A common practice amongst the modern noisemakers, the free folkies and the drone set, is to use everything they can lay their hands on, from run of the mill musical instruments, to random bits of furniture, to strange noise making devices. Lots of cd-r's these days feature "instrument" lists longer than a metal band's thanks list! Often including toothbrush or stained pair of pants, or handful of hair or whatever. A lot of the time it works, and that speaks to the artist's skill in transforming a jumbled mess into something listenable, but just as often, it can become just a massive chaotic cacophony, which again, is not always bad. But there is definitely something to be said for the whole 'less is more' angle. Look at Niblock for example, letting instruments and their overtones create the music, allowing minimal shifts in sound and subtle alterations in melody, duration and timbre to transform those sounds into subtly complex soundscapes. This less is more approach is specially suited for dealing with the drone.
Such is the case with Acre, whose Candyflipping was just released on Honey Owens' (aka Valet) Yarn Lazer label. Using just mixer feedback, a sampler and various filters and phase-shifters, Acre whips up some seriously delirious ultra minimal drone. A hypnotic trance like pulsing buzz, that is constantly shifting, the overtones drifting and swirling subtly, soft shimmers that build into thick streaks of downed power line buzz. The strange thing is, it almost sounds like a guitar a lot of the time, certain bits are definitely reminiscent of that sort of Spacemen 3 style raga drone. Especially on the second track, where the sounds become more active, the different drones falling out of phase and beating hypnotically against each other, creating strange rhythms, and barely discernible melodies.
The third and final track takes that same sort of static buzz, but drops the pitch and ups the distortion, turning the dreamy drift of the previous tracks into some seriously ominous low end rumble, the sort of dirgey drone that would most definitely appeal to fans of more metallic downtuned lower register exploration.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Hand screened with glow in the dark covers!
A while back we remember running across a bootleg-looking vinyl reissue of an LP called Get Stoned Ezy by some British band from the early '80s called High Speed and The Afflicted Man. This obscurity was supposed to be an unknown precursor to the blown-out psychedelic speed freaks sound of Japan's High Rise -- in other words, a holy grail of wah and fuzz. Tom Lax wrote a review of it on his Siltblog [http://www.inblogs.net/siltblog/2006/03/superfuzz-bigmuffmudhoney-is_06.html] that said it sounded like Saint Vitus covering Les Rallizes Denudes! Can anything live up to that? Heck, if Get Stoned Ezy even just remotely came close to living up to its excellent title we'd be curious. Are you curious too?
Well that LP is long gone, but all the tracks from that and more are to be found on this new double cd collection of everything ever recorded by guitarist Steve Hall's DIY punk-psych outfit Afflicted Man (aka Afflicted, aka High Speed and The Afflicted Man). Ramshackle, lo-fi, outsider guitar blurt that reminds us of everything from The Heads to the Stooges to Human Instinct to Michael Yonkers to Zippo Zetterlink to Baby Grandmothers to Acid Mothers Temple and the Pink Ladies Blues. It's psychedelic hard rock done "Messthetics" style.
There's over two hours of music here. Disc one features Afflicted Man's three Bonk label 7" singles, and their The Afflicted Man's Musical Bag LP (which dates from "probably 1979"). The songs from the 7"s are all fairly rockin' punkers, while the Musical Bag LP is weirder and more damaged, with tracks like "Hippy Punk" and "Hippy Skin" (that's what these guys were?), the downer blues of "Glue Sniffing", and the krautrockish "Musically Insane", a track that's really a reinterpretation of their first single "I'm Afflicted", extended to eight minutes and buried amidst shimmering piano and freeform FX. It's what that song would sound like if it was covered by Moolah!
Disc two is where the really fuzz really hits the fan, comprising both the I'm Off Me 'ead LP (1981) and the aforementioned Get Stoned Ezy (1982). On both records, Hendrix and Hawkwind are obvious references, playfully roughed up by these punks n' skins. The three long tracks of Get Stoned Ezy, especially, take that hippy psych sound into a back alley and fuck it up, but all in good weird fun.
While this reish features interesting liner notes from an Aussie fan, we're not really told what happened to the Afflicted Mr. Hall after Get Stoned Ezy. At least he went out at the end of his highest and heaviest half-hour ever!
For those of you who missed out on the first seven installments of Astral Social Club's limited series of self released cd-r's (us and probably most of you), the ASC swoops in to save the day with this massive MP3 cd-r, containing every track from all 7 of those discs, 589 mb's, 57 tracks, over FIVE HOURS!!! All for 11 bucks! Hard to beat, and as we've only made it through the first three, we can tell you already, it's well worth it.
Astral Social Club just so happens to be Mr. Neil Campbell, the mastermind behind the genius Vibracathedral Orchestra as well, who for years, has been spending his days off from VCO, recording disc after amazing disc of deliriously spaced out drone, blown out extended ragas, and seemingly endless slabs of hypnotic pulse and drift. Pick any track on any of these seven releases and you'll be instantly transported to some other world, where sounds are alive, everything is glistening, the sky is full of vivid blinding streaks of sound, synths pulse and throb, it's like Terry Riley or Steve Reich transported to some imaginary sci-fi future where they spend all their time composing for Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh.
These seven discs cover a whole lot of ground, from epic droning raga like bliss a la Skullflower or Sunroof!, to simple mesmerizing minimalism a la Riley or La Monte Young, sometimes both at the same time. All of it amazing.
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The Aidan Baker / Nadja musical onslaught shows no signs of letting up any time soon, but we're sure as heck not complaining. This week's Record of the Week is the blissy doom of Nadja's Touched, we also have the vinyl reissue of Bodycage, and then we've got this, Broken & Remade, a definite new direction for Baker, who for this disc, used 4 to 8 second samples of live recordings of analog instruments -- guitar, bass, flute, drums, violin, trumpet, and voice -- to construct these moody, almost jazzy soundscapes.
If you're not listening to close it does just sound like some modern jazz band, crawling through a particularly blissy and smokey jam, the Necks for sure come to mind, as does Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore. The drums shuffle, the guitars buzz, the melodies are serpentine and dreamy, the obvious looping is kept to a minimum, at least in the beginning. Imagine the Bad Plus covering Oval or some Fennesz / Necks remix and you might get a rough idea. The second track, is a bit more glitchy and obviously sampled, but it doesn't take Baker long to build a killer groove, turning all of those little sonic fragments into some sort of Spring Heel Jack, Boards Of Canada dreamy almost IDM shuffle. Even at its smoothest and most straight ahead, Baker laces the proceedings with little bits of digital filigree, a kick drum sputtering repeatedly, a simple lick chopped and reassembled into a little burst of stuttery fuzz, a note here or a drum beat there flipped backwards, it all adds subtle bits of weirdness to the proceedings.
Later in the record things get decidedly more aggressive and freaked out, with thick slabs of distorted sound turned into stuttering fuzz drenched drones, chopped into staggered sonic pulses over drifting mariachi trumpet. Intense post rock workouts gradually become more and more dense until they are dizzying squalls of skittering drums and tangled guitar melodies. Pretty far out, but the songs never become unhinged, this is not any kind of Shitmat style mashup, this is a lot more subtle than that, some seriously deft composition, creating an immensely appealing alien post rock jazz, unlike anything we've heard before.
While Baker fans and Nadja obsessives will NEED this, folks into Boards Of Canada, Spring Heel Jack, Bohren, the Necks, the Bad Plus, and even stuff like Portishead and other late night groove merchants might really dig this as well.
According to No Colours, the strangely named Be Persecuted are in fact the first Chinese black metal band. Not sure how one determines if a band is in fact the first from a country, especially one as big as China, but Be Persecuted are certainly the first Chinese black metal band -we've- ever heard, and I.I. is really pretty fantastic.
Strange song titles like "Painful Assemble" and "Be Resented For Livelihood" barely hint at the strange mournful melancholia inside. Beginning with a very Eastern style synth intro, the band launch into some blasting buzzing super grim classic sounding black metal. But then the keyboards surface, and for the rest of the record seem to always be lurking in the background giving the sound a very creepy sorrowful vibe. And the distortion. Not sure what these guys use for distortion pedals, but holy shit, it's some of the harshest and thickest fuzzy hiss we've heard in ages. Like Darkthrone and Burzum if they ran their guitars through a thousand hair dryers set on high.
The best tracks are the more midtempo numbers, where the band totally excel in finding their own Burzumic path, like on the 13 minute "Wilderness", a slow loping buzz drenched midtempo plod, as depressive and doomy as any BM we've heard. But the track that seals the deal is "Some How", which is the only song here actually sung in Chinese, and that begins with a lovely lilting acoustic guitar, gently fingerpicking a melancholy melody, before the distortion and drums kick in, but the song doesn't really change, it's the same lilting lope, just wreathed in a dense field of crackling buzzing distortion. It's almost like some slow core rock ballad but dipped in a boiling cauldron of Burzum! Pretty weird for sure, but so fucking cool. The record winds down with a reprise of the intro, only this time the notes are dirty and distorted, grinding and buzzing through the same melody but with a completely different result...
Awesome!
Awesome soundtrack to some strange low budget film about the failed East German space program. Haven't seen the movie yet, but the soundtrack definitely has us curious. Especially considering the players, Jim Becker of Califone, Jim White from the Dirty Three, and lots of other folks who have backed up indie luminaries like Smog, Bright Eyes and more...
Beginning with some creepy shortwave radio, and some spoken German (Conet Project anyone?) the record quickly switches gear and launches into some awesome (Turkish style?) fuzz psych, blown out and wildly rocking, but with the strange addition of mandolin over the top. Ends up sounding like Calexico meets Erkin Koray!!
But like any soundtrack, the music is dictated by the scenes on the screen, so the sound are all over the place. That said, they gel surprisingly well on their own, it helps that many of the tracks are linked by strange radio broadcasts, mysterious German voices, and other distressed broadcast sounds. The rest of the music is a blast, from soft rock big band jams with horns, albeit imbued with a strange buzzy steel string element, to lonesome strings and wheezing accordion, shuffling percussion, a full on free-jazz drum solo that gives way to a primitive Logan's Run space rock synth drone, laid back blues rock, weird off kilter pop, and near the end, that opening blast of fuzzy psych gets revisited, this time with vocals, and it's even cooler.
Pressed on 180 gram swirled pink cotton candy vinyl, housed in an amazing jacket, an oversized matchbook style sleeve, screen printed and letter pressed, black and metallic silver ink on thick brown paper, liner notes printed on the attached inner sleeve, quite striking.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!
A brand new record from one of our new favorite drone outfits, the strangely named Black To Comm, who do indeed share their monicker with a killer MC5 track and a bad ass magazine, but whose sound is well removed from any sort of garage stomp, instead, these guys occupy some glorious netherworld where the sounds of Fennesz, SUNNO))), Earth, Merzbow and Troum all blend into one epic organic whole.
Utilizing a relatively limited musical palette, organ, tape loops, feedback, vinyl loops, computers, voice as well as the less obvious kitchen gamelan and harmophon, Black To Comm weave epic slow motion doomscapes, as textural and dreamy as they are dense and heavy.
The disc opens with huge organ drones, reminiscent of Niblock or Palestine, rumbling and whirring, massive waves of thick sound, while beneath lurk microscopic squeaks and creaks. The tones and layers subtly shift as does the stereo panning, making the sound intensely immersive and almost dizzying. It eventually builds into an impressive squall, with the addition of swooping and bleeping spacey FX buried beneath the cascading organ tones. And that's just the first track!
The second track begins with a constant foghorn tone, mesmerizing and thickly layered, while far off in the distance tiny sonic events occur, melancholy pianos record crackle, the whole thing transforms into a cacophony off brass-like skree, piled atop warbly snippets of sound, somehow managing to remain dreamy and hypnotic, even at its most chaotic.
The flip side of the first disc begins with a super dense blast of blinding sonic effulgence, so rich and thick and glistening, sparkling with a million fluttering notes all swirling and whirling and beginning to crumble in that gorgeous dying sun sort of way. This intensity eventually gives way to a strange acoustic second half, all serene steel strings and distant kitchen sink clatter.
Side C is all rumbling low end warble, draped thickly over strangely twisted fun-house-mirror melodies and little alien squiggles of sound, the low end pulsing and beating offering up super subtle almost-rhythms.
And finally, the record closer, which takes up ALL of side 4, and epic droning monster, that begins like just another slab of rumble and shimmer, before some serious dissonance is introduced, more brass-like tones that give the sound a very Nitsch like quality. If you can imagine a Pop Ambient Hermann Nitsch you might be close. And c'mon! Pop Ambient and Hermann Nitsch in the same sentence, in the same review, that is all you should need to hear. Way recommended.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
While we were listening to this new Blonde Redhead we found ourselves musing about how they'd probably do a really great theme song for a James Bond or David Fincher movie. Dark, brooding and mysterious with a seriously palpable tension, 23 finds the band cementing its place at the meeting point between Sonic Youth and Radiohead. With a production that sounds much more sleek in a modern rock sort of way, there is no denying that despite the new gloss and freshly polished suit of sonic armor there still lies utterly great songs at the core of Blonde Redhead's sound. There are some moments where the band explores some totally new directions, like on the track "Silently" which sounds a lot like Abba covering the Four Seasons' "Too Good To Be True"... which is of course a very good thing! But overall, all the ingredients that made Blonde Redhead such a great band are still present. The swirling melodies, the sensuality, the lush arrangements. So while we still kind of wish Guy Piccoto (Fugazi) had worked his production magic on 23, we still can't help but be in head over heels in love with the sweepingly epic music of this amazing trio.
Comes with a ltd. edition 7" while supplies last!
First things first, please don't let the dvd-style case fool you! Contained within are not one but two cd-rs by the cryptic entity known as Borful Tang. If you need this mysterious being's back story, please refer to our review of his last release titled Root from a couple years ago.
As a brief recap though, legend has it that Borful Tang is not an earthly being, and its human conduit is Bay Area man-of-many-hats Dominic Cramp. On The Back Of A Dying Beast zeroes in on a select few of the key passages of the previous release (sadly tho' they don't include his previous churning NoMeansNo-isms), and explores them thoroughly -- fleshing out what was only glimpsed fleetingly on Root.
Disc One floods the air with effects-heavy layers of BBC Radiophonic style analog synth wanderings, sporadic android chatter and sludgy lumps of drone. Disc Two on the other hand is far more spare, hushed and calm even.
We suspect that with the consumption of the right, ahem, 'enhancing' substances this could really take you places. Quite the transportive listen. Recommended.
More than a year after it was first announced, it's finally here. The anxiously awaited new lp from Japanese psych doom heavyweights Boris, and their Japanoise partner in sonic crime Merzbow. This is Boris / Merzbow matchup number FOUR for those of you keeping score. Now we know, that as with most new Boris releases, no description is really necessary, most of you probably haven't even made it this far, in fact, just seeing the word Boris triggers the perfect Pavlovian response, your finger immediately clicking on the BUY button. And who are we to argue, let's take a second and let the Boris freaks take care of business, then we'll go into a little more depth for those of you who might need to hear a bit more about the long overdue Walrus...
Okay, a brand new Boris record, we know you're excited. We are too. Boris have again teamed up with Merzbow. The two outfits had previously worked together on the absolutely killer drone record Megatone, the epic and sludgy Sun Baked Snow Cave, and the ear shredding live lp 04092001, and now here. The strange thing, is that these two tracks were recorded waaaaaaay back in 2001. So they may even in fact be from the same sessions that spawned one or all of those other releases. Back to business, two tracks, relatively brief, and as with all Boris releases, so completely gorgeously packaged. Deluxe thick gatefold, the front a sort of green to yellow fade, with the Boris / Merzbow logo done all Roger Dean 'Yes' style, the inside, a surreal landscape, also in the style of Roger Dean with some strange turtle/seal creature in the foreground. So completely beautiful. When the bottom drops out on the doom-sludge-drone market, these guys will be some seriously in demand graphic designers. But what does it sound like? Well that's funny too, cuz it's not at all what we expected.
The A side is actually in fact a cover of the Beatles "I Am The Walrus", and a pretty straight cover to boot, minus the noisy ministrations of Merzbow. Beginning with some simulated seal (or seagull?) sounds, the band launches into a fuzzy, laid back version of "Walrus", pretty cool for sure, but here it's all about Merzbow, adding all sorts of hiss and fuzz, most of the time it sounds like some spastic DJ scratching, relentless and dense, elsewhere it's snatches of white noise and weird industrial whirs. The middle chunk of the song finds Boris kicking it up a notch with Wata unfurling some killer Hendrixian leads, but it's almost drowned out by the Merzbow's noisy squalls. Minus the noise, this might not have been so exciting, a pretty straight ahead cover of an oft covered tune, but the strange textures and noisy backdrops manage to transform it into something pretty interesting.
The B side is what does it for us, a massive, overblown super distorted dirgedrone. A thick wall of crumbling guitars, and buzzing crackling electronic hiss, over a wild drum jam, the drums recorded super blown out. It's like Skullfower, Gate, SUNNO))), Yellow Swans and Birchville Cat Motel all jamming at once while a drummer tries desperately to kick up a competing din. Very free, VERY noisy, but pretty kick ass as well.
As with a lot of Boris releases, this is not necessarily one for the newbie, although it could make a decent 2 song sampler for the curious. Fans already know they MUST have it, Boris virgins might want to check out Flood, or Amplifier Worship, or if they are looking for more rock than dirge, maybe Pink, first, but if you're at all curious, don't dawdle, as with all things Boris this will be gone and only available on eBay before you know it...
All right, we got about 100 copies, as far as we can tell there were four different colors, including black. Here's how it works, first come first served on the colored vinyl, once we run out, it's back to black, if you won't be happy with black, then do not order AT ALL, we will not accept orders for ONLY the colored vinyl, we're going to assume, that the reason people buy records, and yes, even Boris records, is to listen to them, and to enjoy the music (wait, these collectible discs contain music??!?) so while it might be cool to have colored vinyl, it's the music you're after, so black will do just fine (and black sounds better as everybody knows), so go ahead and order it, if you're in time to get colored vinyl, you will, if not you'll get black. And as with most things like this, it's SUPER LIMITED and thus is limited to ONE PER CUSTOMER.
Conor Oberst sure keeps his legions and legions of adoring Bright Eyes fans happy... that is, contentedly weepy'n'wallowin' in a steady stream of his unmistakable melancholia. He follows up his two 2005 Bright Eyes albums and a sprawling 2006 rarities collection with something considerably more concise and accessible. Oberst opens Cassadaga with a swirling collage of orchestral strains which borrow a thing (or two or three) from The Beatles' "Revolution 9". Singing in an unexpectedly restrained, low register, Oberst's voice is almost unrecognizable. So much more muted and soft than usual, he could almost be mistaken for Dean Wareham. From there he sweeps into more familiarly Bright Eyes-ian folk pop territory with rollicking fiddle and his voice receding back to the withered weepy range you know and love. With this his sixth album, Oberst fully sheds his well worn indie folk cover boy beginnings as he assumes a more broadly appealing veteran Americana singer/songwriter stature. He does so with absolute ease and composure, and some very welcome support from M. Ward and Gillian Welch. Solidly onwards and upwards!
On first glance, one might assume this would be some seriously grim black metal. The cover is skeletal branches against a washed out sky. All of the text is in a distressed olde English font. On the insert lurks a strange cloaked skull figure hidden in the darkness. The songs have titles like "Nightstalking The Unsilent Boneyard", "The Storm Of Ancient Nightcrawler", "Feasting The Nightsoil Communion".
But lo and behold, this is anything but black metal. According to the legend inside, this is OPPRESSIVE NECRO ELECTRONICS! Which indeed it is.
The opening track does in fact sound like nightstalking an unsilent boneyard, foot steps, crunching gravel (bones underfoot?), electronic rumbles, harsh demonic whispers, streaks of fuzzed out high end, and corrosive rumbling drones underneath. Strange pulsing riffs seem to be smeared into indistinct blurs, all wrapped in spikey caustic buzz and lots of rumble and crackle.
Elsewhere, grinding electronics drift amidst dense industrial whirs, fragmented melodies bob on the surface like corpses, the background a roiling black sea of thrum and buzz, constantly swirling and changing shape. Seriously dark and demonic. A killer slab of black ambience. OPPRESSIVE NECRO ELECTRONICS indeed!
ANTONY alert!!! CURRENT 93 alert!!
OK, now that we have your attention, we can tell you about this gem of an ep recorded over a few years back in '99-'01 and now finally seeing the light of day. Michael Cashmore is best known for his stellar contributions to Current 93 over the years. Playing a major role on C93 classics like Thunder Perfect Mine, Soft Black Stars, All The Pretty Little Horses and the latest C93 outing Black Ships Ate The Sky. Last year he released an amazing solo album of guitar and bass compositions, and now we have The Snow Abides, which finds him collaborating with one of our favorite vocalists, Antony of Antony & The Johnsons. Antony croons in his immediately recognizable style with David Tibet providing the dark and moving lyrics, oh what melancholy bliss! Piano, violin, oboe, cello, flute and percussion all woven into a gloriously dramatic whole with grace and style, making the instrumentals on the record just as captivating as the tracks with Antony's show stopping vocals. So nice!
When you think deep soulful psychedelic tinged rock the first name that probably does NOT come to mind is Chubby Checker. But guess what, he did in fact brew up a totally potent batch of psych rock burners that somehow slipped completely under the radar.
Apparently Chubby was living in Holland in 1971 when he hooked up with some eccentric and unknown hippie rockers who all seemed to be smoking some seriously good stuff and together they recorded this batch of seriously scorching tracks! Forget everything you know about Chubby Checker. This is not "The Twist", or the golden-oldies or a novelty come-back with the Fat Boys in the '80s. This is impassioned psychedelic rock killer with deep grooves and a super emotional and intense vocal delivery from Chubby. Every time we play this in the store someone thinks it's some rare Hendrix track or an unreleased Arthur Lee gem or some amazing group like Black Merda finally being resurrected. In fact just about all of these songs could have appeared on any of the recent spate of psych reissue comps that we have fallen so in love with (Nuggets, Cherrystones), and actually we were given our first sneak peak into this secret world of Chubby Checker a few years back on the great collection Mr. Toytown Presents Vol. 2: Nightmares at Toby's Shop. We never thought we'd finally hear the whole disc, heck, we didn't even think there -was- a whole disc. Turns out there was, now on cd as Goes Psychedelic though it was originally released on some budget labels variously under the titles New Revelation and Chequered.
There are some mind blowing songs here. Songs that aren't just cool cause it's neat and weird and interesting that they are actually being sung by Chubby Checker but songs that stand on their own two feet and grab your and shake you and sound so damn good! What's also so cool about this recording is that 9 of the 11 songs were actually written by Chubby, so it's not like some hip producer just grabbed a bunch of great songs and slapped his name and voice on them. He shows such an amazing range, from scorching stingers ("Love Tunnel") to druggy cookers ("Stoned In The Bathroom") to darkly solemn tales ("He Died"). What an absolute surprise of a record! We haven't been able to stop playing it since it arrived to AQ. We're completely addicted! And we think you will be too.
Ok, so this has been passed around the store for a little while with a rotation of different people assigned to review it. Why the hesitation? It seems the folks around here who had no idea who Christmas Decorations are, took a look at the cover and thought it was perhaps another Christian psych-folk reissue from the seventies or some twee homey Americana and kept putting it below their priority list. And the folks around here who DID know who Christmas Decorations are, from their Kranky debut a few years ago, didn't like that album very much at all, mainly due to its atonal vocalizing over quirky electronica. Well, when we finally put this on, we were pleasantly surprised, if not out and out AMAZED at what we heard. First of all, there are thankfully no vocals, and while this is not the Christian folk or Americana record some of us thought it to be, there is a strain of, er rustic folkiness through the presence of slide guitar as it barely permeates through the murky minimal ambience of shifting electronics. It seems that Christmas Decorations have cleaned house since their debut, removing all the unnecessary elements of song-forms from their compositions, and reducing their sound to layers of decayed and drifting abstractions barely hinting at the melodies beneath them. Think the winter equivalent to Fennesz's Endless Summer. Like the sounds of oxidation on old and rotting wood, subtle and melancholy with the textures of wet dirt and leaves burbling under slowly melting ice. So beautiful! We think fans of Jasper TX and Machinefabriek and similar outfits of dreamy drift would dig this a lot. What a surprise!!
Many a Cibo Matto fan wept when Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori decided to go their separate musical ways back in 2001. Sure, each of their solo endeavors has been engaging and impressive in its own right, but there was a special groovy chemistry (not to mention a penchant for food obsessed song lyrics) between the two ladies that oomph'd their music into an irresistible confection. Very distinctly Japanese in both its meticulous craft and adorable, effervescent charm. With an appeal that reached far beyond the initial NYC art school / hipster Hello Kitty set, they could just as effortlessly disarm the big boys with a candy coated rap, bust out a shuffling jazz-inflected romp, 'love u down' with an r'n'b soul styled ballad, and lure the indie pop kids onto the dancefloor long before the dance-punk frenzy. Along the way, they also dabbled in Tropicalia, downtempo, lounge, Bacharachian dream pop among other things.
Super puffed with nineteen tracks including two previously unreleased ones ("Sword And A Paintbrush" and a Dan The Automator remix of "King Of Silence"), rarities and b-sides, Pom Pom is indeed an essential for CM fans, and it makes for a thoroughly cool CM primer for those that missed out the first time around. Yes, you get to have your "Birthday Cake", "Sugar Water". "Know Your Chicken", "Beef Jerky", "Artichoke", "Apple" and "White Pepper Ice Cream", and eat it too!
Cluster's Second album continues where Cluster '71 left off. Produced and engineered by Conny Plank, who, as on Cluster's debut, acts as a third member. More pulsating and serpentine than before with broader hints at melody, Cluster II still retains the concrete textures and industrial tenacity of their debut yet lacks the characteristically rhythmic propulsion that has marked their subsequent output. Feels right in line with the kraut-y sonic forays of early Ash Ra Tempel and Cosmic Jokers.
When a front man steps away from his main band to go solo, his loner works will oftentimes resemble a single key facet of said band or conversely it will escape madly in a diametrically opposite direction. However, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker is infamous for not being one to go with the flow. Why start now? With Pulp on indefinite hiatus, he took full advantage of his footloose and fancy freedom tacklin' a little of everything for this solo album. Yet even despite this, as well as the fact that he's done plenty of guest and collaborative work in recent years with the likes of Charlotte Gainsbourg, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull and Harry Potter (well, not really... he did do some songs for one of the HP movies), his voice is inextricably synonymous with Pulp.
That said, the overall results are a little odd even by the notoriously willful and eccentric Cocker standards. To be honest, we initially weren't sure what to think of this. What's particularly unexpected is just how 'normal' this usually outrageous, cocky and irrepressible gent comes across at times. He applies various mostly American '70s rock tropes -- from the all-out anthemic (the strangely uplifting refrain of "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time") to the solidly straightforward and straight laced ("I Will Kill Again" which features sober piano reminiscent of Carole King, Carly Simon or The Carpenters) to the voluptuously glammy (hey, is that the melody from "Crimson And Clover" in "Black Magic"?). However, we eventually came to the conclusion that this uncharacteristic normalcy seems to be Cocker's sly 'wolf in sheep's clothing' guise. His trademark enigmatic charisma, absurd braininess and glinting razor-sharp black humor (check out "Fat Children"... 'nuf said) make their presence felt throughout. Oh Jarvis, how could we have ever doubted you? Silly us! Give this one time, it'll surely lay down some roots, and prove itself to be a dear favorite. Recommended.
The black cloud over sunny California grows and grows, with each addition to its dark army and each new missive from one of its elite! Black metal has found a strong foothold in this unlikely location. Xasthur, Leviathan, Draugar, Crebain and a small dark likeminded legion lurk in the shadows, far away from the fun and the sun, unleashing some of the most raw and uncompromisng black metal we've ever heard.
AQ pal Wrest and his genius one man avant black metal outfit Leviathan return with what may quite possibly be his best, most intensely weird material to date. We just can't get enough of his dark and violent, totally skewed take on grim frosty black metal. And for this release he teams up with relative newcomer Ancalagon The Black and his outfit Crebain. Not quite as weird as Leviathan, Crebain channels his darkness through a more thrashing Darkthrone/Mutiilation style.
On this split, Wrest takes his ultra distorted inhuman vocals, pummelling hyperspeed blasts, and violent riffery to a whole 'nother dimension, and moves even further away from his contemporaries, both in terms of sound and concept. There are certain sonic similarities for sure, but Leviathan has such a personal and undiluted take on the black sounds that so obviously flow through is veins. For every blast beat and every buzzing riff, there's some stuttery, fucked up breakdown, or extended blissed out ambient soundscape, or rhythmic mathrock workout, or strummy clean guitar jangle, or weird production with all sorts of glitches and strange sounds. The ambient parts here are definitely some of the most beautifully creepy we've ever heard, from a metal band or otherwise. And the metal, well, by now you should know few can touch Leviathan when it comes to black metal brilliance. And the thing is, Wrest doesn't think any of this is weird. He just makes the sounds he hears in his head, and they sound right to him. And they are right, but in such a beautifully weird way. Can't wait for the upcoming full length Tentacles Of Whorror. His half of the split ends with a straight ahead and super necro cover of cult early '90s San Francisco metallers Von's "Blood Angel." Nice.
The other half of this is Crebain's first offical cd release, having previously only released a super limited cd-r demo last year, and it's just as good as that demo led us to hope. This is as raw and buzzing and blazing as it gets. Where Wrest is a master of arranging, creating moods and ambience, Ancalagon is a master of the riff. An unbelievably good guitarist, these riffs are lightning fast and swarm into your ears like a plague of locusts. Thrashing and chaotic, Crebain is a furious no-nonsense metallic onslaught. Programmed drums allow the rhythms to keep up with the madness inducing riffery. Occasionally things slow down to midtempo, and then it becomes quite obvious that Crebain is actually writing catchy songs, not just an insane series of parts. Melodies and almost-groovy riffs propel loping hypnotic dirges towards their eventual obliteration via hyperspeed blasts and that blurry Crebain riffery. Fucking great.
This split is another nail in the coffin containing the corpses of the Nordic metal elite, as black metal's Calfiornia contigent threatens to thaw their frosty corpses with the soul shearing rays of its black sun! Aieeee! Limited to only 666 copies!
David & The Citizens have received bountiful accolades in their home country (including a nomination for 'best pop band' in Sweden's Grammy Awards!), and it's easy to hear why. The Swedish sextet make some dandy rustic indie rock with a twist. They've infused the songs on their latest album Until The Sadness Is Gone with Klezmer elements as well as some gorgeous string arrangements courtesy of the Ebrelius Quartet. A crafty yet unassuming bittersweet beauty. Recommended.
Another dose of dreamy acoustic guitar haze from Matt De Gennaro. We loved his last record, Humbled Down, and here he continues in a similar vein through a 5-piece suite of gently finger picked and slide guitar compositions. Although comparisons to the recent primitive guitar school of Fahey, Jack Rose, and Sir Richard Bishop will abound, we feel De Gennaro's airy and spacious compositions are more closely related to William Eaton's pastoral paean's to nature's lonely loveliness. Beautiful.
AVAILABLE AGAIN ON VINYL FOR A LIMITED TIME.
An all time AQ perfect pop favorite! Here's our brief yet concise review from way back in the 20th century before these guys had gotten HUGE:
At the risk of slipping into hyperbole, which we try avoid at all costs (snicker...), this is hands down, one of the best (and possibly most overlooked - we almost missed it ourselves, gasp!) indie rock records ever. Landing somewhere between 'There's Nothing Wrong With Love' and 'Perfect From Now On', Death Cab craft a Built-to-Spill-ian universe, full of lazy sad pop, intricate compositions, jangly melodies, shifting structures, odd time signatures, and haunting cellos. This record has been an unbelievable hit in the store. It's pretty much never ever been played without at least one person buying it, sometimes 2 or 3!
The popular Cryptograms record from Deerhunter is now available on vinyl as a double LP with includes their new 4-song EP Fluorescent Grey (the cd version of which is now available separately, we just got it in today so we'll give it listen and list it next time)!! But here's the review of Cryptograms if you missed it:
This band from Atlanta is sure to create quite a stir this year with Cryptograms, their sophomore release and their first outing for Kranky. Don't be expecting the usual Kranky fare with this one, as Deerhunter possess a distinct flair for taking their music in all sorts of directions. As influenced by blissed out and spacey drones as they are rocking momentum and pop sensibility, Deerhunter's kind of like an early Factory band doing covers of songs from the first couple U2 and R.E.M. records. We could see this creating the same kind of refreshing splash that Broken Social Scene did a few years back as this is a record with enough texture to reel in more experimental minded folks, but with enough sleek pizzazz and edgy rock moments to win over the indie-rock crowd. For fans of Trans Am, the sadly short-lived Beautiful Skin, and the much more earthbound late Man Or Astro-Man? Really good!
After a couple years of seeming hibernation (or incubation?), IDM and Drum'n'Bass appear to be flourishing again with a whole bunch of new artists.
Take for instance last week's aQ pick of the week Boxcutter (who blend IDM with dubstep) and this album from the Bay Area's Disparition. These folks are crafting some dark and heady electronic music. We're curious if mainman Jon Bernstein's decision to name his debut Permutations was inspired by the likes of Praxis and Amon Tobin -- the former (aka Bill Laswell with Buckethead) have an album by the same title, and the latter released an album titled Permutation back in 1998. Another rather appropriate point of reference might be Twilight Circus Dub Soundsystem, but considerably less densely packed and more vaporous. Cool.
Another blast of un-blackness from the E.E.E. camp, the home to some of the most amazing un-black metal we've ever heard. What the heck is unblack metal you ask? In a nutshell, well, it's Christian black metal. And any avid readers of the AQ list will remember us raving about pretty much everything we've heard: Light Shall Previal, Agathothodion, Glaciial and this here band, Drommer.
Unlike the buzzing black hordes these guys call labelmates, Drommer is A. not buzzy, and B. not religious. So what we have is some serious secular black ambience. Or maybe still un-black ambience. Drommer unfurl two epic slabs of spaced out shimmer. The first is a gorgeously layered drone, lots of high end draped over deep resonant whirs, the sounds beating against each other like all the best minimal drone music, creating all manner of subtle tonal variations and gorgeous abstract overtones. Sixteen minutes, simple tones stretched all the way out, all the action and the color and the musical movement comes from the interaction between the various tones, subtle, but utterly hypnotic.
The second track, is more in the dark ambient vein, a nearly 30 minute trawl through some haunting mysterious landscapes. There's some definite Lustmord action going on, which is always a good thing, but where Lustmord is abject and utterly desolate, Drommer lace their dour drones with shimmers of glistening melody and stray beams of sunlight. But even with these brief glimpses of blue sky, for the most part, it's a gorgeous black cloud of sound, chimes are muted and spread into dreamy blurs and laid over a sluggishly flowing stream of mumbled murk and dark dolorous glimmer.
As with all E.E.E. stuff, this is ultra limited, usually only 50 copies, so once these are gone, that may very well be it.
Holy crap, a new Earth album! Since the full-scale return (and reinvention) of Dylan Carlson's Earth project with last year's highly regarded studio album Hex; Or Printing In The Infernal Method (a Record Of The Week here at Aquarius when it came out) and subsequent tour, fans of the slow and low have had plenty to be happy about. That album took the extreme drone-metal Earth invented in the early '90s (a sound appropriated by SUNNO))) some years later) and turned it into a bleak n' desolate hybrid of post-rock and country-western! Spacious desert drone dirge with lap steel, something like Low meets Calexico meets the old Earth. Most Earth fans, ourselves included, had to give Hex a spin or two just to be sure we were hearing things right. But then, we all knew we were hearing it right and right it was. Such a great album.
What manner of follow up then is this new Hibernaculum? Well, some of it is gonna sound familiar...yet different. Since Earth's approach has morphed so much over the years, Dylan and co. have decided to revisit and re-record some old Earth compositions in the style of Hex, the way they've been playing 'em on tour, like when we saw them here in SF last year. Not a bad idea at all! You get to hear 'em do the classic "Ouroboros Is Broken" from their 1991 debut Extra-Capsular Extraction, "Coda Maesoso In F (Flat) Minor" from their final Sub Pop album, 1996's Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons, and the obscure "Miami Morning Coming Down" from a 1997 compilation on the Ash label called Scatter. These tunes all get the Hex treatment and wind up as windswept and lovely as you'd expect. There's also a fourth track, a new mix of the 16+ minute "A Plague Of Angels" which originally appeared last year on a very limited edition split vinyl release with SUNNO))). All of these pieces are simply gorgeous. Minimalist, Morricone-cinematic, twangfuzzdrone. Glacial twilight shimmer, velvet-hammer heavy. Droning deep and dark but uplifting as well. Weirdly we realize that Earth now sounds more like Bohren & Der Club Of Gore than Bohren & Der Club Of Gore ever sounded like Earth, if you know what we mean. And their instrumentation is a lot more like Bohren's now, including Hammond B-3, piano, upright bass, and trombone among other things (not the typical doom arsenal).
And, as they say, that's not all -- this comes with a dvd disc as well! A documentary film by graphic artist Seldon Hunt entitled "Within The Drone", shot on tour with Earth and SUNNO))) in Europe in 2006. Lots of live performance footage, intermixed with scenes from the road, and interviews with Dylan Carlson, who proves to be charmingly laid-back, plain spoken and (yes) down to earth. He talks about LaMonte Young and suchlike inspirations, but he's got no pretentious theories of "the drone" to espouse, though he does opine interestingly that for him, the more complex music becomes the closer it is to noise. So a simple sound, slowly repeated -- a drone -- is much more to his liking. Aha. Hmm. But it's clear from watching the scenes of Earth in action though that simple does not mean "easy". Supreme precision and feel is needed. To play music this slow, they've got to be good -- and they are.
We're looking forward to the upcoming full-length studio album on Tee Pee from these San Diegan psychedelic blown-out blooze mongers, but we also know that they're essentially at their best as a live act, as documented here with the two side-long, semi-improvised heavy jams on this 10" vinyl-only release. Guitarist Isaiah Mitchell can ably and endlessly peel off the electric acid blues leads, never failing to impress!
EL-P's highly anticipated I'll Sleep When You're Dead may be one of the best produced hip-hop records thus far in the new millennium. Produced by EL-P himself, the record could stand alone on it's carefully arranged beats and backgrounds and samples but offers so much more, with killer rhymes that are equal parts political, dark and personal, and seriously humorous. EL-P spits lyrics that toe the line of a fucked up paranoid world in such a way that by the end of the record you too may find it hard not to imagine a bleak droidian future. The album features a slew of interesting guests including Trent Reznor, Aesop Rock, and in case you were wondering how Cat Power's Chan Marshall would fare hip-hoppified, the final track may leave you with yet another wonder -- did she miss her calling? Or, it may be just another testament to the El-P's deft production and incredible vision, you decide. Trust us, I'll Sleep When You're Dead is a must even the most casual of hip-hop headz.
This is the inevitable 'greatest hits' collection from the undisputed masters of hyper-technical, super proggy, grim and frosty Norwegian black metal EMPEROR!! Disc one is heavy on the covers as almost half is culled from tributes to Darkthrone, Mercyful Fate, Mayhem, etc... and is filled out with EP tracks and a few tracks from the amazing Thorns Vs. Emperor album. Disc two is all album tracks spanning their whole career. There's nothing here unreleased. About as "rare" as it gets is an Ulver remix that was a bonus track from the limited version of IX Equilibrium. So consequently, there's not much essential here for those of you who have been loyal subjects from day one, but definitely a great introduction for the uninitiated.
Random note: The disc comes with the official Emperor merchandise catalog and holy shit! No less than 8 cds, 1 DVD, 7 posters, 20 shirts, 12 badges, 2 knit caps, 2 baseball hats, 1 jacket, 1 patch, 1 mouse pad and 1 silver pendant!! Phew.
MPEG Download: "Curse You All Men!" [/audio/emperorcurse.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Curse You All Men!" [/audio/emperorcurse.m3u]
Ever since we first listed Havens, a cd-r by one man free-noise/drone outfit Encomiast, folks around here just haven't been able to get enough. So we tracked down another older release, Espera, reviewed back on list #259, and that too flew out of here like crazy, so we grabbed a handful of another old title, Winter's End. Not sure how available this still is, we got a bunch direct from the man himself, but as it's been out for a while we may not be able to get more once these are gone.
So what is it exactly about Encomiast that has people all in a tizzy? A delirious blend of dark dreamy blackened drones and shimmering cinematic ambience, both deftly woven into long expanses of glacial, oceanic dreaminess. It's a crowded field for sure, anyone with a computer and a cd burner seems to have a label, or at least a drone record our, but there are a select few who are masters at sculpting sound, at creating music with depth and emotion. It's not as simple as notes sustained for the length of a disc. It's all about layer and texture and composition.
Winter's End, more than maybe anything else we've heard from Encomiast, is incredibly evocative and cinematic, in fact listening to this, it's hard not to imagine what images should be accompanying these sounds. From drifting fog banks of bleary fuzz and minimal shimmer, to haunting, string-like smears of minor key melody, rife with ominous longing and sublimated terror, to spacious expanses of murky thrum, hovering around drifting mysterious female vocals. From grinding buzz drenched blurs to abstract modern classical, this is music so visual and visceral, it's hard to just classify as 'drone music'. And it's equally hard not to think in terms of cinematic sound. This is the music of some mysterious journey, a lost kingdom, a tragic loss, impossible loves, restless spirits, an abandoned village, it's pretty remarkable that a single disc can invoke all of these thoughts and images, but Winter's End does. Definitely a new favorite...
Here's the soundtrack to David Lynch's infamous, career defining early cult film Eraserhead. It's a work that lead actor Jack Nance was so dedicated to that he kept the same extreme cumulonimbus hairdo for the five year duration of its filming! It's a work so claustrophobic, nightmarish, perverse, anxiety ridden, bleak and black humor heavy that it continues to this day to be unsurpassed in many strange and wonderful ways.
Many movie soundtrack cds these days are just glorified rock compilations. Not this one! It's a genuine soundtrack, and a strange and beautiful one at that. Filled with intrusive industrial scrapes and discomfiting silences, the soundtrack unquestionably plays an integral role in brewing up the unsettling atmospheres that Lynch navigates with an unchartered dream logic. Unfriendly cold sweat drones, prickly electrical charges, choked guttural gurgles, distant echoes of carnival organ melodies and dialogue snippits lurch in and out of focus, but out of all this grey dankness emerges the Lady in the radiator's "In Heaven (Everything Is Fine)". So good.
We're sitting on the fence about this one. Fretting about which is worse -- the cd's album cover photo (which features Mr. Smith's latest crop of gawky teen bandmates... ok, that's sort of an exaggeration) or the music contained within! With his admirably (and maddeningly) willful, prolific music career closing in on three decades, does Mark E. Smith get some slack cut with regards to the follow-up to his great 2005 album Fall Heads Roll? That would follow the line of thinking that everyone's bound to have an occasional stinker in a body of work that immense.
Or on the other hand, does he finally get cut off because anyone with his esteemed track record and tough-love'd yet still rabid fans should have better judgment than to release an album this indigestible. Sure The Fall's musical confrontations are seldom a pretty sight, but... this is gawdawful... at least on sober ears. Maybe after we've dulled our senses with a few pints we'll see things differently. Either way, we're sure Mark E. Smith could care less 'bout what we think. File under 'for masochistically diehard fans only'.
Two AQ faves together for the first time: Portland Oregon's Ghosting and L.A.'s Robedoor.
Been a little while since we've heard from Ghosting and it's mighty fine to have them back. Their half of the split begins with warm whirring drones beneath buzzing and scraping steel strings, intense and dramatic, and maybe a bit more aggressive than their usual sound. The track grows in intensity, the drones becoming thicker and thicker, eventually becoming an almost Sunroof! style roar, swallowing up any of the drifting melodies completely.
Robedoor, a recent discovery, and a new favorite for sure, counter with what might be their -prettiest- track yet. Very serene, warm swells in the distance, strange submerged rhythms, silver streaks of muted feedback, moaned melodies way down in the mix, the whole thing crawling and slithering darkly through buzzy blurry murky cloud of sound.
Gorgeous packaging, hand screened, one side artfully torn, limited to 325 copies, each sleeve hand numbered, pressed on black streaked white vinyl. Nice!
Another killer new issue of Giant Robot, the magazine of "Asian pop culture and beyond!" Always an amazing read, jam packed with killer stories and eye popping photos. And tons of far out shit you can't or wouldn't read about anywhere else. This month they've got: a sampling of Martin Giant Robot's Asian themed t-shirt collection, the Know1edge clothing line, a whole bunch of kick ass toys and jewelry and clothing, Cassandra Nguyen and her giant plush squids, book and comic book reviews, SoCal surfer Kio Inagaki and his Yellow Rat clothing line, poet Beau Sia, flammable household items as improvised weapons, Una Kim and her Keep line of sneakers, Linda Linda Linda: the saga of an all girl garage band, Mountain Mountain collectable toys, The Host director Joon-Ho Bong, the Nice Rainbow Film production studio, tennis pro Paradorn Srichaphan, the Suicide Bomb Button!, tons of record reviews, modern new wave noise rockers VHS or Beta, post Versus rock combo +/-, artist Long Nguyen, Journey From The Fall director Ham Tran, a Vietnam film diary, Installation artists Pattara Chanruechachai and Pratchaya Phinthong, anime reviews, Japanese TV reviews, comics and somehow even more!!!
Brazil's beloved Gilberto Gil, as one of the originators of the Tropicalia sound, has written and recorded some of the most beautiful and politically-minded music ever made. We are huge fans of his first three records, especially Cerebro Electronico from 1969, but like a lot of the older Brazilian artists, including Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso and Milton Nascimento, Gil has been releasing a series of increasingly bland world-beat and jazz-fusion records for quite a while now.
It seems though, that his recent appointment as Brazil's Minister of Culture, has left him little time to record and rehearse with a full band, and so he has thankfully returned to recording and touring with just his voice and acoustic guitar. If you haven't seen him perform recently, you HAVE to, he's truly a magical presence, and hearing the Brazilian members in the audience sing along to every song is a more rewarding experience than you would expect. There's just so much love. Gil Luminoso is a nice return to form with a few visits back to his older catalog (including "Cerebro Electronico"), but containing mostly new songs. At an hour's length, with just voice and guitar, it runs a bit long, but for the most part, it's quite a beautiful record. So put down that Seu Jorge record and get a dose of the real thing! Viva Gil!
A few years ago electro wizard/producer Gonzales surprised us all with the release of an immaculate and beautiful solo piano recording. For some weird reason the record seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye, but thankfully the Sunnyside label has saved the day and made this gorgeous record available once again. Best known for his production work with the likes of Peaches, Feist and various artists on the Kitty-Yo label as well as his own forays into electro-pop and hip-hop, Gonzales shows that you just never know what somebody has up their sleeves. Playing piano since he was a young child, Solo Piano is the work of an obviously gifted musician but also someone with a keen sense of rich melody and elegant execution. Conjuring up the spirit of Erik Satie and George Gershwin, Solo Piano is that perfect mix of skill and simplicity. Short tracks, breezy and tranquil and beautiful. Oh so nice!
Imagine Arvo Part if he was a punk rock woman from Oakland. Or imagine an ultra lo-fi Morton Feldman jamming with Matthew Bower of Skullflower, backed up by a ghostly choir. This is one of those records that is so perfectly aQuarius it sounds like it was composed and recorded just for us. And you. A perfect blend of warm textured ambience and thick corrosive drones, delicate melodies wrapped in a gorgeously crunchy gritty hissy production. The whole record is a ghostly shimmer, warm washes of otherworldly vibrations swirling in a thick morass of processed vocals, murky keyboards and guitars rendered so unguitarlike they more resemble warm wiggles of sound, like slinky's stretched as far as they will go, slightly vibrating, barely disturbing the air around them, small waves of sound like ripples in a pond building and building and piled atop one another until it's a massive, thick blanket of sound. Imagine the saddest slowest band you've ever heard playing at absolutely deafening volume, then imagine stuffing your ears full of cotton, and listening from behind a closed door, through a wall of mud and straw, warm wispy tendrils of sound creeping and crawling through the cracks, wrapping themselves in thick coils around your arms and legs, the whole room slowly filling with sound, until soon you're totally ensconced, submerged, surrounded by thick billows of slow shifting sound. Melodies become indistinct whispers stretched across minutes instead of seconds, guitars and keyboards become blissed out blurs, like floating weightless in a warm dark mysterious place made entirely of soft sound. Wow. Totally haunting and captivating.
Now available on vinyl!!!
Here's what we had to say about the cd version:
We know we're only a few months into 2007 but we're pretty sure that Candylion will be right there at the top of the list of our favorite pop records of the year! While we've always sort of liked Super Fury Animals, we have to say this solo outing by front man Gruff Rhys surpasses anything they've ever done! So totally catchy, quirky and impeccably crafted, Candylion is pretty much everything you could want in a pop record. It's so fitting that this record showed up right when Spring finally sprang on SF... this is the perfect soundtrack to carefree afternoons, balmy evenings, topdown freeway excursions as the wind blows in and the sun glows in the sky. Rhys demonstrates great taste and a pretty impressive knowledge of obscure psych rock/pop of the past, in creating his own timeless masterpiece. Whether singing in English or his native Welsh (as he does on a couple tracks), he's a master of vocal melodies and the perfect instrumental accompaniment. When you listen closely you realize there is so much going on from Gameboy beats to flute to pedal steel to stylophone, but like all great pop maestros Rhys knows so perfectly how to incorporate all those elements smoothly and subtly to create dense and dreamy near perfect pop. So totally recommended!
Graham Halliwell is one of the practitioners of what has been dubbed the New London Silence, a taxonomic distinction which may have more to do with geography than stylistic differences. Lowercase, microwave, and onkyo have been other adjectives applied to Halliwell's particular sensibility, in defining quiet compositions and improvisations within the avant-garde (e.g. Alvin Lucier, Morton Feldman, Phill Niblock, etc.). Regardless of what you want to call it, Halliwell has applied a reductionist methodology to his instrument of choice: the saxophone. On Recorded Delivery, Halliwell presents a series of duets with likeminded musicians, two of which could fit into the New London Silence school as well (being that they're also from London) and the other being the Los Angeles sound artist Steve Roden. The first track finds Halliwell with harpist Rhodi Davies; and the two generate a quiet soundfield that is deceptively dangerous as the intersection of their acoustic drones from sax feedback and ebowed harp can manifest headsplitting frequencies even at very low volumes due to the purity of those sounds. The second duet is between Halliwell and Steve Roden; and while Halliwell's input appears to be minimal (perhaps just giving Roden some quiet tones), Roden's manipulation of Halliwell's sound is spectacular. If you've ever had the opportunity to see Roden live (and in all likelihood, been blown away by his breathtakingly minimal / gorgeous sets), then you'll know what to expect. He's got two delay pedals through which he captures looping passages that build into a mass of hypnotic shimmer and mirrored sinewave drone that have an impressive melodic quality. The third and final contribution is between Halliwell and tam-tam player Mark Wastell, who together concoct a sparkling drone of metallic vibration and wave pattern. Beautifully done.
This is volume two in God Is Myth's 3" cd-r series paying homage to the late great H.P Lovecraft. The first came courtesy of UK experimental black metal outfit Caina, this, the second comes via Appalachian heathen metal horde Harvist. Based, according to the label website, on awakening/conjuring of the "Outer Gods": Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath and Cthulhu (who is actually one of the Great Old Ones, according to our resident Lovecraft Mythos expert Allan). So what does that sound like? Well for Harvist, that sounds like relentlessly pounding black buzz, thick washes of overblown guitars, chugging downtuned riffs, killer blast beats and some seriously anguished howls. Also plenty of grunts and "uuuh"s. Wrest from Leviathan might call this "goat metal", but it's fast and black and furious, heavy and epic.
The first two tracks a straight ahead grim frosty old skool black metal. Raw and brutal. The third track adds keyboards and tolling bells, and is more melodic and moody, but it's track 4 that pushes this over the edge, an 'actual' Chaos Magic Ritual dedicated to the awakening of the essence of Cthulhu!! Lots of ambient sound, what could be surf (but also sounds like cars driving by), whispering wind, massive rumbling drones and of course, creepy processed vocals, reciting the unholy incantation to summon the mighty Cthulhu! Pretty weird. But the perfect tribute to the genius and legacy of Lovecraft.
Awesome cover painting of Cthulhu, and each disc includes an insert with information on Lovecraft as well as a killer creepy portrait.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. We only got 15 and it's already out of print from the label so once these are gone we will not be able to get more.
Brand new record from the always amazing Hoor-Paar-Kraat, whose last few ultra limited cd-r's have flown out of here in no time (we have a tiny clutch of the most recent one, The Nagaraja Movements, but those will probably be gone soon too) and like we've mentioned before, it kills us that music this good, in packaging this gorgeous and elaborate will never be seen or heard by more than the 90 or so folks able to get their hands on them, so c'mon, some big label needs to step up and shower these guys with money. The mind boggles at what they might come up with.
Anyway, this is a brand new full length from Anthony Mangicapra and his band of not so merry men, and they've managed to kick up another serious din, this one even more dark and creepy and noisy than the last. The opening track is like a lo-fi cd-r modern free-noise version of Whitehouse, a dense field of guitar hum and amp buzz, all manner of strange wailing and moaning, distant percussive thumps, little squalls of grinding glitch and high end skree, over which a voice intones some strange tale of record stores and Steven Stapleton and David Tibet and butterflies, only brief bits of the story are audible over the swirl of feeding back guitar and roaring buzz, weird but strangely compelling and listenable. At times it also reminds us of Dutch black ambient technicians Stalaggh, the way they stir up a dense chaotic skree and then have mental patients wail and gnash their teeth over the top, this opening track is like a more subdued version of that.
The rest of the record is also noisy, but in a much more subtle fashion. Guitars and amps buzzing and humming seem to bee the constant, each track offering up various levels of general din, with each, twisting it into a unique shape, sometimes it's muted monklike chants and haunted house creaking, sometimes it's a whirring world of mumbled melodies and strange clicks and skitters, sometimes it's a series of high pitched teapot whistles over a blur squeaks and tinkles, and other times it's reverb drenched loops of girlish laughter and weird crackly static, but it's always dense, and always mysterious and creepy, and always so completely amazing.
And like the music, the package is mind blowing, Mangicapra is an accomplished visual artist as well as a musician, and it shows. A gorgeous oversized dark blue cardstock sleeve, with a thick textured silkscreened band (a bit like a Japanese obi) affixed to the bottom with two brass rivets, and then wrapped around the whole sleeve where it tucks in the front and seals it shut. Inside, the liner notes are pasted to the inside of the strip and on the sleeve beneath the strip is a cool silkscreened symbol, Mangicapra's signature and the number denoting which disc it is (out of a mere 93). So awesome.
LIMITED TO 93 COPIES!!! We will never be able to get more so don't blow it!!
This sophomore album for Gnomonsong shows Jana Hunter in fine form. Moving away from the folky 4-track recordings of her debut, the songs on There Is No Home have a catchier and more powerful indie rock feel to them yet without too much unnecessary polish. Sure the influence of older Cat Power (especially Dear Sir) and PJ Harvey is still evident, but it stills sounds fresh and maybe even better than what Cat Power is doing right now, so who can fault it. A lot of these wonderful songs stay stuck in our heads for days. Nice!
On her first two records, Finland's Islaja completely swept us off our feet and delivered us to an enchanted world of mystery, warmly wrapped in delicate layers of a unique beauty that just doesn't come around that often. Definitely reminiscent of Brigitte Fontaine's experimental leanings or maybe what we imagine Bjork might sound like stuck deep in a Finnish forest.
With her latest outing Islaja has done it again! She's conjured up a handful of songs that immediately begin to melt into your consciousness the roots going deeper and deeper with every listen. With the subtle addition of horns and electronics to her already dense and seductive sound, Islaja shows once again what a unique vision she possesses. Imagine Patty Waters joining White Magic at a late-night seance... Ulual YYY is like sinking into some warm dreamy state, eyes clouded with wisps of smoke until everything becomes a hazy blur. You're not sure where you are or what to do, but you are absolutely sure there is no where else you would rather be than deep inside Ulual Yyy's alluring and mystifying world. Highly recommended!
Wow, is this ever a surprise. The sensitive side of Jesu. Which is weird since Jesu was sort of the sensitive side of Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Final, Techno Animal, Napalm Death). Maybe sensitive is not the right word. Poppy? Yeah, that might fit too. Hot on the heels of two epic mindblowers, the self-titled full length and the Heartache ep, Silver finds Broadrick exploring the pop side of his personality. Writing proper songs, even SINGING. Weird but still cool. Just a bit... unexpected.
The two previous Jesu records took the bleak mechanical pummel of Godflesh and doused it with My Bloody Valentine guitar bliss out, and huge swaths of M83 guitar fuzz. A truly unique blend of ominous crunch and swirly shimmer. Pulsin, lengthy epic jams, sparkling, glistening and gauzy, a sort of soft focus alien krautrock. We were obviously immediately smitten.
So this half hour long 4 song ep is basically a pop record. Seriously. Hard to believe but it's true. Melodically and songwriting wise, these tracks sound like they came straight off of an early nineties Sebadoh or Superchunk record. Lilting and sort of bittersweet. Classic sounding early nineties indie rock wrapped in thick glistening swirls of fuzz guitar, that guitar being the only thing keeping it from sounding like something on Merge records. Not sure what to call it, maybe industrial indie rock, fuzzy jangle dirge, both are pretty accurate. Too bad this ISN'T a nineties college rock record, it easily would have been my instant favorite back then. Sweet sad boy bedroom mope rock but with super fuzzed out METAL GUITARS!!?? C'mon, how much would that have trumped every record you had back then? But even now because of the unlikely mix of moody indie rock and pounding dirgey fuzz, this still sounds pretty fresh. Thick walls of fuzzy guitars, warbly warped melodies,Ôsweet melodic jangle, some killer catchy hooks, and those sort of classic plaintive, mopey Mac / Lou sad boy vocals. Track three is the first one to get all M83, blissy and blown out and sweetly shimmery, a plodding sun dappled dirge, but the more we listen the more this sounds like a record Codeine would have made if they were still making records. Sort of sweetly depressive, but with a dark tail dragging vibe. On first listen, we were sort of bummed out, this is SO different than the other two Jesu records, but the more we listen, the more we're beginning to think this jus might be our favorite yet. A record that is both soft and sweetly melodic, but thick and heavy and blown out is a rare beast indeed. And now that we hear the Codeine in Jesu, we're even more sold. For our money, Codeine left a gaping hole when they called it quits, slowcore or moperock or whatever continued to move forward but never with the same intensity or emotion, until now perhaps. The final track is the strangest. A sort of M83 / Jesus And Mary Chain style effects laden bliss out, with loads of swooshing backwards loops, shimmery stretches of light as air vaporous guitar, and even a super chunky Godfleshy break part way through. Awesome. The best industrial dirge jangle indie bliss slowcore doom pop ep ever??
The late great Basil Kirchin's final work, that was years in the making, is not always an easy listen. Finally realized after years of working with what he called "particles" of music (some recorded as early as the sixties) while his body was riddled with cancer, it's difficult to separate what is happening in the music from what was happening with the man. Book-ended by spirited pastoral compositions of the British jazz variety that we are accustomed to, most of the body of Particles falls into the realm of the atonally challenging. He even calls the main suite, "The Atonals". Even so, it would be unfair to casually dismiss this. One needs to understand Kirchin's process, a laborious attention to recording, editing and filtering that works through primarily conceptual guidelines rather than compositional ones. For instance, "The Atonals", subtitled, "The Secret Conversations Between Instruments", began as recordings of between-session banter with the musicians without their knowledge they were being recorded. Then these hours of tapes were edited into snippets of conversation until each had a clear line of its own, orchestrated together with other lines, then run through a series of processes that remove the words and the voice sounds and are replaced with sounds of instruments that fit closest to the original "voice". It may take a few listens to Particles to unleash its power, but it's a fitting and uncompromised finale of one of the most innovative experimental composers of our time.
A few lists back we reviewed a killer disc from a German band called Woburn House, who traffic in a killer blend of repetitive hypno rock a la Dutch outfit Gore, but blended with a heaping dose of mathy post rock, a combo that totally kicked our asses. But then we discovered that there was in fact a Woburn side project called Klabautamann, who were supposedly a super weird black metal band!! This we had to hear. So after some internet sleuthing, we got in touch with the band and managed to get a bunch of the Klabautamann debut cd Der Ort, and if anything, it's even cooler, and WAY WAY weirder than we would have ever hoped.
Take the first track, it begins like most black metal songs, with a buzzing insectoid riff, which explodes into some epic blackened riffing, we love it already, but then suddenly, the guitars drop out, and leave a skeletal post rock jam, lilting clean guitars, but with blasting double kick drums and growled demonic vocals, a weird combo for sure, but so good. Then the song transforms into some mathy metallic breakdown, before blissing out into some dreamy melodic drift, before bursting back into full on black blast again. And that's just the first track.
The second track begins with acoustic guitars and drums, a dreamy strum and pound that could easily be some weird indie rock band, the vocals kick in, a sort of sing song monotone, with little melodic curlicues underneath, until the song lurches into some complex stop start groove, with wild octopoidal drumming and little bursts of squiggly guitar leads. After a gorgeous classical breakdown, the drums kick in, a blazing blast beat accompanying this lovely finger picked guitar, another bizarre juxtaposition that sounds amazing.
The next track is a dense tangled black angular workout, all impossibly convoluted Voivod-ish riffs over furious drumming, before again breaking into a weird loping post rock jam, punctuated by brief bursts of blazing blackness.
It's hard to explain exactly what's going on, but whatever it is, it's awesome. Every track is dense with riffs and parts, gorgeous clean sections are butted up against filthy frosty blackness, acoustic guitars routinely jam alongside metallic blast beats, crazy complicated riffs are chopped into stuttery fragments, and rearranged around mathy rhythms...
Then there's the final track, a total out of the blue mind blower, a nine minute epic, that is still sort of black metal, but also sounds like Tool or Coheed And Cambria, chugging riffs, wailing vocals, both male and female, all tangled up in killer harmonies, the whole thing shoegazey and kind of emo and super poppy, the guitar weaving elaborate textures, but it's the vocals, so weird and cool, it almost has us wishing the whole record had singing like this. So unexpected and so goddamn great.
After the recently reviewed Lifelover, probably our most listened to new 'black metal' disc for sure!
Yet another blurry, bleary eyed, sleepy and soft, dreamlike missive from the mysterious KuuPuu, another of the Finnish forest denizens who have captured our hearts.
Unilintu is the second of two vinyl only releases compiling the best tracks from long out of print cd-r's. The record begins with a burst of blown out electronic buzz and stuttering machinelike rhythms seemingly crafted from a skipping record, but don't be scared off, once you've waded through this brief blast, you'll find yourself in a dark and wondrous abstract forest folk wonderland. Soft and warm, whirring organs drone and drift over lilting sing song vocals, various lines all lazily intertwined,ultra lo-fi acoustic guitars wrapped in all sorts of natural ambience, the sounds of rain and thunder, and again those dreamy ghost like vocals. The whole record has that rainy day back porch vibe, or sometimes that late night dark forest campfire feel, both so intimate and personal.
Old pianos plinked and plonked in big echoey empty rooms, wheezing violins, atonal detuned guitars, warm washes of fuzzy ambience, occasionally interrupted by little chunks of noise drenched 4-track fuckery, but for the most part, Unilintu is one long sweet sonic dream. Definitely for fans of Islaja, Grouper, Fursaxa, Valet and the like.
Sophomore slump? No Way!! If anything the newest outing from DFA head honcho James Murphy is even better and more satisfying then his debut full length from a couple years back. While his singles and remixing skills are undeniable we still had our doubts about whether the full length format was well suited for LCD Soundsystem. Sound Of Silver proves that indeed Murphy has found out how to create a cohesive group of songs that feel just right next to each other and not just like a bunch of singles slapped together. Striking us as more earnest and even more carefully crafted then past efforts this is a great record of infectious electronic pop. The goosebump-inducing "Someone Great" might be the best LCD song yet, and instead of hipster ramblings or name checking lyrics its sentiment is bittersweet if not sad and so totally sincere. But not to fear, the party and dance floor have not been forgotten, as tracks like "North American Scum" make it pretty impossible not to crack a smile and start shaking some ass. Smart, sincere and sassy. That's a pretty great combination!
This whole unblack metal movement is still relatively new for us, having only discovered this burgeoning scene within the last year, but we've become sort of obsessed, going totally nuts for records from Drommer (reviewed elsewhere on this list), Glaciial, Agathothodion, and the band that seems to sort of rule and define the scene, Light Shall Prevail, whose main man also runs the mighty E.E.E. label, home to pretty much all our favorite unblack artists.
We've reviewed two LSP discs, the Goatcrush ep (featuring what Andee considers to be maybe one of the greatest black metal songs of all time, the stuttering convoluted title track) and the most recent full length Defeat The Reign Of The Horned One Through The Light Of Christ. Both completely mindblowing, buzzy and blasting but super strange and not at all like the rest of the black metal we hear. Well, apparently, LSP has been recording like crazy for the last few years and I Long To Destroy The Darkness Forever contains every bit of recorded material to date, excluding the two proper releases. And while there's plenty of blasting buzz and epic un-blackness, it's the early lo-fi stuff that is totally blowing our mind. It's easy to see why the newer more polished stuff is still so weird, cuz the early stuff is so completely damaged and bizarrely brilliant.
Going all the way back to 2003, the majority of the first disc is culled from one of the first LSP recording and goes from ultra lo-fi grim buzz, to strange mechanical, almost industrial buzz and stutter, at times almost sounding like a skipping cd, or some 4 tracked industrial house music, but with creepy keyboards and growled vocals, the drums and guitar so distorted that a few tracks almost sound like some sort of weird fuzz collage, underpinned by impossibly quiet beats, and creepy gurgles, but sometimes blissing out into what almost sounds like some weird jangly buzz pop. The last three tracks on the first disc are the earliest, and are pretty killer too, not quite as fucked up sounding, more like a killer grim practice space recording, all blown out cymbals and muted insectoid buzz, but as with future E.E.E. productions, completely unhinged vocals, impossible low vomitous growls that spill over the rest of the music like some spewed black bile. So good.
Disc two jumps ahead 2 or 3 years, and things are still pretty weird, fuzzed out indie jangle, lots of tape hiss, but the metal is much heavier, with louder guitar, weird programmed drums, and another bizarre vocal inflection, a screeched anguished mewl that sometimes dips into a growly grunt. The riffs totally slay and the groundwork is being set for future LSP aktions. Some track still veer into some serious fucked up sonic territory, cymbals so hot and sizzling they swallow up everything around them, long expanses of Skaters' style lo-fi murk, and a few moments of strange black balladry.
Finally, disc three, culled from two split releases from last year, finds LSP sounding pretty much like they do now, a confusionally brilliant and baffling black metal buzz, from furious thrashing blasts, to loping midtempo lurch, to strange ambient strum and shuffle, to doomy trudge, to blissy drift and back again, with fucked up vocals, amazingly convoluted drum machine programming, incredible riffs, all sorts of fuzzy and buzzy ambience, just absolutely some of the most original and intense (un) black metal we've ever heard.
Packaged in a slim triple jewel case with NO tray card, so don't panic, that's the way they come. A photocopied cd booklet with all the track info and liner notes inside.
And of course, this is ULTRA LIMITED! And ALREADY OUT OF PRINT! We took more than half of the pressing, but even so, these won't be around long...
Holy shit... New Erections indeed! While in the past The Locust have been frequently typecast as just another obnoxious, bratty, fuck-you band of perpetual malcontents, they've grown to be one of the most tight, virulent units around. This album's first track alone ("Aotkpta") turns the hardcore and metal contingents on their collective ear. Old Locust fans fear not, there's still plenty of splatter and thunder, but there's also a fierce precision that sets them apart from the pack. If there was any question, New Erections confirms that the band's four members have got chops to spare. Unlike many of their contemporaries who equate the punk rock ethos with rushed and raw sloppiness, The Locust slice through your ear cartilage with speed and exacting mathematics, leaving them a bloody heap of complex tatters. Exceptional musicianship at every turn coupled with their consistently concentrated tenacious count-that-shit! fury, not to mention Joey Karam's obvious thorough knowledge of analog synthesis makes for a huge, awesome sounding end result. With regards to the latter, Karam's synthesizers are all analog which means each gnarly sound (of which there are many!) needed to be individually dialed in, honed and crafted. Furthermore, it's not an overstatement to say that at this point Gabe Serbian can go toe to toe with any of today's top drummers. Another new development that was immediately noticeable was that their multi-part vocals have been pitched down from their trademark screech-bark making the nihilistic lyrics somewhat more decipherable.
Still as short-winded as ever, The Locust are the lean mean masters of succinctness, executing all of the above in less than twenty four minutes. Fucking great!
