Demons From Nipples? Of all of Acid Mothers Temple's most ridiculous titles (eg. St. Captain Freak Out And The Magic Bamboo Request, Hypnotic Liquid Machine From The Golden Utopia, or Does The Cosmic Shepherd Dream Of Electric Tapirs?), that might be the mostest! And the music does its best to live up to that title. It's a heavily effected, way-out Kraut/psych love frolic, howling in space, kinda like an imaginary Can/Hawkwind/Guru Guru acid test jam fest with what sounds like some sort of warped, sci-fi bagpipes thrown in for good measure. That weird bagpipe sound is what's really getting us excited about this (though doubtless some might disagree). It's kinda like Comets On Fire's Echoplex or the 13th Floor Elevators' electric jug. Must be the "uilleann pipe" that a guest is credited with playing in the liner notes! Stirred in there with guitars, drums, electronics, etc. it's part of a pretty wild and dense sound. And when things calm down a bit (like, about a half hour into the title track) the combination of heavy-duty electric guitar splooge and mantric cosmic slop vocal chant is primo, with or without the pipe (any sorta pipe).
This release (imported from Poland, not sure if we'll be able to get 'em again all that easily!) is the third new document in, like, the last three months to be spawned by the latest incarnation of Kawabata Makoto's Acid Mothers Temple troupe (now known as AMT & The Cosmic Inferno), featuring new members including Tabata Mitsuru (Zeni Geva, Boredoms, Leningrad Blues Machine). And like the other two Cosmic Inferno discs, this consists of but two tracks, one long and one really long. If you liked their previous disc Just Another Band From The Cosmic Inferno you'll really dig this one. Ultra-trippy to say the least!
Despite what I am about to say, this is indeed an ultra groovy dream of an album and is well worth picking up. Really! It is unfortunate that these associations do tend to cloud the listening experience, but even without being much of a TV watcher I have to say that this new collaboration between Alias and his little brother Ehren (particularly the fifth track) really reminded us of that (albeit great) Aphex Twin track that was used in a bank commercial... alas! What distinguishes Alias & Ehren from Richard D. James here though is that they direct their spotlight to the sounds of saxophones for the melodic elements in their music. Overall, they're sound is more in line with the likes of Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, Postal Service), Canada's Caribou, or the artists on the German pretty pop-tronic label Morr Music. Breezy and blissful, but not unexpectedly with a little more rhythm and bass presence.
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BAD DUDES "s/t" (Brain Burger) cd 12.98 BANGO "s/t" (Normal Records) cd 15.98 BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME "Alaska" (Victory) cd 13.98 BLACK DICE "Broken Ear Record" (Astralwerks) cd/2lp 16.98/21.00 BROKEN FLOWERS "OST" (Universal) cd 17.98 BURNING STAR CORE "Let's Play Wild Like" (RRR) cd 11.98 BURNING STAR CORE "Mes Soldats Stupides '96 - '04" (Cenotaph) 2cd 16.98 CALEXICO + IRON & WINE "In The Reins" (Overcoat) cd 10.98 CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH "s/t" (self-released) cd 16.98 CLUSTER & ENO "s/t" (Water) cd 15.98 COE, DAVID ALLAN "Penitentiary Blues" (Hack Tone) cd 16.98 CORTES, LULA E ZE RAMALHO "Paebiru" (Shadoks Music) cd 15.98 CURL UP AND DIE "The One Above All, The End Of All That Is" (Revelation) cd 13.98 CURSIVE "The Difference Between Houses And Homes" (Saddle Creek) cd 13.98 DECEMBERISTS "Picaresque" (Kill Rock Stars) 2lp 21.00 DEADSEA "Desiderata" (Chrome Leaf) cd/lp 11.98/14.98 DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE "Drive Well, Sleep Carefully" (Plexifilm) dvd 24.00 DEATH SENTENCE PANDA "Puppy, Kitty, Or Both" 10" 7.98 DEVO "Live 1980" (Target Video) cd+dvd 14.98 EDISON ELECTRIC BAND "Bless You Dr. Woodward" (Water) cd 15.98 EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER "Beyond The Beginning" (Sanctuary Records) dvd 27.00 EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE "A Religion of Broken Bones" lp 14.98 FLAMING LIPS "Void" dvd 16.98 FO A RM MAGAZINE "No. 4" magazine + cd 12.00 FORENSICS "Hogback Mountain Sessions Vol.1" (Magic Bullet) cd 8.98 FRIENDS OF DEAN MARTINEZ "Live At Club 2" (Aero Recordings) cd 14.98 FROST "s/t" (Southern Lord) 3"cd 8.98 GRAHAM, DAVY "Folk, Blues & Beyond" (Fledg'ling) cd 16.98 GRAHAM, DAVY "Hat" (Fledg'ling) cd 16.98 JOHANNSSON, JOHANN "Dis" (The Worker's Institute) cd 14.98 JOHN WILKES BOOZE "Telescopic Eyes Glance The Future Sick" (Kill Rock Stars) cd 14.98 KIRCHIN, BASIL "Abstractions of the Industrial North" (Trunk) cd 17.98 KRONOS QUARTET AND ASHA BHOSLE "You've Stolen My Heart: Songs From R.D. Burman's Bollywood" (Nonesuch) cd 21.00 KUUPUU "Illusia" (Time-Lag) 7" 8.98 MALLANDER, J. O. "More Time - Hits & Variations 1968 - 1970" (Anoema) cd 17.98 MALMSTEEN, YNGWIE "Unleash The Fury" cd 13.98 MARBLE SHEEP "The Gate Of A Heavenly Body" (Funfundvierzig) cd 14.98 MT. EERIE "Singers" (P.W. Elverum & Sun) lp + cd 16.98 MUMPS "How I Saved The World" (Sympathy For The Record Industry) 2cd 14.98 MV, THE / EE MEDICINE SHOW "Moon Jook" 12" 17.98 NEW BUFFALO "The Last Beautiful Day" (Arts & Crafts) cd 16.98 NUMAN, GARY "Living Ornaments '79" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 10.98 NUMAN, GARY "Living Ornaments '80" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 10.98 NUMAN, GARY "Living Ornaments '81" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 10.98 NUMBERS "We're Animals" (Kill Rock Stars) cd 14.98 OK GO "Oh No" (Capitol) cd 17.98 ONEIDA / PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE SOUND "split" (JagJaguwar) 12" 11.98 ORANGE JUICE "The Glasgow School" (Domino) cd 15.98 PAAVOHARJU "Yha Hamaraa" (Fonal) cd 16.98 PAINE, ANDREW & RICHARD YOUNGS "Mauve Dawn" (Fusetron) lp 14.98 PENETRATORS, THE "Basement Anthology 1976-84" (Swami) cd 14.98 PSYCHATRONE RHONEDAKK "Disturbs The Air" (Black Plastic) cd 14.98 RAMASES "Space Hymns" (Vertigo) cd 19.98 RAMESSES "The Tomb" (Invada) cd 15.98 SCRATCHCON 2000 "Scratchcon 2000" (Thud Rumble) dvd 28.00 SHANKAR, ANANDA "And His Music" cd 24.00 SHAPE OF DESPAIR "s/t" (Spikefarm) cd 14.98 SOILENT GREEN "Confrontation" (Relapse) cd 14.98 SON VOLT "Okemah And The Melody Of Riot" (Transmit Sound) dual cd/dvd 19.98 SPIRES THAT IN THE SUNSET RISE "Four Winds the Walker" (Secret Eye) cd 13.98 STARS, THE "Will" (Pedal) cd 25.00 STOOGES "Stooges" (Rhino) 2cd 21.00 STOOGES, THE "Fun House Deluxe" (Elektra) 2cd 21.00 STRANGULATED BEATOFFS "Jacking Off With Jacko" (Apop Records) 7" 6.98 SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN "Anatomy Vol. 1" (Manhand) cd-r 12.98 TEMPLE OF TIERMES "Delerium Sadomaso" (Freak Animal) cd 14.98 THOR "Thor Against The World" (Smog Veil) cd 15.98 THOUGHT CRIMINALS "Chrono-Logical" (Doublethink) 2cd 28.00 TIVOL "Early Teeth" (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98 TOY DOLLS "Cheerio And Toodlepop! The Complete Singles" (Castle) 2cd 21.00 TRAFFIC SOUND "Yellow Sea Years" (Vampisoul) cd 21.00 V/A "Dick Cavett Show - Rock Icons" (Shout! Factory) 3dvd 41.00 V/A "Dimension Mix" (Eenie Meenie) cd 16.98 V/A "Espagne: Valencia, Cant d'estil - Joutes chantees (Singing Contests)" (Ocora Radio France) cd 21.00 V/A "Grlz, Women Ahead Of Their Time" (Crippled Dick) cd 16.98 V/A "Ikon Records Story" (Frantic) 2cd 26.00 V/A "Keats Rides A Harley" (Warning Label) cd 14.98 V/A "Little Movies Big Noises" (Definitive Jux) 2dvd 16.98 V/A "Luna Park 0.10" (Sub Rosa) cd 14.98 V/A "Mvet ai Mendzang" (Wergo) cd 24.00 V/A "NIGER, Hunters of the Dallol Mawri" (Ocora) cd 21.00 V/A "Rough Guide To The Music Of Balkan Gypsies" (World Music) cd 14.98 V/A "Safe Travel with Phil Pratt & Friends" (Pressure Sounds) cd 17.98 V/A "Schoolhouse Funk II : Raw Business" (Cali-Tex) cd/lp 21.00/26.00 V/A "Soul Power: Funky Kingston 2" (Trojan) cd 14.98 V/A "Studio One Roots 2" (Soul Jazz) cd/2lp 21.00/24.00 V/A "Swinging Mademoiselles : Groovy French Sounds From The 60s" (Silva) cd 16.98 V/A "The Free Design: The Now Sound Redesigned" (Light In The Attic) cd 13.98 V/A "We Reach: The Music Of The Melvins" (Fractured Transmitter) cd 13.98 VITALIC "OK Cowboy" (PIAS) cd 17.98 WEST, KANYE "Late Registration" (Roc-A-Fella) cd 15.98 WILSON, BRIAN "Smile" (Rhino) 2dvd 31.00 WINDSOR FOR THE DERBY "Giving Up The Ghost" (Secretly Canadian) cd 14.98 WOODEN WAND AND THE VANISHING VOICE "Sunset Sleeves" (Weird Forest) lp 11.98 YA HO WHA 13 "Re-Visiting Father and the Source Family" (Swordfish) dvd 28.00 YOUNG BLEED "Rise Thru Da Ranks" (West Coast Mafia) cd 16.98 YOUNGS, RICHARD "The Naive Shaman" (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
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All you free-folk fans have a real sweet treat here! Six Organs Of Admittance + L = August Born. That's right, this gentle, emotive, improvised-sounding folk album finds Ben Chasny of Six Organs Of Admittance teamed up with Hiroyuki Usui of the mysterious Japanese psych-folk unit L, whose lone album Holy Letters from 1992 became a Record Of The Week here at AQ when it was reissued last year on VHF. If you've heard of L, you're surely familiar with Six Organs. And if you like both of them (as we do), then the idea of this collaboration has probably already piqued your interest. We might as well just say, it's real nice, and let you come n' get it 'cause it's pretty much a no-brainer! Lonesome, loose, lovely music from two like-minded souls, collaborating across the vastness of the Pacific (via air mail, we suppose), Hiroyuki recording in Tokyo and Chasny in Northern California. The music here went back and forth between Chasny and Hiroyuki as many as five times, with each musician adding both electric and acoustic guitar and voice and other sounds/instrumentation -- tambora, autoharp, bass, tinkling bells, field recordings of gurgling water, and more -- building up these songs in ghostly layers that allow them to remain rather spare and delicate. The eleven tracks that resulted from this long-distance collaboration are so very pretty and mellow and somewhat melancholic -- a strum here, a percussive knock there, with loose melodic guitar and bass lines underpinning the rambling, pensive, and lowkey (if not always in key) vocals. It's wonderful, wandering, wondering music, for a sunlit afternoon reverie. In addition to the previous works of Six Organs and L, we're reminded of Richard Youngs, Jandek, Nagisa Ni Te, and some Jewelled Antler stuff.
Only available on vinyl! This split LP with Jana Hunter features Devendra Banhart's first recordings without the spiritual guidance of Michael Gira since those very first home-recordings which comprised the Oh Me Oh My... album and the Black Babies UK ep, but Banhart's time with Gira certainly left an indelible mark on the former. Therefore it may or may not be surprising to find that unlike many of his earlier recordings on which Banhart struck a chord as a solitary untethered voice, his more recent material has embraced group choruses. In fact the final song on his side of this record seems to possess a unhinged giddiness along the lines of the Beach Boys' loopy sing-a-long rendition of the "Vegetables" tune on Smiley Smile. Banhart's no longer such a lone wolf, finding many kindred spirits in his travels -- such as Ms Jana Hunter with whom he shares this record. And perhaps it can be said that this sense of gathering is parallelled by the ever-increasing popularization of the avant-folk genre as a whole. Hunter and Banhart's music make for a great pairing of heart-baring, barebones compositions. At time her off-kilter voice is strikingly similar to his, creating an almost seamless transition from 'Side J.H." to "Side D.B.". Five songs apiece, and sure to please.
This is record number two from Beneath The Lake, whose first record from 2002, Inside The Passage, was a huge hit around these parts. BTL is made up of Nicolas Lampert, who was one half of Oakland ambient terrorists Noisegate, who released two records on Andee's tUMULt label, and Dave Canterbury who is a fixture of the noise underground performing as Wage Class Slave. Beneath The Lake is a project based on creating soundscapes combining minimal ambient music and found sounds, with an emphasis on composing the music to compliment the sounds instead of just using the sounds as a backdrop. Where their first record focused more on nature, Silent Uprising shifts the focus a bit more toward the increasing influence of the urban landscape as cities continue to encroach on nature and change the balance forever. The record begins with the clatter of trains rushing past, the receding sound of the train is soon joined by a simple strident guitar riff, accompanied by a mournful wooden recorder. The two drift and shift and slowly build in intensity. Very reminiscent of Neurosis at their most mellow, surprisingly enough. The riff shifts and twists, shadowed by the recorders melodies eventually being joined by the sound of another train and eventually being drowned out by the roar of the wheels on the tracks. The second track is a simple, gorgeously melancholy guitar melody, slowly and deliberately picked, over a bed of crackly static that could be either the sound of rain falling or the crackle of a fire, or both. The sound on Silent Uprising is much more musical than on Inside The Passage with the drone being relegated to just one of many instruments / approaches as opposed to the very dark and slow shifting all encompassing drone of the earlier record. Here, it's -that- guitar, all dark and shimmering and reverberant, and the brooding slow building melodies that creep across the sonic landscape. It sometimes almost sounds like the slow core of Low being performed in a steel mill or a rail yard, the band struggling to be heard over the sound of rain and wind and trains and passing cars. Strangely powerful and poignant. Packaged in a gorgeous oversized sleeve with breathtaking images of winter foliage and urban landscaapes, printed in all muted browns and tans. So lovely.
The last time we remember Maurizio Bianchi (who often referred to himself as MB) producing a good record was back in 1984 when the Italian industrialist produced Armaghedon. After he released that cold cold record of neurally fused electronics, Bianchi infamously quit making music and declared himself a Jehovah's Witness. The transition for a man who produced records alongside Whitehouse and Nurse With Wound toward a fringe contingent of Christianity certainly draws one's attention to the work that he made immediately before this conversion, as the bleakness of the sounds take on grand epistomological references. It was assumed that he was never going to make any music ever again; however in the late '90s, Bianchi returned to music, only to produce some of the worst New Age ambient drivel we'd ever heard. These records were so incredibly bad that when labels ballyhooed one of his records as something as good as Carcinosi or Endometrio (universally considered his best and most devastating recordings), we were more than a little skeptical, thinking back to the lame New Age outings.
Thank God, we gave Psychoneurose a listen, as this record is so spectacular that perhaps we will be searching out some of those other records to see if they are as good as they were claimed to be! Is Psychoneurose as good as the aforementioned Carcinosi / Endometrio dyptic? Well to be perfectly honest, no; but Bianchi and whoever the hell Land Use is have really done well in returning to the all-encompassing, utterly blackened, subterraneanly frigid, nightmarishly grim, soul-crushingly bleak, death-shroud ambience that Bianchi had produced back in the day. Expansive, Frankensteinian drones constanly broadcast a black energy, marred with tactile corrosive noises and synthetic twitches which could only be made by the same anaglog technology of Bianchi's classic recordings. So until those aforementioned albums come back in print yet again, Psychoneurose holds its own as a worthy substitute.
Now this is a bit of an odd combination, AQ faves Birchville Cat Motel, aka Campbell Kneale going one on one with none other than Mr. Lee Ranaldo, he of indie noiseniks Sonic Youth. How did it come about? Why did it come about? Who knows, and who really cares as the results speak for themselves. These two fellas, with some kind of 'noise' as their common thread, managed to conjure up some gorgeous dronescapes, that eventually ramp up to some serious NOISE, before drifting back into dreamy shimmery bliss. A single hour long track recorded live in New York at the Tonic in December of 2004 on BCM's last trip to the US, this is a slow building drone, equal parts chord organ, guitars, maybe even bagpipes (at least that's what it sounds like) all sort of swirling and reverberating, with distant tinkling chimes and simple stretched out melodies. About halfway through, Ranaldo kicks it up a notch and lets the distortion rip, a huge wall of white hot guitar, kept in line by a simple and very spare single snare-hit beat, a sort of free noise doom, with little bits of backwards electronic rhythm, and keening lawnmower like guitar melodies. The last fifteen minutes is a sweetly languid wind down, distortion disengaging, rhythms drifting into the ether, melodies dissipating like clouds after a storm, all as the chatter of the crowd slowly encroaches on the barely there sounds that moments later are not there at all.
We don't know how they do it. Black magic presumably. If you thought that Sweden's Witchcraft were eerily able to conjure the spirit of early '70s proto-metal doom rock a la Black Sabbath and Pentagram (which they are) and you want MORE (of course you do), well, you're in luck. We've discovered that Witchcraft have some friends, another Swedish band called Burning Saviours who ALSO possess this arcane ability, incredibly enough! You've gotta hear 'em. Burning Saviours are pretty much dead ringers for Witchcraft, which means that they are equally inspired by Pentagram (heck, they're named after a Pentagram song, "Burning Saviour"), Sabbath, Witchfinder General and all sorts of decades-past, metal-prog-psych heaviness. Their songs have got all the bellbottomed basslines, laidback soloing, gentle folky melodies, Ozzy-sincere vocals, and doomful riffs needed to make for an authentic-sounding escape to that mystic, misty, downer domain that we (and bands like Burning Saviours and Witchcraft) like to imagine the '70s to be...long-haired lads worshipping pagan gods with guitars and amplifiers and flutes -- yes, flutes, much to Andee's approval (Andee's been taking flute lessons for a few months now, in a bit do become even MORE prog, and he knows how to play four whole notes already!). Burning Saviours wield flute with aplomb on two tracks, "Spread Your Wings" and "Trees And Stones", which will doubtless garner 'em comparisions to Jethro Tull, although we doubt they go in for the one-legged flute pose, and besides there were lots of other '70s heavy psych/prog acts that utilized the flute -- Murphy Blend, Gravy Train, Clear Blue Sky, Mammut, Los Dug Dugs, Out Of Focus, McChurch Soundroom, Nosferatu, Alrune Rod, Culpeper's Orchard and plenty more obscure acts who were probably more inspirational to Burning Saviours, not that we're knocking Tull. And let's not forget that Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath was known to set aside his guitar and pick up the flute upon occasion -- once, famously, in concert when we was so stoned that he spent, like, two minutes with his eyes closed, holding the flute nowhere near his lips, while blowing directly into the microphone as bandmates Ozzy, Bill and Geezer looked on and tried to restrain their mirth. Or so the story goes. ANYWAY, our point is sort of that if any of those bands mean anything to you, and/or you also dig Black Sabbath, then this should be right up your alley! We only wish this album was longer than the relatively lean 34 minutes that it is. But if you've been lovin' Witchcraft's recent Firewood, you'll be happy to have this -- indeed, it might even be BETTER than Witchcraft. We're not sure yet. And that by itself is about as high a recommendation as we can give!!
For a band that's been around for a while now, Burning Star Core has kept a pretty low profile. Plenty of vinyl only and limited cd-r releases and loads of shows, but still they've remained pretty well under the radar. That all seems about to change with the release of three, count 'em, THREE new compact discs!! The first of those three to reach our ears, The Very Heart Of The World, was recorded between 2002 and 2004 and is everything we've come to expect from these guys (or this guy, as BSC is mostly the work of one C. Spencer Yeh), a gorgeously expansive soundfield of ruptured drones, skittering scraped violin and gurgling electronics, very gritty and crunchy, but still completely dreamy and soothing. Employing the unlikely instrumentation of violin, guitar, electronics, clarinet, organ, percussion, drums, trumpet, piano and voice, BSC conjure up a weird washed out cinematic soundscape, equal parts the Dead C, Wolf Eyes, and Birchville Cat Motel, where drone is obviously the order of the day, but with brief excursions into weird dada-ist voice experiments, blissed out post rock rhythms, skronky free space-jazz, soaring and epic spectacle and even a little full on noise. Haunting and harrowing, brooding and beautiful, this sounds like a seriously Dead C'd Godspeed You Black Emperor, but a GSYBBE with less Canada and more midwest, less Fellini and more Romero, less Constellation and more RRR. Awesome!
NWOFHM. That's what it says on the inside of the cd booklet, in big bold letters. NWOFHM? WTF? If you don't get the joke, explaining it won't help, but here goes: New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal. Our Finnish friends Circle are apparently referencing the famed NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) that took the rock world by storm circa 1979, giving us Saxon, Angel Witch, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Venom, Samson, and many many many more. What's that got to do with the Can and Neu! pulsed space/prog/post-rock normally practiced by Circle?? Well Circle fans know that these guys have indeed established their very own trademark "circular" sound (repetitive, rhythmic, looping, hypnotic rock) that, whirlpool-like, pulls in all sorts of influences, from the aforementioned Krautrock forefathers to jazz and dub and lo-fi drone improv and, yes, metal. When you get a new Circle album, you kinda both know what to expect *and* never know what to expect. Well we'll tell you about Circle's latest studio effort, Tulikoria. In part, it's Circle donning the leather and spikes (metaphorically, perhaps, though they do threaten to do so for real live on stage at their show in San Francisco THIS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2nd, THAT'S TONIGHT IF YOU'RE READING THIS THE DAY WE SENT OUT THIS LIST!! SO GET DOWN THERE!!). Ahem. Circle's love of metal, specifically the true, traditional heavy metal of the '80s, has borne fruit before, on several of the songs from their amazing Sunrise album released in 2002 (sadly now out of print). So, the heavy metal component present on Tulikoira is precedented in the Circle discog. But, like Sunrise, this isn't just Circle "doing metal". It's a lot of other things besides! Nobody will confuse it for an "actual" metal album. But heavy metal is definitely, proudly an element here, amongst others. And graphically, too, it's an inspiration, as you'll see from Circle's new fangled, tough-looking symmetrical logo, which even incorporates a lightning bolt!
There's four tracks here, starting with "Rautakaarme", an atmospheric seven-minute cut featuring monkish chant, eerie drone, and energetic bursts of rock action. Second track "Tulilintu" is *entirely* active and energetic, really bringing in the headbanging, fist-pumping metal, complete with guitar leads and soaring screams in the manner of Rob Halford. Seriously. The lyrics are in Finnish (presumably) so we don't know how tongue-in-cheek-or-not they are. Track three, "Berserk", is kinda weird, another atmospheric exercise with some lines in English like "I'm a scorpion" and "I'm a crocodile" spoken over rather spooky, bass-heavy grooves. A lot of tension in this one. Could almost be a noirish film soundtrack from the '70s, but with additional "circular" electric guitar riffing. Then the final track "Puutiikeri" arrives, pretty much taking over the album since it's an epic 24 minute affair, beginning and ending with authentic heavy metal riffing, but journeying far and wide in-between. Creaky improv splatter, lush keyboards, gently whispering vocals, spacey electronic effects, chugging, pulsating rhythms (of course!), and even some quasi-techno beats (!) are stirred into this weird mix. Ranging in mood from calm tranquility to flat out rockin', this is a real trip, as is all of Tulikoira. If you've been following Circle's output in recent years, and rolling with all their eccentricies, from Sunrise to Guillotine to Forest to Empire, you'll be happy to add Tulikoria to your collection too!
Once known as Crawl Unit, the Californian misanthrope Joe Colley has never been as prolific as many of his contemporaries such as Francisco Lopez, Daniel Menche, and The Hafler Trio. While this is not to say that none of those artists exhibit much in the way of quality control (quite the contrary!), Joe Colley's constant fussiness coupled with a self-identification with failure lends his recordings to readings as these fringe elements of sound research touching on psychological issues into the nether regions of the human psyche as well as mechanical engineering gone awry. It's been a little over two years since Colley's previous album Desperate Attempts At Beauty, and we have to say that Psychic Stress Soundtracks is a step up from that impressive piece of work. Refreshingly devoid of digital effects and techniques, the Psychic Stress Soundtracks feature five lengthy compositions in which a handful of surplus electronics, motors, and mechanical objects have been rewired to exaccerbate their collapse. Within the hiss of circuits meltings and gears jamming, Colley coaxes a toxic array of hums, clicks, pings, and drones, and in turn, sculpts them into an amazing set of electro-shock minimalism confounded by numerous compositional detours and ruptures. This is well worth checking out!
We already knew Chris Cunningham was scary. Or was at the very least capable of conjuring up some scary images. C'mon, had you EVER seen a video as absolutely frightening as Aphex Twin's "Come To Daddy"? We thought not. Well, it seems appropriate then that this new video finds Cunningham and Richard James together again, and rest assured that "Rubber Johhny" almost makes "Come To Daddy" seem like a Backstreet Boys video. This time instead of lots of demented children with James' face, James plays the deformed and wheelchair bound Rubber Johnny, who lurks in the darkness where he is kept alone and locked up, peeking from behind walls or hunched over in his wheelchair pushed into a dark corner. The whole thing is a rapid fire series of shots and quick cuts, shot entirely in night vision it seems like, and we only get brief glimpses of Johnny, but every one offers a little more and each glimpse is more horrifying than the last. Holy fuck! What is it with these guys? And how the hell do they do it? This is absolutely amazing. Someone has to get Cunningham to make a movie. We can hardly imagine how insane that would be. And also, if the "Rubber Johnny" video wasn't enough, the book it comes packaged in features image after image of some of the most disturbing and fucked up photoshop EVER. Lots of armpits and buttholes and foreheads and scrotums all chopped and seamlessly assembled into some of the freakiest sort-of-human- creatures you will ever see. Eeeuw.
Okay folks! Here it is, beloved indie pop band Death Cab For Cutie's major label debut! While we've already heard grumbles from a number of their ol' devoted fans about it, we implore you to give 'er a chance why don't ya? C'mon, the fact of the matter is that if you didn't know about their change of record label home, you probably wouldn't have your crosshairs zeroing in on this new album. It'd probably be welcomed with open arms and loving ears, just as every other Death Cab release before it has been. Having listened to it a few times already, we can say that, yes, it is a bit slicker than their past recordings, but heck, they've been heading in a more polished, restrained direction for some time now, haven't they? We're sure Atlantic has definitely afforded them more deluxe recording production accommodations and amenities, but the band has by no means abused nor flaunted them on Plans. Darker hues, more bittersweet than sweet. With Plans, Ben Gibbard and Co.'s charming heart-melting tendencies will surely be welcomed by an even broader audience, but will also continue to enchant their long-time devotees.
We imagine it's quite a rare occurrence when Kevin Drumm gets outnoised on a record. By anyone! But it looks like it's finally happened on this here split. That's not to say Mr. Drumm is not noisy here, he most certainly is, it's just that in this case, 2673 are a bit noisier. Drumm's side of this lp is a thick slab of buzzing rhythmic insectoid electronics, chopped and shuffled and assembled in such a way that it sounds almost techno-like, pounding and stuttering out an impossibly complex rhythm, before a suffocating swarm of high pitched squeals and beeps descend like some sort of seventies computer gone completely haywire. Unlike the first twenty minute blast of screech and stutter, the final few minutes are downright serene, an abstract soundscape of greys, distorted white noise smeared into blurry barely there melodies. Quite nice. 2673, who you may remember from their split with Unicorn a few lists back, definitely bring the noise here, with an opening salvo of shrieking squealing high pitched skree that had dogs down the block barking as we were listening to this. The rest of the side is less high end, but no less noisy, with massive slabs of crumbling distorted electronics and overblown loops of prickly feedback and speaker shredding crunch. Woah! In a beautiful sleeve designed by Steven O'Malley (of SUNN O))), Khanate, Burning Witch, etc.) that is even printed on the inside!
Originally released as a super limited colored vinyl 12", for sale only on a 2003 European tour (and limited to, depending on who you ask, either 330, or 660 copies) this amazing and amazingly limited record finally gets a proper release on cd. Which is also great considering the label that released the 12" apparently never paid the bands ANY money and actually ditched said European tour taking lots of the bands' money with them. Hopefully this will help set things right on that front, and at the same time it's a chance for those of you who missed out on the vinyl to finally check this out. KK Null, guitarist for Japanese sludge metal outfit Zeni Geva offers up a lengthy free noise exploration, guitars and electronics, abstract space-y weirdness, that gradually builds and builds into full on squalls of guitarnoise and ultra distorted electronic freakout. The cd also includes a twenty minute bonus track from Null, a sort of part two addendum to his original 12" track, and it's appropriately enough another extensive blooping swooshing analog space-out psych-free-noise epic, equal parts Merzbow and Space Machine (Masonna's space-y analog analog synth project). The Earth tracks is a single twenty minute long track recorded live at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle in 2003 and was one of the first (if not THE first) recordings to introduce the new sound of Earth, owed in no small part to the addition of Adrienne Davies on drums. A lot less sludgey and droney than old Earth, and a lot more hypnotic and melodic that later Earth, a very minimal post rock almost, with slow motion distorted arpeggiated melodies and woozy droned out riffs, all sort of pulsing and throbbing supported by simple shuffling, drumming and lots and lots of space. As hypnotic as ever, but definitely more rocking, and certainly the first hint of Earth's slow directional sonic shift.
Chet Scott might not be a household name, but for all you dark ambient / drone / found sound freaks out there it probably will be soon. Not only does he run the Glass Throat label, which is responsible for releasing lots of gorgeously dark and drone-y records, including both records by the post-Noisegate outfit Beneath The Lake (whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this list), but he also performs as Ruhr Hunter, whose last record of desolate post industrial drones and ambient soundscapes we absolutely loved. With the Elemental Chrysalis, Scott, is joined by James Woodhead, and together, the two explore a curious world of dense drones, forest mythology, elemental symbolism and folky flutter. Like the best of Ruhr Hunter Lustmordian rumble mixed with sun dappled and summery forest folk, lilting melodies, gently strummed guitars, simple pointilist piano, throat-singing style vocals, pastoral soundscapes of fingerpicked guitar, spare tribal rhythms and swoonsome bowed strings, all above a shimmery backdrop of warm reverberating chordal whir, all constructed from acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, cello, organ, thunder sheet, theremin, bowed sitar, Egyptian hand drums, environmental samples, Brazilian surdo drum, bodhran. electric bass, energy chimes (!), wooden flutes, black cat ocarina (!!), harmonica, mountain dulcimer, voice and hermit thrush sample (!!!). Completely and beautifully tranquil and mesemerizing.
Ostensibly a black metal record, A Sword Of Death For The Prince seems more like sort of an abstract experimental industrial dark ambient record. Or something. Actually, to be totally honest, we're not sure what the hell it is. We are sure of one thing though, this is quite possibly the weirdest fucking record we've ever heard. Reverby riffs, not distorted at all, sort of clangy and chime-y, are struck violently and sent into space to hang there in wide open expanses of haunting creaks and drones, everything heavily delayed, so each riff sort of reverberates into the ether, echoing endlessly, with creepy almost spoken vocals also drenched in delay. It's like someone took a pop record, took out ALL the song structures and all the melodies, ran the whole thing through a bank of effects peddles and then had King Tubby make a dub version of the whole thing. Like songs by Wolf Eyes or the Dead C being reinterpreted by Benighted Leams. Riffs and notes are spit out seemingly haphazardly, as they careen back and forth, echoing and colliding with vocals and all the notes that follow. This is one of those records, that is either so completely high concept that no matter how hard we try, we will not be able to wrap our puny minds around it, or it's just some kid fucking around with a 4 Track and his first delay pedal. Either way, we LOVE it. So completely damaged and far out and WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD.
Fresh from the "Wizard's Convention" show/dvd release wherein they appeared alongside Boris, Green Machine and Church Of Misery, now Japanese stoner metal throwbacks Eternal Elysium have a new album out (import only) on the label that did that DVD, also home to those other bands. Eternal Elysium certainly fits right into such company, maybe coming closest to Boris and CoM at their most seventies n' psychedelic. Song titles like "Reefer Happiness" and "Twilight High" should give you some idea of their focus, stoner stuff somewhere between Sabbath and Soundgarden. They're fairly eclectic though, so you never know totally what to expect...acoustic interludes, spacey jams, riffy rockers, and more, from the tripped-out to the totally heavy. The album ends with the sprawling sixteen-minute-plus monster "Green Song", which some of you have already heard since it was used on that Jamnation disc we listed not long ago!
Dirty, sludgy, poppy, grunge rock from the two worlds of Bellingham, WA and New York City. Rally Day is heavy on the power-chords and rock n' metal riffs. One of our more favorite tracks, "Nightmare Nation", features some pulled-down vocals treatments that reference a bit of Ozzy. Overall the production of this record leaves us feeling pretty ho-hum which is too bad because the energy in their songs seems to be pretty powerful, potentially. This could be one of those things that the band is totally amazing live, but falls short here by way of their recording process, cause the band certainly knows how to rock! For fans of Love As Laughter, The Apes, Part Chimp.
Yes, buzzing black metal fiends, there IS another cd from Russia's Forest that we hadn't yet reviewed, so here it is at last. The poetically-titled As A Song In The Harvest Of Grief was Forest's fourth and final album, recorded in 1999 but reissued on cd more recently. At this point in their history, the band had made themselves masters of raw, primitive black metal done the ye olde Nordic way, carrying on the black-burning torch of Darkthrone and Burzum, whilst sometimes allowing their own experimental and improvisatory tendencies to surface amidst the fuzz-drone.
This album is no deviation from the Forest path. Opening track "Into The Mouth Of Breath" (?) sounds like a swarm of bees interpreting some minor-key piece of classical music. Then the ceaseless pounding of drums and throat-torn terror begins, each track a distorted and monotonous (in a good way, mind you -- this is black metal) lament, with melodic lines to stab the heart, the tempo of the drums quickening even as the overall mood of the music becomes almost static, dismal. Sheer trance agony fuelled by fuzz, gorgeous fuzz. And, as always with Forest's cds, it's not over 'til it's over: there's a bonus track! For fans of Darkthrone, Weakling, Eikenskaden, etc.
And by the way, we really like how Forest's rather coniferous logo has been sort of incorporated into the treeline depicted on the cover, silhouetted beneath a giant blood-red moon and fantastical northern lights.
Man, that last record we got from Gang Gang Dance was great! Hopefully some of you had a chance to see them live this summer for a mesmerizing, other-worldly performance. On Hillulah, they bring us several great live recordings from 2003 and early 2004 cut together to create a 33 minute-long audio document of noisy soundscapes that delve into the more raucous feel of the band from that time. It seems that since then, they've nicely lifted off into some sort of ethereal otherness.
As a bonus, Hillulah's "enhancement" contains 30 minutes of video footage! With this nice little document, Gang Gang Dance continues to impress.
Last time when we stocked up on UFOmammut's Godlike Snake on the Beard Of Stars label, we also brought in a few copies of this second (new to us, released in 2004) album from English retro-rock stompers Gorilla. Consisting of two guys, including one who looks a heck of a lot like Ron Wood, and one girl who thankfully doesn't, this power trio remains unabashedly dedicated to good-time rock n' roll excess in the amped-up, fuzzed-out, cowbell-knockin' tradition of fellow '70s revivalists Fu Manchu, Nebula and Monster Magnet. Lyrics like "whoah-yeah" will be heard. SF locals Drunk Horse and Parchman Farm might also serve as comparisions. Of course, if you ask Gorilla I'm sure they'll say that what they're into is Blue Cheer, Grand Funk, Sabbath, Humble Pie, Free, Frijid Pink and other staples of the late '60s/early '70s stoner rock pantheon.
Channelling their heroes with enthusiasm, Gorilla pretty much veer between whoopin' it up on the fast songs, and grinding it out with plentiful psych leads on the slower, heavier tunes, or some combination thereof. There's a couple of longer cuts that also dabble in melodic, moody progness (even bringing in Mellotron and flute) but after each spacey interlude they generally start crankin' it again pretty quick -- which is good 'cause, well, we can't say that melodic vocals are their strong suit, unfortunately. But when they stick to the distorted, dunderheaded riff-dealin' on tracks like "Rok Orl Night" and "I'm Dirty", Gorilla live up to their burly name. If that's your thing, and/or if you liked their self-titled debut we reviewed in 2002, then Gimme Some... should prove to be an apt title.
Inspired by a month long series of nightmares in which Grabowski found himself drowning in deep water, over and over again, the Polish electro-acoustic composer produced this exceptional piece of dark ambience for the Drone Records series of 7" singles. His subaquartic shimmering sounds slip in and out of the sonic landscape, punctuated by echoing gasps, wooden creaks, and thunderous rumbles, somewhat like the epochal Nurse With Wound album Salt Marie Celeste. Already in its second pressing which is limited to 300 copies.
Imagine that this split release is a see-saw, with Graves At Sea on one side and Asunder on the other. They're both so heavy that the teeter-totter wouldn't totter, but simply snap in the middle, leaving both bands sitting there, glaring at one another, having no fun at all. But no fun sounds good, if you like doom like we do. And both of these bands do the doom quite well, ultra low and slow -- so slow that just to make it through a song they need at least ten minutes (the two Graves At Sea tracks clock in at 10:45 and 11:16 while Asunder's contribution lasts 18:59) and you'll need a dose of anti-depressants. I mean, is this a split release or a suicide pact?
Graves At Sea (who had a cd-r release a while ago, but as yet no full-length cd) are from LA and basically are along the lines of Khanate, Burning Witch, or Corrupted -- nasty, feedbacking, hateful sludgecore, with a dreadlocked vocalist (known as the "bloody guy" around here) who spits out a screech like Edgy from BW or Khanate's Alan Dubin. And they're not to be confused with Buried At Sea, by the way, although both bands play music dug from the same charnel pit!
Graves At Sea make a perfect pairing with Asunder, who are the Bay Area's contribution to the "funereal doom" subgenre, aligning with the likes of Skepticism, Evoken, and Disembowelment. Majestic and morose metal played at a glacial pace, with both the use of cellos and the presence of ex-Weakling guitarist/vocalist John Gossard giving 'em extra dismal atmosphere. Their track here is definitely in the vein of their epick A Clarion Call album from last year.
Limited Edition. Live. High On Fire. Those are the crucial concepts that need to be conveyed in this here review. Clearly, anyone who might possibly consider buying this doesn't need to be told who (ex-Sleep stoner metal masters) High On Fire are. You might be interested to know that it was recorded back in January 2003 at one of the band's last shows with now ex-bassist George Rice, that is, before Joe Preston joined the band, and before their latest Blessed Black Wings was recorded. Thus, their 34-minute set is mostly drawn from the then-current Surrounded By Thieves album (including "Razorhoof" and "Hung, Drawn, & Quartered") but they also dish out old favorite "Blood From Zion", introduce an early version of BBW's "To Cross The Bridge", and top things off with a cover of Venom's "Witching Hour"!
The sound is good, the band is raw n' raging, and High On Fire fans who would like to authentically recreate their live experience at home need only this disc and some way to amplify it a million times more than what a mere stereo system can do! But next to having them come and bring their amps into your living room it's the closest you can get!
Another massive sonic document from the dynamic duo of Matthew Bower (Sunroof!, Skullflower, Total, etc) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). Ghosts From The Sun is a reissue of the super limited double cd-r of almost the same name (replace 'sun' with 'shit') released last year and finds the group drifting much closer to Bower's bliss rock outfit Sunroof!. While Hototogisu has always been a wilder and noisier beast than either member's other projects, most of the 'noise' is taken care of in the first eight minutes, a glorious burst of incendeiry feedback and churning guitar grrrrr. The rest of the first disc and all of disc two takes the Dead C and slips them some thorazine and the result is a woozy and druggy free noise workout, much heavier on the free than the noise. Each track has a thick brambly bed of distorted guitar thrum, atop which is draped streaks of high end feedback, huge slabs of low end throb and strange effected melodies stretched and twisted into yet more 'noise'. A swirling, surging morass of muscular heave and delicate flutter, an expanse of dense drifting sonic fog, a viscous flow of molten drone and rumble.
