Polyvinyl offers up a 21 minute ep from new signings 31 Knots of Portland, OR. We were already fans of these guys after getting hip to them via their second album It Was High Time To Escape a couple of years ago. They haven't messed much with their prog-infused, hooky indie-pop formula with these new songs (thankfully!). Marked by the strong, emotive, confident voice of guitarist Joe Haege (not to mention his accomplished guitar playing and effective deployment on piano as well) and the powerful, precise rhythm section of Jay Pellicci on drums and Jay Winebrenner on bass, these four songs (and one shorter instrumental interlude of sampled strings/electronic loops/glitchy noises) are big and bold when they need to be, complex and textured too. Melody lines swoop about within song structures that are well fitted with stops and starts and sudden dynamic changes, that should appeal to fans of everybody from OK Computer era Radiohead to Deerhoof (whose Greg Saunier helped mix and master this ep) to Blonde Redhead to Shudder To Think to The Mars Volta -- though the well-written, compelling compositions of 31 Knots are, for our money, a better application of prog to indie rock than the sometimes overcooked brand practised by the latter. Our only complaint here is that it's just an ep! But there's a new full-length on the horizon, so that's cool.
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...
Another AQ list, another Acid Mothers Temple. We've certainly said that before, and I'm sure we'll say it again! Along with the usual, "and hey, for a band that puts out an album every fortnight or so, they haven't let us down yet!" comment. A view that Just Another Band From The Cosmic Inferno does not dispel, so long as you're into the Electric Heavyland side of their output. Yep, this one's been billed as kind of a Comets On Fire styled blow-out, a distortion-filled freak fest of rock n' roll mayhem. And so it is, in the Electric Heavyland vein for sure. Two long songs (an exhausting/ecstatic 20 minutes followed by a grueling/godlike 44 minutes) full of riffing and leads and spacey effects and the pounding efforts of not one but two drummers! Fairly indulgent but that's what these guys are all about. And as some kind of nod to how many releases they have, this one comes wrapped in Stephen O'Malley graphics by the way, something that they amazingly enough haven't done before, even though the immediate effect of his design, since it's so striking and ubiquitous, is to make you think you've seen the disc already!
By the way, the sticker on the front of this proclaims that this is the *debut* album from a brand NEW band. 'Cause it's AMT & The Cosmic Inferno, rather than the previous "& The Melting Paraiso UFO". You noticed that, right? And the line-up is different too, featuring new members Tabata Mitsuru (Zeni Geva, Boredoms, Leningrad Blues Machine), Shimura Koji (Miminokoto, High Rise, Mainliner, White Heaven) and Okano Futoshi (Subvert Blaze, Ghost, Cosmic Invention) alongside AMT stalwarts "dancin' king" Higashi Hiroshi and "speed guru" Kawabata Makoto...which means Atsushi Tsuyama is gone, but you'll find him still playing with Kawabata in the Acid Mothers Temple SWR band. With their many combined years of experience playing crazy psychedelic rock music, all these new AMT recruits certainly had no difficulty at all in generating the Cosmic Inferno of sound heard here. Probably could do it in their sleep, not that you could sleep through this, played properly loud!
And of course, the Ektro-released Anthem Of The Space cd on the last AQ list was also from this new AMT & The Cosmic Inferno band, even if this is being billed as their debut. If we had to choose between the two (which true AMT fans would never do), we'd go with the (unfortunately out of stock at the moment tho!) Anthem one 'cause it's just the weighter of the two, gaining in effect from the length of its tracks and the repetition of its riffs where this one seems more like something we've heard before from Kawabata & Co., them just playing 'til the tape runs out 'cause they can. Not that most AMT fans would want to stop 'em sooner!
Very quiet electronic wisps, distant rumblings, and hushed drones mark the beginning of the second collaboration between Autechre and The Hafler Trio. Again, The Hafler Trio's Andrew McKenzie houses his work in a beautiful, if fragile folio, much like his previous releases on Phonometrography, whom McKenzie has inexplicably ceased doing business with. Why you might ask? Has he ever needed a reason for his actions? At least, Autechre has remained on good terms with McKenzie enough to complete this twin set of recordings. After almost 16 minutes of shrouded-in-secrecy wash and whir, a short segment of randomly splattered fizzing electro-static gives evidence to one of the few sounds on either compilation that clearly hints at Autechre's signature sound, harkening to their most recent recordings Confield and Draft 7.30, but without any of Autechre's already dwindling appreciation for rhythm. In other words, you'd certainly be excused for thinking this a Mego release of laptop noise. The clicks and cuts gradually dissolve across a sea of low end acousmatic rumblings and stretches of inactivity, bringing disc one to a close. The second disc features a considerable increase in audibility, as dense reverberating swells of electric sound (e.g. h3o's Exactly As I Say) snaps to an equally beautiful passage of post-Ligetti electronic chorale music. If you're a fan of the Hafler Trio, it almost goes without saying that you'll want to pick this up; but it must be said that if you're looking for more in the way of Autechre, you won't find much of it here. As with all Hafler Trio releases, no sound samples can be made available.
A Band Of Bees have totally captured those psychedelic pop sounds of the 60's in all their full technicolor glory (think: Kinks, Byrds, Small Faces), but combined them with the ballsier guitar sounds of the 70's, and some old Stax-y soul grooves (think: Temptations, Bar-Kays, Booker T And The MGs) too! The band deftly brings together a broad array of sounds and influences from the past. They recreate them with startling accuracy and present them with a fresh enthusiasm. The results? A super feel good, all-weather album!
This is the first time this particular Bevis Frond album (originally released in 1992) has ever been released here in the USA, and yes, it was well worth the thirteen year wait! It comes packed with a half dozen bonus goodies making this cd a probably must-have for fans who already have the import.
Following an introductory traditional number "Stonedance", the band wastes no time, launching right into what might be the album's best song "Coming Round" (a fuzzy indie pop tune that clearly comes from the same songwriting pen that wrote the Mary Lou Lord-sung gem "Lights Are Changin'"). But mainman Nick Saloman is a multi-faceted fellow, and it's made more than apparent on London Stone. Through most of the middle songs he unfurls his serious blues and psychedelic rock guitar chops, only taking a brief breather later in the album for the soft folk number "Lord Of Nothing" and another punchy indie rock tune "And Now She's Gone".
Now, but not for long, on (limited, expensive) vinyl!
Sir Richard Bishop, also known as Rick Bishop of the Sun City Girls, offers up Improvika, the second entry in Locust's Wooden Guitars series, after the compilation of that same name on which he also featured, alongside Tetuzi Akiyama, Jack Rose, and Steffen Basho-Junghans. It's also his second solo record -- his now out-of-print first one, Salvador Kali, was released a few years back on the Revenant, a label begun by the spiritual forefather of the Wooden Guitar concept, John Fahey (R.I.P.). So, as you might already guess, unaccompanied steel string acoustic guitar sketches in the Fahey-established "American Primitive" style are the haps here, with more than a few references to the wide variety of 'world musics' that the Sun City Girls like to celebrate and subvert. Bishop's playing is both impressive and evocative, and anyone caught up in the current craze for Faheyesque guitar solos (and why wouldn't you be?) ought to enjoy Sir Rick's sublime efforts here.
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the Japanese cd version. comes in a chipboard diecut sleeve and is NOT limited. In the next week or so we will be getting the vinyl version, which comes with a dozen 12x12 photo prints and IS limited. Only 500 were made and we're getting about a fifth of those, but as with all things Boris they will not last long. So if you want one, best to preorder it now. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd now (lp when we get them) and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
This is a vinyl reissue of a rare-ass 1975 private press LP from Baltimore that anyone who digs, say, Michael Yonkers should perk up their ears at. It's that sort of outsider psych obscurity. Guitarist/vocalist George Brigman, a teenager at the time we're pretty sure, was definitely into such underground (back then) influences as The Stooges and the Velvet Underground. This record consists of fierce, fuzz-fueled punk rockers, lo-fi blues, and VU-inspired melancholia -- a downer vibe typified by such songs as "It's Misery", "Worrying", and "I'm Married Too". There's more of the latter so don't get the idea that this is Raw Power part II or anything. But the Stooges moments, like the killer title track, ARE super Stoogey. So imagine an unholy, amateur, low-budget blend of Iggy, Lou Reed, and some Nick Drake too. Sounds good don't it? It is pretty great. Very soon a cd reissue on the Bona Fide label should also be arriving in our shop, but for the vinyl-enabled among you, Anopheles has the goods right now, on clear vinyl, mastered from the original tapes.
WOW. And do we mean WOW!! Fifteen classic free jazz records from the late sixties / early seventies, long out of print, finally getting the ULTRA deluxe reissue treatment. For some reason these are incredibly limited, so these have been a bit tough to get, so we're going to list a few at a time as we can get them. First up is After Love, originally released in 1970 by pianist Dave Burrell. Accompanied by Roscoe Mitchell on reeds, Alan Silva on cello and violin, Ron Miller on double bass and viola, Michel Gladieux on double bass and Bertrand Gauthier and Don Moye on drums. The opening track is a massive twenty two minute psychedelic free-jazz freak out. Super rhythmic, amd tribal, clattery and confusional, wild skronking horns and skittery percussion, pizzicato strings and rubbery bass and slippery string scrapes. Track two mellows out a bit into some smooth and sultry piano, and some creaking droning horns. The final twenty minute track starts off with gorgeous solo piano, languid and melodic, before the whole thing slips into some more traditional bop, but flecked with plenty of free-isms, eventually getting more and more dense and beautifully tangled. Comes in a gorgoeus diecut fullcover three panel sleeve, with new artwork, as well as a huge booklet of liner notes with the original album liner notes, new liner notes in french and english as well as a bunch of cool photos. So nice!
Everything you ever wanted to know about Billy Childish? Perhaps. With no filmmaking experience but a desire to document the life of the enigmatic, emphatically non-commercial artist, Graham Bendel was granted access to a few months of Childish's day to day life to gather footage for his film "Billy Childish Is Dead" subtitled "a fascinating insight into the world of Billy Childish -- painter, musician, poet and writer". And indeed, it is! Fans of Childish will surely find much that pushes their intrigue and interest buttons. He candidly chats about a plethora of topics including (but not at all limited to) his childhood and his artistic pursuits. On the music side of things, there's plenty of footage and discussion about all of his garage rock bands Thee Headcoats, Thee Mighty Caesars, Thee Milkshakes, and The Buff Medways as well as interviews with his musical chums Holly Golightly and Shane MacGowan. There's also a good deal presented on his incredible body of writings and paintings. Contrary to the title (which Childish came up with himself), this documentary reveals the gent to be very much alive and his work to be as vital as ever.
Clayton Noone, aka CJA, has a long and varied history in the New Zealand underground free-rock scene. He's been making an unholy racket for years, is also one half of Armpit as well as a member of avant new wavers the Futurians. But Ironclad, a reissue of a long out of print cd-r, is probably his prettiest, and quietest record. And probably our favorite! A stumbling, shambling, purposefully strummed, sun dappled, reverb soaked, warbly voiced slab of simple and simply lovely bedroom folk. The guitars quiver and waver, barely in tune, creating shimmery folk rock frameworks, which in turn support subtle distant melodies, occasional flanged electric guitar, slurred emotional vocals, all hushed and mournful, dreamy and minimal. Notes climb warily from the strings and assemble themselves into repetitive figures, pulsing and drifting tentatively earward. CJA sounds a bit like Alastair Galbraith after a night of hard drugs and too much drink, holed up in the corner of his living room on a sweltering summer day, with the shades drawn tight, shafts of sunlight sneaking through the blinds, every mote of dust illuminated like a tiny musical note drifting to the ground. The guitar, the hiss of the four track and the murky remnants of the night before becoming one drifting dreamy dolorous set of notes, picked carefully one by one, becoming a sublty sleepy soundscape of bliss and beatitude.
Finally back in stock! "India" was a documentary produced for Italian TV in 1966, and the music on this disc was the audio interpretation composed to accompany it by composer Francesco De Masi. That's the straight forward, factual explanation of this disc. However, the music itself is not what most of us would probably expect to find accompanying such a documentary. We have to give Francesco De Masi some credit for his creative license though. After all, it was 1966 and Ravi Shankar was yet to become a household name. I imagine that the director gave Francesco a silent print for him to view and score the compositions for the film. Having never been to India and having no concept of what the music there sounded like and additionally being encouraged to come up with something as exotic and mysterious as the images on the screen, he did the best he could. The results: fucking brilliant! De Masi definitely has skills as a scorer of soundtracks. He not only has a gift for writing evocative melodic motifs, but also in arranging and rearranging the motifs with different instrumentation, tempos, and even musical genres -- something essential to all classic soundtracks. His execution in these areas is superb. And yet, when we listen to this soundtrack today and try to imagine it accompanying a documentary about India, we sense that something is not quite right. Listening to this score with no prior information about the film it supports one might more likely guess that it was for a classic Western fused with Cold War intrigue film (though there is one giddy fife & drum reel that must have slipped in from another project on the American Revolution!) I imagine Michael Caine as an English spy in America trying to infiltrate the Navajo nation and falling in love with a beautiful Native American woman along the way. Many of the arrangements here are reminiscent of the gems of paranoid cinema (think The Ipcress File, or The Parallax View, but also Mutual of Omaha's Wild World of Animals) while also sounding like the most cliched Native American war path tune ripped from a John Wayne flick. Seems like Francesco, like Christopher Columbus before him, got his Indians mixed up. This soundtrack has it all: tension, suspense, romantic instrumentals, pensive reflections and jazzy uptempo workouts. It really is an amazing soundtrack that, were it to have been attached to a feature length film, may have been a classic by now. Not only is it fully orchestrated and creatively arranged with vibes, guitars, keyboards, flutes, horns, strings and assorted percussion, but it features sitar playing by Italian guitar and whistle virtuoso (and Ennio Morricone right hand man) Alessandro Alessandroni -- who'd apparantly never played the instrument before. Beautifully recorded and excellently remastered, this is an absolute must for all soundtrack buffs!
Ultra limited cd document of this 2005 live performance by Der Blutharsch, in Vienna in 2005 before a small audience of invited guests. Unlike the lush composed industrial soundscapes of DB records proper, these songs and versions are performed in a much more straight ahead apocalyptic folk style. Strummed acoustic guitar, wheezing accordion, simple percussion and dueling male / female vocals. Urgent and strident, powerful and emotional. Wild gypsy rhythms collide with simple moody ballads, dark and dreary epics are woven into expansive militaristic epics.
Packaged in a gorgeous, matte black, embossed digipak. And again, VERY LIMITED!!!
Onetime Blue Cheer guitarist Randy Holden once dedicated an entire song ("Guitar Song") from his legendary solo album Population II to a paean about how much he loves to hear the sound of an electric guitar wailing. Well we'd bet he'd LOVE San Diego's Earthless (a trio consisting of the drummer from Hot Snakes and Clikatat Ikatowi, a guitarist who tours with Nebula, and another dude on bass). They're all about loud wailing psych guitar over stoned and stoner grooves. So, for Randy and any others that share his enthusiasm, Earthless offer up their debut cd here, featuring two looong tracks (42 minutes total) recorded live in the studio ('cause that's how they do it). Track one, "Flower Travelin' Man" opens with a throbbing bass line that kinda sounds like a stoned Steve Harris galloping into Geezer Butler territory. Then the Hawkwind starts blowing, spacey FX in full effect, and that aforementioned wailing electric guitar takes center stage for a mamma-lamma-jamma that you'd have to be squarely square not to love. Then, the second track, "Lost In The Cold Sun", actually heavies things up even more, getting dirgier and doomier and downier (I mean, more downer). No complaints from us. The Gravity label suggests that any fans of Hawkwind, Sabbath, Amon Duul II and The Groundhogs would dig this -- we'd agree, and not just 'cause if you're a fan of those bands chances are you're already suitably toked up. We'd also add the likes of Pharaoh Overlord, Comets On Fire and Dead Meadow to that list. Definitely gonna go see 'em next time they play up here!
NB. by the way, you may have noticed that in many of AQ's reviews of "psychedelic" "stoner" music, we often extol the glorious drugginess of said music, which is funny as most of our reviewers don't themselves indulge in the (ab)use of drugs (our own Andee has never even had single sip of beer or toke of pot, ever!), nor do they necessarily believe that the potential listener for whom they are writing need to do so to enjoy the music, in fact some of us feel like a huge slab of smoke-y, trippy, druggy psych rock is all you need to get musically wasted!
The guys in Enbilulugugal have been sending us cd-r's for a while now. Each one a perfectly putrid blackened slab of black metal drenched in full on NOIZE. Buzzing and snarling and speaker-melting white noise brutality that ended up falling way more on the noise side of things, with riffs subsumed by huge washes of scalding electronic fuzz, and any semblance of songcraft, dropped kicking and screaming into the fiery pit. On this latest cd-r, their first 'official' release, Enbilulugugal have finally harnassed their two sides, the confrontational head smashing noise side, and their troo, grim, cult BM side, and have somehow managed to put it all together into a crushing face-melting blast of ultragrim blacknoize, equal parts brutal lo-fi black metal, Whitehouse style pummel, and Faxed Head fuckedupness. Killer riffs collide with bizarre tape drop outs, howling demonic vox come screaming from dense clouds of Merzbow worthy analog skree, blastbeats become so distorted they sound like your speakers are malfunctioning. On top of all that they heap plenty of forest sounds (wind, owls, etc... ), demonic laughter, blooping bleeping damaged electronics, fucked up effects, and about a hundred extra layers of grime and girt and fuzz. Imagine Darkthrone circa Transylvanian Hunger, with Merzbow on lead guitar, Masonna on drums, and a steam locomotive on bass, remixed by Alec Empire, and you wouldn't even be close!
A new rock record from Brian Eno in 2005. After beginning with the uptempo "This", a tune surprizingly similar to the Cale duet "One Word" from the pair's 1990 album Wrong Way Up, the album is primarily filled with slow tempo songs of a pensive temperment and reminiscent of Eno's collaborations with guitar tech wiz and fellow producer Daniel Lanois. Not a bad return to rock for Mr. Eno, but there's something very Rip Van Winkle in the overall production of the album, like Brian's still hammering through the eighties and has just recently discovered Tears For Fears and Simple Minds.
Second full length from these NY abstract free-rock, free-folk, free-whatever weirdos. Featuring ex No Neck Blues Bander John Fell Ryan, Excepter take the abstractions of the NNBB even further out. Way more abstract, way more blissed out, way more dreamy and ethereal. No clattery drum circle rhythms or pagan ritual folk, no this is drifting and deliriously unmoored. Female vocals hover ghost like over slowly rolling waves of electronic sound. Drones that pulse and weave and slither but mostly just drift. Outer space swooshes and simple percussive splashes demarcate the wide open expanses of each song. Like Hawkwind's space rock with all the rock removed, and in its place, even MORE space, as well as hushed and whispered vocals, shuffling electronic skitters, woozy distant melodies and lots of rumbling weirdness and whooshing swirl. Like the spirit of Can or Faust, a ghostly shimmer of krautrock, rhythmic and propulsive but with all the flesh pulled off, so the sounds are gauzy and barely there, a flicker of rhythmic urgency, now just a gorgeously ghostly amble.
AQ customers definitely don't need an introduction to Christian Fennesz. We've long been enraptured by his laptopped guitarscapes, all warm and fuzzy, sunny and ethereal, rich and thick and totally memerizing. And certainly no one should need an introduction to Ryuichi Sakamoto either, after fronting the Yellow Magic Orchestra for thirty years as well as producing numerous solo recordings, including his amazing recent collaborations with Alva Noto. So it's pretty exciting to see these two hook up for this lush and gorgeous laptop excursion into dreamy underwater mood music and hazy glitched out ambience. This brief twenty minute piece was recorded live in Rome in 2004 and is the precursor to a forthcoming full length. A simply perfect slab of ambient abstraction and delicate dreaminess. Moody and mysterious, drifting notes and thick chordal swells wash over shuffling minimal rhythms, sleepy summertime shimmer and soaring sheets of dramatic and deconstructed melody float and flutter, shift and sway. So beautiful.
Oh man. This is a good one. A really good one. This is one of those records we've been waiting for, that takes the sound of SUNN0))) and Earth, that soon to be done to death slow motion guitar dirge doom, to a whole new level. It's still heavy and glacial, and dense and totally overwhelming, but there's just something about it, that sounds, maybe clean, spacious, open? The guitar tone and the compostion and the recording all mesh in some magical way to make the guitars float and drift. It's almost dreamy, while somehow still being dark and ominous. It's hard to explain, but this record just really hit the spot in a way few of the many doom-dirge-drone clones have managed lately. Packaged in a cool silscreened vellum sleeve!
So now the bad news: THIS IS SUPER LIMITED. IN FACT, WE HAVE THE LAST 10 COPIES! WHEN THOSE ARE GONE, WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET MORE. But there is some good news: There will be a cd version, coming soon! So if you are not one of the lucky ten, fear not! And we'll definitely review the cd in much more detail as soon as they show up!
Releasing his music under such names as Foetus, Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel, Foetus Interruptus,
Foetus Under Glass and perhaps the best one, You've Got Foetus On Your Breath, J. G. Thirlwell has proven himself to be one hell of a monstrous musical dynamo. Over a quarter century, with little or no fanfare, he's consistently and methodically laid his contemporaries to waste. This is his latest full length, titled Love. The visual simplicity of this, another of his trademark four-letter word album titles, stands in complete contrast to the unbelievably complex, wildly imaginative compositions contained within, however as is usually the case the chosen word (Nail, Blow, Gash, Flow, Hole to name a few others) can be interpreted and defined in oh so many many ways. Love is no exception. Often lazily compared to the likes of Skinny Puppy or Nine Inch Nails, let it be known, Foetus is another beast entirely. Thirlwell nails the soundtracks for your most terrifying, twisted dreams and beautiful, perverse nightmares effortlessly in the form of thunderously bombastic orchestrations. Epic.
Includes a dvd with early live footage, three videos one of which was directed by Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O, and some trailers for Adult Swim's Venture Bros TV show for which Thirlwell composed the theme song.
Ok, this is a black metal band, but non-metallers into the improv-drone sounds of the Jewelled Antler collective, Richard Youngs/Simon Wickham-Smith and the like should keep reading!
Not to be confused with the other Forest we've raved about (the psychedelic British folk band from thirty years ago), *this* Forest is a Russian black metal outfit, and a pretty good one belonging to the raw, primitive, corpse-painted end of the genre. The first four tracks on here consist of blasting, frozen Darkthrone worship, keeping alive the cult spirit that so few bands today still possess -- maybe because those tracks were actually recorded in 1996. Malevolent, majestic pagan metal full of Burzumic mayhem. Fans of this vein of true, trancey black metal darkness will be pleased. And if that was all that was on this disc we'd think it was cool. But then comes the fifth and final track, a surprise twenty-minute opus called "Winter Howl" taken from a 1994 rehearsal tape. Suddenly Forest isn't so obviously black metal at all, they've entered a psych-drone realm that's more akin to the aforementioned Jewelled Antler stuff (Thuja, The Birdtree, etc) or Taj Mahal Travellers or Reynols or Amon Duul's krautrock jams, still as forest-y and primitive as the preceding metal songs though. A wavering whispy wordless vocal winds over a bed of lost, primal percussion and haunting washes of mild feedback. Simple melody lines on guitar wander through the increasing haze, with deeper vocals providing additional layers of drone. If you really heard this in a forest you'd be mesmerized and scared, but it's really nice and pretty (in a damaged way) when heard at home...pretty to us anyway, dunno if Kaldrad and Dagorath meant it to be so! The vocals, until they get a little more metal-ly, totally remind us of the bliss-out singing by British folk experimentalist Richard Youngs or Jewelled Antler's pop soul Jason Honea. If Finnish avant-forest-folk folks like Avarus and Kemialliset Ystavat or the Jewelled Antler collective decided to make black metal, this is what's we'd imagine it would sound like! (Actually, there IS an upcoming black metal-inspired release from Jewelled Antler, a 3" cd-r by a group they call Tomes, but Tomes takes an even more subtle approach than "Winter Howl"...look for that here at AQ soon!) Meanwhile, on the black metal side, fans of Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Caacrinolas, Potentiam, and other weird ones should dig this track, along with Forest's other more typical black metal sounds. Recommended.
Hot stuff! The liner notes for this soundtrack suggest that the movie, which paired the ultra sexy Marianne Faithfull with the equally irresistible Alain Delon, fell "somewhere between fetish and fantasy" and we'd venture to say that this soundtrack does too. Sooo perfectly '60s -- bringing together the grand orchestra and the rock band! There's the expressive horns that frolick, chuckle, taunt and weep... the glorious strings and woodwinds that sweep you around a dancefloor or along an open road... oh and let's not forget the funky noodly electric guitars and keyboards. Now, punctuated the proceedings with some thunderous timpany drums, some enchanting Cleo Laine and Mireille Mathieu vocals and yes, some ambient sounds from the film itself like the roar of a motorcycle! Super sexy and stylin'. If you dig hip '60s flicks, this soundtrack and the movie is totally for you. To boot, the insert is a cool six-panel foldout of the movie's original poster!
We have to admit that we sorta groaned when we saw that the hipper than hip Portland trio Glass Candy had gone and covered the already-covered-in-the-'80s hit "Iko Iko", but we gotta give 'em props for bringing something new to the song and making it their own. So, we say "cool!" Actually it sounds like they took a little more time and put a little more thought into all of these tracks than they have with most of their past recordings. Within the first few bars of their "Iko" it becomes evident that they're much less about making the immediate flash-pot spectacle this time around. They've also made a few shifts in overall musical direction, applying more funk influences and fewer no wave angularities. We might've also guessed this from the cover photo. Ida No has shed her electro-clash glam-shock stylings in favor of a more groomed, relatively au naturelle pose along the lines of '50s glamour girls, but surprisingly un-pin-up/cheesecake-y. A more grown-up Glass Candy seeking a potentially broader audience? Well, if you found their past appeal to have been their in-your-face sizzle and reckless fireworks, this new persona might take some getting used to. However, if taken on its own this EP is pretty darn fun. An added surprise: although the cd traycard lists only six tracks, you mysteriously get eight. Go figure!
Oh those unmistakable bad girl vocals of Ms Holly Golightly! A bit brash, a bit raunchy, slightly nasal, slightly slurred, slightly snarky, you've just gotta love it! She's taken care of business both as a member of the trashy garage rawk combo Thee Headcoatees (the female counterpart to Billy Childish's wry, raw and gritty Thee Headcoats) and as a solo artist. Here's her latest full length filled with a bit slower than usual, creepin' tunes that bring to mind old Rolling Stones and Wanda Jackson. Y'know, she's probably the kinda gal your mom might not be too happy to hear you've been hangin' around with, but we won't tell. Bad influence? Pshaw! Just show her the album cover. Looks innocent enough, don't it?
Am I wigglin!? You know I am! Gravy Train's second full-length release features thee summer punk-wave grit-pop jamm, "Darque Tan", as well as the, to put it lightly, sexually-leaning "Ghost Boobs" and "Pussy Sauce". This super-cute San Francisco foursome pick up where Fannypack's "Cameltoe" left off and take it to a whole new level of over-sexed summer fun! If you love sarcastic, sassy, ghoulishly artsy & lo-fi, electro hyper post-punk, you MUST get on the Gravy Train!!! Also for fans of Les Georges Leningrad, Veronica Lipgloss, good ol' Peaches, etc.
Note bene: this is NOT the same band as the proggy Gravy Train from Lancershire, England circa 1971. If you read through this review and listened to the sound samples and still questioned it, hmmm.... you get a big spanking.
Shredding instrumental math-metal played in happy, major keys on downtuned guitars with dual (or even triple) harmonies?? Sounds good? Check. Sound familiar? Double check. If you're a fan of San Francisco's The Fucking Champs it should. But this ain't the Champs. A glance at the colorful, Aaron Turner (Isis/Hydra Head) designed packaging reveals that this is a band called Hematovore, and they're from Alabama. We guess it had to happen. The Champs had some downtime, people got antsy, and then along comes a band that sounds so much like 'em it's absolutely uncanny. Unoriginal maybe, but what the heck. If you've been eagerly waiting for a Champs VI, well, you need to get this now!! It's just what the (rock) doctor ordered.
What's weird is that according to their online bio, they've been around for, like, 13 years (just like The Champs). And no mention is made of them as an influence. So perhaps it's a case of parallel evolution, inspired by the same cool things -- Carcass, Thin Lizzy, Metallica, Maiden, technical death metal... But we doubt it. They've GOT to be really into The Champs. Though, there's a few differences. Hematovore rocks with THREE guitars and a bassist, whereas The Champs make do with two guitars (sometimes three, when the drummer isn't drumming) and no bass. And the blend of extremes, death metal on one end, indie/post-rock on the other, seems more pronounced with Hematovore. They get more hardcore METAL than the Champs do at times, but at others also more mellow and pretty.
There's almost no point in describing this further, 'cause if you're NOT already into The Champs you either wouldn't like this, or need to get some Champs cds first. But if you're a Champs fan (and why wouldn't you be??) then this is basically the new Champs album you've been wanting, just under a different name. More ear candy for Champs fans basically. So we can't help but recommend it!!
Another long out of print JOMF gem gets the deluxe reissue treatment. Here's our review from the first time around:
Jackie-O Motherfucker's sound is not the aggro fury the name might imply. Rather this Portland/New York/Baltimore ensemble prefers freeminded improvisational stylings that delve into the meandering Americana of Souled American, but with the psychedelic pastoral jazz freakouts of the No Neck Blues Band or the Sun City Girls. Through delicate plucks of banjo, melancholic slide guitars, and creaking violin, Jackie-O Motherfucker wanders through avant garde deconstructions of what could be folk standards -- "Amazing Grace" makes an appearance with only a single sax riff betraying its presence. So nice.
In spite of their punk-as-fuck name, Jackie-O Motherfucker is a Portland avant-rock ensemble that draws much more from the inner-connectivist logic of Harry Smith (the curator of Smithsonian's Anthology of American Folk Music, amongst other things),
"Liberation" is Jackie-O's seventh album and continues their explorations into the psychedelic recombinations of traditional American folk and the non-linear agendas of free-jazz. Rather than utilizing the approach of the like minded No Neck Blues Band's squalid lack of structure, Jackie-O smartly plays patterned composition and free improvisation off of each other. "Ray-O-Graph" is a solid example of such a strategy, with its cheap but unwavering beatbox and a twangy guitar that repeats its bent notes at an unhurried pace, while the rest of the massive ensemble makes itself known with a quiet racket. Yet, just when the erosion and upheaval of form starts to make sense, Jackie-O issues forth an honest-to-God song in "Something on Your Mind," a backwoodsy ballad complete with Southern drawl and front porch stomp. For all of its sonic complexities, "Liberation" lives up to its name as an album content in the disorienting freedom to allow oneself to wander.
God! How we love instrumental rock records! And while we'll be the first to admit that there have been some great vocalists, almost always, when we throw on a new record, we wait all tensed up, cowering, just waiting for the vocals to come in, and make or break the record. Well, thankfully we've never had that problem with Kinski (even on the rare occasions they do add vocals), a four piece mostly instrumental space rock band from Seattle, who we've loved from day one. Not just 'cuz of their killer monicker (we LOVE Klaus Kinski!) but for their blissed out shoegazey Hawkwind meets My Bloody Valentine meets Pink Floyd instrumental spaced out bliss rock. So the first thing we noticed when we threw on Alpine Static was how much, well, more rocking it was! I mean, they definitely rocked before, no doubt about it, but in much more of a laid back, stoned and moody and a little bit mellowed out way. But on Alpine Static, Kinski most definitely kick out the jams. There were moments on past records that hinted at the heavy and/or poppy rocking the band was capable of, but this is the record where uptempo RAWK is the first order of business. So take Kinski's knack for droning repetitive hypnorock, and then wrap that around some hyperdistorted Heavy Rocks (a la Boris), a bit of technical shredding (a la the Fucking Champs), some pulsing propulsive krautrock (a la Neu!), some ultra caustic squalls of guitar noise (a la Comets On Fire), some crunchy, stacatto dirgerock pound (a la Circle at their fiercest), a bit of moody post rock (a la June Of 44), some epic and blown out guitar freakouts (a la Dinosaur Jr., Swervedriver, Pixies) and then the occasional return to that blissed out cosmic dronerock Kinski are also so adept at and you've got a seriously solid slab of head banging, hip shaking space rocking kosmik heavy rock jams!
How can you resist a band name like Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat? And with a name like that, what can one possibly expect musically? Well, surprisingly the music here manages to conjure up the same sort of dark confusional forboding that the name hints at. Forbidden? Taboo? Some sort of alchemical majick? Some sort of witchy incantation? Why else would one...um, well you know. On If The Sky Falls, We Shall Catch Larks, KTAOABC, the project of a young Belgian musician and instrument builder named Stef Heeren, unfurls a gorgeously dark, mesmerizing chunk of minimal, melodic, brooding, lilting and lovely doom folk. Harrowing and brooding, falling somewhere between the apocalyptic ur-folk of Current 93, the rickety, swampy biblical dirge of Woven Hand, the brooding acoustic bombast of later Swans, seventies pagan psych-folk (Comus, Incredible String Band, etc.) and even some of the strident prostletyzing of New Model Army. Very spare in its instrumentation and structure, aggressively strummed acoustic guitars underpinning ultra dramatic and slightly venomous vocals, occasional bells and strings and piano, subtle cooing background vocals, all very repetitive and hypnotic, churning in a thick fog of emotional turmoil and spiritual unease. Dark and droning, intense and intensely fervent, slipping from loose slithery balladeering to fiery and impassioned swells of soul-laid-bare sermonizing. Really quite amazing. Fans of C93, Nick Cave, Death In June, Comus, Swans, Der Blutharsch, Richard Youngs, Woven Hand and 16HP will certainly swoon, but this should definitely appeal to fans of all things emotional and dark, folky and forboding. Beautifully packaged in a minimally screenprinted fold over cardboard sleeve.
So here it is! Hard to believe it's finally here -- some of us have been waiting forever for this record, or at least ever since we discovered a tiny, super compressed, thirty second long sound clip on the internet over a year ago. In all of half a minute, we became OBSESSED. Completely captivated by this band's totally alien, lush, organic 'world music' weirdness. We eventually tracked down a (great) live record by Konono No.1, which we listed here a few weeks back, and then after tons of internet sleuthing and a bunch of emails we finally managed to get in touch with someone at the Crammed label in Belgium who was willing to sell us this brand new studio album directly, since they are without US distribution. Phew! So was it worth it? Hell yeah! Anyone who heard that infamous sound sample (which was from this album), or who got to hear the live record, knows that this band is totally amazing, and indeed this record is beautiful, wild and wonderful, chaotic and festive, totally perplexing but completely mesmerizing. For those who missed out on the live record (which we've also just restocked!) or are new to the wonders of Konono No.1, here's the story: twenty five years ago, Konono formed in Kinshasa, an area between Congo and Angola, performing their own version of traditional Bazombo trance music, incorporating the then-unwanted distortions of their haphazard homemade sound system. They left the bush and settled in the capital where they were forced to compete with the harsh sounds of the city: cars, trains, buses, shouting, etc. So with very little to work with they fashioned pick-ups, microphones, loudspeakers and amplifiers from stuff they could find on the street -- old car batteries, pots and pans, magnets, even branches. Their main instrument is the likembe, a kind of thumb piano. Konono features three of 'em (bass, medium and treble) and the sound of the electrified and amplified likembe is what defines their sound. Accompanied by dancers and percussionists, the likembes wail and drone, buzz and moan, totally overblown and distorted, sounding a little like sixties fuzz guitars, turning a glorious high life jam into something much more strange and wonderful. Super rhythmic, and thick with the buzzing melodies of the likemebe's, Konono weave a massive sound. It's the wildest weirdest street party you've ever been to. Throbbing with energy and emotion, rambuctiously rollicking and totally infectious. Seven lengthy tracks that all sort of bleed and fuse into one epic world-psych jam. The African high life Hawkwind? So so great!
Check out this video clip:
KONONO [http://www.crammed.be/craworld/movies/konono_promo.mov]
We're very excited about these two remaster/reissues from Germany's La Dusseldorf! La Dusseldorf were THE masters of anthemic open and clean-sounding happy funky krautrock, inspiring the likes of Eno and Bowie (Heroes-era). They crafted repetitive hypnotic percussion with layers of super clean life-affirming melodies that were driven by minimal lyrics. Neu! co-founder Klaus Dinger and drummer Hans Lampe (who joined Neu! for their 3rd album 75) formed La Dusseldorf following the breakup of Neu! They were joined by Klaus' brother, Thomas, on percussion and vocals, Harald Konietzko on bass, and Nicolas van Rhein on keyboards. Any fan of Neu! will immediately recognize that Neu! sound, which is still evident here, but where Neu! was icy and detached, La Dusseldorf is positive and practically bubbling with warmth. Like Harmonia (a product of fellow ex-Kraftwerker, Michael Rother), La Dusseldorf albums have an incredible, ahead-of-their-time production level and truly sound like they could be a current release (we've already witnessed a couple customers' disbelief at the year it was originally released!) Viva, their second record, is filled with Krautrock anthems, culminating in the 20 minute long Cha Cha 2000 - an epic of krauty proportions. If you've been reading some of our more recent lists, we should distinguish that La Dusseldorf do not fall in the krautrock sub-genre of WWII-effected dark & broodish-type stuff, a la German Oak. La D. better fit into the uber-clean & hypnotic song-kraft family of Neu!, Harmonia, Cluster, Can, Kraftwerk, etc. Both the self-titled and Viva releases are highly recommended as an integral part of any Krautrock kollection!
We're very excited about these two remaster/reissues from Germany's La Dusseldorf! La Dusseldorf were THE masters of anthemic open and clean-sounding happy funky krautrock, inspiring the likes of Eno and Bowie (Heroes-era). They crafted repetitive hypnotic percussion with layers of super clean life-affirming melodies that were driven by minimal lyrics. Neu! co-founder Klaus Dinger and drummer Hans Lampe (who joined Neu! for their 3rd album 75) formed La Dusseldorf following the breakup of Neu! They were joined by Klaus' brother, Thomas, on percussion and vocals, Harald Konietzko on bass, and Nicolas van Rhein on keyboards. Any fan of Neu! will immediately recognize that Neu! sound, which is still evident here, but where Neu! was icy and detached, La Dusseldorf is positive and practically bubbling with warmth. Like Harmonia (a product of fellow ex-Kraftwerker, Michael Rother), La Dusseldorf albums have an incredible, ahead-of-their-time production level and truly sound like they could be a current release (we've already witnessed a couple customers' disbelief at the year it was originally released!) This self-titled 4-song cd is absolutely classic Krautrock! "Silver Cloud", with its huge drums and layers of simple, syrupy melody create one of our favorite krautrock songs ever! At the time of this album's release, it was played on German radio a bunch and even became a "funk" hit! "La Dusseldorf" opens with the chanting of a football [soccer] audience and leads into a pulsating anthemic rhythm also joined by the valliant one-word chant of "Dusseldorf". If you've been reading some of our more recent lists, we should distinguish that La Dusseldorf do not fall in the krautrock sub-genre of WWII-effected dark & broodish-type stuff, a la German Oak. La D. better fit into the uber-clean & hypnotic song-kraft family of Neu!, Harmonia, Cluster, Can, Kraftwerk, etc. Both the self-titled and Viva releases are highly recommended as an integral part of any Krautrock kollection!
Like we mentioned last list, we have been going Sixteen Horsepower CRAZY, with a recent archival 16HP release, two Woven Hand records (the apocalyptic, biblical side project of 16HP singer David Eugene Edwards) as well as last list's Lilium record, the side project of 16HP bassist Pascal Humbert, a dark and harrowing, instrumental, swamp folk epic, that if you haven't picked up yet, you should, 'cause it's as good as the Woven Hand records, and is mighty tough to get, so we can't be sure how long we'll have them or if we run out, how long it will take to get more. This time around, we are lucky to have tracked down record number two from Lilium, which is brand spanking new and is a slight departure from the growling, rumbling, creepy sinister-folk of their previous record. Fear not, there's still plenty of atmosphere, rickety campfire strum, and moody darkness, it's just much smoother and it's a bit more traditionally pretty. Humbert has recruited his 16HP bandmate Jean-Yves Tola for this record making this essentially 2/3 Sixteen Horsepower, so to a certain degree you have a rough idea of what this sounds like. The big change is the vocals. Or should I say the vocalists. That's right vocalists. Unlike their instrumental debut, which was sort of more 'sound' than 'song', they really flex their songwriting muscles on Short Stories and craft some gorgeously dark and melancholy pop songs, sung beautifully, and swathed in that dark hazy atmosphere we know and love so well. Maybe the nicest surprise is vocalist Kal Calhoone, a dead ringer for Cat Power's Chan Marshall, but with a little PJ Harvey swagger thrown in. And PJ Harvey is kind of an apt comparison for some of these tunes, smoldering and moody, emotional and urgent, with Calhoone's husky whisper weaving tales of sorrow and despair. 16HP's David Eugene Edwards sings on one song and since that basically makes it Sixteen Horsepower, it might just be the strongest cut on the record, as good as anything they've ever recorded as a proper band. The rest of the record follows the same brambly path, with lush, and dreamy, slightly doomy tableaus, fingerpicked guitars, shuffling percussion, wheezing accordions, rumbling cellos, organs, slippery slide guitar, raspy, drawled vocals, and heavily reverbed pianos, totally mesmerising and sweetly melodic. Very reminsicent of Black Heart Procession, Calexico, Low and American Music Club. Highly recommended as was the last Lililium. Features guests from Morphine, Deus, and the Czars.
We sure have been under the spell of all things Sixteen Horsepower lately. Especially the amazing Woven Hand records, the solo project of 16HP frontman David Eugene Edwards. But don't think for a minute that Edwards is solely responsible for the creepy, dark, backwoods ambience of 16HP and WH! To prove that point, we've finally tracked down the first release from Lilium, otherwise known as Pascal Humbert, bass player for Sixteen Horsepower. Although this has been out for a while, we were only now able to get enough copies to list, direct from Germany, hence the import price. But it's worth every penny. All you folks who went mad for the Woven Hand will be equally enamored of this delicate and gauzy, spare and mournful cinematic swampscape, equal parts deconstructed country, skeletal folk and shimmering, ominous drone. The opening track is a rickety, bluegrass crawl, sounding like the dueling banjos from Deliverance, slowed down, caked in mud and leaves, and broadcast on a warbly victrola from the bottom of a well. The rest of the record follows suit, wallowing in darkness and shadow ranging from rumbling, reverberent drones woven from slowly shifting layers of oscillating tones and warm chordal washes, to shuffling, reverb drenched, Calexico-ish desert rock twang, to fuzzed out, keyboard drenched, hypno-minimalism, to almost-indie/post rock instrumental workouts, to dangerously forboding Sixteen Horsepower-ish Southern swampfolk. The whole record is swathed in a warm, dense ambience of melancholic mystery, grim gloom and eerie unease. Anyone who bought the Woven Hand records NEEDS this for sure. And folks who love the likes of Sixteen Horsepower, Calexico, Souled American, Scott Tuma, Court And Spark, Califone, Giant Sand, Black Heart Procession, or even Morphine, will find this bleak and beautiful twang, and these deep and doleful drones, will hit the spot perfectly.
Shoegazing - originally the derogatory term applied to bands like Ride, Slowdive, and My Bloody Valentine for the lackluster stage presence - had developed into an impressive aesthetic during the early '90s whereby the jangle of '60s psych-pop had been married with Brian Eno's notions of ambient music as an oceanic / prelingual return to the womb. After its gilded crescendo from a couple of records (most notably MBV's "Loveless"), shoegazing as an artform faded away, with many of the original proponents shedding the layers of distortion to concentrate upon their songwriting (most notably Neil Halstead formerly of Slowdive, now a minstrel of sunny folk-rock). Loveliescrushing - the post-shoegazing US duo of Scott Cortez and Melissa Arpin-Henry - disagreed with this trajectory away from etherealism and towards songsmithery, thus centering their music around only the faintest residues of melody and ghostly reminders of what might be a song somewhere within all of their bleary-eyed guitar washes. Their first two exceptional albums ("Bloweyelashwish" and "Xuvetyn") found their way onto Projekt, the stalwart proprietors of America's darkwave / goth scene, although they didn't readily fit with Projekt's aesthetic for black lace and blood red roses. The only connection with Projekt may have been in the mutual affinity for the Cocteau Twins, whose glossalaic siren songs certainly resonate within the incomprehensible siren-like vocalizations of Arpin-Henry. Yet for all of the aforementioned references, Loveliescrushing has little use for a rhythm section, presenting that soft female voice floating way off in the distance amidst oceans of radioluminescent layers of guitar reverberation. Compared to their previous records, "Glissceule" has smoothed over some of Loveliescrushing's expressionistic bursts of static and bristling noise, striving for a more enchanting eternal drone. In all probability, this will stand as one of my (Jim's) favorite 'pop' albums of the year, even though there's nothing 'pop' about it.
For those of you who just skim the list or only read the first few sentences of reviews, let us get your attention real quick. Lurker Of Chalice, in case you didn't realize, is the work of one WREST, aka SF black metal overlord LEVIATHAN. Paying attention now? Good. let's proceed. Lurker Of Chalice has existed in one form or another for several years now, but outside a cassette or two this is the only recorded evidence and man will it blow your mind. Originally conceived as a less black metal, more experimental musical outlet (and possibly inspired by Leviathan / AQ faves Benighted Leams) Lurker Of Chalice is constructed from lots of black metal parts as might be expected, but lot of very un-black metal bits as well: arpeggiated post rock guitars, martial percussion, simple propulsive krautrock rhythms, swirling droning ambience, strange haunting vocals, obscure found sounds and samples, doomy slow motion dirges, reverb drenched, almost sun dappled melodies over creepy warbly soundscapes, warm thick keyboards, heavily strummed steel string guitars, rich throaty crooning, super overblown distorted guitars, all smeared into a warm fuzzed out, dreamy and melancholy, mostly midtempo blackened doomscape. Occasionally, Lurker blasts into full on black metal, like on the second track "Piercing Where They Might", but even in a BM context, things are beautifully way off kilter, rumbling bizarrely affected vocals, dizzying riffs that swirl and slither and make it impossible to focus, huge jangly guitars over miltaristic snare drums and warbly Michael Gira like vocals. So weird. But so perfect. Imagine Leviathan and Benighted Leams and the Swans and Ved Buens Ende, all somehow mixed into some darkly evolving, gothic tinged expanse of moody metallic melancholia. This is maybe the best sounding record Wrest has made which is saying a lot. And it's definitely the weirdest, and most certainly the saddest. The whole record is dripping with intense emotion, minor key and slowly stretching toward some bleak future of broken promise and crushed spirit. From slowly evolving, almost cinematic instrumentals to massive and majestic dirges to woozy effect drenched post rockisms to ultra bleak ballads to damaged black metal crush, Lurker Of Chalice evokes total and utter misery, a musical invocation to the lost and alone, wandering in search of hope, under the suffocating black cloak of night, crushed beneath a starless sky and adrift in a soulless universe, exposing every raw nerve and dark corner of Wrest's twisted musical soul. So fucking good!
The black musical cloud continues to creep wraithlike across the land, with yet another release on the Battlecruiser label, the metal imprint of Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. A home for all sorts of metallic sound, not necessarily metal per se, but experimentalists indulging their deep down metallic longings. We reviewed Ming's Hands Red With The Blood Of Her Enemies double cd-r on the last list, a massive expanse of Sunroof! / Total like free rock skree, droning and whirring and shimmering in lengthy swaths of gorgeous ambience. At once soothing and smooth, jagged and harsh. Well, The Kill sounds like that record's evil twin, or that record in an alternate, perhaps more evil dimension. Th sonic descriptors could be the same, droning, whirring shimmering, but instead of sheets of rich tonal color, and warm rumbling drones, The Kill is twenty minutes of monochromatic, hissing and harshed out hellish noise. It sounds a bit like there are some howled vocals and perhaps even a melody, but it could just be our ears playing tricks on us. Because if that stuff is there, it is suffocating beneath an impenetrable slab of pink noise buzz, a swirling miasma of hateful hiss and shrieking static. The Kill is definitely a harsh noise record, or maybe an industrial drone record, the metal here being implied or rather conveyed through the dark and brutal aggressiveness. But who was expecting (or wanting) a 'normal' metal record from Battlecruiser anyway? SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!
This vinyl-only reissue from the eccentric Mr. Moondog gets a guest review here from our pal Dave Katznelson of Birdman Records:
Originally released on Epic in 1953, this long-playing EP is one of the greatest artifacts of the blind New York percussionist available. On par with the excellent Prestige years, with a similar vibe. However, there is something darker here, with an almost acid edge...and the sounds come ripping off the well-mastered vinyl ever so thickly. This classically packaged ten inch boasts an instrumental round that is the precursor to the great All Is Loneliness To Me, "Rim Shot" which is reminiscent of Tyrannosaurus Rex's "Ruminy Soup", and two suites that brilliantly use lush strings behind the signature Moondog hypnotizing percussion. "Be a hobo and go with me," Moondog sings...and why not join him?
Here's yet another Robert Pollard project! Personally we've lost count, but we're sure all of you die-hard GBV and Pollard fans haven't. And you'll be pleased to find that regardless of his chosen moniker, Pollard continues to follow his often rambunctious, occasionally whimsical indie pop muse. Six songs.
Mouth Of The Architect are another one of those bands that of which we just can't seem to get enough. The perfect blend of bludgeoning dirge metal and moody hypnotic postrock. Think Isis, Neurosis, Conifer, Tides, Pelican, that sort of thing. But Mouth Of The Architect manage to make their sludge metal / post rock sonics stand out from the pack by remaining much more melodic than heavy, and more epic than aggressive, with weirdly catchy riffs, simple blissed out rhythms, hooks that are hidden everywhere, and most noticably slippery sliding melodic leads, intertwining into mournful and languid tangles. The vocals are only occasional, and they're of the howled and anguished variety, but they somehow fit perfectly atop the churning melodic mood metal beneath. Four tracks, three topping ten minutes, of slow burning, slow building metallic beauty. Cinematic epics constructed from downtuned guitars, swirling effects, minor key melodies, intricate hard hitting drumming, and simple hypnotic post rock grooves, sometimes sounding almost like a dirge metal Godspeed You Black Emperor. So great!
Fans of the heavy duty Japanese psych guitar action might have noticed the lack of releases from Tokyo's High Rise in recent years -- the last thing we got was a "best of" that came out three years ago. But that doesn't mean that the High Rise guys have all gone into retirement, even if the band itself is on hiatus. Bassist Nanjo keeps busy, as he always has, with various Acid Mothers Temple-associated outfits, and guitarist Munehiro Narita also continues to threaten the public's eardrums in the free jazz inspired duo Kyoaku No Intention with drummer Shoij Hano. And now, Narita gives the fans what they really want with his debut solo album! That's right, over an hour of guitar and nothing but from the wah-master himself (plus, on two of the the four tracks here he's joined by another likeminded guitarist, Ueno Takashi of Aihiyo and Maher Shalal Hash Baz). Stepping back from some (but not all) of the "speed freak" wildness and utter in-the-red distortion of his soloing in High Rise for extended, slowed-down explorations of deeply felt, carefully crafted abstract improv psych guitar sound, Narita demonstrates his guitar's capacity for freedom and expression and originality, and sonically echoes this cd's lovely and precise black (mostly black) and white design. Impressive.
Me'shell Ndegeocello's seventh album marks a surprising, bold departure from the familiar sounds of her past works. In fact, The Spirit Music Jamia is her least soul pop and least solo effort to date, leaning more heavily on jazz and collaborations (hence the inclusion of the word 'presents' in the title). Heck, this is a downright jazz album, and an impressive, languid one at that. She enlists the fine talents of Cassandra Wilson, Kenny Garrett, Oliver Lake, Jack DeJohnette, Don Byron, John Coltrane's son Oran among others. On the traycard, she lists her influences for this work as being Miles Davis, Kool Herc, Carl Sagan and Holy Scripture, and she also wittily notes that "these new compositions are suitable for free minds, open hearts and shaking behinds." That said, some fans might initially feel somewhat alienated from this Me'shell album -- she doesn't sing a note on any of the songs -- but those who do approach it with an open mind will surely find it to be a richly rewarding listen.
We've been a huge fan of Phill Niblock for ages, the elder statesman of minimal drone, who while having composed and performed numerous pieces, only began releasing his recordings quite recently (in the overall scheme of things), choosing to wait for technology and storage / playback media to catch up, allowing Niblock to record his lengthy compositions without breaking them up into pieces. But Niblock was also a photographer and an experimental film maker. The Magic Sun, from 1966, is an amazing example of not only Niblock's unique film making, but also an abstract and appropriately off kilter look into the weird and wonderful world of Sun Ra And His Solar Arkestra. This short fifteen minute film uses a unique negative process and was composed entirely of ultra tight shots of Sun Ra and his band performing, faces, fingers, strings, sticks, a confusing but compelling visual accompaniment to Sun Ra's joyous musical cacophony. A gorgeously tripped out psychedelic abstract free-for-all in grayscale. White shapes hover and twist, eyes and fingers become comets and eclipsed suns, faces become subtle white smears across a vast expanse of black, cymbals are the rings around a black planet, the fretboard a mysterious nighttime highway, the piano keys, fence posts or streaks of chalk on a blackboard. So intense and alien and perfect. The bonus feature here is amazing as well, a slide show of rare sixties photos, accompanied by unreleaed recordings, music as well as never heard before philosophical proclamations from Sun Ra, tripped out and bizarre discussing Sun Ra himself, mythology, jazz, the band, the United States, Russia and all sorts of other spaced out wisdom. So cool! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just cut and paste the info into the comments area on the order form, or just email mailorder@aquariusrecords.org. A CERTAIN RATIO "Live - America 1985" (Melodic) cd 14.98 AC/DC "Family Jewels" (Epic Music Video) dvd 21.00 AFRIRAMPO "Kore Ga Mayaku Da" (Tzadik) cd 15.98 AKSAK MABOUL "Onze Danses Pour Combattre La Migraine" (Crammed) cd 24.00 ALIO DIE & FRANCESCO PALADINO "Angel's Fly Souvenir" (Hic Sunt Leones) cd 14.98 ARCHETTI, LUIGI / BO WIGET "Low Tide Digitals II" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 BERNOCCHI, ERALDO & HAROLD BUDD "Music For 'Fragments From The Inside'" (Sub Rosa) cd 14.98 BIRDS, THE "Birds Birds Birds In The World" (Important) cd 14.98 BIZARRE "Hannicap Circus" (Sanctuary Urban) cd 16.98 BLACK DAHLIA MURDER "Miasma" (Metal Blade) cd 13.98 BLIR "s/t" (Raster-Noton) cd 15.98 BLUT AUS NORD "Memoria Vetusta I" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 BLUT AUS NORD "Ultima Thulee" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 BRETSCHNEIDER + STEINBRUCHEL "Status" (12k) cd 14.98 BRIGMAN, GEORGE AND SPLIT "I Can Hear The Ants Dancin'" (Solid) cd 16.98 BURNING STAR CORE "Let's Play Wild Like" (RRR) cd 11.98 CAESARS "Paper Tigers" (EMI) cd 13.98 CAN "Future Days (Remastered)" (Spoon) cd 16.98 CHARM "Original Soundtrack + The Movie" (5RC) cd + dvd 14.98 CHINESE STARS "T.V. Grows Arms / The Drowning" (Kitty Play) lp 11.98 COOPER, DON "Howlin' At the Moon" (Delay 68) cd 17.98 COUP, THE "The Best Coup DVD Ever!" dvd 14.98 DANGER: DIABOLIK (Paramount) dvd 14.98 DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE "Drive Well, Sleep Carefully" (Plexifilm) dvd 24.00 DEMONS & WIZARDS "Touched By The Crimson King" (SPV) cd 16.98 DRUNK HORSE "In Tongues" (Tee Pee) cd 15.98 EYEHATEGOD "Preaching The "End-Time" Message" (Emetic) cd 14.98 FALL, THE "The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004" (Sanctuary) 6cd 67.00 FAY, BILL "s/t" (Eclectic Discs) cd 21.00 FAY, BILL "Time of the Last Persecution" (Eclectic Discs) cd 21.00 FEDERATION X "Rally Day" (Estrus) cd 14.98 FORENSICS "Hogback Mountain Sessions Vol.1" (Magic Bullet) cd 8.98 FURSAXA "Lepidoptera" (ATP) cd 15.98 GORILLA "Gimme Some..." (Beard Of Stars) cd 14.98 HAL "s/t" (Rough Trade) cd 15.98 ICKY BOYFRIENDS "A Love Obscene" (Menlo Park) 2cd 15.98 ILK "Canticle" (VHF) cd 13.98 IRON MAIDEN "The Essential Iron Maiden" (Sony) 2cd 21.00 KAWABATA, MAKOTO "Jellyfish Rising" (Funfundvierzig) cd 14.98 KELLY, R. "TP.3 Reloaded" (Jive) cd + dvd 17.98 KEUHKOT "Toiminatatapoja Olioille" (Ektro) cd 14.98 KIRCHIN, BASIL "Abstractions of the Industrial North" (Trunk) cd 17.98 LAST EXIT "Koln" (Atavistic) cd 14.98 LEE, RITA "Build Up" (Cherry Red) cd 17.98 LIPPOK, ROBERT & BARBARA MORGENSTERN "Tesri" (Monika) cd 15.98 MCGUIRE, DAN "Jamnation" (Prestidigitation) cd 14.98 MILK FROM CHELTENHAM "Triptych of Poisoners" (Alga Marghen) cd 17.98 MONOS "Generators" (Die Stadt) cd 27.00 NETHER DAWN, THE "Whiskey Mute-Down" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 POSIES "Every Kind Of Light" (Ryko) cd 15.98 PREFUSE 73 "Reads The Books E.P." (Warp) cd/12" /10.98 RAMESSES "The Tomb" (Invada) cd 15.98 RILEY, TERRY & STEFANO SCODANIBBIO "Diamond Fiddle Language" (Wergo) cd 24.00 RINALDI, RENATO "Hoarse Frenzy" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 SCHMIDT, CHARLIE "Xanthe Terra" (Strange Attractors Audio House) cd 13.98 SON VOLT "Okemah And The Melody Of Riot" (Transmit Sound) dual cd/dvd 19.98 SPIRES THAT IN THE SUNSET RISE "Four Winds the Walker" (Secret Eye) cd 13.98 SUZUKITON "Service - Repair Handbook" (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98 TAMBURO, MIKE "Beating of the Rewound Son" (Music Fellowship) cd 14.98 THEMSELVES "Live II" (Purple Guerilla) cd 13.98 THOR "An-Thor-Logy" dvd 22.00 TODD "Purity Pledge" (Southern) cd 14.98 TRAFFIC SOUND "Yellow Sea Years" (Vampisoul) cd 21.00 TRALALA "s/t" (Audika) cd 14.98 ULTRALYD "Chromosome Gun" (Load) cd 14.98 V/A "Ikon Records Story" (Frantic) 2cd 26.00 V/A "Studio One Lovers" (Soul Jazz) cd/2lp 21.00/24.00 VIRUS SYNDICATE "The Work Related Illness" (Planet Mu) cd 14.98 WHITE MICE "ASSPhIXXXEATATESHUN" (Load) cd 13.98 WINGDALE COMMUNITY SINGERS "s/t" (Plain) cd 14.98 WOODEN WAND "Harem Of The Sundrum & The Witness Figg" (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98 WRIGHT, FRANK "The Complete ESP-Disk' Recordings" (ESP-Disk') 2cd 24.00 XIU XIU "La Foret" (5RC) cd 14.98 ZION I "True & Livin" (LiveUp) cd 15.98
The elusive Swedish songstress Stina Nordenstam is back with a new album. Fans will rejoice to hear that The World Is Saved has been released on the readily available V2 label, as opposed to most of her past recordings which have been next to impossible to get! For those of you as yet unacquainted with the loveliness of Ms Nordenstam, now's as good a time as any to indulge yourself a lingering gaze at her sweet wispy childlike vocals as they perch gracefully atop hazy, frosty evening peaks. Enchanting!
Just like the Animal Collective has their side-project Jane, Jackie-O Motherfucker has Nudge as the stoned, organic little brother, a hybrid between freeform, post-rock improvisations and the structural ideals of electronica. This Portland based trio features Honey Owens (one of the many musicians to pass through the revolving Jackie-O membership door), Brian Foote (who hails from Fontanelle), and Paul Dickow (who performs with Foote in Fontanelle and solo as Strategy). Like Gang-Gang Dance, Nudge doesn't really settle into any particular style, but rather adopt an "adventurous for the sake of being adventurous" flirtatiousness that smugly interjects electronic squiggles and bleating sax lines onto super-blunted dub bass lines and primitive drum machine phrases. Richly sloppy, or sloppily rich, you be the judge.
This is a limited edition reissue of the epochal 2nd album by Public Image Limited, with the CD housed in a small metal film cannister, replicating the original 3LP set which earned the album's name.
Here's what we wrote about this earlier:
It's a piece of history that none of the current staff were old enough to remember, yet nostalgic fragments about the initial arrival of Nevermind The Bollocks at Aquarius Records back in 1977 occasionally emerge from conversations with our old school customers. By now it's probably as factual as any urban mythology; but as it makes for such a great story, I'm much more inclined to believe it than what may have really happened. With record distribution back in 1977 even less streamlined than it is today, Aquarius resorted to using an importer to ship copies of Nevermind The Bollocks from England. The import company in question did not have a direct route into San Francisco from London, and thus had to drive the boxes up from Los Angeles. This shipping detour gave Aquarius the opportunity to throw a big party in anticipation of the album's arrival, with attendants rumored to include Crime and the Residents (in full Eyeball costumes squeezing within the confines of Aquarius' then Castro Street location). To heighten the suspense, Aquarius had arranged with the driver of the truck to call up the store every 30 minutes or so to let everybody know his progress up the I-5: "Just passed Bakersfield." "Made it through Coalinga." "Yup, I'm in Tracy."
Yet, I feel the story could end with the truck crashing somewhere near Pleasanton, as I've never felt that The Sex Pistols' music lived up to their massive cultural cache and spectacular publicity stunts. John Lydon's uncomfortable fixed stare, sneered cultural heresies, and theatrical madness (which, in fact, was lifted from Richard Burton's performances as King Lear) always appeared to be destined for greater things than the Pistol's musically thuggish simplicity. Within The Sex Pistols, John Lydon had control over the Pistol's syntax, spewing threats against royalty and decent society at large; but there was little room (and even less ability) to explore the far more challenging proposition of igniting the sound of Lee Perry and Can with the powderkeg of punk. Internal politics and Malcolm McLaren aside, Rotten needed to form Public Image Limited.
Flanked by Keith Levene on guitar and Jah Wobble on bass, Lydon began PiL with two perfectly complementary musicians to pursue his aesthetic goals, as Levene's spindly shards of metallic guitar splatter acted as the textural counterpoint to the rhythmic centrality of Wobble's low-slung dub basslines. While this line-up inevitably imploded (and with it the success of Public Image Limited), the Lydon / Levene / Wobble core for PiL reached its creative apex during their second album, originally released back in 1979 as a 3LP housed in a metal film container. PiL's second, more economical pressing of the self-evidently titled Metal Box garnered an equally self-evident title Second Edition. As a whole, this album hasn't easily been upstaged in its synthesis of dub production techniques, stealthy disco grooves, and punk antagonism bathed in Situationist critique. Second Edition opens with Wobble's huge rolling bass in Albatross which finds Lydon straining to sing with a swooping baritone to match the song's unwavering plod. Yet Lydon's viperous snarl returns for the rest of the album, which picks up the pace considerably in building their signature 'death disco' sound. All around Second Edition is an unnerving, complex album that was never the cultural force Nevermind The Bollocks was but is clearly the artistic masterpiece in Lydon's career and one of the quintessential post-punk albums.
Ooooh, in a perfect world if you were to look in the dictionary for "70s classic pop", you'd find a big photo of this band alongside their fellow '70s AM radio masters Bread and Electric Light Orchestra. Their heart-string pulling treasures such as "Go All The Way" and "Let's Pretend" recall the blissful pop orchestrations of the Beatles, Beach Boys and the Zombies. Actually we (Andee, Byram and Cup) noted that Eric Carmen's voice sorta resembles two Pauls' (very McCartney and less so Stanley), and come to think of it, their respective bands' personalities (i.e, Wings and Kiss) are definitely reflected in Raspberries music -- the glorious power pop sweetness and the ballsy power rock crunch. Raspberries' bright, often bubblegum-y hooks, swirling string arrangements and earnest multi-part vocal harmonies will totally appeal to your sappy soft side, leaving you weeping in a sunbeam. The liner notes include song-by-song commentary by the band members.
Here's the sophomore release from this Norwegian duo! Whereas their debut Melody A.M. was a relatively downtempo groovy affair, this one immediately comes across as much more pumped and primed for the dancefloor -- but we should add, not at all jarringly so. One dozen ultra sleek Euro-dance productions that mirror all the good looking folks posing with their cocktails. Want some?
