Sophmore records are so tricky. Especially when they follow the HUGE BREAKTHROUGH MASSIVE HIT RECORD. What can a band do? Why do you think there are so many amazing debut records? It's because the band has been waiting their whole life to release that record. Years and years to work on those songs. Years and years of playing those songs, until they are perfect and tight. The second album is cursed by the fact that it has to be written and conceived beneath the fallout of the first, often written on tour, in hotels and on buses which for most bands is not at all how they are used to writing songs. Such is the case with Interpol. Their debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, was perfect. Dark and catchy and funny and gloomy and chock full of perfect post-punk post-new wave pop classics. Everyone we know loved that record. Metalheads, punk rockers, whatever. It didn't matter. It was that good. So then the question is how did Interpol weather the sophmore slump. Disappointment is inevitable right? Well, track one definitely threw us off, a slow maudlin tail dragger, a lot like our least favorite track on Bright Lights. The next track "Evil" was definitely a return to form, but there was still something a little off, not as good maybe? We couldn't put our finger on it. We were all a little bit bummed. Sure it sounded pretty good. The whole record did, but we were all disappointed and sort of wrote it off as an 'oh well' and figured we'd just go back to Bright Lights. But a funny thing happened. We all kept putting Antics back on the stereo, all of us. And gradually we all came to the realization that Antics is a fucking amazing record!! Maybe more subtle, a little darker, not so immediately catchy, but isn't that what a second record should be? No one wants to hear the same record again, and lord knows the band doesn't want to play those songs over again. So yeah, this record is awesome. As good as Bright Lights, just different. Which is a good thing. A great thing actually. It takes some growing, but all great records do. "Evil" is punky and funky and about as upbeat as Interpol get, with sing songy, over ennunciated vocals, super reverbed guitar and a irresistable rhythmic bounce. And once you get to track five "Slow Hands", the single, you're definitely sold. "Slow Hands" definitely sounds like it could have come straight off Bright Lights, but with a decidedly more Strokes-like jangle that gives way to classic Interpol minor key chug and haunting reverbed piano chorus. After that you might as well just give in and admit that this is probably going to be one of the best records of the year. Antics has quickly turned into one of those rare records (New Pornographers, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc.) that we have to -force- ourselves not to listen to so we won't burn out on it! So good!
What's the scariest and creepiest of instruments? Could it be the downtuned electric guitar, that sound that marks all things dark and heavy and brutal and grim? Or could it be the cello with its soaring keening deep throated moan? Well we might posit, especially in light of this Jacula record, that the creepiest of all instruments is most certainly the church organ. Surprising that an instrument used chiefly to inspire and praise can illicit such utter unease and create such a pervasively creepy ambience. And that's pretty much what Jacula is all about, creepy ambience. Thick and haunting washes of warm rich church organ drone, resonant and reverberant, sometimes accompanied by simple pounding drums or mournful folky guitar melodies or wild psychedelic freakouts or soaring female operatic vocals or even occasional lyrics spoken ominously in Italian, but more often than not it's just the massive and ominous swells of a church organ. So effectively and utterly evil sounding. Jacula are sort of like a doom metal soundtrack to a Dario Argento movie. Goblin meets Skepticism! A Krautrock Thergothon? But is's not all mellow murky moodiness, tracks three and four, "Triumpratus Sad" and "Veneficium", both feature seriously fuzzed out, almost punk rock riffs, that sound about a decade before their time, insistent and completely heavy, even more so when they're eventually joined by a pounding one-drum beat or strident atonal piano or wild swirling progrock keyboards. Amazing! It's no wonder we sold the first couple of copies we got in of this to members of local black metal bands Ludicra and Leviathan!
In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum (literally "The Poison Is Always At The End"), which was supposedly recorded in an English castle, was originally released in an edition of only 300 copies in the late sixties and has been completely unavailable until just recently (this reissue cd is not entirely new, but it took us until now to get enough copies to list). Formed in 1968, Jacula even counted a medium as a member of their band who we assume was critical to the process of creating this record, considering that In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum was "Composed By Spiritualist Seance (1966-1969)" Woah! And for those of you well versed in sixties and seventies prog, be aware that this reissue is NOT the same as the Jacula record released in the early seventies (1972's Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus), even though for some strange reason Black Widow has given it pretty much the exact same cover.
"Raining Down Diamonds" is the 41st album for Jandek, who in recent years has stepped out of his hermetic existance and has performed several times in England with an upcoming show in the US. One of those performances found Jandek and Keiji Haino on the same bill; while it's never very clear when Jandek recorded any of his recordings, it seems that Jandek had been quite impressed by the oblique screams, howls, and ululations of Mr. Haino. As wholly self-contained as the Jandek ethos has been, it is quite unusual when other voices emerge within Jandek's primarily solitary artform (the notable exception being the guest vocal appearances by a woman referred to as "Nancy"). Obviously, it's impossible to confirm or deny if he has or has not been influenced by Keiji Haino (or anyone else for that matter), but "Raining Down Diamonds" sure does sound like a Keiji Haino record. Here, Jandek is only playing the bass and singing, although back to his more recognizably lithium saturatured waivering as opposed to his recent ventures into a baritone style. Oh so sad, and oh so bleak, it can only be Jandek.
Lucky for us there's not a whole lot to do in Finland other than drink, smoke and make records. It means that we will never have to worry about running out of weird and wonderful Finnish foresty psych rock jams. And by now, we're quite comfortable in admitting that we can never get enough. EVER. Circle, Avarus, Uton, Islaja, Es, Kiila, Anaksimandros, Tivol and of course Kemialliset Ystavat. They've all tapped into something special and mysterious, some gorgeously primal world of drones and simple rhythms, minimal psychedelic freakouts, deliriously primitive drumming and outer space melodies. A sort of Krautrock meets seventies pagan folk meets minimal drone meets free rock meets everything else. No wonder it all sounds so good. It's little purloined scraps of everything we love, woven haphazardly together into gorgeous rambling and meandering sonic explorations. Banjos accompany wavering falsetto vocals, shuffling seasick rhythms underpin wild songbird like melodies and fluttery flutes, buzzing distorted guitars rumble beneath full on harmony pop vocals, warped and warbly organs and woodwinds nestle up against the clattery clang of kitchen sink percussion. It all sounds so perfectly imperfect together. Dreamy and melancholy, stumbly and goofy, dark and brooding, woozy and hypnotic, innocent and playful, exuberant and festive, creepy and bizarre, pretty and darn near perfect.
A new Khanate! 'Nuff said perhaps, as all you AQ doom customers surely know what that means! Ultra-depressive dirge metal from some of the best in the biz. Capture & Release, a two-song, 43 minute "ep" (maxi-ep? mini-lp? heck, it's a full-length, really!) is the third cd release from this NYC-based band, featuring Stephen O'Malley from SUNNO))) on guitar and graphics, bassist James Plotkin of OLD, singer Alan Dubin (also from OLD), and drummer Tim Wyskida. By now, Khanate have really established a distinct style of extreme, slow, scary, art-metal. To the point that we're always citing them as a comparison when describing other bands. They're the standard by which anyone indulging in feedback-filled heaviness, anguished/evil vocalizations, creepy atmosphere, double digit song-lengths, and rumbling sub-sonics is judged -- like when we say Bunkur or Graves At Sea (reviewed on this list) are bands in the style of Khanate. So if would be easy to review Capture & Release if it were by *another* band -- we'd say it was a lot like Khanate and that'd be enough to recommend it to many of you! Of course, Khanate themselves can be compared to predecessors Corrupted and especially Eyehategod, godfathers of feedback sludge brutality. But Khanate's compositions are way more extended, dramatically ambitious, and clinically produced than EHG, and utilize "experimental" sonic textures and loud/soft dynamics in the manner of a post-rock band as well. This new disc really exemplified this approach, with the second, 25-minute track "Release" featuring lots of really quiet parts that make us think a hypothetical Khanate / Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore tour would be PERFECT. (We can dream, can't we?) Vocalist Alan Dubin makes the most of these "vulnerabilities" in the band's otherwise crushing sound barrage, with dark, cryptic, and psychologically suggestive rather than explicit lyrics wherein he seems to be inhabiting the role of the deviant antagonist from a Thomas Harris novel...but poetically enough that perhaps we can all relate, and indeed find release in their music.
Hey, remember that crazy Infidel?/Castro! double cd we reviewed last list? Well the guy from the I?/C! duo who isn't also the guy from Behold The Arctopus has released a 28-track solo album about, uh, trilobites! (Y'know, those three-lobed Paleozoic marine arthropods.) It's a completely wacky concept album, featuring (indeed, celebrating!) a musical kitchen-sink approach beyond even what I?/C! is willing to incorporate. There's (fake?) BBC-style documentary samples. Slap bass. Squiggly Yngwie guitar. Jazz. Electronic noise. Drum and bass. Black metal. Munchkin voices. Really, just all kinds of genre-parody ("9+ styles" boasts the sticker on the cover). Including goofy whiteboy rap music that sounds just like our pal Steven Schulz! Indeed, this whole project seems to have a lot in common with the virtuosic but silly aesthetic of such Steven Schultz releases as No One Will Ever Understand Our Genious (by Puny Humans) and I Forgot To Get A Rap Name. So that could be either a recommendation or a warning, depending on your tolerance for dorkiness.
This is so bewilderingly diverse that it could almost be a various artists comp, with all the songs supposedly somehow having something to do with trilobites (though even that's not entirely clear). And as with most comps, you'll probably find good tracks and bad, according to your taste (and theirs!). George Korein is joined in this madness by several guests from the East Coast indie-prog scene that I?/C? is a part of, including members of Behold The Arctopus, Kayo Dot, Dysrhythmia, and Stinking Lizaveta.
The best cover versions, we always think, are the ones where the band doing the covering really makes the song being covered their own, do you agree? Then, that makes this one of the best covers albums ever, 'cause regardless of whether Kuvezin and Yat-Kha are doing Led Zeppelin or Kraftwerk, it sounds like the music of the steppes. That's right, Yat-Kha are the band from Tuva in Central Asia whose music is already a hybrid of the rustic folk traditions of their native land and Western rock, on records like Yenisei-Punk and Tuva-Rock. We like 'em very much. I mean, a rock band with a throat-singer is hard to beat!
Vocalist Albert Kuvezin is always a regular member of Yat-Kha (he's the band leader in fact), but he gets special star billing here I guess 'cause the songs they're doing are his selections, reflecting his influences outside of Tuvan folk music. You can tell that the counter-cultural Kuvezin is no garage-band or electro-clash obsessed youngster, but the tracks he's picked are, taste-wise, pretty right-on. A good balance of the hip, classic, and obscure. The aforementioned Zeppelin and Kraftwerk songs are also joined by the works of Hank Williams, Iron Butterfly (it says "via Slayer" but we don't hear any of the latter), Joy Division, Captain Beefheart (whose voice Kuvezin must love!), Motorhead (another vocalist Kuvezin clearly appreciates), the Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, and others, including some less familiar names like Russian cult figure Vladmir Vysotskiy and Tuvan symphonic composer Alexei Baktrevitch Tchyrgal. There's notes on each track (about why they were chosen, what they mean to Albert and Yat-Kha) and even a map pinpointing the geographical origins of the original artists. There's of course a novelty aspect to this in part, we can't deny (just as we can't deny that it's just plain cool to hear "Orgasmatron" performed acoustically with a singer who makes Lemmy's gargle sound like the voice of a song-bird) but it's not as if Kuvezin and Yat-Kha aren't serious, and like we said, they really make these songs their own -- you might not always immediately figure out what you're hearing, and even when you do, if you didn't know better you might be able to believe that "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was originally a Tuvan tune, for example, meant for Kuvezin's rumbling voice and the high lonesome Country Eastern sounds of Yat-Kha's traditional instrumentation.
Well the 80's new wave resurgensation isn't over yet, friends. The thing is, despite how much our Lovemakers sound sooo much like Depeche Mode and Human League, their songs are so catchy and good! Their veer a little over into that territory of songkraft-cheesiness that DM and HL often lathered themselves in, you know... those tracks that aren't huge hits are pretty big stinkers. But the tracks on Times Of Romance are not huge hits, nor are they all thaaaat baaaad. At moments they nearly reach that level of huge new power-pop as seen in Maximo Park! If your sleek electro new wave personal dance party isn't over yet, you gotta pick this up. For fans of Interpol, The Faint, Maximo Park, and you know... those OLD bands, Depeche Mode, Human League, Soft Cell, etc.
For those of you who just skim the list or only read the first few sentences of reviews, let us get your attention real quick. Lurker Of Chalice, in case you didn't realize, is the work of one WREST, aka SF black metal overlord LEVIATHAN. Paying attention now? Good. let's proceed. Lurker Of Chalice has existed in one form or another for several years now, but outside a cassette or two this is the only recorded evidence and man will it blow your mind. Originally conceived as a less black metal, more experimental musical outlet (and possibly inspired by Leviathan / AQ faves Benighted Leams) Lurker Of Chalice is constructed from lots of black metal parts as might be expected, but lot of very un-black metal bits as well: arpeggiated post rock guitars, martial percussion, simple propulsive krautrock rhythms, swirling droning ambience, strange haunting vocals, obscure found sounds and samples, doomy slow motion dirges, reverb drenched, almost sun dappled melodies over creepy warbly soundscapes, warm thick keyboards, heavily strummed steel string guitars, rich throaty crooning, super overblown distorted guitars, all smeared into a warm fuzzed out, dreamy and melancholy, mostly midtempo blackened doomscape. Occasionally, Lurker blasts into full on black metal, like on the second track "Piercing Where They Might", but even in a BM context, things are beautifully way off kilter, rumbling bizarrely affected vocals, dizzying riffs that swirl and slither and make it impossible to focus, huge jangly guitars over miltaristic snare drums and warbly Michael Gira like vocals. So weird. But so perfect. Imagine Leviathan and Benighted Leams and the Swans and Ved Buens Ende, all somehow mixed into some darkly evolving, gothic tinged expanse of moody metallic melancholia. This is maybe the best sounding record Wrest has made which is saying a lot. And it's definitely the weirdest, and most certainly the saddest. The whole record is dripping with intense emotion, minor key and slowly stretching toward some bleak future of broken promise and crushed spirit. From slowly evolving, almost cinematic instrumentals to massive and majestic dirges to woozy effect drenched post rockisms to ultra bleak ballads to damaged black metal crush, Lurker Of Chalice evokes total and utter misery, a musical invocation to the lost and alone, wandering in search of hope, under the suffocating black cloak of night, crushed beneath a starless sky and adrift in a soulless universe, exposing every raw nerve and dark corner of Wrest's twisted musical soul. So fucking good!
We hate to do this to you, but there's not much we can do about it. THIS IS INCREDIBLY LIMITED!! WE ONLY GOT A HANDFUL OF COPIES, MOST LIKELY NEVER TO GET MORE! SO ACT FAST. This 10" is limited to a couple thousand worldwide, only 700 or so made it to the US and only 20 made it to AQ. So definitely don't dawdle. Yet another split from masters of the split record, Japanese ultra spaz rockers Melt-Banana, this time teamed up with another unlikely, but still quite cool band we've never heard of. The strangely monickered Chung offer up short sharp bursts of angular post punk on their side, kinetic new wave rhythms, fuzzy organs and yelped vocals. Like a punkier mix of the Fall, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand and all those sorts of bands. Melt-Banana counter with some of their most unlikely music to date, confounding and confusing with their three tracks (be sure to play their side on 45 -- we were WAY more confused when we mistakenly played it at 33 the first time). Strangely sparse, with a bouncy minimal rhythm, poundiing piano (!) and even some horns all sort of new wave-y and abstractly angular with lots of blooping space sound effects, rockabilly guitar and a trippy tweaked out production. Definitely MB's most melodic and least spastic record to date. But just to remind us who we're dealing with, they finish things off with a mega distorted blast of classic Melt-Banana style spaz-grind-pop weirdness. Comes packaged in an amazing sleeve, thick screened cardstock, and affixed to the front is one of those lenticular stereo 3D cards that moves when you shift the image, the image just in this case is a cartoon city and a giant fly and a madman with a flyswatter and an explosion.WOW. And once again, VERY LIMITED!
We've always been way into Monolake, with their murky hazy "heroin house" sound, all muted four on the floor beats, but as if you were hearing them through the wall from next door. For the last few years though, the haze seems to have been clearing gradually revealing a whole new Monolake, each release a little more polished, a little more uptempo, a little more, well Kompakt. This definitely sounds like it belongs on Kompakt, which is in no way a bad thing. Well, it is maybe if you were still looking specifically for that murky Chain Reaction drugged out techno sound, but hell, we love Kompakt, and that slick thumping skittering Kompakt minimalism. So now we have Polygon_Cities, which is just that, a minimal pulsing slab of modern electronica, clipped beats, and shuffling IDM-ish rhythms, stark and spare, but with warm synth swells and brief flurries of crumbly distortion and bits of that dubbed out Pole sound we used to love so much. Super laid back and smooth, kinda like what we imagine you'd hear in some Eurotrash opium den resting up for your next undercover spy misssion, or maybe the music that plays in a sci-fi movie while you're having your retinas scanned by some beautiful cyborg.
NF Orchest is a Bay Area electro-acoustic / noisenik / improv trio centered around the activities of Angela Hsu, Andrew Way, and James Kaiser. While Hsu has connections with Mills College, Way and Kaiser have performed extensively around the Bay Area as French Radio with Bruce Anderson; Kaiser also records solo under the moniker Petit Mal. Bowed metals, damaged turntables, tumbled rocks, screeched violin pushed through squawk boxes, and the improbabilities of feedback all come together in the density of raw sound of NF Orchest that reflects the same interest in acoustic sonology as heard in Organum and Tony Conrad. Couple those influences with a eagerness to set off depth-charge rumbles, subterranean detonations, and Skaters-esque lo-fi dissonance, NF Orchest adds a particular noise-junk malice that is all their own. Yup, this is a super limited CD-R release of two live sessions recorded in July, 2005. Only 104 copies.
We had complained a while back about how hard it had been for us to get records by the mysterious Nordvargr (aka Toroidh, Folkstorm, Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, half of black noise outfit MZ412) which was a shame as some of us were downright OBSESSED with everything he had done musically. It seems like now, for whatever reason, we've finally been able to locate some of our favorites, for example, 2001's Cold Void Of Nothing, the first collaboration between Nordvargr and Drakh after the dissolution of their legendary black ambient group MZ412. While MZ412 were steeped in the imagery and mythology of Nordic black metal, later sonic explorations found more in common with the industrial subculture and the world of dark ambient music. The sound itself had not changed dramatically, on Cold Void, theirs was still a world of bleak abstract ambience, slowly shifting sound fields, haunting glimpses into a dark and dreary otherworld, shortwave radio interference, mysterious broadcasts from the other side, ghosts and chants and the sound of time and space. Drone music perhaps, but not static or still, instead rich and multi layered, minimal but still active, a huge sonic world broken down into tiny subtle movements, a musical universe of lost spirits and disembodied souls, haunting and harrrowing and so good!
Does this One Umbrella possess special powers a la Mary Poppins? Not quite sure, but we can say that they are a duo from Austin, TX whose members have suitably unconventional, enchanting names Quebron and Novella, and whose soundscapes just might set you adrift. Their 23 minute long debut floats in from the outer space wing of the new SF label Tell-All Records. Layers of drones ebb and flow, while gentle and not so gentle digital glitches, pulses and hisses provide the more insistent elements along with an occasional unexpected pretty piano melodic line. Sooo dreamy.
One of our very favorite metal bands returns with a new album, a domestic release for big-league metal label Roadrunner, which made us wonder if they'd somehow gone all nu-metal on us. Opeth as an Ozzfest band? Well, this is the slickest Opeth record yet, surely. And there's clean singing on here that does seem like it might be geared for (gasp) radio airplay...but, that singing is in the same song with total death metal growling. So it's really the same ol' Opeth we know and love. A well produced, super dynamic and atmospheric blend of death metal and progressive rock, with epic-length songs, ripping technical playing, and sensitive acoustic interludes. And a healthy dose of Mellotron and other keys, moreso even than in the past, as they've now made their keyboardist an official, permanent band member. It could be we're hearing a hint of nu-metal in some of the bouncier, stop start bits...but put that in the context of proggy baroque keyboards, and this is definitely not Slipknot or Korn, that's for sure. And if Opeth can turn what they do into "pop" music and get away with it, more power to 'em. Not that that's likely...
Is this eighth Opeth opus destined to be considered a classic like several of their earlier albums? Well, c'mon, it's undeniably tough for 'em to top what they've done in the past, regardless of how good this is! We are glad to have all the shades of Opeth back together on one album after the heavy disc/light disc dichotomy of their twin previous releases Deliverance and Damnation. And anyway, at this point we can't imagine any Opeth fan daring to not purchase, listen to, and (out of love or awe) worship this!
Hailing from Charm City [Bal'more, MD], the sly math-rock trio of Oxes have been spending a lot of time apart these days with 1/3 of them living in Italy. By their ep's artwork, this has had a dynamic effect on the band. An amazing array of photos and photo-collage shows 2/3 of the band heavily immersed in Americana: hot dogs, guns, football, KFC, donuts, Budweiser, Mr. T and the like; while the other third calmly plays a flirtatious game of cards while lazing time away with a coffee and a beautiful lady in a little Italian deli.
Again a molto scrappy recording here -- though if you're a fan of the band, at this point you can use your memory of how awesome and hilarious they are when they play live to buffer the sound quality. These songs are a little more macho than we remember the band being in the past. Several veiny rock-guitar solos make us think they watched some cool Hendrix bootlegs before writing some of the songs. So dare we go so far as to say that EP is less math, more rock?! Yes, finally the Oxes have thrown off their glasses, let their hair down and shown us some leg!
We love that they included little details of the band's history in the cover art: their Mall of America Wheaties cereal box cover photo, and a slice of artwork from their last release Oxxxes.
Hope they have a full length up their sleeves soon.
Mac McCaughan reins in his Portastatic project even closer to his main band Superchunk's sound. It seems he just can't keep the power pop out of the mix, and y'know what? We don't mind one bit 'cause despite his being adept at many other musical styles, he's a master of energetic pop. While some other veteran popsters' recent releases have elicited groans of "ho hum more of the same?" That's definitely not the case with Bright Ideas. Somehow at his hands, it's always fresh'n'new, and never seems tired or reheated. On past Portastatic releases he's dabbled with Tropicalia, jazz and electronics, and he does occasionally toss things up a bit on this album. Check out the breezy sixth song "Truckstop Cassettes". The super-duper Bright Ideas highlight though is the song that follows it, "The Soft Rewind". It's McCaughan in absolute top form, and seems tailor-made for your friends' mixtapes... let alone your own repeat listens. Great stuff!
This is great! If the day has become overcast, this just might be the album to put on... that is if you want something to lure you deeper into that drizzly, hot chocolate-required state. The Red Thread's wistful music will offer you comforting shelter. Along with mainman Jason Lakis' own trademark understated, lilting mellowness cushioned by a warm combo of acoustic and electric guitar, you might also perceive the lush heartache pop sensibilities of bands like Pernice Brothers or Low and, forgive me if this sounds nuts, but maybe even an occasional dash of '70s classic rock influences a la Blue Oyster Cult too. Unlike the ship and birds in the album title, everything here seems fittingly (and lovingly) arranged in their places. Recommended.
Here's a four-song appetizer to whet your Rogue Wave pop appetite (their new full length comes out in October)! This EP kicks things off with the forthcoming album's first single "10:1" which is followed by three previously unreleased songs exclusive to this disc -- "Interruptions", "Wait For It" and "Crush The Camera". Happy to hear that the band has picked up right from where they left off on their 2003 debut (Out Of The Shadows). That is, makin' sensitive smart-pop that doesn't skimp in the energy department. Can't wait for the full length Descended Like Vultures!
We were quite lucky to have Jack Rose perform an instore last year, and it was amazing to see these steel string ragas performed live. We were all mesmerized by his unique take on Fahey-esque neo-Appalachia. It's unbelievable how in the right hands just a guitar can conjure up such a massive sound and so much emotion and Mr. Rose is definitely one of the finest examples currently practicin'. If you're familiar with the music of John Fahey you have a good idea of Rose's basic sound (he even covers Fahey's "Sunflower River Blues" here), but his years spent in the free drone group Pelt has definitely informed not only his guitar playing, but also his song writing. Some of the tracks on Kensington Blues are straight up stompers, sounding like they have to be standards, foot tapping hand clapping classic backwoods frontporch folk/blues. But others are dark and brooding, with intricate finger picking, producing all manner of buzzing overtones, and subtle harmonic coloring. Those are the tracks where Rose shines the most, when he digs deep, and explores the darker side of this music, and lets the notes stretch and buzz, sliding and scraping, letting notes drift and hover and eventually blur into shimmery drones and hypnotic stretches of cycle and repetition.
At last, back in print! This Ruins album from 2000 had been unavailable for a while, but Skin Graft, recognizing the severity of the situation, has stepped in to address that problem. For those who don't know, the Ruins are a Japanese duo on bass and drums who since 1985 or so have played a pretty unique form of hyper-kinetic hardcore prog rock with schizoid changes, influenced by weird French progsters Magma -- and themselves influencing stuff like John Zorn's Naked City. Here's our original review of this, with a few additional notes tacked on at the end:
Mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida (drums) and his current sidekick Hishashi Sasaki (6-string bass, MIDI) kick out the jams yet again on this, the Ruins' upteenth (15th?) cd. Beware their percussive frenzies, sizzling bass guitar acrobatics, and bizarre vocals (with lyrics in their own improvised language, that seems to mean something to them, even though they don't). With "Pallaschtom" the Ruins have really settled into a tight, mind-bogglingly complex compositional style, that's perhaps not as catchy as some of their past classics, but is still definitely insane and amazing, and incorporates some new, what you might call "post-rock" influences (i.e. there's moments on here that sound more like a Storm & Stress record than your usual Ruins stuff). And, it's also true that they are further in danger of garnering official "novelty act" status, especially with their newfound penchant for cover-song medleys: for instance, this disc ends with a track of 26 classical music themes (well-known tunes by Beethoven, Satie, Musorgsky, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Vivaldi, etc.) run through in a little over one minute! Exhausting, and entertaining! Novelty act or not, they're still one of our favorite bands.
Since then, there's been a few live Ruins albums released and one newer, more multi-dimensional studio disc (Tzomborgha) that we thought was superior to Pallaschtom, though that's not to say that any self respecting Ruins fan should be able to live without Pallaschtom in their collection! Also, Sasaki isn't in the band anymore, either. A further note: this Skin Graft reish adds two more medleys (Hard Rock and Prog Rock) as bonus tracks.
The Empty Heart Of The Chameleon is the debut from Liam Singer. His soft, faint vocals have already drawn comparisons by a few AQ customers to Elliott Smith, but his solo piano and theremin that take turns accompanying his voice create altogether different lonely moods and solitary atmospheres. As well, on occasion, Singer's voice is contrasted with more classically trained sounding female vocals that climb to dramatic, operatic heights. Everything is ultra hushed and delicate, brittle around the edges, in danger of vanishing or being crushed under the emotions they bear. Much like autumn leaves that fall slowly one by one, this music is spartan and contemplative, allowing an achingly sensitive vocal phrase or simple note sequence to linger in the air. Starkly beautiful.
One thing's for sure, the band's name does not refer to the band members nor to those for whom this music may be suited. Perhaps the most kinetic (we might even guess caffeinated) bands to be released by this label in some time. Whereas we've come to warmly anticipate washy contemplative post-rock from this label (Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Eluvium, Sonna to name a few), Sleeping People caught us a bit by surprise. This half dozen songs contains enough math-iness to drain your calculator's batteries! Oof!!
This one probably barely needs a review for most folks. Ummm, let's see, lots of hot naked tattooed and pierced punk rock and goth and emo girls, dancing and stripping and running around naked and causing trouble. 'Nuff said. Most folks are probably familiar (maybe *very* familiar) with the Suicide Girls website, a modern pinup site featuring the above mentioned ladies and a very My Space like punk rock community. This DVD documents the first SG burlesque tour, and features lots of live footage (including a bunch shot at the Great American Music Hall here in SF), lots of new routines / stripteases set to punk rock, as well as interviews with the ladies and lots of on-tour antics, that play just like every band-on-tour video you've ever seen, but instead of a band you've got a bunch of giggling naked girls. Ahem. And you'd never watch that Death Cab tour documentary or the Beulah movie and see those guys completely nude in the middle of the night on the side of the road in San Francisco trying to hail a cab and find a cabbie who will let them writhe around on the hood naked. Which is most definitely for the best. Features music from Sparta, Her Space Holiday, Open Hand, !!! (Chik Chik Chik), Shipping News, the Mooney Suzuki, Daedelus, Probot, Jolie Holland, Youth Group and a bunch more. Oh, and did we mention the nekkid ladeez? All region!
A visit from Sunburned Hand Of The Man always means a bunch of new releases, this time it's two lps, and a handful of cd-r's they've been lugging around on tour. We'll get to as many as we can, but let's start with Complexion. Like all of their releases, this lp, recorded live in 2004, is a gorgeous and stumbling tribal and primal mess, psychedelic and tripped out, space-y and rhythmic. There are multiple tracks listed but this plays like one massive track, two sides of loping campfire dirges, detuned guitars, simple shuffling rhythms, warbly organ melodies, super freaked out vocals all wrapped in reverb and delay, distant distorted wah guitar, and even some tape drop out that sounds as intentional as any of the other sounds present. Occasionally everything coalesces into super dense, perfectly concise passage of abstract rhythm and propulsive skitter that definitely reminds us of the legendary This Heat. This is druggy and dreamy bliss! All woozy and seasick and completely mesmerizing. At its most psychedelic it sounds a bit like Santana's little brother, high on tequila and peyote, sneaking into his big brother's practice space with his drug buddies and proceeding to get even higher and jam out all night long. Side two is a little more mellow and abstract, super minimal and trippy, a simple shuffling rhythm and all sorts of vocal and instrumental weirdness drenched in effects and splattered with little bits of random percussion, ghostlike vocals, and hazy drifting melodies.
The packaging here is real nice and maybe should be mentioned even before the music: the cd is nestled between two white cards screenprinted in silver-and-black with someone's intricate, abstract artwork (a fine-lined tangle of grass? or bones?). These cards and cd come in a plastic sleeve, inserted into a slot in a slender wooden box. The box is itself painted/printed in dark grey and white with identical artwork. Yup, very nice! This is a limited edition, of course.
What manner of music is deserving of such special packaging? Well, Japan's Ikuro Takahashi is a percussionist who has played in or with all sorts of amazing bands from the Tokyo psych-rock underground, including Fushitsusha, High Rise, Kosukuya, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Nagisa Ni Te, Overhang Party and LSD-march. As a solo music-maker, though, he also experiments with electronics. So this release is quite different from most of those bands, though sharing a "darkness" that several of them possess! Domori To Sanshu consists of two long tracks (27 and 31 minutes apiece), one of 'em live, the other rendered on a computer. The live track comes first, immersing you in what (you might imagine) could be the night sounds from outside a rural temple...a high-pitched insectoid flutter and hum, in fact produced by the keening of Ikuro's oscillators and electronic effects. Subtle and strange. Eventually the echoing rattle and clatter of percussion enters the sound-field, but emptiness and hum are still the main attraction. This track builds in drone-ful intensity, with long notes drawn out into abstract mystery. Abstraction that continues with additional density on the second, computer-composed track, which is basically one seemly unchanging but in truth slowly undulating drone... both cuts provide some serious meditative 'music' for drone-heads to get lost in.
More? Yes, please! This fine album has received a very welcome reissuing, offering this Bay Area band's fans and newcomers another opportunity to have their hearts melted. On More Deep Cuts, Thee More Shallows are seemingly inspired by the over-the-top trippy grandeur of bands such as Sparklehorse, Flaming Lips and Radiohead, but adeptly avoid falling prey to idol worship, crafting a dark, achingly beautiful world of their own. 'Nuff said!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!! We managed to get a handful of this vinyl-only release from the German dronescapists Troum. The billowing dark clouds of ominous guitar drones that have been the trademark of Troum (and their earlier incarnation Maeror Tri) continue unabated in the thick morass of chorus, delay, and reverb effects boxes with occasional accompaniments of pounding tribal rhythms. Three lengthy tracks pressed on bright red translucent vinyl.
Moving further away from those 'Japanese Bjork' comparisons which have (not unjustly) followed her through her past releases, Ms Tujiko's latest album presents her fresh, new, increasingly vaporous, softly glitchy electronic tracks for our enjoyment. Indeed, Blurred In My Mirror is considerably more spacious and less 'concrete' but no less finely crafted than her past releases. Perhaps it's the influence of collaborator Lawrence English who composed and performed most of the electronic tracks this time around, while she focussed more on lyrics. Her vocals verge on stream-of-consciousness, surfacing here and there sung or spoken in her native tongue. Fluttery, airborne loveliness.
If you've been itchin' for a little Scandanavian action, this might be your time to splurge. Happy to see that their wardrobe's still the same, their fucked-up Village People macho-femme blend of fashion 'touchstones' including a corpse painted metal dude, leather daddy, sailor... and tons of lipgloss, but over the past few albums their sound has simmered down from an unpredictable raging cock-rock tirade terrorizing the neighborhood into a decidedly classic (still cock-) rock party. Now, we've got nothing against the good times -- if we had our choice of who we'd want spearheading the festivities it'd be these guys for sure! -- but we sure do miss the badass Turbonegro of old. Apart from the swear words (and copious amount of lip gloss), there's really not much else that's gonna offend your parents. Damn! Nevertheless, the dozen tracks (including "Intro: The Party Zone") more than prove that this band are fully entitled to their all-access pass to the album's title. Oh yeah, and if there was any lingering doubt about these guys' deep appreciation for pop music, consider it toast. They flew Redd Kross' Steve McDonald overseas to co-produce, no less! This domestic release comes with a bonus DVD, which seems to be a Hank Von Helvete, workout video, we kid you not. It doesn't even really seem like a joke, which is maybe what makes it so funny.
What do you get when you mix Wrest from Leviathan, Malefic from Xasthur, Hildolf from Draugar, Imperial from Krieg and Azentrius from Nachtmystium? Odds are by the end of that sentence, most of you black metal fans don't even care, you just want it whatever it is! Well, what IT is, is a long in the works collaboration dubbed Twilight, featuring the above mentioned black metal masters, all conspiring to produce the sickest, grimmest black metal ever. And Twilight certainly is both grim and sick, but the sound manages to be much more, veering dramatically from the various contributors' usual sound and sounds. The first track is a massive and thick, buzzy and blurry tarpit of swirling BM, that is so unbelievably dense at times that the vocals and guitars and drums almost merge into a single massive blackened drone, before random parts shift ever so slightly and are allowed to drift to the forefront before slipping back into the murky blackness. Layer after layer of downtuned riffing, insane blast beats and hellishly surreal super processed howling vocals (sounding almost like all five of them are singing simultaneously). Quite possibly one of the most frightening black metal tracks EVER. We were totally thrown for a loop though with track two, which starts off with a bizarre jaunty black metal jig, accompanied by grunted troll-like vocals, before splintering into more familiar buzz and drone territory. After that it's exactly what you would expect from a BM dream team like this, lots of midtempo Burzumic throb and buzzy BM drone, plenty of growled, howled, gurgled and shrieked vocals, completely amazing riffs, veering from echoing spacious doom to razor sharp blackthrash to weirdly melodic almost jangle, catchy melodies that reveal themselves slowly with each listen, and of course there's Wrest's amazing and super creative drumming holding it all together. The sticker on the front pretty much says it all: "As an entity, they have delivered a mammoth, blackened metallic statement. Bleak, cold, darkness within and beyond the void."
Drone Record marches on with their impressive series of obscure projects presenting their post-industrial drones on the unlikely format of super limited edition 7" singles. Tzesne hails from Spain, and that's pretty much all we know about them / him / her. Whoever this is, Tzesne has presented an exceptional twin set of eerie sweeping drones derived from radio transmissions filtered through customized audio software. Much like Andrew Lagowski's paranoiac SETI albums of mutated radio signals and the Kallabris recordings of submariner ambience, Tzesne's Huffduff (which may be the shorthand for High Frequency Direction Finder, lending a cryptographic allusion to the work) stands out as a bleak WWII soundtrack of ghostly communications haunting the ether of the radio spectrum. Limited to 350 copies!
The Kill Rock Stars and 5RC labels bring you the third installment (first in five years) of their video fanzine, now in the DVD format. That means there's a heckuva lotta stuff on here. You get music videos from the likes of Amps For Christ (which we really liked), the Decemberists, Men's Recovery Project (who also provide a "making of" documentary short that's even more entertaining and weird than their video), Stereo Total, Deerhoof, Gravy Train!!!, Kleenex/LiLiPUT, Mecca Normal, Xiu Xiu, Hella (a cute and clever puppet animation), and others. Then there's live clips from Born Against (hardcore!), The Gossip, Quix*o*tic, Sleater-Kinney, a very enegetic Unwound, and others as well. Plus other stuff, like the clip from Sadie Shaw and Sarah Reed's Charm movie. Something for everyone.
We can always enjoy a good compilation of "Obscure Psychedelic, Popsyke & Progressive Pop 45s 1968-1974". And that's what this disc's cover proclaims it to contain. 23 obscure singles cuts by artists most of whom we've never heard of before -- except for Chubby Checker! Who blows our minds (and will blow yours too) with a Hendrix influenced psych-funk-wah gem recorded in The Netherlands in 1971, whose refrain goes: "My mind comes from a high place!" That sure ain't "The Twist". The last ish of Ugly Things had an article about Chubby's rare psych sides and here you can hear one of 'em. But there's lots more cool stuff on this disc besides, from the dramatic garage-prog of Ekseption to the "kinderpop" psych of Cyan to the bubblegum novelty of Jumbo. Whether you like your psych twee or fuzz-ee, this has plenty of both. Another fave of ours on here is the cut by Kid Rock (nothing to do with the current-day white rapper dude of course). It's got James Brown beats, cheap and cheesy keyboards, and a singer who you could mistake for Jack White of the White Stripes. Hot.
The comp is pretty nicely put together: each track gets a brief bit of description/info, and the original singles sleeves are reproduced in thumbnail size on the tray card, always a nice to see. Now we've got to go back and check out the first volume of this series...if it's as good we'll let you know.
Can't imagine a blackmetalhead who wouldn't consider this DVD absolutely essential. And it just might be enough to lure some unsuspecting innocents to the dark side as well. Videos from Absu, Immortal, Antaeus, Impaled Nazarene, Melechesh, Nortre Dame, Phazm, Arkhon Infaustus, Dark Tranquility, Gehennah, and a bunch more. As well as live sets from Angel Corpse, Immortal, Blasphemy, Inhume, Notre Dame and Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition. Pretty much everything on this disc is a blast, but definite highlights would have to be the two Immortal videos, the first, "Blashyrkh (Mighty Raven Dark)", features Abbath and Demonaz, in full corpsepaint and spikes, playing atop a mountain, above fjords and forests, with superimposed lightning storms, and occasional unintentionally hilarious mad dashes from peak to peak, while still rocking! The second video for "Grim And Frostbitten kingdom" has the band fully rocking out again, this time atop a glacier, again in full corpsepaint, except for fill in drummer Hellhammer, who is sans corpsepaint and wearing a frilly pirate shirt. The whole thing intercut with shots of Abbath singing through a sheet of ice. Wow. Then there's the totally over the top Notre Dame videos, especially "Scarecrows" which features the whole band strapped to wooden posts and singing from atop their perches, in the middle of a corn field. And howabout Impaled Nazarene's black metal "Smells Like Teen Spirit"-ish video for "Armageddon Death Squad." Woah. We could go on and on, but trust us, this is awesome! And for sure don't miss the bonus feature "At Home With Snowy Shaw", a goofy Cribs-like tour of Shaw's (from Notre Dame) horror movie memento stuffed house as well as a little acoustic sing along. So weird.
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In every review of a John Vanderslice album you'll undoubtedly find some mention of how nice a guy he is, and that's certainly true... He's also got a great recording studio here in SF... And on average, he's also released one fine album a year for the last five years, and he continues his abundant creative output with Pixel Revolt. Although his two chosen subject matters might be rather disparate (albeit we're sure equally close to his heart) -- the current political climate and the end of a personal relationship -- this album is definitely his most cohesive sounding and contains some of his most accessible, engaging songs to date. His usual roaming sonic explorations seem to have been set aside in favor of keeping more close to 'home' (i.e, traditional song structures). Pretty melodies are in abundance. Over the years, he's drawn comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel (whom he admittedly admires immensely), Death Cab For Cutie (former Barsuk labelmates), and Mountain Goats, but these days we actually thought that he's sounding like more recent Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst (hey, no complaints there!).
Pig fuck. Now there's a poetic way to describe the sound that a band makes. It's sort of a shame that the description had already been applied to the grit and snot of '80s NYC bands like Pussy Galore, Live Skull and even Lydia Lunch at times, as it's a perfect encapsulation of what San Francisco's Veronica Lipgloss & The Evil Eyes are doing in this day and age. That said, about half of the debut album from Veronica Lipgloss does sound an awful lot like the mid '80s Lydia Lunch album In Limbo co-written by a thoroughly drugged-out Thurston Moore doing his best Birthday Party impersonation (quite well in fact!). The other half of the album picks up the tempo considerably and addresses their death-disco fix on par with what fellow San Franciscan goth-revivalists The Vanishing did so well: spry post-punk rhythms laced with taut basslines, tortured female punk vocals (e.g. early Siouxsie, X-Mal Deutschland, The Slits, etc.), blood splattered saxophone leads (which lends to James Chance & The Contortions comparisons), and arpeggiated synths that Fisherspooner would be proud of. Imagine a dishevelled porn queen with thoroughly smeared mascara, torn fishnets, a rumbled cheap-ass platinum blonde wig, and a needle dangling pathetically from her arm, and that's Veronica Lipgloss. There's nothing pretty about her, but all of the egotistic turmoil, self-appointed abjection, and escapist transgressions can make for a compelling listen.
Vibracathedral Orchestra are one of those rare groups with a completely singular sound and a seemingly endless reserve of psych rock free drone inspiration with which to explore it. For us, they are one of the only bands who we could literally listen to forever, an everlasting endless jam, unfurling over the course of the next 50 years, each riff unfolding every month or so, each drum hit an entire day, melodies stretching for weeks and weeks. Our eyes close and we drift off to the next world while the music plays on...
That's exactly how it feels listening to Tuning To The Rooster. The songs are long, and they do feel gloriously and deliriously long, but they're never quite long enough. Not for us anyway. VCO have been masters of the drone, of the slowly shifting soundscape since their inception, but much like Skullflower discovering their inner Hawkwind on recent records, VCO seem to also have rediscovered the RIFF this time around. The opening track is like an Allman Brothers track gone totally apeshit. Or maybe Skullflower jamming with the Outlaws. Or something! There's a jangly sort of Southern rock riff, over chaotic propulsive drumming, a serious jam for sure, but the whole thing is wrapped in a thick cloak of droning shimmering distorted guitar noise, a continual psychedelic freakout SO continual that it becomes a static psych rock drone, with the original riff eventually repeating mantra like until it meshes with the background drone and it all becomes a brain melting divine psychedelic jam of the highest order. Woah, everyone who freaked out over Skullflower's Exquisite Fucking Boredom needs to check this out! The second track is back to that classic VCO sound we can never get enough of. A primal primitive space jam, all drones and rumbles and whirs and shimmers, a glorious pagan ritual that makes us want to lay naked in the middle of the forest and sink into the wet leaves as our eyes sparkle with reflections of shooting stars. Drifting and dreaming...
The last two tracks again focus on the riff, hypnotic and repetitive, like Steve Reich composing for Hawkwind. A glorious minimal psychedelic jam, wreathed in a haze of swirling feedback and wild melodies, minor key pianos, and all manner of swoosh and swoop. So utterly and fantastically divine!
I love looking at color pictures of old LP covers. Doesn't even really matter if they're rad rare soul/funk/jazz gems. But if they are, so much the better. Wax Poetics magazine is definitely a good place to find articles illustrated with such cover pics. And lots of other cool photos too. And the reading is fine as well, if you're into old-school hip hop, '60s and '70s jazz-funk, today's hip underground producers, that sort of thing. This ish: The Meters, Lyn Collins (RIP), the Wu-Tang's Mathematics, Eric B. & Rakim, Sharon Jones, King Jammy, and lots more...including a run-down on some obscure "left field Americana" LPs, the story of the DJ who first rocked the Skull Snaps break, and a feature about South Bronx hip hop photographer Joe Conzo, illustrated with lots of his pics from back in the day.
Yet another action packed issue of everybody's favorite new music magazine. AQ fave Richard Youngs on the cover (at last!). With articles about / interviews with Hugh Hopper (of Soft Machine), Ralf Wehowsky, Tracy And The Plastics, Alexander Hacke, a Xenakis primer, an "invisible jukebox" with Broadcast, as well as tons of record reviews, live show reviews, book reviews and loads more!
