The Second chapter of Clodagh Simonds experimental voice project trilogy continues to explore the tenuous boundaries of traditional songforms while collaborating with some heavyweight electronic composers such as Brian Eno, Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio) and Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound). Simonds is best known for her early '70s work with British Folk outfit Mellow Candle (she also appears on Current 93's new record), and her voice here remains tethered as pulsating sounds of harmonium and glass instruments, trumpets, and electronics float like ghosts through the ether-like arrangements. Like the previous chapter, it's very short, clocking in about 19 minutes, which may call into question the expense. But this project is not about casual listening. Like reading an Emily Dickinson poem (as the sticker on the front compares this to), you are meant to ponder and drink in every nuance, turn of phrase and weight of breath. Put your player on repeat, and you will not hear the same song twice.
An album many years in the making, Elements is the debut offering from French Radio, a collaborative effort between Bruce Anderson (MX80), Jim Kaiser (Petit Mal), and Andy Way (Maleficia). The record has finally been released, graced with cover art featuring the ever-eccentric drawings of M.S. Waldron / irr.app.(ext.). In many ways, the album is curiously prescient of our recent fascination with all things on the Lampse label, in particular that Jasper, TX record I'll Be Long Gone Before My Light Reaches You although realized through the context of grizzled improvisation instead of a loosely sutured structuralism. Each of the four tracks on Elements represent the primordial fundamentals: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Through their constructions of guitar, turntable, tapes, and boat-loads of effects, French Radio conjures an interconnected sound between all of their base elements. The flanging tone-float activity of mangled electricity into distant clouds of din, crackle, and spectral dust has the threatening aura of an electrocutioner's chamber buzzing with high-voltage tension. Unrecognizably abstracted vocal collages culled from varispeed tapes and reverse spun turntables spiral in and out of the ominous clouds, topped with squalid layers of thunderous distortion alternating with mournful half-melodies strummed on Anderson's guitar. Limited to 100 copies.
A dark and dreamy drift through a late night world of moonlit sound from this UK driftrock slowcore duo. Silky serpentine guitar lines, moody meandering dreaminess, hushed whispery vocals, simple brooding dark ambient swirl, disembodied melodies. So so lovely. Like your favorite Low songs, set adrift in outer space, reflecting the twinkle of distant stars, shimmering in the soft vacuum of space. So absolutely gorgeous and otherworldly.
Packaged in a hand numbered black digipak with a tiny square piece of mirror affixed to the front.
There's always room in the world for a new music magazine, especially one obviously undertaken with a passion for the music covered inside, well written and interestingly laid out. And we're always in need of a new metal magazine for sure. Considering Terrorizer is so hard to get, Decibel can be a bit too snarky and ironic sometimes, and Metal Maniacs is a good read, but ultimately really light weight. So we're pleased as punch that there's a new metal mag on the block. The appropriately titled Hails & Horns. This is issue number one, so we can assume they're still feeling their way around, but even so, this is a pretty great magazine heavy on the metalcore for sure, but plenty of death/black/thrash/doom as well, and jam packed with tons of articles. It feels really thin, but open it up and it's a bit hard to believe how many bands are covered. There's only a few pages of reviews in this first issue, instead the focus is on metal news and articles and interviews with band after band after band. On the cover, Underoath. Inside, an interview with Tom Araya of Slayer, a look at the Finnish metal / black metal scene, a history of the West Memphis Three (three kids imprisoned for supposedly murdering three local children, but more realistically imprisoned for being goth rock weirdos / individual thinkers) and an update on recent developments in the case, columns from Bill Ward of Black Sabbath and Kurt Ballou from Converge, in the studio with Norma Jean, Misery Signals and more, as well as articles about / interviews with Poison The Well, Ministry, Summoning, Rammstein, In Flames, Amorphis, Children Of Bodom, Behemoth, Cathedral, Atreyu, Sepultura, Fall Of Troy, Arch Enemy and a whole lot more.
Plus every issue will come with a cd featuring new and unreleased songs. This time around: Goatwhore, Satyricon, Misery Index, Torche, Shadows Fall, Underoath, Arch Enemy, Cattle Decapitation, Unearth, Eighteen Visions, Artimus Pyledriver and lots more.
Not bad for five bucks!
We won't go into too much detail with this one as it was limited to 75 copies of which we got the last 20. Heavy Winged are a NY psychedelic, dronerock combo with lots of buzzing drone guitar, tribal drums, blissed out riffing, think Dead C, recent aQ faves Burnt Hills, Hawkwind, plenty of that Loop/Spacemen 3 droning riffage, lots of My Bloody Valentine shimmer, and plenty of strange and wonderful ambient guitar action, swoops and swoons, buzzing and droning, looping and squealing. Pretty fucking awesome.
Limited to 75 copies, each one hand numbered, packaged with a cool little prehistoric looking little plant frond, tied shut with a little piece of twine.
For his second release under the moniker Helios Keith Kenniff (also of Goldmund) has crafted pretty gauzy post-rock instrumentals from feathery melodic wisps of guitar, keyboards and electronics set atop soothing dronescapes. Imagine an album filled with solely the hushed, delicate atmospheric passages of artists such as Mogwai, Sigur Ros, Mum, Album Leaf, and many artists on the Temporary Residence label. Really really lovely. A blissed out soother.
There are a many sides to the busy and talented Matthew Herbert. Some people know him for his more experimental outings, like last years Plat Du Jour which was an excellent political record and statement against the corporate food industry using food, coke cans, apples crunching, pigs in shit, etc. as the source material for a very adventurous and successful outing. Others know him simply as Herbert, one of the most innovative 'house' producers of the last decade. And for others his name rings most familiar for his skilled remixes for the likes of Bjork, Jamie Lidell, Soft Pink Truth, Super Fury Animals, Harold Budd, etc. In many ways Scale feels like the follow up to Bodily Functions, his 2001 album which mixed warm recordings, danceable beats, creative arrangements, and the sultry vocals of Dani Siciliani. For Scale, Herbert went all out. Whether it was recording a drummer under water, an orchestra at Abbey Road or using the sounds from fuel pumps and coffins as source material, one can listen to this record and not know any of that and just revel in its totally pleasurable overall sound. With Siciliani singing as beautifully as ever, and melodies that are so irresistible, this is that sort of smart and seductive dance record that sadly is so rare to come by these days.
The first thing you'll notice about the newest from Swedish black metallers Heresi is the amazing artwork, a dark shadowy tangle of demon parts, gnashing teeth, sharp claws, desiccated flesh, all with that awesome oil on canvas texture from the original painting. Flip it over and feast your eyes on a baby head in the grips of a taloned claw, its blood emptying into a blood filled dish held by the very same demon, his teeth flashing in the corner. Ugh. Why does the art look so familiar? It just so happens to be from a painting by Wrest from Leviathan and is totally striking and super creepy. Perfect for this newest release from Skamfer, and his one man black horde Heresi. This is the sequel to last years Psalm I and is even heavier, faster, more grim and more darkly depressive. Skamfer is an ex member of the mighty Ondskopt and it sounds like it. Furious blazing black metal fuzz, a thick wash of mosquito buzz riffage, pounding blast beats, howled guttural vocals, but like with Ondskapt, a surprisingly melodic flair. A soaring mournful majesty buried beneath the swirling wall of blackness. Think Deathspell Omega, Onskapt obviously, Ofermod, Funeral Mist, and you'll get an idea of where Heresi fall. Very Swedish sounding, with lots of death metal elements, but also plenty of weird psychedelic guitar leads, creepy harmonies and dense tangled arrangements, all doused in black blood and wrapped in spiked fury. Heavy and hypnotic and so fucking great.
We hate to do this to you again, but here goes. This is a super limited (only 42 copies), gorgeously hand assembled cd-r release from the mysterious Hoor-Paar-Kraat. We only got a dozen or so, but at least that means 12 AQ customers will be among the chosen few.
Dark meandering soundscapes of creaking ambience, cavernous drones and slow burning rumble. Processed metallic clatter, whirring spacious muted murmur, occasional roars of ultra distorted feedback, drenched in FX and stretched into squirming streaks of fuzz and grit and all manner of serene drift and delicately diffused bliss.
So totally captivating. We promise next time we'll try to get ALL of them, but for now, act fast before these are snapped up.
The packaging is pretty fantastic as well. Thick textured oversized sleeves with a super wide rough edged Japanese style obi embossed with vines and ivy, a hand numbered insert with songtitles affixed to the underside, the obi attached to the sleeve with tiny black rivets, the textured paper of the sleeve artfully stained with dark watercolors, and signed by the artist. The disc too is off-white with water color splatter and is also signed by the artist. WOW!
Hot Chip follow up their debut with an even more satisfying collection of smart and fun electronic pop. With a more assured yet equally creative and satisfying sound, this record seems less self-conscious and more realized than Coming On Strong. Listening to Hot Chip sort of feels like going to a disco with super sweet nerdy boys in glasses. They have no problem shaking their asses yet manage to stay sensitive and intelligent at the same time. Even at their most catchy there is something bittersweet underneath it all that makes Hot Chip such a satisfying and pleasing listen. Folks who like The Postal Service, more recent Notwist and have Daft Punk records in their collection should check this out for sure!
Quite possibly one of the nicest lp packages we have seen. Definitely top 10. Hard to even know how to describe it. You sort of have to hold int and unfold it and feel the texture and the heft. Wow. Thick textured cardstock, fastened all over with black rivets, the whole thing embossed and letterpressed with black ink, abstract designs and very classy looking calligraphy, the back is die cut about half way down, so it opens like a barn door, split down the middle, held shut by black string, once opened, it reveals the 180 gram lp nestled inside as well as still more embossed design and text. So gorgeous.
And the music is definitely deserving of such over the top extra attention. A reissue of a long out of print cd-r, Hush Arbors explore a dark murky side of their soul, a drifting cloudy otherworld of soft freefolk bliss, flecked with all manner of detuned guitars, warped melodies, creaking percussive clatter, shimmery effervescence, but with a definite ominous edge, a lo-fi Third eye Foundation recording for Siltbreeze maybe? But with more twang, and more shuffle, and more delicate dreaminess. So nice.
An essential dreamfolk / free folk / folknoise / dronetwang artifact beautifully preserved and offered up again for a very limited time.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each copy hand numbered, we got a bunch but these definitely won't last.
This is as much a piece of amazing sound art as it is a critical catalogue of environmental abuse and a tribute to the folks working to solve those problems. EVERY SINGLE CENT from sale of these discs (that's all fifteen bucks from each), will be donated by us to support Greenaction For Health & Environmental Justice (check it out: http://www.greenaction.org). But this is not just a great cause that directly affects us all, this is an amazing sonic travelogue. Essential listening for fans of sound art, as well as anyone concerned with the state of our earth and the way pollution affects our communities.
For those of us who have spent years driving up and down highway 5, all of these locations will be immediately recognizable. However, this is a depressing, but also inspiring, glimpse at spots on the map that have existed as just blurs on the side of the highway. This long in the works project plays like a series of This American Life vignettes, chronicling the environmental abuses along Highway I-5, which runs the length of California including random field recordings, incidental music and interviews with concerned families, activists, children and members of various communities. This project covers points From Hunter Point in Bayview to Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles, and is a self guided critical audio tour which attempts to illuminate the "invisible toxic landscape" by focusing on the story of people and organizations struggling for environmental justice. Two discs, one focuses on North, Hunters Point to Kettleman City, the second disc is South, from Alpaugh to Boyle Heights. Each stop along the tour is infamous for some environmental violation or another. Some are obvious (Livermore), some not so. But each directly effects families, their health and homes. It's enormously inspiring to hear these folks talk about what is being done, but simultaneously so depressing to realize how shortsighted so much of modern industry and local government can be. And it's so creepy to think about all the stops along highway 5 from every road trip, just random pit stops for gas, food, bathroom breaks, whatever, and to learn what sort of thoughtless abuses were occurring in all of these places, really intense, and sad because you know these instances are merely the tip of the iceberg.
You can hear the sounds of children playing, families talking, birds chirping, cars whizzing by, wind and rain, footsteps, ambient clatter and background noise, other discussions, as well as dreamy background music, all a dense rich sonic background to this series of totally engaging interviews.
Packaged in a gorgeous full color 6 panel fold out sleeve, with a massive booklet, with maps, and liner notes, extensive notes on each location, the environmental abuse, and each interviewee. This definitely makes us want to take an Invisible 5 roadtrip, stopping to observe the carelessness of humanity, and hopefully be inspired to help bring about change.
So by all means BUY THIS NOW. It's totally amazing to hear and see and listen to. Incredibly well researched and obsessively assembled, totally timely and something that directly affects us all, especially here since in this case all of these locations are in California, but you know you could do a project like this on any highway in any state in the country, which is indeed a very sad thing.
SO DO YOUR SMALL PART. BUY THIS NOW! DIG THESE AMAZING PEOPLE, THESE FASCINATING SOUNDS, AND REMEMBER, 100 PERCENT OF THE PROCEEDS OF THIS DISC GO TO SUPPORT GREENACTION FOR HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE!! AND WE CAN GUARANTEE THAT AFTER LISTENING TO THESE STORIES YOU'LL FEEL LIKE DOING SO MUCH MORE. WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT!
After 26 years of cultivating an identity of secrecy, Jandek emerged on October 17, 2004 to perform live for the first time at a festival held at The Arches in Glasgow, Scotland. Many have expressed disappointment at the fact that the famously reclusive Jandek has "thrown away" his cultural cache by making a public appearance; but if you consider that Jandek declined to speak to anyone before or after the show and only spoke in undisclosed communications with the promoter and his collaborators, Jandek continues to take considerable efforts to maintain his distance from the public. So don't fret. Even though he has made this public appearance, do we really know more about Jandek than we did prior to this event? No, not really. The only thing that we can know for sure is that he's more clued into the avant-garde that had been previously thought since his collaborators were Richard Youngs and Alex Neilsen, though that could have been the doing of the festival's promoter. Plus Jandek's whole career makes it clear that he should, can and does do what he wants.
Glasgow Sunday is the recording of that historic Jandek performance; and no matter what your opinion is of Jandek's decision to make a public appearance, this recording is fantastic. Youngs and Neilsen keep their input strictly as a rhythm section never to upstage Jandek himself. Throughout the entire set, Richard Youngs keeps his bass within a controlled variation of an elliptical throb and Neilsen does the quiet tumble down the stairs thing on the drum kit. But it's Jandek who really shines. His strangulated blues chords have the same jangling atonality of his earliest records (i.e. Ready For The House), and his deepened baritone voice snakes through his signature revelatory darkness: "I'm floating in a sea of red / Drowning down, can't get no air / And you done told me / I've got no life / I'm rolling my eyes / The last gasp is coming on." If Jandek's going to come out of his shell to make records this good, who are we to complain!?
Finally another sonic transmission from the mysterious and elusive Jazzfinger. The last we heard from these murky noisesmiths was a VERY expensive, super limited, gorgeously deluxe cd-r way back in 2004, and we, like you were absolutely smitten. We had long been fans, but that was the first release we were able to get enough copies of to reviews. Low profile or not, here was a band who had been lurking on the fringes of the underground, crafting their own dark and wondrous ambient drones and mumbled freerock explorations and who we wanted, nay NEEDED to hear more from. And is if in response to our prayers, what should suddenly appear? A brand new full length from this UK ensemble. And for those of you put off by the almost $30 price tag of their last release, or those of you who just missed out since it was so limited, well here's your chance to dive in.
Sonic brethren to folks like Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra, and often sharing a similar penchant for the ur-drone and various mighty swells of sound, Jazzfinger have managed to in fact carve their own, darker, more minimal path. Almost like a rock band covering Coleclough or Chalk. Jazzfinger are not so much ones for huge squalls of guitar or woodwinds, instead these guys creep and crawl, a low rumbling exploration of dark corners and shadowy otherworlds, of dusty forgotten trunks filled with old objects, abandoned buildings overgrown with foliage, and wide expanses of barren terrain, colored only by moonlight and the slow whirring drift of their gauzy sonic fog. Strings buzz and shimmer, long form drones stretch way out, while underneath subtle sounds shift and swell, percussion is minimal, a softly struck bell here, a brief clatter of tiny pipes there, only adding color, not rhythm. Melodies drift forth like distant foghorns barely audible through the clouds of a dark and stormy night, guitars are plucked, and strummed, but not to fashion riffs, more to unleash a series of reverberating waves, that build and build, layer upon layer, a thick, head spinning monochrome crawl, organs wheeze out delicate melodies over the omnipresent buzzing steel strings, creating a soft music box like raga, the sound here is definitely dark, and ominous, but suffused with warmth, and life, a subtle glow, an inner light that makes each stretch of slow shifting ambience feel alive and dense with emotion. A totally breathtaking journey through a mysterious universe of dark buzz and warm shimmer.
Super limited and so totally essential.
Not sure what that band name really is all about. This ain't gospel music by a long shot! Jesus With Me was a quartet of Russian-Americans based in New York City, and this cd is a posthumous release documenting the recorded remains of their noisy, energetic, fucked-up jamming, inspired by Japanese psych, krautrock, and (perhaps) their spiritual yearnings. Thus, you get pounding drum clatter and throbbing bass rumble amid a miasmatic cloud of crazed dual guitar distortion on the two long tracks here, with some anguished screams thrown into the mix as appropriate. Imagine Acid Mothers Temple all had a really, really bad day (car towed, guitar stolen, bong busted, beard caught in zipper, lost eBay auction for Gong rarities, that kind of a day) and were trying to cathartically capture it on tape. It's loud, improvised, heavy duty psychedelic free rock freakery not far removed from, say, that Burnt Hills disc we listed a few weeks back, as per the thing we said in that review about "getting super high and diving head first into a huge pile of drums and guitars".
Ahh, the almighty reissue! They bring your old forgotten faves back into your line of vision 'n' hearing and perhaps give you those warm nostalgic fuzzies for days past. We have to admit that we seldom hear anyone proclaiming to be a big Joan Jett fan, but we know you're out there! Now's the time to celebrate 'cause we just got two of her reissues in stock ready to join her brand new full length Sinner. Bad Reputation was her second album which was originally released back in 1981, and its return had a bit of a preliminary resurfacing in 1999 when the classic title track was chosen as the opening theme music for the awesome cult tv series Freaks And Geeks a few years back. But Ms Jett has never really been that far outta earshot, has she? Still kicks the furious bad girl ass this many years later. Recently remastered and sporting a handful of bonus tracks and live footage from '82, '83 and '98. Raw rawkin' rebel grrrrrl fun.
Ahh, the almighty reissue! They bring your old forgotten faves back into your line of vision 'n' hearing and perhaps give you those warm nostalgic fuzzies for days past. We have to admit that we seldom hear anyone proclaiming to be a big Joan Jett fan, but we know you're out there! Now's the time to celebrate 'cause we just got two of her reissues in stock ready to join her brand new full length Sinner. I Love Rock N' Roll was her third album -- and first with her backing band The Blackhearts -- which was originally released back in 1981. Still kicks the furious bad girl ass this many years later. Recently remastered and sporting a handful of bonus tracks and live footage from '83 and '84. Raw rawkin' rebel grrrrrl fun.
Kid 606 keeps up his prolific nature with another release on his Tigerbeat 6 label. This time out the tongue in cheek title gives a hint to the sounds he's brewed up on this outing. Unapologetic '90s sounding techno, with all song titles followed by a listing of the beats per minute. With most songs falling around the 120-136bpm range this is some four on the floor dance till it gets bright out again, pills be kicking in, peaking so nice, dance tracks. Rave Rave Rave. With his heart & spirit in a disco somewhere in Berlin but his body still planted in our backyard in Oakland. Wild.
Super limited (500!) picture disc reissue of these two slabs of black brutality. One side features Bael, who spew forth an ugly, super blown out, ultra distorted black thrash, furious and so fast it often slips into a black blur (reminds us a bit of Diamatregon). Super lo-fi and recorded way too hot (in a good way), all the levels in the red, you can practically feel the evil seeping through the speakers. Originally released in 2003, features a bonus track with Imperial from Kreig on vocals! The flipside features the mighty Krieg, and it's a vinyl reissue of The Church mini cd from way back in 2001. Mega murky and also extremely lo-fi, but where Bael are blasting and blinding, Kreig are muddy and murky and mournful. Plodding midtempo depressive black metal, blasting drums over fuzzed out riffs, hateful and harsh. Also includes an exclusive bonus track, a cover of Earth's "Charioteer" which is awesome. Clean guitars picking out a majestic melody, a spare melodic dirge, meditative and hypnotic, with creepy snatches of conversation mixed in, not heavy as in huge guitars and pounding drums, but heavy like ominous and subtly dark. Cool. Weird that Nachtmystium covered the same Earth track as a bonus track on a recent cd. Hmm....
Black and white picture disc, one side is a blurry washed out photo of some ruins or old church, the other side features a creepy diseased hand.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
Debut album from a Canadian band that you can be sure has a healthy collection of both indie rock and classic rock records that they hold near and dear to their hearts. Crunchy guitar and emotive vocals that echo both '70s rock a la Neil Young & Crazy Horse/CSNY, as well as indie rock luminaries like Dinosaur Jr, Will Oldham, and later era Husker Du as well as roaming some of the same territory as label-mates Black Mountain (which makes sense since some of the folks in Ladyhawk also do time in Black Mountain).
Another mysterious transmission from some haunted forest deep in the wilds of Finland (featuring special guest, AQ fave Lau Nau). And it's everything we've come to love about our deep listening wanders through the deep dark woods. An abstract stroll through a barely there sound world, nothing but creaks and shuffles, breathing, footsteps, instrument buzz, electronic hum and random clatter. Eventually a wheezing horn makes it presence known, and is soon joined by chiming bells and muted percussion. Slowly, the sounds grow and build in volume and intensity, eventually coalescing into a massive Sunroof! like skree, replete with flurries of bells and percussion, swirling swooshing FX like wild stormy winds and mumbled distant drums. And that's just side 1. Side 2 skips around a bit from caveman freejazz with spazzy hand drums, muted percussion, grunted vocals and jazzy skronk, to an ambient symphony of creaking and keening high end very reminiscent of John Cale, to a weird buzzing raga like Eastern groove with the only discernible rhythm to be found, a droney stumbling stagger. Very cool.
Pressed on thick vinyl and packaged in a full color sleeve with killer yarn monster cover art!
Lithops is the alter ego of Jan St. Werner, best known for his main outfit, Mouse On Mars. It's been a few years since he's made a Lithops record and it's actually sounds quite refreshing to our ears. There was a period of time a few years ago that it seemed like one couldn't walk down the block without being bombarded by IDM records from every direction. But hearing one of the most talented fellas of said genre doing what he's always done best is kind of hitting the spot right now. Songs that slowly weave in and out of themselves, orbiting in a lucid space that drifts and wanders so nicely. While other times building up to actual beats and rhythmic moments, with some of his trademark undertones that have made his work in Mouse On Mars so memorable. One of our favorite electronic releases in quite some time!
We're all music nerds, and most of us love reading about records as much as we like listening to them. Reviews, interviews, articles, even looking at ads to see what new records will be coming out. And we all have our favorite magazines, whether it's the modern new music of the Wire, or metal and all things heavy and extreme covered by Terrorizer, neofree folk and jazz like in Signal To Noise, the random hipster bullshit of Vice, and then there's tons of killer zines, Oaken Throne, Salt, etc... So it's easy to forget about -that- magazine. You know the one. Solid, stalwart, distinctly indie rock, covering all the classics, and new favorites, even a handful of next big things, so simple and sturdy and reliable, it often gets overshadowed by its flashier, hipper counterparts. Kind of like the best friend in teen movies, the one who is always there for the main character, the girl that is all crushed out on the asshole football player, while the best friend, who is of course in love with here, gets forgotten and overlooked and ignored, who is is always there to mend a broken heart, offer up a hug, or some cookies, give up hundreds of reviews of the newest indie rock releases, interview loads of killer bands and... okay we're getting confused here. We're talking about Magnet, a pretty dang cool magazine that does get ignored sometimes because it's not as wild or way out or hip as some other rags, but continues to cover a pretty wide swath of indie rock and cover it well. This month, on the cover, Belle & Sebastian, and inside, articles about and interviews with Eddie Vedder, Scott Walker, TV On The Radio, Sonic Youth, Stephin Merritt, Richard Ashcroft, Mojave 3, Juana Molina, Rainer Maria, Red Krayola, Band Of Horses, World Party, Black Angels, Yo La Tengo, Danielson Famile, Sparta, Walkmen, Elf Power, Built To Spill, Okkervil River as well as a kick as history of Homestead Records. Check it out!
This Finnish duo don't make it easy to describe their music, that's for sure -- but at least we got the magic word "Finnish" in there right off!
The very first track here, "Kun Tulet Tarpeeksi Lahelle, Muutun Perhoseksi", explores moody, cinematic, improvised post-rock textures, building to a noisy, intense climax over the course of 13 minutes. The next, "Nurin Lentaa Lintu", is more of a droning electronic soundscape, abruptly joined by primitive percussion and guitar freakery. Some of the other tracks are even more abstract and ambient, constructed of hiss and crackle, cello and cassette sound collage. Or at one moment this will be all placid and mellow, maybe acoustic guitar and bongos to the fore, before switching with the next track to a weird percolating proggy funky free jazzy thing. A diverse success, and quite carefully crafted/edited, it seems. Fans of other weirdness from Finland (like Avarus and Doktor Kettu) and elsewhere for that matter should check this out.
The return of UK sludgelords Marzuraan, squaring off against the simply monickered Sink.
Those of you unfamiliar with the dark black sludge of Marzuraan would do well to become acquainted, especially if you have a taste for things like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, SUNNO))), Monument of Urns, Monarch and the like. This is maybe the best Marzuraan track yet. Speeding up their tarpit sludge just a smidge so they end up sounding here like Dutch hypnometallers Gore at 16 rpm. Fucking awesome. A whole record of this would instantly become our most listened to disc of the year, mark our words. The flipside is taken up by the noxious black noise of Sink, a swirling, sludgy wall of hissing fuzzed out blackened ultra noise, harsh and horrific, a good foil to the slow motion sludge drenched groove of the Marzuraan track.
Limited to 333 copies, half on clear vinyl (we got all clear vinyl!) comes with a big fold out poster, and packaged in a thick cardstock, striking two color screened sleeve!
Juana Molina hails from Argentina where she was once a sitcom television star until she gave it up to pursue music. And we're so happy she did 'cause over the last few years she's made some really beautiful records. With a remarkable seductive voice and sparse interesting instrumentation beneath, she creates a sultry and inciting mood that totally wraps you up in its womblike warmth. With a voice that has the same melting beauty as sonic seductresses like Astrud Gilberto, what's so great about Molina is that while her voice is breathtaking, there is so much more to her music. Evoking much emotion but never hitting the listener over the head with overly maudlin sentiments or romantic drivel. Subtly experimenting with delicate sounds and electronics yet keeping songs strong and in tact. Creating a sound that is both very modern and totally timeless. It would be so easy for someone with a voice as beautiful as Molina's to just push her vocals way out in front of the mix and make polished straightforward pop records, but luckily she chooses to create interesting and textured songs using her voice as another element, no more important that some swoonsome guitar or shuffling rhythm. Another fantastic album. Highly recommended!
Yay, more quality black metal from those connoisseurs of corpse-painted cultishness at the Southern Lord label! We and they are usually in excited agreement about the good stuff, as underground BM goes, and Polish (living in Norway) duo Mord are no exception. Fierce, brutal, and deathly, this one's for those who like the fast faster and more fasterer style of bands like Marduk, Gorgoroth and 1349. They're in such a hurry that they've dispensed with song titles, the tracks here are just labeled "Opus I" through "Opus IX" (skipping "Opus VIII" for some reason we don't know). And pretty much each one of these speedy paroxysms of christ-hating grimnity is adorned with a slightly WTF? guitar lick, pay-attention tempo change or electronic fx embellishment that will occasionally have you interrupting your headbanging frenzy to stare at your stereo and go "cool!".
Also, something we mentioned a couple years back when Southern Lord put out a Mord 7": their drummer is named Necrolucas. We love that. The hypothetical AQ house black metal band will feature Necroandee, or maybe Necrocup, in tribute.
New release from one of our favorites of this new breed of sludgy metallic post rock, the strangely named Mouth Of The Architect. Their sound, unlike many of their sonic brethren leans much more toward the melodic as is evidenced here on the opening of "Sleepwalk Powder" a lilting, melancholy guitar line, hovering above warm swells of high end feedback, mournful and so so pretty. But don't be fooled, or lulled into thinking this is some sort of post rock dreampop record, oh no, moments later, the drums enter the fray, all tribal and chaotic, until finally the guitars drop. And drop HARD. Suddenly we're in churning, roiling sludge doom country, big riffs roll and rumble, vocals are howled and the whole band lurches like some rampaging behemoth. But beneath it all, remains the melody, the sweetness, the light. It's like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, being overtaken by Conifer or Minsk, a huge ugly growling monstrous sound barely concealing glistening harmonies and majestic melodies. A pretty killer combination. The second MOTA track follows a similar path, drawing out its post rock dreaminess nearly to the 10 minute mark before kicking out the jams, this time it's a lurching stumbling groove, minor key and massive.
Kenoma are up next, we'd heard of them but never actually heard them, but they do occupy a similar sonic space as their pals MOTA (and plus they indeed are, in the liner notes, there is an extremely heartfelt note about, the two bands being friends since childhood, and both having had a rough time lately, and how this release was very cathartic, bringing the two bands, these two sets of friends closer than ever before, pretty dang sweet actually). But again don't be distracted by the sweetness, where there is light there is most definitely also dark. Kenoma are more postrock than metal never really unfurling any sort of massive sludginess, rather stretching out in a heavy hypnotic groove, dense tangled guitar lines, killer propulsive drumming, minor key melodies and a big wall of thick rich headspinning sound. Reminiscent of the recently reviewed Shora record but with a bit of that post sludge vibe we can't get enough of. This almost sounds like a super charged Godspeed or a metal Tortoise. Epic and meandering, droney and hypnotic and so killer. Definitely a new band to keep our eyes on. And a perfect match for their pals in Mouth Of The Architect. Definitely recommended. Killer octopoidal artwork too!
Jon Mueller's career as a percussionist began in the early '90s after studying jazz with Hal Russell and steadily marching into the territory of avant-garde improvisation. One of the many projects Mueller has embarked upon is the Collection of Colonies of Bees, which also features Jim Schoenecker, Mueller's partner in crime for The Interview. With a cyclical build of scraping cymbal sonorities, Mueller is the one to speak first, which perhaps makes him the interviewer and Schoenecker the interviewee as he responds with a series of tinnitus-inducing set of tones. The gravitational pull of minimalism is only so strong on The Interview, as the glistening drones and delicate scrapes from the two musicians continuously detour after abrupt changes and erratic sinewave tweakings. Mueller and Schoenecker steadily build the muffled tappings, low-end throbbing phase patterns, and shattered piercings into a detached, cold crescendo of shortwired electronics before collapsing into a restrained fizzing of activity. Phew.
Another killer (and super limited, argh) release from Sound & Fury, a killer record store / label in Australia, who recently decided to close down the shop, but will continue to book tours, have shows and release records, lucky for us! This disc is a live to minidisc recording from a massive New Zealand freenoise show featuring a who's who of AQ faves and kick ass NZ underground legends: Birchville Cat Motel, 6Majik9, James Kirk from Sandoz Lab Technicians, and of course the Nether Dawn and 1/3 Octave band.
The Nether Dawn are Antony Milton (PseudoArcana, Mrtyu, etc.) and AQ pal Jon Dale, who teamed up for this 15+ minute set of soaring ur-drone and dense thick hum and shimmer. Big low pulses of sound tangled up with sparkling high end, glistening melodies and mumbled heavily affected vocals. A blast of cosmic space out along the same lines as Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof! and the like but with a softer, more dreamlike focus. Nice.
1/3 Octave Band follow up with their own lengthy jam, a near 17 minute slab of chiming metal, clanging percussion, super reverbed pipefight, little swirls of high end feedback, reverberating chimes, and a soft shimmery skree, that about halfway sort of slow down and stretch out, into a languid, sunbaked guitar/electronics free jam drift. A shimmering cascading flow of warm reverberant chords, flickering feedback, and subtle but distinct minor key melancholia. So nice.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, WE GOT THE LAST 25 OR SO. Packaged in really nice brown paper, sealed with a black stamped wax seal, each copy hand numbered with a printed inner sleeve and a unique full color, actual photo.
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We're not going to go into too much detail with this as it is limited to 51 copies of which we managed to snag a whopping 15! So act fast. This is indeed pricey but it sure is cool (and remember only 51 copies IN THE WORLD!). Ohsees is the new spelling for OCS which is the one and only John Dwyer (Coachwhips, Pink And Brown, Dig That Body Up It's Alive, etc) and features a 6" lathe cut, with two tracks recorded in NY, and a teensy little 3" cd-r featuring 6 tracks recorded at home. Ohsees are a strange bunch, and this set is no different, from soft abstract folk, to dreamy drones, to squalls of noisy weirdness, all weird and wonderful and so good. Packaged in an oversized pink and black sleeve, 3" cd affixed to the inside, amidst the liner notes, 6" lathe cut in its own sleeve, each one hand numbered. These will be gone before you can blink. Sorry.
We just got a batch of new cd-r's from a new label called Seedy R!, a sub label of the already kick ass PsuedoArcana label run by Antony Milton. The Van The Van, reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this curiously titled disc.
Organorganorganorgan is exactly what you might imagine, 4 organs. Played by Sam Hamilton, Stefan Neville, Campbell Kneale and Antony Milton. Recorded live at a NZ art gallery, these chaps plugged in their fan driven chord organs, and proceeded to unfurl an expansive tapestry of whirs and warbles and wheezes, rich and dense. Slow shifting layers of epic warm sound. A half hour of thick slithery shimmery drone, wreathed in a cloud of subtle overtones and muted melody. So nice. Palestine, Sunroof!, Nitsch, Gurdjieff, and other masters of the extended organ drone... you get the idea.
Packaged in a brown paper sleeve, with a hand stamped 'R' on one side, and a killer psychedelic illustration of four madmen wildly abusing their .. ahem.. organs, on the other.
One more time, welcome to the mixed-up Technicolor tropicalia psych-pop pleasuredome that is the music of Brazil's one and only Os Mutantes! This, their fifth album, from 1972, was their last with original vocalist Rita Lee before the band headed off into way proggier '70sness on later efforts of that decade, and it's one splashy send-off all right. We've said before that Mutantes discs #1 (Os Mutantes) and #2 (Mutantes) are the absolute must-have essentials, with #3 (A Divina Comedia Ou) running a close third... but #4 (Jardim Eletrico), reviewed last list, and this fifth one too are also full of great Mutantes moments that fans should certainly hear! (And it should be added that if you dig Yes, tracking down some of those subsequent Mutantes efforts might be worth it as well...)
It should come as no surprise to Mutantes aficionados that as a collection of songs, Mutantes E Seus Cometas No Pais Do Baurets is all over the place, from the McCartneyesque, Moog sizzling "Balada Do Louco" to the groovy, wacked-out prog-funk of the nearly 10-minute long title track. You'll hear peppy '50s rockabilly pastiche ("Posso Perder Minha Mulher, Minha Mae, Desde Que Tenha O Rock And Roll"), Zep-heavy fuzz rockers ("A Hora E A Vez Do Cabelo Nascer"), lovely folkiness ("Vida de Cachorro"), and a honky tonk piano beerhall singalong ("Todo Mundo Pastou II"). And one of Allan's (but not necessarily everybody else here's) favorite tracks has got to be the ultra kitschy, goofy "Dune Buggy"... there's certainly lots of humor and bizarre bits woven in and out of pretty much all these tunes, again as per Mutantes' usual modus operandi (as is the Beatles influence felt throughout). Definitely a fun listen!
Yes, Otomo Yoshihide (Ground Zero, etc.) + Yoshida Tatsuya (Ruins, etc.) + Bill Laswell (Painkiller, etc.), that's right! A trio sure to intrigue any avant-Japanophile or Tzadik label lover. In fact, lots of folks will probably buy this on the strength of just one or two of those names alone, and why shouldn't they?
Otomo fans will be interested to know that his instrument here is the electric guitar, not the turntables for which he is better known, and he wields his axe with much muscle on Episome's five long tracks, which give free reign to Yoshida's limber drumming, Laswell's liquid low-end, and Otomo's slashing, slow-burn six-string. It's powerful, confident and moody amped-up improv from these three skilled vets.
Chicago instru-metallers Pelican are back, with the full-length follow up to their brilliant "Untitled" debut ep. Like that disc, this is almost the perfect blend of heaviness (METAL heaviness, to be precise) and post-rock. There's prettiness and precision, darkness and dynamics. From slow and powerful downer grooves to mellow melodic interludes to rapidly riffing, sheer super heavy metal, could Pelican do it any better? There's even one track where they've got a guy playing the singing saw. It's freakin' beautiful. Influenced by epic black metal, academic minimalist throb, psychedelic Floydian rock, and the post-rock of their hometown (among much else) these guys have shaped their band into contenders for the avant-stoner throne, positioning themselves somewhere between Mogwai and Melvins, with some flashes of Morbid Angel. Or, imagine the Growing's The Sky's Run Into the Sea album (AQ Record of the Week back in September you'll recall) as performed by The Fucking Champs! It has the oceanic warmth of Growing's droning heaviness lashed to some more mathy, metallic constructions. Our customers who love all things heavy (Isis, Boris, Gore, 5ive, Tarantula Hawk, Dead Meadow, etc.) and who have a soft spot for spacier, sleepier stuff too should dig these six tracks for sure!
It starts with an old man firing a rusty old shotgun into the sky, and from that point on, it's a dizzying three days of festivities, music, dancing, and lots and lots of drinking. Oh and quite a few giant phalluses. A local medium deems what day to begin, and on that day the three day festival of Phi Ta Khon commences, a tribute to ghosts and demons, which occurs at the beginning of the rainy season, and is meant to ensure healthy and bountiful crops. Like all the Sublime Frequencies DVD's it's a fascinating and overwhelming experience. A new world, a completely wild and wonderful celebration, a community banded together, dancing and singing and drinking toward a common goal. And it definitely feels like you are right there. Houses and people, animals, foliage, musicians, parades and processions. And rice wine. A whole section is dedicated to Isan's liquor of choice, and the Phi Ta Khon festival does indeed involve much drinking. Pretty much every stage of the festival is marked by ritualistic imbibing of spirits. Which might go to explaining why it's such a crazy three days.
Another important part of the festival is the creation of incredibly elaborate masks, so intricate and amazing, beautiful and creepy. A dizzying array, from long fanged demons, to mysterious winged bird creatures, to super colorful, kabuki style headdresses. Part of the festival used to involve tossing the masks into the river at the end of the festival, but folk art collectors would fish the mask out of the river to sell them, so now they are saved to be used again, or the mask makers sell the masks themselves.
And the phalluses. Everywhere. Puppets, masks, staffs, all in the shape of giant vividly painted members. It is supposedly good luck to touch the wooden members. They provide comic relief and encourage licentious behavior.
It's totally mind blowing to experience another culture's customs so immersively. For many of us who might never get a chance to visit Thailand, these dvd's are amazing tools, helping us to learn about, understand and enjoy the art and music and culture and magic of other peoples. It's also amazing to note how little violence and aggression there is even with three days of nonstop drinking. Hard to imagine something like that ever happening here without at least one fight or someone getting shot.
The dvd comes with a bonus short film, Spirit House, a video tour of various Spirit Houses filmed over repeated visits to Thailand. Spirit Houses are a bit like our graveyards but so much more colorful and intricate. Supposedly these houses are home to departed loved ones and guardian spirits and are decorated as such, bright colors, multiple levels, lots of windows and doors, small statues, shapes and images, a gorgeous brief glimpse into the spirit world. With haunting musical accompaniment by the Climax Golden Twins.
Finally, the accompanying music is fantastic, it's Molam, which was featured in a previous installment of the Sublime Frequencies cd series, a glorious lively festive music, characterized by lilting almost yodelled male / female vocals, mouth organ, performing traditional Thai songs, often arranged for modern instruments, but still closely connected to the past (Butthole Surfers lifted a Molam classic for their song "Kuntz" on Locust Abortion Technician).
Absolutely amazing. And of course very recommended. As is the Molam: Thai Country Groove From Isan cd which we also stock! ----* ----* Long out of print Steven R. Smith cds back in stock : ----*
Stomp stomp stomp your feet! Clap clap clap your hands! There's another great group joining the rest of the pep squads on the pop playing field! For the first and title track of this 2-song cd UK gals The Pipettes come bursting forth with the most exuberant of pop ditties. What sets them apart from other current bouyant groups such as The Go Team and Tra La La are the sweet '60s girl group styled vocals. So delicious! You might've caught a glimpse of The Pipettes on the recent Rough Trade Shops Counter Culture 2005 compilation, but these fleeting encounters are simply not enough. More please!
On the opening track of their debut album When The Rain Comes, Oaklanders Port O'Brien struck us as being quite vocally reminiscent of the frailty of This Heat (particularly their vocals in "Fall Of Saigon" from their self-titled album). From there though mainman Van Pierzalowski keeps things much more in a straightforward rough-hewn folkiness mode that in turn brings to mind early Bright Eyes. Some rousing whistlin' and hollerin' embellish the tune "Split" which is followed by the ultra hushed delicate number "Dance With Our Ashes". Nice.
Probably the best part of this record has been getting to hear Allan pronounce it exactly how it looks. "Hey Andee, did we get more of those Raccoo - Oo - Oon cds?" "I'm sorry which ones did you say?" "You know, the Raccoo - Oo - Oon cds!" Hee Hee.
Okay, maybe that's the -second- best thing, cuz you know what? This disc is pretty dang kick ass. We get so used to all these labels doing cd-r's and limited run cd's and lathe cuts of dark and droney dreaminess, soft folkiness, it's easy to forget that there's a whole underground of ROCK. And that lots of these dreamy folk rockers can actually rock. And on the first track here, Raccoo-Oo-Oon do indeed ROCK, albeit a tweaked and twisted sort of rock.
It's a sweaty, snarling, slithering chunk or rawk, barbed blasts of pounding angular new wave garagestomp, fuzzy. murky production, a clattering kitchen sink drum kit, super blown out, scrabbly psych guitar and howled crazyman vocals. Like the Make-Up if they had been attacked by an actual raccoon with rabies, and then forced to play anyway, twitching and frothing at the mouth.
But the rock then dissipate, as if Raccoo-Oo-Oon got it out of their system, at least for the most part. The next track is a weird lo-fi jazzy shuffle, with a warm horn melody, big simple drumming, like a free folk / free jazz mashup. The next track takes off in yet another direction entirely, a blown out guitarscape, drenched in sun dappled reverb and sizzling cymbal shimmer, so dreamy and drifty. The rest of the tracks sort of meander and wander, through sunny meadows, and shaded woods, fluttering flutes, shimmering guitars, warm wheezing organs, drifting horns, occasionally little fragments of that opening rock song resurface, a brief blast of super punishing riffing, only to be quickly dragged back down and picked apart, the various bits and pieces reincorporated into the dreamlike sound, spread out and stretched into more and more layers of sound, tripped out, schizophrenic, psychedelic and pretty fucking great!
Gorgeously packaged like everything on Time-Lag, this time in a deluxe 3 panel, hand screened sleeve, and a REAL cd, not a cd-r, but still limited, of course.
We hardly need to write anything about this disc, as it's a band that features the White Stripes' Jack White. For most folks that seems to be enough. If you've even glanced at Rolling Stone or Spin or any music video channel, you're probably sick to death of this band already, without hearing note one. And White has been ubiquitous in publications like Star and Us Weekly, his breakups and dating habits, right there alongside Brad and Angelina, Vince and Jen, and all the baby Apples and Shiloh's. But all that stuff serves to do is to distract from what is in fact a fucking killer pop record. And while White's voice features prominently, as do his songwriting and guitar playing, all completely killer by the way, this record is all about his bandmate Brendan Benson and his perfect pop pen. This is no White Stripes side project, instead this sounds more like the latest and greatest Brendan Benson record, that just so happens to feature Jack White. Benson has been making perfect pop records for years, quietly outdoing all of his pop rivals. Benson's One Mississippi is probably one of the greatest pop records you never heard. As was the follow up Lapalco. Benson's got a killer voice, a great ear for melody, and a seemingly effortless knack for spitting out ultra perfect pop, but with plenty of loud guitars. An unsung power pop hero for sure. So it's a bit sad that it takes teaming up with his longtime pal White to get heard by more than a handful of indie pop hipsters, but so be it. And the fact is that the combination of White's voice and guitar teamed up with Benson's is pretty much unbeatable.
This record is great. Ignore all the press bullshit, all the photo shoots and all the hype and just dig in. The opener, "Steady As She Goes" might just be the pop song of the year (and peep the killer video featuring the band racing soapbox derby style featuring Pee Wee Herman as a nefarious race saboteur!). Awesome harmonies, strange studio FX, crunchy guitars, all wrapped around a hook that will get stuck in your head FOREVER. The rest of the record, while never quite reaching the pop perfection of the opening track, is still pretty dang great. Leaning strangely toward some lost seventies radio rock, a hard rockin' pop sound, Zeppelin III, Steve Miller Band, Beatles, etc., but with a serious hard pop sheen. Fans of the Posies, Sloan, Silver Sun, Apples In Stereo and all things glistening Beatles-esque Big Star-ish, big guitar, soaring harmony, foot stomping, hand clapping, kick ass power pop!!
On Enemies Like This, the Radio 4 boys continue their remarkable hybrid reincarnation of The Clash and Gang Of Four for the hip NYC party set. After the somewhat disappointing last album Stealing Of A Nation back in 2004, they get a little closer to the punchy sound of their 2002 DFA produced album Gotham -- that was a match made in dance-punk heaven. This album was appropriately and deftly produced by Jagz Kooner (who's that?! the producer for sleek dance-rockers Kasabian and Primal Scream), the guitars are full and sinewy, the vocals are sneeringly present with lots of hooky lines, the drums smart like the snap of a tight elastic waistband and the bass maintains a deep dub-inflected grooviness. No, not original, but very catchy and well done.
ATTENTION CIRCLE OBSESSIVES AND FINNISH MUSIC FREAKS. THIS IS A CIRCLE SIDE PROJECT, IS LP ONLY, AND is VERY VERY LIMITED!!
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let's dig in. Circle freaks are obviously gonna want this no matter what, it's a single sided half hour jam from Jussi and Janne of Finnish drone rockers Circle. But don't expect this to sound anything like Circle. Well, okay, it sounds a little like that live Circle record Mountain, droney and dark and minimal. What it really sounds like to us is like Circle side project Dr. Kettu with all the bones removed, leaving some sort of dark and tribal ambient krautrock. Rakhim is a super stripped down primal tribal duo, just drums and vocals and tons and tons of effects, which the duo employ to effortlessly kick up quite a dense druggy fug. Swirling clouds and sonic squalls, a murky dronescape lo-fi and dubbed out, strange guttural grunts, freaky whispers, drums-down-the-stairs clatter, dubby FX, wordless vocal melodies, all doused with reverb and distortion, and tangled up with some abstract percussive tribalism. Some sort of Finnish space aged pagan ritual. Vast expanses of whoooosh and whiiiir and swooooosh over chaotic free jazz drum splatter and subtle shuffling skitter. Very tripped out, druggy, super muddy, mega freaked out sososo psychedelic. Could almost be some long lost, recently discovered Faust jam caught surreptitiously on tape way back in the day. Awesome.
One sided heavy marbled white vinyl, packaged in a cool, very Dead C looking black and white sleeve.
A customer recommended we check out Rehtaf Ruo (Our Father backwards, how very evil!) describing them as more insane and out there sounding than Benighted Leams. Well, we could hardly resist after that! Happy to report that Boiled In Goat Blood is indeed quite possibly (one of) the weirdest, most fucked up black metal records we have ever heard. And that's assuming you could even classify this as black metal. It's so bizarre it's a bit hard to describe. We were a little cautious throwing this on, the first track was a haunting and creepy slow motion drone, obviously an introduction, but black and ominous enough. Then the record proper started and we were floored, blown away by the sheer musical perversity on display, so damaged and abstract, and so goddamn scary sounding, it really couldn't be more black. The riffs are so lo-fi and so murky, they don't even sound like guitars, more like fuzzy drones, not like Burzum fuzzy, but completely indistinct smears of sound, and the drums are right down there with the guitars, barely audible, except for the occasional REALLY LOUD burst of impossibly fast double kick drum that sounds like a jackhammer or a woodpecker, very static and industrial. But it's the vocals that define Rehtaf Ruo, from a harsh hoarse growl, to a super affected hellish gargle, to a burping grunt, the vocals are SO FUCKING FRIGHTENING. Way more evil than most BM frontmen, it helps that the vocals are WAY louder than the music, their only competition those bursts of spastic double kick, or the occasional very evil Rigor Sardonicous style trash can lid cymbal crash. There are some intensely bizarre moments of abstraction, a track that sounds like a more black metal Jacula, some murky martial percusssion beneath raspy invocations, super sudden fade outs, chiming church bells, some creepy ambient soundscapes made from guitars so distorted they crumble into what sounds like radio static, strange looped freakouts that sound like a more fucked up Jeck or Basinski, or even recent AQ faves WOLD, grizzled guitar clang and the sounds of chains against stone, and of course some ridiculously anguished vocal torture. The final track is a massive ten plus minute horrorscape, of super processed drums, wild hysterical vocalizing, clattery dungeon percussion, moaning minor key melodies, but to get there, you'll have to crawl on your hands and knees, bloodied and blackened, through a field of fire and broken glass, corpses and barbed wire and some of the weirdest black metal EVER.
What's weird is there was a double disc greatest hits compilation released back in 1997, featuring a disc of classics, and a disc of random covers and what not. But what the hell, every decade or so it's probably good to look back, and remind all the young punks that the Replacements still totally rule! These guys truly had the goods, and if the new songs included here are any indication, still do. From record one, the Mats were totally one of the greatest band ever. Punk as fuck, wild and drunken, some shows perfect, some shows embarrassing debacles, every song a stone cold killer. Hook filled and heartbreaking. Epic and fist pumping, head banging, beer drinking perfect rock and roll. In the nineties every single mixtape ever made was required by law to feature at least one Replacements song. Okay, that's not really true, but it sure as hell should be. Lord knows we put "Answering Machine" on pretty much every mix tape we made.
This is definitely for newbies only (or obsessives who need the new tracks). Pretty much every record up until Pleased To Meet Me is a must own, and even Don't Tell A Soul has a handful of great tracks. But this is definitely a killer introduction, or an awesome ready made mix cd if you're too lazy to make your own. From the blistering pissed off punk of "Kids Don't Follow" complete with a recording of cops breaking up an early Mats gig (listen close and you can hear a teenage Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum yelling "FUCK YOU MAN!") to the lilting heartache of "Skyway" to the bad ass rock of "Bastards Of Young" to the heartbreaking emo misery of "Answering Machine" to the perfect pop of "Alex Chilton", hard to go wrong. This record should definitely have the intended effect of making you want to own every sing one of the records that these tracks were culled from. If not, well then you have no heart, you are just some sort of jaded rock and roll casualty. But maybe, these tracks will get your blood pumping and renew your love of pure and primal RAWK. It does that to us every time.
So in case there's any question, yes, you get all the ol' Placemats faves like "Unsatisfied", "Left Of The Dial", "Alex Chilton" and "I'll Be You". Quadruple yay!! And the new tunes are pretty dang good too. Considering how weak the last few Replacements records were, these two tracks kick serious ass, especially the super rocking "Message To The Boys" sounding like it could have been a Pleased To Meet Me b-side.
Absolutely and totally essential (at least until you get your ass in gear and get all the records proper)!
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Such a good name for this band! At least right from the get-go with the slash and burn 12-minute opening track it sure seems appropriate. That's some searing and scorching electric guitar there! The album closes with another double-digit epic as well, and in between the trio of guitarist Raoul Bjorkenheim, bassist Haker Flaten and percussionist Paal Nilsen-Love do let up and explore a variety of grooves and moods, from ominous textural soundscaping, to roiling slide workouts, to y'know, burbling sorta melodic stuff that might pass for 'jazz' of the highball-in-hand, nightclub variety. Although, the electric element of about-to-explode skronk always seems just under the surface. Fans of Nels Cline's various bands know the feeling, and ought to enjoy Bjorkenheim and co.'s own, similar brand of 'dangerous' electric jazz... Heck the type of AQ customer for whom names like Cline, Sharrock, Russell, McLaughlin, Takayanagi, and the like mean something (and occupy a portion of their record collection) stand a good chance of being quite happy if they give this a listen. All of those are all individually quite different of course but it's that rock-aware, energetic and amplified style of electric guitar improv (with dense guitar/bass/drums interplay) that this fits right in with, y'know.
Latest cd-r from NZ sound sculptor Stephen Clover otherwise known as Seht. Three tracks, nearly an hour of soft sonic sweetness, warm beds of barely there glitch and click underpin thick rich billowy clouds of cotton candy like organ drones, airy and slowly shifting and overlapping, melodies ghostlike and nearly transparent. Occasionally the organ drifts off leaving a strange hissing minimal fuzz, dense and rife with subtle rhythm and not quite melodies, like some muted guitar riff pulled apart and spread out into a delicate gauze. Or like an alien insect buzzing out some simple message, expressing itself in subtle shades of grey. The final half hour track begins as soft swell of keening high end trill before dispensing with the subtle shadings altogether, allowing the organ to step forward and offer up huge thick swirls of sound, still peppered with subtle glitches and unlikely hiccups and jumpcuts, this is like some epic Charlemagne Palestine jam, but played through a PA with faulty wiring, a stuttery soundscape of warm organ melody and implied rhythmic interference. So cool.
A German electronic artist living in Chile doing samba versions of Japanese electro-pop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra. Well it would only sound absurd if it were anyone else but the ever so loveable Senor Coconut. With him, it's a no brainer. After paying homage to Kraftwerk on the now classic and sadly out of print disc El Baile Aleman, and exploring all sorts of covers on his instant party hit "Fiesta Songs". This carries on in the same fun samba-with-a-twist spirit of those recordings while actually featuring all three members of Yellow Magic Orchestra at different points throughout the record. Also making appearances are members of Mouse on Mars, Dee-Lite and Nouvelle Vague. Senor Coconut has proven himself to be some sort of a hipster Les Baxter for his generation. Appropriating other musical cultures, with tongue in cheek and earnest respect living side by side. Most of all he continues to provide some playful fun to a world that is often all too serious for its own good.
It's such a nice day out and we'd really rather just sit in the sun and listen to this disc than review it, so why don't we just say: another great Six Organs album! and leave it at that, ok? Not ok? You want more from us than that? Well it IS another great album from this Ben Chasny fellow, whom for us is definitely tops among all the current crop of psychedelic guitar-pickin' folkies. Whether he's lending his weary voice to some lovely acoustic pop balladry, or blissing out on the fretboard in Fahey/Basho rustic raga mode, or harking to the spaghetti western soundtrack sound of Bjorn Olsson, or channeling krautrock spirits for a heavy duty distorted electric guitar jam, Chasny -- with a little help from his friends -- shines on this album. Maybe his best yet! Gorgeous, moody, yes indeed.
Of course, sitting in the sun listening to this might not be the idea. The Sun Awakens this is called, but it's more likely that the music on here will generate grey clouds to blot out the sun, casting shadows from some other time and place of pagan worship. Particularly when you get to the droning darkness of the mysterious, moaning, album-closing "River Of Transfiguration", an extended 24 minute ceremony of a song featuring the bass playing of Al Cisneros of Om and Sleep fame. Oh yeah. Recommended.
There is a very fine line between schizophrenia and a totally eclectic diverse creativity and we seem to enjoy music most when that line remains really blurry. This 2-cd set, recorded between 1980-82 by electronic alchemist Barton Smith definitely straddles that weird blurry line. One moment basking in tender beauty while the next moment flourishing into a noisy wall-of-sound. Very little was known about Smith. The fact that Smithsonian Folkways originally released these tracks on vinyl back in the early '80s, and still Smith remained a relative unknown, just adds to the mystique. The first disc opens up with what sounds like gamelan influenced percussion on homemade instruments, followed by pastoral pretty meandering guitar and then underwater sounding rumblings drenched in primitive sounding electronics. We have been totally intrigued and in awe of these recordings since we first got this set in a few weeks back. Listening to it nonstop, and trying to think about how this was received in the early '80s when even now it still sounds so ahead of its time. Former AQ-er Windy came in recently and jumped for joy to see this on the new arrivals rack, telling us how she scored an original vinyl copy years back at a flea market and it's always been a record she found so weird and wonderful and special. Outside of Windy, we haven't really come across anyone else who knew anything about Barton Smith. We've come to discover that these were recordings he made for modern dance troupes and we can only struggle to imagine bodies moving to his ever changing sounds. While for most musicians it can be tricky and problematic to change gears and sounds so often within an album, there is something so natural and lucid and smooth about the extremes explored on Reelizations. We can't think of many musicians who have the ability to explore such a wide range with this much success and intrigue. Moondog's versatility and eclectic output is someone who came to mind when trying to figure out how to classify Mr. Smith. From acoustic tranquility to electric outbursts this had us picking up on a totally diverse range of reference points: Sandy Bull, Jim O'Rourke, This Heat, Koji Asano. And for sure you could start seeing how years later groups would start exploring similar sonic atmospheres. Black Dice, Excepter, Loren Connors are some who come to mind. Scott even suspects that Kieren Hebden might have heard this at some point, as there is a really good chance that the Barton Smith track "Lotus" was sampled on the Four Tet album Rounds.
This is a record that we can't stop listening to or thinking about. We hear so much music everyday, when something kicks our ass this hard we know we've discovered something really special.
As with all releases on the fabulous Japanese reissue label EM, this is gorgeously packaged, coming in an oversized double jewel case, with a huge booklet, tons of photos and lots of liner notes -- those unfortunately all in Japanese.
Any avid reader of the AQ list will be well aware that we've long been huge fans of Steven R. Smith, his solo records, his work in Mirza, Thuja, Hala Strana, all totally amazing. So we were super excited recently to find out that Mr. Smith had a stash of some long out of print titles. We took everything he had, which unfortunately wasn't a lot, so if you want to nab one of these, best be quick! Since these titles have been out of print for ages, once this last handful of these titles are gone, they are gone for good.
Here's what we had to say about this gorgeous ep when we first listed it way back when:
New, old material from AQ fave Steven R. Smith (Mirza & Thuja). Four covers done by Mr. Smith that were released previously only on vinyl, two from a now out of print 7" and two never before released tracks. If you've heard Steven R. Smith's other recordings you're probably aware that he excels in the art of whiskey soaked, tape saturated drone rock. His cover of Leonard Cohen's "I Tried To Leave You", which starts off the disk certainly testifies to that. All the best moments of the Dirty Three, but with the balls of the Velvet Underground and somehow wrapping into it all the garagey psychedelia of Six Organs of Admittance or Vibracathedral Orchestra. Along with the Cohen' track are covers of the Smiths ("Death of a Disco Dancer"), the Grateful Dead's old standby "Morning Due" (equally brilliantly liberated a la Einsturzende Neubauten's version) and a cover of Muzsikas' "Regen Volt, Soka Lesz." And, we might add, all done as instrumentals. For those of you who haven't heard his albums yet, this is a really great introduction to Smith's mysterious and romantic sonic world!
WE ONLY HAVE ABOUT A DOZEN COPIES IN STOCK! After that, this is gone forever!
