The willfully naive charm of Japanese cult pop act Maher Shalal Hash Baz is hard to capture in words. You kinda have to experience it. And even then you might not 'get it'. But if you do, you've got a new favorite band. Here's a nice chance to have that "experience" -- a cd ep featuring an entire live Maher Shalal Hash Baz performance from 2003, five tracks, a little over 26 minutes in length. And playing live -- raw and spontaneous -- is the MSHB modus operandi. Mournful horns and innocent vocals, no overdubs, it's the MSHB experience all right. After over 20 years in the biz, band leader Tori Kudo is still all about recruiting totally untrained musicians into the MSHB ranks, allowing their barely-rehearsed playing to teeter-totter wonderfully, tilting somehow inevitably towards fragile beauty though it seems like a musical mess should result. You'll hear 'em taking chances on this disc, and much emotion is revealed, much loveliness as well, from a woozy, droning, plinking instrumental called "Asahana" to the jazzy melancholia of "Gratitude"... Short but oh so sweet.
With feet firmly set in the fevered footsteps of the late great VSS, as well as perhaps later Man Or Astro-Man, and The Fall, SF post-post-punkers The Mall have been raising a party ruckus around town for the last couple years. Following up their well received First, Before And Never Again vinyl 12" from earlier this year, this is their riotous debut full length. The cd version is self-released and the vinyl was released by a friend of theirs, but this album would be right at home on the current Gold Standard Laboratories label roster. On Emergency At The Everyday, The Mall keep their teeth sharp and a fire in their hearts. They tear through the thirteen churning spewsome tracks like there's no tomorrow. All except one is under two minutes long, and the exception is the final track which is -gasp!- downright pretty! Raw, splattery and a bit crusty.
More pioneering electronic music unearthed by Japan's EM Records (previous releases include discs by Barton Smith, David Rosenboom, and Noah Creshevsky). This time, it's Barton and Priscilla McLean. A husband and wife team, but no Sonny and Cher here!! This duo performed live as the "McLean Mix", and were responsible for a bunch of sought-after Folkways LPs in their time, including 1979's "Electro-Symphonic Landscapes" (all the tracks from which are found here). The cover of this cd is an adaptation of the cover of that LP, the artwork actually being the graphical score for Barton's "Song Of The Nahuatl" (it's interesting to note that while the McLeans worked together, they didn't collaborate compositionally it seems -- half the tracks here are by the Mr. and half by the Mrs.). The McLeans got their start together in electronic composition in academia, at the University of Indiana, South Bend, 'round about 1973, when the Music Department there brought in a huge EMS Synthi-100 synthesizer and Synthi-256 sequencer. Hours of tape-splicing creativity would ensue! That mega-synthesizer was later repossessed (!) so the McLeans turned to musique concrete techniques (bouncing steak knives on violin strings, metal bars on piano strings, that sort of thing) to source their sounds, combined with the output of what electronic equipment they were able to access. Much of this disc, tracks dating back to 1975, feature this sort of laborious processing of sound. And the results are fantastic! Reminds us a bit of the classic Forbidden Planet soundtrack by Louis and Bebe Barron, another husband and wife team who preceded the McLeans in the annals of electronic music... In addition to the vintage '70s stuff here, there's a couple tracks of some newer material from the digital age... which holds up quite well, actually! Keening drones, mysterious pulses, psychedelic bleepage -- yep, way better than Sonny n' Cher!
EM has graciously provided both English and Japanese liner notes, so the 22 page cd booklet makes good reading for anyone curious about the McLeans' musical methodology, as well as providing cool graphics and intriguing photos to ponder.
Okay, we blew it. We did. We let this MGR record slip right under our radar. And we regret it. We do. As we've said before, the only thing better than discovering some new record that totally kicks your ass, is discovering some record you ignored or missed for some reason, only to have your ass kicked retroactively. Such is the case with MGR. And to prove just how sorry we are, not only are we listing this disc (a few months late) but we also got a super limited cd-r direct from the band reviewed elsewhere on this list.
Not sure why we didn't give this a listen when it first came out, our defense, as flimsy as it may seem, is that we thought MGR was the abbreviation for manager, so we just sort of figured, that was kind of a dumb name so why bother. MGR actually stands for Mustard Gas And Roses and is the work of one M. Gallagher from postrock metal heavyweights Isis, and is actually quite amazing.
Imagine Isis with all the bombast stripped away, all traces of metal removed, leaving only sinewy minor key guitars to drift over vast expanses of droning shimmer, skeletal but incredibly lush. Dark, moody, melancholy soundscapes, the background a warm swirl of sound, guitars drifting in the fuzzy haze above, unfurling gorgeously melancholic melodies, while all around huge swaths of sound shimmer and shift. There's some lap steel, but it's just another gauzy layer of sound, there are beats here and there, but those already minimal rhythms are processed into indistinct throbs and minimal shuffles and buried way down in the murk, making those tracks sound like some sort of post rock Gas. So good.
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When we reviewed the first two Monosov Swirnoff releases a couple years back, it was long before Irwin worked at AQ, so only recently did we discover that one half of the Monosov Swirnoff duo is in fact Irwin's brother! Wow. But long before we met Irwin, we were already singing the praises of his brother's haunting drone folk psych rock outfit, a lush blend of creepy ambience and tranquil drones, occasionally interrupted by some freaked out psychedelic rock. And actually we did manage to get a few copies of those two out of print releases back in for those of you who missed out last time.
This here is release number three and finds the duo of guitarist Ilya Monosov and pianist Preston Swirnoff together again, this time utilizing acoustic guitar, piano, percussion, melodica, drums, drum machine, piano keys, strings, analog synth, electric guitar, beats and vocals to whip up another slightly schizophrenic batch of songs. From droney low end rumble, to minimal raga buzz, to dark, dreamy, brooding atmospheric folk, to some super blown out psychedelic space rock swirl, with keening guitars and pounding drums. All of it gorgeous and intense, whether they're drifting along tranquilly, or fully rocking out. Recommended of course.
Release number four from the duo of guitarist Ilya Monosov and Preston Swirnoff (our very own Irwin's brother!) and this one's a split, although that's a bit misleading, as the band they share this lp with, Habitat Sound System, is in fact, also their band. More on that in a second.
Side A features Monosov and Swirnoff as well as a handful of guests, constructing a fuzzy distorted psychrock drift from all sorts of guitars and organs, bass and synths, but also hurdy gurdy, harmonica, bowed banjo, melodica, glockenspiel, gong, Thai whistle and toy piano. The result is as dense and swirly as the instrumentation would lead you to believe. Loping and dreamlike, thick washes of fuzz and hiss, lots of distortion, but muted so it's soft focused and shimmery. The second track is a dark abstract primal tribal drum jam, like No Neck or Sunburned Hand, lots of FX, and distant drones and melodies. The strange thing is near the end of the track (and the side) the band shifts into some straight ahead dub. Not weird or freaked out, just some cool, acoustic classic sounding dub.
Which makes more sense when you flip it over and finally hear Habitat Sound System, who are basically a dub outfit. Pretty clever actually (and a bit cheeky) having the one band suddenly switch gears and change sounds midsong, as if they're saying "Yeah, we know it's the same band, but it's not the same sound..." So side two is just that, all dreamy, laid back dub, some subtle spacey FX, lots of echo on the drums, murky and muted and dreamily buzzy and blurry. Another strange surprise from these guys, but we wouldn't want it any other way.
It's getting harder and harder to know what to write about Mouth Of The Architect and the handful of like-minded bands that we love so much. With MOTA we kinda just want to write "THIS BAND RULES!! SO HEAVY AND CATCHY AND COOL. JUST BUY THIS!!! NOW!!!" But since for some reason not everyone does exactly as we say, and often need a little persuasion, we'll dig a little deeper.
Ever since the first metal band started incorporating math rock into their sound, or ever since the first post rock band went all metal (hard to say how it happened, chicken and egg and all that) we have been hooked, BIG TIME! Impossible for us to resist such a perfect chocolate/peanut butter scenario, such bands as Isis, Indian, Conifer, Tides, Pelican, Minsk, Rosetta, who mix all the bludgeoning brutality, the down tuned riffage, the pounding skull splitting drums, the howled throat shredding demonic growl, with all the intricate rhythms, dreamy drones, melancholy melodies, loping dreaminess, krautrocky grooves and meandering moodiness we could ever want.
It sort of makes sense, when you think about it, all of these bands aren't consciously combining two disparate genres, they are just incorporating all of the things we always wanted in a heavy rock band. Post rock bands were often just not heavy enough, metal bands were often not interesting or pretty enough. These bands are both. Everything. Mouth Of The Architect are probably one of our favorites, their sound leaning a lot more toward the massive, heavy, riffy, doom sludge side of the equation, which just makes the pretty parts all that much more special. And the thing about MOTA, is that even at their heaviest, their crushing downtuned riffs are sort of just supercharged mathrock parts, which gives the whole thing a much more moody emotional vibe, gives it a little more groove, makes it a lot more catchy, even subtly so. Not sure what else to say, other than "THIS BAND RULES!! SO HEAVY AND CATCHY AND COOL. JUST BUY THIS!!! NOW!!!"
Nina Nastasia's latest album has arrived (a little while ago, actually) and it's pretty darn great. On Leaving's one dozen Spartan folk-pop arrangements of her strong, lilting voice with simple piano or guitar accompaniment are imbued with absolute heartfelt yearning. Check out the potent "Counting Up Your Bones". She really nails it. This darkly beautiful album is graced with intricate, suitably stark black'n'white paper-cut cover art. Fans of both Cat Power and Lisa Germano's more recent recordings should definitely lend an eye and an ear to Ms Nastasia and vice versa.
What better way to find a band to release a split with than to just pick a band that features essentially the same members? Such is the case with this two way split between buzzing black hordes Nightbringer and ritualistic dark ambient ensemble Temple Of Not. Most bands would probably just combine the two, and have a black metal band with long drone passages, or vice versa, but these are two entirely different sonic entities, and both are amazing. Hailing from Colorado, these groups were brought to our attention by Wrest from Leviathan, who is VERY selective about the metal he listens to, so much so that when he repeatedly sang (growled?) the praises of both these bands we knew we had to check it out.
Nightbringer buzz darkly through a thick black void, with loping midtempo tempos over furiously fast riffing, and some completely insane drumming, not just blast beats, but wild fills and strange unlikely rhythms. Occasionally the band slows down, at which point the music takes on a creepy majestic air, like court music for some hellish black temple, but it's not long before the band bursts back into full speed blackness. Super atmospheric with bizarre blasts of hyper speed buzz as well as stretches of dense droning riffage. Heavy and dense and evil. These guys definitely wouldn't sound out of place on NED alongside Deathspell and Antaeus.
Nightbringer's occultic ambient alter ego Temple Of Not is just as dark and heavy, but realizes their evil through drone not buzz, with two lengthy glacial crawls, thick soundscapes of whirring rumble and dreamlike shimmer. But be prepared, this is not normal ambient music. Part way through the first track, the song is disrupted by huge speaker shredding bursts of what sounds like a garbled black metal transmission from an alternate universe, repeated over and over building into a strange fuzzed out super distorted rhythm before drifting off again, allowing the song to wind down into blackness. The second ToN track is even more spare, but still haunting and ominous, disembodied vocals drift above a slowly shifting, layered landscape of throb and thrum, warble and whir, guitars and synths intertwined and tangled up in a slow drift skyward, the last few minutes punctuated by a simple distant pulse-like distant drum beat. Very primal and ritualistic. And the perfect compliment to Nightbringer's hellborne onslaught.
Recommended by AQ and Wrest endorsed!! You know what that means...
We once mentioned that the best way to discover the most amazing music in any genre, is to check out what other musicians are listening to. Never has that been more true than with black metal. A genre predicated on bands' underground status or level of grimness, how cult or frosty they are. Which means, some of the best bands aren't often heard outside of tiny circles, many times just other bands and close friends. Limited tape releases, cd-r's, demos. You have to be super tenacious to really be on top of the latest greatest grim horde from Bolivia or Paraguay who only have a single cassette release, and it was limited to 10 copies, each one doused in the band's blood.
Such is the case, although not quite so dramatically with Russia's Old Wainds. Ask any of the BM elite. Ask Wrest from Leviathan, Ancalagon the Black from Crebain, Hildolf from Draugar, Azentrius from Nachtmystium, and any one else you can pull from their blackened crypts, who their favorite black metal band is, and odds are all or most of them will tell you Old Wainds. And we might have to concur. The frustrating thing is most of the Old Wainds discs are only available on eBay at totally exorbitant prices. But you know what, it's completely worth it. Old Wainds play some of the most primal, furious, gloriously buzzy black metal we have ever heard. Although it might be better to start here, with this normally priced cd reissue of the bands Withers Of The Wainds demo.
Each track a blast of cold black winter winds, swirls of murky buzzing riffage, thrashing drums, and super insane vocals, that are strangely processed / affected so they sound like some strange death rattle, drenched in reverb, like the battle cry of some pterodactyl / rattlesnake hybrid. So completely alien and harshly harrowing. But perfect for the bleak buzzing blackened landscapes below. Killer riffs (you can pretty much boil ALL metal down to their main component, the riff), a murky production that swaths everything in a gauzy black veil, and those insane over the top vocals, all whipped into an impossibly furious black attack.
Absolutely and utterly essential black metal. We'll do our best to track down the rest of the Old Wainds discs that are available (not many? none?), and we'll wait patiently for the out of print ones to be reissued (or reissue them ourselves, if Andee can get in touch with the band), but for now, hails to Arma Diaboli for reissuing this disc and saving us all $50, and allowing us the opportunity to finally bask in the unearthly black glow of Old Wainds!!
WOW!!! When I (Irwin) started working at AQ over a year ago it was kind of like being the luckiest kid in the greatest candy store ever. All this amazing music surrounding me, every day getting to hear something I'd never heard and being blown away again and again. Of course like any good obsessive music fanatic I tried to think of some titles that maybe the store didn't have but totally should. This disc by Kazahkhstan's Rausan Orazbaeva was pretty much at the top of my list. Allan and Andee were able to get some for the store but we never were able to get enough to list...until now! So what has been a nice little secret for our in store shoppers can now be a treasure for everyone to enjoy. Orazbaeva is considered to be the greatest living interpreter of her highly unique instrument, the kyl-koblz, which is kind of like a 2 string cello held vertically and kept very close to the body when bowed. Orazbaeva is a pioneer in many ways, one of which is that it hasn't been until very recently that Kazakh women were even allowed to play this sacred instrument. But what makes Akku such an amazing record is not just that Orazbaeva is a master at her instrument but like those few rare masters she also evokes so much soul, emotion, fragility and power in her playing. These are sounds that you just have to surrender to. Graceful yet commanding. Flowing with beauty but also with moments of dynamic dissonance. Even this week when Andee had a million reviews to be writing and should have been glued to his desk he couldn't help but come up front every time we were playing this just to get a closer listen. You could almost imagine folks like Bjork and the Kronos Quartet freaking out and thinking how great it would be to collaborate with her. The kind of record that transcends genres, traditions, and geography and lands itself in that special section in our record collections designated for absolute brilliance! (In case you come in, don't look for the "Absolute Brilliance" section, cuz it doesn't really exist, but you know what we're talking about...)
B-Music's "Anatolian Invasion" continues. We reviewed the Selda album a few weeks ago, now it's time for the one with the monkey on the cover, the incredibly groovy 1973 instrumental album from this super-obscure Turkish artist Mustafa Ozkent and his "orkestrasi". We're told (and we believe it) that this is one REALLY obscure album, definitely a find for any digger and a welcome reissue from the discerning heads at Finders Keepers/B-music. It's simply jazzy, sazzy, dancefloor fodder here folks, nothing but a party y'all. Fuzz guitar and Turkish trad. folk grooves like we like, but done all badass as if the JBs, "funky drummer" included, were ushered into the studio with a bunch of Turkish musicians, each teaching the other some new tricks. '70s funk, Istanbul-style! Totally full of beats and breaks that pioneering hip hop DJs woulda been all over, had hip hop originated in the on the banks of the Bosphorus rather than in the Bronx... The acid organ spasms and rhythmic workouts found here are still fresh and fun today. We know a lot of you dig the Turkish psych reissues we've been freaking on, this one should definitely appeal to those who liked the '70s cop show car chase sounding numbers found on the Edip Akbayram reish. Ten tracks, 30 minutes, and your body WILL be moving long before you need to hit "play" again to start it over.
East meets West, two electric guitars meet two organs, a fuzzed out rumbling abstract epic. Phantom Limb just so happens to be 1/2 of Brooklyn noise terrorists PeeEssEye (PSI) who met up with legendary Japanese axeman Tetuzi Akiyama to jam and hang out and the result was this 30 minutes slab of divine droning drift.
Starting out with super spare clatter and rumble, the quartet quickly up the ante, the swirling buzz transforming into huge grinding walls of guitar crumble and amp frying crunch. But this is no simple guitars-against-amps Sunn-drenched dirge. No things get way more interesting. As the guitars start unfurling strange little riffs, repeating and slowly shifting, the organs releasing dense clouds of chordal warmth and ear piercing sine wave skree, everything swaying and shimmering as various internal components twist and transform, gorgeous melancholy melodies appear here and there, haunting angular licks surface, as do strange squeaks and creaks, all the while, a huge soft focus swirl of sound wraps it's fuzzy tendrils around everything. This is definitely noisy, but it's that thick sort of super listenable noise, soothing and dreamlike, more dense and droning than harsh, all the sharp edges rubbed smooth, still explosive and intense and LOUD as hell, but surprisingly blissed out and so subtly serene.
SUPER LIMITED!! ONLY 500 COPIES! We got a bunch but they won't last long...
This Vancouver band's roster might boast members of pop outfits Destroyer and Sparrow and ambient electronic soundscaper Loscil, but Precious Fathers' sound is altogether different. In fact, their drifting instrumental pleasantness is very very in sync with those post-rock minded folks over on the Temporary Residence label (Explosions In The Sky, The Drift, and Sonna) as well as bands such as Tristeza and early Tortoise. These are nine very gentle and uncluttered arrangements with each instrument courteously making way for the others. Bask in the mellow warmth of their pretty guitar work and occasional horns. So nice!
In addition to being the home to a lot of the "music industry", the (so-called) sunny state of California has provided plenty of songwriting inspiration for artists over the years. Uh, from the Mamas and the Papas to the Dead Kennedys to LL Cool J to the Skygreen Leopards. But this new vinyl-only, gatefold album from damaged Santa Cruz (now relocated to LA, we're told) psychmongers Residual Echoes might be the last word, certainly the most freaked out one, in musical California tribute. It's got lyrics referencing earthquakes, the SST label, and elephant seal mating rituals among other Cali-centric concepts. Actually it's just side B that's RE's 'California suite', but the two songs on side A are just as wild and heavy, which is how we like it here in California, right???
Dunno when/if this will ever come out on cd, so for now it's only the turntable enabled amongst you who can enjoy this platter of psychedelic excess.
The rainy season has poked its chilly overcast head into the sunny skies here in SF. And in timely fashion, the wonderfully downcast Rivulets has returned too. Primarily the work of one gent Nathan Amundson, Rivulets has been graced with some notable guest players over the years including Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of the likemindedly somber Low. On You Are My Home, Amundson is joined by the none too shabby musical guests Codeine's Chris Brokaw, Jessica Bailiff, Christian Frederickson of Rachel's, Boxhead Ensemble's Fred Lonberg-Holm and Bob Weston of Shellac and Mission Of Burma. Their combined guitars, keyboards, strings and horns work together with Amundson's heartbroken voice magically to create a deep dark melancholia.
By now, Mr, Jack Rose should need no introduction. Numerous releases on Eclipse, VHF, Tequila Sunrise, tons of amazing shows (including a killer instore right here at AQ) every performance totally spellbinding, with a repertoire that runs the gamut from classic bluegrass to drone drenched ragas to neo-Appalachia and probably to some styles of playing he just made up. In fact Rose was seemingly the first to not just ape the music and style of John Fahey, instead choosing to create his own sound and style, due in no small part we'd guess, to his continuing membership in drone-raga ensemble Pelt, and that raga vibe most certainly informs all of his playing, which just might explain why we find Rose so much more interesting than many of his contemporaries.
This disc collects a handful of studio recordings recorded over the last year, featuring Rose exploring the slide guitar, and as always, it's positively divine. From twangy countrified bluegrass breakdowns, to dense tangles of elaborate finger picking, his slide so slipper and fluid, totally emotional and moving, every song so complex and technical, but at the same time so goddamn simple and beautiful. The highlight would have to be the 12+ minute "Spirits In The House", with its amazing harmonics over a warm backdrop of buzzing low end overtones. The main melody so completely captivating, shimmery and wavery, sounding very Eastern and very much like a sitar, the perfect blend of wistful bluegrass melancholia and buzzing Eastern style raga. So gorgeous. And as with pretty much every Rose record, absolutely essential.
Limited to 1000 copies. Packaged in a gorgeous diecut letter press sleeve with an old photo inserted into the cover. So nice!
If previous exposures haven't already summoned sufficient demons for your nefarious purposes, here's another disc of epic occultic dirge doom death from these Swedish masters of the arcane arts, sure to conjure some Hellish servitors. Heavy and haunting, the atmospheric sludge of tracks like "Invocation Of The Doom Runes" and "Black Magick Sorceress" should send all posers hiding under their beds. Limited to 999 numbered copies in digipack (which includes two bonus tracks).
We've just received two terrific self-released cd-rs by this solo artist from across the pond -- History+3 and this one! First impressions of Danny Saul's music stir a traditional folk singer/songwriter stance, but delving deeper you become aware that there's more layers to his songs. Each one moves through subtle mood shifts and occasionally some startling dissonance. Alternately intimate and expansive, he captures a nice counterbalance between bristling electric guitars and slow smooth minimal piano strokes. Definitely check out the title track and the final one "Tracks". Great stuff! Fans of Badly Drawn Boy and Arab Strap, don't miss!
We've just received two terrific self-released cd-rs by this solo artist from across the pond -- Balance and this one which includes a fine cover of Jandek's "I'm Ready"! First impressions of Danny Saul's music stir a traditional folk singer/songwriter stance, but delving deeper you become aware that there's more layers to his songs. Each one moves through subtle mood shifts and occasionally some startling dissonance. Alternately intimate and expansive, he captures a nice counterbalance between tremolo'd electric guitars and warm picked acoustic guitars. Great stuff! Fans of Badly Drawn Boy and Arab Strap, don't miss!
One of the joys of working at record stores and doing college radio shows is how much access you end up getting to amazing records that otherwise you might not ever get to come across. And the cool thing about both radio and record stores, is that you're then in a position to share that music with everyone! One such record was by an Australian band called The Hungry Ghosts who released one full length album in 1999 called Alone, Alone. One of those records whose beauty strikes you on first listen and continues to move you a hundred listens down the line. Hungry Ghosts utilized an approach similar to their Australian cohorts, The Dirty Three, yet somehow managed to make their sound maybe even more gorgeous and heartbreaking. I (Irwin) remember playing it for the first time back when I had a show on KSPC in southern California and instantly falling in love. Sadly they seemed to disappear after that record. No trace of them anywhere. I even tried writing them and never heard back. Turns out I wasn't the only one who couldn't find them. John Brooks who was a founding member of the group is said to have entered a black hole of sorts. Later to be found at the Tara institute, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation center in Melbourne. It's there that he went back to his surname of Shilo and with a four-track donated by a fellow resident he began to record music often by candlelight and the results are this absolutely stunning record. You can feel the solitude, the still, the searching and the moments of transcendence. Musical sketches that evoke such a moody elegance. Kind of like if Do Make Say Think and the GYBE camp were forced to trade in all their outbursts and grandiose climaxes and instead go deep within to find the essence of their sound. Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth knew he had to put this out when he finally got the tapes from Shilo and we're so happy he did. Every time we play this in the store someone comes up to see what it is and usually leaves with a copy for themselves. A timeless and totally beautiful record!
Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk rock label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get one from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed.
We sure do love Shit And Shine. Every record we get by this UK sort-of-collective is weirder, noisier and more fucked up than the last. With a massive lineup featuring multiple guitarists, multiple drummers as well as various unorthodox, non-musical noise makers, these guys manage to make beautiful sounds ugly, and ugly sounds beautiful. It's confusing actually. Their sound is so chaotic and harsh, but so totally captivating and hypnotic, this 12" is no different. Two epic, massive sidelong tracks. The first, an endless rhythmic jam, with ultra blown out drums, sounding a bit like some Butthole Surfers / Laddio Bolocko hybrid, albeit WAY more distorted and damaged. The sound is completely fried, the whole record sounding like it's crumbling through your speakers, strangled vocals drift amidst the tribal pummel, as do weird alien sounding squiggly leads that squirm and slither from speaker to speaker giving the whole track a super disorienting affect.
The second side is a bit more subdued, but only a bit. An in-the-red tribal workout, like a more metallic and way more distorted and druggy No Neck Blues Band. Thick pulses of low end drift beneath streaks of super distorted amp damage, all very krautrock sounding, but filtered through a bank of effects pedals, all broken or with dying batteries. Definitely blissed out and mesmerizing, but so ominous and creepy. A side of this stuff is not nearly enough. Set it to repeat, drink a bottle of Nyquil and let yourself get sucked under.
Cool silkscreened 'bug' cover and some amazingly problematic song titles!
Hot on the heels of two super limited cd-r's comes the newest batch of ultra personal lo-fi missives from Jason Honea aka The Shitty Listener. Honea (The Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates, Teenage Panzercorps, etc.). A super intimate world of tiny folk songs, lo-fi lushness, strange fragments of sound, and whatever other strange sonics figure into Honea's Shitty Listening.
Strange distorted conversations, chopped up, a looped snippet of some Hall & Oates song, a dizzying found sound collage that quickly gives way to a simple warbly guitar strum, melancholy and struggling to stay in key, a lilting and dreamlike sliver of forest folk, complete with drifting falsetto vocals and a strange bit of tapping percussion way down in the mix. Most of the songs on Hunt To Die are of a similar make up, drifting crooning sweetness. although the lo fi production takes over here and there allowing the sound to become super distorted and bleed over everything else. Some droney buzz, some other snippets of found sound. And more fragile folky dreaminess. Like wandering through the lush foggy musical garden in Honea's mind. Everything gauzy and indistinct, mysterious and wondrous, and oh so pretty.
Feature some guest action from Honea's former partners in Jewelled Antler Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson.
Full color cover and a hand painted blue tape with fabric and artwork glued to the front. And as with most things like this probably really really limited...
Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk rock label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get one from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed.
We haven't heard much from Sweden's Skull Defekts, but what we have heard we like. A lot. In fact, if there was any justice in the world, these guys would be battling Wolf Eyes for the hipster noise rock crown for sure. It's not that these guys sound like Wolf Eyes, although they do a bit, it's more that they are exploring the same territory, but without the goofy in your face vibe of Wolf Eyes, instead choosing to open up their sound a bit more, make it lighter, more abstract, and in the process a whole lot more compelling.
The A side is a side long drift through a wondrous world of noise and noises, atmosphere and ambience. A heady ambient buzz, disrupted by little whorls of distorted crumble, endlessly shimmering, the sound twisting and mutating, changing color and texture, sometimes sounding blissful and serene, but just as quickly becoming damaged and dangerous. An epic exploration of a multi-layered glacial drift, not so much 'noise' as noisy in parts, not so much brutal as intense and dark.
Side B is split into three tracks, the first features a simple cavemen pound, around which swirl and streak stretched out sheets of grinding guitar noise and abstract sonic fields. A slowly shifting soundscapes of layer after layer of buzzing fuzzed out noises. And again, not 'noise' just dreamily noisy. The second track is the most Wolf Eyes sounding, although it's a much more blissed out spaced out version, not so aggressive, a roiling landscape of damaged electronics, abused guitars, and abstract percussion, all twisted into a slithering sonic beast. The final track is the most mellow, but even then, the sound is harrowing and ominous, the perfect blend of low end buzz and rumble, and coruscating upper register psych guitar shimmer. Very hypnotic and leaves us wanting to hear a LOT more from these guys.
Who are the Skull Snaps, you say? Well, if you have been paying attention to hip-hop of the last eighteen years, you will instantly recognize the opening drum break of "It's A New Day" sampled by The Pharcyde, Gang Starr, Lords of The Underground as well as dozens of others who have sampled that riff and tons of others from this obscure New York soul group. Recorded in 1973, The Skull Snaps, a trio of guitar, bass and drums with killer vocal harmonies, had a more popular following overseas in the Northern Soul scene for such tracks, as "I'm Your Pimp" and "My Hang-up Is You" than they did in the US. Chock full of hooks and breaks, The Skull Snaps lone album is an amazing lost soul document that is finally getting its due. Plus it gets points for being one of the best album covers ever! Hip-hop legacy aside, this is a soul record right up there with Baby Huey, Curtis Mayfield and The Chi-Lites. Features 2 bonus tracks not on the original album. So Cool!
Ok, here's a clever way to get maybe not-just-the-usual people interested in an album of difficult, avant-garde electric guitar improv solos. Make it a double cd, where the raw improvs by British guitar maverick Gary Smith found on the first disc are used as source material for the exclusive "treatments" and "interpretations" by a disparate variety of other artists that populate the second disc. So if scrabbling, abstract textural guitar glitch isn't enough to pique your interest (for some it certainly will be enough, Gary Smith is no slouch at coming up with strange sounds from his axe, for fans of that sort of thing), perhaps the likes of Steve Roden, Bernhard Gunter, Peter "Pita" Rehberg, Elliott Sharp, This Heat's Charles Hayward, BJ Nilsen, and others on the second disc will!!
First, the first disc... Imagine Nels Cline and Derek Bailey and a bunch of mice, playing guitar and mixing drinks. It's a quietly noisy disc of tangled strings and liquid chimings. Tinkling ice. Crystalline shards. Counterintuitive guitar-based beauty. Like a "normal" guitar track had been crumpled up and irradiated and examined under a microscope.
Now for the "compilation" disc, where that radiation produces mutation. This is one diverse batch of characters taking Gary Smith's sounds in all sorts of interesting, often surprising directions, their own music adding to or twining around Smith's. It starts off with a lovely psych-folk tune entitled "Pear Tree Tomorrow" from obscure legend Bill Fay!!! Yes the same Bill Fay whose early '70s albums were recently reissued to great acclaim. Many of the other participants, some mentioned above, are more in the line of "usual suspects" for experimental projects such as this. But it's still a very diverse collection, from the bleak poetry of Current 93's David Tibet, to the violent digital breakcore of Tom Wallace, to the harsh noise-rock of Aufgehoben (with whom Gary Smith has collaborated before, on the devastating Magnetic Mountain album). There's Tianna Kennedy's ambient low end scrape and Paulo Raposos's high end drone. And lots more. Somehow, Gary Smith's guitar ties it all together. Puzzling out how Smith's material was "used" is an interesting, if mostly inconclusive, exercise. Wow. Even by itself this would be a great comp. The Smith solo disc almost a bonus. Though we like 'em both!
While SF was once a hotbed for melodic, infectious indie-pop it's been a little while since a new SF band knocked our socks off with that style. Thankfully Social Studies have come to the rescue filling our sweet tooth with a terrific debut of keyboard driven, totally peppy and addictive sassy tunes. Bringing to mind the best moments of groups like Mates of State, Call & Response, Smoosh, Aislers Set and Finland's TV-Resistori. We love how the songs are fun yet not fluffy, familiar yet fresh, sincere and not whiny. Makes some of us wish we had cars, as this would be so fun to listen to blasting in the car stereo while driving really fast with no particular place to go. Such a great pop record!
We haven't heard from East Coast stoner rockers Solace for ages, but fuck if they don't sound better than ever. This three song 10" is an absolute killer. The first track is a cover of "Hammerhead" by early seventies prog outfit Rare Bird, and it somehow comes out sounding more like some NWOBHM classic, all groovy riffs and killer leads, an incredible hook and great vocals. The second track is an original and is way heavier and meaner, with howled vocals, cool harmonic breakdowns and a more fuzzed out aggressive feel. The funny thing about that song is the riff is dangerously similar to one of our favorite metal songs ever, "Warriors Of Genghis Khan" by Bad News, the Spinal Tap like alter ego of UK comedy troop the Young Ones. Amazed that no metal band has covered it yet.
The B side is a super stretched out version of Link Wray's "Rumble" which might be the Ur-song of all heavy metal, even though it's a rockabilly instrumental. But somehow here it also ends up sounding like a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band, maybe like some rad Iron Maiden outtake, with tons of amazing guitar leads, in fact the whole second half of the track is nothing but dueling leads. So killer!
Cool painting on the cover, horses, warriors, swords and bloodied bodies. Also bonus points for one of the best label logos ever, a parody of the Land O Lakes logo, but with the Indian squaw holding a huge skull instead of a box of butter!
We were quite smitten with Sparks' latest album Hello Young Lovers which came out earlier this year. Their over-the-top grand weirdo-orchestral-pop is just so hard to resist. While many of us were hoping we would get to see them live, they haven't really toured the states in a while. But this ep will tide us over for a little while, with 3 live tracks from a rare concert in LA recorded around the time they appeared on the TV show The Gilmore Girls along with Sonic Youth. This ep also includes two non-live tracks: a different version of "(Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country, and the album version of "Dick Around". The cd ends with a radio interview hosted by Steve Jones of Sex Pistols fame. Also included are two videos, one for "Dick Around", the other for "Perfume"!!!
Seems like only yesterday, that the Starving Weirdos were just that, a couple of weirdos from Humboldt who would send us huge boxes of cd-r's. all hand decorated, and home recorded. Record after record of amazing disembodied ambience and dreamy abstract noise.
Well, it seems the rest of the world is finally catching on, so these guys are no longer our little secret. But that's the way it's meant to work. This stuff is to amazing to only be heard by a handful of folks lucky enough to get their hands on some criminally limited cd-r.
So as far as we can tell, this is the Weirdos' first proper cd (non cd-r) release, and it's a doozy! Managing to capture everything we like so much about the band in the first place, while at the same time striking out in some decidedly new sonic directions. The opening track is the perfect example, all glistening high end, chimes, and tinkles, swirling ripples of upper register shimmer. Like wandering through some vast landscape made up entirely of old music boxes and strange pieces of metal hanging from the sky. Breezes nudge the various metals into each other, causing soft reverberant twinkles of sound to drift skyward. Melodies are spread out into long glistening strands, everything bathed in some sort of sun dappled reverb, thick delay, like waking up in some glorious meadow, trying to look around but your eyes are still bleary and filled with sleep. Dreamy! The second track is like a slowed down, downtuned, stretched out version of the first. Strings scrape and shimmer, warm melodies blurred into smears of melancholy sound, like listening to a string quartet through ears filled with funhouse mirrors, sounds overlap and become entangled, steel strings buzz, a simple melody surfaces, only to be swallowed whole by a slow moving swirl, the whole thing looped and extremely dreamlike and hypnotic. Think a more expansive and epic Basinski and you might be getting close.
The final track revisits the Weirdoes' earlier sound, a blissed out take on the Dead C's free noise rock, rendered much more abstract and lovely, but still ominous, creaking and clattering, billows of cymbal shimmer and percussive rumble form a thick bed over which all manner of plucked strings and disembodied melodies drift. Like sitting on the dock of a bay made up of black sound, filled with all manner of sound making buoys, that just float, and moan, and creak, their bells muted by thick fog, a subtle murky cacophony that becomes a gorgeous dronelike drift. Awesome! Quite possibly our favorite group in this new breed of quiet noisemakers. So recommended.
More lost '70s psychedelic pop... from Malaysia!! 1973's "Waiting Is" album by The Strollers is a blend of uptempo R&B inflected groovers and also melancholic, mellow pop-psych. "You're Gonna Make It" sounds like Blood Sweat & Tears, with a honkin' horn section... "Bus Ride" is more of an heavy organ jam... "Children" is one of the haunted ballads... "Do What You Gotta Do" is a smoking prog-funk breakdown... yep all sorts of sounds of the era are ably essayed here, though The Strollers amble in maybe a few years behind the times as you might expect from folks so far from the Western entertainment complex, so this is more '69 than '73 sounding, whatever that means to you. It's sung in English, and more commercial sounding than freaky, really. But certainly if you liked fellow Malaysian psych-popsters Truck's recent reissue you might want to check this out too.
On their second album, Subtle (aka Jel and DoseOne also of cLOUDEAD, 13&God and Anticon) appear to have sat themselves right down in the vacant seats between TV On The Radio, Gnarls Barkley, Peeping Tom, heck, maybe even Black Eyed Peas and Outkast too! And they've done so with a rather comfortable ease. For Hero For Fool is a quirkful, good time blender magic of hip hop, pop, funk, soul and film score music. Groovy highlights include "The Mercury Craze" and "The Ends".
We've long been fans of the Telescopes, who have been travelling a sonic path similar to Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, F/i, Monster Magnet, the Heads, Loop and assorted other psychedelic outer space drone rockers. This new 7" though has the band exploring new territory, and we must admit we are pretty dang pleased. If this was some weird Finnish cd-r limited to 50 copies people would be freaking out. But just because it's a new record from a band we know and love, don't let that keep you from picking this up. Might even be the best 7" we've heard all year.
The A side is a droning, buzzing raga-like dreamscape, flitting bird-like flutes that swirl and float over a blackened drift of guitar rumble and pulled apart riffs, until the drums kick in, and then it's like you've been launched into space, a full on drug drenched, FX heavy psychedelic space rock jam, with a thick bassy organ groove, wild flutes and effects EVERYWHERE. Dirge-y and groovy and dreamlike.
The B side is even more far out. A dense tangle of garbled guitars, slowly shifting, little squalls of layered distortion, muted blurry melodies, another sort of raga, this time reminiscent of SUNNO))) or Sunroof!, super blissy and abstract, but still heavy and dense and dark. WOW! Has us dying for a new record. Packaged in cool creepy skull cover art.
These Arms Are Snakes surprise us by going in a new, increasingly metallic direction. It spurred us to muse, "what happens when the guys leave their Mastodon and Big Black records out in the sun next to each other?" Not a bad thing, just quite different from what this post hardcore band used to sound like... at least to our memory. There's fewer convulsive fits and starts, and a steadier stream of aggressive rock intensity. Standouts are the ninth and tenth tracks, the winding "Lady North" (think Pleasure Forever colliding with Jesus Lizard!) and the Pink Floyd leaning "Perpetual Bris". Cool!
Remember a couple lists back we reviewed a Paradigms disc by a mysterious, very cool instrumental space rock band called Titan? We told the story of how, some months previous, these guys had sent us some cd-rs to check out, but with no contact information. And then when they finally did follow up with an email, and we tried to order some, we got no response! So we never ever got those cd-rs, but the Paradigms cd was a nice surprise.
Well, of course what happened was this: the slightly-flakey-but-nice Titan folks (hey this IS some kinda stonery drug rock, so some flakiness is to be expected, eh?) read our review, and emailed to see if we still wanted the cd-rs.... only they didn't have the one they'd sent us originally any more. But they did now have a new cd-r release, recorded at the same sessions as the Paradigms cd release. Plizmarmelade is a single 40 minute long track, starting off skronkily aggressive, with the noisy bite of a Lightning Bolt, before getting building into a relentlessly energetic, almost... jaunty... crazy crunching howling throbbing bass groove, like Zombi or Circle or Pharaoh Overlord on happy pills, freaking out on the guitar solos and sci-fi effects!! Acid Mothers Temple would be proud of this. Eventually the pills wear off and things fade into a calmer, deeper, droned-out zone, still way out in space. Wow. Basically krautrock from Brooklyn, that's the deal here. If you dug their Paradigms release, this should turn you on too.
We do have a bunch of these, but since they're cd-r's in home-made looking (silkscreened) digipacks, chances are they're limited...plus who knows if Titan will email us back if we need more...so get 'em while you can.
Of all the weird black metal tapes we've gotten recently, this just may be our absolute favorite. So much so, that Andee was thinking about getting in touch with the band to see if they wanted to do a record for tUMULt.
The best way we can think of to describe Tomb Of... is maybe something like a black metal George Winston. Or Nortt making a record for Windham Hill. That's right. This is ambient funeral doom music, death, depression, misery, sorrow, but the instrumentation is mostly just piano and vocals! Seriously. And it still manages to sound bleak and miserable. Ominous and a little bit scary. Mournful minor key piano melodies beneath harsh hellish black metal vocals and rumbling guttural growls. Way in the distance soft swirls of faux strings or thick swells of sound, occasional guitar leads. It almost sounds like a mash up, the sound is at first so incongruous. But the more you listen, the more it sounds perfect. It makes all other singer songwriters, perched at their piano, seem totally pointless and inconsequential. This is so bleak and black and emotional. A super personal miserable missive from some dark lonely place.
Fucking awesome.
SUPER LIMITED! ONLY 300 COPIES!!!
We're beginning to think EEE is our new favorite black metal label. After last list's brilliant Light Shall Prevail, and now this split (with tons more still to review), we're ready to convert! Convert? Oh yeah, we forgot to mention, this is WHITE metal, as in the opposite of black metal. This is not satanic or hateful, instead it's hopeful and holy. But you'd never know it from listening. Both of these bands are bizarre and creepy and dark and, well, very very black sounding. And the thing is, while we have problems with religion being so dogmatic, this particular sonic representation of Christianity is anything but dogmatic. In fact it points out just how cookie cutter the majority of black metal really is. What we're getting at here, is this is some totally demented, freaked out, blissed out and drone-y, haunting and hypnotic ambient experimental black metal. They list their influences as GOD, JESUS CHRIST, Xasthur, Burzum, Leviathan, Isis, but they might as well have also listed Benighted Leams, Urfaust, Dead Reptile Shrine... you get what we're talking about. This stuff is fucking amazing! Ostensibly a split between two bands, their sounds are so familiar we can only assume they are the same entity. So what the hell does it sound like?
Both bands spread out a thick loping wash of blurry buzz, super dreamy, fuzzy warm midtempo black metal, soft swirls of midtempo trudge, totally hypnotic and drone-y, but it's the vocals that had us. Some sort of ancient sounding ghostlike falsetto croon. Drenched in reverb, not singing lyrics so much as just sort of moaning, and groaning. It almost sounds like the guy from Urfaust when he's 100 years old, his wheelchair pushed up to the mic, as a reedy disembodied voice drifts from his parched lips. Totally intense and creepy, definitely some of the most unique vocals we've heard. And while at first they sound completely bizarre, after a while, you really can't imagine the vocals sounding any other way. But that's not all that's strange about this band. Traum Von Gott also break their song down into strange little post rock interludes with weird bloopy underwater bass, almost like a black metal Three Mile Pilot. The main difference to our ears between TvG and Agathothodion, is that the latter, ups the ante aggression wise, with the vocals getting even more intense and more indistinct (if that's even possible) with each line even more impossible to decipher, a nearly hysterical sounding completely chilling tortured cry. Almost like the sound you could imagine coming from behind a locked door in an insane asylum, the strange inmate who has been sitting in the corner for 20 years, mouth and eyes covered, but who continues to wail at all hours of the day.
Man, this is so great, pretty much all we've been listening to. We were all ready to proclaim the Light Shall Prevail record as our new favorite black metal record (the same guy behind that band too we think) but now we're not so sure. Might just be easier to begin singing the praises of white metal and proclaim EEE our new favorite label...
We have been obsessed with this band since the very first time we heard them years and years ago. We have spent the last 6 years or so trying to track down records by this band, as well as a place where we could order enough so we could review them and share them with the AQ faithful, who like us, truly appreciate the bizarre and the fucked.
And you don't get more bizarre and fucked than Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Well, to begin with, they're called Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg!! They have record titles like Arcane Runes Adorn The Ice-Veiled Monoliths Of The Ancient Cavern Of The Stars and Dark Clouds Blacken The Sky On The Eve Of The Thousandth Sacrifice and Tolling Beyond The Tombs Of Ancient Grimnity and Forest Of Doom. They have a similar sounding side project called Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch! The band members are pictured in drawings on the back of the cd, one as a strange little bearded gnome/elf sitting on a huge toadstool, the other a bearded furclad mountain man leaning on a mighty axe. The gnome is named Belegur and is credited with "Cosmic keys to gates unknown." The mountain man is Thundarr, and is credited with "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come." For those of you well versed in that sort of thing, you'll realize that this duo is just bass and keyboards, which is remarkable in its own right. But the fact that Trollmann play a sort of medieval Skepticism style slow motion doom sludge with just bass and keyboards it seems even more amazing.
How can you not love this band already? It gets even better when you finally face their dreamy doomic meanderings. Huge downtuned bass, long stretches of droning crumbling low end. Minor key guitar lines drifting lazily over the top. Playful Renaissance faire style melodies hover over super doomy slow motion bass riffs. Long stretches of massive funereal sludge, each one a lower register death march like trudge, but with creepy quivering keyboards above the roiling blackness. Deep spoken vocals intone mysterious wisdom, over simple wandering bass lines and fluttering flute like synth. Once in a while, the keyboards and the bass will sync up and begin playing the same melody, which turns the song into some weird sounding caveman classical music.
This band is so totally out there. So gorgeously lugubrious and depressive, but with strangely cheerful and sometimes completely incongruous keyboard melodies. It's like wandering through some ancient world, wandering from tiny village to creepy haunted woodland and back again. So totally amazing. One of our favorite bands EVER. We'll try to review all the other records soon as well as the Trollmann side project Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch!! Stay tuned.
The first in what will be an ongoing series of Afro-Cuban collections commissioned by the always trustworthy Soul Jazz records. Tumba Francesca is a totally vibrant combination of African drums and French patois vocals. Tumba Francesca La Caridad de Oriente is a 140-year old tradition in Cuba. Beginning in the 19th century elaborate performances of this music would take place during Carnivale with everyone decked out in 18th century French ballroom costumes while playing African music. It's easy to understand why it's worth it to go to such great lengths to preserve this music and this culture, the sound is a timeless and exhuberant explosion of effervescent rhythms and amazing vocal chants and call & response singing that keeps your body moving and your mind soaring. Such a deep and powerful musical tradition can not be forgotten...
Fear not, Mr. Jeff Tweedy's not lost at sea. Despite this dvd's title, the live performance footage showcases the Wilco frontman goin' it alone absolutely present and accounted for and fully in his element... if somewhat mildly cantankerous at times. Filmed earlier this year on his West Coast solo acoustic tour which stopped in Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Arcata and SF, he performs beloved songs from all of his bands (Wilco, Loose Fur and Uncle Tupelo) as well as an unreleased tune called "The Thanks I Get". Really good! Very bare bones, intimate and direct. So we say, "Sunken? No! Treasure? Yes!"
Now available on lp! 180 gram vinyl!
United States Of America is quite a politically charged monicker these days, what with the whole country / world divided over the war in Iraq and our President and gay marriage and everything else under the sun. Probably wasn't a whole lot less volatile 36 years ago, in the midst of the Vietnam War, when this record was first released. Which was precisely the point.
USoA mastermind Joseph Byrd was a long time devotee of twentieth century composition and minimalism, studying and/or studying with LaMonte Young, John Cage, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Charles Ives and the rest. While at UCLA, Byrd helped organise the New Music Workshop and eventually arranged an elaborate set of concerts which culminated in a Lamonte Young piece that involved the inflation of a giant hot air balloon. Fearful that the less sophisticated members of the audience would get bored and leave, Byrd formed a blues band to play during that part of the performance and convinced his pal Linda Rondstadt to sing. Thus came the realisation that a rock band would give Byrd access to a much bigger audience, and so began his quest to start a psychedelic rock band, which would eventually be realized as United States Of America. Made up of Byrd's friends from academia and ethnomusicology and his ex-girlfriend, and born from his frustration with the war and his leaving UCLA, USoA became a politically charged experimental psychedelic rock combo unlike any that had come before. Utilising a not exactly standard bass /drums /guitar /violin lineup, their sound was further augmented by ring modulators, organ, harpsichord, and calliope. The end result was a sixties rock band, drenched in psychedelic filigree, swooping electronic trippiness, all sorts of circus-y weirdness, bizarre editing and song structures, but never losing sight of great songs.
And a lot of these songs are indeed great. Probably the best track on the record is "The Garden Of Earthly Delights", a super rocking Stereolab meets Jefferson Airplane number, that would not sound at all out of place on Emperor Tomato Ketchup, if it weren't for the gritty sixties rock chorus (with a hook to die for) and the storm of buzzing and bleeping, overloaded affects and tripped out swooping and soaring bleeps and bloops. And then there's the final track, a three part experimental montage / coda, all ambient jangle and ethereal ambience, with snippets and samples from the rest of the tracks on the record, resulting in a super damaged art-rock musical acid trip. And the rest of the record veers from countryish campfire stomps, to smoke-y sultry ballads, to freaked out psych jams and everything in between. All blessed by the absolutely gorgeous vocals of Dorothy Moskowitz. This record may be a psychedelic country pop rock record, but boy is it more than that. Reminds us quite a bit of recent AQ record of the week Euphoria, with it's complicated and bizarre arrangements and its unlikely melding of country rock, lush baroque pop and acid fried guitar leads. Imagine a Frankensteinian sonic monster constructed from Euphoria, Stereolab, Fifty Foot Hose, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds...then make said monster do some coursework in twentieth century composition and experimental minimalism, and let it experiment with a suitcase full of homemade sound generators and you'd still have trouble imagining how great this record is.
Where would we be with out labels like Crippled Dick Hot Wax? We all think we're super obsessive music nerds, Don't we? Sure, we hunt down weird records, buy totally obscure 7"s, have a roomful of records in our house. But c'mon, compared to the guys who run Crippled Dick or Trunk, we're not even in the same record nerd league. These guys also have lots of records, scour cool record stores, and all that. But they also hunt in garage sales, estate sales, flea markets. Not looking for weird record reissues cuz they are the guys who MAKE those reissues happen. And they don't just track down records, they have to hunt down the folks who made those records. Take a look at your cd shelf at home, at take a gander at all the crazy obscure compilations. Someone had to dig up all those tracks, locate every band, sometimes track down out of business record labels. Phew. It's a hell of a lot of work. But it's so worth it!! And just in case we haven't said it enough, we are oh so grateful. These are the guys who fill our lives with insane South American psych rock, early eighties NY No Wave, seventies proto metal and of course rad super rare and long out of print UK post punk power pop singles from the late seventies and early eighties, like the tracks on 7" Up!
The cool thing about 7"s is that it was a super affordable way for bands to get a song recorded and distributed. The first real form of DIY promotion. Any band with a few hundred bucks and a couple of songs could have their very own 7" record just like their idols. The result was of course a lot of crappy singles, but amidst the hundreds and thousands of mediocre to downright terrible tracks, were handful of absolute killers. This comp collects a whole bunch of those. Of the thirteen bands on here we'd only ever heard of two (Monochrome Set and Glaxo Babies) but every track on here is amazing. Whether it's a blast of synth heavy robotic new wave ("Gerry & The Holograms" by Gerry & The Holograms), fuzzy garage rock stomp with weird chipmunk vocals ("Zip Nolah" by Cult Figures) or moody croony electronic post punk ("Private Plane" by Thomas Leer), every song is an absolute gem, some funny and funky, some totally bouncy and catchy, some completely bizarre.
Probably the most played track around here is "Don't Try To Cure Yourself" by They Must Be Russians, a bizarre song featuring a graphic description of different sexually transmitted diseases during each verse (complete with totally melodic backup vocals crooning "Pubic Hair..." or "Infected Person...") only to burst into a super aggro angular chorus. Funny, but completely catchy and kick ass. Other standouts are "Imposter" by the Moondogs, a completely catchy hard rocking perfect pop song, and the stripped down Elvis Costello worship of Mark Beer's "The Man Man Man" and then there's... heck, we could just go through the whole disc, cuz they're all totally great. Definitely one of the best comps we've heard in a while. Cool packaging with extensive liner notes and a bunch of info on each and every one of these obscure gems! So recommended.
This one is for the bigtime old school hip-hop enthusiasts. Without a doubt radio played a huge role in boosting the NY hip-hop scene since the early 80's. This collection of NY hip-hop radio clips will make you feel like you are back in the Bronx in '88 staying up late and listening to Special K and Teddy Tedd on the fm dial to get your latest fix of what's new and hot in the hip-hop world. There are 27 tracks on here ranging from 49 seconds to over 8 minutes that are all snippets from various broadcasts of legendary hip-hop radio in NY from '86-'91. A piece of hip-hop and radio history.
Occasionally whilst reading AQ reviews (or elsewhere too of course), you may have run across a reference to something called the NWOBHM, a curious acronym that stands for "New Wave Of British Heavy Metal". Hopefully we explained what it meant! Or it was somewhat clear from context, describing the influences of such bands as Slough Feg, Early Man, or Circle at their most metal (who'd like be be called a "NWOFHM" band, actually...New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, natch). The NWOBHM began around 1979, continuing into the early eighties, almost a reaction to and also a hybridization of both punk rock and '70s classic rock. Some famous NWOBHM acts include Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Venom, Angel Witch, Saxon... a varied bunch to be sure. And without the NWOBHM, we'd never have had Metallica, and thus thrash, and thus death metal, and thus black metal, etc. etc.... well maybe. Anyway, in case you're, say, a fan of Pharaoh Overlord's 4 album (another "NWOFHM" release), or into grim black metal, but would like a little history lesson about the real old school stuff, this NWOBHM stuff, we've got just the thing. A three-cd set, imported from England, celebrating the NWOBHM in all its (mostly obscure) glory. 56 tracks from such bands as Trespass, Raven, Bitches Sin, Blitzkreig, Persian Risk, Satan, Heavy Pettin, Silverwing, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Holocaust, Ethel The Frog, Savage, Warfare, Jaguar, Vardis, Fist, Quartz, Cloven Hoof, Tyson Dog, Praying Mantis... the biggest names are probably Venom, Diamond Head, Angel Witch, and Samson. And believe it or not there are plenty of entries here from bands that we'd never even heard of before as well (Hellanbach, She, Avenger, Aragorn, Crucifixion, Xero, Horsepower...)!! A lot of these bands didn't have long careers, but still managed a killer single or two, which is why comps like this are treasure-troves, a NWOBHM 'best of' composed of some album tracks, 7" cuts (so many great ones on the Neat Records label) and tracks from back-in-the-day comps like New Electric Warriors (1980) and Metal For Muthas (1980). So for NWOBHM fans old and new, this is a nice collection of headbanging, party hardy METAL -- catchy riffs, wailing vox, guitars guitars guitars. Comes with a 12 page booklet full of record sleeve art and liner notes on each act, packaged in a box with the cds in cardboard sleeves.
Like a Molotov cocktail for the spy-chase set, this compilation of sixties and seventies instrumental funk and soul from the Dewolfe Library and selected by Baltimore DJ and Library music geek, Jason Willet has all the stuff you need to get your feet and ass moving. Tense chase themes are intermixed with sexy bachelor-pad space grooves from one of the best library music houses in Britain, much of it on CD for the first time. So whether you are living out your Blaxploitation Spy fantasies or facing a daunting labor-intensive task (like we are creating this list for you), this set makes it all OK! Recommended!
An amazing archival collection focusing on the work of legendary Finnish alternative underground punk rock legend Laja Aijala, who was a crucial figure in the early days of Finland's thriving musical underground. This disc collects some of the best moments from all of his various musical pursuits. The Throbbing industrial clamor of Aavikon Kone Ja Moottori, Finland's FIRST industrial band, his damaged garage rockabilly combo the Billy Boys, the D-beat Discharge worship of Terveet Kadet, the punk rock doom splatter of Death Trip, the brilliantly demented Casio-tiki lounge music of the Leo Bugariloves, the primitive murky electronic krautrock synth experimentation of the Kolmas and much more.
It's easy to see how the rest of our Finnish faves were influenced by Aijala, and they all seem to have taken his omnivorous love of music and incorporated it into their own modus operandi, seemingly flitting from genre to genre, often in the same band, sometimes even in the same song. And pretty much every Finnish musician we know has multiple projects, from metal to drone to krautrock to new wave and on and on and on.
Some of the highlights here:
The Kolmas, who wove grinding murky lo fi synthscapes out of primitive keyboards, simple looped drum machine percussion, dense dark drones and thick washes of crumbling distorted synthesizers.
Death Trip: grimy grungy low slung filthy garagey punk rock, with scowled distorted vocals, simple riffing, pounding drums, fuzzed out guitars, sort of Motorhead meets Smack.
Aavikon Kone Ja Moottori: bleak, oppressive industrial soundscapes, hypnotic looped synths, primitive electronic experimentation, processed chanted vocals, all very dark and drearily ominous.
And actually it's all pretty damn good. The Leo Bugariloves will definitely appeal to the legion of Aavikko fanatics, the Billy Boys, Aijala's rockabilly combo, who we figured we wouldn't like at all, is recorded so hot and raw and in the red, that it almost sounds like Fushitsusha playing Hasil Adkins. Wild and unhinged and so good.
A completely fascinating glimpse into the history of the underground music scene that birthed so much of our favorite music. Essential!!!
The king of the Patty Duke fan club has just gotta be Mike Dereniewski of Detroit, MI. He's the man behind this musical mammoth ode to Ms Duke. His Patty Duke Fanzine has evolved over the last decade from a traditional cut'n'paste paper zine to one that included a 7" compilation with bands covering Patty songs to its current and final state, this double cd compilation. Talk about goin' out with a bang! Likewise, Mike D's musical periscope has stretched out beyond his early ultra pop focus, discovering and sharing sounds of all shapes and sizes from around the globe. Mind you, a big part of his record collection is still clearly reserved for the sweet sounds of girl groups.
These two cds collect together tunes from past Patty Duke Fanzine releases and a whole lot more. You get an astounding fifty four tracks of music and almost as many dialogue snippits of Patty Duke from her tv shows and movies! Allow us to give you a mere sampling of the artists included: Asobi Seksu, Gore Gore Girls, His Name Is Alive, Jessica Bailiff, Kevin Blechdom, Mark Robinson, Rose Melberg, Slumber Party, Stereo Total, V/VM, and Windy & Carl. Wow!
What more can we say about this Pop Ambient series. Or the 'genre' in general. Its quickly become one of our favorite sounds, a blissy fuzzy ambience that is soothing and serene. Droney and drifty and dreamy and otherworldly. For those of you who have never heard of Pop Ambient, it's a term coined for a specific strain of techno, where most of the beats are removed, leaving just sjimmer and swirl of the music behind the beats. Lush looped soundscapes of warm synthesizer swells, deep drifts of slow moving sound, all washed out and blurry, the 'dance music' version of all that drone music we love, Basinski, Tim Hecker, Fennesz, Aidan Baker and the like. In fact none of them would seem at all out of place on a Pop Ambient compilation. Think Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, but updated for the 21st century, chill out music that is not vapid or light, but is dense and deep and lush.
2007's volume is just as good or maybe even better than the preceding six volumes. Some familiar names, Markus Guentner, Thomas Felmann (of the Orb), Klimek, Andrew Thomas, most who we have raved about in the past. But some new names as well. Probably the most exciting track is a seldom heard rarity from Wolfgang Voigt's Gas! Gas is most definitely one of out favorite practitioners of the pulsing blissy pop ambient, and it's been years! We've been dying for some new music from Gas, so while this is technically not new, it sure does hit the spot. A relentless pulse beneath thick swirls of minor key sound, house music buried beneath layer after layer of glistening shimmering sound.
The rest of this disc is just as good. Numerous variations on the Pop Ambience, looped vocals stretched into stuttering M83 style fuzz drone soundscapes, acoustic guitar loops arranged into stuttering rhythms, skipping cds smeared Oval style into lush orchestration, all of it so devastatingly dreamy. Every time a new Pop Ambient record comes out, it just replaces the one before it as the perfect late night dream drift record... Until next year!
Nintendo theme music as performed by a bunch of video game addicted indie musicians! First up, is "The Legend Of Zelda (Overworld Theme)" tackled by supremely qualified for this sort of thing math/metal rockers The Fucking Champs. The mathiness continues with Upsilon Acrux (Rush n' Attack) and Ahleuchatistas (Bad Dudes), both prog rock bands who when not practicing their instrumental chops, must be glued to their gaming consoles. Then there's some artists with more of an electronica approach, also quite appropriate here, like Cripple Camp (Ghosts n' Goblins), Animal Style (Tetris), and Christopher Willits (Metroid). Doug McDiarmid of Anticon artists Why? provides a break from the plugged-in, caffienated craziness of some of these tunes with his pleasant piano rendition of the music from Marble Madness. Most far out is maybe Flossin (Kid 606 + Christopher Willits + Hella's Zach Hill, right?) with their spacey, psychedelic and chaotic version of "Castlevania". As with all tribute comps, there's some bands we hadn't heard of before, like Kindergarten Hazing Ritual (River City Ransom) and Twelve Handed Men Of Mars (more from The Legend Of Zelda)... but whoever they are, they know their Nintendo.
We can never ever get enough of the sweet sweet side of Studio One. Groups is another collection from their deep vaults, this time focusing on the harmony filled groups that helped make the label famous, like The Heptones, Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Maytals as well as some of their lesser known but equally great groups like The Ethiopians and Royals and The Bassies. these groups were integral to the evolution of Jamaican music and reggae in all its forms (roots, ska, dub, rocksteady). Studio One's Clement Dodd launched so many groups/singers careers, as everyone from Bob Marley to Lee Perry to Prince Buster worked at Studio One at one time or another. Marley, in fact had the job of listening to all the new American 45's that came their way to suggest songs that he thought should be covered. These songs show the close connection that Studio One had to American doo-wop and soul for sure. Not a loser in the bunch, really nice!
