Inarguably an all-time classic of sixties psych. Peru's Traffic Sound might not be the most famous band from the era, but those in the know, know. At long last we have a cd reissue of their second album, Virgin, a masterpiece recorded in 1969. It's brought to us by the Repsychled label from their homeland, responsible also for that Tarkus reish we raved over a not long ago. And it's about time. Maybe you saw our review last year of the Traffic Sound compilation Yellow Sea Years? It included only one track from this album (the hit single in Peru "Meshkalina") for reasons we can't fathom, except that you'd want the whole thing anyway, and here it is! Psychedelic pop/prog perfection, featuring both dreamy melodies and some freaked out, flutey jazz/krautrock sounding passages, including a dose of backwards weirdness and several tracks of acoustic beauty. They were contemporaneous with better-known American and British acts such as the Beatles, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, and Love, and influenced by the likes of them no doubt. But on Virgin, Traffic Sound make the case for their own spaced-out, groovy, early-prog creativity. And in fact this was the first album by a Peruvian rock band to feature all-original compositions. As albums of the era from Latin America go, this is one of the essentials, particularily if you've been digging, say, Mexico's La Revolucion De Emiliano Zapata, or any of those awesome psych titles from Brazil that we've seen lately...
Repsychled has some interesting packaging notions, this is in a sort of under-sized cardboard digi-folder thing. It seems like each title we get from them is in some different, non-standard sleeve. In any case, for this official reissue they've gone to the master tapes and done a careful remastering job, and the cd booklet is packed with vintage photos and suchlike.
Another dreamy drone document from the burgeoning "Portland Psychedelic-Drone underground", this time from one of the�Jackie O Motherfuckers,�Nicholas Samuel Bindeman, who touches on lots of droney sounds we love: the spacey krautrock drift of Expo '70, the shimmering high end ur-drone of Sunroof!, the ultra minimal murmur of Coleclough and Chalk, the muted melodic smear of Fear Falls Burning, but give it all his own personal twist, rendering all of his influences in soft focus hues and indistinct blurs.
The opening track is all�long slow slithery swells of gently pulsing ghost like shimmer, wrapped in a twinkling cloud of glistening FX sparkles and soft breathy whir, underneath it all, haunting minor key melodies drift and twist, almost entirely obscured by the foreground's static beauty. Track two is more thick and gritty, channeling some Stars Of The Lid, with deep mournful sonic drifts, minor key laments stretched into longform soundscapes, dense and lush, a burnished pulsing almost glowing super dramatic slow build.�
Track three begins almost inaudibly with barely there subsonic vibrations, that gradually grow into sprawling black tendrils, over which glistening high end scrapes and creaks are blurred into wispy clouds of bowed metal and struck bells, metallic and delicate. Finally, the closer,� a warm billowy barely moving swirl of deep, soft tones, delicate crepuscular curlicues, floating weightless in some clouded landscape, gauzy and dreamlike, a disembodied journey through some�vaporous soundworld. So lovely.�
Released on Yarnlazer, one of our new favorite labels, home of Acre, Ghosting, Bonecloud, Valet, Dark Yoga and more...
Packaged in cool hand screened sleeves, with photocopied insert.�
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
With a title like A Ride Across The Skies On A Knife Dipped In Blood, we had seriously high hopes for this compilation from UK microlabel Curor and we were not disappointed. A handful of familiar faces: Jazzfinger, Ben Reynolds, Number None, Peter Wright... but loads of groups new to us, most of which had is scrambling for our computers and hopping on the internet to track down more recordings by these weirdo noisemakers. Like all great comps. Ride Across functions simultaneously as a sort of mixtape sampler, as well as a surprisingly cohesive listen, considering how varied the sounds of these bands are.�
Some of the highlights include�Atoms and their�little tinkling flurries of guitar glimmer that morph into a slow melodic crawl, all tentative guitar and strange scrapes and creaks.�Heidika, who unfurl warm soft tangles of finger picked acoustic guitar and minimal mournful strings, a laid back and wintry Appalachian folk with a subtle buzzing raga element. The super bizarre�Injury Chic, one of the noisiest bands on the comp, kicking up�dense swirls of harsh noise, laid atop simple percussive thump and clatter, with ultra distorted sung/spoken vocals, sounding like a modern co-ed Whitehouse. AQ faves�Jazzfinger with a gorgeous slab of sound, all�clattery clouds of looped piano, a strange mechanical rhythm laid over a murky, fuzzy seasick waltz, a bit like the the soundtrack to some strange Quay Brothers�style�animated film. Then there's the strangely named�Family Battle Snake who spew forth a�cavernous skreescrape of industrial whir and haunting alien FX. Maybe our favorite track on the record comes from�Raised By Wolves beginning with�militaristic martial snare,�bits of guitar clang, all intertwined with ominous high end synth drones, with the drums getting more and more spastic and complex, like some dreamy droney cd-r outfit backed up by a skittery free jazz drummer, eventually erupting into a chaotic distorted blown out near-noise jam. Wow!�Number None offer up their own bit of�creeping grinding slow motion ambience, rumbling and moaning atmospheres, muted melodies, and occasional bursts of blown out guitar fuzz and glistening streaks of feedback. and the disc finishes off with another AQ fave,�Peter Wright, who offers up another blissy expanse of serene drift, this time, heavy on the guitar, well, not 'heavy', but more guitar than usual for Wright, woven into dreamy cyclical melodies, all�floating over long stretches of distant drones and rumbling swells, and that's not all.�
A killer comp and a whole bunch of new bands to get all obsessed with.�
The Numero Group strike gold again with another great lost soul collection. This time it's the second in their Cult Cargo series. The first one, Belize Boil Up quickly became an AQ favorite. This time out they have extracted the sounds of Bahaman soul mostly around the early-mid '70s. Much Goombay music as it was called, captured the sound of the island with touches of Caribbean influence as well as the equally sun soaked golden Miami sound. All the tracks here are killers, with backbeats that would sound at home on Studio One and breaks that still sound so damn fresh now. Some of these bands were playing hotels and poolsides and backyards and that undeniable charm resonates throughout the collection. Some nods to the past for sure, soaking up the sweetness and warmth of doo-wop, but at the same time, these tunes begin to walk in funkier shoes, capturing that raw beautiful essence of how soul should sound. Dripping with warmth and sparkling with color, somewhere between doo-wop and funk, with the island's tropical warm wind keeping everything flowing and fresh!
In the realms of extreme metal, few bands have had as much impact as NOLA doom sludge legends Eyehategod. Even if said impact is based solely on the number of bands who cite them as a musical influence (read: totally ripped off their sound).�
Do you think we'd have Cavity, Mistress, Floor, Dove, Monarch, Khanate, Goatsblood, Iron Monkey, Bongzilla, Khanate, Moho, Zoroaster, Graves At Sea, Shallow North Dakota, Sourvein, Crowbar, Dot [.], Fleshpress, Marzuraan, Toadliquor, Wellington, Weedeater, Ramesses, Electric Wizard or any of about a million other downtuned doom metal sludge bands without Eyehategod? Don't think so.�
So finally, Eyehategod get their due, in the form of, a two disc tribute album, For The Sick, a massive collection of sonic prayers from various worshippers at the throne of Eyehategod. Lots of the above mentioned bands, as well as loads of other heavy headz like Cable, Bowel, Alabama Thunderpussy, Deadbird, Kylesa, Brutal Truth, Byzantine, Raging Speedhorn, Total Fucking Destruction, Minsk, Lair Of The Minotaur, Bloody Panda, Mouth Of The Architect, Swarm Of The Lotus, Kill The Client and loads more!
Most folks will want to buy this already either because they LOVE Eyehategod, and need to own anything even peripherally related, want to hear their favorite EHG songs done by some of their other favorite EHG acolytes, or they love some or all of the bands involved. Probably for most of us it's all three. Two discs, over two hours, a veritable downtuned doomsludge orgy, guitars grind, low end throbs and buzzes, riffs are glacial and soul crushing, squealing serpentine feedback all over the place, vocals are spittle spewing glass gargling, throat shredding howls, every track a tarpit dirge with pummeling pounding drums, and that strange slowed down almost-groove that seems to lurk within every EHG song no matter how slow or blown out.
Hard not to recommend this. It's slow, heavy, crushing, and it's got some of the most amazing songs ever! "Sister Fucker", "White Nigger", "My Name Is God (I Hate You)", "Kill Your Boss" (What?! No "Hit A Girl"?!) Positive vibes, not. If somehow you've managed to miss out on Eyehategod, drop everything and run out and pick up Dopesick or�In The Name Of Suffering or�Take As Needed For Pain, and then once you're properly indoctrinated into the cult of EHG, come on back and pick this up. The rest of you sludge heads already know you need this...
Who knew Nevada City, CA was such a hot bed for hip now sounds? Well, since that town is home to the cool recording studio Brighton Sound and new record label Grass Roots Record Co., artists have flocked to NC to put their music to tape.
This compilation offers a broad array of those who have been through their doors in the short time they've been open for business. Sessions took place over the course of just two weeks, during which seventeen diverse artists laid their goods down live direct to tape. The who's who: Hella, Biff Rose, Moore Brothers, Alela Diane, Mariee Sioux, Made In, Alina Estelle Hardin, Kings & Queens, Golden Shoulders, Lee Bob Watson, Casual Fog, Jessica Henry, Benjamin Oak Goodman, Them Hills, Reckon Family, The Snegg Band, RF and Neal Morgan. A wonderfully down-home, close-knit yet welcoming community feel.
When we first got wind of this comp, for some reason, we just assumed it was gonna be another amazing Soul Jazz reggae comp, it didn't even occur to us that it would be a collection of killer classic jungle jams from the early nineties. But we threw it on, and were just knocked on our asses, transported back to '93/'94 when we first discovered jungle, particularly, ragga-dancehall-jungle or whatever you wanted to call it, a killer blend of traditional Jamaican dancehall, and this new breed of sped up hip hop that had grown out of the rave scene in the UK.
The history and genealogy is complex, but there's been plenty written about it, the liner notes here are particularly informative, tracing the development of ragga-jungle from the early Reggae sound systems, through the rave scene, UK hardcore hip hop, and beyond. Ragga jungle was a flash in the pan, existing for 3 or 4 years before most of the folks making it moved on to two-step, garage, drum and bass and on an on. But for our money, this was it. This was THE music we had been waiting for. We have loved dancehall forever, the harder and faster the better, so here was the toasting and melody of dancehall, draped over chopped up stuttering and pounding hip hop beats, all sped up into a rhythmic frenzy.
If there's one track that sums it up for us, it's DJ Zinc's "Super Sharp Shooter", with its interminable vocal and squelchy synth intro, the loping creeping reggae groove, the buzzing melody, the simple shuffling drum beat, the slowed down Method Man sample, and that's all before the track actually even drops, and when it does... Whoooowheee. We remember hearing this for the first time in one of the few clubs in SF that played jungle back in the day, and it nearly knocked us out of our seats. We ended up buying a DJ mix tape from one of the DJs spinning, and thankfully it had "Super Sharp Shooter" on it, and from that point on, we listened to it over and over every day, in the car, cranked as loud as it would go, bass pumping (as much as the bass could be said to pump in a crappy old van). So fucking heavy and hooky and funky. When the track finally kicks in, it's massive, relentless serpentine pass line, ultra complex drums, funky and groovy but so tangled and dense, every once in a while the bass line locks on a single not and just hooooooooolds steady until it drops, hard, and we're off on another junglistic jam. As far as we're concerned this would be worth it just for this track, but thankfully, the rest of the disc is just as kick ass.
Lots of familiar reggae and dancehall names, Ninjaman, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Cutty Ranks, and for those in the know, the rest of the names read like an early nineties jungle all star lineup: Ragga Twins, Poison Chang, Ragga Twins, DJ Zinc, Shy FX... but even if you don't know any of these names, the music speaks for itself. Check out "Original Nuttah" by UK Apachi & Shy FX, beginning with some super hooky sing songy reggae vocals before the track launches into a maddeningly dense rapid fire snare workout underpinning a raw and tongue twisting flow. Furious and intense and so goddamn good. Then there's tracks like Ragga Twins' "Illegal Gunshot", with its playful and circusy melodic loop, but juxtaposed with some seriously aggro toasting, some Bomb Squad like production, and some outrageously funky drumming.
Pretty much every track on here is a killer, never has a record so much made even us non-dancers want to head for the dancefloor and go fucking nuts. The cool thing about this stuff, is even if you're dancefloor phobic, is that these tracks are so dense and multi layered, full of convoluted rhythms and mad drumming and rapid fire rhymes and wild toasting and strange melodies and killer grooves, that they're almost as fun to listen to as they are to dance to. Almost.
Like all Soul Jazz stuff, gorgeously packaged and extensively researched. Tons of liner notes, track notes, photos, all wrapped up in a full color slipcase.
A heavy one here! Vog, from Virginia, and not to be confused with the similarly heavy Yob, are a brute of a band, cranking out distorto sludge epics comparable to the ugly best of Eyehategod, Today Is The Day, and the Melvins. The seven lengthy songs on this debut cd are graced with intense, sometimes clean vocals -- usually effected, though, and layered with deathly screams (this singing really helping Vog to remind us of the late great Acid Bath). These guys REALLY know what they're doing, if you're a fan of any of the bands name-checked in this review you should definitely check out Vog. We were impressed. We got this from Shifty along with that new Hey Colossus Project:Death cd we listed a couple weeks back, and if anything, this is probably even better than the HC.
Another blast of Yellow Swans, this time splitting a 7" with the appropriately monickered outfit Warmth. Yellow Swans here are on the noisy side, but even at their noisiest, there is much going on below the surface that keeps their sound from devolving into mere 'noise'. A crumbling and gritty distorted lowend soundscape, noisy and blown out, but murky and muddy with thick synthy swells and surprisingly sweet melodies buried under the roiling clouds of damaged guitars and fried electronics. Harsh and heavy, but also quite subtly dreamy.
Warmth take the opposite path, offering up almost nothing at first, just the sound of tape hiss, and bits of found sound, like a field recording, before eventually bits of rumble and whir and static and crackle begin to surface, as do distant high end creaks and haunting swells of barely there drone, the whole thing very murky and mysterious. Near the end, some very strange Star Trek like FX are introduced, sort of alien and angular, giving the Warmth track a bit of a sci-fi vibe. Cool stuff.
Packaged in an eye popping cover with virtually no information. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Already sold out and out of print, so once these are gone, they are gone for good.
Yes, the notorious Whitehouse are still at it after twenty years. Love them or hate them, you've probably got a strong opinion about Whitehouse. While we at Aquarius do not necessarily agree with the lyrical content of past Whitehouse releases, some of us
Whitehouse have always seemed to position themselves in close proximity to the artworld (while at the same time alienating themselves from the music world), and in doing so, may be positioning themselves closer to the accepted forms of transgressive art such as Vito Acconchi's public masturbation or Jeff Koon's airbrushed pornography. Whatever you may think about Whitehouse (i.e. if they are or are not 'art'), that which lies underneathe the packaging is certainly not going to change your mind about them. You probably know already if you need to own this. However, Whitehouse does change things up a bit on 'Cruise', taking their normally ear shredding shrieks, and lowering the ultra high frequencies to a more gritty mid-range analogue noise. ----* ----* Printed Matter : ----* GIANT ROBOT #21 magazine 3.95 Art-focused issue of one of our favorite magazines, celebrating Asian Pop Culture and Beyond. Wong Kar-Wai, Asian haircuts, Superflat Murakami, Seattle grunge photog Charles Peterson's photos of Vietnam, Hong Kong hiphoppers Lazmuthafucka, Katsushige Nakahashi who makes stunning huge sculptures out of polaroids, Tony Leung, qi gong and its psychic potential, etc. ----* ----* In Stock, No Time to Review : ----* BERTHOLO, RENE "Um Argentino no Deserto" (SIRR.ecords) cd 14.98 CAGE, JOHN / DAVID TUDOR "Music of Change" (Hat Hut) cd 16.98 CRAWL UNIT "Stop Listening" (Ground Fault) cd 9.98 CRAWL UNIT "The Future In Reverse" (Povertech Industries) cd 9.98 CRAWL UNIT "Trans History - Works 95-99" (Ignis) cd 9.98 CRAWL UNIT "Vs. Silence" (Povertech Industries) cd 9.98 FAMOUS BOYFRIEND "s/t" (555) cd 14.98 GORILLAZ (the singer from Blur and members of Deltron 3030!) "s/t" (EMI UK) cd 25.00 ITS ALL MEAT "s/t" (Hallucinations) cd 14.98 MUM "Yesterday Was Dramatic - Toady Is OK" (TMT / Thule Music) cd 17.98 PHONOPHANI "Genetic Engineering" (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98 PINK & BROWN "Final Foods" (Toyo) cd 10.98 ROXY MUSIC "Vintage" (Burning Airlines) cd 12.98 VITRIOL "Randonee 0.06" (SIRR.ecords) cd 14.98 WARWICK, HENRY "Keraunograph" (Kether Music) cd 11.98 _______________________________________________________________________ KOJI ASANO INSTORE APRIL 29th SUNDAY -- 4 pm Experimental musician Koji Asano (who makes his home in Barcelona, Spain, although he's originally from Japan) will be in town at the end of the month, on his first-ever US tour (West Coast, anyway), after playing shows in Italy and Slovenia. He's been a long-time favorite of ours, so we're very pleased to announce that he'll be doing a free in-store performance here at Aquarius! His work has always been super creative and eclectic, so we're really excited to hear what his stuff is going to sound like in person. His recent recordings have focused on computer-assisted electroacoustic drones, full of beautiful feedback and dark mystery. But we'll see what he does here at Aquarius -- be here Sunday April 29th at 4pm to find out! Koji's other Bay Area shows are on these evenings: April 26th -- The Luggage Store, SF April 27th -- Capp Street Community Center / Moving Target Series, SF April 29th -- Tuva Space / Acme Observatory Series, Oakland -->another AQ-fave, LOREN CHASSE (of id battery / Thuja) will also be performing at this show! From our review of his last work, a four-part set called "The Last Shade of Evening Falls": "Japanese composer/experimentalist (and AQ fave sound artist) Koji Asano is known not only for the quality of his work (almost always quite excellent) but for the sheer quantity of his releases over the last few years -- sixteen of 'em as of today, more if you count limited edition cd-rs -- which run the creative gamut from gorgeous piano meditiations, to computer noise, to chamber music, to rock guitar improv." _______________________________________________________________________ RAWA BENEFIT "To prevent music... In shops, hotels, vehicles and rickshaws cassettes and music are prohibited... If any music cassette found in a shop, the shopkeeper should be imprisoned and the shop locked. If cassette found in the vehicle, the vehicle and the driver will be imprisoned. "To prevent music and dances in wedding parties. In the case of violation the head of the family will be arrested and punished. "To prevent the playing of music drum. The prohibition of this should be announced. If anybody does this then the religious elders can decide about it." -- Taliban edicts regarding music Fire Museum is proud to present a benefit concert for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) at the Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, featuring the following fine artists (in reverse order of appearance): BLECTUM FROM BLECHDOM THE BRAN (...) POS + PLANETSIZE DEEP DICKOLLECTIVE CONE, featuring members of Zmrzlina SPEZZO ROTTA Saturday, May 5th 2001 The Stork Club (2330 Telegraph Avenue, cross Street 23rd Avenue, near 19th Avenue BART) Oakland doors 7:00 p.m. / $6-$10 sliding scale / 21+ concert website: http://www.geocities.com/tomato_gazelle/Fire_Museum.html _______________________________________________________________________ UPCOMING RELEASES ----> should be here any minute, if not in already! v/a "Clicks & Cuts 2" 3cd (members of) Add N to (X) / Stereolab / Hairy Butter "Alternative 3" soundtrack cd v/a "Bip Hop Generation vol. 2" cd Hazard / Fennesz / Biosphere "Light" tour cd on Touch Hazard "Wind" cd on Ash ----> April 24th (crazy new release day!) Mouse On Mars "Idiology" cd/lp on Thrill Jockey Bardo Pond "Dilate" cd/2lp on Matador Kammerflimmer Kollektief "Maander" cd on Temporary Residence Modest Mouse "Sad Sappy Sucker" cd/lp on K unreleased 1994 recordings + other rarities Vic Chesnutt "Left To His Own Devices" cd on SpinArt (rarities and demos) Mogwai "Rock Action" lp/cd The Ex "Dizzy Spells" cd on Touch And Go US Maple "Acre Thrills" cd/lp on Drag City Steven R. Smith "Tableland" cd on Emperor Jones Paul Burch "Last Of My Kind" cd on Merge Portastatic "Looking For Leonard" cd on Merge The Clientele "Suburban Light" cd on Merge, domestic Nels Cline "Destroy All Nels Cline" cd on Atavistic Raging Slab "s/t" cd reissue on Spitfire Terrie Ex & Han Bennink "The Laughing Owl" cd on Atavistic Danielson Famile "Fetch the Compass Kids" cd/lp on Secretly Canadian Of Montreal "Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies" cd/2lp on Secretly Canadian Vivian Sisters s/t cd on Avant Mekons reissues (Rock 'n' Roll, Curse of, Fun '90) Red Allen "The Folkways Years 1964-83" cd on Smithsonian Folkways The Country Gentlemen "On The Road (And More) cd on Smithsonian Folkways John Zorn "Love, Madness and Mysticism" cd on Tzadik Rothko "In The Pulse Of An Artery" cd on Instinct Destroyer "Streethawk: A Seduction" cd on Misra Ryoji Ikeda & Carsten Nicolai "Cyclo" cd on Raster-Noton ----> May 8 To Rococo Rot "Music is a Hungry Ghost" (Mute) Burning Airlines "Identikit" cd ----> May 15 Autechre "Confield" cd/2lp on Warp Neu! "Neu! 1", "Neu! 2", and "Neu! '75" all legitimately reissued on cd and lp, on Astralwerks! Sonna "We Sing Loud Sing Soft Tonight" cd/lp on Temporary Residence Cannibal Ox "The Cold Vein" lp/cd on Def Jux Borthwick/hollAnd "helene" CD on Temporary Residence Tool "Laterus" new studio album ----> May 22 Absu "Tara" cd on Osmose Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Quintet "Flutter" cd on Tzadik Abigor "Satanized" on Napalm Mammoth Volume "a single book�" cd on TMC Mark Eitzel "The Invisible Man" cd/lp on Matador ----> May 29 Spirit Caravan "Elusive Truth" cd/lp on Tolotta Plaid "Double Feature" cd/2lp on Warp Karaboudjan "Sbrodj" on Relapse EyeHateGod "10 Years of Abuse and Still Broke" live cd on Century Media ----> also in May Destiny's Child "Independent Women" Oval "Commers" cd/lp on Thrill Jockey Gram Parsons "Anthology" 2cd on Rhino Whiskeytown "Pneumonia" Missy Elliot "Miss E...So Addictive" Mira Calix "Prickle" cdep/12" on Warp Squarepusher "My Red Hot Car" cdep/12" on Warp Zeni Geva "10,000 Light Years" cd on Neurot Candiria "300 Percent Density" cd on Century Media MF Doom "Operation: Doomsday" cd on Sub Verse Ex-Girl "Back To Mono Kero" on Ipecac Deltron 3030 "Tron 3030 (The Instrumentals)" cd/2lp on 75Ark (delayed from way back) ----> June 18 Summer Hymns "A Celebratory Arm Gesture" cd/lp on Misra Jeff Mangum "Live At Jittery Joe's" cd on Orange Twin Bonny Billy (Will Oldham) "More Revery" cdep on Temporary Residence Ltd. Orange Twin Fieldwork (Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel) "Volume 1" on Orange Twin ----> also in June Lucinda Williams "Essence" R.E.M. "Reveal" ----> July 23rd Neutral Milk Hotel "Everything Is" cdep reissue on Orange Twin ----> July Bjork "tba" _______________________________________________________________________ The Aquarius Records New Arrivals list has 5163 subscribers. If you like our list, please buy your records from Aquarius; we produce this list just for you and it's a lot of work! "The first record was pretty much stories about my drugged out childhood plus a little bit of Spinal Tap on top -'I'm gonna rule the world with my leather penis!' or whatever. And then all that stuff started coming true..." --Monster Magnet's Dave Wyndorf on fame, from Terrorizer #86. "I met an undercurrent of peopel that were into severe behavior, weird mind games and weird physical games- Dungeons, high faluting lawyer women who were having these massive fuckin' orgies, with slaves- and in the middle of it all I remember looking out of a hotel room in L.A. smoking a cigarette. The sun was coming up and I just remember thinking 'Who am I? What am I doing?'. And there was this girl lying there that had just applauded me for performing the appropriate torture on her- 'You were a master at it,' and I'm like 'What the fuck am I doing?'" --Monster Magnet's Dave Wyndorf on the influences that shaped the sound of the new album. From Terrorizer #86 Love, Windy Cup Byram Andee Jim Allan and Jeff
More black metal madness, in cassette form of course, this time from Brazilian one man band Woodsmarch, a buzzing, stumbling black beast, who owes much to Burzum, but makes this loping buzzing blackness his very own. Simple guitar parts, seemingly played on not entirely distorted guitars, very epic and majestic, but always seeming to struggle, the drums also simple, a midtempo pound, lurching chaotically alongside the strange gnarled guitar lines, the vocals a strangled harsh howl, the tempo very seasick and warbly, to the point that even though the sound is buzzy and black, it still feels ambient. Hypnotic and droning, the guitars smeared and blurry, black clouds of buzzing sound, the drums sprawled out over the black backdrop, with plenty of strange arrangements, acoustic interludes, bizarre moaning keyboard like low end drones, the whole thing sort of mesmerizing and dreamlike. Pretty amazing actually. Fans of off kilter black buzz like Draugurz, Varghkoghargasmal and the like will definitely dig.
It had been ages since we last heard from these North Western crusty doomcore punx, when suddenly out of the blue, a brand new record surfaced a few months back, and completely kicked our asses. A monstrous slab of downtuned tribal sludge falling somewhere between Eyehategod and Neurosis, but with keyboards, and lots of tribal drumming.
So here we have a brief double 7" follow up to Starvation, and it's just as great, mixing heaping doses of churning low end guitar, dense tangled drumming, throbbing bass, harsh crusty vocals and of course, tons of keyboards. The result is some impossible mix of Crash Worship, Neurosis, Eyehategod and black metal. Might sound like it wouldn't work but it does. The A side here begins with a blackened drum circle, toms everywhere, swirling rhythms underpinning crumbling slabs of distortion and wild squealing feedback, all wrapped in layers of epic keyboards, a gorgeous super cinematic crusty metallic version of Godspeed maybe. The other three sides continue in a similar fashion, albeit a bit more 'rocking', with strangely mathy rhythms, simple pounding drums, some of the filthiest and sludgiest distorted guitars, and lots of creepy creepy melodies.
Packaged in a gorgeous diecut fold out thick maroon sleeve, printed in black and metallic gold ink. So nice.
Another triple shot of sonic weirdness from Diagnosis... Don't!, the label run by AQ faves the Grey Daturas, this one comes courtesy of NZ guitarist Nigel Wright, whose two previous cd-r's were huge hits around here (and are gone gone gone so don't ask).
With a delicate combination of minimal guitar drones and subtle laptop manipulation, Wright weaves dark rhythmic soundworlds of creaking cricket like chitter, thick syrupy swells, ominous shimmer and rumbling guitar groan. Spare and desolate, with an underlying loveliness, but so very grim and austere. It's a lot like a Wolf Eyes record, with its suffocating oppressive atmosphere and dark dark ambience, but with all the clang and clatter and roar removed, leaving a more skeletal, mysterious and muted drift, all wrapped up in a strange otherworldly warmth. So nice.
Packaged in thick textured black paper mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. Nice.
And as always, these are SUPER LIMITED, and odds are we won't be able to get more...
Once again, our favorite SF sonic expats (now Portland based) return with another killer slab of drone-y goodness. This time bearing the mark of 'Descension' (for those new to the Yellow Swans, every record they are called something different, a different 'D' word preceding their name, unclear if it is related to sound or mood or what, but it's always different!) and sounding less noisy and more darkly introspective than ever. Which as far as we're concerned is a very good thing. But noiseniks, fear not, there is still some abrasive brutality lurking hear and there within. Read on...
The A side begins as a moaning and groaning minor key deep ambient drift, wreathed in crackle and static and bits of high end shimmer. Mournful melodies are muted and smeared into the backdrop of one of the prettiest dreamiest things the YS have ever done, but it doesn't last long as about halfway through they burst into a full on cascading crumbling wall of blown out buzz. There's still some moodiness underpinning the chaos, but by the end, there will most definitely be drops of blood on your headphones.
The second side foregoes the noise completely, as the 'Swans offer up a delicate and slow burning washed out dronescape, cavernous low end, gurgling buzzing tones layered into murky muddy harmonies, slowly shifting, industrial and machinelike, but still thick and warm and organic sounding. This might just be the chunk of buzzing lovely low end creep that finally hips the dirgedoomdronee set to the Yellow Swans...
LIMITED TO 489 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Pressed on crazy thick vinyl and housed in a gorgeous blue on black hand screened sleeve. ----* ----* New BLACK METAL Cassettes : ----*
Drummer Tatsuya Yoshida from Japanese prog-crazies the Ruins teams up with Polish pianist Piotr Zabrodzki for these sixteen tracks of advanced "jazz" insanity, recently recorded in Warsaw. We'd never heard of Zabrodzki before, but he more than holds his own with the notoriously hyperkinetic Yoshida, playing distorted bass as well as piano (at the same time? sounds like it -- must be overdubbed, though you never know with a Yoshida project, as he's able to play, like, a half dozen instruments and sing all at the same time, so maybe his friends can too!). The duo's presumably improvised music wildly ranges along an extremely spastically noisy to almost classically jazzy continuum. They attain appropriately Ruins-y levels of Magmoid prog-ness (the throbbing bass pulsations! the octopoidal percussion frenzies!) punctuated with some gargling vocals from Yoshida. The ivories are tickled unto death by Zabrodzki, who plays with "Great Balls Of Fire" ferocity, fractured into the avantgarde abstraction of a Cecil Taylor. It's all very chaotic and complex, manic yet melodic. And meaningful? Maybe, we're puzzled by the African imagery found in the cd packaging, how does that fit with the quasi-scientific sounding song titles ("Permanent Beta Power", "Tri-Command Connector", "Oxymoron 9", "Micronode Examination", "Quick-Core", etc.), or the Poland/Japan connection also celebrated in the cd graphics with the flags of both countries? Who knows, but anyway Ruins/Yoshida fans should dig this, it's another in a long line of interesting, intense duets in which the drummer has taken part. Satoko Fuji is probably jealous.
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.
