We're always amazed that there's so much great music made in the dim past (well, the '60s and '70s) that remains totally, utterly obscure, and ripe for reissue. The realm of rare pop-psych singles is certainly a good example, and here's yet another great compilation chock full of groovy gems from a international assortment of bands, twenty of 'em, that we've never ever ever ever heard of before (La Quinta Faccia? Carlos Bisso & Conexion 5? Les Problemes? Boneshaker? Procro Magnum? Hamilton Streetcar?). Thanks to the efforts and enthusiasms of today's crate-diggin' DJs (always on the lookout for some unknown tune to get the dancefloor movin') the flow of fab comps like this -- Cherrystone's Rocks, Nightmares at Toby's Shop, The Spanish Trip, Painting The Time, Psychedelic Minds -- is never ceasing, it seems. With bands from Argentina, USA, England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and Australia, Neurotic Reactions is a geographically and stylistically diverse collection. There's sunny pop, freakbeat, sitar psych, garage fuzz, hippy funk, all sorts of bright and colorful good time grooves here! Sure, it's true that a lot of crap gets reissued too (cf. ninety percent of the Radioactive roster), but this collection is quality psyke pstuff. The cd booklet includes brief notes on each track/artist and better yet, full-color thumbnail repros of the 45 sleeves, yay!
Who doesn't love pirates? Y'know the eye-patched, peg-legged, sword-totin' ones in storybooks and movies? Mind you of course, out on the real high seas they're a whole 'nother subject, but within the relatively safe confines of a leatherbound hardcover or a multi-screen cineplex... well, shucks! Anyway, this double cd set is most definitely pirate-themed, and while it's not technically a soundtrack album for Pirates Of The Caribbean 2, Rogue's Gallery was produced by that film's leading man Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski and Hal Willner (the man also behind the recent Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man soundtrack). Think of it more as a companion work, and a big one at that. This compilation is a whopping 43 songs in total -- all of them olden day seafaring songs as interpreted by modern day artists. Many of them are performed in unexpectedly strange and entertaining fashion, such as the opening track by Baby Gramps who sounds like a drunken Tuvan throat singer! The list of participants is quite astounding, it includes Van Dyke Parks, Nick Cave, Richard Thompson, Lucinda Williams, David Thomas, Lou Reed (very staid), Stan Ridgway, Jarvis Cocker (an awesome number that builds to a frenzied stormy climax!), Bill Frisell, Loudon Wainwright III, Rufus Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle, Gavin Friday, Bryan Ferry with Antony (injecting the comp with a little melodramatic flair), Mary Margaret O'Hara (a surprise appearance by this mysterious, captivating Canadian artist and sister of actress Catherine O'Hara!), Jolie Holland, Akron/Family, White Magic, John C. Reilly (!), a couple of guys named Sting and Bono too, and more! We won't make you walk the plank for this one, but we will politely attest to the fact that this is indeed for the most part a jolly good listen!
The latest compilation from Arthur Magazine's Bastet imprint wears that magazines politics on its sleeve on this collection of obvious and not so obvious protest songs. A lot of familiar names on this one -- Devendra Banhart, Feathers, Diane Cluck, Pajo, Josephine Foster and Matt Valentine. While the less obvious protest songs including Meg Baird's sublime "Western Red Lily" will probably resonate longer over time, there is something extremely exhilarating about the urgency of songs such as Charlie Nothing's "Fuck You and Your Stupid Wars", and Andrew Bar's "Don't Trust That Man". Play this often and loud!
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.
Another fantastic release from the brilliantly named Yarn Lazer label. This one from Honey Owens who also does time in Jackie O Motherfucker. We mentioned it elsewhere on this list, but there definitely seems to be a preponderance of vocal based music surfacing lately, Grouper, Bastard Wing, Pump Kinn, Lichens, and Valet also uses the voice as a major component of her sound. Twisting and stretching it into broad sonic strokes and dreamy drones. But it's not just vocals, Owens also weaves darkly delicate little sound worlds, of muted tribal percussion, dark cavernous rumbles, lots of buzz and creak, alien transmissions, clattery minimal percussion, crumbling guitar grit, murky swirls of reverb and delay, the perfect sonic backdrop for all manner of processed and unprocessed vocals, ranging from sultry chanteuse like croon, to chopped and delayed Boredomsy "boop boop"s to breathy ambiance. Really beautiful and understated.
Packaged in simple and striking silk-screened cardboard sleeves.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. WE ONLY HAVE ABOUT 30 AND ONCE THEY ARE GONE THAT'S IT!!
Yet another Bardo Pond offshoot/side project, this time it's Bardo brothers John & Michael Gibbons, who manage to strike out for musical worlds beyond the reach of past Bardo missions, while retaining a tenuous sonic link to the Bardo Pond universe they helped create. Vapour Theories seem to be exploring their own world of drifting lilting spaced out Neo-Appalachia, simple strummed steel string guitars form the basis of the seven minute opener, and the twenty plus minute closer, while the two tracks in between are more of the abstract drone drift variety. The first track takes the buzzing steel strings and positions them above a distant psychedelic swirl of abstract psych guitar and droning saxophone, while the epic final track lets the guitars meander lazily, a gorgeously laid back soundscape of twang and strum, old time melodies wrapped in steel string buzz, lovely late afternoon dreaminess, minor key, but not really mournful, more sort of reflective and contemplative. And so lovely. The two tracks between, lean much more toward the brothers' Bardo Pond soundworld, the first, a buzzing high end drone, warm and fuzzy and super slow shifting, over a dense tangle of tablas, the second a truly blissful drift through a landscape of lazily unfurling reverb guitar, their notes suspended for ages before drifting off, melodies lazy and slowly intertwining, harmonics chiming and ringing out, a sonic pond full of delicately intersecting ripples.
For fans of Bardo Pond, the new wave of Appalachian guitar (Rose, Blackshaw, etc.) and all things dreamy and psychedelic.
Here's a vinyl only release, limited to 500 handscreened numbered copies natch, of this the debut platter from Baltimore psych-punk heavies Vincent Black Shadow. Piquing our interest, Blue Cheer and Boris are name-checked by the label, but what you'll really hear (and the press materials also mention this) is a heckuva lotta Iggy influence. The raw Iggster vocals and the grungy grooves hit that Stoogey sweet spot for sure. Julian Cope needs to hear this... the label would be wise to send him a promo. Definitely up the (grimey, dark, piss-coated) alley of anyone into Cope's Brain Donor band... or Thee Hypnotics (remember them?) or, of course, The Stooges themselves. Which reminds me, we've still gotta list those new deluxe Stooges reissues with the bonus discs... anyway, if swaggering drug-addled rawk with cowbell and blown out bass and wah guitar does it for you, that's what VBS does here pretty darn well. And it's true that describes some Blue Cheer and Boris too...
We'd like to hear more. Bet they might be a decent, drunken live proposition as well. And tho it's LP only, we'd encourage a cd release someday. For now though you gotta grab the LP before it's gone.
Between this new album from M.Ward and those from Jason Molina and Lambchop, whoa, this is quite the week for country rock excellence!
Always such a welcome sight and sound! On the opening song, M. Ward comes drifting back on his somber raft of haunting, heavy-hearted Americana. Post-War is his much anticipated follow-up to his excellent album Transistor Radio. Ward picks right up where he left off and even rollicks things up a bit. There's an increased sense of both immediacy and intimacy to these recordings. His mood, atmosphere and energy meters are all set to 'full'. The album slips in comfortably right between My Morning Jacket's At Dawn album and Sparklehorse's Good Morning Spider. Listening to all three in a row is a supreme pleasure. Don't believe us? Try it for your yourself! Adding a nice surprise touch, Neko Case slips in to add some unmistakable backing vocals to his great cover of Daniel Johnston's "To Go Home". Ah Mr. Ward, you just get better and better and better.
For a Scottish so-called jazz pianist, Bill Wells sure has lots of indie-rock cred, having had help at times in making his dreamy, mellow music from members of Belle and Sebastian and The Pastels, fellow Glaswegians to be sure. But with this new Osaka Bridge album he taps into the willfully naive soundworld of one of our very favorite underground Japanese psych-pop ensembles, the one and only Maher Shalal Hash Baz, teaming up with them presumably thanks to their shared connection with The Pastels' Geographic label.
The music here is mostly written by Wells, but when filtered through the playing of his Japanese friends, it sounds so much like theirs. MSHB's childlike, almost Shaggsy musicianship semi-struggles playfully with Wells' compositions, making each track all the more beautiful for its fragility and simplicity of execution. Their approach, however lacking in musical chops, is perfect for what we know of Wells' penchant for melodious sound-sketches. In collaboration with MSHB, this is slow, languid, rainy day music... even the poppiest moments have a bittersweet aura. MSHB's trademark wavering horns are in full not-quite-jazz mode, and some of this sort of sounds like a '60s or '70 TV show theme music in spots, like Love American Style or a sitcom or something -- but that's not a diss, it's really pretty. Even prettier, are the tracks featuring beautiful, sad singing from Reiko Kudo, wife of MSHB leader Tori Kudo. Exquisite.
The ever-changing roster of the impressive ensemble known as The Why Because is graced with numerous music luminaries from around the Bay Area. The line-up for Music shapes, their third release, is a six member crew including folks from Anticon/Lex avant-hoppers Subtle and Themselves. The disc's five lengthy improvised tracks (recorded live back in 2004) explore the far reaches of jazz, postrock, psych/space rock and ambient experimentation. And they incorporate an even broader array of instruments with trumpet, saxophone and percussion taking prominence amid the Fender Rhodes, other keyboards, bass clarinet, guitar, bass and melodica. Music shapes commences with "Fenced Bird Takes Flight" a barren landscape of faintly blown horns and Spartan drumming. This gradually blossoms into a more fleshed out and sprawling journey with many mesmerizing and meditative stretches as well as more kinetic cyclical passages. Check out "Serpentine Tides" and "We Will Fight For The Things That We Love".
Note: This cd is dedicated to member Dax Pierson who was seriously injured in a tour van accident last year. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Dax Recovery Fund.
Cover: Kool Keith, "The Resurrection Of Dr. Octagon". Also: Charalambides, AMM (a Primer), Merce Cunningham, Genesis P-Orridge (being tested by the Invisible Jukebox), Invasion Of The Thunderbolt Pagoda filmmaker Ira Cohen, Excepter, and more, including a sobering scene report from Beirut along with all the usual reviews, charts, ads, and columns that we expect in this British magazine of cutting edge new (and old) music.
Newest (and second we've reviewed of four, we'll get to all of 'em!) in this new series of ULTRA LIMITED hand made drone / ambient cd-r's from this new boutique label specializing in short form 3" cd-r's of dark drone drenched ambiance.
Wisteriax is a cello based improv outfit made up of Mike Langlie (remember the Twink record of toy piano, that's him!), his wife Karen, and pal Darron handling the mastering.
We've always loved the cello, not far behind our love of the flute, the cello is just so deep and resonant, a huge rich organic sound that just fills a room, fills your head with a booming rich lustrous beauty. Wisteriax take that sound and fuck it all up, turning long stretches of bowed cello into huge cavernous drones, sometimes the cello plays unadorned, like a mini string section, but is soon doused with FX and transformed into something entirely new. Imagine thick warm drones, with skittery Autechre-ish beats underneath, and you'll get an idea of what this stuff sounds like. It's all also quite cinematic, and dramatic, reminding us of Barry Adamson's Moss Side Story or some lost David Holmes faux soundtrack dance record. You can totally imagine some modern thriller, cars racing through the narrow streets of Rome, or a desperate couple fleeing on foot through the foggy streets of Paris. Really evocative, sexy and mysterious. A sort of ambient drone electronica, or techno drone or something. Whatever you call it, we are digging it a lot!
ULTRA LIMITED and painstakingly hand assembled. Tiny 3" pale green fold over sleeves, with a glossy full color image affixed to the front, sealed at the bottom with two rivets, tied with a ribbon, with a little circular badge. Inside the disc nestles between two sheets of gorgeously textured paper, hand printed and so lovely.
VERY RECOMMENDED!
James Toth (aka Wooden Wand) goes into full Dylan mode on this, their one millionth release (or thereabouts, but really, who can keep track?). Switching backing bands from the Vanishing Voice to The Sky High Band, Toth loses the foresty clatter and freeform ramshackle for a more structured song-based folk album and the results are surprisingly refreshing. Sounding like New Morning or Blood On the Tracks era Bob Dylan right down to nasally vocals and harmonica flourishes on a few numbers, the songs on Second Attention are well written and the best crafted songs we have heard from this camp in a long time.
This latest reissue from the B-Music collective (Andy Votel, Cherrystones etc.) comes from blue-eyed funk-rock outfit Wool. Fronted by Ed Wool and his sister Claudia, Wool's sole 1969 album produced by Margo Guryan (who had just released her own folk-funk record on Bell) is full of the stuff beatheads crave: awesome drum breaks and groovy interludes, which is basically what we have come to expect from this label. Comprised mostly of covers including songs by The Troggs, Neil Diamond, and Big Brother and The Holding Company, Wool reminds us of other 60's female fronted rock acts such as Genya Ravin and Ten Wheel Drive, Cold Blood and Coven. But while those acts often had a couple of good songs and a lot of filler, the songs on Wool are consistently good throughout this record (well, they are mostly covers) culminating in the 10 minute James Brown-inspired "Funky Walk".
Over the years we've perceived (and for a few of us been party to) something of a love/hate relationship with this band's music, and it has primarily been centered around the vocal department. Most folks find the music sans vocals to be quite enigmatically pleasing with its uniquely unconventional assembly of homemade instruments and such, but wince once Jamie Stewart opens his mouth to croon in his unmistakable, immensely distraught oft-cryptic delivery. No, it's not for everybody, but we should also add that those who do dig it, dig it lots... to pretty much the same degree that it causes other folks distress! That said, their latest album The Air Force is probably not going to cause many converts either way. So you'll just have to let your own ears be the judge.
Whereas SF gadabout John Dwyer has been maintaining a solemn hush these days with his project OCS/OhSeeS, he might've been missing a vehicle to vent some steam since the demise of his band Coachwhips. Not anymore! Enter his new-ish band Yikes, and their first release. Secrets To Superflipping is a cathartic raucous guitar bash'n'howl recorded live at KPFA. Mixed and mastered by Weasel Walter and the band.
Two songs that weren't included on Yorke's recent solo debut as well as an extended mix of Harrowdown Hill. The two non-album tracks are a bit more glitchy and dark then anything on the full length. Yorke/Radiohead enthusiasts will want this for sure. Nice late night Yorke treat for our vinyl collections.
Italian hardcore jazz attack! We're big fans of these guys, and were happy to get to see 'em play in San Francisco earlier this summer. A super intense performance indeed, with the saxophone practically used as a percussion instrument alongside the thrashing drum battery, and the electric bass being utterly brutal, this nimble instrumental "jazz trio" was almost metallically heavy, and definitely were mindblowingly tight and technical. It's no wonder that the Steve Albini-recorded Igneo bears a dedication to The Ex. This new Zu is actually a 2001 album, at last brought out in the States by our pals at the Frenetic label, who have added on four bonus tracks, all of 'em creative remixes from a surprising quartet of remixers, from backgrounds as diverse as underground hip hop to experimental drone: DJ Olive, DJ Andy Moor, Dalek (who adds a rap vocal, that works in context), and Giuseppe Ielasi. Pretty neat. The album itself also boasts some heavy guests, well-known Chicago indie jazz cats Ken Vandermark, Fred Lomberg-holm, and Jeb Bishop. So if blitzkrieging (but beauteous too) free jazz / math rock is your thing (if you're a fan of the likes of John Zorn, Alboth!, and the Flying Luttenbachers) and you haven't heard Zu, this is the disc to get! And by the way, there's a song here entitled "Solar Anus" -- not a Skullflower cover, nor anything to do with the Japanese band of that name. Just another Bataille reference we must suppose.
