Sometimes music is more than just pure sound, or the exposing of deep personal secrets and emotions, or even an homage to one's inspirations. Sometimes it's meant to tell a story... a vessel for a message. Then again sometimes music can combine all of those facets, AND MORE! Such is the case with Mammatus' sophomore effort, The Coast Explodes. On a purely sonic level, this record is absolutely amazing (we'll get there), but it's amazing on a conceptual level as well.
This record is the second installment of Mammatus' gradually unfolding tale of the battle between Light and Darkness. Goodly Light vs. the Evil of Man. Communion with Nature and the casting out of the corrosive agents of Man's doooom. The inhalation of divinity's smoke/breath... exhaling peace from every pore of the translucent flesh. Harnessing the power of Nature in your throat and fingers... swinging the sword to the heart of darkness. Bludgeon the dragon's foul heart! Mammatus is here to bare the Blade of Truth against nature's corrupters, and to ROCK against the cowardly haters of peace! Ahem, their "blade" is of course music, so lets talk about that for a sec.
This epic journey continues right where their self-titled debut left off. The first track "Dragon of the Deep part 3 (Excellent Swordfight)" is a continuation of the Dragon saga (the first album ending with "Dragon of the Deep" parts 1 and 2), and right off the bat you can hear the development. Holy shit! PROG!!!!! Where the last record was more of a trippy blend of hypno-kraut Can-ishness with the slaying heavitude of stoner lordz Sleep, this record somehow maintains that comparison and adds an incredible dose of YES! and YES!!! it rules! So the album starts with a creeping guitar drone, almost as if directly continued from part 2, before bursting in with a driving and hypnotic groove, a la Circle or the above mentioned Can, with little time change shreds at the end of each phrase (kinda proggy) and then suddenly the tempo breaks and we hear a killer stoptime, full-band SHRED! bringing us into another mesmeric groove with beautiful guitar leads soaring perfectly over the everchanging trance. The track builds and builds, ever climbing. Just when you think it can't get more ripping, another amazing riff is unearthed, the band playing so tightly we suspect they might share one cosmically unified mind. In tune with the alignment of the planets and such. All of this is building to something, you can feel it, when suddenly the song crescendos into a freeform cacophonous skronk! Cowbells, drums, and about 500 simultaneous guitar solos! FREAKOUT!
What emerges from this undulating swell is just about all a worshipper of heavy could hope for, an earth shaking riff with the first vocals of the record. Singer Nicky Emmert enters with his first cry to battle, calling us to raise the sword! The vocals are as trippy as ever, beautiful, as if sung from the back of a deep cave. This brutally sick aural climax ends almost as soon as it begins only to plunge axe first into the second track, "Pierce the Darkness", Starting with a gong crash and woodflute solo (!) then charging directly into another trance like groove. The vocals this time start right away, floating and glistening over the motorik pulse, again seemingly a call to arms. The track eventually develops into a blasting free time psychedelic guitar jam which then decompresses into some serious blissy drone.
And what happens next is one of the highlights of the record. The sound of synthesizers enter the drone and build up to a spine tingling harmonized guitar/Moog solo! You know the euphoric feeling you get when listening to shimmery synth part in Yes's "Close to the Edge", and the triumph in the pit of your stomach when Wakeman's church organ finally enters ("I get up, I get down")? A similar energy is in operation here. After this shining moment the song takes another turn towards the HEAVY and some kick ass riffage again fills the speakers. After a bit of strange synth tweakage, the mood of the album changes. Track 3, "The Changing Wind" is an all out drum circle folk jam! Acoustic guitars, propulsive hand drum rhythms, and another lilting melody from Nicky, praising mother nature and her unknowable ways. Hypnotic and blissful for sure. Suddenly the sounds of waves crashing and sea lions barking brings us seamlessly into the final movement, and title track, "The Coast Explodes". Starting with one of the catchiest "stoner" riffs we've heard for a long time. In fact this riff gets stuck in our heads for days at a time. So groovey and catchy, it makes the trees dance. Ahem. This song is a slow builder, rising subtly, and then dipping once more till it finally becomes an almost whisper. The vocals again invoking mother earth, sung in a beautiful falsetto. After this quiet respite the amps again get cranked to 11 and we are blessed with another monolithic slab of heaviness! So satisfying and perfect, it almost makes ya weep. At the end of this journey the chanting of some mythic and mysterious wizard is heard, as if belted out from the peak of a snow covered mountain, beckoning to the children of nature to rise up and join the crusade! The song then gently winds down and the whooshing sounds of the ocean again take over the mix, leaving the listener in a state of utter peace. SHIT! This album really takes you on some sort of transcendental adventure... We got lost there for a minute.
At the most basic level, Mammatus make some of the most inventive and inspired heavy music of our day. Combining diverse inspirations and molding them into something that comes across as totally genuine and pure, and of course TOTALLY RULING! Crushing and mesmerizing and beautiful all at the same time. The story behind the music makes the album all the more powerful. The listening experience of this record is akin to reading a super epic novel, one where the payoffs happen in all the right places. So duh, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!! For fans of Sleep, Yes, UFOmammut, Can, Circle, King Crimson, and all things heavy and trippy and shredding and rocking and ruling! And by the by, if you have not yet, catch them live for one of the best live shows ever! On tour now with Acid Mothers Temple in the USA!
Not to be confused with the John Maus who was in the Walker Brothers in the '60s this John Maus has been making warped baroque pop in the cozy confines of his bedroom in Minnesota for the last several years and is best known for his contributions to Ariel Pink and Animal Collective offshoot Panda Bear. Maus is one seriously prolific songwriter who until now has kept pretty much all of his own songs to himself. "Songs" is a collection of some of those dark pop offerings recorded at home over the last few years. Channeling the spirit of Ian Curtis and using vintage electronic equipment, Maus's songs evoke a hazy kind of daydreaming but with a much more morose slant. His deep voice got us thinking of folks like Calvin Johnson, Scott Walker and on the first track he's a dead ringer for Robert Smith. Dark weird pop done right!
Now this is more like what we were anticipating from Menomena's last full length Friend And Foe which came out a few months ago. On that album the Portland, OR band took an unexpected turn into a very well done but very 'middle of the road' indie pop sound. We dug it quite a bit, thank you very much. But while you know we love us some indie rock a-plenty, there's just so many bands of that ilk. Knowing that Menomena's earlier album Under An Hour stood apart from the pack in its darkly dramatic yet whimsical chamber pop grandeur, simply made us crave... more! Happy to report that with their Wet & Rusting EP they've ventured back into that far more peculiar and distinct territory. Although the title track is drawn from Friend And Foe (you get three versions of it -- one straight from the album, an E.R. Don remix and a live rendition), subtle eccentricities and warm pop fuzziness abound on the rest of the EP. We're just sad that it's only six songs long! [Sorry, no sound clips, this wouldn't play in our computers, dunno why.]
Those who've been paying any attention at all to the extremes of the Japanese prog/psych underground should already be familiar with the band Musica Transonic (responsible for five prior albums on hometown Tokyo label PSF, and one also on Fractal, their last one which came out five long years ago). At the very least, you know the three musical madmen who make up this power trio: drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, guitarist Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple, and bassist Nanjo Asahito of High Rise. This heavy duty improv freakout summit of theirs is thus a veritable supergroup. All three of these guys have also played together in the band Mainliner. If all that means something to you, then we're pretty sure the news that there's this new 2007 album released on the cool Polish label Vivo ought to be just about enough to get you to want a copy! Or, read on...
This long-running act hasn't changed too much this time 'round. Imagine a hyper-active Blue Cheer abandoning the biker-blues riffs to play instrumental freeform jazz instead. Psychedelic skree spills forth as the band settles in to a variety of unsettled grooves. Passages of moody noodilyness collide with amped-up ADD frenzies. Essentially the album title XYOSFBIGKOU (and equally jumbled-looking track names like "Rtufujowvyt" and "Qoixvudgdoasv"), while cryptic, actually give some sense of what Musica Transonic is about. All caps (loud!!), can't understand it (crazy!), but must make some sense somehow to someone (chops?). You'll feel jumbled too after listening to this sonic spooge, sounding somewhere betwixt Lightning Bolt and the Wes Montgomery Trio or something.
This recording is not as blown into-the-red as their early stuff, though no less spastic, and also is not nearly as lumberingly "metallic" as their last one, the aptly-titled Hard Rock Transonic, but boy do they grind it out with lots o' feedback on the title track at the end of the album!
We love Necrofrost. The ultimate in damaged weirdo outsider black metal. Managing to be completely bafflingly bizarre but still grim and cult and black and heavy as fuck. This is one of two long overdue reissues, this one from 1999, and still sounding as amazing and as fucked as ever. It's called In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor after all, and features some of the best black metal song titles EVER: "Slaughtered With Misanthropic Intent", "Rapacious Forests In Ultimate Sleep", "The Return Of Animalian Bloodlust", "Bloodthrones And Legionwoods"...
And while the sound is appropriately black and buzzy, it's ultimately filtered through Necrofrost's cracked and distorted metal sensibility and ends up being some of the coolest weirdest black metal you will ever heard. At it's core, this is a loping midtempo, slightly doomy, buzz drenched black metal. But Necrofrost take that sound and drag it kicking and screaming, bloody and battered through some haunted forest, into a cave and down into the pits of hell. While not as completely wacked as their other record Bloodstorms Voktes Over Hytrunghas Dunkle Necrotroner, In A Misty Soar And On Its Swampy Floor is more subtly fucked, its dementedness demonstrated less by bursts of renaissance faire folly or country banjos and more by some inherent, intangible what the fuck vibe that seems ooze from every recorded second.
After a weird, horror movie piano intro, with minor key strings, sounding like some Morricone spy thriller, the band lurch into black action. Sheets of blasting buzz, howled demonic shrieks, over a stumbling chaotic blast beat, the tempos ever shifting, bizarre atonal Greg Ginn guitars playing tangled angular leads, strange doom breakdowns, almost jaunty polka style rhythms, twisted and tweaked circusy guitar melodies, albeit all doused in grim blackness, thick washes of medieval keyboards, haunting minor key arpeggiated guitars, these are all part of Necrofrost's sinister sonic world, but ultimately, their grim black blasts are fucked enough, the perfect black metal gateway, luring you with blast and buzz, grimly sucking you into their strange sonic underworld, and maybe once you have successfully traversed Necrofrost's Misty Soar and Swampy Floor, you'll be ready to brave their Bloodstorms...
Essential for all fans of Striborg, Dead Reptile Shrine, Detsorgsekalf, Hidden, Benighted Leams, Furze, Urfaust, The One and other practitioners of the dark and damaged black arts...
This is not brand new, but instead is an ep from right before the most recent full length Om. But until recently we were never able to get more than a handful of copies. But finally, we have enough to list, but we're not sure how long we'll have these in stock, so don't dawdle if you want one.
Negura Bunget, one of our favorite avant black metal bands, hailing from Romania (okay, Transylvania!), a band who weave dense black soundscapes incorporating lots of traditional black buzz, but also mystical folk, haunting ambience, and whatever other sonic strangeness is part of their twisted black vision. And who even at their most 'metal' and most 'traditional' still sound weirder than almost any of their contemporaries.
The opening track begins with thick washes of super dramatic keyboards, and mysterious monklike chants, as well as all sorts of traditional percussion and hand drums, before some killer blackened riffing joins in and the band launch into a twisted black journey, along the way blasting briefly beneath majestic keyboard swells, weaving through some convoluted Voivod riffage with some crooning clean singing and finishing up with some seriously mathy rhythms beneath more keyboards and tangled blackened guitars.
The second track is some haunting forest ambience, long stretches of droning rumble, strange rhythms over swirling misty keyboards, bizarre vibraphone like melodies, and all manner of creepy creaks and unidentifiable sounds. Track three is the centerpiece of Inarborat Kosmos, a mostly midtempo atmospheric black jam, with super strange (and unbelievably catchy) riffing, dense tangled rhythms, huge swaths of epic keyboards, and about a million different parts, a song that seems to constantly shift and change shapes without ever losing cohesion or direction. Occasionally the keyboards become so dense and massive that they overpower the rest of the instruments and the song becomes a weird high end drone, at least briefly. A head spinning blast of baffling blackness for sure.
The final track is another swath of foresty black ambience. Long slow drawn out keyboard drones, and thick clouds of crumbling distortion, but most notably, all manner of strange and guttural, creepy and almost monstrous vocalizations, howling and growled, tortured and anguished, sounding like some ancient clan, gathered around a fire, performing some strange rite or ritual.
Which, when you get right down to it, is how Negura Bunget always sound, like some mysterious ancient clan, performing all manner of forest flecked black metal rituals. So great.
Also included two live videos viewable on your computer.
LIMITED TO 734 COPIES!!
This impressive debut album by New Ruins has been in pretty heavy rotation around here lately. The central Illinois band (consisting of two members and a guest cellist) describe their music as "small town mid-western gothic/folksy guitar-mantras tinted with martial snares and cooing organs." Anyone who has lived in a small town long enough has probably felt the inner struggle between the desire to move to an exciting city and the comfort and ease which comes with the affordability of a small town (especially a college town). Couple this struggle with winters that never seem to end and it's no surprise that The Sound They Make's opener "Ships" explodes with anxious guitar riffs and pressing organ lines that crescendo into melancholic vocals recalling roads too often travelled and pitting urgency against somebody's likely kind reminder that "we have the rest of our lives." This apprehensive eagerness paired with two distinctive vocal ranges that could be a perfect octave apart (imagine if Isaac Brock and Doug Marsch formed a dark folk band) make for an impeccable alt-gothic country album that's already garnered comparisons to John Fahey, Iron and Wine, Old 97's, and Grant Lee Buffalo, but still manages to stand alone. The indie kids are always eager for new alt-gothic country heroes. If New Ruins don't fill that void with "The Sound They Make," they'll certainly cause a flutter of anxious fans awaiting their next release (rumored to be in the works) on which their all-star live support--drummer Roy Ewing (Braid; Very Secretary) and bassist Paul Chastain (Velvet Crush; Matthew Sweet)--will contribute.
Joanna Newsom's follow-up to last year's acclaimed musical epic Ys gives us a lighter glimpse into how she has transcribed Van Dyke Park's heady-yet-playful orchestrations into use for her current touring band (the jokingly-monikered "YS Street Band").
The three songs here �one new, and two reworked from past releases, all beginning with the letter C, for some reason, � are accompanied by banjo, accordion, guitar, drums and a musical saw. The new song, "Colleen", is "Katie Cruel" by way of "Riverdance", a Celtic-tinged jig about a woman who has seemed to have forgotten her mysterious past. It's the kind of song-story that would have easily fit on Ys, if she didn't already have "Monkey and Bear". Revisiting "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" from The Milk-eyed Mender for a third time (counting the version on her first self-released demo, Walnut Whales), Newsom thankfully doesn't add too much dressing to its spare arrangement except for the inclusion of well-placed vocal accompaniments. But the price of admission is all about her reworking of Cosmia , the final (and shortest) track from Ys. On that album the song with its heavy orchestrations served as the soaring climax. Here she nearly doubles its length and by substituting the string section for banjo and musical saw makes it airier and more expansive, allowing the band to break free for a bit and kick it up some without losing any of the song's emotional weight. Nice!
Holeeebuhgeezus! The opening of this new Nine Inch Nails album comes tearing out of your speaker like a torrent of mayhemic noise. After those few bars that effectively jar bowels, rattle nerves and reset clocks, Trent Reznor lays down some huge sounding, multilayered metallic modern rock. Despite the concept album's overriding aggressive machismo and dystopian machinations, the sixteen tracks can't escape Reznor's ever-present sensitive side and definite pop sensibilities. Sure it's all buzzing, thick and nasty, but at the same time it lays into some razor-sharp hooks. Sure to become a staple at industrial dance clubs across the nation, Year Zero is soooo much better than the last NIN album, the biteless [With_Teeth] from 2005.
Our pal Mason Jones (formerly of San Francisco space rockers Subarachnoid Space) is known for his Japanese connections as well as for his talent for heavy-duty, effects-laden experimental electric guitar improv. So we're not surprised to find him on this cd live in Japan, teamed up in three separate sessions with three different drummers: Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, Shirahata of Up-Tight, and Komatsu of... we're not sure, Mason help us out, is it Bloodthirsty Butchers?
Anyway, in all cases, it's darkly psychedelic, freely unfolding guitar/drums jamming, sometimes moody and droned-out, sometimes building up into a howling sonic miasma... when dueting with Yoshida (the only person on here who also uses his voice as an instrument) there's an expected element of progressive spazz.
As with all aRCHIVE releases, painfully limited and in fact already sold out at the label.
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Steve Stapleton has always viewed Insect And Individual Silenced as a monumental failure. So much so, that he had resisted every attempt by friends, colleagues, and other labels to convince him to reissue this album. Yet, obviously with this elaborately packaged reissue, he's finally been convinced to the contrary. Insect And Individual Silenced emerged as the fourth Nurse With Wound album back in 1980, and found Steve Stapleton out on his own as the principal soundmaker for the ensemble. Yet he had convinced Jim Thirlwell (Foetus) and Trevor Reidy to join him in the studio, just to see what would happen. According to the liner-notes, the studio sessions found Thirlwell fucking around with his amplifier, cable buzz, and the jack-plugs; Reidy brought in a drum kit, which he skitters across on one of the three lengthy cuts on the album; and Stapleton had his arsenal of junk, toys, and tapes. Through the aid of drugs and alcohol, Stapleton mixed and mastered the album; and quickly sent it off to get it pressed. When the albums arrived, he admits being horrified by the results, qualifying it as "a dismal failure, a dreadful pressing, and an appallingly carefree mix -- in fact a seriously misguided project altogether." So he vowed to never reissue the album by burning the masters.
Yet some 25 years later, a confluence of events forced Steve to reconsider his position. First came a package from Matt Waldron of irr. app. (ext.) with reconditioned artwork for the original album; then came word that Robot Records' mastermind Kevin Spencer had painstakingly constructed a digital master from the original vinyl simply because he had loved the album so much. So when Steve finally returned to the work, he now admits being "pleasantly surprised." And here we are, finally the reissue of Insect And Individual Silenced!
Insect is an album guided by the slice of a razor, as tape edits had to be done by hand. Stapleton's collage techniques have always been deft in their erratic disruptions and maniacal detours, and Insect is no exception. The first track "Alvin's Funeral" is a wonderful and wild ride through demented sounds all going in multiple directions at once, which make it easy to get lost in this maze of distortion, sound effects, and splattered guitar noise. There's an urban gamelan of springs and bowls with the varispeed being fucked with as the tape drags across the recording heads; there's the screeched sound of metal dragged against the floor, overblowing what the magnetic tape could handle (ah, what a lovely sound compared to the ugliness of digital peaking!); there's a sampled scream from Disney's Haunted Mansion LP; and then some surprisingly sublime moments where a collaged section of distant female vocals duet with a string of shells being shaken. But the jump cuts and quick edits of dynamic volumes between the quiet and loud that keep this moving at a frantic pace. The second piece seems to have much more of that aforementioned studio session present with skittering drums and seering white hot guitar noise grating against the ears. The final number is a precursor to the screeching metal collages of Organum, albeit far more feral and atonal.
It's obvious that what Steve Stapleton may view as his own personal failure is greater than most everything that's come afterward from any of the post-Industrial soundscapers.
We have always loved Yoshimi, whether she's bashing the skins in the Boredoms, hanging out with Kim Gordon in Free Kitten or kicking up a serious ruckus in OOIOO, her main love these days. Hot of the heels of their latest outing Taiga comes this scorching remix e.p. courtesy of Yoshimi's Boredoms cohort Eye Yamatsuka. He takes the Roberto De Simone inspired standout tracks Uma and Umo and turns them into hot flashes of an African influenced late night rave that we wish we could be at. The other two tracks are the original versions from Taiga.
We didn't get to reviewing this right away even though we've been big fans of P.G. Six in the past (especially his debut album Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites, an all-time fave here) maybe just 'cause the painting of the pink Cadillac on the cover made us a little wary. Someone should be "Slightly Sorry" for that artwork! But rest assured, the music on P.G.'s Slightly Sorry is again the mellow, melodic, timeless folk-indie-pop we expect from him, the influence of his '60s/'70s British folk scene inspirations still strong (the likes of Nick Drake, Fairport, Pentangle, Incredible String Band), with a Sandy Denny/Linda Thompson element added on two of the tracks by the guest female vocals provided by his Tower Recordings bandmate Helen Rush. But we also hear some Neil Young and Byrds too for sure, 'specially on the more "band" sounding cuts, though it's the hushed and intimate tracks with just P.G.'s acoustic guitar and his calm, plain voice that thrill us the most.
This album is definitely representin' the more polished side of the P.G. Six sound, and should please those who really loved Well Of Memory, as it's not so much about the rustic 4-track DIY experimentation of his Parlor Tricks disc, let alone the harp string dronology of last year's Music From The Sherman Box Series cd.
Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better.�
There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. The is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost.�
Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music.�
Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde�Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like�Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have,�over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped.
Recorded back in 1999, Die Festung was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the second in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each�packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes.
Unlike the other Paysage D'Hiver reissue reviewed elsewhere on this list (Schattengang), Die Festung is an epic and expansive series of ambient soundscapes, and not specifically black ambience, instead, the sound is much more along the lines of classic Krautrock a la Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh or Cluster. Some folks here also heard some Gooomy trancelike bliss, like Cyann And Ben or M83, but way more minimal and spacey. All glistening soundscapes of looped synthesizers, simple keyboard figures repeated over and over and slowly shifting, layers of minor key whir, and vocal like melodies, epic and grand, smooth shimmery swells and majestic sweeps, sparkling clouds of electronic twinkles all glimmering and sparkling. Paysage D'Hiver translates to landscape of winter, and Die Festung sounds precisely like that. It's hard not to imagine long tracking shots of soft blue glaciers, of snowy peaks and forests that go on forever. A view from above of frosty landscapes and endless fields of snow and ice. So totally mesmerizing and lovely. The perfect companion to the buzzing black murk of�Schattengang.
Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest and mysterious distant castle drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....
Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better.�
There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. The is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost.�
Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music.�
Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde�Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like�Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have,�over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped.�
Recorded back in 1999,�Schattengang was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the first in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each�packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes.
Schattengang is three long tracks, the longest almost 21 minutes, the shortest just under 7. Forty one minutes of haunting ambient foresty buzz. The opening track begins with some�gorgeous shimmery tranquil ambience, which soon�gives way to a murky muddy black buzzing smear, super blown out, and washed out, thick swaths of epic keyboards, over barely audible riffing, buried drumming, and vocals that are another murky layer of sound. Occasionally, the clouds part and you can hear some grim primitive riffing, but soon they are sucked back into a swirl of whirling blackness and dense FX, it's so fuzzy, and droney, it's almost more hypnotic and mesmerizing than blasting, but listen close and there is some serious black fury within Paysage's thick wash of whirled sound. The buzz eventually shifts gears�to a lugubrious, glacial funereal doom, plodding and monstrous, with huge simple drums, and long drawn out crumbling chords, guttural vocals, all stretched into a slithery blackened crawl. It's difficult to explain precisely why this stuff is so compelling, but it's just so dark and murky, and buzzy and dreamy, but not really like some of the other buzzy dreamy blackness we have championed in the past.�
The second track begins with more drifting surreal ambience, tinkling�sleigh bells, before�a huge wave of fuzzy guitar drone, and swirling spaced out keyboards engulfs everything, a dense black blur, all the parts so fast and furious, so tangled up and smeared together, it sounds almost like some strange buzzing drone underpinned by sweeping cinematic keyboards, laced with�bits of dialogue and found sounds... About halfway through the song winds down into a dark droning�interlude all dreary synths, strange thumps and creaks, disembodied voices, the distant cry of wolves, the whir of the night winds, but it's not long before it's back to�full on droneblast, before finally slowly blissing out into a very mournful Xasthur like arpeggiated minor key coda, a loping almost sea sick waltz that loops and loops hypnotically before fading out. So epic. So black yet so strangely beautiful.�
The final track is all ambient,�shimmering swaths of keyboard, glistening and glimmering, very Tangerine Dream or maybe Popol Vuh,�while beneath the surface, voices whisper and groan quietly, haunting hiss and bits of wind-like whir drift by, quite haunting and again very cinematic. Our new favorite blast of freezing grim black mystery for sure.�
Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....
The final installment in Tiliqua's Erotic Oriental Sunshine series of Japanese erotic music from the sixties and seventies (the fifth of five!). We reviewed Kokotsu No Sekai from Japanese sexy action heroine Ike Reiko a while back, Kuwabara Yukiko To Anata from Japanese "Play Girl" Kuwabara Yukiko not long after that, and then Modae No Heya from seventies bondage / S&M queen Naomi Tani, music recorded and released in 1979 to commemorate her retirement from the world of porn. And most recently Tokyo Emmanuelle Fujin - Amai Yoru No Tameiki from legendary porn actress Taguchi Kumi. The final installment is, according to the label, perhaps the rarest of the bunch, with original copies fetching thousands of dollars, and to our ears, it's also maybe the best of the bunch, certainly the weirdest.
For those just discovering the wonderful world of Iroke Kayoyoku for the first time, it's a sort of loungy exotica, equal parts Les Baxter and Ennio Morricone, a bastardized version of a more popular Asian music of the time, a funky, groovy, soulful soundtrack music, but sexed up with chanteuse like crooning, and most important of all, an amazing array of moaning and groaning and cooing and giggling, very playful and silly and sexy.
Originally released in 1971 (in keeping with Allan's 1971 music theory, see about a hundred other reviews...), Petite M'Amie was in fact the nickname of Mari Keiko, who could very well be responsible for the very first iroke record, which perhaps explains the relative lack of nudity on the sleeve, Girl Friend - Baby Doll was the seed, from which would sprout a whole genre of sexually depraved sounds...
As her nickname might have led you to believe, Keiko's schtick is innocence, the whole Lolita factor, and boy does she play it up, giggling and cooing, purring in the listener's ear, so sexy and sultry, but very 'little girl' like. The music is similar to the other installments, Morricone-ish spaghetti Western twang, smooth Lawrence Welk muzak, horns and strings, funky and jazzy in places, and on this disc maybe more than some of the others, a bit of psychedelia mixed in. As always, it's all about the vocals though, draped sexily over the strange musical backdrops, Keiko delivers her pitch perfect Lolita tease, culminating in the track "Shower", which is just the sounds of Keiko in the shower, the rushing water, splashing and sloshing, and her cooing and giggling all reverby from the shower's tile walls. Sexy for sure, but still very very strange.
Packaged in a super deluxe Japanese miniature gatefold style cd sleeve, with a printed obi, saucy non-nude photos of Keiko on the cover, and extensive liner notes in English and Japanese!
ULTRA LIMITED!!! Unlike the others in this series, this one was limited to only 500 copies, and is, yep, you guessed it, already out of print. We got a bunch, but if the other volumes were any indication, these will be gone in a flash!
Bow down, people. Just bow down. If extended, repetitive, droned-out krauty stoner prog a la Circle is your thing, then this disc definitely for you, surprise surprise. Sheer hypnosis. Utterly mesmeric. Sounds sooooooooooooo gooooooooooood. It's hard to think of these guys as just a band, the music here seems produced by some organic force. It's a living thing really. A throbbing monster of an album.
Just like their sister band Circle, of which they're all members, Finnish psychsters Pharaoh Overlord have built a discography (they're up to six albums now, counting this one) that somehow maintains a core identity yet always does something different each time out. They started off with the stoner rock riff mantras of #1, then went to the mostly subdued noirishness of II, followed that with the live-and-raw Battle Of The Axehammer, then came back with the krautrockingly Circle-like diversions of #3, all before delving into the absurdly headbanging metallisms of #4 that even added vocals to their previously instrumental lineup. So, now what? What next? A second live album, this time called Live In Suomi Finland, recorded in Helsinki in May of 2006. On it the regular Pharaoh Overlord lineup of Jussi, Tomi and Janne is augmented by two more Finnish friends, and special guest Hans Joachim Irmler of legendary krautrockers Faust! His electric organ grind here adds an extra dose of distorted drone to the proceedings.
Of the two live PO discs this is definitely the best sounding. It's not as raw and blown-out as Battle Of The Axehammer, it's got better fidelity, but if anything it's even heavier!! Perhaps its the additional "remixing" credited to Irmler, whatever magic he worked in later in the Faust studio definitely makes this more than "just" a live album.
There's five tracks here, though it's a very continuously flowing disc... starting with the infectious riffery of "Black Horse" (which has appeared previously only in another live version on Battle Of The Axehammer), followed by two totally new tracks, "Tutankharmony" and "Zero Gravity" that relax the volume and mood a bit with a sense of smokey, improv mystery. Then they launch into "Skyline", the heaviest cut from II, before winding up / blowing out with a quarter-hour rendition #1's "Mangrove". An incredible 50+ minutes all told. Boy, we wish we'd been there! Too bad SF-Helsinki flights aren't quick or cheap...
Elsewhere on the list you'll find the latest from freaky druggy noise rockers Burnt Hills, with their latest, Stoners Pot Palace. Another eyebrow singing blast of chaotic kraut flecked space rock garage stomp. But at least one member of Burnt Hills has a soft side, and they let it shine as Pog, a gorgeous rambling sonic sprawl of lo-fi murk and melody, sounding much more like some slab of foresty Finnish Folk than the work of one of the Burnt Hills. Employing a mighty (and mighty bizarre) arsenal of noisemakers including bongos, floor drum, triola, acoustic guitar, kiddie accordion, broken kiddie electric guitar, cello, piano, electric guitar, kick drum, electric mandolin, wah wah, giant metal tweezers, pocket rocket and a little big muff, all recorded on random old dusty tape decks boom boxes and dictaphones and it sounds like it. Everything warbly and murky, the production a muddy blur, rendering all the sounds soft and smeared and slightly out of focus, which only adds to the dreaminess vibe of Mitote.�
Strange wheezing melodies flutter and shimmer amidst streaks of foggy ambience, notes are wreathed in dusty halos of reverb and delay, it almost sounds like some strange calliope music transmitted via shortwave and broadcast through a tiny transistor radio. Strings moan and drift, pianos plink and plonk it expansive fields of murky shimmer, full on rock riffs are muted and smothered into strange rhythmic series of thumps, every sound Pog creates is lovingly wrapped in all manner of lo-fi detritus, warm swirls of tape hiss, thick sheets of blurry FX, rendering everything soft and billowy and effervescent. Definitely fans of Avarus and Anaksimandros and Kemialliset will dig this a bunch, as will most cd-r fanatics into lo fi murk and dreamy drone-y drift.
Packaged in handmade gatefold sleeves, with various artwork and photos affixed to the inside and outside, as well as a pop up flower on the inside, LIMITED TO 99 COPIES, each disc hand numbered, the cd-r's cool faux 'vinyl' discs complete with inner label.
Now available on vinyl!
Wow! What an artifact. Here's some Egyptian jazz from the late '60s-early '70s courtesy of of the man who founded the first jazz big band in Egypt and later accompanied Sun Ra on tour in Egypt, Greece, France and Spain. We're pretty sure you must be damn curious by now, so we should tell you that beyond those enticing facts this is some seriously fine jazz played by a band made up of some of the best musicians in Egypt during that era. Five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, piano, bass, drums and percussion all coming together to form a super rich and tasty sound. Incorporating Middle Eastern melodies and mystique into its sound, this is the kind of jazz that's pretty impossible not to fall for. Like the best instrumental Ethiopiques tracks, Sun Ra's big-band era and Randy Weston's multicultural approach to hard bop. Incredibly pleasing!
The Terry Riley reissue campaign is in full effect and this week we were delighted to see his little heard seventies soundtracks, Les Yeux Fermes (Eyes Closed) from 1972 and Lifespan from 1974 arrive in our store (well, maybe Scott wasn't so delighted after shelling out $30 dollars for Lifespan on vinyl, just a couple of weeks ago). Le Yeux Fermes is comprised of two nearly twenty-minute pieces that are reminiscent of his early work on Reed Streams. The first is "Journey From A Death of a Friend" involving multiple organ and piano lines in counterpoint and the second is a more involved piece with delayed saxophone and organ counterpoints called "Happy Endings". The selections for Lifespan are six shorter pieces, which are a bit more diverse and melody oriented in their structures. "G Song" begins with an organ fugue repetition before the sax melody gives the piece more of a soundtrack theme, while "M.I.C.E.", short for Music In Curved Entrances, begins with a sustained organ and tabla drone before the melodic organ progressions kick into gear leading into the raga drones of "Slow Melody in Bhairavi" and the chanting Tangerine Dream-ish, "In The Summer". "The Oldtimer "is the most playful with an almost carnivalesque organ vamp, while "Delay" is just that, a slow burning organ drone with building and repeating organ lines that coalesce in a sea of pensive harmonics. We're surprised Riley hasn't done more soundtrack work. Listening to this makes us want to see the movies, especially Lifespan, which stars Klaus Kinski as a biochemist on a frantic search for the fountain of youth!
An unusual and utterly unhinged black metal album from two of the members of Norway's Neetzach (whose debut cd we reviewed a couple lists ago), Vrangsinn and Dirge Rep. They call Secht "a musical piece of pure insanity". We'd agree, though some might take exception to the "musical" part. They go on to say that it was "composed under Satanic and Narcotic influence" which we do believe. Seriously though, this is certainly a cult concept: it's all one 37 minute track, starting off with drizzling rain-sounds and melancholic acoustic guitar, developing a disturbing, droning atmosphere with baby-like black metal mewlings before unleashing a full-on electric guitar and drums assault, building ever-heavier and more frenzied, with angular breakdowns and an overall extremely maniacal vibe. About twenty four minutes in, it returns to hissing ambience, a creeped-out chill-out in the forest before a final dose of chattering distortion ends the album. File with Abruptum, Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Caacrinolas, Rakhim, and whatever other semi-improvised, soundscapey, single-tracked, non-standard black metal you can think of...
And making this even more crazed and cult, since the Secht duo are such scenesters they were able to enlist such friends/fiends as Gaahl (Gorgoroth), Nattefrost (Carpathian Forest), and Nocturno Culto (Darkthrone) amongst others to provide additional screams n' sounds!
All you folks who have been in a Sunroof! / Avarus / Kemialliset Ystevat / Jewelled Antler tizzy lately and can't get enough free-noise-drone-folk-psych weirdness, would do well to check out the Skaters, a lesser know outfit from right here in SF. These cats kick up a serious skree, huge swirling clouds of overblow guitars, washes of crumbly distortion, chaotic drumming, all over a bed of caveman percussion and plink plonk ambience. Closest comparison might be Avarus with Keiji Haino on supersonic black hole lead guitar. Or a Dead C / Sunroof! jam session gone mental. SUPER LIMITED. In fact this was tour only, the tour is over and we have the only remaining copies. Released on the Finnish Humbug label.
Kick ass '70s proto-metal awesomeness alert! This Swedish band, who only managed one self-released LP back in 1976, combined hard rock panache with rough-edged rawness. This cd reissue is one we've been waiting for! Seriously, every time we do an order with the Mellotronen label over in Sweden (they're the folks responsible for that Charlie & Esdor reissue we love so much, among other things), we've been asking 'em, when are you gonna repress the Solid Ground? A cd reissue of Solid Ground's extremely rare Made In Rock album was actually the first thing their label ever did, but it had been out of print for years. Well, finally they got some bonus tracks rounded up and now present us with a new, deluxe version, in a digipack with liner notes from the band and all!
It's a powerful mix of all things cool about rock in the '70s, from the swinging stoner boogie of Sabbath and Budgie and UFO to the glammy uber-catchiness of KISS and The Sweet to the melodic guitar heroics of Thin Lizzy... all done with almost punkish, sassy attitude and energy.
And they've got some excellent, evocative of the era lyrics too, like these: "In the evening they go to discoteques / and drink champagne and listen to T-Rex / boys and girls look at each other / nothing happens no action no reactions" from the song "This Bloody Town". Meanwhile the production is in-your-face, plenty of distortion and reverb. HEAVY. Only 200 copies of the vinyl album were ever made, and the band eventually broke up in the wake of disco fever, a shame.
The 8 added bonus tracks include the two songs from Solid Ground's sole single, two more from the 1974 single by pre-Solid Ground band 4-EVER, plus four -new- tracks recorded in 2006 that aren't half-bad... harking back to their old sound with one foot in more modern grunginess (due to having new, younger singer perhaps). It's neat that they're playing again anyway -- we sure wish we could have made it over to Mellotronen's big 20th anniversary bash last January which featured not just these guys but also the reunited likes of Mecki Mark Men, November, Life, Flasket Brinner and others!! Wow.
NB. this Solid Ground are not to be confused with krautrockers My Solid Ground, another band from the '70s we love.
We've been huge fans of the Stars Of The Lid ever since their first record, Music For Nitrous Oxide, way back in 1995. And their last record, Tired Sounds Of... is a beloved favorite and all time AQ best seller. It's been fascinating to observe their sonic development, from murky guitar based 4-track bedroom guitar drones, all foggy and fuggy and murky and dreamlike, to their current sound, a more modern, almost classical sound, of rich reverberant swells, and lots and lots of space.
The Stars' sound has obviously become much more clear and well defined, polished even, but everything we loved about Nitrous Oxide is still present, albeit in slightly altered form. The Stars' were always about swells, ebb and flow, melodies and compositions played out over expansive stretches of oceanic shimmer, and that at least hasn't changed on And Their Refinement Of The Decline. Notes aren't just played, they begin as tiny sparkles, little distant glimmers, and gradually grow into thick rich whirs, or massive rumbles, before just as quickly fading away again. Oceanic is definitely an apt descriptor, as the music here, as on the more recent records, does have that feel, like some epic dimly lit sonic sea swirling and churning, sometime tranquil and barely moving, other times heaving and tumultuous. It's the sound of a new dawn, an impending storm, or the birth of a galaxy, it's so completely epic while at the same time managing somehow to be pastoral and contemplative and breathtakingly beautiful.
In the early days it was just 2 guitars and a four track, and the sound reflected that, much more gritty and fuzzy, the mood a lot darker, evoking the desert, the starry sky, a druggy dreamy innerspace of muted minimal shimmer. As the band grew, and added instruments, more players, recorded in real studios, the sound changed dramatically, and suddenly, instead of some indie bedroom project, the Stars were crafting pieces that could stand alongside any modern classical piece, while remaining dreamy and drone-y enough to tickle the ears of indie dronesters worldwide. Which is probably the most fascinating part of the Stars' sound. They were making music equally as expansive and epic and gorgeous 10 years ago, but those sounds were limited by the technology, by the band's meager recording set up. And only now it seems that the band is able to fully realize the sound they have been hearing, and essentially creating, all along.
There are guitars here and there, it is after all still the root of their sound, but they seem to be overshadowed by the other instruments (although it is often difficult to pinpoint the instrument creating many of the sounds), heavy on the strings, three violincelles and a harp, as well as a surprising arsenal of horns, two trumpets, flugelhorn and clarinet, AND a children's choir!! But it's not just the players or the instruments, but how they interact and the music they create, and here the results are divine. Many of the tracks do sound like bits of modern classical stretched out into languorous stretches of muted drone and subtle shimmer, like watching the planets from outer space, observing the epic drifts of solar systems and an infinity of cosmic interactions, but others definitely reference more earthly sonic treasures, "Apreludes (In C Sharp Major)" has some serious Morricone going on, and "Don't Bother They're Here" references Scott Tuma's washed out guitar work in Souled American. But whatever subtle flavor is introduced into each track, the sound is definitely and distinctly Stars Of The Lid. Their shift to double disc releases also seems to suit them, allowing their slow burning soft swell compositions plenty of time to sprawl and spread and evolve into epic and soul stirring soundscapes. But even two discs is not nearly enough as far as we're concerned, so everyone buy this one, so next time, these guys can release a four disc set, or a ten disc set or a twenty disc set...
First proper cd release from Students Of Decay cd-r label head honcho Alex Cobb's solo guitar project Taiga Remains. Collecting two tracks from a long out of print cd-r as well as including two brand new looooong tracks,�Crushed Radiant Deities is sort of the more active side of Taiga Remains' sound. On the Ribbons Of Dust series of 3" cd-r's Cobb wove spidery, smokey ambient shimmer from slowly unfurling guitars, creating a sound more like a whisper or a ghost, where as the last few releases have been more dense, more noisy, and more from the Birchville / Vibracathedral school of drawn out raga drones. The interesting thing is, Cobb's weapon of choice is an ACOUSTIC guitar! Hard to believe some of these sounds were coaxed from just an acoustic guitar, electronics and voice.�
The two new tracks are longform epics, slow shifting, layered and textural blurs of sound, gritty and fuzzy, layer upon layer, over the course of each track, building in intensity, becoming a near industrial blast of M83 fuzz and My Bloody Valentine swoon and Birchville skree all wound up into one thick pulsing shimmering wall of dense sound.�
The two older tracks aren't so sharp or shimmery, instead, they are a bit more lo-fi, one track is muddy and murky with mumbled melodies, all the hiss and skree, smoothed into warm warbly smears, very dreamy and underwater sounding, a static drift, the various layers of sound shifting almost imperceptibly, the other is thick and fierce, another static wash of buzzing and whirring, like a symphony of lawnmowers and weed wackers and air conditioners, subtle melodies and barely there shifts in tone and timbre buried within a serious squall of swarming insectoid buzz. Awesome stuff.�
Packaged in a super nice black white and red fold together cardstock sleeve, with a cool abstract splatter design on the outside, and liner notes and abstract little spirograph designs on the inside. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
ULTRA LIMITED, HAND SILKSCREENED lp from local post-drone-rock outift Tarentel. We've had the sonic good fortune of listening to Tarentel develop over the years from a Tortoise like post-rock ensemble to a truly risk taking experimental group, who wield a deft hand with catchy melodies and clever, complex song writing, but never shy away from taking big chances, experimenting with sound and sounds, leaning lately much more toward the abstract soundscape end of the spectrum, which of course we can't get enough of. From the opening track, a downright dreamy expanse of gentle piano, warm whooshing woodwinds and delicate acoustic guitars to the much darker and abrasive second track, a super distorted rumbling dronescape, swirling and churning around a shuffling jazzy rhythm and some creaking machine like melodies. The remaining seven tracks are a mix of the two, stretched out, blissed out smears of twinkling synths, and fluttery minimal percussion, all occasionally disrupted by big fuzzy spurts of distorted rumble and sunspot like flashes of digital glitchery. So gorgeous. And again, VERY LIMITED. Beautiful hand screened sleeves, strictly limited to 500 copies, not sure how many we'll be able to get!
What's this? Maybe the cover, all-black but for the name Tarkus, caught your eye? Holy grail time here, people. We've been wanting to get this album on cd FOREVER. There was a hard-to-find LP reissue some years ago, but we'd never yet found a cd version -- until now, at last, and it's a totally legit one from the master tapes! Released (barely, in an edition of just, like, 50 copies) in Tarkus' native Peru back in 1972, this is an album to go down in the annals of heavy rock, proudly belonging to the pantheon of proggy proto-metal!!! We'd definitely rank this with favorites of ours in that truly cult realm, other early '70s stuff like Necronomicon and Night Sun and Eduardo Bort and Steamhammer's Speech!
It may be that they're named after the ELP's 1971 album Tarkus (you know, the one with that freaky armadillo/tank on the cover), but they don't sound much like ELP in any event. While progressive rock is part of their sound, this Tarkus come across more like a bizarro hybrid of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and some of the more out-there and baroque Italian prog outfits of the era, rather than ELP. It's music that's dark and doomy and powerful and psychedelically dosed, sometimes with really weird operatic vocals -- and always with about a zillion cool, heavy guitar riffs. It's meant to be played LOUD. Shouldn't be hard to comply!
With some very pretty melodies and acoustic moments, Tarkus somehow seem like a '60s garage psych act (which they previously were, Tarkus being formed by members of Peruvian psych-pop group Telegraph Ave.) in possession of a crystal ball that enabled them to gaze into the future to be anachronistically inspired by Black Sabbath's Sabotage album, which was released three years later in 1975 (we'll have to assume that crystal ball had a place to plug in earphones).
This comes packaged in a gatefold, miniature LP styled sleeve. There's a folded color insert, another black and white lyric sheet, and also separate liner notes in both Spanish and English, which make mention of the band dressing like monks when they made one of their rare live appearances.
And by the way, we'd somehow suspect that Portland's Danava have heard this record. If not, they should -- we think they'd like it! And we think you will too, if any of the above raving and referencing strikes a chord!
After twenty plus years since they terminated their mission, Throbbing Gristle have reformed. This collaborative reunion originally was to be just a one off live gig; then it became a second weekend long festival that had to be canceled; and it's quite probable that these four pioneers of Industrial Culture just shrugged their collective shoulders and decided, "what the hell, let's record an album!" So, here it is Part Two The Endless Not; and while no one is ever going to mistake this album for the follow-up to the primitive electronic constructions of DOA or Second Annual Report, this is a truly compelling album that successfully reintegrates the divergent aesthetics that evolved out of Throbbing Gristle. The erotically charged pulse streams of Chris & Cosey and the polyglot electric psychedelia of Coil combine perfectly as the shattered mirror sonic arrangements for Genesis P-Orridge's half-sung sermons, which continue along the same Burroughsian cut-up principles that have been his signature sound throughout the herky-jerky career of Psychic TV. It's still somewhat amusing that Genesis has chosen not to learn to sing, but his warbled slurring vocals still have a peculiar charisma that no one else could ever pull off. Musically, Part Two The Endless Not seems to have much more in common with the posthumous Coil releases, with melancholy marimba and slickly polished synthesized structures harboring funereal melodies and whirling data-crunched rhythms; and it causes one to ask if Sleazy Christopherson was in fact the man behind most of the brilliance of Throbbing Gristle's earlier work. Admittedly, Part Two The Endless Not exhibits a considerable cleanliness and palatability which couldn't have been a part of the early TG sound; but this is nonetheless a great record from four great musicians.
Wow! The latest from this large ensemble from Mali once again demonstrate that they are one of the best bands anywhere on this planet. Their mix of electric guitars with more traditional acoustic percussion comes just flows so naturally with an effortless grace and style that just seeps into your soul. After their great debut from a few years back and a tour of the states (their show here in SF at the Great American Music Hall is still burned into the memories of those of us who were there that night!) there was of course the natural concern that like much great music from the other side of the globe that finally reaches these parts, that some glossy western producer would try to get their hands on Tinariwen and water them down for mass consumption. Tinariwen actually don't need any of that to reach a broad audience as their songs are so well crafted as they are, and so filled with warmth and emotion that they're pretty impossible not to love. Recorded in just two weeks, there is an urgency and undeniable spirit to these recordings, capturing their sound maybe better then any past recording of them has. Their music continues to exude the essence of the desert and what it means to be a nomadic people. The way they are able to find the perfect groove and lock into it is what sweeps us off our feet every time we listen to this. We would love to see them play shows with Brightblack Morning Light, as Tinariwen's warmth and deep grooves would be the perfect match for Brightblack's infectious take on nomad blissed out blues. This is quickly becoming one of our favorite records of the year, one of those discs that we can just say 'get it' with the utmost confidence. And it won't take you long to understand why!
Why does anyone bother with the current crop of "stoner rock" when there's so much better stuff made back in the original stoner age (the '70s) now being reissued?? If you're into the Man's Ruin roster, and prone to buying albums by the latest Swedish Kyuss
Rafael Toral has adopted the persona of Keith Rowe (minus the guitar this time) in crafting a series of improvisations for home built electronics that squiggle, bleep, and fizz. There's absolutely no processing to these expressionist burblings, and the whole thing comes off as something similar to early computer music with a freewheeling scribble crafting the sounds instead of algorithmic functions.
Discovering new genres of music, especially those involving cross-cultural fertilization of the most unlikely sorts, is always a big turn on for us at AQ. And whether it be go-go beat music from Cambodia, "Anadolu Pop" from Turkey, the Latin-flavored psychedelia of Brazil's Tropicalia movement, the "hillbilly drone" of Henry Flynt, or the black metal jug band dub of Black Ark Oaken Saw (whoops, sorry, that last one doesn't actually exist, yet), we're always fascinated to hear international artists melding their indigenous musical traditions with popular styles from the Western world. So Peru's Uchpa, an electric blues / hard rock band who sing in Quechua, the Native American language of the ancient Incan Empire, is right up our alley. Even Andee, who usually gives Allan a hard time for supposedly liking so much straight-up "blues rock", digs this. The extremely nasal-sounding vocals (which we're not sure is a trait of the singer, or typical of how Quechua normally sounds) give Uchpa a weird enough vibe to fit in here at AQ, no problem. Although in any case we'd probably be tempted to give this the thumbs up just 'cause of the cover picture -- a cud-chewing llama strapped with a double necked acoustic 12 and 6 string guitar! Who doesn't love llamas, and double necks??
Uchpa formed in the mid-'90s and this is their third album, from 2000. They've got a newer one or two but we picked this to import from Peru just 'cause of the aforementioned cover art. Most of the tracks, with titles like "Manakutimusaqchu" and "Yanapaway Yuksimuyta", are kick ass rockers with lots of amped up crunch, and in addition to those frantic, nasal Quechua vocals they've also got some ethnic instrumentation employed alongside the heavy, bluesy, wah-wah laced guitar licks. Basically, you could sum up Uchpa as "Hendrix in the Andes". If you like the Tuvan-rock hybrid of Yat-kha, this might have the same appeal, even though it's from a totally different part of the world.
Includes two QuickTime videos, which lets you see Uchpa's singer performing wearing what appears to be a traditional Incan costume, including a quite remarkable piece of headgear.
It seems like we've been waiting forever for this, and finally it's here!! As you know we're big fans of Andy Votel's folk and prog comps as well as the Finders Keepers reissue series, and this collection does not disappoint. The first volume had all sorts of amazing songs from mostly bands we had never heard of, save for two or three exceptions. But with that and the help of Bob Stanley's stellar Acid Folk comps, Gathering In The Mushrooms, and An Early Morning Hush, as well as reissue labels Lion, Water and Sunbeam, our ears have been pricked up to rare folk ever since, so we are a bit ahead of the game in terms of making a whole lot of new discoveries here on this collection, which includes store favorites, Sibylle Baier, Pentangle, Turid, Susan Christie and Emmanuelle Parrenin. But there are plenty of surprises and wonderful inclusions such as the female Spanish/Dutch duo, Vainica Doble, the sitar-folk stylings of Paul Parrish, the Swedish prog-folk of Midsommar, the child sung lullabyes of Jan and Lorraine, Hawaii's These Trails, the Dutch commune folk of Elly & Rikkart, The Christian folk of Parchment and 11.59 and stalwart blues-folk heavyweight, Alexis Korner, among many others. So Awesome!!!
First in a proposed series of lps, based on a phrase used by Henry Cowell and later included in a lecture by John Cage, which in a nutshell describes a musical movement of the time (Wolff, Brown, Feldman, Cage, etc.) involving getting rid of the glue and allowing sounds to be themselves, instead of sticking them together into some sort of continuous form.
High concept certainly, and while it is easy to hear how the various artists on this comp did in fact get rid of the glue, loosed from the concept, it still plays like some killer outsider free rock compilation. Which it is. Some of the names you probably know, Excepter, Talibam!, BIG A little a, but most of them you probably don't.
A quick track by track: Dirty Churches do a sort of droning hypnorock, with guttural female vocals and drifting psych guitars, definitely the most 'glued' of the bunch. Spin-17 are kind of like a brain damaged Deerhoof, sing songy nonsense female vocals, weird gurgly male vocals, and other strange childlike vocalizations, toy percussion, all clattery and chaotic and very weird. K.P. are a sludge-skree collective from Brooklyn and manage to kick up a serious din, massive crumbling distortion, damaged electronics, dense and dark and seriously freaked out. BIG A little a (Aa) rock a sort of spaced out psychedelic rhythmscape, thick buzzing synths, tribal drumming, almost sounding like a super lo-fi version of newer Boredoms mixed with Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh. Fessenden features at least one member from Pan-American, but sounds nothing like that, instead it's a buzzing minimal electro acoustic soundscape, lots of hiss and fuzz, drone and buzz, creaks and clatter and grinding crunch, a creepy industrial ambience, thick with mysterious muted percussion. Eager Meek is one man and a guitar, but you'd never know it. All sorts of swirly ambience, strange distant percussive rattles and scrapes, very haunting and spaced out. Up next is Mialessot, featuring NYC saxophonist Daniel Carter and analog noisemaker Old Ghost. Imagine a free jazz / Japanoise mashup and you'd have a pretty good idea of what these guys are all about. A bracing blast of damaged synths and blown out guitarnoise, a swirling roiling cloud of grind and rrrrooooaaar all piled atop a squirming and skronking tangle of free jazz sax, bleating and moaning and screeching. Pretty far out. Maria Chavez, does some super abstract turntable noise, utilizing old records and an arsenal of damaged record needles to create a spacious sound field peppered with lots of crackle and squeaks, pops and scrapes and alien squiggles, very minimal and abrasive but really awesome. would love to hear more from her.
Finally a killer closing one two punch. First Talibam! who give us their fucked and furious drums vs. synth sound, this time the relentlessly spastic free jazz drum splatter is pitted against creepy atonal organ (sounding a bit like a ball park organ) and fuzzed out synth. The Excepter, fronted by an ex No Necker, doing some weird eighties faux new wave thing, with electronic percussion, cheesy synths and really loud vocals, wrapped in tons of effects, reverb especially, swooping and soaring and sounding seriously demented.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Includes a fold out poster with art by all the bands... ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search fr the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! ALL SMILES "Ten Readings Of A Warning" (Dangerbird) cd 11.98 ALVA NOTO "Xerrox" (Raster-Norton) cd/lp 17.98/26.00 AM (ANTHONY MILTON) "Poerua Acid" (Diagnosis...Don't!) 3"cd-r 10.98 ARCTIC MONKEYS "Favorite Worst Nightmare" (Domino) cd 14.98 ART FLEURY "I Luoghi Del Potere" (Die-Schachtel) cd 27.00 ASBESTOSDEATH "Unclean / Dejection" (Southern Lord) cd 10.98 ASSEMBLE HEAD IN SUNBURST SOUND "Ekranoplan" (Tee Pee) cd/lp 13.98/ AUGHRA & MOSH PATROL "Is There Anyone Else Outside?" (Magic Bullet) cd 12.98 AUSTRASIAN GOAT, THE "s/t" (I Hate) cd 16.98 AVEY TARE & KIRA BREKKAN "Pullhair Rubeye" (Paw Tracks) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 BACHI DA PIETRA "Non Io" (Die Schachtel) cd 19.98 BASHIR, MUNIR "Rhythms & Melodies" (Le Chante Du Monde) cd 19.98 BATTLES "Atlas" (Warp) 12" 9.98 BLACK SABBATH "The Dio Years" (Rhino) cd 16.98 BOSETTI, ALESSANDRO "Expose" (Die Schachtel) cd 19.98 CARAVAN "If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over With You" (Eclectic Discs) cd 17.98 CARAVAN "In The Land Of Grey And Pink" (Eclectic Discs) cd 17.98 CEYLEIB PEOPLE "Tanyet" (Vault) lp 14.98 DALEK "Abandoned Language" (Ipecac) cd 15.98 DAME DARCY "DVD Hi-Jinx" (Press Pop) dvd 21.00 DANIELSON: A FAMILY MOVIE (A DOCUMENTARY MUSICAL BY JL ARONSON) (Image Entertainment) dvd 27.00 DEAD CHILD "s/t" (Cold Sweat) cd ep 10.98 DESTROY ALL MONSTERS "Grow Live Monsters" (MVD Visual) dvd/dvd 16.98/16.98 DEVILLOCK "These Graves" (Tone Filth) lp 15.98 DINOSAUR JR. "Beyond" (Fat Possum) cd 13.98 DODHEIMSGARD "Supervillain Outcast" (Moonfog) cd 13.98 EVOKEN "Embrace The Emptiness" (Elegy / Solitude) cd 14.98 FALL OUT BOY "Infinity On High" (Island) cd FINNTROLL "Ur Jordens Djup" (Spinefarm) cd 16.98 FLIED EGG "Dr. Siegel's Fried Egg Shooting Machine" (Universal Japan) cd 22.00 FLIED EGG "Goodbye" (Universal Japan) cd 22.00 FLYING LUTTENBACHERS "Destroy All Music Revisited" (Skin Graft) cd 14.98 FOLKSWINGERS, THE "Raga Rock" (Fall Out) cd 17.98 FOOD BRAIN "Bansan" (Universal Japan) cd 22.00 FORGOTTEN TOMB "Negative Megalomania" (Avantgarde) cd 14.98 FROG EYES "Tears Of The Valedictorian" (Absolutely Kosher) cd/lp 14.98/10.98 FURSAXA "Alone In The Dark Wood" (All Tomorrow's Parties) cd/lp 16.98/16.98 GAINSBOURG, CHARLOTTE "5:55" (Because/Vice) cd 15.98 GIFFONI, CARLOS & LASSE MARHAUG "Lesbian Brunch" (aRCHIVE) cd 14.98 GOWNS "Red State" (Cardboard) cd 11.98 GREENHAM, LILY "Lingual Music" (Paradigm) 2cd 26.00 GRINDERMAN "s/t" (Anti) cd/lp 14.98/11.98 HARRIS, BETTY "The Lost Soul Queen" (Aim) cd 16.98 HAVOK UNIT / ANDOCEANS / THE SIN:DECAY (V/A) "Synaethesia - The Requiem Reveries" (Vendlus) cd 9.98 HAYWARD, RICK "s/t" (Sunbeam) cd 16.98 HEBDEN, KIERAN AND STEVE REID "Tongues" (Domino) cd 15.98 HENRIKSEN, ARVE "Strjon" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 HOOKER, D.R. "The Truth" (Subliminal Sounds) cd 16.98 HOTOTOGISU + BURNING STAR CORE "Volume 1" (DroneDisco) cd 11.98 IRA DE DIOS, LA "Archaeopterix" (Ogro) cd 14.98 IRA DE DIOS, LA "Hacia El Sol Rojo" (Ogro) cd 14.98 JOYLESS "Wisdom & Arrogance" (No Colours) cd 15.98 KLAXONS "Myths Of The Near Future" (Geffen) cd 10.98 LADY SAW "Walk Out" (VP) cd 15.98 LAGHONIA "Unglue" (Repsychled) cd 15.98 LOUDEST WHISPER "The Children Of Lir" (Sunbeam Records) cd 16.98 LOVERS "Sleep With Heat" (Orange Twin) cd 15.98 MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "L'Autre Cap" (K) cd/lp 14.98/13.98 MARGINAL CONSORT "s/t" (Improvised Music From Japan) 4cd 79.00 MERZBOW "Bloody Sea" (Vivo) cd 14.98 MERZBOW "Merzbear" (Important) cd 14.98 MIKAMI, KAN "Barking Practice" (PSF) cd 22.00 MIKAMI, KAN "Live Kolian 2006" (Mikami Komuten) cd 22.00 MINSK "The Ritual Fires Of Abandonment" (Relapse) cd 12.98 MOONSORROW "V : Havitetty" (Unruly Sounds) cd 12.98 MOVING GELATINE PLATES "s/t" (Musea) cd 21.00 NOISETTES "What's The Time Mr. Wolf?" (Universal Motown) cd 10.98 OBSCURUS ADVOCAM "Verbia Daemonicus" (Battle Kommand) cd 14.98 ONO, YOKO "Open Your Box" (Astralwerks) cd 14.98 OPTIMO "Walkabout" (Endless Flight) cd 16.98 OV "Noctilucent Valleys" (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98 PAGAN ALTAR "Mythical & Magical" (Oracle Records) cd 21.00 PALE DIVINE "Cemetary Earth" (I Hate) cd 16.98 PLAIN RIDE "Strange Trial" (Ektro) cd 14.98 POLLARD, ROBERT "Silverfish Trivia" (Prom Is Coming) cd 10.98 PONYS, THE "Turn The Lights Out" (Matador) cd 13.98 PRIESTBIRD "In Your Time" (Kemado) cd 13.98 RAMESES III "Honey Rose" (Important) cd 9.98 ROTH, DAVID LEE "Sonrisa Salvaje" (Friday Music) cd 15.98 SILVER DAGGERS "New High & Ord" (Load) cd 14.98 SPOOKY, DJ "System Error. Al-Yamamah Mix" (Horus) cd 17.98 STARCHASER NETWORK "s/t" (Tarot Productions) cd 14.98 STINKING LIZAVETA "Screams Of The Iron" (At A Loss Recordings) cd 13.98 THRONE OF KATARSIS "An Eternal Dark Horizon" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 THUNDERBOLT "Apocalyptic Doom" (Agonia) cd 15.98 THUNDERSTORM "As We Die" (Spv GmbH) cd 16.98 TIMBALAND "Timbaland Present: Shock Value" (Blackground) cd 15.98 TIMES NEW VIKING "Present The Paisley Reich" (Siltbreeze) cd/lp 13.98/13.98 TRANSMISSION 0 "Memory Of A Dream" (Candlelight) cd 13.98 V/A "Colombia! The Golden Age Of Discos Fuentes. The Powerhouse Of Colombian Music 1960-76" (Soundway) cd 17.98 V/A "For The Sick: A Tribute To Eyehategod" (Emetic) 2cd 13.98 V/A "How Low Can You Go?" (Dust To Digital) 3cd 58.00 VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA "Wisdom Thunderbolt" (VHF) cd 13.98 VOG "s/t" (Shifty) cd 11.98 WE ALL TOGETHER "Singles" (Repsychled / Lion Productions) cd 15.98 WORMWOOD "Behemoth" (Kreation) 2x7" 7.98 XYNFONICA "A Feast For Famished Ravens" (Hekaloth / Cyclops) cd 15.98 ZORN, JOHN "Six Litanies For Heliogabalus" (Tzadik) cd 16.98 ZOZOBRA "Harmonic Tremors" (Hydra Head) cd 13.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
Take any preconceptions about Cuban music you might have and throw them out the window. This is simply one of the most exciting and awesome compilations we've heard in a while from a period that has never been fully explored before, the seventies and early eighties. We've heard rumors that the compiler, Dan Zacks, of Waxing Deep Radio, had to go to great lengths to obtain these recordings including risking his life sneaking into Cuba and bribing government officials, but it seems the efforts have paid off. This compilation offers an amazing glimpse into an extremely fertile period of socialism and artistic freedom, one rife with the same progressive musical styles (son, disco, fusion, soul and jazz) that were hitting the New York and LA Latin scenes around the same time, but with their own inventive use of production, unusual instrumentation, psychedelic influences, electronic experimentation, and as the title promises, funky beats. Each track is beautifully remastered from the original Cuban sessions. Who would have thought that Communist Funk would sound so liberating? Highly recommended!
The title of this compilation as well as the label name, not to mention the artists involved, should give you a pretty clear idea of what this comp is all about. Some serious deep listening, music on the Threshold Of Silence, featuring loads of AQ faves like Aidan Baker, Troum, Paul Bradley and others...
Yep, this is a collection of inward looking outward seeking minimal ambient drone music, and it's all quite gorgeous. Seven groups, utilizing a fairly standard array of instrumentation, synths, voice, percussion, guitar, effects, strings, keyboards, cello, electronics, analog modular system and water (!) between them, each picking some tiny microscopic corner of the sonic universe to open up and explore. Deep resonant cavernous underwater drones, warm bleary eyed drift, muted melodies floating above crystalline shimmers, dense melodic blurs rippling with subtle tonal color, fragments of guitar loosed and allowed to hover amidst opaque swirls and glimmering streaks of sound, long drawn out notes, layers of synths piled atop warm swells, all sorts of drones, from bright and sparkling, to murky and muddy to blissfully blown out, this without a doubt has become THE late night drifting off lullaby record of choice for some of us.�
Packaged in an oversized full plastic sleeve, with an oversized card, full color image on one side and liner notes on the other.�
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each disc hand numbered.
Ooooh, if it's pretty smart girl pop you want, it's pretty smart girl pop you shall receive, and Laura Veirs is the gal for you!
After the reissue of her early countrified concept album Triumphs & Travails Of Orphan Mae, Saltbreakers takes her back to the more straight-up college radio pop sound. Rosy cheeked and lushly produced. We've said it before, but it does bear repeating that an easy comparison is to imagine a female fronted Death Cab For Cutie or Pinback. All three offer the most soothing aural salves for rattled nerves and ice cream-y charms to satiate any sweet tooth. Fans of Tegan And Sara, Mirah or Rilo Kiley also would do well to take note!
Rocky Votolato's debut EP has been out of print for ages... until now! Yes, let's holler a big "Hooray!" 'cause it's been reissued with new artwork. Then let's settle down to enjoy his gentle, subdued Spartan folksy pop stylings. If you share our love for his full length titled Makers which came out on Barsuk Records in 2006, you've probably been on the look out more mellow, restful Rocky. Fortunately Second Nature Recordings felt the same way releasing this seven song EP to satiate our craving. So good...
"So it was that three hundred electric moons cancelled the ancient green queen of loves with their blinding chalk rays..."
So concludes one of the obscure, occultic pieces of text excerpted in the cd booklet of this new disc (in this case the Futurist prose poem "Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna" by Filippo Marinetti) and is to us a suitably evocative and cryptic description of the beautiful, distorted drones conjured by White/Lichens, a collaborative project staffed by Rob Lowe (aka Lichens, who records for the Kranky label in his hometown of Chicago) and Matt Clark and Jeremy Lemos of the Chicago heavy ambient guitar duo White/Light (who have a cd on Rebis).
Lichens' previous disc The Psychic Nature Of Being on Kranky (lp version on Holy Mountain) we described as "delicate" and "crystalline", constructed mainly from electronically-treated live improv loopings of his own voice, abetted with guitar and percussion. But the scary dronescapes of White/Lichens are more dense than delicate, the added weight of Clark and Lemos' guitars "heavy-ing up" the Lichens sound. You'll hear rumbling low-end and keening highs in this most satisfying set of billowing electric drone, what distantly sounds like a Morse code transmission buried beneath the destroyed residue of 1,000 doomed violins... It's like the Vibracathedral Orchestra scoring an opium induced nightmare, or the organic decay of an claustrophobic early Kluster track exposed to alien moonlight for the past 40 years. There's five tracks here, the first and last being the longest (19 and 16 minutes apiece, approximately) with the middle three around four minutes each. At its most dense and distortion-filled, as on the final track "Bael", this could be a glitchless version of the murky Merzbowian Sheer Hellish Miasma stirred up by their pal Kevin Drumm. Or KTL's most Earth-y moments tempered by the homebrewed, gentle freeform folk-psych of a Jewelled Antler recording.
We don't doubt for an instant that if this was a limited edition cd-r from some mysterious Finnish forest dweller, or lathe cut 10" by a kid in New Zealand, we'd be assured of selling fistfuls of 'em. And therefore, since the well-respected Holy Mountain label judged this to be deserving of not-so-limited cd status, that should indicate it's even MORE worth picking up, than if there were just 50 copies made, intended solely for collectors...
That time again, more far out sounds from UK music mag the Wire. This moth is a huge one, feels twice as thick as normal, and comes with a cd, featuring tracks from Kammmerflimmer Kollektief, A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Throbbing Gristle, Pommasl, Fridge, Jack Rose and Glenn Jones, Zelienople, Longstone and a whole bunch more. Inside the mag: the Fall AND Mouse On Mars on the cover, inside DJ / electronic musician Strategy, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, noisemaker Carlos Giffoni, global ear on Budapest, British fim maker Derek Jarman, Invisible Jukebox with Rhys Chatham, saxophonist Evan Parker, a dubstep primer (!), tons and tons of reviews, the usual collection of records, books, shows, performances and installations and all the other weirdo music stuff we all look forward to every month...
XBXRX's latest album Wars comes armed with plenty of spit'n'spurt spazz rock. It's sorta the aural equivalent of a teenager's highschool binder -- all filled with rumpled doodles, math exercises, and those three-ring looseleaf holders that you inevitably get your finger clamped in when you snap it shut. Less bratty than we remember them being, but still quite full of good natured bite and youthful pissiness.
There is a magical moment about three songs in on this amazing live acoustic document from 1971 where we get to hear the reaction of an audience hearing "Old Man" for the very first time. Recorded between After the Gold Rush and Harvest, this set covers Young's most classic material including "Helpless", "Journey Through the Past", a medley of "A Man Needs A Maid/Heart Of Gold", and the first official release of "Bad Fog of Loneliness". With just acoustic guitar and piano, it's no wonder that this intimate set has existed in bootleg form for so long. It's so good! Released as part of a live archive reissue series, the first being a live set from Fillmore East with Crazy Horse, it also includes the DVD of this essential performance. Recommended!!
You know this is gonna be good -- from the same dedicated diggers at B-music/Finders Keepers that brought us the Anatolian Invasion of Selda and Mustafa Ozkent, the freak-folk of Susan Christie, the dreamscape soundtrack for Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders, etc., comes this "best of" collection from beautiful Hungarian singer Sarolta "Cini" Zalatnay, from the late '60s, early '70s. An obscure cult figure elsewhere, in her native country Zalatnay remains famous, a liberated Socialist-era sex symbol known for her scandalous personal life. DJ Andy Votel's extensive liner notes allude to all the shocking details. Fascinating as her story is (at age 54 she posed for Hungarian Playboy, has appeared on a Hungarian hidden-camera "reality TV" show, and was given a three-year prison sentence for fraud!) it's her breaks-friendly music that gets the B-music crowd all turned on. And while the 19 tracks here include some lovely pastoral pop and torchy ballads, it's her specialty of groovy, psychedelic hard rock wherein the best breaks are to be found. And there's plenty of that here. Yep, cow-bell rockin', acid guitar fueled hard rock, the ideal setting for her to let loose with her powerful voice, which draws comparisons to Janis Joplin (an impression reinforced here by one of the English-language bonus tracks, a cover of Joplin's "Move Over"). Plus the funky drumming and wah wah fuzz guitar licks are enough to make DJ-types drool. We're reminded a bit of Funkadelic vocalist Ruth Copeland's solo material, and the more kick-ass Shocking Blue cuts...good stuff!
This anthology brings together tracks from impossible to find LPs and singles, released by Cini as a solo artist as well as when she fronted such bands as Locomotiv GT and Skorpio. As usual the cd booklet is heavily illustrated with full color repros of the cover art from some of these treasures.
