Amy Winehouse might have used the Dapkings as her band to gain all sorts of fame and fortune earlier this year but make no mistake, it's Sharon Jones who is still the queen of modern day soul! 100 Days, 100 Nights is her third album and it's three for three now, as it's just as solid, stunning and soulful as her previous outings. In fact this could be her best yet and that's saying a whole lot since her other two albums are big time favorites around these parts.
Her voice is as strong and sexy as ever and the songwriting remains utterly top notch. Jones has this ability to transport us back in time to the late '60s when soul records sounded so warm, raw and punchy. It's incredible how her sound stands up when compared to the all-time great soul singers. Just put this on after some Candi Staton, Aretha Franklin, or Betty Lavette and it will be oh so obvious, that Jones will absolutely be remembered as another all time queen of soul!
If you regularly peruse our New Arrivals list (of course you do!) then you're probably aware that we sometimes review an album the week it's released, or sometimes the week after, or even the week before, or a few months later, or even a whole year later. This is due to a lot of random factors, and also some constant ones -- like the number of hours in the day! All this by way of saying, this excellent new album (the sixth) from Germany's always dependable Kammerflimmer Kollektief came out a month or two back, and it's about time we got it up on our website!
A slowly unfolding, gloriously pretty affair, dense with buzz and shimmer, a mix of acoustic strings and electronic embellishment, gentle rhythms and lovely ambience. Never can tell just what to call 'em: post-rock, jazz, electronica, definitely a heavenly hybrid of all those things. Heck we could just call it krautrock couldn't we? Definitely falls into that tradition. Their moody mood this time around is even more calm and crackly and contemplative than we recall in the past, replete with harmonium and double bass drones... percussion and piano intertwining... and the abstract but alluring vocals of Heike Aumuller. As we like to say (feeling very self-reflective at the moment): quite nice!
Hot on the heels of KTL number two, comes, you guessed it, number three, this one however is a brief two tracks, carved into a gorgeous one sided lp, with the other side featuring a super striking etching than none other than Savage Pencil.�
Like 2, 3 also features music the duo of Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita) composed and recorded for�the theatre piece Kindertotenlieder by Gisele Vienne and Dennis Cooper, which goes a long way to explaining why, 3, even more than 2 maybe, sounds so dramatic and even cinematic at moments.�
The first of the two tracks here is quite brief, an introduction almost, effects and glitched electronics swirl over a deep black whorl of muted guitar buzz and warm organ whir, a pulsing, vibrating, shimmering backdrop that hovers and flutters beneath streaks of electronics and smeared feedback, and groaning industrial creaks and grinds.�
The second track is the main attraction here, and takes up most of the side, based around an incredibly intense super low speaker rattling rumble, a sort of blurred and abstract low rider bass, almost more felt than heard, that throbs and sets bones rattling in your skin, a bottomless black morass, a sonic tar pit which all manner of strange and subtle sounds seem to be struggling against, desperately trying to keep from being sucked under. Scrabbling, atonal Derek Bailey like guitar scratch and scrape, haunting plink plonk melodies, tiny high end trills, sparkling slivers of feedback, subtle electronic shadings, all drifting on that ominous and constantly shifting extreme low end black sonic sea. A truly haunting, gorgeous chunk of deep deep deep black ambience...
Packaged in ultra thick jackets, the vinyl housed in a black printed inner sleeve, sealed with a sticker.�
The soundtrack to the film of the same name features the film's score as well as excerpts from interviews between Kurt Cobain and music writer Michael Azerrad, but perhaps just as revealing are the musical selections. Nope there's nothing by Nirvana here, instead the cd presents 14 of Cobain's personal favorites and deepest influences -- The Vaselines, Scratch Acid, Iggy Pop, Melvins, R.E.M., Arlo Guthrie, Half Japanese, Butthole Surfers, Creedence Clearwater Revival, David Bowie, Mudhoney, Lead Belly, Mark Lanegan, Bad Brains -- plus a previously unreleased recording by Steve Fisk and Ben Gibbard. Makes for a pretty awesome, ultra eclectic compilation!
An icon of the Northern Soul scene, Bettye Lavette has been making music since she was a teenager in the early '60s. Much like Candi Staton, her career has taken many twists and turns over the decades. Many had thought she had vanished until she hit the scene again a few years back with her debut on Anti, a covers record called I've Got My Own Hell To Raise that most definitely demonstrated her dynamic range and undying musical passion. The Scene of The Crime finds her recruiting gritty Southern rockers the Drive By Truckers as her backup band along with legendary Spooner Oldham on Wurlitzer and piano. It's a bleak and raw outing that's as much blues and gospel as it is soul and country. There's an undercurrent of sorrow and despair much like Staton's most recent album, His Hands. After all these years, Lavette's honest delivery and strong presence are still very much intact.
Everyone's favorite Swede-heart returns as heart-achingly honest as ever with Night Falls Over Kortedala, his third full-length album. In 2005 we reported obvious comparisons to Mark Kozelek, Morrissey, Erlend Oye, and Stephin Merritt after listening to Lekman's Oh You're So Silent Jens album, comparisons which can be easily called upon when describing Night Falls as well.
Much like Stephen Merritt, the thing that we like most about Lekman is his ability to tell a really really good story through song. Artists like Lekman make you feel as if you're there, in the moment being described, because no words are held back to fit into the music, yet the music doesn't suffer as a result. On Night Falls the music teeters between glittery pop mantras (begging yet another comparison: Belle and Sebastian) and down-tempo love ballads lushly arranged with strings, horns, and enough flute to at least make you think of the Love Boat theme song and similar TV themes. It seems as if the music is written into the lyrics, a scene painted so vividly that you have to wonder if most other artists write their lyrics into the music and thus aren't always able to say what they want or even mean. We hope you'll be as pleased with Night Falls Over Koredala as we are.
Every new Liars album brings with it some fretful hesitation as to what direction they'll venture into next. Not afraid of alienating their fan base in favor of exploring some obsessive but ultimately impenetrable concept, Liars have a love 'em or hate 'em relationship with most folks. After the atmospheric and rhythm-heavy Drums Not Dead, Liars bring the guitar riff back into full focus, and deliver for the first time in a while a relatively straight ahead rock record, but not in a way they've done before. There's no underlying concept to negotiate and the song structures are concise and compact. Yet they're still pushing these self-imposed limitations into kaleidoscopic realms that are sort of dubby, proggy, damaged and yet melodic. Lurching from furious and dissonant assaults into charged and sublime pop hooks. It's quite possibly their best record yet.
Holy shit this record is amazing!!! What a charged and dynamic follow up to one of the hottest debuts of the decade. It doesn't surprise us though, as we knew from the first time we heard M.I.A. that she had some special power inside of her. She is that rare world voice in music that we desperately need so much right now. It's incredible how she crosses lines and borders like very few other artists seem able to.
Kala is one of the few records that we sell to every kind of person and taste. Metalheads, indie rockers, pop kids, dance-heads, hip-hop aficionados, experimental music lovers.... they're all going crazy for the new M.I.A. and for great reason. It's one of the most kick ass, colorful and fully realized albums to come out in a long time.
She was denied entry to the States repeated times when making this record, so her initial plans to record the record with Timbaland were thrown out the window. But this countries' insane border policies ended up being a blessing in disguise, as it forced M.I.A. to look elsewhere for producers, so she traveled throughout Africa and India where she did lots of raw field recordings which all come to life in such exciting ways on Kala. In fact Kala is kind of like what we imagine might happen if Konono No.1 were transported to Bollywood. While we've recently been swept up by the mystical power and strength of some fierce women of the past like Selda and Betty Davis, we can't think of anyone in the modern day who better conjures up that kind of unique energy and spirit than M.I.A.
This is a record meant to be blasted LOUD. So next time you have folks over, no matter what sort of music they dig, don't worry it won't be awkward just throw on M.I.A. and every single one of them will dig it like crazy. Guaranteed.
Without a doubt a contender for record of the year!
Another brief but fantastic little self released 3" cd-r from the ever prolific Machinefabriek, aka�Rutger Zuydervelt. We won't go into too much detail, as� obviously fans already know they need this, and folks new to the gorgeous soft sounds of Machinefabriek could do worse than starting with this relatively cheap introduction. And as always, this is super limited, we only got a handful, and that might be all we can get.�
Once again utilizing a strange arsenal of sound making devices: memo recorders, mixing deck, effects pedals, guitar, banjo, organ, laptop as well as violin and cello (provided by guest musicians), Zuydervelt weaves a breathtaking world of tranquil ambience, all summery shimmer, warm summery warble, soft languorous drones that flow and pulse like the tides.�Near the end it opens up and becomes some impossibly expansive soundworld, almost choral sounding, like some homespun piece by Arvo Part, the strings emerging near the end to flutter and flit, like butterflies after a rain storm. So lovely.�
Packaged in a mini 3" sleeve, strikingly designed, also includes an URL where you can download an alternate version of Koploop...
Newest release from these mysterious Italian black metallers, who recently have evolved into a more sort of avant industrial experimental outfit, albeit with black tendencies. Much in the way Ulver transformed from grim buzz to moody cinematic ambience, Thee Maldoror Kollective have almost entirely shed their black metal skin, revealing a strange metallic skeleton and a circulatory system of buzz and glitch, beats and samples.�
Only�the most adventurous black metallers will dare tread here, four tracks from the soundtrack to a Spanish movie called Proxima, sounding a bit like Skinny Puppy crossed with Muslimgauze, crunchy grinding beats, glitched out electronics, snippets of Eastern melodies and female vocals, little chunks of skittery breakbeats, haunting stereo ambience, record crackle, and creepy synth melodies, and that's just the first song. Epic and cinematic, haunting and mysterious.�
The other three tracks are just as leftfield, a symphony of beeps and buzzes, snippets of voices, crunchy guitar way down in the mix, processed into sort of industrial grooves, more Skinny beats, shuffling Boards Of Canada style electronica, new wavey synths, moaning mournful strings, tablas, operatic vocals, skipping skittering chopped up loops, exotic tribal percussion... Quite dizzying, an intense immersive listen that definitely leaves us wanting to see whatever crazy film these sounds could possibly be designed to accompany.�
Included at the end are two older tracks, remixed and revamped, not sure what they sounded like before, but they've been modernized and minimalized, the first one sounds like some sort of Chain Reaction heroin house, that builds into some synth Euro Kompakt groove, with swooning synths, and all manner of robotic glitches and bleeps, while the second is super creepy and ambient, all high end shimmer and ominous drones, sort of Hitchcockian and John Carpenterian, with a distant heartbeat like pulse, and disembodied minor key melodies.
Definitely a weird one, no metal to be found here, but still pretty awesome. Fans of later Ulver will definitely dig, as will folks into abstract electronica, weird mood music and creepy soundtracks...
A customer turned us on to the Mausoleums, a super distorted buzz drenched experimental 'black metal' combo, which we later discovered was in fact an aQuarius mailorder customer! Small world for sure. But even if we had no idea who the heck this was, we would still be suitably blown away.�
You think Wold and Velvet Cacoon know a thing or two about buzz and distortion, well, those guys have nothing on the Mausoleums...
It's hard to even quantify how blown out and buzzy the sound is here, it might make more sense to reference Japanese noise music cuz this almost sounds like straight up super distorted speaker melting N.O.I.S.E., on the surface at least. Until you notice a roiling whirlpool of blackened riffing and howled vocalizing, just beneath all that harsh hiss and brutal buzz. It's almost like Ildjarn or Beherit recorded by Masonna and produced by Merzbow. Blasting and relentless, face melting fury, guitars so distorted they sound like they might crumble into jagged shards, drums that sound like bursts of white noise, but all deftly shaped into riffs and songs and chunks of seriously scalding blackened metal.�
But then the band will unleash something like "Cicada", a gorgeous�loping slowcore jam, again doused with delay�and buried under a layer of distorted grit, but strangely lovely, with a bit of melancholy twang mixed in.�
Or the freaked out blackpsych blast of "Joan Of Arc" a track that sounds like a dense slab of pure black buzz and howl, until suddenly a�gorgeous chunk of indie jangle surfaces, still dripping with distorted buzz, but so goddamn dreamy and melodic, like an even more distorted damaged My Bloody Valentine,�the drums and cymbals so corroded and decayed, they balance out the dreamy jangle. Elsewhere, riffs are dipped in molten hellfire and pushed all the way�into the red, crumbling distortion is draped over lilting minor key guitar, strange Greg Ginn-ish angular guitars are twisted and melted down into more black buzz...
And while the majority of the record is some of the filthiest, blackest buzzingest metal you'll ever hear, the buzzing blackness is split up by all sorts of unlikely and not that black jams, the strangely skeletal Stereolab-ish post rock of "Lenin Not Lennon", the creepy black electro (replete with strangely Beatles-esque guitar) of "Insignificance", the metalized buzz wrapped Neu!-isms of "Running Through The Reeds", the warbly organ flecked garage stomp of "I Guess I'm Like A Prince, Maybe" and the Spacemen 3 like druggy drone of "Like A Prince", all seemingly out of place, but when listened to as a whole, seem to perfectly balance the extreme brutal buzz of the rest of the disc.�
Maybe too fucked up and far out for most metal heads, but folks into super damaged heaviness, and freaked out whatthefuck metal will dig this BIG TIME.�
Gawd, how I love the bitter, sourpuss music of Malcolm Middleton. Why is his beleaguered Scottish grumpiness so damn endearing? Well, for one thing the man's a genius at penning a pop hook even when it's laden with the weight of the whisky'd world. His ol' band Arab Strap may be no more, but fortunately he's still makin' music on his own. This is his third blearily great solo album. Sweetening the proceedings is the presence of female vocalist Jenny Reeve (also of The Reindeer Section) who pretties up Middleton's scruffy loner pad... uhh, we mean music with some creamy pastels and brighter lighting. Still nothing can outshine the overcast woolen greys of Middleton's hopelessly romantic and just plain hopeless universe. Recommended!
One of our all time favorite movies featuring arguably our most favorite song of all time! Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, one of Britain's best comedy duos were at their creative peak in this 1967 Stanley Donen classic in which Moore, apart from writing and starring, also provided the jazzy piano-led score. In the film, Moore's character meets the devil (awesomely played by Peter Cook) after a failed suicide attempt and sells him his soul for seven wishes. Infatuated with a co-worker, Moore uses his seven wishes to become more attractive. First as an intellectual, then as a rock star, then a wealthy industrialist. Each time outwitted by Cook who consistently one-ups Moore's attempts at charm. The best scene is the rock star segment, where Moore, after delivering his best Cliff Richards imitation in a music showcase ("Love Me"), is shocked to be followed by Drimble Wedge and The Vegetations, led by Peter Cook in full Velvets/Warhol mode with an army of modly-dressed dancing girls performing the title track, "Bedazzled", an arch call and response that is the pinnacle of psychedelic ambivalence ("You knock me out / I don't want you"). Incredible! The rest of the score is jaunty and jazzy, reminiscent of Vince Guaraldi and the Michael Garrick Trio. This reissue contains both Mono and Stereo versions.
Geoff Mullen, a string picker and dronelord, released two amazing records over the last few years, both huge favorites around here. Both�thrtysxtrllnmnfstns and The Air In Pieces were gorgeous, slow unfolding collections of buzzing strings and slow burning ambience. Mullen's instrument of choice was the banjo, and on thrtysxtrllnmnfstns he twisted and stretched that instrument into new and amazing shapes, whereas�The Air In Pieces found Mullen exploring even more abstract territory, smearing and blurring the source material until it was unrecognizable.�
But on�Armory Radio, his brand new vinyl only double lp, he's exploring a whole new world of sound. Expansive and epic and abstract, but dense and heavy, and thick with sound, intense noisy, busy soundscapes, fuzzed out and droning, buzzy and washed out. A similar vibe as folks like Tim Hecker, William Basinski, Aidan Baker, Dialing In and Axolotl...
But where those folks take their piece of music and leave it out in the rain, recording it through a dusty window onto a wax cylinder, played back on a tin can and twine, evoking faded memories, old photographs, rainy twilights, foggy mornings, everything bleary eyed and soft focus, Mullen's Armory Radio is a much more intense and sonically aggressive proposition. Beneath the fuzz and whir, the layers of grit and glitch, there aren't just simple pop songs hidden underneath or muted melodies blurred and buzzed, there's a whole world of sound, chunks of field recordings, bits of melody, huge sweeping drones, epic, slow sprawls of shimmer, of dark and light, strange arrangements fall to pieces and somehow reassemble often in completely different order then before they crumbled, or pieces from some crumbled melody will be swept up by a wash of whirling low end, and tangled up into some new, more alien melody.�
Armory Radio begins�with a burst of grinding fuzz, a dense slab of furious grinding thrum, which quickly gives way to softer�squalls of glitched out buzz, warm throbbing sonic stormclouds, everything in a constant state of motion, chaotic and unmoored, but with little threads that connect all four sidelong pieces. This is�definitely a noise record, but SOFT noise, thick and corrosive, but with soft edges, like stepping into the eye of a hurricane, watching all sorts of shapes and sounds spinning around you, a grinding, thick morass of constantly shifting crunch and crumble, of�billowy soft smears, all barely obscuring a mysterious and impossible to fully grasp world of beauty beneath. So good.�
LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES!! Pressed on thick 140 gram vinyl, packaged in super deluxe sleeves, all hand-screened, hand-stamped and numbered.�
Another new one from tape label Twonicorn, a label specializing in "basement new age crawl", finally new music from the highly underrated Brendan Murray, who as we mentioned before we would most definitely rank up there with Coleclough and Chalk as one of our favorite masters of the drone. Former missives from Murray have been of the harsher and heavier variety, gritty and buzz bottomless dronescapes, still ultra minimal but with some heft, bordering occasionally on the heaviness of SUNNO))) or other like minded sonic explorers. But on Scared In My Heart, Murray softens his sound, and offers up two utterly mesmerizing chunks of slow moving soft shimmer. The first, is all hushed ambience, tones that pulse and flutter, but are ultimately smeared into endless drones, allowed to shift and drift, seemingly simple and nearly static, but rife with strange tonal color, subtle dissonance, and all sorts of tangled melody. The second, is like a louder, more active version of the first, the tones sounding more like bells and organs, stretched out and smeared, wavering and warbling, notes beating against one another, all manner of implied motion and abstract melody, minimal but strangely active, intense and emotional, slow burning and quite beautiful.
As with all Twonicorn, gorgeously packaged, pro printed tapes, textured paper sleeves, and of course super limited, ONLY 100 COPIES!! Each tape hand numbered.
It's been ages since we've heard from Bellingham Washington's Narrows, whose last two (and only two) records, Alligator and The Skull At Life Size, were huge AQ favorites. Our Narrows obsession was solidified by a mindblowing show at the Hemlock where the band laid waste to all post rock past and present in a matter of 30 or 40 minutes, managing to rock so hard, even with the frontman / guitar player seated the whole time. A mix of lurching loping metallic bombast and lilting whispery post rock moodiness, not like the current crop of metallic post rockers though, no the Narrows were something much more unique... all the best parts of nineties mathrock, June Of 44, Slint, Rodan, but filtered through that weird Bellingham outsider vibe (also responsible for Reeks And The Wrecks) and lovingly wrapped in some serious skull crushing riffage. And of course songs. Killer songs. Moody and mournful, personal and emotional, and catchy as all get out.
We had sort of given up on the Narrows, we knew there was a record in the works, but they sort of seemed to drop off the musical map completely, until all of our fears were assuaged by the sudden appearance of this here brand new full length, that is somehow even better than their first two discs, heavier, prettier, weirder....
Beginning with the nine minute near perfect post rock epic "The Sasquatch", a sequence of big groaning downtuned riffage, huge pounding drums all wrapped around a strange insistent loping groove, with wailed super emo vocals, like a prettier Melvins almost, or a resurrected Engine Kid, some Unwound, a little bit of Sub Pop, a little Amrep. These super dynamic nine minutes might as well go on for 90 minutes as far as we're concerned.
The second track, the even longer "Last Of The Norsemen", is all slithery slowcore, with crooned sadboy vocals, spidery guitar melodies, shuffled drums, until the crashing chorus, a gorgeous minor key stop start lurch, along the same lines as Codeine's "Cave In", with burbling underwater bass added to the mix, and a convoluted mathy arrangement, before drifting back into the moody lope of the first few minutes, peppered with strange slippery guitar chords and unexpected dynamics, somehow totally off kilter and alien sounding, but super catchy and melodic and surprisingly pretty!
"Quellish" is up next with its serpentine distorted crunch and crashing blown out drumming, letting up here and there for some muted shuffle and croon, before the bombast is brought in again, a super emotional musical seesaw, that manages to subvert the tired loud-soft-loud-soft thing and turn it into something new and exciting sounding.
As if the deal wasn't already sealed for best post-math-whatever-rock / slowcore record ever already, they finish it off with the heartwrenching "Over and Out", a sort of damaged Pinback on horse tranquilizers mathy groove, with big booming Albini-ish drums, over blooping underwater bass, and slithery minor key distorted guitar melodies, and a super subtle hook to die for. The song has a wicked, super dramatic coda with crumbling distorted riffing, and super emotional leads, yeah LEADS, what self respecting post rock band can whip out the leads and bring you to your knees without sounding the least bit cheesy? Can't think of very many (or any really)... but The Narrows pull it off effortlessly. There's an "Over and Out" part two, but it's more sort of a coda, that now burned into your ears/heart/soul melody is pulled apart, wrapped in some twangy Morricone-ish guitar, some tinkling music box like keyboards, and allowed to unfurl lazily into the distance, becoming more and more abstract and indistinct, culminating in seven minutes of silence... Needless to say one of our favorite new records, pushing all our buttons, old math rock, new post rock, metal, pop, heavy, pretty, strange... Absolutely and utterly recommended (as is seeing these guys live if you get the chance)!
Sepulchral is turning out to be one of our new favorite black metal labels, bringing us the blackened noise from the new grim frostbitten North, Canada that is, with the folk flecked�Metal Noir Quebecois of Forteresse, the grim depressive buzz of Sombres Forets, and now this, the latest from doombuzz merchants Niflheim, whose latest is a sorrowful trawl through the dourest of human emotions, rendered in shades of black and grey, minor key melodies and miserablist plod, anguished wails and bleak buzz.�
Neurasthenie, which means "a�mental deviance which causes intense grief", in French, is a pretty apt title for Niflheim's latest, a slow burning, plodding, meandering chunk of harsh melancholia. The opening tracks is quite lovely, a simple slowcore drift, all clean guitar, sorrowful melodies, with some buzz draped over the top here and there merely as an afterthought, and a classical sort of outro, which leads into "The Cold Wind Of My Breath Is Always Blowing" (great title!) a gorgeous doomic plod, simple and sad, drenched in blown out crumbling distortion, strangely pretty as well as being harsh and hateful, think Nortt and Xasthur and the like, and these guys sound right at home in those hallowed halls of musical misery.�
But the next track is something completely different, a haunting abstract slice of cinematic ambience, chunks of distorted guitar drifting in an expanse of shimmer and buzz, vocals super distorted sprawled out over the top like some black storm cloud, simple sad melodies, glistening guitar harmonics, eventually transforming into more depressive doom.�
The rest of the record drifts back and forth between the two: spare, abstract guitar ambience, spacey swirling somber slowcore, dreamy instrumental minimalism, and buzz drenched blackness, crushing slow motion plod, depressive dirge, sometimes blending the two into something truly chilling and creepy, heavy and beautifully depressing.�
The band have changed their name to Gris, since we got first got this in, so there's a slight chance that when we run out, the restocked version will be under the name Gris, but fear not, it will be the same miserably brilliant blackness inside....
Back in January, we reviewed the most recent record from new wave black metal crustpop forest faeiries Nuit Noire, and that record,�Infantile Espieglery, while touted as a black metal record, was anything but, a gorgeous chunk of angular gothy new wave black punk, with buzzing guitars and thrashing drums, haunting howled and wailed vocals, and some of the most amazing riffs and hooks ever.�
We had been trying to get NN's first record for ages with no luck, until now. We got what appear to be the very last copies direct from the band, so once these are gone, there's a very good chance we won't be able to get more. So quick on the trigger wins the prize. We have about 25 of these, so act fast...
Lunar Deflagration is just as amazing as�Infantile Espieglery, and if anything it might be a little bit heavier and punkier, with some super fast blasting, and some furious riffing, but the heart of both records is the weird angular new wave guitar melodies, that end up drifting solo over a sea of amp buzz, before the band inevitably stumbles into motion and wraps those angular melodies around a careening riff and explodes into an awesome thrashing frenzy. And again the vocals are a whiney new wave sneer, more Mark E. Smith or Roz Williams than any black metal mouthpiece we can think of, scrambling over the riffs and chaotic blast beats while the drums pound away and the bass throbs and slithers.�
The sound is super lo-fi as well, perfectly complimenting the sound and songs. Like we mentioned before the best comparison we can think of is like a more black metal Rudimentary Peni. Which if you really even need to ask, is about as awesome a sound as we can think of!�
Just check out "Fairies Of Paper", one of the best songs EVER. Yeah, you heard us, not just on this record, or best crust black pop song ever, but just one of the best songs EVER. With an opening and recurring riff that TOTALLY DESTROYS. And the record is packed with songs like that, the classic L.A. punk sounding "Ton Stupide Chemin", the galloping goth new wave of "Voice Of The Night", every song is a catchy should have been classic. It still boggles the mind why these guys were ever pegged as black metal, sure there's plenty of buzz, but if you ask us, punk rockers and crusties everywhere should be busy sewing Nuit Noire patches onto their vests right there alongside Rudimentary Peni, Crass and all the others...
We knew it was only a matter of time before someone sampled Turkish psych diva and AQ fave Selda. While that may have been too obvious of a move for the likes of Madlib, it comes across as a bold opening statement of distinction from Madlib's younger brother, Michael "not that Michael" Jackson aka Oh No. Oh No's third record marks a more noted evolution as producer from his last Galt MacDermot-inspired efforts like J Dilla's Donuts and Madlib's Beat Konducta series, Dr. No's Oxperiment is a solid instrumental hip-hop record of 28 tracks no longer than 2 minutes each. While none of the other samples are as easy to recognize or as obvious as Selda's, Oh No's main focus throughout the album is on fuzzy Turkish and Mediterranean psych pop breaks more akin to Dr. Delay and Cherrystones than Madlib or Dilla. But then about a third of the way through, on the track "No Guest List", things start to turn more soulful with more R&B inflected rhythms and vocal snippets that definitely place him closer to Dilla's camp though ultimately not quite as sublime. Despite some flaws, like the anti-climatic ending, Dr. No's Oxperiment is definitely a welcome addition to the ever-growing cannon of instrumental hip-hop. Now that some sibling rivalry has been established, hopefully the Jackson brothers will be keener to keep upping the ante on both of their future releases.
The mighty return of the transcendental RIFF! The third Om record! By now the methods and purpose of their ultra heavy music of the spheres is clear. The music on this album, much like the first two, is stripped to its essence. Bass and drums churning out super hypnotic heaviness and repetitive chant-like vocals creating a cyclical whorl of trance-rock divinity.
With a lot of new releases from bands we love, change in sound and development of style is important, Om seem to operate with different principles than the average rock and roll outfit. The consistency of their sound lends itself to the eternal nature of the music, as if all three of their records are really just movements in some expansive, cosmic symphony. Within Om's canon, change is felt like the passing of time without the aid of a clock or calendar, existing in the infinite void. And what an ass kicking void it is! The riffs and rhythms on Pilgrimage are certainly just as good as those on either of their previous releases, which means amazingly heavy and heady slabs of stoned out ROCK!
The record starts off with the title track, which is an expansive slow burner. Mesmeric and spiritual, soft spoken vocals and a propulsive tom and tambourine beat. The riffs on this track, as well as the bulk of Om's material, have a certain eastern quality, like some strange Sabbath-raga meld, and they go on forever and ever, taking the listener on some sort of mystic celestial voyage. By track two, "Unitive Knowledge Of The Godhead", the fuzzed out bass distortion kicks in, and the sound gets HEAVY! This Sleep-like heavitude continues into the 11 plus minute "Bhima's Theme", by which point in the album the listener is more than likely completely transfixed, eyes a-glaze with the eternal riff burned into their brain. The last song on the album is "Pilgrimage (Reprise)", which makes for a very circular experience, like when listening to the album all the way through, time disintegrates and 32 minutes seems like a split second or a week or an eternity! Heavy, mannnn...
Possibly one of the most distinctive things about Pilgrimage is the recording itself. This album sounds fucking great! We mean, for a band that just consists of bass guitar and drums, you could not pick a better engineer than Mr. Steve Albini, whose forte has always been the rhythm section, and he completely nailed the sound! It's warm and cavernous, and completely swallows the listener whole.
So, if you are in tune with the amaranthine vibes of Om's two previous records, you will most certainly appreciate this one as a continuation on the path towards the essence of musical anima mundi!
RIFF TO ETERNITY!
UK post-punk's symbiotic relationship to dub and reggae is not really news to most folks. Especially with the genre's female stars, The Slits, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Poly Styrene, Lora Logic, Patti Palladin and even Annabelle of Bow Wow Wow, all have found voice within dub's flexible framework that embraces both communal grooves and personal politics. Brenda Ray may not be as well known as the others, but since the late '70s has figured in some of the more shadowy areas of post-punk and new wave. Her bands, The Naffis, recently featured on the D-I-Y compilation put out by Soul Jazz, and Brenda and the Beachballs combined reggae rhythms with off kilter dance pop. Here on Walatta, recorded in the late '90s and early 2000s and recently reissued by AQ-beloved Japanese label EM Records, Ray overdubs her breathy vocals as well as melodica and various percussion instruments over heavy roots rhythms recorded much earlier in Jamaica by Roy Cousins that featured heavyweight Kingston session players such as Sly and Robbie and Family Man Barrett. The result is better than it sounds, as Ray brings her own unique style to the proceedings and deftly complements the heavy reggae foundation with an interesting pop finesse. Nice.
This is not really new, but it's one of our favorite freaked out black metal records, and it was reissued last year (originally released in 2002) although we only now managed to get in touch with the label (they also released the Vorak, reviewed elsewhere on this list) but now finally we can list and review, this amazing slab of bizarre blackness.
Those familiar with the Rev. Kriss Hades, probably know him as the guitar player for Aussie black death metallers Sadistik Exekution, who while weird in their own right, are pretty much furious grinding blacknoise, a sort of sloppy psychedelic black mess, awesome by the way, but more simple and fast than freaked out and fucked up. Which is why this first album from Sadistik guitarist Hades is such a mind blower. This is super abstract, noisy, buzzy, outsider experimental black metal, peppered with stretches of black ambience, industrial soundscapes and plenty of whatthefuck heaviness. This record has been described as a mix of Einsturzende Neubauten, Beherit and Pink Floyd, and while the sound here is probably much closer to Beherit than the other two, their are definite moments of tripped out psychedelia and industrial grind and whir.
But from the first song, it's easy to tell this is some freaky mind blowing stuff. Beginning with haunting acoustic guitar, weaving mournful melodies amidst whipping winds, when the band kicks in, instead of launching into blasting blackness, it's more a sort of murky blown out buzz, the guitars super washed out, the riffing just a blackened smear, underpinned by epic swells of super dramatic keyboards, the drums a buried blast, WAY down in the mix, while over the top the vocals are a confusional pile up of grunts and growls, of shrieks and howls, mumbling and singing in tongues, the whole thing smeared and seasick, buzzing abstractly, almost more experimental black ambience than metal, but there are riffs, and drums blasting away, reminiscent of Wold and Velvet Cacoon in some ways. The first track finishes off with more acoustic guitar, this time though draped delicately over muted black riffing.
And the weird thing is, that's about as metal as the record gets, that first track, from then on it gets more and more unhinged, more psychedelic, less riffy and definitely less 'metal', but no less heavy. The next two tracks are reinterpreted Sadistik Exekution tracks, and while we're not that familiar with the originals, these versions definitely twist the originals into new shapes. The first is a blazing black blast of buzz, but beginning with a tripped out psychedelic assemblage of backwards guitars and processed vocals, then the song itself is super convoluted, riffs slipping and sliding everywhere, squiggly leads, a total damaged black psych freakout, while the other is a sort of blissed out ambient Godflesh / Pitchshifter thing, all industrial rhythms, the riffs, way down in the mix and doused in FX, haunting vocals and all manner of swirling shimmer and crumbling drones...
Right after that is the super brief "Luciferion", a super distorted, ultra fuzzed out shred fest, just guitar, buzzing riffs and wild leads, the whole thing blown out and in the red, followed by "Meditation Of The Midnight Candle Practice" an extended soundscape of warped distorted guitars, strangled effects, huge washes of glacial guitardrone, super affected leads, glitched out minimal rhythms buried way down in the mix, drifting lo-fi ambience and super tweaked studio sounds, all woven into a seriously cracked world of black sound. The record finishes off with a creepy haunted house horror movie church organ jam that morphs right at the end into a super thick corrosive deathdronedirge...
A seriously demented slab of damaged psychedelic black buzz. Which obviously means WAY recommended.
The reissue includes a thick booklet with lyrics, photos, an excerpt from an interview with Hades, and lots of Hades' super intense artwork...
Once again, it's the heavier more subversive and definitely more metal upstart little brother of the mighty Wire Magazine. Rock-A-Rolla is all the way to issue 11 and still going strong. This month it's the Festival Issue, featuring Odd Nosdam, Qui, High On Fire, Michael Gira, Chrome Hoof, Les Savy Fav, Supersonic Festival, Input Festival, the Green Man Festival, Orthodox, Walter & Sabrina, Load Records, plus the usual assortment of record reviews, show reviews and a one minute interview with Eyvind Kang.
Hailing from the creatively fertile stomping grounds of Nevada City, CA, Aaron Ross is now best known as the newest member and vocalist for prog peddlers Hella. On his debut solo outing he shows he also has deep folk roots, but much like in Hella, he's not interested in simple point a to point b delivery. Many of the songs on Shapeshifter twist and turn and morph and grow, sometimes sounding like three songs in one.
Ross has a vocal delivery very reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum that can sometimes sound like an amped up John Darnelle playing T. Rex and Led Zeppelin songs. While most folk guys these days seem to whisper and tiptoe around, its kind of refreshing to hear someone belting it out and strumming their acoustic with lots of power and passion.
Attack Decay Sustain Release, is surprisingly the first full-length album released by London based production/ DJ duo, Simian Mobile Disco (James Ford and Jas Shaw), though a slew of SMD remixes and catchy dance fueled singles like "Hustler" and "I Believe" have been in heavy rotation throughout various DJ/dance internet blogs and mixed in night clubs far and wide for a few years now.
When considering the beginnings of SMD, one wouldn't assume they started as half of the psych/folk rock outfit, Simian, which saw considerable success though the two weren't exactly comfortable with the direction of the group. Seeking a more "electronic party music" approach the duo left Simian to delve into the DJ/production game, soon building a reputation with production and remixes for artists like AIR, The Klaxons, and Arctic Monkeys. We've all been anxious to see how a full album of SMD material would hold up against the numerous comparisons to the releases of French electro outfit Justice (listed a few lists back), and Kitsune's Digitalism. Basically, the question is, who will be the next Daft Punk!?
Well, we think it's safe to say there are similarities though A.D.S.R. definitely holds its own, being a bit more vocal and progressive. This is a brilliant collection of dance tunes, though not terribly long (10 songs all together), its a quality over quantity approach, with varied tracks that are constantly stimulating. Every song here is well crafted and instantly memorable with catchy synth choruses drowned in effects, every synth melody put in its right place. A lot of variation in this album. The more club oriented tracks like "Sleep Deprivation" are dense with randomly filtered bleeps, bloops, and dominant kicks, and "Tits & Acid" filled with quirky, burbling sequencer lines, ecstatic sweeps and washes, and the occasional chopped and filtered vocal edits.
Then there are the more poppy tunes (but good pop) like "I Believe" reminiscent of Kraftwerk with a crisp, wobbly bass and a super catchy synth chorus (a personal fave, minus the vocals) and, "It's The Beat" featuring vocals by Ninja from The Go! Team. Then there's "Scott", an amazing, dreamy, electronic composition, similar to that of early synth pioneers like Jean Michel Jarre or Teddy Lasry. Best yet, it's all recorded on analog machines, to steer clear of the more techy, programmed sound.
Overall, an electrifying album indeed!
We've raved before about this cool metal band from Ohio, after they blitzed us with the sweet strains of their previous album At One With The Shadows (2004) and more recent self-released ep, Worship The Witch (2006). The strength of those releases, as well as the excessive, impressive showmanship with which they deliver their '80s influenced blackened speed metal of death in the live arena, has heightened their profile in the realm of underground US metal -- hence their deal for this new album. They've been touring hard, and getting great word of mouth, which we're happy to amplify. Perhaps the hype will even allow them to cross over to the indie audience that likes bands like The Fucking Champs and Early Man, we imagine that could easily happen -- though this ain't no ironic hipster metal, we know these guys are bona fide metalheads from the Midwest.
They just came through town recently on tour, opening for Nachtmystium, who had to cancel their SF appearance at the last minute -- but we don't think anyone in the crowd that night went home disappointed after Skeletonwitch, thrust into the headlining spot, got up there and wrecked everybody's neck, slaying in style with energy and aplomb. Killer show, killer band -- and this is a killer album.
Not only can they play, AND have good songs, but they have all the details down too, little details that are TIGHT. Like, for instance, when they play live, the two guitarists are on either side of the stage, both shredding on matching Flying V's. Good enough, but what makes it really tight is that one of the guitarists is left handed, and stands stage left, so both guitarists' Flying V's are pointed in opposite directions, flanking the scary singer and roving bassist, which just looks cool. You might think, on album, so what if the guitarists have such visual symmetry? Well damn if we don't think that we can HEAR it. Or at least hear that they're the sort of band that might cultivate that sort of old school, larger than life presentation.
This album certainly showcases their strengths: The aforementioned dual guitar shred (shades of Maiden and At The Gates). Blazing technicality in the service of solid, memorable, melodic thrash metal songs. And dynamic, demonic vocals (grunts, snarls, screeches) from a frontman who is also awesomely expressive nonverbally on stage (constantly pulling exaggerated faces and making almost sign-language hand-motions to illustrate his lyrics).
FYI, for fans who already have the Worship The Witch ep (or are thinking about getting it): 3 of that disc's 4 tracks are repeated here, albeit in rerecorded form. They also redo four songs from their now-out-of-print debut, which is fine 'cause the production here is much much better than on that first full-length.
After listening to this disc, all we can say is Marissa Nadler and Joanna Newsom better watch their backs. If there is any justice in the world, the throngs of bearded and bead encrusted modern free folk freaks and forest maidens that make up the new weird underground will bow down before Jane Herships, the woman who is Spider. A softly strummed dreamy acoustic world of drifting shimmering loveliness. If Devendra Banhart is homecoming king at this year's forestfolk ball, well then Spider would absolutely have to be everyone's choice for queen. The Way To Bitter Lake is a blissful blend of Iron & Wine, Vashti Bunyan, Will Oldham, Cat Power, Edith Frost. Hushed vocals over lilting old timey folk, gorgeous and timeless melodies, spare arrangements, but so deftly arranged as to be more powerful than almost any of her contemporaries. There is definitely a serious Iron & Wine vibe going on, Herships sounds like Sam Beam's long lost twin sister. Even her turns of phrase and choice of melodies. The mind boggles at the possibility of those two making a record together. If either of them are reading this, for god's sake let's make it happen!!
Regardless, this is an absolute gem. Pastoral, and haunting, soft and shimmery, suffused with warm summer sunlight, a rambling record if there ever was one. Cool afternoon, bare feet, tall grass, clouds drifting lazily by, soft breezes, the smell of earth and leaves, wandering through a fuzzy folk dream. Absolutely gorgeous.
Black metal bands come in many varieties, and we have our favorites among everything from blackened thrash drunkards to grandiose symphonic keyboard-laden festival headliners to grim trance-y one-man-band eccentrics... particularly the latter, though, especially when we're trying to find black metal to recommend to AQ customers who aren't necessarily metalheads but who like weird weird music whatever the genre. Droning fucked up stuff that's almost more experimental than it is metal. And this (one-man) band Striborg is precisely what we like to have on hand when the subject of, "if I were to buy just one weird black metal record, what should it be?" comes up.
For the longest time, it was next to impossible to find cds by this still-obscure artist from far-off Tasmania (that's right, Tasmania!). Fortunately others besides us have recognized his peculiar genius and now the releases are (somewhat) more readily available. Which brings us to this brand new album, Solitude, and it to us, hot on the heels of Striborg's other recent full-length release, Ghostwoodlands. As with that album, here Striborg has uncapped his usual aerosol spray of buzzing guitars and wretched effected vokills. The fuzzed out, bleak black metal clatter is interspersed with long stretches of what approaches D.I.Y. 20th Century Classical electronic music spookiness! The ambient, isolationist tracks that cropped up on Ghostwoodlands are again to the fore, as is an even more droney, doomy, droomy mood. There are several exclusively "black metal" tracks (two of 'em quarter hour epics!), some of them powered by blazing drum machine beats, but even so the overall vibe of Solitude is so slooooow and doooooomy.
Drum machine? Don't worry, it sounds good, and at times, we think he really IS playing the drums. Striborg's less-than-tight timekeeping and fucked up fills have always been paradoxical highlights of his albums in our perverse estimation, but Solitude finds many ways to provide those idiosyncratic so-wrong-its-right pleasures. Tracks like "Ektoplasmic Dreams", "Doppelganger" and "The Untouched Land" are purely electronic-sounding, ominous abstract dronescapes, piercing with high-end synth-shards and soothing with somnolent textures. Elsewhere, his blurred guitars do the same, reminding us of dreamy gloom dronesters Angelic Process, a hushed guitar tone... not even a tone, more like a pure wave, a solid mass.
We mentioned that Striborg hails from pretty far south -- Tasmania. The rainforests of his island are not that distant from the icy wastes of Antarctica. But this album, Solitude, is the sound of Striborg's one-man, one-way journey even further south, falling right off the edge of this world...
Outsider black metal aficionados already know they need this, a brand new single from Tasmanian BM weirdo Striborg, but the fact that it's a split with another mysterious black outfit we've never heard of, Scurshahor, and that the sound in many ways is weird enough (and not even really metal), should cause this to appeal to all regular old lovers of weird music.�
Starting with the song titles, we're not sure there's ever been a collection of songs that sounds more like they were named using the age old adjective / noun notebook, with which many of your favorite bands were probably named. Check it out: "Psychedelic Nightmare", "Syncopated Pandemonium" and "Malicious Resplendence". Could be killer band names all of them. But here, they also suit the tripped out dubby blackness found within. Dubby? Yep, you read that right. Striborg offers up two tracks, the first beginning with haunting, mournful melancholic guitars, before being swallowed whole by a blown out primitive blast of effects drenched blackness, the most noticeable thing being the vocals, doused in delay and distortion and reverb, the howls and anguished cries sent careening King Tubby style into the void. The second track ranks up there with the weirdest and most experimental stuff Striborg has ever done, a buzzing backdrop of near static drone-riffing, the guitars way off in the distance, swelling and swooping, and the vocals over the top, again, definitely dubbed out, and adding a whole 'nother chaotic tripped out layer to the already damaged black sounds.�
The flipside, from a band called Scurshahor (who we're tempted to suspect is in fact Oren Ambarchi) is like a bassier, more low end more static and drone-y Striborg, with similarly dubbed out vocals, leading us to believe that maybe both were recorded at the same time and in the same studio? Either way, Scurshahor sound like a more black metal SUNNO))) (even more than Black One), the riffing a glacial blur crafted from amp buzz and low end drone, chaotic metallic percussion here and there, and of course the vocals, a swirling distorted reverbed dubbed out wraith like rasp. Awesome.�
Incredibly thick vinyl, housed in a super striking, ultra heavy deluxe sleeve. And probably limited as all get out...
Here's the new album from Arcade Fire's tag-a-long kid brother... errr, we mean Sunset Rubdown! The follow-up to 2006's Shut Up I Am Dreaming, Random Spirit Lover is bursting with invigoratingly rambunctious pop with *those* male vocals (a withery emotive yelp). If your dig the music of Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade and Destroyer, Sunset Rubdown will probably rub you the right way!
At the risk of alienating some of the other amazing records we've been loving and listening to non-stop, we might just have to proclaim this disc our new favorite. Cuz, man, do we miss the good ol' math rock days. Or post rock days, whatever you want to call them. That brief period, when there were instrumental (or mostly instrumental) bands everywhere, each offering up super complex tangled chunks of calculus-rhythmed indie jangle. Guitars intertwined into gorgeous harmonies and splintering into jagged melodic shards. Drums battering out impossibly intricate beats, the bass slithering around and within, supporting and propelling, but always laced with killer pop hooks and amazing minor key melodies. Bands like�Polvo, Pitchblende, Table, Breadwinner, Dazzling Killmen, Bitch Magnet, Rodan, Crain, June Of 44, they just don't make bands like that anymore... or do they?
Tic Code, from Portland Oregon sound like they just got sucked up from 1995 and transplanted in 2007, with all their mathy chops intact. Every song here is dense and catchy and weird and rocking. The opener is all Don Caballero ultra complex spazz out. The guitars super dizzying and slippery, over a relentlessly chugging groove, that at one point slips into an almost jig, and then it's back into a hyper rhythmic math jam. The second track is more moody and propulsive, more post than math, the guitars lilting and ringing out, the drums loping lazily, super summer afternoon...
The rest of the record is all over the math map, leaning heavily on the heavy, more chaotic side of things, the drummer destroying, the guitars tangled up wildly around the drums, every song a gorgeous avalanche of sound...
Some�of our other favorites are�the weird melancholy almost Goblin-esque�"The Second Stanza Of The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza" with it's epic sweeping chords and haunting melodies, and the Yes-on-steroids of "Swedish Fish", with more killer dual guitar dueling culminating in an explosive freaked out free for all sonic squall... fuck it, they're all amazing.�This band is just so great, and sound so modern and old school at the same time.
Screw this whole post rock metal hybrid movement everyone is so hot for, we say: bring back the MATH!!!
We've been fans of Unicorn for a while now, not nearly as long as we've been fans of -unicorns-, but close. On their Playing With Light� record, we began our review with these words: "Goddamn this record is beautiful. We mean seriously beautiful. So beautiful it sort of has us at a loss for words." Needless to say, we sold tons of those, and it remains an AQ favorite (and we'll hopefully soon have more copies, thanks for being patient). So since then we would snap up anything those guys (or that guy, we're not sure) did.�
This latest one is no different. Well, no different in that we snapped it right up, but definitely different sounding. At least the first Unicorn track here, a hissy high end drift, all upper register whir and shimmer and skree, what sounds like balloons and compressed air, very strange, but after that it's back to the Unicorn of old, with deep resonant drones, strange electronic glitches, haunting rhythmic loops, really quite beautiful, but Unicorn here are all over the place, the next track is another abstract industrial soundscape of low end whir and rhythmic hiss, some more high end weirdness, then back to more dark droniness finishing off with some super minimal hushed drift. Not as straight up beautiful as the other discs, but way more varied and interesting, intense and unique.�
Unicorn are paired off here with Torso, who we had never heard before, but we're led to believe features members of Man Is The Bastard / Bastard Noise, and it sounds like it could be true, Torso's take on the drone is much more raw and abrasive, gritty and buzzy, with the tones blown out and crumbling, verging on power electronics, but remaining just on this side of noise, like a much heavier more lo-fi Niblock, with long drawn out notes layered on top of each other, allowed to pulse and beat and subtly shift and change. Torso also add all sorts of other sounds to the mix, random slabs of distant buzz, electronic crackle, what sounds like a drill of some kind, creepy voices, warbly turntables, bits of found sound, distorted vocals, feedback, all woven into the mesmerizing fabric of Torso's harsh drones. Really cool. Definitely need to hear more.�
Packaged in a gorgeous, multi colored, metallic ink, screen printed fold over cardstock sleeve in a thick vinyl pouch. Nice!
We've been waiting for this one with all kinds of excitement and anticipation. The always eclectic and forward minded folks at Tigersushi have compiled one of the more intriguing and rewarding comps of recent times. Digging deep into the vaults of the slow and drugged out side of disco's past they have miraculously connected dots that we always dreamed would finally be joined together. Dirty Space Disco brings together folks from the more avant and krautrock worlds like Roedelius (of Cluster), Conrad Schnitzler, and Clara Mondshine, setting their tracks up alongside disco luminaries and obscure dance floor burners from Sylvester, Fern Kinney, Odyssey, Undisputed Truth and more. This is all about the moody, seductive and way late night side of disco.
We've been big fans of the current movement of artists tapping into this seductive sound (Lindstrom, Chromatics, Prins Thomas, etc.) but we're so happy to have the blueprints and origins of those sounds all on one disc. Though he's not included in this collection we know Arthur Russell would be so happy to see this disco / avant-garde match up finally happen. We're in love with so much of this comp but it's pretty much worth it alone for Sylvester's "I Need Somebody To Love Tonight" one of the greatest spaced out disco gems of all time, from his amazing Stars LP which came out in 1979 and features the innovative production of Patrick Cowley, one of the unsung heroes and pioneers of the San Francisco electronic/dance scene.
Luckily just about every other track is just as fantastic. This collection has been at the top of the charts on KUSF (our local college radio station, where both Irwin and Andee have shows) ever since it went into rotation and it's no surprise because it's the kind of collection that easily wins over folks who thought they just weren't into disco just as much as it pleases those of us who are huge disco freaks!! Highly recommended!
Before we get going with this review, we figured we oughta just get your attention with the words NEW 30 MINUTE DANIEL HIGGS TRACK!!! That's right, we'll get to that in a minute though...
Phoning It In is a radio show in Boston, where musicians call in and perform songs over the phone, which makes for super intimate performances, but which also give the recordings a cool, alien, lo-fi vibe (remember the vocals-recorded-from-jail on Bad Brains' I Against I record?!). This disc collects three recent guests on Phoning It In, The Caribbean, Don Zientara and Mr. Daniel Higgs. The first three tracks are solo acoustic numbers from the frontman of The Caribbean, and are quite nice, falling somewhere between the Mountain Goats and some more traditionally indie. The vocals lilting and sadboy, the guitar minor key, the tracks simple but quite lovely. Don Zientara, a legendary producer (whose name has graced almost every DC punk record you've ever owned) as well as performer, and here offers up two haunting acoustic numbers, long drawn out steel string tangles, simple strumming and angular fingerpicking, a sort of Appalachia / indie jangle hybrid, with a high croon that is actually quite reminiscent of Charles Manson or Captain Beefheart. The whole thing sounding like some unearthed demo tape from Laurel Canyon in the late sixties / early seventies.�
Most folks are probably gonna buy this for the Higgs track, and it's well worth it, a massive sprawling buzzing distorted raga epic, 25 minutes, total blown out super distorted lo-fi trance inducing beauty. It sounds like a pump organ (and at times like a guitar, and at others a Jew's harp...), wheezing out thick dense chords, with notes overlapping and beating against each other, pulsing and buzzing, some ancient primitive ritual, timeless and divine, completely mesmerizing, like alien bagpipe music, a keening high end drone that twists and changes shape, various notes peeling off in little curlicues of feedback, or flurries of jagged scrape, but always being reabsorbed into this surprisingly lush organic rumbling buzzing divine drone. Absolutely amazing of course.�
Packaged in a cool hand printed cardstock sleeve, with a mini printed insert.
We always like to have a good '60s/'70s psych-pop compilation to recommend, when we can. Happily enough, this list we do, it's Some Songs Stuck In My Mind, an international comp of utterly killer tracks from rare 45s by 18 different, totally obscure artists that we'll go ahead and list here for the hell of it, so you can feel all collector-music-nerd-snobby if you've heard of any of 'em before: Springwell, Manolo Y Ramon, Don Curtis, The Comforts, Michael, T.M.L., Eduardo Araujo, Bluebeard, Antonio Carlos & Jocafi, Serge Et Christine, La Metamorphosi, Adriano Celentano, Puzzle, Little Sammy Gaha, Francois De Louville, Les Playboys, Vincent, and Injun Joe. All of it wonderfully groovy, fuzzy, catchy and funkily far out. If this were a DJ set spun in a bar 'round here, there would be a either a stompin' dancefloor and/or a bunch of bearded guys bugging the DJ about what they were playing as each track came on.
The cd booklet's got liner notes talking 'bout each track, and lil' full-color pics of the cover art from the original singles. Recommended, in the tradition of Neurotic Reactions (from the same label), Andergraun Vibrations, Cherrystones Hidden Charms, Who Will Buy These Wonderful Evils, Nightmares At Toby's Shop, all those cool Psychic Circle comps, etc.
Everyone's got to know by now what a stupendously awesome label Soul Jazz is. Forever mining the vaults for lost gems and unearthing compilation after compilation of rare dub, esoteric post-punk, free jazz, regional soul, dancehall and dubstep, always accompanied by meticulous liner notes, well researched and full of incredible facts and amazing anecdotes. For those of you who can barely keep up with their Herculean output of compilations, you probably overlooked the steady stream of limited edition singles as well, tons of obscure Dancehall, Ragga, Dubstep, Micro-house, Post-Punk, German Rock, Baile Funk Italo-Discoand Electro all released in the past couple of years.
Well don't fret, because the definitive compiler's label has compiled all of their singles onto a 2cd set with a bonus mix cd. Funky and diverse, leaping from one genre to the next yet keeping a solid flow. Featuring Subway, ESG, Kit Clayton, Capracara, Kode 9, Digital Mystikz, Ladybug, Skream, Tetine, DJ Rupture and so much more!
WAY RECOMMENDED!!!
Finally!!! It's taken us years (literally) but we finally managed to track down the second record (in a quantity enough to review and list) from one of our all time favorite outsider weirdo whatthefuck metal bands, VORAK! If you're a regular reader of the list, you know how much we love the damaged and demented, the fucked up and freaked out metal, so believe us when we tell you Vorak just might be the weirdest and most fucked up EVER. When we reviewed the first Vorak years and years ago, we summed it up suggesting that Lord Vorak, the man behind one man classical nihilist black metal commando unit Vorak "either must be joking or is totally out of his mind" and record number two only furthers that sentiment.
The first record was a dizzying logic defying head spinning blur of spastic drum machines, sped up vocals, garbled metal guitar and snatches of piano, all tossed in a blender and spewed out in a confusional froth. Well if anything, record number two, Rhetoric Of The Supermen, demonstrates a little bit more song structure, but manages to sound not one whit more sane. In fact Vorak's sound is almost even weirder when applied to actual sort-of-actual-song arrangements.
But let's start from the top. Vorak. Aka Lord Vorak, a man we're led to believe must be a classically trained pianist, whose record covers are covered in metallic gold busts, flaming eagles, and barbed wire, who's partial to song titles like "Dies Irae: Kruel And Glorious Purgation Of The Untermenschen", "Synthetic Nepenthe", "Australyan Uber-Volkslieder 1", there seems to be some sort of obsession with fascism, inside the booklet, it mentions that "All aspects of this supreme music of the future production emanate from the mind of Lord Vorak entirely for his own amusement and gratification"... and heck, we haven't even gotten to the music yet.
An ultra fucked up and completely fractured assemblage of super distorted classical piano, screeching metallic buzz, damaged chipmunk vocals, stumbling chaotic drum programming, interspersed with some straight classical piano, some soaring strings, all tangled and convoluted, every track rife with new head scratching (and head banging) moments...
The record opens with some wild tangled harpsichord sounding piano, dense flurries of notes, strangely recorded, but distinctly classical, until the super distorted metal riffing takes over at the beginning of track two, laid over a series of struggling stumbling drum machine rhythms, and super high pitched vocals, sounding a bit like that girl at the beginning of Kiss's "God Of Thunder" but more maniacal... The guitar is furious, the riffing relentless, with wild squiggly leads everywhere, huge swells of string like synths, and the vocals squawking and bleating all over the place, the drums a head spinning splatter... The next track slows things down a little bit, a thick sheet of blurred distorted guitar laid over some gorgeous minor key piano, the vocals sporadic and drenched in reverb, creepy more than weird, the whole thing super emotional and dark, but still completely unhinged.
Then comes "Blood-Reich 2000", with its relentless metallic onslaught, that gives way to strange piano / helium vocals / sputtering drum machine interludes, always returning to that furious minor key riffing. Several tracks are just piano, and those are quite stunning, atonal and modern, but still melodic and emotional, also strangely recorded so the lower notes are super distorted and at times sounding like a harpsichord. And there's one long track of blown out ambience, fuzzy and blurry, and strangely cinematic, thick swaths of buzz over strings all arranged into sweeping movements. But those tracks are surrounded on all sides by mind melting flurries of manic metal and furious freaked out metallic damage.
The disc includes two bonus tracks, both solo piano, both pieces by Richard Wagner, a strangely lovely and sedate finish to a record that most definitely ranks as one of the weirdest, and absolutely one of our all time favorites.
Totally recommended. And absolutely essential for all lovers of damaged, demented, fucked up, freaked out, outsider metal weirdness.
On a regular basis, Andee and Cup armwrestle over which is the best Weakerthans album. Her heart has a special velvet rope spot for their second one, Left And Leaving. Their subsequent releases (including this one) are very good, no question. Yet they just pale in comparison to the greatness of one of her all-time favorites. Almost every one of its songs nails you right in the heart with their crushworthy emotive boy vocals, big guitars, irresistible hooks and near-anthemic refrains. John K. Samson's bookish yet immensely heartfelt lyrics appeal to all ages -- imagined highschool sweetheart scrawlings on looseleaf, latenight brutal and sweet bedroom ruminations, non-heavyhanded social/political commentaries, brainy academia -- and they never fail to trigger a yearning ache in the chest and pit of the stomach.
On the other hand, Andee opts for Reconstruction Site. It's a little more power poppy he thinks, but heck, as both Cup and Andee can agree, they're both pretty dang awesome.
Now four years later, their fourth full length enters the ring (fyi: it's not actually a reunion, they never broke up!), and it's aiming for our hearts right from the get go! Without a doubt, Reunion Tour is far more immediately engaging than Reconstruction Site, and is almost as endearing as Left And Leaving. In fact, it fits in comfortably and warmly familiar right between those two albums. Samson's voice is sounding its strongest, most self assured, and the rest of the band is right there with him. If we had our way, this band's songs would be on every highschool movie soundtrack and every bestfriend/sweetheart mixtape. Go on, shyly shuffle your feet, slouch your shoulders in a wellworn vintage cardigan sweater, and bob your head along to these fine tunes!
If there's any justice in this world, it should be anytime now that Adam Forkner becomes a household name, well at least in houses that care about awesome underground music. His past bands, Yume Bitsu, Surface Of Eceyon and the ambitious project [[[[VVRSSNN]]]] all had amazing moments that swept us away, but we think it's in his newest incarnation as White Rainbow that he's truly tapped into some serious musical magic.
Much like his recent collaboration with Honey Owens for the limited cd-r by their duo World, Forkner has found a way to stretch out his sounds and tap into something transcendent. With it's Dr. Brommers inspired manic packaging, and it's equally metaphysical title, this is a record whose sounds are well able to back up the mysterious belief system its entire aura points at. Channeling the living spirit of folks like Terry Riley and LaMonte Young, Prism Of Eternal Now is not merely just a tribute to those icons but living proof of how their influence has touched and inspired a younger generation of musicians aiming to create dense, enchanting, and alive sounds.
The album reveals many different shades of Forkner's musical explorations. From the dreamy, subdued and shoegazey side to the active, relentless and spacious. This is music to get lost in, lost to and lost with. The kind of record you put on and that immediately has you drifting off in a million different directions. Forkner has made his own brilliant Rainbow In Curved Air for a new generation. Highly recommended!
Like clockwork, a new issue of one of our favorite modern music mags. On the cover this time, the venerable Robert Wyatt. Inside: Shape of Broad Minds, Ute Wassermann, Walter And Sabrina, Global Ear on New Orleans, audiovisual artist Camille Norment, Invisible Jukebox with percussionist Han Bennink, Oxbow (an article titled Respect The Cock. Yikes!), a history of the rich Bristol music scene, and the usual assortments of reviews: cds, lps, dvds, reissues, shows, performances, installations, books and a back page Epiphany from Kevin Martin aka The Bug.
Plus this month's issue comes with a free cd, which features new tracks from John Luther Adams, The Fun Years, Tarentel, Mordant Music, Luciano Cilio, Hulk Goodiepal, Damon & Naomi, The Ex, Getatchew Mekuria & Guests, Dimension X, Modified Toy Orchestra and more...
Oh man. The third album from the Swedish prog/psych/doom wizards Witchcraft is finally here. We can barely contain ourselves. They say third time's the charm, and of course with Witchcraft it can't help but being so, since the first two times were charmed as well. This band's debut destroyed us with its incredibly authentic retro Pentagram/Sabbath stylings, with lashings of flute and folkiness too. Their second album, Firewood, captivated us with an equally early '70s heavy progressive vibe. Now The Alchemist succeeds at giving us what we want from Witchcraft -and- pushing further into the realm of melodic, folky proggy rock that stands on its own far beyond being a mere tribute to its '70s ancestors.
Guitarist/singer Magnus Pelander and his band Witchcraft have pretty much proved that the old adage "they don't make 'em like they used to" isn't always true. Witchcraft sure as hell does. That it's 2007 not 1972 isn't evident from anything on here, though it sounds as fresh as a daisy at the same time. These guys are so old school analog you halfway expect that their cd would be made out of black plastic and have visible grooves in it. We certainly could imagine some DJ's looking for breaks wanting this on vinyl real bad, you could do some badass hiphop mix with parts of "Remembered" ferinstance. Bet Andy Votel digs this band. Totally sounds like they could have gotten a deal with his favorite progressive record label back in the day (that'd be the famed Vertigo) had Witchcraft really existed in the '70s... certainly the inclusion of the sax solo (yes, a sax solo!) at the end of "Remembered" helps make it sound like something from an old Vertigo LP! Elsewhere Witchcraft get super sweet and gentle, or break out the heavy riffs Sabbath style (like you'd expect -- Sabbath originally being a Vertigo band y'know) in a blend we can't help but love.
Magnus' emotive, melodic vocals are so crucial here, one of this record's shining strengths. He still sounds a bit like a Swedish-accented Ozzy, yet with a graceful finesse, belting it out expressively or crooning with lilting loveliness. His vocals are matched by the absolutely powerful and gorgeous guitarwork throughout the disc. This album sweeps us off our feet immediately with the instant-classic opener "Walk Between The Lines", which is followed by a re-recorded version of the A-side of last year's 7" single, "If Crimson Was Your Colour", an urgent, witchy rocker embellished with some tasty Moog licks. Then there's the loping "Leva", which though Magnus sings it in Swedish, still goes straight to our soul. The Sabbath factor is ratcheted up on "Hey Doctor", a lumbering doom-riffed downer lamentation/accusation. The next track, "Samaritan Burden" combines the heavy riffs with a mellower mood and more acoustic-y moments, masterfully structured. It's followed by the aforementioned "Remembered", definitely an album-standout that's so '70s in so many ways that pretty much only Witchcraft could have done it in this day and age. And then, speaking of standouts, comes the nearly 15 minute long title track, "The Alchemist"! We'll omit description other than to say it's of course an epic mindblower, closing the album with magnificent, mesmeric, proggier than thou flourish.
Definitely a Top 10 Best of 2007 album. We'd have made it Record Of The Week, but what we've got here is the somewhat pricier Japanese import edition (the domestic version is due out towards the end of the month), with a Japan-only bonus track added on at the end, "Sweet Honey Pie", a lovely, acoustic little number. Not sure when/if we'll get more, so we were wary about giving it pole position. But with or without bonus track, it's an AMAZING new effort from this fantastic band, highly recommended. Seriously, we'd have been happy taking all day to write this review, just 'cause we love listening to this album so much.
ATTENTION SUN CITY GIRLS FANATICS!!!
Apologies to Wizard Prison for beginning the review like that, but it strikes us that fans of the late great Sun City Girls would definitely dig the strange sounds found on this disc, no huge surprise as half of Wizard Prison is none other than long time SCG collaborator and producer and Climax Golden Twins mainman Scott Colburn.�
Not that II is any sort of SCG rip off, in fact, in most ways it doesn't actually sound like SCG at all, but the vibe and the mood, are quite similar, a sort of alien world music, modern instrumentation channeling old world sounds. The disc begins with what first appears to be an electronic trip hop jam, but quickly reveals itself to be a bizarre krautrock style jam, simple and propulsive, peppered with electronic bits and a young girl singing and speaking in some other language. It's a bit Portishead, if they put out a record on Abduction. The second track is similar, a sort of electronic rhythmscape, that quickly begins to sound less specifically electronic, and more -electric-, a pulsing tone over simple drumming, a relentless pulse hovering over strange growling animal sounds and subdued low end melodies, again, it doesn't -sound- like it, but it somehow reminds us of the Butthole Surfers, not sure if it's the strange slowed down vocals, or just the vibe again, but it's dark and damaged and haunting, but also strangely hypnotic and groovy.�
The whole record is a series of simple rhythms and looped melodies, mesmerizing, repetitive and hypnotic, most songs with a single riff, a sole part repeated over and over, but with a constantly shifting backdrop of strange sounds and disembodied voices. Almost like a more alien lo-fi Circle, or a more krautrock Nurse With Wound, or like some DJ took their favorite Sun City Girls parts and looped them into endless jams. Some of the tracks are super dark and heavy, others are more murky and mysterious, all seem to have some strange drifting electronic element to them.�
The second to last track stands out as super creepy and cinematic, and sounds a bit like Goblin, with haunting minor key melodies draped over slow shuffling rhythms and atonal guitar fragments, and the final track is super spare, and sounds as if it was cobbled together from radar, sonar and the Conet Project, minimal and mysterious.�
Plus the whole record is a concept album (the story is printed inside the booklet), and you should know by now how much we love concept records...�
Really fantastic, and a nice surprise. Not at all what we expected (not sure what we expected really), but definitely recommended. A new favorite around these parts...
From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release that clinches its Record Of The Week status not only by comprising a fantastic debut full-length album of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams, but also by including a BONUS disc (limited edition, first 2000 copies only) in a cardboard sleeve shrinkwrapped to the jewel case, featuring all the tracks from the now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year that first made us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, and further whetted everyone's appetites for this album with the "Summer Of Love" 7" single that came out a couple weeks ago and has already sold out (2nd pressing in the works, be patient).
So, this new self-titled album follows on from that single with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the disc. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
And then there's the limited bonus disc. Don't dawdle, you don't want to miss it (particularly if you didn't score the original vinyl releases). It's got the three tracks from their debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" (the one that they didn't even tell us about even though we see these guys on the street every day, we had to find out about it from Mr. Lax's blog!) and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists. These are the songs that had us jonesing for a full length, which you've just read about up above, and now all this music is together in one crucial package, while they last.
FYI, a vinyl version of the full-length is to follow in a month or two we're told... and maybe Holy Mountain can come up with some better cover art for it too? We were a bit underwhelmed by the blurry black & white photo of the band sitting around on the steps to someone's house, but then again their vinyl releases were in clear sleeves with no art to speak of, so I guess elaborate packaging ain't their thing. But motorik minimalist krautrocky pulsations, mellow Doorsy '60s groove, and out and out geetar psych-splosions are, so we can't complain!!
Latest from this former Bay Area (now Portland based) duo, and maybe their prettiest yet. Tour only and cassette only, we got these direct from the band who stopped by before their SF show, which means not only are these probably super limited, but we can't be sure if we'll be able to get more and if so, when.
Dark and dreamy, long loping swirls of distorted guitar draped over soft billow backdrops of murky swirl, disembodied vocals and mournful melodies stretched into crumbling sonic frameworks, set adrift in a sea of thick grinding low end distortion and glistening harmonics. Fuzzy and blurry and washed out, think Jeck, Basinski, Tim Hecker... But where as those guys are happy to just drift endlessly through soft focus landscapes, the 'Swans pile on layer after layer, more and more distortion, turning a lovely lope into crumbling chaos, blown out psychedelic dronescapes, noisy and blistering, but still lovely and subtly melodic.
Pro printed cassettes, striking black and white sleeves, and again crazy limited...
Sometimes you just have to pause from the hustle, bustle and general assault of the modern world to refresh your appreciation of something truly exceptional and timeless. So, that said... Everyone! Stop what you're doing this very second, and get your own copy of this album! If you already have it, then get another copy for your best friend! If they already have it, then... well, you get the picture! Its presence is absolutely essential in any/every self respecting music lover's library.
This is not a new release, in fact it is the 30th anniversary edition which came out back in 1998... which means this classic album is pushing forty, and it still delights like a pup! Simply stated, Odessey & Oracle is a rare beautifully plumed pop bird that soars above the crowd. So many of our favorite more recent pop gods were clearly enormously influenced by this band and this album in particular -- Pernice Brothers, Zumpano, The New Pornographers, The Posies, The Shins... the list goes on and on and on. And we could go on and on but why waste breath and time? Highest recommendation, 'nuff said!
This edition also includes a bunch of bonus tracks for the completist (primarily alternate and mono versions). Heck, if you wanna go totally whole hog... may we recommend the Zombie Heaven 4 cd box set? At least two aQuarians own one, and several others are definitely considering it...
