Anyone familiar with the name Aan? Well howabout Uton? Right, Uton, one of our favorite Finnish exports (among many!), and one of the least prolific, who somehow survive without releasing a cd-r every two weeks. In fact a new Uton record is a cause to celebrate around here. So we were equally excited to discover this latest release from Uton Satellite Aan, who take Uton's already blissed out tribal drift, and spaces it out even more, turning it into some gorgeous cloud of foresty drone, a gentle assemblage of various vibrating strings, and simple muffled percussion, fragmented melodies, fluttering birdlike trills, bits of acoustic guitar, bleating horns, distant droning swells, all tenuously held together, the various parts allowed to drift off, and then later resurface from amidst a cloud of glistening distant siren like wails.
Another band that definitely sounds like they're channeling legendary Japanese drone collective Taj Mahal Travellers, and one of the few who seem like they understand the spirit behind that sort of soundmaking. Music as an organic entity. As a spirit, that can not be captured, only guided. The members of Aan are shamen, coaxing the spirits from their instruments, then shaping them, guiding them, arranging them into dark dronelike shapes, capturing their essence on tape, and then letting the sounds drift apart and return to whence they came. So lovely. Another fantastic chunk of dreamy meditative forest bliss.
Beautifully packaged too, and oversized full color booklet, filled with striking tripped out black and white images, the cd housed in a pouch affixed to the inside back cover.
- MPEG stream: One
- MPEG stream: Two
Esteemed chamber music goddess Kris Force returns with what is quite possibly her most stark compositions to date. She's joined by some of the Bay Area's finest and most beloved of the indie metal and rock community including John Cobbett (Hammers Of Misfortune, Ludicra), Jackie Perez-Gratz (Grayceon), Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, Concentrick), Lorraine Rath (The Gault), and Sarah Schaffer (The Gault, Weakling). Still Point begins with three songs that slowly drift in on droning strings (violin, viola and cello) and ghostly choral vocals. From there the gothic proceedings build gradually with the entrance of minimal piano, guitar, flute, trumpet and percussion. As always, absolutely haunting and stunningly gorgeous!
Another two songs from one man slow motion doom merchant Amort. We keep hoping for a full length, maybe even an lp or a cd, but there's something about this slow seep of Amort's miserablist music that just seems appropriate, the sound of some massive black beast painfully excreting each and every sound, captured on tape, which does in fact enhance the sound, this one especially, as some of the notes were so blown out, the tape so saturated, that it actually sort of made us dizzy listening to it on headphones.
While past missives have focused on ambience, sounding more cinematic, riffs and stretched into long sprawling dirges, the sound here is much more primitive funereal doom, at least on the A side. The guitar massive and churning, the vocals as deep and demonic as possible, any more and it would just turn into a puddle of black sludge. The cinematic element is restrained to haunting little interludes, a creepy speech over a gurgling sea of hiss and electronic burble, the massive riff always poised just out of earshot, ready to crash down and swallow everything whole.
The flipside begins with gently picked downtuned guitar, the low end cranked, a thick pulsing rumble, another guitar unfurling a plodding chug, another loosing little trills of high end shimmer into the blackness, the vocals again, a gurgling black cloud. But with a little flutter of clean guitar surfacing here and there, drifting through the throbbing black expanse.
Transparent green cassettes in black and white covers, and with a black and white hand numbered insert. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
Been wanting to list this Sheffield UK band's debut four-song ep for a while now, finally got a few in stock so here goes... Angela Valid (name of band, not a person) plays improv instrumentals, a skittery post-rock stitching together of all kinds of glitch and drone, whirring and clatter and feedback, dealt out with guitars, drums, electronics (synths, drum machines, effects...) and violin. Angela Valid's music is very textural, displaying both caution and conviction. We're reminded of the likes of This Heat. Tarentel. Sinistri. A (the Italian band A). Radian. Or, Tortoise + Wolf Eyes as someone else has suggested. At times it's like there's someone building something in the next room, or doing construction work upstairs, banging tools about. But at the same time there's constant jazzy rhythmics buried beneath it all as well. If you like this sort of stuff (we sure do) these four tracks are all very satisfying and leave us wanting to hear more...
It's been a while since we've heard from mysterious tribal, psychedelic, what-the-fuck outsider metal outfit Angelblood. But they've returned, with a vinyl only blast of damaged metallic skree that sounds as fucked up and tripped out as ever.
When we first heard Angelblood, we assumed, because of their sound, and the fact that their record was a Japanese import, that they were some mysterious all girl Japanese metal troupe. We only later discovered that Angelblood was in fact Dave Nuss from the No Neck Blues Band and artist/musician Rita Ackerman. While some of the mystery was gone, it wasn't enough to stop us from diggin their crazy sound.
So now here we are years later, with a brand new missive from Angelblood, a stumbling, chaotic, drug addled, metallic transmission from some weird otherworld, that produces feral voiced majestic metal. Or whatever this stuff is. It's definitely metal, at least some of the time, although it spends a lot of time sprawled out in strange stumbling streaks of droning ambience, the vocals, a Yoko Ono-ish wail, washing over the shimmering dronescapes in the background.
The opener is a free rock psychedelic trip out, the guitar spending more time swirling and humming than actually riffing, the vocals mewling and howling, the guitars gradually becoming more and more riff-like, eventually launching into some eighties style metal riffing, but the metallic vibe is wrapped around an ethereal drift, and strange loping groove, that eventually falls to pieces, the vocals dancing wildly atop an avalanche of drums and crumbling guitars.
The second track is where things get heavy. As in heeeeavy man. A blown out proto metal riff looped hypnoticall beneath the wild banshee wails, and over the course of the track swinging from that metal riffing, to a more proggy rhythmic workout. Minus the vocals this could be some lost Italian hard rock classic, but the vocals turn it into some insane avant psychmental freakout.
Our favorite track is probably "Edward's Call", a damged off kilter take on power metal, with some killer grinding start stop riffage, freaky leads, super convoluted song structures and more wild unhinged vocalizing.
The whole record is so haunting and tripped out, heavy and cracked, catchy and insane. Imagine Hammers Of Misfortune if they got lost in some massive black forest, eventually went feral and were adopted by a tribe of Yeti's, the tribe's forest rituals eventually seeping into the metal psyches of the band. Years later, the bearded and filthy Hammers begin making sounds, a primal primitive forest metal band, the tales of their tribe told in wails and whoops and hollers, all over a stumbling metallic ritual. That's sort of what this sounds like. But not quite�
Needless to say, this is essential listening for outsider metal freaks, and even prog nerds and weirdo krautrockers with a taste for the truly demented might be able to get into Angelblood's far out psychmetal damage. Awesome.
One of our favorite new records of late, comes to us all the way from New Zealand, but via Belgium (where their label, long time AQ faves Kraak are based). A mysterious troupe called Bad Statistics, their debut a two song vinyl only EPIC. Equal parts droney noise rock, propulsive krautrock, and even some weird sort-of-doom. Drenched in swirls of chaotic FX and a blown out in-the-red recording, that manages to be fierce and murky at the same time.
Each track takes up a whole side and is given plenty of time to change shape and direction, sound and spirit, transforming gradually, but managing to remain hypnotic and blissed out. The A side, begins as a doomy plod, but with clean guitars instead of downtuned distorted ones, the drums spare, and all manner of weird demon-y vocals, a sort of post rocky crawl. Eventually, synths join the fray, and along with the drums, they lock into a looped cyclical groove, over which, still more strange vocals croon and moan. And we're talking REALLY strange, mewling moaning howling weirdness. The music sounds like some spaced out Tangerine Dream, the drums a constant pound way down in the mix, the synths pulsing and throbbing, the vocals though turn it into some damaged outsider space jam. At one point the synths drop out and the vocals go crazy, sounding like they're speaking in tongues, before the band kick back in, launching into a fierce Hawkwind style FX drenched psychrock outro that goes on forever.
The second track is even better, and one of our favorite songs of the year hands down. A gorgeously blown out dirge, the guitars so hot they crumble with every downbeat, the recording super distorted and raw, but the melody and the main riff are super gorgeous, catchy and minor key, the track relaxes briefly, spreading out into a glitchy ambient murmur, over which guitars shimmer, little bits of electronics flutter, and the bass holds it all together with a simple dreamy groove. Very krautrocky, and a bit like a more lo-fi noiserock Necks. The track shifts constantly over the next ten minutes or so, to weird doomy twang, with gorgeous majestic riffing, thick bass chords, and some shapeless falsetto vocals, then to a super distorted psychdrone freakout, replete with chiming guitar harmonics, and a pulsing throbbing rhythm buried beneath a layer of crunchy buzz, then to a sunbaked space jam, all open chords, simple drumming, more shapeless vox, and finally to a washed out krautrock dirge, peppered with bits of backwards percussion, garbled voices, reverse guitar, and jagged chunks of crumbling distortion, until the whole thing slowly burns to black.
Sorry to everyone without a turntable, but this just may be the blown out space psych doom kraut jam of the year!!
Another new Aidan Baker, this one a brief 20 minute solo guitar piece, part of series of gorgeously packaged and super limited 3"cd releases on the Universal Tongue label (we got a handful of the Gnaw Their Tongues release, not enough to list, but if you want one, just ask, they probably won't last long).
Here Baker takes his electric guitar and transforms it into a soft noise generator, unleashing tranquil swells of deep dark resonant rumbles, layered and whispering softly at each other, like dangling your toes in some black sea, the soft sonics lapping at your feet. Near the halfway mark, the indistinct blurs coalesce into distinct pulses, throbbing softly in a swirl of distant buzz and dark whir, eventually spreading out again into a sprawling mass of thick viscous shimmer. Not sure what else to say. As always gorgeous and dreamy, Baker and Nadja fans will NEED this, drone obsessives will dig big time. But of course, we only got a handful, so these will no doubt be gone in a flash.
Packaged in a mini 3" dvd-style case, with full color artwork, and pressed on a black cd-r. LIMITED TO 101 COPIES!!!
It's easy to jump on the Cat Power backlash train but once you invest some time with the newer incarnation of Chan Marshall you start to really appreciate her new sound, which is a marked change from the visceral, emotive, heart on her sleeve Chan of old.
It's understandable to initially miss the outward intensity of her prior work, but she continues to prove herself one of those very special songwriters who understand a wide array of song styles and approaches. While some of us here were initially turned off by The Greatest, her last full length, eventually revealed itself as something very special with repeated listens. No longer was she grabbing us by the neck but instead seductively cradling us in her arms. The Greatest seemed to alienate some of her earlier steadfast "indie" fans in the same way that Dylan upset his folk followers when he decided to plug in and not subscribe to any one sound, style or doctrine.
Her first album of covers in 2000, a stunning and simple collection, was not only a fantastic record, but also helped open the gates for many others to jump on the covers record bandwagon. Those covers have become as much Marshall's as they were the original performers', again helping begin a movement in indie rock of covering old classics, and much like Devo before her, she managed to make the Stones' "Satisfaction" all her own.
Jukebox is kind of like the follow up to The Covers Record with another batch of Chan's favorite songs, songs she loves enough to want to take a stab at: Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, James Brown, etc. She also radically reinterprets one of her own songs ("Metal Heart") and offers up one brand new original. We do kind of wish she had used the same old-time Memphis greats that backed her up on The Greatest, as her new band on Jukebox (featuring members of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Dirty Three, Chavez) can sound a bit bloated and not quite as smooth and soulful.
All that said this is still another fine chapter in the ever evolving and engaging musical odyssey of one of the most gifted singer / songwriters around today.
Oh and we think if you're going to get Jukebox, now is the time as the deluxe initial pressing comes with a 5 song bonus disc (feat. songs by the Hot Boys, Moby Grape, Nick Cave, Roberta Flack, and Patsy Cline) that we think we might even like more the record proper!
With a new perfectly delivered sound, Chromatics have become a huge favorite here in aQ land over the last couple months as we've been playing their new album IV: Night Drive over and over and still not even getting close to burning out on its seductive and steamy sounds. This 12" contains one of their great selections from the scene defining After Dark compilation which will for sure find its way on to many 2007 best of lists. Along with that comes an extended mix, an instrumental version, the haunting vocal only mix and a hot take on Springsteen's "I'm On Fire." We're not sure if the Boss would approve, but we sure do!
Mushrooming from a one-man band (Landis Wine) into a full-fledged five piece, Richmond, VA's Cinemasophia self-release their sophomore album Whole Ghosts. It's quite reminiscent of the remarkably multipersonalitied Philadelphia band The Lilys, but also akin to more recent bands such as Grizzly Bear -- both with whom Cinemasophia have shared the rock stage. It's a lush, yet loosely woven tapestry of dream pop, shoegaze, and post rock. In turn, the band can be all warm and fuzzy, robust and driving, introspective and intimate, fiery and dissonant. Yes, Whole Ghosts has many facets which makes for a very varied listen, but not jarringly so. Cinemasophia move easily from one persona to the next and back again. Cool.
We've all been digging the recent cassette revival. It was inevitable really, as the cd-r became more commonplace, the tape became the underground format of choice. And in some ways we're all for it. Nowadays you can knock out a cd and a printed cover in minutes flat, the amount of effort it takes to release a cd-r borders on NONE (apologies to the labels who do it right, with gorgeous music, and great attention to packaging, you know who you are, and we love you). But with a tape, even the copying requires more time and effort. And it seems that folks making tapes understand this and have been going way out of their way to customize their releases, and make the look as special as the sound.
But none quite as impressively as Custodian Color Zoo Containers, a new tape label, whose packaging is so intricate and over the top, each one is a work of art, stunning and intricate and incredibly time consuming. So much so that these tapes have been in the works for more than a year, and when you see them you'll understand why. Our new favorite tape label in one fell swoop.
The second release on CCZC is by Core Of The Coalman, an Oakland based noisemaker who traffics in thick corrosive drones, long tracks of thick coruscating low end, like Niblock on steroids, a lo-fi industrial drone symphony, noise music, but rendered warm and thick and prickly, but somehow still soothing and intense, the various tones intertwining into soaring sheets of sound, eventually transforming into high end shimmer, some serious Sunroof! style effulgence, heart of the sun ur-drones, glimmering and glistening, a brilliant sky full of sonic supernovas.
And then there's the packaging. Holy shit. Several different designs. The covers black ink on transparencies, with various insect shapes knocked out, as well as the text, flowers cut out on the other side through which the tape spools show, the cassettes themselves hand painted, and numbered, the number showing through a little transparent window in the sleeve. LIMITED TO 83 COPIES!!!
Totally eye popping. As gorgeous and intense as the music inside. WAY recommended.
We've heard tell of record for a long time, but this is the first occasion that a cd reissue has wound up in our bins. It's about time 'cause it is indeed a pretty cool little album! Multi-instrumentalist Wolfgang Dauner was an innovative German jazz musician who in the late '60s started to move into more experimental and "krautrock" territory. The Oimels, originally released in 1969, was supposedly his attempt at a "pop" album...
It starts off with the funky, quirky instrumental "Oh, Baby, I Don't Love You Anymore", wherein ivories are tickled, flutes are flaunted, and there's some silly serious stabs of fuzz guitar from Siggi Schwab (an MPS label vet that you've heard before if you're familiar with the Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack!). Reminds us a bit of that bizarre exploito-kraut "party album" by Staff Carpenborg & The Electric Corona we reviewed a couple years ago. Neat enough, should appeal to the same folks digging those "In-Kraut" and "Instro-Hipsters" compilations... but with an extra dose of something. Uh, LSD?
Sitar twang is added to the next track, the faux-Eastern hippy jam "Take Off Your Clothes To Feel The Setting Sun", the vocals blissfully, mantrically suggesting that one disrobe as per the song title. That's followed by another bright n' slinky lounge instrumental, "My Man's Gone Now", that would have Austin Powers sayin' "Groovy, baby" and whooping it up. So far, so good... a groovy jazzy album yeah, with some freaky pop leanings, but a psychedelic krautrock classic? Well then you hit the positively CRAZED track four, "Come On In On In" and you realize that The Oimels are seriously trippin'. It's a hard one to describe, totally unhinged, almost hyperactively punked-up like The Monks, with chaotic chanting vocals and infectious rhythmic glee. Wow, wild! Ok, now we're convinced. And as the album continues, the freakiness does too. It's such a weird blend of smooth jazz grooves and psychedelic spasms. Dauner and his Quintet were definitely on to something (or on something) with their sound. Some of the other surprises in store for listeners include a swingin' version of "Greensleeves", and, to end the record, a pretty amazing cover of "A Day In The Life" by the Beatles. The elegiac mood of the original is maintained, enhanced even, yet also subverted with insane atonal fuzz-jazz soloing.
We're now definitely interested in hearing Dauner's other progressive jazz and fusion albums of the era, if we can find 'em...
A brand new blast of filthy fug from this ex member of noise rock legends Wolf Eyes. Since Dilloway left the fold, his solo work has gotten more and more interesting, and more and more far out. Culminating in the confusional chaos that is Chain Shot. A two track 12", created using just tape loops, metal and horns. And it sounds nothing like you could possible imagine.
"Chain Shot" is a side long epic of grimey gruesome minimalism. A murky soundscape of creaking machinery, whirring industrial hum, and a loop of what sounds like that sound roller coasters make when the cars are being pulled up that first big hill, the various sounds looped and locked and repeated, sped up, slowed down, doused in grit and buzz and lots and lots of hiss. It sounds like some cracked field recording (which it sort of is), the various sounds and loops becoming more and more distorted, and getting louder and louder, eventually becoming more and more musical too, which seems sort of impossible, but it does. The harsher it gets, the more, listenable it gets. A symphony of grind and buzz and clank.
The B side, another extended dirge, "Execution Dock" begins with processed vocals, drenched in effects and looped into some weird almost funky groove, but as it's repeated, just like when you say a word over and over, it starts to make less and less sense and sound less 'funky' and more haunting and hypnotic. And very very creepy. The track dissipates into more field recordings, bits of clatter and shuffle, all subtly looped, in the distance a horn plays a mournful melody, the loops ramp up slightly, creating weirdly dreamy minimal rhythms beneath that waiting horn, until that all falls apart, leaving a series of fragmented and rapidly decaying loops, overlapping, falling apart, and eventually grinding to a halt.
Packaged in a SUPER thick, textured sleeve, with a bad ass painting of a pirate on the cover. Yaarrrrrrrr!
Definitely don't need to say too much about this one. SUPER LIMITED obviously, this split single, Earth on one side, Neurosis offshoot Tribes Of Neurot on the other, was originally released as a give away to all who attended the San Francisco New Years Eve Earth / Neurosis show only. However, we (thankfully, surprisingly) managed to get a bunch, but considering the above, these will be gone in a flash.
The Neurot side is a killer, gorgeous long form drones, thick and serpentine, we hear some Niblock, some Chalk, some Taj Mahal Travellers, gorgeous and thick, dense and dark, one of the best things we've heard from those guys for sure.
Earth counter on their side, with some super stripped down Fahey-doom, sprawling slow motion Appalachia, tuned way down and allowed to spread out like a slow moving black fog. Just guitar mostly as far as we can tell, but pretty dang lovely.
Well worth your $9, especially if you were kicking yourself for missing the show. Pressed on clear yellow vinyl, in a striking, super thick full color sleeve, and as if we needed to tell you again, SUPER LIMITED, so one per customer!!
Onetime Blue Cheer guitarist Randy Holden once dedicated an entire song ("Guitar Song") from his legendary solo album Population II to a paean about how much he loves to hear the sound of an electric guitar wailing. Well we'd bet he'd LOVE San Diego's Earthless (a trio consisting of the drummer from Hot Snakes and Clikatat Ikatowi, a guitarist who tours with Nebula, and another dude on bass). They're all about loud wailing psych guitar over stoned and stoner grooves. So, for Randy and any others that share his enthusiasm, Earthless offer up their debut cd here, featuring two looong tracks (42 minutes total) recorded live in the studio ('cause that's how they do it). Track one, "Flower Travelin' Man" opens with a throbbing bass line that kinda sounds like a stoned Steve Harris galloping into Geezer Butler territory. Then the Hawkwind starts blowing, spacey FX in full effect, and that aforementioned wailing electric guitar takes center stage for a mamma-lamma-jamma that you'd have to be squarely square not to love. Then, the second track, "Lost In The Cold Sun", actually heavies things up even more, getting dirgier and doomier and downier (I mean, more downer). No complaints from us. The Gravity label suggests that any fans of Hawkwind, Sabbath, Amon Duul II and The Groundhogs would dig this -- we'd agree, and not just 'cause if you're a fan of those bands chances are you're already suitably toked up. We'd also add the likes of Pharaoh Overlord, Comets On Fire and Dead Meadow to that list. Definitely gonna go see 'em next time they play up here!
NB. by the way, you may have noticed that in many of AQ's reviews of "psychedelic" "stoner" music, we often extol the glorious drugginess of said music, which is funny as most of our reviewers don't themselves indulge in the (ab)use of drugs (our own Andee has never even had single sip of beer or toke of pot, ever!), nor do they necessarily believe that the potential listener for whom they are writing need to do so to enjoy the music, in fact some of us feel like a huge slab of smoke-y, trippy, druggy psych rock is all you need to get musically wasted!
Second of two new releases from this Portland black metal horde, the first, Kali, reviewed a few weeks back, was a glorious chunk of epic and majestic, nearly symphonic buzz, three looooong track separated by gorgeous little ambient drone interludes. We still have a few of those left, but in the meantime we just got release number two, and while structured differently, if anything, it's even more massive and grandiose, triumphant and fucking EPIC.
As we mentioned in the review of the other disc, there does seem to be some questionable politics lurking below the surface. Nothing obvious, not in the song titles, the lyrics or the artwork, like most black metal it seems to be more concerned with nature and misery, war and death, but folks who are sensitive to the problematic politics that underscore a lot of black metal, might do well to read the other Eldrig review. But if you can look past that stuff, and as we mentioned it's not really that difficult here, as the band seem more concerned with crafting soaring blackened buzzscapes, and the cryptic lyrics (if you could make them out at all) are cries of war and wails of anguish.
But the music, holy shit. The sound of Eldrig manages to be buzzing and grim and brutal, but at the same time, the riffing is totally majestic, almost chiming, the melodies soaring skyward, the drums a furious thrashing framework, the vocals a barely audible howl, all woven into what sounds like a black metal Explosions In The Sky or a Satanic Godspeed. Spiraling riffage that just builds and builds, the melodies so intense and emotional, everything peppered with swaths of swirling keyboards, but unlike the other Eldrig, here the riffs sound almost like classic eighties metal, little bursts of NWOBHM tangled into much blacker shapes. But the sound is somehow impossible poppy, like if you stripped all the snarling guitars and the demonic rasps, the blasting beats, you'd be left with some sort of simple catchy lullaby, or some perfect pop song, but here it's buzzed and blackened into some impossible black metal hybrid. So fast and furious and black, but so goddamn catchy and moody and melodic, culminating in the near power metal sounding outro to the final track "Death To The Unwilling", with classical sounding keyboard runs, chiming keyboards, and super poppy riffage, all whipped into a glorious frenzy, before it fades out with a strange skipping cd sound, and then returns with a programmed drum fill, only to explode into an even more over the top power/back metal frenzy with epic keyboards, those majestic riffs, all wrapped in wild squiggly leads, only to eventually fade out into some churning, mournful, abstract riffage.
Super limited! We may have gotten all we can get of these, so when we run out, prepare to either be disappointed, or to wait a while for us to track down more.
We've sad it before and we'll say it again. We love Maria Forde. She can draw anything. Famous directors, zombies, vegetables, and eventually, she's gonna draw all of us! You'll be able to see all the various AQ folks rendered in Maria's inimitable style.
But until then, you can count down the days with this bad ass Maria Forde calendar. A Cautionary Calendar About Junk Food you can hang on your wall, small enough to keep in your bag or even your pocket, and packed with awesome drawings. And it's not just the drawings, it's the subject matter. Just like her various series of directors, actors, her choices are unlikely but so so perfect.
So here we have a year's worth of images, legends and misfires of the junk food world: the inventor of Dubble Bubble (originally called Blibber Blubber!), Hostess cupcakes, Frosted Flakes, Lik-M-Aid, the man who invented the process of freezing McDonalds French fries, and helped create Cheez Wiz, the inventor of sliced bread, Baby Ruth bars, one of the possible inventors of the TV dinner, the inventor of Mountain Dew, Gene Hackman as Willy Wonka and more!!!
We're having a snack attack already!
Newly reissued on deluxe vinyl (at a steep import price unfortunately), only one album can be called the first psychedelic OUT-country record, and if it's not Peter Grudzien's The Unicorn, we can think of no other album in the universe that would accurately fit that description (well, ok The Legendary Stardust Cowboy would come close, but that's a different animal entirely). For the emphasis on "out" here refers to all connotations of that term: far out, outsider and homosexual. Handling all the recording, arranging and playing of the instruments over a period of 14 years from 1960-1974 , The Unicorn is a strange and beautiful metaphysical concept record of love and salvation. Featuring a vast array of characters including hillbilly tricks, blue-eyed queens, monkey people and of course unicorns, Grudzien's off-kilter twang is augmented by slide guitar, banjo and otherworldly tape loops of ghostly choirs, backwards effects and warm reverb. An odd and lovely record!
We were intrigued the moment we saw a copy of this reissued early '70s Eastern-influenced tranquil psych gem. The back cover displays dark and mysteries photos of the five men in The Habibiya. All clad in turbans and sporting long beards. We could almost hear the mystique before we pushed play. When we did finally listen we were steadily reeled into their raga like hypnotic sounds, influenced heavily by the music of Sufi Muslims from Morocco, where they visited on what was apparently an extremely moving trip for them in 1971. In fact we had no idea at first that The Habibiyya weren't from somewhere in the East, as the music we were hearing sounded so effortless and true. We later learned that they were in fact from London and featured ex-members of Mighty Baby (kind of the UK equivalent of The Grateful Dead). But where the Mighty Baby stuff we heard was cool and jammy it never really transported us like this recording does. It's music to close your eyes to, as the rich sounds sweep you away, aiming for the sky as its deep hitting core glows with an undeniable spiritual force. While most bands of the era had their backstage area filled with booze and groupies, The Habibiyya mostly just had books with them backstage like the I Ching and texts from mystic minds like G.I. Gurdjieff and Aleister Crowley.
Using zither, piano, banjo, oboe, koto, shakuhachis and an adaptation of classical Moroccan Andalusi singing they were able to create a sound that felt both ancient and timeless. We can all agree that what usually happens when Western musicians try to tap into an eastern sound and feeling, is that the sound can fall miserably short, sounding tepid and watered down, but there are those special rare occasions, when regardless of origin or location, musicians can tap into a special spirit and make sounds that transcend place and time. The Habibiyya did just that!
How could a movie so tightly integrated with music not have released a soundtrack? Well, in the case of popular cult film, Harold and Maude, whose creative usage of many of Cat Steven's most well known and widely available songs instead of a proper score, a soundtrack release at the time must have seemed like throwing money down a well. All of Steven's songs were available on his own albums, and the audience for the film at the time, which has overwhelming increased in years following, was very small. So finally, The Harold and Maude soundtrack has been made available on vinyl for the first time and it comes with a 36 page full color booklet on the making of the film and a bonus 7" of alternate versions of two songs not previously available anywhere. It's a bit pricey, but the package is deluxe and the vinyl is high quality, and any soundtrack collection of sixties and seventies film music would be remiss without it. And who doesn't love Harold & Maude??
The mighty chameleon PJ Harvey returns! In a characteristically bold and predictably unpredictable move, her eighth studio album reveals a new, very different persona. When we heard that White Chalk was going to be composed of primarily just her voice accompanied mostly by (her new instrument!) piano, we were anticipating (some admittedly with trepidation) a sort of Tori Amos transformation. Our fears were allayed as soon as we hit 'play', but y'know what? We might even predict that there'll be a few converts in the Amos fan club. These stark, delicate arrangements are achingly beautiful, immensely moving and unlike anything she's done before. Harvey's newfound voice flitters in a startling higher register, and the effect is precariously brittle and on the brink. Yet, longtime Harvey fans will still recognize the persisting raw nerves and distressed undercurrents of her music. As always, she's a bundle of seeming contradictions -- fragile and strong, pure and tarnished, simple and complex, vulnerable and bold. Awesome.
OK Bamboo begins with lithe melodic movements of piano delicately textured with soft stutter and glitch. Made us envision a milky complected android awaking with an itch to drowsily scratch. Then this android opens her mouth briefly to yawn-murmur-sing a few mysterious words before diving into the green-blue waves to frolic with some remarkably lifelike animatronic sea creatures. Aaaah, maybe you'll trip out to it differently than we did, but we hope you get an inkling of Hasunuma's distinctly Japanese dream-tronica.
Oh yes, we're always happy to discover something new from Keith Kenniff! He's the Boston based gent behind the postrocktronic gauzy gazes of Goldmund and Helios. Whenever a new customer asks for something relaxing, meditative, massage-suitable, of course we'll first say "Brian Eno", but chances are we'll then steer them in Kenniff's direction. We've just received the latter's third album (as well as a new Goldmund album titled Two Point Decimation too... yeesh, does this guy ever sleep?). It's definitely got a few new twists and takes on his usual light-touch instrumental approach. For one thing, Ayres features Kenniff utilizing his voice as another sound source -- murmuring, whispering and otherwise haunting the proceedings in dreamy, shimmer-shiver fashion. As well, the half dozen tracks seem to materialize and form slightly more solid presences than the drifting, shifting layered ambience of past releases. May be quite appealing to those who love Mum and The Album Leaf. Psst, included is a cover version of "In Heaven", the awesome Lady In The Radiator song from the soundtrack of David Lynch's cult classic Eraserhead!
What's the last "nature sounds" disc we reviewed on our list? There was the cd-r of bat sounds we listed last time. But we'd had bats before. However, we can safely say that this is the first, and probably only recording we've ever heard... of dinosaurs!! Ok, obviously this isn't a "real" field recording. No time machines were involved. Or experimental genetic science out of a Michael Crichton novel. Nor are we being told any stories about how, through some improbable process, sound waves were frozen in amber millions of years ago, waiting to be decoded and heard by us today through the miracle of modern technology. Nope, this is fake fake fake. But it has the imprimatur of a real field recording, being brought to us by Jean-Luc Herelle, the recordist/naturalist responsible for the AQ fave Pastoral Bells, and others on the illustrious and Sittelle label, and the cover proclaims it a "scientific interpretation" (to the extent of relying on audio experiments done with fossils).
Knowing that AQ customers go gaga for environmental sounds, the weirder the better, it probably won't take much to convince you all that a disc of Jurassic Soundscapes belongs in your collection. So here it is, the grunts and growls and splashings about of the DINOSAURS! Or, they could simply be scary monsters... or, birds with a pitch shifter. That's right, since we all know that modern day birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, Herelle has constructed these imagined dinosaur calls out of genuine field recordings of birds, digitally altered to sound like what he thinks (based on the best current scientific theory) these dinosaurs would have in fact sounded like. (Is there a commercially available "Dinosaur effect"? If so, death metal bands should investigate.) Herelle also made good use of recordings of various amphibians, who also have their dinosaur connections, insects and mammals too...
The first of the four tracks on this disc is a 21+ minute number entitled "Moving Back To The Trias Period, To The Marine Environment Of Early Jurassic", between 230 and 200 million years BC. It starts of with watery drippings and what sound like backwards tape effects (!), soon joined by rumbling cries of eight meter long Plateosaurus, which is then scared off by the equally even more terrifying carnivorous Coelophysis!
Apparently, there was tons of reverb in the Jurassic period. It's a bizarre listen, for sure. The electronic effects are obvious, but one soon suspends one's disbelief, and becomes absorbed in the rather eerie world that Herelle has cleverly conjured.
The second track finds Herelle exploring a "Forest Of Giant Sequoyas Of The Later Jurassic", 170 million years BC. In the distance, *something* cries for a mate. And at one point, some sort of leathery winged flying reptile flaps by. Track three takes us to a "Swamp Forest Of The Cretaceous" (144 million years BC) for about half an hour. Scaly beasts moan and coo and moo and bellow. Our friends the Rutting Red Deers would possibly feel right at home conversing with the denizens of the Jurassic. And then as a finale, Herelle presents a "Time Slide Into Prehistory"...
In the liner notes, Herelle explains his procedures for this project, and helps to detail for the mind's eye the scenes he has set, these aural dioramas if you will. Each track is provided with a narrative, of what creature is plodding, swimming or flying about, and why, making for this imaginative, varied "natural" symphony. While the label admits that some might find it hard to take this disc seriously, it does have solid educational basis, paleontologist-approved. This is definitely the closest you're gonna get to hearing the sounds of prehistory, the cries of the baby Iguanadon and of the mighty Tyrannosaurus, the growls of the Stegosaurus and the twitterings of the Archaeopteryx... who could pass that up? Recommended of course!
Daniel Higgs, of Lungfish and the Pupils, is one of the very few contemporary artists who we would absolutely consider a sort of modern day shaman. A musical alchemist, an artistic cypher, an abstract philosopher, a strangely charismatic, yet disarmingly humble master of any artistic endeavor he puts his mind to. A legendary (but now retired) tattoo artist, an incredible painter, whose paintings are at once hallucinatory and gorgeous (one painting adorns the cover of Leviathan's Tentacles Of Whorror record) and of course an incredible musician, whose sonic experiments range from the mesmeric riffrock of his band Lungfish, to an entire record of solo Jew's harp. But in addition to being an incredible lyricist, an amazing vocalist, and a master of the Jew's harp, Higgs is also a seriously mean guitar player, with a style and sound as familiar as it is totally alien. A gorgeous buzzing steel string drift through the cosmos. Lengthy droning ragas, that drift hypnotically from deconstructed Appalachia to John Cale like slow-shifting skree (joined on those tracks by violin), to moody melancholy crawls, to thick serpentine swirls of snake charmer melody and reverberating steel string shimmer. Raw and lo-fi for sure, but so darkly emotional, and dreamily hypnotic. We've been listening to this non stop since we got it and it continues to unfold more and more on each listen, we're thinking seriously about grabbing a boombox, taking a ton of peyote, blasting this tape and laying in the thick grass, sprawled naked on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere, beneath a sparkling moonlit sky. In other words, WAY RECOMMENDED!
SUPER LIMITED of course. In spiffy, ultra cryptic packaging.
It's been a while since we've seen a proper full length from Norwegian artist and Rune Grammofon label design guru, Kim Hiorthoy. Better known as a designer for both that label and for Smalltown Supersound, he has amassed quite a body of visual work, but we're glad he hasn't given up on electronic music. My Last Day is a varied playlist of idiosyncratic and leftfield sounds comprised of dance tracks, energetic pop, mutant jazz, carnival lullabies, melodic abstractions and sampled beats, that flows surprisingly well despite its almost haphazard nature. Smalltown Supersound is already on a roll with their recent batch of releases with Arp, Bjorn Torske, Sunburned Hand of The Man, Tussle and Lindstrom. Add My Last Day to their long list of stellar releases.
Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, and it is exactly that! Robyn Hitchcock knows the inner workings of matters of the heart, but he never panders to valentine cliches to get the sentiments across. Nope, time and time again, he comes up with some crazily inventive turn of prose to express an observation of something commonplace. Then he backs his wizened delivery of wry wisdom with an equally quirksome crunchy guitar melodic twist -- a holdover from his Soft Boys days? Often so wonderfully obtuse and cryptic, but also somehow so clear and true! Genius songwriting.
Anyways, this is our longwinded way to let y'all know that we are super pleased as punch that the fine folks at Yep Roc Records have recently reissued three of this venerable troubadour's albums Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream Of Trains and Eye, each complete with hella unreleased bonus tracks. The latter is perhaps our personal fave. If you have one Hitchcock album in your library, make it this one. Plus at the same time, they've released the three albums together in a retrospective box set titled I Wanna Go Backwards which also includes an exclusive pair of additional cdeps of odds'n'ends from 1981-88! Awesome and super recommended.
Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, and it is exactly that! Robyn Hitchcock knows the inner workings of matters of the heart, but he never panders to valentine cliches to get the sentiments across. Nope, time and time again, he comes up with some crazily inventive turn of prose to express an observation of something commonplace. Then he backs his wizened delivery of wry wisdom with an equally quirksome crunchy guitar melodic twist -- a holdover from his Soft Boys days? Often so wonderfully obtuse and cryptic, but also somehow so clear and true! Genius songwriting.
Anyways, this is our longwinded way to let y'all know that we are super pleased as punch that the fine folks at Yep Roc Records have recently reissued three of this venerable troubadour's albums Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream Of Trains and Eye, each complete with hella unreleased bonus tracks. The latter is perhaps our personal fave. If you have one Hitchcock album in your library, make it this one. Plus at the same time, they've released the three albums together in a retrospective box set titled I Wanna Go Backwards which also includes an exclusive pair of additional cdeps of odds'n'ends from 1981-88! Awesome and super recommended.
Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, and it is exactly that! Robyn Hitchcock knows the inner workings of matters of the heart, but he never panders to valentine cliches to get the sentiments across. Nope, time and time again, he comes up with some crazily inventive turn of prose to express an observation of something commonplace. Then he backs his wizened delivery of wry wisdom with an equally quirksome crunchy guitar melodic twist -- a holdover from his Soft Boys days? Often so wonderfully obtuse and cryptic, but also somehow so clear and true! Genius songwriting.
Anyways, this is our longwinded way to let y'all know that we are super pleased as punch that the fine folks at Yep Roc Records have recently reissued three of this venerable troubadour's albums Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream Of Trains and Eye, each complete with hella unreleased bonus tracks. The latter is perhaps our personal fave. If you have one Hitchcock album in your library, make it this one. Plus at the same time, they've released the three albums together in a retrospective box set titled I Wanna Go Backwards which also includes an exclusive pair of additional cdeps of odds'n'ends from 1981-88! Awesome and super recommended.
Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, and it is exactly that! Robyn Hitchcock knows the inner workings of matters of the heart, but he never panders to valentine cliches to get the sentiments across. Nope, time and time again, he comes up with some crazily inventive turn of prose to express an observation of something commonplace. Then he backs his wizened delivery of wry wisdom with an equally quirksome crunchy guitar melodic twist -- a holdover from his Soft Boys days? Often so wonderfully obtuse and cryptic, but also somehow so clear and true! Genius songwriting.
Anyways, this is our longwinded way to let y'all know that we are super pleased as punch that the fine folks at Yep Roc Records have recently reissued three of this venerable troubadour's albums Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream Of Trains and Eye, each complete with hella unreleased bonus tracks. The latter is perhaps our personal fave. If you have one Hitchcock album in your library, make it this one. Plus at the same time, they've released the three albums together in a retrospective box set titled I Wanna Go Backwards which also includes an exclusive pair of additional cdeps of odds'n'ends from 1981-88! Awesome and super recommended.
Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get more (or even subscribe to the series) from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed.
Horns are a Belgian super group of sorts, drawn from all sorts of legendary outfits, not a single one we'd heard of. But this slab of freaked out sonic weirdness has us making lists of all these bands we need to track down. Cuz Horns are one mighty damaged super fucked up and gloriously noisy beast. The band describe their sound as "wild and free improvisations. 78 bpm wounded prog from hell's children's corner. An encyclopedia of fatal mistakes crammed into a power ballad's intro" or alternately a "dirty avantnoiseambientbitchesbrew", both of which come pretty dang close. A seriously demented outrock psychedelic free for all, super angular guitar, killer pounding Albini-ish drums, throbbing low end bass rumble, everything doused in swirling fuzzed out super distorted affects, a dense cloud of malfunctioning electronics and processed vocals. Like some insane tagteam match between Shellac, Whitehouse and Acid Mothers Temple while some misguided DJ keeps dropping in bits of black metal and Hawkwind, and another Dj does his best to scratch and beat match, using nothing but the two bloody stumps where his hands used to be. Awesome!
Original artwork by artist Jella Crama, who also hand silkscreened each copy. The LP's are pressed on super thick 180 gram vinyl and housed in thick plastic sleeves.
Heavy-ish prog/psych power trio action outta Edinburgh, Scotland circa 1969, here's the sole album by this obscure but well-regarded band. This is its first fully official cd reissue, done with the help of the band members themselves, and boasts a 16 page booklet full of vintage photos, lyrics and reminiscences. This moody Beast was apparently much heavier in live performance than on this comparatively tame studio recording (a common problem for bands back then, lamented in the liner notes by bassist Ed Jones, who claims that only about 45 seconds of the record really reflects their earbleeding live sound). Even then, Volume One isn't without, well, volume. And power. Explosive electric guitar breaks and urgent rhythms, alternating with plodding and poetic dreamscapes. Wah-wah'd chicka chicka chicka guitar with Eastern-inflected melodies wending around and around. The first song is called "Mystic Man" and indeed the entirety of The Human Beast's album evokes a mystic, almost creepy feeling, accentuated by cryptic lyrics, lines like "We celebrate the feel of human meat" and "Mind escapes you, flies to freedom / Leaves your hollow gargoyle kingdom". There's certainly a special weirdness to The Human Beast, a peculiar, pagan freakiness. Their cover of The Incredible String Band's "Maybe Someday" fits right in. Very effective.
And while the production never lets them get quite as Beastly as they wanted to be, for 1969 this is still pretty badass. These guys probably never heard Randy Holden's Population II, but they probably would have liked it. And they'd certainly heard their share of Jimi Hendrix and Iron Butterfly... While more '60s psych than '70s proto-metal (at their heaviest here, closer to Cream than Sabbath), we'd certainly rank 'em in alongside the likes of High Tide, Sam Gopal, NSU, The Dark, Arzachel, and Andromeda...
Italian guitarist and electronic experimentalist Ielasi has become a bit of a favorite here at AQ over the past few years, what with his several discs for the Hapna label, and his Bellows collaboration with Nicola Ratti on Kning Disc last year, etc., all being extremely pleasurable soundscapes woven with fractured, processed guitar, silence, and (sometimes) beats. Now he's got a new solo disc, this time on the 12k label, where he fits right in with their usual "lowercase" aesthetic. It's taken us a while to get enough of this new one to list, but of course it's been worth the wait, being another finely detailed display of abstract dronological beauty, warmly wrought from both acoustic instruments like guitar and piano, along with synths, Hammond organ, and shortwave radio static...
Track one sets the scene: wavering electronic drones melted over rustling, scurrying acoustic clatter of undefinable origin, the whole thing dense yet delicate, and slowly pulsing with organic/electric buzzings... as the track progresses, somewhere buried in the background the suggestion is formed of a sleepy jazz combo (we think we can hear notes being plucked on the upright bass and the drummer brushing his snare). Moving at a similarly somnolent pace, the next cut, and the others that follow, add (or subtract) other sonic elements -- heavier distortion or purer tones, horn-like melodic driftings and white noise blanketings -- while always maintaining that murky, moody, mesmeric blissfulness for which we adore Ielasi so.
A super limited tape from these mysterious space folk drone devils. Past Ignatz recordings we had likened to some sort of Alien Smithsonian Folkways, a curious blend of disembodied Appalachian twang and murky lo-fi ambient dronemusic, and if anything this cassette missive from whatever sonic planet these freeks call home, only moves their muted twang further into the realms of some alien music. At its core, the sound is a strummed abstract folk, the vocals a buried blurry croon, the guitars, a rough twang and simple strum, that spends most of it's time struggling beneath a dense fog of crumbling distortion, thick drifts of tape hiss, and what sounds like malfunctioning effects pedals.
But what could be a mess, instead ends up sounding magical, a noisy swirl of blunted feedback, detuned melodies, processed vocals, all recorded onto a tenth generation cassette, all of the old music bleeding up through Ignatz's droney drift, hovering and drifting, floating and fluttering, sometimes building to Dead C like noise rock squalls, but always with some lilting melody or sweetly hushed croon right below the surface. The perfect mix of weirdo folk and chaotic drone drenched floor-core. Fans of folks like the Skaters, The Yellow Swans, as well as fringe folk weirdness will definitely dig. And if you've yet to delve into the other Ignatz releases, this will definitely go a long way to convincing you that you MUST.
Gorgeously handmade and outrageously limited. The tape has colored silkscreened labels pasted to both sides of the tape itself. Housed in one of those oversized plastic cassette cases, like language courses or self help tapes come in. A hand screened full color cover insert on the outside, inside two photocopied inserts and a unique miniature abstract painting. So cool.
Illusion Of Safety's Time Remaining was released back in 2003 by the small British imprint Ossonossos. Some five years later, we finally managed to get a hold of some copies; and it remains to be seen, if we'll be able to get more. Now that the scarcity issue has been broached, we must now regale you with the virtues and vices of this record. Illusion Of Safety is the post-industrial project centered around Dan Burke, who has often recruited some fellow Chicagoan misanthropes and avant-garde technophiles to propagate his soundscapes which parallel those of the Hafler Trio, John Duncan, Stilluppsteypa, and Lustmord. There could also be a claim for IOS as a precedent to the fuzzbound digismear of artists like Machinefabriek and Tim Hecker, albeit with Illusion Of Safety producing a much darker, more malevolent body of work.
Time Remaining operates something like a horror soundtrack with a bristling introduction of electo-shock noise, mechanical chugs, and Tesla coil bursts, all tightly wound into a precise collage of bloodcurdling intensity. Illusion Of Safety reprises this electric volatility at the conclusion of the album, that may or may not be an homage to their 1993 album Historical, which essentially used the same strategy. In between these two brackets of pierced sound, Illusion Of Safety fabricates equally dark, but far more subtle atmospheres of shadowy hiss, blurry drone, and fluttered recordings of urban decay. Here is actually where Burke's strength really lies, and if David Lynch weren't already so good at sound design, he would want to look to Dan Burke to score his films.
It's a bit unfortunate that we've not stocked more work by Illusion Of Safety, but it's better late than never to get into this exceptional album.
Haven't seen the movie yet, but we think Juno's soundtrack cd is like a really good mixtape from your closest pal! A variety of old and new faves that pushes all the right nostalgia buttons. It includes Mott The Hoople's "All The Young Dudes", Belle & Sebastian's "Expectations" and "Piazza, New York Catcher", The Kinks' "A Well Respected Man", Buddy Holly's Dearest", Velvet Underground's "Sticking With You", Moldy Peaches' "Anyone Else But You", Cat Power covering the 1959 tune "Sea Of Love" (previously covered by The Honeydrippers), Sonic Youth doing The Carpenters' "Superstar", and a bunch by former Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson... who must be pretty stoked that the star of the film suggested that her character would be a fan, thus leading to Dawson's inclusion on this soundtrack and a big boost to her career.
The Killers have some ol' odds and ends for you to shake your ass to! Sawdust is their catch-all of b-sides and rarities from the past four years. It totally captures their speedy sleek transformation from remarkably poncy Duran Duran-ites to sullen Joy Divisioners to big modern rock U2-ians in the span of just a few years. Beats us how'd they wrangled up the services of Lou Reed to sing on a tune, but they did for "Tranquilize". Includes four previously unreleased tracks.
Man, do we at ever AQ love that Japanese '70s group the Taj Mahal Travellers! Masters of organic drone, utilising bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material. And we've been blessed of late with the reissue of lots
Latest release from this Bay Area composer, electronic musician and dronologist Gregg Kowalsky. A one sided lp documenting part of his Master's Thesis, which entailed taking one of his electronic compositions, scoring it for a live ensemble and then conducting the performance.
Kowalsky enlisted the Contemporary Performance Ensemble, directed by Fred Frith, who also contributed violin. Recorded in 2005 at Mills college, the result was sublime. A gorgeous organic piece that references Feldman and Part and Melnyk as much as Kowalsky's previous works.
The strings are low and buzz and throb dramatically, the piano is minor key and delicate, fluttering in brief little flurries, streaks of high end run through the swirling moodiness, over the top voices soar in choral fragments, washes of cymbals sizzle, horns moan, all manner of instruments are smeared into a heaving organic whole, shakuhachi, vibraphone, flute, a sonic cloud constantly expanding, intensifying chordal whir, like some moody rock band with the bones pulled out, leaving just a gloriously amorphous sound shape, slithering and drifting, creeping and billowing, building and building, some sort of classic chorale stretched out into a shimmering dreamlike blur. On the surface, it's a dark drift, but beneath the surface, sounds are roiling and churning, a sonic sea of tension and emotion, subtly psychedelic, a gorgeous, organic, orchestral drone.
Packaged in a thick cardstock sleeve, with a Xeroxed yellow paste on cover.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
Most of you have probably never heard of Dean Brown. A New Zealand musician and artist, who over the last few years has created ultra limited and incredibly beautiful lathe cut 7"s, each one in an amazing hand crafted package. The most infamous being one that unfolded into a pop up diorama with ghosts and gravestones. So gorgeous and homemade and labor intensive, that each release was limited to 50 copies or less. The music was equally compelling, sweet little lullabies constructed from accordions and pump organs, blown bottles, percussion and strings.
This compilation collects five of the tracks from various 7" releases, unfortunately, this cd-r is also limited to only 50 copies, meaning Brown's music will no doubt continue to be a special little secret, but at least for now, a handful of you will be able to explore his magical mysterious soundworld.
The tracks are all longish, and are simple and subtly melodic, drone-y and dreamy, from fluttery folk, with swoonsome strings, to dark rumbling expanses of wheezing low end, blown bottle melodies hovering over soft shimmering tape hiss, muted mumbly twang, sizzling clouds of metallic buzz, glistening twinkling chimes, percussive thumps, and creaking detuned chords, field recordings, tape hiss and drop outs, lush washes of thick murmur, all spread out within long expanses of near silent ambience.
A gorgeous collection of minimal and microscopic soundscapes.
The packaging is handmade as well, in the tradition of the seven inches, a handmade black book, with a pasted on front cover image, inside, page after page of simple silhouettes of bats, included is a tiny black envelope, with a cryptic letter from the artist. So cool.
And again LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!!
- MPEG stream: One
- MPEG stream: Two
"Touchy"? That term could connotate affection or annoyance depending on how receptive you are to the bizarrely heartfelt musical stylings of the one and only Luie Luie. Seriously music making doesn't get more strange, sincere and ambitious as this. Once called the "Greatest Single Act In The World", Luie Luie is a one man band of drums, trumpet, Moog, guitar and flute who often (and still does!) performed in Mexican and Mediterranean restaurants in Southern California. But he is so much more than that. Soldier, Martial Arts Enthusiast, Actor (he appeared in a film with Elvis!), Musician and Inspirational Speaker, he created a new dance concept called the "Touchy" to help bring people closer together and engage each other in new and exciting ways musically. On this album from 1974 with almost every song including the word "Touch" or "Touchy" in their titles, he begins each song with a spoken preamble that outlines his philosophy on life, love and humanity and how his "dance' works. With the help of the "Touchy Button", a pin with a drawing of Luie's face on it, partners can wear the pin on various parts of their bodies and the object is simply for the partners to touch each other with their "Touchy Buttons" to the music. Yet, the music Luie creates is probably not what most would describe as dance music. Often beginning each song with a loud trumpet blast, followed by lurching rhythms and swampy beats that waver in and out of tempo, containing melodies that seem like a underwater Mariachi band went insane, the music seems almost counterpoint to his endearing explanations of togetherness, like you may want to run away...far away! But with a closer and more firmly resolved listen, you have to realize that the music and this album are truly extraordinary. Who else could make music this warped and wacky yet with absolutely no tongue in cheek? And with each new song we're drawn in to its wonderful strangeness and naivety that by the end we're all smiles. Companion Records has done an amazing job with this reissue, working directly with Luie so that he finally receives royalties for this record, which has been bootlegged several times in the past. With extensive photos and liner notes by Luie himself and for a limited time, each copy will include two newly remade "Touchy Buttons". Fans of Incredibly Strange Music of all types and varieties, this is a must have!
Split singles are the perfect way to shove two bands together and see what happens. A successful split can go in either directions, two bands who have fuck all do to with each other, and do their own thing, or two bands who are together for a reason, best case scenario, because their sounds are in some way complimentary.
So consider this a best case scenario, two AQ faves, both masters of abstract drone and beautiful ambience, each given a side to do what they do, and it sounds like the two 'groups' worked off each others sounds. That's how great these two tracks sound together.
Machinefabriek goes way minimal, a super abstract, nearly static tone poem, each note stretched out into long barely pulsing streaks, rich luxuriant tones allowed to ring out and slowly subside, crystalline and gorgeously minimal, the lows deep and fluid, the highs soft and shimmery, a subtle sound that dissipates softly, as if it was designed to be a constant fade out from the very first note.
Black To Comm unfurl clouds of reverberating tones, thick billows of metallic shimmer, deftly (and VERY subtly) crafted into muted melodies, sounding like a louder, more dense reinterpretation of the Machinefabriek track. Chimes and bells, smeared into blurs of warm melodic drone, distant percussive twinkles, all wrapped up in BTC's gorgeous dreamlike sprawl.
Pressed on beautiful swirled grey vinyl, and packed with an original full color, hand painted collaged insert/cover, every one is different.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!! We got 20. Once these are gone we will NOT be able to get more...
It's only January but we're pretty sure we have a contender for record of the year on our hands! We're always so impressed with the rare examples of bands who have reached such heights of popularity yet still keep challenging themselves and their fans. Sadly there aren't many in that club, but folks like Yo La Tengo, PJ Harvey and Sonic Youth have helped demonstrate that even many many records deep into a career you can still make thrilling and rewarding music. With their latest, Stephen Merrit's Magnetic Fields have proven to be a full fledged member of that elite club as well.
While Magnetic Fields last album, I, found Merrit pouring it on pretty thick, this long awaited follow up (with plenty of extracurricular activity by Merrit in the meantime) finds Merrit stripping it down and finding the fun in layers, noise and yes...distortion. Many tracks feature the charming and beautiful voice of Shirley Simms, and the songs that Merrit sings find his vocals way more buried in the mix than usual. Distortion reminds us a lot of the early bedroom charm of Magnetic Fields records like Charm Of The Highway Strip and one of Merrit's many alter egos The Future Bible Heroes. We love how it sounds like they are tapping into the spirit of the New Zealand lo-fi pop underground of the '80s and even hints of the fuzzy and dreamy qualities of the heyday of Creation records. Not many people could get away with having a major label release such a non-slick and unpolished record. In fact there are moments on Distortion that sound like they could have been on some awesome cassette release from Shrimper back in the day.
Distortion is a timeless gem. While it does tip its hat to some of the most yummy and fuzzy pop of the last couple decades and boasts a wall of sound that's kind of like Phil Spector producing a twee-like Jesus & Mary Chain record, what makes the album so special is that you know it's going to sound as meaningful and alive twenty years from now as it does today. Merrit is still writing music for wry and broken hearts but he's injected new life into old pain and in doing so he's created another classic!
It's very rare that a band name cuts so succinctly to the heart of what a band is all about. So perfectly encapsulating the hate and misery and blackness of the music. Thus we have Make A Change Kill... Yourself, certainly doesn't trip off the tongue, but it's not supposed to, like the music, and the sentiments behind it, nothing here is supposed to be easy, or happy or joyful. It's meant to be hard, brutal, sad, dismal, hopeless, miserable. And it is, but on such a massively grand and epic scale it's sort of breathtaking. Huge mournful minor key swirls of buzzing guitars, ultra depressive and and strangely melancholy. Mostly midtempo, often trudging into downright doom, occasionally bursting into brief blasts of furious thrashing, but never for long, always settling back into a seething lurching blackened lament. Massive stretched out epics, the shortest track clocking in at 14 minutes, the longest pushing 30. Relentless double kicks beneath a black flow of downtuned Burzumic buzz, thick and rich and dense and dark, so emotional and intense, fuzz atop buzz atop blur atop whir, swaying and loping hypnotically. This takes the very best parts of Burzum and Xasthur and other blackened depressives to the next level, introducing a massive and majestic Godspeed element, as well as some incredibly catchy melodies, albeit still appropriately raw and black and grim, but they manage to float wraithlike, endlessly in your ears, in your brain, in your soul, like the ghost of a memory, a weird feeling of sadness and loss, that sticks in your head just as much as the bleak and somber melodies. Very rare for any music, let alone buzzy blurry black metal. Incredibly poignant, ambient interludes, ghostly female vocals, strange drone-y breakdowns, mysterious chimes and swells, brief glimpses of desolate soundscapes, all serving, along with the almighty BUZZ, to lead us even further down that dark path to nothingness.
BLACK METAL RECORD OF THE YEAR for sure!
Just a few months ago this French post/chamber/drone rock (rock? no, not rock...) duo successfully piqued our interest with their two song debut ep, rounded out by Justin Broadrick (Jesu) and Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) remixes. Now they've followed it up with a sprawling double cd (11 tracks, 110 minutes)... when they said a "full-length" was upcoming, they meant it! And it's magnificent. Maninkari's music, made with viola, piano, drums, cymbalom, santour, synth, and samples, is exceedingly textural, almost classically eerie. Like Thuja scoring a thriller or horror film soundtrack, perhaps. There's droning and groaning strings, mumbled, whispered voices, the rattle of bells and percussion, rumbling electronics, a drifting wash of sound usually underpinned with repeating, precise piano parts, compelling rhythmic figures, or some other driving sonic element emerging from the moody murk. Each track is carefully composed and undoubtedly effective, simmering along with slowly unfolding suspense, showing quiet restraint, allowing the minor key melancholic melodies and repetitive motifs to go to work on your nervous system! Hypnotically lovely yet ever so creepy, a bit like The Necks gone goth... ambient "dronejazz" soundscapery, abstract industrial chamber music, whatever you want to call it, we like it!
We have no idea who Robert Martin is, or if he's played in other bands, or even where he's from. What we do know, is that Long Goodbye is a haunting mysterious collection of fractured outsider folk, that manages to be simultaneously lovely and fragile, twisted and fractured.
From the outset, it's easy to tell this is no ordinary neofolk or new weird America. It is weird however. And at least in some basic way folk music. Over a bed of muted soft strum, hovers a tortured dramatic croon, a sort of plaintive mewling, in some primitive slow motion battle with gnarled little chunks of electric guitar, a stumbling atonal tangle, that we've heard compared to Derek Bailey, although this is much less scrabbly and percussive, and way more melodic, but still similarly 'naive' sounding. Balancing the innocent tortured vocals perfectly. The voices are multitracked, and seem to slip in and our of tune with each other, which only gives the sound that much more of a demented edge.
Some of the tracks are way more lo-fi and washed out, and it's then that we hear Alastair Galbraith, but some tracks, are almost straight, the vocals pitched down and slightly less dramatic, the lyrics still twisted, and the guitar still erupting in little slow motion squalls. It's quite lovely, but very very strange. Imagine maybe a folkier Frog Eyes via the Sun City Girls. Or maybe a murkier muddier Antony And The Johnsons, but with stumbling guitar instead of dramatic piano.
Lovely and eerie, mysterious and unique, fans of fractured folk and loner bedroom pop will definitely find Martin's beautifully damaged sounds difficult to resist.
Could be that it's a bit of an embarrassed, ironic tongue-in-cheek joke to name your solo banjo album Deliverance, but this disc by Minnesota string picker Paul Metzger seems serious enough. And is definitely far, far away from anything resembling "Dueling Banjos"! Inbred backwoods hicks won't relate to the stately and intricate raga-like sounds regally flowing from the nexus of Metzger's deft fingers and 21 banjo strings. This sounds much more East Indian than Appalachian. Stark, gentle, precise, compelling. At times you'll swear there's two players, or multitracking, but it's all Metzger, live and unaccompanied. These three long pieces (one of 'em, the title track, over a half hour) are relaxed, delicate, and entrancing... Avant garde acoustics for late night listenin', which nestles nicely next to discs in the "Wooden Guitar" series also released by the Locust label.
Caught us sorta snoozin' on this one! This release actually came out back in 2006, and Cup heard its strange soulful glory out in Michigan that year. However, its name promptly vanished from her memory banks and we couldn't track it down until now! From the bio provided by Stones Throw Records it sure sounds like Ms Muldrow grew up within close proximity to some cool shit! Her father invented instruments for Eddie Harris and her mother sang with Pharaoh Sanders. Whoa. Initially Olesi: Fragments Of The Earth seems like a disorienting jumbled mess, albeit a really awesome sounding one -- a bunch of different unrelated pieces heaped up precariously into a generous twenty one tracks. All the parts ring familiar on their own in their old R&B, (almost free-) jazz, hip hop and soul ways, but we've never heard them arranged together in quite as unconventional a fashion as this! As the album progresses the sense of disorientation lingers, but her fevered vocal delivery and undulating, loping grooves prove infectious. The album definitely walks the fine line between defiant genius and baked madness. Seriously 'out there', she clearly had a 'vision' for this but it might not be for everyone! A fierce and bizarre debut.
Drone Records never fails to deliver great material on an unlikely medium: the manipulated drone housed on a 7" single. Here, the curatorial nod goes to Murmer -- the Murmer who recently released the impeccable We Share A Shadow album, and not the differently spelled Murmur. One of the two sides features drones extracted from pipe resonance amassing into a polyphonous chorus of timbre and frequency. the density of this drone doesn't become apparent until Murmer cuts the power on the drone, introduces a series of hissing crackle of tumbling sand, and then flips the switch for the drone to re-emerge. The flip opens with an ominous gasping sound that snaps into a deep-throated drone of distended wind-swept sounds. Tactile objects like leaves and forest debris begin to be tossed around with the tones lightening from those haunted frames of The Hafler Trio to the gilded timbres of Andrew Chalk or Aidan Baker. Limited to 300 copies!
The third album of real serious, advanced black metal from these serious, advanced Germans. Their previous effort incorporated an experimental electronica element, but this one seems to discard that idea (perhaps as being too trendy and gimmicky -- heck
