Baroque Bordello's "First Trip" is the third in Qbico's series of vinyl editions of Kawabata Makoto's super-limited R.E.P. cassettes from the '80s, and also included in the more recently released but equally limited 10 CD-R box set. Recorded in 1981, when Kawabata was a mere 15 years old and long before he formed Acid Mother's Temple, this album follows the same pattern as Kawabata's earliest ensemble The Dark Revolution Collective, with a constant amount of activity utilising various guitar / bell plinkings and single monochord bass repetitions. Pressed on translucent orange vinyl.
More minimal dreaminess from Campbell Kneale and his one man drone machine Birchville Cat Motel. 'Vespertine' is one 40 minute barely fluctuating drone constructed from guitars tapes, radios, synthesizers and vacuum cleaners! This is some gorgeous deep listening: layers and layers of fuzz and hum transport the listener to another plane. Otherworldly and transcendental supreme drone. Perfect.
Geez what can be said about this record? So massively important and great, it served as the introduction to Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie's sexy androgynous futuristic alter ego. It also featured Rick Wakeman on keyboards and Mick Ronson on guitar and piano. This 30th anniversary celebration release is bound in a suitably beautiful book, with extensive liner notes including quotes from Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen, Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp, and Marc Riley of The Fall among others recalling their first run-ins with the otherworldly glittering glamrock theatrics of Stardust. The first cd is the original release digitally remastered and the second cd compiles various demos and alternate versions, etc. If you don't own a copy of this, seize this opportunity! And if you are a David Bowie completist then you should get this for all of the extra fanciness and beautiful pictures.
Guitars of the willowy twang and trippy spaced-out kind converge, as do bright programmed beats and acoustic percussion in this new instrumental group from San Francisco. Heavy waves of reverb-drenched post-rock chord progressions crash over slinkily plucked melodies. A soaring and at times quite hypnotic 25 minutes. Nice!
The Northern industrialized town of Sheffield, England was home not only to Cabaret Voltaire, but also to Warp Records, which is probably where the notion of a 'sound of Sheffield' came from. The period in question found the 'Cabs' on EMI, thus providing the band with much better access to equipment and good studios. They (Stephen Mallinder and Richard H. Kirk, as Chris Watson had departed to form The Hafler Trio with Andrew McKenzie) took the opportunity to further investigate the William S. Burroughs idea of the cut-up within a system of organized repitition. At the center of the Cabs' slice-n-dice funk, gritty beat-box repititions, and media samples was a urgency that club culture was a viable political atmosphere standing in opposition to mainstream control tactics. The sound that Cabaret Voltaire produced during this period was an incredibly influential one, inspiring Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, the early incarnations of Wax Trax / Ministry, and the ubiquitous presence of Adrian Sherwood's production work throughout the '80s. This influence ended up becoming a double-edged sword for the Cabs, as many of their innovations - the paranoid repititions of arpeggiating synths and their stuttering use of media samples (as in "Sensoria," with the constant declaration: "Do Right, D-D-Do Right") - have become incredibly tired, vapid signifiers of where Industrial Music was going to end up. There was of course a reason why so many artists had taken the ideas from this period of Cabaret Voltaire: it worked on the dance floor.
Frogs. Demonic and / or cult possessions. Caves. Numbers stations. EVP transmissions. VLF static. These have been the subject matters for AQ's favorites from the "Found Sound / Field Recordings" section. Without a doubt, 'The Cat' ranks as one of those great oddball records alongside the Sounds of North American Frogs or the Ghost Orchid or the Conet Project. This album is simply a 45 minute recording of a purring cat whose contented rumblings have been amplified through the careful placement of a contact microphone. The cat in question is named Urchin and resides at Stormy Records in Dearborn, Michigan. There, Windy Weber (of Windy & Carl fame) and Davin Brainard (who helps run Time Stereo) recorded this amazing document of deep-rumbling cat happiness.
Now you can enjoy all the comforting joy of a cat's warm purring without all those nasty hairballs. Allergic? No problem. This cd is hypo-allergenic. No litterbox to clean (or to let get filthy). No fishy cat food to dish out. No unsightly scratching post that the cat will ignore while it shreds your new sofa. What you get instead with The Cat is a marvelous recording of a cat enraptured in drooling bliss. As these recording attest to, Urchin seems to spend a lot of time splashing in water, which isn't normal cat behavior at all. Or at least that's what it sounds like. Maybe he's lapping up milk, or cleaning itself with A LOT of saliva. Anyway, this is a nice disc for you fans of drones and field recordings, who don't have cats of your own to amplify.
And we figured we'd end this review with a couple of timely haiku courtesy of our pal Harvey Sid Fisher:
We're almost equals
I purr to show I love you
Want to smell my butt?
You must scratch me there!
Yes, above my tail!
Behold, elevator butt.
Recently profiled in The Wire, Skiz "Spectre" Fernando and his WordSound label have released quite a few "illbient" hip hop records that we've been into here at Aquarius. This compilation highlights several of our faves from the WordSound crew: Scotty Hard, Spectre, Prince Charming, and of course rapper Sensational, among others. It's the soundtrack to Skiz's low-budget, 'student' WordSound film Crooked, which was previously available as a double with the DVD of said film. This is the better deal though, as it's 4 bucks cheaper AND you won't end up watching the decidedly tedious movie. Great soundtrack, though. This version, by the way, has 2 extra tracks but is also about eight minutes shorter, for some reason...OH WAIT, I figured it out: this disc is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT! So, forget what we said about this being a better deal, it's in fact a different deal. That was the "soundtrack", this is the "original score". Hmm. It seems that these are the tracks that were made expressly for the film, but weren't included on the soundtrack cd that came with the dvd. Unlike that disc, there's no previously available stuff on here (which was the case with several of the Sensational cuts on that one). So you gotta get both, WordSound hedz. This one's all about incidental mostly instrumental music from a dark, dubby, hiphop perspective, which is what a lot of WordSound stuff sounds like, even when it's not meant for an actual film. Artists, aside from the above mentioned, included Mentol Nomad, the dreaded Bill Laswell, Mr. Dead, and live drum n' bassers UV Ray.
The French electronica label Bip-Hop should at least be commended for taking the risk of releasing so many albums from relatively unknown artists. Tennis, Bovine Life, and now Andrew Duke are a few of their curatorial selections of experimental techno and have all been interesting counterpoints to high-prolife labels like Mille Plateaux, Scape, and Raster. Andrew Duke is a Canadian artist working mostly with bricolages of static rhythmic structures and fluctuating darkened ambience that's not too far from the aquatic electro sounds of Drexciya and also displays plenty of influence from Coil, Pan Sonic, and Thomas Jirku.
You suckers without turntables get yet another temporary reprieve, as Ekkehard Ehlers' five lovely mini-albums, previously released only on vinyl, are here compiled onto one handy cd. And lovely is most certainly an understatement. This is some of the most gorgeous, sublime and moving electronic/glitch/sample based music we have ever heard. Sounds are completely recontextualised into cloudy, indistinct but somehow emotionally and sonically spot-on homages to some of Ehlers' influences. Falling somewhere between Stephen Mathieu and Oval, Ehlers adds remarkable depth and emotion to what is quite often a cold and clinical artform.
Tracks one and two are the "Plays Cornelius Cardew" lp and are lovely layered soundscapes as only Ehlers can conjure. Sampled sounds are seamlessly woven into dense, textural tone poems again highly reminiscent of Wolfgang Voigt's Gas. The second (track three and four) in the "Plays" series is a 'tribute' to the German beat poet Hubert Fichte. Where those previous tracks are dominated by ephemeral drone work with refined patinas of digital corrosion, this piece curiously sounds like Pole doing free jazz, with erratic squiggles of granular synthesized saxophone and really lazy strums from a guitar seeping up from an electronically sculpted metallic haze. Even those slowly developed basslines that Pole plops into his neo-dub show up in "Plays Hubert Fichte" although Ehlers disregards Pole's structuralism in favor of an amorphous improvisation of deep hovering movements. "Plays John Cassavetes" (tracks five and six) is part three in Ehler's series of 'tributes' and for these pieces he seamlessly weaves orchestral samples into beautiful landscapes of sonic reverberations. Very reminiscent of Wolfgang Voigt's work as Gas, or those brief, subtle moments of bliss found on My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" record. Tracks seven and eight find Ehlers sampling fragments of Albert Ayler. However, as with most of these pieces, it is debatable as to how much Ayler is actually present on this recording, musically. Consisting entirely of digitally altered cello recordings, these two sidelong pieces gently swell, teeter and expand, forming beautiful, haunting drones that lie beneath digital snippets of arrhythmic ephemera. Somehow, Ehlers manages to restructure a mundane cello recording into a wonderfully reticular songpoem. The final two tracks are from the 'Plays Robert Johnson' 7" which we were never able to get enough of to list. Two short tracks: the first is an abstractly plucked, slow-motion, Reynols-on-cough-syrup style tarpit blues jam, while the final track is all throbbing four-on-the-floor Kompakt style minimal/heroin house.
Trust us, we plow through a lot of pretentious electronic crap that takes itself too seriously -- and while the conceit of the five Ehler tributes might suggest that he could fall into this trap -- he does not. Ehlers delivers, and you'll love this. We all do.
Working with contact microphones and field recordings, Richard Francis -- the New Zealander now living in Japan who has claimed the moniker Eso Steel -- emerges as an interesting member of the lowercase aesthetic, somewhere between the sonic intensity of Francisco Lopez (that is when Lopez hasn't consigned himself to arenas of silence) and the empathic resonances of Loren Chasse or Steve Roden. All of his recordings are based upon his late night excursions through Tokyo, where he is left alone to record the sound artifacts of a giant city that has fallen asleep. Pulsing loops of electrical hums, timestretched drones, and peripheral buzzings build into kinetic motifs of gritty distortions, that nevertheless maintain an overall hypnotic sensibility.
Thick, oppressive electronic thud and glitch that doesn't let up for 76 minutes. Abrasive, metallic, repetitive and bass heavy, like a meeting between Digital Hardcore's Panacea and Schematic Records' IDM duo Phoenecia. There's a lot of this kind of music around these days. Some of it is being executed extraordinarily well (example: the aforementioned Phoenecia), some of it much less so. Exclipsect does excel in molding and sculpting his textures and beats, but there's not really much to distinguish it from the rest. If this cd had come out a few years ago, it might be a different story. That's not the case however, so... another way to look at it would be: if you're looking to simply expand the heavier end of your IDM library, this surely won't let you down.
The second production from the Fenn O' Berg laptop trio of Christian Fennesz, Jim O'Rourke, and Peter "Pita" Rehberg adds just a bit more structure to the previous collaboration, but falls in line with the increasing number of Max / MSP improvisations that have been coming out as of late. The general feel for the album retains some of the digitally deconstructed dreaminess found on some of the Stephan Mathieu and Ekkehard Ehlers recordings, but with the additional collaged pitter patter of digital squiggles and clicks. Where Fenn O'Berg succeeds is in their sporadic use of fuzzy rhythms, post-acid melodies, and antiquated samples from carnival music and melodramatic film scores. All of these, of course, get the pixel treatment.
The Flaming Lips return with yet another gem and it's beginning to look as if they are only getting better with age. We used to think that about Tom Waits, Stereolab, and (some here think) Radiohead, but all those folks have released mediocre (perhaps bad?) records, whereas Flaming Lips' career-long consistency through 12 albums is pretty amazing. Certainly many of their indie rock, pre-Warner fans have long since abandoned their current efforts just as many who discovered them via their hit "She Don't Use Jelly" (or possibly more recently with "Waitin' For A Superman") probably don't find much to enjoy in their early drug addled, psychedleic bombast. But with such a continually evolving yet uncompromising sound, they're bound to alienate some. There's a striking resemblance on Yoshimi to the recent works of Radiohead, but then again there's definitely much that parallels the Lips' career with that of our faves from across the Atlantic. Like Radiohead, The Flaming Lips have chosen ever more increasing studio experimentation, combining electronic music elements with lush arrangements and cohesive album-oriented productions. But more significant perhaps is that Yoshimi, a semi-concept album, shares a similar paranoid and alienated angst that Radiohead has been honing these last several albums. But where as Radiohead takes a decidedly maudlin Orwellian-like approach in their song writing, the Flaming Lips work in an absurdist, comedic fashion more akin to Philip K. Dick. "One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21" could have been cut straight out of a P.K.D. story: "Unit three thousand twenty one is warming / makes a humming sound -- when its circuits duplicate emotions -- and a sense of coldness detaches as it tries to comfort your sadness..." All this arranged about as close to a Sade song as Coyne and the Lips can conceivably get (which I also see as a friendly jab at the sterile audiophile machinations of modern "soul".) The humanization of machines vs. humanity stripped of love and hate is the theme that's mulled over throughout. Most of the songs on the album are in direct reference to a painful breakup (either real or concocted) and the fictional battle between Yoshimi and the Pink Robots is more of a parable for struggling in the aftermath of having one's heart dashed to pieces. The two themes are intertwined on the album, but loosely enough so that you aren't forced into a Pink Floyd Wall of a concept album. While not as completely rife with hits as The Soft Bulletin, there's a lot to be warmed up to with Yoshimi. At first listen it seemed as though the Lips and Mercury Rev-ifier Dave Fridman had produced nothing but 45 minutes of studio wizardry and ear candy, but continual listens finds these songs opening up like a veritable flower blossom. "In the Morning of the Magicians" with its recurring, heart rending instrumental bridge will even bring a tear to the most desiccated of eyes. And "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (Part 1, *not* part 2) will have you singing along in your best cracked falsetto soon enough. I imagine the bean counters at AOL/Time Warner had a hard time listening to this more than once, if at all, as they neglected to print up enough copies in the first run and now we -- and stores everywhere I suppose -- are struggling to find a distributor with remaining copies on hand. And we're not sure of the significance or if the title and her appearance on this record are mere coincidences or -gasp- something more, but AQ fave/crushworthy drummer/vocalist Yoshimi of the mighty Boredoms is a musical guest!!
The Flying Burrito Bros were formed in 1969 by Gram Parsons, dearly departed father of country rock whose legend is still growing ever larger as his influence continues to be felt. I could go on and on and on about what a genius Parsons was, but then this description would be pages long, and anyway Ben Fong-Torres already wrote a book about 'im (Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons, highly recommended).
After leaving The Byrds, with whom he recorded just a single perfect album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Parsons formed the Burritos with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman and other compatriots. Though the Burritos have released many records since their inception, the only ones that Gram appears on are the first two, both of which appear here in their entirety (the "Train Song" single is also included here, making Sin City more complete than the other best-of comp, Farther Along). While the second Burritos album was in progress, Parsons starting hanging with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, who let him record the stunning version of "Wild Horses" found here. He drifted away from the band (or was asked to leave). In 1971 and '72 he released the two flawless solo albums, GP and Grievous Angel, that sealed his reputation as legend. By 1973 he was dead.
The two Burrito Brothers albums, then, are essential to any Parsons fan's collection, as well as fans of country rock, and "No Depression"-style alt.country in general. The combination of catchy melodies, rollicking good humor, joyous twang, and solid rock backbone make these records essential listening. Get this now!
Furisubi is the experimental guitar drone/psych/noise project of Kris Lapke, on this release a one-man band playing guitar and (sometimes) drums. The two tracks found on this hour-long cd-r basically sound like Japanese distorto-psych rockers High Rise or Mainliner covering Black Sabbath. Actually, track two actually *is* a Black Sabbath cover -- maybe we should say 'interpretation' -- a nearly half-hour version of Vol. 4's "Snowblind"! Well, actually, perhaps inspired by Sabbath's own in-concert jams/medleys, he works "Snowblind" over for about 15 minutes, and then deviates into some other symptoms of the Sabs' universe, like "Paranoid" and what sounds like a super-sped up version of "Smoke On The Water" which isn't even a Sabbath song (though Sabbath HAS performed it) before returning to finish-up the world's most stretched-out version of "Snowblind".
That's all after the preceeding 30 minutes of the disc's first track, which borrows no Black Sabbath riffs but certainly could have! So, whether covering Sabbath or not, Lapke's modus operandi here is pretty much utter distorto guitar drone demolition, motorpsycho guitar in the Makoto Kawabata zone, but heavier, darker, dronier... yes!! Our kind of guitar hero. But he's obviously not a drummer, though, as his timekeeping skills are, shall we say, poor...but the fucked-up drumming gives this a bit more of a damaged charm anyway...and he bothers to drum only about half the time as well (so it's better than a live Electric Wizard show, who's drummer is notoriously drunk and incompetent). Lapke also allows the occasional ragged vocal to (barely) surface amid the howl of guitar and feedback, helping to place one in the flow of Sabbath tuneage. This is what "stoner rock" *should* sound like... There are other, more 'experimental' Furisubi releases, but we liked this 'rockier' one the best and so decided to feature it. Plus, who can argue with extended Sabbath-inspired jamming? We're glad of whatever possessed him to record this, in all its wonderfully blown-out and messed-up glory.
It's going to be hard to do this one justice... We just got a few copies in of this actually out-of-print double cd. Cheap, too! The Hampton Grease Band released this, their debut and only album, in 1971, to almost universal disinterest and, even, active dislike. It was, famously, the second worst selling album in Columbia history. It might not have helped that Columbia's marketers, doubtless confused by the dadaistic hippy rock weirdness of the Hampton Grease Band, pitched it to stores as a comedy album. It certainly is funny -- funny ha ha and otherwise -- but it's as an avant-garde rock record that we recommend it. Imagine Zappa, Beefheart and a southern rock band all rolled into one absurd, palpitating, guitar-totin' ball. The end result: gorgeous, dissonant, textural guitar-based instrumentals that wouldn't sound out of place on the best Polvo record you've heard, plus the raving loony vocal 'stylings' of one Bruce Hampton (who has kept up his antics as the leader of Col. Hampton's Aquarium Rescue Unit, which we definitely aren't recommending). He's untrained and maniacal and his screechy voice makes this sound at times like Sam Kinison fronting the Allman Brothers. An acquired taste, perhaps, we'll warn you -- it even took a few listens for Allan (the biggest, and maybe only, Hampton Grease Band fan here) to get into this originally. And he doesn't like Zappa, either. But annoyance soon gave way to enjoyment. There's definitely some stoopid stuff on here, but then there's the several extended (around 20 minutes long, three of 'em are) compositions/improvs in complex, interlocking time signatures and whatnot. Not normal rock, not jazz, certainly not jazzrock. Instrumentally, amazing. Lyrically, certainly odd -- Hampton often sang "found lyrics" from whatever text was at hand, like an encyclopedia entry about Halifax or the back of a can of spray paint. As it says in the cd booklet liner notes, the HGB were "an intensely musical group with an intensely non-musical singer".
Speaking of the liner notes, they're hilarious, full of great stories, like about the time the HGB was playing live, and their drummer suddenly stood up and froze in place, holding that pose for over an hour as the band finished their set without drums and most people left the venue! Somehow these gonzo guys got to open for the likes of Beefheart & the Magic Band, the Allmans, Country Joe & the Fish, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Alice Cooper -- and then somehow got signed to a brief, illfated stint on Columbia Records that produced this album.
Humor in music is a difficult thing. When these guys tried to be funny, it wasn't, but they didn't have to try to be weird, and it was. Surely some of you out there will want or need this! Lots more won't and that's fine too. We only have three, presently.
As the title states this is a live recording of the old country and bluegrass-y couple known as the Handsome Family (aka Brett and Rennie Sparks). This intimate show took place in Chicago (their hometown since '89) shortly before they relocated to New Mexico, and as such it's steeped in heartfelt sentiment. Plenty of warm, down to earth banter filled with kooky tales comes mainly from the mouth of Mrs. Sparks, while Mr. Sparks' singing thunders deep and thick with reverb like a voice from beyond set over an earthy, twangful backdrop. Very haunting. Having written some of the most beautiful, somber ballads of the last decade - some of which have been performed by a few of their friends like Sally Timms - the Handsome Family can take you directly from a hilarious story about magic balls to the absolute depths of dramatic despair. Note: If you're altogether new to this duo you might want to start with one of their great earlier studio albums such as In The Air or Through The Trees before proceeding to this live one.
"Kuttel Im Frost" -- the third album for the German avant-collage-rock ensemble Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa -- situates itself between with the idiosyncratic experiments of Nurse With Wound (admittedly HNAS' biggest influence) and the art-damaged strategies from Die Todliche Doris. Essentially HNAS was the duo of Achim P. Li Khan and Christoph Heemann working with a number of likeminded audio oddballs. As heard on their other records, this album features sprawlingly sparse improvisations for noddling guitars, piano, harmonica, bass rumble, and tons of oscillating, spiralling, and otherwise lysergic studio effects, recalling the early Nurse With Wound album "Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella." Yet scattered throughout this album, HNAS places seasick ditties that point to their "Im Schatten Der Mohre" record, as Heemann and Khan set up off-kilter loops (or possibly misaligned vinyl spinning on a turntable) and then awkwardly attempt to play around those loops with standard rock instrumenation. Quite odd indeed.
HNAS's fourth album "Im Schatten Der Mohre" has often been cited as the best work from these '80s German eccentrics, following a longstanding opinion from HNAS's Christoph Heemann supporting such a statement. Yet a reissue campaign of four other HNAS recordings (dubiously released by Heemann's estranged HNAS collaborator Achim P. Li Khan) may challenge Heemann's claims. "Melchior" (in my opinion, the best of the HNAS recordings) was the 2nd official album for Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa (translated as Moose Without A Sofa), originally released back in 1986 through Steven Stapleton's United Dairies. The presence of Stapleton and his wife Diana Rogerson (aka Chrystal Belle Scrodd) certainly slants "Melchior" into the paratactic Dada and post-Faust idiosyncrasy of mid-'80s Nurse With Wound (especially "Sylvie and Babs"). Just as NWW has always been the studio-driven vehicle for Stapleton's absurd audio experiments, HNAS -- in 1986 the duo of P. Li Khan and Heemann -- used the studio as an alchemical means to recontextualize Krautrock's experimentalism, cheeseball disco, Teutonic chants, and Eastern European prog rock into an aesthetic collision, that always teetered between working brilliantly and collapsing into a mess of delay ridden effects. When Stapleton's freak-out guitar and Rogerson's eeriely disembodied / disaffected voice appear (which I've always been partial to), HNAS gets noticeably better in their monochord guitar blurts, plodding percussion, bleeding 23 Skidoo horns, and unnerving atmospherres. That said, I'll admit my bias in favor of NWW over HNAS. Regardless, "Melchior" should be required 'out-there' listening!
Possibly the rarest of all of the HNAS recordings to be re-issued by Achim P. Li Khan's Dom Recordings (much to the disapproval of fellow HNAS collaborator Christoph Heemann), "The Book Of Dingenskirchen" was originally pressed in an edition of a whopping 90 copies (20 black, 70 clear). It's unclear what the vinyl featured in terms of artwork, but Khan has 'restored' the original artwork for this CD reissue, since that tiny vinyl pressing couldn't justify the high costs of a full-color sleeve. It has to be stated that I've always felt HNAS has never risen above their desire to be the German equivalent of Nurse With Wound. This should only be taken as a minor criticism, as NWW is admittedly a synthesis of uncompromisingly vangarde artists as Pierre Henry, Robert Ashley, Sun Ra, and everybody else from the "Nurse With Wound list." Yet HNAS is less about the Dadaist recombinations of previous ideas into newly authored sounds, and more about recreating the idiosyncratic elements that run through Stapleton's recordings. "The Book Of Dingenskirchen" follows many of the ideas that Stapleton put forward on the first NWW record, "Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella" with indifferent guitar noodlings and piano tinklings amidst a variable density of collaged splatter for filtered voices, crashing metallic objects, and loads of studio effects. As with all of these reissues, "The Book of Dingenskirchen" fills up the full 70+ CD with bonus tracks, out-takes, live cuts, etc.
This is the CD reissue of the first HNAS album, "Abwassermusik" which was a collaboration with the equally obtuse Mieses Gegonge - a German outfit that produced a few compilation tracks and cassettes in the mid-'80s and not much else. Of all of recordings that have recently been re-released, "Abwassermusik" is the most primitive album for HNAS both in terms of production techniques and sound quality. Furthermore, it's the album that least sounds like Nurse With Wound - the most common comparison for the group. Here, HNAS and Mieses Gegonge bury almost every sound - low end drones, vocal mumblings, two note rock plod, Keith Rowe guitar plucks, indeterminant radio samples, violin squiggles, and various non-specific clatters - within a thick field of tape delay and echo effects. Sometimes it works quite well when both groups allow the sounds space to breathe amidst the cascading delay patterns; other times, it becomes a sloppy heap of cross-phasing, tremolo pulsations. As there are three bonus tracks on this disc attributed to Mieses Gegonge which prominently feature those delay tricks, it's possible to that Mieses Gegone is responsible for the folly of the delay.
Live acoustic recording of outsider folk from rural Western Japanese singer/songwriter Shuji Inaba. You may recognise his name as he has had a disc released by PSF a few years back. Comparable to the politically driven psych folk of Kan Mikami or Kazuki Tomokawa. Alan Cummings provides English translations of Inaba's lyrics in the liner notes. From CD-R label Last Visible Dog, out of Providence, Rhode Island (formerly, Lincoln, Nebraska).
All of the Reid Brothers' hits are here! Follow their musical travails from their beginnings in '84 to their break-up in '98. This collection more than clearly displays their influential knack for heartstring-pulling pop hooks delivered loud and edgy with squalls of guitar distortion and feedback -- from the early primitive endeavours to the later considerably slicker productions. Without question, the ear is drawn towards the early releases particularly their defining debut Psychocandy. Their more recent recordings showed a shift in tone and approach most notably when William Reid hooked up with Hope Sandoval. Much more barebones and lovey-dovey. A long-overdue thorough 'best of' compilation for those of us whose J+MC albums were listened and loved to a pulp long ago (or a comprehensive J+MC overview for those who missed 'em the first time around).
"Entropy" is a minor stumble for Tomas Jirku, whose previous outings (especially the "Immaterial" album for Subtractif / Alien8) had been some of the better recordings of clean, minimal techno along side Vladislav Delay, Chain Reaction, and Pole. Yet this album never stands beyond the formula of subdued shuffling rhythms, delicate clickery, and those ubiquitous swelling synth pads which sound like a digital cross between a ring modulator and a rhodes organ. On the plus side, the packaging with its sewn booklet is quite nice.
That Calvin Johnson is one very peculiar fella... always has been. Whether he's contorting himself like a pretzel with the funky Dub Narcotic, or crooning a bittersweet Beat Happening lo-fi luv song in his impossibly deeeeep voice, he is a distinct, unmistakable presence. His new solo album is distinct also, but in a very strange way. For some reason, the K Records kingpin has fancied himself as a blues singer from the deep south. Bizarre to say the least. It drew a chuckle or two when it was played in the store. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but certainly an acquired taste. If you like him, then here he is in all his glory (often without instrument accompaniment), and you'll probably enjoy this. On the other hand, if you're not a Calvin fan, this solo record will probably not win you over. And if you're completely unfamiliar with Mr. Johnson, you just might wanna check out a couple of his other records first like Beat Happening's Dreamy or Dub Narcotic's Out Of Your Mind or his collaboration with Built to Spill's Doug Martsch as the Halo Benders on God Don't Make No Junk.
The opening track for "Deli Mood Spot" is so misleading and uncharacteristic of the rest of the album that I have to question K-Rad's decision for including it on the album. K-Rad is a Chicago trio specializing in an IDM techno centered around low-sampling rate grit and faux-acid squiggliness often heard on Patrick Pulsinger's productions for Cheap Records, yet the album seductively begins with a down-tempo, trip-hop number straight outta Mo' Wax circa 1996, complete with blunted breaks, Steinski inspired samples, and DJ Shadow funk recontextualizations. Both that opening cut and the rest of the album are well-executed but certainly do not work as a paired dyptic of well-established aesthetics.
You know avant-violinist Eyvind Kang from his several discs for John Zorn's Tzadik label, and/or his work with the likes of Ikue Mori, Bill Frisell, Dying Ground, Joe McPhee, Secret Chiefs 3, and the Sun City Girls, right? Indeed, you probably recall that Kang's extended violin improvisation was a highlight of the SCG's "300,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda", one of their best albums. Well here's more of Kang's violin, backed by a group called the 'Neti-Neti Band' who may or may not be those selfsame Sun City Girls. Four tracks, over an hour of quiet, beautifully droning, melodic violin-based instrumental soundscapes. A bit King Crimson-ish, we'd say. Quite nice. Track three, "Highlands", gets a bit noisier than what came before, but is still quite pretty. Sure does sound like the Sun City Girls, in a trance-y mode.
I've always been a fan of Kreidler's unique sort of post-rock take on electronica -- it reminds me of Fridge's epic Eph album, which many of you reading also love. Well, let me tell you that Kreidler's new mini-album is so great, and so clearly surpasses their previously released work (which was stellar to begin with) that it just takes my breath away. As deeply dramatic and stately as an Ennio Morricone score, the music features gorgeously plucked strings articulating arpeggiated chords over and over in a sort of Reich-ian style of repetition. Glassy, pleasantly chiming melodies bring to mind krautrock of the serene Harmonia / La Dusseldorf variety, and especially the charming driving synth experiments of Cluster's Moebius and Roedelius. Maybe even some Eno. These seven instrumentals sound instantly classic and should appeal to a wide range of listeners -- it's that undeniably good. The cover art is also pretty -- no sleeve, just a mint green woman's torso silkscreened onto the jewel case. Highly recommended! Windy's new favorite record.
Everett True happened to get a rather sweet journalism assignment for NME and Melody Maker in 1989 to write about the up and coming record label Sub Pop and their cozy collection of albums from Nirvana, Screaming Trees, Dwarves, Soundgarden, etc. He stuck around Seattle during the early '90s and became what some have called "rock-crit godfather of grunge," after hobnobbing with the 'stars' of Sub Pop. Occasionally, True was known to break out into song, opening for a number of these groups as The Legend and landing a 7" on Sub Pop. Nearly a decade later, True who now resides in his native England returns as The Legend with an album on 3 Acre Floor run by the Jewelled Antler eccentric Jason Honea.
Musically, The Legend has very little in common with the Northwest sound that he wrote about in the early '90s, rather choosing the instantly urgent jangle of the Go-Betweens, the Terminals, and the general C86 sound of British indie-pop (albeit far grittier). The liner-notes written by True get the gist of the music: "After about 10 attempts we found it best not to change any rhythm or melody too rapidly, and I stumbled across a new approach to making up words. Up to that point, I'd be trying to pull random lines from old soul songs from my memory, and shout them out over the scratchy guitar."
The reissue of this bizarre figure's collected sonic disturbances comes by way of Munster Records in Spain - licensed from the man himself. It includes the 1981 album "Future Lenguage" (or "Future Languaje" or "Future Language" depending on which edition you're looking at, previously available on Flemish Masters) as well as "Tranceformer" which was his compilation of demos, rarities and live stuff. The electrifying packaging is chock full of slogans ("Advance Yourself!"), info tidbits (this group is "from the future" and this music was "recorded in space"), not to mention mad mad silver spacesuits and huge red moonboots! Von Lmo's impassioned singing style often brings to mind the untethered energy of Jello Biafra, Tomata Du Plenty, and Lux Interior. And when he chants "Leave your body!", look out! It's absolute frenzy. The music is just as frantic. Propulsive sax a la James Chance over raw garage punk guitar, bass and drums. There are a few songs where the group slows it down somewhat, but it seems that it's then that things get even more tense, eccentric and strange. The aforementioned packaging includes a fold-out filled with extensive, entertaining liner notes written by Von Lmo.
Ecological and feminist-minded avant-hippie Polish ethno-drone-folk-rock outfit the Magic Carpathians are back with, I think, their fifth album. We've been fans of these Terrastock-style sonic explorers since their days as Atman, and even had 'em play in in-store here at Aquarius a year or two ago, which was very cool. This new disc is more of their experimental Eastern European psychedelic "rock" music: dark and primal, with lots of repetition and drone. The Carpathians really mix things up as usual bringing in jazz bass, cello, gongs, squeaking baby toys, acoustic guitar, signalling trumpet, and more. And it's quite an international production, with portions recorded live in Varanasi India, others in galleries in Poland, with some remixes done here in California by the rhBand.
All songs of course feature the voice of Anna Nacher, who really gets wild on some of this, giving this a bit of a Bjork-gone-bonkers-gone-Balkan flavor...indeed her dramatic 20th century classical style shrieking sometimes sounds like someone from a Luigi Nono composition -- or even Keiji Haino!! Haunting stuff, even when she sounds like the Knights Who Say Ni on the track "/dark/". But she can be mellow and melodic as well. Still, this disc might be the creepiest and most 'difficult' of the Carpathian's albums yet.
Perhaps we can give this 2 hour, 43 minute dvd a fuller review sometime, but as they've been blowing out of here fast, here's a brief description as we wanted to list it this time before we run out (again) -- never fear, though, 'cause we will be able to get more in the event they're gone when you ask for yours.
It's our favorite beyond "prog" band Magma, live in concert for their 30th anniversary in Paris, May 13th and 14th 2000. This concert dvd is a total pro job, with great sound and of course out-of-this-world music, as the one and only Christian Vander and his (mostly much younger) current incarnation of Magma play the entire "Theusz Hamtaahk" trilogy: "Theusz Hamtaahk", "Wurdah Itah", and "Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh". Vander is older and grayer and burlier, still totally in command of his drum kit and his band, his majestic and bizarre musical vision undiminished, and in fine voice as well. Dramatically lit and well shot (with multiple cameras), it's the next best thing to actually seeing them live -- and not everyone is that lucky.
The bonus material on this all-region NTSC DVD includes interviews (in French) and additional live footage of a cute little kid playing drums on stage with Vander, who I'd guess is the proud dad. That chapter is called "Fabien, cadet de la Zeuhl".
This silly local metal band, featuring members or ex-members of Fuckface, Dystopia and other Bay Area punk and grind outfits, shows us the way with their debut. Notorious for their (ironic?) usage of 1970's homoerotic imagery in flyers and now, on this release -- though that really doesn't relate to the music in particular. They call it sci-fi sex rock, and I guess that's a good (as any) description for their music. The guitars and drums are definitely in a hardcore or metal style, as are the screamy vox (with lotsa "fuck" and "whore" in the lyrics), but the pomp keyboards are as new wave as they are black metal. The songs are about things like drugs, robot girlfriends, and even "OJ's Wild Ride" (some topical humor kinda past its sell by date, there). Several are intended as parodies of various underground punk genres. Definitely kinda stupid, but lots of people like stupid stuff like this. Fun for fans of the Dwarves, the Accused, Antiseen, Crom, uh, and of course Rick the Desert Dick! (The star of several of the photos you'll find and enjoy in this cd package.)
If you're a regular AQ customer you already know that we're all huge fans of Village of Savoonga, the darkest and most dramatically experimental of the many musical outfits hailing from the loose collective of musicians based in Bavaria, Germany. Another group from this incredibly fertile scene, The Notwist started out as a punk band but have gotten better and more different with each release (reflecting the Acher brothers' growing musical smarts and proficiency), culminating in this nice rock album. But not just any indie rock, this music is wistful, lyrical, softly flowing music that's *extremely* well executed, no filler, and brings in all kinds of non-rock elements -- in sort of the same way that the Beta Band does -- *casually*, not making a big deal out of it. Cos electronic keyboards and programming and stuff (courtesy Martin Gretschmann of the solo electronic act Console) are merely one facet of The Notwist's sound, which also includes very catchy minor key hooks, attractively textural cracklings and wooden clop clops, plucked strings (cello?), machine made gurgles and squishies, even out-of-place (-but-not-really) breakbeats that actually work.
In addition to the guy from Console, The Notwist personnel includes the abovementioned Acher brothers Micha (Village of Savoonga, Tied+Tickled Trio) and Markus (VoS, T+TT, Lali Puna).
Highly recommended! This is a grower.
More spaced out free noise racket from the amazing Last Visible Dog. OHM are a New Zealand free rock outfit treading similar territory as the Dead C, but the sound is more sparse and spread out. Sputtering drums and droning guitars, warm feedback and dreamy peals of high end squeal. Warble guitars and shuffly jazzy drums, played in the middle of a huge empty hall while sharp bolts of guitar hum and amp buzz are deflected by gentle strumming and whispery melodies and multiplied into occasional walls of bzzzzzbrrrrrghhhhh. This single 40 minute track basically documents the entire existence of the band OHM. Gorgeous and spare. Campbell Kneale (Mr. Birchville Cat Motel) guests. Features a hilarious cover spoof of the Who's maximum R+B logo!
Reissued yet again! This time with an extra disc, featuring 2 previously unreleased tracks and a video! Not sure if it's worth buying again (although it probably is for Allan and Andee) but if you haven't got this yet (WHY NOT?!?!?) then now's the time. And you can also get yourself all psyched up for the fall release of not one, but TWO brand new Opeth albums (Use Your Illusion style!). The bonus tracks are cool, but we're not sure they're essential, both are gorgeous and simple, finger picked acoustic guitar workouts with plaintive vocals. Really nice but definitely NOT HEAVY. The video is cool though, lots of Opeth-in-the-studio footage. But here's what we had to say about the disc last time:
Opeth are GODS. The Swedish gods of progressive death/black metal, that is. And by progessive, yes, we mean full on '70s style prog-rock, mixed with the heaviest, most crushing metal attack you can imagine. The many many local SF fans of Weakling should be aware: this band was one of the big influences on Weakling's trance-inducing compositions. Opeth's songs can be equally epic and hypnotic, but of course incorporate a wider, dare we say lovlier array of musical elements. In Opeth's arsenal, there's vocals both growled and clean, acoustic guitar, an incredible sense of dynamics, and inspired melodicism. Blackwater Park (inexplicably named after an obscure krautrock boogie band? we can't figure it out) follows their awesome Still Life album, making for the fifth entry in the Opeth pantheon. While it would be hard to be much better than that album (and that's what we thought about Still Life's predecessor, My Arms Your Hearse too), Opeth continue to perfect perfection, I guess. While the nine-minute plus song lengths found here don't push past earlier excesses, Blackwater Park does see Opeth progressing into even more, uh, progressive areas. Being Pink Floyd fans, they even got Steve Wilson of UK young Floyd proggers Porcupine Tree to produce! So, the mellow parts are mellower, the metal parts cleaner and more precise. If you've never heard them before, we might suggest starting with their more psychedelically murky masterpiece My Arms Your Hearse, but Blackwater Park should also be on your list. Pure art from the masters. All that drool was justified.
Mixed bag collection of Lee Perry productions and bogus (ie: non-Perry cuts). The tracks date as far back as 1966 and as recent as 1990 (with the bulk of the actual Perry tracks residing in the early Black Ark era around 197 to 1975) to our knowledge -- the fellers who compiled this anthology chose not to include any information about their choices (hmmm... I wonder why?) The material is primarily instrumentals and dubs, with a couple of Perry vocals thrown in for kicks. Among the more familiar Perry tracks: Flames of the Dragon, Django Shoots First, Enter the Dragon and Clint Eastwood Rides Again. For what it's worth, some of the bogus tracks (not even David Katz's thorough Perry discography has any record of them) like "Army Dub" and a dub of Johnny Clarke's "Every Knee Shall Bow" are quite nice even if they aren't the work of Lee Perry.
Peter Rehberg, best known to the world as Pita, has rerouted himself in an unexpected new direction of dissonance. Rather than shoveling a fistful of sonic crud down your proverbial throat, Pita opts for a more roundabout approach, this time using only a finger or two and jiggling them around and slapping your cheeks before jamming a knuckle sandwich through your nose. His trademark onslaught of hard disk explosion has been restrained to wandering digital abstraction and heavy filtering and time lag processing. Not terribly exciting, though there are high expectations of a maverick leader in power electronics and twenty first century noise. Dare we flip the vinyl-only release to side two, we are rewarded with washes of rhythmic tones and pseudo-melodies -- however, at close examination, we speculate that the same processes are applied here as on the first side, though with an outcome more acid-drenched and dynamic. Are the outcomes of these pieces -- or more appropriately, experiments -- predetermined, or merely the result of algorithmic randomizations and mathematical surprises unforseen by their instigator? Whatever the case, "Get Down" is a fine listen in itself, potent in its exploration of sound, though we are weary of the artistic validity and intent of the approach and process. Good, but not great.
When working in such a restrictive environment as Chain Reactive microhouse, the success and failure of a piece of music usually comes down to the basics of writing good music in generating a punchy rhythm out of Reactor and filtering ghostly remnants of melody out of synthetic / metallic atmospheres. Microhouse pioneers like Vladislav Delay have faltered when trying to get too clever in their textural programming while forgetting that the core to heroin house is dance music. But like Plastikman and Gas before him, Toronto producer Sandro Perri (aka Polmo Polpo) understands where minimalist techno has succeeded with an unrelentingly throbbing, Kompakt-monophunk rhythms and slowly filtered aerated reverberations. The murky hiss and thick white noise common to the early Chain Reaction records are present in Polmo Polpo's exceptional debut "The Science Of Breath," but have been sculpted out of heavily digitized lap steel, cello, and slide guitar. Very nicely done!
Lovely! The entrance of The Prom is one of grand descending orchestral processions. Would make the perfect soundtrack to a '70s film of doomed romance and drama. Sumptuous chamber pop instrumentation with the piano leading the way. Beautiful, heartrending lyrical tales from the graceful pen of Mr. James Mendenhall - quite reminiscent of Elliott Smith and XTC's Andy Partridge. The third song's piano beginning really made me think of a Journey ballad (uh-oh!) until the vocals came in, then it felt much more in line with Quasi (whew, a good thing!). This album finds itself on Barsuk Records, home to the likeminded intelligent pop of John Vanderslice, The Long Winters and of course Death Cab For Cutie, but it fits just as comfortably in the finely crafted company of lush Brit bands like Doves or Coldplay. A very very impressive debut!
Even reviewing this is a guilty pleasure. Yes, unfortunately, I must admit -- a pleasure. First I reveal my D&D playing lifestyle, now I'm admitting to sort of liking the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's like I'm the star of Aquarius Records' very own conceptual version of Jackass. All I can say is, I used to like the Chili Peppers, years ago, in college. C'mon, you did too. Uplift Mofo Party Plan, Mother's Milk, y'know, those were good. Then they did that "Under The Bridge" song. Suddenly they're all about MTV ballads, crooning, cloying stuff. Ugh. Plus who told that guy he could sing?? But then, I was repeatedly exposed to Californication (I know, it's kinda embarrrassing even typing that word) while in Europe a few years ago. That broke down my resistance I guess. I liked it. And what's weird, now, is that I like the Chili Pepper's pretty, sing-songy stuff, it's the slap bass funk-punk stuff that sounds really corny and stupid. Fortunately they mostly stick to the ballads on this record, and leave all that funkery to the rap-rock bands like Linkin Bizkit to whom the old Chili Peppers must have been such an inspiration. And I like Anthony Kiedis' voice, now, too. You can always tell it's him, he's got his own style. Ok, so it's not like I'm telling you to buy this. I didn't -- but, if I got a promo I wouldn't necessarily trade it in... Objectively, I'd have to say this is a bad record. Cheesy, wimpy, and dumb, with some truly cringe-worthy moments. But I haven't turned it off yet, while writing this. So I'm just telling you to try to understand if someone you know, a friend or family member likes it. Or if you do.
The predominantly Scottish supergroup returns with another album of dreamy mellowness and an expanded roster which now includes members of Teenage Fanclub and Idlewild. The recognizable sounds of the participants' individual bands (Arab Strap, Belle & Sebastian and Mogwai to name a few) are much less obvious this time around - seeming much less like a compilation than a collaborative effort. Last time, we could really proclaim, "That song sounds just like Arab Strap." On Son of Evil Reindeer, The 'Section sounds much more cohesive although still keeping within the wistful, melancholic territory of the bands mentioned above. Comforting blankets of folky pop tunes to wrap yourself in and a few peppier numbers to liven things up a bit. Very recommended for fans of the pretty and bittersweet. Warm hugs and pints for all!
Recent recording of Terry Riley's seminal work "In C." Because of its ambiguous instrumentation and relative ease of performance, "In C" has been performed and recorded in a multitude of varying arrangements in its 37 years of existence. In this version, "In C" is attacked with sitar, tabla, percusssion, voices (mostly extended technique, ie: growls) and orchestra. The performance was
Rollerball scares up all sorts of psychologically charged demons within their cabaret theatrics, not unlike the atmospheres that saturate the works of Barry Adamson and to a lesser extent Tom Waits and Nick Cave (due to the fact that Rollerball's vocal duets / croons are engaging, but not as engrossingly powerful as either Waits or Cave, but the accompaniments remain similar). The slow patter of brushed drums, a minor chord on a piano, and melody lines from clarinet, accordion, and trumpet fix a darkened mood upon their jazz-decay creakiness. Occasionally, Rollerball dissolves the structures into epic free-jazz spaciousness that recalls their Portland comrades Jackie-O Motherfucker. "Long Walk For Ice Cream" collects the "Sam Donaldson" 7" single and the "Zapatos" 10" previously released through Cochon as well as four new tracks.
Once a trio of bassists gently interweaving painterly melodies, Rothko is now under the sole governance of Mark Beazley, as the other two members Jon Meade and Crawford Blair have left to pursue other projects (Lomax and Geiger Counter, respectively). The new Rothko is not dissimilar to the Rothko which produced such masterful albums as "A Negative For Francis" or "In The Pulse Of An Artery;" though Beazley does flush out the two missing bassists with a baroque application of additional instruments. Guitars, bells, vocals, drums, field recordings, trumpets, and keyboards make themselves known as the supporting cast to the Rothko sound which continues to promote the richness of basslines that spiral through somber melodic repetitions and cascading washes of sustained drones. The vocals from Caroline Ross recall the Celtic siren calls from Enya, and thus renders the possibility of Rothko delving into the drivel of New Age. Fortunately, her presence only on the opening track is an aberration to the rest of Beazley's otherwise exceptional re-incarnation of Rothko. The LP is missing two tracks featured on the CD.
Yeah! a new Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her cd in our hands at last. Not really new (released in 2001), but finally here. This predominantly female band from Japan is so rad and the cds can be hard to come by. This record is more polished than No! No! No!, and a bit more tight and sassy. Whether that's good or bad is up to the beholder but this record is great. Tough guitar riffs, dynamic songs and smooth vocals. I've heard rumor that they are no longer an active band, sad if it's so cuz their songwriting is so strong and inventive, and with each record they develop their sound further and further.
Japan's Shizuka were once (and maybe are again) an up-and-coming four-piece Tokyo psych outfit, you might know 'em from their contributions to PSF's Tokyo Flashback compilation series, or their studio album on that same label, or their amazing but now sadly out of print live cd on Persona Non Grata. They even played a great show here in San Francisco at the Kilowatt some years ago that some of us were lucky enough to witness. The prime elements of Shizuka's sound are the Keiji Haino-esque guitar storms of ex-Fushitsusha man Maki, combined with the haunting, sad female vocals of the band's namesake Shizuka (Japanophiles reading this probably also have seen her beautiful and spooky handmade dolls, on the cover of a Land of the Rising Noise comp and elsewhere). This band broke up a while ago, but have apparently recently reunited. No new material has been forthcoming, however, but they have released this live cd-r (recorded in 1995, before the break-up), which will be some consolation to fans. It's a 40-minute long live performance (complete with a fragment of the music being played through the PA prior to their set!) from a club in Tokyo. The recording is great, and their songs are phenomenal. Gorgeous, melancholic stuff, with the gently lulling singing of Shizuka being heartbreaking enough by itself, but also setting the listener up to be destroyed by the fantastic heavy psych controlled-noise outbursts of the guitar when they begin (usually a few minutes into each song). If you're already a Shizuka fan, you'll want this, and if you're into bands like Nagisa Ni Te, Slap Happy Humphrey, and Fushitsusha, you probably do too. Those with less expertise in modern underground Japanese psych -- but who dig the Velvets, Neil Young, or even an imaginary mix of Mazzy Star and Mogwai -- could do a lot worse for an introduction as well.
It's always a happy day here at Aquarius when we get new music from Finland's Skepticism. I mean, a depressing day. Soooooooo wonderfully depressing. Skepticism are our favorite funereal forest doom metal band, we've described them before as the Labradford of black metal. Almost ambient, droning, downer stuff, plodding along through a nighttime fog. Imagine the music of a suicidal church organist, teamed up with some longhaired Scandinavian death metal teens. Beautiful.
As with all their releases, more of the same yet with enough difference to be a significant, essential addition to their ouevre. This time, the 'what the fuck?' aspect is highlighted by the bizarre bubbling noises that join the gruff vocals and downtuned guitars on the title track, which sounds as if it was recorded on a ship slowing sinking on the River Styx. As is their wont, this two-song ep (18+ minutes) precedes a full-length due out sometime later this year, supposedly.
When people talk about the 'happening' San Francisco music scene, they're not usually talking about The Lord Weird Slough Feg -- unless it's a denim-clad German metalhead who's doing the talking! Then, perhaps you'll hear them rave about these guys. Utterly trend-free true heavy metal rock n' roll, equal parts Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Queen, Judas Priest, Manowar, Manilla Road...and some Black Flag too, but you'd have to really pay attention to hear that. Slough Feg's music is epic, rockin', riff-laden stuff with heroic vocals and tons of lead guitar. Their lyrics deal with fantasy, insanity, and Celtic myth. They released their first cd, a self-titled half-hour-long mini-album, on their own Beef Rock label back in 1996, and it has long since gone out of print. Since then, they've managed to develop a bit of a cult following in Europe (with two albums so far out on Italian metal label Dragonheart) as well as among a select group of enlightened American metal fans, including quite a few Aquarius customers. They also spawned the popular metal opera project Hammers of Misfortune (on Andee's tUMULt label). Now Miskatonic, the label run by Rich Walker of the godly British doom metal band Solstice, has done us the favor of reissuing Slough Feg's debut effort, with new packaging and, better yet, seven bonus tracks taken from Slough Feg's pitifully-circulated early '90s demo tapes. All remastered of course -- the demo tracks definitely sound better than before. It's nice to have this be available again, as the original cd featured several of Slough Feg's best songs: the Sabbathy "Shadows of the Unborn", the Irish jig "The Red Branch" (always a live favorite), parts III and IV of their prog-rock epic "High Season", the ripping yet melodic "20th Century Wretch", and others. The bonus tracks are equally great, including such otherwise unavailable Slough Feg classics as "The Mask" and the fuzzy, doomy "Headhunter", along with demo versions of "The Red Branch", parts I and II of "High Season", and "The Room" (a different version of which appeared on an obscure comp called "Metal Injection" a couple years ago).
They're definitely one of those love 'em or hate 'em bands, and lots of folks just aren't gonna "get" 'em. They're often seen to be too weird for a lot of metal fans, but also way too metal for everyone else. And the "extreme" metal crowd might find them too melodic as well. But for some -- not just me -- they're one of the best bands around. People who like The Fucking Champs for not-entirely-ironic reasons (or, actually, for those too, why not?) should check Slough Feg out. Slough Feg are *not* ironic, and *are* somewhat ridiculous, but they know it and have the nerve to do what they do anyway 'cause they love it. Besides, all that serious, dark, black, death metal can be pretty darn ridiculous too when you think about it or read the lyrics.
Amazingly (note: sarcasm), Miskatonic has managed to totally capture the amateur, self-released design aesthetic of the original in repackaging this. From the black and white cover drawing of the Drune Lord Slough Feg in his cave (by Martin Hanford, who is better known for his Bal-Sagoth album covers) to the crappy caligraphic font used throughout to the poorly reproduced band photos, bad layout, and typos in the lyrics, this might actually look *worse* than the 1996 version the band put out themselves...oh well...at least the "underground" vibe is intact! And it's in print, with bonus tracks, so we really can't complain. Note, though, that Miskatonic also managed to run the songs "Why Not" and "Highway Corsair" together as a single track (#5), instead of being tracks 5 and 6 the way they are listed on the back of the cd. Whoops. Perhaps the vinyl version, slated to appear at the end of the year on German label Metal Supremacy, will correct these superficial problems. But if you're not a vinyl diehard, this cd is certainly recommended now.
