Quite possibly the most haunting and lovely record yet from these mysterious Finnish free drone explorers. While on other records, Uton have dabbled in more cacophonous noise rock and clattery free folk, Highway Nation is purely a dreamy drone record, deep, dark and utterly sublime. Each track a mysterious sonic drift through a slow shifting soundscape of barely shifting shimmer, Like sitting on a mist enshrouded mountain top, watching a huge freighter drift by, way out at sea, the churning sound of the water, and the thrum of the freighter's engines reduced to a murky murmur. Elsewhere, bits of bowed metal spread out into glistening sheets of upper register whir, dense with subtle overtones and buried melodies. So serene and delicate, abstract and ethereal. The sort of perfect ambient dronemusic that should most definitely appeal to fans of Coleclough, Chalk, Wright (Peter AND Nigel), Mirror, Seht, and similar minded sound sculptors...
SUPER LIMITED. Already out of print at the label. We have 20 copies, once those are gone, they are gone forever...
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Yay! Peter Walker, one of the sixties best acoustic guitar players, comes out of hiding to bring us four new songs plus six new takes on his original compositions from current stars of the acoustic guitar scene including James Blackshaw, Steffan Basho-Junghans, and even Thurston Moore. While we would have much preferred a whole new album by Walker or better yet a reissue of his two seminal albums, including the all time classic "Rainy Day Ragas" released in 1966 on Vanguard, the performances by everyone involved, especially Walker's, are inspired and beautiful. For those who haven't heard of Peter Walker, he was the musical director for Timothy Leary's "Celebrations" gatherings at Harvard, and he brings that lysergic quality to his guitar playing fusing folk, flamenco, jazz, eastern and classical music into spiraling raga meditations. Walker hasn't enjoyed the same sort of revival as his contemporaries, Robbie Basho, Sandy Bull and John Fahey, but has clearly displayed his influence amongst the current "glitterati" of the acoustic guitar scene, as evidenced here. Hopefully we'll be hearing more of him real soon.
A lot of us here at AQ have a huge weakspot for the breezy sounds of late 60's psych-pop. Those four guys in The Beatles were also pretty fond of those same sounds and under the umbrella of their Apple publishing and recording label (which was originally set up mostly as a tax shelter) they enlisted a mainstay of great songwriters like Pete Ham and Ron Griffiths (who would go on to form Badfinger), as well as Graham Lyle and Benny Gallagher, who churned out some totally tasty pop gems during this golden era. This collection gives some of their never before released songs a chance to finally be heard. The standout track on this disc comes from Mortimer, "People Who Are Different" which is a perfect sixties feel-good-be-weird-be-proud pop gem, the sort of song that had Kerry, Christine, Irwin and Scott all but putting flowers in their hair and dancing throughout the store. We have a sneaking suspicion that there are more than a few of you out there who will dig these groovy sounds as much as we do!
If there's one unifying theme or sonic characteristic present in all the music we love, even if it's not always obvious, it would surely have to be the 'drone'. Whether it's in lugubrious campfire crackle and hum, furious blasting black metal buzz, jagged fuzz and hiss drenched noisepop, skeletal slow motion low end ambience or motorik rhythmic hypno-rock, there is always the drone. Infusing each note with its pervasive sound, its palpable feel. A force as much as a sound. To be felt as much as heard. For us, the core, the heart of all music. The sound of the stars dying, the sound of planets being born, the sound of cells splitting, the sound of our bodies growing and decaying, the sound of life and especially death. Whether heard or felt, it is there, in, of and around all sound. Otherworldly and transcendent. Soothing and relaxing. But NOT easy listening. Not easy at all. The drone can be as bleak and foreboding as it is warm and soft, as moody and malefic as it is sweet and shimmery. Subtle for sure, but with a power and energy unlike any other sound in the universe.
So it would of course make perfect sense that we would be completely obsessed with a label, created for the sole purpose of recording and releasing dronemusic. A label appropriately named Drone Records. Run by Stefan Knappe of the group Troum (and formerly of the group Maeor Tri), Drone Records is a vinyl only label focusing on, in the label's words, "atmospheric music that has a certain 'mind-challenging' character, thus supporting the sensibility of the human senses. DRONE RECORDS RELEASES MUSIC FOR THE RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR BRAIN... music for the unconscious, irrational mind, creating an emotional communication without language." We couldn't have said it better ourselves. For the last 15 plus years, Drone has been releasing ultra-limited vinyl only ep's each one hand designed and assembled by the artist, and each one a gorgeous slab of unique and individualistic drone music.
This two disc set, released by our own Andee's tUMULt label, collects some of the best tracks from many of the earliest, long out of print 7"s and makes them available on cd for the first time ever. The artists featured include Maeror Tri, Alio Die, Dual, Ultra United, Delphium, Inade, Aube, Vance Orchestra, Osso Exotico, Klood, Vir, Reynols, Spear, Dronaement, Toy Bizarre, Tarkatak, Francisco Lopez, Kallabris, Yen Pox and Die Feinen Trinkers Bei Pinkels Daheim. Two discs, over two hours, a completely mesmerizing collection of droning drifting bliss. From barely there minimal ambience to thick clouds of whirring fuzz, to glistening expanses of ghost like melody. Essential for all drone lovers. And of course recommended for fans of Colelcough, Chalk, Aidan Baker, Tim Hecker, Fennesz, Tiermes, Noisegate, William Basinski, Philip Jeck, and the whole current crop of minimal cd-r soundmakers.
While most of the music we love is in some way drone-y, these singles give us a chance to gaze upon the drone unadorned. Feel its warmth, its mystery, its sublime beauty. Like staring into the sun. Or into the void...
One of the most potent and pervasive sounds in the world, in our lives, our bodies, in music, the industrial world and in nature. All hail the drone...
Packaged in a gorgeous mini cd gatefold, with a fold out poster, liner notes on one side, reproductions of all the 7" covers on the other.
So gorgeous!
The latest in Soul Jazz's Dynamite series focuses on Dancehall classics, rarities and brand new tracks from the last 25 years to the present. Featuring current dub steppers, Digital Mystikz, and Ladybug (aka The Bug and Warrior Queen) from the digital/dancehall/grime scene amongst classic Dancehall originators, Lady Saw, King Tubby and Beenie man, this compilation features 21 non-stop dancehall party classics in all styles from digital rhythms, Nyabinghi drumming, and dub step to the lyrical vocal styles of Tippa Irie, Shinehead and Cecile. Get your freak on!
The latest in Soul Jazz's Dynamite series focuses on Dancehall classics, rarities and brand new tracks from the last 25 years to the present. Featuring current dub steppers, Digital Mystikz, and Ladybug (aka The Bug and Warrior Queen) from the digital/dancehall/grime scene, along with classic Dancehall originators Lady Saw, King Tubby and Beenie man, this compilation features 21 non-stop dancehall party classics in all styles from digital rhythms, Nyabinghi drumming, and dub step to the lyrical vocal styles of Tippa Irie, Shinehead and Cecile. Get your freak on!
This double lp is part one of the two part vinyl Dynamite! Dancehall Style.
The latest in Soul Jazz's Dynamite series focuses on Dancehall classics, rarities and brand new tracks from the last 25 years to the present. Featuring current dub steppers, Digital Mystikz, and Ladybug (aka The Bug and Warrior Queen) from the digital/dancehall/grime scene, along with classic Dancehall originators Lady Saw, King Tubby and Beenie man, this compilation features 21 non-stop dancehall party classics in all styles from digital rhythms, Nyabinghi drumming, and dub step to the lyrical vocal styles of Tippa Irie, Shinehead and Cecile. Get your freak on!
This double lp is part two of the two part vinyl Dynamite! Dancehall Style.
There is such a rich history of prison music in this country, with the roots of blues easily traced to the incarceration and slavery of African American, and with so much hurt, pain and suffering comes some of the most gripping, raw, and honest music ever made. This compilation collects all sorts of sounds created behind bars from old blues, R+B, soul and modern sounding hip-hop. From the direct and hard hitting blues of Fred McDowell to the righteous empowerment of Nina Simone, the thoughtful anger of 2 Pac to a surprisingly political and subversive soul number from The Temptations. Brand Nubian, James Russell, Dead Prez, Curtis Mayfield and The Last Poets are just a few others featured on this amazing compilation. As is the case with all Trikont releases there is an extensive and informative booklet with great essays including one on how the U.S. continues to be a prison state to this day. We can imagine this being in heavy rotation on the stereos of Spike Lee, Angela Davis and Noam Chomsky, and we can't stop listening to this ourselves. So smart, relevant and powerful!
Frankly, we were very surprised that Soul Jazz was releasing a third volume in their New York Noise series. While the first volume was phenomenal and timely amongst the then current wave of new bands revitalizing the no wave disco sound of late seventies New York, the second volume, despite great moments, felt stretched out with lots of filler. So the real surprise is how good this third volume sounds! It's more thematically selected this time around by Stuart Argabright from Ike Yard with fewer bands represented mostly by two tracks each. Even though the focus here is on more electronic acts than previous volumes, there's kind of a Naked City retro-fifties noir feeling to the selection, whether it be from Ike Yard's own paranoid dub, the oppressive groove of Boris Policeband and Martin Rev from Suicide or the no wave rockabilly of James Blood Ulmer and Judy Nylon, whose blase cover of Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" sounds like an outtake from Lydia Lunch's Queen of Siam.
Killer tracks from UT, Dominatrix, Implog, Dark Day and Snatch round out the collection.
A quick look at the list of the bands on this DVD is all it should take. GBH, Angelic Upstarts, Adicts, UK Subs, Mau Maus, Exploited, Johnny Thunders, Lurkers, Eater, Vibrators, Peter And The Test Tube Babies and so many more. TOTALLY essential. Culled from an extensive video archive compiled by an independent video company who spent the eighties driving a van around the UK filming show after show and releasing them on video. This is a sort of a best of compiled from all of those videos and holy shit this stuff is amazing. All of the above mentioned bands totally destroy, and it's the first time we've seen lots of those bands live. Worth it for the GBH and Adicts footage alone! Plus there are tons of bands we've never even heard of who are just as cool: One Way System, Burial, Outl4w, Destructors, Urban Dogs, XPOZEZ, Dead Mans Shadow and even a handful of second wave punk rock bands like Red Alert, Menace, Business, Lurkers and more. Fuck yeah! Mohawks and liberty spikes and more spiked leather than the Folsom Street Fair!!!
Part of the same series that included the B'More Gutter Music compilation that we made record of the week on the last list, as well as the killer Science Faction: Grime comp (definitely a would've/could've/should've been record of the week as well), Science Faction: Dubstep is another killer slab of throbbing, shuffling, stuttering electronic griminess. And in some ways it's a lot more listenable than those other two. There's a very blurry line separating grime and dubstep. Grime is snotty and super syncopated, hiccupping beats, and lightning fast tongue twisting rapping, while dubstep seems to be the late night blissout version of grime. The grime version of the reggae/dub "version", with the vocals stripped off, more of a focus on the rhythms, the bass thick and resonant, dense stabs of fuzzy roof rattling synth. Sort of like chill out music you could dance to (if you were so inclined). Imagine stuff like African Head Charge and other modern digital dub given a seriously grimey 21st century makeover. Ominous and creepy, slithery and dark, but laid back and groovy. Lots of strange samples and loops, minor key melodies, over some of the most hypnotic beats EVER. Like jungle at 16rpm, convoluted and brilliantly unfunky in the funkiest way imaginable. But it's all about the low end, the basslines, the massive slabs of fuzzy synth, we had this blasting at the store and it literally had stuff on the desk rattling, and threatened to knock the plaster on the ceiling loose. The bass lines are thick wiggling eels of tectonic rumble, weird reverberating pulses that swallow entire rhythms whole, the synths sound like tuned airplane engines, thick fuzzed out warbling whirs like someone dumping a truck-full of low-end over your head. This sort of stripped down, instrumental dance music is supposed to be for dancing, and by all rights it should be totally boring to just -listen- to, but this comp is anything but, so massive and heavy and grimey and funky and fucked up that we haven't actually been able to stop -just- listening to it!
After the strange and glorious string drenched, Eastern tinged, drill and bass drama of Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett, we were all sort of surprised when Venetian Snares' next disc Meathole was a return to his old more straight ahead, chopped and clipped, skittering, head spinning drum and bass buzz and sputter. Then the record after that, Cavalcade Of Glee And Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms, continued in the same vein. Which we're totally fine with. More than fine in fact. As much as we loved the ultra cinematic vibe of Rossz, that classic Venetian Snares spastic insanity never fails to get our blood rushing and our ears bleeding, all over the place!!! But we'd be lying if we didn't tell you were were pretty dang thrilled with Hospitality, and a surprising return to the sound of Rossz. Pizzicato strings, fluttering flutes, plinkety plonk percussion, all tangled up in grinding splattery, lightning fast, rhythmic chaos. Sweet minor key melodies splinter into schizo skitter, huge sweeping epics, strangely lilting and melancholic, burst into a hail storm of jagged beats and fractured drill and bass. Church organs hover and wheeze over a skeletal framework of super spare but still all tangly and convoluted hiccupping stutter. Aphex Twin may have invented this particular strain of emo-melodic-drum-and-bass-whatever with his classic "Girl / Boy", but Venetian Snares has definitely run with it, turning an experiment, into a full fledged new world of emotional electronica.
Fierce and funny, funky and fresh, dark and mysterious, brooding and totally catchy. So essential.
We never thought anyone could improve on Venetian Snares' Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett album from a few years back, an amazing blend of brain bending glitch and spastic drill and bass stutter, tangled up in soaring strings and Eastern melodies. A super emotional and cinematic slab of Arvo Part meets Aphex Twin. But then along comes a fella by the name of Bong-Ra who manages to take a handful of tracks from that record and give them a killer new twist, with a strangely jazzy makeover. Not necessarily an improvement, but definitely a whole new sound that rivals the original. This 12" features 4 tracks from Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett, each given a jazzy Bong-Ra tweak.
The opener is a slow jazzy shuffle, with massive earth shaking low end (we're dying to hear this blasted through some huge P.A. system) with the original strings chopped into strange stuttery rhythms, resulting in something that sort of sounds like some string soaked Hitchcockian horror electronic jazz. The second track is much more drifty and ambient, swirling masses of vocals and strings, very choral, like some modern electronic take on Arvo Part. Everything cloudy and shimmery, all hovering over some simple shuffling jazzy percussion.
The B side starts off with some very James Bond sounding spy music, horns and wildly propulsive jazz drums, but all wrapped up in fuzzy, gritty synths and wild spacey effects. A slow build into a wild electronic free jazz freakout. The record finishes off with a dark late night smolder, all back alley noir, with throbbing upright bass, and simple smokey club jazz drumming, while all around drift haunting, ghostlike female vocals. So nice.
There's plenty of bands playing heavy, downtuned, post-rock, post-Isis metalcore sludge these days. But there aren't too many that can make you feel as bad and sad and downright scared as Erie PA's Village Of Dead Roads (great name!) can. They've perfected a totally doomy and diseased brand of pissed off pummel, powered by leadweight guitars and hard-hitting drums, graced with moments of fragile beauty, as they do the quiet-loud thing with surety and aplomb. Whatever primal demons being exorcised (or maybe just exercised) by the band on this debut full-length seem not to interfere with their control of this carefully-crafted, crushing music. The quiet parts are infested with disturbing samples and weird effects, mood dialed all the way negative. When the guitars get cranked, and the band churns out the loping, rumbling riff-scapes, strewn with wretched, bloody-heart-torn-from-chest vocalizations and stonery leads, that mood dial simply snaps off, unable to go that low...
VoDR nod to the melancholic majesty of Souls At Zero era Neurosis and the catchy industrial dirge of prime early Godflesh, but also make us think of the likes of Conifer, Mouth Of The Architect, and maybe a mix of Karp and Katatonia! The more melodic side of VoDR even reminds us a bit of the late, great Engine Kid (one of Greg Anderson's pre-SUNNO))) bands), especially when the clean singing comes in during epic album closer "Cold New World". All those who hunger for both doomy bludgeon and post-rock finesse should pay a visit to this Village Of Dead Roads, a twilight ghost-town being bulldozered and buried on Dwelling In Doubt.
Viva Voce is wedded duo Anita and Kevin Robinson originally from Alabama but now firmly rooted in Portland, OR, and their sound is definitely infused with a West Coast-y vibe. The first song of their third album lead us to wonder if the Barsuk label had hopped aboard the very au courant musical trend of neo-psych-folk or alternately if someone had been studying Fleetwood Mac's Tusk. That tune titled "Believer" is quite a rough-hewn woozy trip, but what follows it falls much more in step with what Barsuk is more well known and loved. That is polished, dreamy indie pop. The numbers sung by Ms Robinson -- which we personally prefer -- bring to mind a hazy cross between Mazzy Star and Madder Rose. The ones sung by Mr. Robinson lean more towards Beatles and Beach Boys inspired sun-baked pop stylings. Nice!
More "Adventures in modern music" from everybody's favorite UK avant experimental mag The Wire. On the cover this month, new weird America sweetheart Joanna Newsom. Inside: Colleen, Victor Gama, Tovah Olson, Global Ear on West Jerusalem, film maker Mika Taanila, Invisible Jukebox with OM, Lasse Marhaug, haunted audio, Christof, Kurzmann and of course tons of reviews, records, cds, films, performances, books, DVDs and otherwise, as well as lots of news and ads and tons of new music to want and to buy!
Super limited lp reissue of an even more limited (and seriously out of print) cd-r from Michigan's noise rock super heroes. Recorded right before core-member Aaron Dilloway left the fold, this is the 'Eyes at their most caustic, but also at their most ambient and spare. The sounds are harsh, and hissing and crumbling into jagged shards of white noise, but they are spread out over wide open fields of minimal hiss and rumbling drones.
Long stretches of grinding industrial grit, glitchy malfunctioning electronics, bits of random percussive clatter, growled and grunted vocalizations, processed horns, bleats and skronks buried amidst thick swirls of rroooaaarrr, that the band pulls apart into weird desiccated carcasses laying under a burning hot sun, rotting and slowly liquefying into black pools of thick fuzz and clouds of insectoid whir.
One side spins at 33, the other at 45, packaged in cool silk screened sleeves. LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!
You can tell a lot about a band before you even get to the music. Take Wreck Of The Hesperus for example. First, they're called Wreck Of The Hesperus, and their album is called The Sunken Threshold. It all sounds sort of heavy and evil, destructive and brutal. The the cover, a confusional tangle of thorns and branches and tentacles, inside, the same tangle is augmented by the bands logo, a nearly indecipherable WOTH with both the W and the H sporting bat wings. Yep. Along the spine it says "There was nothing anywhere but blackness and horror and silence and bones." Finally, the band consists of Ghandi Uncunnigham on "untelligence & unenthusiasm," R. Mongo on "poisonous pulse" and finally Count Rodge on "lowering of the tone." Plus they're on Aesthetic Death, the same label as UK drug doom lords Esoteric and Finnish doomcrust outfit Stumm. So what exactly does that all tell us? Besides the fact that we were already pretty much gonna buy it? It's that we need to get out our stash of extra 'o's. As in this is some serious doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. Not so much glacial spaced out sludge as crusty bile spewing drug doom. Closer to Eyehategod than Esoteric. Although fans of either will be in downtuned doom heaven for sure. Three tracks, 42 minutes, single riffs stretched out into ten plus minute dirges, the drums a spaced out dinosaur plod, the riffs burst in a concussion of splintering sonics, only to wither into a distant shimmer before the next riff drops like an anvil, the bass is a constant monstrous rumble, the vocals are harsh and hellish, a blood curdling, throat shredding shriek that lurks behind every riff like some sort of demon waiting to pounce. The final track drifts into some super spaced out territory sounding a little like Khanate mixed with Codeine, a super spacious near-ambient slow-core trudge, with the bass taking up most of the space, the drums stumbling in the background, the vocals transformed into a animalistic whispery growl. Super creepy. Should definitely hit the spot for doom freaks into Moss, Monarch, Khanate, Marzuraan, Atavist, The Body, Catacombs and all those doom bands heavy on the ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....
Xasthur may have flown the Moribund coop and ended up roosting in the spiffier Hydra Head henhouse, having just released the mind meltingly brilliant black classic Subliminal Genocide a few months back, but it seems that Moribund have a few blackened odds and ends left over, some of which they've now seen fit to release as this self titled ep. Three tracks, 24 minutes, an instrumental, an unreleased track and a track from 2005, it does sort of smack of cashing in, but we'll be the first to say it, Xasthur castoffs are better than 90 percent of other black metal bands best material, and this disc pretty firmly drive that point home. The opener, titled simply "Instrumental" is a seven minute sprawl of arpeggiated minor key guitars, bursts of stumbling double kick, fuzzy layers of black guitar, a haunting refrain that sounds either like processed vocals or keyboards. Thick and fuzzy and gauzy and beautiful. Actually, it sounds remarkably like an instrumental version of one of the songs off Subliminal Genocide. Which might bug the guys at Hydra Head and Malefic himself, but is not such a bad thing for the listener. For those of you who like the sound of black metal, but can't get around the howling shrieks, this track could very well be your gateway to all things black and grim. Without the vocals, it sounds even more like a more evil M83! The second track, "Bubonic Plague" is classic Xasthur, muddy and murky, and so so so buzzy, the melodies are cold and mournful, the guitars snarl and drone, the vocals are so buried in the mix that they just sound like another guitar, buzzing right along side the riffs. The rhythm plods and lopes like a death march, in fact more than ever, this is Xasthur in his doom metal in black metal's clothing guise. Mournfully miserable and blackly bleak. The final track starts off as fierce as Xasthur ever gets, a gloriously blown out black buzz, vocals harsh and up in the mix, the guitars sharp and jagged, the whole thing a swirling chaotic blast of grim fury, but before long the song unwinds into a blackened waltz, with more fingerpicked guitars, distant double kick, and a wooozy hazy ambience, culminating in a stripped down clean guitar and drum coda. So good.
Killer artwork too, some monstrous looking cave formation on the front, a milky white dripping stone beast, and on the back a field of stalactites looking like some ancient torture chamber.
No one understands record making or music loving more than YLT. Here they offer the perfect 7" hot on the heels of their great new album. The A-side is the unexpected dance hit from the new record, "Mr. Tough" and the flipside is another in a long line of great covers, this time they tackle the old soul classic "I'm Your Puppet". Could be just the perfect stocking stuffer to get a hold of early for that special YLT lover in your life.
This was originally released as a super limited cd-r, and people dug it so much we could barely keep it in stock. Now the fine folks at Bo'Weavil have reissued it as a proper cd, packaged in a gorgeous fold out thick paper sleeves with extensive liner notes and an insert printed with a brief history of Zecharia's life, the whole thing housed in a thick plastic sleeve. Still limited, to 500 copies this time, so not sure how long these will be around. Also included on the reissue are two bonus remix tracks!
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be in the Middle East, on a hot sweltering day, with the dust, the scorching sun, and all of that history surrounding you on all sides, letting that intensity overwhelm you and opening your ears to a wondrous world of beautiful and mysterious sounds? Well here it is! Recorded in Jerusalem in 1980 and previously only available as a homemade cassette and later as a cd-r until now, this is a whole disc of Zadik Zecharia furiously rocking the zorna, an instrument most of us had never even heard of until now!! Born in a small village in Kurdistan before moving to Israel in 1950, Zecharia has dedicated his life to playing the zorna (a traditional Kurdish instrument somewhat similar to a longer more narrow trumpet or Scottish bagpipe). This record doesn't let up for a single second. The moment it starts Zecharia is taken over by the power of his instrument and the fugue state he must descend into to elicit such amazing passionate sounds. You get the feeling that there is no time to pause, no time to think, no time to even take a breath.
When I (Irwin) had the amazing opportunity to be in the Middle East in 2000, I remember walking through street markets, standing on the border of Syria and Israel, feeling years of charged history, pain, and passion, right there beneath my feet, and all around me. Taking off my headphones I was immediately overtaken by the myriad of sounds baking in the desert heat. Those moments were magic, and it all seemed to come together perfectly, and for just a moment it felt possible to forget about hate, war, religion and politics. This record takes me back to that place more then anything I've ever heard. Like the best snake charmer records, the kind of music that grabs you by the ankles and sweeps you off your feet, this has the same hard hitting intensity, with an underlying energy that feels boundless and endless. If you've been to the store recently you've probably noticed the nonstop construction going on outside. So for hours at a time we've been hearing drilling and pounding and the sounds of asphalt being torn apart. When the Zecharia has been playing in the store, the combination of all that commotion and the wailing zorna has made for one of the most amazing high voltage drone drenched pounding creations we've ever heard. But even on its own, this record has the ability to take your body hostage, every listen literally forcing various parts of your body to break out in uncontrollable movement. The dola drum which accompanies the zorna helps create a simple backbeat that balances Zecharia's fiery melodic frenzies. A musical fire that you never want to see extinguished. Recommended with more exclamation points than we have room to print!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! etc...
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Another beautiful sounding and gorgeously packaged super limited release from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's (Tarentel) Root Strata label. This one, from a mysterious band of noisemakers from Chicago (even though they're named for a city in Pennsylvania), Zelienople. Having lurked on the periphery of the underground drone / noise / free folk scene, releasing a handful of limited cd-r releases on labels like PseudoArcana, 267 Lattajjaa and others, Stone Academy finds the band at their darkest and most expansive, droney and buzzy but still so delicate and beautiful, hopefully this release will be the one to get these guys more widely heard 'cuz they do belong right up there alongside Avarus and Starving Weirdos and Yellow Swans and Birchville and all of those ambientdronefolk household names.
Stone Academy, at its core, is basically a stripped down folk record. Simple strummed steel string guitar, wavery plaintive vocals, warm swells of ambience, wrapped in TONS of thick reverb, like it was recorded in a cave or a gymnasium or empty swimming pool, and while each song has this strummy folk center, each track evolves or devolves in a totally unique way, into a barely there minimal crawl, into grinding washes of distorted guitar, into warm thick swirls of My Bloody Valentine like buzz, into weird 20th century abstract clatter, into Murky Dead C like blurry noise rock, and sometimes into nothing at all, just sort of quietly and contemplatively drifting along, shimmering in a druggy haze of warbly ephemeral folk and whirring ambient rumble.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Each copy hand numbered. Thick brown sleeves, each with an original ACTUAL photo by Diane Jones affixed to the front. Five different, equally striking images. So lovely.
