Tooh? Tee-oh-oh-ech!!? What's that? Oh, TOTAL OBLITERATION OF HUMANITY! Nice. Of course, they're one of those mean and blasting grindcore bands, and a really good one, on the weirder side of the genre -- or genres, in their case, since the Czech Republic's misanthropic !T.O.O.H.! tend to blenderize metal, punk, jazz, and other elements in their music.
We've actually been fans of these freaks for a long time, and were pleased to see 'em get a release on big time extreme metal label Earache, especially as we'd never been able to stock their cds regularly before, since they were all hard-to-come-by Middle European imports. Now we can get Order And Punishment anytime we want to spank all y'all with. And a sonic spanking it is, an utterly spastic spanking of technical death grind insanity. Ripping rollercoaster songcraft, full of widdly neo-classical guitar, vehement vocals in Czech (about what, we don't know), dizzying changes, and some valiantly thrashing riffs... it's really those "classic" metal elements that turn this into a headbanger's ball for us, and make Order And Punishment a worthy repeat listen. What a bunch of nutters.
It's hard not to love Aids Wolf. They've got a band name conceived to piss people off, nasty and offensive but also perfectly and almost brilliantly nonsensical. Then there's the eye poppingly garish cover art. Equal parts Black Dice style collage, outsider art, abstract modern design, with just a pinch of naked ladies (and men!). And then there's the music! They sound loud, and crazy, and completely confusing. Like some crazy performance featuring the Boredoms, Afrirampo, Spunk, Total Shutdown, Nautical Almanac and Wolf Eyes, all playing simultaneously, when suddenly someone sets off a bomb and blows the whole club to bits, the pieces are scraped up, broken teeth, shattered skulls, obliterated instruments, sizzling flesh, blood and gore and all manner of gruesome musical splatter, dumped into a huge pot, melted down and smeared all over a piece of wax and pressed up into this here record. A dizzyingly ear shredding, brain melting mix of shrieked vocals, stumbling no-wave, blasting free noise, crusty costume rock and club destroying temper tantrum spaz-outs. Goes down like a mouthful of rusty nails. Fans of any of the above mentioned bands, at least ones with strong stomachs and ears of steel, might find something to love. Maybe. So yeah, it might be hard not to love Aids Wolf, but we're doing a really good job so far.
Wonderful! Hand On String is the solo debut album from this man-of-many-hats who composed the scores for the thinking teen's movie Donnie Darko (yes, he's the one responsible for the cover of Tears For Fears' "Mad World") and Miranda July's acclaimed film Me And You And Everyone We Know as well as music for the beloved (but sadly defunct) TV series Freaks And Geeks. All signs certainly point to a reserved seat in AQ's favorites zone, and after a first spin of his first solo outing, we can say he doesn't disappoint. Although those film/tv soundtracks were definitely rife with 70s/80s/90s pop culture references, Hand On String steers clear of hip fads and ironic touchstones. This is a much more personal and timeless work that not only sets itself apart from Andrews' filmwork but also his other musical pursuits (namely in the Greyboy Allstars). Andrews' achingly sensitive vocal delivery has stirred comparisons to that of Elliott Smith, Robert Wyatt or Pink Floyd. Warm and gentle and slightly on the verge of collapse. Ah yes, very good.
Plus as an added treat, the digipak and accompanying paperback book come festooned with quirky watercolor paintings by Geoff McFetridge.
Psst, if you need more of Andrews' music, we've also just received the soundtrack cd to the abovementioned Miranda July film!
You loved the movie in the theater, now you can love the soundtrack in your car, living room or anywhere! Yup, here's the soundtrack to Miranda July's acclaimed film Me And You And Everyone We Know featuring a score composed by Michael Andrews (who also scored Donnie Darko and Freaks And Geeks!). Even without visual accompaniment it's a dreamily contemplative listen. Perfect if you're seeking something that will evoke a sense of calm in your surroundings. A spoken word piece by Ms July opens the proceedings, but from that point on it's primarily an instrumental work. Warm, smooth tones from a full spectrum of instruments drift, waft and float languidly for a spell, then dissipate. It's not until the sixth track that a human voice resurfaces. The mellow Cody Chesnutt sung "5 On A Joyride" could easily be mistaken for one of Money Mark's sensitive guy pop songs. After that, the soundtrack maintains the soothing pace with additional occasional verbal and non-verbal vocal interludes ("Peter And Sylvie" is particularly lovely!). Rounding off the album's sixteen tracks are a couple by Spiritualized (their very Jesus And Mary Chain-esque "Any Way That You Want Me") and Virginia Astley.
Psst, if you need more of Andrews' music, we've also just received his new solo album cd/book set Hand On String!
What's been concocted in the Arab Strap brewery since their last album Monday At the Hug & Pint back in 2003? Something big. To mark their tenth year of existence, they've opted to pour their sixth album into a sleekly produced affair with surprisingly fleshed out full band arrangements (horns, strings, the whole kit'n'kaboodle). As a result, it's mighty big on rock, lush and slightly shoegazerly, and their trademark endless-night-at-the-pub melancholia really benefits from this new turn of events. Never fear, Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffett are as bleary-eyed, sneering and ill-tempered as ever, but their sourness has never sounded so sweet. Their battered romantic hearts have muscled over their whiskeyed vitriolic spirits this time. Some songs here are downright beautiful. Check out "Don't Ask Me To Dance" and the album's official closer "There Is No Ending". You just wanna give 'em a hug. Psst, a secret bonus: we just noticed that there's an additional two songs at the end ("El Paso Song" and "Go Back To The Sea") that aren't mentioned in the track listing on the back of the cd!
Okay, yeah, we know. Who really gives a shit about the Arctic Monkeys? Oh, you mean besides the British press and the band's thousands of friends on MySpace and every hipster in tight pants who is "so over" the Killers and Interpol and Franz Ferdinand? We weren't even going to review this. In fact we were prepared to hate. A band with that much hype before they even have a record out can never be a good thing. British new music mag NME voted the Arctic Monkeys one of the 50 best British bands OF ALL TIME!! I'd be afraid to see numbers 51 through 100, the ones who were bumped to make room for a band who at the time had only released a single.
But, and it's a BIG BUT, this record is awesome. Really. It does pain us to admit it, but this is one of the best new records we've heard in ages. Wouldn't go so far as top 50 British bands ever, but shit man, we can't stop listening to this. Seriously, every day.
So waht's it sound like? Well, it definitely fits comfortably right there amidst the Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Maximo Park, Kaiser Chiefs, Cup thinks they sound just like Hot Hot Heat for that brief moment when they were really really good. Not so much channelling 'new wave' but more sort of reimagining the sound of the Fall, but where Pavement turned the fall into ironic indie slouch rock jangle, the Arctic Monkeys twist it into some impossibly hooky dancey drunken night out at the pub.
Angular guitars, sort of scrape-y and edgy and scrappy and jagged, super kinetic almost funky rhythms, killer melodies, bouncy tempos, lots of shuffle and start stop jangle and roar. And killer keening vocals, a little bit whine-y, but scruffy and capable of wailing when necessary. And the most amazingly thick Scottish brogue, ya know when the word "scumbag" sounds like "skoooombeg".
And let's not forget the songs. By now most of you have heard the excellently titled "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor", a perfect blast of bubbly snotty bouncy dance punk. But then there's tracks like "When The Sun Goes Down" with its moody sad boy intro all sweet sad vocals and minor key clean guitars that explode into a pounding kick ass chaotic rocker, with a killer riff and a totally impossible to resist groove. And the thing is, every song on here is just as good. So while the band will probably end up disappearing, breaking up or calling it quits after this record, I mean, how impossible is it to live up to all the critical accolades (imagine being held up alongside bands like the Clash and the Jam, all before the age of 20) but for now, you might as well believe the hype.
There was a time when Campbell Kneale and his Birchville Cat Motel were all about the drone. Channelling classic minimalists and modern skree merchants, offering up drifting droning soundscapes, tranquil and freeeeee. But then something happened. Not sure if it was some sort of regression to his teenage years, or hanging with the wrong crowd, but suddenly Kneale started becoming mildly obsessed with metal. And the sound of BCM began to reflect that. The drones were still in place, but now they were constructed from screaming guitars and huge slabs of ultra distorted slow motion riffs. This new direction, which would later result in the formation of post-BCM outfit Black Boned Angel, first surfaced on the appropriately titled Screamformelongbeach which we originally referred to as BCM's quote unquote rock record, and whose cover art featured a Campbell-Kneale-as-rock-god-in-action blurred photo. Our Love Will Destroy The World is actually a reissue of Screamformelongbeach with almost a half hour of extra music from the same time period. Here's what we had to say about Screamformelongbeach when we first had it:
While this is certainly BCM's most rock record to date, it's be no means -that- sort of rock record. A groovy seventies rock riff gets looped and repeated FOREVER, while Kneale sprays grinding skree, viscous fuzz and squealing feedback all over. Before a strange purposeful stadium rock drum beat emerges from the chaos, and the sonic deluge eventually abates, skipping and skittering into a spare and abstract rhythmscape. Very reminiscent of the most recent Skullflower, whose Sabbath-hypno-Hawkwind-mantra turned 'the riff' into psychotropic drone rock nirvana.
The bonus tracks pretty much follow the same sort of course, some riff is blown out and buried in sheets of corrosive feedback and sludge guitars, drums are buried and nearly swallowed whole by the din. A beautifully pumelling guitar on fire to the face! Essential for fans of the last few Skullflower records, the last Vibracathedral Orchestra, as well as stuff like SUNNO))), Boris and the like, although BCM on this recording at least is less slow and low and more high and dry!
Blodulv just continue to get more grim, more frosty, more creepy and blackened. How that's even possible at this point is beyond us. The last record, appropriately titled II, was about as grim as it could reasonably get, and yet their sound gets more and more impenetrably dense and buzzy. And we love it. This is most definitely not blazing fast black metal, this is more of the Burzum midtempo hypno-drone-buzz school. A doomy dirgey thrashy blackness, pulsing and throbbing, loping along with occasional stretches of grime-y vitriolic tarpit sludge. The vocals are recorded so hot and so blown out it sounds like the singer is standing right there in your face, shrieking with all his might, showering you with spit and sweat and blood (eww). So intense and so intensely black and heavy.
Man, is it just me (Allan) or is Brocas Helm the best band ever?? Don't answer that...I know the answer. They are. If true old school cult fantasy heavy metal rock and roll is your thing, you might even agree. We listed the reish of their 1984 debut Into Battle last list, now here's further proof of their mastery (or my insanity), 1347's, no, I mean, 1988's Black Death! It's been on cd before, but this new reissue is a superior version, adding five bonus tracks from their 1989 demo Helm's Deep and also a bonus mpeg video clip of "Prepare For Battle" being played live with (extra guitar craziness) at an unspecified date in the early '80s.
They've been described as "Iron Maiden on acid" (by Martin Popoff) and that's a good call. Especially on this album, wherein Brocas Helm's mighty medieval metal is cloaked in a miasma of spaced-out psychedelic effects, a claustrophobic production courtesy of their own home studio "The Caverns Of Doom". Brocas Helm's frantic yet majestic songs claw through the mists, guitarist/vocalist Bobbie Wright's over the top guitar shred and faux-British enunciation always triumphant, forevermore...
I'm serious. Maybe you have to see 'em to really understand. But they one of the best metal bands ever. If you don't believe me, just ask the guys in Slough Feg. Ok, maybe they're biased, since if they'd started 15 years before they did they'd BE Brocas Helm... but Brocas are gods. That is my faith, and Black Death a holy relic.
The Budos Band is another outfit spawned by Bushwick, Brooklyn's Daptone Records label, some sort of collective of fake ethno funkateers responsible for such undeniably groovy projects as The Daktaris and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. These guys LIVE and breathe authentic '60s greasy groove, so you know their take on "Afro-soul" is gonna cross all the i's and dot all the t's... not that it sounds nearly that uptight. Not uptight at all, but definitely tight! This large 11 piece band, plus guests, featuring members of the Dap-Kings, Antibalas and the Sugarman 3 among others, is the stuff of grass-skirted Lalo Schifrin dreams -- dynamic and colorful instrumentals with a loungey '60s/'70s feel. Lotsa horns, percussion, electric guitar and bass with groovy organ (and even some funky flute) make this something that people who like the more jazz/funk entries in the Ethiopiques series, or aforementioned Afro-pop revivalists Antibalas, should consider checkin' out.
By now everyone should know Burzum, if not the music then at least the name, for some it's because you've been true grim black metal warriors from back in the day, for others it was just from being a lookieloo intrigued by the Lords Of Chaos book and all the hype in the press about the murders and the church burnings. But let's not forget, or let an overhyped scene, a jailhouse conversion to neo-Naziism, and a spate of truly terrible Mortiis style ambient records distract us from the fact that Burzum created some of the most important music in the last decade, certainly black metal, but so strangely gorgeous and otherworldly that it transcended the genre, becoming a music that was accessible to all fans of bizarre and beautiful music, not just metalheads. Setting the standard by which we measure all other black metal for sure, a swirling near ambient buzz, riffs that are so hypnotic and reptetive and thick with distortion and amp buzz that they become metallic drones, like brutal buzzing lullabies, fuzzy indistinct swirls of guitar around pounding midtemp drums and delicate ambient synthesizers. Burzum's masterpiece is of course Filosefem, if you don't have that, stop reading now and pick that up. It's the perfect melding of primitive black buzz and ethereal ambience. Definitely one of the top 5 black metal records EVER. This here rarities collection is more for folks who already know the joys of Burzum's buzzing black abyss and have been dying for more more more. And since Burzum has pretty much turned into a complete tool, with a musical output directly reflecting that change, there's no place to go but back! The first three tracks here are the original version of the Aske ep, a howling, buzzing pounding black metal classic, simple and harsh but again strangely hypnotic. It's the next handful of tracks that really make this essential, first, rehearsals from 1991, four tracks of super blown out, ultra distorted blackness, so thick and buzzy, that the speakers sort of seem to bend and stretch, the sound quality alternates between brittle high end scree and muted overdriven bass heavy throb, which only makes the tracks sound that much more intense and HEAVY. Then, three unreleased tracks from 1993, classic Burzum, but as if recorded through a tin can and twine, lo lo lo fi for sure, but again, it just adds to the bleak and depressive ambience, easy to hear how Burzum's legacy was carried on by Xasthur, Weakling and the like after hearing these super raw tracks. The last three tracks are taken from various Burzum records, "My Journey To The Stars" from the first s/t record, "Lost Wisdom" from Det Som Engang Var, and finally the brilliant "Dunkelheit" from Filosefem, maybe the greatest track Burzum ever recorded. So heavy and sad and melancholy and brutally beautiful.
This also happens to be one of those dual discs, so flip it over and you can watch the video for "Dunkelheit" (it's PAL, but all-region so your computer might play it ok), released years back as a VHS tape and long unavailable. The absolute perfect visual accompaniment to the songs bleak buzzing beauty.
It's been several years now that Warren Ellis from The Dirty Three has been serving double duty as a part of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds but it really hasn't been until this score that the totally distinctive Dirty Three violin stylings of Ellis and Cave's dark brooding presence have totally meshed together to create something so strikingly gorgeous! While Cave's name will probably end up the focus in most people's eyes, the truth is this record is just as much and kind of even more about the sound of Ellis as more then half of the score is instrumental, which is very fine by us. The playing and mood is as good and at times even more grand and gorgeous then recent Dirty Three outings which of course we always adore. When Cave does step to the mic it's the more subtle and creepy and less crooning side of his delivery which for the mood of this record works so perfectly. Can't tell you anything about the film The Proposition but we can tell you the music in it is pretty damn stunning!
We often talk about the heaviest, the fastest, the loudest, and the most fucked-up musics, as we cram more and more letters into the word doom to express how much we love this record or that. Yet when it comes to the minimalist beatitudes crafted by the British drone engineer Andrew Chalk, our hyperbole fails us. With a humility and a reclusive demeanor, Chalk's work stands as an elegant document of what you can do when striving for anything excessive.
For years, Chalk has impressed upon us that few artists have been able to craft something as simple as a drone with such a pristine balance between impressionistic abstraction and phenomenological precision. Starting out the mid-80s recording toxic noises under the moniker Feral Confine, Chalk joined David Jackman in the seminal project Organum for a couple of melancholic recordings of acoustic minimalism. Shortly thereafter, he founded Ora with Darren Tate and Colin Potter; and more recently, Chalk and Christoph Heemann established Mirror. Nowadays, Chalk is venturing out on his own to remarkable success after a couple of beautiful recordings that he's self-released on Faraway Press. Blue Eyes Of The March is the third cd from Chalk's own label, and has been entirely crafted from piano. Given the dreamy soft-focus that Chalk has applied to the instrument, there's very little of the piano's instantly recognizable hammered attack that remains. It's as if he stretched all of the piano's strings across the bow of a Victorian cruise ship, deliberately sank it, and then recorded the sounds deep in the blackened sea off the northern coast of England. Haunted, subaquatic, and timeless, Chalk's swirling sounds spiral effortlessly into a ghostly antiquity whose references may be found in the equally elegant re-constructions of Bartok and Satie by Akira Rabelais on Eisoptrophobia, but done through analogue and not digital processes. As with his previous recordings, Chalk has spared no expense with the packaging, offering a stunning duo-toned silkscreen design upon shimmering silver paper.
Easily the best Richard Chartier album we've come across! The DC-based ultra-minimalist has been responsible for a number of albums so reductivist in their methodology and presentation that even with headphones, it can be a strain to discern what profundities Mr. Chartier may be offering to his audience. Yet in recent years, Chartier has been shedding the minimalist hyperbole for sterilized electronica and creating some truely evocative compositions for impressionist ambience. There was his Archival 1991 and his collaboration with William Basinski which caused us to really take notice to Chartier's work as something beyond an exercise in ultra-minimalism; and now there's Retrieval 1-5. Originally released on vinyl through ERS back in 2004, this album has now been revamped for cd where it really belongs. Basinski, Thomas Koner, Lustmord (e.g. Where The Black Stars Hang) and Keith Berry would all be reference points for the steady dronescaping that Chartier musters on these five tracks which were in fact retrieved from old analog material Chartier produced in the '90s. These beautifully rippled and hushed drones may not have the academic rigor that won Chartier the Honorable Mention for Ars Electronica, but they are far more evocative and emotionally connected than any of his earlier recordings. Recommended!
Chirp chirp chirp chirp... those of us who grew up somewhere outside of the city where you get to hear the sounds of nature at night are familiar with the wonderful, pulsating background drone provided by crickets and cicadas in warmer weather. These particular "singing" insects (60 different species!) were recorded all over the world (in France, China, Boreno, Cameroon, Australia, Venezuela, Sengal, and many, many other locales), but some of them could just as easily been in my parents' wooded backyard in Pennsylvania. OK, well maybe if I was an expert I could tell otherwise. But the buzzing chirping sounds still sound familiar, comfortingly so. Yet alien too, when you think about it... as with the somewhat similar Sublime Frequencies volume Broken Hearted Dragonflies, this could just as easily be the work of an experimental electronic musician! Ryoji Ikeda, Noto, or Nerve Net Noise perhaps...and the examples of "buzzers" on the Conet Project also come to mind.
With sixty tracks here, it's hard to pick faves. They all have their individual charms, each group of insects its own rhythmic and timbral signature, plus the different background ambience (frogs, bumble bees, woodpeckers) found from track to track, some recorded at "nightfall in a banana plantation" others at "twilight in a plam grove", or "during the day from a tree" etc. Also, these bugs' high pitched whines and massed chattering vary in intensity levels from the soothing to the downright frightening...
Definitely recommended to all you fans of the likes of Sounds of North American Frogs and Chris Watson's field recordings. And, as further recommendation, this comes from the from the same label that brought us Rutting Red Deers, The Inaudible World of Bats, and this week's Record Of The Week, Pastoral Bells!
Brilliant, shockingly brilliant! Herewith we present to you what we can only say is the headbangingest record yet from our Finnish friends Circle (containing also, paradoxically, a couple of their most gentle numbers). The Circle concept is one of repetition, and while ALL their records are in fact great, one can find some of them to be a lot like another. So it's nice that this new Circle really goes out on a limb, with so much success, while totally managing to remain Circle to the core. How do they do it?
The album opens with "Nopeuskuningas", seemingly Circle's answer to Judas Priest's "Breaking The Law"! Down and dirty hard rock riffing (cyclic and repetitive in the trademark Circle way, of course) with keyboardist/vocalist Mika Ratto -- a relatively recent, and significant, addition to Circle's lineup on their past three or four discs -- simultaneously channeling screechy metal gods Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Klaus Meine (Scorpions), and Brian Johnson (AC/DC), but in an indeciperable, or Finnish at least, babble. It stretches to nearly eight minutes after the space-rock effects and swirly keys kick in. But then, when you think this is going to be The Heavy Metal Circle album, track two gets all mellow and pretty and folked-out, even MORE unlike any previous Circle we've ever heard. Acoustic guitar, and lots of la la la's from Mika. Unbelievable -- and lovely. But then the next song triggers the dormant motorik Circle drum pulse, overlaid with heavy guitars and vocal histrionics akin to the opening track. Plus new wavey/Axel F keyboards. Hit material here! Following that, track four, "Vaanen Valtiatar", heads back to the forest glade where Circle do that hippy jamming again a la track two, but more plugged-in, turning into a spacey jam session. And then, as you might now expect, it's back to the mosh pit for the monstrous rifferama of the next song, "Kylan Suurin Miekka". Evil stuff. This is True Circular Metal indeed. From then on the album maintains the heaviness, getting spacier and spacier though, culminating in the droning fifteen-minute "Lokki".
Wow. An amazing album, making effective use of Mika's unusual/unique vocals -- he's developed some sort of exotic (Middle Eastern? American Indian?) meets metal style, delivered in a manner as over-the-top as the most insane Italian prog of the '70s. Throw in some violin and moog and of course all the heavy metal moves, and you've got a bizarre blend of, uh, Yoko Ono, Hawkwind, Judas Priest, and of course Circle's krautrock forerunners Neu! and Can.
While "Sunrise" is in many ways a departure for Circle, it can also be seen as an album harking back to their hard-rockin' roots (they've nodded that way on the guitar-heavy "Prospekt" and Jussi's Kyuss-ish Pharoah Overlord side project, but you've got to also remember that the very first Circle album, "Meronia", drew quite a few comparisons to Helmet at the time). Recommended.
Wow! We haven't been this excited about a new project in quite a while. Citay is a new band created by Ezra Feinberg (Piano Magic) along with Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, and about a million other projects). What an amazing exercise in how you can take from influences that have been exhausted by so many in all the wrong ways yet somehow find a way to discover the gold that's never been mined before. According to Feinberg, Citay is influenced by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Queen, and Heart...but wait don't think this is about irony or played-out 70's rock worship. Citay get to the blissed out acoustic moments of the above mentioned bands (think Queen II, Sabbath Vol.4) to create something that sounds so fresh, breezy and full of the right kind of dirt and sunlight. With an onslaught of guitars (mostly acoustic and including some 12 strings), nice textural sounds created by mandolin, flute, organ, piano, vibes and a an overall sound that is hard to talk about without using really over the top words like..perfect! They nailed how this kind of record should sound. The guitars are so sweeping yet intimate, the vocals seep into your skin and all of a sudden it feels like the longest summer day ever, the kind that you never want to end. We can't stop listening to this and each time we do, all we can think about is finding our old huffy and riding through dirt lots as the sun shimmers down on us and we pedal through twilight. So totally recommended!
Such pretty somber sounds! Instrumentals (sans one track with vocals) that so nicely travel through classical landscapes, while dipping feet in chamber arrangements and post rock bliss. Strings, piano, percussion, melodica, ukulele, bassoon are just some of the instruments Clogs employ in churning out their beautiful sounds. While two of the members of Clogs also do time in the rock outfit The National we have to see we prefer this side of their music output so much more. Every time we've played this in the store it gets such a strong immediate reaction from customers. They always remark on how beautiful it is and we must say that we totally agree.
At last, this wonderful wonderful album is back in print on cd! Water gets a big AQ thank you for reissuing one of our favorite Krautrock, or heck, just plain ol' records ever, the first of two collaborations between art rock / "ambient" music pioneer n' generally acknowledged genius Brian Eno and Krautrock electronics legends Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius aka Cluster! You know that's got to be good, and it is, paving the way for the likes of Aphex Twin so many years later. This self-titled disc (the one with the microphone stand silhouetted against a blue sky on the cover) dates originally from 1977. Water also just reissued the other Eno/Moebius/Roedelius album, 1978's After The Heat, which comes equally recommended (see our review elsewhere this list). On this one, they're joined by guests including Asmus Tietchens and Can's Holger Czukay, and construct warm, organic instrumentals utilizing both acoustic instruments and analog synths. This is soft and mellow and melodic but at the same time these songs are no push-overs, however gentle. To be honest, I (Allan) had never heard *anything* quite like Cluster before these got reissued on cd the last time that happened, on the Gyroscope label back in the mid '90s, but I very quickly fell in love with 'em (these Water reissues are much nicer, by the way, with liner notes and photos in the cd booklets -- the Gyroscope editions didn't even have booklets!). The discs with Eno are good starting places to get into the extensive Cluster and Cluster-related discography, and certainly they're Cluster's best-sellers... but anything with Moebius and/or Roedelius involved is worth hearing, we'd say. These new reissues haven't been accorded the fanfare of the Neu! discs on Astralwerks or the recent Can remasters, but we'd rate them just as highly.
For fans of Coldcut (duh!), Primal Scream, Massive Attack, and those early '90s heady housey club allniters. Coldcut's latest album offers an eclectic selection of tracks that range from funky Euro hiphop ("Everything Is Under Control") to ultra smooth Seal-ish AOR soul ("Walk A Mile In My Shoes" with Robert Owens on vocals) to Tear Garden-esque richly rhythmic, dub-infused looming atmospherics ("Boogieman"). Actually Sound Mirrors quite effectively reflects the incredible breadth of this duo's stylistic pursuits and capabilities over the years.
This is not really new, but we've never been able to get enough of these to list until now. From the label that brought us Benighted Leams, Contra Ignem Fatuum, Dark Ages and Meads Of Asphodel comes another confounding blast of black metal, this time from a mysterious group called Dawnfall. The first three tracks are 11+ minutes each, every one a convoluted, twisted swirl of stumbling midtempo black metal weirdness and swooshing keyboardy ambience, with some of the most tortured vocals we've ever heard. Somewhere between the anguished shriek of Weakling and the inhuman howl of Rehtaf Ruo. Each prickly spikey tangle of blackness is peppered with squirrelly Greg Ginn like guitar freakouts, random tinkling chimes and warm wooshes of synthesizer. Dizzying and totally brilliantly confusional. Warm fuzzed out guitars wrapped loosely over a framework of thudding pounding drums, while maddeningly slippery guitar squiggles slip and slide in and around the blackness colliding with the harsh vocal wails. Amazing. But that's just three tracks in. Track four is some sort of faux harpsichord driven electronic ambient soundscape, like Benighted Leams playing Dead Can Dance covering Autchre or something? Skittery beats and a dense wash of thick metallic string strum. As if it couldn't get weirder, the next track is mostly sped up and slowed down vocals, mixed with strange spacey effects, swooshes, and beeps and a hiccupping dsrum machine. Weird! But it's not over yet, the second to last track is a ten minute soundscape of skittery synthesizers, warbly keyboard squiggles, all smothered in reverb and other space-y ambience. A creepy, splattery minimal crawl through some outer space fun house. Finally, the record finishes with a weird one minute blast of synthesized circus music, maybe like a lite Killing Joke, with wooshy synth stabs and casio style drum beats. Woah, not sure what to make of this. We love it. For sure. Just not sure why. Definitely too weird for most metalheads, you all can quit after the first three tracks, that is if -those- aren't already too weird for you. But folks who have been digging all the crazy shit Supernal puts out, and anyone up to trying to wrap their brains around something amazingly weird and wonderfully obtuse, definitely check this out!
Wow. This is a gorgeous little thing before we even pop it in the player. A fogged plastic 3" soft jewel case, one side a super detailed photo of some sort of brilliant green caterpillar, the other a transparent smear of different greens, bright but strangely muted, revealing the tiny green disc within. The music itself is just as beautiful, thick slabs of post-Autechre skitter and thump, tangled and serpentine, but still somehow soothing and dreamy, the dense convoluted beats and rhythms all wrapped up in warm warped melodies and beautifully creepy atmospheres. Very cinematic and epic. Like some perfect mix of Autechre, Boards Of Canada and Godspeed maybe...
Only 100 copies made. Of which we got 20. So act fast!
By now all readers of the aQ list understand our obsession with fucked black metal. Demented, damaged, bizarre and brilliant. We can't get enough. From Benighted Leams to Rehtaf Ruo to Furze to Necrofrost to Striborg. Now, bow before the mighty black metal warriors of Detsorgsekalf.We discovered them quite by accident. Andee saw their video online (check it out here: http://www.eyeblister.com/inframe_main_1.html) and was so immediately smitten that he emailed them and first offered to play drums for them (they were drummerless, see the video), and barring that, offered to release a record for them. So with a forthcoming release on tUMULt in the works, we managed to get a handful of copies of their first self released cd-r, and if anything it more than lives up to the promise of the video.
Once you see the band and the video, you might get the impression that there's some sort of humor going on, maybe it's some sort of joke, but be aware this is as troo and grim as it gets. So serious in fact, that the band has already received numerous death threats from other disgruntled black metalheads, the contents of which will provide the conept and story for the upcoming full length. Lead vocalist Balfobar Nosugref is a massive behemoth of a man, clad in spiked armor and smeared in corpsepaint as he spews all sorts of necro wisdom in a demonic screech WAY up in the mix. Then there's the ultrahot Morksjal The Necrowench, who wields a bloodied black axe like a woman posessed. The whole band is a motley crew of blackened misfits form the bowels of the earth, sprung forth to spread musical disease and pestilence. The sound is a Burzumy buzz, with blasting drum machine beats and no bass! Just buzzing guitar after buzzing guitar, a swirling droney blast of black frost. Balfabar's vocals are absurd and insane, spotuing all manner of satanic drivel as well as rants about his girlfriend and other evil thoughts. There are some strange falsetto vocals, some random funk bass, strange samples, all mixed in amdist the evil buzz. Sometimes things get almost a bit too goofy, reminding us a little bit of a necro Steven Schultz (who we obviously love), but the band is at their best when they are in full on black buzz mode, then they can hold their own with any of the above mentioned black metal bands. The demented elite for sure.
They may be true and grim and evil, a black metal fist crushing all false metal, but Detsorgsekalf (their name being "frosted flakes" backwards but with a "g" instead of an "f" we just figured out, maybe) manage, in the process of being evil and true, to take the wind out of the sails of all those black metal blowhards that take themselves too seriously. Not that this isn't serious, because it is. Really.
Just check the bonus tracks "Keyboard Solo" and their holiday chestnut "Black Xmas." Or the video. And enjoy the Troo Grim Warriors Ov The Necrokkult while you anxiously await the new full length: A.B.B.A. -- Apocaalyptic Blasphemed Battle Anthems!!
Almost 50 years after its release and still as raw, pleasing, and perfect sounding as ever. In lots of ways it seems as though Bo Diddley never really got his due. Besides being an electric guitar pioneer and rock n' roll forefather, Diddley knew something about soul, bare-bone execution, and smiling-with-purpose delivery that made his best records able to stand the test of time. You can't listen to Bo Diddley is a Gunslinger without your foot constantly bouncing up and down. You can't listen to his rendition of "Sixteen Tons" without your eyebrows raising in pleasant curiosity. You can't listen to him do the crawdaddy without wanting to join right along. Bo Diddley knew about that totally pure and raw space where you can feel music hit you in the greatest and most physical way. One of those timeless records that belongs in any music lovers collection. Whether your stereo is usually filled with the sounds of Japanese noise or no wave intensity or singer songwriter statements; this is a record that you can turn to and get refreshed by all the time. Diddley is an amazing example of someone who had the gift of making music that could ooze into our bodies and under our skin and next thing you know your whole body is moving your face is grinning and it feels so damn good. Thank you Mr. Diddley!
Back in stock, back in print. One of our favorite No Neck Blues Band side projects, Egypt Is The Magick Number features Adam Mortimer and Dave Shuford both from NNBB but in a more tranced-out continuation of the way way out psyche improv damage of their No Neck mothership. Massive doses of delay, slow floating sheets of white hot psych guitar, shuffling minimal percussion, all dosed with acid, rolled in a hemp and lit afire. The first track is a 30 minute mother, easy to imagine two guys locked in a dark room with a hookah, a broken guitar with one string and a suitacse full of delay pedals. Super tripped out, wide eyed outer space drug drones. The other three tracks are similarly high flying, low crawling excursions into weird acoustic guitar-strum jams, the clattering of pots, and meandering twangy vocals. It's equal parts Sun City Girls, Jandek, and Yahowah. Which obviously means fucking great!
The combination of Brian Eno and Cluster proved to be a golden match. The sounds they delicately created together have been echoed again and again in the three decades since their collaborations. A feeling of both effortlessness and a total awareness of the space and sounds they were building radiates throughout the recording. You can hear the tinkering hands of Moebius and Rodelius giving elements of warped spaced out bliss. Eno approaching the songs in a magic space somewhere between Before & After Science and Another Green World. When his vocals appear they just begin to melt and dissolve into your ears. For sure the best backwards vocal delivery we've ever heard can be found on the track "Tzima N'arki". There is such a sublime feeling of melting on this record. These three knew how to meld warmth with an motherly feeling that takes you into golden horizons, mesmerizing twilight and an afterglow that you just want to surrender yourself to. Originally released in '78, once again Water has done the fine service of bringing it back to a world that's more ready for these sounds then ever.
GHQ is a name new to us, but apparently this free drone raga outfit has been lurking on the firnges of the new weird underground for a while now. GHQ just so happens to feature Marcia Bassett (Double leopards, Hototogisu, etc.) and Pete Nolan (Magik Markers, Vanishing Voice) so it's a little surprising this is their first proper release, but it's a good one. This is druggy, dreamy, shoegazey bliss folk, vocals are fuzzy and indistinct, guitar strum is strident and loop-like, even the proper songs devolve into raga like mesmerism, simple percussion, tamborine, shaker, does nothing but shuffle drowsily alongside the subtle pulse beneath the thick swaths of psych guitar and shimmery drone. Steel strings vibrate and the waves drift echolike across vast expanses of hovering tones and slow shifting overtones, warm and languid, a total dream drone drift. The sound on Cosmology Of Eye is completely unlike Bassett's full on free noise assaults as Hototogisu with Matthew Bower, and equally unlike Nolan's avant rock spazz splatter in the Magik Markers, instead it sounds like these two just turned off all the lights, smoked until the room was dense with drifting clouds of smoke, turned on their amps, laid down their guitars, spread their wings and just drifted heavenward. Surprisingly lilting and lovely.
Packaged with loving care, as are all things on Time Lag, in a cool two color screened black fold over letterpress sleeve, with an insert photo taken by Charalambides' Tom Carter.
Not too long ago we made Austalia's Grey Daturas record of the week with their killer Dead In The Woods record (now available again for a limited time, we got the last copies! See elsewhere on this list), a perfect mix of churning metallic rock, New Zealand style free noise, freaked out psychedelic space rock and buzzing rumbling drone rock. So so good. We knew there were other Daturas recordings floating around but we couldn't figure out how to track 'em down. Finally the band returned from tour and managed to dig up their last copies of their two previous releases, their debut record and a 30 minute ep, so we took all of 'em and they finally showed up. So act fast as these will be gone in no time.
This is a single song, 30 minute ep from last year, and is half an hour of drifting abstract ambient guitar bliss. Really pretty, with melodies floating to and fro, while other guitars sort of spread out a warm fuzzy blanket beneath, you can also hear voices and people talking, hard to tell if the voices were placed there or if this was a live set and that's the sound of the crowd, but either way it adds another subtle layer to the track. There is a sense of building and intensity, but before it really takes off, everything just sort of drifts back to earth and blisses out. A gorgeously druggy late night swirl of otherworldy guitars and subtle strummy ambience.
SUPER LIMITED. THESE ARE OUT OF PRINT AND LONG GONE. WE HAVE THE LAST 25 COPIES. ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD.
Anyone who has seen the Grey Daturas live knows that live is where the band really shine, whether it involves songs from their records, pulled apart and reconstructed into impossibly free soundscapes, swapping instruments and exploding into a brutal NZ noise pummel, or just channeling their perfect freerock chemistry into some of the most gorgeous, kick ass avant rock we've heard in ages, organic and of the moment, hard to capture in the studio but seemingly no big thing for these guys live. SO here we have a double 3" cd-r collecting two long out of print recordings originally released a few years back of a performance back in 2002, and as the preceding bit might lead you to believe it's utterly astounding. The first disc is a three part epic, one part random preshow clatter, cord buzz, shuffling feet and hunkering down, one part sprawling low end drone beneath shuffling abstract drumming and occasional synth squiggle, super minimal and brooding, like the Dead C covering the Necks, the final track a massive sheet of static sound, pusling and glacial, guitars keen and whine over a black pool of low end, while in the background chimes and bells twinkle like sonic stars, as the guitars get more and more pronounced, and the track gets gradually heavier and heavier before collapsing completely into a barely there thrum that finally blinks out completely. The second disc is one long track, also on the abstract side, strange guitar sounds growl and grate, throb and flutter, a dense drone constructed of heavily effected guitar glitch and bass rumble, looped static and ambient swirl, cascading feedback and streaks of spacey synth, eventually the guitars take on riff form, the drums coalesce into a laid back krautrocky rhythm, and the track is transformed into a loping, melancholy almost post rock groove, albeit buried beneath layer after layer of guitar fuzz and distorted amp grit and grime. Awesome.
SUPER LIMITED. We got 30 copies and after that these are gone!
A few years ago we (Andee and his fiancee Heather) were travelling in Europe and spent some time in Switzerland. We had spent the afternoon wandering around some mountain top, and decided to take one of those gondola's back down (you know the kind, a cute little train-style car suspended from a steel cable, like at Disneyland or from that one James Bond movie). As we made our way slowly and silently down the mountain side, beneath us the landscape would rise and fall, undulating just enough to obscure what was directly ahead until the ground would again recede revealing more verdant fields and breathtaking vistas. But about halfway down, strange sounds would drift up to where we were sitting, each time we came over a hill, a distant lowing, livestock obviously, but also this haunting chiming, the sound of bells reverberating and drifting lazily across the fields. We suddenly realized that it was the cowbells, worn by the slow moving cattle that wandered lazily below. So beautiful. Tranquil. Familiar obviously but somehow so strange and wonderfully unlike anything we'd ever heard. We've all heard a cowbell, or too, but the sound of hundreds is truly unique. We managed to record a brief snippet, but far too brief to really do that sound justice or to even listen to. These were sounds languid and serene, meant to be listened to over the course of hours not seconds. And then what do ya know? From the same place we got the rutting red deer cd and the recent sounds of bats record of the week, we managed to get this Pastoral Bells cd, which strangely enough just so happens to be recordings of cowbells in the mountainous regions of the Mediterranean.
The sound here is not nearly as tranquil as the sounds we remember, the result seemingly of just way more bells. But it is still lovely and evocative. But not in the same way for everyone. Where Allan and Andee imagine lazily strolling through green fields and dipping our toes in cool streams, cows wandering all around, birds chirping, thunder in the distance, Pam envisioned cows milling around outside a slaughterhouse, or the strange sort-of-calm before a twister. But then we think that may just be Pam.
The bells clang and clatter, deep and resonant, sometimes the sound is super spare, the overtones ringing out into the sounds of a country afternoon, running water, chirping birds, lowing cattle. Sometimes there are so many bells the sound becomes super dense and smears into a smoothed out droney cacophony, almost like a performance for bells, or as if Organum or Phillip Jeck had taken the sounds of hundreds of bells and layered them one on top of the other, until they stopped sounding like bells at all, and instead become a swirl of bell-like tones. Really amazing when that happens too, a simple sound of nature disc quickly and almost imperceptably begins to sound like some avant cut up sound collage, before just as quickly fading back to the normal sounds of nature.
Probably the most striking tracks here are the sounds of the bells in a thunderstorm, the thunder cracks and rolls drone-like across the soundfield, the cows obviously become agitated, thus the bells get jostled and the ringing and clanging builds and builds into a chaotic fervor, the whole while underpinned by the booming rumble of the thunder and added low end of moo-ing cows. There's also a track where distant church bells from a local abbey begin to toll, as birds chirp and tweet wildly in the foreground. So lovely. This is the best kind of nature recording, none of that cheesy new age relaxation crap, this is deep listening. You can lay back and relax if you like, letting the sounds wash over you and carry you away, as the sounds are truly relaxing, or you can really listen closely, deeply, there's so much to hear, so many different elements, so many different sounds, all interacting in ultra complex, impossibly perfect ways. Nature always seems able to deliver all sorts of amazing new sounds or previously unheard sounds, that even after centuries of pushing the sonic envelope, creating new sounds and sound making techniques, inventing instruments and constantly discovering new ways to compose and perform and record, we will never begin to approach, in terms of complexity or purity or beauty. This record however is special because it actually demonstrates an impossible and seemingly unintended collaboration. Man made bells, cowbells, church bells, 'played' by cattle moving and going about their normal lives, set in a lush ambient soundscape completely of nature's design.
Japan's Jojo Hiroshige, self proclaimed King Of Noise (noise fans commence argument now), has been abusing guitars for years as the leader of seminal 'Japanoise' outfit Hijokaidan. He's also responsible for many solo recordings and collaborations, many of them tempering the pure noise aesthetic of Hijokaidan with more rock, psych, or folk elements... likewise with the label he runs, the eclectic and extreme Alchemy, which delves into noise, psych, punk, improv, and heavy rock. In the Japanese noisy underground music scene, Jojo's the man. And he's also quite the performer, as this dvd will prove. He very definitely has a stage presence -- and knows how to make a racket!
One track will feature Jojo solo, shirtless, dramatically lit, with a mirrored stage backdrop, Gibson SG and microphone his weapons for unleashing relentless drone and cathartic screams... or, you'll find him in another segment wearing a leather jacket, wielding a baseball bat and a boombox, on stage with Masonna... or, in a more sedate setting, seated, jamming with the girls in Doodles, or members of Angel In'Heavy Syrup... there's even an MTV style promo video for a track from Jojo's Boku Wa Mo Utawanai Daro album (which also appeared on the Alchemism 2dvd collection). All in all, in addition to that promo clip, you'll find 15 different performances from the past few years documented here, including the bonus track that finds Jojo kicking out the jams with free folk legend Kan Mikami! It's a really nice package of music and visuals for the Jojo fan.
This here's an album for folks who dig swampy music that's fucked up, off its ass, played by and for folks who're sooooooo hiiigh. Actually this sounds as though Neil Michael Hagerty with electric guitar and broken drum machine in hand has finally smoked himself retarded. In fact, it's easy to imagine that the title is an indication of the limits of his counting capabilities these days. Really, these recordings seem excessively unravelled even by Hagerty's standards. For one thing, the volume levels of the vocals and instruments are all willy-nilly (too loud guitar atop barely audible vocals and vice versa). Personally we dug the You Can't Beat Tomorrow album far more than this one. It was fucked-up and weird in a good way. That album only just came out in November which makes us think that maybe Hagerty should've let this one brew (or stew?) a bit longer.
We were recently visiting another store here in town, and were totally struck by whatever it was they were listening to. It was exactly the sort of thing we love here at aQ, it was creepy and dark and droney, sort of familiar, but totally strange and alien at the same time. Huge moaning horns, lots of incredibly low brass, emitting cacophonous groans, strange monk like chanting, it sounded a little like something we could have heard, maybe Hermann Nitsch, or Arvo Part, it was sort of choral, but also tribal, and those horns, it was like the sound they made was a physical entity, a brass wave filling the room, eventually we had to swallow our pride and ask just what the heck they were listening to. The answer was of course King Kong Vs. Godzilla. WTF?! KING KONG VS. GODZILLA? Now we love us our King Kong, and our cheesey, men-in-rubber-suits monster movies, but we certainly didn't remember the music being so... weird, and heavy, and haunting, and beautiful. Now that we've been listening to this soundtrack for a week or two, it's nearly impossible to imagine how this could be the music for a battle between those two classic movie monsters. And if we do, we can't help but imagine the typical clumsy rubber suited battles transformed into impossibly arty ballets, drenched in blacks and greys, gauzy and arty, like some hellish painting brought to life.
King Kong Vs. Godzilla, originally released in 1962, was the most maligned and misunderstood, as well as somehow the most successful of all the Godzilla movies. Unlike the films before it. KK Vs. G was a bit more light hearted (you would never know from the score!), the monster suits less scary, the whole film a subtle satire of Japanese commercialism. For it's American release it was tinkered with, chopped, edited and poorly dubbed. The result while obviously a far cry from the original's intent, resulted in a film that still appealed to the American market's love for cheesy monster movies and was thus a sucess here too.
Sadly though, when the film was re-edited for US release, the score was mostly replaced with music from The Creature From The Black Lagoon! Apparently that's not totally unheard of, since once a film is dramatically re-edited, the original music just doesn't sync up, but once you hear Ifukube's score it's impossible to imagine anyone wanting to replace it.
Since this is a soundtrack, there are definitely tracks that exist to support particular onscreen visuals, be it a melancholy bit of old timey jazz, some festive marching band music, a bit of playful calypso pop, some tribal drum / chant interludes, but for the most part, Ifukube's gives us a series of creepy, haunting orchestra driven chunks of dramatic moodiness, forboding and sinister, evoking not so much images of giant apes and lizards, but instead of human misery and terror, the frailty of human existence in the face of monsters and demons. Bleak and oppressive, funereal and somber, but with glimmers of hopefulness, and stretches of what sounds like resilliance in the face of doom, calls to arms, an amazingly emotional score for a monster movie, all conveyed via the aformentioned moaning horns swooping ominously above martial drumming and booming tympani's, balanced by bits of soaring strings and chanting vocals. We want to see this movie now so bad, but at the same time it almost seems like these sounds would be tainted, even though they were composed to accompany those specific images, having heard them on their own, the music has taken on it's own life, its own meaning, and exists fully realized simply as music, even (especially?) removed from it's visual counterpart.
We imagine that this was most likely re-released to coincide with the recent Peter Jackson King Kong remake, which is also probably why you won't find ANY images of King Kong anywhere in the booklet or on the sleeve. But don't let that keep you from discovering this amazing recording.
Extensive liner notes including the fascinating and convoluted history of the film as well as notes on each track.
Sidenote: Recognize the recurring theme? Check the sound sample for "Godzilla's Resurrection." We did the second we heard it, those low horns, that stacatto 'dun dun dundun'. It's the loop from Pharoahe Monch's 1999 hit "Simon Says" (which you might also remember as the song Sam Rockwell dances to in the first Charlie's Angels as he gets ready to torture Drew Barrymore)!
Nope, this is not the old 4AD band featuring a member that later went onto the Wolfgang Press. Rather, this In Camera is a collaborative project between Christoph Heemann and Timo van Luijk (Noise Maker's Fifes, Af Ursin), marking the first recordings that Heemann has made since the dissolution of Mirror. Not surprising, In Camera exhibits plenty of similarities to Mirror and a couple of interesting detours. These recordings are available only on vinyl, like the bulk of the Mirror catalogue; and Heemann and van Lujik conjure a beautifully dark atmosphere, full of murk and mystery. However, the two also push to the foreground a constant stream of sonic details which Mirror might have blurred into a miasma of abstraction. The use of the piano is the most obvious element, with a subdued monotony tickled from the keys broken by occasional heavy fists on the lower registers. Similarly, In Camera also crackle a range of elemental objects, which curiously enough give the impression of sounding like Andrew Chalk's old project Ora. Regardless, this marks an exceptional recording and hopefully the beginning of another fruitful collaborative project for Christoph Heemann.
Slowly but surely, the mighty work of irr. app. (ext.) has been oozing out from the Santa Cruz mountains through various outlets such as Crouton, Helen Scarsdale, and Beta-Lactam. Perekluchenie was originally commissioned as part of a Beta-Lactam Ring subscription series (which if you were lucky enough to sign up would earn you a bonus picture disc with the LP) but the growing interest in irr. app. (ext.) warranted a regular pressing, thanks to such high-profile releases as the irr. app. (ext.) contribution to Nurse With Wound's Angry Eelectric Finger trilogy as well as the Salt Marie Celeste performances with Steven Stapleton himself! The relationship between irr. app. (ext.) and Nurse With Wound has gotten even more convoluted as Stapleton has joined irr. app. (ext.) in their last couple of performances. We should be quick to point out the irr. app. (ext.) and the genius behind the tongue-twisting project is far from a Nurse With Wound copyist. Hardly! While both projects draw inspiration from Surrealism and avant-garde composition, they both express strong divergent aesthetics that show how rich and open the field of Surrealist-tinged sound art can be.
Qualified as "a pointless theatrical exercise in one act or less," Perekluchenie actually spans four lengthy pieces of audio madness. Waldron wanders through desolate strums across a prepared piano (or some other instrument that's equally heavy and reverberant) which gives way to ill-tempered birds, ominous windswept drones, and funereal bells. Waldron shatters the grim atmosphere with an unnerving passage for tactile squeakings and poltergeist driven furniture. Elsewhere, discordant horn bleats rupture the heavenly glow of elegaic tones and genuinely baffled exclamations erupt from a very young Django Stapleton. Waldron includes other vocal contributions from Lori Anne Anne Lori Chambers, Aquarius' former owner Windy Chien, and Diana Rogerson (aka Chrystal Belle Scrodd.)
All in all, Perekluchenie is a truly wonderful album! We've been fans of Mr. Waldron for many years now, and he's yet to let us down.
Not sure what you call a group like Kyrgyz, um... other than Kyrgyz, but if this were some stadium rock record, or eighties hair metal record, one might call it a supergroup. But since it's more of a rumbling trancey free drone record we'll just stick with Kyrgyz. The fruits of an afternoon hang out / dinner party / recording session / jam, this disc is a gorgeous, dreamy, noisy slab of slow shifting abstract drones. Not the sort of minimal, single tone stretched out into infinity sort of drone, no these tracks are dense with varied instrumentation and lots of cooks in the kitchen, all swirled into a hypnotic whole. Kyrgyz just so happens to feature Robert Horton, Tom Carter of Charalambides, Loren Chasse (Thuja, Blithe Sons, etc.) and one of our new mailorder ladies Christine Boepple (Whysp, ex-Skygreen Leopards Skyband).
Equal parts, traditional minimalism (La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise) and modern free folk drone new weird America whatever (Sunroof!, Birchville Cat Motel, Omit, Avarus, etc.), Kyrgyz take an impossible array of instrumentaion and somehow boil it all down into a deep, dark msyterious sound all their own. Lap steel, dobro, e bow, voice recorder, guitar, wah wah, computer, boot, sex machine, el flosser, dulcimer, vitaminder, cd-r's, tapes, minidisc, sleigh bells, percussion, Tibetan bells, cassette recorder, sheng, pitch pipe, hurdy gurdy, phlanger, music box, khaen and even saxophone, all beautifully tangled up into blissed out smears of dense ambience and dreamy drone.
For fans of Argentina's heavy psych stoner rock overlords Los Natas, we've FINALLY managed to snag enuff copies of this sprawling live-in-the-studio double cd to list... These Munchen Sessions were, as you might expect from the title, recorded in Munich, Germany, in 2003. With the tape rolling courtesy of Electrohasch head honcho (and Colour Haze guitarist) Stefan Koglek, who also makes a guest appearance on one track, the Los Natas guys took this opportunity to jam out on material both new and old; hints of their heroes Black Sabbath (or is that a Bang riff we're hearing??) seem to surface amongst themes fans will recognize from past Los Natas efforts like Corsario Negro. The two discs bear two long tracks apiece, song suites really, each the appoximate length of a vinyl album side, wandering through all kinds of moods both heavy and mellow...basically progged-out in the same laidback way as the amazing Toba-Trance volumes Los Natas released a while back on Circle's Ektro label. Though Los Natas started their career off as (pretty killer) Kyuss klones, their interest in/influence from '70s psych and krautrock like Agitation Free has become more evident over the years, and we'd say that folks into the likes of Pharaoh Overlord and the heavier Acid Mother Temple material who haven't yet heard Los Natas need to check 'em out, and there's plenty to check out here!
Ultra sick gore grind from Japan via aQ faves Bathtub Shitter. Ahh, the magic words for folks around here. Lord knows we love any and all Bathtub Shitter, so we were super excited when we heard about the band Maggut featuing folks from the 'Shitter. Total old school, nineties, downtuned, cookie monster vocals, death gore grind. We love it! Sometimes nothing hits the spot quite like 16 tracks, each averaging about 90 second, of bowel eviscerating, throat shredding, scalp peeling hypergrind, song titles like "Circle Of Maggots", "Frozen Gut", "Cannibal Carnival", "Vicious Vivit Vomit", and a vocalist who sounds like a rabid dog about to tear your throat out. Maggut are ultra tight and super heavy, with massively thick riffs, a killer production, and an appropriate taste for gore, from the lyrics right down to the Carcass homage cover art!
In the world of Magick Markers this release on the Gulcher label is perhaps most notable for being their first ever professionally manufactured compact disc. Yup, it's a fact! Up until now the band has had their music released on cassette tapes, cd-rs, and oh one vinyl lp on Ecstatic Peace (aka that label run by that fellow Thurston Moore). So, this is certainly a cause celebre for... someone. Musically, this very long-titled album is a disorderly heap of chunks and slabs of noisy guitar shambles that some folks might consider a distant relative of No Wave, but methinks that comparison would imply more compositional structure and form and organization than the Magick Markers have mustered here. File under: electric guitar dysentery. Note: although they've listed a whole slew of song titles ("Jung Knew Enough To Shut Up" is one of them), this is actually two 19+ minute long tracks (i.e, the individual songs aren't indexed).
If you have even a tiny inkling of who or what Nardwuar The Human Serviette is, you know this is a big fucking deal! For years and years, the contents of his monumental interview archive vaults have only been accessible in bits and pieces on his home-compiled VHS tapes, on his weekly college radio show in Vancouver and on brief Much Music appearances in Canada, but now finally you can take a heaping double platter home with you!!! Are you prepared? For five and a half hours worth? Well, if you're unsure as to whether you have the endurance for it, we strongly recommend that you brace/pace yourself, and don't be dissuaded. Stock up on snacks, take the phone off the hook, you'll be okay. Hell, you don't have to watch it all in one sitting, but once you get started it might be hard to stop.
Many less observant, less hardy folks might dismiss the tartan capped, high-pitched Nardwuar The Human Serviette as simply a hyperactive irritant with a microphone -- lumping him in with seemingly similar in-your-face tightly-wound personalities such as fellow Canuck Tom Green, but first (and second) impressions can be deceiving. While we have to admit many of his disarming, oft-infuriating, absurd tactics do closely resemble those of more self-aggrandizing gonzo interviewers, there's definitely something else going on with this infamous irrepressible staunch Canadian. Let's take for example his unbelievably obsessive researching skills. For each and every potential interview subject, he consistently bloodhounds out the obscurest, mundanest, yet oddly fascinating facts that effectively stop the interviewee in his/her tracks. Y'know, those little skeletons in the closet that they themselves don't even remember, and that via Nardwuar have come back to haunt them much to their glee or chagrin.
In the early days, he started out by primarily digging into the nooks and crannies of the indie music scene doing interviews for his radio show. As his own notoriety grew so did his scope, broadening to encompass the whole show biz industry. Along the way he's also delved deeper and deeper into other media related areas and points of interest (politics, self-help, tele-evangelism to name a few).
The list of people to whom he's somehow gained access is in itself nothing short of mind-blowing (over 60 interviews are featured on this dvd set and that's a mere drop in this Serviette's bucket) -- Mikhail Gorbachev, Dan Quayle, Gene Simmons, Pam Grier, Marilyn Manson, Destiny's Child, Gwar, Kelly Osborne, Slayer, Ian MacKaye, Vanilla Ice, Franz Ferdinand, Wesley Willis, David Cross, Busta Rhymes, Michael Moore, Cradle Of Filth, Blur, Henry Rollins, Thor, Ernest Angley.... And that's not even counting his multiple interview encounters with Snoop Dogg, Courtney Love and Jello Biafra over the past decade.
Clearly people love him, hate him and love to hate him, but when he suffered a brain hemmorhage a few years back, it was nothing but an outpouring of love and admiration that came his way from all walks of life. While hospitalized he received an avalanche of gifts and well-wishes (including a painting by and from David Lee Roth!), and even had to have his own bedside payphone to take all the calls that came flooding in. But now fortunately he is back on his feet wreaking havoc with this, his most comprehensive crowning glory to date. Granted it's not for everyone, but those who rise to the challenge will be duly rewarded with a thorough schooling of headscratching useful and useless facts, figures and trivia, will be thoroughly entertained along the way, and will find themselves responding with a resounding "Doot Doo!"
Also included: lots of sights and sounds of Nardwuar's bands (The Evaporators and Thee Goblins), an eye-straining 16 page boooklet, and yes of course, audio commentary!
Rare American folk connoisseurs rejoice! Finally re-issued on CD are the long awaited Tradition label recordings of John Jacob Niles. If you saw the recent Dylan documentary by Martin Scorsese, you won't forget the clip of Niles singing Go Away From My Window. This is a CD of Carols and Love Songs recorded in 1957 (Rev-Ola will be re-issuing My Life in the Public Domain, ballads culled from older 78 rpm recordings later this month, which we'll list when we get it). Niles, old beyond his years, accompanied by handmade dulcimer, had an intense other-worldly fallen angel like voice that perfectly captures the hauntingly lonely and creepy hill country feel where the bulk of his catalog of songs originated. Niles, like Jean Ritchie, was a folk musicologist and performer from Kentucky who spent his time wandering through isolated American mountain communities collecting folk songs, or scraps of melodies and lyrics, embellishing them with his own inventive arrangements and often fleshing them out by writing additional verses. For example, his version of "Black Is the Colour of My True Love's Hair" has become the definitive arrangement for all versions following (from Nina Simone to Patty Waters), because while he loved the verse he disliked the original tune. This is why folk historians have had a famously difficult time classifying which songs in Niles repertoire are originals or reinventions of songs in the public domain. Some people may be turned off by Niles high-alto voice (At times he can look and sound like the evil preacher man in Poltergeist II), but don't let that hinder you from exploring the work of a true American folk original whose recordings have finally been made available to folks who cannot afford the hundreds of dollars his albums go for on eBay. Fans of Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Anthony & the Johnsons take note!
So were you ever listening to Interpol, or Maximo Park, or Franz Ferdinand, or the Killers and just thought to yourself, "If only this band ROCKED a little bit harder. If they were just, you know, REALLY HEAVY"... well, then Nine Black Alps is for you. Sure they have the whole angular new wave guitars, the pusling groove, the killer hooks, but what they have that those other bands don't is guitars. We mean GUITARS. Big, loud, fuzzy distorted guitars. And real riffs. Er, that is RIFFS! Interpol or the Killers might make you want to dance around or bounce up and down or nod your head to the beat, but rarely do any of those sort of bands get your head banging and send you careening around your room in a wild rock frenzy of air guitar-ing or air drumming. Somebody (me maybe?) once described Nine Black Alps as a heavy metal Franz Ferdinand which isn't too far off the mark. We also hear a little Burning Brides, umm, actually the more we listen to this the more BB we hear. Which is definitely a good thing. Nine Black Alps are sort of like the perfect mix of neo darkwave electro new wave whatever-you-call-it and fuzzy grungy hard and heavy garage rock. Take all that angsty new wave and Joy Division worship, tight pants and angular haircuts, rought 'em up a bit, roll 'em in the dirt. smear the make-up a little, exchange some of that silk and sharkskin for some denim and leather, and then lock 'em in the garage with some Marshall stacks, some BIG drums, a handful of LSD and a bunch of weed! Fuck yeah!
Second album of sunkissed honky-tonk from Brooklyn-based Oakley Hall, featuring a former member of Oneida. Reminiscent of '70s California soft roots rock like Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks or the Anonymous / J. Rider reissues we listed awhile back. Sunny male and female harmonies and lazy day fiddles ride a solid foundation of electric psych-tinged country rock. Only the final track, a great cover of Buffy Saint-Marie's "Cod'ine" (which was also very successfully covered by Dan Hicks earlier group, The Charlatans) points at a darker alt-country vibe we wish there was more of.
Beth Orton's fourth album is possibly her most austere, most straightforwardly folksy and most accessible to date. Comfort Of Strangers was recorded in just two weeks with the producing assistance of Mr. Jim O'Rourke and Mr. Tim Barnes (of Silver Jews). The results are fourteen gauzy lovelies which should please fans who were a bit put off by the uncharacteristically slick production of her last full length, 2002's Daybreaker.
Plus: the limited edition version that we currently have in stock includes a bonus disc with five more exclusive songs!
Yet another entry in the so slow, so low, ultra doom, down tuned, skin flaying musical brutality sweepstakes. And we might just have a new contender for the crown. In the past we have knelt before the corrosive kings Khanate, as well as doom ladies in waiting Bunkur, Moss, Monarch, Whithorse, Planet Aids, Marzuraan, Roanoke, and on and on and on. But where can you go when you can't get any slower, any heavier, any more distorted, any sludgier, any meaner, any more harsh? The answer to that is obviously WEIRDER. So that brings us to Pale Horse, on the same label as the first Jesu ep, but miles away sonically. As you may have gleaned from the above, Pale Horse are sloooooooow, and dooooooooomy and ultra sick and brutal. Imagine a stripped down Khanate, drums to the fore, WAY up in the mix and pretty much defining the sound. Make the bass more slithery and sludgy, and then just do whatever the fuck strikes your fancy. A whole track of just guitars leaning agains the amps, letting the madly vibrating strings do all the work? Sure. How about some Khante-y sludge and pummel, but instead of harsh shrieks, add some strange sing songy vocals that sound quite a bit like the vocals in This Heat or Camberwell Now? Okay! Let's take the slowest harshest slab of slow motion acid doom, and halfway through switch gears and finish the song off with some moody slow buliding post rock, epic and lovely and sweetly lilting with clean guitars and dreamy sad boy vocals. The whole record is like that, which is what keeps it from being JUST another sludge record. You'll be nodding off to some bulldozing riff, sliding glacially over a pounding caveman beat, when suddenly the vocals will kick in with some impossibly sweet melody (a bit like Harvey Milk at times). Or a full on rock song will peter out into a lengthy exercise in tension and release, more some sort of abstract 'piece' than a metal song. An entire track with sweetly strummed steel string guitar and slightly distorted sung/spoken vocals (a bit like Arab Strap)? It's in there, neatly squeezed between two Teutonic slabs of black hole heaviness. There's some sludgy groove that sounds a bit like the Jesus Lizard or The Cows, some stretched out ambient murmur, and even some epic Godspeed meets Isis majestic post metal. And somehow it all makes perfect (non)sense. Fans of ANY of the above mentioned should definitely check this out!
Let it be known, that Tourroists! is a difficult record, and those with a stubborn lack of cultural objectivity will be wise to avoid this album. You have been warned!
Up until this album, Mark Gergis, the man behind Porest (as well as Mono Pause / Neung Phak), has been quietly mapping out his own course of ethnomusicology that hinges upon the complex layers of cultural perception between the US and the third world. Neung Phak stands as his Thai Pop ensemble, in which he exquisitely explores the particulars of SE Asian pop music complete with re-creations of radio dramas and the eccentric hybridizations of eastern and western idioms; he's also been responsible for some for some of the best collections from the Sublime Frequencies series (i.e. Choubi Choubi and Cambodian Cassette Archives). Porest is Gergis' media-manipulation project, and Tourrorists! will undoubtably go down as his most inflamatory and most provocative work. Tourrorists is a scathing political record that unabashedly takes on the themes of 9/11, Guantanamo, Arabic conspiracy theories about Israeli secret police (Mossad), and Christian missionaries. However, unlike the politically charged works of Negativland, Gergis refuses to center the album from a particular political or cultural institution (whether that be atheism, socialism, anarchism, etc.); instead, he challenges the listener to question his or her own politics and cultural perspective about any of the topics. Case in point, "Let's Roll" recontextualizes various media snippets from the 9/11 hearings as well as Jihadist rhetoric through computerized voices that emulate the inflection of an American woman, an American man, and an African-American man. There's something intrinsically disturbing about these dispassionate spoken texts, not to mention the wildly contradictory banter between these three characters. Similarly, Gergis collages a particularlly banal public service announcement into a matter of fact "Soilent Green is people!" declaration. Gergis also gives an English translation to the classic collaboration between Aaviko and Kabar on "Eye of the Leopard" originally sung by the only known escapee from Guantanamo. Alan Bishop from the Sun City Girls also makes a stunning cameo on the summery groove of "Hoyda." None of this speaks of the intricacy of Gergis' musical productions which run from mangled electronics, plenty post-SCG Syrian pop numbers, and canned bossanova rhythms; but, it's the ideological content that renders this album a pipe bomb. Tourrorists! is bound to piss you off or offend you in some way shape or form; and we mean that as a very high compliment.
This is some great spacey rock! Something so confident and seamless about these songs and their delivery. There is this great ability to be spaced out and rock out all at once. Like they are channeling the legacy of Spacemen 3, Psychic Ills have made one of the most striking and satisfying guitar centered records of this young year. We love how they take from both the forefathers of psych as well as the seductive and slightly drugged out sounds of post-punk luminaries like Joy Division and Psycho Candy era Jesus & Mary Chain. The record has not one lull or weak moment. Songs flow right into each other. Whether they are swaying back and forth with a late night ease or turning up and blasting out bleached out melodies; they get it right with every twist and turn the record offers. We would love to see them tour with The Gris Gris as they both take a slightly different approach to psychedelic rock but share a level of excellence that's pretty hard to come by. Highly recommended!
Long time list readers and aQ customers know just how much we loved the now defunct Laddio Bolocko. And just how excited we were when half of Laddio Bolocko resurfaced in The Psychic Paramount, displaying a sound that somehow managed to be the perfect extension of what LB were doing when they called it quits along with a healthy dose of some all new shit that took all the things we loved about Laddio to impossible to imagine extremes.
Laddio Bolocko was like a super distorted, blown out, mathrock Krautrock band. Repetitive, propulsive, complex, heavy, but weird as fuck! And actually we would probably use the same set of words to describe PP. But PP has a more looped quality, less jammy, more psychedelic, if that makes any sanse. The sound is close enough that EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO BOUGHT THE LADDIO BOLOCKO SHOULD OWN BOTH THIS AND THE PSYCHIC PARAMOUNT FULL LENGTH. Seriously. Allan and Andee got a chance to see Psychic Paramount a few months back, and we were transfixed, standing by the side of the stage, slack jawed and wide eyed. Loving it, but at the same time trying to figure out how the fuck these guys make those sounds. It was really that amazing. They somehow managed to out heavy Khanate (who were also playing) while still managing to be dense and complex and weirdly catchy. They sound like a heavy metal This Heat! The most amazing part was the band locked into an impossibly furious freak out, when the bass player just stopped playing and packed up his stuff and walked off stage. A few minutes later the drummer stopped, broke down his whole kit and then walked off stage. The whole while, the guitar player is at the front of the stage, in a manic, eyes-closed trance, unfurling massive super distorted loops and dense washes of sound that sounded like there was still a whole band up there. A few minutes later, the guitarist put his guitar down, and it continued to churn out this heavy sludgy psychedelic loop, the stage totally empty, but a massive crowd frozen in place, watching the guitar laying on the stage as if there was a full band up there. After about ten minutes a super cute anime looking girl, short skirt and pigtails walked up on stage and shut off the guitar and the crowd went apeshit. That's what this cd sounds like. Exactly. And live! How the hell do they make these sounds LIVE? Huge swaths of looped guitar, impossibly amazing drummer, maybe one of the best drummers we've seen/heard in ages, there's one track on here where the bass and guitar drop out completely and the drummer just GOES for a few minutees and he somehow stirs up a din that sounds as dense and full and freaked out as the whole band playing. Some tracks are just full on blasts of NOISE, wild and dense, thick swirls of psychedelic sound, freaked out and chaotic, but even at its most noisy it's still so musical. Loud, weird, repetitive, hypnotic, mesmerizing, so so so good!
Recorded live in 2002 in Europe. Packaged in a swank black digipak, it also includes a short film shot on tour that you can watch on your computer.
We're still hearing the "residual echoes" of this Santa Cruz based band's self-titled debut record from earlier this year ringing in our ears...and now, here's their follow-up release already. No complaints about that though, we love these guys!!
Phoenician Flu and Atlantic Ocean offers up all the druggy, damaged psych-rock fans of the band could hope for. Blasting off with the deleriously lo-fi, Sabbath-on-SST stomp of "Death Comes For The Archbishop" its evident right away that this record is gonna be a heavy one, indeed this track gets totally ripping metal (in a Seventies way) in spots. But then, you'll also find some rather folky stuff on here as well (borrowings from Nick Drake and the Carter Family are both credited in the liner notes). It's a blend that anyone into Residual Echoes' pals Comets Of Fire will already dig, though if anything, the Echoes are even more shambolic than the most fucked up Comets stuff! This record is a wrestling match of the boogie vs. the drone and it doesn't much matter which one wins.
Yes indeedy, Holy Mountain has put out some great releases. But we'd say that an adventurous listener scaling the Holy Mountain's heights would probably find Residual Echoes rockin' out at one of the toppermost peaks! Recommended!
More black brutality from No Colours records in Germany. Home to Nargaroth, Graveland, Wigrid and Woodtemple, so you know this is gonna be good, what you might not expect is that Rimfrost's A Journey is basically a super technical slab of brutal black death metal. Super fast tight triggered drums, downtuned but super compressed riffing, growled blackened death metal vocals, the whole thing super polished and ultra tight. We usually expect No Colours stuff to be buzzy and blurry and home recorded, sometimes stumbling, often midtempo, super personal blackness, so this was a huge surprise, but not a bad surprise at all, cuz we love this stuff just as much. Think Khold, Thorns, newer Satyricon, that sort of clinical black metal, but filtered through some early nineties death metal. Fierce and heavy, with lots of half time chug, killer pick squeals, pounding near doom, and c'mon, they're called Rimfrost!
