Whoa, this is such an amazingly eclectic album, Record Machine is indeed like The Herms' own version of a jukebox. Put it on for a spin and you'll get all shapes and sizes and shades of pop that draw inspiration from each of the past four decades of music. In turn they recall The B-52s' "Rock Lobster" camp, Robyn Hitchcock's engaging cryptic eccentricities, The Kinks' wry pop snap, The Fall's angular snarkiness... and these SF fellas do it all exceptionally well. A super impressive debut that's positively bursting with confidence and energy.
Daniel Higgs, of Lungfish and the Pupils, is one of the very few contemporary artists who we would absolutely consider a sort of modern day shaman. A musical alchemist, an artistic cypher, an abstract philosopher, a strangely charismatic, yet disarmingly humble master of any artistic endeavor he puts his mind to. A legendary (but now retired) tattoo artist, an incredible painter, whose paintings are at once hallucinatory and gorgeous (one painting adorns the cover of Leviathan's Tentacles Of Whorror record) and of course an incredible musician, whose sonic experiments range from the mesmeric riffrock of his band Lungfish, to an entire record of solo Jew's harp. But in addition to being an incredible lyricist, an amazing vocalist, and a master of the Jew's harp, Higgs is also a seriously mean guitar player, with a style and sound as familiar as it is totally alien. A gorgeous buzzing steel string drift through the cosmos. Lengthy droning ragas, that drift hypnotically from deconstructed Appalachia to John Cale like slow-shifting skree (joined on those tracks by violin), to moody melancholy crawls, to thick serpentine swirls of snake charmer melody and reverberating steel string shimmer. Raw and lo-fi for sure, but so darkly emotional, and dreamily hypnotic. We've been listening to this non stop since we got it and it continues to unfold more and more on each listen, we're thinking seriously about grabbing a boombox, taking a ton of peyote, blasting this tape and laying in the thick grass, sprawled naked on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere, beneath a sparkling moonlit sky. In other words, WAY RECOMMENDED!
SUPER LIMITED of course. In spiffy, ultra cryptic packaging.
Sometimes we want to grab Robert Horton, and shake him like crazy, screaming "For God's sake man, slow down with the releases!!! Even if we listened to one very day for the rest of our lives, we're not sure we'd get to all of them!!" But sometimes, we want to grab Robert Horton, and shake him like crazy, screaming "For God's sake man, DON'T EVER slow down with the releases!!! We are going to listen to one every day for the rest of our lives, and we never ever want to run out!!" So by now, you're take on this latest cd-r (number 34,221 by last count) will depend on which sort of shaking you want to do. To be totally honest, we tend to lean toward the latter, sure, it's exhausting keeping up with this man's prolific output, but pretty much every thing we've heard has been absolutely fantastic. I guess that's why we have entire rooms of our houses dedicated to storing all of our records and cds. -sigh-
Anyway, Diamond-Beak-Hornet-Hell finds Horton employing the same bizarre array of soundmakers (including boot, vibrator, sex machine, raven, rubber band and more) to create his thick soundworlds. DBHH is a bit heavier than past outings, all of the swirling bits of sound coalescing into a seriously propulsive riff, like a less drifty Sunroof! but that's just the first track. The rest of the disc dabbles in deep drone, flecked with bits of disembodied slide guitar and what sounds like processed didgeridoo, swirling abstract psychedelia, thick warped rhythmscapes of warped backwards guitars and strange keening reeds and clattery deconstructed blues, transformed into some sort of almost industrial looped dronescape. Cool.
And we managed to make it through the whole disc before the next one was released. So now we're ready Horton! Bring it on!!!
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As hard as it is to believe that there can still be a steady stream of amazing reissues of '70s psychedelia from all around the world (but there is!), we're equally amazed that the purveyors of '80s grim synth punk have also been re-emerging with increasing regularity and surprising quality. While the German collector's label Vinyl On Demand have been at the forefront of the '80s resurgence of cold, cold, cold post-punk (mostly of the Germanic variety), Acute has also uncovered some gems, offering us the Metal Urbain reissues as well as a handful of pre-symphonic Glenn Branca projects. Now Acute presents Ike Yard. Hailing from New York back in the early '80s, they were one of the few American bands to sign to Factory Records (the most notable other band being ESG). This collection of tracks from 1980 - 1982 culls all of the material from Ike Yard's one LP on Factory and an EP for Le Disque Du Crespuscule plus the requisite unreleased material. Initially, Ike Yard really does sound like Factory should be their home, easily paralleling the death disco prowess of Public Image Limited or Section 25. Their dour monochrome post-punk enjoys a spectral production quality which haunted all of the Martin Hannett produced Factory recordings. But gradually the Factory overtones disappear in lieu of an claustrophobic electronic sound which reminds us a lot like early Cabaret Voltaire, or rather what we wished CV would sound like given that CV hasn't really weathered all that well up very. Ike Yard though is another matter, as they seemed to really fight over whether to groove on a primal, sexual funk or to alienate their audience with their cold, electro-primitive detachment. Between the metallic synth arppegiations, drum machines struggling to work through the complex patterns, and the angular swatches of screeching guitar, there is Kenny Compton's chilling, zombified vocal delivery that really pushes Ike Yard deeper into the realms of urban malaise. A very cool reissue.
It's a funny thing, a lot of times, for us at least, as black metal bands get better, and tighter and more polished, they don't necessarily get better. Or more specifically, we don't actually like them any more than we did when they were struggling to realize some musical vision well beyond their technical grasp. I suppose that's true of any music maybe, but it seems more obvious with black metal in particular. When a band finally records in a studio, and has spent the last year honing their chops, it often sounds -amazing-, but just not as weird or personal or uniquely inspired. A good example is Behemoth, who we do love, still, but who are now a super tight technical, nearly overproduced, slick, fast, sharp and super complex black metal juggernaut. But in the beginning, they were making buzzing Burzumic black metal, with basically just acoustic guitars and drums. So they would be playing these classic sounding riffs, right there alongside stumbling blast beasts, but with some janky acoustic steel string guitar. And the results were totally inspired! It's that sort of inspiration and invention that can only come from absolute necessity. Which is precisely what is so appealing about so much black metal.
But there are exceptions, one obvious one being this new record from Inferi. Previous recordings (two tapes) found the band a stumbling, chaotic, mess, a glorious mess, but a mess nonetheless, lots of buzz and blackness, but terrible recording quality and some super stumbling performances, which in that case, kept the band from expressing the sounds they were hearing in their heads. But on Shores Of Sorrow, Inferi, have done everything right. The sound is loud and heavy, thick and clear, but without losing the grim buzz that so defined them. And the playing is better too, but instead of trying to become some super technical BM band, they continued to hone their gorgeously sorrowful, midtempo blackness, and the result is totally captivating. Quite possibly one of the saddest sounding black metal records ever. Each of the four lengthy tracks is a blurry, buzzing, minor key dirge, thick swirls of distortion wrapped around totally emotional and super sad sounding melodies, all draped over loping lurching midtempo rhythms. Occasionally some awesomely unexpected double kick drumming surfaces, but all it does is up the tension factor, and make the song seem even more sad and intense. The opening track sets the tone, 12 minutes of mournful acoustic guitar, a gently lilting minor key melody, drifting beneath sheets of raw blown out black buzz, sort of seasick and dreamlike, harsh vocals howl above the melancholy blackness. The drums don't even kick in until the last few minutes, and then this black near-ballad turns into a heartbreaking dirge. The next two tracks follow a similar pattern, epic and sorrowful, gloriously miserable droning buzz. It's everything we love about Burzum and Xasthur and Nortt and Make A Change... Kill Yourself, stripped to its very essence, the simplest buzzing black representation of utter misery, so completely mesmerizing and totally soul stirring. The final track is blazing fast, at least compared to the first three, a furious not quite blast beat, over dense drifts of swirling black buzz, and like the rest of the disc, still totally minor key, utterly doleful and despondent, austere and disconsolate, and so goddamned good.
Fans of any of the above mentioned bands, and any one into buzzing beautiful sad blackness might just have a new favorite disc to drown your sorrows in...
Pretty much any avid reader of the AQ list should be familiar with Andrew Chalk, one of our favorite modern masters of the minimal drifting drone. A while back we received a cool little 3" cd in the mail from a mysterious group called Isolde, which we later discovered was in fact a duo, Andrew Chalk and his sonic foil Robin Barnes. And as you might expect, that disc quietly and completely blew us away. Dense swirls of shimmering sound, dark and ominous crystalline and delicate, some of the best and most interesting dronemusic we'd heard in a while for sure.
But a 3" cd is hardly enough, it just whetted our appetite for more. With drones, and dark ambience, you want the sounds to stretch out forever and ever (or as long as recording media will allow) so that brief twenty minutes while still glorious, only hinted at where these guys could takes us given enough time...
So finally, here we have the brand new full length from Chalk and Barnes, 3 tracks, 50 minutes, the shortest clocking in at 14 minutes, the longest 20. And everything we loved about the first one is present here as well, but as one might expect, with the extended track lengths, the sounds are allowed to stretch out, drift further, each song an epic minimal journey through a series of wondrous darkly dramatic otherworlds. But unlike the 3", On Waving And Drowning is not all whisper and shimmer, occasionally Isolde manage to build their intimate sonic events into massive squalls of crackling static, roiling black clouds of thick corrosive guitarnoise and thick wall-of-sound grrrrr, reminding us of Birchville Cat Motel quite a bit. But these eruptions are surrounded on all sides by massive expanses of soft focus tranquility. A subtly shifting tableau, small sounds and epic soundscapes gradually dissolving into each other, fading in and out, layer after layer of sound shifting and slithering, creeping and crawling, deep still pools of barely there sound, shards of blue tinted moonlight, distant flurries of washed out staticky hum. A stunningly rendered drone world of dreamy drift.
Totally gorgeous packaging. A maroon cardboard digisleeve, on thick textured paper, printed in metallic silver, inside the gatefold, a beautiful full color image affixed to the sleeve. Like the music, understated and divine.
First vinyl release from the UK's Paradigms label, who over the last few months have brought us amazing releases from Amber Asylum, Hjarnidaudi, Blueprint Human Being, Throne Of Katarsis, Utlagr, Titan, the Angelic Process, as well as the gorgeous Walking With Ghosts compilation reviewed elsewhere on this list. And as first (vinyl) releases go, this one's a doozy. Jarboe, formerly of the mighty Swans, who has for years been crafting dark and mysterious musicks on her own, returns with a new extended ensemble and new dark tribal sound. Her new group, The Sweet Meat Love And Holy Cult features some seriously expansive instrumentation, two drummers, cello, violin, piano, acoustic guitars, rebab, vocals and sitar. A big ensemble, but it doesn't sound overblown, instead it manages to still sound immediate and intimate. Especially on side A, a swirling ambience of warped effects, muted minor key melodies, and strange shimmering metallics, underpin Jarboe's haunting vocals, which build and build, layer upon layer, until the track becomes a sea of tangled voices, slipping and drifting in and out of unlikely harmonies. From within this dense cloud of vocal tangle emerges a dirgey steel string guitar, and suddenly it sounds like some modern outsider psych folk jam, all strummy and drifting, with soaring sorrowful vocals woven delicately into the reverberating steel strings. Side B is a little more chaotic, clangy, clattery and dense, tribal rhythms, some primitive krautrock jam, topped again by Jarboe's wailing vocals. The whole thing is thick with natural reverb, like it was recorded live in a cave or a cathedral. Gradually, mournful strings materialize way back in the mix, giving the whole track a subtly sorrowful vibe, and ends up sounding like a string section jamming with a sonically overpowering No Neck / Avarus orchestra. Which sounds amazing! Definitely one of the nicest and most powerful post-Swans recordings we've heard from Jarboe.
SUPER LIMITED. ONLY 600 COPIES PRESSED. Packaged in a thick full color sleeve, with a truly haunting, beautiful painted portrait of the lady herself on the cover.
The Kalevala is the Finnish national mythological epic, and thus no surprise this '70s prog/boogie band hails from Finland. Yes that's right, we said prog/boogie. And Finland. Wonder if Itavalya are fans? There's two LPs reissued here on this single cd, the band's 1972 debut People No Names, and their 1975 follow-up Boogie Jungle. Of the two, well, you can maybe guess which is the best...
People No Names is simply a crazed hard rockin' prog behemoth, kicking ass and taking names (no names?). The nine-minute title track doesn't hold back the rapid-fire changes, the ripping guitars, the jazzy grooves, the weirdly gruff vocals...it's wild stuff!! The other cuts here veer from instrumental shred to folky melodiousness to heavy psychedelic jamming, oftentimes all at once! Not for those with no tolerance for wackiness, though. The countryish hoedown "Tamed Indians" will see to that...
Record number two, which appeared three years later, after the band broke up and reformed with a new line-up (including a new vocalist), is a bit more of an ordinary, less-prog, more Jimi Hendrix-y affair. Still wacky though. And, of course, they've gone BOOGIE big time. Some will find this just too ridiculous but we're having wonderful nostalgic flashbacks to a '70s rock n' roll Finland we never actually experienced.
Interesting note: Liner notes that reveal the band's original name was Vietnam, which didn't fly with concert promoters at the time, hence the change...
Another note: one annoyance is that Walhalla did that annoying thing labels so often do when they put out 2-on-1 cds, trying to cram both album's covers on one panel of the cd booklet rather than giving each cover a panel. Pet peeve #294,391.
Heralded as supposedly the first Japanese female singer-songwriter, Sachiko Kanenobu's debut solo outing from 1972, Misora (Beautiful Sky), has an aura of legend. A hard-working presence in the burgeoning Osaka folk scene in the '60s, Sachiko worked for record labels and various bands before striking out on her own. Since it was rare for a woman to be playing her own songs, she quickly managed a record deal. But her love affair with American music critic, Paul Williams, forced her to decide to move to America three months before Misora was released. Without her in Japan to promote it, the record sank without a trace. While in America, she tried to revive her career with the help, of all people, sci-fi writer Phillip K. Dick (!!!), who had become friends with the couple through a piece by Williams for Rolling Stone. Dick, a longtime music obsessive, had always wanted to produce a female songwriter, but unfortunately died of a stroke before that could take place. Her major revival didn't occur until the early '90s when musicians from the buzzing Shibuya-kei scene, such as Cornelius, Takako Minekawa and Kenji Ozawa began citing Misora as a major influence and Misora as a favorite record. The music here is soft and dreamy reminiscent somewhat of Joni Mitchell but with her own innocent flair along with nice arrangements of flute and guitar. One can definitely trace Sachiko's influence on the dreamy sounds of Japanese female vocalists Takakao Minekawa, Tujiko Noriko, and Mineko Itakura from Angel'n Heavy Syrup. Beautiful!
Not sure what band leader Obsidian C.'s day job is, maybe he's a doctor or a lawyer or plays guitar on tour with Satyricon, 'cause whatever he does it obviously keeps him pretty busy, to the detriment of his band getting releases out in a timely fashion. Between their 2nd and 3rd release was a span of five years, and now it's been like two years since that 'comeback' ep came out. So, Obsidian and Co. are not rushing it, which is good. Plenty of time to craft a solid piece of Norwegian black metal fury, pure black/death/thrash art, which is what Armada is! Insane drumming, lots of unexpected twists (Spanish guitar!), technical flourishes, original and intense. This band, whose 1999 debut Through Times Of War we heralded as being on the level of heavyweights Emperor, Enslaved, Immortal, and Satyricon, still deserve to be mentioned in such illustrious company, even if they don't get as much recognition from the metal-buying masses.
It's hard to believe we've somehow managed to never review a record by Finnish free folk improviser Keijo Virtanen, considering the sheer number of cd-r and cassette releases he's amassed over the last few years, but we're making up for it this list by listing two different ones.
Keijo's After At Once is his very first non-cd-r release, and gathers up his usual group of sonic cohorts, known collectively as the Free Players, some of which also do time in the group Vapaa, to do that thing that seems to come so naturally to the Finnish, weave an enormous and gorgeously complex sonic tapestry of clattery improv, dark droning ambience, and stumbling foresty free folk. It should go without saying that anyone into Avarus, or Anaksimandros, or Kemialliset Ystavat or any of their like-minded musical brethren and sistren, will love this. They are all branches on the same tree, a massive sprawling sonic collective, even when they don't share members, they share ideas, and inspiration, a common musical heritage, and the results are always totally breathtaking. Here, the sound is crafted into slow building meandering epics, detuned steel string strum, shimmery distant chordal swells, occasional bells and chimes, strange simple minimal percussion, haunting deconstructed grooves, bursts of abstract tribal drumming, plenty of tape hiss and ambient noise, moaning horns, playful little Renn faire melodies, bizarre Comus-like vocals, throat singing, all tangled up and intertwined and overlapping, a gloriously untethered drift through some lost world of sound.
It's hard to believe we've somehow managed to never review a record by Finnish free folk improviser Keijo Virtanen, considering the sheer number of cd-r and cassette releases he's amassed over the last few years, but we're making up for it this list by listing two different ones.
This is a more recent cd-r, released on Antony Milton's Pseudo Arcana label, and again features Keijo teamed up with his band of Free Players, featuring some folks from fellow Finnish free folkers Vapaa, and like the Digitalis disc reviewed elsewhere on this list, it's another gorgeous slab of spaced out free folk bliss, and minimal psychedelic drone. As we mentioned in the other review, fans of Avarus, Kemialliset, Anaksimandros, and any of that sort of Finnish free weirdness, should just stop right now and pick this up (we actually only have a handful in stock). Fans of No Neck and Sunburned Hand will probably dig this a lot as well...
Keijo and his players sound like Hawkwind, if they had all of their instruments confiscated, and were forced to wander in a deep forest for years and years. A meandering, primitive folky drone, a sort of abstract freenoise, with bits of jazzy skitter, pagan tribalism, rumbling drone and creepy ambience. Simpler percussion, wood blocks, chimes, all manner of random clatter, broken drums, clanking cymbals, spread out over expanses of warbling organ drones, and murky minimal shuffle, peppered here and there are field recordings, snippets of conversations, strange dubbed out FX, new agey flutes, some playful bits of jaunty melody, and dense layers of thick, swirling sound. A deeply dark, dreamily dense listen.
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Another great reissue from the Hit Thing label! Joining the Georges Montalba pipe organ cd on their catalog is this mysterious European minimal industrial album from the very early '80s.
Liaisons Dangereuses were primarily two individuals, Beate Bartel (who in later years went on to form Malaria!) and Chris Haas (a founding member of DAF). They were accompanied on vocals by Krishna Goineau who sang in French, German and Spanish (a few customers have mistaken his flamboyant delivery for that of Falco). Very much akin to Einsturzende Neubauten, The Normal, Suicide and DAF. Edgy, dark and throbbing, the programmed nailgun-like beats are punctuated by Goineau's impassioned singing/speaking, some high pitched female backing vocals, squidgy electronic belches, an occasional saxophone run, and much metallic clanks and thuds. It was all mixed at Conny Plank's studio. The one track here that may be familiar is their dance 'hit' "Los Ninos Del Parque", however L.D.'s impact goes beyond this one song. Indeed they were/are highly regarded and very influential in techno, house and yes, electroclash circles. Fans of present-day electro, EBM, post punk and no wave should definitely check this out as it's the real deal - solidly kicking ass on many of the current crop. This album sits quite perfectly next to the Teutonik Disaster compilation that we recently reviewed as fine historical documents of the early '80s European sounds. May leave you reeling.
All I can think when I hear Lietterschpich, is man, this is exactly what I always wished Whitehouse sounded like. Don't get me wrong. We love Whitehouse, and while they are definitely harsh and brutal and caustic, they just aren't very heavy. The sound is brittle and shrieking, which yeah, is probably the point, but oh how we longed for a crushingly heavy Whitehouse. Local boys Burmese sort of took that role, with their stripped down slow motion grindcore, so slow motion in fact that the music would become a sheet of white noise, through which the various members would wail and shout, howl and testify. But then we heard Lietterschpich, and it was as if someone had been listening to us and granted our wish. This Israeli combo are seriously one of the heaviest, scariest bands we have ever heard. The opening track, recorded live is a vast expanse of ear shredding high end, sheets of acrid feedback, layer after layer of shrieking skree, underneath a gritty fuzzy buzz of tape hiss and instrument crackle, over which a super distorted voice, drenched in FX, spits out a frightening sounding litany of ROOOOAAAR's and GRRRRRGHGHGHGHGHG's. Each time the vocals come in, they are recorded so hot, that it forces the screeching white noise to recoil, as if it were deathly afraid of THIS VOICE. Holy fuck. SO fierce and totally scary. But impossibly, downright listenable too. Probably the finest (but freakiest) moment, is an all but unrecognizable cover of the Pixies' "Monkey Gone To Heaven", an epic, super abstract dirge, with killer live drums, pounding away some super spare glacial rhythm, while weird creaking keening drones shimmer in the background, and the vocals, harsh and so so brutal, channel the spirit of Frank Black, turning him into some sort of hellish demon, gargling blood and broken glass. Throughout the track, thick electronic fuzz and grind, warbles and pulses, creating all kinds of again, impossibly catchy, alien melodies. Definite contender for best cover version EVER. The final track is a brief, mathy instrumental jam, just drums, pounding and shuffling through a creepy cloud of moaning drones and wailing sirens, disembodied vocals, spastic synths and creepy little glitchy bleeps and bloops. Wow. Only three songs, leaves us DYING for more, but at the same time, after just three songs you feel brutalized, beaten and bloodied, we're not sure we could handle any more than that. But we can't wait to try...
Despite this band's name, Los Amigos Invisibles most definitely make their presence felt with their latest album. Chock full of tireless Latin jazz beats, electronic frolics, swoon-croon male vocals and ample nods to '80s funk and disco, Superpop Venezuela has 'party' all over it! Pretty much every one of these seventeen songs is infused with an irresistable force that pulls you onto the dancefloor. After about a half dozen playful, sexy, rump-bumpers they insert a gentler, breezy cocktail-sippin' number "A Una Mujer" to cool down your fevered brow... but it'll still keep your top a-tapping. Then it's right back into the peppery festivities which include an unabashedly kooky tune called "Caramelo Y Chocolate"... those are some super silly vocals! Really, this band very well might be able to singlehandedly stretch the balmy summer nights long into the autumn months! Not at all surprisingly this was produced by Dimitri From Paris who himself possesses the know-how to not only get a party started but keep it rollin' into the wee hours.
The Mars Volta, the still relatively youthful captains of the league of recent prog progeny, have consistently presented themselves as a very promising sonic entity of cryptic cerebral progressive substance. However despite what they themselves might believe, it seems the shoes they're trying to fill still might require some growin' in. With Amputechture, they've sure shorn the last of their At The Drive-In-ness (both musically and appearance-wise including one large 'fro). Really, on paper it all sounds fantastic... sci-fi inspired, Latin salsa infused prog rock, but what comes out of the speakers sounds more like aimless prog-styled noodly guitar solos and ill-conceived pretentious posturing that lacks the direction, composition and fortitude of its forefathers. And to be honest, there are a million bands doing this modern metallic prog thing a whole lot better. Weirder, heavier, more complex, more energetic, more inspired, take your pick, Chiodos, Circa Survive, Coheed And Cambria... And while we love John Frusciante (at least his fucked up solo records, his presence on the album doesn't help matters much if at all. A high falutin' disappointment.
The Master Musicians of Joujouka have had held a mystique on Western ears ever since they were first documented by Bryon Gysin in the 50's and popularized by Brian Jones when he released some of the first recordings on the fledgling (at the time) Rolling Stone imprint. This is the third in a series on the Sub Rosa label documenting the ritual of Boujeloud which celebrates the myth of a Pan-like deity-half man, half goat-who introduced music into their culture. The music on this disc was recorded between 1994 and 1996 in Northern Morocco from four generations of Joujouka Masters. The musicians start out with soft bamboo flutes or lliras and as more people gather, the musicians switch to the oboe-like rhaita. Backed by some seriously primal drumming, the playing intensifies into trance-inducing trills and whirls as village dancers act out the ancient story. It's little wonder that Gysin and Jones, mad explorers of altered consciousness, were deeply entranced by this ancient pagan-like music.
Once again, the punk rock newsprint bible returns jam packed with, well, loads and loads of PUNK ROCK!! But this time we get a piece on all time AQ faves Redd Kross, with an extensive history of the Redd Kross early years!! Woo hoo!! Also, Swedish scene report, Blackpool, UK scene report, and tons of bands we've never heard of: Italy's Out With A Bang, Derek Lyn Plastic, We March from Ohio, Alan Milman, Rat Traps from Tennessee, the Scarred, Gilbert Switzer, killer classic Japanese hardcore photos, another excerpt from Lance Hahn's (J-Church) upcoming book on the crusty Anarcho scene, this time the Blood Robots, stories from New Orleans part 3 plus book reviews, record reviews, punk rock news, tone of columns and more more more!
Every issue of McSweeney's Quarterly is a treat, not just the amazing writing, but the design as well, which is pretty much mindblowing every time. And this newest issue just might take the cake. Which is saying a lot since past issues have been packaged in cigar boxes, as multiple little booklets, with strange and elaborate covers, bizarre type setting, they'll try anything. The newest looks like a regular bound hardcover book, except for the psychedelic landscape on the cover that is both intricately colored and raised up and textured, like someone dropped some bizarre multi colored, tendrilled, angular -thing- on your book, where it quickly hardened into some sort of tripped out topographical map. Cool. And the text inside is just as gorgeous and fascinating. New fiction from Susan Steinberg, Kevin Moffit, Ben Jahn, Tony D'Souza, J. Erin Sweeney, Sarah Raymont, Jack Pendarvis, Roy Kesey, Anthony Schneider, Roderick White, Aaron Gwyn, Sam Miller and Corrina Vallianatos. Also lots of amazing original artwork. And inside the back cover is affixed a little printed booklet, the first chapter of a forthcoming McSweeney's novel. As always, not much else to say but WOW!
Okay, we blew it. We did. We let this MGR record slip right under our radar. And we regret it. We do. As we've said before, the only thing better than discovering some new record that totally kicks your ass, is discovering some record you ignored or missed for some reason, only to have your ass kicked retroactively. Such is the case with MGR. And to prove just how sorry we are, not only are we listing this disc (a few months late) but we also got a super limited cd-r direct from the band reviewed elsewhere on this list.
Not sure why we didn't give this a listen when it first came out, our defense, as flimsy as it may seem, is that we thought MGR was the abbreviation for manager, so we just sort of figured, that was kind of a dumb name so why bother. MGR actually stands for Mustard Gas And Roses and is the work of one M. Gallagher from postrock metal heavyweights Isis, and is actually quite amazing.
Imagine Isis with all the bombast stripped away, all traces of metal removed, leaving only sinewy minor key guitars to drift over vast expanses of droning shimmer, skeletal but incredibly lush. Dark, moody, melancholy soundscapes, the background a warm swirl of sound, guitars drifting in the fuzzy haze above, unfurling gorgeously melancholic melodies, while all around huge swaths of sound shimmer and shift. There's some lap steel, but it's just another gauzy layer of sound, there are beats here and there, but those already minimal rhythms are processed into indistinct throbs and minimal shuffles and buried way down in the murk, making those tracks sound like some sort of post rock Gas. So good.
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For some reason we never got around to reviewing the MGR full length on Neurot. Not sure why exactly. This may sound a little bit stupid, but I think it was because we thought MGR was the abbreviation for 'manager' and thus not a very cool name for a band. But when we finally did listen to that record a few weeks back we were totally knocked for a loop. And we felt bad, and dumb, and thus we are doing our very best to make things right by not only reviewing that very full length (elsewhere on this list) but also this super limited cd-r tour only collaboration.
What we did discover is that MGR stands for Mustard Gas And Roses, a much cooler name for sure, or maybe it stands for Mike Gallagher something-beginning-with-R, since MGR is in fact the work of Mike Gallagher from metallic post rockers Isis, either way, MGR is some gloriously beautiful and droney stuff.
We're not exactly sure who SirDSS (aka David Scott Stone) is, but with his arsenal of effects, synths and bowed metals, adds a definite metallic (as in metallic, not as in heavy metal) sheen to MGR's more organic dronescapes.
Long slowly unfurling whorls of abstract steel string tangle, huge slow burning electric guitar shimmers, drifting amidst glistening sonic cobwebs, silver streaks of minimal feedback, while in the distance some sort of industrial apparition grinds and clangs, creaks and keens, beneath an outerspace world of dreamlike ambient guitarscapes, radiant sine waves and thick luminous layers of crumbling melody.
So nice.
Soooo darn dreamy! Imagine a not so distant Australian cousin to Brits Stereolab and Broadcast, and you might find Minimum Chip fluttering into view. We've got a bit of a soft spot for this sort of krautrock inflected pop with all of its warm deep hypnotic synth bass lines, organ-y drones, shuffling drumbeats and feathery female vocals. The dozen songs on Lady Grey are sweetly sigh-inducing.
Wow. This collaboration between Japanese epic art rockers Mono and their equally arty countrymen World's End Girlfriend is nothing short of gorgeous. Palmless Prayer / Mass Murder Refrain is an absolutely breathtaking five-part mood piece that enshrouds the listener in looming desolate shadows cast by classically composed guitar, strings, piano, saxophone and even a fleeting vocal chorus. A staggeringly moving work definitely for fans of Godspeed You Black Mogwai or anyone else looking to have their jaw dropped by some seriously bleak beauty.
It's getting harder and harder to know what to write about Mouth Of The Architect and the handful of like-minded bands that we love so much. With MOTA we kinda just want to write "THIS BAND RULES!! SO HEAVY AND CATCHY AND COOL. JUST BUY THIS!!! NOW!!!" But since for some reason not everyone does exactly as we say, and often need a little persuasion, we'll dig a little deeper.
Ever since the first metal band started incorporating math rock into their sound, or ever since the first post rock band went all metal (hard to say how it happened, chicken and egg and all that) we have been hooked, BIG TIME! Impossible for us to resist such a perfect chocolate/peanut butter scenario, such bands as Isis, Indian, Conifer, Tides, Pelican, Minsk, Rosetta, who mix all the bludgeoning brutality, the down tuned riffage, the pounding skull splitting drums, the howled throat shredding demonic growl, with all the intricate rhythms, dreamy drones, melancholy melodies, loping dreaminess, krautrocky grooves and meandering moodiness we could ever want.
It sort of makes sense, when you think about it, all of these bands aren't consciously combining two disparate genres, they are just incorporating all of the things we always wanted in a heavy rock band. Post rock bands were often just not heavy enough, metal bands were often not interesting or pretty enough. These bands are both. Everything. Mouth Of The Architect are probably one of our favorites, their sound leaning a lot more toward the massive, heavy, riffy, doom sludge side of the equation, which just makes the pretty parts all that much more special. And the thing about MOTA, is that even at their heaviest, their crushing downtuned riffs are sort of just supercharged mathrock parts, which gives the whole thing a much more moody emotional vibe, gives it a little more groove, makes it a lot more catchy, even subtly so. Not sure what else to say, other than "THIS BAND RULES!! SO HEAVY AND CATCHY AND COOL. JUST BUY THIS!!! NOW!!!"
Wow. We just did the math, and the four members of Mudsuckers, Pete and Gabe from the Yellow Swans, Tom Carter from Charalambides, and Robert Horton, have between the four of them, released over 27,000 cd-r's. Or at least it seems like it. We're not complaining though (okay, maybe we are a little since we seem to constantly be scrambling to get all of these guys' records reviewed) 'cuz pretty much everything we've heard, we've dug, a lot. The Mudsuckers sounds a bit like an extension of the Yellow Swans, so any YS obsessive who have been hankering might do well to grab this right now. Horton and Carter seem to have dived right in, contributing their own bits of thick murky sound to the melee, the first half of the disc is dense with thick swirls of muddy guitar grrr, blown out synth, and lots of Crash Worshiping drum damage, about midway through, the sound is stretched out, still murky and muddy, but much more glistening and sparkly, hiss and fuzz and buzz and whir all shined up real pretty and let loose to drift dreamily. The second to last track features some tortured Jandekian guitar, whose angular riffing gradually melts into thick pools of dirgey drone. The final 16 minute closer, is a slow building wall of N.O.I.S.E., starting out delicate and dark, but growing into a hissy beast, but close listening reveals all sorts of melodic action and rhythmic shuffling beneath the surface of the Mudsuckers' roiling and caustic sonic sea. Nice!
There's something about Bellingham Washington. Not sure what it is. But bands from there seem to always be really really strange sounding. But strange in this completely undefinable way. It's like they have the same influences as the rest of us, listen to the same music, but when it comes time to get down and rock, what comes out is totally twisted and unique. There's the Reeks And Wrecks, whose twisted take on indie rock comes out sounding more like a New Orleans funeral march, and now the Narrows, who seem to be rooted in early nineties math rock / slowcore a la Codeine, Seam and stuff like that, but somehow the sound they produce is a chugging, metallic, emotionally supercharged blast of minimal minor key moodiness. Hard to explain just why this stuff resonates so intensely but it does. Could be that the band used to be faster, but a horrific tour accident/injury and months of songwriting on pain killers morphed them into this chugging super dynamic behemoth, or again, it could just be Bellingham. Seriously, this band is so good they actually got Andee to leave the house and go to a show! Ask anybody who knows Andee, that's a major accomplishment.
Alligator is a reissue of the Narrows' first two releases, Days Are Numbered from 2000, and Six Ten from 2001. Seven tracks, the shortest clocking in at a fairly substantial 7 minutes, the longest a massive 17 minutes. All the songs are total epics, with moody stretched out verses, mumbled vocals, loping rhythms, and fuzzed out melancholy melodies -- and then crushing pummelling pounding choruses, massive distorted slabs of heartbreaking intensity with wailed anguished vocals. This is the kind of stuff you wish you had back in your good old mixtape days to let that girl/guy know just how completely fucked up and miserable they made you feel. So fucking great.
The 2lp version comes in an amazing gatefold with a pop up alligator and liner notes!
FINALLY, BACK IN STOCK!!!
There's something about Bellingham Washington. Not sure what it is. But bands from there seem to always be really really strange sounding. But strange in this completely undefinable way. It's like they have the same influences as the rest of us, listen to the same music, but when it comes time to get down and rock, what comes out is totally twisted and unique. There's the Reeks And Wrecks, whose twisted take on indie rock comes out sounding more like a New Orleans funeral march, and now the Narrows, who seem to be rooted in early nineties math rock / slowcore a la Codeine, Seam and stuff like that, but somehow the sound they produce is a chugging, metallic, emotionally supercharged blast of minimal minor key moodiness. Hard to explain just why this stuff resonates so intensely but it does. Could be that the band used to be faster, but a horrific tour accident/injury and months of songwriting on pain killers morphed them into this chugging super dynamic behemoth, or again, it could just be Bellingham. Seriously, this band is so good they actually got Andee to leave the house and go to a show! Ask anybody who knows Andee, that's a major accomplishment.
The Skull At Life Size is a massive thirty minute epic that live, is often stretched out even further to fill up the Narrows' entire set. A churning slow motion dirge, spare and hypnotic, dark and miserable. The bass and guitar float eerily through a haze of minor key overtones and above a sparse skeletal framework of simple drumming. Occasionally, the intensity builds into a massive wave of furious chaos, all crashing cymbals, roaring distorted guitar, and keening heartfelt wails belting out a ridiculously catchy (and unlikely) hook, before the whole thing dissipates and settles back down into its original lugubrious crawl. So completely amazing. The Narrows are one of those groups who can do so much with so little. Guitar, bass and drums, one or two parts, and the results are sublime. It's all about shadings and subtleties. A perfect economy of composition and performance. Minimal and perfect.
Tara Jane O'Neil's latest solo outing doesn't stray far from the delicate structures of her previous efforts and that's a good thing. Unlike the latest recordings of her contemporaries, Neko Case, Beth Orton, and Chan Marshall, O'Neil, former member of Rodan and Retsin, eschews the full band songwriter mode and instead recorded these lilting and ethereal songs in various empty wooden houses around Portland, Or. The subtle sonic whirl and droning effects that begin most of the songs puts O'Neil closer to the Six Organs camp as the songs become folk-ish paeans to the mystical nature of the Pacific Northwest. Lovely!
There's a palpable aura of giddy excitement whenever Yoshimi from The Boredoms unleashes a new OOIOO record. We've loved Yoshimi as long as we can remember. Ever since we first heard the Boredoms. OOIOO's last album "Gold & Green" is a perennial store favorite. And Taiga finds Yoshima and company reconnecting to that same primal spazzy sound while building all sorts of wild and chaotic momentum. Scrappy, peppy, unrelenting. Like being in some insane Japanese pep rally! Off kilter melodies, unique rhythms, pulsating percussion and so much blindingly brilliant musical color. Yoshimi talks a lot in interviews about how much color plays a role in her music making, and that usually when she makes a record she will tell her band about the kind of colors she is trying to create. This time out the beautiful and curious cover gives the listener a clue as to the sounds and colors contained within. Intriguing splashes of silver, black, red and pink all over the place. Yu can almost feel your ears filling up with all those different colors. While far away from San Francisco their kinship in sound to Deerhoof is uncanny, especially on this outing. Yoshimi sounds as feisty as ever even recalling Brigitte Fontaine at her most wild and free. Another wonderful, playful and creative gem from OOIOO.
- MPEG stream: UJA
- MPEG stream: UMA
In recent weeks, we've reviewed two great albums by Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Orchestra, which is a large ensemble led by the well-known Japanese turntable/guitar experimentalist, as you can tell from their name. But here, on this 2005 release from the same label, Otomo scales things back, to just himself and a guitar (which you also probably figured out already from the title), acoustic on some tracks, electric on others. As with those ONJO discs, there's a blend of "outside" stuff here as well as melodic jazz standards. It's just as eclectic and interesting, just more intimate, and maybe in some ways more intense. Certainly Otomo goes to extremes here, delving into the noisy, guitar-as-weapon danger zones, side-by-side with tracks of utterly lovely and relaxed mood-setting. For instance, the song "Rig" here is a face-melting distortion assault with many sharp edges and pointy corners. Skronk barely begins to describe it. That it settles into droning grind towards the end of the piece is something of a respite. Conversely, just a few tracks later, there's the delicate, dulcet "Mood Indigo" of Duke Ellington, in Otomo's hands a reverent, late-night reverie. Elsewhere, "Cylinder" is another heavy-duty slab of drone/skronk, while on the prettier side of things, there's acoustic Otomo solo versions of material also done by the ONJO, like "Misty", "Lonely Woman", and Otomo's own "Theme From Canary"...
Haunting and lovely avant-folk recording from French multi-instrumentalist Emmanuelle Parrenin. Recorded in 1977, Parrenin's fascination and adeptness with ancient traditional stringed instruments such as the harp, hurdy-gurdy, spinet, and dulcimer, gives a unique spin on her more forward thinking compositions. Often compared to Vashti Bunyan and Linda Perhacs due to her sweet multi-tracked vocals which accompany about half of the songs, we think the later recording date puts her more in line with Kay Hoffman's Floret Silva (another progressive folk masterpiece recorded the same year) or the kosmiche pastoral vibe of Popol Vuh due to the layered Celtic-inflected droning harmonies she evokes from her instruments. Beautiful and so recommended!
Peloton are a new Bay Area band who make fuzzy dreamy pop that cozies right in between bands such as Yo La Tengo and The Sundays. Their self titled debut ep is a perfectly autumnal lil' treat. Check it out!
The other day a mail order customer called up and ordered Finnish post-rockers Circle's tUMULt release "Andexelt", and also "Ciudad de Brahman" by Argentinian stoner-rock outfit Natas. I immediately suggested that he also get a copy of this debut cd by
Nautical Antiques is a collection of b-sides, tour only ep songs, and alternate versions from the first few years of Pinback's existence (1998-2001). Once again demonstrating just why this band deserves all the hype. The proof is in the totally well crafted perfect pop songs. There is a richness to Pinback's sound that allows their melodies to sink right into your soul. There are some serious gems here not on any of their proper releases which makes this absolutely essential. Effortlessly catchy and so fluidly flowing, hands down one of the best bands around, and you can definitely add this to the growing body of evidence proving that point!
Another solo release (a reissue of a long out of print cd-r with a twenty+ minute bonus track!) from the mighty James Plotkin, member of Khanate, OLD and Phantomsmasher / Atomsmasher, as well as producer of all sort of dark and heavy music. For Kurtlanmak / Damascus, Plotkin used mostly guitar (along with drums, trumpet, and gongs), run through electronics and processed via laptop, to create two vast expanses of skitter and skip, rumble and whir, the first, a dark droney landscape of warbly backwards melodies, shimmery warm reverberations, deep cavernous dark ambience, shot through with ghostlike melodies and some steel string clang. The strings get chopped and processed into buzzing snarls that eventually get smeared into more dreamlike drones, with the guitars eventually emerging as a skipping hiccupping angular riffic rhythm, before winding down in a slippery swirl of acoustic guitar pick, strum and slide. The second track begins with a refrain of the first, a collage of backwards guitars that quickly dissipates into a super minimal low end drift, which gradually thickens into a warm glacial hum, densely layered and slowly shifting, before bursting into a cloud of glitches and electronic skitter, only to simmer down into a soft focus dreamstate, floating softly into the ether. An amazingly expressive, and deftly delicate solo sonic exploration from a man who has spent the last decade musically pummeling the crap out of us. An unexpected soft side that we've gotten brief glances at over the years, but now given the chance to luxuriate in Plotkin's dreamy dronescapes, without the fear of that impending pummel, this might just be our favorite Plotkin yet!
Fans of Fennesz, Geoff Mullen, Hrvatski and other digital guitar wranglers should definitely check this out.
Packaged in a gorgeous textured fold over paper sleeve, printed with skulls and a barely visible gold filigree, wrapped in a gold metallic, printed obi.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!
All hail the lords of Baltic black metal. Ummm... really? Yep, really. Poccolus are, according to Supernal, the best black metal band (and most likely the first!) ever to come out of Lithuania (out of, according to the Encyclopedia Metallium, a total of 96 Lithuanian BM bands). And who are we to argue, especially since we've actually only -ever- heard 2 other black metal bands from Lithuania.
Even so, Poccolus are awesome, and just the sort of gloriously twisted blackness we've come to expect from Supernal. Originally released on a tiny Korean label over a decade ago, this record now gets the wicked deluxe reissue treatment, complete with all new artwork, the booklet and tray card printed on cool leather-like textured paper, lyrics in both English and Lithuanian, remastered sound, and pressed on an extra fancy gold cd.
But what does it sound like? A gloriously buzzy black thrash to begin with, but laced with all sorts of unlikely musical randomness, bizarre epic swaths of grandioseÔkeyboard, lots of long stretches of weird post rocky folk with arpeggiated steel string guitar, loping rhythms and folky arrangements, thick washes of murky drone-y Burzumy buzz, strangely melodic, with bits of epic Viking melody, strange sound effects, big drums, thunder, lightning, and of course some insane vocals, that go from high pitched shriek to banshee like wail to monstrous growl to chant like moan, all over a constantly shifting black metal weirdscape of blackened wah guitar, droning drifting buzz, and thrashing percussive blast.
Been itchin' for some bar room brawlin' blues rock? Primal Scream are ready to take you on! Sounds like they've taken a step back from the searing techno-rock of their great last album XTRMNTR towards more traditional rock'n'roll instrumentation and songwriting. Very very Rolling Stones-y, this is Primal Scream at their most loosely slung!
Seems like these Brits just can't help but switch back and forth between their two very distinct personalities -- that of slick dancefloor packers and unkempt hard rawkers. They've done the switcheroo on pretty much every one of their albums, and in our opinion they're much more potent doin' the latter. That said, regardless of their chosen arena, you can always count on much sneering attitude and driving aggression, both of which Riot City Blues has in ample doses.
Besides having an awesome name for a metal band, Pushing Up Daisies is also an eight piece. A goddamn EIGHT PIECE! Vocalist, keyboardist, bassist, TWO drummers and THREE guitarists! And it shows. The guitars are everywhere, serpentine and slithery, jagged and ear peircing, downtuned and crushing. The dual drum attack is a pummelling unstoppable force. But it's not just about the instrumentation. Pushing Up Daisies are a fierce metal hybrid, equal parts screamo, metalcore and even a dash of black metal, with brain bendingly complex arrangements leaning WAY towards the prog end of things and plenty of weird breakdowns, from super reverbed dubbed out space rock to strangely loping Three Mile Pilot like bass driven melodic passages, to James Gang wah-guitar funk, but always bookended by crushing hook filled METAL. Lots of stops and starts, high end guitar melodies weaving in and out, punctuated by massive and muffled three-downtuned-guitar chugs that rattle your fillings they hit so hard. Lots of two guitar bands don't take advantage of their extra axe and waste it by having both guitarists play the same thing, but Pushing Up Daisies utilise their triple threat to full effect and it really adds a unique edge to everything with all sorts of slippery intertwining melodies, strangely haunting guitar harmonies and layer upon layer of sonic weirdness. One of our favorite new metal records!
It's okay to booty shake again, indie rockers -- The Rapture have jumped back onto the dance floor. And it's about time -- their spectacular Echoes came out a full three years ago when trucker hats were still cool. The Rapture took their time with Pieces of the People We Love for good reason -- it's a suprisingly well-thought out sound shift.
It's still very them -- that is to say, '80s -- but much less Gang of Four (which is sooo 2003) and much more Hacienda. The whole album brings to mind sweaty dancing in a tropical climate, asses bumping each other in tight white pants, heavy rouge and panama hats -- all kept in check with some post-punk guitar assaults.
The Rapture have a unique talent for making our least favorite instruments sound good -- on their past albums, it was the infamous cowbell and on this one, it's the saxophone, which infuses the single "Get Myself Into It" with the kind of groove that inspires group handclaps and choreographed ensemble dance steps. Songs like "The Devil," showcase Luke Jenner's sexy falsetto, which takes some new chances with Brian Ferry trills, "Hungry Like the Wolf" pants and Haircut 100 "ai yi yi"s.
Unlike some of their NY contemporaries, the Rapture have always seemed like they're just having fun. Their live shows are infectious -- sincere and enthusiastic -- and that definitely comes across on this album. Very recommended for your next dance party.
Always something interesting being dug up by those Alchemy archeologists! This archival release from a Kyoto-based band called Rasen Kaidan ("Spiral Staircase" I believe) is a very moody and lo-fi, contemporaneous Japanese take on the UK post-punk sound of the early early '80s, a la Joy Division, Comsat Angels, and The Fall, maybe. Also of note, this trio included guitarist Jojo Hiroshige, who was soon to form seminal Japanese noise act Hijokaidan (and also went on to found the Alchemy label).
What you'll hear from Rasen Kaidan here are recordings from two live performances, dating from 1979 and 1980. The 1979 tracks are more witchy and gloomy, with plodding bass and female vocals. The first cut from '79 actually makes us think of a sedated Bardo Pond slogging through a droned-out "Iron Man"! We're reminded of some old NZ stuff like Dadamah as well. The 1980 material makes a switch to male vocals, getting more into that post-punk thing, but still with a weird, almost mystical atmosphere. Murky, raw, psychedelic new wave art punk, yeah!!
The first few seconds of Lost Language, a blast of fuzzy crumbling distortion will have you expecting the latest slab of monster sludge, or a blast of pummeling downtuned brutality. And the bands pedigree might have you expecting something similar, guitarist Larry Dolan produced the debut full length from metallic post rockers Tides and drummer Mikey Lemieux used to bash the skin for metalcore heavyweights Drowningman. But what you get instead is some killer, super propulsive, slightly mathy, but very moody, instrumental rock, that harkens back to bands like Pell Mell. There's all sorts of definite reference points, Pell Mell is the most obvious, a simultaneously laid back and caffeinated burst of super energetic mathy groove. But can hear lots of nineties indie rock, plenty of SST, a bit of Tortoise, some Minutemen for sure. Surf rock guitars are wound tight beneath thick splashy swirls of open high-hat and frenetic almost funky drumming, the bass is sometimes slithery and dark, sometimes rubbery and almost dub like. Some tracks stretch into languid epics, others fly by, a manic expulsion of chaotic energy. Once in a while they sound a little like a less Joy Division obsessed Interpol, but again with that nineties instrumental rock vibe. The final track is the show stopper, a near half an hour epic, that almost sounds like the band took the first seven tracks and rearranged, reshaped, and reimagined them into one lengthy jam, keening angular riffs, wildly chaotic drumming, a hypnotic neverending epic, with cool backwards guitars, some My Bloody Valentine swoosh, the whole thing constantly shifting from full blown overdrive, to laid back lope, and back again, until the whole thing fades to a haunting soundscape of minimal guitar drone. Finally, a simple tribal rhythm emerges, and the track unwinds, a slowly decelerating coda, all muted rhythmic rumble and barely there melody. So cool.
One of three new 3" cd-r releases on the Grey Daturas' Diagnosis ... Don't! label, each super limited, and housed in cool hand made packaging.
Of all the noisemakers from New Zealand and Australia, Seht, aka Stephen Clover, is by far the dreamiest and droniest and -least- noisy. Which might be why he holds such a special place in our hearts. And ears. Every Seht disc is a gloriously blissed out tranquil exploration of some deep dark ambient wonderland. There's nothing harsh or heavy, caustic or corrosive, instead, listening to Seht is like drifting through space, or floating a hundred feet below the surface of some clear blue sea. Everything shimmers and sparkles, flows and swirls, the sounds are soft and delicate, distant and dreamy, ethereal and indistinct. Soft focus and beautifully blurry. And this little three inch is no different. Gorgeous and serene. This disc definitely feels like a dark drift along the ocean floor, due to the haunting sonar-like pulse that permeates the whole track, it's not at all distracting though, just the contrary, very hypnotic and soothing, an organic, super minimal pulse, a barely there framework for the slow shifting liquid drones.
AS ALWAYS, ULTRA SUPER LIMITED!! We only got about 30, and probably won't be able to get more...
Packaged in thick textured paper black mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. Nice.
Okay, we don't really have a VCR here so no one has been able to actually watch this video, but judging from how freaky people have gotten about local free noise outfit the Skaters recently, we figured we oughta list it anyway, especially since we only managed to get 8 copies. As far as we know these are the last copies and then it's gone for good. Made for their recent tour, Diminishing Shrine Recycles is the perfect lo-fi visual analogue to the Skater's dense sonic skree. First come first serve. These will probably be gone in a heartbeat...
About three years ago, Matthew Bower resurrected his sleeping freenoise behemoth Skullflower, after having spent the last few years focusing on the more dreamy drone based Sunroof! That disc was a serious surprise, the new Skullflower was somehow some sort of stoned, freaked out druggy, psychedelic kraut/space/groove/stoner rock outfit. Killer psychrock riffs, looped into oblivion and buried in dense washes of outer space FX and thick sheets of tripped out ambience. We were stunned, and totally blown away. Exquisite Fucking Boredom was just about the heaviest noisiest space rock record EVER! The follow up to EFB, Orange Canyon Mind was still heavy on the riffs, but the noise quotient was cranked WAY up, as if the band had made this huge leap into some outer space drug rock alternate universe, but was sliding steadily back into the old Skullflower's swirling pit of white noise and grinding guitar feedback. So here we have record number three from Skullflower mach II, and it seems those riffs had an incredibly short half-life and have now been totally obliterated, the shards of all those dying riffs have been chopped into pieces and hurled into the spinning vortex that is Tribulation. Easily the noisiest record since the good ol' Total days (Bower's band before Skullflower), with huge sheets of white hot, blown out guitar skree, crunchy amp buzz, sparkling clouds of glitched out electronic interference, and layer after layer after layer after layer of thick squirming, slithering, shrieking guitar ROOOOOAAAR. Tribulation most definitely sounds like an army of guitars, set to kill, and leaned up against an even bigger army of feeding back amplifiers. Every track is a dense ear shredding tangle of melodic fragments and wild peals of upper register psychguitar abuse. Imagine classic Total mixed with Bower's new blacksludge outfit Mirag and you'll get a rough idea of what sort of aural punishment you're in for. Harsh and heavy, noisy and brutal, but as with most Bower projects, not without some hidden beauty, although Tribulation's hidden beauty is tucked safely away, beneath a million pounds of black hole noise rock pummel.
We've said it before and we'll go ahead and say it again: Fans of Young Marble Giants, Marine Girls, Raincoats, Velvet Underground, check out these Detroit rock minimalists! Their music often sounds like it's from 'back in the day' (circa late '70s/early-mid '80s), but they're not. Aliccia Berg and co.'s fourth album Musik just came out and is mostly comprised of their usual sweet summery folksy tunes. Think: cozying up under a patchwork quilt rather than walloping your pals in a pillow fight.
That said, we'd add that this time it sounds like they've developed a little chip on their collective shoulder as there are also a few edgier post-punk-y numbers amongst the lilting pop tunes.
You thought the cd was fucking scary... this DVD will give you nightmares -forever-. A retina burning, soul scarring visual analogue to one of the fiercest freakiest records in recent memory.
Stalaggh's Nihilistik Terror was a hateful, extreme, nihilistic blackdoom industrialnoise freakout. White hot sheets of coruscating guitar, minimal percussion buried beneath layers of murk and fuzz and buzz, shrieking feedback, metallic clang, industrial grind, all whirled into a caustic cloud of disorienting brutality. A bit like Merzbow meets Abruptum, or an even more unhinged minimal and noisy Burzum. And then there's the vocals, howled anguished cries of utter terror, which were recorded by actual inmates at an insane asylum, one of which killed himself not long after the record was record. Holy shit... that's heavy. And HEAVY. Definitely one of the heaviest, most fucked up, harshest, and somehow most beautiful records in forever.
So as you might imagine, this DVD manages to capture the same bleak nihilism and hateful fury, a burnt out black and white visual assault, damaged decaying film stock, a series of super high contrast images, death, famine, torture, hangings, piles of dead bodies, ruined industrial landscapes, all interspersed with seizure inducing strobe effects, bursts of grainy black and white, bits of jittery text, all to the strains of Stalaggh's harsh and hateful hiss. Even the menu, -especially- the menu, is completely goddamn terrifying on its own. We could watch the intro and the menu, a buzzing squealing visual and audio creepfest over and over and over. In fact we did. And we are as we write this! Originally a super limited DVD-r, packaged with actual drawings by inmates in an insane asylum, now reissued as a REAL dvd, without the original drawing, but with all the same killer creepy packaging.
In addition to the video, there are two -even noisier- remixes, that take Stalaggh's already nearly static sound in an even harsher and buzzier direction, as well as a brand new unreleased track that has some of the creepiest most demented sounding vocals ever, all over a strangely abstract soundscape of glitching grind, downtuned buzz and industrial clang.
Finally, you can listen to the whole Nihilistik Terror record with visuals, a flickering static image, the shadowy face from the album cover, transformed into an ultra creepy Neanderthal skull-like visage. Awesome! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just do a search, and then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! 2UP "Teenage Mondo Trash" (Ache) cd 14.98 ACROSS TUNDRAS "Dark Songs Of The Prairie" (Crucial Blast) cd/cd /14.98 AINIGMA "Diluvium" (Garden Of Delights) cd 21.00 AKIYAMA, TETUZI / JOZEF VAN WISSEM "Proletarian Drift" (BVHaast) cd 16.98 ALBERT AYLER "The Complete ESP-Disk' Recordings" (ESP-Disk') 4cd box 43.00 ALIAS & TARSIER "Plane That Draws A White Line" (Anticon) cd ep/12" 9.98/9.98 ALICE DONUT "Fuzz" (Howler Records) cd 15.98 ALTERED STATES "Bluffs II" (Doubtmusic) cd 16.98 ANATA "Conductor's Departure" (Earache) cd 14.98 ANTLER "Nothing That A Bullet Couldn't Cure" (Small Stone) cd 14.98 ARCTURUS "Shipwrecked In Oslo: Live Rockefeller 2005" (Season Of Mist) dvd 14.98 BAD BOY MADE GOOD: THE REVIVAL OF GEORGE ANTHEIL'S 1924 BALLET MECHANIQUE "A Film By Ron Frank And Paul D. Lehrman" (EMF Media) 2dvd 55.00 BASEMENT JAXX "Crazy Itch Radio" (XL) cd/lp 14.98/16.98 BATTIATO, FRANCO "Pollution" (Water) cd 14.98 BOOK OF AM "Book Of Am" (Wah Wah Records) book + cd 102.00 BROTZMANN, PETER / MANGELSDORFF / SOMMER "Pica Pica" (Atavistic) cd 14.98 BUCKNER, RICHARD "Meadow" (Merge) cd 14.98 CLETRO, EDDIE "Flying Saucer Boogie" (Bear Family) cd 17.98 COH "Patherns" (Raster-Noton) cd ep 16.98 COHEN, IRA "The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda" (Bastet) dvd 34.00 COIL "Black Antlers" (Threshold House) 2cd 26.00 COIL "Remote Viewer" (Threshold House) 2cd 26.00 COLOUR HAZE "Tempel" (Elektrohasch) cd/lp 16.98/19.98 COYLE & SHARPE "These 2 Men Are Imposters" (Sharpeworld) 3xcd / dvd 32.00 CURSE OV DIALECT "Wooden Tongues" (Mush) cd 13.98 DALTON, KAREN "It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best" (Chapter) cd + dvd 24.00 DAMON, LIZ "Orient Express" (Rev-Ola) cd 16.98 DAWNWIND "Looking Back On The Future" (Sunbeam) cd 16.98 DAZZLING KILLMEN "Face of Collapse" (Skin Graft) cd 14.98 DEADSY "Phantasmagore" (Immortal) cd 14.98 DEICIDE "The Stench of Redemption" (Earache) cd 14.98 ES / SAMI SANPAKKILA "Early Filmworks 1996 - 2006" (Fonal) dvd 21.00 FEAR FALLS BURNING "Infinite Sea of Sustain" (Soleilmoon) dvd 27.00 FINN'S MOTEL "Escape Velocity" (Scat) cd 13.98 FLIES, THE "Complete Collection 1965-1968" (Acme Gramophone / Lion) cd 16.98 FLOATING FLOWER "1st + 2nd" (Feathered Spirit Of Mother) cd 13.98 FORTUNES "Songs from the Movie" (Pravda) cd 14.98 FREE PLAYERS, THE "s/t" (Last Visible Dog) cd 12.98 FUSCO, GIOVANNI "Music For Michelangelo Antonioni" (Water) cd 16.98 GEISHA "Mondo Dell' Orrore" (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98 GENTLE RAIN "Moody" (Sunbeam) cd 16.98 GLOVE, THE "Blue Sunshine" (Rhino) 2cd 25.00 GOATWHORE "A Haunting Curse" (Metal Blade) cd 14.98 GROUPIES: THE MOVIE (Cherry Red Films) dvd 24.00 GRUPPO DI IMPROV VISAZIONE NUOVA CON SONANZA "Azioni" (Die Schachtel) 2cd + dvd 64.00 HAZEL, EDDIE "Game, Dames & Guitar Thangs" (Collectors' Choice) cd 13.98 HIJOKAIDAN "Modern" (Alchemy) cd 21.00 HIJOKAIDAN "Tapes" (Alchemy) cd 21.00 HIJOKAIDAN "Viva Angel" (Alchemy) cd 21.00 HOWLING HEX "Nightclub Version of The Eternal" (Drag City) cd 14.98 HUMCRUSH "Hornswoggle" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 ILOUS & DECUYPER "s/t" (Lion) cd 16.98 INCANTATION "Primordial Domination" (Moon) cd 12.98 INQUISITION "Anxious Death / Forever Under" (Nuclear War Now! Productions) cd/lp 9.98/21.00 IRON MAIDEN "A Matter Of Life And Death" (Sanctuary) cd 14.98 ISHIZUKA, TOSHIKI "Drum Drama" (PSF) cd 22.00 JAMAL, THE KHAN CREATIVE ARTS ENSEMBLE "Drumdance To The Motherland" (Eremite) cd 15.98 JUCIFER "If Thine Enemy Hunger" (Relapse) cd/lp 14.98/19.98 JUNIOR BOYS "So This Is Goodbye" (Domino) cd 14.98 KANGDING RAY "Stabil" (Raster-Noton) cd 17.98 KASHMERE STAGE BAND "Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974" (Now-Again) 2cd 21.00 KATO, HIDEKI "Green Zone" (Doubtmusic) cd 16.98 KAWABATA MAKOTO, ANLA COURTIS, ROKUGENKIN "Kokura" (Riot Season) lp 17.98 KEIJO "For A While" (Last Visible Dog) cd 12.98 KOICHI, MAKIGAMI "Moon Ether" (Doubtmusic) cd 16.98 KOUSOKUYA "First Live 1979 Kichijoji Minor" (PSF) cd 22.00 KURUUCREW VS. GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE "Split" (Beta-lactam Ring) cd 13.98 LUCIFER "Big Gun" (Dynamic) cd/lp 16.98/15.98 LUSTMORD "Rising 06.06.06" (Vaultworks) cd 16.98 MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "Live Aoiheya January 2003" (Chapter Music) cd ep 8.98 MASTODON "Blood Mountain" (Reprise) cd+dvd 19.98 MEADS OF ASPHODEL, THE "In The Name Of God, Welcome To Planet Genocide" (Firestorm) cd 11.98 METAL: A HEADBANGER'S JOURNEY (Warner) dvd 29.00 MEW "And The Glass Handed Kites" (Columbia) cd 13.98 MINUTEMEN "We Jam Econo" (Plexifilm) dvd 24.00 MISSUS BEASTLY "s/t" (Garden Of Delights) 21.00 MOEBIUS "Nurton" (Blue Pole) cd 16.98 MOGLASS, THE "Sparrow Juice" (Nexsound) cd 11.98 MORRICONE, ENNIO "Crime" (Dagored) 3-cd Box Set 32.00 MOUSE ON MARS "Varcharz" (Sonig) cd 15.98 NEKROMANTIK "I & II" (Mauerstadtmusik) lp 24.00 NEW YORK DOLLS "One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This" (Roadrunner) cd + dvd 16.98 NOW IT'S OVERHEAD "Dark Light Daybreak" (Saddle Creek) cd 13.98 NOXAGT / ULTRALYD "Textile Vynile Serie 10" (Textile) 12" 13.98 NSU "Turn On, Or Turn Me Down" (Breathless) cd/lp 16.98/19.98 OSI "Free" (InsideOut Music) cd 17.98 PERRY, LEE SCRATCH "Panic In Babylon" (Narnack) cd 13.98 PTARMIGAN "s/t" (Lion) cd 16.98 QUARTZ "s/t" (Majestic Rock) cd 15.98 QUARTZ "Stand Up And Fight" (Majestic Rock) cd 15.98 RADIO BIRDMAN "Zeno Beach" (Yep Roc) cd 15.98 RAPOON "Alien Glyph Mythology" (Soleilmoon) 2x10" 53.00 RATATAT "Classics" (XL Recordings) cd/lp 13.98/13.98 ROCK N ROLL NIGHTMARE (starring THOR) (Synapse Films) dvd 22.00 ROOTS, THE "Game Theory" (Def Jam) cd 14.98 ROSE, ETHAN "Ceiling Songs" (Locust) cd 14.98 ROTARY CONNECTION "Black Gold: The Very Best Of..." (Universal / Island) 2cd 31.00 RUSSELL, ARTHUR "Another Thought" (Orange Mountain Music) cd 21.00 RUSSELL, ARTHUR "Spring Field" (Audika) cd 13.98 SAROS "Five Pointed Tongue" (Hungry Eye) cd 13.98 SARUMATAKEUITSUKO "s/t" (Alchemy) cd 21.00 SAVIOURS "Crucifire" (Level Plane) cd 13.98 SCHULZE, KLAUSE "Cyborg" (SPV) 2cd SCHNITZLER, CONRAD "Con 2+" (Captain Trip) cd 25.00 SCHNITZLER, CONRAD "Con 3" (Captain Trip) cd 25.00 SCHNITZLER, CONRAD "Con" (Captain Trip) cd 25.00 SCHNITZLER, CONRAD "Electrocon" (Captain Trip) cd 25.00 SEAY, JOHNNY "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" (Bear Family) cd 17.98 SETE STAR SEPT / WATCH ME BURN / DOT[.] "Yaminabe Holocaust - 3 Way Split" (Shifty) cd 10.98 SHERLEY, GLEN "Live At Vacaville, CA" (Bear Family) cd 17.98 SHUJI INABA "Yoenzanga" (Last Visible Dog) cd 12.98 SLEPCY "We Are the Newest Battle Models" (Cock Rock Disco) cd 15.98 SPOERRI, BRUNO "Gluckskugel" (Finders Keepers) cd 21.00 STEVENS, MEIC "Rain In The Leaves: The Eps, Volume 1" (Sunbeam Records) cd 16.98 TALL BIRDS "Internalize" (Sub Pop) 7" 3.98 TALL FIRS "s/t" (Ecstatic Peace!) cd 10.98 TENNISCOATS "Live Wanderus" (Chapter Music) cd 14.98 THOR "Devastation of Musculation" (Smog Veil) cd 12.98 TILLIS, BISHOP PERRY "Too Close" (Birdman) cd 14.98 TIMBERLAKE, JUSTIN "Futuresex / Lovesounds" (Jive) cd 16.98 TWILIGHT SINGERS, THE "Powder Burns" (One Little Indian) cd 16.98 TWO DOLLAR GUITAR "The Wear And Tear Of Fear: A Lover's Discourse" (Smells Like) cd 13.98 UMEZU, KAZUTOKI "Show The Frog" (Doubtmusic) cd 16.98 USAISAMONSTER, THE "Sunset At The End Of The Industrial Age" (Load) cd 14.98 V/A "Early Morning Hush: Notes From The UK Folk Underground 1969-1976" (Castle Music) cd 23.00 V/A "Punk On The Road" (Cherry Red) dvd 31.00 V/A "Rockin' Bones: 1950's Punk & Rockabilly" (Rhino) cd 79.00 V/A "Sitar Beat! Indian Style Heavy Funk Vol.1" (Guerrilla Reissues) cd 14.98 V/A "Soft Sounds For Gentle People 4" (Pet Records) cd 14.98 V/A "Take Me To Jamaica" (Pressure Sounds) cd 17.98 VAN SHE "Van She" (Modular) cd 8.98 VOIVOD "Katorz" (The End) cd 13.98 WHITE MAGIC "Katie Cruel" (Drag City) 5.98 WHITE WHALE "Wwi" (Merge) cd 14.98 WHITREN, JAKI "Raw But Tender" (Sunbeam) cd 16.98 WITCH "Lazy Bones!!" (Shadoks) lp 46.00 YERMO "s/t" (Last Visible Dog) cd 12.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
One of three new 3" cd-r releases on the Grey Daturas' Diagnosis ... Don't! label, each super limited, and housed in cool hand made packaging.
Pretty much impossible to imagine a more star studded NZ free rock band than this. Sure Mr. Kneale's absent, as are a Russell and a Morely, but shit this trio is already bursting at the seams and ready to blow. The Stumps, the trio of which we happen to be speaking, is made up of equal parts
Antony Milton (AM, Mrtyu, Nether Dawn, etc.), James Kirk (Sandoz Lab Technicians, Gate, With Throats As Fine As Needles) and Stephen Clover (Seht). Holy shit is right (that is what you were thinking, right?)! Three tracks, nineteen minutes. Total transcendental free noise drone rock bliss!!
The opening track is nine minutes of deeeeeeeep dreamy drone. Distant melodies smeared into fuzzy clouds, occasional bursts of distorted guitar muted and stretched apart into shimmery drones, a final build into a thick wall of white noise whir, high end peals and crumbling feedback. The second track is a full on rock jam, a stumbling Dead C like groove, lurching through a dense swirl of fuzzy synths, grinding guitars and squealing feedback. A killer slab of off kilter, drone drenched psych rock. The final track falls somewhere between the first two, droney and abstract, but with fuzzy bass, and jagged streaks of psychguitar, thick swirls of cymbal sizzle, and distant squalls of guitar freakout. Awesome.
AS ALWAYS, ULTRA SUPER LIMITED!! We only got about 30, and probably won't be able to get more...
Packaged in thick textured paper black mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. Nice.
Norwegian duo Susanna And The Magical Orchestra follow up their lovely first album List Of Lights And Buoys with this collection of cover versions. And as was exemplified with their version of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" on that debut cd, they do other people's music very very well -- fully re-envisioning each song regardless of the original's genre or artist's sound or gender and without the radical stylistic shifts coming across as being ironic or schticky. Susanna Karolina Wallumrod's drowsy murmury voice easily draws comparisons to Chan Marshall (who also has a penchant and talent for doing renditions of other folks' tunes -- check out Cat Power's The Covers Record). Her musical companion The Magical Orchestra is lone keyboardist / autoharpist / vibraphonist / cembaloist Morten Qvenild (granted the instrumental backing is often quite skeletal so he's not required to be an octopus!). Together they make the most achingly frail and haunting music. Along with the relatively predictable fare from Leonard Cohen ("Hallelujah"), Bob Dylan ("Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"), Sandy Denny ("Fotheringay") and Scott Walker ("It's Raining Today"), the more unexpected artists who are covered here are indeed Kiss ("Crazy, Crazy Nights"), AC/DC ("It's A Long Way To The Top"), Depeche Mode ("Enjoy The Silence") and Prince ("Condition Of The Heart"). They also fit in an almost obligatory Lilith Fair-ian take on Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart".
The name sure sounds like one of those Norwegian black metal bands we like so much, doesn't it? Well, Svalastog are indeed from Norway, but they're not a black metal band. Definitely not. (Though we'd love to hear what a black metal band on Rune Gramofon would be like!)
This could go under an electronica/experimental/just-a-wee-bit-folk category, we'd suppose. Svalastog (who is actually a he not a they, being one guy, Per Henrik Svalastog) has taken several traditional Norwegian folk instruments -- very old fashioned indeed, primitive even, including a ram's horn (Bukkehorn) and a cow's horn (Kuhorn, duh), and also a Norwegian zither called a Harpeleik that apparently belonged to his grandfather -- and played them into his computer, chopping and looping and processing them into glitchily rhythmic, swooping, loping electronica. The idea, to bring the sounds of the rustic Nordic past into the modern musical laboratory of bits and bytes, clicks and cuts, works pretty darn well we'd say. This is moody, mysterious, also quite lively and lovely. Given the concept behind this, we -might- have hoped for something a little -less- processed and smoothed-out, a little more obviously "outdoorsy" or ancient-sounding, than what we get here, if only this wasn't so nice and soothing the way it is!
Another batch of WAY too limited cassette releases from Twonicorn, whose releases seem to go out of print in the blink of an eye. This time we managed to get even more copies, in fact we took most of the copies from each pressing, but considering the fact that the pressing usually run between 40 and 100 copies, you know these won't last long either way.
A few weeks back we reviewed a killer 3" cd-r from Taiga Remains, aka Alex Cobb (the man who runs the amazing Students Of Decay cd-r label), a gorgeously bleary, dreamy solo guitar exploration that we couldn't stop listening to. So here we have the recently releases cassette only follow up, but unlike the cd-r, the tape is a lot more aggressive, less drifty and abstract, more growling and distorted. The vibe is still of the blissed out drone variety, but the drones here are constructed from buzzing snarling metallic rumbles, shimmering sharp edged distorted crunch, and thick slabs of murky whir. Still totally dreamy and otherworldly, but a lot darker and grittier, falling more along the lines of Sunroof! or Birchville Cat Motel. Which is not a bad thing at all!
LIMITED TO 85 COPIES. We got 20 and we will not be able to get any more.
- MPEG stream: One
- MPEG stream: Two
