The most influential & important veteran heavy metal band ever who still maybe MIGHT make a really good record present their fourteenth album, A Matter Of Life And Death. Is it "really good"? Well, not exactly, but it's not bad either. Maiden have had their ups and downs since the early '90s, including several AWFUL albums with Blaze Bailey on vocals, after long time frontman Bruce Dickinson quit. But Bruce came back and we really liked 2000's Brave New World (we made it a Record Of The Week, actually!), which brought back some of the spirit of the Maiden of olde while also indulging in bassist / chief songwriter Steve Harris' most proggy tendencies. Their next one, Dance Of Death, didn't have the same charm, sounding more like one of the Blaze efforts. But this one's better, not as good as Brave New World though (or Bruce's heavier and more diverse solo album last year, Tyranny Of Souls). It's very proggy too, their longest (72 minutes!) album with many over-long tracks of dour bombast. The shortest song, and the only one we'd imagine could be a "pop hit" (though it's not the single!) is the opener, the vaguely Thin Lizzyish "Different World". After that, we're pretty much in the realm of 7, 8, 9 minute long songs. And like we said, they're dour, downer material for the most part. Maiden are NOT exploring the "lighter side" of war, death, and religion, this album's themes. There's a track about the sacrifices of Allied soldiers on D-Day, and one about the Manhattan Project, the invention of the Atomic Bomb. We haven't figured out who this "Benjamin Breeg" character is though. Amid the gloom and doom, though, you can't deny some of the catchy choruses, nor the occasional old school Maiden "gallop" that always makes us smile.
True, Bruce continues to prove that it's not a modern-day Maiden song if the song title isn't repeated over and over too many times to count (the atom bomb song, "Brighter Than A Thousand Suns", which has a GREAT main riff, suffers from this repeat-the-title malady, though it DOES get stuck in your head as a result). And they continue to employ three guitarists when we all know two would do just fine. But it's Iron Maiden fer chrissakes, which counts for a lot. Definitely check this out if you agree with that last statement! And we'll say this: they're STILL the most significant '80s era metal band ever who might still have a really amazing record in 'em. This wasn't quite it, but we'll take what we can get now, and eagerly check back with them again in a few years also...
A debut album from a Swedish travelin' man that has totally won us over. Instrumental songs for a long daytime drive in the country. A beautiful pastoral ambiance that speaks of Javerling's time living in Glasgow and Ireland. You can almost see the wet green grass, the clouds floating in the blue sky, the birds soaring in soft circles. Imagine the instrumentation of Sufjan Stevens or if Colleen traded in her electronics and moved to the country. Erik Malmberg of Sagor and Swing makes guests on two of our favorite songs. So soothing and tender but never too sweet or syrupy. A musical world where nothing crazy or out of the ordinary happens but the sheer beauty of the surroundings totally and utterly sweeps you off your feet. So lovely!
Since the early '90s, the Norwegian electronic musician Geir Jenssen has dazzled his audience with an astute handling of rhythmically laced ambient electronica, working under the moniker Biosphere. For a while, it seemed that he might make the jump into more commercial ventures after he licensed one of Biosphere tracks for a Levi's commercial, acting as something of a precursor to the entrepreneurial spirit embodied by the likes of Moby, Air, and even Boards of Canada. But Jenssen quite literally had other mountains to climb instead of economic ones. In 2001, Jenssen ventured to Tibet to climb Cho Oyu, the 6th highest mountain in the world. Such a pursuit was not conducted out of blind ambition, for Jenssen is also an accomplished alpinist with the terrain of Norway proving to more than an adequate training ground for his quest.
Like any self-respecting electronic musician, Jenssen brought with him a mini-disc recorder and a set of microphones to collect field recordings. While the ensuing recordings have been billed as "Field Recordings From Tibet," Jenssen isn't entirely true to the field recording ethos, by grafting a handful of his environmental recordings onto rhythmic templates which could easily find their way onto one of his Biosphere records. As deft as Jenssen is with a skeletal loop and abstracted ambience, these tracks seems too refined and polished for the concept at hand: a brutally self-reflective journey to the top of the world. Jenssen's recordings work best when he merely filters out the unwanted frequencies from his recordings, leaving the details of the work to speak for themselves. Here, highlights include the bells from a yak caravan as their shepherd tries to lead them around the Himalayan mountains, and the shortwave radio recordings of air traffic controllers guiding aircraft through the turbulent winds of Tibet. Jenssen also manages to capture plenty of windswept soundscapes of that mountainous region.
This album is really quite good, although it pales slightly when compared to fellow Touch field recordist Chris Watson or lesser known environmental composers such as Tarab or Scott Smallwood. Still, some great listening...
It's been a very very long time, but the Bay Area's Junior Panthers have resurfaced with a new ep! With a new lineup, they've picked right up where they left off, dishing out their delicious indie pop nuggets. They stick with the basics, crunchy guitars, dreamy boy vocals and infectious hooks galore. What more could you ask for? Well, except for it to have been released during the summer months because it's ideal driving to the beach music. Hmmm, I guess it can just as easily warm and brighten an autumn or winter day now, can't it? Yes, indeedie!
Triple electric guitar attack, from Acid Mothers Temple mainman Kawabata Makoto, ex Reynols axeman Anla Courtis and underground Japanese guitarist Rokujenkin. We know what you're thinking, but you're probably way off. This is no psych rock blow out, some FX drenched jam session, instead, Kokura is two huge slabs of epic ambience, shimmering, chiming, glistening, sparkling, all of those ING things guitars do when they are creating gorgeous soft swirls of sound. Thick sheets of guitars are bathed in soft focus effects, and allowed to drift and gently intertwine, slowly and dreamily melting into each other. Even the noisier moments are strangely beautiful, soft fuzzy melodies colliding with dense waves of distortion, all over hypnotic melodic runs and subtle barely-there rhythms. The label describes Kokura as sounding like SUNNO))) at half volume, but it's a lot more delicate than that, at moments monstrously heavy, but at others, like a soft whisper or a ghostlike sonic shimmer. Really nice.
For those mourning the recent passing of creeping doom sludge lords Khanate, we've got the next best thing. In fact in some ways, it might almost be the next -better- thing. Khanate low-end technician James Plotkin suddenly jumped ship only to start up this dour little duo with Runhild Gammelsaeter, the Nordic goddess you might remember as the vocalist for bleak black/doom metal outfit Thorr's Hammer.
On first listen, Khlyst sounds remarkably like Khanate, huge sluggish low end doom, a thick glacial sludgey plod, while over the top a shrieking, impossibly guttural mewling howl, like a demon clearing her throat or a hysterical cheerleader possessed by the devil and spewing impossible foulness. But even at their most Khanate, Khlyst ends up sounding just a whole lot weirder. Instead of downtuned riffage, the guitars are twisted and processed into strange slippery licks, drenched in chorus and phaser, like some sort of alien guitar synth, sputtering and stumbling, a jagged series of noodly little six string blasts, fragmented metallic chunks, over ultra dense tangles of free jazz drum splatter, everything thick with buzzy guitars and ominous ambience. A super freaked out, utterly demented psychedelic doom sludge stretched and twisted into a sputtering spastic black buzz, pelted with bits of prog and wrapped in thick layers of damaged drone.
Elsewhere, the duo, stretch out into hauntingly blissful soundscapes constructed from processed vocals, swirling billows of reverb, echoey guitar shimmer, almost like a creepier Grouper. Drifty and hauntingly lovely. And sometimes the rhythmic furor builds into a vortex of impossibly dense drumming, over thick swaths of low end drone, with growling panting Diamanda-like vocalisations struggle breathlessly over the top. Like some sort of demonic sludge jazz drum solo torture session.
Imagine weirdo black metallers Rehtaf Ruo crossed with UK doomlords Moss, featuring Buddy Rich and Rashied Ali on dueling drums, and a vocalist one part Bathtub Shitter, one part Kevin Sharp from Brutal Truth and one part Dani Filth from Cradle Of Filth, the whole thing recorded by Lustmord.
Bleak and blackened, squirming and slithery, shivering and stumbling. An epic and deranged slab of ultra-ambient-doom-prog-drone-sludge splendor.
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If you've never heard Kid Koala before, be prepared for a seriously head spinning wild ride. Unlike most DJ's, Koala doesn't go for insane turntable pyrotechnics, or goofy classic rock / hip hop mash ups, instead he uses his nimble mixing skills to weave together elaborate journeys through sound, assembling new songs out of various scratchy vinyl fragments, or subtly tweaking old songs into warbly tripped out new ones. Rock riffs get skipped and stuttered into new groovier shapes, Koala accompanies himself on old jazz jams with various instruments "played" on another turntable, lots of soundtrack snippets and random voices get all tangled up into bizarre conversations, separate records get mixed into super psychedelic blowouts, blues jams are peppered with slippery turntable solos. The results are twisted and slightly off kilter, like viewing a turntable jam through a cracked funhouse mirror. Alternately super rocking, super groovy, crazy funky, or just chin scratchingly baffling.
The most amazing thing is that Koala does all this stuff with just turntables and a reel to reel. This isn't some nerd with a computer, meticulously piecing together bits and pieces, this is one guy, a bunch of turntables, and some seriously mad skillz.
Along with the "irrational happiness" in this album's title there are also flashes of madness and brilliance throughout the proceedings. Bringing together free roaming avant jazz with elements of tiki exotica, psychedelia, post rock and so much more, the new Bay Area combo known as Kipple craft a loose, open musical weave that's often quite reminiscent of awesome fellow SF artists such as pop collagists Milk Cult and the uncategorizable keyboardist Graham Connah. Keeps you on your toes, and keeps those toes a-tapping thanks to a creative and tight rhythm section. Moodily captivating. Recommended.
Our favorite new hip hop record for sure. The minute we first heard this, we knew we had to get a bunch for the store. We finally did, but then realized we were at a loss for words (who, us?), so we hit up the guy who turned us on to the record in the first place, AQ pal / gay gangsta Matt Wobensmith, who had this to say about Kirb And Chris:
Take your favorite '80s new wave and pop hits, chop them up, lace them with party rhymes and what do you have? "Niggaz and White Girlz," maybe one of the most brilliant hip hop albums in years. Concept album? 80s revival? Party record? Political statement? Shameless excuse to get laid? Oddly, all of the above.
Inspired by the San Francisco club scene -- where Kirb and Chris do most of their "new wave thuggin'" -- reworking '80s megahits comes effortlessly, as they give new life to the Cure's "Close To Me" ("Closer"), the Smiths' "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" ("Doorstep, Girl"), and not one, but TWO Gary Numan joints, "Cars" and "Down in the Park." Round it out with Simple Minds, Talking Heads, the Human League, the Police, the B52's and others, and you've got quite a rich library to sample from. But does it work?
Absolutely.
As crate diggers constantly scrape the bins for new source material, it only makes sense that synth-driven new wave could be the next wave. Highly enjoyable, and we didn't even mention how hilarious this album's between-song skits are.
This album should totally be huge!
We've long been huge fans of Swiss Teutonic terrorists Knut. Their blend of super precise metallic pound and blown out epic majesty was like a perfect, seemingly impossible blend of Neurosis, the Young Gods and the Swans. Coming up with a distinctly mathy post rock /sludge metal hybrid LONG before the current crop of similarly minded rockers. However, -their- hybrid was a bit more mechanical, almost industrial at times, a furious machinelike pound, relentless and so gloriously heavy. Which lends itself surprisingly well to the dreaded remix record.
It's best to approach this as just a WAY weirder Knut record instead of some super star studded remix affair, because when you get right down to it, nothing here is SO WEIRD that it couldn't have found a home on a proper Knut record. 'Cuz those guys do have a pretty deft hand at crafting a weirdly chaotic off kilter metallic crush. But what it does do, is add some strange sonic variation that there sound does sometimes lack. Dalek, JK Broadrick, Mick Harris, Spectre, Francisco Lopez, Oren Ambarchi, KK Null, Asmus Tietchens, Dither and more. A list like that should already have most of you heavy/weird rock heads leaping for the buy button, and be assured you wouldn't regret it. Most of the 'versions' here, play with the rhythms and the texture more than the actual song structure. This is still a collection of massive sludgy pummel, relentlessly propulsive, like some huge metallic steamroller. Just with each remixer tweaking his track and creating a slightly twisted, more personalized take on the original, the way a remix is supposed to. It almost sounds less like a remix record and more like a glimpse into each of the remixer's heads, as if this is how they actually HEAR this music. Translated into sound so WE can hear what these guys hear in their heads. The Dither mix has the guitars piling up into an impossibly dense wall of metallic noise, Spectre takes the guitars and layers them into some super druggy dub, Broadrick's mix gives that track a very Jesu makeover, adding more space, pushing the guitars down in the mix, and letting the vocals float on top in a thick cloud or reverb. Elsewhere Mick Harris takes -just- the rhythm and turns his track into a dark and ominous techno skitter, while Ambarchi messes with the original mix of his track, changing speeds and pitch, fucking with the tape, some parts are thick corrosive white hot sheets of guitar throb, others are cut and paste drum and vocal splatter, and others are barely there drifting drones, Null turns his track into a murky crawl, before letting it explode into a blown out Merzbowian metallic dirge, not sure what Francisco Lopez does with his track, other than make it sound a little bit off kilter and make the guitars sound a little... well, weird. The other tracks run the gamut from muted electronic shuffle, to thick metal raga buzz, to tribal psychedelic freakout, to blissed out ambient drone.
So as much as we hate 'remix' records, Alter is definitely one of the best we've heard, due in no small part to how totally kick ass the original songs are, but when taken not as a remix record so much as a weird experimental metal record by some really mysterious, fucked up electronic metal band, it's pretty much untouchable.
SUNNO)))-worshippers alert! 1/2 of that drone metal behemoth, our pal Stephen O'Malley (who has also piloted or participated in such units as Khanate, Burning Witch, Ginnungagap, Teeth Of The Lions Rule The Divine, Thorr's Hammer, Fungal Hex, Lotus Eaters, etc.) has travelled to Europe to collaborate with Austrian experimental digital noise artist Peter "Pita" Rehberg! They're calling themselves KTL because the music they made is to be the soundtrack to some sort of stage piece called Kindertotenlieder by performance artist Gisele Vienne and novelist Dennis Cooper ("Closer") due to debut at a festival in France next year. Judging from the music, not to mention the people involved, we imagine it's gonna be beautiful, but also somehow disturbing and dark... This cd certainly is.
It starts off with the 24 minute drone "Estranged", blissful and spooky piece that builds towards its end to noisier heights, threatening the storms to come on this album. And yes, the four parts of "Forest Floor" that take up the main, middle part of the disc are a harrowing journey indeed, into a buzzing, claustrophobic realm of dangerous digital sonics and heavy drone, like SUNNO)))'s lugubrious riffage mixed with the glitchy crunch of Pita -- which is what it is, of course! Not for the faint of heart. Part four, in particular, sounds like a doomed prop engine airplane rumbling over a dark forest landscape from some black metal album cover, at night...
Finally O'Malley and Rehberg wind things up with the quieter (but still creepy) 13 minutes of "Snow", a softly pulsing, detailed improv exploration of lowercase sounds... Very nice!
Let's hope KTL isn't just a one-off collaboration, we'd like to hear more from these two! Their mastery of minimalist ambient music, electronic glitchology and Earthy guitar sludge make a fine sipping brew.
A note for all you object fetishizing consumerist completist types, be forewarned that there will eventually also be a vinyl version of this on the Aurora Borealis label, a double LP limited to 500 copies... we can take preorders now...
What's weird is we don't remember liking Lake Of Dracula very much back in the day, but listening to this now, it's sort of kicking our ass in a huge way. Pounding sludgy new wavish punk rock, with a serious gothy dark vibe. Sort of like Chrome playing Interpol or something. Big crunchy guitars playing doomy angular riffs, a simple garagerock thud, thick swaths of feedback, occasional squalls of psychedelic freakout, and vocals that rant and rave in a super dramatic croon. Most of this disc is take from a live radio broadcast recorded May 28th, 1997, but there are a handful of extra tracks taken from singles and compilations. This short lived combo ('95-'97) featured Flying Luttenbachers drummer extrordinaire Weasel Walter on the GUITAR, Marlon Magas from Couch and Magas on vocals, Jessica from the Jacks on bass and Heather M. from the Scissor Girls on the drumkit as well as some guest rock action from Al of U.S. Maple fame.
Shit, the more we listen to this, the more we're digging it. An ultra chaotic mix of old school industrial thud, gloomy depressive punk rock, psychedelic garage rock stomp, a hellish sort-of-rockabilly with reverbed guitars and galloping drums, gloomy doom and in-your-face no-wave freakout. Seems like it would be a big ol' mess and it sort of is, but it sounds so impossibly good. Like the Strokes with frontal lobotomies recording for Bulb, or some caveman doom band covering Franz Ferdinand after taking huge handfuls of horse tranquilizers. Getting a jump on the current crop of new wave revivalists by a decade. But their new wave was a whole lot darker, damaged and demented!
Surely you're familiar with the theory "free spirited parents = straight laced kids" (and vice versa)? Well, it sure doesn't apply to the offspring of Lennon and Ono, neither creatively nor socially speaking. Sean Lennon has struck a balance between making the scene with Hollywood starlets on his arm and building a solid body of work of his own. And even though his pedigree looms large and he's definitely drawn on a celebrity cast of supporting characters for this project, his music doesn't show even an inkling of a sense of entitlement. While his debut album was imbued with a wide eyed, first crush kind of openness, the far more ambitious Friendly Fire presents an older and wiser but no less earnest Sean Lennon. He's crafted not only a lovely full album of music, but also a companion film. The cd is comprised of nine unassuming, but very well crafted gentle pop songs plus a T-Rex cover that find themselves at the meeting point between The Raspberries, The Posies and Rufus Wainwright. Super mellow, sweet and charming. The cover art features a number of equally unflashy Neapolitan ice cream colored simple line drawings that do recall those of his father. As far as the accompanying dvd is concerned, we can't comment on the film yet 'cause we haven't had a chance to watch it, but we'll let you know that it stars Lennon, Bijou Phillips, Lindsay Lohan, Asia Argento, Jordana Brewster, Devon Aoki and Carrie Fisher.
Reissue of one of our favorite indie rock records ever. Les Savy Fav don't really get their due, but back in the day, these guys were just about the most freaked out, chaotic noise-pop proposition going. An insane vocalist who spent as much time in the crowd, or dragging his mic into the parking lot as he did on stage. And a hyper kinetic band of dissonant, angular axemen and a seriously spastic drummer backing him up. This disc, their debut from 1999, finally gets the remastering/repackaging/reissuing it so deserves. A gloriously energetic blend of the Pixies and the Archers Of Loaf, but with loads of extra snotty swagger, plenty of metallic crunch, and a fistful of hooks most pop band's would kill for. And some of the best indie rock vocals ever, sometimes getting locked into long stretches of looped yelps, or wildman stream of consciousness ranting, all delivered in a distorted scrachy garage rock howl.
Worth it alone for the third track, a wholesale rip off of Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy", that instantly recognizable melody, but all twisted up into a chugging, propulsive chaotic slab of fuzzy pounding perfect pop throb. An all time mix tape staple for sure. But the rest of the record kicks just as much ass. Like the record the Pixies would have made if they were twenty something art school nerds from Rhode Island dosed on Red Bull and Robitussen. Fuck yeah!
Pssst: new record coming in 2007!
The last time we heard from Lhasa Shore Leave (and the only time come to think of it) was way back in August of 2005, when we had a super limited 3" cd-r, that sold out in no time and had everybody clamoring for more. Finally a year later, we have the just as amazing follow up. Still limited but not as prohibitively limited as the 3".
The sound is similar to the first release, just stretched out, those extra 2 cd inches allowing for plenty of space to stretch out, more space for LSL's buzzing minimal sprawl.
Epic droning ragas assembled from multiple layers of grinding guitar buzz, give way to spacious stretches of ambient tranquility, with distant shimmers and minimal percussive clatter. A mournful melody woven into the slow shifting soundscape before building back into a crackling static hum, pulsing with buzzing static. Elsewhere, gorgeous acoustic guitars drift apart into blurry breathy drifts, and wide expanses of sparkling ambience waver and warble like a desert mirage. So nice. A near perfect batch of blissed out dronedream raga.
Each sleeve hand painted in pink and hand stamped, then treated with sand paper. Every copy is different and each includes a printed color insert.
For well over two decades now, Francisco Lopez has defined his impressive body of electro-acoustic composition and manipulated field recordings as "absolute concrete." Through the bulk of his recordings, he has so thoroughly abstracted the source materials (some of which he has named, some of which is unspecified) that it often realizes itself as monumental slabs of imposing rumbles and grey static steadily progressing through effectively simple compositions. In many ways, Lopez' "absolute concrete" parallels the definition of acousmatic compositions, whereby the source material is hidden from the audience to present sound in its pure form away from any visual distractions. Curiously enough, this recontexualization away from the original object is pretty much the strategy employed by Hollywood sound designers; and this course of logic is one that must have crossed Lopez' mind, as Untitled #180 culls its sound from a dozen or so Hollywood blockbusters. Given that those blockbusters so thoroughly enhance each and every sound to maximize the dramatic impact of the scene, the sounds from Untitled #180 are monstrously loud crashes often quickly cutting to yet another sound. It ends up much more of a cavalcade of thrum and crush as if Pierre Henry were to hand over some scores to Brian Lustmord (a Hollywood sound designer by day FYI). A bit of an detour for Lopez, but well worth the trip.
Let's keep the electricity of the summer months goin' a little longer, shall we? We here in SF have had some deliciously warm sunshiney days this week, and now we've got some tunes to go along with the blue skies and high spirits... Los Abandoned's debut album Mixtape! Its hard rockin' pop is delivered with big crunchy guitars and a truckload of sass and attitude much like Elastica, The Breeders and Metric, but with a notable difference. Their vocals are all sung in a mish-mash of English and Spanish! It can be a bit confusing if you like to sing along, but it also makes for some pretty entertaining misheard lyrics too.
Earlier this year, Brian Williams (aka Lustmord) was commissioned by the Church of Satan to perform at the first ever public Satanic High Mass. Of course the date of that event was June 6, 2006, coinciding with the release of the Omen remake and a Slayer album, all trying to maximize the evil that can be ascribed to a trio of sixes. For his score of the event, Williams culled choice elements from his impressive career of dark ambient soundscaping. The Tibetan horns, melodic phrases, and monstrous vocal bellows from Heresy are prominent in the mix, as is the vast expanse of anti-gravitational drone which dominates The Place Where The Black Stars Hang. Tesla coil discharges, metallic airlocks slamming shut, hallowed plainsongs drenched in cathedral reverb, down-pitched electrical crackle, and elongated gong resonance also feature into the mix of the score. It's a thoroughly blackened sound of the self-made individual gaping at a vast emptiness of creation.
This may just be our new favorite record (though, it's not that new -- we've had 'em here for months but they sorta slipped thru the cracks, review-wise, until now). Which is not at all what we were expecting. Not even remotely. The first solo release from ex-Acid Mothers Temple axeman and Acid Mothers Temple soul collective member Magic Aum Gigi, MMMM is not just another AMT related psych rock freakout. As much as we do dig almost everything AMT release, we are definitely filled to overflowing with their endless barrage of tripped out psychedelic rock. So it was with some trepidation that we prepared to review yet -another- Acid Mothers Temple related release, the 30th or 40th in the last year maybe. But HO-LEE SHIT! This record completely blew our minds. When we cracked this open, a big triangular insert fell out, printed on it was a circle with the words "Raga Metal" inside, and on each corner were the words "drone", "trip" and "music." And damn if that ain't exactly what this is. DRONE TRIP MUSIC. Or RAGA METAL. Both only begin to describe the blissy heaviness and abstract beauty of this disc.
Gorgeous, fuzzy Tim Hecker sort of blurry guitars, doused in tons of distortion and reverb, until the riffs are just indistinct blurs, almost like listening to My Bloody Valentine through a transistor radio under your pillow, all murky and muddy but still gloriously melodic and epic. But beyond that, the riffs and thick swirls of sound constantly drop out, glitching into brief crackling silences before stuttering back into motion, like it was recorded on some old, super degrade tape, or as if the needle keeps slipping off the vinyl or some dizzying combination of both. Like an even more lo-fi, metallicized William Basinski, or a blissed out dronier Faxed Head. It ends up being as much about the music as it does about the strange distortions and mysterious drop outs. Like some EVP transmission from beyond, rendered in fuzz guitars and looped murky rhythms. A super distorted slab of metallic dreammusic drenched in hiss and buzz and recorded onto a thrift store cassette with using a toy tape recorder with dying batteries. So goddamn beautiful. And we only have a few, and only will ever have these few, as it's on the out of print wagon now.
By way of Madrid Spain comes Moho (mold in Espanol), a three piece juggernaut of dirt head rock fury so ferocious they give seasoned rockers like High On Fire, Electric Wizard, EyeHateGod & Grief a serious run for the (drug) money.
"....He Visto La Cruz Al Reves" (loosely translates to "I Have Seen The Cross Of The Misfortune" or better yet "I Have Seen The Cross Inverted!") is a furious groovy sludge rock jam, a stoned stumble through the garden at midnight.
Many of the songs start with big fat riffs, slowly building into some serious sludgy groove, drifting way off, gradually working up to a loping midtempo, before dragging it back down into the murk.
Moho are fully capable of kicking it up a notch too, but on this release (their second outing), Moho tend to lay way back "in the pocket" and just bludgeon your blissed-out melon over and over again in a "let's-beat-these-instruments-to-death-till-they-are-destroyed -over-and-over-again!!!" kind of way, and at the same time, a furious throat-full-of-rocks vocalist is howling wildly right in your ear - in Spanish no less - so don't fight it, just GIVE IN to the supreme Hessian power of Moho!
Comes with a DVD chock full of live footage of the band in small venues, "passing the pipe" and rocking out at a house party. They definitely look like they are a fun band to see play live...
A great hard to pin down metal outfit you should most definitely check out!
You don't often think of the word psychedelic when talking about black metal, but the latest (and we're late too, with this review) from USBM institution Nachtmystium is maybe the most psychedelic black metal record we've heard.
On first listen, this just sounds like a killer slab of thrashing blackness, buzzing downtuned riffs, demonic howls, blasting drums, but at some point, in almost every song, something really strange happens, and what was once a grim black blur, becomes a resplendent fuzzy soundscape of thick dreamy FX and blown out soft focus fuzz. Some tracks take off into endlessly rocking near-pop shimmer, like suddenly someone opened the recording studio door and M83 was recording next door, and the two sounds get all gloriously blurred and tangled. On other songs, the buzzing thrash falls to pieces into an abstract soundscape of strange FX and bits of crumbling sound. The core sound, a furious buzzing black metal, is surprisingly catchy too, with post rock arrangements, and plenty of space rock sensibility creeping into the more traditional grimness, but it's the lengthy outros and bridges in each song that make this record so bizarre and so cool. Can't imagine that some of this will go over too will with the ultra cult black metallers, but for those of us who like our metal twisted and tweaked and out of the ordinary, Nachtmystium's new sound totally hits the spot. A dense blissed out dreamy fuzziness impossibly wrapped around spikey crusty black metal buzz, culminating in the 6 minute final track, a slowly shifting black ambient space out, over slowly churning riffs and mesmerizing tribal drums. So good!
Long time collaborators (and OG Jandek backing band, for his first live shows ever), AQ fave Richard Youngs and Alex Nielson once again team up for an absolutely gorgeous collection of sonic wonder, from lilting fuzzy folk, to massive churning guitarscapes. Five tracks, all ten to fifteen minutes long, each a sprawling expanse of dreamy deconstructed pop, fluttering free folk drift, abstract percussive clatter or full on wall of sound rrroooaar. The opener is a delicate, tribal swirl, Rumbling low tones, pulsing piano, ethereal chant like vocals, dark moody melodies wrapped around flickering electronic FX, shuffling hand drums, a bit Wicker Man, a little hippy drift, hypnotic and meditative, drowsy and so lovely. The follow up is just as lovely, but way more abstract, a slowly shifting ambient tableau of sizzling cymbals, muted distant melodies, disembodied voices, and shimmering washes of abstract sound, all smeared into a blissfully blurry soundscape.
Track three jacks up the cacophony just a bit and suddenly the disc gets dangerous. Super blown out guitar throb underpins a clattery skeletal framework, supporting slippery slivers of high end feedback, everything clouded in thick swirls of dense effects, eventually building to an impenetrable psychdrone fug. And even before you can shake it off and get that ringing out of your ears, the band slips back into tribal drift mode, building another dreamy swirlscape of looped whir and muted rhythmic scrape, glistening acoustic guitar and coo-ing vocal ambience. The final track is another dreamy drone-y drift, but this time wrapped in spike-y psychedelic guitar leads, the whole track hovering beneath FX-drenched warped and warbly wah wah guitars, everything spinning and swirling, like the soundtrack to one of those sixties films about getting high, but even more druggy and gloriously far out.
Welcome to New Weird Santa Cruz! New Thrill Parade are not your typical bowl-roasting beach bums. They're more likely to smear their faces with cherry red lip stick and hang out under that bridge from the movie Lost Boys, drinking goats blood and cutting themselves. This shit is GOTH. Fuck yeah. The sound of this record is actually a bit of a tough one to describe. The heart of New Thrill Parade's music lies in the pounding, arrhythmic dark dance created by the sexually charged rhythm section, compelling you to move as though you were mounted by some sort of Yoruba diety. Super discordant guitar lines, soaked in reverb and chorus float atop this propulsive thump. The sax squawks, the sounds of a knife being dragged against a piece of sheet metal creeps through the mix at points, and the vocals HOWL! Vocalist Amitai's yelps and croons push the band's already amazing sound WAY over the top...his lyrics are perfectly dramatic and dark, and his sense of delivery conveys the fucked up, twisted world this band seems to exist in. Favorite tracks include the slow building creep fest "Peace Punch", and the twisted fucked up "Body Ship", which sounds like some evil bubble gum music you might hear in a nightmare after watching too much Twin Peaks. But all the tracks are killer!! For fans of The Birthday Party, Christian Death, and the Butthole Surfers...and any other freaky, fucked up insane band that rules. Also, if you get the chance, SEE THEM LIVE! Amazing theater for sure.
Two sides of home brewed minimalism. Of, aka Loren Chasse (Thuja, Coelacanth, etc) takes a slight detour into a dark mysterious world of disembodied free folk. Some sort of country music, deconstructed, just whisps and afterimages left to drift wraithlike. It's like the skeleton of a banjo, was left to wander aimlessly along some lonely seashore, the sound of the surf a shimmery hiss, the banjo's footsteps a spacious barely there twang. All under a murky grey sky, soft melodies like warm breezes.
Greg Davis counters with a swirl of zinging strings, a complex web melodies, the harps' shimmering strings intertwined and overlapping, all over the distant soft splashing of water. Almost like an orchestra made up entirely of harps, performing playfully in a giant bathtub. With the harps tangled sonics being subtly glitched up and processed, making the end result all the more dense and dreamy.
Previously only on 10" vinyl via Neurot, now finally available to compact disc users! David Tibet is an obsessive man, amassing a huge collection of books, records, paintings, and ephemera from his favorite artists, religious leaders, and cultural icons; and he often incorporates bits and pieces from that collection into the apocalyptic hymns of his band Current 93. A couple years ago, Tibet found himself awestruck by Om's first album Variations On A Theme and approached the stoned-metal mesmerists about working together. Through their correspondence, Om's bassist Al Cisneros found himself a contributor to the Current 93 opus Black Ships Ate The Sky, and then the two projects decided to produce this split release. What you get from Om is exactly what you would expect: heavy-as-fuck bass lines, lumbering drum propulsion, and tranced-out vocal incantations very much along the psychedelic vein of Sabbath and the druggy side of Hawkwind. Normally Tibet outsources the guitar work on his Current 93 records to the likes of Ben Chasny, Michael Cashmore, or Tony Wakeford, but here he's picked up the guitar, the bass, and a ton of distortion to match what Om does on the other side. He proves that he too can muster a heavy doom-drone riff laced with caustic waves of distortion and feedback. Of course, his revelatory vocals emerge from the cyclical riffs as does a caterwaul of droning bagpipes.
We really have to come up with a name for this stuff. You know, that sort of deconstructed fragmented pop, glitchy crumbling, fuzzed out ambient weirdness, everything blurry and buzzy and soft focus. Jeck, Tim Hecker, Fennesz, Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, and now Part Timer. It's another one of THOSE SOUNDS, the kind of sounds we can't ever get enough of, just like super hard ragga jungle or buzzy drone-y black metal, it's a sound that we are absolutely in love with. If we could figure out away to make these records go on forever and ever and ever we surely would (for now, the repeat button will have to suffice).
But as we've mentioned in the past, it's not enough just to assemble some lilting folk or some pretty ambience, and then haphazardly "fuck it up" with weird electronic bleeps and bloops or fuzzy drones. No, it takes someone special to allow organic prettiness and jagged digital disruptions to co-exist so perfectly. It's like some strange alchemical art, allowing two such disparate sounds to exist as one, as if we couldn't possibly imagine them separate.
And rarely has there been a more beautiful, and subtle example of this art than on this debut release from Part Timer.
First and foremost, this is simply a gorgeous dreamfolk record, glistening guitar melodies, languid and lazy, sweet and sundappled, with tinkling piano, fluttering flutes, ethereal angelic female vocals, drifting bits of abstract twang and distant reverbed horns, shuffling muted rhythms, a breathtaking collection of shimmery pop folk perfection. And that's before we even consider the fascinating and constantly fluctuating production, a series of bizarre treatments, rendering each little perfect pop nugget or drifting free folk flitter in a completely different light.
A little bit of soft folky twang, becomes a haunting stuttering soundscape of steel strings and weird tape recorder clicks, sweet pop vocals become totally obscured beneath filmy layers of fuzzy distortion and glitchy grit. Weird almost-IDM rhythms materialize from distinctly un-techno song parts, before coming apart into some murky ambient drift. The whole record is glazed with strange bits of sonic sorcery, a little sprinkling of dusty old looped record crackle, warm smears of fuzzy foggy melodic murmur, warped warbles and staticky grit, chopped and shuffled vocals, thick drifts of white noise tape hiss, all miraculously managing to act more as subtle accompaniment rather than overpowering noise.
The perfect blend. Catchy and simple, dreamy and lovely, but slightly off kilter and subtly damaged. Like discovering a tape of some lost folk pop classic, all degraded and decayed, and then trying to repair and reassemble it, but realizing that there is too much tape hiss and too many drop outs to fully restore the tape, only then realizing that somehow, the final product, this, is even more lovely than the original could have ever been.
Hey all y'all Pavement devotees! Better make some more room on your cd library shelf because your favorite band's discography continues to be reissued in deluxe fashion. Those beloved indie rockers' third full length (originally released back in '95) gets even lengthier with Matador Records' generous retrospective double disc treatment. Of course you get the original album proper, but the hits keep on coming with the addition of the b-sides from Wowee Zowee's singles, the Pacific Trim ep, a handful of compilation tracks, another handful of previously unreleased outtakes, a pair of live numbers recorded in the Netherlands, BBC and Radio Australia sessions. That all adds up to a gargantuan total of fifty tracks of Pavement. Say it with us, "Hot damn!" And lest we forget the thick 64 page tome that's included too. Wowee, indeed! An ultra fan pleaser!
We discovered the confusionally monickered Peeesseye or PSI or whatever, on one of our many record shopping trips, bought entirely because of the crazy cover art. And while it wasn't what we expected, it was pretty fucking weird and cool. So we got a bunch of the store and everybody seriously dug PSI's druggy abstract what-the-fuck free rock weirdness. So we were super psyched to discover a brand new record. But they managed to throw us for a loop again with Commuting Between The Surface & The Underworld, on which the band take a whole new direction, less noisy and purposefully obtuse and more folky and dreamy and sort of pretty. And while we really liked the last record, we're beginning to LOVE this one.
The opening is the first sign of PSI's strange new direction. A killer sort of folky Dead C buzz and strum, with damaged FX doused vocals, thick drones all over the place, distant moans and scrapes, but at the center of it all, a simple steel string strum and a warm wheezing wash of fuzzy shimmer. Like a clattery clangy Wicker Man style forest ritual, tribal and primitive, but run through some tweaked and damaged primitive effects box. No Neck and Sunburned Hand are definite reference points, but PSI is less clattery and rhythmic and more blissed out focused on a murky buzz drenched folk. Which is a huge turn around from their old, significantly noisier incarnation.
The whole record seems to follow a similar template. Some sort of minimal steel string guitar, strummed, picked, lazy and meandering, soft melancholy melodies unfurling sleepily, while all around these stretches of folk dreaminess swirl thick washes of grimey gritty distortion, fuzzed out psych rock guitar, dense swaths of rumble and whir,
as well as drifting clouds of percussive tinkle and shimmery shuffle. Definitely for all you fans of the current crop of abstract cd-r free folk troubadours.
The last track, a massive 20+ minutes of barely there ambience, and what sounds like a straight field recording, lets the band dip back into their obtuse bag of tricks with an endless stretch of street noise, random clatter, footsteps, what sounds like either a bawling child or a billy goat, bird song, and an electric razor. Like some surreptitiously captured day-in-the-life. Strangely hypnotic in it's own way, but a suitably random coda to the rest of the record's beautiful buzz.
Over the last several years it seems the instrumental rock(ish) records can easily be filed in distinct sections. There are the proggy spazzed out offerings, angular math rock that's still being played to death, epic quiet loud quiet GYBE! worship, Chicago post-rock, folktronica, etc. etc. Something so nice about hearing a new outing from a band we always feel has slipped under the radar and whose take on instrumental rock feels really refreshing right now. Polar Goldie Cats have put out some great records on Up as well as Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace. They play songs that are subtle and brimming with just the right amount of suspense and tension. Like later era-Unwound there is a darkness with melody which go so nice hand in hand. In fact it got us thinking a lot of some of our favorite bands sans vocals like Quixotic, Blonde Redhead, Helium and Sonic Youth. While there was for sure a moment in time when this sound was all around, lately we haven't been hearing much like this and we have to say this has totally hit the spot.
Full length number two from epic post rock soundscapers the Red Sparowes. Sharing members with Isis, these guys tread similar sonic ground, although where Isis take their sound in a decidedly sludgy more metallic direction, The Sparowes move in their own, toward a much mathier, almost prog rock sound. Each track is massive in scope and composition, lengthy almost krautrock grooves lead into spacey ambience which lead into heavy crunchy "choruses". Riffs repeat and loop and slowly transform, multiple guitars weave in and out of the minor key melodies, creating dense harmonies, and strange rhythmic counterpoints to the motorik rhythms. Red Sparowes are another band where it's hard to pinpoint just exactly what it is that makes them sound different or special, but that something is most definitely there. Sure it's slightly metallic, it's most definitely math rock or post rock. It's big and brooding, minor key and slightly melancholy, the guitars are big and thick, the drums simple but propulsive, but each one of those parts is transformed by the way they are assembled, the arrangements, the songwriting, imbue each of those elements with extra emotion, extra power. Which makes the heavy parts that much more riffage, the ambient parts that much more spacey and drifty, the sad parts that much darker. Obviously if you're into Isis and Aereogramme and Mogwai and all of that sort of stuff you'll for sure love this. But even folks who haven't been blown away by those bands should check these guys out. Super emotional, incredibly epic and grand, instrumental rock of the highest order. Like a more metallized Sigur Ros or like a dreamier dronier, WAY less metal Neurosis.
MPEG Stream: "The Great Leap Foward Poured Down Upon Us One Day Like A Mighty Storm, Suddenly And Furiously Blinding Our Senses." [/audio/redsparerhgreat.m3u]
MPEG Stream: "We Stood Transfixed In Blank Devotion As Our Leader Spoke To Us, Looking Down On Our Mute Faces With A Great, Raging, And Unseeing Eye." [/audio/redsparerhstood.m3u]
MPEG Stream: "Like The Howling Glory Of The Darkest Winds, This Voice Was Thunderous And The Words Holy, Tangling Their Way Around Our Hearts And Clutching Our Innocent Awe." [/audio/redsparerhhowling.m3u]
How is it that these long overdue A.R. & Machines reissues just keep making us fall in love with Ol' Achim Reichel over and over again? 'Cause it's some of the best krautrock EVER that's how. Die Grune Reise is a re-release of the first official A.R. & Machines LP from 1970 and, while slightly less epic and grand than the blissful Echo (part of the double disc reissue we raved about a few months ago), it's no less mesmerizing, exploratory and exciting. Reichel's trademark meandering, repetitive guitar and percussion are in full effect -- spacey and grooving, but instead of totally transporting the listener into the realm of ether, there's something more rockin' and also sometimes ridiculous that keeps it in the realm of the studio. Well it had to be since EVERYTHING on here was performed and recorded by Achim Reichel himself, a total one-man-jam! Sounds like a whole hairy freak-troupe though. Die Grune Reise is like watching a preview of the even more awesome journey that Reichel eventually takes you on with Echo (which, by the way, is finally back in stock!). It's entirely possible that all the weird, sometimes goofy-hippy vocals on this album maybe make us a little self-conscious... Yes, there's a lot of the madhouse 'digga-digga-aahh-waaahhh!??" type vocals on here that at turns challenge and delight us, but they're tempered with a more than generous helping of signature chug-jams to keep us totally boogeying (dig the ZZ Top guitar riffery on track 2!) and lilting interludes to help us come down gently. When absorbing this album, it's hard to shake the very specific image of a naked, twirling free-spirited German longhair in the desert at night alone with his arms wide open holding a hand rolled cigarette/joint in one hand and doing graceful hand maneuvers with the other...and that's fine by us. We grok that dude and these albums. There's actually two of them (albums) here, as this disc also includes A.R. VI, Echolung, originally released by Brain in 1975. Compared to Die Grune Reise it's a bit more mellowed out, if anything more cosmic and spacey... real nice! Total krautrock essentials, both of these. Fans of both Can and Circle need to hear 'em...
Finland's Fonal label has brought us a lot of favorites, that's for sure -- Islaja, Kiila, Paavoharju, Shogun Kunitoki, and more. So of course we were quite curious about their latest release, from a band called Risto. Here's the informative blurb we were provided with that was supposed to describe what Risto's all about:
"Leevi & the Leavings in the city, Ville Leinonen in handcuffs, Kauko Royhka in self-pity, Kari Peitsamo as a smart person. Risto brings back that self-esteem, naivity and reality that died with Gosta Sundgvist. Have you already heard what they whisper around Tampere?"
Hmmm. Not being that hip nor Finnish nor both, that doesn't help a whole lot, does it? Well let's just give it a listen and see if we can figure out this Risto. Track one, "Rakkauden Rock" launches this album out of the gate with an uber-distorted rockin' basher, the band coming off as something like a Finnish language version of The Cramps!! Not what we expected exactly, but pretty cool. But then the raucous punkabilly of that song immediately gives way to the placid loveliness of "Auringon Prinsessa", all mellow and melodic. But with track three we're back to the energetic and uptempo... and track four, "Discopallo", is downright funky! But following that, the gentle "Pikkoravat" drifts back to mellow moodiness. What gives? We don't know. Crazy Finns is our default answer. The important thing is, we like it!! Risto veer from the noisy and punk to the sweet and lush, and it's all nice and catchy and weird and fun, songs influenced by no wave and doo wop and whatever else strikes their fancy, sounding like Aavikko's "monkey jazz" one moment, a lullaby the next. With all the lyrics in their native tongue, we can't tell you what the songs are actually about, but we're enjoying their spirited, schizophrenic music regardless. Another, atypical, fab Fonal release!
Ultra limited, insanely deluxe quadruple lp box set from the greatest weirdo black metal band to ever come out of the Czech Republic. Fronted by the truly iconic Big Boss, with his evil black face paint and booming low voiced delivery, he howls dramatically over fierce black riffing and weirdly romantic keyboards, a buzzing blackness reminiscent of Venom or Bathory, but WAY weirder. Definitely one of Andee and Allan's all time favorite black metal bands. This box set contains all of Root's demo tapes from the late 1980's plus various bonus live recordings taken from the Death Metal Session Festival vol. 2 (Prague 1988). Also included is a massive 32 page 12" x 12" booklet containing tons of photos from the band's early days, flyers, newspaper clippings, interviews, fanzine articles, and lots more. 4 lps in two deluxe gatefold jackets, an XL Root t-shirt, a big poster, all housed in a custom made box printed in red, black and metallic silver, sealed with a vellum obi with a foil-stamped logo. Holy crap, this is amazing. You have to see it to believe it. Definitely one of the most extravagant packages we've ever seen. And c'mon, it's ROOT!!!
Andrew Douglas Rothbard, the self-taught keyboardist, bassist and vocalist formerly of potent (and elusive) aural conjurers Pleasure Forever, Slaves and The VSS, has returned with his first solo album. On Abandoned Meander, Mr. Rothbard seems unconcerned with... no, make that completely detached from trends and popularity contests, and his openness to reinvention results in music which flows forth so naturally it seems effortless.
While passages of Abandoned Meander are fleetingly reminiscent of early T-Rex, Zoso-era Zep or more recent artists such as Devendra Banhart and Ariel Pink, these generally lo-fi but ultra textural and weirdly 'orchestrated' creative forces exist in a realm far outside and beyond the current crowd of experimental psych-folk artists. Time is just another word in the as above / so below matrix of this release, with the I-ching derived musical concepts and astrological / musical conjunctions aligning just in time for us to hit 'repeat play' and reenter Abandoned Meander's audio alchemy. It's swirling strangeness also has the good sense to leave behind the faux eccentricities and posturing of mere mortals, with each hazy number crafted from an open palette of conventional and more unorthodox instrumentation. New and different but not wholly unfamiliar, Abandoned Meander may initially conjure a neo-psychedelic folk impression, but just as swiftly an altogether distinct and personal delirium takes over... and it's not one that we want to escape from anytime soon. Need we say? Highly recommended!
... but lazy are not the Scattered Pages! The new full length from these three troubadours from Houston, TX comes swiftly on the heels of their fine cdep This Is Where The Story Ends, and even in that short time the band has evolved and fleshed out their sound tenfold. Their not so secret weapon is the combined songwriting force of Kurt Coburn and Brandon Hancock, both have proven themselves to be quite the richly imaginative storytelling lyricists and crafty songsmiths. Many of the songs here reminded us quite a bit of The Hidden Cameras or Belle And Sebastian, but more rootsy folk inclined. An engaging listen.
Latest release from NZ free drone sound sculptor Seht, aka Stephen Clover. A single 34 minute track,
a lengthy soundscape of slow burn decay and abstract shimmer. The first 17 minutes are an ultra minimal crawl, through a bleak landscape of barely audible keyboard sputter and amp buzz. Distant grinding gears of some murky machine, drifting strands of simple guitar strum floating to and fro, before everything coalesces into a thick twisting snarl of corrosive drone and reverberating rumble before drifting back into another extended tranquil drift. Haunting and quite gorgeous.
A hand decorated cd-r packaged with a cool textured paper sleeve with iridescent designs on one side, and a full color insert. And as with lots of things like this, it's also unfortunately criminally limited. How limited?
LIMITED TO 86 COPIES!!! We got a handful. Once those are gone, we won't be able to get more...
Oh Selda! We are soooooooo in love with your voice! We first heard you on the amazing Love Peace and Poetry compilation of Turkish psychedelic music and ever since then, we just wanted more more more! Last year we got our Selda fix with a collection of vinyl transfers released by World Psychedelia, and now finally we get another full serving of Selda that we've so desperately been craving! No surprise that the fine folks with impeccable taste at B-Music/Finders Keepers are responsible for this amazing collection of Selda at her best! With a singular voice that demands and grabs your attention with such utter flare, seduction and style, Selda is truly a musical treasure who we're sure will win the ears and hearts of just about anyone who listens. Every song has a rich musical backdrop, perfectly cradling her lovely vocals, with a sound that has no easy genre lines to point to, but that so few have touched on with such perfection. It's psych-rock and glorious pop, it's folk and funk, it's fun and dramatic, its whatever it wants to be, and it's a collection of songs with absolutely no misses! There is a playfulness in the performances that totally imbue the songs with a rich full color fever that just can't be denied. While some reissues exist more for history's sake or for just a couple cool tracks, this is one of those records that requires repeated listening, and lord knows we have listened to this over and over and over. In some ways we even think of Selda like a Turkish version of Asha Bhosle, with that sort of amazing voice that turns everything it touches into musical magic.
Way beyond recommended!
What manner of warble is this? Why, it's AQ pal Mike Donovan's local cave pop unit, Sic Alps, in what looks to be their debut full length that (thankfully!) for once is not uber-limited. Featuring members of Erase Errata and The Hospitals, Sic Alps brand of noise pop is akin to listening to a beat up Troggs 45 while robotripping. Subterranean beats, murky vocals, echo-y sheets of feedback and dirty shimmer mask the sublimest of pop songs, leaving us to suspect if the Coachwhips were played on 16 rpm, they might sound a lot like this. Love it!!
Yay Sippy Cups! What started out as a few local rockers doing Syd Barrett and Who covers for kids a few years back has evolved into a full-blown kids entertainment juggernaut complete with sold-out choreographed live shows (involving a juggler!) and a whole new album of original songs. Electric Storyland is for parents who want to wean their kids off Barney-type treacle and nudge them into something weirder -- but not too weird. The album's songs are catchy and fun and have playful hints of psychedelia -- from '60s-sounding pop songs with suggestive/innocent titles ("Little Puffer" and "Magic Toast") to songs that reference Yoshimi-era Flaming Lips ("I Am a Robot)". Buy it for your sister's kids -- chances are this is the only album you, your sister and her kids might find some common ground on!
This is a new three-song teaser from the recently reformed version of one of the most influential post-punk groups of all time, The Slits. Preparing for their first tour in a couple of decades, two of the original members with some help from Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols and Marco Pollini from Adam & the Ants, bring a combination of dub, punk and trip hop styles to these new songs which sound amazingly fresh. We want more!!
Berkeley based guitarist, Sean Smith, doesn't shake off the Fahey discipleship of his debut too easily on this sophomore effort, no matter how hard he tries. Yet still he brings a darker and more spontaneous impulse to his playing, allowing roughly exposed and muted fret tones to surface, showing he is not all about polish and that 's a welcome departure. More improvised than composed, Smith's cerebral guitar weaving is less bucolic sunshine this time around, taking us on a night time sojourn through a folkish nether world of threaded string picking and somber harmonic tonalities.
We had been hearing the name So Percussion being thrown around a lot lately, but we actually hadn't actually heard their music until now. Based on their name and the fact that they are made up of young percussionists we were worried that maybe it was going to be like the audio equivalent of seeing Stomp. And while we do actually love going to see Stomp with our Mom's (ahem), we are happy to report that the music that So Percussion makes is not merely a "look at us we're making drum sounds out of everything." In fact, Amid The Noise actually pushes the percussion to a much more subtle and ambient level, having more in common with Eno and Reich as it does street musicians drumming on garbage cans or Blue Man Group. Meditative playing that recalls Tortoise at their zenith, and the most delicate and intricate moments of Aphex Twin's Druqk's. Disciplined and perfectly played yet not sterile. The second disc is a DVD of beautiful films by Jenise Treuting of Japanese street scenes set to the music of So Percussion. We're definitely happy to finally know what So Percussion are all about.
We've said it a million times, but it bears repeating, we love turntables, and scratchy records, and the sounds of both, we even (especially) love the sound of both with the music removed. Or at least most of the music removed. Fuzz and crackle and buzz and pop and warble and whir. All the sounds people try desperately to remove from their listening experience is exactly what we want piled on top of ours. In fact, all the crackle and surface noise that audio nerds discard, well, they should save it all up and bequeath it to us to sprinkle, dollop, pour, douse all of our music with. So it was really a no brainer that the debut cd from Strotter Inst. would be record of the week here at AQ (as it was just a few weeks ago). Strotter is the work of one man, Swiss turntablist / sound artist Christoph Hess, who takes old turntables, augments them with various wires and elastic bands, pieces of metal and all sorts of found objects, and then creates gorgeously Spartan symphonies of rhythm and texture using just the turntable and the stylus, no records at all. No music. The turntable becomes an instrument capable of more than just playing other peoples' music, it is a sound making device, an instrument as viable as any other. Although with a truly unique palette of sounds, reminiscent of some strange minimal electronica, albeit with a much more organic feel.
This disc captures a performance recorded live to minidisc at Oblo Cinema in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April of 2005. And is a gloriously hypnotic soundscape of glitchy beats, warm textural drones and strange low end strums, all locked into hypnotic loops, that slowly shift and drift in and out of sync as more turntables join the fray, or as the speeds of the turntables change, or as various implements shift. The set begins with a lush drone, difficult to imagine how it's produced, but it is warm and deep and quite organic sounding. Soon the sound of the reverberating bands are introduced, sounding a lot like some muted guitar, playing a simple low end figure, the notes coming faster and faster until the whole thing stumbles into a shambolic rhythm, a loping lurch, with occasional bursts of needle squelch, eventually settling into a dreamy motorik groove. The set seesaws back and forth between strange machinelike rhythms and stretches of drone and rumble. Right toward the end there is a burst of super distorted NOISE which slowly gives way to the final rhythmic groove, that slowly winds down, notes drifting off until all that is left is a single mechanical pulse. So nice.
Comes packaged in a cool cardstock sleeve with a little diecut circle perfectly above the hole in the center of the cd. More nods to the record and its design. The picture of Christoph Hess on the inside of the booklet looks like some old faded textbook photo of Einstein Or Edison, hunched over his machines, modified turntables in this case, a study of a quirky inventor, Strotter as the sound of antiquated machinery, of objects reassigned to new tasks, the tireless pursuit of technology recontextualization, only adding to the whole vibe of Hess' music being some recently unearthed or discovered scratchy, crackly sonic artifact.
Hey folks, here's one of the few releases on Japan's rather eccentric (and excellent) EM Records label that's NOT a reissue or archival collection, but new music by a new band! Weird. (Of course.) The oddly-named Supernatural Hot Rug And Not Used is one for those into free-rock improv noisiness, being a duo on electric guitar and "sort-of" electric bass. No effects. No "songs". Lots of quiet noisiness (but it's not "noise"). This Osaka-based outfit consists of Bunsho Nisikawa (guitar) and expatriate Canadian Tim Olive (bass), whom some might remember from a band called Nimrod, also Twerdocleb and Soap-Jo Henshi. Somehow, in a Osaka studio, they're able to conjure up stuff that sounds more like a creaky, glitchy field recording than two guys playing instruments. Together they weave a weird n' wild collision/collusion of sounds, some subtle, some not so... The more dronily mysterious, stretchy-scratchy, almost-rhythmic moments bring to mind the prepared turntable works of Pierre Bastien and Strotter Inst, or a more relaxed Voice Crack. Or even Coelacanth. This also sounds like something you might expect to hear on the Erstwhile label, from the likes of Keith Rowe or Toshimaru Nakamura. A pretty cool find for those who consider themselves connoisseurs of such interesting, abstract sounds! By the way, the band name is an example of the absurd "Japlish" prevalent on T-shirts in Japan...
It's kind of nuts when you realize that Taint have been a band for a dozen years and this is their first actual full length. Sure there've been a bunch of ep's and splits and compilations and demos, but on The Ruin Of Nova Roma the band finally get to flex their musical muscles and let it all hang out. What IT is, is a huge sloppy, sludgy lurching stoner pummel with wild throat shredding caterwaul vocals and killer downtuned grooves. A sort of math rockier Neurosis, with plenty of Motorhead, High On Fire, a whole lot of Fugazi (especially the vocals), some of that classic Amrep buzz and some serious post rockage as well. A quick listen will definitely have your head banging, your juices flowing and have you air guitaring (or drumming) all over the place. Taint are heavy as fuck, and every song is packed with killer riffs, pummeling drums, and lots of hooks. But repeated listens reveal all sorts of subtle stuff going on, strange little melodies, dense melodic clusters, convoluted rhythms, epic keening guitar harmonics, thick layered drones, wailed vocals, blissed out stretches of loping post rock, but at the very heart of it all is one seriously epic, lumbering beast of a metal band. Just listen to those sound samples. Not sure if this stuff makes us want to fuck or fight or rock or all three...
There's something seriously wrong with the world when all the modern metal nerds slobbering all over Mastodon and High On Fire and the rest of the current crop of 'hip' metal aren't blogging their goddamned brains out about these guys or at least lining up in droves to let their pansy asses be musically trampled to death by these brutal metallic behemoths. So good.
Second blast of spastic, synth drenched, drum splattered free noise psychedelic freakout from this damaged and demented power trio, made up of Matthew Mottel on synth, Kevin Shea (Coptic Light, Storm And Stress) on drums and Ed Bear on baritone saxophone and electronics.
Anyone can kick up a huge noisy squall and call it "free jazz" or even "art" but the guys in Talibam! (yes, punctuation mandatory) aren't fucking around, deftly unfurling the perfect balance of face melting, amp destroying, noise rock pummel, skittery, tangled free jazz skronk, and droney drifty space rock blow out.
This may be a three piece, but the core of Talibam!'s sound is the relentless battle between drums and synth, Like a bear and a hippo wrestling in a bed of skronking saxophones. And the drums are always going, like someone standing at the top of a mile high stairway, tossing hundreds and hundreds of drumkits down the stairs an armful of pieces at a time, while someone stands at the bottom of the stairs, clutching a huge synthesizer, like a baseball bat, swinging wildly at every drum in the strike zone. A truly bewildering, baffling chunk off free music freakout, that manages to be pretty dang listenable, with long stretches of jazzy drone, some mesmerizing raga like buzz, and jumbled heaps of deconstructed free jazz fuckery.
Recorded live before what sounds like almost no one, these guys are on fire, filling the empty room with more sound than it was meant to hold. there's lots of between song banter and it's super cringeworthy, but knowing these guys, we're pretty sure it's meant to be as antagonistic, if not more so then their already difficult music.
As with lots of stuff like this, only the iron-eared need apply, but those so endowed will be richly rewarded with a glorious earful of convoluted groove, problematic prog and freaky freaky free jazz.
While the name Jorma Tapio may not be familiar to you, the name Terje Isungset sure as heck should. He's the man responsible for the Igloo record, a past record of the week, recorded entirely on instruments made from ice. We've been selling that like CRAZY, when all of a sudden we got an email from Jussi (Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, etc.) letting us know that his label Ektro was releasing a brand new record by Isungset, teamed up with some guy names Tapio. We were of course intrigued, but had no idea what to expect. And had we actually expected something, we probably never would have guessed how weird and wonderful this record would be. No ice instruments sad to say, but armed with flutes, bells, voices, kantele, percussion, Jew's harp and lots and lots of drums, these two whip up a super wild and wooly, ultra dense blast of what we can only describe as tribal forest folk free jazz. Or something like that.
Free jazz is probably the closest comparison, the first few tracks are dense psychedelic percussive freak outs, lots of splattery spastic free jazz drumming all over the place, deep bowed bass, steel string zings, and super creepy strangled and howled vocalizations. Everything sounds very primal and tribal, thick swaths of rhythmic throb underpinned by shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle and warbly mumbled melodies. Isungset proves to be a pretty bad ass drummer, whipping up some seriously wild squalls of spastic skitter, and octopoidal crash and bang. The vocals grunt and chant, sort of yodel, and hoot and holler, very festive and just a little nuts sounding. When the drums recede a bit, the band sort of wonders through some ancient forest, fluttering flutes, simple subtle percussion, distant drones. A bit reminiscent of Avarus or Anaksimandros for sure. The 20+ minute centerpiece, the track "Selainin Tuli / Sacred Fire" lets the duo spread way out, and lay out an expansive tribal soundscape, like the earlier 'free jazz' tracks but stripped way down. Hints of No Neck Blues Band and Sunburned Hand definitely surface now and then, the track eventually building to a howling shrieking psych drone freakout before settling back to almost complete silence. then a gentle lilting smudge of soft flutes and abstract clatter. That smeared clatter sort of drifts into the next two songs, disembodied scrapes and creaks, random bits of percussion, thick washes of low end thrum, quite dark an lovely.
The final track is a flittering flutescape, a spare landscape of woodwinds and distant shimmer, which is soon joined by a buzzing Jew's harp, and the harp and flutes get all tangled up into a strangely propulsive groove, some sort of skeletal prog laced with primal psych rock primitivism and festive Renn Faire revelry, like stumbling into some clearing in the woods and finding some strange open air market, with a very strange duo performing before a crowd of rapt onlookers. Weird, but pretty darn cool as well. Finnish music obsessives need this no matter what. Lovers of that modern free folk new weird America thing might just find that this pushes all their buttons, and REALLY REALLY open minded jazz heads might also want to give this a try.
Highly recommended!
We first heard from Canadian harsh noiseniks The Rita, when they teamed up with local primitive lo-fi black metallers Bone Awl on a cassette a few months ago. Not so much a split as a weird collaboration, the two bands switching back and forth, Bone Awl's black buzz perfectly complimenting The Rita's brutal noise squall crunch, so much so that it was kind of tough sometimes to tell who was who. No such problem here, Thousands Of Dead Gods is nothing but The Rita and their huge caustic cloud of churning, roiling psychedelic white hot white noise!
This is definitely one for noise freaks only. One hour long track of relentlessly brutal N.O.I.S.E. Nothing subtle, no buried melodies, no shimmery atmospherics. Just a grinding, grit drenched, buzzy, prickly, poisonous Merzbowian blast of pure noise. The coolest part is that all of the sounds are sourced from a Great White Shark diving cage, recorded underwater and from the deck of the boat. Hence the dead shark on the cover. But there is a turbulent underwater feel to this noise, like dunking your head in super violent rapids, or the churning wake of a boat, or in the ocean amidst wildly thrashing sharks going in for the kill. Brutal.
The Tides made a miraculous journey last year from the reject pile of a very shortsighted local music magazine into the loving arms of aQuarius where it quickly became a unanimous favorite and a big seller. Taking all the things we love about this new post rock / dirge metal hybrid that has been kicking our asses, Pelican, Isis, Minsk, Conifer, Mare and the like, and subtly twisting it into something all their own. Where as the last Tides record alternated between rhythmic moodiness and metallic bombast, From Silence manages to be a little less overtly heavy, and a lot more moody and brooding, dark and dolorous, with slow subtle grooves and warm washes of hypnotic dreaminess, basically just good old post rock minus the metal. Although the metal is still indeed present, just in very subtle ways, more felt than heard, informing the songs and the riffs, giving the music a sort of ominous, sharp edge, lurking just below the surface. However, fear not, for the final 11 minute track is apparently where Tides had been keeping all the metal riffing missing from the first two tracks. What starts as a spacious swoonsome jam, all downtuned guitars, softly strummed, shuffling drums and wide open expanses of swooshing ambience, erupts about halfway through into a thoroughly chugging pummel, crunchy and lurching, pounding and swaying like a much groovier Neurosis before blissing out into a washed out psychedelic drift that threatens to float away completely before the hammer falls again and that gorgeously chugging riff returns to lay waste to any and all in its way.
Tussle have always been the musical version of the party you wish existed and would go on forever and ever. The one where everyone is having fun and has great taste in tunes. Sadly for some reason that sort of party is a real rarity. Most parties are filled with people screaming and -trying- to have a good time but not really doing anything fun or interesting. And the rooms filled with folks with "good taste" can get pretty dang stuffy, weighed down and boring.
Rare is the party packed with people who want to go wild, but want to do it to the best tunes imaginable, who realize how amazing and important it is to move your body and have a good time. Luckily for our ears Tussle are that rare band, whose music is the perfect soundtrack to THAT kind of party. Great taste and fun spirit wrapped in one. With Telescope Mind they have once again come up with the perfect formula. The one where Can is jamming with Liquid Liquid and ESG is in the living room unfurling with beats your body can't deny. Crafted with much care, Tussle have truly created an album that works from beginning to end. A perfect balance of experimentation and percussion fueled ecstasy. Since the recording of this album the band has gone through some major lineup changes, with co-founding member Alexis Georgopoulos leaving the band and super talented SF scene fixture Tomo joining the group. We're excited to hear what Alexis cooks up in the future as his writing and aesthetic were a huge part of this record and Tussle's sound in general, as well as where the new lineup of Tussle will travel. Until then we'll just follow the instructions in the liner notes and enjoy Telescope Mind at MAXIMUM VOLUME because this is an album that will be moving our bodies and pleasing our ears for a long time to come!
