On their past two fine albums A Story In White and Sleep And Release, these Scots' waves of crashing dynamics have drawn comparisons to Mogwai, but on Seclusion they've taken their sound to such a heavy and dark place where perhaps even those Mogwai lads dare not tread. Although the album starts out sounding like it's gonna be a college radio ready emo-rock record with the song "Inkwell", a sense of emotional unravelling gradually seeps in over the course of the other five songs that rises to the distraught degrees of bands such as Xiu Xiu and Frog Eyes. Ahh, what d'ya know, we just noticed the third song's title... "The Unravelling". Some might find the stormier, near-metal moments on this album to be downright fierce, but the fever is broken by some truly lovely melodic, heartrending phrases as well as some brief bursts of mathiness. Another great one from Aereogramme, available as an import only for some reason we don't know. Recommended!
Artist/Designer/Musician Wayne Smith's third outing as Aero-Mic'd (not including last years collaboration with the Sadnesses, Cloud Mama) is a family affair but not in the usual familial way. Made to coincide with a exhibition of new artworks at Queen's Nails Annex in San Francisco, I Think You're Great, includes many guest appearances from friends and local luminaries, including video artist Anne McGuire on vocals, writer Kevin Killian (intoning a series of tai chi movements on opening track "Cloud Hands"), and performer/painter Cliff Hengst, all of whom have been collaborating on each others projects off and on for at least the past ten years. Smith is a master of mining magical significance through the filtering, manipulating and repetition of found sounds and images (celebrity, the cultic and the mundane play against each other constantly). On the title track, clocking in at over 15 minutes (an epic by Aero-mic'd standards whose songs normally clock in at under 2 minutes), he expands his sound from previous efforts by including excerpts from a live performance at the Headlands last year with William Collins from Mire on guitar and tibetan bowls and Cliff Hengst on percussion. Intermixed with the live and programmed bells and filtered guitars, Smith includes one of his signature sound pieces, "Hello", recorded by calling people randomly from the phone book and recording their standard but delightfully varied greetings. With I Think You're Great, the feeling is definitely mutual!
We've been trying to list these Amlee discs for ages but we can never seem to keep enough in stock. Everytime we play them in the store, someone, sometimes several someones, always buys 'em. That's usually the truest barmoeter for how good a record is. And these discs are soooo good. Both of these discs feature Erik Amlee on sitar, the fact that Amlee is not a trained sitar player is part of what makes these discs so cool. The other being the totally bad ass drone and buzz of the sitar. We're beginning to think the sitar is the coolest instrument there is. It's like a guitar, but with way more buzzing and vibrating and droning. We can totally picture the heaviest metal band in the world with no guitars, just with electrified, amplified sitars. That's the same metal band that would have to have a Tuvan throat singer on lead vocals, but we digress. These lengthy improvisations are dense with buzzing overtones, haunting melodies, still very Eastern, as that's the nature of the instrument and its tuning, but also kind of spacey and blissed out, druggy and psychedelic. The whole thing is thick and soft and swoonsome, longform subtly shifting ragas, drowsy and fuzzy, all sepia toned and sun baked, rife with dizzyingly buzzy melodies and simple subtle percussion, and occasionaly electronic glitchery, but not so it's noticable, just adding more texture. And the recording is super casual and a bit lo-fi, you can hear shuffling feet, instrument buzz, every little nuance is just sort of captured and woven into the blurry dreamy sweetly torpid soundscape. So totally captivating. These records make the perfect late night listening, all thick and drifty and suffused with a soft rich glow that just sort of washes over you. Both volumes are equally amazing, and they're cheap too so there's no reason not to pick up the set!
We've been trying to list these Amlee discs for ages but we can never seem to keep enough in stock. Everytime we play them in the store, someone, sometimes several someones, always buys 'em. That's usually the truest barmoeter for how good a record is. And these discs are soooo good. Both of these discs feature Erik Amlee on sitar, the fact that Amlee is not a trained sitar player is part of what makes these discs so cool. The other being the totally bad ass drone and buzz of the sitar. We're beginning to think the sitar is the coolest instrument there is. It's like a guitar, but with way more buzzing and vibrating and droning. We can totally picture the heaviest metal band in the world with no guitars, just with electrified, amplified sitars. That's the same metal band that would have to have a Tuvan throat singer on lead vocals, but we digress. These lengthy improvisations are dense with buzzing overtones, haunting melodies, still very Eastern, as that's the nature of the instrument and its tuning, but also kind of spacey and blissed out, druggy and psychedelic. The whole thing is thick and soft and swoonsome, longform subtly shifting ragas, drowsy and fuzzy, all sepia toned and sun baked, rife with dizzyingly buzzy melodies and simple subtle percussion, and occasionaly electronic glitchery, but not so it's noticable, just adding more texture. And the recording is super casual and a bit lo-fi, you can hear shuffling feet, instrument buzz, every little nuance is just sort of captured and woven into the blurry dreamy sweetly torpid soundscape. So totally captivating. These records make the perfect late night listening, all thick and drifty and suffused with a soft rich glow that just sort of washes over you. Both volumes are equally amazing, and they're cheap too so there's no reason not to pick up the set!
OK. By now any avid reader of the AQ list doesn't need to know anything more than this: NEW BATHTUB SHITTER. If you're like us, that's more than enough to send a tingle down your insane Japanese grind metal lovin' record nerd spine. But if that's somehow not enough. How about 5" vinyl ep? SO much cooler than a boring old 7". Still not enough? Okay, this has to do it, the lyric sheet is printed in shit brown ink on a PIECE OF TOILET PAPER!!! So just do it. You know you want it. NEED it. But just in case you need more, or this whole 'Shitter business is new to you, let's go back to an old review where we summed up the whole Bathtub Shitter experience as perfectly as we'll ever be able to:
"Imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel'. The truly strange part is that all of the various vocals come from the very same guy!"
Yeah, we know it seems lazy to just crib that description from an old review, but that's EXACTLY what they sound like. Not sure we could describe it any better than that first time we discovered Bathtub Shitter. In fact, just reading that again gets us all excited about the 'Shitter all over again!!
Packaged in a striking full color mini lp style sleeve, with aforementioned toilet paper lyric sheet, and as with most things like this, very very limited!
A familiar face around this neighborhood -- you might recall his debut cd Nandina a couple of years back -- Mr. Bauer caught us off guard recently when we received a package from him addressed from New York. He'd pulled up anchor and moved across the country! Fortunately his brother still lives around the corner from our shop and can supply us with Matt's latest cdep. It picks right up where he left off on the final somber strains of Nandina's closing track "Jordan In A Plastic Bag". Such achingly beautiful, weathered folk melancholia, this time with the added pleasure of female vocals accompanying Matt's on a pair of songs. Who might those ladies be? Why, noneother than Ms Jolie Holland ("Carve It Out") and Ms Mariee Sioux ("Wasps And White Roses"). Each voice compliments the other so well! Also making a couple of appearances are fiddle player Alisa Rose ("White Horse" and "Poor Robin"), and Nathan Wanta guest sings along on the last number "Poor Robin" too. Seven songs of which five are originals (three with vocals, two without), plus two traditional numbers. Wonderful!
Holy crap. This band is so completely mindblowing. Ultra technical, downtuned black thrash... power metal? An impossible mix of techgrindthrash a la Meshuggah, Dillinger Escape Plan, Strapping Young Lad and the like, but with plenty of chugcrunchmosh as per Pantera, but most importantly, a huge heaping dose of classic melodic power metal: blazing leads and harmony solos like they were plucked straight from some Iron Maiden b-side, wailing and soaring eighties style Rob Halford like vocals, all plopped smack dab in the middle of a dense sludgy, churning whirpool of brutal pummeling technical thrash metal. Imagine your favorite eighties metal record, Avenger, Obsession, Omen, doesn't matter, now imagine that band going through one of those science fiction transformations, you know like where the dinky little robot is dragged down the conveyor belt, strapped down and then is suddenly awash in a blur of sparking machines, and molten metal, a hundred mechanical arms with all manner of alien tools welding and cutting, sparks spraying everywhere, flames and smoke, until the tiny robot emerges a hulking armored battle machine, all sharp edges and planet crushing firepower. That's basically Biomechanical. Imagine Iron Maiden or especially Queensryche (the singer sounds a hell of a lot like Geoff Tate) with a 21st century makeover. A blurred buzzy blast of totally brutal thrashmetal, technical and convoluted but super catchy. With those wailing vocals that at first sound so completely out of place, but immediately make Biomechanical so much more interesting than their grunting shrieking thrash metal brethren. Plus they smear the proceedings with all sorts of bizarre keyboards which gives the whole record a demented alien vibe. The metalheads around AQ have been rocking this nonstop since we first got it a few months back!
Long in the works 'career retrospective' from one man free noise avant rock doom drone wrecking crew Campbell Kneale and his long running Birchville Cat Motel. Six discs, spanning the life of BCM, unreleased tracks, rarities, long out of print lathe cuts, lps and cassettes, a mighty impressive and awe inspiring overview of a project that as far as we're concerned has yet to release a bad record. Which is sort of mind blowing considering the sheer volume of material Kneale has released over the last however many years.
So Chaos Steel Skeletons is definitely essential for all of you BCM fanatics. No matter how on the ball you were, how much of a constant eBay lurker you've been, there's no way in hell anyone, except the man himself, has all of these tracks. And the crazy thing is, this six disc set, is just a -selection- of tracks, a true comprehensive retrospective would have required some sort of box set of Merzboxian proportions. Not that we would have complained, in fact, just like most of you, we wouldn't hesitate to sign up for a 50 cd Birchbox RIGHT NOW. Just say the word.
For BCM newbies, we would probably recommend Chi Vampires or Our Love Will Destroy The World, as Chaos Steel Skeletons might be a bit much, or a bit expensive, but hell, it's all fucking great, and the more we think about it, the more we realize that maybe there might not be any better place to start that a 6cd set. But now those unfamiliar with the Birch are probably wondering, okay then, but what the hell does it sound like? Well, as stated above, Birchville hovers in some amorphous musical area we'd have to label 'free noise avant rock doom drone' or something like that. Imagine Sunroof! and the Dead C and Reynols and Hototogisu and Vibracathedral Orchestra and SUNNO))) and Wolf Eyes and the disparate sound worlds each inhabits, now imagine one little man who can flit effortlessly between them all, going from grinding chaos to soothing drone in the blink of an eye. From huge buzzy fuzzed out ragas to grinding downtuned pummel to blissy ambience to plinkplonk and clattery mayhem to shrieking high end skree and everything in between. The stuff on these discs tends toward the noisy (there's even a sort of Sabbath cover on volume three) as these are what might be referred to as 'the early years', but even at his noisiest, Kneale manages to sneak in some wondrous melody or soothing sound, even if it does often get totally obliterated moments later. You can by these double discs separately, but c'mon, you're not fooling anybody, buying two discs of a six disc set is sort of like petting half a kitten, or playing half a guitar, or watching half a movie, it just isn't right!!!
As always, SUPER LIMITED, handsomely packaged in cool wallpaper sleeves, and each disc comes with liner notes about each song, not always entirely informative, but usually pretty darn funny!
VERY RECOMMENDED!!!
Long in the works 'career retrospective' from one man free noise avant rock doom drone wrecking crew Campbell Kneale and his long running Birchville Cat Motel. Six discs, spanning the life of BCM, unreleased tracks, rarities, long out of print lathe cuts, lps and cassettes, a mighty impressive and awe inspiring overview of a project that as far as we're concerned has yet to release a bad record. Which is sort of mind blowing considering the sheer volume of material Kneale has released over the last however many years.
So Chaos Steel Skeletons is definitely essential for all of you BCM fanatics. No matter how on the ball you were, how much of a constant eBay lurker you've been, there's no way in hell anyone, except the man himself, has all of these tracks. And the crazy thing is, this six disc set, is just a -selection- of tracks, a true comprehensive retrospective would have required some sort of box set of Merzboxian proportions. Not that we would have complained, in fact, just like most of you, we wouldn't hesitate to sign up for a 50 cd Birchbox RIGHT NOW. Just say the word.
For BCM newbies, we would probably recommend Chi Vampires or Our Love Will Destroy The World, as Chaos Steel Skeletons might be a bit much, or a bit expensive, but hell, it's all fucking great, and the more we think about it, the more we realize that maybe there might not be any better place to start that a 6cd set. But now those unfamiliar with the Birch are probably wondering, okay then, but what the hell does it sound like? Well, as stated above, Birchville hovers in some amorphous musical area we'd have to label 'free noise avant rock doom drone' or something like that. Imagine Sunroof! and the Dead C and Reynols and Hototogisu and Vibracathedral Orchestra and SUNNO))) and Wolf Eyes and the disparate sound worlds each inhabits, now imagine one little man who can flit effortlessly between them all, going from grinding chaos to soothing drone in the blink of an eye. From huge buzzy fuzzed out ragas to grinding downtuned pummel to blissy ambience to plinkplonk and clattery mayhem to shrieking high end skree and everything in between. The stuff on these discs tends toward the noisy (there's even a sort of Sabbath cover on volume three) as these are what might be referred to as 'the early years', but even at his noisiest, Kneale manages to sneak in some wondrous melody or soothing sound, even if it does often get totally obliterated moments later. You can by these double discs separately, but c'mon, you're not fooling anybody, buying two discs of a six disc set is sort of like petting half a kitten, or playing half a guitar, or watching half a movie, it just isn't right!!!
As always, SUPER LIMITED, handsomely packaged in cool wallpaper sleeves, and each disc comes with liner notes about each song, not always entirely informative, but usually pretty darn funny!
VERY RECOMMENDED!!!
Long in the works 'career retrospective' from one man free noise avant rock doom drone wrecking crew Campbell Kneale and his long running Birchville Cat Motel. Six discs, spanning the life of BCM, unreleased tracks, rarities, long out of print lathe cuts, lps and cassettes, a mighty impressive and awe inspiring overview of a project that as far as we're concerned has yet to release a bad record. Which is sort of mind blowing considering the sheer volume of material Kneale has released over the last however many years.
So Chaos Steel Skeletons is definitely essential for all of you BCM fanatics. No matter how on the ball you were, how much of a constant eBay lurker you've been, there's no way in hell anyone, except the man himself, has all of these tracks. And the crazy thing is, this six disc set, is just a -selection- of tracks, a true comprehensive retrospective would have required some sort of box set of Merzboxian proportions. Not that we would have complained, in fact, just like most of you, we wouldn't hesitate to sign up for a 50 cd Birchbox RIGHT NOW. Just say the word.
For BCM newbies, we would probably recommend Chi Vampires or Our Love Will Destroy The World, as Chaos Steel Skeletons might be a bit much, or a bit expensive, but hell, it's all fucking great, and the more we think about it, the more we realize that maybe there might not be any better place to start that a 6cd set. But now those unfamiliar with the Birch are probably wondering, okay then, but what the hell does it sound like? Well, as stated above, Birchville hovers in some amorphous musical area we'd have to label 'free noise avant rock doom drone' or something like that. Imagine Sunroof! and the Dead C and Reynols and Hototogisu and Vibracathedral Orchestra and SUNNO))) and Wolf Eyes and the disparate sound worlds each inhabits, now imagine one little man who can flit effortlessly between them all, going from grinding chaos to soothing drone in the blink of an eye. From huge buzzy fuzzed out ragas to grinding downtuned pummel to blissy ambience to plinkplonk and clattery mayhem to shrieking high end skree and everything in between. The stuff on these discs tends toward the noisy (there's even a sort of Sabbath cover on volume three) as these are what might be referred to as 'the early years', but even at his noisiest, Kneale manages to sneak in some wondrous melody or soothing sound, even if it does often get totally obliterated moments later. You can by these double discs separately, but c'mon, you're not fooling anybody, buying two discs of a six disc set is sort of like petting half a kitten, or playing half a guitar, or watching half a movie, it just isn't right!!!
As always, SUPER LIMITED, handsomely packaged in cool wallpaper sleeves, and each disc comes with liner notes about each song, not always entirely informative, but usually pretty darn funny!
VERY RECOMMENDED!!!
Man is has this band been hyped to death. There are plenty of next big things, a new one very week, but we have been hearing about this band for ages without actually hearing them until now. And you know what? They're pretty good. Not sure if we'd necessarily include them in our personal list of 'next big things' but hell if this is the band with the golden ticket, the one that's getting the push and will end up all over MTV we could sure as hell do a whole lot worse. The Black Angels' very retro vibe definitely reminds us of the Raveonettes. But where the Raveonettes channeled that whole Spector girl group vibe, the 'Angels lean more toward a druggy shoegaze thing, taking much influence from Loop, Spacemen 3 and of course the Velvet Underground. Along with lyrical themes of '60s radical Vietnam-era politics, death and darkness, the Black Angels also do some musical time traveling with plenty of super sixties fuzz guitar, and that sort of jangly snare like it's attached to a tamborine, and some truly druggy tranced out vocals (that remind us quite a bit of Georgian garage rockers the Rock*A*Teens). At their most rocking there's even a hint of UK psych rockers the Heads, but for the most part this is warm and reverby, laid back and blissfully drugged out. We would be remiss if we didn't mention the fact that there are some moments when the vocals are wailing and dramatic and the sound veers dangerously close to U2 territory, but that's really a small complaint considering how gloriously druggy and droney the rest of the record is.
We may not have been as gaga over the record as 99 percent of the music press, but we sure as hell are blown the fuck away by the packaging!! This disc comes in the most amazing digipack, an op-art pattern of black and white spirals, but all of the spirals are embossed, raised up, so it's nice to touch and the added third dimension makes the lines swirl and shimmer. It's like some crazy textured sixties mod popart carpet shrunk down and wrapped around a cd. WOW!
A new ep from these solemn gents from Ohio. They've followed up their fine debut album Who Will Walk In The Darkness With You? (which we just got back in stock too) with another five shadowy numbers. Sex Brain is imbued with a slightly more druggy feel than the full length, but still falls in step with the likes of Tindersticks. Well done!
After a series of super limited cd-r releases, this Australian brother/sister duo return with their first actual proper real-cd full length. Don't expect any White Stripes or Carpenters or whatever brother/sister musical ensemble comes to mind. These siblings are high on PCP and armed with a wicked arsenal of psychfuzz guitar, and splattery tribal acid fried drumming. Wide open expanses of space rock drift, shimmery woodwinds and abstract guitar figures floating above a dense whirl of Amon Duul like rhythms, this is NNCK lost in the Australian outback desperately jamming in the hopes of some passing plane overhead hearing the ruckus and coming in for a closer look, or Sunburned Hand Of The Man gone native, trying to appease the Gods with their mysterious musical offering. Free forest folk hovering in a dense cloud of bong smoke, krautrocky jams that just sort of splintered into pieces and became a weightless jumble of chimes and clatter and guitar rumble and twang. The final track is a near twenty minute epic that begins life dense and jumbled, thick with buzz and growl before dissipating into a hazy shimmer of instrument buzz and warm ambient swells.
The first 500 copies come in hand screened sleeves printed by New Zealand art/music collective United Fairy Moons.
Forget anything you have maybe heard or read about this record. If it doesn't say how great, how supercharged, or how monumental it is, then whoever wrote it or said it doesn't know what the hell they're talking about! 5 years in the making and Doug Martsch and crew are back and better then ever. Starting with an 8-minute plus fist in the air opus that makes your heart start racing and your whole body bolt wide awake. While so many of their indie rock contemporaries have either broken up, burnt out, or become static recorders of nostalgic nothingness, Built to Spill prove that you can get older and better and wiser. Listening to this record over and over and over as I (Irwin) have, I've realized how wise Doug Marstch actually is about life and living. This is someone as in touch with his present moment as he was when he was 21. That's something that seems to be so lacking in most rock music. It's not rare for people to be really insightful and interesting and living in the moment when they are 22 and just coming of age but all so often as they get older they seem so out of touch and disconnected with what growing and learning and changing is all about. Martsch seems to have embraced all of that so well and this record is like the masterpiece of that maturity. Not the kind of "maturity" we talk about when people start making softer, safer records. This is the real kind of maturity. A group growing into themselves so perfectly. Guitars twisting and twirling and ringing so true. Melodies that build and bloom and take such nice form. While so many of the bands they helped influence (Modest Mouse, Death Cab For Cutie, etc.) have gone on to reach greater commercial success, you get the feeling that they could care less. It doesn't seem too far fetched to start thinking about Martsch as his generation's Neil Young. Timeless, iconoclastic, always stretching and exploring, even at the risk of failure. Martsch is someone who with their words and guitar makes you feel like you are being given the kind of jangly indie rock hug that you never want to end. Highly recommended!
Each time that you think this Tucson, AZ band can't possibly get any better or can't possibly bring anything new to their palette without sacrificing some core element of their sound, they go and do it! Excuse the horticultural puns (we're sure other reviewers have already exhausted the lot) but we can't resist, Calexico do indeed continue to grow, to blossom, to flourish with each album. And we get the feeling that they've still only scratched the surface.
Some of us had the deluxe treat of catching a sneak peek of these songs when John Convertino (always a joy to watch!), Joey Burns and their ensemble of stellar multi-instrumentalists played a couple of hush-hush live shows right around the corner from AQ at the Make-Out Room a couple months ago. 'Twas an ultra intimate, yet totally rocking affair, drenched with passion, polish and earthy elegance. We were floored!
Continuing on from their excellent last album Feast Of Wire's '70s west coast (Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, etc) pop/rock infused vibe that drew the focus more towards Burns' vocals and pop song structures, Garden Ruin features the heaviest doses of singing yet (by practically all of the members!) as well as effective explorations into beautiful, crashing waves of guitar and percussion dissonance -- particularly on the spectacular, emotionally draining final track "All Systems Red" on which Burns' voice captures a previously unreached depth of expressiveness. The band has already drawn some criticism for deserting their beloved trademark mariachi style trumpets and expansive cinematic atmospheres, but we think those accusations are unfounded. Yes, this is their most accessible album to date, but fear not, "old" Calexico devotees! Those elements that characterized their earlier releases are still very much present on Garden Ruin (as they were on Feast Of Wire), they're just much more integrated. Other stand-out tracks include the falsetto-ly sung, chiming "Panic Open String", the wispy retro pop number "Lucky Dime" (think Kings Of Convenience meets Olivia Tremor Control) and the smoldering duet "Roka" with its guest vocalist Amparo Sanchez. Breathtaking. On Garden Ruin, Calexico reaches out to every one of us -- an indie kid who just wants to hug him/herself and sway to the sweet gentle folksy ballads, a rock adventurer who loves to get lost in the expanses of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mogwai and Village Of Savoonga, a lover of the sparkling Southwestern horns and jazzy guitar flourishes -- and never loses sight or sound of their burnished golded Arizonan desert heart. Y'know, there has never been a Calexico release that we haven't heartily recommended. They've given us no reason to start now. What more can we say... except holler from the rooftops, "Recommended!!!"
You know how you get together with folks and have dinner, or watch a movie or go bowling. Watch a football game, some ultimate fighting or some Olympic curling. Some folks have barbecues, ping pong parties, pool parties. Some folks just sit around and do nothing, just shoot the shit and hang out. But then there are some folks who record their get togethers. Instead of showing up with a bottle of wine or some bread and cheese, they show up with a lap steel, an el guitar, e-bow, a prepared guitar, a 'sex machine' (no, it's not that type of party) and some effects. That's what Tom Carter from Charalambides brings along. But the host has a greater responsibility, so a host, like say Robert Horton, will have a beautiful spread all laid out when his guest Tom Carter arrives. The whole table is overflowing with goodies: a boot, a bowed boot, a computer, a vibrator, the el-toothbrush, slinky, electric barometer, snare drum, another 'sex machine' (maybe it is that kind of party), Casio MT-68, a computer, some field recordings, some microphones, some noise canceling headphones and maybe a nice harmonica. Everything you need for an afternoon of blissful drones, and ominous soundscapes, shimmering and dreamlike, and rumbling and ethereal. This may have started out as a dinner party, but it ended up a series of lovely and mysterious Ur-drones, clattery, slow shifting ragas, percussive tribal free jam drones, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof!, Ashtray Navigations, Double Leopards, Pelt, you get the idea. A room filled with smoke and sound, swirling and drifting lazily skyward. So lovely. We should definitely do this again sometime...
There are two kinds of doom. Well, okay, there are probably more, but for the purposes of this review we'll stick to two. The first is the new breed of sludgey dirgey slow motion doom practiced by folks like SUNNO))), Moss, Marzuraan, Bunkur, Buried At Sea, Dot [.], Boris, Khanate, Whitehorse and the like. The interesting thing about this type of doom, is it's not necessarily doom METAL, in fact more often than not it's more experimental than metal, and is often played by folks who are far from being metalheads. One might call it indie-doom. Or something. Although for god's sake let's not call it indie-doom. That's almost as bad as calling romantic comedies rom-coms. Anyway, there's that distinctly indie, avant breed of doom, and then there is DOOM METAL. And within doom metal, there is a breed of super slow, super dirgey, beautifully depressive funereal doom, that at least sonically, most resembles that avant drone dirge doom we love so much. Maybe that's why all those non-metal folks into SUNNO))) and Earth and Corrupted and Boris can get into stuff like Skepticism and Esoteric and diSEMBOWLEMENT as well. It pushes the same sort of buttons, it's slow, lurching, rife with tarpit rhythms and glacial cadences, everything is tuned ultra ultra low, it's just very dark and droney and depressive. But the thing about doom -metal- is it retains some of the elements of it's parent genre, metal. Instead of being like a distorted electric guitar version of Angus Maclise or Henry Flynt or any of the other modern minimalists, It's like Sabbath or St. Vitus or Wichfinder General or Candlemass or Pentagram, but slowed waaaaaaay down. Actual metal songs caught in some sort of time rift, that renders each riff a lengthy smear of depressive ambience, a drum fill can plod along for minutes instead of seconds. The difference is subtle but it is definitely a big difference. That's maybe why, as much as we love all that NWODDDD (new wave of drone death dirge doom, you read it here first!) we tend to be way more engaged by the metallic end of the doom metal spectrum. Esoteric and Skepticism obviously, but also less distinctly funereal outfits like diSEMBOWELMENT, Paramecium, Evoken, My Dying Bride and loads more. One more modern group who better captures that depressive funereal doom sound better than almost anyone is Catacombs, a one man band whose gloomy doomscapes definitely fall sonically right between Skepticism and Esoteric. Haunting minor key melodies drift wraith-like over a bleak and barren soundscape of plodding, mournful musical sorrow. Guitars dripping with cave-like reverb, everything sounding like it was recorded in an antechamber of hell, vocals so low they sound like someone dragging a huge piece of sheet metal along a rough patch of pavement or like a field recording of a thunderstorm, slowed down. Surprisingly dynamic for a doom record as well, with riffs that hover and drift over vast expanses of nothingness, before lurching back into motion. But also quite melodic, with some tracks sounding almost like a more metal Low, lilting and melancholic, all grey and washed out and wrapped in a distant haze of Burzumic guitar fuzz.
So slow and beautiful and creepy and ominous and amazing.
These leading British doom eccentrics doom it up in their usual unique style on this, their eighth long-player. The Garden Of Unearthly Delights sees Cathedral happily (yup, happy doom!) doing just what they want, secure in the knowledge that they've reached a stage in their career where they have fans who love 'em for just being themselves. In other words, their '70s prog obessions are waaaay to the fore here, resulting in the disc's grand finale, a tricky five-hour opus (well, not quite that long, it's more like half an hour) called "The Garden". And we must say they do a better job of it this time than they did some years ago on the equally epic ep-track "Voyage Of The Homeless Sapien". Back then they bit off a bit more than they could chew, now they're up to the task. It helps having a guest female singer with a sweet voice to duet with Lee Dorrian's characteristic gravelly gargle. There's about a million parts to it, bits echoing Led Zeppelin at one moment, Magma at another, etc. etc.
But besides that utter progfest, there's plenty of other crushing tracks here to provide Cathedral fans with more in the way of straightforward Sabbathy rifforama (and other surprises), just like you'd expect from these guys. We also have to mention the hidden bonus track on which Lee runs down a list of all their favorite obscure '70s prog/kraut/psych bands, while the band does some heavy vamping behind him! Blast Furnace, Cosmic Dealer, Irish Coffee, Supersister, Icecross, Paternoster, Nosferatu, Hairy Chapter, and a bunch more all get name-checked. Gotta love that.
Sorry, we don't have the import digipack anymore with the scratch-and-sniff apple smelling cd, just the regular jewel case edition.
Ahhh Cave in. How we loved you. And then hated you. And then loved you again. And then hated... Oh crap, who can keep track. Took us a while to check out this release just 'cause we were worried about what we'd hear. Starting life as a churning dontuned metalcore juggernaut, these guys were one of the first Hydra Head bands to toally blow our minds. We described their debut Until Your Heart Stops as Slayer meets Radiohead, which might be pushing it. They were more sort of like Coalesce or Deadguy, but they weren't afraid to explore melodies or ambience, often forgoing metallic crunch altogether in search of something new. As they progressed, they began to move away from their metalcore roots, letting the Radiohead side of their personality come to the fore, and fuck it, we loved it. Dreamy swoonsome pop, with big hooks, soaring falsetto vocals. Who could argue with a way heavier Radiohead? This new direction found them courted by major labels, eventually landing on RCA and releasing a record that was pretty much polished pop. They were obviously going for it. Why the hell not. No point in getting there and then just giving MTV and commercial radio the middle finger. So while Jupiter was pretty cool, it wasn't much more. But as with many bands who make it to the big time, Cave In realized it wasn't for them, so they came back into the fold, rejoining the Hydra Head roster, and began to sort of tentatively dip their toes back in the metal pool. Thus we have Perfect Pitch Black. Which is actually pretty close to perfect. They have returned to being a heavy band. Huge chugging riffs, proggy Tool-like drumming, howled demonic vocals, but all that pop time was not for naught, no, no matter how hard they tried to metallize, some of that pop came back with them, which is precisely what makes PPB so cool. A track will weave wildly from churning mosh worthy metalcore, to an epic melodic chorus, to a full on fuzz pop bridge before returning to head crushing metallic crunch. Sort of how Dove and Torche took simple Nirvana-esque pop, and melded it with downtuned sludge, Cave In take epic, grandiose pop -- Radiohead, Muse, Sigur Ros, Tool, that sort of thing, but set it in a dangerously and precariously metal context. And the results are amazing. Cave In somehow manage to make those two disparate sides of their sound fit abso-fucking-lutely perfectly together. Heavy, proggy, poppy, catchy, so good. Another record, that if there was any justice in the world, would be all over the radio and MTV (or whatever channel it is that actually still plays videos). Jason told us he hated Cave In now, so we threw this on, and he immmediately started bugging us to know what was playing. We wouldn't tell him what it was until he admitted that he was totally digging it. Which he did. And he couldn't believe it was Cave In. But we could. We never really stopped liking them, but we most definitely love their perfect pop way more when it's drenched metallic crush and pummel!
Ciccone Youth was a one-off Sonic Youth side project, in which the band was paying homage to their favorite pop icon of the day: Madonna. If memory serves correctly, The Whitey Album was originally supposed to be a full on collaboration between Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehouse) and Sonic Youth, in which the band just did all Madonna covers. Tongue in cheek, stoned ideas may be good on the couch with a bong while mocking how bad MTV is, but executing them is a recipe for artistic failure. So, The Whitey Album evolved beyond the Madonna cover album and into a pretty darn good example of how Sonic Youth could beef up avant-trance rock with mack-truck riffs, propulsive rhythms, and cheeky drum machine programming. Released just before Sonic Youth's unquestionably brilliant Daydream Nation, The Whitey Album enjoys many of the dynamic atonal noise/drones and screwdriver-in-the-guitar-strings tricks employed elsewhere in their early catalogue. As adventurous as much of The Whitey Album is, it's most memorable for the covers: Mike Watt does make an appearance all by his lonesome in covering Madonna's "Burnin' Up," Kim Gordon takes the vocal duties in the purposefully flat karaoke cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love," and Thurston Moore gets the honor of singing Madonna's "Into The Groove." If only all joke bands sounded this good!
Four new songs from AQ faves Circle! Maybe that's all we need to say... but perhaps foolishly we'll go further. After many years of cultish obscurity in this country, Circle are at last beginning to get some wider recognition. They've managed to briefly tour in the States twice in the last year or so, most recently playing a handful of dates (not in San Francisco, unfortunately) centered around their appearance at the South By Southwest music convention in Austin, Texas just a few weeks ago. So more and more people are getting to see and hear 'em, and that means more and more converts to Circle fandom. They're an amazing live spectacle -- a hypnotic, headbanging, minimalist metallic post-krautrock juggernaut that doesn't stint on the hair and the sweat. And their many albums are equally incredible. We'd always wondered why they weren't the latest post-rock big thing...well maybe it's 'cause they're so dang weird! Which, of course, we like. Bands that sing in their own made-up languages (a la Magma) and do other unashamedly "prog rock" and sometime metal things too are definitely cool with us. But does that get them signed to Thrill Jockey or Matador? No. Not yet anyway. And as popular as they've become in recent years, Circle (you know) are still weirdos. Just take a look at the cover of the live LP we listed here last time! So, what do you suppose they decided to do for the cdep that was intended to be released to coincide with (though, it got delayed) their SXSW appearance and surrounding tour? Unsurprisingly, something strange. But very Circle. You see, Jussi from Circle is a HUGE fan of a band from LA in the '80s called Jesters Of Destiny. As are Andee and Allan. Chances are, if you're an AQ customer who's heard of them, it's because Jussi reissued an album of theirs on his label Ektro a few years ago. Crazy, catchy alternative metal/new wave/punk/pop music. Jussi loves Jesters of Destiny so much that, having met up with their former singer Bruce Duff in LA when Circle played the Arthurfest last year, Jussi got Duff to sing on this here ep! Since we're fans of Jesters too, we were stoked, and hoping for a 30 minute jam on the JoD's big hit (not really) "Diggin' That Grave"! But that's not what they did. What you get here are four tracks, three of 'em featuring Duff on vocals, one an instrumental. It definitely sounds like Circle, but the usual mock-operatics sung in Meronian by Circle keyboardist Mikka Ratto have been replaced by Duff's equally unique vocal stylings. It's maybe a bit like the 3 Dead People After The Performance album that Circle recorded with Can's Damo Suzuki, except that these are real songs with lyrics (written by Duff) in English, not improvs. We're not really used to understanding the words in a Circle song, so it's all very strange. Musically, though, it's the repetitive hypno-rock these guys do so well. First track "Earthworm" is hectic and heavy, the second one "Connection" is almost more of a pop tune, and the third track "Taking It Back" is calmer and more Can-like, with Duff delivering his lines in a whisper. And then the instrumental "Coda" wraps things up in fine Circle fashion. Because of Duff's vocals, this is definitely one of the odder Circle documents. But not a bad concept for an ep, just the sort of thing an ep is for!
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!
Fela Kuti lovers take note! This is one of the best post-Fela Kuti inspired Afro beat records of the last decade for sure. Originally released in '98 just a year after Fela passed away, this was sadly the one and only album released by The Daktaris. Melding Afro beat, soul and funk with total perfection these are songs that make you walk with better posture and with total purpose. They pay homage to their heroes with amazing renditions of James Brown's "Give It Up Turnit Loose" as well as the aforementioned Fela Kuti's "Upside Down." Like Antibalas this was a group carrying the flame that Fela lit with total devotion and a commitment to his spirit. Polyrhythms that will make your body shake, your heart race, and you'll be smiling all over. Good stuff!
We won't go into too much detail on this one as it was limited to 72 copies of which we got about a third of the pressing. Egghatcher is the work of Bay Area free folk avant noisemaker Robert Horton, and features some of the most sublime drones we've heard created from some of the least likely sources. A helicopter flying overhead, crystal glasses, old 78's, all smeared and smoothed into soft slippery slivers of sound. So lovely. A few tracks are not as dronelike, one features vocals, chopped and reassembled into a skittery soundscapes, with occasional blasts of corrosive squeal, while another is constructed from and played on a homemade 4 string guitar constructed from wood found on the street. All quite gorgeous as we've come to expect from Horton.
Again, LIMITED TO 72 COPIES, we have the last 20 or so. Comes packaged in a plastic sleeve with an insert, held together by a twig, and with a VERY strong smelling leaf inside, so each disc smells like flowers or potpourri!
Why doncha sing along with us to the following (as sung to the tune of Doobie Brothers' "Jesus Is Just Alright")?
Daniel is everywhere this year!
Daniel is everywhere, uh huh!
Daniel is everywhere, oh yeah!
Daniel is everywherrrrrrrrrrrrrre!
Now, don't you run away hollerin' "WTF!" if you haven't a clue what we're talking about. You should know that there's not only a big ol' documentary film on the man, but also a big ol' exhibit of his art that's making its way around the U.S and Europe. To boot, there is new music! Whoo hoo! The Electric Ghosts are indeed Daniel Johnston and his buddy (and bandmate in Hyperjinx Tricycle) Jack Medicine. This is a remarkably polished and produced album (and not just by Johnston standards and expectations). It actually sounds like a long-lost Young Fresh Fellows record. Nonetheless, listen a little closer and those Daniel-isms peek through. Y'know, his unmistakable combo of bare-hearted love-sick sentiments and untethered dream/nightmare storytellin'. So good! As has become the custom over the years, you just wanna hug each and every tune including their cover of Bowie's "Scary Monsters"! Produced by Kramer (of Bongwater and Shimmy Disc fame).
Elephone follow up their Shivering cdep with... bunny ears? Wha'?! Not sure if the cover art's intended for Easter time or maybe the band's been hangin' out with Hefner. Hey, that's a pretty good song title, innit? Anyways, these SF fellas have generously offered up a limited edition combo set of 7" record and cd-r (both with the same music). Sort of a return to their earlier more punchy and poppy selves, but also a bit more edgy and angular than their more dramatic, moody recent offerings. Includes a cover of U2's "Seconds". Limited to 200.
YES! Sweden's Elope are back. One of our favorite discoveries of 2004, their No Name Album was Beatlesly (or Wingsy), Neil Youngish, sorta stonery, and maybe a little Stonesy, authentically retro '70s classic rock sounding, utterly entrancing, mostly mellow pure POP genius! So we're excited to hear their new one, 3WD (three wheel drive?? somebody clue us in... maybe now we understand why their first album was more or less untitled). And additionally excited to learn that this is only the first of two new Elope albums due out this year, this one supposedly being the more rockin' one, with another cd coming this fall entitled 9 Distilled Dreams that will focus on mellower, slower, quieter material.
So how's 3WD? Well we couldn't be happier. It is on the uptempo side -- they even break out a boogie now and then -- but still has the wonderfully laidback vibe we loved about their debut. And their abilities in the pop songsmithery department haven't diminished at all. Elope's honeyed vocals and harmonies help give a gentle glow to the hard-rocking energy on display. Reference points, '60s/'70s retro and otherwise ('cause they sound modern too): The Pretty Things, Pink Floyd, Redd Kross (but not soo nyahh nyahh nyahh), and maybe even a little bit Elliott Smith if he had been more rockinger... And definitely If you like Dungen (especially the poppier side to their psych-pop equation) you should definitely be aware of their talented countrymen Elope.
Totally recommended, and now we're impatiently awaiting the next one!!
The weird thing about this wonderfully weird collaboration, between NYC's premier avant free folk tribalists and legendary German progrock/krautrock combo Embryo, is that it doesn't sound all that different from what we might have expected a new NNCK record to sound like. Not sure what that says, either the two groups were absolutely perfectly in sync, or NNCK are masterful channellers of classic Krautrock jams, or NNCK stole everything they know from Embryo and their sonic brethren, or Embryo are the true masters, aligning themselves with the manic primal tribal sound of NNCK's percussive rituals. Hardly mattters, whichever way you slice it, this record is stunning. Dense and lush, and packed solid with strange and wonderfuls sounds, tribal rhythms, chimes, woodblocks, drum kit, hand drums, hand claps, all sorts of buzzing strings, what sounds like sitars and harpsichords and autoharps, woodwinds, flutes and recorders, and vocals, an impossible array of chanting and moaning, gargling, mumbling, humming, whistling and singing in tongues. Dreamy super melodic grooves give way to full on Wicker Man pagan insanity which further gives way to some clattery free jazz minimalism but always returning to that transcendental tribalism we just can't get enough of. If Embryo add anything to the mix, it's a warmth and melodicism that sometimes seems to be missing from a a lot of the more abstract NNNCK jams. Folks who dug NNCK's recent Qvaris will most certainly find this to their liking as it sounds like a much more dense, much more melodic, much more vibrant exploration and expansion of the songs on that record. And we LOVED that record, so that should tell you something! The more we listen to these songs, the more we think it might not be such a bad idea for this NNCK / Embryo hybrid to just BE the new NNCK, those No Neck guys ought to just ask those Embryo guys to join the band, what the hell, the more the merrier, and judging from this one time jam, the thought of these guys moving forward aas a single unit, and actively exploring the realms of inner and outer musical space, is almost too much for us to handle.
A customer turned us on to this Vermont-based group who have quietly been making their own brand of druggy hippy psych folk, releasing loads of cd-r's and this here lp, and it seems like only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on and they'll be psych-folk household names like Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart. Simple strummed guitars, sweet sweet harmonies, banjo and occasional acid fried guitars, simple and insistent tribal drumming, very reminiscent of seventies British folk a la Incredible String Band, Shirley Collins, even Comus (but not nearly as psychotic). However, they do occasionally wander down a darker path, exploring moody and minor key acoustic dirges, each one curiously ominous folky swirl beneath a brooding strum and thump. There's also an old timey element to Feathers, the tracks sound so old, but timeless at the same time, almost otherworldly (assuming the other world had banjos and folk music and record players) sounding a lot like sitting in a dusty room listening to old 78's.
Comes with a big poster of the band all painted up and luxuriating in the tall green grass.
How do you make a record after releasing two of the best records of the last decade? Back to back amazing albums that will stand the test of time. How do you follow up that feat?? Well instead of making something quite as monumental and epic as those records the Lips just decided to make another damn good album. At war with the powers that be and those on the other side who get it all so wrong in their fanatical ways. Somehow The Flaming Lips have managed to become a voice of reason in these all too weird times. With some nods to their Clouds Taste Metallic past and for sure many of the same reach for the sky dream-on elements of The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Some of the all out fun moments on this record prove once again that no one knows joy better then Wayne Coyne does. "Haven't Got A Clue" will be right up there with one of our favorite songs of the year. The Flaming Lips still got their endearing spirit and creative minds in full swing. We're pretty damn happy that they keep on keeping on.
A new album from this faery tale folk maiden!
Her first two highly acclaimed albums certainly defined her otherworldly music as distinctly of another time and A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing is perhaps even more so (at least for us English monolinguals). Not only is it her interpretations of seven nineteenth century compositions by Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert and Robert Shumann, but it's sung entirely in German. If it weren't for the presence of guest player Brian Goodman's sinewy, distorted guitar, you could easily imagine this being some recently unearthed ancient folk artifact. That said, it is the dissonance of the electrified strings that make for a terrific contrast to Foster's oft-ghostly serenades. Check out the sixth track "Auf Einer Burg". Wow. Spellbinding.
Another mind expanding slab of raga like Ur-drone from Marcia Double Leopards and Pete Majik Markers and company. GHQ again channel the spirt of Henry Flynt and Angus Maclise, harnessing a slippery melodic buzz into a warm soundscape of sonic solar flares and a vast symphony of warm whir and creaking groaning magnificence. Like some shadowy cloaked figure standing at a podium like mound of dirt in the middle of a field, conducting nature: crickets and frogs and all of mother nature's noisemakers into a slow moving swirl of sound. And that's just the first track. The rest of the disc explores hippy krautrocky jams with muted buzzy steel string guitars, hand drums, drifting ethereal vocals, moody melancholy melodies, sitar-like buzz all cloaked in a gauzy timeless haze, like some long lost ESP freak folk classic.
Released on Hototogisu's Heavy Blossom label. As always, SUPER LIMITED. Packaged in a cool mini hard plastic DVD case with very crusty metal looking black and white artwork.
Exactly As I Am is the third and final chapter in the trilogy of releases in which The Hafler Trio employs the vocals of Jonsi Birgisson as the only source material. The Hafler Trio shouldn't need much of an introduction, as we've championed his work for many years now; but for those of you new to The Hafler Trio, this project is the work of one Andrew M. McKenzie who concerns himself with a rigorous psychoacoustic research that has evolved into a neo-gnostic amalgamation of psychology and spirituality as applied through extreme forms of technology. McKenzie is never easy to digest, even when he might be employing gnostic idioms as a slight of hand to confuse his audience. In recent years, McKenzie has been heavily involved with extremely long-form compositions, most notably How To Slice A Loaf Of Bread whose two parts spanned six cds of sound material, plus a dense amount of additional text. Exactly As I Am along with Exactly As I Say and Exactly As I Do act as a similiarly overwhelming body of work, in which he extracts particular harmonic phrases and angelic drones from the voice of Jonsi Birgisson (best known as the crooner from Sigur Ros). McKenzie is a masterful technician with sound; and he proves his expertise over his craft yet again with Exactly As I Am, as oceanic dronescapes flutter and swell into intensely bright timbres that are so pure as to become almost too much to take.
McKenzie doesn't like his work to be converted into MP3s, and we have obliged his request. So you can only take our word for it, Exactly As I Am is a quite wonderful recording.
How cool is Steve Reid! While a lot of free jazz legends rest on their laurels or keep hashing out the same sounds that were once revolutionary but now just sort of sound stale, Reid is committed to staying current and pushing himself in new and different modes of expression, as evidenced here, where he is teamed up with Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) for a really nice collaboration of drums and electronics. A few lists ago you might remember we reviewed Reid's Spirit Walk in which Hebden lent some helping hands in a very minimal way. This release is much more of an equal pairing of their two worlds. Hebden creates tension and and color with his electronics as Reid so skillfully yet freely goes off on his drum kit. Their recent live show in SF was so totally captivating and full of all the right vibrations. Seeing the two of them on stage with a super sweet kind of father / son dynamic was a sight to see for sure. This seems to be the first in what we hope to be many exchange sessions between these two.
Throbbing, fuzz-distorted, metallic, rhythmic HEAVINESS. Loud too, of course. That's the modus operandi of London, England's oddly named Hey Colossus. Bludgeoning, repetitive riffing, with lotsa wonderful noisiness and modicum of hidden post-rock prettiness, that can definitely put you into a dazed and confused, headbanging trance, the same way our Finnish faves Circle/Pharaoh Overlord can and so often do, right? Described somewhere by somebody as a mix of "Fudge Tunnel and Can" (yes, the grungy UK dirge metallers meet the classic krautrock masters), Hey Colossus themselves would probably admit to sounding more like the former, but legitimately reference such bands as Can and Neu! as influences, along with '80s hardcore and psychedelic stoner rock and more... So while it might be hard to hear beneath the THREE bulldozer guitars, and droning feedback, and cathartic, raw-throat screaming, but a krautrock-inspired 'pulse' is kicking your ass too!
If you don't remember Fudge Tunnel (a good band despite their dodgy name, rather like Hey Colossus) we'd also cite the likes of Zeni Geva, Melvins, Isis, godheadSilo, Shellac, Figure Of Merit, and the aforementioned Pharaoh Overlord as diverse batch of comparisons towards the primarily sludgey aspect of HC's sound.
Long overdue reissue of the out of print debut from Hush Arbors, aka Keith Wood. These tracks are warm and rich, hazy and mysterious free folk explorations of the highest order, each track like some long lost artifact, buried beneath a hundred year old tree, in the middle of the forest, and only just discovered, dusted off and allowed to play...
Woozy warbly drones, thick and dense, rumble and whir over a delicate bed of foresty folk, dreamy and blissy and otherworldly. Wood's fragile falsetto soars high above, another soft swirly layer in the dense tapestry of Hush Arbors' sound. This is exactly what you would expect to hear stumbling upon a forest cathedral, a mighty structure of bent limb trees, thick foliage, a soft wet bed of leaves underfoot, dark but for occasional shafts of sunlight, somber with hushed reverence but so alive and infused with energy, warm and safe and beautiful. Some tracks are fragile dreamlike folk, reminding us a bit of the Skygreen Leopards, due in no small part to the sweet swoonsome oh so high vocals, while other tracks forego melody completely instead opting to drift lazily, wrapping the word in a wreath of sonic shimmer.
Packaged in a plastic sleeve with a cool gold metallic paper sleeve. Includes brief liner notes from Six Organs Of Admittance's Ben Chasny.
Wow, is this ever a surprise. The sensitive side of Jesu. Which is weird since Jesu was sort of the sensitive side of Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Final, Techno Animal, Napalm Death). Maybe sensitive is not the right word. Poppy? Yeah, that might fit too. Hot on the heels of two epic mindblowers, the self-titled full length and the Heartache ep, Silver finds Broadrick exploring the pop side of his personality. Writing proper songs, even SINGING. Weird but still cool. Just a bit... unexpected.
The two previous Jesu records took the bleak mechanical pummel of Godflesh and doused it with My Bloody Valentine guitar bliss out, and huge swaths of M83 guitar fuzz. A truly unique blend of ominous crunch and swirly shimmer. Pulsin, lengthy epic jams, sparkling, glistening and gauzy, a sort of soft focus alien krautrock. We were obviously immediately smitten.
So this half hour long 4 song ep is basically a pop record. Seriously. Hard to believe but it's true. Melodically and songwriting wise, these tracks sound like they came straight off of an early nineties Sebadoh or Superchunk record. Lilting and sort of bittersweet. Classic sounding early nineties indie rock wrapped in thick glistening swirls of fuzz guitar, that guitar being the only thing keeping it from sounding like something on Merge records. Not sure what to call it, maybe industrial indie rock, fuzzy jangle dirge, both are pretty accurate. Too bad this ISN'T a nineties college rock record, it easily would have been my instant favorite back then. Sweet sad boy bedroom mope rock but with super fuzzed out METAL GUITARS!!?? C'mon, how much would that have trumped every record you had back then? But even now because of the unlikely mix of moody indie rock and pounding dirgey fuzz, this still sounds pretty fresh. Thick walls of fuzzy guitars, warbly warped melodies,Ôsweet melodic jangle, some killer catchy hooks, and those sort of classic plaintive, mopey Mac / Lou sad boy vocals. Track three is the first one to get all M83, blissy and blown out and sweetly shimmery, a plodding sun dappled dirge, but the more we listen the more this sounds like a record Codeine would have made if they were still making records. Sort of sweetly depressive, but with a dark tail dragging vibe. On first listen, we were sort of bummed out, this is SO different than the other two Jesu records, but the more we listen, the more we're beginning to think this jus might be our favorite yet. A record that is both soft and sweetly melodic, but thick and heavy and blown out is a rare beast indeed. And now that we hear the Codeine in Jesu, we're even more sold. For our money, Codeine left a gaping hole when they called it quits, slowcore or moperock or whatever continued to move forward but never with the same intensity or emotion, until now perhaps. The final track is the strangest. A sort of M83 / Jesus And Mary Chain style effects laden bliss out, with loads of swooshing backwards loops, shimmery stretches of light as air vaporous guitar, and even a super chunky Godfleshy break part way through. Awesome. The best industrial dirge jangle indie bliss slowcore doom pop ep ever??
There's something truly magical about music in nature. And we don't mean the music we find in nature, although more often than not, that natural music is far more interesting and beautiful then anything we humans can conjure up. No, we're talking about playing music -with- nature, -in-nature. The act of collaborating with something so big, so grand, so overwhelmingly complex, that sometimes just the mere act of creating sounds away from the studio or stage, just being outside in nature with your music, can seem truly divine. And as listeners, there is something thrilling about man and nature working together to make music. From the primitive forest black metal blast of Ulver recording Nattens Madrigal in the Norwegian woods, to the Jewelled Antler collective communing with nature, allowing wind and rain and sticks and stones to play as important a part in their music as they themselves, to the rain soaked ritual of Koukiji Kougezan's Live [11th] Final Hyakusenmansyuuraku, a near ambient performance for flute and sitar, with the falling rain, and thus nature, the focal point of the ritual / performance. So lovely, and vital, the music seems so much more whole, so much more alive, all intertwined with the elements.
Osmose was originally released in 1978 and found minimalist composer Ariel Kalma using all manner of keyboards, saxophone, harmonium, delays, effects, even circular breathing, to compose gorgeously minimal, softly spacey slow drifting ambient soundscapes, which were then mixed with the sounds of the rainforest (recorded by Richard Tinti). But unlike new age meditational music, this wasn't just music layered on top of random bits of field recordings, Kalma actually composed and mixed, edited and arranged his compositions to work with and within the sounds of the rainforest. Abstract melodies and warm chordal swirls, simple tribal war drums, perfectly blended with the calls of crickets and frogs and cicadas, the falling rain, birdsongs, flies, and all the sounds of the jungle forest. It sounds almost as if, while walking through the forest, you'd be just as likely to stumble across a bunch of analog synthesizers basking in a sunny glade or a wheezing harmonium perched in low hanging branches as you would frogs gathered by the edge of the stream. Sounds strange, but that's how interconnected the natural sounds are with Kalma's compositions. The distant animal calls sometimes form primitive loops, while Kalma paints them with warm soft smears of sound, extended drones and dreamy drifty ambience. Simple rhythms repeat while the sounds of the forest drift lazily by, everything sun dappled or rain soaked, It's almost like a pop ambient record recorded deep in the forest primeval. Or stumbling upon some ancient burial ground and discovering traces of some long gone krautrock jam, which over time had somehow sunk deep into the earth, or floated off into the sky, leaving nothing but memories, a handful of bones, sonic echoes of its former self. Sounds like ghosts, drifting like spirits through the leaves of the trees, floating weightless above the wet leaves and rich soil. Warm and fuzzy, dreamy and blissed out, so completely lovely and quite possibly our new favorite record to drift off to...
Includes three bonus tracks recorded at the same time as the original lp, but unreleased until now, as well as a booklet of liner notes detailing the lives of both Ariel Kalma and Richard Tinti, as well as the genesis of Osmose.
Just like Hydra Head's Live In Chicago DVD by Pelican that we (oh so briefly) had in stock last year, this is *super limited edition* release... we were only able to get 30 of them and half of those are already gone! So, Khanate fans, act fast and maybe you'll get one...we're sorry in advance if you don't.
This captures (and limitedly releases, ha) angsty doom merchants Khanate in the live realm, sometime last year. If you've ever seen this band, you know that they don't exactly 'rock out', having a somewhat static stage presence, though vocalist Alan Dubin always puts on an impassioned performance. Fortunately for those of you who'll be lucky enough to watch this at home, this is a very 'arty' visual document -- the live video footage has been processed to be all the more grim and psychedelic. Cool to look at, while of course the music is murder-by-decibels, feedback-filled, downtuned DOOOOOOOM like you expect. Nuff said, we expect these to be gone in less time that it takes to read this review....
Last list we reviewed the new Young People album which we quite liked. Its minimal avant pop and stripped down approach got us thinking of Young Marble Giants and a record by a UK band called Klang that came out a few years back but sadly didn't seem to make much of a splash here in the states. This is that record. So seductive, sensual and mesmerizing in it's ability to rope you into its luring world of post krautrock fake-em-out-with-simplicity approach to indie rock that will make you think of groups like Broadcast, Quixotic and Electrelane. The vocals of Donna Matthews (ex-Elastica) are so perfectly suited for this style. We're so happy she left Elastica to form this outfit as this is leaps and bounds more creative and satisfying then anything her previous band ever did. One of those records that ends before you want it to and never has a weak moment throughout. They leave you wanting so much more and we'll keep our fingers crossed for something new from them soon. Until then make sure you check this out!
Those Lambchop folks are so generous and prolific! They've followed up their two albums Aw C'mon and No You C'mon from 2004 with this hearty offering of eighteen odds and ends. This Nashville band seldom disappoints, always playing with an abundance of energy, wit and heart. We've said it before and we'll say it again, while listening to songs like "Loretta Lung" or "Mr. Crabby" it's remarkable just how much frontman Kurt Wagner's voice bears a resemblance to that of Vic Chesnutt. They surely have many fans in common (or if not, they should!). Heck, Chesnutt has even played with Lambchop in the past. Theirs is some terrific dark country rock that can be all gorgeously slinking 'n' smoldering or all rugged 'n' stubbly. A couple of fitting comparisons that we'll use once more are: Vic Chesnutt fronting the Tindersticks or a countrified Luna. Highlights include "Ovary Eyes" and the aforementioned "Mr. Crabby".
Whether intentional or not, Jens Lekman is one heckuva celebrity impersonator. On his new album, the Swedish gent does uncanny impressions of Mark Kozelek, Morrissey, Erlend Oye, and Stephin Merritt among others. Take for instance the remarkably Magnetic Fields-y tune "Black Cab". We should note that where the similarities lie is not just in his varied vocal deliverys, but in the way he also rearranges his instrumentation for each tune -- thoroughly recreating the other artists' sounds, be they Mancini-esque swirling strings'n'harps, warm strummy guitars with gently sparkling chimes or a little tickling of the ivories. A couple of other songs struck us a strangely familiar, and then we realised what they reminded us of... Peter Paul & Mary's "Puff The Magic Dragon"! He's not shy about borrowing either. Take for example the song "Pocketful Of Money". He wisely knew better than to attempt Calvin Johnson's baritone and instead duets with a sample of Johnson singing "I'll come running with a heart on fire" from the Beat Happening tune "Gravedigger's Blues". Whoa, sorta weird. We even suspect he even nabbed a melodic phrase from The Carpenters' song "Yesterday Once More" for his harp embellished seventh song "Rocky Dennis' Farewell Song" which is followed by the oh so Joe Jackson meets Morrissey number "Rocky Dennis In Heaven". Aaah, if you can somehow turn a blind eye to the "hey, this sounds like ____!" distraction, and you like the folks Lekman sounds like, you'll surely find much to enjoy on Oh, You're So Silent Jens. All irkiness aside, we still think this is a very pretty album well suited to accompany a string of spring sunrises.
Seems to be a lot of Liars haters out there. But hasn't the Right Wing taught us anything about hate? That when something is hated so much, it attracts people to see for themselves, and in opposition, not only like it, but defend it! Maybe in some kind of paranoid Machiavellian plot, the haters are actually on the Liars payroll, because we couldn't help but like Drum's Not Dead. Sure the flimsy "concept" about the creative process between two opposing figures, Drum and Mt. Heart Attack, falls a little flat. And they only have two ideas here (mathy percussive heavy clattery shreik and murky drony ambient murmuring), obvously inspired by sipping from the Black Dice / Animal Collective teapot. But at the end of the day it comes down to this, Drum's Not Dead is just a way more enjoyable listen than the latest outings from Black Dice (Broken Ear Record) or Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice (Gypsy Freedom) or a handful of other avant rockers. What can you do? They make the rain feel good. Check it out.
Madlib is a man of so many musical hats and so far we gotta say that no matter which one he is wearing we eat up whatever it is he's serving. A few months ago it was his live band Sound Directions and their spot on take on 70's funk & soul. This release finds him back behind his turntables with crates full of old great soul records, and his sampler and drum machines all fired up. The end result is 35 hip-hop instrumentals that are short, sweet and keep intact the raw analog quality of their source material. Madlib doesn't use computers in his music making process and maybe that's partly why he's always able to keep such a nice raw sound in everything he does. While his love of 70's soul & funk runs deep, he also throws in some great surprising samples along the way. Hearing Madlib drop the needle on Van Dyke Parks pretty much made our day. Like J Dilla's (R.I.P.) swan song, this is sonic collage done right, with skill and soul.
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!
Maleficia is the work of Bay Area noise artist Andy Way (French Radio, NF Orchest) and avant-vocalist Ilysea Simpson. Their debut cd-r begins with an evocative wordless vocalization from Simpson conjuring the likes of Christina Carter and Jarboe in decontextualizing Southern hymns away from their spiritual intent and toward the raw emotional expression of just voice. After about five or six minutes of a capella delivery, Simpson's duet with Way begins as he gradually unleashes a torrent of tactile noise, all bathed in reverb, which somewhat mutes the sharpness of the distortion, static, and turbulant noise. As her voice becomes more processed and takes on more shrill characterists alongside Way's caustic noise, Maleficia begin to resemble the volatile noise and voice couplings of Fe-Mail to remarkable results. Stitched paper artwork completes this limited edition production of which we only have a handful.
Y'know there are people who aren't just nice guys, but who exude such a positive vibe that it's downright contagious? Shaggy Manatee is one of them. He's the man behind the Quaketrap label (featuring hip hop and electronic artists such as Australia's Macromantics, Yoko Solo, Thug Emporium and the man himself). Since he's a neighbor of ours (psst, he's also a purveyor of yummy breakfast delights), we see him often and regardless of the time of day, he's always bursting with energy and enthusiasm. And that vibe is all over In Between.
We've had this album on vinyl for a spell, but we're pleased to report that it's now on cd too with a handful of bonus tracks! One of them ("Breathe") is a collaboration between Shaggy Manatee and Macromantics, and we've come to realize that their combined forces never fail to dish out the good stuff. As a whole, In Between is a stimulating concoction of good times, heady atmospheres, and varied beats galore... and the joint efforts of Shaggy and his many guests effectively conveys the Quake Trap crew's social conscience too. However, even when things darken in Manatee land there's a bit of levity that shines through.
Poor misunderstood Charlie Manson. Visionary, musician, troubador, murderer. Wait, one of those things he is not. Murderer. That's right, let's not forget that Manson committed no murders himself, it was his 'Family' that did 'em. Which of course insured that these recordings would be both way more infamous than they would be otherwise, but at the same time would be poison to any one who agreed to release them. Recorded a couple years before the Tate-LaBianca murders, these recordings have a rich convoluted history: it was rumored that the intended victim of the murders was in fact a record producer that rejected this record, and every producer approached to release them later recieved death threats, and it was later proven that much more succesful musicians than Manson had been taargeted for assasination! Phew. You'd never know it listening to this album. In fact, in a blind listening test, you'd be hard pressed to pick this out as the work of a soon to be incarcerated cult leader / mass murderer. Reverb drenched beatniky psychedelic freekfolk, sort of hippy and trippy but really pretty great. And Manson's voice is really nice, a little rough, a little raw, but warm and rich. The tracks range from gorgeous lilting dream folk to tripped out beatnik jams, to sixties psych rock, complete with bongos, acoustic guitar, strange clattery percussion, noodly electric leads, all with lots of delay and reverb giving the whole thing a rich shimmery vibe. Not all that surprising as Manson was BIG into music. Read any of the Brian Wilson / Beach Boys bios, and you'll find the Boys spending a great deal of time hanging with Manson, who seemd to always be a fixture at big Beach Boys bashes, and threw wild parties at his desert hideaway Spahn Ranch. And indie rockers have been obsessed with Manson Sings for years, always talking it up as a lost folk gem and sometimes even covering Manson's songs (the Lemonheads do a killer (sorry) version of "Home Is Where You're Happy").
Fans of the current crop of indie hippy forest folk, like Devendra, Feathers, Wooden Wand, Fursaxa and the like should realize, if they don't already, and whether they like it or not, that they have a freak folk father figure in the form of one Charles Manson...
This new version has extensive liner notes by Phil Kaufman, road manager of the Stones, Joe Cocker, Frank Zappa and others, ESP label honcho Bernard Stollman, as well as an interview with Manson himself.
Newest issue of this long running Bay Area punk rock institution. Still newsprint, still punk as fuck. This issue is appropriately the "Is Business Killing Punk Rock?" issue! With a huge article (just part one mind you) on DIY punk rock and the imortance of independence, with contributions from punk labels like Jade Tree, G7 Welcoming Commitee, Dr. Strange, 625, Havoc, Dischord and more. And of course loads of interviews with a bunch of bands / artists / writers we've never heard of: Soviet Valves (AUS), Suburban Death Machine (US), Frustrations (US), George Hurchulla, author of Going Underground: American Punk 1979-1992, as well as a bunch of cool excerpts from a forthcoming book by AQ pal and J-Church frontman Lance Hahn about Crass and all those anarcho bands, this time around, Icon A.D. and Dominant Patri, also a Vitamin X tour diary and finally an article about now defunct NY club ABC NO RIO.
And as always tons of book reviews, movie reviews, record reviews (only punk rock, and only independent labels), loads of letters, a bunch of columns (including a very metal one by former AQ mailorder monkey Elliott), punk rock news, scene reports (Greece, Czech Republic) and lots more.
What with all the obscure and amazing early 70's folk reissues that have been released in the past couple of weeks (Mary Anne Patterson, Roger Rodier, Charles Manson), we decided to bring in a remastered classic (or dinosaur, depending on which side of the fence you reside): Joni Mitchell's breakthrough third album, Ladies of the Canyon. At the same time, unbeknownst to us, the always unpredictable label Numero Group releases the inaugural compilation in a new series called Wayfaring Strangers by tracing the immediate influence of this landmark album from 1970 on cuts from 12 female private press recording artists (See review elsewhere). The Circle Game indeed!
Landmark album, Ladies of the Canyon was a turning point recording for Mitchell, because it captures her between the more idealistic child-like sixties folk-pop of her previous album, Clouds (featuring "Chelsea Morning", and "Both Sides Now"), and the later more introspective and existential odes to a post-Woodstock dream deferment (For the Roses, Blue). While its familiar standards, "The Circle Game" and "Big Yellow Taxi", annoy now more than delight (thanks for nothing, Counting Crows!), it is in the lesser-known songs like "Conversation", "The Priest" and "The Arrangement" where her mature songwriting and arrangements shine through the delicate airs. Her take on "Woodstock" is not the nostalgic daydream that Crosby Stills and Nash covered, but a poignantly bitter lament devastatingly delivered. LOTC is equally catchy, pretty, challenging, haunting, and in parts irksome to the point of frustration, BUT, that's the point. Joni Mitchell is a singer who is easier to not like than to like; she has no qualms waiting for you to come to her. But once you get her, she can dazzle and amaze (Rent The Last Waltz, if you don't believe us). The sound samples may not convince you, since LOTC is the epitome of AOR, and really needs to be heard in its entirety, alone in a quiet place, away from judging eyes to reach full effect. Then you will see that Joni Mitchell is an artist (and sometimes guilty pleasure) who like, Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks, and Yoko Ono, can be forgiven for their peculiar brand of pretensions because their originality, talent and influence cannot be denied, like it or not. Also recently reissued, her Court and Spark album.
If you've followed Tokyo's Mono, you will know that their brand of post-rock is the kind that is equal parts orchestrated beauty and slow building metallic eruptions. This sound gets them mentioned in the same breath as kindred spirits Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky. There is no denying that they aren't really reinventing this sound by now, but what they are doing is releasing really consistent and good records one after the other. This one unfolds really nicely as an entire album. The slow build, the pretty beginning, the subtle tension building, and then the loud eruption which breaks down in shimmering waves. Unlike some of their contemporaries, they have kept their songs vocal free and we thank them for that as we can all attest to the fact that so often post rock or metallic post rock or whatever you want to call it can suffer from some pretty uninspired sounding vocals thrown sort of randomly on top. You get the feeling listening to this record that Mono are quite particular and precise in a way that doesn't feel forced but instead you can feel their labor and thought as you listen to every note on this record.
