copy of this issue. Bust is always so good, and the hip mom is often under-represented and under-appreciated. (And gals, the one handed read is a juicy one.)
Another bizarre project from our favorite local Hello Kitty maniac and metal maven, the one and only (thank god) Steven Schultz. You may know him from such amazing/ridiculous projects as Stalin Claus Superstar! (y'know, the 4cd rock opera box set), or his "I Forgot To Get A Rap Name!" rap album, or the "History Of Vats" disc that started all this genre-splicing home-recording madness way back when. His new effort, monikered Busuchan, is along the lines of "Vats" or much of "Stalin Claus": insanely accomplished musically, insanely retarded humoristically (witness such song titles as "Jesse Jackson Wants His Forehead Back" and "Bitch, I Stole Your Man, Ho!"). Although, like "Vats" (but not the opera), Steve does this all himself -- drums, guitar solos, electronics, vocals, artwork, silly liner notes, everything. Wow. Imagine a one-man Mr. Bungle, but more metal and with (even) more annoying vocals. This cd is graced by a photo of the man himself decked out oh so convincingly as a coy Japanese schoolgirl. (Possibly the most disturbing picture we've seen lately, and we spend a lot of time on the internet!) But we must tip our hats to Mr. Schultz. Dragging in and desecrating everything from doo wop to electronica to black metal, this is completely spazzy, twisted and strange -- and unfortunately catchy enough to get stuck in your head. This made some people laugh, made others roll their eyes, and still others... uncomfortable. Stop looking at my ass, indeed! Steve Schultz fans (ohmigod it's true, he probably does have fans, indeed, deserves 'em) line up now!
Let's get the negative stuff out of the way first. The Butthole Surfers suck. Not in the 'Primus sucks' self deprecating ironic sort of way, they really do suck. They have for years now. Everything post 'Hairway To Steven' has been total dreck. And those of you unfortunate enough to have heard their most recent record thus bore witness to the saddest beck-meets-eminem-meets-land-of-the-loops-meets-king-missile bid for MTV stardom. And on top of that, they are total assholes, as evidenced by their greed-not-common-sense based lawsuit against Touch and Go records, who were basically responsible for their popularity, and who were already paying them probably the best royalty rate in the industry. But apparently that wasn't enough. So it's with a little bit of trepidation that we recommend you buy anything on the Butthole's label Latino Bugger Veil, but RECOMMEND WE MUST! 'Cause this collection of live tracks and outtakes is vintage Butthole Surfers, at their drug-addled, tribal-drumming, chaos-causing, club-crushing, strobe-lighted, naked-dancing, on-stage puking, audience-pulverising BEST! Lots of rare compilation tracks (from P.E.A.C.E., God's Favorite Dog, Cottage Cheese From The Lips Of Death, A Texas Trip, the Roky Erickson tribute), 4 track and 8 track home recordings, practice tapes, outtakes from the Rembrandt Pussyhorse sessions, alternate versions of album tracks, and more. Weird sickly sweet warbly ballads to full on tribal drug stomps, with war whoops and processed vocals careening all over the place. Supposedly culled from close to 300 tapes. Hope there's more on the way!
Seven tracks of absolutely positively soothing music. Very pretty and a bit wistful; full of reverb drenched, lilting guitar arpeggios. 'Home Movies' could very well have been issued on Temporary Residence or Kranky. Hop aboard the ambient post-rock hovercraft and drift along to the sounds of Carrier.
Chicago musician makes an entire album of abstract beat driven trip hop. Nice, especially the first track's strong start, but missing something, perhaps either [1] an MC, or [2] anything to set it apart from the 8 thousand other folks who make music like this. Pleasant listening but not original enough for these ears.
These guys just get better and better and better. This six song ep is just a taste of what's to come. Their second full length is coming out on Estrus, soon, but not soon enough. When they started they were more R&B and garage and they were way better live than recorded. After constant touring and diligence and hard work they are amazing both live and recorded. Their current sound brings to mind Kiss or the MC5. Amazing dual guitar riffs, two drummers, rad maracas, two singers, just an army of kick ass amazingness. They are currently on tour with The Fucking Champs and Drunk Horse, which I would imagine would be the best show ever. You should hear this band. They are great.
Through his exceptional career that spans work in Ora, a handful of fantastic solo projects, and the AQ-favorite "Sumac" collaboration with Andrew Chalk, Jonathan Coleclough has mastered the harder-than-it-looks art of disguising how he constructs his epic droneworks. His recordings have always been marked by a vigilantly maintained resonance of acoustic phenomena, which appear not as ephemeral sonorities but rather as epochal, monumental tones. "Low Ground" -- recorded in collaboration with engineer extraodinaire Colin Potter (also of Nurse With Wound fame) and saxophonist Tim Hill -- is no exception to the Coleclough blueprints. That said, Coleclough has been slowly moving away from the Ora / Chalk purity of sound, with an increased interest in digitizing his drones.
Under most circumstances, the presence of a saxophone on a drone album would make me cringe in agony; but thankfully, Coleclough's alchemy is so complete that you would be hard pressed to hear anything remotely sounding like a saxophone on "Low Ground." Instead, beautiful slowly aerated pulsations of ringing tones open this album, recalling the strangely comfortable sounds of a radiator pushing hot steam through archaic pipes on a cold winter eveneing. Coleclough and Potter gradually treat these sounds with some DSP actions (mostly timestreching and EQ-filtering) that pixelate into digital buzzings. "Low Ground" shifts from these sedate, transcendent metaphors into far more malevolent sci-fi scores, with the introduction of deep, menacingly low-end frequencies smattered with natural events of snapping twigs and trickling water. As the album draws to a close, Coleclough and Potter twist tiny slashes from the dark, slightly wavering drone into a majestic coda of those digitized radiator wheezes which opened the record.
As wonderful as anything else that Coleclough has done. Very highly recommended.
A brand new, short, sharp blast of rhythmic punk rock weirdness from these Florida miscreants. Four songs, fifteen minutes, and more brutality than you can shake a stick at. The first track is a stretched out hardcore/krautrock collision. Like a super heavy Laddio Bollocko or Born Against covering This Heat, all stuttering rhythms and jagged guitars. Then two minute-or-so long tracks that scrape your earhole clean, before the finale, a damaged electronic 'song' that ends the whole thing on a severely tweaked note! Nice. Nice gory colorful comic book artwork too.
Finally back in print, 'Little Johnny' is the only Company Flow record that counts. Their first, 'Funcrusher', hinted at what was to come but didn't really stand the test of time, weak beats with silly samples and an overall lightweight sound. 'Little Johhny' is ALL instrumental and features some of the best hip hop production EVER (courtesy of DEF JUX main man El-P!). All the stuff we love about Cannibal Ox records and Mr. Lif records comes down to one thing, El-P's crazy ass production. Timbaland for the backpacker set. Big stuttering beats, distorted haunted house basslines, fucked up samples and a wicked ear for arranging them all into, brutal, funky, sinister futuristic hip hop. All you who flipped over the Cannibal Ox record NEED this.
We all love Cradle Of Filth, even if they're the band to hate. As black metal posers, sellouts, whatever. Bottom line is, their records are amazing, totally complex, epic concept records, with ultra fucked song structures, amazing playing and maybe the sickest vocals ever. It doesn't hurt that they have the whole evil goth/bondage vampire look going on as well as their line of pornographic merchandise, videos and super sci-fi metal album covers. Unclear why they aren't as big as Marilyn Manson or Slipknot. I'm sure they will be eventually. But for now, there's this double cd collection of album and compilation tracks. For the CoF virgin, this would be a great place to start. You get tracks from all the records as well as an Iron Maiden cover, a Sodom cover, a Slayer cover and lots more. Definitely a great introduction to the band. If you are already a convert, odds are you have most of this stuff already. But for you completists, there are 3 unreleased tracks (but be warned, it's one Sabbat cover, one orchestral track, and one techno track, check em out below!).
For years, Darren Tate has made his way into Colin Potter's studio for help in reconstructing field recordings and improvised events for both the dronological investigations of Ora and Monos. Rarely would you find in those recordings much indication that Potter has amassed a huge battery of analogue synths, effects, and filters. This is the first document for the Potter / Tate project Dada Lives which focuses upon that collection of gear. The instrumentation has changed from manipulated field recordings to analogue synths, but the compositional tactics of slow hypnotic drones remains. Plastic bleeps fire through slow proccessions of aerated electronic sweeps, sounding a lot like the '70s era Conrad Schnitzler recordings. Limited to a whopping 50 copies.
These four Chicago ladies play garagey, rockin, catchy punk. Stooges-esqe with a snotty girl sneer. The guitars are beefy and tough. The production is clean, which gives it more of a rock feel, than lo-fi live garageness. 14 songs in 30 minutes. Wow. This is their second record. They are touring a ton and playing with a lot of girl bands throughout the country. Keep your eyes open for em'.
You know DJ Frenchbloke from that "Best Bootlegs" comp -- he spliced together Destiny's Child "Jumping Jumping" with the Dead Kennedys' "California Uber Alles" to amazing perfection. Well, here's a whole lp's worth, though nothing here matches the catchiness and shock value of combining those polar opposite cultural icons, save for maybe Kraftwerk and Tag Team's "Whoop De France" (!) So in an attempt to decipher all originating sources of the rest of the tracks, here goes: Miss Jane's "It's A Fine Day" takes an acid trip (via Opus 3?). Perry & Kingsley get sticky with Sisqo's "Thong Song". Destiny's Child goes gabba courtesy of Chicks On Speed's "Turn Of The Century". Britney, Spongebob Squarepants, Anthony Roter's Little Computer People, "Ring Of Fire", and many others get worked as well. Fun for a few listens and laughs, surely an important novelty item, DJs should spin it for a minute, but ultimately not living up to all the hype.
Of Dust's two albums, this 1972 LP is considered the harder of the two, the more metal, the somewhat more Sabbathian. "Downer rock" they called it back then (we're told). Their song "Suicide" (track 9) -- whooah, that could be Pentagram! This track alone makes this an essential purchase for any true doom/psych fan. It's an all time classic. Between that and the awesome Frank Frazetta cover painting, what more could you want?
But it's not all doom n' gloom n' barbarians -- "Hard Attack" has its lighter side, but unlike a lot of their peers, the poppier and/or less rockin' stuff Dust do is actually really great. Sure, a song like "Thusly Spoken" features strings and a Beatlesy melody, but the lyrics still name-check Satan and speak of dancing demons. Lush, gorgeous downer-pop that sets you up to be crushed by the following, urgently hard-rockin' track "Learning To Die". They do that throughout the album, alternating gentle -- even acoustic -- numbers with the proto-metal workouts that the headbangers of 1972 must have loved.
It's hard to understand why Dust didn't "make" it, as this stuff is certainly the equal of big sellers from their era by Deep Purple or Uriah Heep. Great singing, riffs, melodies, and that "feel" -- it's all here.
We mentioned Pentagram above -- if you bought that awesome Relapse label anthology of Pentagram's original seventies recordings that we recommended a few lists back, you should definitely check out the work of Dust, who were both contemporaries of and an influence on the Ram's Head boys. Dust are an important name on the list of forgotten but godlike '70s hard rock bands that make today's so-called stoner rockers sound like punk wanna-bes (bands like Lucifer's Friend, Highway Robbery, Orang-utan, Toad, Budgie, Sir Lord Baltimore, Captain Beyond, Leafhound, etc.). In a word (again): classic. Too bad you'll never hear 'em on your local "classic rock" radio station...
Not a new release, but listed for the first time 'cause we love it: The American hard rock trio known as Dust are another of those legendary early '70s bands that get mentioned in the same breath with heavies like Captain Beyond, Sir Lord Baltimore, The James Gang, Bang, and the like. They cut two excellent LPs of late-psychedelic-era proto-metal back in '71 and '72. This the first, self-titled one, and of their two albums, this one's swampier, with a lot of slide and country/southern rock moves on tracks like "Stone Woman" and "Chasin' Ladies". But then there's the lugubrious and weighty 10-minute epic "From A Dry Camel" and the gentle acoustic dreaminess of "Often Shadows Felt". Mostly, though, the album kicks ass with uptempo hard rockers. Maybe they could be considered the American version of Nazareth (with vocals somewhat less soaked in whiskey). What we're saying is: pretty great!
Dust features the future Marky Ramone on drums, by the way, before he decided punk was the way to go.
For some time now I've been meaning to make this *great* album "Oldie but Goodie of the Week", and then lo and behold, it got reissued with 8 extra tracks! So it is with great pleasure that we offer Fairport Convention's Heyday. I'm a big fan of this band, who formed in the late '60s and whose sound melded traditional British Isles folk music with rock influences. Heyday is actually Fairport at their most rock -- it predates their better known (and much more "traditional" classics such as Unhalfbricking and Liege & Leaf), and is almost completely comprised of covers. This earliest incarnation of Fairport (which has since seen almost all its founding members move on) included the immensely talented Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, Simon Nicol, Ian Matthews. Thompson's sublime guitarwork on Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" absolutely brings that song to its feet, plus they cover Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" and animate tracks by Joni Mitchell, Richard Farina, the Everly Bros, Gene Clark, etc. The eight extra songs included with this extended version of Heyday were similarly recorded in the late '60s and are mostly covers / traditionals, including tracks by Bob Dylan and Jackson C. Frank. They're more folky and less rock than the proper Heyday tracks, but in that they tantalize the listener by offering a glimpse at where the band was going, they're more than worthwhile.
That these tracks made it to tape is lucky -- the band performed live on the radio about once a month but tried to never repeat themselves! So it is a precious document, and it sounds great. You will never tire of Heyday.
A sadly underrecognized American guitarist and singer who in the early '60s fell in with the incredibly fertile British folk scene, Jackson C. Frank released only a single album, which has been treasured by collectors ever since. The music is straightforward acoustic guitar folk with several minor key blues numbers peppered throughout. While many of the '60s folkies I find a bit too sweet, wispy and ethereal, straining their voices as if to sound like forest sprites, Frank's vocals are super earnest, plainspoken and in the middle range, with the same gravity as Lee Hazlewood. The guitar is strummed with confidence, the picking delicate, the effect impassioned but not too sweet. The 10 songs here from the selftitled album from 1965 (along with five bonus tracks -- previously unreleased material from 1975) are so yearningly pretty, yet his certifiable masterpiece is certainly the opening number 'Blues Run the Game', which has been covered by everyone from former girlfriend Sandy Denny, Simon & Garfunkel, Al Stewart, Bert Jansch (who still performs Frank's songs), Nick Drake (who covered two others as well!), and more.
A few words should be said about Frank's life, although a whole book could be devoted to the subject. While a child he was badly burned in a horrible fire that killed many of his schoolmates. At the age of 21 he was awarded a $100,000 settlement from the accident, and set about spending it foolishly on travel and expensive cars, which brought him to England. He found compatriots in the local folk scene, folks like Jansch, Denny, Tom Paxton, John Martyn, etc. Paul Simon produced Frank's album but he was forced to go back to the US when his money ran out, and by the time he returned to the UK in '68 major depression had taken hold and he deteriorated quickly. Some years later his son died of cystic fibrosis, he ended up sleeping on NYC streets, and was shot in the eye. He spent his last years under the care of a kind fan in Woodstock. Heartbreaking!
It happens too often that you hear about some legendary musician for years and years, and then you finally hear their music and you're left... underwhelmed. I was afraid this would happen with Jackson C. Frank, but it worked its magic on me eventually.
Accidental was originally commissioned in 1995 by Paul Selwyn Norton for his dance piece "Rogue Tool" which premiered the following year in Tel Aviv, Israel. On 'Accidental' Frith, a multi-instrumentalist if there ever was one, plays all instruments: guitar, violin, organ, an odd assortment of percussion, tapes, radio and voice. The music on 'Accidental' tends towards the dark and severe, with squeals of guitar feedback layered over ominous drones, percussive elements assembled from cut up vocals (either Fred's or taken from radio), but this shouldn't imply that the music on this album is non-melodic. On the contrary, at the music is at times even hauntingly beautiful while parts of 'Accidental' are even reminiscent of Frith's 1988 'Technology of Tears'.
Thankfully reissued once more, unthankfully with horrible new artwork and irritating top obi. Originally released in 1980 on Ralph Records, Gravity is Fred Frith's masterpiece of progressive-rock-infused pop, and in Windy and Byram's opinion this should be a staple of everyone's record collection. Yep, it's that great. And no matter how 'avant' our description makes it sound, this is one of the most listenable, most accessible avant prog pop things I've ever heard.
Gravity is a celebration of dance and dance musics from around the world. The range of influence spans the gamut, but Eastern European and Middle Eastern music seems to pervade Frith's inspiration primarily. Backed on one half of the album by Sweden's uber-prog folk heroes Zamla (formarly Samla) Mammas Manna and the other by the American improv-jazz-rock band The Muffins. Though all of the compositions are Frith's, each half of the album wears the corresponding musicians' influence like a badge. The Samla's playful, quirky and category-defying progressive, folk-influenced pop stylings are perhaps a slightly better match on the whole than The Muffins skronk (which shows up mostly as the segue material between tracks on the second half of the album.) Backed by Lars Hollmer and crew, "Spring Any Day Now" sounds like the theme song to an early eighties sit-com a la 'Three's Company' gone awry. Much of the album is seamlessly bridged together with nary a second of break betwixt songs, which suits an album inspired by dance that serves to inspire one to dance just fine.
Tolkien fans, be warned -- this sixties psych pop group from New Jersey was only hastily dubbed "Gandalf" mere weeks before their debut was recorded in 1967. As Mike "Ugly Things" Stax' liner notes say (with perhaps some unnecessary scorn for the inhabitants of Middle Earth): "The group's name is actually a misnomer; although full of magic, the Gandalf record is thankfully free of wizards and hobbits." Previous to their Gandalf incarnation, the band was called the Rahgoos, named, believe it or not, after the Ragu brand of spaghetti sauce! (The liner notes again: "What was needed was a new, more 'with it' name." So they chose Ragu? What?) Whatever the name, though, the band's lone LP, now reissued by Sundazed, is pretty darn great, with gentle, melancholy singing, hypnotic piano and Hammond B3, and plenty of psychedelic tape echo courtesy of a piece of equipment (the Binson Echorec) that the band had acquired soon before the recording sessions and used to great effect, ahem.
Gandalf is especially known (to those in the know, that is, who speak of them in hushed whispers we'd imagine) for their amazing, dark, psychedelic version of the old standard "Golden Earrings" with which they open the disc. Along with that cover, they also interpret several songs by Tim Hardin as well as Eden Ahbez's famed "Nature Boy". But they had a fine songwriter in the band as well, Peter Sando, and his "Can You Travel In The Dark Alone" equals the spooky effect they achieved with "Golden Earrings", while Sando's album-closing "I Watch The Moon" rocks out a bit more with some tasty fuzz guitar -- which you'll also hear in their "Nature Boy", for one!
As long lost, forgotten '60s psych gems go, this is the real deal, not baseless hype based merely on how much some ponytailed psych collector was willing to pay for an original vinyl copy. Sundazed gets our thanks once again!
Throughout the '80s and '90s, Michael Gendreau worked extensively in the East Bay avant-noise project Crawling With Tarts, often constructing surreal experiments with idiosyncratic pop-babble and tape collages of art-damaged noise. For Gendreau, the turntable became an ideal instrument for his explorations; and soon, he began working with the archaic technology of lathe cut, handcrafted vinyl. Often the results were bizarre, if sporadically successful recontextualizations of homemade instrumentation, radio noise, and anti-pop. Recently, it seems as though Gendreau has put Crawling With Tarts on an extended hiatus, due to his increasing attention into the field of vibrations diagnostics and consultation. This incredibly technical arena has lead him to researching the problems of acoustic noise vibrations upon highly sensitive pieces of optical equipment, which could present faulty analysis due to the tiny, but measurable effects of environmental noise (air condititioning ducts and heating vents in particular).
"55 Pas De La Ligne Au No. 3" finds Gendreau bridging his current activities of acoustic diagnostics with his once prolific avant-turntable collages. It appears that Gendreau has hooked up a number of accelerometers - technical devices used to detect, measure, and catalogue any number of vibrational frequencies - to a series of battered record players spinning his handmade vinyl. Gendreau's accelerometers are so sensitive, that they pick up, not only the interaction between the needle and the record in question, but also the muffled whir of the thick rubber band stretching between the motor and the turntable plate. The results found on "55 Pas De La Ligne Au No. 3" are astounding, with eerie mechanical drones, minute needle crackle, and the occasional, but always unnerving upsurge of quiet voices floating though the din like the EVP sounds from "The Ghost Orchid" of purported recordings from beyond the grave. This will probably become one of my (Jim's) favorite records of the year.
One of my (Sadie) favorite bands ever. Seriously, I don't tire of them. Simple, stripped down, fucked up garage rock, but no one else seems to be able to capture the magic they do. Blues. R&B. Garage. The basic elements of the Gories, who basically learned their instruments, and how to write songs as they went, which shows in the total energy of their delivery. They released three full lengths and a handful of singles, and their first two full length releases ('I Know You Fine But How You Doin' and 'Houserockin') are on this cd, for only 13.98!!! When I first discovered and fell in love with these records they were out of print and impossible to find, and now lucky you can have them both for totally cheap. These two are definitely my favorites. I've loved the Gories for so long I don't even think of them as unknown or underappreciated but I suppose they are. If you like any garage -at all-, for christ's sake, get this, it is so rockin' and dirty and driving and just makes you want to shake your ass like crazy. They have been such an enormous influence on so many bands (The Coachwhips, The White Stripes, et al) that if you like that stuff go to the source!!!
Allan just pointed out that the second song, "Skin Parade", on GBV's new album sounds just like "Cat Scratch Fever". That's a good thing! And you know, this is a good album. I keep waiting for Robert Pollard to start sucking, but he doesn't suck yet. He's writing songs by himself, he surrounds himself with powerful, bright musicians who animate his songs with punch and vitality. And his songs are strong and lovely -- each one tweaks the GBV shambolic power pop formula enough to not get boring; some piano here, some strings there, tenderness and crashing noise butted up against one another. A fine album. Buy without fear.
This composition for 12 prepared pianos sounds pretty much just like what you would expect, being heavy on the muted percussive thwap of objects stuffed in between all of the strings. Originally released on Cramps back in the '70s from this Spanish avant-garde composer.
Undoubtedly very eagerly anticipated by Drive like Jehu, Rocket From The Crypt and of course, Hot Snakes fans everywhere, the second full length has arrived. So the question is raised: How could Hot Snakes possibly match their blisteringly hot first album Automatic Midnight? Well, Suicide Invoice provides the answer: Sort of. It's kind of hard to compare the two. 'Suicide Invoice' is way more toned down, and way less frantic than the first Hot Snakes. A lot of folks here were totally diappointed, and thought it was dull and uninspired. But it seems more to me like just a new direction. Instead of doing the same thing all over again and making 'Automatic Midnight 2', they've stretched out and kind of dialed back the P U N K and tried to craft more studied songs, more intense, serious and more listenable as opposed to just crazy jump in the pit, ride your skateboard, fuck shit up furious punk rock action. I'm not slagging 'Automatic Midnight'. Fuck no!!! I love that record. We all did. The new record is just different, not really better or worse, just different. If you're in the mood to ROCK OUT, pull out your old beat up copy of 'Automatic Midnight'. But if you're in the mood for some cool moody rocking post punk goodness, and miss the late great Drive Like Jehu or maybe you just miss Rick Farr's high pitched wail then throw this on and let it sink in.
"Foreign Keys" is the eleventh album from Jandek, recorded back in 1985 and just re-issued on CD. Here, Jandek has figured out a couple of standard blues progressions, but it's rare to find him actually following any of them. His guitar playing remains an angular proposition, manically stabbing at notes then plaintively bending them. The percussion likewise is an erratic skitter across his drum kit, occasionally keeping time, but usually complementing the guitar splutter and his emotionally cracked voice. "Nancy" -- or perhaps better stated, the woman who sang on "Nancy Sings" on Jandek's "Chair Beside A Window" and cited by some Jandek commentators as his girlfriend -- takes up vocal duties on a couple tracks, with her comparatively commanding Patsy Cline / Tammy Wynette voice over Jandek's instrumentation.
The 12th album for the hermetic Jandek is "Telegraph Melts," released originally back in 1986 on vinyl. While firmly entrenched in the 'classic' Jandek sound of open-chord guitar pluckery and vocals that teeter on the brink of losing what little grip of sanity was there, this album stands out for a surprisingly consistent rhythmic attack on the first six tracks. Jandek hammers at his abused drumkit with locomotive rigor and intensity rarely heard in any of the previous recordings; of course, he inevitably loses control of the rhythm and sends it tumbling down the stairs. The rest of the tracks are far more loose in the rhythmic structure. Again, the woman who may be known as Nancy sings on a couple of tracks: one of which finds her sounding more like Jandek with a strained, atonal vibrato. Towards the end of the album, there are a couple of tracks in which a third male voice appears. It's considerably different from Jandek's normal whispy hover. It's been postulated that this voice is the "drummer" who was featured on "John Plays Drums" (a track from the 1983 album "The Rock Crumbles") yet it could simply be Jandek himself affecting a different voice. Similarly, it's entirely possible that Jandek became a 'band' during this period with Sterling Smith (the suspected individual behind all of these recordings) and the enigmatic individuals Nancy and John. As far as the truth about such matters, Corwood Industries remains as silent as ever.
Jucifer made me woozy. Not a bad thing! When it started with delicate female vocals over shoegazer psychedelia, I thought "one part My Bloody Valentine, one part Lush, one part Veruca Salt", but that didn't last too long. Add "five parts Melvins". The breathy female vox soon meet ballsy thick fuzz guitars. Pretty damn rockin'... and it all gets progressively more so. By the fourth song ("Queen B"), the heavy duty nutbusters have been unleashed, although they pretty things up again later, always keeping you guessing as to when the crushing riffs will come in. If you've been paying attention (unlike me) you'd have been expecting this from our review of Jucifer's previous effort, "The Lambs EP". To recap: Jucifer are a massively-amped two-piece from Georgia or someplace, with a frenzied, hard-hitting male drummer and a heavier-than-thou female guitarist, who also handles the singing, a blend of beastly and beautiful that is this duo's forte. "Death Pop" they call it. The 15 tracks here vary the predominant drums/guitar brutality with some hypnotic keyboard atmospheres and effects. Boris meets the Breeders?
Both K-Group and Omit have been longtime Aquarius favorites from the New Zealand experimental noise scene; but unfortunately, they've been pretty quiet in their respective outputs during the past couple of years. K-Group is the solo project for Paul Toohey, who has also worked in the (defunct?) Surface Of The Earth, both of which centered around low-frequency tectonic drones coaxed from abused amplifiers. Clinton Williams has taken up the Omit moniker for his creepy, tape loop compositions loaded with bleak sci-fi / psychotic imagery. This collaboration between Williams and Toohey is actually their second, if you count a 7" which came out ages ago. In running Williams' battery of analogue synths through Toohey's cabinets, they've constructed an eerie album of deep rumblings that are on par with anything that Coleclough, Koner, or Troum have managed to release. As the K-Group / Omit drones ripple with a gritty amplifier buzz often lacking in the driftwork of those aforementioned artists, "Storage" pulses with a subterrenean heaviness, pushing this closer towards the Earth / Sunn 0))) terrain. A really wonderful album!!!
Hallelujah! More droning, buzzing, flickering folk-psych from Finland's mysterious Kemialliset Ystavat collective. Sure, we know who's in the band -- Broken Face 'zine artist/contributor Jan Anderzen, Fonal label head Sami Sanpakkila (Es, Kiila), and a host of other Finns -- but they still SOUND mysterious. The damaged four-track folk sound of NYC's Tower Recordings filtered through the forest ambience of AQ-fave improv-psych outfit Thuja might, MIGHT be an approximation of Kemialliset's sonic space. They inhabit that territory previously explored by the likes of Amon Duul, Ghost, Kalacakra, Toho Sara, Parson Sound, International Harvester, Amps For Christ, Six Organs Of Admittance, Algarnas Tradgard, etc. If any of these names bring a warm sensation to your frontal lobes, then you're likely already a Kemialliset fan even if you haven't yet heard 'em. Each track (there's 17 of 'em, spread over 47 minutes) is a psychedelic miniature constructed of drifting, chanting vocals, gentle melodies, and primitive rhythms, contrasting distorted electric guitar wash with pretty, chiming percussion, strings and woodwinds. Freaky and far-out yet mostly mellow and warm and cosy. Fucking lovely. Ah, Finland.
Nigeria-born, London-schooled bandleader Peter King started his career in the '60s playing highlife and jazz before venturing into the James Brown inspired realms of afro-funk, of which "Shango" (named after the Yoruba god of thunder) is a prime example. These mostly instrumental tracks (there are some chanted vocal parts, often with a political message like "Freedom!") are super jazzy and groovy, with King's sax and flute joined by a bunch of other horns, percussion, and electric guitar/bass/drums. Recorded in 1974 but actually never released at the time, "Shango" was rediscovered when the Afrostrut label was putting together the excellent "Nigeria 70" compilation -- King's wife remembered the recording, and it turned out the tapes had actually been sitting beneath the bed of Peter King's son for who knows how many years! You'd think having something this funky under your bed would keep you up at night... Anyway, it's cool they found this, anyone into the soulful sounds of the "Nigeria 70" comp or all the other Afro-funk stuff that's been getting reissued recently will be glad to hear this.
The one man band Lone Pigeon is a project of Gordon Anderson, one of the co-founders of the Beta Band (who were originally called The Pigeons, hence his current moniker) but who left in 1996 before they hit the big time. You can definitely hear the specific flavor that he imparted to the Beta Band -- the happy-go-lucky melodies, the repetitive, echoing, lonely vocals -- but this record is much more lo-fi, stripped down, and thus incredibly intimate. You really feel as if you've been offered (whether ya want it or not) entry into the guy's twisted brain, like the weirdo solo Skip Spence record, Oar, also did. I like this a lot more than the the Beta Band's later efforts made without him, and if you prefer the early Beta Band songs, sweet McCartney-penned Beatles tracks, Smiley Smile, Syd Barrett, etc, and can handle a little meandering, then you should listen to this record.
It definitely seems like things have gotten somewhat darker and a bit weightier in the Looper camp by the sounds of the slowly swaying late night grooves emanating from this new album. No sweet electronic pop here. No playful percolating beats. This is much more heavily soul influenced, very sultry. Former Belle And Sebastianite Stuart David affects a dusky talk-sing much like that of Daniel Ash (Love And Rockets) or for that matter the dude from Fischerspooner. And as a result, any minute we expect the diva to appear, but no! Luckily we are spared by the gentle introduction of Karn David's lovely voice. Take the vocals away, and this could very well be the rough backing tracks for Destiny's Child... well, maybe not quite. Overall, it's a haunting, noirish affair and quite a smooth shift in musical mood for Looper. Also features recent Belle And Sebastian departee Isobel Campbell on cello and brass-blowing man about town Mick Cooke on flugelhorn (he's also performed with the Mojave 3, Snow Patrol and Gentle Waves).
With their sweetly lilting female vocals and pretty mid tempo pop songs, Loquat's Penny Drop EP slips very gracefully in alongside the music of the Sundays or early Cranberries. Simply put, this SF quintet make very well-executed, warm and dreamy pop music. Pretty darn polished and radio-ready! Shuffling drum beats, synthy strings, and understated piano and guitar melodies swirl around the lead vocals of Kylee Swenson and the kindly male back-ups which come to think of it, also really brought to mind the loveliness of Emma Pollock from the fabulous Scottish band the Delgados. Soft but with a little twist of wryness in it.
Finally, the debut record from this fearsome local black metal fivesome sees the light of day. Ludicra is yet another project from the fertile metal mind of John Cobbett (Hammers Of Misfortune, The Lord Weird Slough Feg, Iron Cemetary, etc.), this time with the help of local rockers/scene fixtures Aesop (Hickey, Dr. Dre Del, etc.), Christy Cather (Missile Command), Ross Sewage (Impaled), and Laurie Sue Shanaman (who works at the veterinarian where Andee's girlfriend and Erik his housemate take their cats!).
Ludicra's debut reveals them to be a highly advanced black metal creation. They're complex, moody, darkly psychedelic, and 'post-rocky' like AQ-faves Enslaved -- a very good thing. The droning savage trance rock of another AQ black metal fave (and fellow San Franciscans) Weakling is also evident. Maybe it's Aesop's punk-derived drumming, or the song-writing dynamics, but while this is very metal indeed it also betrays an awareness of other strands of underground rock. And of course it's heavy, textured, and exceedingly well-crafted, as you would expect from the pen/plectrum of Sir Lord John Cobbett.
Ludicra has two singers: Christy (who also plays guitar) and Laurie Sue, and while both vocalists are women, you won't hear any of the sweet singing that Hammers of Misfortune's female vocalist does. No, it's all very extreme -- except for some wordless background choruses and an interlude or two of gentle chanting, they mostly deliver scary throat-shredding screams that upend gender stereotypes. But, like Hammers, having more than one vocalist allows for interesting variety and dynamics. Lots of acoustic interludes and dark and rhythmic breakdowns that hint at the band members' diverse indie rock/post punk/punk rock backgrounds. That, and Ludicra's ability to yet generate at the same time such a convincing black metal atmosphere, makes for a very satisfying and compelling listen.
The care Ludicra took with their music also extends to the packaging. "Hollow Psalms" comes in a standard digipack, but upside-down/reverse so that it opens more like a book (with the cd tray on the inside front cover, and the booklet on the right side). The art on the cd even says "Ex Libris" with a space for your name, in keeping with the storybook theme. The handlettered booklet includes lyrics and is illustrated by bassist Ross. We're very impressed, all around.
Here's guitarists Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggars again with their third album under the Major Stars moniker, after working together previously in such similarily-psychedelic bands as Crystalized Movements, Magic Hour, B.O.R.B., and the not-to-be-forgotten Wormdoom.
As you might expect from these Terrastock rock heroes, "Distant Effects" features a lot of nimble psych guitar solos, dirty with effects and wanky (very Hendrix like). The drumming, also, is big and bombastic. We like a lot of this, except, as unfortunately tends to be the case with Mr. Rogers' stuff, for the vocals. His lackluster pipes project a sincere indie-boy dullness, without being heartbreaking or special enough to excuse. Aside from that drawback, "Distant Effects" is a fine album for fans of 60's inspired psych guitar jamming (which is what happens a few minutes into each track once Wayne shuts up and the band starts to cook), with a great recording sound and a varied style from song to song, of which there are just four, reaching a bit over a half hour, culminating in the 14 minutes and 45 seconds of "Elephant", which sees the Major Stars really stretching out with some righteous heaviness. On Squealer, where it seems to belong, seeing as how that label is also home to several High Rise and Acid Mothers Temple releases!
