If you dig the two New York Noise comps that Soul Jazz released recently, here comes another comp that is an absolute must have. While the Noise on those aforementioned comps actually leaned more towards the rhythmic and even dancy side of the early 80's NY scene, the newest installment in the Kitchen Archives series gets a little more down and dirty. It kicks off with two very rare versions of early Sonic Youth tracks the first featuring lyrics, vocals and guitar contributed by Michael Gira! (Swans, Angels of Light, Young God Records), then Swans jump in with two tracks of their own, from back in their pre-Jarboe existence. Then it's Arthur Russell time! We can never get enough of the totally wild and wide range of sounds Russell created in in his all too short life. His tracks here focus more on his no-wave minimalist, rough around the edges and completely haunting sounding as opposed to his later dancefloor leanings. And no comp focusing on early '80s sonic exploration in NYC would be complete without Christian Marclay whose turntable manipulations would foreshadow so much of the 'turntablism' and experimental music in general that was to follow in the upcoming decades. Rhys Chatham represents with his classic "Guitar Trio" and the disc is rounded out by a free jazz influenced rock-out track by Elliott Sharp. Another totally tasty slice of that early '80s NY underground that we can't stop eating up.
Wow! When we think of great soul funk and reggae we have to say that Canada isn't usually the first place that comes to mind -- but we also weren't so aware of the huge migration of Jamaican musicians to Toronto that took place in the late '60s/early '70s. Which explains a lot. How lucky Toronto was to have these infectious sounds to call their own during this special era. This ranks as one of the best soul/funk/reggae collections we've had in a long while. And it really is equal parts reggae, funk and soul with that original reggae sound that many of these artists adopted after leaning way more towards a more soul sound for many years. Recent comps we've been loving like Studio One Women showed how much of the vintage reggae sounds were so influenced by doo-wop and the heyday of American soul music. Jamaica to Toronto is filled with that same kind of raw catchy soul we just can't get enough of. If you've fallen for the Eccentric Soul series that we've also been digging, then this is for you. Killer songs and elaborate 36-page booklet included. Highly recommended!
One of the things that made Johnny Cash such an amazing musician was his rich knowledge, appreciation and endless curiosity about music. This compilation traces his roots and in many ways it kind of feels like a mix tape Johnny would have made you if you were one of his friends. There is a common thread of strong story telling that Cash was always attracted to. Simplicity with soul. This collection brings together country legends like Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and Ernest Tubb. The sounds of a young and so totally charismatic Roy Orbison, the powerful gospel singing of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, his would-be sister-in-law Anita Carter, Kris Kristofferson (who was a janitor at Columbia's Nashville studio's when he first met Johnny). The liner notes do a nice job of explaining the connection and influence of each track on Cash and his music. A really solid collection of old time songs that still sound totally fresh and raw.
Touch began in 1982 with the publication of Feature Mist, a cassette magazine which featured some very early New Order tracks, snippets from Shostakovich, a poem or two, and a couple of other obscure musical interludes. Over the next 25 years, Touch has developed into what every independent record label should be, an organization dedicated to their own agendas, ideologies, and aesthetics. During that time, Touch has been responsible for releasing records by some of the most influential electronic musicians and sound artists from the past few decades: Chris Watson, Christian Fennesz, Mika Vainio, BJ Nilsen, Biosphere, Ryoji Ikeda, and Philip Jeck. It must also be noted that the history of Touch is also inexorably linked to that of The Hafler Trio, although the two entities terminated their relationship with a particularly chilly separation. Needless to say, Jon Wozencroft and Mike Harding (the current proprietors of Touch) have always been fond of the compilation as a means of constructing a broader narrative about the current state of the label's aesthetics and philosophies. Touch 25 is the celebratory compilation, toasting Touch's silver anniversary, featuring 25 tracks from their current roster of artists with interludes of various field recordings. BJ Nilsen opens the compilation with a majestic field recordings of the Baltic Sea on a cold winter's night. This is followed by Oren Ambarchi's tense interplay between grizzled cable buzz and softly rounded guitar tones. Christian Fennezs pulls another gem of summer-has-gone abstraction from his whipsy guitar strum and DSP effects. Pan Sonic offers a rare bit of cacophony in this mostly sedate compilation with a crack of static and drum machine acceleration. We could prattle on, but it should be obvious that Touch again has produced another quality compilation. Wozencroft himself described Touch 25 thusly: "What seems to have taken place, is a sequence of 25 tracks (in itself an accident of numbers) that each in their own space are quite obscure and 'of a refined sense of taste,' but together, build a very emotional journey through the emotional conditions brought on by the lack of emotion in everyday life, and its replacement by extremities."
Three way split from three of the newest rock bands on Neurosis' mighty Neurot label. Most folks should be well familiar with Red Sparrowes by now. And two more blissed out epics from those guys is ALWAYS a good thing. Both live, and both perfect examples of why the Red Sparrowes are so kick ass. Loping, minor key post rock that swirls and shimmers and builds into massive spacerock fuzz drenched wall-of-sound blowouts. Mogwai, Godspeed, Explosions, if that's how you like your rock and have yet to check out the Sparrowes this is as good a place as any to start.
Two tracks from the brilliantly named Made Out Of Babies, who kick out the jams, sort of Jesus Lizard style, but with their ace in the hole being vocalist Julie Christmas, who can croon all sultry but just as easily shriek and howl up a storm, PJ Harvey, Queen Adreena, a passionate and paint peeling caterwaul that perfectly complements MoB's lurching angular grooves.
Last up is Battle Of Mice, featuring one Red Sparrowe as well as Made Of Babies' Julie Christmas. Battle Of Mice are basically a cross between the two, the slow burning melodic build of the Sparrowes, the slithery sultriness of Made Out Of Babies, with occasional caustic blasts of furious vitriol, but mostly a groovy tribal drift, with Christmas whispering and speaksinging, lots of breathiness and squeaky Bjorkisms, giving their two songs here a really creepy blissed out vibe.
We've been totally digging the always amazing Ethiopiques series, documenting the rich history of Ethiopian music, and it just keeps getting better and better with each volume. You think that would be plenty to keep the folks at Buda Musique busy, but apparently not, as they've gone ahead and launched a new series entitled Zanzibara, chronicling the Swahili popular music of the East African Coast. Future volumes will be more archival, but this first installment celebrates Ikhwani Safaa, Zanzibar's (and most likely Africa's too) oldest music club, which turned 100 in 2005. These recordings, captured in Zanzibar in 2004 and Dubai in 2005, feature some of the region's most revered singers and players, all gathered to play classic songs and celebrate the last 100 years. The music here is dramatically different than anything in the Ethiopiques series, much more moody and hypnotic, less festive and jubilant, but no less captivating. The interesting thing is that the music here sounds unlike any of the African music we are familiar with and instead sounds much more Indian or Arabic. The vocals especially, sound distinctly Indian, as well as the swooning soaring strings. Lush, moody, swirling, slightly saturnine, and absolutely wonderful.
Second installment in this new series from the folks who brought us the absolutely essential and nearly perfect Ethiopiques series. This new series chronicles the Swahili popular music of the East African Coast. The first installment (now back in stock, see elsewhere on this list) celebrated Ikhwani Safaa, Zanzibar's (and most likely Africa's too) oldest music club, which turned 100 in 2005. This second volume is more archival and is drawn from recordings made from 1965-1975. Mombasa Taarab is a dizzying mix of African music with Arabian, Asian and European influences. Which is why this music sounds as Indian or Asian as it does African, in fact much of the time more so. There is a definite Bollywood influence, in fact Bollywood films had become very popular in Mobasa and many singers would take certain elements from those films, voice, melody, instrumentation, and then translate them into Swahili taarab songform. Fans of the Ethiopiques series should definitely be all over this series. As well as fans of Indian film music. We've been listening to this like crazy (and the first volume which we just got back in). We can hardly wait to hear the next one!
Massive booklet, with extensive liner notes, and in-depth notes on each artist.
You want to know just how dirty, filthy, scummy, sludgy, noisy, fractured, fucked up, damaged, demented, crusty, sloppy, shitty, sweaty, punk as fuck, fuzzy, freaked out, warped, doomy, downtuned, plodding and repetitive this latest tape by the Violent Students is? Well, it made short work of not ONE, but TWO different tape decks. Just sent them cowering and crying to wherever it is that broken and emasculated tape decks go. We recently discovered these Philly based dirge-scuzz caveman freenoise weirdos and were immediately smitten, well as smitten as you can be with a group of brain damaged Neanderthals beating you to death with feeding back guitars. Which in our case is VERY!! So if you need another blast of damaged Buttholes influenced drug drenched stomp and stumble, then act fast, we got a bunch of these tapes the band pressed up themselves but they won't last long.
Many have commented on the power of female intuition; but has anyone commented on that of the other sex? Well, C.M. Von Hausswolff offers the first of two album pertaining to the subject of male intuition, and in his own dryly absurd / absurdly dry ethos of logic-leaping constructs and rudimentary electric constructions. While Hausswolff composed the album as a single piece, he's broken it into indexed chapters which incorporate spoken recordings from some of those men who have influenced his work as well as pieces dedicated to similar folk -- including Fluxus artist Willem de Ridder, the Dalai Lama, Alvin Lucier, Mika Vainio, Albert Hoffmann, paranormal investigator Friedrich Jurgenson, J.G. Thirlwell, and Brion Gyson. As Hausswolff runs the spoken elements through some shitty distortion boxes and / or speaker constructions, the language becomes garbled in a ruptured crackle perhaps with its message received through intuition? Behind these broken, disembodied voices, Hausswolff modulates a network of serpentine sinewaves, sonar bleeps, and field recordings from earth, air, and sea. Hausswolff's work has long dealt with the mysteries of human perception and the mythologies that we build around those perceptions (whether that be religion, metaphysics, or politics), always addressing absurdist questions with a blackened deadpan delivery. There may be no discernible answers for us to discover here, but the question is enough to be provocative; and as on his previous works, the question may be intriguing on a conceptual level, but the aesthetics themselves are a wonder to behold. Recommended.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. We were secretly psyched for this, a country solo record from ex-Carcass guitarist Jeff Walker. How cool would that be, Carcass country!! But the actual end product is not quite what we had hoped. In fact it's sort of embarrassing. The arrangements are pretty cool, a bunch of countrified covers of badass classic tunes, rock, country, whatever, but Walker is just not a very good vocalist. In fact we might go so far as to say he is really really bad. And since it's the vocals that are front and center, a lot of this is a bit tough to stomach. We almost wish he had sung these Carcass-style, a harsh raspy shriek over acoustic guitars and fiddle would have been pretty dang weird. But alas... Carcass freaks might just need to own this cuz it's Walker, but not sure who else we could recommend this to.
Killer Cherry Poptart cover art though, if you're into that...
We had Kurt from Feathers' solo cd-r in stock a while ago and we loved it. A warbly and weird lo-fi folk, but it sounded like his little brother was constantly fucking with the knobs on his 4-track while he was recording it. Slowing down, speeding up, weird little glitchy hiccups. It added a whole 'nother layer of weirdness to what was essentially dreamy fey folk. On this most recent 7", everything we loved about the cd-r is pushed even farther out. The high reedy vocals are now even higher and sound almost like the Chipmunks. The sonic irregularities and recording glitches that peppered the cd-r, are now EVERYWHERE, the whole record is buried under strange effects, warbling warpage, squiggles of psychedelic guitar are splattered all over the place. This is seriously druggy and tripped out stuff. The first things that came to mind when we threw this on were: Ariel Pink, Christmas carols and It's A Small World After All. That should give you a good idea of the glorious strangeness we're talking about here. A glitchy lo fi psychedelia equal parts Feathers, Tiny Tim, Daniel Johnston, Ariel Pink, nursery rhymes and lots and lots of weed!
Packaged in a goofy comic book style sleeve with a hot pink insert/lyric sheet.
SUPER LIMITED. WE ONLY GOT 10 COPIES FROM THE BAND WHEN THEY WERE HERE ON TOUR...
All you music nerd, yeah we're talking to you. You're just like us, you love reading reviews, even of records you already own. But even better is reading about records you've never heard of. And records you're not sure you'd even want to hear. That's where the Siltblog comes in. A sporadically updated site wherein Siltbreeze head honcho Tom Lax reviews all sorts of random and weird records that cross his path. We've definitely discovered some killer stuff, and it's always a totally entertaining read.
Tom wrote about this SF outfit a while back and a few people asked us about it so we got in touch with the band and got a bunch for the store. The Wooden Shjips (huh? we don't get it) aren't as far out as a lot of stuff that gets grilled on the Siltblog, but after a few listens it's easy to see why it's so special. It starts out with a fuzzy garage-y stomp, and it sounds downright indie rock. But then, nothing happens, the groove just sort of locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laid back and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing.
The final track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
It's been a little while since we listed a 'weirdest black metal band ever' but we're about to fix that. Ljuset is the latest from Swedish black metal weirdos Woods Of Infinity, whose modus operandi is a sort of loping melancholy black metal, a little folky, midtempo and buzzy, with insane cackling demonic vocals all over the place, a quick glance at the lyric sheet demonstrates why, SO MANY lyrics, all in Swedish and all delivered in a cracked clownish falsetto shriek. Actually the more we listen to this, the more the vocals sound like Mika of Circle totally losing his mind and capturing it all on tape. We hear Lugubrum, Vondur, and other like minded outsider black metallers. On their last record, WoI did a Barry Manilow cover too if that gives you an idea of the sort of headspace these guys occupy, and while on this latest disc there are no covers, there are plenty of insanely verbose vocals, haunting keyboards, barking dogs, cackling laughter, strange calliope music, record crackle, folky renaissance faire guitar and creepy monk like chants.
BUT, this isn't actually as damaged or fucked up as a lot of black metal we love, but what it is, is truly unique, and most definitely WEIRD as all get out. But the more you listen, the more these songs have a strange poetry, a perfectly nonsensical sense. Always the best way to tell if a band is TRYING to sound weird, or if they are just at their very core, really really strange. The music is actually quite melodic and beautiful, a mournful melancholy blackness that sprawls like a dark cloud, each melody a different shade of grey. We have to say it again, but the more we listen to this, the more we can't shake that Circle comparison, the way the vocals interact with the repetitive riffing. Maybe if you had a hankering for some blackened folky hypnorock this might hit the spot. But for metalheads, imagine some loping dirgey doometal, more midtempo than sludge, maybe old Paradise Lost or My Dying Bride, but with a bit more gypsy folk mixed in, rife with sorrowful melodies and depressive atmosphere, but then be prepared for a mad as a hatter vocalist to wildly sermonize over the top, like some alien demon priest. So completely amazing.
Beautifully packaged with heavy textured paper, and cover art by an artist who ONLY uses bodily fluids as a medium, and a seriously extensive lyric sheet.
We were first introduced to Mr. Nigel Wright (not to be confused with fellow dronester Peter Wright) via a super limited cd-r on the CMR label. A gorgeous assemblage of mysterious loop based systems. Totally hit the spot for fans of Coleclough, Ambarchi, Nilsen, Chalk and the like (like us!). Well, recently Wright got in touch with us to see if we wanted to carry his latest release, another super limited cd-r, this time a 15 minute 3" in crafty hand made packaging. Well, the answer was obviously "Hell yeah!" and thus we have this, another completely mesmerizing slab of warm fuzzy looped and drone drenched goodness. The first track comes on like some My Bloody Valentine William Basinski mash up. Thick gauzy waves of distortion wrapped around delicate glistening melodies, layered and looped into a haunting ebb and flow of pulsing drone and slow shifting buzz. The sound is very organic, rich and thick and multi-hued, almost like a warmer fuzzier SUNNO))). The second track pushes even further out in the same fuzzed out blown out ambient direction, the guitars (?) are even more corrosive, channeling the wall of skree sound of bands like Sunroof! but filtered through the doe-eyed innocence and romantic moodiness of bands like M83 or any of their like minded Gooom labelmates. Dreamy and ambient enough to be perfect for the drone obsessed, but enough like some avant rockdrone outfit to appeal to folks who have been digging Nadja, The Angelic Process, Hjarnidaudi, Jesu and the like. Awesome!
Not sure how limited these are but we're guessing VERY, so act fast. Packaged in tiny little plastic sleeves with colored paper covers and simple typed insert.
It must be a blast to stay with the Yellow Swans on tour. Most bands who put up other bands are pretty good hosts, but only to the extent that a punk rock pad can be. Floor space to crash on. Maybe some pasta or pizza. A TV with every episode of the Simpsons on tape. A shower or a bed if you're really lucky. But it seems like that in addition to all that, when you stay with the Yellow Swans, after a nice dinner and some TV, you make a record. We're not complaining (well, okay, maybe we are, that never really happened to us when we were on tour) since most of these collaborations have been completely amazing.
We never really considered ourselves 'noise' fans. Sure we love the occasional Merzbow or Masonna, but 'noise' isn't really something you throw on at home while you're cooking dinner, or relaxing reading a book. But somehow, this new breed of noisemakers, have devised a way to make 'noise' interesting again. It's no less caustic and abrasive (well, maybe a little) but it's just more interesting, more varied, more textured, it's less about 'making noise' than it is playing music that just happens to bee noisy. The Yellow Swans are one of the main practitioners of this new noise, and we've pretty much been digging everything we've heard. This here collaboration features the unknown to us Moth Drakula, who team up with their pals the Yellow Swans and proceed to make a seriously corrosive and brutal racket. More than any of the Yellow Swans stuff we've heard, this is most definitely a NOISE record. Recorded live in L.A. last year, these three tracks are white hot, as in white noise, a swirling cacophony of grinding electronics, processed feedback, and maybe there's some real instruments in there, but if so they're beaten into nearly unrecognizable shapes. A squirming squealing shrieking metallic monster, a burst of blinding harsh brutality. Harsh and harrowing, jagged and grating, fierce and fucked up, and very, very, very, very noisy!
Packaged in a super cool folded printed cardstock sleeve sort of like one of those Independent Project Press packages.
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The highly anticipated one has arrived, and hasn't disappointed! Not at all unsurprisingly Thom Yorke's solo album sounds more than a good deal like Radiohead. This is made even more so when the fact comes to light that a lot of the backing tracks were composed from recordings done by him and his fellow bandmates over the years. So... somewhat needless to say, yes, fans of Radiohead you will discover much to love about The Eraser. Simply imagine a totally stripped down but no less atmospheric Radiohead. The airiness provides more space for his unmistakable voice to drift about in its characteristic haunting expressiveness. With the vaporous electronics beneath him creating the ideal bed for his voice to soar over. And this is Yorke singing in his most emotive and compelling style minus the whining which was prevalent on lots of the first few Radiohead outings. Highlights include the fourth song "Black Swan" which suggests a nod to CAN and the sixth "Atoms For Peace" which finds Yorke looking forward with open eyes. So good.
