Not to be confused with another current young, numerically named band The 1990s who hail from Scotland, Chicago, IL's The 1900s actually sound more Scottish than those Glaswegians! Last year the half dozen songs on the band's Plume Delivery debut release had us delighted us with its lovely pop dreaminess, and we're happy to report that Cold And Kind picks right up where that ep left off. This full length of a dozen unabashed ice cream-y toothsome sweetheart tunes are still very much for fans of Scottish cozy popsters Belle & Sebastian, but we bet it'll also tickle the ears of fans of Stars, The Concretes, Kings Of Convenience, Peter Bjorn And John. Kind? Yessiree! Cold? No way! The 1900s will give you nothing but the warmest of fuzzy feelings!
Public Guilt is quickly turning into one of our favorite labels. A definite sound and vibe, but no two releases alike. An amazing visual aesthetic, sublime packaging, and some of the most beautiful, the heaviest, and most fucked up sounds we've heard in ages.
Public Guilt were one of the labels responsible for the amazing triple cd Untitled collection, a box gathering up some of the best 'noise' music of the last few years, they were also responsible for both discs from ambient guitarorrists Destructo Swarmbots, and this here super limited 3" cd-r just so happens to be the work of one of those Swarmbots.
The sound here is similar to the DS records, but where those records took guitars and stretched them into spaced out drones and whirring soundscapes, the music on Saturday, is much more obviously guitar music. Swarmbot Bianca Ala Muerte, is joined by Max Bondi, a UK experimental soundmaker, and the two, create a glistening, sublime world of subtly processed steel string buzz, breathless drift, and occasional bursts of fuzzy softpsych buzz.
The opening track is a lovely little tangle of playful guitar melodies, woven tightly amidst drifting wordless vocals, dreamy and hypnotic, the second track takes the same guitars and runs them through the computer, transforming them into stuttering soft edged swells, culminating in a crushing slow motion metallic dirge coda, throbbing crumbling heaviness, pulled into bleary eyed sheets of distorted bliss. The rest of the disc tends more toward the lovely and soft focus, with only super brief bits of downtuned crush. Instead, bits of glitched electronics, distant whistling, whirring chordal swirls, choral like voices, are all laid over the framework of delicate spidery guitars, and drifting melodic blur.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Packaged in screenprinted mini 3" foldout sleeves, blue black and metallic silver ink, with a printed vellum insert.
Finally, the first full length from these mysterious French post black metal krautrock alchemists. And if you think calling a band French post black metal krautrock alchemists might be overdoing it, you haven't hear Aluk Todolo.
An offshoot of black metal horde Diamatregon (who have one record on tUMULt, and another one coming soon), this trio, just guitar, bass and drums, are most definitely alchemists, working some sort of ancient magic, turning the simplest of rock band instrumentation, into something massive and mysterious, heavy and haunting, brutal and mesmerizing, repetitive and motorik. Crafting songs, that manage to be both pieces, in the classical sense, abstract and intellectual collections and arrangements of sound, subtle shadings, tonal color and timbre, harmony and dissonance, and SONGS, in the rock sense, fucking kick ass jams, that seem to go on forever, killer riffs, and relentless head nodding rhythms, like krautrock, only heavier and darker and way way blacker. Like black metal but without all the buzz and howl, stripped down to its very essence, to just mood and rhythm, ambience and propulsion.
In the review of the previous 7" we described the band's sound as: Ominous krautrock rhythms over Einsterzende style industrial clatter, some lost seventies psych rock holy grail channeled through modern post rock. Dreamy and dark and mesmerizing. Hypnotic guitar lines and simple shuffling rhythms that build into clattery propulsive jams, all clanging angular riffs and dense tangled drumming. VERY This Heat like, and reminiscent of the late great Laddio Bolocko. Some sort of dangerous and mysterious postrock / krautrock hybrid, lo-fi but thick and dense and amazingly heavy.
And the full length essentially still sounds like that, but having loosed themselves from the shackles of the way too brief 7" format, the band can take all those elements, and lay them out, an epic massive post rock, krautrock, dronerock, experimental post black metal sprawl. These are the kinds of songs and sounds that need space, and time, need to lull the listener in, to entrance, ensorcel, the rhythms are stripped down and repetitive, looped and hypnotic, simple, but surprisingly and subtly complex at the same time. It's not hard to hear other hypno rockers in Aluk Todolo's sound, Circle, Salvatore and the like, but also space rock masters of repetition, Hawkwind, The Heads, and of course krautrock legends Can and Faust. Especially Can, with their focus on the power of the rhythm, no mater how seemingly simple or plain. But more than anything, it's legendary UK experimentalists This Heat whose, haunting mysterious rhythmic influence is all over Descension.
The opening track is the heaviest, a brutal slab of in the red distorted riffage, the actual riffs barely discernible, more like a heaving mass of crumbling distortion and space rock FX, but the rhythms that frame the whole record are already in place, pounding steadily beneath the buzz and skree. A head nodding pulse underpinning the swirling distorted clouds above. A bracing and white hot burst of blackdronekrautpsych that has the speakers rattling for all of its 8+ minutes.
But that track mostly serves as an intro to the complex and moody rhythmic sprawl that makes up the other three tracks. "Burial Ground" begins with what sounds like a slowed down This Heat rhythm track synched up to the free abstract drift of legendary seventies dronepsych collective Taj Mahal Travellers. The drums unwavering, but the background constantly in flux, swaths of black buzz, brief flurries of chaotic FX, distant low end swells, haunting fragmented melodies, a gorgeous spare kraut rock jam dropped into the abyss.
"Woodchurch" is a dense wall of high end buzz, all swirling distorted hum and keening feedback, tones all tangled up, a chordal wash of tuned vacuum cleaners, a sort of Sunroof! Style urdrone, but beneath it, the simplest of bass lines, distorted and downtuned, a heartbeat like throb, only a handful of notes, just enough to tie into the even simpler drum part, just kick drum and snare, a two step tattoo, as completely mesmerizing as it us utterly simple. The background buzz, swaying and pulsing, like some massive black sea, or clouds of insects ravaging a blighted sonic landscape.
The disc closes with "Disease" which opens with an ultra heavy slide guitar, unfurling a slow motion blues riff, caked in black buzz and thick distortion, the notes left to hang, ringing out until the tones slowly transform into feedback, immediately being swallowed up by the riff right behind it. It's like Robert Johnson playing SUNNO))), and then suddenly, the sound shifts, and the band reverts to its murky trawl, a thick throbbing bass line, another Can like rhythm, guitars warm and warbly, more like a layer of wet fuzz than distinct riffing, but occasionally, bits of that opening salvo return, offering up brief blasts of speaker destroying crunch, or brief bits of grinding buzz, a sudden start that almost, but doesn't quite wake you from your soporific reverie. Near the end, the distorted slide guitar returns, and drums drop out, and the track finishes with a thick coda of pealing guitar roar and shimmering chordal drone�
Intense and hypnotic and heavy and fucking genius. Ritualistic sounds, both black and brilliant, pulled from the void, a mysterious and sonic netherworld. Definite contender for record of the year.
There's thankfully more than a few labels whose reliable track record and special aesthetic makes us ALWAYS interested in what they're putting out. Several examples: EM Records, Hapna, Ektro, Holy Mountain, Paradigms, Lampse, and Andee's own tUMULt (of course). Also among those "likely essential" labels is Italy's Die Schachtel, an outfit that either digs up the most wonderful Italian experimental obscurities from the '70s or presents the most intriguing new underground bands from their country, always in super-snazzy packaging. Unfortunately, 'cause so much of their output is so great, it's tough for us to keep up with 'em all, but here at least is a review of our of their more recent gems, a cd reissue of an unusual 1980 record by what was a young Italian group called Art Fleury, who played shows with the likes of Area and Henry Cow and was right there on the cutting edge of politically and musically radical avant-prog, Rock In Opposition sound-making... This album of theirs, the title of which means "The Places Of Power", was apparently conceived as an imaginary soundtrack of sorts, and it's indeed quite soundtracky, you could imagine this being the score to a very arty, serious and suspenseful Italian film. It's a sonic collage that effectively deploys skittering percussion and tape-splicing studio fuckery, instrumental prog bombast and jazz improv freedom, the proceedings often infused with moody textures of glitch and crackle, visited by musical cues or voices set amidst radio static, as if sampled from a random spin of the dial. This is very much in keeping with the sounds of modern-day Die Schachtel acts like A and Christa Pfangen, and their colleagues 3/4hadbeeneliminated. We're also reminded of AQ faves Village Of Savoonga, and to several of Art Fleury's contemporaries or near-contemporaries like Faust, This Heat, and Nurse With Wound. You probably get the idea: recommended!
This cd comes packaged in a oversized cardboard box, inclosing a booklet with liner notes along with a poster of the album's black & white cover graphic of a clenched fist. By the way, while six tracks are listed, there's only five actually indexed on the cd, implying that two are run together... thus we might not have gotten the titles of our sound clips right (i.e "e=mc2" might be "La Morte Al Lavoro" actually).
If David Axelrod produced an Alice Coltrane record, the results might sound something like Dorothy Ashby's 1968 breakout recording, Afro-Harpin'. Of course that's not giving credit where credit is surely due. Dorothy Ashby was on the scene way before Alice Coltrane and she was the first artist to front a jazz combo with the harp in the early fifties inspiring Alice Coltrane to take it up after moving on from the vibraphone. And though David Axelrod is better known nowadays, Richard Evans isn't some nobody producer, having created, along with fellow producer Charles Stepney, the richly textured soulful sound of Chicago's Cadet Records. A sound that relied more heavily on strings, flutes, and vibes rather than horns, and that along with some tribal percussion and hypnotic beats underscored some of the most diverse and underrated soul recordings of the late sixties (Rotary Connection, Ramsey Lewis, Fugi, Marlena Shaw and Soulful Strings). Eccentric Soul indeed!
From the opening off-kilter Theremin and drum breaks on "Soul Vibrations", you know we're in for a truly different kind of soul-jazz record. By the time the flutes and harp kick in, we're well under Ashby and Evans spell. A cool summery cocktail of majestic funkiness that will satisfy every groovy nerve in your body. Comprised mostly of original compositions with the exception of a couple of then-contemporary standards like "The Look of Love" and Theme From Valley Of The Dolls", there are some tracks that settle into a nice soft lounge vibe without ever getting cheesy. In fact the Hammond organ solo on "The Look of Love" finishes the album quite nicely. Having recorded three amazing break-filled and heavily sampled records for the Cadet label, we hope we will be hearing more of Miss Ashby's harp grooves again real soon. Recommended!
ATTENTION FINNISH MUSIC FREEKS. Record number two from this far out Finnish big band gypsy jazz ensemble. Our apologies to folks who were after the last record, Questral Places, which went out of print before we had a chance to get more in stock, but we've been bugging AQ pal Pentti, founder of the legendary Deep Turtle and head honcho of the Zerga label, to get us some copies of this newer release, 21st Century Drifting Episode. So we waited and waited, heard nothing for ages, and then one day, a big ol' box of these landed on our doorstep, and we're happy to report it's just as amazing as the other disc.
As we mentioned before, fans of Aavikko would do well to check these guys out, as they have a similar exotic flair, but instead of spy movies and Casios, they take their influence from gypsy folk music, big band jazz, and African music. In fact, if we had to describe this in a sentence, we might say Astro Can Caravan sound like a Finnish version of Ethiopiques 4, which is high praise indeed!
Sultry grooves, funky rhythms, lots and lots of horns, but also drums and synths, drums and percussion and spacey effects. The sound is a mysterious exotica, definitely reminiscent of the Ethiopian Grooves we love so much, but there's enough weird noodly synth and buzzing angular new wave elements to make this appeal to fans of Aavikko and other weird jazz groove whatthefuck. The band pepper their African style grooves with bursts of chaotic free jazz, slabs of buzzing synth abuse, but those moments are few and far between, instead, the band deftly cobble together their own unique sound, funky, and soulful, groovy and spiritual, wild and far out. Some tracks are rollicking and fiery, irresistible and the sort of thing that would send a dancefloor into an absolute frenzy. While others are dark and moody, slithery and slow burning.
If you dig any of the following: Coltrane, Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Taraf De Haidouks, Keukhot, Ethiopiques, Okros Ensemble, Aavikko, this band will completely kick your ass, or at least get it out of your seat and shaking.
Features a who's who of the Finnish Underground, including Pentti from Deep Turtle on guitar and mandolin. Produced, strangely enough, by Jussi Saivo of mysterious drone alchemists Tiermes. Packaged in a super striking digipak, and be forewarned, we did get a whole bunch of these, but once we run out it might take a little while to get more.
That would be one of the most ridiculous names for a band ever, if we didn't know that it's a conglomeration of names reflecting the international collaborative lineup here: members of Astro (Hiroshi Hasegawa, Japan), Jazkamer (Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre, Norway), and Hair Stylistics (Masaya Nakahara, Japan), natch. Well it's still pretty ridiculous but at least it makes some sense. Not so sure about the album title, but at least it's an attention-getter. Another attention-getter: this is one of them limited releases on the aRCHIVE label. Just 600 copies. And with usual aRCHIVE special packaging, the cd on a plastic nipple attached to a glossy tri-fold diecut cardboard sleeve, with graphics by Marhaug: the Ghost Rider on the front, and incongruous images of Johnny Cash and, uh, Mr. T on the back and inside, non-sequitur style. It's all about *attitude* we guess. Mr. T? He pity the motorcycle fuck fool!!! That's the spirit. Yeah, you want attention? Just try cranking this up loud. One track, 46 minutes, recorded live in Japan 3/3/2007. The three-word-description: Distorted. Noisy. Insanity. This is Merzbow territory, folks. Grinding overloaded amp-blasting electronic skree, a dense howling storm of unfettered feedback n' noise, static-y but far from static, in fact totally in motion, an active, extreme, almost-psychedelic freakout. Seemingly every noisemaking device and/or effect these guys possess juiced up and sent into the fray. That there's enthusiastic applause at the end of this disc, rather than simply the stunned silence of what remained of a numbed audience (read: victims) is amazing. But of course, this was in Japan!
Need we repeat, LIMITED TO 600 COPIES...
Super limited single from these two modern masters of soft noise. The A side is from local boy Karl aka Axolotl, who over the last little while has slowly changed direction, the chaotic thick noisescapes of past records gradually becoming more and more melodic and blissed out. His half of this split continues in that direction, beginning with a brief bit of slowed down processed industrial clatter, which slowly gives way to some super blissy vocal drift. Soft swells, warm wheezing organs, bits of electronics, and disembodied vocals slowly shifting and wrapping themselves around one another. Creating strange subtle shapes and gorgeous harmonies. Lo-fi noise-rock pop ambience for sure...
Inca Ore (now also local wethinks) fills up the flipside with whispered vocals and old music box melodies, suspended in an old fashioned haze, late afternoon sun and dust motes hanging motionless in the beams of fading light. A room full of furniture untouched, old faded photos, a life forgotten. Haunting and creepy, mysterious and strangely cinematic, bits of choral fragments pepper the hushed vocals and simple melodies, sounding like it wouldn't be out of place in a Dario Argento movie.
LIMITED TO 450 COPIES, each one hand numbered, pressed on white vinyl, and packaged in thick sleeves with a photocopied insert.
Here's another release of exceptional quality and artistry from the Kning Disk label, who have previous brought us fine disks from the disparate likes of James Blackshaw, Jerry Johansson, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Wolf Eyes, Giuseppe Ielasi & Nicola Ratti...
Subtly trippy and strangely entrancing, Balroynigress is an art-folk trio melting in the Swedish sun. We were immediately drawn to main man Erik Joer's withered, slightly druggy male vocals that alternately call to mind early Bowie and Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. His and female vocalist Elvire Soyez's hushed voices wander tremulously amid the somber, bent and broken melodies woven from acoustic guitars, synths, melodica and piano... occasionally getting their boots stuck in the slushy sludge of the gently growling bass. Despite the album's title which to us suggests fizzy cosmopolitan festivities, the ten songs that comprise this Shampoo And Champagne potion are neither bubbly nor urbane. Ungrounded and seemingly far from city lights, they flow freely between the concrete and the intangible, the conscious and the subconscious, conjuring both the deepest of longings and glimmering hallucinations. We like! May also intrigue the fans of Devendra Banhart or Andrew Douglas Rothbard.
Don't dill-dally though! This is a very limited handmade pressing of 900!
Sloan, Shins, Superchunk, The Stereo, Silver Sun... what do these bands have in common?
1. All their names start with an 's'.
2. They're great power pop bands.
3. They're some of our favorites for sure!
Well, this band just might be a case of "two out of three ain't bad"... and fortunately it's just the band name part that doesn't fit! But if The Beasts Of Eden's new cdep is any indication, they just might find themselves becoming a fave around here. High on energy and hooks with some glammy glossiness punchin' up the six songs!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The opening track on Astro Catastrophies, this brand new triple disc set from Birchville Cat Motel, finds BCM tackling the RIFF, the static drone and blurred soundscape of past releases converted into a sort of druggy stoner rock, a hypnotic metallic krautrock. Think some minimal blissed out version of Kyuss, Circle, Pharoah Overlord, Gore, and Skullflower at their riffiest. In fact the sound here is similar to the transformation Skullflower went through when they released Exquisite Fucking Boredom. Harnessing all that free noise into churning spaced out riffage.
"Sublime Prince Of The Royal Secret" begins like any other BCM record, drifting black clouds of low end churn, leaning toward the more overt heaviness of BCM offshoot Black Boned Angel, but then the drums drop, and the riff unfurls, a huge sun baked, blown out, glacial crush, looped and mesmerizing, repeated and robotic, the drums pounding, a gorgeously heavy and hypnotic dirge. In the background though is an epic expanse of grinding murk, and glistening shimmer, keening coruscating sheets of bassy rrrroooaaar, haunting chimes, and howling feedback, building until the riff and the rhythms are swallowed up completely.
The rest of disc one follows a similar pattern, long drawn out smears of processed guitar, dense and roiling, muddy percussion and downtuned melodies, that seems as if they might drift on and on forever, before once again, the rhythm and the riff kick in, on "Driving Golden Dopamine", it's some unlikely splatter of clapping, that gives way to a strange stuttering Spacemen Three like riff over a motorik drum machine rhythm, and on "Divinity Soldiers", the washed out high end ur-drone becomes a chugging Hawkwind style doper up outer space exploration, relentless and intense, once again wreathed in glistening, glimmering shimmers of sound.
The other two discs are just as heavy, and riffy and kick ass, each track subverting the riff, turning it into some blissed out BCM cloud of sound, but rocking in a way Birchville never really did before. Andee had been bugging Kneale to record a record next time he was in SF, with him playing BIG LOUD drums, thinking it would be an amazing combo, a crushing rhythm section sunk into a dense black hole of buzz and drone, and damn if this doesn't come pretty close.
From stuttering single notes peppering a shuffling rhythm, the whole thing processed into machinelike loops, to almost My Bloody Valentine style blown out metallic bliss pop, to almost choral sounding streaks of glimmering high end sparkles over blurred guitars and fluttering melodies, to super chaotic kitchen sink clatter demarcated by a blooping bleeping drum machine, to the truly bizarre "Hells Silver Titans", that begins as a glorious chime flecked drone, but suddenly erupts into straight up AC/DC riffage (so much so that we're still not entirely convince It's not just a sample, and actually, after more listens we're convinced it absolutely is, a single riff, the clicking hi-hat, chopped and looped into a simple, head nodding jam, like Philip Glass composing with classic rock riffs, and finally, "Damn Infinity Hairtie", which closes the set with a slab of buzzing black noise, going from grim funereal low end, to amp destroying FX drenched stun guitar psychnoise freakout.
As with all Celebrate Psi Phenomenon releases, packaged in that immediately recognizable wall paper sleeve, with three printed inserts, one for each disc...
This is how we like our indie pop. Raw and earnest, lush and hook filled, recorded on cassette tape then transferred to an old 8-track, the second album from Matt Adams expands on his debut from a couple years back that we dug big time. Now living in San Francisco after leaving Orange County, he has quickly become one of the finest songwriters in town. While he draws from greats like The Zombies, the Kinks and The Byrds, he manages to not sound like some nostalgic act. In fact there is a freshness and earnest quality to his songs that give them a very timeless feel. Kind of like Vetiver covering power poppers Zumpano. If anyone at Sub Pop is reading this, get the Blank Tapes on tour with The Shins, it will be a match made in pop heaven.
What is it about French black metal? Deathspell Omega, Mutiilation, Spektr, Alcest, Peste Noire, Amesoeurs, Nuit Noire, Antaeus, Malcuidant, S.V.E.S.T., Eikenskaden, Vlad Tepes� Sure there are other places that have spawned lots of great bands, but holy shit.
And of course, you can't leave Blut Aus Nord off that list. Beginning life as a furious blackened beast, Blut Aus Nord gradually began to incorporate long stretches of dark ambience, and haunting Wolf Eyes-ian industrial soundscapers into their sound, eventually even recording a whole disc of ambient drone music which was tacked on as a bonus disc alongside their album The Work Which Transforms God.
Their most recent record, Mort, found the band shifting again, shrugging off the buzzing blackness of their past incarnation, and weaving any buzz they had left into long slow loping post rock epics. Sort of gothy, definitely still metal, but a sort of plodding woozy dronemetal. Their strange riffing still intact, having once turned blazing blasts into something dizzying and bizarre, on Mort were turning doomy blackness creepy, demented midtempo dirges. It was unexpected, but it definitely grew on us, the key being that the songs were rife with all manner of fucked up chords, and convoluted arrangements, lost of layers, all woven and twisted and tangled and seriously fucked up.
So here we are a year later, and Odinist finds the band continuing down the same path. No blasts to be found here. The tempo stays pretty slow, sometimes jacked up to a furious midtempo, but just as often slowing down to a funereal plod, and much of the record is spent sort of swaying seasickenly, a lurching gallop, that perfectly compliments the murky melodies and the washed out riffs, the vocals barely audible, the drums pretty far down in the mix as well, only surfacing occasionally with a flurry of double kicks. The key as always is the riffs, and the riffs here are atonal and off kilter, minor key and angular, giving the songs a definite twisted no-wave vibe. But much of what made Mort so damaged sounding has been smoothed out a bit here, the weirdness more subtle, the sound of the record more static, many of the songs in the same key, so they sound like various movements in the same piece, definitely the sort of record meant to be listened to as a whole, but here and there some killer riff will surface, or some unlikely hook and will suck you back in. And keep you there, holding you under, as the black waves of woozy buzz wash over you.
Dark and droney, dizzying and dense, more grey metal than black metal, and if you couldn't tell by now, really fucking awesome.
Here's a preview of what's to come on British Sea Power's forthcoming 2008 album! Krankenhaus? features a two song peek plus three more and a live video and film! This band has consistently proven themselves to possess a broader scope than many of their early '00s post-post-punk '80s influenced contemporaries, so we were pretty excited when this arrived. happy to report that it doesn't disappoint! Their slouchy yet punchy jangle rock gets anthemic on the opener "Atom". Then, they just keep on unveiling alter egos. The third song "Straight Down The Line" presents an unexpectedly sensitive and prettier side to the band, while "The Pelican" brings out the space rock in them. Can't wait for the full length!
When we heard Tom Brosseau's last release, his concept album Grand Forks, we sensed his was a voice we'd be looking forward to hearing more from. It's good to know the folks at Fat Cat Records are making sure of it! This is his second album on the label (his first was 2006's Empty Houses Are Lonely). So intimate and immediate, each song is like a view though a magnifying glass held up to his heart. Occasionally the emotional intensity scorches the muted earthiness. Lilting and seemingly from a different time. For an inkling of Brosseau's sound, perhaps imagine a male counterpart to Jolie Holland. Sound good? It does to us! Produced by John Parish.
Second vinyl only offering from this low end subsonic super group, made up of Greg Anderson (SUNNO))), Southern Lord head honcho), Oren Ambarchi, and legendary black metal vocalist Attila Csihar (Mayhem, Tormentor, Aborym)�
For this outing, Ambarchi and Anderson are credited with sub bass death throb, while Attila is responsible for undead voices. And that's pretty much what it sounds like, sub bass throbs with haunting undead vocals woven into the heaving roiling mass. There seem to be some guitars in there too, maybe some electronics, but it's hard to tell, it's all smeared into a single swirling blackened mass. When we first listened to it, we played it at 33 (which we're assuming now is NOT the right speed, so hard to tell sometimes), and we thought, wow, this is even slower and sludgier than ever, but once we figured out it was meant to be 45, the sound reverted back, closer to the sound of SUNNO))) or the older records of their forbears Earth. Slow motion riffage, glacial and thick, massive and blown out and super distorted, muffled and murky, a sluggish sprawl of caustic crumbling guitars, the vocals barely audible, a haunting raspy growl way down in the mix, often just sounding like another buzzing bassline, hum and fuzz, dense and intense, all melted down into a viscous black crawl. Occasionally, the random bits of riffage and low end rumble coalesce into truly gorgeous harmonies, lovely and chordal, like some blackened church organ, but for the most part, this is the sound of guitar tones allowed to ring out forever and beat against each other, the air filled with oscillating overtones and strange tonal colorations, all beneath a patina of thick black buzz.
Amazing cover art as well, a gross out gutted worm picture disc, with a transparent skull and bugs insert on one side, and another sick silkscreened artwork overlay on the thick plastic sleeve, all courtesy of Mr. Seldon Hunt.
Recorded live, in January of this year, in Holland. And of course, you had to know this part was coming:
LIMITED TO 3000 COPIES!! And if it's anything like the other Burial Chamber record, it will sell out FAST.
And also, Fox Confessor has just been put out on vinyl (no five song bonus disc though, unlike the new deluxe cd edition). Sorta pricey due to the walloping Canadian dollar, unfortunately. But if you gotta have vinyl, here 'tis.
Simply in a class of her own. We've said it before and yes, we'll say it again... Neko Case's voice can invoke a power capable of leveling anything in its path emotionally and maybe even physically too -- leaving some hearts melted, some empowered and some broken. That said, this lady knows that you must wield such a force responsibly and wisely, and over the years she's attained full mastery of its might. On Fox Confessor brings The Flood as on her past albums, an ample serving of reverb in the recording process has ensured that her voice embraces your ears with utterly dreamy warmth, but it doesn't overpower its characteristic nuances. We all know (no doubt herself included) that she could floor you just by singing the alphabet or a grocery list, but we (and she) know that there's more to *it* than that. With each album she's steered clear of trends, reinvented herself subtly and honed a different facet of her craft. Here its her songwriting inkwell which has been given a thorough loving and it runneth over with the deepest indigos and the reds of blood and rubies. Yes, the most noticeable shift / development on Fox Confessor is definitely in the lyrics department. An ever-evolving and maturing lyricist, Case has honed her lyrical imagery into what very well are her least literal, but most poetic and vivid to date. The songs are definitely less immediate with fewer obvious hooks than those of her last three albums, but Fox Confessor inhabits a different realm, and is so very deeply moving and enchantingly special in its own ways. Indeed, it comes across much more as the work of a wise, seasoned storyteller than a flavor of the day pop songstress. Certainly not one to rest on her laurels, for her fourth album Case raises the bar once again, challenging both herself and her fans. Plus with the support of her revolving cast of supremely talented players, her musical tapestry has never been more lushly and intricately detailed. This time she's invited Garth Hudson of The Band into her collaborative fold/family which already shines with the likes of The Sadies, Giant Sand's Howe Gelb, Ms Kelly Hogan, Tom Ray, Jon Rauhouse, Brian Connelly, Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino. Each of her albums has been lauded as "her best yet", but with Fox Confessor we'd dare to say she's taken things to a whole 'nother spine-tingling level.
A side note for fans of her live show... you'll be pleased to find that "John Saw That Number" (or perhaps you might know it as that "holy to the world" song) makes a rousing appearance midway through the proceedings. With its soaring rounds of choruses, it's a particular crowd favorite at her shows she shares with her singin' pals Kelly Hogan and Carolyn Mark ('tho the latter is sadly missing this time around). Need we say? Highly recommended.
Just in time for the holiday gift-givin' season, here's something for that special someone who has somehow yet to be turned onto the powerhouse pipes of Neko Case! This is a new special cd edition of Ms Case's most recent album Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. It comes with a 5-song bonus disc! If you're a diehard fan, Anti Records is forcing you to prove your completist-ness! You'll no doubt already have all the songs here except one -- an unreleased demo of "Behind The House"! The rest of the extra tracks are a pair off of her second album 2000's Furnace Room Lullaby and another two from her third album 2002's Blacklisted. (FYI: both albums have been recently remastered and reissued by Anti too).
Here's what we said about this album when it first came out early last year:
Simply in a class of her own. We've said it before and yes, we'll say it again... Neko Case's voice can invoke a power capable of leveling anything in its path emotionally and maybe even physically too -- leaving some hearts melted, some empowered and some broken. That said, this lady knows that you must wield such a force responsibly and wisely, and over the years she's attained full mastery of its might. On Fox Confessor brings The Flood as on her past albums, an ample serving of reverb in the recording process has ensured that her voice embraces your ears with utterly dreamy warmth, but it doesn't overpower its characteristic nuances. We all know (no doubt herself included) that she could floor you just by singing the alphabet or a grocery list, but we (and she) know that there's more to *it* than that. With each album she's steered clear of trends, reinvented herself subtly and honed a different facet of her craft. Here its her songwriting inkwell which has been given a thorough loving and it runneth over with the deepest indigos and the reds of blood and rubies. Yes, the most noticeable shift / development on Fox Confessor is definitely in the lyrics department. An ever-evolving and maturing lyricist, Case has honed her lyrical imagery into what very well are her least literal, but most poetic and vivid to date. The songs are definitely less immediate with fewer obvious hooks than those of her last three albums, but Fox Confessor inhabits a different realm, and is so very deeply moving and enchantingly special in its own ways. Indeed, it comes across much more as the work of a wise, seasoned storyteller than a flavor of the day pop songstress. Certainly not one to rest on her laurels, for her fourth album Case raises the bar once again, challenging both herself and her fans. Plus with the support of her revolving cast of supremely talented players, her musical tapestry has never been more lushly and intricately detailed. This time she's invited Garth Hudson of The Band into her collaborative fold/family which already shines with the likes of The Sadies, Giant Sand's Howe Gelb, Ms Kelly Hogan, Tom Ray, Jon Rauhouse, Brian Connelly, Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino. Each of her albums has been lauded as "her best yet", but with Fox Confessor we'd dare to say she's taken things to a whole 'nother spine-tingling level.
A side note for fans of her live show... you'll be pleased to find that "John Saw That Number" (or perhaps you might know it as that "holy to the world" song) makes a rousing appearance midway through the proceedings. With its soaring rounds of choruses, it's a particular crowd favorite at her shows she shares with her singin' pals Kelly Hogan and Carolyn Mark ('tho the latter is sadly missing this time around). Need we say? Highly recommended.
We raved recently about a Canadian group called the Reveries, an old time blues band who performed and recorded holding miniature speakers in their mouths, sending the signals from the various instruments into the speakers, so each player was able to shape and change the various sounds. Needless to say, it is a gorgeous and strange record indeed.
We also mentioned that the Reveries is fronted by one Mr. Eric Chenaux, guitar player for totally bad ass but highly underrated nineties math rock weirdos Phleg Camp. If we can ever track down the Phleg Camp record we'll for sure make a HUGE deal about it on the list, but for now if you ever see it ANYWHERE at ANY PRICE, pick it up. You won't be sorry.
Anyway, the Reveries record was released on Chenaux's label Rat-Drifting, and Chenaux plays in at least 75 percent of the bands on his label. It seems like he's singlehandedly fronting a serious experimental music movement that we're only now beginning to sample.
Chenaux released a solo record a year or two back, called Dull Lights that somehow slipped under our radar, but all of this Reveries and Phleg Camp talk got us thinking and reminded us about Dull Lights, so we figured it was high time to get it reviewed and on the list.
The sound on Dull Lights, is definitely sonically related to the sound of the Reveries, and in a roundabout way Phleg Camp too. In fact, all the post PC Chenaux recordings we've heard, have a distinct sonic thread running through them. Hard to know exactly how to describe it, the sound is a bit druggy, laid way back, the instruments woozy and warbly, the vocals drawled and lazy, everything sounds a little drunken and slowed down. In a good way. On Dull Lights, Chenaux fronts a trio, utilizing electric guitar, 12 string banjo, lap steel, harmonica, electric tenor banjo, a sampling keyboard, vocals and drums. The sound is almost country, but not quite, almost blues but not quite, a bit experimental too, it's easy to hear some Souled American, some Red Red Meat, Califone. There's a definite twang, and the vocals are dusty and cracked, but the more propulsive tracks sound like Harvey Milk without the distortion. Sort of epic and majestic, with the vocals wound tight around the guitar melodies, a simple martial drum pattern beneath it all. But the majority of the record falls much more on the twangy druggy sprawl side of the musical fence, which suits us just fine. Buzzing steel strings slip and shimmer, brushed snares offer up clouds of rattle and hum, the guitars bend and detune, wah wah pedals add shape and let the melodies dip and change speed, topped off by those vocals, plaintive and mournful, a soft croon, that slips from cracked rasp to velvety falsetto.
Mysterious, haunting, and strangely beautiful.
If we didn't know better, we might have thought this was a new release on Load. At least at first. It's got moments of jumbled atonality and sonic chaos, super distorted vocals, spastic drums, furious crunch and grind. BUT, it also has a really intense moody pop element. Sort of gothy and dark, with throbbing low slung bass, tribal drumming, and crooned super emotive vocals, often heavily effected and sent careening though thick clouds of reverb or dubbed out delay. It also sounds a bit new wave, propulsive and herky jerky, almost danceable at times. Imagine Joy Division or the Birthday Party as young noise rockers circa 2007, if they had grown up on the East Coast, were raised on noise rock and toured with Lightning Bolt and Usaisamonster. Super dramatic and dense, epic and tribal�
As the record progresses the pop element seeps into even the noisiest moments, sounding more and more like Duran Duran or Icicle Works yanked out of the safe confines of their new-romantic/new-wave world and thrust into some strange modern world of noise rock and post-post-dance-punk. Pretty cool.
Frickin' gorgeous! This hitherto unknown to us Sicilian duo (Delfo Catania on guitars, sitar, flute, tapes, homemade instruments, percussion, etc. + Carlo Matanza on Moog, organ, theremin, and suchlike synths) delivers a sparkling slab of late-night, outer-spheres, electro-acoustic dronepsych improv. Good listening with the lights off, eyes closed, headphones on, suitably relaxed, ready for the "astral voyage" that this indeed simulates and/or stimulates. The ceremony begins with reverbed tones in placid alternation, heralding a gentle, crickety/treefroggy drone bedecked with ringing pulsations, swirling electronics, pretty ping ping pings and hummmmmummmummm... It's all quite organic and lovely, sort of like Jewelled Antler meets Popol Vuh, all new weirded out. An abstract ritual of chiming and tinkling opens track two, which also is graced with wordless female vocals, moaning on high, the contribution of guest Shirin Demma. Echoing piano chords also punctuate this haunted voidscape... strings zing, as things drift sweetly and serene but with an undercurrent of ominousness. On track three, Comet III introduce some non-sucky saxophone exhalations (courtesy of another guest, Caetano Firlito), bringing more smokey, somnolent, and melodious atmosphere, steering our astral voyage into the dreamlands of track four's thicker haze of slo-mo synthesizer spinning out wobbly drones. And then finally, on the album's 15 minute title track, a suspenseful electronic rhythm is begun, amidst bells and bloops and a bed of soothing synth that sometimes rears up into a denser, spookier sizzle. This one's a bit like a spaced-out John Carpenter soundtrack, as heard (hallucinated?) through the walls of a New Age isolation tank... towards the end some simple folky guitar meander adds to the mesmerizing mood. An altogether satisfying voyage, is Comet III's debut trip though our headspace, a perfectly mysterious and evocative tribute to its kosmiche krautrock forebears for sure...
Loren Connors has always had a special way with a guitar. An impossibly intimate rapport, the result of which is gorgeously dreamy and unlike almost any guitar music we've ever heard. Dark clouds of chordal shimmer, simple spidery melodies, experimental for sure, but not at the cost of intimacy or emotion. Connors explores some dark inner world of sadness and sorrow, melancholy and regret, his guitar practically singing, but not howling or wailing, instead crooning in slow low tones, his music like a collection of lost spirituals, unearthed, dusted off, and unfurled, allowed to hover and drift like motes of dust in the late afternoon sun. Wrapped in the soft whirring lo-fi production, and the moonlit murk of whatever space the sounds are being captured in.
This collection gathers up most of Connors' modern airs, shortform pieces inspired by classic Irish airs of the past (Irish traditionals like "Danny Boy" for instance), culled from 10 albums (8 of which are out or print).
But don't be expecting any sort of classic sounding Irish music, or recognizable traditionals, it's the spirit of the air that is more on display here, each track a gorgeous miniature. Epic, yet somehow broken down to its very melodic essence. A few tracks feature vocals, courtesy of longtime Connors collaborator Suzanne Langille, her voice deep and throaty, the perfect match for Connors' languorous melodies, but most of these tracks are instrumental, the guitar woven into spare, evocative soundscapes, where the space is just as important as the notes, the melodies drawn way out into glistening spiderwebs of sound, soft and shimmery and somnambulant, the sound of moonlight shadows, and warm breezes at dusk, the soft lapping of water on the shore of a fog shrouded lake, the whispered rustle of autumn leaves, each note a warm glowing orb, twinkling in a fuzzy expanse of muted ambience and breathless anticipation. So so so lovely.
Yet another far out release from the genius Public Guilt label, this one an experimental hip hop avant drone soundscape record from a group called dEADVERSE MASSIVE, made up of experimental hip hop outfit Dalek, East Coast spaced out dronescapers Destructo Swarmbots, and hop hop weirdo Oddateee. And you know it sort of sounds just how you might expect. Dark and droney, stretched out and abstract. Only the first track really sounds very hip hop, and even then it's freaked out and pretty far out. A grinding low end, a squelchy electro beat, a long stretch of some dude swearing and cursing a blue streak, eventually the rapping comes in, a mellow, laid back flow, perfectly complimenting the washed out murky drones in the background. That track segues into something way more abstract, bits of wah guitar and fragments of melody drift aimlessly in a shimmery expanse, with what sounds like a muted song, or a mysterious radio broadcast unfurling way in the background. The side finishes off with a strange looped soundscape of hiccupping guitar riffs, chopped into little pieces, then strewn over a lengthy stretch of near nothingness, a haunting minimal jam for sure.
The flip side, is all one track, but moves through all sorts of moods and movements. Beginning with a muddy DJ Shadow-esque soundscape but with a bit more drone and glitch, a thumping blurred rhythm way down in the mix, a constant drone of fluttering guitar and washed out keyboards drifting over the top. This murky midnight groove turns into a swirling morass of disembodied guitars and keyboard chaos, over the top a confusional mix of voices, spoken, sampled, some right up front, some distorted and buried beneath the music, three, maybe four voices, constantly drifting in and out of earshot, eventually fading away, leaving a melancholy, minor key stretch of backwards guitar, looped and dreamlike that unwinds until the disc ends. Really cool stuff. Maybe more for weird music fans than hip hop headz, but either way, would love to hear some of this in some crazy DJ set...
Gorgeous picture disc, original Paul Romano artwork (you know, the guy who did those Mastodon covers), in a thick plastic sleeve with a metallic silver sticker along the top.
FINALLY! The long awaited brand new release from mysterious French post-black metal horde Deathspell Omega. There are very few bands that instill the sort of worship and awe that these guys do, but it's well deserved. Deathspell Omega have tread a solitary path, twisting the sounds of black metal into decidedly unlikely shapes, culminating in their last record, the classic Kenose, almost more of a post rock record with bits of black metal mixed in.�
We had no idea what to expect from this new record, to be honest, we had a slight feeling, that they might abandon metal all together, or at least push even farther into avant rock territory, more sparse and moody meandering postrockscapes, and less full on blackness, but as we should have expected, DSO ended up doing the last thing we expected, and made a sort of slight return to their sound of old.�
Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum is WAY more aggressive, relentless and pummeling. Those post rock elements are still very much evident, but the meat of these songs is a dizzying chaotic squall of black blasts, tangled obtuse guitars, minor key melodies, hateful howls and a super 'live' sounding BIG production, making everything sound even more intense and brutal.�
The record opens and closes with strange soundscapes of tinkling piano, regal horns, martial percussion, what sounds like some sort of medieval court music, big booming drums, muter trumpets, huge masses of choral chants, almost like an ultra blackened Arvo Part score, or maybe even a strangely melodic piece by Hermann Nitsch.
But then the band launch into some of the most furious, most chaotic material we've heard from them in ages. A churning pit of dizzyingly technical blackness, the guitars are everywhere, buzzing, grinding, the vocals growled and ultra low, but it's the drums that truly destroy. Unlike most black metal records, the drums don't just flip flop between blasts and midtempo jams, they are spastic and wild, fills all over the place, the drums stumbling and scrambling over every spare inch of space, like a continuous drum solo, but every beat, every flurry of kick drums, is somehow perfectly tangled up with some bit of guitar or some convoluted arrangement. The riffs are slippery and swoop wildly within the different parts, the drums pelting them from all sides with a never ending hailstorm of blown out battery. It's the sort of metal that has you gasping for breath between songs. In the store it sometimes sounds like a blur, but with headphones, it's much easier to hear everything that is going on below the surface. Ultra complex, hyper mathy, but strangely hooky too. Little trills of high end guitar pepper the blurry buzz, each song broken into about a hundred different parts.�
Most of the tracks have some sort of stripped down bridge, where the metal pulls back to reveal a lonely loping interlude, all clean minor key guitar and simple propulsive drumming, usually wrapped in all manner of sinister black ambience. A post rock meander through some dark forest or across some barren alien landscape before being swallowed up by DSO's massive wall of black sound.�
A few tracks definitely remind us of Kenose, the distinctly nineties sounding math rock intro to "A Chore For The Lost" could just as easily be the Dazzling Killmen, with it's guitar harmonics, angular riffage and crushing beats, or the sort of dissonant slowcore opening to "The Repellent Scars Of Abandon And Election", but both of those are just that, merely intros, that soon transform into spiky black beasts, crushing and burning and trampling everything in their path.�
The sound of�Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum is so chaotic and so schizophrenic, it almost seems like it would just be way too much for the typical black metalhead, it's certainly grim and black and buzzy, but it's also dense and fucked up and obtuse and really really weird.... But if you're anything like us, which we think you are, then that all pretty much perfectly describes what could very well end up black metal record of the year.
The only way to find out about the best bands, has always been to check out who the other best bands are listening to. So when the black metal elite (including our own West Coast wing, Leviathan, Crebain, Draugar, etc) are all singing the praises of a band, then you know you need to check them out. Such is the case with mysterious black metal horde Deathspell Omega. With a handful of impossible to find releases in the past, Si Monvmentvm Reqvires Circvmspice is the first DO record with any sort of wide distribution. It's about time too. Deathspell Omega occupy an unholy sonic space somewhere between Burzum, Mutiilation, Leviathan and Xasthur. Droning mostly midtempo black metal (with occasional blast beats), infused with strange arpeggiated minor key guitars, melancholy riffing, super hypnotic ultra memorable songwriting, compex song structures, grim affected vocals, and all sorts of hauntingly beautiful ambient interludes / intros, with martial percussion, litugical chants and subtle drones, very dark and intensely affecting. Sonically, DO sound a bit like older Enslaved, or early Emperor, but with a strong penchant for unlikely melodies (that subtly surface even in the harshest of musical moments) and hypnotic trance like repetition. One of our favorite new black metal records.
Another in this new super limited series of 3" cd-r's from Public Guilt, who you might remember having co-released the mindblowing Untitled 3cd box set, a collection of noise music, then ended up being more music than noise (only slightly) and got us excited about noisemusic all over again.
The only time we had ever heard from Decimation Blvd, was on that very same compilation, but it's not the only time we've heard from Tradd Sanderson, who is Decimation Blvd., as he is the famed "noise choker" for the mighty Cream Abdul Babar, quite possible the best band ever with the worst name ever. Sanderson contributed lots of grind and grrrrr, skree and shriek, buzz and drone to CAB's punishing metallic post rock.
But here, Sanderson is loosed from the confines of being a backup player in a rock band, and employs an arsenal of electronics and synths, samples and guitars, and carves out a super creepy post industrial cinematic soundscape, that veers from glistening almost Oval like underwater blissout, to crumbling Skinny Puppy like ambience, to full on squalls of white noise, muted into murky whirs and peppered with electronic glitch and buried percussion, to shrieking high end chaos, finally finishing off with the very creepy closing track, HUGE, but spare pounding percussion, dense flurries of grinding electronics, thick washes of distorted whir, and a final burst of face melting sonic fury.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Packaged in screenprinted mini 3" foldout sleeves, orange and black ink, with a printed insert on shimmery metallic paper.
Admittedly, we approached this new Einsturzende Neubauten album with a little bit of apprehension. In our humble opinion, their recordings from the last decade and a half have fallen so far short of what you'd expect from a group that were absolute music groundbreakers (literally!). Seriously can Silence Is Sexy or Perpetuum Mobile hold a candle (or blowtorch) to Halber Mensch or Drawings Of Patient O.T.? We think not. So Alles Wieder Offen comes as something of a pleasant (hmmm, that's sort of a weird word to use with regards to this band, isn't it?) surprise. It's almost like Blixa Bargeld and co. had a wake up call (albeit a not so aggressive one) that shook them out of their velvet draped parlor and back into the rubble-strewn dank warehouse... at least for a brief spell. For one thing Bargeld is alternating his vocal croon with his former urgent bark. While there still isn't any of the early brutal thunder of heavy machinery, there are atmospheres filled with icy Germanic scowls and white knuckles. Hypnotic male chants, buzzing electronics, blunt object thuds, and metallic clatter too. At long last, Einsturzende Neubauten may have struck an affecting integration of what has long seemed disconcertingly at odds -- their early defiant dissonance and newer refined elegance.
Another disc we knew nothing about and just luckily stumbled across (with our interest whetted due to its label affiliation, Kning usually being quite interest-ing). We were initially struck by the gorgeous cover, an embroidered landscape, all oranges and blacks, the texture of the background fabric adding grit to the already dark and mysterious shapes and hues in the foreground. The words Farval Falkenberg printed in huge gold metallic letters, strangely poetic song titles.
We later discovered that this is in fact the soundtrack to a Swedish film, a coming of age story, sad and bittersweet, and the music couldn't be more perfect. The opening track had us completely smitten within seconds. A gorgeously melancholy acoustic guitar, spinning a soft sad melody, mournful and moody, the main melody is whistled, giving the track a certain childlike vibe, a bit of a Morricone / Bjorn Olsson feel too, it seriously gives us shivers just writing about it. Then the 'chorus' kicks in, and adds soft focus piano plinking in the background, another guitar higher up in the mix, simple tambourine percussion. It's so evocative, you can't help but let your mind start making up different scenes from this movie you've never seen. Lonely walks, sitting by the window, rain pouring down, wandering along railroad tracks, laying in bed staring at the cracks in the ceiling. Wow.
And the rest of the record is just as compelling. Every song a mini super emotional epic. Organs wheeze ominously, acoustic guitars flutter and flit, chimes drift and shimmer, the piano returns in dense swells, bits of static and glitchy hiss intrude like someone changing stations on the radio, there are creaks and groans, distant rumbles, bits of electronic skitter, subtle drones, chimes, bells, even the occasional vocals, but it's always about the guitar, it's delicate dreamlike melodies, and how it's so perfectly intertwined with the piano and the organ. So moving and intense. Think Rachel's, Dirty Three, Pinetop Seven, Japancakes, Godspeed, but somehow much less arty, and more genuine, subtly experimental, but practically perfect, dark, emotional, so incredibly moving. Makes us want to see the film so bad, but in the meantime, it's the ideal music for whatever film you have running through your head. And of course the absolutely perfect soundtrack for lonely walks, staring at the ceiling, staring out the windows in the rain, wandering along railroad tracks, etc...
Some terrific pop from right here in SF! Featuring members formally of Blue Gum Art and Aerosal Species, Excuses For Skipping hit the ground running on their debut album Out Of Work Early. Their tunes balance an energetic punchiness and a breezy wistfulness. Their emotive vocals are sweet but not sugary. Actually they remind us quite a bit of some old faves Velocity Girl, Hazel, Metric, and the early poppiness of the Bay Area's Tartufi too (as opposed to their more proggy leanings). We also sense some of the soft, dreamy inspiration of Stereolab and Sarah Records. Really infectiously good!
For a while there it was practically raining Expo 70 cd-r's around here, and we of course couldn't get enough, we were shirtless, soaking wet, jumping around, splashing madly in the sonic downpour. Expo 70 are masters of a sound that so perfectly pushes all of our buttons, a dark spaced out dronemusic, that manages to infuse the typical minimal drone, with the organic pulse of krautrock, the subtle propulsion of prog, the blissed out sonic effulgence of FX drenched space rock, all boiled down to their very essence, a throbbing pulsing organic world of sound, organs whirring, guitars rumbling, buzzing electronics, Moogs spinning out soft spacey shapes, bits of guitar strum, fragments of melody, all drifting in an expansive abyss of shimmering low end.
Dark and melodious, but blurred and smeared into expansive sonic sprawls, a black stream flowing heavenward, carrying us along with it, ambient music, but not wooshy or wussy, fierce and dense, dark and layered, keening sheets of feedback, crumbling chunks of distortion, breaking off like chunks of ice and floating weightless in a sea of hiss and buzz. Heavy enough to block out the SUNNO))), but serene enough to wrap around you like a warm blanket and sink into the soft feathery depths.
These two discs collect unused, unfinished and alternate tracks recorded over the last two years. Both are fantastic, gorgeous, minimal, intense, heavy, dreamy, 001 is packaged in a retro looking paper sleeve, while 002 is in a plain black sleeve with a sticker, and a black on black printed insert. Both are essential, whether you own all the other Expo 70 cds or none of them, and both are crazy cheap, the two together are still less than most single cds, you'd be foolish to buy just one...
For a while there it was practically raining Expo 70 cd-r's around here, and we of course couldn't get enough, we were shirtless, soaking wet, jumping around, splashing madly in the sonic downpour. Expo 70 are masters of a sound that so perfectly pushes all of our buttons, a dark spaced out dronemusic, that manages to infuse the typical minimal drone, with the organic pulse of krautrock, the subtle propulsion of prog, the blissed out sonic effulgence of FX drenched space rock, all boiled down to their very essence, a throbbing pulsing organic world of sound, organs whirring, guitars rumbling, buzzing electronics, Moogs spinning out soft spacey shapes, bits of guitar strum, fragments of melody, all drifting in an expansive abyss of shimmering low end.
Dark and melodious, but blurred and smeared into expansive sonic sprawls, a black stream flowing heavenward, carrying us along with it, ambient music, but not wooshy or wussy, fierce and dense, dark and layered, keening sheets of feedback, crumbling chunks of distortion, breaking off like chunks of ice and floating weightless in a sea of hiss and buzz. Heavy enough to block out the SUNNO))), but serene enough to wrap around you like a warm blanket and sink into the soft feathery depths.
These two discs collect unused, unfinished and alternate tracks recorded over the last two years. Both are fantastic, gorgeous, minimal, intense, heavy, dreamy, 001 is packaged in a retro looking paper sleeve, while 002 is in a plain black sleeve with a sticker, and a black on black printed insert. Both are essential, whether you own all the other Expo 70 cds or none of them, and both are crazy cheap, the two together are still less than most single cds, you'd be foolish to buy just one...
We love our doom. The slower, the doomer, the more o's the better. But it's easy to get burned out. Much like the wave of guitars-against-amps drone outfits who seemed to come out of the woodwork on the heels of the sudden popularity of Earth, SUNNO))) and other dronelords, lately it seems like everyone and their brother has a "doom band". Lots of non-metal bands suddenly seem to be sprouting doomier appendages, side projects, home recorded one offs, in part, because it's a sound that's easy to emulate. Tune your guitar really low, play really slow, and that's it. You're a doom band. But as with any other musical movement, it's not what you do, it's how you do it, and the simpler something seems, the harder it is to actually do it in a way that stands out, that separates it from the hundreds of other bands doing the same thing.
So in the world of ultra doom, or many o'd doom, or whatever, it's obvious which bands are doing something special, Boris, SUNNO))), Moss, Bunkur, and of course Finland's Fleshpress. And as much as we love all of those bands, we have a special affinity for Fleshpress, not just because they're Finnish (although there is that), but that they throw all doomic convention to the wind, and do whatever the fuck they want. Even if it's distinctly not doomy. Play fast. No problem. Blast beats, near grindcore, sure. Play soft and pretty, explore post rock, absolutely. Which is what makes them such a refreshing doom outfit. Or conversely, makes them not a doom band at all, rather a weird band that incorporates doom into their all-over-the-map sound.
Either way, Fleshpress rule, they're heavy, weird, slow (when they want to be), fast and furious (when they don't), they deftly craft mysterious soundscapes, they can also unleash huge torrents of soul crushing megadoom. And they do all of that and more on Pillars. Every record, gets a little weirder, a littler more expansive, a little less traditionally doom, and Pillars is no exception.
The first track is almost like Fleshpress's far out sound encapsulated into a single track. Beginning with minutes of spare guitar strum, lots and lots of space, ambient whir, the guitar letting loose distorted riffs, and letting them drift into the darkness. The bass comes in, and does nothing but offers a spidery framework for the seemingly abstract riffs, then the drums come in, a single crash, every few seconds, there is no real rhythm to speak of yet, finally the band lurches into a doomy plod, somewhere between Monarch slow motion sludge and Harvey Milk glacial groove, complete with weird woozy melody and strange slippery riffage, harsh vocals, drifting fields of feedback, briefly we're trudging through a wasteland populated by like minded mavens of doom. Khanate, Burning Witch, Moss� But soon, the doom recedes� leaving just soft billows of sound, when suddenly the band launch into some full on crusty metallic grooves, eventually finishing off with two minutes of grinding hyperspeed buzz. Pretty all over the place, but the parts are all so deftly arranged that it doesn't sound like a bunch of random bits thrown together, it sounds like small varied pieces of the far out whole. That track is quickly followed by 5 minutes of soft flutter and whir, a detuned guitar plucking out a stumbling rhythm, all around, bits of hiss and hum, the sound of rain and wind maybe, all washed out and soft focus.
Then it's the record's massive two song one two punch, two tracks, both about twenty minutes, back to back, the first, begins all grim black metal buzz, furious fuzzed out riffage and harsh hellish vocals, before slipping into a brief mathy groove and then shifting into a midtempo Burzumic black trudge, which of course partway through gives way to more massive and epic and wide open dooooooooom, plodding drums, crushing sludgy dynamics, and a fluttering guitar melody droning along underneath, eventually building to an epic minor key psychedelic crescendo. The second track, is more of a post rocky drift, with clean guitar and a shuffling rhythm, the vocals still howled and harsh, but the main riff, warm and fuzzy, and subtly propulsive, the tempo a bit warbly and seasick, very hypnotic and repetitive, eventually slowing down, but not into a crushing doom plod, but instead, a sprawling space rock sludge, the drums slow and insistent, the guitars building into squalls of psychedelic freakout, like the outro to a Hawkwind track, before the band launches into a super metallic mathy jam, the FX getting thicker and more dense, the band playing harder and faster, the last 5 minutes or so sounding more like the Heads or White Hills, a gorgeous outer space trip through throbbing bass lines, clouds of spacepsych guitar, and killer chaotic drumming.
The final two tracks both clock in at about nine minutes each, and again, demonstrate some totally other side of Fleshpress' doomworld. The first, is a loping post rock dirge, the guitars ringing out, the rhythm more like the Slintish blackness of Ved Buens Ende, a head nodding mathy groove peppered with vocal howls and an awesome epic buzz drenched coda. The final track is all drone, a murky subterranean trawl, all slow building sludgy swells, dense metallic shimmer, strange bits of industrial sonic detritus and some mysterious backwards percussion right at the end.
Seriously mind blowing. It almost does it a disservice to call Fleshpress a doom band anymore, although those are the folks who will be most inclined to love this. But fans of weird black metal and freaky outsider heaviness might also have found one of their records of the year.
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What an amazing time its been lately for anyone into 70's South American psych. For many of us here at AQ there was no region that delivered colorful psych-folk better then South America. Until recently so much of this amazing music remained unavailable but luckily the reissue craze has put the music of folks like Eduardo Mateo, Congregacion, Embrujo and Alceu Valenca into the limelight they all so deserve. A few lists back we gushed about the Columbian band Genesis and their great self titled record of breezy and mystical psych-folk-rock. Now we finally got our hands on another one, Yakta Mama which was originally released in 1975. And it's just as great if not even slightly more pleasing then that great self-titled offering.
These songs have truly stood the test of time, still glorious and lovely, letting us daydream in the subtle and majestic qualities of their melodies. In putting together these Genesis reissues, the Guerssen label found it impossible to track down any surviving members of the band. It's known that the leader and primary songwriter Humberto Monroy passed away many years ago after a heart attack, and while they for sure should have been one of the biggest names in all of Columbian music, most people there these days have no idea who they were. Here's hoping this reissue helps clue music lovers around the world into the simple beauty of a forgotten gem!
A Russian fairytale about a man with an axe who makes "flying porridge"?? Huh? Supposedly that's what this gorgeous album is "about" though since it's mostly instrumental and/or in Russian it's hard to say for sure, in any case it's certainly creepy and bizarre enough to be the soundtrack to such a story, and makes for a fine follow-up to Gultskra Artikler's record for Lampse last year, Pofigistka. That one was one of the strangest and most "actively" melodic or songlike of that label's ambient treasures but went quite well with Jasper TX and Machinefabriek, just as this fits in with Gultskra's new Miasmah labelmates Elegi for instance.
Kasha Iz Topara iz over an hour long, one track flowing into the next, the whole thing a continuous crackling soundscape of darkly dreamy textures, creaking sound FX, ominous chords, fractured and folky guitar, glitchy electronics, and sinister strings... among other things... a mix of haunting cinematic instrumentation, old time Eastern European tradition, and mysterious field recordings. What's not to like?? Axeman, bring more flying porridge please. Definitely for fans of Finnish forest freaks Kemialliset Ystavat, the aforementioned Elegi, and Miasmah label head Svarte Greiner, amongst others.
To those of us who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, Roy Harper might already be something of an implied legend, stuck in our adolescent memories as the name referenced in the Zeppelin III song, "Hats off to Roy Harper". Some of us may even have noticed in the liner notes to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here that it was Roy Harper belting out the vocals on "Have a Cigar". Sadly, for most of us from this generation we have heard very little or none of this man's own music.
Harper's life story (as raw material for some of the best songs ever written -- seriously, just surrender your ears to "Goldfish" or "Tom Tiddler's Ground") is full of drama and obsession: joining the RAF in order to escape a Christian upbringing, Harper's "legendary" self-inflicted nervous breakdown in order to get out of his military service provided the prima materia for some of his first songs (e.g. "Committed" on his debut album Sophisticated Beggar). After escaping a mental institution in order to elope with a pregnant girlfriend, Roy headed off into London where his rebellious ways got him arrested. Serving a prison sentence, he spent most of his time in the library reading and evolving his creative spirit. Following his release in 1964 he busked around North Africa and then returned to London to join the folk club scene alongside the Incredible String Band, Donovan, Joni Mitchell, Bert Jansch and Nick Drake. During the recording of his first record he hosted the vagabonds of London in his flat and sermonized, guerilla-style, to the church-goers across the street from his flat window. So Roy's records were full of such expressions of protest against religion, politics, and the countless social forces subverting individuality and the imagination of the day. With every Roy Harper record, the listener gets extensive stream-of-consciouness rants, often surreal and often quite funny, complementing the songs with a voice that is at once confounding and endearing. The spirit in Roy's songs, one complicated by fits of great joy, sadness and absurdity, where the most banal things in life are rendered the most beautiful (such as "How could you say such terrible things with a wonderful wife like yours?") still coheres as the voice of a truly singular spirit.
So...why can't we find Roy Harper sections in most record stores? After all he has dozens of albums and is still very much alive and making music. Well, a rare and wonderful thing in light of the typical artist versus the record industry scenario is that Harper has somehow managed to own all rights to his records and now distributes his material exclusively under the name Science Friction. But doesn't distribute very widely as his is but a small operation, based in Ireland. However, we've gotten in touch with Science Friction and are now happy to offer our customers, at long last, a selection of what we consider to be some of Roy's best. Starting with Stormcock!
Recorded in 1970 at Abbey Road, Stormcock is a four-song, 41 minute opus of folk-rock genius (what has been dubbed by one critic a masterpiece of its own genre, "epic progressive acoustic"). Basically, the sort of thing that, despite the current upswing in the underground of psych-tinged folky songsmithery, you just don't get to hear much these days. A rare talent, fully on display here, and without some of the confounding eclecticism and eccentrities that may make some other Harper albums take a bit more work to get into. No, this is a definite "wow" from the very first few bars of the first song, continuing solid and stellar all the way to the end of the album. Gorgeously melodic, slow and langorous, sparkling with Roy's brillant acoustic guitar playing, otherworldly arrangements, and of course his voice, phrasing and lyrics. Roy wrote all the songs and sings and plays most of the music -- there's a few additional musicans on hand at times to help flesh out Roy's sound-world, among them one S. Flavius Mercurius (aka Jimmy Page) contributing lead guitar on "The Same Old Rock", as well as the orchestral musicians employed for the magnificent album-closer "Me And My Woman".
Anyone who digs Six Organs Of Admittance or Devendra Banhart or the like owes it to themselves to experience some Roy Harper. Likewise anyone who loves the quieter, folker sides of the aforementioned Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Packaged with lyrics, art, and Roy's cryptic latter-day liner notes.
We'd be happy if Daniel Higgs would put out a new album every month. Every week, even. His songs can be long (up to 14 minutes on this disc's "Love Abides") but eventually they do end and we always want more more more. Because they are totally entrancing, his raw "Appalachian raga" folk guitar picking style wending and winding while he chants his mystic lyrics repetitively, warbling with the outsider intensity of a Charles Manson... a dramatic delivery that eccentrically enhances the weird wisdom of his words, worth absorbing for their imagery even when their import is not immediately understandable. Well though he's not THAT prolific we're happy to have this new disc on Holy Mountain already, following Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot on Thrill Jockey earlier this year.
Metempsychotic Melodies (whatever that means, it seems like a good title for this!!) starts off with a stark and skillful instrumental, "Universal Salutation", which we're told was "recorded aboard the Starship Weep-For-Lucifer". Again, we believe it, that somehow makes sense. That leads into the aforementioned "Love Abides", an extended mantra for voice and guitar, wherein Higgs sings lines like "Love is the secret seam between waking and dream / love is a breath that bears a boundless scream" and offers up further thoughts from his personal gnosis of love, notions guaranteed to never be repeated in any other "love song" ever!! Such as: "Love, like a basilisk hatched in the nest of a dove / love's got a bible it hides in the folds of a cloud" and "Love is your name when your name has fallen away / love tends the last dawning of the last day"...
As if allowing an interlude to let all that sink in, the third track "Leontocephaline Rhapsody" is a loping, psychedelic instrumental, a gentle jam densely droning and alive with electricity. Then comes the fourth and final song, "All Cherished Things", another display of Higgs' druggy, fascinating poetry. "There's a pearl in your head / the head between your double-head / it's flashing blue and red - hear it sing". He goes on to touch upon some favored themes, Christ, Krishna, coitus, his own dead body, love... Lyrics like "The skull at the foot of the cross is my own" could be creepy, or pretentious, as could be Higgs' unique vocal stylings, but no, not as far as we're concerned. Ok, maybe it is a bit creepy. He's on a wavelength that works (for him -- maybe no one else could pull this off). If Higgs had a cult, we'd seriously consider joining it...truly a treasure of the US indie rock scene, and one of the realest deals in the "acid folk" underground. We'll be spinning this highly recommended album with ceremonial regularity as it takes its honored place in our collection of his music, and of course our anticipation of his next set of shamanic sermons remains high.
While The Hives definitely continue to fly the anthemic party rock flag on their latest album, it also seems like they took a silly pill while in the recording studio. The Black And White Album boasts one of the dorkiest songs we've heard in a long time! For one thing, it's self-congratulatory (the chorus features the line "We rule the world!"), it's got spelling ("H-I-V-E-S"), the vocals are delivered in an ultra nerd nasalness, plus the backing tracks are some uncharacteristic cheez-tronic synths and programmed rhythms. The latter three elements reappear on the second most dorky song "Giddy Up!" Weird and strangely endearing. Nonetheless, while the goofy songs are worth a couple of listens at most before they start to grate, the band's more familiar bombastic, blistering guitar pop rocks are still very much intact and gleefully make up the rest of the album. What's "Paaaarty!" in Swedish? "The Hives!"
Latest disc of brutal black buzz from Danish black metal horde Holmgang, who might be most notable to AQ customers due to the fact that their drummer is none other than Ynleborgaz, the man responsible for the suicidal black buzz doom of Make A Change� Kill Yourself, as well as the old school black buzz of Angantyr.
This is record number two from these guys, the first since 2003 (the old one is out of print sorry to say, so don't ask) and begins strangely enough with moody, smoky piano, distant synthy swirls, the piano becoming more and more intense and tangled, an intense, almost classical sounding intro, that eventually gives way to a flurry of chaotic drumming, and some seriously harsh distorted riffing, this is not typical straight ahead buzzing black metal, the drums are super loud, and end up being as much a focal point as the riffing, the sound is super distorted and crunchy, and there are some really strange moments, where the vocalist slips into a Killdozer like croon, singing along to some swoonsome strings, before the band launches back into its furious assault.
The core of Holmgang's sound is definitely old school black metal. Plenty of buzz and lots of blast beats, the vocals appropriately strangled and demonic, but the sound is twisted, and the arrangements are quite strange, the drums are amazing, loud and furious, complex and chaotic, exploding into dense tribal workouts or some simple midtempo pound, as often as they are blasting, the guitars buzz, but they also, grind and howl, the riffs splintering into arpeggiated melodies, or exploding into chaotic near noise, some tracks dip into doom, or epic melancholia, always returning to a Burzumic dirge or a blown out blasting buzz, haunting melodies lurking within the sonic maelstrom, and hooks that other bands would kill, or even die, for. But that hover far enough beneath the surface that it might require some close listening, and probably some headphones to pick up on. But after a few listens, this disc transforms from just another chunk of black black metal, into a gorgeously punishing collection of chaotic buzz and divine droning blackness.
We definitely don't give enough love to the mighty Horna. Finnish masters of raw and primitive, grim buzzing blackness. They're HUGE favorites with the metalheads around here and yet as of the writing of this here review, we've only ever listed ONE record by these guys, the recent split with Peste Noire, and while normally we would laugh in your face if you told us any band could beat the pants off of Peste Noire on a split, Horna damn near pulled it off.
So here's one of two new-ish Horna releases, this one was recorded in 2004, which, according to the liner notes was "before the Master's journey from here to eternity." Which master are they referring to? Well, as Sotahunto is a tribute to Swedish black metal masters Bathory, the master in question is Quorthon, the mastermind behind Bathory, who inspired a legion of blackened followers before passing away in June of 2004. And of course, as this is a tribute, the songs were composed in a style more similar to Bathory than Horna in some ways, although Horna always owned a sonic debt to their Swedish forbears, old school, raw blasting, almost punkish sounding black metal, pounding beats, relentless riffing, that unmistakable Horna shriek, fast and furious but with a definite groove. Not blasting so much as just relentlessly churning, midtempo dirges building to bursts of intense blackness. Lots of this still sounds like classic Horna, but they definitely honor their master with a suite of songs that sound like they could have come straight out of Sweden circa 1988. Awesome.
For a while there it was a pretty even race, Machinefabriek versus Jasper TX. Both bands offering up releases after releases, super limited, 3"s, whatever, it just seemed like it would never stop, and we didn't want it to, everything we heard was fantastic. Then suddenly it seemed like Jasper TX dropped out of the race, leaving Machinefabriek to keep us sated with disc after disc of dreamy fuzzy blissed out sound.
Well, if In A Cool Monsoon is why we were waiting to hear from Jasper TX, it was well worth the wait. And the wait ended up being even longer than planned, as this disc was recorded and released months and months back, but there was some problem with the mastering and the discs were trashed, and the record was remastered and now, finally, it's here, sounding just the way it was intended to.
And it's divine, and more of what we love about Jasper TX. Not at all lo-fi or minimal, this is a lush, expansive song cycle, sounding like it was recorded and performed by a full band, guitars drums, strings, squalls of feedback, languid and long form stretches of moody cinematic instrumental slowcore, dreamy and spacious, laced with drones but not a drone record�
The opening track is the first sign things have changed, a brief minute and a half chunk of super distorted crumbling electric guitar, chopped up bits of acoustic guitar, thick corrosive sonic swells, really pretty bur intense and noisy. But then the second track is just the opposite. A simple spare tribal drum line, a languorous bass line, chiming guitar harmonics, and a warm wheezing organ melody over the top. It sounds like Scenic or Low or Bjorn Olsson or something, meandering and wide open, subtly epic and cinematic.
There are some drone tracks, but even those are rife with texture and melody, "Summer" is all layered organs, the layers shifting and beating against one another, all sorts of overtones drifting in and out of earshot, but one of the organs is always working through a sweet sad melody, while the others drone on in the background.
"Waking Up" is one of the highlights, with it's delayed reverbed Spacemen 3 like guitar line, drifting in an expanse of soft space, the guitar joined by another, and then another, each offering a complimentary melody, the song is briefly interrupted by a thick swath of My Bloody Valentine style blissed out buzz, before slipping back into it's shimmering drift. The final track, "Falling From The Sky Like A Flock Of Burning Birds" is all smeared blurs of indistinct melody, tinkling chimes, soft swells of backwards guitar, distant whirs and drones, climaxing with a dense flurry of low end piano, epic and grandiose, before slowing down and darkly droning until the end, the chiming melodies, fading like the last light of the day.
Comic artist/writer John Porcellino might be based in the distant high altitudes of Colorado, but that doesn't keep him from sending us his latest issue of King-Cat Comics. Glad that he's keeping us in the King-Cat loop! We always look forward to a new issue filled with his low-key, quietly witty and endearing tales drawn out in simple black fine line ink. His writing always rings true with an uncommon sincerity and sensitivity. This issue comes with a much heavier heart than usual. Themes of loss are throughout -- the passings of a close friend and his beloved cat, as well as the loss of oneself. Also included are Porcellino's top forty list for October 2006 through September 2007 and a section titled Nature Notes (his observations on birds, bugs, weeds, other wildlife, etc).
One song, spread out over two sides, each a distinctly different movement, from one of our favorite modern apocalyptic freak folks, Kiss The Anus Of The Black Cat, aka, Belgian bard Stef Irritant.
We raved about the KTAOABC full lengths, and if you don't have those you should get them now, but if you need a taster, this is the perfect place to start.
The A side is a slow burning slab of simple spare strumming, stripped down percussion, hovering over a sea of creaks and background buzzes, brief flurries of muted tribal percussion. The song builds and builds into a super impassioned climax, the vocals wailing, the drums pounding, sounding like the perfect mix of Current 93 and the Woven Hand.
The flipside, is the same song, and begins already a bit revved up, but here the vocals are wrapped in effects and processed into strange ghostly whispers, the guitars, the vocals, everything is stretched into streaks of droney buzz, again working its way up to an epic bombastic finale, all chaotic percussion, crashing drums and thick sheets of feeding back guitars.
Gorgeously packaged in a white textured paper sleeve, printed inside and out, with a Japanese style obi and pressed on white vinyl.
Wow! What a dreamy Spanish psych-folk gem this is! A gorgeous sonic gem from the late 70's only making it to our eager ears nearly 30 years later. Turns out this is the only album that Pep Laguarda released, but what a timeless record left for future generations to enjoy. With production and assistance from Daevid Allen of Gong and Soft Machine, Brossa d'Ahir is the kind of record you put on and then just drift away and get lost with. So breezy and well crafted, these are songs designed for long daydreams, windows down as the wind comes rushing in and the scenery breezes by. Pep Laguarda & Tapineria is reminding us of the Chilean cosmic psych-folk of Congregacion, the tender touch of Caetano Veloso and the sprawling beauty of Neil Young albums like On The Beach or Comes A Time. We can imagine that if they aren't already, current day folks like Brightblack Morning Light, Devendra Banhart, Will Oldham and Vetiver would be drooling over the beautiful melodies and flowing ambience of this three decade old document of psych-folk perfection!
With the publication of Julian Cope's long awaited Japrocksampler tome, interest in Japan's underground psychedelic rock scene in the '70s has gotta be running at an all time high. A big portion of Cope's book dealt with the legendary Les Rallizes Denudes aka Hadaka No Rallizes, a long running (since the late sixties, still "active" today) and influential act led by guitarist Takashi Mizutani. Without Les Rallizes, more modern day bands like Up-Tight and LSD-march wouldn't exist. Rallizes were also a big inspiration for Keiji Haino's equally significant Fushitsusha group. Their style (musical and sartorial), their distortion, their sunglasses... blown-out minimalist rock throb, carving delicate and/or devastating beauty out of guitar feedback and reverby pop simplicity. Unfortunately for readers of Cope's book, pretty much the entire catalog of Rallizes LPs, cd, cd-rs, cassettes etc. falls into the category of near-myth, hard to find at the very least. It used to be, you could go into a record shop in Japan and spend hundreds of dollars for a handful of live Rallizes cd-rs. We've stocked what we could, but Rallizes cds are few and far between.
In other words, good timing that this disc just materialized (and maybe no coincidence that it was written up as a Record Of The Month on Cope's Head Heritage website a few months back). Titled either Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go or Flightless Bird Needs Water Wings, this cd offers up eight tracks of prime Rallizes, a "best of" of sorts drawn from rare recorded relics circa the early/mid '70s, though it goes back to '67 for track one. The disc opens with that garagey raver, "Otherwise My Conviction", then ventures into a gentler but no less distorted drone pop territory with "Valle d l'eau". The mood stays mellow until Mizutani busts out his searing Neil Young eat your heart out style guitar scorch for the end of the 13 minute third track, "Enter The Mirror". Has Wooden Shjips heard this? We're pretty sure they have. "Smokin' Cigarette Blues" is next, supremely lo-fi (with this band, that's a virtue), about as murky a 19 minutes of "blues" as you'll ever hear...it's all ambient low rumble and clatter, so abstract it's hard to tell if there's a band involved or not... this could be the Dead C for goshsakes! Wow. Following that, the fiery "Flames Of Ice" is propulsively distinct in comparison, and these 17 minutes should weigh heavily as a reason to pick this up. Then they plow into "Field Of Artificial Flowers", another heavy one, something like Link Wray's "Rumble" ultra-distorted into white hot sizzle and stretched out for ten minutes. What can they do to follow that? Being Les Rallizes Denudes, they go "Deeper Than Night" of course, which perfectly condenses everything that's wonderful about Les Rallizes into a mere two minutes and 24 seconds -- the mantric plod, the screeching sheets of sound wrenched from still bleeding guitars and amps. And then we're back to "Otherwise My Conviction", another version ending this disc much like it began. Whew. While any Rallizes cd is almost by definition essential, this really covers all the bases. Definitely one to get -- and it's also one of the only ones you CAN get.
Up until this point Magik Markers have been quite the confusing and compelling enigma. With a bunch of LP's and cd's under their belt, many of which are already out of print, it's been pretty hard to get a grasp of what this band is all about. Gaining famous fans like Sonic Youth and earning a reputation for electric and stunning live performances, they are one of the first names that pop up when people talk about the booming noise scene of the last several years.
With their first outing on fanboy Thurston Moore's label they show that beneath all the noise and chaos there were some structured songs ready to come to the surface. Boss finds them in fine song form with nine tracks of somewhat traditional structure with Elisa Amrogio proving that she can actually sing, quite well! But don't worry they haven't gotten all normal on us, there is still plenty of dissonance and feedback in these songs, produced by Thurston's bandmate Lee Ranaldo.
It's no surprise that there are moments that do kind of echo some great Kim Gordon led SY moments, and even some songs where we thought, wow this is what it might have sounded like if L7 were a little more weird and mystical. It can be easy for bands aligned with the 'noise' scene to just rest on their laurels so we applaud Magik Markers for taking a bold new direction and we have a feeling they will be keeping us guessing and intrigued for a long time to come.
Who has Swedish prog-organ legend Bo Hansson guesting on their new solo album?? Why Eric Malmberg, formerly the organist of Sagor & Swing of course! Imagine how chuffed he was to jam with his hero. Hansson doesn't play the organ here, though, he's on synth (funny, 'cause apparently Malmberg owns the actual Hammond organ Hansson used on his famous Lord Of The Rings album).
As you might expect if you've heard Malmberg and/or S&S (or for that matter, Bo Hansson) before, this is all about the magic of the Hammond organ, its gentle, groovy bombast, Malmberg weaving an instrumental prog-jazz delight of both bright and mellow moods! Gorgeous stuff as usual. It's got a much bigger sound than what the Sagor & Swing duo could crank out, as this is a bigger band, Malmberg joined here by many other folks besides Hansson. It's a dense but fluffy bed of sound, with shuffling drums and folky melodies, jamming synths and glorious horns. Some songs, like track one "Finalen", are propelled by martial beats, still joyous though... Like his countryman Bjorn Olsson, Malmberg has a knack for cinematic-sounding melodies that'll put a smile on your face. Recommended.
Not sure who Todd Merrell or Patrick Jordan are, but we sure as heck are familiar with the third part of this drone trio, the Baker in question is none other than Mr. Aidan Baker, he of Nadja, Arc, and a million or so releases under his own name.
This live set finds Baker handling guitar duties, but you'd never know it from the sound, augmented by short wave radios, electronics, and various bits of processing, the sound here is deep and dark, a crumbling and epic expanse of rumbling shimmering low end. Roiling clouds of murky melodic fragments, distant swells, throbbing low end pulses, barely audible bits of static and washed out glitch. Very cinematic, if you were watching a film that was almost entirely dark, with just barely visible shifts in the various shades of black and grey. Lovely though, minimal and haunting. Think Coleclough, Chalk, Lustmord, that sort of ambient darkness.
But the second track is an entirely different beast. Simple guitar strums, minimal melodies, the strings struck softly, the metallic buzz and clang ringing out into the ether, some sort of underwater slow motion Fahey, smeared and soft and dark and dreamy. The final half of the track, the guitar disappears completely, leaving streaks of feedback that sound like the cries of gulls, grinding slow motion slabs of shifting low end, whirling windlike whirs, almost like a manufactured nature recording.
The guitar returns for the third track, drifting gently, while the background noise builds into a slow motion wash of sound, the track culminating in a cloud of chimes and reverbed percussion, seasick swirls and struck steel strings, before slipping languidly into the final track, a lugubrious underwater crawl, all of the sounds muddy and indistinct, a sonar like ping buried way down in the mix, underneath it all a thick blanket of constant whirring drones, quite lovely.
Packaged in one of those cool, 6 panel, gatefold aRCHIVE sleeves, glossy paper, super striking image of forest and clouds, LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!!
Dreamy. Drowsy. Droney. Dulcet. Aww shucks, we have to admit we're a sucker for anything with hammered dulcimer and vibes. Aren't you!? Those round warm tones just feel so right! But this Chicago band's second album has a lot more goin' on with that our ears are snuggling up close to.
They're distinctly 'Chicago' sounding (the city not the band). We knew as soon as we heard a few bars that they were from the Windy City. In fact, fans of gentle jazzy pop with chops breezers Sea And Cake and Archer Prewitt, take note! This might be your new favorite too! Seemingly equally inspired by '70s soft rock (think: 10CC, Bread, Burt Bacharach), '60s exotica (a la Les Baxter, Martin Denny), '90s slowcore (y'know, Low, Ida, Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley)... yeah, all the good stuff! Hushed, intimate and sweet, Morning Recordings make it seem like they're playing their music just for you. Have you guessed yet that we're pretty smitten with this album? Well, they push our newfound luv over the top when they let it be known that their roster includes Barry Phipps (of The Coctails) and guest singer Edith Frost -- both longtime aQ faves. We could continue gushing, but let's just say, "Wow, what a dreamboat!" So very very recommended!
PS: While quantities last, when you purchase this cd you'll also receive the This Is Motion album by Melochrome (Morning Recordings' main man Pramod Tummala's previous music project)!
Hurrah, finally something new(ish) from Negativland!
For A Few Of Our Favorite Things, Negativland takes a similar to fellow Bay Area enigmas The Residents who released a dvd compilation a few years back which brought together the old and the new. They enlisted eighteen non-'band' member filmmakers to cut-up, collage, collaborate and create new and often very appropriate videos for a whole bunch of the group's classic recordings such as "Time Zones", "Christianity Is Stupid", "No Business", "Over The Hiccups" (one of Cup's faves!), "U2", "Guns", "Aluminum Or Glass", "Truth In Advertising", "Freedom's Waiting", the list goes on and on! Their works have always been loaded with social and political commentary, subversion, absurdity and black humor. Why stop now? Awesome!
Oh and also included is an audio cd featuring The 180-Gs...uhhh, who?!?! The 180-Gs! Apparently they're a Detroit, MI a cappella doo-wop group who cover Negativland 'songs', but it's so bizarre a thought that we're suspicious that our leg is being pulled... hard.
This is a mind fuck of a 12"! We just got our hands on this, The New Thrill Parade's first ever document of their brand of head-trippy angular goth madness, and we could not be more pleased. This EP brings the listener to the edge of neurotic insanity, the place in your mind where shameful thoughts and nervous feelings are waging endless war. Dark, creeping discordances pummeling one and other, skull drilling guitar lines, saxophone squawking, and crooning vocals desperately narrating the most tenebrous thought processes of the human psyche. Heavy.
The ep begins with the drunken swagger of "Gift Horse". Starting slow and low, at a sort of swung pace, vocals sighing deeply, specks of reverby guitar and flittering sax punctuating the creeping crawl of the rhythm section. The chorus bursts in suddenly with a jagged romp, piercing guitars and guttural whoops, reminding us of The Birthday Party at their most frenetic. The second track, "Jealous Brothers" is a bit more rocking, the fucked up guitar lines becoming a little more strident and noisy. The bass lines on this one are throbbingly heavy, with the drummer playing a sort methamphetamine cowboy shuffle. Rounding out the a-side is "Spare My Teeth", starting off with a twisted spazzy groove, guitar wailing, drums churning out a clatter of syncopation, before everything pretty much drops off, and the tempo becomes stretched and abstracted, pushing and pulling with howling vocal lines, and then snapping back into the rocking tempo of the beginning. The song slowly dies, twisting and curling like the end of a fragmented dream.
The b-side starts up where the a-side left off, "Moat" is a riff heavy stomper, but maintains the abstract form of "Spare My Teeth". The tempo is stretched to hell, noisy and arrhythmic at times. The closing track is far and away our favorite. "Little Dancer, Age 14" is a creepfest! Dark and heavy as fuck, starting off with just twangy strung out guitar stabs and funerary sounding organ carrying out the progression, the vocals murmuring in deep tones, lamenting some horrific train of thought. The song has an overwhelmingly elegiac feeling, drifting along like a Lynchian dream (nightmare?), fractured and abstracted. The piece ends beautifully, with tremolo picked wailing guitar melodies, outlining a more major sounding chord progression. A stark contrast from the rest of this minor sounding document. Killer!
This band recently moved to San Francisco from the nefarious beaches of Santa Cruz, and we are glad to have them. They are quickly becoming one of the most interesting and confounding local acts. While a little more raw then the debut full-length (reviewed on list #252) the dark intensity has been present from the beginning. This record is a bad trip, but in the best way! Like the type of nightmare you don't want to wake up from. Fractured and fucked up, noisy and scattered, and all together AMAZING! For fans of The Birthday Party, Public Image Ltd., Swans, Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Lydia Lunch, and all jams damaged and demented. Recommended!
