!!!'s new single is razor sharp, cold 'n icy dance music, 2 lengthy pieces that have all the brightness and vitality of Liquid Liquid's "White Lines" or other similar hybrids of punk and dance music happening in NYC in the early '80s -- ESG, maybe Arthur Russell. Maybe it makes sense that they left the laid back clime of California for the adrenaline energy of New York. Three of its eight members are on Outhud, and one is in LCD Soundsystem.
However, I don't think foregrounding a vocal line is a good idea. !!!'s instrumentation is just enough; the vocals distract from what the instruments are saying, when all I want to hear is what that addictively groovy guitar's chkk-chkk-chikka chkk-chkk-chikka is going to go, or where the joyous chord progressions will take me. Recommended!
On "Suck The Air", vocalist Nicola Kuperus assumes a much more pissy-pouty tone than her usual cold android stare - aligning Adult. more with the punky rather than electro crowd. Think Glass Candy or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She's honed her sassily sneering delivery somewhat from their recent Anxiety Always album on which her vocals wavered dangerously close to the grating, shrill side of things. On the flipside, the rubbery beats and aquatic synth clangs of "High Heels..." aims the ear more towards the work of electro-technician Adam Miller. It's a fun no-frills track, but much too short to get the party fully rolling. Truly, this 7" should've been a 12"! Nonetheless, it (especially the A-side) shows the duo doing what they do best, crafting *single* tracks into terrific electro-pop.
Reissue of the debut cd from this atmospheric local group, that uses classical chamber music instrumentation to create dark, beautiful sounds akin to a black metal Rachel's. Black metal? Well, this was originally released this by Elfenblut, an imprint of now defunct British label Misanthropy, famous as the home of Burzum! And, for further "heavy" credentials, we should mention that band leader Kris Force has played with both Neurosis and the Swans. This was previously only an import, and now boasts three bonus tracks exclusive to this new version!
FINALLY BACK IN PRINT -- and still cheap! Now in a digipak. Here's Allan's old review of this AQ-favorite, originally released on LP in 1979, now in its 2nd or 3rd Harmonia Mundi cd incarnation:
Some records come out (say, a reissue of some strange '70s psych) and there's all this anticipation because of reading about it for years, or at least seeing it in a catalog or something (kinda like AQ-list subscribers hear about a lot of new things), but many of our favorite albums were first heard (and appreciated) with no prior information or expectations. You know, the kind of thing that really grabs you partially because you DON'T know anything about it, like a thrift store LP you picked up just 'cause of the weird cover art or something (like, how some of us first encountered Bruce Haack's "Electric Lucifer" for instance).
Now, this album we didn't originally find in a thrift store record bin, there wasn't even a cover associated with it: the story is, a friend had a tape of this in his car, it was obviously some sort of old recording (taped off a scratchy LP) of what our friend was told (by the person who'd given the tape to him) was traditional Greek music. But it was quite unlike any Greek music we'd heard before, sounding more like a soundtrack to a film featuring pagan rites, very ceremonial and mysterious in nature. Unlike any "real" recording of Greek music I could imagine. Eventually (last week) we decipered the handwritten info on the cassette and after only a few minutes of research on the sometimes miraculous internet, found out not only what it was but that it had been reissued on cd! And so now we have it here at Aquarius. Nice how that worked out!
What we now know is that the concept of this recording is that it's a partially-imaginary reconstruction by an unusual Spanish world-music ensemble of what the music of ancient Greece MIGHT have sounded like, based on what little historical documentation is available regarding musical practices of the period. Each track references some papyrii or other (so the spoken and sung texts are supposedly historically accurate) and the music is played on what are assumed to be authentic types of instrumentation (including a reproduction of an hydraulic organ!). As we said, much of the music is ritual-sounding, with chanting and bells. It has quite an occult vibe. There's also tracks of beautiful, folky female vocals backed by plucks of the lyre. Add to that stirring horns, droning flutes, percussive crashes, eccentric vocal flourishes, and much more. Liner notes explain the Atrium Musicae's intentions and procedure in trying to recreate this lost music. There's a definite sense of drama, and of the weight of the ages upon those trying to bring the fragments of Greek music back to life. This disc is sometimes creepy, often lovely, always fascinating.
Although I kind of wish that this cd had the scratchy surface noise found on our friend's tape of the LP, which gave it even more of a "lost treasure" vibe (as if some ancient Greek philosopher had invented some sort of anachronistic "marble cylinder" recording technology, recently unearthed by archeologists!) it's still totally amazing!
A while back we reviewed the reissue of this British band's wonderfully twee and surreal first album, "We Are Ever So Clean", from the paisley days of 1967. But on this, that album's 1969 follow-up, they left the Sgt. Pepperisms behind for an even freakier, and heavier, direction. It's kinda like how The Pretty Things went from "S.F. Sorrow" to "Parachute", but weirder. The Mothers Of Invention might have been an influence, certainly the lead-off track "Peace Loving Man" is crazy enough. Heavy too, with gruff vocals and loud guitar riffs. Yep, compared to the ornate, orchestrated psych-pop of "We Are Ever So Clean" this whole album is waaaay more (acid) Rock, but still full of melodic hooks and 60s zaniness. Pretty cool. Unfortunately this was to be their last album, but their guitarist did go on to join Family (we mention for those into the rock family tree thing).
This is the cd reissue of a very hard to find collection of early recordings of this infamous SF band. It was originally released as a limited-to-500 vinyl pressing back in 1993, then on cd in '96. So, who's behind this album's re-surfacing? Why it's none other than the Committee To Keep Music Evil label run by Brian Jonestown Massacre's kingpin Mr. Anton Newcombe. Over the years, BJM have gone through many different incarnations both member-wise (seriously, they defined the phrase "revolving door of musicians") and sound-wise (frequently making complete stylistic 180's from dreamy Brit showgazerness to druggy trippiness to volatile blues rawk), but they've always kept a hand on the psychedelic knob. This is BJM in their softer, hazy, droning rock mode a bit more folky too. Sort of like the Stone Roses tripping out with Guided By Voices. We've had a few customers positively swoon when this has been played in the store. C'mon don't ya wanna space out with Spacegirl too. And hey, BJM sweeten the deal even more with a half dozen bonus songs!
Presenting a much more feisty, energetic Broadcast than on their last album The Noise People Make. There's only six songs here, but they're mighty fine ones. Mighty, indeed! Four of them ring with that familiar dreamy Broadcast sound - shades of their Cardigans/Stereolab leanings still linger but only faintly. They're definitely more fired up these days. Just check out that tight, harder-hit drumming and heavier overall sound. Actually this brings their recorded work more in line with their rockin' live performances. And what about those other two songs? Well, they deserve their own mention that's for sure: the wonderfully incongruous third track "One Hour Empire" and the sixth "Minus Two". It truly sounds like they hopped a time machine back to the '70s and hijacked the BBC Radiophonic Workshop! The former's an eccentric jazzy bleep-bloop exotica number that's plenty entertaining all by itself. The latter begins as a spaced-out robotic spazz-fit that's eventually muscled over by more frantic drumming and melodic female sighs. Actually if the last few Add N To (X) albums have left you rather disgruntled and disappointed (as they have us) and if this new EP is any indication, you might want to switch over to the Broadcast team! Recommended.
Smashed drum kits, blown bass amps, band and audience, drums and guitars, mic cords and stands, tables and chairs, all in a bloody, sweaty, writhing pit in the middle of the club. The return of the four headed hydra, Burmese, San Francisco's grind/noise/sludge behemoth. Cutting a swath of mayhemic brutality and entropic dissonance through the stale SF scene, Burmese make their table-tossing, audience-baiting, tantrum-throwing peers look like charm school graduates. Punk rock Gallants to Burmese's skull crushing, soul poisoning, ear shredding Goofus.
Now with an extra drummer and a renewed, dangerously unhealthy obsession with Whitehouse, Burmese have slowed things down a bit. Gone are the hyperspeed blast beats and in their place are midtempo dirges, stumbling drunkenly through nihilistic, grinding sludge, spewing bile and ultraviolence. Pounding militaristic beats demarcate vast expanses of throbbing feedback, guttural growls, tarpit washes of bowel loosening low-end and 16 rpm grindcore. Things do speed up occasionally into blurry bursts of static and skree, but even then, they eventually devolve back into some sort of primordial and glacial caveman stomp, all murky thud and swampy roar, thick and suffocating and massively heavy. This is some seriously scary shit. Grinding and pounding. Punishing and pummelling. Relentless and brutal.
MPEG Stream: "Ladykiller" [/audio/burmeseladykiller.m3u]
Welcome to the wonderfully eccentric world of SF's Ralph Carney - such an amazingly skilled musician able to jump genres and instruments at the witty wink of an eye and blends them together at whim. He's worked with an astounding array of artists, some of which include Tom Waits, Marc Ribot, the B52's, Bill Laswell, and William Burroughs. Plus, if you were one of the many who packed into AQ a few months ago to catch the Jonathan Richman in-store you would've also been entertained by Carney's accompaniment. Carney's music is as far from run-of-the mill as you can get, and his oft-bizarre aural trips might not be for everyone. Some might even find it all to be a bit overwhelming and disorienting at first, but that's the splendor of his work. He's so adept at completely transporting the listener to... somewhere else! You're never quite sure where he's led you nor where you're off to next! The record label makes reference to Roland Kirk and Capt. Beefheart and these are certainly right on the mark, but we'd also add the Residents, the Lonesome Organist and the criminally unsung, fellow-SF genius Graham Connah to the list of those dextrously imaginative akin. Just nine seconds shy of a full hour.
Another gorgeously packaged and lovingly assembled artifact from Table Of The Elements. This time chronicling, albeit in edited form, the career of guitar experimentalist and early drone pioneer / minimalist Rhys Chatham, a man whose carreer seemed to always have been overshadowed by fellow New Yorker / guitarist Glen Branca, who may have borrowed his multiple guitar idea from Chatham anyway. Plenty to take in here. An amazingly comprehensive booklet with notes on each piece as well as a fascinating artist's diary that Chatham kept during the seventies, eighties and nineties. And three discs chock full of some truly gorgeous music. The interesting thing, to me at least, is how accessible most of Chatham's pieces are. Sure, he's a minimalist composer, an artist, an avant garde pioneer, but when you get right down to brass tacks, the tracks here sound a lot like Stereolab or Neu! Filtered through Television and downtown Manhattan and with some more challenging arrangements, but very post rock nonetheless. Endless crescendos and repetetive intros build and build, until the band launches into propulsive Krautrock jams. Simple, repetitive and totally hypnotic. Echoes of AQ faves Circle and Salvatore as well as Faust and Can. Even though the pieces are for multiple guitars, it's hard to hear anything other than some really nice, spacey jams. There are also some pieces for multiple horns that are really gorgeous, repetitive and woozy. Militaristic drums underpin seasick melodies over rumbling low end bass drones with the horns playing a warbly, wavery melody over and over. Reminds me of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" slowed down and played through the sound system at CBGB's. The first disc though is worth the price of the box alone. The entirety of disc one is taken up by the piece 'Two Gongs", where two huge gongs are beaten, rubbed, bowed, struck and shaken to produce an unbelievably rich, rumbling, moaning drone, with overtones that shift restlessly and endlessly changing the emotions of the piece every second. Dark and langorous, deep and powerful. Fans of the recent Karen Stackpole gongs 12" we listed a few lists back will love this, as will fans of Flynt, Maclise, Cale, Coleclough and other masters of the mighty drone. But like we mentioned before, the other two discs may also appeal to adventurous post/pop rockers into Tortoise, Stereolab, Circle, Salvatore as well as folks into krautrock/free rock/space rock.
MPEG Stream: "An Angel Moves Too Fast To See - Prelude" [/audio/chathamangelprelude.m3u]
This is a strange turn for Chris Clark who was responsible for one of our favorite records of last year, the totally amazing Clarence Park. Gone are many of the things that made Clarence Park so engaging, which is not to say this isn't a cool record, because it is, it's just a little less unique. The sound owes heavily to 'Girl/Boy' era Aphex Twin. Skittery hyperactive lo-fi drum and bass with a gritty ambience (giving it a sort of antiquated feel) and spastic breakdowns. A lot less melodic than its predecessor, but in the place of melody is some new found electro spunk and manic dancefloor splatter.
Here is the second release in this series capturing the magic of Coil in the live setting. This one presents their April 2002 performance at the Teatro Delle Celebrazioni in Bologna, Italy. For this performance Coil were Jhon Balance and Peter Christopherson; Ossian Brown, Mike York and Cliff Stapleton as well as Pierce and Massimo of the Black Sun Productions collective. Nine tracks: "Anarcadia/All Horned Animals", "Amethyst Deceivers", "Slur ", "A Cold Cell", "Broccoli", "Paranoid Inlay", "Sick Mirrors", "AYOR", and "Backwards".
Yes, we know... although the title of this cd is Live Two, this volume is actually the third to be released in this series of live Coil recordings. To get you oriented, Live Four - the one I (Cup) have listened to most so far - was an excellent document of their most recent performances Prague and Vienna in 2002. It very effectively captured the many facets of Coil. Live Three features their Bologna, Italy concert. This is Coil's presentation in DK Gorbunova, Moscow, Russia in September of 2001. It was a much more scaled down affair in terms of personnel (as opposed to their 2002 lineup) with just four men: Jhon Balance and Peter Christopherson; Thighpaulsandra, and Tom Edwards. However in a sense it's the most raw and testosterone pumped of this series so far, and the crowd responded in kind. Six tracks in all: "Something/Higher Beings Command", "Amethyst Deceivers", "What Kind of Animal Are You", "Blood from the Air", "The Green Child", "Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil".
MPEG Stream: "What Kind Of Animal Are You" [/audio/coilwhatkind.m3u]
Psychedelic speed garage punk from Santa Cruz! Comets On Fire fuse the amphetamine energy of High Rise with hyper-distorted vocals and electronic tweakery. The SF/Bay Area has been sprouting lots of intense garage-punk acts lately, most of which (try to) rehash the sound of the MC5 and cop the style of the Stooges (it's hard not to), but what really sets these boys ahead of all the others
Apparently time-travel is possible, 'cause there's just no way these guys could be of our day and age. With this, their third album and Matador label debut, Maryland thud-psych rockers Dead Meadow take things to an even higher, ahem, level of '60s/'70s inspired stoner delight. It's downer rock that swings like a pair of bellbottoms on a body hanging from a noose but is also certainly warm and enveloping, like a big fuzzy blanket. Heavy riffing with some nice mellow acoustic hippy jams as well. Basically drone-on bliss both ways. Kinda like if Sleep were a krautrock band.
We've said before that our only real problem with this band is the vocals. But on "Shivering King", although they're still super-nasal, they've managed via a combination of effects and mixing to somehow at last make 'em nicely palatable -- they're the high end counterweight to all the bass frequencies over which they drift. Fantastic!
NB. It's a bit weird Dead Meadow's on Matador now, but I guess they fit in with Bardo Pond (who've moved on to a new label, however) and it's not any stranger than the Champs being on Drag City!
Vinyl version is a double LP on 150 gram vinyl.
This is a split release between two Jagjaguwar Records artists that features all new songs, however it was released by the Spanish label Acuarela Records. Canadian indie fave Julie Doiron offers up some incredibly intimate home recordings that alone are worth the price of admission. She gently strums her acoustic guitar and sings/murmurs five delicate, heartbaring songs. Doiron's companion on this cd is the Austin, TX based band Okkervil River with four songs of their own. Their vocals are of the plaintive, untethered kind that brings to mind Jeff Mangum or John Darnielle. They're backed by some fine rootsy banjo, violin, and guitar. Nice!
MPEG Stream: JULIE DOIRON "The Sweetest Eyes (When You Laugh)" [/audio/doironsweetest.m3u]
An effusive title that roughly translates as "Politics Do Not Need An Enemy" and a cover photogragh of an individual wearing a t-shirt with a pre-9/11 image of the World Trade Center introduce this recording from German electronic music composer Ekkehard Ehlers. It's hard not to immediately qualify the music within as holding some sort of political agenda or at least some wry commentary about politics, culture, art, or whatever, simply because he's already loaded the metaphoric gun with rather powerful signifiers. For better or for worse, those political references remain an external device and Ehlers' music pursues a path entirely different.
Best known for the outstanding "Plays" series of homages to Cornelius Cardew, John Cassavettes, Albert Ayler, etc. and for his equally solid "Heroin" collaboration with Stefan Mathieu, Ehlers had developed a myopic fuzziness of digital pixelations from various samples, found sounds, and acoustic instrumentations. While the laptop is still the center of the Ehlers' world, the ephemeral drones which previously amassed from dense layerings of tiny sounds have subsided within "Politik Braucht Keinen Feind." Considering that the aesthetic flourishing of digital synthesis through programs like Max/ MSP and Supercollider has over-saturated the market, Ehlers' decision is certainly a good one. Here, he has culled strident samples from cello and bass clarinet performances and manipulated them into looped details. In turn, he has exaggerated many of those textures, such as through his increase of the bass frequencies from the bass clarinet into psychoacoustically potent tones and through his emphasis of the micro-abrasions between the bow and the cello's strings. These little events and gestures flutter into atonal orchestrations and psychically tense atmospheres which come across as something of a hybrid of Tony Conrad and Pierre Henry. Beautiful but uneasy listening.
Folks expecting Laddio Bolocko Mach 2 may find themselves quite confused (and disappointed) by this new group headed up by ex-Laddio guys Blake and Marcus. Things start off with what sounds like a high-speed dub version of a vintage Laddio riff, proggy and motorik. With swirling warbly organs, tight controlled rhythms and a definite electro/new wave vibe. But then there's the vocals, and the vocals (as often is the case) is what will make or break this band for you. German chanteuse Silke (who also plays guitar) adds a really strange vibe to the proceedings. The obvious comparison is Siouxsie Sioux, but her delivery is much more overwrought and cabaret. Almost campy. Definitely unique and interesting, but for me it sort of takes away from the music, which is too bad since Laddio Bollocko were responsible for some of the greatest post rock/post punk EVER.
As Erase Errata is another awesome Bay Area band whose tight, jagged sound defies you not to shake your bee-hind, what we said about the Numbers remix album a few lists back also applies--(Erase Errata), all by themselves, have a firm handle on taking the tools of punk rock and using them as instruments of total dancefloor destruction, making them prime candidates for re-interpretions of their songs that highlight, rather than obliterate, their inherent status as dance tunes-- although it ends up that most of the songs on this disc were actually more danceable *before* being put through the remix grinder. Coming in at opposite ends of the "dance" remix spectrum on this release are Adult and Kevin Blechdom. Adult's fairly subtle remix is the track most deserving the title "Dancing Machine," taking Erase Errata's angular, funky bassline and urgent vocals and coating the whole thing in a crisp synth veneer. Robotic boogie mania ensues. The Blechdom track, on the other hand, is a backwards tape scrubbin' hyper sped-up electronic noise fest, with out-of-control video game bursts, soprano ooh-ing, and a snippet of the song in its original form alluded to in the mix here and there, all topped off with some nice country fiddle (crossed over from Wobbly et al's Wide Open Spaces?). Thoroughly deconstructed and rearranged according to her unique sonic worldview, Blechdom makes the Erase Errata material entirely her own. "Dancing Machine" also includes mixes by Matmos and Kid 606.
MPEG Stream: "Marathon (Adult Remix)" [/audio/adultmarathon.m3u]
This is a nice handmade zine with a sewn spine by Sara of Erase Errata giving the insider story of their European tour.
Esmerine is yet another offering from the Constellation camp, best known for Godspeed You Black Emperor, A Silver Mt. Zion, and Set Fire To Flames. Unlike those groups with their massive ensembles, Esmerine pairs the sound down to two performers Bruce Cawdron and Beckie Foon, who happen to be members of all three of those aforementioned projects. This reduced membership personalizes all of the instrumentation, allowing for greater room for interplay between the instrumentation than the necessarily controlled orchestrations from the majority of the Constellation crew; yet, Esmerine does maintain that signature of emotionally isolated expansiveness. With just strings, marimba, drums, and a sparse use of electronics, Esmerine's debut album is an evocative collection of sparsely composed, neo-classical duets that mine the same Eastern European sensibilities of the much lauded Kopernik album although there are spots when Cawdron and Foon pick up the pace considerably for some 'heavy' moments that resemble the Metallica covering chamber ensemble Apocalyptica. Nice.
MPEG Stream: "Majestic Whispers..." [/audio/esmerinemajestic.m3u]
Batten down the hatches, this is some seriously loud n' dense n' noisy Japanese "jazz" music. Jazz? Well not if your idea of jazz doesn't include massive grinding drones. This is free improvised mayhem, cavernous and chaotic, with LOTS of electronics, feedback, amplified electric guitar distortion. Howling effects, cymbal splashes, freakout guitar squall, pounding toms... Beautiful, especially if you're into stuff like Ascension, Borbetomagus, Dislocation, Rudolph Grey's Blue Humans and other examples of extreme electric freedom music. But there's no saxes here, so this might be even more accessible to more rock-oriented types out there. It's guitars and electronics, drums, synth and computer processing, with some piano that you can hear in the few moments of respite -- the five long tracks here do feature a few ominous calms betwixt the storms, quiet passages beautiful in their own right. Abstract and freeform, yet structured in such a way that this is definitely music, not noise, despite how noisy it gets. Very intriguing, moreso when you try to decipher the liner notes (which are presented in an English translation from the Japanese, but remain rather opaque and poetic). One thing they do explain is that this group's strange name is actually short for their full title: the Experimental Improvisers Assocation Of Japan! Some kind of loose collective of musicans and aesthetes (jazz, classical, film, philosophy, etc. we're told!) formed in 1999 by guitarist Hideaki Kondo. Apparently, they have a bunch of cds, some acoustic, some electric, out on their own label Bishop Records that we've never ever seen -- but we'll have to try to hunt them down on the strength of this PSF release, which sees their "electric conception" at full force, live in Yokohama, 2002. Leave it to PSF, home to Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha and those great archival recordings from Masayuki Takayanagi's New Direction Unit, to clue us in to these guys.
After months of digging, we were finally able to track some of these down. For those of you not in the know, Factrix just happen to be AQ faves Wolf Eyes favorite band, so much so that not only do they try to sound like them, but to this day they continue to send their industrial-doom heroes letters of gratitutde and worship! Factrix originally manufactured their proto-Wolf Eyes sound in San Francisco some 20+ years ago. The history of underground music on the West Coast in the late '70s is not an easy one to trace. Unlike the punk explosion in England or New York, the influences and disturbances of the musical circuits manifested collusions of ideas that never really fit into the marketable ideas of punk or new wave. Even before those terms were commonplace, California was home to such anomalies in artrock as the Residents and the Los Angeles Free Music Society, who both experimented freely with technology, dadaism, culture jamming, and the detritus of post-psychedelia and bad acid trips. This was the environment that also spawned such genre unfriendly projects as The Screamers, Savage Republic, Non, Survival Reseach Laboratories, Nervous Gender, Negativland, and -- Factrix.
In truth, SF's Factrix belonged to the original Industrial culture of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire, although their take on trangressive themes and their grim abuse of technology never reached as wide an audience as those icons of Industrial Records. In their short lifespan from 1978 - 1982, Factrix developed a language that clearly rivalled that of their European comrades; but in many ways, Factrix owed their sound to their San Francisco roots, as they inverted the paisley pretenses of psychedelia into a grim seance of sound in which free love became sexual taboos, universal peace became soul-crushing dread, and transcendence became morbidity. This inversion of psychedelia used many of the same tools of Haight-Ashbury in composing through non-structured improvisations as well as through a steady diet of psilocybin mushrooms; but the sound came out all wrong. Factrix devolved '70s pop banalities into dissonant slabs of noise with squiggling guitar feedback and all-encompassing dirges from over-distorted basslines, with a continuous, tinny pulse from an abused drum machine. The process of free association carried over in the vocal duties, which were typically shared amongst the chief protagonists Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, and Joseph Jacobs, although industrial culture celeb Monte Cazzaza was also known to offer his demented lisp to Factrix.
While not presented as a 'best-of' collection, "Artifact" features the best material that Factrix had produced, including all of the tracks from their seminal "Schentot" LP on Adolescent Records and a ton of live material, which has been digitally salvaged so as to sound great. "Artifact" is an essential artifact, in fact and a great surprise!
Ben Gibbard goes country! Just kidding, but this does kinda make me muse "What if Death Cab For Cutie went unplugged?" Fans of Elliott Smith might take a shine to his four song contribution to this installment of the Home Series (past volumes have featured Spoon's Britt Daniel, Julie Doiron, Damien Jurado and Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst among others). A nice contrast to his recent electronic pop recordings with Postal Service. He's joined by Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set. All eight songs are softly sung, atop equally softly strummed acoustic guitars.
MPEG Download: "You Remind Me Of Home " [/audio/gibbardyouremind.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "You Remind Me Of Home " [/audio/gibbardyouremind.m3u]
Gold Chains' new abum is again a kick ass, completely weird hybrid of hip hop and bedroom electronics so over the top and colorful that it demands a lot of attention. Not as completely catchy as his selftitled debut, this is still exciting and a fun listen. And check out "Break or Be Broken", decidedly non hip hop love song with pretty rock chord progressions, a good direction for Gold Chains.
Wow, an interesting collaboration here. Mitsuru Tabata you may know as K.K. Null's co-guitarist in Japanese heavies Zeni Geva, as well as being an early member of the Boredoms, among other bands on his lengthy resume. He's also a solo artist -- his 1999 album "Brainsville" became a big favorite around here, an excursion into "rural Eastern psych" guitar that demonstrated his obvious love of '70s krautrock head music (Kawabata Makoto isn't the only Japanese guy obsessed with that stuff!).
Meanwhile, Tokyo's Kohei "The Fast" Nakagawa has made quite a few uber-noisy recordings under the name Guilty Connector, brutal power electronics in a punky Merzbow vein, including a split with Birchville Cat Motel. Good harsh stuff.
So, what does a collaboration between these two sound like? Well apparently Tabata (a big record collector) had been mentoring his friend Kouhei's interest in dub and psychedelic music, and naturally enough the duo was soon inspired to do these recordings, which turned out much more abstract and noisy that Tabata's "Brainsville", although Kohei's noise antics are tempered by Tabata's melodic psych ideas. Instruments utilized primirarly include electric guitars, guitar-synth, effects (Tabata) and "UTSU electronics" (Kohei), plus everything from acoustic 12 string guitar to toy music boxes to theremins, percussion, contact mics, and electric heaters! Oh and tape loops, lots of tape loops. The tracks are dynamic and varied -- some pieces end up all spacey and droned-out, with howling layers of distortion, while others are full of blip and electro-acoustic glitch, with bell-like sounds and echoey electronics. Certainly Japanophile fans of Acid Mothers Temples' most erratic and eccentric stuff, the Boredoms Super Roots experiments, Boris with Keiji Haino, etc. should dig this. Boasting a nice cover painting by underground manga artist Imiri Sakebashira, this is a fine debut release for French label Even Stitle.
MPEG Stream: "Le Schiaue Esistono Ancora" [/audio/guiltytabataleschiaue.m3u]
A new 12" on nice marble vinyl. The band known for a million riffs a minute and insane drumming brings some electronic beats to the party before tearing into some incredibly dense noise prog. Like Lightning Bolt and Orthrelm, Hella turn two people into a finely honed instrument of sonic destruction.
While the drumming never lets up its multilayered, frantic pace, the guitar (augmented here and there by keyboard) takes Hella's sound from This Heat precision to all out noise and into more accessible song territory on the last track, which features vocals, a first for the band.
Oooh, shiny things! I Am Spoonbender present a brand new object for your multidimensional delight and reflection. It's a limited edition 2.25" circular mirror. They're usually only available from the group at their performances, but we've got a small quantity here at AQ. The back is imprinted in black with their logo and the phrase "this is a 2 way mirror" (Who is on the other side? And where are they watching from? We wonder.) on the same sleekly unique chrome finish as their 1" buttons. Perfectly stylin' and perfectly handy. What'll they think of next? I Am Spoonbender fanny packs? (What's inside? We wonder.)
Northwestern psychedelic space/free/avant rockers Jackie O Motherfucker return from a massive European tour and all we got was this lousy live double cd. Just kidding. It's hardly lousy. In fact, this may be one of our favorite JOMF recordings to date. Which makes sense, since live is where a large improvisatory ensemble can let loose and do what they do best. Improvise. Wander. Meander. Get lost. And explore. Mantra like barely-there-vocals, guitars buzzing like sitars, subtle shuffling percussion, warm drones, occasional sputters and half melodies from the turntables, guitars and basses melt into the background, blending into the sonic foliage, while everything rustles and shimmers, breathes and stretches. Like free jazz filtered through a thick haze of painkillers and potsmoke. Lethargic, lugubrious, cinematic and at times almost nightmarish. Really nice!
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Dubliners The Jimmy Cake return with record number two and we're happy to report it is even better than the first. Their debut "Brains" was a gorgeous, bittersweet collection of post rock epics, rhythmic and langorous, lush and dreamy, bringing to mind Mogwai, Godspeed and Arab Strap. "Dublin Gone. Everybody Dead." finds the lineup expanded, the sound even more lush and expansive, and probably most surprising/exciting, a new found aggressiveness that really highlights the band's mastery of mood and dynamics. Loping minor key rhythms build and build, layers of sorrowful strings and weepy accordion add density as riffs stretch out into droning epic jams. Gorgeous finger-picked guitars and free noise/jazz interludes add to the melee as the songs twist and turn and struggle for air, horns skronk, guitars feed back. Instrumental cinematic soundscapes writhe and heave, palpitate and pulsate, building into crescendos of staccato minor key blasts. Really intense and beautiful. Some weird mix of AQ faves Magyar Posse, Hwyl Nofio, Godpeed You Black Emperor, and the Tindersticks, but with a jagged edge that keeps the melancholia and gloominess sharp and prickly instead of dull and overwrought. So so good.
MPEG Stream: "The Width Of The Black" [/audio/jimmywidth.m3u]
Jim Jocoy's unnarrated book of photos, never published before this year, is an amazing collection of images captured in and during San Francisco and LA's fertile punk scene of '78-'80. Taken spontaneously at clubs, the images show youths dressed to the nines in all the leopard print, skinny jeans, and eyeliner you can handle. Aquarius is super proud to be hosting Jocoy's first San Francisco event celebrating the publication of his photos. Meanwhile, enjoy his book. Here's what others have said:
"Buildings crumble; social signifiers fissure and evaporate. This much is forever; art students simultaneously discovering perceived oppression and thrift-store shoppong. Maybe that's why We're Desperate packs such timeless reverb. As a student living in San Francisco in the late '70s, Jocoy reported from the front line of the burgeoning punk scene by training his eye on the fans. Using a camera purchased at a garage sale, Jocoy photographed scenesters posed against club walls, capturing their ripped nylons, pegged jeans, leather jackets, and vinyl anything. Bookended by an introduction by Marc Jacobs, who has repeatedly referenced the era's Converse-and-logo-tee aesthetic, and a tender elegy by Exene Cervenka, of L.A. punk band X fame. These are DIY Star Search episodes played to one hand clapping, lasting shots from a short runway." ÏV Magazine
"...the longer you look...the more you begin to see what it took to remake yourself as a freak, as a social idiot, as someone you weren't meant to be.... soon enough, you're seeing real people everywhere." ÏGreil Marcus' Real Life Rock Top 10, Salon.com
What would an AQ-list be without at least one or two new Kawabata Makoto/Acid Mothers Temple releases on it?? Well I don't think we're ever gonna find out... Here's a new solo release, and as ususal, it's really very nice. One long piece for droning electric guitar and sarangi (a kind of Indian droning fiddle), beautifully dark and gentle. The listener will encounter some episodes of tangled string-scrape, but mostly this just slowly flows forward, soft and soothing. It sorta sounds like it should be heard in church. Recorded live (complete with little glitches) in France while Kawabata was over there hanging out with his friends in Ueh.
Slow and shimmery... you can always count on Landing to gently encircle you in a delicate sonic mist of translucent drones and sparkly chiming notes. Songs gradually take shape out of barely-there guitar tones that drift and accumulate until a tentative, cyclical melody materializes. Landing don't stop there though, adding ultra-mellow female and male vocals that introduce words into the nebulous, soothing atmosphere. Lovely.
Zep overload! Along with a stellar double dvd package, the gods hammer us with a triple cd dose of live audio, all completely different performances from what's found on those dvds! These discs create one virtual concert melded from two, one at the Long Beach Arena and and one at the LA Forum, both in June of 1972.
Like the dvd set, they could have come up with some better cover art. However, the music's what matters, and what you're gonna hear here is Zeppelin at their best, live and totally rippin' -- very impressive!!
Ok, first off, any real big Led Zeppelin fans don't even need to read any further -- trust us, just get this! Even if you don't have a dvd player, you should invest in one just to see this. And even if you're just a casual fan you probably should get this too. Really I'm not (or wasn't) that big of a Zeppelin fan myself, but I'm way more into 'em now after viewing this release... five and a half hours of rare vintage Zep footage, both pro shot and bootleg, all of it pretty awesome -- heck, for the clothes and hair let alone the music!
Breaking it down, disc 1 is mainly consists of a 1970 Royal Albert Hall concert, featuring a charmingly charmingly youthful Zep at an early peak, with the highlights there being Bonham's "Moby Dick" drum solo and the '50s rockers they cover towards the end of the show. With disc one you also get some other clips, including four songs in crystal-clear black and white from Danish TV (with kids sitting cross-legged on the floor, mere feet in front of the band, dangerously close to Page's amplifier -- did that kid ever hear again??)
There's lots of "Dazed And Confused" here, with their performance of that number on the British TV show "Supershow" being the best. It's the most EVIL sounding "Dazed And Confused" ever, Page's guitar *and* Plant's vocals oh-so-distorted just perfectly, due to the recording perhaps. With some crazy edits and the band becoming enveloped in a climactic fog machine miasma, this is worth $29 alone, seriously!
Disc two starts off with a brilliant "Immigrant Song" video constructed from 1972 Austrialian live video and 1972 Californian live audio. Then it's on to Madison Square Garden (1973) for some outtakes from The Song Remains The Same, the concert movie that this dvd blows out of the water. Good stuff though. Following that, you get their 1975 Earl's Court performance -- one of this dvd set's highlights, really. Just check out the blazing clavinet-and-Bonzo-driven mechanical funk workout of "Trampled Underfoot" -- damn! The dvd then moves on to Knebworth '79, their triumpant swansong UK performance where a band that has visibly aged in the four years since Earl's Court really smokes, with "Achilles Last Stand" standing out.
The non-performance footage on this set includes a young Page and Plant, very much the soft-spoken British rock aristocrats, fielding questions from reporters in NYC 1970, like what they think of the Beatles -- whom they just knocked out of the #1 chart position.
Really, about all we can complain about is the crappy dvd packaging. The so-called cover art is just lame, a Photoshopped mesa, desert plain, and Zeppelin-shaped cloud. Why didn't they just use a still from the footage on the darn dvd?? Watching it, you'll certainly see many a shot that would have make a much much better cover than what they used. However, the dvd itself is done with class, with an excellent interface -- the menus themselves feature additional looped Zep clips seen nowhere else in the dvd, so be sure not to overlook them while selecting the main features! Recommended, if you couldn't tell already!
The lone Chicago fellow Jeremy Jacobsen might indeed be the Lonesome Organist, but he's also exceedingly adept at a number of other instruments and assorted noisemakers. He incorporates them all into his music which is just as varied in style as it is in instrumentation. With so much going on, you might think things would get a little chaotic or out of hand, but no! Jacobsen's got it all well under control with some very fine songcraft and musicianship. There's a sense of the grand and the tiny coming together on Forms And Follies. A bigtop circus! A vaudeville theater! An antique musicbox! In fact, you might even find his music stirring fond memories of the Musee Mechanique here in San Francisco, but then before you know it he's suddenly shifted gears over to a distorted trashy garage tune, then to a frantic organ mouse chase, then to some haunting barbershop-quartet-meets-Brian-Wilson-style vocal harmonizingand then... ??? Seemingly oblivious to current trends, Jacobsen follows his muse through dreams, nightmares, toyboxes, genres and decades. Won't you join him? Plus if the music ain't enough, the cd comes with a big (cd jewelcase sized) flipbook which shows some of the Lonesome Organist's hijinks. A splendid bizarre delight!
MPEG Stream: "Walking To Weston's" [/audio/lonesomeorgwalking.m3u]
Those crazy "Mesopotamian" metallers Melechesh are back, following up their last album, Djinn, considered a best of 2002 metal release 'round here, with this equally killer collection of tunes. The band consists of two Arab-Israelis now living in Europe and, perhaps the key to how Melechesh has become such a force to be reckoned with, percussion perfectionist Proscriptor of Texas black thrashers Absu. Dunno how they get together to practice or write songs, but whatever they do seems to work! As on Djinn, they meld traditional Middle Eastern music with black/death metal, kind of like an extreme update of the way those "Turkish Delights" garage-psych bands did it. They take their influences seriously -- in fact there's an enhanced portion of the cd that will fill your computer screen with lengthy explanations of their musicology, complete with guitar tablature, drum beat analysis, and even pictures of the "oriental" instruments used alongside the usual electric guitars, bass and drums on the album! Then again, this is also state of the art metal. Sphynx is crammed with riffs, complex detail, constant changes, the utmost in headbanging tech. Totally adrenalized, thrashy and catchy. Fans should happily note that this includes their awesome track from the last Osmose World Domination sampler. Oh, and in case you're wondering, we found no overt references to the war in Iraq. These guys are more interested in ancient supernatural stuff than they are in our less-than-mystical world of strife.
A new record from spazz-prog-punk rockers Melt-Banana and while the overall sound is not all that different, they continue to get better and better, and dare we say more listenable with each record. Less ear splitting high end skree this time around, and a much warmer production, as well as some really catchy songs and great riffs make this possibly the best MB record yet. Plus there's a bunch of strange midtempo 'breakdowns' as well as some bizarre production and electronic fuckery that add even more dimension to MB's already unique sonic palette. But fear not, still present are the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard guitars and the hyperspeed chipmunk vocals and the spazzy rhythms, it all just sounds much more refined. Allan thinks the new Melt-Banana sounds like a bizarre hybrid of three other records on this weeks list: the Simply Saucer, the Agoraphobic Nosebleed and the Cats And Kittens cds. Which is actually not all that far off the mark!
MPEG Download: "Shield For Your Eyes, A Beast In The Well On Your Hand" [/audio/meltshield.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Shield For Your Eyes, A Beast In The Well On Your Hand" [/audio/meltshield.m3u]
MPEG Download: "A Dreamer Who Is Too Weak To Face Up To" [/audio/meltdreamer.mp3]
When is a Noise Record (tm) not a noise record. Well, 'V' is definitely not going to answer that question, because this is unequivocally, without a doubt, a noise record. Most of this sounds like vintage Merzbow. Shards of white noise and digital skree, sheets of feeding back effects processors, a mighty wall of head crushing sound. Good stuff, but nothing we haven't heard a thousand times before. Good thing Pan Sonic were on hand to mix things up a little. But only a little. No real rhythms or beats to be found, but Pan Sonic's rhythmic tendencies do come to the surface about 2/3 of the way through this hour long performance with pulses of white hot static and crunchy digital throbs, but ultimately they quickly dissipate and fade back into the thick wash of this Noise Record (tm).
We knew that we had to take the "return to Master of Puppets thrash" hype about this record with a massive grain of salt, but it kinda does sound like they were making an effort to be especially heavy and aggro and thrashy. Unfortunately they forgot that along with the chugga chugga guitars and violent drumming, you need to write songs! After six years (and at least two disappointing albums previous), it's pretty clear that the emperor has no clothes -- and some major complexes. Did they really have to bump the release date of this up a few days just to thwart bootleggers? Is the 22 million Metallica albums sold between 1995 and 2000 not enough? Lars bashing aside, this really is weak. I mean, it sounds like a mediocre local band (actually, they ARE a local band, but what we mean is that the production and songwriting are not up to snuff). There's a Metallica *influence* (especially in the vocals!) but it doesn't really sound like the "real" Metallica. Apparently they wrote this in the studio with the tape rolling, in an attempt to capture a raw hardcore immediacy, which instead seems to have resulted in an unfinished and almost demo-like album. Did anyone hear any guitar solos? And what about those lyrics? Sounds like James took a semester of Rhyming 101. Ugh. Sorry we have to slag this off so heavily, but man it sucks. Jason did the right thing. Comes with bonus DVD of live in the studio performances, while supplies last (which they probably will).
This installment from the prolific Mirror catalogue finds Mirror's core protagonists Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heeman working with the avant-rock darling Jim O'Rourke, who has kept himself busy by joining Sonic Youth. His presence will certainly bring this understated drone project to a bigger audience, and hopefully more attention to the reclusive, yet brilliant Chalk, whose solo work as well as his work with Organum, Ora, and Jonathan Coleclough remain all-time favorites here at Aquarius. The recordings found here were culled from a Mirror performance at the Lagerhaus in Bremen, Germany just a few months back in April 2002. The instrumentation appears to be organ, drone guitar, bowed metal, and some unidentified resonant clatter hovering at the event horizon much like the miniature sounds that Keith Rowe has produced for the recent AMM recordings. Through the glassine drone tricks that Chalk and Heeman have perfected in previous Mirror recordings, all of these sounds seamlessly meld into a tranquil piece of evocative ambience. Sporadically, a tremolo flutter emerges, probably indicative of some laptop trickery from O'Rourke. Do not fear, O'Rourke has left his Max / MSP patches turned off and thoughtfully ensured that his contribution was complementary to the Mirror sound. "Die Spiegelmanufaktur" is the least ominous Mirror recording, conjuring images of the colorful spectacle of calm sunrises, but fortunately, Mirror veer far from the artistic suicide of New Age drivel. This is another beautiful recording for Mirror.
While in a few months a slightly different mix of this performance will be published on CD, "Die Spiegelmanufaktur" is now available as a picture disc feature Chalk's artwork and is strictly limited to 400 copies!
An electronic improv scrape-scape from world reknowned sonic experimentalists Otomo Yoshihide (electric guitar, turntables, electronics) and Gunter Muller (iPod, minidisc, electronics, and of course 'selected' percussion). Yay iPod!
The duo conjure tones and drones that are quiet, textured, well-paced, and pleasing. Pretty, even. There's unspecified twitter and glitch that could be guitar notes or field recordings of forest birdsounds, or both, and probably is.
Erstwhile has become the most reliable label out there for wonderfully detailed, abstract modern free improv stuff that incorporates electronics as much as it does "regular" instruments. So of course this neither Muller nor Otomo's first appearance on Erstwhile.
Natural Dreamers is made up of Chris from Deerhoof and Curtains, John from Deerhoof and Gorge Trio, and Jay from Dilute. Their first release makes a lot of sense in terms of a sort of instrumental midway point between Curtains and Deerhoof, containing the open spaces and pauses of Curtains' minimal approach grafted onto the chunkier, fuller sound of two guitars. A French website enthused (via automatic translation): "One likes this small end of spring freshness, these small airs which do not pay a mine but which exploits the naturalness of people, without claim, where all is based on the listening of the other! Power, naturalness and emotion..." Ahh, naturalness, emotion and spring freshness indeed! A really nice, satisfying record from some very talented Bay Area players.
True to the Surrealist spirit of chance operations yielding uncannily sublime results, Nurse With Wound offers an unintentional remix of the first NWW record in the form of "Chance Meeting Of A Defective Tape Machine And A Migrane." When Matt Waldron -- the mastermind of the incredible, if underappreciated outfit Irr.App.(Ext). and the man responsible for one of the best art shows here at Aquarius -- attempted to make a tape to tape copy of Nurse With Wound's "Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella," he didn't expect the machines to do their own remix. The music on this disc was performed by two slightly defective, disobedient tape machines.
Originally released in 1979, "Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella," erupts with random plucks, plinks, scrapes, and blurts with varying densities of reverb to create a surprisingly rich space for these improvisations. Making up for their lack of real musical training with years of collecting obscure music, Stapleton and company sat aloof amongst their mess, conjuring their own means of communication to some otherworldly plane. Obviously, Stapleton had enough sense to recognize that the power of studio editing, and didn't release this as a direct-to-tape improvisation. "A Chance Meeting..." could be between Faust, Pierre Henry, AMM, and Sun Ra, but Stapleton's own unique view of how such a meeting would sound and his own application of Surrealist thought kept this album from being merely a meeting of minds.
With Waldron's unconsious remix, the spindly guitar freak outs collapse in a morass of asynchronous tape whirrings and fluctuations, progessively degrading the sound into backwards masked shadows of the former sound. The gradual nature of this collapse in sound gives the impression of intentionality, although Waldon firmly admits that there was nothing of the sort involved with this remix.
While the idea of a Nurse With Wound remix should be reprehensible, Waldron's encounter proves to be the only credible way for Stapleton to be remixed. And thankfully, the end results are downright stunning. Highly recommended!!!
Probably the easiest way to describe this would be 'George Winston plays Radiohead.' And if you were me (Andee) that would be enough. I love Radiohead. And I love all things George Winston/Windham Hill. -Not ironically- I might add. But if you're not me, and thank your lucky stars you're not, then I guess we can elaborate a bit. Gorgeous shimmery solo piano versions of all your favorite Radiohead songs, from hits to distinctly-not-hits. The melodies are intact, as are the basic song structures, but the effect of -those- songs being played on a piano is quite lovely. Simplified and stretched out, strange atonal clusters of notes replace electronic weirdness, simple spacious reverb takes the place of million dollar production, and the result is a simple, soft, gorgeously serene performance that reveals Radiohead's songwriting genius and O'Riley's sympathetic ear. Definitely veers towards 'elevator music' but c'mon, wouldn't you rather hear Radiohead in the elevator than Billy Joel or Elton John? I sure would.
With this, the post-rock pop band Party of Helicopters' third album, some of us here at AQ can be considered fans for sure, as we've gotten more and more into 'em over their last couple releases. The original hype line on 'em -- My Bloody Valentine meets Iron Maiden -- was just too good to be true, and the inevitable disappointment took its toll. But we must admit, there is a kernel of truth to that description... These Ohio boys play a sort of emo/punk/pop hybrid with twisty guitar lines, hints of classic metal riffing, noisy shoegazer textures, and Pixies-ish catchiness. Musically their powerful guitars are mathy and a bit metally, kinda like post-hardcore outits The Great Unravelling and Universal Order Of Armaggedon, but with different, higher, breathy, near falsetto vocals. Not higher in an '80s metal way, though, it's more like you could imagine the vocals emanating from a tiny, precious perfumed box with a sensitive boy singer inside. We're reminded a bit of some San Diego bands -- the pop vocal arrangements of Rob Crow's Heavy Vegetable with the muscle and sinew of Drive Like Jehu's guitars, and the complexity of both bands. Very cool.
Yay. Pharaoh Overlord is the all-instrumental so-called "stoner rock" side project of our favorite Finns, Circle. Now they're back, with the aptly titled "II", and a new line-up that's apparently all members of Circle. Interestingly, while Circle themselves went kinda metal with "Sunrise", Pharaoh Overlord seem to have have mellowed out. Well not quite, as track 4 amps up the riffs a bit. But you'd be hard pressed to call this "stoner rock" anymore. It's more like a really relaxed Circle, still "heavy" but in a way that has less to do with being loud than being low (a bit like them other AQ-faves Bohren and Der Club Of Gore). Repetitive trance-inducing space rock, all deep, rumbling, and spacious. A real nod-scene. Metronomyic drums, meandering guitars, six long tracks of minimal, mellow menace. Even darker and dubbier than their first album. Definitely dubbier. But still totally psychedelic. Goes well with the disc Argentine stoner rockers Los Natas recorded for Circle's label Ektro, "Toba-Trance". And Circle fans will of course be pleased -- we're reminded of Circle's "Paint It Black" cover... Lovingly packaged courtesy of No Quarter, a label also responsible for some excellent releases from the likes of Earth and Laddio Bollocko.
While Three Mile Pilot and Heavy Vegetable have been long-time AQ favorites, it took us a little bit longer to fall under the spell of Pinback, the post-pop creation from Armistead Burwell Smith IV (from Three Mile Pilot) and Rob Crow (HV, Thingy). In fact, Pinback's epic second album "Blue Screen Life" almost slipped under our radar entirely. Pinback's charm can be found precisely in how understated their notions of grandiose pop can be. Perhaps the best comparisons to Pinback's sound especially in their atypical progressions of minor chords through ecstatic crescendos would be Built To Spill's "There's Nothing Wrong With Love" and "Perfect From Now On," with Pinback's additional flares found in Smith's technically-impressive skills at bass fingerpicking and the emo-tinged vocal harmonies from both Smith and Crow. "Offcell" is another excellent outing for Pinback, although like their other records the returns on this short 5 song EP grow stronger with repeated listenings. As before, Pinback does not offer the typical indie-rock songwriting fodder for chorus / bridge / verse; rather their ambitious songs present increasingly complex pop structures of catchy melodies intertwining with smoldering waves of guitar dissonance and their vocal counterpoints and harmonies. Teasingly short at 28 minutes long, "Offcell" certainly has whetted our appetite for the next full length, scheduled in 2004 through Touch and Go.
Newest issue of the esteemed Ptolemaic Terrascope. Destroy All Monsters, The Golden Dawn, The Magic Band, Cerberus Shoal, Piano Magic, Mountain Goats, etc. Enclosed cd has Green Pajamas, Sharron Kraus, Comets on Fire, Davis Redford Triad.
What needs to be said about the new Radiohead? One of the few bands that manages to captivate the avant garde as well as having massive pop/MTV appeal. Most of you already want this anyway. Or already have it. And you should. Because it's great.
Seems like now that Radiohead have gone through all the different 'rock' stages, typical angst filled rock band, experimental critical darlings, electronic/rock avantgarde hybrid whatever, they're now ready to settle down and make music simply because they love making music. And write songs. Songs that can be played by a rock band and that don't need a million dollars and a bank of computers to sound the way they're supposed to. Allan thinks it sounds like a mix of the "new" electric Radiohead and the old rock Radiohead which pretty much sums it up. I think it's pretty much unanimous around here. A great new record from one of our favorite bands, with enough experimental bits to keep it interesting, but enough good songwriting to even lure back some of you folks who jumped ship in search of less challenging fare after The Bends.
Now for Byram's two cents on a related subject:
You know by the time this record came out I'd pretty much gotten sick of it by listening to the supposed "rough mixes" that had been floating around the web these past several months. And while I was thoroughly familiar with the album by its official release date, sucker that I am, I picked it up anyway and will continue to listen to it at home. It's a testament to the fact that it's not filesharing that's destroying the music industry (remember home taping?) but shitty record labels putting out crappy new albums (Madonna, Creed et al) and expecting us all to pay top dollar to boot. And if file sharing is indeed hampering sales, then once you factor in that loss, then I bet you Hail To The Thief's total for its first week would have most certainly topped Metallica's phenomenal totals.
