Hot on the heels of the recent Black As Pitch record, one man band Jabaldav returns with a much more abstract outing... Whereas BaP, and the previous release Dead As Duck, were both homages of a sort to SF black metal legends Weakling, albeit filtered through some Black Flag damage and some fucked up black studio magic, 3K Hum sounds basically like what the title would lead you to imagine. Longform drones, drawn out expansive low end soundscapes, still black and haunting, brutal in their own way, but more hypnotic, more trancelike, owing more to SUNNO))) and Niblock than Immortal and Ildjarn.�
The opening track is nearly 15 minutes of digital burble, tape hiss and amp buzz, woven into a slow simmering stretch of glitch-pocked shimmer, like strange malfunctioning machinery, floating�along a slow flowing black river, sputtering and struggling to make more than buzzes and bzzzt's, immersed in a deep resonant sonic flow. Eventually, a riff enters the fray, but it's soooo slow, and weirdly digitized, it's more like a dense cloud of overdrive tone, thick and roiling, keening and white hot, before drifting off again, leaving nothing but a strange Morse code sort of Raster-Noton click and buzz ambience...
The second track is much more smoothed out, a gorgeous languorous sun baked crawl, long distorted notes stretched way out, flecked with sharp bits of overdriven buzz, a lazy metallic minor key threnody, burning hot but slowly, smoldering and intense, very alien, but warm and hauntingly emotional. This is followed by a brief series of Close Encounters like tones, that occasionally overheat and become super distorted swells, before reverting again to gentle drifting harmonics, before the 'bonus track' (which is NOT on the cassette), a massive 44 minute epic, a gorgeous washed out drift, shades of Tim Hecker, Philip Jeck, and other masters of soft focus blur, like the soundtrack for some weightless drift through space, distant glimmers, barely there melodies, soft warm melodic swells, little shards of FX, like lost transmissions from some dying satellite, slipping effortlessly from ominous and dark, to dreamy and hopeful, this track all on its own is like an entire record in and of itself, but of course manages to be the final part in 3K Hum's multi part epic... So lovely...
And also on the cd (and not on the tape), is a brief coda, a weird robotic blur of buzzing tones and crumbling distortion, haunting and speaker shredding, but again in its own black buzzing way quite pretty...
The cd is packaged in a DVD case, with full color cover, and two full color inserts.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!!! Each one hand numbered.
It's easy to get lost in the sounds from John Grizinich, as his slippery compositions for abstracted field recordings impart a stupifying hypnosis when listening to them. While we've had a couple of his solo discs, most of the work that we've encountered by John Grzinich has been through collaborations with the likes of Michael Northam and Seth Nehil. And even though both of those artists have a particular fondness for the drone, it seems as though Grzinich was responsible for directing those collaborations into the depths of sonorous hypnogogia. This was especially true for the impeccable Grzinich / Nehil album Gyre, and the same could be said for the Grzinich / Northam disc The Absurd Evidence. Yet, this sensibility becomes all the more obvious when Grizinich strikes out on his own, as is the case on his stellar 2007 album Rudiment Of Two.
Released by the British drone-artist Paul Bradley on his new Edition Sonoro imprint, Rudiment Of Two contains three lengthy tracks, which engage Grzinich's preferred strategy for vulcanizing field recordings into elegantly serpentine tonalities. Through revolving sets of fluctuating bellows and incrementally changing drones, Rudiment Of Two come across as a painterly take on BJ Nilsen or Jonathan Coleclough. Typical of Grzinich's sound is the trickle of rain on the album's massive 30 minute centerpiece, which activates a silvery auditory filigree amidst the reverberation and metallic vibrations. With the rattle of a heavy iron bell, the crackling textures begin to swarm into a full spectrum chorus of miniscule ticklings that eventually condenses into a bleary drone shot towards infinitude. A really fantastic album from an under-recognized artist.
Imagine being in the middle of a hectic workweek, with a project deadline on Friday. Maybe, for instance, you've got to write a ton of reviews of music releases for a bi-weekly New Arrivals list? And it's time to review the new installment in the Inui series by Acid Mothers Temple leader Makoto Kawabata. It's just one track, 68 minutes long, and you take the opportunity to relax in your chair as you listen to it before writing about it. Under the spell of its blissful wash of drones, gently burbling electronics, and mellow, repetitive guitar strum, you might even drift off for a few moments of blessed nap-time, before getting back to work tackling the next offering of indietronic dance pop, cd-r noise folk, or grim black metal in your to-be-reviewed pile.
Well under these circumstances, Kawabata's Inui 4 definitely gets the big thumbs up! Seriously, as long as you're not trying to concentrate, even the foghorn sounds at 21 minutes in, or the high-end whistling tones of Kawabata's drones, won't bother you. It's just another welcome relaxing trip to the softer side of Kawabata Makoto's psychedelic cosmos.
Yay! These AQ faves -- everyone's faves -- from Kinshasa are back with another exciting dose of their "Congotronics". Chances are, especially if you're a regular AQ customer, that you know all about 'em already, and maybe even got to see them at one of the shows that (lucky for us!) they've played over the past couple years in San Francisco. Live is where it's at for them, a sweaty, joyous, unstoppable, never-ending groove heavily laced with the sound of their signature instrument: the DIY homebuilt electric amplified African thumb-piano (called a likembe). In the hands of Konono No.1, it produces a bright, burbling, somewhat distorted, almost-electronic-keyboard sort of sound that we immediately fell in love with way back when we first heard the band. But that of course is not all, there's plenty of percolating percussion underpinning the likembe melodies, over which they do exuberant vocal toasts and call-and-response chants. When they get going full-on, you'll want to turn it up LOUD and let the whole neighborhood enjoy the energetic density of Konono No.1.
Eight tracks, 52 minutes total, recorded live (sounding great!) in Belgium. Some songs you might recognize from versions on the previous two Konono discs (Lubaku and Congotronics), others are previously unrecorded. All will get your body moving, guaranteed. This is dance music, nothin' but. At home alone, unwilling to dance? It'll still bring a mesmerized smile to your face for sure.
You might recognize Mr. Nyles Lannon from his time in Bay Area band Film School or as his laptoppin' folktronic alter ego n.lannon. When we'd play Chemical Friends (his 2004 debut album as a solo artist) in the store, it was frequently mistaken for a posthumous Elliott Smith release. Pressure is his second solo album. Far darker and heavier in mood, it will undoubtedly draw comparisons once again to the late singer/songwriter as well as bringing to mind the textured melodic qualities of Grizzly Bear and the sharp songwriting of fellow San Franciscan Kelly Stoltz. Pressure is a really strong album, without a dud in the batch. Subdued, withered and heartrending, but still very dreamy.
Le Loup is a group of artists & musicians led by Sam Simkoff, who plays the banjo and the keyboards. Coming from D.C. it's no surprise that there is a strong collective spirit heard on this recording with all eight members contributing vocals to songs which have a really organic disposition. Imagine if the Animal Collective slowed down a bit and took some deep cleansing breaths or if Sufjan Stevens was a little more rugged and less precious. After putting out the great Arthur & Yu record that we fell in love with earlier this summer, Hardly Art is proving to be one of the best new indie rock labels around. Banjo fans (like Andee) who have a pop soft spot might really dig this...
From the first few notes, we were totally sold. A wild freaked out psychedelic flute solo, why don't all bands start their records like that? Cuz we probably couldn't handle it! But it makes sense here, when you realize that Life On Earth just so happens to be dudes from Swedish psych rockers Dungen! Obviously Dungen fans are gonna want this, the sound is similar, maybe not quite as rocking, a little more laid back and hippified, groovy and space-y and definitely psychedelic, but still so so good.�
Fronted by Dungen-eer�Mattias Gustavsson, but with musical back up from other Dungen folks, and such unlikely musical bedfellows as Town & Country and Mia Doi Todd, Life On Earth is Gustavsson's musical tribute to, well, life on earth. The sheer exuberant joy of it, happiness and sunshine and love and brotherhood and wildlife and blue skies and nature and dreams and beauty and most importantly some super kick ass folky proggy psych rock bliss...
Flute is everywhere, and obviously for that we are truly thankful, but it drift and flutters amidst gorgeous and tranquil swirly folky forests of sound. Silky threads of acoustic guitar, swoonsome strings, harmony vocals, lyrics both in Swedish AND English, bongos and simple percussion, some slithery rhythmic grooves, some killer squalls of psych guitar growl, long stretches of hushed dreaminess, with cooing vocals and muted melodies and super tripped out heart-of-the-sun druggy jams, complete with slow motion riffing and reverbed outer space vocals, the whole disc is actually very Beatles-esque (albeit at their most experimental and HIGH) giving Dungen's sound even more of a sixties pop makeover.
Surprisingly (or maybe not so) the record finishes off with nearly 30 minutes of barely there lower case ambience, bits of percussion, keening high end glimmer, all drifting in wide open expanses of mumbled drones and hushed shimmer, a super longform abstract raga, that sounds like something you'd be more likely to find on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon or Pseudo Arcana than on a Dungen related record... Awesome.�
We're pretty sure that the guys in England's Litmus, a new space rock / stoner metal outfit on Lee Dorrian of Cathedral's Rise Above records (home to Electric Wizard and Witchcraft among others), won't mind us -- and everybody else who reviews this -- saying that, basically, Litmus is a more modern, much more metal, version of Hawkwind. If you're at all familiar with the peculiar genius of that British prog/psych institution, particularly their early '70s classics like Hall Of The Mountain Grill and Space Ritual, you'll hear the Hawkwind just as soon as you start spinning Litmus' debut album Planetfall. And that's no bad thing. In fact, we're all for it. This is awesome!
Litmus kick out an absurd, energetic overload of outer space anthems, mixing headbanging riffage that Lemmy would love with a mad scientist's laboratory's worth of sci-fi bleeps and swooshes, on songs with titles like "Destroy The Mothership" and "Expanding Universe (Twinstar Pt.2)". The album's centerpiece is the 15 minute fourth track, "Under The Sign", a triumphant and impetuous epic full of heavy heads-down chuggery and soaring refrains. Among the five psychic space warriors in the band, there's one guy credited with playing these three things: "Mellotron, synthesizers, and gong". So prog! As are the contents of the cd booklet: pages of lyrics (we assume) inscribed in some sort of alien glyphs or ancient runes or something. We also appreciate that the "space noises" with which this disc is abundantly and enthusiastically littered are mixed pretty much higher than just about anything else. It really makes it sound like Litmus are rocking out from within some sort of cosmic storm of chaotic radiation. Where else are you gonna hear the howling Hawkwind blowing with such gusto? We doubt that the actual Hawkwind, in whatever incarnation they currently exist, could match this. Only maybe Acid Mothers Temple comes close, but they aren't metallized OR poppy enough to be exact competition for what Litmus is doing here. Voivod circa "Outer Limits" and old Pink Floyd are also orbiting in proximity to Litmus, with the likes of Tarantula Hawk and Morkobot somewhere in nearby space.
All 72 minutes of Planetfall are utterly black-hole dense with bombastic, hooky, Hawkwindy space metal gloriousness. Even if you haven't ever heard Hawkwind, this is recommended (but of course then you should check 'em out too)!
We'd been going through a sort of Shimmy Disc revival lately, digging out all of our old favorites, the first Gwar record, Bongwater, Dogbowl, Jellyfish Kiss... We had sort of forgotten how good all that stuff was. One of our favorites though was this little Brit pop gem by a band called The Mabuses. One of the most perfect slabs of clever hook filled pop ever. The track, "Kicking A Pigeon", has to be, all hyperbole aside, one of the greatest and most lyrically bizarre pop songs EVER. So much so that on hearing it, Allan went on a tear trying to track a copy down for himself (and fear not, Andee is trying to figure� out a way to reissue that record on tUMULt!).�
We were sort of just enjoying this pop flashback, when our pal Brian at WFMU emailed to inform us that not only were the Mabuses still in fact a band, they were playing shows AND had a brand new record. So we got in touch with the band and here it is, a glorious new record from one of our favoritest pop bands, The Mabuses.�
There's no point in comparing the sound of this record to the Shimmy Disc one, since most folks probably missed it entirely, but for those who remember, the sound is relatively unchanged, lush and slightly twee, jangly guitars, soft horns, strings, all very lush and classic sounding, with clever lyrics and dreamy vocal harmonies, but with some BITE too. Some songs are super washed out and dreamy, others are angular and propulsive. The sound borrows from much that came before, but manages to distill it all into something, that once you've been Mabused, can sound like no one else. Bits and pieces of bands like the�High Llamas, Steely Dan, Robyn Hitchcock, Cardinal, Jellyfish, that classic Flying Nun sound... that should give you a rough idea...
Every song here is a pop gem, but "Byayaba" might be the new "Kicking A Pigeon", a super catchy riff, sharp edged and distorted, the vocals doubled and delivered in a commanding baritone, like a pissed off more punk rock Magnetic Fields, then there's the strange garden party strings and horns jam of "Garden Devils", the fuzzy slithery grind of "Russian Roulette" featuring Kramer on bass, the harpsichord pounding Jellyfish jam of "Seasider"... it's just all so good...
To be totally honest, on first listen we couldn't help but compare Mabused! to their self titled record on Shimmy Disc, but the more we listen, the more this disc has grown on us, unfolding like a garden full of strange and wonderful flowers, and now, it seems to be permanently stuck in our players. Total pop nirvana! So so recommended.�
Gorgeously packaged too, a super elaborate die cut digipak, with a massive fold out poster / lyric sheet.
Vol. 4 Now on Vinyl. Here is what we said about the Vol. 3 and Vol. 4 CD:
As everyone must know by now, we're huge suckers for Bollywood music. Just when we think we've had enough, another Sitar Funk or Bombay Beat comp comes in and we're madly in love all over again. Even if some of those comps revisit the same songs that were on other comps, we don't seem to mind too much, because there is always some new groove that we haven't been turned on to yet, or in the case of this record, hasn't been re-edited yet.
Madlib's Beat Konducta series has fast become our favorite side-project from this uber-prolific producer. Vols. 1 and 2 were like short unrealized film scores culled from the unlikeliest of musical places such as Van Dyke Parks. On Vols. 3 and 4, Madlib concentrates solely on Indian film music, painstakingly editing and reworking 34 newly unique and beat-heavy nuggets out of what is by now a classic and well-trafficked genre. But our guess is you won't be able to recognize much of the original sources, making it extra fresh listening for fans of Bollywood funk and instrumental hip hop alike.
Recommended!
We proudly proclaimed Magic Aum Gigi's last lp, the mind blowing MMMM, to be our new favorite record when we reviewed it a while back, a dense blast of "raga metal" that pushed ALL our buttons. So we were super psyched when we heard there was a brand new lp, which is way different, but just as cool.
Magic Aum Gigi is a Frenchman, and honorary member of the Acid Mothers Temple extended soul collective, but the music he makes on his own is well removed from the blown out psych of the AMT mothership. You won't find any raga metal here, instead, four extended tracks, each created with a single instrument or sound. From the Ash Ra homage on the cover, we knew we were in for something hypnotic and tripped out.
The opener is worth the price of admission alone, the first half of side one is solo Jew's harp, heavily affected and processed, the twang and buzz looped into an epic expanse of Reichian rhythmic pulses, rife with all sorts of strange and subtle variations and sonic overtones, some so percussive it ends up sounding like some alien robotic transmission. Fans of Daniel Higgs' Jew's harp record will go nuts. And any one into dense looped drones will be in heaven. We could listen to just that track forever.
The second track, and the rest of the first side is a mumbled soundscape assembled from just voices, a background glottal buzz, an undercurrent of rapid syllabic sibilance, all blurred and looped until the voices just sound like haunting tones, deftly arranged into slow shifting rhythms and sweeping moody arrangements. Cool.
The flip side begins with a piece for just synthesizer, and is a crazy tangled chunk of chaotic sound, like a squiggly spaceship harpsichord gone haywire, garbled melodies, synth buzz, all atonal and slippery, dizzying and confusional, a bit like some stately Medieval court music, brought to the future and played by malfunctioning computers. Finally the record finishes off with a piece for just guitar, a gorgeous muted percussive drift, the notes all attack and very little decay, an ultra pizzicato assemblage of melodies, pulses and thumps, delayed and reverbed and woven into tranced out krautrocklike rhythms. So awesome.
ULTRA LIMITED! Only 200 copies!!
For a band much loved by the metalheads around these parts, there's a serious dearth of Marduk albums on the AQ site. Only four out of maybe a dozen full lengths. WTF? No excuse, other than just too much amazing metal to cover...
So let's try to right that wrong!�We meant to get going on Marduk reviews again when Mortuus from Funeral Mist joined on vocals. We couldn't think of a better combo, the blazing buzz of Panzer Division Marduk, and the grim frosty howl from Funeral Mist, but it seemed most long time fans were super bummed on the change, we however were not. Even though we never got around to reviewing 2004's Plague Angel, it ranks as one of our favorite Marduk records.�
So for those new to Marduk, the thing with them, is they are fast. Really fast. Furious, relentless, the embodiment of pure black buzz. Lots of folks found the band to be boring because of the lightspeed blur the band seemed to constantly inhabit, but we reveled in their blazing blackness. So we were pretty surprised by this latest disc, sure the band had dabbled in midtempos in the past, even a bit of dirge here and there, but Rom 5:12 is pretty heavy on the midtempo Burzumic buzz, and even the doomy downtuned plod, but fear not those chunks of blackness are surrounded on all sides by that classic ultrafast Marduk buzz.�
The opening track is all spacious and mathy, even post rocky, sounding not unlike recent Deathspell Omega, lots of gnarled squalls of blackness amidst almost groovy black riffing. The second track though returns Marduk to more familiar ground, but not for long. Check out track three. "Imago Mortis", it's downright pretty, sort of major key, with huge sweeping melodies, a dirgey dramatic breakdown in the middle, and a pounding groove laden back half, all complex and mathy, but not at all blazing fast. The weird thing is it really suits them. It makes the perfect balance for the blinding lightning strike of the other more typically furious and fast numbers.�
Probably the coolest song on Rom 5:12 is "Accuser/Opposer", which features�Alan Averill aka Naihmass Nemtheanga from Primordial and Void Of Silence, who adds a whole 'nother dimension with his throaty wailing clean vocals, sounding quite a bit like Mike Scalzi from Slough Feg at moments, wrap your head around that, Slough Feg vocals over dirgey Marduk, hell yeah.�
What else to say? This totally rules, much more varied than past releases, but still with plenty of ultra fast fury and black buzzing blast, but with a whole lot more going on. Definitely one of our favorite Marduk discs...
We joked in some past reviews that Dutch experimental world music label Terp must be paying our salaries considering how much love we give their releases, but c'mon, you've heard them! You've bought them! LOTS of them! And like us you've played them all to death. Every single one is amazing, so exciting musically, so emotionally resonant, some of the most unique and moving music we've EVER heard. And as if to drive the point home, we have not one, but TWO new releases from Terp on this week's list, one, a gorgeous final live recording from blind Ethiopian vocalist Mohammed 'Jimmy' Mohammed who passed away recently, and this, a wild live blowout from legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, jamming with Dutch avant rockers The Ex and other like minded friends...
We've been trying to list this forever, but we kept selling out of them in the store before we could get it reviewed and up on the site. Finally though, we have enough, so it's time to once again get your Ethiopian groove on...
But with a twist. The twist being The Ex, everyone's favorite Dutch avant rockers who have always had a thing for world music, so much so that members of the Ex are directly involved in the running of Terp. So it makes sense that given the opportunity, they would jump at the chance to jam with the legendary�Getatchew Mekuria. So here we have it, what sounds like one of the wildest musical parties ever! Oh how we would have killed to be there. Must have been a stone cold blast, but at least we have this here recording to ease our pain...
The record seems to be split right down the middle, half the songs are Ethiopian classics, given a bit of an angular post punk vibe, due in no small part to the fact that the band playing them is in fact the Ex, and the other half, the ones with vocals, sound like Ethiopian flavored Ex songs... We lean more toward the former, but both are pretty great.�
Imagine your favorite Ethiopiques record, but�way more bass heavy, a fuzzy distorted throb, along with jangly angular guitars, all underneath that oh so recognizable sax, wailing and soaring, practically singing, emotional and gorgeous. A few tracks are�groovy and smokey and sultry, sounding like they could have come straight off of Ethiopiques 4, and�even the all time Ethiopian groove classic "Musicawi Silt" here gets a sort of funkgroove makeover, with percussive guitar clang, blooping bass, the song was already funky, but in a different way, the new version is a little more tightly wound, but in a good way, you could maybe call it Ethiopian postpunkgroove or something. And there's also an�amazing solo jam "Tezeta", with Mekuria just making the sax sing, an extension of his being, going from full on skronk, to melancholy drift, oozing emotion and passion. The crowd reaction afterwards says it all. The rest of the record is packed with the above mentioned Ethiopian Ex style jams, which are awesome and wild and are definitely kinetic and ebullient, but the vocals are definitely an acquired taste...�
As with all Terp stuff, tons of photos and extensive liner notes...
We joked in some past reviews that Dutch experimental world music label Terp must be paying our salaries considering how much love we give their releases, but c'mon, you've heard them! You've bought them! LOTS of them! And like us you've played them all to death. Every single one is amazing, so exciting musically, so emotionally resonant, some of the most unique and moving music we've EVER heard. And as if to drive the point home, we have not one, but TWO new releases from Terp on this week's list, one, a live disc from legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria, jamming with The Ex and friends, and this, a sadly posthumous live release from blind�Ethiopian vocalist Mohammed 'Jimmy' Mohammed.�
We raved about Mohammed's other release on Terp, the completely mind blowing�Takkabel! And as we mentioned before, his life story is just as dramatic and intense and emotional as his music. He became blind as a child, an apparent curse after his parents had him baptized against the warnings of a local fortune teller (God wanted him to be Muslim), spent years homeless on the streets, eventually rescued and cared for, enrolled in a school for the blind, where money was raised to help restore his sight, but the money was stolen, and his eyesight never restored, eventually becoming a nightclub singer renowned for his interpretations of songs by legendary vocalist�Tlahoun Gessesse (who you probably remember from several volumes of the Ethiopiques series).
But whereas much of�Takkabel! was tangled and angular and complex, recalling Aavikko weirdly enough, with guest drumming from improv legend Han Bennink, this live disc is much more laid back and dark, a very personal sounding and intimate recording, the band spreading out a lush tapestry of sound over which Mohammed weaves his magical moods. His voice is divine and as powerful as it is subtle,�distincitive and expressive, soaring and dancing nimbly across impossible melodies, the interplay between the vocals and the instruments is divine. The guitar like krar unfurling simple melodic fragments, the percussion simple and propulsive, a simple spare framework for Mohammed to explore as he sees fit, his vocals wild and acrobatic, intense and passionate, so mysterious sounding, but also utterly warm and inviting.�
The last two lengthy tracks are the most reminiscent of�Takkabel!, with the addition of sax, the rhythms a bit more off kilter and danceable, the whole sound a bit more funky and groovy, VERY Ethiopiques sounding. Hard to imagine the crowd in attendance not dancing wildly in the aisles...
The proceeds from sales of this cd will go toward a just-founded Jimmy Fund, created to care for his wife and his children, one of whom was born right after his death.
With all the talk of metallic post rock, or post metal, or whatever, bands like Isis and Pelican and the Grails and Conifer and Tides and a bunch of others always get referenced, but it seems like folks forget about Japan's Mono, who traverse similar sonic territory, but in many ways do it a whole lot better.�
We've loved pretty much everything we've heard from Mono, but this singles and rarities compilation has really kicked our asses, so much so, that whenever someone is playing this in the store, inevitably anyone else working, or anyone in the store shopping, ends up heading to the counter to find out what's playing.�
The thing with Mono, sure their loping moody post rock soundscapes are gorgeous, expansive and epic, they definitely hold their moody melancholy own in the esteemed company of bands like Mogwai and Godspeed and Sigur Ros, but they make that sound their own, steeped with emotion, gorgeous melodies, and deft arrangements, but where they really shine is�in the heavy parts, they don't just get louder, and they don't just unleash big downtuned riffs, they EXPLODE into dense swaths of noisy fury, often drawn out into length stretches of swirling static and glitchy crunchy white noise, dizzying and gloriously suffocating. The end of "Black Woods" is the perfect example, what begins as a jangly mathy workout, builds into a full on fury, with the drums crumbling into clouds of cymbal sizzle, the guitars becoming jagged shards,�enormous cresting waves of feedback swallowing everything whole, abrasive and intense, caustic and furiously fiery, sounding a bit like maybe Merzbow got a hold of the tapes. Elsewhere, the band seems to let loose any semblance of song structure, allowing the guitars to spill out of the amps like thick black pools of sound, but always to be deftly drawn back in by some gorgeous spidery guitar line, or simple soft melody.
And while the proceedings definitely tend toward the loping and melodic, the drawn out and pretty, and don't get us wrong, a whole record of nothing but Mono's dreamy moodiness would suit us just fine, it's the band's ability to simply destroy, to musically torch everything within sight, to turn guitars and drums into incendiary devices, all without ever completely letting the song crumble into chaos, always eventually finding their way back to a place of beauty and melody, that really makes Mono so special.
Lost compiles all of Mono's essential musical odds and ends: their track from the split album with Pelican, two out of print eps, their track from the TRL Thankful compilation and all the tracks from their Travels In Constants disc.
Amazing packaging too: die cut tray card, with the cd visible through the back of the jewel case, and a corresponding die cut slip case, which also allows the cd to be visible, the whole thing ends up looking like some cool mysterious map like buried treasure artifact.
On his first song based solo outing since 1995's Psychic Hearts, Thurston shows us that he's not afraid of the acoustic guitar or even super pretty melodies. With a great supporting cast at his side including J. Mascis, Samara Lubelski, Gown, Christina Carter, Leslie Keifer and his SY comrade Steve Shelley, Moore has made a superb rock record that shows off his great songwriting skills and his surprisingly dreamy touch. While Moore is usually thought of in regards to electricity and his fondness for noise, it's always been his sprawling guitar playing and ability to make rock songs that swoon with such dignity and grace that we think makes him so special. It should come as no surprise then that Trees Outside The Academy has a sound and feeling that is pretty reminiscent of recent Sonic Youth outings like Rather Ripped and Murray Street, but stripped down to their core with lush violin accompaniment on many of the tracks, and Moore's instantly recognizable guitar playing and vocals. Thurston continues shine, proving once again that he is never going to fade away, not with so many great songs still hidden up his sleeves!
What could be cooler than a French guy in the '70s, hanging out with naked chicks and teetering stacks of analog synths, making underground DIY futuristic psychedelic new wave punk drone proto-industrial music??? Uh, not much. Particularly when said French guy (Thierry Muller) is so good at it. Longtime AQ list readers might recall us raving some time ago about something called Ilitch and something else called Ruth, both bands/projects of Muller reissued on the Fractal label. Now, those discs are all out of print (why? they should repress!), but the label has just presented us with a collection of mostly previously unreleased material from the man's various projects over the period indicated in the subtitle... and even the stuff that has been available is super rare. None of it included on those previous Fractal cds of Ilitch and Ruth. For the uninitiated, let us say, Thierry Muller was a French pioneer in the realm of electronic/prog/punk weirdness, an "early Industrial" genius indeed! This disc is all the proof you need. There's material from five different Muller led projects: Arcane (1974), Ilitch (1975), Breaking Point (1978), Ruth (1978), and Crash (1984). The progression, if we can generalize, from "band" to "band" is from the more abstract, lo-fi distorted homebaked soundscape-psych displayed by Arcane all the way to the robotic sci-fi FX pop of Crash. But it's all got a kind of tense krautrock meets the new wave vibe, and if you like the likeminded work of Muller's countryman Richard Pinhas (Heldon) you should check this out! You could buy it just for the blissful 28 minutes of Ilitch's 1975 "Un Jour Come Tant d'Autres" and get your money's worth. Highly recommended!!
This newest release from the curiously monickered Italian duo My Cat Is An Alien comes courtesy of local label Starlight Furniture and continues their skewed trajectory of deconstructed outer space blues and scraping drone-y minimalism utilising a wild array of poper and toy instruments. Il Segno is a two part epic, with the first part the more subdued, with the buzzing of long wires, like a slowed down sitar, under mumbled Italian spoken word, creating a dreamy, drawly, syrupy soundscape. Near the end of part one, things pick up a little with the introduction of crackling, scraping, feedback and what sounds like distant peeling sirens. Part Two is like outerspace Jandek, a minimal, deconstructed blues jam (if something this lugubrious and hazy can be called a 'jam'), just heavily reverbed, plucked guitars notes, hanging effortlessly in the ether, while scattered percussion drift by like shooting stars, with the occasional supernova of cascading cymbal wash, all partially obscured by distant Skullflowery skree, tinkling chimes and warm moaning drones.
Hard to resist a record with a bloody teddy bear on the cover, its fuzzy arm torn off and laying in a pool of blood, bone and sinew and gristle exposed. The record simply titled Dismember. Even harder to resist when you realize it's actually a country band, covering songs by Swedish death metallers Dismember, and far from being a joke, it sounds amazing, grim and dark, twangy and catchy, the twang and shuffle offset by horns, which add a strange funeral vibe to the proceedings.�
Some of the song titles sound like they could very well actually be country songs, "I Saw Them Die", "In Death's Cold Embrace", "Dreaming In Red",�but others maybe not so much so: "Where Ironcrosses Grow", "Let The Napalm Rain"... The record begins with a brief whispery intro,�hushed female vocals, crooning all intimate right in your ear, before the band launches into a rollicking campfire stomp, all minor key twang, shuffling percussion, warbly Hammond organ,�insistently strummed steel string guitar, and a world weary�whiskey soaked drawl, culminating in a�soaring epic chorus with the repeated line "I tasted blood, now I want more". Sounds like it could be the Old '97's or Sixteen Horsepower. Even a little Decemberists. Elsewhere the band dip into truckstop honky tonk, old time folk, gorgeous languorous swampy blues, epic over the top super dramatic Godspeed bombast (that inexplicably gives way to a super strange electro country tinged new wave jam), Southern rock and shuffling rockabilly...
Our favorite track has to be the darkly doomy and twangy "In Death's Cold Embrace", with its loping rhythmic slither, it's mournful funereal horns, some seriously Woven Hand like vocals, a killer warbly trombone solo, the whole thing just steeped in gothic grandeur, even the lyrics, what little bits you can catch, add to the track's gorgeous creepiness.
It almost doesn't matter that these are covers, fans of Slim Cessna, Sixteen Horsepower and that sort of muddy woodsy gothic swamp blues will definitely dig, but it's sort of thrilling to realize these are bastardized death metal songs, and to realize that melodically, thematically and especially lyrically, country blues is not all that far removed from death metal...
Very much like how all the black metal bands in the Ukraine seem to be made up of the same 5 or 10 people, just in different combinations, black metal bands in Russia also tend to revolve around the same 2 or 3 visionaries, along with whatever black legions they can enlist from their little scene to help shape their black musical world.
We recently reviewed the only currently available disc from Russian cult underground legends Old Wainds, who as we mentioned in that review, are THE grim cult horde of choice among the black metal elite. And almost appropriately, all of their records, minus the just reviewed demo disc, seem to be way more difficult to track down than they should be, and thus of course, are seriously big ticket items on eBay.
So here we have the group Nav, also known in Russian as HABb, a black metal band made up of 50 percent of Old Wainds, primarily the project of Old Wainds drummer Izbor, so as you might imagine, the sound does not wander far from Old Wainds' grim frosty buzz. Which is of course a good thing. The same sort of fuzzed out primitivism, a gloriously murky production. But Nav add plenty of their own unique style, everything is so strangely mixed, with loud LOUD drums and guitars that swirl into a nearly impenetrable blackened haze. Demonic vocals that go from buried way down in the mix to a blown out raspy roar often within the same song, and bits of chaotic rhythmic stumble and haunting ambient weirdness, complete with the thunderous sound of horses hooves.
And unlike the straight black buzz of Old Wainds, Nav sounds a slight bit more melodic, with much of the riffing displaying a classic metal vibe, as well as rhythms that vary from the old black stand-by, the blast beat, lurching lopes, galloping thrash, pounding doom, lots of fuzzed out midtempos, all twisted amidst some strange breakdowns, where the rhythms constantly shift and the riffs contort and morph into slightly different shapes, there are even some super demented LEADS! Still, all the while the band continues to forge a wholly unique pitch black path. Fans of all things dark and frosty and cult and grim would do well to bow before the black knights of Nav!
We haven't been able to track down the cd, but we do have the ULTRA LIMITED vinyl version. Gatefold sleeve. Limited to 300 copies!
First we've heard from the appropriately named Noise Nomad, a mysterious horde who traffic in primitive electronics and avant noise rock. Like an even more Neanderthal Man Is The Bastard but without the basses, or like some�sort of damaged tribal Silver Apples, but way more lo-fi and fucked up.
Wild squalls of Lost In Space electronics and FX, stumbling pounding unhinged chaotic drumming, creating some sort of crumbling framework for the pulsing alien high end skree happening in the foreground. Within this stumbling static soundscape of caveman thud and abstract electronics, lurk lots of other little sonic mysteries, that flit and flutter just below the surface, but it's all about the dueling drums and FX that will either melt your brain or send you drifting off into some gloriously damaged trancelike state.�
Super limited of course, and packaged in cool two color silk screened covers.
Ahhh, a sound so immediately familiar and homey, like�a warm summer breeze, rustling leaves and big billowy white clouds in a vibrant blue sky, a sound we hadn't realized just how much we had been missing until that voice, and those melodies washed over us again...
The Salvation Blues is the�first record in what seems like forever from�original Jayhawks vocalist Mark Olson, and while the Jayhawks did continue on without him, and while we still dug those records, it was just never quite the same. There was just something so magical about the interplay between Olson's voice and that of his partner in the Jayhawks Gary Louris.
And post Jayhawks, Olson went on to play in the�Original Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers with his�wife Victoria Williams, which took the twang and jangle of the Jayhawks in a slightly different direction, and made it even more rustic and countrified, laid back and dreamy...
But here we have a sort of return to the glorious old Jayhawks days, especially considering the fact that Louris joins Olson here, contributing harmony vocals, which immediately gives the sound of�The Salvation Blues a distinctly Jayhawks vibe. And we're loving it. Not as rocking as the Jayhawks, not as mellow and country as the Creekdippers, but the perfect mix of the two, the focus on Olson's gorgeous voice, weathered and weary, but still so rich and expressive, the music, subtle but super hooky... a gorgeous blend of the�Beatles, the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, a dreamy timeless twangy country pop. Jayhawks fans will be in heaven for sure.
Packaged in a miniature hardcover book, complete with dust jacket, book of lyrics and photos, and a digipak style cd case affixed to the inside. So fancy and lovely. And SUPER LIMITED, eventually to be released in regular packaging, but for now we have the swank book version.
People have been asking for this slab of beautiful heaviness forever, and for the longest time, we were beginning to think that its existence was just a hipster vinyl collector nerd urban legend, but whaddaya know, at least a year after we first heard about this two song vinyl only ep, it shows up, and of course as is par for the course with Pelican, knocks our fuckin' socks off.
Two tracks, both apparently reworked versions of older Pelican numbers, the A side is a killer, the title track, epic and majestic and major key, the guitars thick, a throaty roar, the drums simple and massive, heavy but pretty, a definite Jesu vibe for sure, the track occasionally blissing out into stretches of mathy nineties style indie rock, albeit way heavier and way radder. At moments things also veer into Fucking Champs territory, but for the most part we hear some gloriously bastardized and metallized version of Polvo or Pitchblende. The track ends with a super shimmery outro/coda, all swoopy and soft focus, super spare drumming, spacy FX and weird far away production... yet another argument for these guys being one of the finest purveyors of metallic post rock going.
The other side is a reworked and remixed blend of another couple old Pelican songs, courtesy of Mr. Prefuse 73. A fuzzy expanse of glitchy acoustic guitars, sounding like Oval mixing some super minimal folky prog track, a laid back dreamy electronic folk, that eventually builds until an almost funky rhythm kicks in, simple handclaps laid over glistening harmonics and lilting minor key guitars, more and more fuzzed out as it progresses, a blown out sheen not unlike everything was dipped in a pixelated Fennesz style gritty guitar wash...
Gorgeously packaged as always, thick sleeve, printed inner sleeve, heavy vinyl, in a variety of swirled colors... And yeah LIMITED like crazy...
We first discovered Phantom Limb on the now out of print collaboration with Japanese guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama released on aRCHIVE a few months back. Phantom Limb aka one half of East Coast noisemakers PeeEssEye, brought to the table a cacophony of whirring organs and grinding guitars, a blown out expanse of buzzing drone and strange swirling guitar ambience.
For this disc, Phantom Limb have teamed up with Bison, who as far as we can tell plays contrabass clarinet, and between the two 'outfits' manage to creep and crawl through two half hour slabs of far out drift and roar. the first track see's and saw's back and forth between, blissful tranquility, minimal synthesizer buzz, warm chordal whir and huge grinding slabs of angular low end scrape and squeal, spending more time in the soft than the loud, but the loud bits are extra loud to make up for it.
The second track is one long drone, that works its way through various textures and timbres, it's here that you can really discern the presence of a clarinet, but just barely, this is no free jazz skronk fest, instead, it's a sort of Niblockish war of overtones, slabs of sound beating against one another as tones gradually shift and subtly interact. Dense and deep, layers continually being added and transformed, other layers constantly being peeled away revealing some other strange subtle sonic alchemy underneath. Nice.
Limited to 200, each disc hand numbered.
Packaged in a cool card stock sleeve with printed sticker with liner notes and artwork.
Many pop fans were severely saddened when those Scottish dreamboats The Delgados sailed off into the sunset in 2005 after ten years and five albums. Well, we can all dry our tears... at least a little bit because Ms Emma Pollock (who was one of the charmingest voices from that band) has emerged with an album that respectfully carries on in her former band's wonderfully sumptuous and poignant pop tradition. On the surface Watch The Fireworks reflects the sound of lemon meringue, dew drops, crushes, and snugglin', but there's more to it than simple sweetness. After you get swept up immediately in the opening number's carousel waltz tempo and Pollock's voice, you'll find songs with a bit more burly energy than that of the Delgados. The backdrop of electric guitar crunch, sturdy bassy organ lines, solidly struck piano keys and insistent drums make for a pleasing counterpart to her sweet singing. It propels each song up-up-up into the super pop stratosphere, burning off any grey clouds and leaving nothing but warm golden sunlight. It's easy to see why it was such a good idea for her to open for the new Pornographers on their latest tour for their album Challengers. if you get a chance to see her, don't miss it! Otherwise, buy this now!
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!! This former record of the week available on lp for the first time...
Over the years, there have been plenty of records that have become AQ hallmarks, the Conet Project, a quadruple disc of short wave spy transmissions, The Ghost Orchid, EVP recordings of the voices of long lost loved ones as intercepted via radio waves, the Thai Elephant Orchestra, a real live elephant gamelan, and of course Laddio Bolocko, a rock group that made the most beautiful white hot, black hole noise we had ever heard, a seriously jaw dropping blast of superdistorted, ultra complex, psychedelic prog rock freak out. When LB disbanded, half the band went on to form Electric Turn To Me, a curious neo-cabaret act complete with icy campy female vocals and a sort of new wave Krautrock sound. Definitely interesting but not at all what we were hoping for from a post LB outfit. So along comes The Psychic Paramount, featuring the -other- half of Laddio Bolocko, guitarist and bassist Drew St. Ivany and Ben Armstrong, joined by the drummer from Sabers, and it is EVERYTHING we could have hoped for and more. It's like they took Laddio Bolocko and just smashed it to bits, reassembling all the parts into a gorgeously Frankesteinian blown out, fuzzed out psych rock, bizarre and beautiful, chaotic and always on the verge of falling apart. The record starts off with almost three minutes of dreamy, noisy, backwards psychedelic bliss out, equal parts My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Filmstars, keening hyperdistorted guitars, dreamy sunsoaked melodies, that awesome percussive fthhhhp sound of backwards drumming, all in supercharged splattery Technicolor swirl. The rest of the record is some sort of outerspace Krautrock, where the order of the day is still hypnotic and motorik, but this is not Neu! or Faust, not unless you took those guys, lit them on fire and launched them into space! Guitars careen and wail and keen and shriek, slipping fluidly from gorgeous melodic runs to full on fiery freakouts, all over a thick snarled bed of throbbing serpentine bass and ultra distorted drums (recorded so hot that every hit sends the needle even MORE into the red). This is like an indie rock Last Exit, or a more freaked out metallic This Heat. It's not just noise and pummel though, these are killer songs, the guitar parts especially, not only are they so complex and confusional they make you think this band must have at least three guitarists to whip up this sort of squall, but they are totally hook laden, which they sort of have to be as The Psychic Paramount are all instrumental. You'll totally find yourself anticipating certain riffs and licks, like you would your favorite line in a normal song. This record effortlessly steps all over pretty much every record in its path, it's not metal but manages to be way heavier than half the metal we hear, it's not really prog, but it's so much more complex and, well, progressive than nearly ANYTHING we've heard, and on top of everything, it's totally catchy, and noisy, and weird. It's really weird. Lots of that is just the sound of the record. In fact the recording is as important as the drums or the guitar or the bass. Ultra blown out, drenched in organic fuzz and room noise, super hot and in your face, with occasional tape drop outs and natural reverb and recording level abuse that adds a whole 'nother layer to the already dense sounds herein. The record finishes off with a completely confounding, but totally killer one two punch. "X-Visitations" is a ten minute free noise dirge, equal parts, SUNNO)))-like rumble and Sunroof!-like shimmer, that just sort of slithers and vibrates. The final track, "Gamelan Into The Mink Supernatural", starts off as a jazzy shuffle, building slowly in intensity and distortion, until it's a roiling relentlessly propulsive pummel, before it just cuts out suddenly, only to burst back into motion after an entire minute of silence! So awesome.
Three cds worth of vintage Dutch tape music from one of the masters, Dick Raaijmakers! Maybe you remember him from the Popular Electronics box set on Basta. This is the second edition of this collection, nicely presented in a colorful cardboard box, with 124 page booklet with text in English. Raaijmakers was active in the Philips Labs in the late '50s, and this contains material from 1959 all the way up to 1996, mainly from the '60s. Those big into early electronic music will want to check this out, as will anyone who gets turned on to Raaijmakers thanks to the the nifty various artists tribute comp also reviewed this list.
When we heard that there was a new music album by Harry Shearer, two words jumped eagerly into our heads: Derek Smalls! Then another two: Mark Shubb! Alright, of course we all know that Harry Shearer has done so much more amazing stuff than portraying those two unforgettable musical characters (in the metal mockumentary Spinal Tap and the country/folk mockumentary A Mighty Wind respectively). They're only two of the innumerable very different facets of this man's genius (actor, writer, voice of numerous Simpsons characters, radio host of the NPR program Le Show, the list goes on).
We have to admit tho', much as we love Shearer and his thought provoking and funnybone tickling work, this album ain't doin' it for us... but then again maybe he didn't make it for us. Maybe he's chosen not to preach to the converted as it were. On Songs Pointed & Pointless, Shearer has planted his social and political critiques in a musical style that for the most part appeals to a very conservative (taste-wise, not politically) audience. Sure his lyrics are loaded with his razor sharp insights, but the manner in which they're delivered can be a bit trite or downright cheesy. In that "Uh oh, Uncle Harry brought his guitar to the family dinner!" kind of way. You know what we mean!? So much so at times it's drawn audible cringes when played in the store. On second thought, we take that back. What are we thinking?! We'd kill to have Harry Shearer as our uncle! The thing is Shearer is such a master at assuming characters we can't tell if this is another role he's playing with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Regardless, if you have any mild-mannered, mild-tastebudded relatives whom you think need a little tutorial at the School Of Shearer, he's got his sharpened pencils at the ready. Give a listen for yourself!
Brand new super limited cassette release from this droned out space rocking duo made up of Ilya Monosov, and Preston Swirnoff, who just happens to be the brother of our very own Irwin! Sort of taking off from where their Holy Mountain release left off, these guys take synths, vocals, organs, hurdy gurdy, drum machine and guitar and whip them into a blown out krautrock, wild noise space rock frenzy, some baffling mix of Can, Hawkwind, High Rise and Suicide, that sounds perfect together, a confusionally brilliant wild eyed blowout. Total WTF? free psych heaven!�From the opening burst of blown out heart-of-the-sun psychrock meltdown, to a stretch of spacious drifting, mesmerizing motorik fuzzstomp, to the final chunk of weird drum machine driven, electronic krautdrone, these guys are absolutely melt minds and destroy speakers, and we can't get enough.�
Packaged in gorgeous fold over, card stock envelope like sleeves, hand painted, with pasted on gull color tripped out artwork, on red cassette tapes, with full color picnic blanket colored inserts. LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES, each hand numbered...
Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk rock label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get one from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed.
We haven't heard much from Sweden's Skull Defekts, but what we have heard we like. A lot. In fact, if there was any justice in the world, these guys would be battling Wolf Eyes for the hipster noise rock crown for sure. It's not that these guys sound like Wolf Eyes, although they do a bit, it's more that they are exploring the same territory, but without the goofy in your face vibe of Wolf Eyes, instead choosing to open up their sound a bit more, make it lighter, more abstract, and in the process a whole lot more compelling.
The A side is a side long drift through a wondrous world of noise and noises, atmosphere and ambience. A heady ambient buzz, disrupted by little whorls of distorted crumble, endlessly shimmering, the sound twisting and mutating, changing color and texture, sometimes sounding blissful and serene, but just as quickly becoming damaged and dangerous. An epic exploration of a multi-layered glacial drift, not so much 'noise' as noisy in parts, not so much brutal as intense and dark.
Side B is split into three tracks, the first features a simple cavemen pound, around which swirl and streak stretched out sheets of grinding guitar noise and abstract sonic fields. A slowly shifting soundscapes of layer after layer of buzzing fuzzed out noises. And again, not 'noise' just dreamily noisy. The second track is the most Wolf Eyes sounding, although it's a much more blissed out spaced out version, not so aggressive, a roiling landscape of damaged electronics, abused guitars, and abstract percussion, all twisted into a slithering sonic beast. The final track is the most mellow, but even then, the sound is harrowing and ominous, the perfect blend of low end buzz and rumble, and coruscating upper register psych guitar shimmer. Very hypnotic and leaves us wanting to hear a LOT more from these guys.
The Skull Defekts are another one of those bands that seem to have gone from barely existing, with only a cd-r or an lp or two floating around, to a seriously productive group spitting out a release or two every few months. And with SD, unlike a lot of bands, we CAN NOT get enough. Easy to understand why. Their records all sound so completely different, some are glitchy freak outs, others are droney and contemplative, some are heavy and dark, others shimmer and drift, but all of them somehow manage to sound fairly distinctive and unique, with some invisible Skull Defektive thread running through them.
This particular slab of Defektive sound is all synths, thick and pulsing, layers upon layers of grinding throbbing buzzing synthesizer, laced with distant streaks of slightly higher pitched synths, adding a bit of subtle color, a gorgeous glacial Niblock drone synth symphony, the tones beating against each other, subtly altering the tempo and rhythm and timbre, a whole side of dark minimal buzzy crawl, sounds amazing on both 33 or 45.
The flip side begins with more synths, almost like a continuation of the first side, but with a strange industrial jackhammer beat, that eventually dissipates leaving the synths to squirm and slither.. The second track on side 2, is like a higher end mix of side 1, with the various layers beginning to crumble and distort, and glitch out a bit, almost like the Skull Defekts as recorded by William Basinski, all very buzzy and intense, sounding a bit like the gateway to the other dimension in the movie Phantasm gone haywire... So cool.
Packaged in a gorgeous black on black wood cut style sleeve.
Nobody makes real punk rock anymore it seems. Sure, there's pop punk, or screamo, or generic 3 chord bash and thrash, but we miss the gnarled grinding ugly punk of SST or Amrep, the sludgey slithery guitars, the sheets of feedback, the plodding drum damage, the clouds of amp buzz, and the howled reverbed vocals, the Stooges-y stomp, the damaged groove, the atonal angular riffage, the slippery squiggly leads...
Well thankfully Providence punk rockers Snake Apartment are doing their best to change all that. We've been eating up everything we could track down from these guys, which up until now was just a split 7" and a split lp, and as far as we know this is their first proper full length, at the very least, the first one we've managed to carry, and it's a killer.�
Every sone starts off with a squall of feedback, the scrape of pick on strings, thick swaths of ungrounded amp buzz, before the riff kicks in, usually some sort of Ginn-ish tangle that manages to be thick and heavy, but still atonal and damaged (as in Black Flag's Damaged), the drums lurch and swing, the guitar and drums dueling to the death, getting all wound up in each others bizness to glorious result. The bass is just a huge gooey low end throb, permeating every inch of the proceedings, the vocals a drawled laconic lazy shout, sometimes slipping into Nick Cave-ish croon, sometimes turning into a harsh howl, but draped over the jagged punk like a bloodied corpse tossed in a copse of black rose bushes.�
Imagine some unholy union between Black Flag, the Brainbombs, The Stooges, Tad and some old SST doom stuff, then have them take lots of drugs and record a record for Amphetamine Reptile... as if that didn't already say it all, this fucking rules.�
Killer garish, eye popping drug tripping cover art too!
Latest from AQ faves Souvenir's Young America, who have been slowly nudging their way to the top spot in the ever growing lineup of modern metallic post rock combos, the usual suspects, Isis, Tides, Conifer, Rosetta, Pelican, we love them all, and they all bring something fresh to a sound that is quickly becoming what Slint's loud/soft thing was to indie rock bands in the nineties.�
But there's just something about these guys that makes them seem extra special. They definitely seem to be the least metal of the bunch, but it's not just that they're the least metal, it's that they have no metal pretensions at all, as if it was super matter of fact, a compositional certainty, that specific parts were just meant to be distorted, and specific times the guitars need to be distorted and overdriven, and thus, it seems so much more of an organic part of their sound, instead of a constant build to the crashing climax and then back again, it's all very dense and layered, some songs stay quiet all the way through, and some are as punishing as the most metal of outfits, but for the most part, it's somewhere right in the middle.�
Less Neurosis and Isis, more Scenic or Calexico. The sound has a definite cinematic twang, sweeping and majestic, but not at all bombastic, instead windswept, forlorn, ghost town, emptiness as far as the eye can see. Organs warble and that harmonica wheezes, slide guitar slips and slithers, all draped over skeletal arrangements of bass and drums, loping, shuffling through dusty streets and arid concrete wastelands, the guitar left to color in around the edges, not so much riffing as shading...
The record begins�with a huge pummeling crunch but soon blisses right out into that Souvenirs' haunting Morricone-is desert rock, complete with that gorgeously mournful harmonica, and simple tribal drumming. The melodies are mournful and melancholy, wrapped up in darkly contemplative epics, that spend way more time crawling beneath the hot desert sun, everything enveloped in those shimmering heat waves turning the landscape into a dreamy blurry otherworld, than they do bashing or crashing.�
The record closes with "Coragyps Atratus (Ego Te Absolvo)", which begins as an ambient drift, little slivers of guitar hovering over slow shifting low end murmurs, but the tape begins to crumble, the sounds gradually decaying right before our ears, a sort of Basinski / Jeckian dissolve, that builds to a fever pitch before the tape dies and the band grinds to a halt, and then immediately explodes back into action, but instead of over the top metallic crush, it's a strange tangled swirl of dense drumming and mournful slide guitar that fades into the background like a mirage.
So good. Metal fans might be disappointed by the lack of full on metal, but�An Ocean Without Water is as heavy as any metal record, just much more subtly so, and way more dark and personal and beautiful to boot.
You'd never know it from listening, but this gorgeous slab of sprawling Americana and Appalachia, features mostly members of Sunburned Hand and the No Neck Blues Band as Mr. Speer's back up band. No ramshackle percussion, spaced out drum jams, or noisy free rock, just twangy folky old timey country, strummed and picked mountain folk, and some old fashioned truck drivin' ballads. The music is pitch perfect, for a minute we were convinced this was some unearthed classic, some lost folk find, but nope, this man and his band are a going concern, gigging and recording present day! The songs vary, running the gamut of traditional country tropes, classic Fahey-esque Appalachia, stretched out country ballads, sixties surf rock, SF style psych, it all sounds amazing, the vocals too, which only appear occasionally, a earthy baritone drawl, crooned in a sort of Townes Van Zandt style. Really good stuff, and a surprise coming from these NY freenoise vets. And if you like this, be sure and check out the Coachfingers, another weirdly twangy NNCK offshoot (and conversely, all you folks who bought the Coachfingers would probably dig this too!).
Yes, they do make solid quirky rock like they used to! Standing Nudes latest full length is the proof! You might recall their last release, a punchy post punk-y vinyl 7" from earlier this year. Since then they've kept the energy level up and their wah pedal well-oiled, but tailored their sound into something that's still weird and angular, but maybe a little more direct and emotive. The moody female vocals and overall tone of the album is quite reminiscent of Throwing Muses actually. Still the guitarist is allowed free rein on a lot of the record, including the fifth track, "Fight Song" (featured on the aforementioned 7"), and he noodles up a trippy storm! All and all an excellent psyched out, fuzzed up POP record. Solid song writing with enough freaked guitar weirdness to make it a more delicious bon-bon out of the musical bon-bon box where most of the bon-bons are kind of good but not as good as the really good one. This is one delectable bon-bon! There's also some summer of love, Nuggets type of shit in operation here among the general angular jangle, which is a combo that works out quite well. Killer jams to be sure!
You were warned. We reviewed this Circle side project's insane debut ep a couple weeks ago. Now, here's the full-length follow-up. The battletoads are back!
Not Sacred Steel, Steel Attack, Ritual Steel, or Steel Assassin. Not Wooly Mammoth. Or Mammatus. Or Mastodon. Or Pelican's "Pink Mammoth". Not Titan Steele, or Virgin Steele, or Steeler. It's STEEL MAMMOTH!! A metal band, presumably? Well, no, not quite. It IS another example of the many flirtations our favorite Finnish prog-psych band (Circle, including offshoots like Pharaoh Overlord and Krypt Axeripper) has always had with the elements of heavy metal (sonic, visual, lyrical). But the high-concept of "Circle does '80s metal" that you might expect from the band name and cover graphics and band pics with spikes and leather isn't quite what you actually get here, these guys being too clever and creative and crazy to do the obvious thing. Really, if you want to hear Circle-goes-metal, they come a lot closer on certain songs from Circle albums like Sunrise and Tulikora, and the recent, ever so slightly black metal bewitched Katapult. Not to mention, way back on their debut Meronia, with all its Helmet-style heaviness. And probably the most metal they've ever been is on Pharaoh Overlord #4.
So no, Steel Mammoth isn't a metal band, or even a joke metal band (though there's definitely some tongue in cheek joking going on). It's pure WTF? weirdness in the guise of a metal band. More catchy than crushing, it's a hitherto unheard hybrid of Circle's trademark hypnotic pulsations, a relaxed pop sensibility, tossed off hard rock riffing, moody tension, and sensitive vocals delivering ridiculous lyrics. Lyrics that are so ridiculous they're genius, lyrics that would make Monster Magnet or Manowar laugh and crumple up their notebook page if they'd written them. For instance, lines like: "barbarian lords/we ride alone/until we're just a pile of bones", or "lonely banzai rhino blackout leather/volcano hideout of the mountain owl/masterplan suicide war machine/lady death on the steering wheel", or "black diamond thunder dragon/beast of vampire torture/silver locusts on the desert sky/acid rain wasteland"! We also hear about a "multiheaded lion", "switchblade messiahs of hate", "midnight witches", a "metal infant", and the "powersweat of the demonwolf" to pick some other gems at random. Wow. Death and destruction and kicking ass seem to be the themes... yet there's some thought and depth to it all, extending to a self-constructed cosmology for these "nuclear barbarians" on their journey to the center of the "atomic mountain", that's depicted in a schematic in the cd booklet. We even detect a sincere sentimentality to some of this -- when album closer and title track "Atomic Mountain" finds the band sweetly crooning "Down, down, down I go" you FEEL it on some meaningful level, really.
As for the music, most of the songs share a skeletal Judas Priest vibe, stripped down and mellowed out and infused with effects. The opener, "Black Team", reminds us more of a handicapped Rolling Stones, fronted maybe by Danzig, but odder even than that would be. Several tracks later, "Nuclear Barbarians" is reprised from the ep, not really sure why they did that, though it is a cool song -- love how they pronounce nuclear, "nuck-leeyer". But it's followed by something completely different, the 11 and a half minute "Commando Leopard", an instrumental that starts off with primitive krauty rhythms before entering into a long beatless stretch of atmospheric, electronic spookiness. Like we said, WTF? Or should we say, NWOFWTF?
Any one lucky enough to visit hypnorockers Circle in Finland, besides being showered with hospitality and crazy adventures, hockey games, private concerts, lots of record shopping, reindeer dinners and Finnish pizza, also is quite likely to be invited to record with the band, as they seem to be in a constant state of ready-to-record-ness, as our very own Andee can attest to: just check http://www.tUMULt.net to hear Jaappollot, the results of several sessions he shared with the boys in Circle!
Seems a similar thing happened to abstract free rock collective Sunburned Hand Of The Man when they were in Finland, and it's hard to imagine a better match. Sunburned seems to have lured Circle back into the murky woods, for long languorous stretches of slow burning psychedelia. The metallic sheen of recent releases has been rusted and caked with mud and old dried branches, the result a trancelike folk flecked tribal krautrock, the perfect mix of what we like best about both bands.�
The sound on first listen is like some sort of�alien world music, with dense, but laid back�tribal drumming, swirling serpentine guitar lines,�whispered chanted vocals, all wrapped in a cavernous production, making the tracks sound warm and wide open, expansive and endless, there is clatter and clang, but for the most part it's smeared and blurred, buried in sonic murk, wrapped around abstract krautrock rhythms and chunks of angular guitar riffage. Some of the tracks get wild and chaotic, but even then, the sound is still restrained, not jagged or harsh, more swirling and washed out.�
One of our favorite tracks ever, by maybe either band, is the super hypnotic�"Heinavelho", another growling ambient sprawl, but strangely rhythmic and musical, still�murky and muddy and super hypnotic, but with ultra subtle�repetitively strummed guitars, held in check by martial drum rolls and little squalls of brushed snares, eventually building to an FX drenched gothy cabaret crawl, all moody and drunken, lurching and downtuned, staggering through a thick cloud of chirping bleeps and bloops and dense swells of rumble and shimmer.�
Fans of either band will definitely dig, and a good gateway for anyone into one, but not yet so into the other...
We've been smitten with Victoria Bergsman ever since she first made the scene with her band The Concretes, whose debut album hit the states via Sweden a few years back. Her enchanting voice and melancholic lyrics just hit the spot so right on. We knew it wouldn't be long until the rest of the world would fall in love with her as well.
Last year it was her voice on "Young Folks", the big hit for Peter Bjorn and John that helped get her name out to a wider audience. When the latest Concretes album came out and she was no longer in the band we knew she had to be working on something new. Luckily she was, and it was her new project Taken By Trees. It's a stunningly beautiful album filled with songs that ooze with bittersweet pop perfection. Produced by Bergsman and Bjorn Yttling (of PB&J) the songs are remarkably lush with striking arrangements filled with varied instrumentation including mandolin, harmonium, piano, guitar, zither, flute, synth, and of course the dreamy and mesmerizing voice of Bergsman.
Every single song on Open Field takes you on a soft focus daydream filled with heartache, longing and just that perfect dab of honey to make it all go down just right. Bergsman definitely has that special touch very few possess. A sentimental sound that is as timeless as it is breathtaking. It's not a stretch to say that her voice and songs should fit comfortably alongside legends like Francoise Hardy and Dusty Springfield as well as modern day chanteux like Isobel Campbell and Cat Power. A strong contender for pop record of the year!
Lumbering, blasting, feedbacking, croaking, grunting. Tangorodrim's latest sounds like it was recorded by some unhappy, undead zombies who just crawled from the grave, after having been buried for years with electric guitars and beat up vinyl copies of old Celtic Frost and Mayhem albums packed in their coffins. This is their 4th album, and boy howdy is it a sick sounding unholy din indeed. Super raw, often dirgelike, and weird too -- check out these lyrics: "I am ready to carry that cross/But only if it's made of priest bones/Only if it weighted a ton of holly intestines/Red Magnet draws me near/May my way will not interfere with radiant snow plates". Uh, huh, what? And all this Christ-hating blackness flows from the lands of the Bible -- Tangorodrim are one of the rare Israeli black metal bands. As usual, the Southern Lord stoners know their quality cult black metal.
It's been two long years we've been waiting to hear more from mysterious UK outfit Tenhornedbeast, after a mindblowing cd-r of�"epic sprawling primitive doom/drone" that was so limited it was gone in a flash.�
This is THB's first proper full length, and just as we'd hoped and expected, it's epic and intense. Massive and cavernous, abject and utterly terrifying. Dark ambient, but so much heavier than that would lead one to believe.�
From the very first track, the listener is sucked into some dark otherworld, a long sprawl of oozing black slither, chanted monk like vocals, crashing distant percussion, and crushing swells of deep rumbling blackness. It's a slow trawl through the bleakest pits of the underworld, filled with groaning melodies, creaking and threatening to crash to the ground like rotten timbers. The first of three ultra long tracks is "Our Lady Of The Lightning Bolt", a nearly twenty minute threnody of mournful strings draped over glacial slabs of slow shifting blacks and greys, streaks of feedback and shards of high end skree spread out over the top, the sound becoming more and more intense and distorted, like a rising tide of amp buzz and guitar rumble, peppered with haunting dynamics and strangely orchestral arrangements. "Strength Through Fear" is a brief respite from the black hole crush, a menacing melancholy string section, being performed in some underground cavern, the notes ringing out against the dripping black walls, eventually being smeared into an intense fuzzed out chordal wash that gradually swallows everything else whole.�
The record's centerpiece seems to be the 22 minute "In The Teeth Of The Wolf", a terrifying guitarscape, that plays out like a harrowing journey through some bombed out razed landscape, nothing but smoldering blackness, distant thunder, ruins and chaos, a thick patina of corrosive guitar drone laid over everything like some warm wet blanket, a metal riff deconstructed and pulled apart, smeared and blurred, until it all coalesces into a slow motion pummel, an industrial plod beneath a monstrous guitar part, doom metal, abstracted and mechanized, stretched out over an army of hissing steam engines, of pounding martial drums, soaring triumphant melodies, nearly obscured by skies full of flame and black smoke, definitely one of the most intense pieces of music we've heard in ages.�
The record unwinds with a gorgeous drawn out black veil of sound, a rib cage rattling thrum, densely layered swells of distorted low end throb, woven into a subtly melodic, almost static dirge, that churns relentlessly like an orchestra of fog horns, before drifting off in a fuzzy cloud of hissy shimmer.�
Gorgeously packaged in a matte brown digipak, adorned with a haunting image of a shadowy figure holding an antlered skull aloft, beneath a strange symbol, printed in glossy reflective ink.
The Tides made a miraculous journey last year from the reject pile of a very shortsighted local music magazine into the loving arms of aQuarius where it quickly became a unanimous favorite and a big seller. Taking all the things we love about this new post rock / dirge metal hybrid that has been kicking our asses, Pelican, Isis, Minsk, Conifer, Mare and the like, and subtly twisting it into something all their own. Where as the last Tides record alternated between rhythmic moodiness and metallic bombast, From Silence manages to be a little less overtly heavy, and a lot more moody and brooding, dark and dolorous, with slow subtle grooves and warm washes of hypnotic dreaminess, basically just good old post rock minus the metal. Although the metal is still indeed present, just in very subtle ways, more felt than heard, informing the songs and the riffs, giving the music a sort of ominous, sharp edge, lurking just below the surface. However, fear not, for the final 11 minute track is apparently where Tides had been keeping all the metal riffing missing from the first two tracks. What starts as a spacious swoonsome jam, all downtuned guitars, softly strummed, shuffling drums and wide open expanses of swooshing ambience, erupts about halfway through into a thoroughly chugging pummel, crunchy and lurching, pounding and swaying like a much groovier Neurosis before blissing out into a washed out psychedelic drift that threatens to float away completely before the hammer falls again and that gorgeously chugging riff returns to lay waste to any and all in its way.
Some�of you folks who took advantage of the black metal cassette grab bag might have been lucky enough to nab Stiny, the 2006 full length from Czech blackdoomlords Trist, a gorgeously bleak slab of plodding doomy blackness. Falling somewhere between�Burzum, Nortt, Make A Change... Kill Yourself and Hypothermia.
Thankfully, Ars Magna, the label responsible for the mind blowing black miserablism of Animus'�Poems For The Aching, Swords For The Infuriated and the clinical black blast of Black Hole Generator, has swooped in to re-release that tape on compact disc, so now all you black hearted frozen souled metalheads who ditched the walkman years back, can still dig into this intense collection of bleak black misery.�
Four ultra long songs, the first clocking in at 16 minutes, the last at 11, Trist traffic in ultra repetitive, hypnotic looped riffage wreathed in frosty ambience, the sound is all guitar, the bass barely noticeable (if there is any bass at all), just grim sheets of keening riffs, sometimes soaring and epic, other times tangled and furious, dripping with reverb and not all that distorted, a sort of dirty clean sound, perfectly complimenting the buried vocals, an abstract screech that ends up sounding like another layer of buzzing sound, which serves in some ways to make the drums a focal point, surprisingly busy, going from simple plod to intense squalls of almost mathy drumming, bursts of double kick, some wild fills, but it all fits really well, the songs often veering from doomic trudge to almost groovy midtempo, and once in a while almost full on blastbeats.
And while the sound is plenty hateful and miserable and depressive, it still manages to be pretty at times, with little melodic bits that wouldn't be that out of place on an Alcest or Amesoeurs record... Way recommended. Fans of any of the above mentioned bands will find Stiny to be an essential addition to their library of sonic sorrow and musical melancholia.
More dreamy drones from Portland, Oregon. The second audio document from the man known simply as Tunnels, and the weird thing is, the music actually sort of sounds like tunnels... We have had a few other Tunnels cd-r's, we still have a few in stock, have a look at this week's instock not yet reviewed section, they're all great, but this is the latest, and we actually managed to get enough to actually review and list.
Unlike the self titled cd-r on Yarn Lazer (now out of print, so don't order), which seemed to be mostly low end rumble and minimal drone, Radiant Bodies begins with nothing but vocals, disembodied coos and purrs left suspended in haunting stretches of reverbed shimmer and glitchy percussive skitter. Sounds a bit like Yarn Lazer head honcho Honey Owens' Valet project. The second track continues on in a similar trajectory, billowy smears of melody, over a blurred dentist drill backdrop, a pretty gauze draped over a jagged landscape of hiss and grind. The next track is even more ephemeral, gorgeous spaced out krautrock synth drift a la Popol Vuh or Tangerine Dream, but even more blissed out. In fact very little of the record is low end rumble, instead it's all blown out space rock drift, long glimmering expanses of pulsing minimal sound, meditative and hypnotic and so beautiful.�
Packaged in a mini dvd style plastic sleeve, with full color cover, and full color mini insert.�
This new cd from Norwegian avantgarde ex-black metallers Ulver isn't really new, as it actually is a reissue compilation of their two limited edition, now out of print eps "Silence Teaches You How To Sing" and "Silencing The Singing" on one handy, domestically issued disc (by a new label run by Aaron of tUMULt's noise-pop artists Iran, who met Ulver while in Norway filming a documentary about the black metal scene!). So, you don't need it if you already have those two import discs, but if you don't, we most certainly recommend it -- both eps are two of Ulver's best post-black metal efforts to date, as they move into unclassifiable experimental/electronica realms. To sum up our previous commentary on these eps: "Silence Teaches You..." is a single, 24 minute track of electonic experimental improv, a slowly-unfolding collage of organic drones and beats and clicks and field recordings and post-rock piano melody etc., that might remind you of everything from Tarwater to Philip Jeck to Fennesz to Mogwai... Quite mellow, dark and beautiful, a soundscape composed, in part, of static-y electro-grime overlaying scratchy vinyl looping with occasional wordless drifting vocals. It was constructed from material recorded in a one-night "Dead City Centre jam" during the sessions for Ulver's previous full-length album, the love it or hate it "Perdition City". Unlike that album, though, this ep benefits from a lack of horrendous vocal and saxophone contributions! The similar in method/sound "Silencing The Singing" follows, three tracks providing another half hour of music, constructed of repetitive melodic and non-melodic loops (some notes on a piano, scratchy vinyl surface noise, what might be far-off voices), gradually joined by electronic blips and beats. The mood is quiet and languid, as are the rhythms, although the last track builds into a lovely few final moments of loud distortion.
Ulver of course originally made their name in the black metal scene, with such classic the-forest-is-my-throne-style albums as "Nattens Madrigal" and "Kveldsanger", full of church-burning riffs and wolverine vocals (and acoustic folk music in the case of "Kveldsanger"). And we won't deny that that's some of their best stuff -- it is. But since those days they've abandoned black metal and morphed into some sort of odd, willfully abstract electronic/experimental band -- and as well, Ulver leader Krystoffer "Garm" Rygg started up the fab Jester label to release music by all sorts of likeminded (i.e. fucked) Norwegian artists (including AQ faves When, Bogus Blimp, Origami Galaktika, Rotoscope, and of course Ulver).
And while Ulver's black metal past isn't overtly evident on these recordings, we could suppose that their earlier appreciation of the grim, lo-fi, trance-like ambience created by their (former) heroes Darkthrone and Mayhem is still a part of Ulver's sound, explaining their music's current immersion in a grimy (if not grim) background of constant crackle and buzzing drones. Well, that and the fact that such sounds are now as hip in experimental/electronica circles as they are cult in metal.
Attention FINNISH music FREEKS!!! Maybe most Finnish bands are crazy prolific, but one of our favorites keeps a much lower profile, the mighty Uton. It's been a little while since we heard from these guys, but as always, well worth the wait. Expansive and abstract, Uton create baffling alien universes of sound, minimal, but somehow dense and alive. Here's it's distant skree and mysterious scrapes, hissy clouds of static, reverb drenched melodies sent careening into the black void, rhythmic crunch and deep cavernous swells, subtle rumblings and washed out ambience. Gorgeous and haunting, creepy and amazing, of all the Finnish groups, we're still a little surprised that more folks aren't freaking out more about these guys.�
As if that weren't enough, the flipside is just the A side in reverse, a glorious gorgeous dizzying warbly backwards world of sound, and you know how much we love backwards sound!! Way recommended.�
Gorgeously packaged, gold metallic ink on platinum vellum paper. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
You put two of the things we love most in the world, Soul Jazz compilations and Brazilian psych/pop from the 70's together, and you've got one very happy bunch of AQ staffers! Brazil 70 is the follow up to the great Tropicalia compilation Soul Jazz put out a couple years back which served as a great document and serious opened some eyes to the amazing musical movement and revolution in sound that went down in Brazil in the late 60's and early '70s. This compilation picks right up where that one left off, giving us a great glimpse into the post-tropicalia world of the '70s Brazilian music scene. There are some Tropicalia pioneers included here like Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, and Tom Ze. But what's most thrilling about Brazil 70 is all the amazing tracks from folks who haven't been as well documented here in the states. We've been blown away by the songs from Raul Seixas, Nelson Angelo & Joyce, Erasmo Carlos, Secos E Molhados, all of whom were making amazing and colorful sounds during the first half of the '70s in Brazil. Using the blueprints of the eclectic and spirited nature of Tropicalia, these artists tapped into some magical musical force, discovering new and incredible ways to create amazingly colorful psych-pop perfection. We can't stop listening to this...highly recommended!
Now on Vinyl!!!
Oh man is this making us drool! Take two of the things we love most in the world: old school soul and little kids making their own music and bring them together and you have one of our new favorite compilations! The latest from the always righteous Numero Group is a collection of obscure kid groups from the early '70s who were whipping up some amazing soul and proving that there were way more new kids on the block belting out infectious songs then just the Jackson 5.
The Numero Group has done their homework with this one, digging through a forgotten history so rich and plentiful and just waiting for it's moment in the spotlight. Besides Jr & His Soulettes, the great Oklahoma brother and sister outfit we gushed about a few lists back, most of these kids of the '70s were completely unknown to us. Names like Patrizia & Jimmy, Otis The 3rd, or Cindy & The Playmates were never household names beyond their parents' house but damn did the kids on this compilation have some talent and crazy charm. The packaging and captivating liner notes accompany priceless photos of many of these kids in super soul action. Of course there is something novel, endearing and super cute about little kids making their own music but what makes this comp so great is that it all sounds so good! Vintage soul in lots of shapes and sizes from rambunctious stompers to silky serenades, these kids were dialed into the spirit of soul in a way that still sounds so pleasing to our ears.
First in a new series of monthly tape releases from two local guys, one who AQ customers might know from his weirdo black metal band Amacoma (as well as playing in Black Fiction and 3 Leafs among others) and the other, his partners in musical crime. For this inaugural tape, the two decided to each compile one side of the tape, offering their own take on the sounds they've been making, discovering, and digging.�
Side A begins with a blast and never lets up, the first band�Bereavement delivers a�super dense blast of thrashing black noise, drenched in reverb, a furious chaos, a whirling dervish of sound, with strange little interludes that are just as quickly swallowed up again. Black Fiction deliver some damaged tribalism, all simple drumming, reverbed chanting, jagged shards� of upper register guitar, streaks of feedback, some creepy ritualistic ambience for sure. Then there's an unreleased track from Amacoma, a glorious muddy murky soundscape of black buzz and blown out drone (anyone who missed out on the full length should buy it NOW)... the side continues on, leaning toward the chaotic and heavy, another track from Bereavement, as well as more Black Fiction and tons of other cool stuff.�
The B side begins with two tracks from the awesomely monickered Death Cheetah, who traffic in a weird sort of lo-fi, Hella meets Justice, synth and drums ramjam, funky and chaotic, heavy and weird as all get out. The cool thing about this tape (or frustrating thing depending on your angle), is that it's sort of difficult to tell where one song ends and another begins, they're all sort of tangled up, blending into one another, some groups sound similar, so their tracks almost sound like two parts of the same track. The B side continues with a bunch of songs from Atom Eve (we think), who sound like some crossbreeding experiment between Finnish folk and NY free noise a la NNCK or SHOTM, fluttering flutes, tribal drumming, simple guitar riffing, looped and circular... and this side continues on, more from Death Cheetah, some spaced out ambient glitchiness (Man In San Diego?) and a bunch more Atom Eve.
A killer glimpse into the mad musical minds of these mystery men, a nice sampling of some SF underground sounds, and a brand new Amacoma track to top it all off! Can't wait to hear what October's installment has in store... ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Another volume in Sublime Frequencies series of compilations documenting the amazing and mysterious music of Myanmar (aka Burma). The first volume was an intense barrage of manic Burmese pop, the second focused on guitar music of Myanmar, and this new volume is all about the Nat Pwe. You may remember the DVD on Sublime Frequencies from a while back, which visually documented various Nat Pwe's in Burma, and if you were like us, you were completely blown away, by not just the spectacle, but the amazing music as well. For those new to the Nat Pwe, Nats are ghost spirits, most often historical figures who met tragic ends, and who are believed to have the power to change lives, for better or for worse. So Pwe's are ceremonies designed to appease the Nats and occur on a daily basis, for almost any reason, health, good luck, weddings and new businesses, but like any powerful ceremony, they cam also be used for evil.�
The festivals are amazing. Celebratory, wild and raucous, huge floats, giant phalluses, people throwing money and cigarettes, costumes and headdresses, lots of crossdressing, lots of drinking, folks going into trances... all to the strange and amazing strains of this fantastical music.
And it is fantastic, some of the wildest and most jubilant music we've heard. The root sounds are definitely Burmese, the percussion and the vocals will definitely sound familiar to fans of Burmese music, this is somehow even more manic and spirited. A dense assemblage of bells, cymbals, gongs, xylophones and drums drums drums. A gorgeously clattery percussive wonderland, dense and complex, with vocals that soar over the top, drenched in reverb. It's all acoustic, but it sounds so loud and incredibly intense. And beautiful. Hard to describe, as all great music is, it makes you want to dance, and trance out simultaneously, powerful, emotional and so wild and wonderful.�
Compiled from numerous live recordings, and featuring many popular Burmese songs and many famous Burmese performers. As always, tons of liner notes, and amazing photos. And if this has at all piqued your interest, see if you can find a friend who's got that now out-of-print (bummer!) DVD, as the Nat Pwe's have to be seen to be believed!
One of the early Dutch electronic music masters, Dick Raaijmakers, gets his due here with this compilation, released as a companion to Basta's 3cd Raaijmakers Complete Tape Music set (seen elsewhere on this list). A bunch of big names on the experimental/electronic cutting edge either remix or entirely "reinterpret" old Raaijmakers pieces, among them Keith Fullerton Whitman (aka Hrvatski), Mouse on Mars, Jason Forrest, Phantom Orchid (Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori), David Grubbs, Thurston Moore, Atom TM, Isolee, Beautyon, Vert. All sorts of cool sci-fi sounding shimmery sizzle, bleeping drones, and glitchy poptronic silliness (like Atom TM's version of Raaijmakers' version of that old chestnut "Colonel Bogey") abound.
