Under The Cables, Into The Wind marks the second solo album for Fabrizio Modonese Polumbo, who hails from the eccentric Italian post-rock outfit Larsen. That said, Polumbo qualifies this as his first 'real' solo album, as he dismisses his earlier album Humps as little more than a collection of fragments, compilation tracks, commissioned works, and live sessions. Where Larsen creates a smoldering sound of hypnotic grooves and melodies intensified by slashing counterpoints, Polumbo's (r) exhibits a greater degree of experimentation with the studio itself as an instrument, building elusive, shadowy collages and swelling compositions from ringing chimes, bowed metals and thick walls of jet-engine noise. Yet, he hasn't entirely dropped the structure of the song on this album, as densely packed acoustic guitar chords buidling into orchestrations much like Swans' final album Sountracks For The Blind; at the same time, there's a thoroughly abstracted cover of Avril Lavigne's "I'm With U," which Polumbo is quick to point out was produced not for ironic purposes, but out of a fascination with the control mechanisms of pop music (e.g. Laibach's numerous covers of Beatles, Queen, Rolling Stones, Europe, etc.) and reinterprets it as a call for empathy for those who deserve it. Well done, sir.
Also known as... Swedish soft folksy popster Nicolai Dunger! We were initially surprised to find him on the Hapna label, but after hearing just a couple of songs we see it's a perfect fit. His music under the alias A Taste Of Ra is far less conventionally structured than his (recently reissued domestically) 1999 solo album This Cloud Is Learning, and more slowly unravelling and hallucinatory. You might say, he's offering a Swedish take on the soulful bluesy avant-folk of contemporaries such as Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective. Yes, comparisons will undoubtedly be drawn, but Dunger possesses a more soft-spoken thoughtful delivery. Actually this album plays smoothly right into the new Vetiver EP which flows nicely right into the new Jim White soundtrack album (which is how Cup listened to those three new releases here today). Almost like a waking dream.
A few months back we bellowed loudly about the impressive Berlin Super 80 DVD / CD compilation, which presented the parallel activities of the nascent German DIY film community and the incendiary musical scene which collectively qualified themselves as The Ingenious Dilletantes in the late '70s and early '80s, after a huge arts festival co-curated by Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld. Exasperated by the pressure cooked environment, the members of this very loose community which also included painters, performance artists, actors, etc. embraced an aesthetic of bleak nihilism often tinged with post-ironic absurdity. While not being featured on the musical program of Berlin Super 80, Alu was one of many bands mentioned in passing in that document, having played alongside the likes of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, Neubauten, and Malaria back in the day. Like many of those terminally obscure but often exceptional electro/post-punk projects that Vinyl-On-Demand has reissued in recent years, Alu set forth Frankensteinian, synth-punk and monotone grooves, upon which they chanted dead-pan German vocals sounding not too far from early SPK, Throbbing Gristle, or even Suicide. What's curious about Alu is not the fantastic sound of this, their only studio recording Autimenschen (which actually never saw the light of day back in the '80s, and only now has been discovered and released by the good people at C.I.P.), but in the fact that the two members of Alu also hailed from the obscure '70s Krautrock trio Sand. The morose hallucinations and sprawling psychedelia of Sand are a far cry from the tense, motorized bleakness of Alu; but nonetheless both Alu and Sand stand out as magnificent discoveries from their respective genres.
First we've heard from local moody metallic chamber ensemble Amber Asylum in quite some time. Rumor is there have been label problems, but you'd never know it from this amazing self released 10" (other than it being, um, self released). Three brand new tracks that take Amber Asylum's gothic strings and vocals soun even further out, having now expanded their lineup to include former members of the Gault and SF black metal legends Weakling. The opening track is quite possibly the best thing we've heard from them, a brooding dramatic soundscape of intensely moody strings, and anguished melodies. Locked in by simple almost programmed sounding rhythms with haunting operatic vocals drifting ghostlike through the mix. Sounds a bit like Skepticism with a string section, and you know that is a very good thing. The second track heads into almost Goblin territory at points with super aggressive pizzicato strings, bows sawing away at the strings emitting truly ominous melodies. Side B clocks in at a little over 12 minutes, and is far more tranquil, an expansive, romantic epic, melancholic yet hopeful, with delicate crystalline piano figures, very subtle strings and sweetly plaintive vocals. So nice. Available only on limited edition 10" vinyl!
Been meaning to list this for while now, and unfortunately it's now out of print, and we now have the last ten or so copies, never to get more. So as always in these cases, don't dawdle. From the same label that has brought us some of the most crucial underground black metal of the last few years (Xasthur, Nortt, The One, Blodulv, etc.) comes a new (to us) Danish outfit, who specialize in that sound we love so much: ultra grim, ultra frigid, buzzing mostly midtempo black metal, a la Graveland, Nargaroth, Woodtemple, with high end fuzz-drone distortion, mosquito-like minor key melodies, simple galloping drum beats and that from-hell, paint peeling death rasp, all smeared into a buzzing mesmerizing blackened blur. Totally hypnotic and drone-y. Halfway through there's a gorgeous ten minutes of muted, melodic ambience, as dreamy and subtly beautiful as any of our favorite drone records. Followed by a truly bizarre melodramatic piano driven ballad, that's interrupted sporadically by ultraviolent squalls of sandblasting black metal buzz. Weird. And quite cool!
And again, LAST TEN COPIES! ONCE THEY'RE GONE THEY'RE GONE FOR GOOD!
Second single from I Am A Bird Now, from mysterious androgynous ingenue / torch singer Antony and his group the Johnsons. Smokey piano driven, gospel flecked ballads featuring Antony's amazing and impossible to describe voice, that we had described as "A rich throaty tenor, that slips effortlessly into a keening falsetto. A luxurious vibrato, trilling and wrapping itself around every note. Equal parts Nina Simone, Tiny Tim, Tracy Chapman, Jimmy Scott and even a little Elvis Presley." It truly is unlike anything you'll ever hear. This single features the gut wrenching "Hope There's Someone" (you can hear a sounds sample with the review for I Am A Bird Now) as well as two unreleased tracks, both nearly as emotional and intense. The cd features a video for "Hope There's Someone" that is as creepy and darkly lovely as the song.
More Ariel Pinkness for you and yours. There's definitely been a change of heart 'round these parts regarding the virtues of idiosyncratic LA indie-pop singer-songwriter Ariel Pink and his Animal Collective-approved, damaged DIY take on R&B/noise/folk/electronics. Originally only a few of us dug him, but now with repeat exposure even grumpy ol' Andee kinda likes the guy (or at least -this- record). So it's nice that Paw Tracks has reissued AP's Worn Copy, another sprawling set of transmissions of eccentric, retro-referencing lo-fi weirdness that can't obscure (and maybe enhances) his genuine pop genius. The stream of consciousness psycho-babble about getting credit at the pawn shop, something truly bizarre about peninsulas, the triumph that is ZZ Top, and of course his orgiastic sexual escapades are things that give someone like Devendra Banhart a run for his money on sheer weirdness factor, and then there's tons of strange references to early '80s cheez-ball bands like Journey and Loverboy smeared underneath a mess of lo-fi production and baffling idiosyncracies. Maybe get The Doldrums first, if you haven't checked out Ariel Pink (and his Haunted Graffiti) yet. But if you're a fan, chances are your copy of Worn Copy soon will be.
Cd version includes a bonus video, btw.
The major label debut (after three AQ-recommended indie label releases) for these "you've got your emo chocolate in my heavy metal peanut butter" punk rock kids from SoCal. With their capable and practically seamless blend of soaring, melodic emo-styled vocal choruses, Sunset Strip cock rock swagger, slayin' metalcore breakdowns, and Maidenesque gallop (all flawlessly executed with tons of energy), Avenged Sevenfold certainly have their fans here at Aquarius! To be sure, we might have to lump 'em into the guilty pleasure catagory, 'specially with City Of Evil's big-leagues production polish. But if you're not afraid of a band whose vocalist unleashes a few heartfelt (if whiny) "Whoa-oh-oh-ohs" per song, then this album gets our recommendation for best Bad Religion-meets-Helloween record of the year, so far, for sure! Or is it Anthrax-meets-Faith No More? Or the Get Up Kids-meets-Bang Tango-meets-Metallica-meets-Alice In Chains-meets-The Offspring-meets-Yngwie Malmsteen-meets-Poison The Well-meets-Skid Row? Heck it's all of that and more. And even though they make it really easy to play games of "what's that part remind me of? and that part?" within each track, what's amazing is that their songs remain so dang catchy and definitely Avenged Sevenfold's when all's said and done. Reactions to A7X's cheese-to-crunch ratio (a lot of both, really, each drawn equally from their metal and punk influences, and that's ok with us) will assuredly vary according to one's individual taste -- we say yum!
Beautiful Skin return... well, sort of. You might recall the duo's (Nick Forte and Ross Totino) fine debut album back in 2000 (Revolve on the Gold Standard Laboratories label) which we thoroughly dug. Sure as with most of Forte's musical projects, BS was very inspired by late '70s / early '80s bands such as Wire, Cabaret Voltaire, PiL and New Order, but they took the influences and ran with them... both prior to *and* further than where most of the current crop of similarly influenced bands have ventured. Totino brought a lightness not to mention a meticulous craftsmanship to Forte's usually brooding, raw dourness. Then, the duo became a quartet (with the addition of Charles Burst and Mitch Rackin), raising expectations even further. And then, they promptly disbanded. Ack! Sadly, they left us hangin' wanting more of their cool atmospheric propulsive synth-wave goodness. In the years since, Forte released music under another moniker (Christmas Decorations), but it paled in comparison. Now GSL has brought Beautiful Skin back into view with this collection of rarities. You might be thinking it's a bit odd to have a release of this sort considering the short life of the band, but actually this baker's dozen includes previously unreleased material that was recorded by the foursome just prior to the split. This bittersweetly revealing document unveils the promising directions in which the group was heading -- a broader range that ran the extremes from the bouyantly poppy (the 2-minute "Skin") to the more ominous and proggy (the 12-minute "Magic Solutions To Life's Many Problems"). Also included are tracks from their first demo (recorded in 1998) and their Work Will Set You Free 7". Sooo, let's be happy that these recordings have been made available, but let's also be bummed out once more by the early demise of a great band.
Here's an all too brief introduction to this terrific new Bay Area band. These four boys churn out three fiery indie rock tunes with loads of energy, angst and passion. Birdmonster's music has frequently been compared to that of Modest Mouse, and we can definitely hear why (particularly in the vocal department), but they're actually far more rootsy and boot-stompin'. Probably pretty great live! Even from just this handful of songs, their finely tuned songcraft is more than apparent. A very promising debut.
We loved the recent full length Black Mountain record (except for the first track, see the full length review for more on that) a bastard mix of Sabbathy stoner rock, weird white soul and drone-y VU style dope rock. The best track by far was the massive "Druganaut", with it dueling male / female slacker vocals and THAT riff, the chorus that got our heads banging everytime it came on, no matter how hard we tried to fight it. The extended version here blunts the power of THAT riff just a bit, but not without good reason, as the whole track is stretched waaaaay out, and drenched in reverb, as well as all sorts of buzzy noodly synths and a thick layer of hiss, which makes the whole thing sound just that much more fucked up and drugged out. It sounds what I imagine the orginal would sound like if you were doped to the gills! The extra tracks are pretty killer too. "Buffalo Swan" is a droney, blissed out hypnotic drug jam, with plenty of ambient shimmer and bass driven breakdowns. Creepy and mysterious. "Bicycle Man" is a rollicking fuzz bass, jangle pop garage rock workout complete with nonsense lyrics and harmonica! And finally "No Satisfaction (Campfire Version)" sounds just like you would think, a simple Dylan / Stones piano and strummed acoustic guitar sing along, with a stomping rhythm and lazily drawled boy girl vocals. A pretty kick ass (and pretty lengthy at 25 minutes) slab of druggy, seventies soul infused groove rock!
Sure, all you drone obsessives and out rock freaks can't get enough Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, an endless fount of whir and rumble and skree and grrr and rrroooaarrr. But this new record from James Blackshaw is a whole 'nother ball of... um.. steel strings apparently. Celeste is made up of two 15 minute tracks (one played in open C major tuning, the other in open C minor) of totally mesmerizing Appalachian raga folk, performed mainly on 12-string acoustic guitar with occasional farfisa organ and cymbals. Fans of John Fahey, Jack Rose, Matt Valentine and all things free folk will be completely blown away. There's still an element of drone in the repetitive raga-like riffing, but this is mainly and most definitely a weird and wonderful modern avant bluegrass / folk record. Lovely! SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!
Kevin Blechdom's latest album comes in the form of a frantic electronic-rock opera-style extravaganza. In contrast to her past recordings that frequently teetered into juvenile booby-joke, one-trick-pony territory (also a problem we've had with the music of Chicks On Speed whose label released this cd), this comes across as considerably more mature and composed... but no less kooky. Uhh, but we should let you know that breasts (her own) do make an appearance on this album's cover photo. Also on prominent display here... musically, is her startlingly broad stylistic spectrum. She delves robustly into diva drama, beefy rock, singy-songy pop, distorted funk, electro-kitsch and beyond. Finally, a Blechdom album with tracks that bear repeat listens, and with a number of compositions that are worthy of the critical acclaim that has been bestowed upon her in the past. That said, this is still something of an acquired taste. Check out the audio clips to see if your palate welcomes the camp-o-phonic sounds of Ms Blechdom.
After being out of print for almost FIVE years, Bohren's third album Sunset Mission finally gets re-released this time in a spiffy digipak!
Back when we first listed this (the first Bohren we'd managed to get a hold of for the store), this is what we said: Allan discovered Bohren on a trip to Germany in 1999, with their '95 double-cd Midnight Radio, an amazing extended late-night autobahn driving soundscape, slow, low, instrumental "lounge" music, utterly perfect for a mesmerizing midnight listen. Sunset Mission, their third album, was originally released in 2000 and is similar to Midnight Radio, more overtly "jazzy" perhaps, with the addition of smokey tenor saxophone to their piano/drums/bass lineup. Their original US distributor (electronica/techno label Studio K-7) labeled this ambient, but that's far from the mark. From the song titles ("Prowler", "On Demon Wings", "Black City Skyline", "Darkstalker") to the packaging (photos of nighttime Berlin and dangerous weaponry) to the music (a downtempo film noir soundtrack like the slowest, dirgiest Melvins played by Morphine, darker than Photek, moody and gorgeous) this is the nightmare "ambience" of a nowhere jazz-lounge you'll never leave alive.
By now, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore are a firm AQ favorite, with their recent album Geisterfaust sure to show up in a lot our our customers' year 2005 top-ten lists. Meanwhile Bohren's Black Earth, Gore Motel and Midnight Radio have always been steady sellers, so it's nice to have Sunset Mission back in the racks as well! Of the Bohren discography, Sunset Mission seems to be the jazziest (if indeed it's appropriate to use that term), definitely with the most sax of any of 'em, perhaps coming closest to its follow-up Black Earth in sound.
More well known for his work as a producer -- working with the Revolutionaries and recording artists at Joe Gibbs' and Channel One -- Mike Brooks was also an excellent vocalist with a sweet falsetto (up there with Junior Murvin or Cedric Myton of The Congos). The tracks here, recorded throughout Brooks' career from the seventies and into the eighties, are 100% conscious rasta chants. Most of the backing tracks were recorded at Channel One, and many of them -- with the Revolutionaries laying down their classic rockers rhythm -- versions of classic Studio One tunes. In the rarities department, there's an excellent 1972 track "The Earth Is The Fullness" (and its dub b-side) which was recorded in the very earliest of days at Lee Perry's Black Ark, before it had even been completed. But the general consensus is that the absolute gem on the record is "No Brother Man", a hypnotic tune with the simplist of riffs played on horns and repeated throughout as Brooks sweetly waxes positive. Nicely packaged in a fold out digipak with biographical notes by Hans Peters.
What is wrong with the world today? The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, babies are coo-ing, breezes are blowing, waves are lapping, clouds are drifting happily across a bright blue sky, but all everybody wants to listen to is hateful evil grim brutal downtuned miserable soul crushing anguished slow motion funereal death drone ultra doom. Not that we're complaining, but it is curious. There's been recent renewed interest in slow motion metal masters Earth, as well as a growing obsession with self-admitted Earth worshippers Sunn 0))), the massive ambient-metal explorations of Japan's Corrupted, the stomping garage psych meets doom drone of the mighty Boris, and a constantly growing roster of similar sonic sickos: Esoteric, Khanate, Asva, Fleshpress, Dot [.], Marzuraan, Ox, Rigor Sardonicus, Sons Of Otis, UFOmammut, Skepticism, Whitehorse, Planet Aids and now Bunkur. We've been trying to track down this cd for ages, and somehow ended up listing and reviewing the Planet Aids cd, a Bunkur side project, before we had even received the Bunkur discs. Well, now they're here and you won't be sorry. This Dutch outfit traffics in massive, miserable, impossibly lugubrious doom metal. This is a single 65 minute track, drenched in reverb and crackling amp buzz, crumbling distorted guitars howled vocals, very loose and spread out, the riffs exist in huge expanses of SPACE, a blackened vacuum of buzz and echo and the occasional trailing off of a vocal growl or a slowly dissipating feedback vapor trial. The kicker here though, and the thing that makes Bunkur so weird (and cool) is the drumming, stumbling lo-fi tripped out rhythms, that drift from plodding caveman pound, to spacious barely there accents, but most surprisingly hover in some strange alternate world of dub. Yep, you heard us, DUB. The drums often demarcate wide open spaces with a strange dubbed out, instantly recognizable: BAP BAP Bap bap bap bp bp bp bp .... a single snare hit that repeats, stuttering into oblivion. Giving the whole thing a weird hellish doom-dub vibe. Like Khanate recording with Lee Perry maybe? Okay, maybe not quite as extreme as that, but the dub is definitely there, whether purposeful or not. And it's really cool. Fans of dismal doom death drone and all things slow and sick will find this absolutely essential. Packaged in super cryptic metallic grey and black packaging with extensive liner notes in a completely unreadable rune font!
To tell ya the truth, Laura Cantrell could be singing the table of contents of a lawnmower manual, and still enchant the pants off of her listeners. Her newest album (and first on Matador Records) picks right up from where 2002's When The Roses Bloom Again left off. Her voice ringing as clear as a crystal dinner bell and as sweet as a bumbleberry pie at the state fair, and she's accompanied by a superb cast of players including those fellows from Calexico. Along with her original numbers she sings beautiful versions of an early previously unreleased Lucinda Williams' song "Letters", "Wishful Singing" a song originally sung by Skeeter Davis and penned by Wynn Stewart, and the old traditional murder ballad "Poor Ellen Smith". Actually if you like another lovely old tyme country style chanteuse who has great taste in cover material, namely Ms Kelly Hogan (or vice versa), this might be your new summer love.
This is one of those perfect pop records that happens very rarely, one in a million, like a total eclipse, or an alignment of the planets, or some rare comet, flaring brightly but briefly and then fading away. A band that put everything it had into a single set of songs and then exhausted, sat back and let those songs float free. In the case of Cardinal, those songs immediately resonated deeply with pop obsessives all over the world, but then far too quickly disappeared, with the folding of their label and the seemingly immediate disbanding of the group after the original release of this record in 1994. But here we are, more than a decade later, and if anything, these songs sound better than ever, timeless and classic, and not at all dated. This is classic pop in the tradition of the Beatles, the Bee Gees, the Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, the Zombies, Phil Spector, but with a distinctly modern twist. Richard Davies, half of the Cardinal core, fronted the Australian pop band the Moles, and for Cardinal contributed the raw material, the songs and the melodies, while Eric Matthews was the arranger, taking these simple and perfect pop songs, and opening them up to reveal their hidden beauty, adding strings and pianos and vocal harmonies, shine and sheen, turning simple lovely pop into lush expansive pop masterpieces! Multiple vocals swirl and intertwine in unlikely harmonies, over horns and soaring strings, gently weeping guitars, moody piano chords, and simple shuffling drumbeats. An impossible, and impossibly perfect mix of classic sixties pop, lush easy listening, indie jangle and moody balladeering. Any one who likes any sort of pop music, will be immediately and unalterably smitten by this record. Fitting somewhere between the above mentioned bands and modern pop practitioners like Neutral Milk Hotel, Zumpano, Belle And Sebastian, the Pernice Brothers, Sparklehorse, Iron And Wine, Unrest, the Decemberists and the like, Cardinal fill our souls with pop music and we float dreamily heavenward, humming right along.
Includes extensive liner notes and ELEVEN bonus tracks including demos, b-sides, out-takes and the tracks form the first, long out of print ep!
As much as we feel like we oughta hate this stuff, Cassetteboy are just so good at their schtick that we can't seem to get enough. This is a bit like Negativland, only with that dry British humor and a much wider self deprecating streak. Most bands who do the whole cut and paste, spoken word taken out of context, weird sound bites over dance music thing end up sounding stupid and like they're trying way to hard to be funny and cool and hip and still somehow failing miserably. Cassetteboy on the other hand, sound like they're just fucking around, and thus there's no hipster weight to what they're doing, but the stuff they're doing is so perfect, and so funny, we can't help but dig it. Cassetteboy sound like blokes you'd want to have over, and sit around listening to crazy fucked up music. Mick's Tape is indeed a mix tape, made up of CB's wacky and sometimes tasteless chop jobs, turning innocent speeches and silly folks songs and instructional recordings into laugh out loud nasties. Then some bizarre and random actual songs (Ivor Cutler, Curtis Mayfield, Ramsey Lewis, Astrud Gilberto, Fennesz, Happy Mondays, Fela Kuti, Shalamar) as well as somekiller tracks from MF Doom, Jaylib, and Squarepusher. It's basically the ultimate aQuarius mix, tons of insane weirdness and laugh out loud silliness, some killer classic tunes, some super dope hip hop, some way out experimental noise, all woven together into a somewhat cohesive but joyously chaotic whole!
A slow soothing glide of string sounds opens Circus Circus Devils' fourth full length (yes, despite what you might assume from the title, this is not the fifth album!), but that's just their gentle way of easing you into the often bizarre, frequently cacaphonous world that Robert Pollard and Todd Tobias roam. If you're unfamiliar with Circus Devils (but dig the pop stylings of Robert Pollard and his former band Guided By Voices) we should forewarn you that this is definitely much more obtuse and downright strange than Pollard's other projects. That said, we totally dig 'em. In fact, their first album released back in 2001 was a particular fave around here (it was an AQ Record Of The Week). With the blurts of noisy guitar feedback, aggressive drumming, unstructured picked guitar lines, and slurred vocals that drift in and out of focus as if Pollard is talking/shouting in his sleep, this is just as weirdly wonderful. Oh yeah, and for those of you who are counting, this is #34 of the Fading Captain Series.
Of all the folks involved in the world of ultra stark, minimalist techno and barely there click and glitch, we've always been pretty partial to Ivan Pavlov, aka COH. Not sure exactly what it is, but he always manages to take his stark minimalism somewhere full of life and emotion and energy. What in other hands would be nothing but a sonic experiment, in Pavlov's becomes a song, or a groove, or just a big chunk of sound that resonates with energy and creativity and power. Not sure if the title is supposed to intimate something about the music within and it's supposed relation to classic pop constructs. But in no way is this Pavlov's poppiest material, not by a long shot. That's not to say it isn't great, it is, it's just much more barebones and barely there. Disc one sounds like Neu! after being dipped in acid, so all the flesh and organs have liquified and sloughed off, leaving just a skeletal framework, an intricate assemblage of static and stutter, hiss and click, with an innate funkiness that might just be flecks of melody clinging desperately to the already picked clean bones. Disc B is a reissue of a 1997 release originally released in a limited run of SEVEN copies and given only to friends. This disc is a little more all over the place, while the recurring theme is still definitely Pavlov's microscopic glitch funk minimalism, there are random moments of Ikeda like test tones, stuttering synth squelch, and once in a while even a little bleeping blooping outer space swoosh. Packaged in a cool geometrically abstract double digipak.
Golden Morning Breaks is the second album from Parisian electronic-folk abstractionist Colleen (alias Ms. Ceclie Schott). Her first record -- Everyone Alive Wants Answers -- made use of a plethora of keyboards, music boxes, glockenspiels and guitars, astounding many a listener with her playful if occasionally dark constructions of post-Harold Budd / Brian Eno ambience. Golden Morning Breaks picks up where that earlier album left off with gentle music box-y electronica that depending on your state of mind can be thought of as light'n'summery or creepily unsettling a la '70s Italian horror movie soundtracks. Regardless, this is lovely stuff.
"A fucked up mix of Trouble and Watchtower" is how Arch Enemy/Spiritual Beggars guitarist Michael Amott characterizes North Carolina's Confessor, who were Earache labelmates with Amott back in his days in Carcass in the early '90s. That is indeed a very accurate and -- if you know who Trouble and Watchtower both are -- useful description of cult metal act Confessor's sound. Definitely one of the more idiosyncratic pioneers of absurdly technical metal. Not death, not doom, not grind, not thrash... but all of the above, somehow. Confessor's main ingredients are uber-insane drumming (Stephen Shelton is a god), complex song structures being navigated by two guitars and bass, and high-pitched love 'em or hate 'em vocals that seem to follow their own wailing logic, as if the singer isn't even listening to the same music as the rest of the band. Yet it works. Though perhaps not to everyone's taste. Well, after making one amazing album, 1991's Condemned, and an ep that included a Trouble cover, Confessor disappeared into even deeper obscurity, seemingly gone but not forgotten by hardcore fans of tech-metal madness (I recall our pal Josh Smith, formerly of The Fucking Champs, telling me that the Champs used to have a rule of ONLY listening to Confessor when on their way to play a show). Recently, Shelton re-surfaced in the band Loincloth, but even cooler than that, now Confessor themselves are back! Yes! This ep, with two new 2004-recorded songs (definitely in their old style of proggy doom mastery, with the vocals now somewhat deeper and grungier), is but a teaser for their upcoming comeback full-length entitled Unravelled due in September! This limited-edition ep itself we'd pretty much have to recommend to pre-existing Confessor fans of the dedicated variety since aside from the two new songs ("Sour Times" and, fittingly, "Hibernation") it includes a 1990 demo version of the title track to Condemned, a radio edit of "Sour Times" (why?) and such for-fans-only "enhanced cd" extras as a screen saver and archive of band photos. However, if you're a fan on the fence about spending $13 for basically two songs, be aware that this also includes five minutes or so of Quicktime video footage of them live 1996, which proves that the singer can hit those high notes even as he's jumping around on stage. Wicked!
The 1991 companion release to a Nurse With Wound album of the same name, "Thunder Perfect Mind" is a stately album of C93's bleak reinterpretations of occultish '60s UK folk. Joined by The Bevis Frond's Nick Soloman on a few tracks along with other guests including Shirley Collins, this rather sorrowful sounding album from Current 93 has a definitively psychedelic overtone to it. One of the recommended Current 93 releases, now newly reissued and remastered in a fancy double cd digipack format -- the extra disc consisting of different live/studio versions of songs from the album proper.
Metal heads around these parts have been completely obsessed with Deathspell Omega. And rightfully so. The first black metal band in a long while to totally reinvent black metal and make it their own. In a way that managed to turn lots of non-metal folks to the dark side while somehow remaining true and grim enough to keep the hardcore black metal elite satisfied. We mentioned in our review of the last DSO, that the best way to find out about the best bands, is to check out what the other best bands are listening to, and at the time, everyone from Leviathan to Nachtmystium to Crebain to Draugar were singing their praises. So when the word of a new DSO surfaced, we had the SF black metal horde showing up at the store all the time like kids at Christmastime, chomping at the bit for the new DSO. "Is it here yet?! Is It Here Yet?! IS IT HERE YET?" Well, it is finally here, and damn if it isn't even weirder and more intense and fucking amazing than we could have hoped for. Three tracks clocking in at about 36 minutes, of some of the most unique, idiosyncratic outsider black metal you'll ever hear. The first track starts off with four minutes of meandering and spacious post rock, a lilting melancholic soundscape, of finger picked guitars, big simple drumming, creepy whispered vocals, and snippets of ghostly disembodied voices, before the whole thing builds into a super angular minor key black metal burst of buzzing distorted riffing, arpeggiated melodies and blast beats that all sort of morphs into a very Ved Buens Ende sounding loping midtempo metallic groove, seasick and hypnotic sounding. The entire record is peppered with alien sounding melodies, stretches of ambient flutter, some otherworldly slow motion doom, strange industrial clatter and woozy head nodding arrangements, all aligned around and amidst more traditional blasts of black metal. So cool and so weird. This is indeed black metal through and through, but at the same time it's almost more of a weird avant rock record, incorporating lots of BM elements, making it that much more original and that much more timeless. Packaged in a gorgeous digipak with a huge booklet of BEAUTIFUL creepy artwork very reminiscent of Hans Bellmer, along with all sorts of texts, Biblical, apocryphal and otherwise.
If you like to read about music as well as listen to it (we should assume you do, since you're reading our list), especially those of you who find yourselves missing the excellent-but-now-discontinued Broken Face 'zine, may we suggest the equally massive and indie-acid-folk-psych obsessed Dream Magazine from right here in California? The fifth issue is now upon us, 128 pages packed with tons of interviews and reviews (in eyeball straining tiny type). Artists featured include Ghost, Elf Power, Kemialliset Ystavat, Marissa Nadler, Tom Rapp, Sun City Girls (lots of good stuff in that interview!), John "Blind Man's Penis" Trubee, Donovan Quinn of Verdure/Skygreen Leopards, Robert Wyatt, Mushroom, Bipolaroid, Ed Hardy of Eclipse Records, and even Mats Gustafsson (not the saxophonist, but the former editor/publisher of the Broken Face!). And more. Whew. Plus, it comes with its own soundtrack: a cd compilation that's got unreleased tracks by Jack Rose, Piano Magic, Verdure, Volcano The Bear, and others...
Seems these Elephant 6 Collective members have shed their candy-coating for good. You'd almost believe that this is an altogether different band from the one who made the charmingly perky pop of 1999's Pink Hearts Yellow Moons or 2002's Sounds Go Round. While their last self-titled album did show some signs of change, Electrified is leaps and bounds away from the Dressy Bessy of 'old'. Now, to say that the skip in their step has been replaced by a stomp might be an overstatement, but the thought did cross our minds. Much darker, edgier, slightly dizzying, the tunes are propelled by an aggressive charge of big crunchy guitars and solid snappy drumming. The formerly pep squad-y vocals now come across a bit snarky and world weary with a maturity and composure that recalls Blondie, Throwing Muses or more recently the Canadian band Metric. Electrified, indeed!
Y'know, we've never ever listed this Earth album before. It's the last one they recorded for Sub Pop, back in 1996, and until pretty recently seemed likely to be this seminal sludge-drone band's swansong. One that wasn't even all that well-regarded at the time when it came out, either. (Not that any of Earth's albums were all that popular back in the day -- they're definitely much more appreciated now!) And so perhaps it's time to re-evaluate Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons.
Especially since we just sold a ton of the recent Earth remixes album on both cd and vinyl, and chances are a few of you'll also want/need this, seeing as how one of those remixes (Autechre's) was of a song from this here record. Silly to have the remix but not the original, eh? Plus we figure a lot of you Earth fans might have overlooked this one, or simply thought it was out of print or something.
Back in '96, Pentastar was kinda regarded as Earth's "sell-out" album, the one where Earth mainman Dylan Carlson got himself a real band and attempted to make some honest to goodness rock n' roll music, with, y'know, vocals and melodies and songs and everything. They even do a Hendrix cover! But of course being Earth this was still (kinda) super heavy and (mostly) droned-out. Let's take a closer look, track-by-track...
"Introduction" certainly sounds like Earth of olde, a doomful commencement to the proceedings that could just as easily be the work of Boris. But then track two, "High Command", is more like some sort of slowed-down psych-grunge with the haunted by the ghosts of the Velvet Underground. A real nod scene, sure, but not exactly the Earth we knew and loved. Listening to it now, though, it's not bad at all. Sounds a bit like Steel Pole Bathtub. Then there's "Crooked Axis For String Quartet" that takes us into spaced-out krautrock territory... not heavy, but nice! The blown-out rumble of "Tallahassee" returns us to the realm of heaviness but again rocks more than Earth is or was "supposed" to. That's then followed by the rather lovely interlude of "Charioteer (Temple Song)", before the heavy Hendrix worship of Earth's take on Jimi's "Peace In Mississippi" stomps into view. Seems pretty cool now. The experimental side of Earth then surfaces with a seven-minute minimalist piece for *piano* entitled "Sonar And Depth Charge". The many moods of Dylan Carlson, eh? Lastly, the album closes with the epic instrumental "Coda Maestoso In F (flat) Minor" that finds what we might term Earth-y riffage (same as the "Introduction") graced with an honest-to-God heavy metal style melodic guitar solo!!
We can understand how some folks (some of us!) were disappointed when this album first came out. The extremity of old Earth was tamed. A lot of this was at least twice as fast and/or half as heavy as we'd expected (or wanted) from them. But giving it another chance and taking it on its own terms, this is a fine album of stoner rock indeed, sounding not unliked AQ faves Los Natas at times. Or the "heavy rocks" side of Boris. Or the Melvins, who of course have made fucking with their fans expectations a big part of their career. And if we'd heard this *before* hearing Earth's previous albums, we'd probably have loved it right away! Indeed, if you got into this album first (as assuredly some folks did) and then went back to Earth 2 or Extra-Capsular Extraction, whew! that would be a interesting/confounding experience.
We're now convinced that the underrated Pentastar does indeed proudly belong in any Earth fan's collection! ...Now someone needs to start a letter writing campaign to get Sub Pop to bring Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions back into print (from which three of that remix album's tracks were taken)!
Don't be fooled by the title. That's these two French experimentalists' tongue-in-cheek joke about the roots of their highly abstract, tape-manipulated guitar music/noise. Being the first installment of the A Brut Secret label's new "Blue Series", this is an electro-acoustic improv take on the blues, umm supposedly. But we seriously doubt that Martin Scorcese would recognize the sporadic silence, distortion, drone, clicks, and mosquito buzz found here as "The Blues"! Sounds more like Kevin Drumm than Blind Willie Johnson, that's for sure. So if my name's not Martin Scorcese, will I like this? Maybe, if glitched-out drone (some of it gorgeous) and grating noise are your cup of moonshine, 'cause you've got to imbibe a lot of that to convince yerself that you're also hearing fragmented, buried 'wooden guitar' Delta blues licks. What exactly is going on here? Well the liner notes are in French. But we think the deal is that Fabrice Eglin (whom we last heard guesting on Kan Mikami's Bachi by the way) improvises on electric and acoustic guitars while partner Jermome Noetinger processes his playing via contact mics, a Walkman, and an old Revox tape machine. So the electronic effects here seem appropriately dusty and old-timey. But this should definitely get filed closer to avant-guitarists like Drumm, Tetuzi Akiyama, Keith Rowe and Annette Krebs in your cd collection, rather than with yr Yazoo comps!
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Here's a straggler that was meant to come out with the last batch of Eno reissues, but was pulled due to a manufacturing defect (is there some rule that at least one Eno disc in each series must have a defect?). More Music For Films stands out amongst the other Eno reissues in that, as an album, it's a previously unreleased one. Let's qualify that statement: More Music For Films contains two albums, one rare and the other rarer, from the early eighties. 11 of the tracks come from Music For Films 2 which was included as a bonus LP to the Working Backwards box set that was released in 1983. The other tracks are culled from a promo-only sampler (only 500 copies printed) which had been sent to a "select group of film directors". Much of the material on More Music For Films comes from the same recording sessions as Music For Films and the album as a whole fits neatly at its side as a companion record. The songs contained herein are all instrumentals, with a variety of moods suitable for use in just about any film.
Ahh, the German sense of humor. Once, while flying somewhere, my German neighbor told me a "German joke"... it turned out to be in actuality a philosophical puzzle, and not very funny. For some reason, German jokes and joking around has this heavy sillyness that I love. It's never actually all that "funny" per se, but so so endearing!
That said, this Faust dvd opens with some 8mm footage from the 70s. The band is in their hometown of Wumme, Germany and approached by a giant panda bear who read about the band in a newspaper while tanning on the beach. It's a very strange, probably very stoned interaction set to a Faust song. Not that funny really, but totally endearing. Cause it's Faust! One of the most abstract of core Krautrock bands.
But then that's it!!! I mean, as far as actual visual documentation from the band during the 1970s. The remaining classic Faust tracks on here are set to horrendous, freshman-year-art-student video collage made recently by Faust's Zappi Diermaier as interpretations of the songs' original themes. Every track and "film" is a nauseating combination and so incredibly confusing to us. Even more puzling is why Zappi decided to add additional accompaniment to some of the audio tracks.
Man. As extremely devout Faust fans, we have to say, "WTF?!" Is there no other footage of the band -- either playing concerts, or interviews, or any photos, or then even commentary?
There's also an audio cd included that has no Faust songs, but new tracks by Zappi that are from a dvd of his solo stuff coming out in the future. Writing all this down is making us feel like we need to cry or something. Wish there was more FAUST to SEE. We don't know what Zappi was thinking. Sure do hope that all the feedback (like this) from fans will inspire the band to get something together for an actual document-worthy dvd at some point in the future.
That little nugget of Faust and the polar bear, boy. That's something special. Can't imagine what we'd do with a whole dvd full of that sorta stuff! Meanwhile, all we can do is keep on sitting around listening to Faust IV over and over again.
Cult...Russian...black...metal. That's the real raw, primitive, Darkthroned stuff y'know. For/by persons who really *believe*. Forest you may recall is the black metal band whose mastery of the fuzz-filled Norse black metal style and weird forest-dark ambient atmospheres have caused us to draw comparisons to such strange bedfellows as Burzum and Avarus. Ok, mostly they're along the lines of Mayhem or Burzum (not a bad thing) but sometimes they'll venture into areas that sound more like the Swans or a Jewelled Antler band or something, more folky or droney than expected.
Their second album Like A Blaze Above The Ashes (released on cassette circa 1997, and on cd only recently) falls chronologically between their 1996 self-titled recording and 1998's Foredooming The Hope For Eternity that we reviewed a few lists back. And like those discs it provides both blasting buzzing attacks and more atmospheric vistas. The centerpiece to this four song, 44'33" album is the nearly 17 minute epic of distortion and majesty, "To The Fiercest Frost". But we're also much taken with album closer "Obscurity", a wordlessly chanted Viking lament that trudges for twelve minutes through a misty vale of near-acoustic melody and sadness.
Hey all you Explosions In The Sky fans!! Listing this 'cause it's in danger of being overlooked... Here's an album worthy of being simply an EITS release, not just a soundtrack for a movie (the packaging of which fails to offer them obvious credit even though it's their work). Just know that this is a little more filmic than their regular releases, and appropriately so. Very lovely indeed!
Heads up people! It's a surging candy-coated fountain of perky, ultra funky euro pop sweeping up everyone in its path! When Cup played it the other day, she had three customers ask about it in quick succession. Pretty darn irresistible, The Go! Team cook up lots of hyper-energetic, ass-slappin', toe-shakin' party jams! Sorta like a bubbly, brightly-hued blend of Bis and Stereototal.
Whoa, nuthugger! Does this quench (or clench) your supergroup craving? Hella's Zach Hill, former Marilyn Manson guitarist Twiggy Ramirez and Chris Goss of Masters Of Reality. Strange bedfellows, indeed! Not surprisingly this total mish mash of musical personalities have made a total mish-mash musical stew that doesn't really resemble any of their other bands' stuff... well, maybe Hella a wee bit! Pretty hard to put into words. Give 'er a spin and see for yourself!
Wow! We were never too taken with this Swedish stoner rock band before, really. Their first two albums were decent stoner rock, definitely heavy, but kinda generic and not that inspiring or inspired. Their 2nd album merited only a 2-sentence review from us. But this, album number three, we have to rhapsodize on about... We always recognized that they had potential. And now it's been realized. Oddly enough, by means of shedding their "stoner rock" identity somewhat and being reborn as a full on, leather-and-spikes *heavy metal* band! Actually, when we first got this, we thought they'd just jumped on the retro-metal bandwagon. And maybe they have. But it turns out that they maybe belong in the driver's seat of that bandwagon. Combining the epic doom of Candlemass with even more vicious headbanging fare, this is damn good -- nice n' heavy, and with some frickin' great *songs*. Guitarist/vocalist JB (also in the Spiritual Beggars) kicks ass on here, showing more personality than before. Is that what happens when you stop smoking pot? Well we don't know what came over these guys, actually, but whatever it is, we approve. Wolf's Return? If they weren't wolves before, now they sure are.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We unfortunately only -just- found out about this record and were of course informed upon ordering it there were only a handful of copies left. Arghh. Well, we managed to get the last 25 copies, so be aware, that obviously, these will not last long!
A super limited live cd (NOT a cd-r as we previously believed) from AQ faves Growing, whose mix of glacial Earth like heaviness and delicate foresty drones we just can't get enough of. Recorded live in 2004 and mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, Phantomsmasher, etc.), this live disc is almost eighty minutes of alternating drift and pummel, sludgy slow motion dirges that crystallize into sparkling sonic fields of glisten and glimmer. Even when they're heavy, Growing manage to be delicate and ethereal. The first track is a massive twenty minute swirl of translucent shimmers and warm guitar glow. Fragile and hovering weightless in front of your speakers.
While Growing continually return to that near-ambient tranquility, the record is a series of meandering excursions into MASSIVE slow motion, melted-riff soundscapes, notes and chords unfurl impossibly slowly, as if someone had doubled the gravity and the sound waves were actually visible, drizzling lazily to the floor like molasses or honey, rich golden globs of thick distorted throb. Like Earth and Skullflower meshed into one buzzing blurry soundfield, all muted melody and crunchy riffage, a pulsing swirl of feedback and guitarral grrrr! The sound is phenomenal. Rich and lustrous and LOUD. You wouldn't be able to tell this was a live recording at all if it weren't for the smattering of applause between songs. Which also begs the question, what the hell is wrong with the world when a sound this amazing, and a set this gorgeous and crushingly heavy is being performed before what sounds to be about 20 people? Seriously, when the sound abruptly ends, you expect an overwhelming roar, thousands of voices and clapping hands and stomping feet, the only possible and proper reaction to the sounds that came before...
Packaged in a beautiful six panel folder, a kaleidoscope of leaves on a stark white background on the outside, a blur of overlapping semi-opaque spheres on the inside. Two different designs, both similar but slightly different.
And once again, VERY VERY LIMITED!!
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Oh boy! This is another one of those releases that pushes all of our overwhelming music obsessive buttons, like the Conet Project, The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv 1900-2000 box, the Yahowa 13cd box, the 50 cd Merzbox, the Ayler Holy Ghost box...
Compiled and produced by Gert-Jan Blom of the Beau Hunks, Harmonic Development brings to light the long lost harmonium performances of the fascinating Georg Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949) whom some of you will know much better as a thinker and philosopher than a musician. This release consists of a beautifully designed 140 page softbound book filled with tons of photos and historical and personal minutae, accompanied by two compact discs of music in a digipack AND an additional disc of mp3's (that brings the total amount of music to over 19 hours!!) as well as a cool MPEG video of Gurdjieff home movies. Holy crap! So first, who was G.I. Gurdjieff? Well, the simple version is that Gurdjieff was an early twentieth century Russian mystic (and retired hypnotist), who drew inspiration from Sufism, and was fascinated with music. Gurdjieff had composed for piano for some years, but late in life he acquired first a wire recorder, and then a tape recorder, to document his improvisations (his "moosic") on the harmonium, a sort of pump organ, that produces a sound that is rich and full, a sort of lush, wheezing melodious moan, haunting and otherworldly. This collection gathers up recordings from the forties, from the last few years of Gurdjieff's life, and feature loads of intimate performances, several talks, and lots of ambient chit chat. It seems that Gurdjieff would perform a piece, slow and sad and gorgeously dreamy, enveloping all of his listeners in the mood, and when he was finished, he would then crack jokes and make small talk. Many of these performances feature this strange juxtaposition of almost religious intensity, and breezy lighthearted banter, which was somehow another part of his unique world view. We've yet to delve completely into the book, but even on their own, the discs are wonderful and completely mesmerizing, offering up hours of droney, mysterious harmonium music, but all sorts of ambient sounds and snippets of conversations as well, giving these recordings almost the same sort of vibe as the Conet Project, a distant dark mystery, as if these sounds were pulled from the ether, captured from another world and another time. At once recognizable, but at the same time totally alien.
And as you enjoy the hours of recordings, you can peruse the book which contains a preface by Robert Fripp, information on the unearthing and restoration of the recordings, track notes, transcriptions of the talks, as well as recollections of Gurdjieff's final year from a host of friends and students, among them the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright.
1996 was a particularly quiet year for the Hafler Trio; whereas in this day and age some nine years later, there's a major Hafler Trio release coming out almost every month or so. While the man behind the Hafler Trio -- Andrew M. McKenzie -- might like you to believe this or that about his slow down in activity during the mid '90s, his paucity of recordings was simply due to the fact that his job at the time kept from his art. How pleasantly mundane of the Gnostic sound sorcerer! Nonetheless, McKenzie did release Utterances of the Supreme Ventriloquist as a very expensive LP edition through Soleilmoon. While it doesn't belong to any of the great triologies (Kill The King / Mastery of Money / How To Reform Mankind) or serial works (The Golden Hammer series), this album fluidly introduces many of the pristine compositions of electric minimalism that grace his recent outpouring of work (How To Slice A Loaf of Bread, etc.), but also enjoys many of the discordant, psychoactive jolts and flourishes of those aforementioned earlier works. Glossalaliac ripples of feedback, terse repetitions of mechanoid rhythms, and immaculate drones meander through a whole host of psychologically tinged soundfields from frightening to holy to meditative to menacing. Beautifully packaged in the same style as the reissues found on Korm Plastics. And again, we cannot offer any MP3s for you to sample per the wishes of the Hafler Trio.
On first glance you'd definitely be forgiven for thinking this was a reissue of some lost sound library recordings. The cover looks properly sixties, and the layout and song titles definitely look like those thrift store records you always dream about finding. And throwing it on doesn't do much to dissuade you from that notion, loungy exotica, shuffling jazzy bossa nova, bleeping bloopy space-y interludes, weirdly antiquated lo-fi synth funk, dreamy elevator music, ominous spy movie music, all with shimmering zithers, warm fuzzed out organs, and all the other perfectly sixties sounds you'd expect. Which is a pretty mean feat considering Harmonic 33 is all the work of one man, hip hop producer Mark Pritchard, who recorded all this just last year! Occasionally there will be some subtle studio trickery, that hints at the record's more modern genesis, but in the context of the whole disc, it just makes it sound extra weird and extra cool. We had actually listened to this record over and over for weeks, totally digging it, all the while thinking it was indeed some sixties reissue, and we were pretty amazed to find out it wasn't. Not sure how hip hop headz will react to this, as it's pretty straight up, no extra funky beats, or superfluous scratching, but fans of cocktail jazz exotica and found sounds and weird sixties lps, will definitely dig this, and can decide for themselves if they too would have fallen for it had we not spilled the beans. Falling for it or not, this is just an awesome slab of spaced out, funky, jazzy, groovy, lounge-y exotica! Dig it!
Mr. Nobody, the same label that re-issued the Frank Comstock CD we wrote about a couple lists ago, brings us yet another classic of space-age bachelor pad music. In contrast to Comstock's orchestral film score approach, Haskell's record -- originally released in 1959 -- is a rock and roll visit to outerspace. Take your standard 1950's boogie woogie, throw a ton of echo, reverb, theremin and other strange sounds at it and you have Jimmie Haskell. Pre-dating Joe Meek's I Hear A New World by just one year, it's hard to believe the two didn't have a late night brainstorming session together. The two share a similar production aesthetic -- double speed vocals, extreme EQ-ing & compression -- and an off-kilter melodic sensibility. Where this recording and Meek's opus diverge is that Count Down is presented in Hi-Fi monophonic sound. There was a stereo mixed version printed as well, but the authorities at Mr. Nobody insist that the mono mix is far superior... so there. Like the Comstock release, the original artwork is included on Count Down, with repros of both the front and back covers and an image -- maybe taken from an inner sleeve insert? -- of a calendar spread from 1955 with an image of a naked woman in a space helmet with a ray gun (and some even more randy comic art).
Another slab of Danish (!) black metal from the Total Holocaust label (see Angantyr elsewhere on this list!), who in the past have brought us loads of essential black metal from Xasthur, Blodulv, Nortt and more. This is yet another Total Holocaust disc we've been meaning to get around to reviewing, but due to THR's insanely relentless release schedule and our always increasing backlog of reviews to be written, we're only now getting around to it. Which is unfortunate because A. it's pretty fucking great, and B. like many way-too-limited black metal releases, the Holmgang is already out of print. But we still wanted to give some of our virtual customers a crack at picking one of these up and maybe remind some of you locals that this spike-y blackened slab of brutality was here for the grabbing! But not for long! Holmgang are modern masters of grim thrashing buzzing black metal, channelling the sound of Darkthrone, Bathory and early Immortal into a sick stew of galloping thrashing old school black metal. Lots of buzzing mosquito melodies, lightning speed riffing, wildly galloping drumming, runes, moonlit ravens, head banging, windmilling hair, chain mail and spiked armbands!
Hrsta is the project of Godspeed You Black Emperor co-founding member Mike Moya (also of Set Fire To Flames and Molasses). he's assembled a full band for this, the follow-up to his first solo album L'Eclat Du Ciel Etait Insoutenable, and it's a beauty. The first song draws back the heavy curtain on a darkened stage with a droning chorus of shadowy faceless chanted vocals which immediately drew comparisons to the Italian ensemble Larsen's fine album Rever which was an AQ Record Of The Week a couple of years ago. In fact, we'd venture a guess that much like that mysterious group, Hrsta also draw deep inspiration from Swans and Michael Gira. Weighted by an immense emotional gravity, Moya's music is a heady, hypnotic force -- half dream, half nightmare. Recommended!
Invocations of Surrealism have come to reflect a Frank Zappa or Dr. Bizarro form of 'weird,' with little understanding and even less appreciation for the truly revolutionary nature of the Surrealism that dominated avant-garde culture in the early 20th Century. Fortunately, a few sound artists have truly succeeded in manifesting the spirit of Surrealism in their work. The most obvious being Nurse With Wound in keeping true to the Surrealists bawdy appropriation of Victorian aesthetics in exploring unsettling horrors; and to a lesser extent, there's the Hafler Trio who took the intense interrogrations of Surrealism to a gnostic conclusion. Somewhere in between these two giants of sound art is the work of Irr.App.(ext). For the past eight or nine years, Irr.App.(ext) has been toiling in obscurity, and producing a body of work that easily rivals his more well known compatriots.
Some of you may remember a stunning art exhibit here at Aquarius records back in the early spring of 2003 with all sorts of obtuse collages, exquisitely rendered nightmarish drawings, and shadow boxes loaded with peculiar juxtapostions and mixed messages. That was the work of Matt Waldron, who also happens to be the man behind the musical project Irr.App.(Ext) along with a couple of likeminded delinquents. Unfortunately, Matt has had a ridiculous spell of bad luck with labels folding before releasing his work, or not being able to find the funding, or just being jerks. His luck has finally changed with the release of Dust Pincher Appliances, which in turn reissues a very early 10" originally released on Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson's Something Weird label back in 1995. Waldron has extended the original recordings with those of a follow-up 10" which was never actually released.
Though some eight years old, the recordings on Dust Pincher Appliances are still stunning. The album unfolds as an ever changing drama of Surreal events, evolving through time to reveal startling revelations, disquieting progressions, and atypical juxtapositions of sound. Eerie drones and atmospheres dominate the majority of the album, haunted by distant voices bathed in reverb or unrecognizable events that scurry malevolently like tiny monsters or robotic insects. Carnivalesque episodes often interrupt the proceedings with cackling sound effects, brash trumpet blurts, and toy piano discord.
Dust Pincher Appliances is a marvelous album and should be the harbinger of a wonderful catalog that the world needs to embrace.
This is volume three in My Cat Is An Alien's series of split lp's/cd's. The lps are limited to 100 copies and contain original MCIAA artwork, but sell out immediately and more importantly cost over $100 so we wisely passed on those since the cds are way more nicely priced. And sound exactly the same! For volume three, MCIAA is joined by Jackie-O Motherfucker, who offer up a twenty minute musical joyride, equal parts tribal clatter, vocal experimentation, music concrete, skittery free jazz, ambient drone, studio fuckery / tape splicing / turntable weirdness and found sound collage. Sounds like it could be a mess, but it somehow works. A chaotic convoluted sonic freakout that's more mesmerizing than maddening. Quite cool actually. For their half of the split, MCIAA deliver a keening wash of glistening ambience, with lots of space-y swoosh and futuristic bleeps and bloops, that slowly morphs into an almost nursery rhyme like ditty with affected vocal melodies, simple chimes, and reverberating steel string shimmer.
Man, this is one of those records that just makes you feel dirty. We explained all this in a previous review, but it probably bears repeating. Initially we thought this band was called Kill WHITEY Dead. Pretty cool name. The we discovered that in fact the band was called Kill WHITNEY Dead. Whitney? Huh? Not so cool. Until we realized that the whole record was just a massive vitriolic hate letter from the band to a despised ex-lover. Who we shall call Whitney. Then it made a lot more sense, and was way more creepy and intense. Hateful (but funny) song titles, punishing, ultra heavy, grinding metalcore, but the key to KWD's sound is their use of samples. There are plenty of vocals, howled gutteral death metal growls, but the message is in the choice of samples. And KWD don't just use samples here and there. No, samples are in and around EVERY song. Every break, or stop start riff (and there are tons) is filled with some sample, from some movie, invariably a terrified woman, or an angry angry man. Quite fucked up and intense. But the samples are perfect, as if instead of two vocalists, they have one live vocalist and one sampled vocalist. Hundreds of samples from movies like Apocalypse Now, The Ring, Murder By Numbers, Alien 3, Magnolia, Full Metal Jacket, Wet Hot American Summer, The Abyss, Point Break, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Punch Drunk Love, Planet Of The Apes, Robocop, European Vacation, To Live And Die In L.A., American Psycho, Legend, Rushmore, Red Dawn and tons more. The insane thing is they got permission for ALL of them. Crazy, So what we've got here is possibly one of the heaviest, meanest, most fucked up and certainly most sample heavy grind metal records in a long long while.
For a short while, So Pretty So Plastic also includes a bonus remix disc. I know, we're just as sick of remix discs as you, but this one is different. And totally brilliant. The remix disc is essentially the EXACT same record. No wait, not even essentially, it IS the same record, the only difference being that ALL OF THE SAMPLES ARE DIFFERENT! So fucking nuts, Same places, same lengths, but completely different samples. Wow! We already thought these guys were movie nerd / tech geeks before, but the bonus disc really seals the deal! Plus the bonus disc is packaged perfectly to look like a KMFDM record, only the band is called KWDMF (Killwhitneydead motherfucker?)!
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...
"60s Italian Cinematic Science Fiction Classic Freaky Sounds" is the subtitle here, truly. Never heard of Angelo Lavagnino or his sci-fi Gamma 1 Quadrilogy before but now we'd love to see these four made-for-TV films, from circa '66-'67: I Diafanoidi Vengono Da Marte (which, the liner notes inform us, is referenced in an Allen Ginsburg poem, believe it or not!), I Criminali Della Galassi, Il Pianeta Errante, and La Morte Viene Dal Pianete Aytin. Films which were known in English, respectively, as War Of The Planets, Wild Wild Planet, War Between The Planets, and Snow Devils -- which, while not literal translations of the Italian titles, should still give you an idea of what sort of action must have been unfolding on the screen. Space operas and alien invasions, that sort of thing, super dramatic and colorful. Of the 31 tracks, almost 70 minutes here, there's a few cuts in the groovy "Easy Tempo" style, but mostly a lot of atmospheric, spooky tracks evoking bug-eyed sci-fi menace. Very cool indeed. Italian soundtracks from the '60s, that's rich ore to mine... and this collection represents a particularily good find.
Finnophile alert!!! Yet another amazing post-Circle / Circle related project!! What the hell?!? Do those guys ever sleep? And if they do, have they figured out some way to record in their sleep? But who's complaining? Certainly not us. This time around, it's two Finns and one -American- doing the hypno-rock drone damage. Janne Peltomaki, former Circle drummer, current drummer for Paine and the recently reviewed Stalwart, Jyrki Laiho current guitar player for Circle and Stalwart, and Jordan Mamone, guitarist for NY artrockers Alger Hiss. While Circle continually flirt with metal, guitars always getting a little heavier, vocals that veer into serious Rob Halford territory, and of course the increasingly metallic imagery, it's this here Lee Miller outift that has finally pulled out the metal stops. Not that this is a "metal" record. It's just undeniably heavy, big jagged distorted guitars, pounding rhythms, and strange growling baritone vocals. In fact it has a bit of an industrial edge to it as well, with plenty of teutonic ponding a la Swans, Copshootcop, or fellow Finns Worms. Occasionally things do simmer down, and the result is a much more Circular sound, but a bit less krautrocky and more arty and angular, due in no small part we imagine to the presence of Mamone. But Lee Miller is all about that crush and pummel, and The Futility Of Language pounds that point home. Dark and distorted, heavy and hypnotic! This will definitely please Circle fans who have been digging their gradual shift into heavier territory, and just might tempt some metalheads into the vast and wondrous land of glorious hypnorock!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
These warnings are beginning to sound like mantras: THIS IS VERY LIMITED. THIS WILL MOST LIKELY ALREADY BE OUT OF PRINT BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS. WE GOT THE LAST 50 COPIES AND WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET MORE!! LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED!!! But like all good mantras, it pays to heed the sage advice contained within, and in this case the advice would be pick one of these up quick like before they're gone for good. A Silhouette In Splinters is the long in the works "ambient" record from Leviathan, released on Canadian label Profound Lore, lp only, pressed on thick red vinyl and as you may have surmised EXTREMELY LIMITED. Part of what makes Leviathan records so powerful and mesmerizing is Wrest's mastery of mood and ambience, so here he gets to explore an entire album of bleak and depressive atmospheres. But this is not pure ambient music, its ambience is only obvious when compared to the dense complex sound world of other Leviathan releases. This is not static ambience, not in the least, these are actual songs, not just creepy swooshings and simple drones. Silhouette is like an entire record made up of the best black metal intros ever, but here, each one is fleshed out into actual musical narratives. Skeletal guitar figures, drift and shimmer darkly over ominous swells of mournful minor key lament. What little percussion there is, hovers ghostlike beneath a wash of blackened swirl. The entire record is wrapped in a foggy cloak of starlit skies and murky underground passages. A haunting soundtrack to misery and horror, death and dying.
