Ah Abruptum, how we've missed you. Nary a peep since 2004's killer black ambient masterpiece Casus Luciferi, which while an amazing gorgeously bleak slab of droning mystery, really barely scratched the surface, only hinting at the harsh, hateful, bizarre black metal beast Abruptum once was.
That's where Evil Genius comes in. And evil Genius is exactly what it is. A collection of old demos, it was originally released with an actual razor blade inside and a sticker instructing the listener to kill themselves. There were also loads of strange rumors surrounding the band, including the one about mainman It being a dwarf, who tortured himself in the studio, in order to capture true anguish. After all, Abruptum were, according to their own edict, "the pure audial essence of evil"... Who knows how much of that stuff was true (we like to think ALL of it), and ultimately it doesn't really matter, the proof is in the pudding, and in this case the pudding is a sludgy, filthy, crusty, primitive chunk of harsh, stumbling, lurching, distorted psychedelic black metal. Or maybe black doom would be more appropriate. There are no blast beats or blazing buzzing riffs, instead, Evil Genius is a confusional garbled outsider mess, but a glorious one, keyboards lurch in and out of the mix, usually atonal and off kilter, the drums plod and pound, tortured and strangled vocals howl and grunt, belching out strange black growls, tons of thick black ambience surround everything, seeping into every bit of music like some strange black mold, weird squeaks and groans, and all sorts of random sounds pepper the entire record, hard to say if they are footsteps or the cracks of a whip or creaking hinges, but they all sort of get sucked into Abruptum's dizzying blurry and buzzy soundworld. And guitars of course, lots of them, tuned way down, sometimes not tuned at all, occasionally spewing out some strange black shaped riff, but other times just buzzing or droning, roaring or squealing, often sounding less like a guitar than some sort of hellish demon speaking in tongues.
But as fucked up and bizarre as Evil Genius is, it's still eminently listenable, even catchy at times, almost pretty at others, but always, a totally baffling, fucked up and completely damaged way out black metal what-the-fuck blast of, well, EVIL GENIUS!!
All new artwork, with brand new liner notes from It, and while it's hard to tell for sure, we're led to believe that there is at least one extra track, as EG compiles the first two Abruptum demos ("s/t" and "The Satanist Tunes") as well as the "Evil" 7" and their track from the long out of print Tribute To Euronymous compilation cd (which we think is the bonus track).
So absolutely and utterly RECOMMENDED!!
These musically indulgent heavy-duty hippies from Japan, who have just been thru here on tour with Mammatus and blew the socks off all who seen 'em, have a new album out (hey, what else is new??). Going by the title of Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under The Stars, we can understand why whomever entered it into the online cd database that iTunes uses decided to classify its genre as New Age. But New Age this ain't, unless the new age is all about deafening yourself with tangled blasts of distorted FX-laden guitar and flailing drums, as heard on the opening track. Which, by the way, marks a new low in the already dubious AMT song-titling tradition -- it's called "Pussy Head Man From Outer Space"! Uh, ok. It's a brief 7:42 in length, giving way to the 22 minute track two, "Crystal Rainbow Pyramid", which is a bit calmer and maybe even, yes, New Agey though it's far from wimpy. Just a big ol' spacious tripped-out jam, pulsing pleasantly along, getting more and more freaky toward the end. A mere warm up for the third and final track, a REALLY long one, over 40 minutes of "Electric Psilocybin Flashback". You'll wonder where the time went. The first six or so minutes are an insistently strummed Amon Duul II style attack, drifting for a while into a space-jazz interlude (saxophone!!) before we're back to the aforementioned ADII-ish krautrockin', graced with some lovely female vox that do a spot-on Renate Knaup impersonation at times (that wavery, wordless high pitched thing). Wow. And there's more: stretches of placid folk and Eastern drone... yep, this one's a doozy, worth the price of admission alone, especially if you like Yeti by ADII, which we hope you do.
Gotta say: another essential AMT purchase for any fan, and if you know someone into comic psych kraut stuff who isn't already into AMT (weird, but possible) then try playing track two or three here for 'em and see what they think!
Keren Ann's fifth album, the follow-up to her U.S. breakthrough album the English and French sung Nolita (as well as numerous inclusions of her songs on TV programs), is sure to win her more admirers. While all of the photos we've seen of her have presented her in a dewy waif light, her voice, lyrics and music are actually much more womanly. This English sung self-titled album easily secures her a plush seat alongside the likes of distinctive female singers such as Beth Orton, Beth Gibbons, and Hope Sandoval. Perish the thought, but you can also hear the potential for a more mainstream appeal a la Dido or Norah Jones. All eeeks aside though, this is lovely.
From the demented man behind the abrasive noise assault of Prurient comes the blackened buzz of Ash Pool. And holy shit is this some of the best stuff we've ever heard in a while. Fans of stuff like Bone Awl and Ancestors will freak for this. It's not just the songs but the sound. Simple riffing, but recorded super hot, and drums so high in the mix they pulse and throb all thick and distorted, vocals harsh and hateful that swallow all the other sounds whole. The riffs are killer, old school but blown out and noisy as fuck. When the band locks into a black blast, it's almost an impenetrable droning buzz, but then out of nowhere the band will shift gears into some weird super melodic bridge, or some midtempo groove. A seemingly impossible blend of melancholy melodiousness, buzzing black thrash and super saturated ultraviolent noise rock. Awesome.
Along with being a 'best of' collection, this double disc set also treats Asian Dub Foundation fans to plenty of unreleased material, BBC sessions, remixes, other rare stuff, and three brand new tracks. 32 tracks in all. Gives a fantastically thorough overview of this British group's slick melting pot of hip hop, ragga, dub, breakbeat, worldbeat and more. Sure to please devotees, but might be a bit much if you're new to this group.
Not one, not two, but THREE Nadja releases this week! Two of them are collaborations, but still, how's a Nadja fan supposed to keep up? But as we've learned, it's well worth the effort, as each disc has been a bonafide killer, and this one is no different.
Teamed up with UK sludge doom quartet Atavist, this seems like the ultimate doom drone matchup, and thus you might expect that these two bands would bring out the heaviest and sludgiest in each other, when in fact, the exact opposite is the case.
Two nearly half hour tracks, each one meandering and blissful, darkly tranquil and really really pretty. The first is a slowcore / postrock drift, delicate guitar figures, looped over a slow shimmery dronescape, the backdrop constantly shifting, the guitar line spidery and minor key, repeating hypnotically above a constantly intensifying backdrop of drones and rumblings. Eventually the background noise overtakes the lonely guitar, but not in a sludgy bombastic way, more like a muted churning swirl, lots of billowy low end guitar, and drifting smoky ambience. Near the end, the guitars do thicken, and suddenly the dreaminess is mired in some serious sludge, shot though with distant keening psychguitar, but it doesn't last, and the sludge softens quickly into more whispery whir.
The second track is a wide open expanse of billowy dark ambience, lots of strange muted FX and pulsing krautrocky swirl. More in line with Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh than SUNNO)) or Earth. Eventually building into a moaning majestic wall of sound, like Sunroof! or Vibracathedral, but less skree and more rumble, huge slabs of crumbling guitar, beneath glistening melodic fragments and soft whirls of sound.
Droney and dreamy, divine and doomy and obviously essential.
We've said it before, we'll say it again, EVERYTHING sounds better backwards. As a child, the minute you discovered how to spin records backwards manually, no discs were safe. The Beatles, Kiss, the Beach Boys, it all sounded so alien in reverse, drums swooshed and vocals were transformed into garbled nonsense, it was a way to make EVERY record sound psychedelic. Screw the backwards masking, and the secret messages, it was the music that we needed to hear backwards.
Those early years must have had a lasting impact, as even today, we find ourselves drawn to sounds in reverse. The psychedelic pop of the Teenage Filmstars is one example, the B side of the first Sonic Youth on cassette featured the whole record BACKWARDS. Some of us even spent time opening up cassettes and flipping the tape over to make our own new backwards records...
So it should really come as no surprise that Avey Tare of the Animal Collective and his partner Kira Brekkan (of Mum), while recording their most recent record, discovered that it actually sounded better backwards (we could've told them that!). The surprising part, is that they actually decided to put it out that way! But we're definitely not complaining, as this slab of backwards psych pop has been tickling our ears nonstop since we got it in.
If you've never heard music backwards, it's hard to describe just why it sounds so much better. It has something to do with switching up the attack and decay, so a sound that usually starts suddenly and fades gradually, does just the opposite, fading in slowly and cutting out quite suddenly. It makes everything sound woozy and seasick, it gives rhythms a new twist, each beat suddenly having a strange 'FFFsssssst' at the end. Simple guitars become druggy calliopes, the vocals of course retain much of the melody, but remove the words from the equation, and suddenly the voice is transformed into some alien musical instrument.
Pullhair Rubeye was probably already a sort of trippy folky pop record, but flipping it backwards has only made it more so. Woozy and dreamlike, a musical trip through the looking glass, everything warped and wavering, guitars are pulses, waves drawn backwards from the shore, some of the shorter tracks sound like they were almost composed specifically to be backwards, the clipping and reverse swooshes turning simple melodies into stuttery Oval like smears of sound, while others are so blissful and abstract, you only occasionally notice that the sounds are coming at you in reverse order. And that's when the record shines, when it sounds like it was meant to be backwards, like instead of just flipping the tape, they actually crafted this strange alien sound. So beautiful and trippy. Our only complaint is Brekkan's elf like vocals, that when reversed and sped up sound a little too much like the Chipmunks, thankfully, they only surface here and there, and after a handful of listens, they begin to sound like an essential part of the warped and warbly Pullhair Rubeye landscape.
And if this record turns you on to the joys of backwards sound, then check out the Record Reverser elsewhere on the AQ site, a nifty little gizmo that allows you to turn all of your records backwards!!!
If Josephine Foster is the modern day equivalent of Shirley Collins, then Meg Baird would be the contemporary Anne Briggs. Here on her long-awaited yet sweetly low-key Drag City solo debut, Baird, who also fronts Philadelphia's Espers, has been channeling the old ghosts of British Folk (we got a glimpse on the disc of traditional numbers she recorded with Helena Espvall and Sharon Krause, a few lists back) through new and traditional numbers that feel contemporary and timeless without being too folksy or quaint. Sure the influence of folk music's past is anything but new these days, but Baird has been at it for a real long time, and while she has had some killer tracks on compilations now and again, including the ground-breaking "Golden Apples Of the Sun", it's nice to finally see a proper full length from this fair-headed lass who can strum a wistfully folky tune with the best of them. Lovely.
Since we're reviewing the brand new record from Israel's Barbara, we figured we would get a handful of their first record, so all of you who missed out on this killer disc the first time around could have anther chance...
How could we resist? A band called Barbara. From Israel. On the cover, the name Barbara is written in ornate olde English, with the middle 'b' extending into a huge crucifix. The record is called A Blessing From The Angel Of Death! Song titles include "Heart Of Thorns", "Concrete Heaven", "Morbidity" and "Hotdog" (?). We knew before we even heard it that this was AQ through and through. Thankfully, the music was just as good as we had hoped. Noisy and raw, Blessing... was recorded live in Tel Aviv in 1999, and sounds like it. Overblown and a bit lo-fi, with super saturated vocals and crumbing guitar distortion, this is wild and chaotic and furiously intense. Imagine a black metal Hella, or the Ruins playing Darkthrone in a concrete bunker, or an even more damaged sounding Lightning Bolt. Just bass and drums, a super tight, uber distorted sludge-metal rhythmic chaos engine, spitting out relentless metallic mayhem, wild unpredictably spastic drumming, huge throbbing mud bass, and howled and shrieked vocals. Occasionally, the band stretches out into ambient post rock, doomy Khanate-isms, all syncopated bursts of musical bile, melodies hidden amidst prickly pounding riffage. And as with lots of live recordings, it's totally disconcerting to hear the barely there smattering of applause in the black hole vacuum of silence between each song. This is the sort of monstrous brutality that you imagine being played atop Valhalla, across a valley of cowering minions, bowed in reverent worship. Or at least in the corner of a sweaty, writhing, jam packed little club!
Finally! A brand new record from Israel's Barbara. A band we fell in love with before we even heard them. Why? Well, they're called Barbara to start with, they're from Israel, Barbara is written in olde English with the first 'b' extending into a crucifix, and they're a bass and drums duo. We were completely sold before we even discovered how amazing they sounded. But with all that going for them, if they didn't rule, we would have seriously lost faith in the universe.
The sound on Peger is not all that far removed from their 1999 debut A Blessing From The Angel Of Death, the biggest difference being that where the first disc was a live record, this is recorded in a studio, so it sounds heavier, noisier and more intense. A sloppy, ultra loose doomy prog jam of the highest order. It's like a confusional mix of Godheadsilo, Hella, Burmese, Lightning Bolt and the Ruins, but dipped in molten metal and rolled around in filthy gritty grimy dooooom. The guitars buzz and moan, chugging and grinding, weaving elaborate layered fuzzscapes and jagged melodies, a seriously sludgy downtuned blast of sonic chaos, feedback and amp buzz everywhere, shrieked vocals and blown out rumbles... but it's the drums holding it all together, a relentless ultra complex pound, drums splattered everywhere and cymbals crashing all over the place, like someone was firing a machine gun into a room stuffed with old drum kits. But this isn't just noise rock, the songs are weirdly catchy, underneath all the throb and pummel, thrash and grind, lurk some killer hooks and some super memorable riffs. And interspersed throughout the record are washed out extended drones, long stretches of buzzing fuzzed out guitar, and rumbling low end, punctuated by occasional bursts of aggro drum crush. Some super abstract ambient doom, that always seems to collapse back into another blast of stumbling low end punishment. So good!
We figured that since all the B&S records were getting the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment, we might as well re-list the cds as well as they have long been big sellers around these parts.
Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant was Belle & Sebastian's fourth album. Although this album from 2000 is still filled with their early trademark fey Scottish songsmithery that so frequently is compared to Nick Drake and Donovan, it proved to be a leaping off or transitional point for the band as they pushed open the garden gate to venture beyond the twee boundaries into grander scale productions. The results are heartmeltingly splendid, but not without a wonderfully wry bit of biting humor here and there.
We figured that since all the B&S records were getting the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment, we might as well re-list the cds as well as they have long been big sellers around these parts.
If You're Feeling Sinister was Belle & Sebastian's second album and was first released back in 1997. It continued in the same ultra soft folk pop vein as its predecessor Tigermilk. So mellow and twee it could almost be a suitable soundtrack to a child's storybook if it weren't for the occasional darker lyrical twists. The musical equivalent of an Edward Gorey bedtime story. Adorable and precocious. Over the years, this is the album that invariably got recommended most to folks seeking "the best early B&S album"... that is, until their formerly very hard to find debut Tigermilk got rereleased. Now we have to say it's sort of a toss up as to which is "better". Aww heck, get 'em both, you probably won't be disappointed!
We figured that since all the B&S records were getting the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment, we might as well re-list the cds as well as they have long been big sellers around these parts.
The Boy With The Arab Strap was B&S's third album and was first released back in 1998. A well-informed customer once explained to us that an arab strap is a sexual aid for horses that helps their penises to point in the correct direction. Oh my! The very same customer also told us that the particular B&S song with this title is making fun of (the band) Arab Strap's lead singer who is forever whining about his failed relationships. And the lyric does in fact read, "the boy WITH the arab strap". Make of this what you will. Bestseller in the lispy twee soft folksy pop department. Be forewarned, this band's music might trigger an irresistible urge to snuggle in even the most cold-hearted of beings.
German label Morr Music tosses us a curve ball with this latest addition to their roster. Benni Hemm Hemm does not make frothy dream-tronica, but something just as easy on the ears. Armed with freshly scrubbed rosy cheeks, Benni Hemm Hemm are a group of gentle indie pop folk from Iceland whose line-up expands and contracts between eleven and seventeen members. This is their second full length and it begins with what we imagined to be a highschool marching band going through their bright-eyed, glockenspiel'd paces out in a greener than green meadow. In the spring morn sunlight, their well polished horns and uplifting perky melodies simply sparkle.
The Black Lips kick ass live... and occasionally they do so in Spanish... at least on this cd which captured the band live in Tijuana... with gallons of tequila, beer and a mariachi band in tow among other things and beings. A wild, fist-pumpin', eyes comin' unfocused, clothing comin' undone, trashy garage rawk train wreck drenched with sweat and the above mentioned intoxicants. We suspect that countless brain cells were obliterated this eve.
In pretty much every respect, this sprawling new album from Black Moth Super Rainbow is overflowing with whimsy and trippy fun -- from the lengthy head-scratchin' song titles to the color-drenched cover art to the Bruce Haack-y vocoded vocals to the breezy ten-speed rollerskate synthesizer'd funkiness. Imagine if Black Dice or the Flaming Lips took a swing at electro and new wave, and your brain might go into a delirious tizzy with the delightful chew of Dandelion Gum.
Don't let the punny name fool ya, this surely isn't "blues rock". Nor blues. Nor rock. Not really. Nor is it of Yugoslav origin, despite the biographical misinformation posted on the Holy Mountain website that claims Blues Control to be an obscure '70s psych band from Yugoslavia. Nope, Blues Control are an instrumental Brooklyn duo on guitar and synths and drums, making a wonderfully fucked up yet pleasantly listenable psych-squabble of a sound that's not super easy to describe, actually... let's just say that if it were blues rock, it'd be druggily confused, utterly EXPERIMENTAL blues rock. The eight tracks found on this eponymous debut wander through mellow, spacey passages, interludes of seasick synth symphonics, and blown-out epic episodes full of fuzzed-up motorpsycho guitar leads, drunken and damaged sounding. Blues Control's two-man trash team are up to something strange here, counter-intuitive creativity that can make a cool track out of some pretty piano dropped into a droney wash, followed up by a broken-amp bass solo and some off-kilter beats, ferinstance. This totally fits in on the out-there Holy Mountain label alongside the likes of Residual Echoes and Aufgehoben, especially considering how fractured and distorted they can get, almost like a fuzzed-out Starfuckers on the very first track. We're digging this a lot.
Following their recent successful collaboration with American doom-drone-druids SUNNO))), who could Japanese behemoths Boris turn to for another joint effort in channelling the ultimate in psychedelic heaviness? They'd already teamed up with Keiji Haino some years ago, but there's another underground Japanese psych-scene guitar hero who Boris NEEDED to get freaky with (as proven here), and it wasn't Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple (though that's bound to happen someday...). No, as you already know, it's Michio Kurihara, formerly of Tokyo retro psych legends White Heaven, currently in both Ghost and The Stars. He's also played a bunch with Damon and Naomi, and released his own solo album Sunset, also on Pedal. His West Coast '60s inspired guitar style is virtuosic and distinctive, and certain to spark something special with the Boris crew, as any Kurihara fan would expect.
On very the first track "Rafflesia", Boris and Kurihara are already in slo-mo drone bliss, with shafts of white light seemingly streaming from their foreheads, guitars, amplifiers... then the title track starts off, all quiet and gentle, Boris guitarist Wata singing sweetly, her breathy vocals over a lackadaisically krauty, Can-like rhythm -- before Kurihara's stinging lead guitar cuts in, sizzling and distorted, at about the song's half-way point. It's a soft-loud psych/pop lover's dream.
The third track "Starship Narrator" features Boris bassist Takeshi on vocals, a more rockin' tune, again overpowered before the end by the intense motorpsycho guitar of Kurihara. "My Rain" is a brief, delicate interlude, post-rock prettiness personified. That's followed by "Shine", which could be Ghost (or Can), or Boris themselves circa Feedbacker. Again Takeashi takes the vocals, going for a melancholic wail... at this point, you realize that the feelings generated/explored so far make Rainbow almost an emo album! "You Laughed Like A Watermark" is another laid-back number, again blessed with gorgeous, slow-burn Kurihara lead work. Next, "Fuzzy Reactor" is again a drifting, pulsing bliss-out, an instrumental that contrasts greatly with the next number, the balls-out, almost-funky-but-for-the-wild-tangle-of-guitar-distortion "Sweet No.1". Spent, Boris and Kurihara wind things up with the gentle, music-box coda "...And, I Want", a fitting end to a beautiful, emotive, and often more than usually psych guitar damaged album!! One that's not so much HEAVY in the usual Boris sense but a more of a varied, dreamy, almost poppy platform for their esteemed guest to crank out his Quicksilver leads...
Man oh man. After Pink and Altar and the too-limited Vein 12" and let's not forget the cd version of Dronevil, and touring over here as well, you'd think Boris would have been all done for 2006. But then they sneaked this one in too! Our copies showed up the day after Christmas. But we figure that since most folks ain't getting their hot little hands on this 'til the new year [now], it'll be an early contender for a lot of 2007 top-ten lists despite being technically a tail-end of 2006 release. And at this rate, we'd imagine the Boris juggernaut won't be slowing down AT ALL this year, but we can expect a lot of new, interesting avenues to be explored as their output intensifies.
We're not sure how limited this is or not, it is a Japanese import though so when/if (who are we kidding, when not if) we run out it might be a while before we can get more. In a jewel case, the cd cover featuring nice metallic ink printing on fancy paper, with vellum inserts.
This record has totally knocked us for a loop. An impossible mix of grimy dubstep, murky triphop, and minimal spaced out dub. When we first threw this on we were immediately transported back to when we first heard Massive Attack, or Portishead, and a whole new world suddenly opened up to us. A creepy, muted world of barebones beats and haunting atmospheres that would go on to inform our musical tastes forever.
This is the first release on Hyperdub, a label run by grime/dubstep DJ Kode9, and we expected a blasting barrage of grimy beats, but instead, were sucked into a swirling vortex of late night groove and midnight stutter. Think those Rhythm And Sound Burial Mix eps, mixed with some Pole-like glitched out dub, and some slow burning Portishead smolder. Creepy and crawly, mysterious and moody. Beats suspended in a black shimmering fog, snippets of vocals, crooning, toasting, drenched in reverb, chopped up and let loose to drift over super dark, muffled dubscapes. Huge rumbling bass lines, like distant foghorns, dreamy ambience sort of drifting and ethereal but so so ominous. Tiny sonic sparkles glimmer like some alien sonar, drifting dreamily through fuzzy darkness. Drowned and submerged grooves, all muffled muted melody and shuffling minimal beats. Suffocating atmospheres of low end thrum, record crackle and shortwave interference. Some sort of slithering slinky dubstep shuffle slowed waaaaaaaaay down, into a blackened glacial dub jam. So fucking awesome. Our newest every night late night listen. A record of perfect dark and damaged dubbed out lullabies.
Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca had to start somewhere, somehow, before they had the clout to recruit for their guitar battalions in a quest to generate his minimalist / maximalist mantras of transcendent noise. Fellow avant-guitarist Tim Catlin has yet to branch out into territories of large ensemble guitar compositions, yet it's certainly exciting to witness the birth of an artist who will undoubtedly join the ranks of Chatham and Branca as one of the premier avant-guitar composers. A few years back, we bellowed loudly about the debut recording from Mr. Catlin, an unassumingly great album of mechanically attacked guitar vibrations entitled Slow Twitch; and now, we are just as thrilled by Catlin's second disc, the equally exquisite Radio Ghosts.
At the moment, Catlin prefers the prepared guitar, laid flat on the table Keith Rowe style, and then agitates the entire body of his instrument with any number of mechanical and magnetic means. Fan blades, E-bows, and battery-powered motors are each set up in a variety of strategies to create a complex set of droning vibrations whose multiple overtones send shockwaves of contaminated frequencies across the wood, strings, and metal of the guitar. These sounds are immaculately recorded and given only the bare minimum of mastering to heighten the exhilarating drones. Here on Radio Ghosts, Catlin fabricates the same harmonic dissonance through sustained drones that one might hear in LaMonte Young's dream theatrics or Tony Conrad's blistering violin screech or Organum's cacophonic metallic chorus or Rhys Chatham's billowing mass from 400 guitarists. Yeah, this is pretty much the pinnacle of '60s holy minimalism catapulted 40 years into the future; the only difference is that you've probably never heard of Tim Catlin. Do not miss out on this fucking brilliant album!
Haven't heard from these guys in a while. Oft described as Don Caballero meets Gastr Del Sol, due to their mathy post rock sound, and the fact that the guitar player wields an acoustic guitar. But he still kicks up quite a din, and he has to since the drummer is a wild beast, like the dude from Hella but with a bit more restraint. And in fact, that might even be another shorthand description of this here 10", it does sort of sound a bit like a less spastic and more reserved Hella. Their sound has changed very little, tangled complex acoustic guitar doing serious battle with some crazy octopoidal drumming that swings from reserved shuffle to free jazz freakout to metallic pound, often within the same song. If anything, they've managed to get even more mathy, sounding at times almost like some sort of indie post rock free jazz, fluttery melodies, shuffling skitter, that bursts into full on furious strumming and blown out wall of drumnoise, before slipping back into dreamy minimal groove. These guys still blow our minds, managing to be crazy instrumentalists without losing sight of the part about songs being catchy and fun to listen to. Definitely recommended, for math rockers, post rockers and anyone into complex instrumental rock...
The latest jewel unearthed by the B-Music Collective for Finders Keepers is so obscure it was actually never released. Only a small number of privately pressed vanity copies were made of this 1970 Philly-based folk-beat head trip. Using Philly studio session musicians, Axelrod-style breaks, spaghetti-western guitar, A&M strings and the "legendary" production of John Hill, who is dubiously credited in the liner notes as the inventor of both Trip Hop and Heavy Metal for his production work with Margo Guryan and The Riders of the Mark (a heavy psych predecessor to Black Sabbath, supposedly?!). Don't know about that, but the trip hop mystique of Susan Christie is definitely apparent by the opening riff of the title track begging to be sampled a million times over if it hasn't already. But it isn't just the sample potential that makes this a worthy listen. Just about every song is full of hooks and unique arrangements and darkly-tinged songwriting. Check out the nine-minute centerpiece "Yesterday, Where's My Mind?" with its spoken recitations of a bad trip culminating in a damning freak-out, before slipping into a fuzzy downbeat rocker. Freak-folk indeed!
While on the road Canadian indie songstress Ms Ora Cogan came strolling into our shop with these cd-rs charmingly hand-packaged in cut up old flea market record sleeves. On first glance of the varied decontextualized artworks, you might expect her music to be along the earthy experimental lines of the Bay Area's Jewelled Antler and Jyrk Collectives, but she's definitely coming from a different place -- Salt Spring Island, BC, haha! Seriously though, she's been making good ol' down home, twilight porch swing tunes for the past seven years. Her vocal delivery bears more than a passing resemblance to Ms Jolie Holland's. It possesses that haunting, soulful quality that seems like its source is coming from deep deep within or beyond. Like a mysterious transplant from decades past, it's as though she opens her mouth and a lilting voice from the '20s comes drifting out. It's beautiful in its simplicity, just her and her guitar and a few banjo and back-up vocal additions. Cogan is part of a close knit Canadian folksy sisterhood which includes the Begood Tanyas and Carolyn Mark. If you've a fondness for those ladies (and Ms Holland too), don't wait another second. This is totally for you!
Tons of amazing hip-hop has come through here lately. We were all a-flutter over the most recent J. Dilla and El-P albums. And now we have the fourth album from Newark, NJ's Dalek. While not as mind blowing as either of those two, it's still a pretty cool disc. Minimalist rhythms follow the old-school bass/snare/bass-ba-bass/snare pattern and land Abandoned Language consistently somewhere between Tribe Called Quest and the Fugees in BPM's, but somehow the record fails to deliver the lyrical depth those groups thrived on. However, the aptly titled "Abandoned Language" is chock full of super interesting samples and strange scratching, at a speed perfect for contemplative head bobbing. This album definitely finds Dalek forging new sonic paths and we're curious to see where they'll lead next...
By golly, we've received a bunch of tweaked pop releases this week -- Black Moth Super Rainbow, Shaky Hands, Welcome, Bonde Do Role -- but Baltimore's Dan Deacon and his merry melody makers (read: an assortment of well-worn effects pedals and electronic gizmos -- yup, he's a one-man band!) definitely take the daffy cake! That is, if the cake is a dizzying candy-jewelled sparkler inferno of vintage video game melodies and processed kiddie gang vocals. Having played a couple shows with Deacon, our own Matt Wildlife has attested to the live awesomeness of this fellow. However, despite the loosey-goosey frolicking nature of this album and his live show, he ain't no musical neophyte amateur. He's got some serious skills to pay the bills (i.e, classical training and a Masters degree in electro-acoustic composition!). Deacon's self-released seven albums to date, and this is his first for Carpark Records (home of quirkulicious releases by Ariel Pink, Ecstatic Sunshine, Animal Collective, Kit Clayton & Safety Scissors). Spiderman Of The Rings sounds like a sugar-coated battle royale between Arcade Fire and HR Pufnstuf. You want party? Here it is!
Five songs in just under 17 minutes from this new Louisville retro-metal act. Sorta mid paced thrashy, straight-ahead headbanging fare. Crunchy guitars, not much lead playing though, just lots of stiff riffing. They sound a lot like The Sword or Early Man, actually. Got that can't-quite-place-it-heard-it-before-but-still-sounds-good '80s derived thing going on. Our favorite track is "Never Bet The Devil Your Head" wherein the vocalist pulls of some nice raspy screams. "I Will Live Again" is also pretty good, more of a doomy number. So, this lil' disc might not be a bad thing to throw on as the soundtrack to the next couple cans of cheap American beer you quaff.
Oh... did we mention that one of the guys in the band is named Dave Pajo? That's right, the Slint, Aerial M, Papa M, Tortoise, Zwan, etc. Dave Pajo... suddenly we realize another reason why Dead Child remind us of Early Man! (Pajo briefly played bass for 'em). Well this is just an ep, so let's not get all embroiled in thee whole ole false/hipster/irony metal argument right now fer goshsakes...maybe when/if they do a full-length we'll let rip on that subject. Along with Pajo, Dead Child also contains members of The For Carnation, Crain, Anomoanon, Shipping News, and Phantom Family Halo, fyi. Heck if these indie rockers want to play metal, why not? Just as long as we don't start selling more of these than we do of, say, Skeletonwitch or Sacred Steel.
Dungen have done it once again. Gustav Ejstes' obsession with the sunshiney trippiness of '60s/'70s psychedelia is captured perfectly on Tio Bitar. Fuzzed to death Hagstrom guitar wails, delayed and reverbed Fender Rhodes, and beautiful lilting flute melodies...all the things we've come to expect from Dungen. The song writing is just as good as on Ta Det Lugnt, with maybe a slightly harder edge.
On the track "Ett Skal Att Trivas", the guitar line sounds almost Sabbathy, yet with such a keen pop sensibility that even those of us with cuddlier dispositions can't stop listening! The lead guitar work by Reine Fiske adds incredible energy to many of the tracks, a series of wonderful psych-pop gems, rife with extended jamming, TONS of instruments, and amazing little interludes. One of the highlights of this record is the textured and super lush production. You can almost imagine David Axelrod sneaking into the studio and laying his magic hands on the board giving it that unique warm and organic glow. All the instruments nestled in the mix just exactly where they should be with an overall sound both enticing and whimsical. For anyone who loves the Dungen sound, as we do, Tio Bitar is essential and we have a feeling this will win them a big batch of new fans as well.
More bubblegum electrofuzz poptronics from France's Electronicat, aka Fred Bigot (pronounced bee-joe we imagine), following up last year's Voodoo Man quite nicely. This new one's got all the shufflin' techno beats and glammy garagey guitar hooks you'd expect from this feller, and doesn't stint on his trademark fuzz at all. There's some female guest vocals (and rapping), plus plenty of synth squiggle and skinny tie new wavey catchiness. Go go Bigot!
A dense slab of mysterious druggy psych rock from Missoula Montana courtesy of the always reliable Siltbreeze. Some impossible mash up of Crazy Horse, the Dead C and No Neck Blues Band. The opening track is a lengthy damaged drum jam, with plenty of trash can lid clatter, a sprawling lo-fi free jazz noiserock spasm that quickly segues into some gorgeously lilting folk strum, wrapped in an ultra murky production, with deep warm vocals, hippy, druggy, spacey, classic sounding folk filtered though the cracked Siltbreeze lens, jangly guitars and tribal hand drums, all beneath a strangely traditional sounding pop song. Moments later, the band has transformed into a free noise rock beast, emitting a stream of plodding rock crumble, super distorted ambience dripping all over jagged guitars and growling grumbling murk.
Most of side 2 is taken up by a wild, slow burning Crazy Horse like jam, that eventually builds into an epic psych rock blow out, a dense cloud of pot smoke, noise rock and psychedelic skree.
Vinyl only and of course super limited!
As a music obsessive, it's inevitable that you spend some time fantasizing about the perfect musical match ups. Most of them could never happen, or maybe should never happen, others wouldn't sound as good as one might hope, but some have in fact taken place (SUNNO))) and Boris) and far surpassed our expectations. Which brings us to this, a collaboration between Canadian dream doom duo Nadja, and Dutch one man guitarmy Dirk Serries. These two powerhouses have met up once before, as part of that super limited Conspiracy Records anniversary series, and the sound here is quite similar, hovering somewhere between the colossal crush we know both are capable of, and a surprisingly dreamy drift.
Four lengthy tracks, each more sound than song, but that's exactly as it should be. The opener takes the blown out vacuum cleaner buzz of Total or Skullflower and smears it into soft edged swells, an almost static, barely undulating wall of whirring warmth, which quickly dissipates, leaving just a muted minimal shimmer. The second track is more of the same, a massive pulsing rumble smeared with wispy swaths of fuzzy distortion, but with a bit of percussion added, an industrial clang and thump buried way down in the mix, while above the roiling guitars are draped spidery streaks of coruscating feedback, a sort of Skullflower / SUNNO))) style mashup. Blissful and blown out, but at the same time dark and strangely ominous.
Track three is the anomaly here, the 'quiet' number, a sort of spacious drift, with tons of room sound, simple drumming way down in the mix all Dead C style, some ghostly melodies, and haunting snippets of clean guitar surfacing here and there and what sounds like seasick organs warbly and wavering. So haunting and pretty.
And finally, the closer, which begins with some slightly atonal Nitsch style drones, a wash of what sounds like moaning horns but must be guitars, tense and intense, drawn out for what seems like forever, when suddenly a wall of crumbling distorted guitars drop from the sky like it's raining anvils, a plodding drum beat underpinning the now suddenly caustic riffage, a gorgeously blown out slab of impossibly heavy, and simultaneously strangely lovely, ultra dooooooooom.
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On The Reminder, her second album, Feist takes a much more active songwriting role including a pretty great adaptation of one of our all-time favorite Nina Simone songs, "See-Line Woman" which she altars to Sea Lion Woman. With Gonzales in the production chair once again and great guest spots by pals Jamie Lidell and Eirik Glambek Boe (Kings Of Convenience), Feist's voice continues to sound smooth and confident. There is definitely a reason this debuted on the top 20 of the Billboard charts and is probably playing in hundreds of cafes as you're reading this. But luckily it's one of those records that while totally accessible is actually really quite good.
Had any random drone 'n' piano album been released on Windham Hill and featured some laptop jockey blurring the lilting piano notes of George Winston, would you even consider buying it? Well, we know Andee would. But no matter how good it was, for most of you, the answer would probably be no. Even though certain factions here at Aquarius have long held the belief that there's not much sonic difference between the pastoral impressionism of Windham Hill and the pastoral impressionism of Kranky, the major contextual differences between the two institutions have prevented many from buying into this argument. The full collaborative album between Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto also figures into this distinctly Aquarian logic to dismantle any notions of what is 'cool.' This is an album of drifting soundscaping for pretty, pretty piano and pretty, pretty treatments, whose external contextualization drives the reading about the music more than the music itself. Christian Fennesz, of course, is the highly acclaimed guitarist with an exceptional grasp of how to digitally mangle the sounds from his guitar into impressive dynamism that brings a poetic, human touch to digital deconstruction. Ryuichi Sakamoto hails from the seminal electronic group Yellow Magic Orchestra and has more recently taken to Erik Satie-like compositions for shadowy gestures upon the piano. Furthermore, Cendre was released on Touch, a record company considered by many to be *the* elite label for sound art. Everything points to what should be a slam dunk of an album; and in many ways, this album succeeds in what it strives for. It's doubtful that Fennesz and Sakamoto would have qualified their intentions as 'New Age' but Cendre's polite piano melodies that drift amidst a benevolent ambience share more than a few parallels to the quintessential Windham Hill sound. We'll leave it in your hands, oh trusted Aquarian shopper, as to whether you'll see a comparison between Christian Fennesz and George Winston as favorable or not. Some of us certainly do.
Freaky early '70s psych rock from Japan here folks, as you may know already on account of how we highlighted the reissue of this band's second album on our last list. This one, with a truly hard-to-beat title, was Flied [sic] Egg's debut, released originally in 1972, on Vertigo -- with Flied Egg one of the few, if not only, Japanese acts to appear on the roster of that legendary UK-based label known for proto-metal, jazz-prog and other "hairy funk" delights. This album dishes such delights all over the place, ranging from the Blue Cheer meets Uriah Heep heaviness of "Rolling Down The Broadway" to the weird choral interlude of "15 Seconds Of Schizophrenic Sabbath" to the classical prog flourishes of "Oke-Kus" (sounding like a warped version of ELP) to the sheer hippie psych-pop lunacy of the title track. And more! All in all, this is quite as crazy as its Dali-esque cover painting indicates. Definitely an essential for our Japanese '70s psych section, and anyone who loves them some acid rock guitar!
You know it's a good day when a new Henry Flynt release comes out, especially one as good as this.
Ascent To The Sun is the fourth volume of the New American Ethnic Music Series, the first one being the two disc stunner of recordings from the early eighties, You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power. Recorded in December 2004, Ascent To The Sun is one forty minute track of layered electric violin. Sounding at times like a steam-powered freight train bound for glory or a heavily reverbed and fuzzed out harmonica, Flynt deftly applies Applachian back-porch idioms to his longform minimalist compositions that are ecstatically hypnotic in their alchemical channelling of pre-war American musical history. A quality in which he has been known to lambast his minimalist contemporaries for ignoring. Incredible!
After their last great record, God's Money, we've been increasingly excited to see where Gang Gang Dance might head next. One of the few bands who managed to transcend all the hype of the Brooklyn/NYC city scene of the last few years and who have proven to be purveyors of continually interesting, challenging and rewarding sounds. Retina Riddim isn't the proper follow up to God's Money but instead a multimedia project which includes a dvd that GGD member Brian DeGraw created matching psychedelic images to a great blending of the bands past records & live recordings. The cd is one twenty-four minute track which incorporates everything from violins, to air horns, and even distorted beats, all melded together to create a wonderful cacophony of sound. Very cool!
Strange and shambling ode to the underbelly of the American heartland from this duo comprised of Ezra Buchla (ex- Mae Shi) and Ericka Anderson (Amps For Christ). Mixing dusty feedback squalls, damaged electronics and bummed out gospel-y folk with distorted narratives involving drugs, cataclysmic weather and self-abuse, Gowns sounds at times like a primitive Cat Power if Chan Marshall went in a much darker direction after recording Moon Pix. Red State is mournfully elegiac with a simmering intensity that is barely restrained, much like the rarely lit corners of our troubled country.
The cd releasing wing of Austin City Limits (aka New West Records) sure is on a roll! Hot on the heels of their Johnny Cash and Neko Case Live From Austin TX cds comes this bountiful double cd of Guided By Voices in concert. The sticker affixed to the shrinkwrap exclaims "full concert with 30 performances from their FAREWELL TOUR! 2 CDs!" That pretty much sums it up! Having been their final shows understandably emotions and energies were high, especially in the case of frontman Robert Pollard who spits out his between song banter like an incomprehensible madman (almost reaching the infamous fevered pitch of Venom's Cronos). The band was in fine form that evening, a little loose, very very drunk (as always), and rockin' out with an urgency befitting the finality of the event. It's a super duper GBV fan pleaser deserving of more exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another pestilential black cloud of ultra raw, primitive thrash and buzz from Horn Of Dagoth. It's been 2 years since the last rehearsal disc, and while the sound is similar, the songs have gotten even better, more complex, more dense, their buzzing old school black metal sprawling and expanding to incorporate long swaths of trudging doom, blown out blasts of furious black drone, stacatto bursts of machine gun like rhythm, dizzying insectoid riffing, loping midtempo lurch... Not to say that HoD aren't still ultra raw, ultra grim, and ultra KVLT black black metal, cuz they are, and their black flame still obviously burns for bands like Mutiilation, Darkthrone, Vlad Tepes, Beherit and other practitioners of the raw black arts. But like any band worth their salt, as time goes on, the more interesting their music becomes, and even with a core sound of black buzz and chaotic thrash sure to please the die hards, and a production (it is a rehearsal after all) that renders every thing in blown out smears and blurs - a swirl of cymbals sizzling atop a roiling murky black abyss, the songs and sound are interesting enough to keep weirdo black metallers equally entranced, at least when they're in need of a good old fashioned black thrashing.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!! Each disc numbered in the band's blood, and each booklet also numbered, as well as decorated with an upside down cross and the triple sixes, ALL IN HUMAN BLOOD!
A brand new IAS 1.25" button to go with their brand new album! Uniquely shiny chrome with black print of the 'magic/magnetic hand' image from the front cover of their Buy Hidden Persuaders limited edition album.
Back in stock! An unexpected I Am Spoonbender object for your multidimensional delight and reflection. It's a limited edition 2.25" circular mirror! These were formerly only available from the group at their performances and have been long long gone. However, to commemorate the release of their latest album Buy Hidden Persuaders which has mirror themes running throughout, IAS have made a fresh batch. We've got a small quantity here at aQ. The back is imprinted in black with their logo and the phrase "this is a 2 way mirror" (Who is on the other side? And where are they watching from?) on the same sleekly unique chrome finish as their 1" buttons. Perfectly stylin' and perfectly handy.
A brand new I Am Spoonbender t-shirt design to go with their brand new album! Black 50/50 t-shirt with metallic silver and red print of the 'magic / magnetic hand' image from the front cover of the Buy Hidden Persuaders limited edition album. Sizes: YL, S, M, L, XL. Please specify in the comments section of the order form which size shirt you want.
Ruff Draft is a deluxe 2-disc reissue of a 2002 self-released EP that captured a sea change in the late MC/producer's career. Having had two major works shelved by his embattled label MCA, and with his regular group, Slum Village, on extended hiatus, JayDee formed his own record label, changed his moniker to J Dilla and 10 years into a career as an MC and top producer for major labels went completely DIY. Attempting to get back to a direct, from-the-street feel, he made all the tracks "straight from the mother-fucking cassette" and brought back into play his favorite childhood pastime of making laborious looping tape edits from samples culled from his enviable record collection and multi-tracking the loops together and rapping over them. But it's in his choices of loops and edits that make him unique. Serpentine piano flourishes, backwards psych guitar, sci-fi keyboard crescendos, snippets of phrases, all glossed with reverb and stoner beats guaranteed to hook even the most casual of listeners. It's this alchemically charged attention to sound building that would lead to Donuts, his finest work to date. Since the original Ruff Draft was a limited vinyl only release that was little heard outside Detroit, it's nice to see it get the full deluxe treatment, even if the extent of the material is a bit slight (each disc is under 30 minutes). The first disc is the original 8-song EP with 2 bonus tracks, one of which is "Wild" featuring a kid hilariously singing Slade's "Cum On Feel The Noize". The second disc is the instrumental versions, which is a smart move to affordably package these together instead of releasing them separately. Those unfamiliar with Dilla's MC style, it's true he's a stronger producer, but to his credit, his style does not detract from any of the cuts (although we could've used less "Ruff Draft y'all's") and there are tracks here that work better on the vocal versions such as "Nothing Like This" featured recently on the Stones Throw's Chrome Children compilation, and "The $", whose loop is almost too brash and sketchy to enjoy on its own. As for the instrumental versions, it's nice to hear the closing loop of "Shouts" which makes us think of a hip-hop Steve Reich or Terry Riley's early tape loop repetitions. We could seriously listen to this track for hours uninterrupted and be totally happy. While posthumously credited as Dilla's lost masterpiece, it's more of an exciting document of a defining moment that might appeal more to folks already in love with his later production style than to new converts unfamiliar with his history. But definitely a worthwhile and satisfying listen!
The long awaited Jesu 12" Sun Down / Sun Rise is finally here. Might be a tad bit anticlimactic for Aquarius customers, as these two epic tracks populated the bonus disc that came with the Japanese version of Jesu's latest and greatest, The Conqueror. Not sure what the hold up was, and pretty sure, the vinyl was meant to surface before the cd, but so what?! Jesu fanatics and vinyl nerds, it was well worth the wait. Two long tracks, more in keeping with the more aggressive sound of the first couple Jesu records, that the more recent shift to dreamy fuzzy bliss pop. Not to say we don't love the new sound, we do, but we still dig hearing Justin Broadrick and company unleash the Godflesh pound, which they do in a big way on these two loooooooong tracks.
Thirty three minutes, of epic and majestic, huge throbbing fuzzed out guitars, pounding rhythms, drifting minor key melodies, thick washes of blissy psychedelia, soft processed vocals, the first track a crushing dreampop dirge harkening back to the first Jesu record (albeit a bit poppier), the second an almost ambient guitarscape of layered melodies, murky vocals and shimmery rhythms, so good. So worth it. Even if you already have the cd. Cuz like all the Aurora Borealis releases, the sound is pristine, the vinyl is thick and the packaging is beautiful.
Pressed on super striking grey and clear swirled vinyl (looks like storm clouds) in a gorgeous hazy full color sleeve (with photographs by Seldon Hunt) that is the perfect visual analogue to the blissy droney buzz inside. LIMITED TO 900 COPIES!!! Got a bunch, but not sure how long they'll last...
Finland's Kemialliset Ystavat (and Avarus, and Anaksimandros, and Uton, and Lau Nau, and Doktor Kettu, etc.) are often referred to as "forest-folk", implying some sort of quiet, gentle rustling mystery amidst the trees, and sometimes that's quite the case. But the first few tracks here, on Kemialliset's latest, would certainly scare off any friendly small animals -and- wake up the sleeping forest trolls. It's woozy woodsy cacophony unleashed. This be outsider "folk" at its most abstract and noisy and "free". But, by track four or five things have calmed down a bit, the sounds have gotten more organized. Some charismatic, long-haired, bearded guru has obviously taken charge of the previously wild music-makers, their pagan energy now channelled down paths previously trod unshod by the likes of Parson Sound and Amon Duul... more mellow and musical, still druggy and damaged. Track six, "Superhimmeli", comes off like something by cult '60s ESP tribe Cromagnon!! (Perhaps due to having the same keening horn cry as heard in Cromagnon's "Caledonia".) There's a hippy chant drone density to a lot of this that's VERY satisfying. It's like an ancient celebration underway, wooden space rock rituals, accompanied by electronic squiggles or birds atwitter, burbling and gurgling sounds in the margins... sunshiney yet strange, very strange. Fonal thinks this is one of their best yet and we wouldn't argue.
NB. There IS vinyl of this, but unfortunately the copies we got were damaged -- we're expecting replacements from Finland soon, though.
Second disc from this mysterious blackened outfit, that just so happens to feature members of AQ faves Woburn House, a modern metallic post rock combo, who knocked our socks off with their recent Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine record on UK label Paradigms. Where Woburn house took math rock and metallized it, creating a sound much more akin to some unlikely blend of Shellac and Gore, in Klabautamann, they take the buzzing blur of black metal, and add all sorts of melody and strange convoluted arrangements.
The record opens with the crunch of winter footsteps and glistening arpeggiated guitars, a lilting swoonsome introduction to the record proper, which erupts out of the gates as track two lurches into black aktion, manic drumming, buzzing crusty riffage and growled demonic vocals. But that's where any resemblance to traditional black metal ends. The songs buzz and thrash and pound, but it's so much more melodic, with cool little Iron Maiden-y guitar harmonies, strange mathy breakdowns, all sorts of strange guitar parts lurking around and under the main riff, lots of jangle and shimmer, even at its fiercest, there always seems to be some sort of sweet melody lurking underneath. The riffs too are much more rock than black metal, giving the record another strange twist. Lots of parts even sound like a blackened Treepeople, with multiple guitar lines all tangled up into gorgeous melodic knots. So cool and so weird. Could very well be the perfect gateway black metal band for folks who may have been a bit shy about taking the plunge into the dark side. And for the rest of you, whose musical souls are already tainted, this is strange and twisted, mathy, melodic, buzzy and blackened heaven!
This is maybe not entirely what you might expect from a solo album from the guitarist for modern-day Japanese psychedelic rock legends Ghost and, formerly, White Heaven (he's also currently the six stringer in Stars, and a frequent Damon & Naomi sideman)... He's perhaps best known for his gorgeous displays of John Cippolina influence in his guitar playing, but on portions of Sunset Notes he sounds less like the legendary Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist than he does like Robert Fripp in Frippertronics mode. This lovely, lovely, sprightly, poppy album will also remind listeners of Ennio Morricone soundtracks (we're always suckers for that!) and surf music and dreamy pop. With track titles like "Twilight Mystery Of A Russian Cowboy" and "The Old Man And The Evening Star" it seems clear that he's not gonna deny the Fripp and Morricone influences... To be sure, some fans who want a more Ghostly album won't go for this but we think it's great! Bright and energetic, or gentle and pretty, but not hippified at all.
Released last year, now finally in stock at a reasonable price despite its Japanese import status.
FINALLY RE-PRESSED AND BACK IN STOCK! An AQ Record Of The Week back in January, gone AWOL for some months now.
Wasn't sure what to expect with this one. A lost soundtrack from 1971 (a magic year for music, just ask Allan) to a movie none of us had ever heard of, directed by and starring Peter Fonda. Could go either way. But the second we threw it on, we knew this was IT! A dark and langorous abstract country psych folk gem. Seriously. Hearing this for the first time, you'd be forgiven for guessing it was Scott Tuma, Souled American, Califone, Golden Hotel, Thuja, Woven Hand or some totally obscure cd-r on some little tiny label from some mysterious band of psychedelic country folk minstrels. Slow and mournful, delicate and dreamy, acoustic guitars, farfisa organs, harmonicas and an echoplex. Spare and skeletal, mini epics of melancholic twang. Imagine if Sergio Leone had Ennio Morricone assemble a band cobbled together from members of the Jewelled Antler Collective, the No Neck Blues Band and Souled American to score one of his Westerns. Definitely recommended if you dig any of the folks mentioned above (including Morricone). And if like most of us, you've been digging all sorts of those obscure so-called "new weird America" outfits, maybe it's about time we all dug into some "OLD weird America."
And by the way, now we HAVE seen the film (it was re-released on DVD not too long ago) and it's GREAT!
Another gorgeously abrasive wall of caustic crushing pounding noise from Israel's answer to Whitehouse. I Cum Blood In The Think Tank! is the first full length from these speaker brutalizing miscreants, and it's just as amazing as the 3" cd-r teaser we reviewed a while back. Like we said in that review, as much as we love Whitehouse, this is what we WISH Whitehouse sounded like. Dizzying swirls of blown out synth buzz, jagged shards of industrial crunch, massive slabs of fuzzed out low end, stumbling lurching rhythmic plod. It's almost like doom metal pulled apart until its noisy splattery insides spill out. The tempos are glacial, the drums are monstrous and sloooooow, the vocals are a glass gargling roar, the soundfield is constantly shifting, layer upon layer upon layer, distant beeps and swooshing FX, massive swells of digital glitch and low end fuzz, electronics glitch and slither, everything is doused in effects and allowed to get all tangled up with all the other sounds. The thing about Lietterschpich is that somehow they make this all SOUND GOOD. This is beautiful noise, there are hooks, melodies, actual parts, they're sort of like real songs, not just long stretches of noisiness, and even at its most abrasive and harsh, it's totally amazing and listenable. Hard to explain why, it's like Bunkur and the Dead C being remixed by Throbbing Gristle. Some tracks have gentle lilting acoustic guitars, but they're doused in white hot streaks of malfunctioning synths and sputtering electronics, others are straight face melting noise, but have hooks buried underneath all the murk and mire, others are buzzy blurry walls of warm sound, but even those tracks eventually transform into prickly icepick in the ear brutality.
It's definitely an intense and punishing listen, fierce and freaked out, druggy and seriously fucking scary, but within that body of blood and bile, lurks a heart of luminous radiance... Noise record of the year!
Another installment in the convoluted and lost history of the Funerary Violin. A mysterious body of work, attributed to the equally mysterious Guild Of Funerary Violinists, all of which was lost to history until quite recently. A book has been published, and a handful of recordings were discovered, illuminating this amazing, and surprisingly, entirely fictitious movement.
We've reviewed two other unearthed recordings from this historically valuable series, one a compilation called Babcotte, Sudbury And Eaton: The English School Of Funerary Origin, the other by Wilhelm Kleinbach called The Funerary Notebooks Of Herr Gratchenfleiss. Check those reviews more a more detailed description of the Guild and its contentious history. Both were recorded before the advent of modern recording, preserved with the fuzz and whir and scratchiness of old wax cylinder recordings, gorgeous, mournful, beautiful, delicate and wistful, each a heart wrenching funereal lament, but all of it a massive hoax.
Not that it takes away from the brilliance of the music, or the incredibly detailed liner notes, if anything it makes it even more amazing. That someone could create what is essentially an entire alternate history, complete with sound.
These recordings, supposedly performed Herbert Stanley Littlejohn in 1956, were taken from a book of music discovered in a dusty corner of a church in 1954, dating back to the late 1600's! In the process of recording the pieces, Littlejohn tripped on a cat, fell down a flight of stairs and smashed his skull dying instantly. This disc collects the finished pieces from that session.
As with all the Funerary Violin releases, the liner notes are extensive, names, dates, events, the notes to this disc are particularly humorous commenting on, among other things, "the poor technical performance standard amongst guild members in what remains one of our darkest periods." And like the other discs, the music is exquisite, genuine or not, utterly lovely, the melodies are mournful and sad, the playing smooth and refined, the notes drifting dreamlike into the starry night, the recording lo-fi, but warm and shimmery. Even without the amazing backstory and fabricated history, this would still be entirely recommended!
Awesome. A few years ago, some friends of ours -- the Jewelled Antler guys as a matter of fact -- had a once-in-a-lifetime record collector wet dream come true experience while on a day trip up north of San Francisco. They came across some sort of town dump / recycling center place where a whole bunch of old vinyl lps had been left free for the taking. Like, someone's entire record collection! Of course our friends expected to find the usual beat-up Bread, Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel albums, but took a look anyway, just in case... and soon realized they'd stumbled upon a small cache of extremely cool, rare records! Obscure psych rock and free jazz stuff. Terry Riley and Alice Coltrane and even some Yahowha 13 lps!! Lucky bastards. Among the treasures was an album on Verve by someone called Malachi. We got to hear it, were wowed, and ever since have been hoping to find a cd reissue... at last, here it is!!
Psychedelic New Age before either terms were widely known or even invented, Holy Music was recorded one late San Francisco evening in 1966 by proto hippie Malachi. While most people consider psychedelic music of this time to be from garage rock bands who used sitars, Holy Music was truly one of the first psychedelic recordings in the way we define that term nowadays, meaning long and druggy, hypnotic, droney and blissed out. These five pieces named Wednesday (the day in which he recorded them) are raga-tinged guitar cycles accompanied by Jews harp, tom toms and meditative chanting, that bridged an eastern ornamentalism with earthy western counter-cultural invention. Malachi was the Animal Collective of his day. Allen Ginsberg was a big fan, and if you like your psychedelia to be both dreamy, drifty and earthy then we're sure you'll be big fans of Malachi too. Recommended!!!
