Fuck. That's always a great way to start any decent review here at Aquarius. Fuck Yeah! That's even better, and certainly more appropriate for a disc we've been lusting after for so long. Aavikko is one of those elusive bands that we never seem to be able to keep in stock long enough to escape becoming a mere legend and a fading memory. The problem seems to reside in a lifetime of poor distribution and lackluster label attention. But now Aquarius has secured a direct pipeline to the band in the hopes of rectifying this shortage. Aavikko, for those who've yet to experience their magic, are easily the reigning kings of "electronic instrumental rock" (their own genre?). Hailing from Finland -- that in and of itself should be a clue -- Aavikko have honed a lo-fi electro-punk sound that's oft imitated, but never equaled. Using only cheap electric organs (most notably the Yamaha PSS Home Organ), drums and archaic analog recording technology, Aavikko compose Slavic disco, garage surf punk with rumba beats and insanely catchy pop tunes that bring to mind soundtracks to 8-bit videogames of yesteryear. History Of Muysic is an impressive collection of both no longer available Aavikko classics and unreleased tracks dating back to the group's inception in 1995. The latter includes their first rehearsal demo, outtakes from the Derek! ep sessions and their theme for the Kumman Kaa TV series (which has become one of the most popular ring tones in Finland!), among others. In the long lost and now out of print category, we're most excited by the inclusion of the eight tracks from the first, self-titled Aavikko 7". These are a veritable holy grail of primitive electronic rock and expose imitators for the slick hi-fi hucksters they really are. Probably recorded direct to cassette, you can even hear the tape drag and occasional drop outs. Fellow lovers of Bjorn Olsson will be excited by this and all analog anomalies indelibly pitted into the digital realm. All under three minutes in length, the tracks on the eponymous debut are tight and gritty pop ditties, completely trimmed of fat: the words 'overproduced' and 'Avvikko' will never be found in the same sentence but for this one. Also included on this anthology is the entire Oriental Baby CD, their collaboration with Mono Pause "Of Stomping Men", an unreleased live recording off of the beloved WFMU in NJ, their contribution to the Team Yamaha compilation and last, but in no way least, their most recent single, for the first time on CD, the amazing Eye of the Leopard with Kabar. Really folks, do yourself a favor...
In our review of the first Aeolian String Ensemble records, we attempted to discern who or what this British conglomerate was, postulating that perhaps Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton may have been involved with the Ensemble at some point. The truth is that we still have no clue who these people are or what else they've worked on. If he contributed anything to the Ensemble, Stapleton's contributions were in all likelihood minimal. Regardless, that first Aeolian String Ensemble record Lassithi / Elysium has long been one of our favorite drone-based albums. Similarly, we can again wholeheartedly endorse the second Aeolian String Ensemble album Eclipse.
What is so striking about this album (and the Aeolian String Ensemble in general) is the single-minded approach to sound making that spans almost 20 years. Eclipse features 3 extended tracks from 1981, 1986, and 1998 respectively; and all of them share a very similar timbral quality in their melancholic, sweeping ambience rippled with generous amounts of reverb and delay. The Ensemble claims to generate everything from Aeolian Harps, which are stringed instruments designed to be excited by the wind; yet, the resulting sounds have a post-Kraut / late'70s prog-ambient sensibility closely resembling the synth and guitar driftspaces of Klaus Schulze and Popul Vuh, rather than actual aeolian harps. No matter, as their sonic poetry is utterly beautiful. Eclipse will certainly rank as one of the best drone records of 2005.
According to the back of this limited-to-100-copies cd-r release, the mathematical equation is as follows:
Aero-Mic'd + The Sadnesses = Cloud Mama
And if you ask us, that adds up perfectly well. It's no secret, we here at AQ have been mighty fond of the past two releases by SF's Aero-Mic'd, and this new collaborative effort with the likeminded Sadnesses is no exception. Ultra delicate glitchiness, wispy clouds of shimmer, whimsical sounds and song titles. Oh so nice 'n' soothing. We only wish it were longer than its fleeting 25 minutes.
The Osaka-based "ultra lunatic girl duo" who stepped in for Cotton Casino on the recent Acid Mothers Temple disc Minstrel In The Galaxy now have their own release on the AMT imprint. Afrirampo consist of Oni (vocals, guitar) and Pikacyu (vocals, drums) but it seems like there's waaay more people that just the two of them in the band. Maybe that's 'cause of all the crazy different kinds of vocals that spill out over everything here -- screaming, cookie monster grunts, shouted group chants, and chipmunk baby babble. All of which goes great with the band's music: totally energetic, catchy, bouncy, noisy, freaky stuff. If you're a musical Japanophile, you'll definitely hear a lot of early Boredoms / UFO Or Die / Melt Banana in this here album! Afrirampo's got the stomping spastic grooves, psychedelic sci-fi effects, chaotic catchiness, ethno-percussion, surfy rock n' roll licks...all that good stuff we love about old Boredoms. And the bizarro-nonsense level likewise seems pretty high. The disc ends with "Kunoichi", a throbbing 16 minute epic that builds from spaced-out insane asylum improv to crushing cosmic churn. Freakin' great. Just about what we'd expect from a band who not only hang with AMT, but also have jammed with Sonic Youth, Munehiro Narita of High Rise, Keiji Haino of Fushitsusha, and also pygmies in an African village where the duo spent several months last summer, or so we're told! Apparently this is an enhanced (with unreleased tracks and cd-rom materials) remastered reissue of what was once a cd-r release, recorded at some point early in the duo's career, which would be circa 2002. So we'll now definitely have to try and get a hold of more by this band!
Two new batches of ultra clinical, vacuum sealed, glitched out minimalism from Alva Noto and Raster-Noton. The difference this time around is that these tracks are FUNKY. Well, sort of. Gorgeously packaged in oversized cardboard sleeves, printed with tripped out geometric patterns and pressed on those 3" cds embedded in 5" clear plastic, and assembled in such a perfect way, it's obvious that the Raster folk are designers first, musicians second. And that feeling comes across in the music as well. Painfully precise, perfectly constructed, and completely sterile. But in a good way. From the song titles ("Funkbugfx") to the head nodding rhythms contained within, this is obviously Alva Noto's funk record. But it's unlike any funk you've ever heard. Sine waves, and test tones and rumbling bass frequencies, white and pink noise, are all painstakingly constructed into a delicate lattice of alien funk, an extreme (and extremely rigid) dance floor music for some unimaginable outer (or inner) space dance party. Where the guests are all blocks of crystal, or swirling clouds of molecules, or pools of gelatinous ooze that sort of undulate sexily to the glith and click of this unfunky funk. These are the kind of grooves that you can picture scientists in sealed vacuum suits rocking out to in their lab on their ipods. Or maybe imagine Ryoji Ikeda and Sachiko M getting together to "jam" and running through some James Brown tunes, but in their inimitable, barely there style. Weird but pretty wonderful too.
Two new batches of ultra clinical, vacuum sealed, glitched out minimalism from Alva Noto and Raster-Noton. The difference this time around is that these tracks are FUNKY. Well, sort of. Gorgeously packaged in oversized cardboard sleeves, printed with tripped out geometric patterns and pressed on those 3" cds embedded in 5" clear plastic, and assembled in such a perfect way, it's obvious that the Raster folk are designers first, musicians second. And that feeling comes across in the music as well. Painfully precise, perfectly constructed, and completely sterile. But in a good way. From the song titles ("Funkbugfx") to the head nodding rhythms contained within, this is obviously Alva Noto's funk record. But it's unlike any funk you've ever heard. Sine waves, and test tones and rumbling bass frequencies, white and pink noise, are all painstakingly constructed into a delicate lattice of alien funk, an extreme (and extremely rigid) dance floor music for some unimaginable outer (or inner) space dance party. Where the guests are all blocks of crystal, or swirling clouds of molecules, or pools of gelatinous ooze that sort of undulate sexily to the glith and click of this unfunky funk. These are the kind of grooves that you can picture scientists in sealed vacuum suits rocking out to in their lab on their ipods. Or maybe imagine Ryoji Ikeda and Sachiko M getting together to "jam" and running through some James Brown tunes, but in their inimitable, barely there style. Weird but pretty wonderful too.
Quite a few of you who read our list are probably already followers of the whole Finnish folk-psych underground, right? So this Avarus will most likely already be going in your basket (especially since it contains all of their WAY out of print early releases!)... But if you're not yet a Finn-folk-freak, you'll also find this to be a great introduction to one of the key bands from that scene...
This double cd collects the early recorded works of the mysterious Finnish free folk collective Avarus. Previously released as limted run cd-r's and 7"s (in tiny runs of 50-200 copies), these tracks are a tantalizing glimpse into the mist-shrouded musical world of Finnish underground music, equal parts the hypno rock of fellow countrymen Circle, the pagan ritualism of The Wicker Man, the droning throb of Faust, the propulsive rhythm of Can, and the lo-fi clatter and skree of the Dead C.
Imagine a land of forests and fjords, a land of dark skies and windswept landscapes. Then imagine the sort of music this land would evoke. Droning hypnotic clattery free folk, dark and propulsive, mesmeric Krautrock, rhythmic pagan musical rituals, all detuned guitars and hand drums, chanting and wild free percussion, and everything in between.
Avarus combine psychedelic folk rock, motorik Krautrock, free jazz and modern noise into a totally mesmerising, totally unique modern avant noise/folk, unfurling lengthy meandering almost funereal jams, desolate and mournful, but dreamy and pastoral, machinelike and hypnotic at the same time. Strummed acoustic guitars frame distant throbbing caveman percussion, dreamy soundscapes are punctuated by occasional clang and clatter, all swaddled in the warm drone of amp buzz and ambient hum. Lo-fi, rambling, ramshackle blues jams mutate into wildly propulsive psych-folk with intensely strummed guitars and far-away flute melodies.
Dipping their toes into whatever variant of their unique 'sound' that strikes their fancy, Avarus sway woozily from atonal Jandek-ian campfire hippy hoedowns, to wild jams with spastic drumming and sing-songy melodies plucked out on beat up, strangely tuned guitars, to wild clattery bursts of percussion splattered haphazardly over a Skullflower-ish skree, to stripped down, jangly hyperactive psychedelic rock to loose ambient soundscapes of whir and buzz and twang, with slithery, sitar-like guitars. Occasionally Avarus kick up quite a racket, a thick slab of sound, with LOTS of guitars, feedback and some seriously dense drumming, recorded hot and overblown, adding just the right amount of distortion and haze to the recording. It almost sounds like some New Zealand noise rock band like Gate or UK psych/drone ensemble Sunroof! -covering- Avarus!
Epic and endless, rumbling and stumbling, space-y psychedlic folk jams spread over two discs, TWO PLUS HOURS. Imagine the Total or The Dead C playing Finnish forest music. Or the Tower Recordings covering International Harvester next door to Reynols' practice space? Droning, damaged clatter, like the wild drunken cavorting of drugged out hippy carpenters. Space-y and druggy and totally mesmerizingly beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Horuksen Vasemman Silman Mysteerikoulu Royh Eli Vuh Tai Siis Moi Kaikki: Rikottu Noidat Haluavat Luusi Universumin Pienin Kysymys Varisten Kokoontumislaulu" [/audio/avarusvasemmann.m3u]
MPEG Stream: "Horuksen Oikean Silman Mysteerikoulu Astraalikaali 25 Metria Kavellen Veden Alla Kirjoitusmerkki Aikamerkki Arkistosali" [/audio/avarusoikean.m3u]
Dust, Captain Beyond, Toad, Pentagram, Highway Robbery, T2, Buffalo, Budgie, Blue Cheer, Lucifer's Friend...if these names mean anything to you, you're probably one of our customers who dig that heavy '70s acid rock proto-metal stuff. Whenever we find a reissue of another lost gem from the era we try to share it with you. So, here, at last, are discs by the legendary Bang, a trio from Florida (by way of Philly) circa '71-'73 who managed to crank out some Sabbath-like riffing to go with the very Ozzy-like vocals of lead singer and bassist Frank Ferrara!
Bang never got big -- although they did share stages with everyone from Alice Cooper to the Allman Brothers to Chuck Berry to Funkadelic to Black Sabbath themselves, apparently had a #1 hit in Hong Kong and at one point owned their own private plane! They released three albums in their career (for a US major label in fact) plus they recorded some singles and made an entire unreleased album as well. Their entire output has now been reissued on two cds, the first of which (this one) contains their self-titled debut, recorded in February of '72, as well as their follow-up sophomore album recorded that same year in November (groups back then didn't dilly dally with putting out one album every couple of years like today's bands).
As we said, Bang, especially on their first album, bore a remarkable resemblance to the Sabs, which was really unusual for their era, when bands were more likely to copy Zeppelin or Purple or just be stuck in the '60s. Kinda lo-fi, but quite heavy, "Bang" delievers doomy hard rock, with a kinda Comus-y Pagan slant, that also brings to mind the most powerful early King Crimson. Like most heavy bands of the period, Bang weren't cognizant of the "metal" concept, and probably saw themselves as a pop rock group -- a dark and pyschedelic pop rock group to be sure -- and so sometimes the hard riffing lets up to allow for some happier or more gentle fare, which is not always a bad thing anyway (this a phenomenon we discussed in our review of the Dust albums not long ago).
Bang's 2nd album was oddly presented as two distinct side-long mini-albums, each with its own 'front' cover. Side one (the heavier) being "Mother" with side two dubbed "Bow To The King". Both sides together were not as Sabbathy as the debut perhaps, but still excellent '70s proto-metal indeed.
Aaaaah Mr. Barlow, few songwriters (indie rock or otherwise) can tug a heartstring quite like you! Nobody does the romantic mope with such slouchy bespectacled ease. After years of profuse recording under a mountain of different monikers (heck, we always knew it was dear Lou behind the veils of Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Folk Implosion, etc!), he's finally released an album under just his name. Aptly titled Emoh, it's graced with some of his most achingly pretty songs since the "Brand New Love" and "Soul And Fire" good ol' days -- songs to which you just wanna bundle up in a wooly cardigan and get all cozy. Oh and we can't forget to mention that he's included a sweet rendition of Ratt's hit "Round-n-Round" that made Andee and Allan immediately think of Tenacious D.
Apparently the artist known as Bibio (aka Stephen Wilkinson) is a particular fave of Boards Of Canada's Marcus Eoin. So much so that Eoin recommended that Mush Records check him out, and clearly they agreed 'cause here's Bibio's debut album on that very label. Each of the seventeen tracks is amply processed and arranged from his collections of cassette-recorded field recordings, as well as samples of his own performances on various instruments. According to his bio, Wilkinson's list of influences runs the gamut from Joao Gilberto to My Bloody Valentine, from Incredible String Band to Tortoise, but you really wouldn't be able to tell simply from listening to F1. Not at all, unlike many other current artists who wear their influences on their sleeves to the point of simply aping their idols, Bibio hasn't fallen into this trap. Furthermore, although many of the tracks may fall under the flavor-of-the-day description of "acoustic guitar melodies with electronic and field recording textures", unlike many other current (dare we say lazy?) artists, Wilkinson doesn't just plop a static-y cloud atop a folk song. No, he fully integrates his sonic elements into a fully enveloping listening experience -- brittle and fuzzy like they've being transmitted out through a rickety antique radio. If we had to come up with a point of reference, we might say that the hazy and dreamlike F1 sounds much like an expanded, modernized take on the outro to the mid-70s 10CC hit "I'm Not In Love". At once, it's atmosphere is intimate yet glisteningly space-y.
The band that started simply as a way for a bunch of friends from a few well-known Swedish metal bands to get together, drink beers, and make some old-school (early '90s style) death metal for the fun of it has actually turned into a REAL band, and is now on their second full-length recording! Nightmares Made Flesh is the worthy follow-up to Bloodbath's 2002 debut album Resurrection Through Carnage, which was an album that got some major imaginary windmilling action around here. Well, actually we all think that hair-spinning (rather than head-banging) thing a lot of death metal guys do is stupid, and sadly none of us have long enough hair for that anyway. But what we're saying is that it was a brilliant album in its own right regardless of its origins in tribute and nostalgia.
A few things are different with this release -- for one thing, singer Michael Akerfeldt of Opeth has been replaced on the mic by Peter Tagtgren of Hypocrisy fame. But apparently, in order to help preserve the old "feeling", Michael did phone up the studio every few days to talk to the guys while they were recording this. You can imagine the conversations...Dude is it brutal? Yah, brutal! Cool!
The other members of Bloodbath are: metalmeister Dan Swano (Edge Of Sanity, Pan-thy-monium, Karaboudjan, Nightingale, etc.), plus two guys from Katatonia, and a new drummer named Martin Axenrot -- who sounds like he should be from a band called Axenrot, right? but he's actually the drummer from Witchery and Satanic Slaughter. With Axenrot on board, first album skinbeater Swano has moved from drums to guitar, and provides some excellent, distinctive, melodic soloing on this album. Bloodbath is still all about their influences (Swedish DM greats like Dismember, Entombed, and Grave, along the likes of Britain's Carcass who had a Swede in the band anyway). But Nightmare is just a little bit more modern sounding (maybe it's the drumming) and even darker...still throughly laced with (deadly-virus) catchy, crunchy riffage and appropriately sick lyrics. We've now got the domestic version that differs from the import by boasting cover art from the one and only Wes Benscoter, and having two bonus tracks, demos from the band's initial Breeding Death ep sessions.
A really nice surprise from the mysteriously monickered Campfire Songs. Featuring members of Avey Tare And Panda Bear (reviewed a few lists back) and the Animal Collective to which they apparently belong. Unlike the fractured electronic glitchery and damaged pop of Avey Tare and the costume rock buffoonery of many of their contemporaries, Campfire Songs is more akin to the murky Fahey-on-qualudes of World (Of Dreams) reviewed way back on list 81, or the dreamy, strummy ambient blur of Scott Tuma, but with a way more washed out, late night free-folk feel. Which makes sense since this was recorded late at night, live to three minidiscs, on a screened in porch in rural Maryland. Very repetitive and hypnotic, with lots of Sunroof!-ish shimmer and plaintive vocals, rhythmic strumming, and field recordings of the surrounding forest. Equal parts sixties hippy folk, nineties ambient free noise and deconstructed indie rock twang. Good stuff.
MPEG Download: "Doggy" [/audio/campfiresongsdoggy.mp3]
This 1996 album from Chavez is a decidedly mellower affair than the noise-drenched assault of their riveting debut Gone Glimmering which we listed a couple issues back, in our continuing effort to revist some forgotten favorites. Ride the Fader is a logical and dare we say more mature follow-up, with better and almost heavier production than before. Now when we say it's mellower that's not meant to imply lazier or less intense, instead, the band has loosed some of its Nirvana-inspired grunge trappings and opted for a more patient and understated tone mixing menace and melody not unlike a heavier Slint. Not to say that the quartet can't still kick out the super whacked-out feedback fuzz on such house-levelers as "Tight Around the Jaws" and the epic harmonic heaviness of "You Must Be Stopped", once again leaving their most massive riffage for the mighty album closer. But mostly these are elegantly pretty, finely crafted and astutely affecting songs that stand alongside other practitioners of 'slow rock', from a band interested in both the subtle hook and blown amps. If mixing Floor, Low, Slint and Nirvana makes sense to you, this record has everything you want.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We'd never heard of Luciano Cilio before, but of course Jim O'Rourke has. The ubiquitious O'Rourke (Wilco/Sonic Youth/you name it) contributes liner notes to this beautifully presented deluxe digipack cd reissue of what amounts to the collected works of Cilio, an Italian avantgarde composer from the '70s whose music is indeed experimental but less academic than you might expect. But even without O'Rourke's endorsement, a listen to the cd should reveal to you that Cilio was exquisitely talented, and maybe something of a genius. This disc is a simply fantastic document of what we might consider a hybrid of 20th century classical, minimalist psych-prog, and folk music, not entirely of this world. The all-white cover perfectly echoes Cilio's lovely, quietly haunting compositions for acoustic guitar, cello, piano and flute, sometimes visited by wordless female vocals. Achingly melancholic, immensely deep, truly beautiful. Limited to 500 copies, this cd consists of Cilio's sole album, Dialoghi del Presente, originally released on EMI in 1977, along with several previously unreleased tracks. Apparently he more or less abandoned music after the album's release, and sadly committed suicide in 1983. Allan's favorite new long-lost reissue after the Flamen Dialis disc reviewed on list #194...
Nashville is best known as a magnet for songwriters, musicians, and performers looking to break into the country music business; at the same time, it continues to house a small yet viable collection of exceptional artists and outlandish freaks within its genteel Southern city limits. Nashville should be proud of its eccentrics, especially the atypical songwriter Dave Cloud, who can be regularly found parked at the Springwater (a dive bar which happens to be next to Hog Heaven which slow-cooks some the best BBQ in Middle Tennessee ... make sure to try the white sauce). Cloud's alcoholic croon caught the ear of the members of Lambchop who as the Gospel of Power helped Cloud realize his second album All My Best. Cloud affects a number of vocal styles; on occasion, it's a baritone that ripples with excessive vibratto like Isaac Hayes on a motley selection of prescription drugs; on others, he's stuck in a locked groove like Philip Jeck record picking unusual phrases to repeat a few too many times. It becomes quite clear that Cloud's head is not quite screwed on right; but fortunately, the Gospel of Power keep true to Cloud's outsider aesthetics, as opposed to the Wesley Willis albums which found him working with a bad metal-funk fusion band or later Daniel Johnston records which that suffer from too much production. All My Best includes a wide selection of idiosyncratic covers such as the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together" and KC and the Sunshine Band's "Get Down Tonight," plus a smattering of originals.
Super limited lp from Anla Courtis, of AQ faves Reynols, teamed up here with UK noisemaker Culver, for a disc of surprisingly serene shimmer, all rumblig shifting sonic swells and gently dulcet drones, drifitng and hazy and gorgeously indistinct. Four tracks, almost an hour of sweet sweet bliss out. This is a reissue of a very limited and long out of print self-released cassette!
First off, love that cover. Pink is always nice and so are elephant trunks. Second...they know how to rock. Yup. Death From Above 1979 are a duo of bass/synth and drums and they're from Canada but we're sure being Canadian is not the only reason the Vice label signed 'em, 'cause as we said a second ago, this rocks. Noisily distorted and pogo-riffically catchy, maybe you can imagine this as being some kinda new wavy stoner rock? Like some sort of weird hybrid of Lightning Bolt and Queens of the Stone Age? I dunno, I'm sure there's been waaaaay more accurate comparisions made but that'll have to do. Anyway these guys prove that they have as much right as anyone to work up a sweat doing the "let's crank it up and rock" thing that so many young 'uns are doin' these days. It works for them. Y'know how it used to be (still is?) that boys start bands so they can get girls interested in them? Well we're guessing that classic motivation is part of the reason DFA1979 got together...and it might have done the trick. That's what this sounds like, anyway. C'mon, give 'em a chance to seduce you with their sweaty, noisy rock wiles.
Ok, we imagine that some of you might be kind of skeptical about this band, seeing as they're called, ahem, Doodles. Not exactly an awe-inspiring, heavy-psych kinda moniker is it? And with a name like that, and because of the fact that it's an all-girl outfit, you might expect some kind of cutesy "chick band from Japan" (as someone we know who shall remain nameless put it). But this ain't no Puffy Ami Yumi. Or even Shonen Knife. And their music is quite a bit different from the (also great) but much more robustly silly mayhem unleashed by the other all-girl Japanese psych duo reviewed on this week's list, Afrirampo. No, Doodles are a more serious sort of band, despite the name. Far from silly or fluffy. More roughly hewn and melancholic. These ladies (Akiko Terashima on vocals/guitar/piano and Nao Shibata on drums/chorus) play plodding, haunted psych-rock, with storms of guitar distortion hovering on the horizon, and sweet, sad vocals quivering deeply soul-ward. Ringing, reverby chords, jagged strum, staggering drums. Japanese psych-scene fans will understand if we compare 'em to Angel' In Heavy Syrup, Shizuka, and Nagisa Ni Te. But for a (sort of) non-Japanese comparison, we think maybe Blonde Redhead would be a slight parallel. Uh, Blonde Redhead meets Codeine, maybe. They've also drawn comparisons to other punkish/naive Western acts like the Smashachords and Swell Maps. And then there's some Neil Young and VU too. They're definitely a band that we think should appeal to indie-rock lovin' AQ customers beyond just those with Japanocentric tastes! And the Japan-psych fans among you ought to be already into 'em, thanks to their appearance on first volume of Alchemy's great The Night Gallery: 21st Century Psychedelic Underground compilations. Also Akikio plays on the two Jojo Hiroshige discs we've recommended recently. And in fact this is their 2nd or 3rd album after one on Gyuune and at least one cd-r release before that, though it's the first we've managed to stock. But we'll definitely keep Doodles on our list of bands to watch out for more from in the future!
Dreamend's new album brings to mind a countrified Mogwai or Godspeed You Black Emperor. Sleepy slide guitar twang cozies up to dynamic swell'n'crash waves. This contrast is perhaps best revealed in the seventh and eighth songs ("Slide Song" and The Old House & Its Occupants"). Indeed, one listen to As If By Ghosts may have you believing that Dreamend are part of the whole Montreal GYBE music collective, but they're not! Haunting and beautiful. Released on Graveface Records, home to some other fine bands we've been diggin of late -- namely Spires That In The Sunset Rise and Monster Movie.
Here's a pretty cool, jazz-damaged, percussion-heavy Krautrock obscurity that we just got hip to, thanks to this recent cd reissue on Garden Of Delights. As you might expect from something called Drum Circus from 1971, this has a definite hippy attitude, full of Om-drones and space-jazz piano and cosmic Eastern raga moves. It's a bit like Alice Coltrane meets Lothar And The Hand People meets early (pre-robotic) Kraftwerk. On the 21+ minute title track you'll groove to martial drums, unison chanting of mystical slogans, ominous organs...what's not to like? I mean, this has got both free-jazz freakouts and ranting incantations -- with lotsa lyrics by none other than Timothy Leary! And Drum Circus then get into some '70s Miles Davis styled funk on the aptly titled "Groove Rock". There's even some nice melodic elements too -- Andee thinks the male singer on "All Things" sounds like Roger Daltrey. But overall though, this will probably appeal more to say, folks partial to recent Boredoms output than to fans of The Who...
Here's the new 5-song ep from local combo Elephone which treads a different, more expansive path than their last self-released ep 2003's Still Life with Vodka and its full length predecessor A Far Distant Parade (both now sadly out of print). The first two songs are very dramatic and surprisingly early/mid-Radiohead-eque, but on the third the band shifts into quite a different space... and for fans of the Elephone of old, it's a welcome one! The song "Style Style" is definitely more pop-oriented and more like their past efforts, but much more composed and crisply executed. High on energy and emotion. With cool artwork featuring a gasmasked frog and a goggled bird.
P.A. Blues is a super limited cd-r that's been out for a while, but we haven't been able to get enough to list until now. A selection of unreleased live material hand picked and edited by FSA's Dave Pearce. Blissed out and dense, thick washes of guitar ambience and slowly shifting, dark and droning swoosh and shimmer. The focus of this disc is the lengthy title track, a massive collage of live recordings chopped and edited into a single huge swelling throbbing movement. As with most things Flying Saucer attack, this is epic and gorgeous spaced out, dreamy and mesmerizing drone rock of the highest order!
Never thought we'd be able to list this. Everytime we got it in, it would go too quickly, just flying out the door by word of mouth we guess. Clearly this '90s Norwegian black metal band has a cult following! Then we thought that this triple cd box had gone out of print. But thankfully No Colours just pressed up some more, and we think we scored enough copies to dare list it, even though the label may be out of it already. So...what's the big deal you ask, why are these Forgotten Woods so unforgettable? Well, first off, and at first listen, this will definitely appeal to the whole raw, old-school, Nordic forest black metal necrocrowd. Really good grim stuff in the unholy spirit of classic Darkthrone and Burzum, but with that extra kinda inept, Benighted Leamsish fuckedupedness to it that of course makes us love it all the more. And, additionally and importantly, there's also always a strange, unexpected sort of poppiness underlying everything, despite song titles like "Grip Of Frost" and "Dimension Of The Blackest Dark". As a friend (who also likes this band, and is a member of Thuja, the Blithe Sons, Buried Civilizations, the Skygreen Leopards and a bunch of other Jewelled Antler acts) put it, "man it's good...completely inept, like they're barely pulling it off, total 13-year-old-metal-kid-in-the-basement drums." That by itself would be enough to explain this band's appeal. But our sensibilities here at AQ are further stoked by the fact that the more you delve into these discs, the more you find yourself wondering just what the hell you're listening to...as Forgotten Woods mysteriously morphs by the third cd into something that sounds like jazz-inflected, naive indie-rock mopery, with clean jangly guitars that starts to sound like Felt or The Church or even Maher Shalal Hash Baz! Other tracks seem to echo The Cure, all slow and post-punkish... what a weird band! We can only wonder at what they thought they were doing, and wonder even more so at why they're so accepted by the grim black metal underground. So, even though this is a $25 import triple-disc set, it's the kind of black metal (like Benighted Leams, Xasthur, Lugubrum, Leviathan, Abruptum, Meads of Asphodel, Ved Buens Ende, and Sigh for example) that we have to recommend to all of our customers who are into (not-necessarily metal) weirdness. And in case you're wondering, this does collect the entirety of Forgotten Woods' output (three albums, plus one recorded under the name Joyless) from the years indicated in the title...
Aaaargh, a band name only an Andee could love... yes, Genghis Tron does rank right up there with, ahem, Corn On Macabre and Cream Abdul Babar, don't ya think? Actually Allan likes the name too. At least, it made him wonder, what does this band sound like? Well, first here's what the label says, then we'll critique:
"The debut EP from Poughkeepsie-based trio GENGHIS TRON. Cloak of Love is a virulent pop mutation that seamlessly splatters acrobatic shred and machine gun blastbeats across soaring synth pop anthems and electronic melodies. Five tracks of absurd brutalia and electro pop glory."
And it's true, some of this does sound like M83 being attacked by Discordance Axis. Some foofy '80s ish electro-dance beat will start up, only to be obliterated by a thunderous shitstorm of aggro axe shrapnel. But although they do make a successful effort at trying something new, Genghis Tron don't really strike quite as even a balance between their blastbeats and synthpop melodies as the description on the disc's obi might lead you to believe. A "virulent pop mutation"? Well it definitely leans heavier on the metal than the pop. Clearly they're more schooled and skilled in the latter. The "pop" elements, if there really are any, come in the form of brief keyboard noodles and retro-techno grooves, but actually that's more about instrumentation rather than style or structure. Alright, we don't wanna get totally sticky about the technicalities, but geez, the aforementioned obi description sure did raise our expectations. But then again, we should have known all that was too good to be true. So let's enjoy Genghis Tron for what they are. Less a true synthesis of synth-pop and metallic blasting than a spazzy collision of the two with the metallic stuff definitely getting the upper hand, the metal secure in crash helmets and seatbelts while the pop gets thrown from the vehicle, crushed on the roadway. But it does make for a spectacular crash, something that fans of The Locust and Mr. Bungle and Knodel and Melt Banana and Schizoid and Agoraphobic Nosebleed and The Daughters oughtta find rubberneckingly riveting. Depending on how you feel about such (diverse) bands, by the time the not-quite-13 minutes of music here are over, you'll either be pressing play again with a big smile on your face, or already have left the room, plotting the destruction of whomever was playing it to annoy you.
Sam Gopal was an Indian tabla player, making the scene in Swinging Sixties London. His 1969 Escalator album is pretty obscure, but a classic as far as we're concerned. Sam's percussion of course does a lot to set it apart from the paisley pack (not that Eastern sounds weren't unheard of back then), but it's really vocalist/guitarist Ian "Lemmy" Willis (yes, Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead) who really shines here. The young Lemmy conjures up some incredibly liquid, languid dark psych on tracks like "The Dark Lord" and "You're Alone Now". Reminds us a bit of Twink's Think Pink album, or even T2. So starkly beautiful. Mellow, melodic, mystical. Not heavy in a loud way (nothing like Motorhead that's for sure!!), but "heavy" nonetheless if you know what we mean. Some of the songs definitely do rock out, but still remain somehow muted and moody. It's gorgeous stuff, the downer, down-tempo mood spoiled only a bit by covers of "Back Door Man" and "Season Of The Witch" (the later with R&B-ish female backing vocals). Aside from those, though, supposedly all the songs on here were written by Lemmy in one night, up on speed! Wow. Jeez, is Lemmy the best or what? Hendrix roadie, onetime Hawklord, metal icon...and sinister psych singer-songwriter too! This nice digipack reissue, including two tracks from the group's lone single as a bonus, comes very much recommended.
Wait a second... Weird. These two bands usually sound nothing alike -- The Gossip's all about beltin' out their raw indie soulful blues whereas Tracy And The Plastics whoop it up with used and abused lo-fi electronics -- but on Real Damage it's super hard to tell where one band ends and the other begins. There's a potent devil-may-care grittiness that runs throughout this four-song EP. These Olympia scene faves end up being a great match for a split release, each kickin' out their respective hot licks. Super frantic and empassioned, and sure to please fans of both bands. Rad!
Warp Records roams into back into earthen folk territory with Gravenhurst's six song follow-up to last year's full length, Flashlight Seasons. For those unfamiliar, Gravenhurst is the lone man Nick Talbot from Bristol, England with a little help from his friends such as Miriam Goldberg of Black Forest / Black Sea who slips to play guitar, cello and omnichord on this six song EP's lead-off and title track. Just over a half hour of lengthy, slow creeping murder ballad style numbers including a fine cover of Husker Du's "Diane". Beautiful!
Exactly As I Say is The Hafler Trio's third offering from an ongoing series that investigates the atomization of the human voice into post-linguistic mantras. The two previous offerings in this series reworked the respective voices of Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld and Current 93's David Tibet; and here, h3o has taken on the task of reworking the ephemeral voice of Jonsi Birgisson best known for his androgynous croons in Sigur Ros. On all three albums, Andrew McKenzie (the presiding genius and essentially the only member of the Hafler Trio) extracts what may be constued as an essence from those unique voices and molds them into his own signature smoke-and-mirror conceptual program. Even before Sigur Ros began to woo flocks of Iceland-o-philes out of the woodwork, we had been scratching our head about them; and our opinion of Sigur Ros' saccharine orchestrations was validated by a mash-up which lumped Celine Dion's vocals on top of one of Sigur Ros' hit songs. Admittedly, there is a beauty to Sigur Ros and their bright-eyed angelic neo-babble; but it sometimes hits you like a sugar rush and leaves you with a stomachache. Fortunately, there's Exactly As I Say, which removes everything superfluous about Sigur Ros and leaves simply the beauty. Of the two hour long compositions on Exactly As I Say "Diksha" is the more dramatic piece concentrating mostly on the breathing patterns of Birgisson and turning them into ring-modulated flutterings that have the eerie resonance of terra-cotta pottery scaping against itself. Later on this mutates into an extended dronescape much like the work of Eliane Radigue or Phill Niblock. The other piece "Para Bindu" continues along a similar path, which in turn has it's parallels to many of the Hafler Trio's recent works for extended timbral interplay. In other words, this is another great album from the Hafler Trio.
And as always, the band requests that there be no Hafler Trio MP3s, sorry.
One of the few non Drop Dead or Drop Dead related records released on the Armageddon Label (run by one of the Drop Dead dudes) which in itself should be a pretty strong endorsement. A half hour long blast of punishing hardcore grind/sludge from this now defunct (?) outfit. Furious thrashing Drop Dead style hardcore combined with doomy dirges, druggy, sludgy Eyehategod groove, weirdly lounge-y interludes, bizarre samples, complex arrangements and lots of beautifully fucked up riffage. Features current and former members of Electric Wizard, Iron Monkey, Teeth Of The Lions Rule The Divine and the Dukes Of Nothing.
I've been going Hawkwind crazy lately. I [Andee] pretty much missed out on Hawkwind completely the first time around. I was only 2 years old when this record came out. Later, I missed out again, having opted out of the whole high school, pot smoking, parking
This reissue contains the original album plus 5 bonus tracks!
More Hawkwind. And more and more and more. Lately all I [Andee] want to listen to is Hawkwind. Somehow I manged to make it to 32 without hearing Hawkwind ever. And man, did I miss out. "Hall Of The Mountain Grill" seems to be the poppiest of these 4 Hawkwind
If you need a little background on my [Andee's] current Hawkwind obsession see the review for "Doremi Fasol Latido" elsewhere on the list. Needless to say, these records are killing me. How did I mange to miss Hawkwind for all this time. All the stuff I love,
Originally released in 1971. This reissue contains the whole original album plus 3 bonus tracks.
Two discs of sonic mayhem beamed from space through a hazy cloud of pot smoke. Hawkwind are seriously kicking my [Andee's] ass. This is a double live disc of Hawkwind at their best (that would be Lemmy-era). Taking the studio cuts and stretching them out,
'you have been suggested': This is the 1st of 3 in a series of what I Am Spoonbender call 'Hypnotic Trance Pamphlets' -- sort of an 'Oblique Strategies' for the memetic engineering mindset. Ten 2" by 3" cards unique to each series, imprinted with an array of provocative IAS word/image concepts, thoughts and musings enclosed in a hand-numbered red vellum envelope. Tres sublime. Each edition will be limited to 333 copies. When I snap my fingers, you will not snooze on this... ----* ----* Holy Hawkwind! : ----*
It's really difficult for a musician to develop a distinct sound, and then to progress from record to record in such a way, that your 'sound' continues to grow and change without losing the elements that made it so unique and personal in the first place. Sometimes, if you like a band enough, you don't mind if every record sounds the same, ten more songs that sound like the last ten songs you absolutely loved can only be more of a good thing, right? But it's the folks who do manage that delicate balancing act of moving forward but remaining true to their original vision that continue to truly inspire and blow us away. Iron & Wine happen to be one of those bands. After two full lengths and one ep in about two years, this newest ep takes Iron & Wine's hushed melancholia, with its gently strummed guitars, Sam Beam's whispered/sung breathless vocals, sweetly miserable arrangements, and brings the songs' emotional urgency to the fore, where before it was only hinted at lyrically and alluded to in minor key melodies and bleak lyrical imagery. This new batch of songs is much more aggressive in tone, reflected by more percussion, more propulsive tempos and a bigger reliance on different instrumentation (violin, piano, etc.) adding a sonic veil of death and despondency to this already mournful / melancholy song cycle. But even without these changes, there seems to be no end to Sam Beam's songwriting genius. Every song is a new dreamlike world, populated by pain and sorrow, hope and happiness, love and loss, immediately warm and recognizable, like a long lost memory from your childhood, or a song you already love and cherish, but at the same time each song is a wholly unique new musical discovery full of unlikely melodies and gorgeous musical landscapes that stick with you, as if the song is an experience you lived through and remember, catchy, timeless and totally unforgettable.
This dvd set is so cool, two AQ staffers wanted/needed to review it...
Cup sez: This 2-dvd set is fantastic! The band really shows their love and respect for their legions of fans with such a super generous helping of rare Maiden treasures (and the price tag's pretty kind too). In particular, I found The Early Days documentary on this dvd to be sooo inspiring and impactful (and entertaining too... especially hearing Bruce Dickinson talking about wearing his "jimjams"!). For one thing, it has proven to amply refuel the fires of hardcore Maiden fans' Dickinson vs. Di'Anno frontman debate. That said it also resonates even if you're a non-Maiden fan, a not-yet-a-Maiden fan or simply not a metal fan at all, and you might discover (as I did) that you have newfound respect for Steve Harris and co. Awesome!
When I (Allan) ordered this, I actually thought it was just one dvd, with a bunch of classic Iron Maiden live stuff on it that I probably had already seen on videotape but figured would be cool to have on DVD since I'm such a big Maiden fan. And I assumed a few AQ customers would think so too. But then when it showed up, I discovered that there's TWO discs, and the second one is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to anyone into Maiden, '80s nostalgia, or air guitar (I'll explain in a sec).
On the first disc, you get three concert films: 1981's Live At The Rainbow with Di'Anno singing, plus 1982's Beast Over Hammersmith and 1983's Live In Dortmund both with Bruce on the mic. In just three years, quite an arc of triumph. Turns out some of this I had seen, but some of it is previously unavailable footage. So, that disc is cool in and of itself. And then there's Disc Two. As Cup alluded to above, there's a documentary, The Early Days (90 minutes) which is so in-depth it's insane, and quite entertaining, the documentarians talking to everyone and anyone who had anything to do with Maiden, telling the story of Maiden from the band's modest inception in the punky mid '70s through their world-conquering Number Of The Beast album and tour. But what really made me exclaim "Heavens to Eddie!" is the episode of an 1981 British TV entertainment/documentary programme called 20th Century Box that focused on the burgeoning New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) as exemplified by the young Iron Maiden and their legions of fans. This is where the air guitar comes in...well not just air guitar, cardboard guitar! Apparently it was quite a pastime of the punters who populated clubs like the Soundhouse (whose resident DJ, Neal Kay, provides some unintentionally hilarious interview moments, like talking about how he doesn't approve of the term "heavy metal" while wearing a t-shirt with those very words on it) to make their own cardboard guitars and bring 'em out for a night of competitive headbanging. We don't want to spoil it by telling you more... it's great though. If you like Heavy Metal Parking lot you'll love this.
If that wasn't enough, true Maiden fans will then be utterly freaked out to see the amazing Live At The Ruskin, 45 minutes of live Maiden shot with a home video cam from the crowd at the show in a tiny club celebrating the release of their very first album. Wow. Incredible.
Plus there's tons of extras: 5 promo videos, early TV appearances (Top Of The Pops!), photo and art galleries, etc. They really did a bang-up job with this DVD package. Basically, Maiden rules, early Maiden rules even more, and if you like Iron Maiden, you must get this!!
Outside of Nigeria, most Nigerian artists from the golden era of Nigerian High Life live deep within the shadow of Fela Kuti. To be fair to Fela his output alone dwarfs all comers, and he was one of the founding fathers of the modern Nigerian sound. Orlando Julius, while not blessed with as large an oeuvre as Fela is as great an architect of the music. Julius cut his teeth playing in the early high life bands starting back in 1961. By the time Fela Kuti had returned from abroad with his head full of ideas, Orlando Julius had already started his band The Modern Aces and begun revolutionizing the stagnating music scene. It was his band that Fela looked to when he started his precursor to the Africa 70, Koola Lobitos. Now available for the first time outside of Nigeria are 9 tracks of soulful Nigerian high life recorded by Orlando Julius between 1969 and 1972. Includes historical sleeve notes by Miles Cleret.
Hot on the heels of all those Morr Music label releases that have arrived in the last few weeks, comes some more pretty electronica. This time it's from UK label Type Records.
Okay, first things first, our initial beef with this cd was the record label's decision to plaster not the shrinkwrap, but the digipak itself (!) with stickers of ten unreasonably pants-shitting review excerpts. It not only makes the cd look like a promotional copy, but also may elevate your expectations of an album that can't possibly stand up to those over the top superlatives. For example, Grooves sez, "No one, anywhere, has melded indie rock and electronics as perfectly as this... The most jaw-dropping debut since Music Has The Right To Children". What the?! Gimme a fuckin' break!!! No, more simply stated, Khonnor (aka teenager Connor Kirby-Long) would fit quite well on the Morr Music label alongside the likes of Styrofoam, LaliPuna and Ms. John Soda (all of whom do this kind of music as well if not better that Khonnor). It's nice and dreamy and pleasant, especially the tracks without vocals. That said, Khonnor might not be as successful as the aforementioned label's artists in fusing the pop with the electronic -- he's much stronger at crafting layers of dreamy textures than pop hooks -- but if you're seeking an album to wrap yourself in fuzzy blankets of digital shimmer with fleeting glimpses of pop melodies, this could be the one for you.
The Brazilian death metal maniacs are back. Not exactly with a new full-length album though...this is more of a mini-album's worth of new tracks, but additionally stacked with some out of print early stuff. There's eight over-the-top tracks from 2004, plus four raw rarities from the band's Unmerciful Order ep of 1993. Makes a nice package for Krisiun fans, eh? As with all their recordings, this is a hyper-speed roar-de-force that should conjure visions of machine guns firing full-auto and shark feeding frenzies and moshpits named Yngwie. Between the 1993 and 2004 material the biggest difference is the latter's improved production. And we also love the droneily ambient outro track, which proves that they don't *always* sound like Morbid Angel on 45.
Is it making fun of poor English skills to note that it says here "All recording here are 100% analogous"? That's great news for reviewers like me, who'd like to drawn an analogy between these Krisiun tracks and...uh...well let's say that Krisiun is to regular death metal what Michael Jackson is to ordinary eccentric millionaires. No, no, no, I'm not saying that Krisiun are pedophiles, just that they're really...extreme.
In this latest outing for the Kronos Quartet, the fab four team up with Azerbaijani composer / pianist Franghiz Ali-Zedeh. Like her home country, which lies on the crossroads of Europe and the East, Ali-Zedeh's music is an amalgam of European chamber music and the traditional folk music of her country and the multitude of cultural influences that criss cross paths there. This collection includes three pieces commissioned for the Kronos Quartet between 1993 and 2001 and one solo piece for piano performed by Ali-Zedeh.
Ahh, Finland. We've said that before. Now perhaps people in Finland think about California the way we think about Finland. But of course they'd be wrong. We don't have any analog to Moomins trolling about in our forests. Whereas our fantasies about that far-off land are quite accurate. At least, judging by the ongoing gurgle of cd-rs and tapes and cds and such flowing from their fertile "free-folk" underground, from Kemialliset Ystavat to Avarus to Kiila. And recordings like Lau Nau's Kuutarha just make our fantasies of Finland more and more vivid and otherworldly. Lau Nau is Laura Naukkarinen and a few friends. She's a very lovely singer, a member of Kiila, Paivansade, and Anaksimandros. Here her melodic Finnish-language vocals are set to droneily folkish backing, making for quitely distorted lullabies. Finnophiles will agree that this could also definitely be compared to Islaja, but perhaps rawer, more broken down and abstract. And to make a Finland-California comparison, well, this could basically be a Finnish version of Jewelled Antler's Franciscan Hobbies, with Laura Naukkarien's vocals. So very very nice. (Hmm, which came first? Jewelled Antler or the these Finnish forest folk folks? Doesn't matter, it's the zeitgeist we guess!)
For some reason, we like to look at the list of instruments and non-instruments used on records like these, maybe you do to, so here goes: acoustic bass, bass recorder, five-stringed kantele, acoustic guitar, tenor recorder, violin, bamboo flute, colorful juice glasses, mortar, mandolin, witch laugh megaphone, baby's rattle, bike bells, banjo, cowbells, electric guitar, organ, willow whistle, tablas, percussion, cymbals, comb, beer cans, tamboura...
Not sure how many of you remember this San Francisco band. But man it's a crime they weren't huge. This is liquored up (obviously), smacked out, dirty, trashy, buzzy, droney, chaotic, fully fuzzed out lightning bolt psych drone damage. Think Butthole Surfers playing Fushitsusha after drinking a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Or imagine slipping some speed into Bob Pollard's beer and watching a fried and freaking out Guided By Voices desparately try to work their way through the Hawkwind catalog. Or take equal parts Bunny Brains, Brainbombs, and Brainticket, add some acid and lock 'em in a dark and dingy basement. This is seriously damaged, outsider psych rock nirvana. Filthy and sloppy and just about the best thing we've ever heard. LP only, and these were a warehouse find, so not sure how many we'll be able to get. This is Allan's favorite LB record, a blurry buzzy drunken amp to the head, guitar to the groin, musical beer dumped over your head before a good ass whooping. VERY RECOMMENDED!
Not sure how many of you remember this San Francisco band. But man it's a crime they weren't huge. This is liquored up (obviously), smacked out, dirty, trashy, buzzy, droney, chaotic, fully fuzzed out lightning bolt psych drone damage. Think Butthole Surfers playing Fushitsusha after drinking a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Or imagine slipping some speed into Bob Pollard's beer and watching a fried and freaking out Guided By Voices desparately try to work their way through the Hawkwind catalog. Or take equal parts Bunny Brains, Brainbombs, and Brainticket, add some acid and lock 'em in a dark and dingy basement. This is seriously damaged, outsider psych rock nirvana. Filthy and sloppy and just about the best thing we've ever heard. LP only, and these were a warehouse find, so not sure how many we'll be able to get. Hauls Ass is the yin to Fucks The Sky's yang. One is incomplete without the other. The sound of one hand clapping. Hauls Ass is the follow up to LB's classic debut and wallows in the same filthy, noisy, druggy, boozy swirl of demented garage-y psych rock genius! Again, SO RECOMMENDED!
Not sure how many of you remember this San Francisco band. But man it's a crime they weren't huge. This is liquored up (obviously), smacked out, dirty, trashy, buzzy, droney, chaotic, fully fuzzed out lightning bolt psych drone damage. Think Butthole Surfers playing Fushitsusha after drinking a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Or imagine slipping some speed into Bob Pollard's beer and watching a fried and freaking out Guided By Voices desparately try to work their way through the Hawkwind catalog. Or take equal parts Bunny Brains, Brainbombs, and Brainticket, add some acid and lock 'em in a dark and dingy basement. This is seriously damaged, outsider psych rock nirvana. Filthy and sloppy and just about the best thing we've ever heard. LP only, and these were a warehouse find, so not sure how many we'll be able to get. We have been huge fans of LB for years, but had somehow never heard (or heard of) this live record. Lots of folks say this is THE definitive Liquorball document, a messy, murky chaotic live show, captured in all it's damaged glory. Hand painted sleeves that make LFHB look like you found it in a box in some dark alley and each record contains an actual found piece of pornography! So very appropriate. And so TOTALLY ESSENTIAL!
You'll be glad to know that M83 still basically sound like some strange and wonderful mix of My Bloody Valentine, the Orb, Boards Of Canada, Stereolab and New Order. And they most definitely are still the only band around making this sort of lush, fuzzed out, electronic bliss pop. But the new record takes a strange turn. Some around here think a not so advisable one. But we'll elaborate a bit and you make the call.
First, strap yourself in, and set the controls for the heart of... the eighties.
It starts with the ultra-cheesy cover art, a late night big city scape with the band name written in a thick white graffiti scrawl. If you didn't know M83 was a band you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was a Bacardi ad for some new drink.
And sonically it follows a similar time travelling path. Imagine the eighties is a big packet of Lick-Em-Aid, you know that weird colored sugar you'd eat as a kid. So after a year of listening to the first M83 record non stop, it's nice and wet, so go ahead and dip it into your packet of eighties Lick-Em-Aid and you've basically got Before The Dawn Heals Us. Where Dead Cities was almost timeless sounding in its seamless melding of eighties pop, anime soundtrack, modern electronica, nineties shoegaze and classic Krautrock, the new record is eighties through and through. Every song could be music for a montage from Gleaming The Cube or Pump Up The Volume or Back To The Future. When you close your eyes, you can almost visualize the credits rolling over garish splashes of pastel, listing all of the other songs on the 'soundtrack' by folks like Rick Springfield, Ray Parker Jr., Cyndi Lauper, etc. That said, this is still an amazing record. For every moment of cringeworthy fluff, there's three or four of utter pop brilliance. Totally alien snatches of shimmering synth, stuttering studio fuckery, the entire thing peppered with little sounds, electronic and organic, some barely noticeable, some completely defining the songs. Before The Dawn Heals Us sounds best when the band is going full bore, firing a warm beam of thick guitars and fuzzed out synths straight up into the starry sky, stretched out over a rigid framework of drum machine and pulsing bass, that gets so bombastic it almost sounds like Dimmu Borgir or Cradle Of Filth. On first listen the cheese factor was definitely too distracting, but on each listen, those bits of dated pop just sound like pieces of a glorious bigger picture. They may stick out at first but soon, you can't imagine the rest of the record without them. Which makes sense as soon as you spend some time with the record. The whole thing just sort of flows like some unearthed eighties arthouse soundtrack. A deliriously abstract, emotionally charged musical arc, with strange snippets of dialogue and spoken word moving the musical plot forward.
On its own this might not be the perfect record, but as the second part of M83's fuzzy, blissed out musical journey into the shimmery ether, it's an absolute masterpiece.
Think of a melding of the goodness of Japancakes, Mogwai and a smidge of The Notwist (AQ faves one and all!), sound good to you? Well, you don't have to imagine it! Just give this new cd by Marianas a spin. Very dreamily atmospheric and pastoral from start to finish -- the final track "Last Minutes Of The Day" perfectly captures the feel of the fading light of dusk. Sooo lovely!
Marz is the work of Ekkehard Ehlers and Albrecht Kunze, although fans of Ehler's gorgeous digital aerosolization on his Plays album or his collaboration with Stefan Mathieu would be hard pressed to find aesthetic similarities between the two projects. According to the press release, this album of delicate if obtuse, post-70s AM radio pop continues "to fashion their inviting and seductive landscapes out of folk, pop and club influences: explicit, prodigal, subtly differentiated, but also displaying a greater desire to take risks than on Love Streams, so much so that only an idiot would chose [sic] not to tarry here a while." Um, if this sounds like a description of Jim O'Rourke's smarty-pop albums Insignificance or Eureka, that's because Marz adequately redresses the same quizzically alluring schmalztiness as heard on O'Rourke's aforementioned pop constructs.
Soul Jazz moves ever forward into the world of Studio One, no looking back now. Well, not exactly. Sugar Minott's tenure at Studio One represented a brand spanking new way of music production on the fertile Isle of Jamaica. As the '70s wound to a close big changes were on the rise in the music industry. Before the electronic studio would completely take over and all but eliminate the need for studio musicians, the phenomena of recycling rhythms -- which had been building momentum through the sucess of DJ culture -- came to a head... thanks to Studio One's enormous popularity. Using their house band The Revolutionaries, Ernest and Jo Jo Hookim of Channel One had begun re-recording popular Studio One rhythms with their own stable of vocalists penning new lyrics. Successful they were, but for Coxsone Dodd to trump them all he needed to do was just spin an old tape and let someone sing over it. The biggest cache of Jamaican classics resided in his vaults after all. Sugar Minott had already cut his teeth singing with a few other minor groups and it was while working at Studio One as a backup vocalist that he suggested that Coxsone allow him to sing over an old Studio One classic; one that he'd worked up new lyrics to and had been singing for years. Suffice it to say the experiment was a success and eventually resulted in an LP that is oft considered the first dancehall album. Minott opened the flood gates for old vocalists such as Freddie McGregor, Johnnie Osbourne and others. Sugar Minott At Studio One represents a best of collection from tracks he cut at the label between 1978 and 1982 before striking out on his own.
Back in 2003, Streamline reissued the first Mirror record Eye Of The Storm on cd; and now Robot has seen fit to reissue another early Mirror record Nightwalkers. Originally released back in 2000, Nightwalkers found Mirror's core duo of Christoph Heemann and Andrew Chalk working with Andreas Martin, who had previously collaborated with Heemann in producing the crushed-velvet prog / ambience of Mimir. Martin's presence on this album definitely changes Mirror's awe-inspiring dronescapes built from manipulated field recordings and sustained tonalities; first of all there are clusters of drum machine rhythms which interrupt the tranquil beauty of the signature Chalk / Heeman minimalism, and elsewhere, Martin brings a wholly unmysterious e-bow guitar sound to Mirror as well. This has never been our favorite Mirror record, but even the weakest Mirror record is still pretty darn good in the greater scheme of things.
Except in unabashedly biased reviews from this store, Christoph Heeman continues to get the bulk of the credit for the successes of Mirror; but again, we must reiterate that Mirror is a collaboration with Andrew Chalk. His sustained bowing drones have previously been heard in his work with Jonathan Coleclough on Sumac, some of the more tranquil compositions by Organum, and a few hard-to-find solo albums; and his aesthetic of a whispered minimalism that has the ability to stop time is front and center on Still Valley, even though occasional Mirror-man Jim O'Rourke contributes to this LP only release. There's actually very little to talk about, as backwards masked drones (from what may be long-stringed instruments, bowed cymbals, or even just guitars) linger along the horizon like a mirage, flickering with a formless consistency. Absolutely gorgeous.
