Doing a service to the doom community at large, Southern Lord follows up their reissue last year of the long out of print Saint Vitus album V (originally released on the German label Hellhound) with another reissue of an equally long-gone Hellhound release, the Saint Vitus live album, aptly titled Live. Recorded on their second European tour in the fall of '89, this includes live renditions of such classics as "Born Too Late", "Dying Inside", "Look Behind You", and "Clear Windowpane", as performed by the Vitus MK II lineup that featured Scott "Wino" Weinrich (of The Obsessed, later of Spirit Caravan, The Hidden Hand and Place Of Skulls) on vocals. Southern Lord's deluxe re-packaging preserves the original's awesome cover photo (one that makes Wino look like one scary dude, and guitarist Dave Chandler like a really insane hippy freak) and adds a swank 32 page booklet of previously unseen photos (note Chandler's sweat-drenced Dinosaur T-shirt in several of the pics). There's also a short paragraph of new liner notes by Chandler as well, who, always the wise-ass punk, observes that "the print on CD sleeves is always too fucking small to read, so what's the point?"
Basically if you're a Saint Vitus or Wino fan it's hard to see how you wouldn't want this! If you're not already into these guys, it'll certainly provide you with a handy collection of some of Vitus' best tunes, but we're not expecting to sell many of these to the Vitus-ignorant. This is for the fans, old and new. People who'll dig the between song stage banter, and truly appreciate the extended guitar jamming portions sometimes added to their tunes in the live setting. Yessir, this is a hour+ of ponderous riffage and wah-crazed soloing, warts and all, as only Vitus could muster. All hail.
Wow! Classic UK punk from 1977, and how! Satan's Rats came out of Evesham, Worcester, and among their claims to fame -- playing some of the earliest punk festivals -- they opened for the Sex Pistols and were so well received the audience demanded and encore (no small feat for a band playing for finnicky young punks waiting to see the genre's defining act.) This anthology, compiled by founding member / guitarist Steve Eagles includes everything the band ever recorded: six songs off their three singles and 14 demo tracks recorded between 1977 and 1979. The final four demo tracks are true gems, primitively recorded in a basement studio which had decayed so far by the time they were preserved in the digital realm they were riddled with drop outs. Damn, if there's nothing greater than those anomalies of analog recording indelibly archived in the digital world! I don't know why, but I always love hearing that. As far as the music of the Rats goes, it's just plain good old fashioned punk rock n' roll. Both the music and vocals sound a bit like Generation X, but maybe with the stick pulled out of Billy Idols ass a bit, or maybe a little like The Buzzcocks but pitched an octave or so down. On the six demos (never before released?) the band was working on in 1979 before vocalist Paul Rencher split the group (Steve Eagles went on to form The Photos aftwerwards) you can hear the Rats working towards extended rock jams -- like Ulster rockers Stiff Little Fingers -- with guitarist Eagles spreading his wings (pun maybe intended) and showing his guitar prowess. Includes repros of the original 7" sleeves, publicity photos of the group and a brief bio of all the important moments of the group's career penned by Eagles. Oh, and they do an irreverent cover of "Lady Is A Tramp"! What more can we say? Highly fucking recommended and shit!
No, it's not a new Atom Heart release of drill & bass mambo-core, Sexteto Electronica Moderno were a Uruguayan group which recorded four albums between 1968 and 1972. The "Electronica" in their name most likely refers to the fact that they used heaping amounts of Hammond organ, electric guitars & bass and other electric instruments in their otherwise typically acoustic jazz instrument line up. All but the final number on this collection (a vocal number with lyrics sung in Spanish) are cool tropical jazz instrumentals and their sound fits snuggly betwixt the likes of Herb Alpert, Cal Tjader and Ethiopian groovemaster Mulatu Astatke with a dash of Les Paul-esque guitar (not Paul's double speed over-dubs mind you). This is an excellent pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow for any seekers of rare exotica and 60's bachelor pad music. This collection is a best of, featuring tracks from the four albums the group produced in its career. Along with several originals are some great renditions of such classic numbers as Burt Bacharach's "The Look Of Love" and "I Say A Little Prayer", as well as Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus".
I somehow knew this was an Aquarius Record of the Week the minute I first laid eyes on it. Well, okay, maybe that's not entirely true. But it had the potential, that much I knew for sure, just from the cover: a huge double bass drumkit, set up in the middle of the forest with the name 'Earl' scrawled on one of the bass drums. A very evocative image, combining our love of heavy rock (the kit), with my personal thing for drums (the kit again) and our love of all things forest-y: naturesounds, field recordings, animal sounds and all that. My mind was reeling. Was it a drummer just playing solos out in the woods? Was it some sort of Jewelled Antler style rock band / field recording hybrid? Or something else entirely? Stranger yet, the song titles were all in German while the label was British. Intriguing. Better give it a listen... Well, the first track revealed very little. A weird minimal rhythmic workout composed entirely of backwards drums and cymbals. Thhwwp....thhhwwwwip...sssssssp.... Very cool, but was that the gist of it? After a minute or so of that, the record exploded into something entirely unexpected -- a crushing metal riff, with weird syncopated drumming, a sort of chunky Pantera / Prong meets the Fucking Champs vibe, with whispered vocals. Then it shifted gears again and entered into a super melodic Carcass-style death metal breakdown with howled black metal vocals before it shifted back to the machine-like opening riff. And then I knew for sure. Record of the Week!
Only later, with some Internet research, did we figure out what the heck was going on. The dedication on the inside to UK death metal crusties Bolt Thrower should have been our first clue, as it turns out that Earl Shilton is a pseudonym for Alex Thomas, former drummer for those very same metalheads. For some unknown reason, Earl Shilton is the name he has assumed for this project "of crushing death metal brutality and total corpse raping necro-blast carnage" as his website puts it. Indeed!
Furthermore, that website tells us that on tour, the band features a quite young, brother and sister rhythm section! Live, Earl steps from behind the kit to handle the guitars and vocals, while the brother plays bass, and the 16 year old sister mans the drums!!! Fuck yeah! This is getting more Record of the Week by the minute, we're thinking! And the music is well worthy too, lest we forget --
"Two Rooms (Full Of Insects)" is a blasting, hyper complex, super varied blast of metallic mayhem. From motorik, ultra-precise technical riffery, to stop/start math-metal complexity, from grooving, galloping death metal fury, to screeching blasting black metal, from eighties Earache style thrash to modern metallic fury, with all sorts of tripped out breakdowns, fucked up production and some really really weird parts, like the breakdown a little more than halfway through the album where everything drops out except for a simple, quietly played hypnotic tom tom rhythm, joined by backwards, super creepy Orcish vocals, and the hissing backwards drumming that started the record, before the whole thing bursts back into motion, in an explosion of grandioise Maiden-ish metal. Whew, so good. And while it may not be the best (or truest) metal record on this list, it certainly is the weirdest. And the coolest. And certainly the one most suited to being Record of the Week!
The latest from Ms Michelle Shocked is quite a doozy! Three differently themed full length albums -- Mexican Standoff, Don't Ask Don't Tell and Got No Strings -- offered up as a limited edition triple disc set on her own label, Mighty Sound.
First release in 7 YEARS from mighty UK heavy/drone/psych gods Skullfower. Matthew Bower (Sunroof!, Total ) resurrects his slumbering free-noise behemoth with this gorgeous blast of hypnotic, pummeling, droning crush, equal parts shimmering skree, damaged motorik rhythms, murky and druggy psych-rock riffs and swirling fuzzed-out guitars.
The album's core is the epic, expansive and never ending, four part suite "Celestial Highway", a sludgy sabbathy seventies rock riff, repeated adinfinitum, a dangerously unstable entropic jam wherein the riff slowly drifts apart, sinking into a churning tarpit of abstract whir and hum, gradually mutating into a drifting, throbbing pulse, as warbly synths, chirping birds, and thick washes of dreamy sonic turbulence overtake and subdue any traces of the original riff. Mesmeric and hypnotic and totally otherworldly. Like UK mantric rockers Loop, on repeat play, while your boombox runs out of batteries, or a sweeter, prettier version of Dutch minimal metal gods Gore, or imagine Steve Reich or Terry Riley composing for Black Sabbath. The remaining tracks retain their Krautrockish propulsion but drift closer to Sunroof! territory, loosening the psychedelic electronic riffscapes from their moorings, letting them float lazily through a gauzy soundscape of buzzing melodies, luminous shards of shimmering feedback and rumbling waves of drowsy, druggy drone. Like Neu! or Kraftwerk, doped up and drifting off, run through a bank of cheap effects, and broadcast out of an underwater leslie speaker, the lo-fi rhythms suffocating under a thick blanket of gossamer guitars and sonic detritus. Hypnotic and savage, dreamy and otherworldly, quixotic and godlike! Featuring sonic contributions from Vibracathedral Orchestra's Neil Campbell and produced by Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound, Ora. Monos, etc.).
Hmmm. Don't know exactly what to make of this. It's a sorta sci-fi themed mish mash of frantic beats, scratches, spacey fx and heavy guitars credited to the odd pairing of uber-intellectual DJ Spooky and Slayer/Fantomas drummer Dave Lombardo, with such equally unlikely guests as Chuck D, Dalek, Meredith Monk, Meat Beat Manifesto's Jack Dangers and Living Colour's Vernon Reid. Maybe the only question to ask is: how come Buckethead's not on this too? ...or Bill Laswell? Or Anthrax?? There's something very early '90s about this, and the trio of updated, electro-metallized PE raps that Chuck D contributes -- "Brother's Gonna Work It Out (2005)", "B-Side Wins Again (2005)", "Public Enemy #1 (2005)"-- just add to the deja vu. We mainly ordered this in 'cause the last unlikey Dave Lombardo collaboration (the one where he plays Vivaldi!) we encountered was actually weirdly cool. But this... not sure why it exists, exactly. Some parts are all right in and of themselves, but it doesn't seem to add up to anything other than a demonstration of the range of Spooky's Rolodex.
Tarentel have been on a madly prolific run, both as a group and individually -- particularly AQ pal Jef Cantu whom you can also hear in The Alps and as J.C. Ledesma. Following up the companion EPs Paper White and Big Black Square from earlier this year is another beautiful release from those dear fellows, and it's on the Acuarela label from Madrid, Spain. Barely there shifting layers of haze and shimmer punctuated by spartan plucked strings and strums. Ultra delicate and airy.
Two lists back (#216) we reviewed The Thing's album Garage. The upshot being, this Swedish jazz combo was pretty dang good both despite *and* because of their gimmick: covering (loosely and creatively) garage rock hits by such bands as The White Stripes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs! Now here's another blast of high-energy improv action from the trio of Mats Gustafsson (sax), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass), recorded live in Olso Norway, at a club called Bla. Nothing blah about their performance though (sorry!). They rumble and scream and blurt and groove, with plenty of passion and chops, and lots of room too for lovely moodiness. Here you'll find live versions of a couple of tracks from their Garage album (Noah Howard's "Haunted" and the White Stripes's "Aluminum") along with other compositions / improvisations not otherwise recorded by The Thing. We figure if you've got discs by such reedsmen as Peter Brotzmann and Ken Vandermark in your (jazz) collection, you need some Gustafsson too, and The Thing is just the thing to check out, both Garage and this Live at Bla disc.
Following their splendid Delhi9 double disc from 2003, here's a new one from Tosca... also known as Rupert Huber and the 'D' in the K&D (uh, Kruder & Dorfmeister!)... and to his mum, Richard Dorfmeister. Definitely a name you can trust when seeking finely crafted, sophisticated downtempo music. J.A.C. offers sweeping tracks graced by an occasional French female vocals ("Heidi Bruehl") and a more occasional thumpin' beat ("Superrob"). Ultra elegant and groovy, J.A.C. makes the perfect sonic backdrop for upscale cosmopolitan restaurants, boutiques and lounges.
Some of you may remember the cool oversized black metal magazine Oaken Throne (issues #1 and #2 now sadly out of print, but issue #3 coming soon!). Well in issue #2, the back cover featured a super cool tUMULt ad designed by the guys who design and publish Oaken Throne, featuring a cool woodcut and printed in silver metallic ink. Several folks commented on how the ad looked even cooler than the magazines actual cover, so AQ pal Wes decided to help make it into a poster. And WOW! The posters are gorgeous. On thick black paper, printed in metallic silver ink, featuring the fallen angel woodcut, an upside down cross (of course), the heavier tUMULt bands, as well as the unofficial tUMULt motto "I Hate Your Band." These are really nice and really big, about 48 inches high by 18 inches wide, so they need to be shipped in a tube so you'll have to pay a separate extra shipping charge. Don't let the tiny scan fool you, these are truly great looking, and um, even suitable for framing! ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Having your head dipped in some sort of molten hallucinogenic liquid...or steamrollered by a flying saucer.... or headbanging with Lovecraftian gods somewhere far out in the ocean of space... that's our meagre attempt to colorfully describe the experience of enjoying this slab of psychedelic stoner doom rock, the 1999 debut disc from Italy's UFOmammut! Chances are, though, that you have some idea already about this might sound like, 'cause UFOmammut's other album, the mighty Snailking, was immediately crowned as an Aquarius Record of the Week when it came out last year, and is still a steady seller hereabouts. Hopefully you already got one of those. This too, we've had before, but it's been out of print for quite a long time and only just got reissued. We figured that since folks liked Snailking so much, and Godlike Snake was just as good, and could easily have been missed out upon the first time around, we shouldn't pass up the opportunity to relist this and make it a Record of the Week as well now that it's back in print. After all, the whole reason we were so instantly amped on Snailking when it came out was in part 'cause we'd been waiting for it for, literally, years, after being blown away by the band's first album, this one. Our review of Godlike Snake ran something like this: "...this stoner rock band is a good 'un, taking a way spacier route to the Dopethrone than most. Wonderfully heavy and mesmerizing, with loads of effects, Moog, and (pardon the expression) "fat" churning drone-grind-groove... A new fave for us in the stoner/doom realm... Especially recommended for those that miss the old Monster Magnet sound, or relish the idea of a heavier Hawkwind." Listening to it now (which a bunch of us have been doing *every day* in the store), we're if anything EVEN MORE into it. Something we hadn't noticed before was how some tracks come across like Godflesh or early Killing Joke melded to Hawkwind. Crushing and enveloping and sooooooo good. It's like Electric Wizard gone spacerock, or an industrialized Dead Meadow.
As with its original incarnation, this includes a trippy video track for the song "Where?" for those with computers. It's now packaged in a standard jewelbox, instead of a cardboard digipack, but the artwork remains pretty much the same. If you like heaviness like we do, don't miss it this time!! Definitely to be considered an AQ doom/sludge/psych ESSENTIAL.
Not once, but twice has the Summersteps label commissioned an entire album of Jandek covers. Given the unmistakable idiosyncratic signature of Jandek's vocal warble and shrill guitar picking, it's not an easy task to reinterpret Jandek without watering down the original, even when you're a songwriter as strong as Jeff Tweedy or John Darnielle (aka The Mountain Goats). These are two of 21 artists who took on the challenge, alongside Eric Gaffney, Okkervil River (boldly covering what may be Jandek's best individual song "Your Other Man"), Six Organs of Admittance, Kawabata Makoto, Home For The Def (doing an is-it-brilliant-or-is-it-stupid hip-hop take on Jandek's "European Jewel"), Rivulets, and whole bunch of other people we've never heard of.
Microsolutions To Megaproblems is the electronica imprint of the esteemed Soul Jazz label, which has been mining a particular groove that ties together Philadelphia soul, New York leftfield disco, UK post-punk, and the best that Coxsone Dodd produced at Studio One, amongst many of their fine releases. As many of the Soul Jazz releases relish the forgotten aesthetics of the past, it's not surprising that their ventures into contemporary electronica would share not only an appreciation of a mighty funk but also embellishments that harken back to those earlier periods which Soul Jazz has so successfully mined. Over the past two years, Soul Jazz released a handful of 12" singles through the Microsolustions To Megaproblems sublabel from artists like Kit Clayton, Daedelus, Kid 606, Sutekh, Rekid, Ammon Contact, Tim Exile, Hu Vibrational, and other retro-active beatheads; and this compilation features many of the cuts from those singles as well as exclusive mixes of other tracks. Expect dub effects, slap basslines, and acid squiggles bouncing across mid-tempo, post-new wave, breakbeat electronica and blip house.
Pretty much our two favorite Japanese record labels are PSF and Alchemy. Responsible for documenting so much of the Japanese psych/improv/noise underground, Osaka's venerable Alchemy Records and Tokyo's equally long-running and crucial PSF label, have at last joined forces to celebrate their 20th anniversaries together. Two concerts were held last year and this disc is the resultant commemorative souvenir. It's packed with varied and exciting performances, some of 'em one-off collaborations between veterans of each label, for instance PSF's avant-folkster Kan Mikami dueting with Alchemy boss and noise/psych guitar maestro Jojo Hiroshige, or PSF experimental improv guitarist Kazuo Imai playing alongside Alchemy noiseniks Incapacitants. You'll also find PSF mascot Keiji Haino dueling for almost 15 minutes with fellow PSF guitarist Munehiro Narita (of High Rise). There's also tracks from Marble Sheep, L & friends, Go Hirano & Takashi Ueno, Exias-J, and Masayoshi Urabe and Junko (of Hijokaidan). Lots of dark, fucked up sounds without bounds for fans of both labels...
Wwe heard that both volumes of the original LPs of Reggae Goodies sold for $350 each on eBay just recently, if that tells you anything about the collector fanatacism that Wackies merch inspires in folks these days. If you're not a fetishist for the original object, you can get all those tracks -- 20 of them -- for a fraction of the $700 eBay price tag. All the greats are here: The Love Joys, Joe Morgan, Wayne Jarrett, Stranger Cole, The Chosen Brothers and much more.
FYI: if you *don't* like naked ladies, you'll want to avoid perusal of this disc's booklet, which mostly consists of vintage full-color cheesecake shots of a bevy of well-endowed "soul sisters". But don't let that put you off... just forget for one second that this cd is billed as a collection of '70s African-American porno flick soundtracks. For one thing, it sure doesn't sound like the typical "boogie nights" retro-porn soundtrack. No cheesy throbbing synths or disco beats. No orgiastic moans even! Instead, what you get here is avant-groove jazz funk of an almost experimental, freeform nature. The vibe can be lively but not "sleazy"... bad-ass though. Very funky and full of nasty geetar and jamming Hammond organ.
To tell the truth, there's so very little documentation presented here that we can't say we're 100 percent convinced that this is what it says it is, instead of something perhaps made by some clever musicans today creating replica vintage avant-funk soundtrack for imaginary x-rated flicks... though we should stress have no evidence of that at all, and we'd be mighty impressed if that was the case. Supposedly these tapes were recently found in a studio in Oakland, where the recordings we're told took place circa 1972-75, and the musicans that get credited here were, it seems, operating under pseudonyms (for obvious reasons perhaps). The films are alluded to only in the track titles, but who knows if those cited are real (anyone seen "Chocolate Cherry"?). There's no dialogue or sound effects or anything, since this is the original, raw soundtrack music only, what later was to be utilized perhaps in edited form in the finished film. Puzzling. But no matter, this stuff IS great!
There's the aforementioned avant-funk that surely fits into the '70s blaxploitation aesthetic, but this funk is full of sizzling feedbacking guitar that is hard to square with scenes of, um, lovemaking. But actually a lot of this is in more of an introspective mood that the wah-funk stereotype. More laidback that about getting laid. A long portion of track five ("Music From 'Copper Cuties'") consists of variations on a pensively repeating, gentle piano figure, generating a mood far from you might expect to be "exposed" to in an ostensibly X-rated flick. And only the last track "Jam Back At The House" has vocals, they go with that cut's smokey groove but do serve to break the almost mysterious feel set by the preceeding tracks a little. Overall, this is way more amazing than we ever thought it would be. What we though might be kitschy and/or kookily amusing turned out to be downright fresh and intriguing.
Miles Davis had a track on his album Get Up With It entitled "Rated X" -- maybe he'd been checking out the cinema and was inspired by one of the films that used music like this? Definitely this comes close to what we'd imagine would be how that "big freak" would have scored a porno soundtrack!!
So, this is one for fans of those Deep Note porno soundtrack comps and maybe moreso for folks who simply dig weird and wonderful jazz/funk obscurities, which would seem to be a lot of people who hear it (and then buy it) when we've been playing it in the store!
Been listening to this non-stop since we got it. And selling 'em too, as soon as customers hear it (or even just hear about it, if they're like us). Wow. Now, you probably know that here at Aquarius we're partial to the prog. So, when we heard that a DJ mix of obscure tracks from the catalog of '70s UK label Vertigo, who specialized in prog, heavy psych, and weird-ass jazz rock was to be released, we were, well, psyched. And jazzed. And, uh, progged? Indeed. We were thinking that this could be something really great, as after all there were a lot of great records released on Vertigo (home of the famed "swirl" label). And great it IS, both in terms of the source material and the "60 course psychedelic smorgasbord" medley-like sound-collage approach taken to putting it together, which maximizes the amount of brilliant hooks and grooves that could be packed into one cd, while making for one dizzying, "swirl" worthy ride.
The story there is that DJ Andy Votel (who compiled the Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word disc we listed last time, among other things) was asked, in a dream-come-true moment, to put together a "best of Vertigo" collection. But since, in his own words, progressive rock tracks are "not short, they're EPIC" he was faced with a dilemma. How to fit more than just three or four songs on the cd?? His solution was to boil down his favorite Vertigo LPs to short excerpts, stitching together these many "vinyl snippets" into a 68 minute mega-mix. The overall effect is still very "prog" indeed, as it's definitely a prog move to jump around from one motif to the next, dynamically or schizophrenically changing things up in a short span of time. Yet it all flows well together, this could almost be one tour-de-force album from one AMAZING band!!
The credits list 38 songs by 29 artists, all from Votel's personal Vertigo vinyl collection -- Aphrodite's Child, Gracious, Colosseum, Affinity, Juicy Lucy, Uriah Heep, May Blitz, Warhorse, Gravy Train, Baker Gurvitz Army, Cressida, Patto, Flied Egg, Nucleus, Atlantis, Frumpy, Freedom, and many more, most of 'em hailing from the UK but also some from overseas, including Japan and Greece. Vertigo's best known signing has to be Black Sabbath, and while they don't appear in the credits I trust you'll hear something from 'em on here too, first thing (and later on as well, when Votel mixes the harp blowing from "The Wizard" into a May Blitz tune).
Thusly loaded with heaviness, groove, and Mellotrons, you get everthing from (old school) acid jazz to flutey prog to raw proto-metal -- all kinds of what gets called "hairy funk" here. Votel also makes use of interjections from what might be radio promo spots for Vertigo -- voices exclaiming "Vertigo! Vertigo!" and the like -- in order to smooth up his segues. In some ways, this might remind you a little bit of DJ Shadow's Entroducing, actually, not that these tracks have been fully edited into new compostions. But the love of dusty old prog grooves is the same.
Votel provides liner notes elaborating his enthusiasm for Vertigo (the label's role in his musical development, as a hip hop DJ with a fondness for prog) and his agonies over this project. Also you get a profile of Barry Winton, famed as the world's foremost Vertigo vinyl collector. And in addition, a portion of the cd booket is devoted to an appreciation of Keef, resident cover artist/graphic designer for Vertigo...which makes us think it would have been cool if they also presented a selection of covers here to look at, ah well.
Could be the best comp/DJ mix we've heard in ages. Boiling down an entire label to its essence over the span of one cd has got to be a tough task, and of course what Votel has selected is only a portion of the whole Vertigo story. But we can't nitpick with what he's done, this is a classy piece of work and deserving of kudos from all lovers of ye olde prog/psych. It might even convert some new lovers too! Recommended!!!
Some reissues of long-lost gems arrive here with little fanfare and turn out to be great nonetheless. This one though, came our way emblazed with blurbs proclaiming its immense awesomeness quoting the likes of Jim O'Rourke, Tim Gane, Jarvis Cocker and David Holmes. And guess what? Those guys do indeed know what they're talking about! This IS pretty fantastic. Here we have an action-packed instrumental concept album whose title translates into English as The Child Killer Of The Flies, which musically narrates a simple but creepy story by Serge Gainsbourg (written *after* he heard the album, not before, and included the liner notes, explaining each track title) about the horrific revenge of flies on a child who had tortured them. This musical story-telling is by way of schizoid arrangements of tracks that range in sound from groovy pop to jazz to avant-garde tape music to fuzz guitar rock! Sounds good, eh? Good n' weird for sure.
L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches is a "Fellini-esque psychedelic symphony" originally released (but poorly distributed and relegated to general obscurity) in 1972, credited to a unknown group called Isolitudes. The man behind Insolitudes, though, was one Jean-Claude Vannier, a musician and producer from the happening '60s French pop ("Ye Ye music") scene who had scored film soundtracks and collaborated with Serge Gainsbourg, most famously providing the arrangements for Gainsbourg's highly-rated L'Histoire De Melody Nelson album (the reissue of which we wish we had in stock also, but haven't been able to get a hold of lately). This record is thereby cited as the follow-up to that one-of-a-kind conceptual classic. Itself it's pretty much one-of-a-kind too. Funky and groovy, as well as deliriously, disorientingly hallucinogenic, this will hit you with lush string arrangements one moment, sound effects of sheer terror the next... it's psych, it's prog, it's funk, it's musique concrete. There's even a chorus of car horns put to good use here! It's the freakiest 'sploitation soundtrack that never was. This reissue includes two bonus tracks from a rare 7" single entitled Point D'Interrogation, and also boasts extensive and informative (and quite laudatory) liner notes by DJ Andy Votel. Very recommended!
A long overdue reissue of this miltaristic ambient industrial folk, cinematic masterpiece originally released in 2000. Very much in the vein of Folkstorm, Toroidh, Der Blutharsch and the like, the music of Von Thronstahl was conceived, in the band's own words, with the idea of making "music & art which would be more attached to a real European heritage and not to a freemasonary, anarchic tradition of false liberty, which means lawlessness and rootlessness." Oof. Heavy. Well, no need to agree, or to even understand to dig this record. An expansive, orchestral, dark hued journey through European History, Fascism, War, life and love and loss. Huge sweeping minor key strings, over mournful melodies, plaintive piano, martial percussion, snippets of found sounds, snatches of old songs and speeches, ominous whispered vocals. Very intense and ominous and emotional, and weirdly reminiscent of UK outfit In The Nursery with the big strings and occasional pounding militaristic percussion, and even some once-in-a-while playful gipsy melodies. But the occasional lighthearted vibe aside, Imperium Internum is a raw and harrowing record, majestic and epic, but ultra personal, full of sorrow and misery, darkness and light. So great.
A big welcome back greeting goes out to Seattle's Walkabouts! They're that great band who bucked the trend back in those Pacific Northwest grunge rock days, making beautiful, somber and decidedly un-grunge music. Hmmm, maybe that's a bit misleading for us to say, 'cause actually they never went away. In the years since they've continued to craft their distinct gothic (not goth) Americana music in abundance. Really, the size (not to mention caliber) of their body of recordings is astounding. The problem is that many of their releases have been downright impossible-to-find imports, but fortunately this particular release found its way to our ears. And we are grateful. The theme of this release is Nina Simone. That's right, they've covered five of her songs, and they're fantastic! Their haunting version of "Nobody's Fault But Mine" may send chills down your spine! For fans of Ms Simone, The Walkabouts, of both or of neither. We only wish they'd kept on goin' past the five song mark.
Here we thought exquisite dronesters Windy & Carl were paying tribute to Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist, but no! This limited edition release is dedicated to their dearly departed doggie, Flea. It features two lengthy tracks of their trademark glistening guitar and keyboard drone compositions embellished with some scuttling sounds from recordings of their pup. Just over 37 minutes long. We just have a few, and it's a LIMITED PRESSING OF 500!!!
Could it be that Sweden's Witchcraft, who seem like some long-lost '70s outfit who stumbled into our era by mistake, are for real? And not some drug-induced figment of a bell-bottomed stoner/doom fantatic's imagination? Yea and verily. Firewood proves that the first Witchcraft record was no crazy fluke. That album was so good (recall, we opened our review of it by saying: "PERHAPS THEE BEST '70s-INSPIRED DOOM ALBUM EVER" in all-caps just like that!) that for their eagerly-awaited follow-up to be even half as good would be impressive. I mean, they'd set the bar pretty high. We are therefore ecstatic to report that Firewood definitely lives up to the standard established by the debut! Can't say yet if it's just almost as good, or if it's even better -- but clearly it's up there with their first disc. I don't think they've yet topped their signature song "No Angel Or Demon" (which appeared on the self-titled disc but also preceeded it on the band's first release, a 7" single) but there's plenty of great songs (and riffs) on Firewood nonetheless, to compare well with the debut. Firewood storms out of the gate with "Chylde of Fire", wanders through the morose "Wooden Cross (I Can't Wake The Dead)", bludgeons with the doomful "Queen of Bees"...and seven more, all killer.
Firewood's also got the same fat '70s vintage production (a little brighter now mayhaps) as before. And certainly their undeniable Pentagram influence (what countrymen Dungen are to Pugh Rogefeldt, Witchcraft are to early Pentagram) is still there, in spades, including a hidden bonus track Pentagram cover, which goes hand in hand with a BIG first-couple-of-Ozzy-era-Sabbath-albums influence as well. And then there's the proggier/folkier elements too, some reminders of Jethro Tull and King Crimson if not quite Comus. Though there is something pagan and ancient here that makes it clear that modern metal and stoner rock has left these guys untouched. That's the beauty of Witchcraft's nostaglic creation. It's hard to think of any current stoner rock or doom band (except for them) who would seriously throw such a disco strut into a song like the way they open "Mr. Haze". Led Zeppelin would be proud. From such unexpected songwriting moves to the folky trill in guitarist/singer/mastermind Magnus Pellander's ever-stronger, emotive voice, they've got such FEEL. That's where they excel. It's an X-factor difficult to describe but central to their success. And it must stem from two things: sheer talent, and their absolute, honest love for (and learning from) the bands that once sounded a bit (or a lot) like them. Put that together and you've got this heavy, sparkling witchy riff-rock retro genius!! If you loved the first Witchcraft, don't hesitate. And if you haven't heard 'em yet, but if you like Pentagram and Sabbath and Witchfinder General and all things heavy and '70s, you'd better lend an ear right NOW. You'll be happy you did.
Wold are an ultra mysterious outfit from the barren land to the north (Canada, Saskatchewan to be precise), who play the weirdest and most weirdly recorded black metal we've ever heard. Imagine some old radio serial, or some snippet from an old black and white film, sort of scratchy and fuzzy and otherworldly, then smother it in guitarfuzz and blown out distortion, add some keening guitar melodies and blast beats, and you've got what we can only describe as a black metal Philip Jeck. The warm and warbly keyboard melodies and timeless cinematic snatches of sound are so hypnotic and dreamily repetitive. It's almost like a black metal band doing their own blackened version of William Basinski's Disintegration Loops. Kind of hard to describe, but Wold somehow take the drone-y aspect of BM bands like Graveland and Nargaroth even further, adding a creepy and scratchy looped mesmer beneath a wash of almost My Bloody Valentine like guitars. Or an even more abstract analogy, imagine Persephone in Hades, the goddess of Spring who was kidnapped and spirited down into the depths of hell, all these little ribbons of Springtime and loveliness drifting in the cold and grim underworld, a bleak and miserable expanse of sound with brief glints of color and sunshine, glimpses of a world that once was, looped like a rotting old filmstrip, repeated over and over and over, head nodding, thoughts drifting, eyes closing, spirit shifting, soul blackening.
As if the music weren't weird enough, the band is fronted by the curiously named Fortress Crookedjaw, and backed up by his cohorts, Operationex and Obey.
And then of course there's the band's manifesto:
"Wold embraces the Mytho Poetic; the communication is expressed through our music, and theoretical as well as practical work done through our Woldclan brotherhood and our lodge, the L.O.T.M.P..
"Wold venerate our ancestors and cultures through myth and existence, and remain open and reflective to other effective metaphors.
"Wold promote awareness.
"Wold strive for honor and dignity above materialistic lies and novelty culture.
"Wold solemnly swear to adhere to the law of the Self."
It takes a lot for a record to so completely kick our ass and to so confound us musically. Definitely one of the coolest and weirdest black metal records we've heard in a long long time!!
Previously only available as a limited vinyl pressing of 300 from De Stijl Records, now reissued on CD by those kind folks at Troubleman Unlimited.
If we were gonna be lazy-asses and just toss off some current reference points, we might say that Wooden Wand album sounds a lot like what you might imagine the avant-folk bastard offspring of Devendra Banhart and Jandek would conjure up, but with absentminded spoken-sung male vocals and somber, resonant female vocals that occasionally draw comparisons to Jarboe (particularly on the song "Caribou Christ In The Great Void"). However, there's so much more to be said about the splendidly off-center sounds of Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice. Fans of Vibracathedral Orchestra, No Neck Blues Band, not to mention the assorted twigs and branches of both Animal Collective and Jewelled Antler Collective should definitely check this out (if they haven't already!). Smatterings of flute toots, stringy plink plunks, rattlings, rustlings and other random sounds rummaged from various knic-knacs, shrubbery, loosely strung strings and earthen wares. Apparently there's many many more Wooden Wand releases on the horizon. So if you dig this, you've got plenty more to look forward to! Liner notes by some dude called Thurston Moore.
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. Frank Wright's Uhuru Na Umoja, originally released in 1970, is a two headed jazz beast, one head a moody and smokey slab of dark and slithery moonlit jazz, all sexy horns, dark complex piano, sizzling cymbals, mumbled voalisations, even some harmonica, the other a skronky, wild and wooly post bop workout of crashing drums and interwoven sax melodies. On Uhuru Na Umoja, tenor saxophonist Wright is joined by Noah Howard on alto sax, Bobby Few on piano and Arthur Taylor on drums and the results are divine! The first half of the record is a smoldering late night jazz record, lugubrious and haunting, minor key and romantically melancholy. The second half of the record is rambunctious and playful, a bit chaotic, but never two far out, each sax grounded by the melody of the other, the solid drumming holding both to the ground, while the piano offers wild scattered runs and dark rumblings beneath. So great!
Comes in a gorgeous 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.
