First record from longtime AQ pal / customer Brandon Nickell aka Aemae, two long years in the works and we dare say it was well worth the wait. A gorgeous and exquisitely crafted abstract free noise drone record. Dark and deliriously dense, a perfect amalgamation of the experimental dronework of the Hafler Trio, the sweeping skreescapes of Sunrooof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra and the abstract minimalism of Mirror or Jonathan Coleclough. As well, this has plenty of distinctly unique sonic elements. Heavily reverbed chimes and bells are smeared into a twinkling fog, slowly thickening into a dense slab of electrical impulses, woven together so tightly it resembles a buzzing ball of hornets, a throbbing thrumming drone. Strange steel drum like electronic pulses, an alien gamelan, pickes out a tranquil melody beneath swooping and blooping spaciness, sheets of industrial shuffle, scrape and rumble, leaving sparkling trails of dense and complex almost IDM skitter in their wake, albeit wrapped in thick gauzy veils of warm reverberant flutter. All stretched into distant, soft focus soundscapes of warbling whir and creaking ambience. Quite lovely and sublime!
How can you not love a band called Agoraphobic Nosebleed? Especially when some of the members also do time in a group called Pig Destroyer? And when they spew forth a ear splitting, skull cleaving, gore drenched stew of hyperspeed buzz and grind, complete with impossibly fast drum machine blast beats, soul crushing downtuned riffage and insanely frenzied vocals. You can't. Not love them that is. And thus we do love these deranged grind freaks. So much so that we proudly proclaimed their Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope album one of the best grind records ever! And we were equally enamored of their 100 song 3" cd released not soon after. But this is the one we've been waiting for. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX TRACKS, two whole discs compiling everything they ever recorded before they signed to Relapse, which is a whole heck of a lot. Every long out of print seven inch, every impossible to find compilation track, even thirteen previously unreleaed tracks! All absolutely the most furious, most fucked up grind you'll ever hear, million mile an hour tempos, fifty parts per minute-long tracks, blurry and buzzy and thrashing and pummeling and mind meltingly complex, replete with bizarre ambient interludes, sludgy doom metal breakdowns, freaked out ultranoise, all scattered amidst prickly thorny squalls of glorious gut ripping grind! Gorgeously packaged with tons of liner notes, track listing, discography, as well as some impossibly Pushead-like artwork credited to someone who is NOT Pushead!
We always talked about trying to start a live jungle band, drum and bass played by a REAL band, no synths or laptops, just guitars and bass and drums. Lots of drums. In fact, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how many drummers you would need, or how insane a drummer it would take to simulate that lightning speed skitter and stutter. So what exactly would it take, in terms of instrumentation to accurately recreate that jungle sound, or say maybe the sound of Aphex Twin? Well judging from this record right here, it would take flute, alto flute, piccolo, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, bassoon, horn, horsoon, horse horn, Jew's harp, trumpet, duck call, trombone, steel drums, plastic tubing, mbira, piano, celesta, Fender Rhodes, violin, viola, accordian, cello, electric bass, upright bass, electric guitar, tambura, voice, cocktail stirrer kalimba, water hose, curtain rods, air pumps, engraving tool and of course FOUR percussionists and TWO drummers!! Phew. No wonder we could never get it to work. This massive ensemble manages to take songs by Aphex Twin and give them a classical organic makeover, and the results are pretty fantastic, owing as much to the brilliant and undeniably catchy songs of Aphex Twin as it does to the clever arrangements and deft musicianship of the Alarm Will Sound players. Aphex tracks definitely lend themselves to this sort of re-imagining, the older stuff is dense and rhythmic, clattery and chaotic, already feeling a bit twentieth century classical, so you can imagine that a group of modern classical musicians would have no problem playing, and playing with the material, having already tackled Cage and Reich and Riley and Feldman. The new stuff is rife with soaring strings and pizzicato melodies, so having a full string section tackling those parts, and then being supported by a complement of horns and a huge corps of percussion, only makes the originals sound that much more lush and musical. And then there's the redone tracks from Selected Ambient Works Volume 2, which in this context, are so perfectly lovely and hypnotic, they prove once again (remember the Phillip Glass Aphex Twin remixes?) that had Richard D. James chosen a different musical tack (modern classical minimalism), we might speak of him in the same breath as Cage or Riley or Feldman (with whom James most definitely shares a similar subtly melodic flair), instead of groups like Boards Of Canada or Bola.
Insen is the exquisite follow-up to Vrioon, which was the first collaborative outing for seminal electronic musicians Alva Noto (aka Carsten Nicolai) and Ryuichi Sakamoto that came out in 2003. As on their first album, Insen centers upon the balance between the impressionist piano passages of Sakamoto and the cold yet graceful production of Nicolai. While the differences between the two records are subtle, they are certainly noteworthy as Nicolai slices up Sakamoto's piano into fine slivers of time-stretched fragments, terse rhythms, and blurred ambience. In turn, Nicolai realigns these sounds with Sakamoto's untreated notes, providing a complex interplay between the piano and its fractured electronic mimesis. In structuring all of the pieces on Insen, Nicolai occasionally situates his electronics along a parallel path to Sakamoto's piano, and slowly moves the two paths toward different directions, with Nicolai's rhythms achieving velocity and tension whereas Sakamoto's pointillist notes remain weighless and transient. Yet, Nicolai always teases with losing control over the composition, as he often snaps back into a somber atmosphere of minimalist smears, resorting to a similiar strategy as heard on Eno's epic Thursday Afternoon. Stunning.
Yet another gorgeously packaged, impeccaby recorded piece of modern minimalism from Idea records. We raved about the now out of print COH double lp a few lists back, and this release is just as nice. This time it's Australian Oren Ambarchi, who's delicate, barely-there guitar improvisations are gorgeously wispy and ethereal and float dreamily from the speakers towards your ears taking thier own sweet time. Notes hang suspended in space shimmering and slowly fading, until another note comes to join it or move it on its way. Super thick gatefold sleeve in an extra thick plastic sleeve. Double lp on super heavy 220 gram vinyl. The copies we have also come with a 7" featuring two extended remixes by Tom Rechion of the Los Angeles Free Music Society. So nice.
These Canadians (and their American record label) sure know how to keep their fans satiated over the summer months. They not only reissued the band's debut EP recently, but have also popped out this lil' 7" single. Two songs: one original and one cover of an oft-covered beloved oldie from 1939! Sure to please their ever-growing legions of fans... particularly the ones with record players, although there's been a few turntableless, A.F. completist folks who 'needed' it too. On clear vinyl and packaged in a super pretty vellum sleeve.
When you first put this on your stereo, it might almost have you convinced that it's some lost '80s British post-punk band, that is, until you zero in on the lyrics. Majorly hipster, irony-laden, clever-clever phrases spoken-sung in such an over the top British accent that it nears jokeish Mark E. Smith impersonations. In the first song "Formed A Band" there's even a reference to it -- "And yes, this is my singing voice, it's not irony, it's not Rock'n'Roll, we're just talking, to the Kids." Pretty silly stuff playing dress-up in The Fall's closet. But still pretty darn cool. Funny rock anecdote / rumor: Art Brut's first single was on Rough Trade, who were also planning on releasing their full length, that is until supposedly one of the Rough Trade head honchos went and saw them play, decided they were the worst, most amateur rock band he had ever seen and had them promptly dropped from Rough Trade!
Ace Of Spades is a cd-r series of live recordings showcasing the intimate acoustic music of a variety of local indie artists. The series so far boasts consistently strong performances from all participants (well played and well recorded at Mama Buzz Cafe in Oakland).
The Volume 7 - March, 2005 edition features a half dozen tunes from Audio Out Send, five from !Go Mexico! and three from Gibson Cuyler.
The War On Huh? is the first full length from Bad Grid (aka Mark Nemeth and Paul Brown) and it's comprised of a baker's dozen lo-fi, electronic pop/rock songs laden with socio-political commentary on "Generals And CEOs", "Barbara Bush" and "Radical Republicans" with plenty of newsreel soundbites (unfortunately they've included a bunch of already way too over-played Bush clips). The vocals are delivered in a low, somewhat sullen speak-sing style reminiscent of Daniel Ash. As a result their statements in songs such as "Solution Song" and "Enjoy Your Life" occasionally come across as somewhat passive or defeatist rather than rallying. May seem a bit contradictory, but they get their message across -- raising awareness while keepin' things downbeat.
Ah, Bathtub Shitter. Even the mere mention of the band gets us all smiling. Not just because Bathtub Shitter is quite possibly the most stupidly brilliant band name ever, and not just because their lyrics are composed in a dizzyingly bizarre confusional sort of Japanglish, and not just because they sing mostly about shit, but because they are still one of the coolest, weirdest grind bands we have ever heard. If you're a regular AQ customer, you are probably already well aware of how much we love Bathtub Shitter, and probably have a good idea of why, but those of you yet to be acquainted with the 'Shitter, let's recap. Imagine if you will, the Boredoms covering Agoraphobic Nosebleed, or maybe a wacky, damaged Japanese Pig Destroyer. Wild and splattery grind, huge downtuned guitars, blazing fast, super complex riffs, pounding blast beats, and a vocalist who manages to grunt with the best of 'em, a guttural gargling demonic gurgle, but who, in the blink of an eye, can switch to a hysterical shriek, that sounds a bit like a mad housewife or a terrified cheerleader in a horror movie as she is about to be ritually disemboweled. Amazing! Seeing them live, it's completely baffling to see these two voices coming from the same skinny little Japanese guy, so much so that until we actually did see them, we were convinced there had to be two vocalists.
This is Bathtub Shitter record number three, and is quite possibly the best of the bunch, compiling all of their long out of print seven inches, compilation tracks, songs from splits as well as some demos and unreleased tracks. Packaged in an oversized seven inch sleeve, with cool gory cover art on one side, one of those goofy punk rock / heavy metal style collages of onstage / backstage hi-jinks on the other, and of course all the lyrics inside. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES WORLDWIDE, AND HAND NUMBERED!
...And coming soon, in plenty of time for the holidays, you knew it had to happen... a Bathtub Shitter Christmas record!! On Andee's tUMULt label!! Holy shit!!
Many folks were disappointed when Cotton Casino decided to drop out of the Acid Mothers Temple. And it wasn't just lecherous psych rock nerds who would no longer be able to ogle the tiny chain smoking, perpetually scowling waif, stationed stoically behind her synthesizers. No, she also happened to contribute some of AMT's most appealing elements with her burbling blooping bleeping space rock synths and her angelic ethereal otherworldly vocals. This is only her second proper, non cd-r release, post AMT, and her first release as Birds, with her musical partner Per Gisele Galaen who had previously played in the groups Sloburn and Del. And damn if this isn't the lovliest AMT related record we've yet heard. As one might imagine, the focus here is Cotton Casino's voice, at once totally delicate and tentative, but at the same time dreamy and haunting. However, it's the surrounding sounds that really make this record special. The record opens acapella, with Casino's quavering vocals sounding like a timid girlish singer in some sort of creepy opera, which only gets creepier once the music comes in, hauntingly strummed guitars that blur into a shimmering minor key backdrop, while tiny electrical impulses whoosh to and fro in the background. After that the record drifts like an unmoored ship, down a dark stream through a dark and ominous forest, the sounds throughout moody and melancholy, with slow motion strings swooping in morose minor key arcs, Casino gurgling like a baby, her bandmate Galaen singing in a barely audible deadpan over swirls of space-y sound effects, the sounds of running water, delicate melodies playing on a heavily reverbed piano far in the distance, the buzz of steel strings ringing out like an electric sitar, dizzying synth melodies careening from speaker to speaker interrupted by wild squalls of full on ultra distorted Japanoise guitar skree, gorgeous folky acoustic guitars beneath Casino's hypnotic sing song vocals, extended stretches of warm droning rumbles, playful Moog melodies and more of that Casino bloopy space synth, sounding almost like Perrey And Kingsley, and finally the whole record finishes off with a six minute blast of full on wall of guitar meltdown, noisy and punishing, but at the same time completely hypnotic, like getting buried in warm wet sound, feeling it fill your ears and your eyes and your mouth, so all you can see or hear or taste is GUITAR, roiling and swirling and pulsing, slowly fading and drifting into space, leaving only a battered old piano, playing a simple melody, accompanied by Casino's barely there angelic purr.
Gorgeously packaged with original Pete Fowler artwork (Andee sports several Fowler tattoos in fact!), an image of a pink smoke breathing, wooden helmeted, long stripey armed, black bearded demon, surrounded by birds and squirrels and hairy horses, all rendered in blurred out 3-D on one of those cool three dimensional stereo lenticular cards. Wow!
The newest release on AQ pal Uirajara's stellar Essence label, home to the awesome dark ambience of Wolfskin, the splattery noise onslaught of Merzbow's Sha Mo 3000, and soon to release the Brazilian version of Boris's most recent Mabuta No Ura, with completely different artwork and extra music, comes the latest in a recent spate of releases from Scandanavian dark ambient technician Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, who also records as Folkstorm, Toroidh and began his journey down the darkened path with his black ambient outfit MZ412. This newest release is as dark and bleak and sonically terrifying as they come, which is quite odd considering Vitagen is dedicated to his daughter Indra (the dedication reads: Dedicated to Indra, the light which guides me through the darkness), the cover features all antique photos of little girls, and the super limited deluxe version (now out of print, so don't ask) even came with a handmade porcelain doll. But there is nothing loving or childlike here, unless of course it's meant to be the musical probing of the darkest recess of a child's mind, all monsters and nightmares, things that go bump in the night, shadows outside the window, demons waiting in the closet, all brought to life by disembodied rumbles, slow building industrial swells of shivering blackness, ominous smears of demonic minimalism, and occasional cracks and crashes, like brief bursts of lightning illuminating the terrors hidden in the night, just for a moment, but that moment is enough to fill your soul with dread as you are plunged back into utter darkness. And while the sound of Vitagen is definitely brutal and barren and hauntingly grim, it's also quite beautiful, and even soothing at times, with small stretches of tranquil ambience scattered here and there, melodies slowed down and pulled apart into dark shapes that sort of drift and hover, a nice balance between the hellishly malevolent and the soothingly serene. Beautifully packaged in a six panel, embossed cardboard sleeve.
Meanwhile, Back In The States... is the second release from The Black Furies, and it reveals a bit of a shift in direction. Tighter and punchier, their new sound borders on the cock rock party action of The Hives, The Hellacopters or even Turbonegro. Gooood times! So, the news that the band has recently signed to Gearhead Records makes total sense... much more so than if we'd heard the news following their last cd which was more of a straight forward punk rawk rally. They've sharpened their pop hooks, Turtle-waxed their guitars to a super gleam, and put a bit more imagination into their packaging to boot.
Japan's Blues Creation started off as standard late 60's traditional blues-rock band but quickly got all heavy and freaky and proto-metallic and sort of became their country's riffy acid-blues answer to Black Sabbath (well, along with a few others like Flied Egg and of course AQ faves the Flower Travellin' Band who covered Sabbath on their first album). We really wish we could still get a hold of the Japanese import cd version of Blues Creation's classic 1971 album Demon & Eleven Children. But at least, at last, we have a few recently obtained copies of this, a reissue of a live album that originally came out 'round the same time. It's got the title track from Demon & Eleven Children, along with a couple of Blue Creation originals not found on Demon, one called "Nightmare" being as good and metal as anything on that album. Plus there's a few covers -- "Understand" with guest vocalist Carmen Maki, who was kind of a Japanese Janis Joplin/Robert Plant hybrid, and extended-length versions of ol' nuggets like "Rolling Stone" and "Tobacco Road" (a mean version of that song for sure!). This is definitely not for those who hate the blues -- a lot of this is real bluesy -- but it's also pretty much always heavy and/or frantic. And the guitar work is KILLER, Iommi-worthy leads ripping out of yr speakers all the time. A live recording is just perfect for these guys. They have a super electric sound and that early '70s jamming aesthetic like the Sabs themselves.
Man! The '60s and '70s psych reissues from around the world just keep wowing us. I mean, there's lots that don't, but those that do, DO. Spain's Eduardo Bort (the guy floating cross-legged in space on the cover with his guitar in his lap, presumably) and his band released this album back in 1975 and we'd never ever have heard of it if Fonomusic hadn't just done this nicely digipacked cd reissue. We put it on and thought, this is pretty good, yeah...and then a track or two later we were all just, like, 'I need this!" From soft gentle folkiness to hard rock guitar workouts, there's a lot to like here. The record consists of six epix of many moods, from spaced out psych to symphonic prog -- moody, melodic, dynamic and bombastic. Bort & Co are capable of sudden energetic, frantic prog outbursts and fuzz-riffed heaviness, like when about seven minutes into "Walking On The Grass" Bort's band really starts rippin' (with a total Iron Maiden galloping bass-line). Very cool. And the vocal majesty of that track reminds us of Deep Purple's "Child In Time" quite a bit. The production is amazing too. Recommended ('specially if you also dig Steamhammer's Speech or Wishbone Ash or Uriah Heep or anything sorta prog, sorta hard rock, sorta psych from the same era!).
Geez, it's getting increasingly difficult to keep up with the flurry of release activity bursting forth from the Absolutely Kosher label these days -- Sparrow, Jim Yoshii Pile-Up, Moggs, Get Him Eat Him, and the list goes on! We welcome this new EP from veteran indie popsters Bottom Of The Hudson as a kind sign that they A.) don't want to crowd out their labelmates, B.) don't want to monopolize the stereo, C.) do want to keep the listener wantin' more or D.) all of the above? For these half dozen songs they've injected a dose of the sullen mope-rock dourness of Interpol into their rough-hewn popcraft a la Guided By Voices to good effect. Lots of those ol' familiar strummy-jangle indie rock guitars, boyish vocals and an occasional lo-tech drum machine percolating up every so often.
Last list we had the deluxe reish of Baltimore guitarist George Brigman's long-lost Jungle Rot album, a self-released obscurity from '75 that seemed to be one man's tribute to The Stooges and the Velvet Underground. Fuzz-punk-blues-psych from way underground. Well, turns out that as a blues guitarist, George Brigman's biggest influence was probably Tony McPhee of British blues rockers The Groundhogs. So his late '70s outfit was called Split for a reason -- it's the name of (imho) the best Groundhogs album. And Brigman's blues bag is bigger on Split's 1977 album for sure. But if you've been diggin' Jungle Rot like we have, you might want to check this out too. We can't say it's quite as good, but it surely has its moments and many fans of Jungle Rot will like it too. The messed up downer punk attitude, and the fuzz, of Jungle Rot is prevalent here as well. At its worst, decent bar band blues rock with a great guitarist. At its best, really freaking awesome and weird bar band blues rock with a great guitarist. 19 tracks, some previously unreleased bonus cuts included.
Jim O'Rourke has never been shy in announcing who is the primary muse for each of his multi-faceted musical adventures. There was Bad Timing, which pretty much appropriated wholesale John Fahey's idiosyncratic bluegrass style; his Eureka record tapped into the '70s AM radio sounds of Steely Dan and Bread; and then there was the often overlooked Brise-Glace, now reissued. Around the time that he formed the tape-spliced avant-rock project Brise-Glace, O'Rourke released a collaborative album with KK Null entitled A New Kind Of Water, which also happens to be the name of a mighty fine This Heat song. Couple that reference with the name Brise-Glace also being the title of a composition of musique concrete by Luc Ferrari, and you might have a pretty good idea of where O'Rourke's mindset was during the recording of When In Vanitas. Then living in Chicago, O'Rourke gathered together Darin Gray of Dazzling Killmen and Dylan Posa & Thymme Jones of Cheer-Accident in crafting a muscular buzz-saw field of sound that O'Rourke radically cut up (with a razor blade!) into the math-rock structures found on When In Vanitas. So yeah, Brise-Glace does sound a lot like This Heat especially in the tense, angular riffs, balanced with plenty of languid strumming pointing back to Slint; but more often than not, Brise-Glace eeriely predates the jagged art-rock epics of Laddio Bollocko. Originally released back in 1994, When In Vanitas remains the only record from Brise-Glace, although O'Rourke did also produce a similar project with similar people (including members of Zeni Geva) called Yona Kit, again released on Skin Graft and currently out of print as far as we know. But thankfully, Skin Graft have been wise enough to at last reissue this, one of the very best records in their back catalogue.
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This is Krautrock at its absolute dreamiest. Next to Ege Bamyasi, this is one of our most favorite Can albums. A regulation-size track, "Moonshake" is surrounded by three long ones to create a lush, lifting journey. Suzuki's vocals just merely whisper in and out of the scene as the percussion and organ work itself into a transfixed polyrhythmic atmosphere and becomes balanced again through use of some contant and pulsating bass. "Moonshake" is a Can-brand pop track, barely truly "pop-ish" but as much in that vein as they ever reached. Then the album ends in pure elegance and glory. We're still hard pressed to see a huge difference in these remasterings vs. their cd predecessors, but happy they're here and sooooo available, the classic Krautrock albums that they are.
Limited Edition (so-called 'cause originally they only made 15,000 of the LPs when it first came out in 1974) was an album of unreleased bits from Can's recording sessions up to just before Soon Over Babaluma. And now, these "sound polaroids" are remastered and rereleased for us to enjoy once again, in the expanded form of Unlimited Edition! Yay!
While other, maybe not-so-legit, Can out-take albums that have been released have sometimes bordered on the unlistenable in terms of recording/production quality, UE maintains the pristinely clear sound of their most notable releases like Ege Bamyasi and Future Days. We still don't know HOW engineers Holger Czukay (also Can's bassist) and Rene Tinner got their sound to be this good in the Can studio, but man, it is eternally impressive.
If you follow them as a band, UE seems much different than other albums. It does not lack direction in any way, though the songs seem to be an assemblage of either exercises in different styles of music making (i.e "Ethnic Forgery Series No. 36" -- a loose New Orleans-style jazz number, or "Cutaway" -- a tape-spliced collage piece) or intuitively crafted with more cerebral/artful emphasis in rhythm, synth layers, improv and space. There's much more of a stoney experimental intensity in many of these tracks, leaving those on our other favorite Can albums to sound like crazy catchy funk jams in comparison. The tracks compiled here are from '68 to '75.
We have to admit, that this album possibly above all others demonstrates their intuition and entropic ingenuity balanced by both an incredible sense of form in sound and impressive self-engineering.
Even Andee, who doesn't (gasp!) normally like Can, actually likes this one. But regardless, this is highly highly recommended.
There are no chashu bao nor any egg tarts coming from these Chinatown Bakeries (at leats not that we know of!). Instead, it's the non-edible, gentle sounds of this new SF neo-folk band -- two brothers Jon and James Sterling Pitt along with Keryn Sovella and Ryan Stively. They follow the enchanted forest path frequented by the likes of Devendra Banhart, Vetiver and Iron And The Albatross. This quartet's lo-fi homespun music nestles itself in comfortably among those artists -- a bit less high-strung than the former and a bit more barebones than the latter. Earnest, unrestrained male vocals atop banjo and guitar plickety-pluck, some flute, keyboards and harmonica too. A very promising debut. (Note: if you dig this, we also have Stively's fine solo cd-r here too).
Run by the former Deerhoof bassist Rob Fisk, the Free Porcupine Society has specialized in packaging all of their releases in msyterious paper sleeves that he's hand decorated with random paint streaks splattered across silkscreened illustrations of clunky anthropomorphic figures. Musically, the label defines their releases as "no wave hermit folk" and "eco-terrorist hobbit rock," with releases by Tom Carter, Scorces, Xiu Xiu, Badgerlore, and others. So at least when it comes to the music, a reissue of the pagan-folk classic Earth Covers Earth by Current 93 is a logical one. But when it comes to the meticulously construsted imagery of Current 93, the craft-cornered artwork of the Free Porcupine Society is a slightly mismatched pairing. That said, Fisk has certainly adjusted the idosyncratic design style of the FPS in repackaging the original artwork -- with its homage to the Incredible String Band as the cover photo and a plethora of drawings from Current 93's David Tibet. And considering that this is the first time that Earth Covers Earth has been in print for many years, vinyl or otherwise; this is a very welcome reissue.
Originally released in 1988, Earth Covers Earth was the second album in which Tibet ventured down the path of "apocalyptic folk", after numerous records of frightening hallucinations and occultish chants. Languid and mournful, Earth Covers Earth taps into the eccentricities and shadows that haunt the traditions of British folk music, best typified in the work of Shirley Collins and the soundtrack to the Wicker Man. Tibet's own fascination with Christian Gnosticism (at the time, a fascination just in its infancy) and his ability to surround himself with very talented musicians provided an exceptional framework for this Earth Covers Earth, which ranks as one of the most well developed albums of Current 93's death-folk facade. Tony Wakeford (Sol Invictus) and Douglas P (Death In June) provided the melancholic acoustic guitar strum, while Rose MacDowell occasionally delivers her creepy sing-song vocals alongside the ubiqitous Tibet waxing poetic about the existential collapse around him. There are reasons why Current 93 has such an iconic status, and Earth Covers Earth is one of them.
Over the past decade or so, Current 93 has steadily simplified their arrangements, moving from an impassioned psychedelic death-folk to a delicately scored sound for piano, guitar, violin, and the occasional tape loop. This transition obviously has focused the attention of Current 93 upon David Tibet, his voice, and his lyrics which become even more pronounced during their live performances. How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon is a double disc set of the two Toronto performances that Current 93 delivered in June 2004, and showcase the radical simplicity of Current 93's music set against the complexities of Tibet's mythological revelations. For these performances, Tibet brought on board Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) and Simon Finn along with Michael Cashmore, John Contreras, and Graham Jeffery. Many of the tracks from these two sets return to earlier work by Current 93, with a number of tracks from Earth Covers Earth and Thunder Perfect Mind, as well as revisitation of "Falling Back in Fields of Rape," which David Tibet wrote for both Current 93 and Death In June back in the mid-'80s. Unfortunately, there's no tracklisting for these two performances, although if you need to know a quick Google search will solve this dilemna. Regardless, these live performances are immaculated played, very well recorded, and certainly reflect the overall aesthetic of Current 93, making this a worthwhile document for all C93 fans.
Ace Of Spades is a cd-r series of live recordings showcasing the intimate acoustic music of a variety of local indie artists. The series so far boasts consistently strong performances from all participants (well played and well recorded at Mama Buzz Cafe in Oakland).
Volume 8 was recorded on April 17th, and features a hearty gathering of Paul Panamarenko Band, Bart Davenport, the Moore Brothers (their four sweet songs on their very own make this well worth gettin'... you might also wanna check out their wonderful studio album Now Is The Time For Love!), Laura Weinbach, Matthew Herz, Vernal Falls and Helen Chaya.
Alright, who else has Gang Of Four's Entertainment album in their record collection?! We suspect this new band does. Think: Andy Gill and Co. minus their political agitation and art school intellect, OR think: The Rapture or Radio 4 minus the awesome ass-kicking production treatments provided by the DFA team. Death Of A Party's four song EP is a savvy and authentic replication of that sound. Sure to get the party started, but with lightweight (albeit totally hip) songs like "Haircut Homicide" the impression it leaves is fleeting. Definitely for those who prefer not to weigh down their style with substance.
On this pro-duped, full color printed cd-r release Huffing Gas, one-man-home-studio-band George Draguns (a skilled skateboarder, noted wit, professional historic preservationist, and one of the many former fillers of the bass-playing position in Pennsylvania math rockers Don Caballero) has crafted a collection of instrumental tracks that are kinda post rock, even almost psych or krautrocky in spots... definitely all very moody and low-key and quite pleasurable. Not surprisingly, these were originally composed as soundtrack music for a friend's independent film project. But these need no visuals, this music is fine all by itself, although the cover art -- a strange painting entitled "Pumaseance" -- seems appropriate, somehow. The track titles, too, are jokey nonsequiturs ("Fake Drug Problem", "A New Hat", "Free Ironic Mustache Rides", "Addiction Overdose") that bear no evident relation to the sound of each piece. Some tracks have a droney groove that reminds us a bit of Circle's jazzier cousin Ektroverde, others are darker and mellower. It's hard to describe this, really. "31st Century Maximal Minimalism" is offered up by the science-fiction inspired liner notes, but that's no help is it? Whatever it is, we like it. George now has a band project happening (Thee New Zealand, a stoner rock outfit) but we hope he continues with his solo home-recorded experiments as well.
New SF band Empty Rooms made quite an impressive first impression when we pressed play on this, their self-titled debut five-song EP. The band oozes with composure as they unfurl their solemnly brooding, verging on goth style of rock. They'll undoubtably draw plenty comparisons to the moody likes of Interpol and their forefathers Joy Division and Bauhaus. One song that particularly stands out is the second to last, "Form Has Two Faces" features additional female vocals from Carly Schneider which offer an effective counterpart to lead singer Andy Beyers' deep dour delivery. Hopefully she'll surface again (and more frequently) on their next release. Another highlight is the final song "Black Sugar", a super catchy smoldering pop song.
This is the second record, originally released in 1971, by Bill Fay, who we had never even heard of until recently, when we started reading how Fay was "the missing link between Nick Drake, Ray Davies and Bob Dylan" and hearing his name bandied about as an influence on groups like Six Organs Of Admittance and Current 93 among others. And once we heard this record in particular, it didn't seem so far fetched. Unlike his self titled debut album released a year earlier (and reviewed elsewhere on this list), Time Of Last Persecution is a much more immediate, stripped down record, mostly guitar based, with simple insistent piano, even some horns, but without all the swooping strings and lush orchestration that was all over the first record. And Fay's songs do indeed shine when allowed to be heard naked and exposed like this. His voice sounds so much more forceful and emotional, the simple melodic underpinning so much more effective. Even the photo on the cover, featuring a bearded and bedraggled Fay, hints at the personal intensity and intimate emotion within. Intense and incredibly moving, moody and melancholy, you can definitely here some Davies and Drake, even some Eagles, some E.L.P (at their most balladeering) and most definitely some Allman Brothers. As if the songs and the amazing vocal performance weren't enough, the record features occasional inspired and frenzied bursts of ferocious psychedelic guitar freakout from jazz legend Ray Russell!
We had never really heard of Bill Fay, at least until we started hearing him mentioned as an influence on folks like Ben Chasny of Six Organs Of Admittance, Jim O'Rourke, Current 93 and the like. Which made perfect sense when we finally heard Fay's music. A reissue of Fay's debut album, originally released in 1970, this is majestic, emotional singer songwriter stuff, simple, beautiful songs, wrapped in lushly orchestrated, sweeping strings, regal horns, totally epic and emotionally grand arrangements (think Scott Walker). The sticker on the cover boldly proclaims Fay as "the missing link between Nick Drake, Ray Davies and Bob Dylan" and while we can perhaps dismiss that as hyperbole to a certain extent, there is definitely something special about Fay's voice and his songs. They definitely work best when they tend toward the more maudlin and miserable, it's then that the Nick Drake comparison makes the most sense. The orchestral filigree has the definite downside of occasionally making some of the songs a bit to saccharin and overblown. Which is unfortunate as Fay's songs are the sort that would work just as well with just a guitar or a piano, dark and brooding, and emotionally charged, stripped to its bare essentials. That said, some of the string parts are absolutely stunning, and the horns give some of the tracks a bit of a Chicago vibe which in no way is a bad thing. Not necessarily dreary or depressive or fucked up enough to transcend their seventies singer songwriter sound, but some close listening will reveal how ultra personal and simply fantastic these songs are!
Features extensive liner notes from Fay himself as well as two bonus tracks: both songs from Fay's rare 1967 "Screams In The Ears" / "Some Good Advice" seven inch single.
It's always nice for us here to check out something that we got out of the blue, just sent to us, or dropped off, with no expectations, and then really really dig it. Dig it enough that we feel like if we didn't already have it, we'd have to go out and buy one. In fact many all thime AQ faves were discovered in just such a manner. And that's also the case with this Figure Of Merit cd. It's something that we'd never heard of before we got a copy in the mail (and the packaging didn't offer to many clues as to what to expect, either). What to make of song titles like "Arrow To The Sun" and "Blackhammer"? Could be metal, maybe. But then there's the not-so-scary title "Overhead Projector" as well. Though we did know it had to be some sort of metal 'cause of the record label it came from. So, it was up to the music to "do the talking" (as it should be). And Figure Of Merit's music turned out to be right up our alley. Heavy duty hardcore ugly rock noisy metal. Kinda like Cavity or Eyehategod with all their feedback intros, weighty riffage and churning, compelling rhythms. FoM's angsty, screamier vox put us in mind of something like the Jesus Lizard though, or maybe the Dazzling Killmen meets Unsane would be a better point of reference. But what especially makes Figure Of Merit a band of merit in our books is the exuberant, metallic majesty that many of their riffs possess. It's truly noble headbanging material, welded to the dirtiest of dirge-core extremes. So, Vatic from this Minneapolis four piece gets an AQ recommendation without doubt.
While the last two Fruit Bats records were fairly pleasant slabs of folk flecked indie rock jangle, Spelled In Bones shows the band taking HUGE strides towards a bigger sound and better songs and a much more expansive sonic world. Described in almost every review as "the Shins meet Califone", The Fruit Bats have now managed to become more than that, definitely their own band, although the sonic referents to those two outfits certainly can't be ignored. Vocalist Eric Johnson's voice is eerily similar to the Shins' James Mercer, but where Mercer's vocals tend toward the ebullient and poptastically bombastic, the music following suit, Johnson tends toward the more melancholy occasionally slipping into a perfectly lovely falsetto, all over delicate piano and strummed minor key guitar, the jangle muted and subtle, with lap steel filigree giving the proceedings a lush, countrified feel. Spelled In Bones is modern yet completely classic sounding Pop with a capital P, draped with bits of country here and there, little bits of bedroom folk too, but all contributing to the record's perfect popiness. Songs so lilting and hooky you won't be able to get them out of your head. The sound of the Beatles is everywhere on this record for sure, but so is the sound of the Posies, the Wings, Iron And Wine, Broken Social Scene, Red Red Meat, Death Cab For Cutie, and yeah, even the Shins and Modest Mouse. So so good.
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!
A long overdue reissue of this lost jazz classic, originally self released in 1974. Hannibal Peterson isn't much of a household name, even among jazzheads, which is a bit odd considering he's played with Roland Kirk, Elvin Jones, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and loads more. And it's a shame because this record is something else! Beautiful and bizarre. Traditional sounding at times, but quite experimental at others. A lush and tripped out orchestral free jazz with swelling strings, wild and clattery tribal percussion, some killer drumming, all joyful and jubilant, until about halfway through, when the orchestra fades out leaving just the sounds of bombs dropping, wild repetitive piano and a mournful female vocalist wailing operatically, eventually the vocals fade leaving a dense instrumental bed of buzzing sitar, tinkling chimes, fluttering flute, completely tranquil and dreamlike. The nearly twenty minute "Aftermath" though is the sonic centerpiece of the record, the first half a skittering post bop free jazz workout, almost funky in parts, the second half, an elegiac dirge of throbbing bass, moaning cello, wailing trumpet and a sizzling percussive crescendo, with gorgeous plaintive vocal coda.
Ace Of Spades is a cd-r series of live recordings showcasing the intimate acoustic music of a variety of local indie artists. The series so far boasts consistently strong performances from all participants (well played and well recorded at Mama Buzz Cafe in Oakland).
Of the Volume 5 - January 2005 edition's seven featured artists, AQ customers will probably be most familiar with Sean Hayes. His three songs include "Diamond In The Sun", "Rattlesnake Charm" and a fine rendition of the title track of his beloved Alabama Chicken album. Other stand-outs are the haunting spartan female sung three songs from Black Bird Stitches, the easy-going pop folk double-shot from Songs From The Living Room and the rousing intoxicated gypsy strings of Sour Mash Hug Band. L.Carey, Jason Webley, and P. Panamarenko (who also appears on the Vol. 6 and Vol. 8 editions).
Everybody seems to be in some sort of doom / drone / dirge state lately, with even non-metalheads obsessing over all things Boris / Corrupted / SUNNO))), Earth. And, hey, we're not complaining, we love our slow motion, 16 rpm, cough syrup tarpit guitar riffage as much as the next person, but hell, you can do a whole lot more with a guitar than just turn it up, kick on the distortion and lean it against an amp. Sure it sounds great, and we could listen to that pulsing fuzzed out throb forever, but you really have to wrestle a guitar to get certain sounds out of it. You have to use both hands, fight it kicking and screaming, hold it down, flip it over, swing it over your head, hold on for your fucking life, and then maybe you can get a guitar to make some serious sound, noises that would send most guitar dronesters running for the hills. Thus we have Heathen Shame, an unlikely trio of two guitars, drums and trumpets. Who make an absolutely amazing din, equal parts head splitting noise and gorgeous skree. You know when you turn on a hose as high as it'll go, and you just let go and it whips wildly like a convulsing snakes spraying water everywhere and threatening to bash your head in with every swing and swoop? Heathen Shame are sort of the musical version of that. To be honest, we can't really even hear the trumpet. And as a matter of fact we can't really hear the drums either. It all bleeds into one swirling, swarming, slithering mass of guitarnoise, feedback, and all sorts of amp frying sonic shrapnel. Where stuff like SUNNO))) and Earth can be soothing and almost dreamy, this stuff is just scary. Totally intense and heavy as fuck and SCARY. But also strangely beautiful at the same time. It takes a very deft hand to render NOISE like this listenable, but Heathen Shame manage to make these three tracks fun to listen to. So much so that we have found ourselves listening to this record over and over, which to be honest is pretty rare for a record this noisy and brutal. Even managed after a few spins to convert a few folks who aren't typically into this sort of stuff. One thing thing that seems to be far to rare in experimental music, especially of the HEAVY variety, is the presence of women, sure there's a few, including Wata from Boris, but now you can add Kate from Heathen Same to that way too short list. She and HS's other guitarist, Twisted VIllage regular Wayne Rogers, have to be the most brutal double axe attack since Tipton and Downing, or Smith and Murray or even Hanneman and King! While this might be a bit too harsh and brutal for the drone dirge doom rock set, fans of freaked out Japanese psych like Keiji Haino and Fushitsusha, as well as folks into full on noise like Masonna or Merzbow, and especially fans of free rock skree like Total, Hototogisu, Ashtray Navigations, Birchville Cat Motel and the like might really dig this!
When I first moved to San Francisco in the early nineties, I kept hearing about a band called the Icky Boyfriends. Can't remember exactly what I heard about them, but it did seem like, judging from how often people mentioned them, that they must be THE San Francisco band. And they kind of were, but in a way I wouldn't be able to properly appreciate for years. The Icky Boyfriends were a three piece, guitar drums and vocals, sloppy, sweaty, shitty, noisy, punk as fuck, but not PUNK ROCK punk, more sort of some chaotic dirge-y freaked out what the fuck kind of punk rock. They were an unholy collision of nerd rock and noise rock, fronted by Icky Jon, with his unruly white guy 'fro and thick black glasses, and his histrionic stage presence and that wailing caterwaul. Each song a two or three minute burst of simple slow sludgy riffing, fuzzed out garage rock crunch, pounding drums and that wild sort of sung, sort of spoken nasal wail, expounding on the public transit system, Mexican food, cops, flea baths, sex, meat, crappy jobs, the mission, Frank's Mom and all sorts of other bizarre randomness. Like some pop band that got confused, ended up in the Mission, got super wasted, then beaten up and left for dead, and then somehow ended up putting a record out on Siltbreeze. Damaged and demented and so fucked up. The whole thing culminating with the independent film I'm Not Fascinating, starring the Boyfriends, as well as loads of other Mission rock luminaries, in a demented, super low budget, slice of Super 8 weirdness. This double disc collects every little bit of recorded Boyfriends there ever was, lp, cassette, seven inches, compilation tracks, live recordings and even a bunch of unreleased stuff! Lots of liner notes too, photos, a history of the band from drummer Anthony Bedard, as well as a bizarre drug addled song by song play by play from Icky Jon.
Just recently on our New Arrivals list (in our Record of the Week review of the Vertigo Mixed compilation) we mentioned (again) how much we love prog. Combine that with how much we also love the music of UK songwriter and experimentalist Richard Youngs, and you can imagine how excited we are by this brand new Ilk offering. Canticle is the unexpected second album from Richard Youngs' long-dormant "prog" project Ilk, a band (of sorts -- it's just Youngs and collaborator Andrew Paine, though we don't remember if Paine was involved with the first Ilk cd from 1999) that celebrates both the idea of '70s British progressive rock epics (including the pretentiousness of narration and the like) and the related field of pastoral folk-psych. Which isn't too far from what Richard Youngs is often all about anyway. Anyone familiar with his two most recent solo albums, the AQ faves Airs Of The Ear and River Through Howling Sky, will find much that's familiar about Ilk's Canticle. There's gorgeous melodic material on here, Richard's honest English voice accompanied by gentle acoustic guitar for some stuff with a moving, quasi-religious tone... but the intentionally, overtly "prog" aspect is borne out by tracks like "A Guiding Principle", which consists of a scrambled jumble of guitar, drums, and electronics, something like the Dead C playing a free jazz version of Relayer by Yes on 45! These more active, electric "prog" and "rock" elements interact interestingly throughout the album with the folk/drone loveliness we've come to expect from Youngs, for a listen that satisfies both our love of "classic" prog in general and the not so easily catagorized work of fellow prog-lover Richard Youngs in the particular. Recommended!
A few years back we were intrigued and amazed by a disc entitled Case Studies In Bioentropy, the debut from this very strange band. Experimental drone prog noise textural rock weirdness. We went on and on about how "strange" it was. Now Infidel?/Castro! are back, on the Crucial Blast label, with what might be an even stranger album. Maybe twice as strange in fact 'cause it's two discs instead of one! An overwhelming sprawl of chaotic geek-tech glitch abstraction, lovely melodic improvisations, and conceptual nerdy noisenik metal-riffed surreal insanity... is it serious? Is it science? Can't tell. The music is accompanied by equally hard-to-grok computer art and text. Song titles include "Temporarily Desolving Into Plasma During A Moment To One's Self" and "Bedsores (for G.W.B.)". Hmm. At least we know who G.W.B. is.
These two discs are certainly interesting, sometimes beautiful, and yes most definitely strange. Recommended to anyone who doesn't mind spinning from ambient drone to fractured prog to electronic mayhem -- like a collison of Fantomas and irr. app. (ext.), maybe. Or Isis, Merzbow, MBV, and Behold The Arctopus, perhaps. The latter of which features Colin Marston, also a member of Infidel?/Castro! by the way. So that might give you an idea...just an idea... of what this is all about. The real answer, we're still looking for. But in the meantime, we're enjoying this album!
As the Kallikak Family's debut album opens mournful drones seep forth slowly. The track is titled "Organ Tuning / Surgery", and indeed that is what it sounds like. The tones lull themselves in and out of different ranges. Eventually the somber atmosphere is gently stirred by the surfacing of shimmery aquatic vibrations and vocal samples in the title track. These in turn give way to peals from distant chapel bells. Although the album's title is seemingly a date in the not so distant future, the sounds contained within evoke a sense of fleeting memories from the past. Airy and contemplative and yes, recommended.
Hallelujah! More droning, buzzing, flickering folk-psych from Finland's mysterious Kemialliset Ystavat collective. Sure, we know who's in the band -- Broken Face 'zine artist/contributor Jan Anderzen, Fonal label head Sami Sanpakkila (Es, Kiila), and a host of other Finns -- but they still SOUND mysterious. The damaged four-track folk sound of NYC's Tower Recordings filtered through the forest ambience of AQ-fave improv-psych outfit Thuja might, MIGHT be an approximation of Kemialliset's sonic space. They inhabit that territory previously explored by the likes of Amon Duul, Ghost, Kalacakra, Toho Sara, Parson Sound, International Harvester, Amps For Christ, Six Organs Of Admittance, Algarnas Tradgard, etc. If any of these names bring a warm sensation to your frontal lobes, then you're likely already a Kemialliset fan even if you haven't yet heard 'em. Each track (there's 17 of 'em, spread over 47 minutes) is a psychedelic miniature constructed of drifting, chanting vocals, gentle melodies, and primitive rhythms, contrasting distorted electric guitar wash with pretty, chiming percussion, strings and woodwinds. Freaky and far-out yet mostly mellow and warm and cosy. Fucking lovely. Ah, Finland.
And if a repress of the beloved Kellari Juniversumi wasn't enough (no it's not, and might we suggest their Suurempi Pieni Palatsi album get reissued sometime too?) there's also this "new" cd from Finland's foresty freak folksters Kemialliset Ystavat. Actually, this has been released twice before in other formats: first as a cassette on Finland's Huutomerkki label (hmm, missed that) and then again as a lathe cut double vinyl 8" on New Zealand's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label (dang, didn't get one of those either!). So thankfully Fonal has now put it out on cd for those of us who somehow inexplicably failed to get either of those previous versions when they were "available". Yay! And what of the music?
Well, imagine sitting somewhere deep in the forest... not alone with nature though. No, you're hanging out with a bunch of elves and trolls, drinking or smoking pot or something delinquent like that. Actually this isn't even that foresty really... maybe you've invited your little friends back to the city and you're hanging out in your apartment listening to weird '80s industrial experimental music and electronic krautrock records. And maybe you've got a few of these records going on several turntables at once, at 16 rpm, the volume turned down low, and some of the trolls are joining in (faintly) on vocals, and one of them's got a flute, and another one's got a broken music box, and some bells, and a shortwave radio. But the music you're hearing/making is still amazingly nice and mellow and organic 'cause you're with a bunch of elves after all. The sun's going down and the light is fading and you feel all warm and toasty and kinda sleepy-drunk.
Ok, stop imagining. You'll have your own (better) mental images to go along with this music when you hear it. But we'll say that right from the get-go this is immediately some of the rawest, most primitively-electronic Kemialliset Ystavat stuff we've heard. There's what what sounds like layers of loops, tape machine fuckery, all kinds of pleasingly distorted textures folded into a mysterious and still somewhat (abstractly) melodic sound-world, with haunting eerie vocals and tribal clink-clank. And yet, among the 15 tracks here you'll find some of the simplest and prettiest of the Kemialliset canon too. Loose, lovely and loveable stuff.
Probably the best way to describe the mad genius that is Keuhkot (Finnish for lungs) is to describe my bizarre, up close and personal encounter with Kake Puhuu aka Keuhkot, when I was visiting Finland a couple years ago. I was picked up by Jussi from Circle and Peltsi (formerly of Circle, now in Stalwart and Lee Miller) and we proceeded to drive for nearly an hour into the woods. An hour in the car is not ideal after 10 hours on a plane, but I put myself at the mercy of my Finnish hosts. We finally pulled up to a huge red schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by dense dark forest. We rang the doorbell and waited outside until a madly barking dog leapt out of the just opened door, being barely restrained by a small quiet Finnish man. We were hustled inside, into a large gymnasium, complete with wooden benches and chalkboards on the walls. We sat for quite a while, not entirely sure what was going on, when suddenly that same small man with the dog that we met at the front door, walked into the gymnasium with no shirt on. He proceeded to crawl around on the ground, turning on all sorts of switches, plugging in lots of strange looking devices, all manner of buzzing and hums began to emanate from these various devices. The man proceeded to then strap on this huge apparatus, covered in lights and microphones all on the ends of strange metal tentacles, he stood up, behind a huge wooden podium, grabbed a giant hammer and suddenly lurched into a blasting tribal pummel, shouted Finnish vocals, crazed percussion and freakout guitar. I suddenly realized that I was in fact witnessing a personal Keuhkot performance and proceeded to sit there dumbfounded, totally blown away, not only by the ridiculous spectacle, but the totally mesmerizing music as well. After about a half hour, he dropped everything and walked out. Maybe twenty minutes later, he returned with tea and biscuits, and we all sat having tea and desperately fending off the wildly barking and biscuit crazed hound we had experienced earlier. Woah. That definitely says a lot about Finland, and for sure gives you a glimpse into the brilliantly warped mind of Keuhkot. So while this new Keuhkot record might not be quite as visceral as a harrowing personal encounter, it's most definitely still a bit harrowing, and most certainly, completely and bizarrely brilliant. Much more subdued than his previous releases, Toimin... is a dark and dizzying expanse of alien synth melodies, simple industrial percussion, mumbled insistent vocals, fuzzy far off guitars, simple rock riffs re-imagined as some muted David Lynchian garage rock, a lo-fi horror movie Krautrock with simple hypnotically repeated motifs, beneath subtle shuffling percussion, and growled Finnish spoken word. The whole record is a slowly shifting moonlit world of fairy tales gone bad, demented nursery rhymes, sweet music slightly soured, haunting and ominous, but strangely playful and mysterious. Like a late night stroll on the moon, if the moon was a Finnish Raymond Chandler novel, with strange alien creatures packing heat, lurking in doorways, looking shifty and rootless, looking for whatever trouble they can find on the seedy side of the moon. Keuhkot is exactly what that would sound like.
Is it any coincidence that Resilience -- quite possibly the most unobnoxious, non-in your face Kid606 release ever -- is dedicated to his mother? And is it just us or does it also seems like this album took him way longer than any of his previous ones. Unrushed loving care? More sincere contemplation? Not sure, but we can tell you that he's toned things down so much that the tracks have reached the point of being downright subdued by his standards. The Kid goes dooooowntempo? A very different and unexpected approach but not entirely alienating, dare we say, at times it verges on pretty. His trademark ominous splatters of distorted glitch are all but absent. Makes us think that maybe this release should have been titled Repose rather than Resilience. Whereas on past releases such as Down With The Scene he was all about sonic agitation, here he begins the album somberly with "Done With The Scene". Deep, slow sliding synth lines, delicate tinkly melodies and ghostly voices peek out here and there.
We initially wrote this band off after a really uninspiring and boring S.F. performance, but this record is something else entirely. Dense and hypnotic, warm and droney guitar rock. Everytime we play this in the store, everyone in the store wants to
Hot on the heels of their fine new full-length Alpine Static comes these long-awaited reissues of this Seattle space-rock band's first two albums: their debut, SpaceLaunch For Frenchie, originally self-released by the band, the second, Be Gentle With The Warm Turtle, originally issued on the now-defunct Pacifico label. Both have been tragically out of print for the past few years. Now that Kinksi is popular and all, it's about time these became available again! Both come with bonus tracks making the wait all the more rewarding.
1999's SpaceLaunch For Frenchie (what's up with that title, exactly?) is loaded down with the bonus tracks, actually. In addition to the original six songs on the album, there's four songs from an earlier 4-track demo tape, as well as a stormy, unreleased SpaceLaunch outtake. In total, 73 minutes of hummable, jamming, shoegazing, effects-pedal-reliant rawk! Whoo-hoo! Fans, feel free to freak out. Kinksi's Chris Martin notes on the back cover, "There are a few goofy moments, perhaps, but what the hell." I mean, you can't complain, it's the first album that a lot of us have never even heard before, plus more stuff. (Except we can complain that there's just just one flimsy square of paper for a cd "booklet" which is always lame.)
The album is definitely a youthful version of the Kinski you know and love: warm, fuzzy, floating melodic space rock instrumentals. And non-instrumentals too, with indie-rock vocals emerging on such tracks as "Floundering & Fluctuating" and their energetic cover of Spacemen 3's "Losing Touch With My Mind". Mostly this is mopey, mellow post-rock prettiness with plenty of hints towards the more massive sound that Kinski now reliably delivers. Some of the 4-track demos are maybe a bit poppier, but are still indicative of both their influences and future direction -- take the overtly Sonic Youthish "E-Jam (Daydream Intonation)" for instance. That's a track later re-recorded for their second album, demonstrating that Kinski fans going back to this older, unheard material won't be thrown for too many loops.
Then there's Be Gentle With The Warm Turtle, the 2001 album that first said to us, hi I'm Kinski! We quickly made friends with the music and wrote something like this about it: "Dense and hypnotic, warm and droney guitar rock. Everytime we play this in the store, everyone in the store wants to know what it is. Like some weird mix of old Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. Big extended jams, simple and dumb, noisy and epic. Pretty great." It's still totally recommended, a fuzzy favorite for sure. Get it now if you missed it before! And this reissue also boasts a bonus track, only one of 'em but it's quite nice, a quiet coda to the album called "Montgomery".
This is a gorgeous little slab of droning free rock shimmer, twenty minutes of keening, pealing, warm and warbling, fuzzy foggy dream like bliss, Three lengthy tracks of slow moving, slower buliding, barely shifting swirls of warm chordal hum, simple stretched out melodies and trancelike Ur-drone. As good as anything we've heard from Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Pelt, Birchville Cat Motel and the like. Each 3" cd-r comes in a unique hand made fabric sleeve sewn from real Japanese obi's. EXTREMELY LIMITED. HAND NUMBERED. ONLY 50 COPIES MADE. WE GOT A WHOLE BUNCH BUT WILL MOST LIKELY BE UNABLE TO GET MORE!
Don't know why it should be any different for this genre than for any other, but it strikes us that it's gotta take some major cojones to tackle the badass stylings of Stax! That said, L.L.A.W.M. do so, and they do it admirably well. These folks clearly have a genuine gritty love of old soul music. These days every style of music has made its way into both the indie and mainstream circuits, hasn't it? Guess it was only time before this goldmine was tapped. Good times.
This is some slick sunbathed California-style hip hop, folks. From start to finish, inclusive of its warm illustrative artwork, this album never loses its composure. Seven of the 15 songs are brilliantly remade/remixed from previously released tracks. They fit in like perfect pieces to a remarkably pleasant puzzle. Awesome!
Here's the latest from Juan MacLean... that's right, The Juan MacLean (formerly of Six Finger Satellite, latterly a DFA associate). Less Than Human can barely be contained on your stereo, bursting forth with ultra broad spectrum energy. Super vibrant and fun with its solid dance thump to keep you goin' 'til the wee hours. It even sounds like they dug out an ol' rave whistle for the beginning of the fourth song "Tito's Way". Sure there's lots of folks targeting the funky dancefloor these days, but Mr. MacLean takes a more elegant and captivating approach, as well as an ample dose of Kraftwerk reverence, that most definitely bears repeat listens... and not just while you're shakin' yer thang.
The words "Footloose and fancy-free and out of school" come from your speakers, beginning the disc and thusly, we embark on the career of that "juggernaut of pummel" known as the Melvins.
Here is a collection of "never heard before" (demo, live, rehearsal) recordings dating back to 1983! Remember 1983? I do...ugh! Anyways, a "pre-Dale Crover" line-up (which includes a young punk-ass named Matt Lukin on bass, you might also know him from another little band, Mudhoney?) bashes and thrashes it out with songs and tone reminiscent of Flipper / Bad Brains / Fang / Poison Idea / Black Flag -- this is NOT to say they sound like they are emulating the aforementioned legends, we're just saying that the Melvins, at such a tender age and still without the "other greatest drummer" Dale Crover, pretty much came into this world screaming and wailing. Buzz Osborne definitely is / was / is blessed / cursed as a "5-string motherfucker". Word. The liner notes by Buzz go on about how they were hacks at the time, but LEGIONS (after listening to this) will attest to "the power of the riff" that a (pre) King Buzzo packed at the age of 20 somewhere in Shithole City, WA (or maybe it was the town next to it?). This release is packed with all the fury and "pent-up-ness" that only comes from growing up on the outside of "cool" or "rich". (Well, it speaks to me, anyways...) There are songs on here that show up shortly after -- and many years later -- down that ugly road of "former bass players"...
It's refreshing to hear (punk) rock like this right now. There are even funny moments of (drunken?) banter on here that will make you laugh and think back and reminisce (or not) on your own "destruction ride" through your late teens/early twenties, etc. The actual sound on this thing is incredibly solid too, for something from the "golden age of hardcore".
A must own, if you will. But you already knew that, didn't you?
