Oh, Latetitia Sadier you can sing in our ear anytime! Of course best known for her main groop, Stereolab, Sadier has also kept busy over the years with her project Monade, an outfit that leans much more toward the laid back elements of Stereolab. Monstre Cosmic finds Monade in top form, with rich and lush instrumentation, a range of tempos and of course Sadier's trademark suave vocals, in French and sounding so damn irresistible! The color palette that Monade's songs invoke are just as wide and dazzling as those of Stereolab with enough highs and lows to keep you on your toes but with just the right feeling of comfort to makes you want to just dive into these sounds and stay forever, and bask in their swirling melodies and groove filled charm. Like so much of her best work, we love how the songs unfold and reveal more of themselves with repeated listens. Monstre Cosmic sounds great on first listen but it's when you begin to get hooked and are listening over and over again that you really begin to fall in love with this batch of musical goodness. Laid back without being lazy, driving and catchy without being too perky. It's just the right ingredients mixed and made with total pop perfection. Highly recommended!
The name Monopoly Child Star Searchers might not be all that familiar to you, but the man behind the music probably is, it's Spencer from long time AQ faves the Skaters, with a brand new solo tape, under yet another new and obtuse monicker.
But as weird as the band name is, it probably won't prepare you for what lurks inside. Sonically, it's definitely reminiscent of the Skaters, but where the Skaters dabbled in murky tribal jams, and stumbling free folk rituals, the sound here is much more chaotic and playful, almost circusy at times, sounding like some cracked pop record rolled in tape his, and played back at the wrong speed, all bass and no treble, so even the high end sounds like a buzzy blur. Super hypnotic, a looped landscape of hiccupping stuttering melodies, dizzying and dense, while in the background, long drawn out tones drift in the background, synths or vocals, hard to tell, but they sound angelic and haunting. The tape is all variations on this strange looped alchemy, sometimes stripped down to just percussion, but even then it's a mumbled barrage of thumps and skitters, all jumbled up into a chaotic little tangle of rhythms.
Not sure if you can tell from the above, but this just might be our the best thing we've heard from the Skaters camp EVER!
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It's been said before but we will say it again, there might not be a better story teller around then John Darnielle. He has this uncanny ability to bring you right into a moment, evoking some of the simples memories that hold in them the deepest impact. Over the years he's transformed The Mountain Goats from an uber-lo-fi cassette only underground secret to a full fledged indie rock ensemble with lush production, soaring strings, moody keys, sold out live shows, etc, without losing one bit of integrity or passion along the way.
At the core of The Mountain Goats still remains a chilling honesty that gives each song an ability to give the listener goosebumps or bring grown men to tears, often both at the same time. Heretic Pride finds Darnielle and company in extra fine form. While the last couple outings were devastating and sorrowful and ultra personal, Heretic Pride is a little more upbeat and rocking with the gaze turning more outward, yet the songs are still filled with fire and immediacy. This is grabbing us right away on our first few listens and we're sure this will turn into another Mountain Goats record that we end up spending lots quality time with. Highly recommended!
Nemeth is the first solo outing from Stefan Nemeth who we know best for his work with Radian, one of the more compelling and stimulating electronic post rock outfits of the last several years. It makes perfect sense that he has also been hard at work scoring various films projects since he has such obvious skills for creating brooding sounds that sizzle with subtlety and mounting tension. Over the last several years Nemeth found himself creating soundscapes for experimental filmmakers and installation artists. He used those works as his source material in creating this debut solo work. This is by no means a laptop project, as Nemeth used lots of organic instrumentation like guitars, percussion and synthesizers along with his electronics and programming skills to create these chilling sounds. It's pretty impossible to tell which sounds are real and which are electronically generated in this work and that's what makes Nemeth's music so spectacular. He treats all of the elements he uses with a fluidity that makes all the disparate sounds wash into each other. Film reminds us a bit of the more subdued and ominous elements of Pan Sonic, the hypnotic qualities of Circle, the ghostly decay of Thomas Brinkmann. All great company to be in, Nemeth has created a record that uses all its layers and textures with mindful perfection!
SUNNO))) freeks, heads up! This here is a super limited recording, of a piece used in an art show by Banks Violette. You might remember Violette from a dvd we carry featuring an installation he did Norwegian black metal outfit Thorns supplying the sounds.
We'd like to tell you more about what this piece is all about, but the description of the art, and the music, is in that insanely convoluted artspeak, so we'll just try to go it alone.
Originally recorded in 2001, this piece features Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))) et al) playing a Travis Bean guitar through a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier, and Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar (Mayhem, Aborym, SUNNO))), Tormentor), this recording is a portion of the original lengthy recording and finds the two crafting some sort of blackened sinister liturgical ceremony.
O'Malley's guitar is used mostly to make creaks and rumbles, piercing shards of feedback, crashing chordal fragments, but mostly it works as a tone generator, various bits of feedback allowed to stretch out and slowly shift, creating strange tonal variations and layered expanses of extreme sonics and minimal ambience.
Csihar contributes vocals, haunting and mesmerizing, delivered in a deep monk like chant. Lots of reverb and natural delay, the result sounds ancient, like some middle ages church ceremony. Those two elements O'Malley's tones, and Csihar's vocals combined, sound a bit like Ryoji Ikeda jamming along to vespers.
Not at all an easy listen, but definitely creepy and mysterious.
Cool oversized sleeve with photos of Violette's art as well as band photos, and the lyrics printed in both English and Hungarian.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.
Issue #4 of this Seattle zine has arrived! You simply seldom see this sort of lovingly handmade, cut'n'paste publication these days! Features include stories about Grouper and Blue Cheer, animal facts, assorted other writings, comics, collage, drawings, and reviews of gigs and... beer! The 52-page zine comes in a plastic sleeve which also corrals a handful of odds'n'ends -- some screenprinted stickers and a cd-r of educational, spoken word and children's LP obscurities. Limited to 450 copies!
The vastly different music groups Dengue Fever and Radar Brothers share the bass playing excellence of Senon Williams. He must be a very busy man -- both have awesome new albums out now! Don't want to belabor the point too much, but the contrast is remarkable between the international technicolor frenzy of Dengue Fever and the Pink Floydian space-rock of Radar Brothers. One gets your heart pumpin' and brings a flush to your cheeks. The other offers unwinding, soothing dreaminess (a possible point of comparison: an earthier Flaming Lips!). Both stir the listener to open channels and let go! Despite the implied audience and artist stage enclosure of title, the Radar Brothers' fourth full length is for roaming open spaces and star-gazing while keeping an introspective mood. No walls in sight. Simply beautiful.
Steve Reid's resume speaks for itself. Over the last four decades his drumming has pretty much done it all! Mentored by with John Coltrane, playing in ensembles with Sun Ra and Fela Kuti, laying down the beats for Motown hits from Martha Reeves & The Vandellas to his own avant outings and recent collaborations with Kieren Hebden of Four Tet fame. Daxaar was recorded in Senegal with a large ensemble including Hebden on electronics, Khadim Badji on percussion and Jimi Mbaye on guitar. This was by no means Reid's first time in Africa, as he made the pilgrimage there very early in his musical career inspired by the visits to Africa that had such a strong impact on many of his musical heroes like Don Cherry and Art Blakey. Daxaar opens with a welcoming track played by Isa Kouyate on korah and vocals and the rest of the record finds Reid leading his ensemble through some really nice cosmic afro-jazz. There are a few moments that sound a little more fusiony then we usually expect from Reid, whose taste is for the most part always spot on. Not quite as out as some of his recent offerings but just as skilled, flawlessly executed and another bit of proof as to why he's one of the greatest jazz musicians still going strong!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A beautiful swirling murk drone mass from the always transcendent Robedoor! Pained Seer is the first cassette document of Robedoor we've gotten our hands on here at aQ, and it's a gorgeous vision quest to be sure!
The first track, "Acid Collapse", Is an undulating sonic dream, pulsating and writhing, feedback and fuzz rising and falling, spooked vocals mutter desperate incantations in the distance, all buried under an acid tongued drone. The sound is warm and enveloping, wrapping the mind in a twilight, come-down trip blanket, made of ghostly tones and acerbic pulsations. Building slowly in intensity, the sound becomes more and more excited, percussive elements enter to punctuate the brain burning death rattle, eyes rolling back into the head, sun caving in, by the end of it there's a hole blown in your head, and a vacuous peace where your mind used to be.
The flip side, "Reverse Vision", proceeds in the same mode, but perhaps a bit darker. Doomy even. A blackend progression is played on what sounds like a cheap keyboard set to cello, or maybe bassoon, hissing otherworldly vocals sing fractured melodies, all buried in murk-fuzz reverberating textures. This must have been recorded in some deep dark cavern situated far below LA, some place where that California sun cannot reach. The sound so dense and distorted, harrowingly dark visions creep through the mind's eye like lost sonic specters searching for a vessel. The piece drifts and drones and floats away into the ether, the progression remaining until the bitter end.
This tape, much like the Swanox / Scraps Of Dogs also on Caligulan featured on this list, is packaged beautifully. A photo of the sun coming through the trees on the cover, with these rad fleur d'lys cut outs on the corners of the inside flap. And A Magic The Gathering card is included in every cassette! Radical shit. Unfortunately, we got the last ten copies of this wonder, so when they're gone they're gone. Get it.
A few lists back, we got a great response to a disc we listed by Sicilian drone duo Comet III, their debut album Astral Voyager, a totally "kosmiche" trip in ye olde krautrock vein. One half of Comet III, their "space guitarist", has a new cd-r out recorded under the name Siddhi, released by the Italian micro-label Akoustic Desease, and we of course grabbed some asap (they're limited to just 115 numbered copies). So we have a few to share with you and then that's probably it!
Space guitarist indeed. This is way spacey, yet with a folky vibe. 5 songs, 45 psychedelic minutes. Drifting electronic drones, quiet and lovely. Rustling percussive rattle. Repetitive guitar ornament. Slow and stately. Mellow melancholic bliss. Forgive us the sentence fragments, it's just that we're trancing out within Siddhi's cosmic, elemental embrace...
As we said, super limited. Packaged in colorful, stiff cardboard sleeves.
Some of you probably already know Sloth, a mysterious band of Midwestern sludgelords who in the past shared splits with folks like Corrupted, Grief, Upsidedown Cross, Floor, Noothgrush and Grief, and sonically, these guys were a pretty perfect fit amidst such illustrious company, but even back in the day, the sound of Sloth was a bit cracked, a bit demented, hints of some serious psychosis lurking beneath their lurching, downtuned exterior.
Surprisingly, this is their first full length EVER, but maybe not so surprisingly, given a whole cd to stretch out on, the weirdness factor is through the roof. This is most definitely not a proper sludge record, although there are some seriously sludge-y moments. There's also lots of weirdo rock, a bit of classic sounding grunge, some Amrep style postpunk noise, some cracked pop, and some seriously what-the-fuck sonic action all over the place. It sounds a bit like a musical clusterfuck, and it sort of is, but in a good way, and all those disparate sounds sort of fitting together, like some musical Frankenstein's monster. Not to mention, as the title suggests, the record is split into 13 songs and 13 samples, with each sample, some as short as 4 seconds getting their own track.
So yeah, even with such an amazing sludge pedigree, we're not sure we would necessarily recommend this to those looking for something like Corrupted, Moss, Bunkur and the like. A Whole Other World Of Fun is more for folks who like their music, heavy, difficult, troublesome, confusional and very very very fucked up. Just have a listen to the sound samples and maybe it will start to make sense. Probably not though...
The record opens with some grungy redneck punk rock, somewhere between Scissorfight and Fucked Up, but with some killer riffing, some weird death metal grunts, and some awesome post rock-y breakdowns. The rest of the tracks are really all over the place, from creeping Slintish mathrock (complete with spoken word vocals) and a twisted howled banshee like chorus, to a super blown out space rock groove, with an ultra distorted riff, some bizarre vocals, and some haunting keyboards making it weirdly propulsive and a bit krauty, to a sea shanty forest folk sing along, to killer lo-fi buzzing indie rock, plodding primitive black metal and every stop in between. The only truly sludge-y track is "Pike Flower Shop", a lurching, stumbling ultradirge, but even then, it's peppered with weird electric organs, raspy vocals, and fucked up production. There's also a bit of a Ween vibe throughout the whole disc, that is if Ween were some sort of weirdo power violence band.
The record ends with a murky bass and drums plod, run through with buried in the mix group vocals, occasionally interrupted by a feral death metal howl, twice as loud as the rest of the music. Fucked up for sure, bizarre, but pretty damn cool. Which basically describes the whole record.
Way recommended, but only for folks with a twisted sense of humor and a taste for heavy, all-over-the-map weirdness.
It's been a while since we've listed something from Sote, who had a few killer releases on Warp and aQ pal Drew's Dielectric label. Since lately most of the electronic music we've been reviewing has been super murky and minimal, sort of Kompakt style techno, this 12" is an awesome nod to the good old days, the days of Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards Of Canada, Squarepusher and the like. But Sote doesn't just ape those folks, he has his own sound, in fact he seems to have two distinct sounds, one is a sort of Middle Eastern ethno-electronica, but even then those sounds are all tangled up with what seems top be Sote's other distinct sound, crunchy junglized beats, and thick buzzing basslines, and that's what we get here. Three tracks from Sote's old Warp Records days...
The A side is a total dancefloor destroyer. Thick grinding lowend sytnhs over crazy skittery breakbeats, a massive roiling wall of old school jungle, but infused with elements of dubstep and electroclash, it's all a bit grime-y and fuzzy, the beats are wicked, the low end seriously devastating. Some moody skitter surfaces part way through, an interlude with pizzicato melodies and some almost ambience, but then the beat drops again, and the record runs out a furious and dense beatscape.
The flipside is a bit more spacious and laid back, with some wooshing string swells, and some new age-y synths, but even within this more subdued sound, there lurks some skittery drum tangle and some fierce spastic programming. It's all good stuff for sure, but the A side is worth the price of admission on its own.
Thick, swirled, colored vinyl, house in gorgeous hand sewn fabric sleeves. All hand made, and so of course VERY VERY limited. Only 300 copies.
When you think of leather trenchcoats, black eyeliner, big hair, Doc Maartens, graveyards, reverbed guitars, murky low end, simple propulsive basslines, deep baritone vocals, sideburns, goth and gloom, odds are you don't probably think of Colorado. But every town in the eighties had its own little scene like that, a place for the misfits, the outcasts, kids who dug Sisters Of Mercy, Joy Division, the Mission UK, Jane's Addiction, died their hair, pierced their noses and in general embraced the darker side.
Denver was no different. Except that underground music in Colorado, had a much tougher time making it OUT, to find sympathetic ears, especially pre-internet. One of the casualties was the the Soul Merchants, who perhaps more centrally located, or with access to hipper venues, could have been as popular as any of their much more successful peers. Once described as the Doors meets Sisters Of Mercy, the Soul Merchants sound to our ears at least, like they belonged in Los Angeles, playing clubs like the Scream, with bands like Kommunity FK, Tender Fury, Abecedarians, Tex And The Horseheads and of course Jane's Addiction.
They had that lurching murky droniness, the weary deeeeep vocals, lots of reverb and delay, big booming eighties drums, killer serpentine basslines, but they also had some AMAZING songs, packed with killer hooks, and the fact that it all sounds so good, dense, heavy, lush, is even more remarkable considering most of these songs were recorded on a 4-track. And while it is distinctly doomy and way gothy, there's also a lot of jangle going on, some parts sound like R.E.M., other parts like the Jacobites, there's some Virgin Prunes, some sixties psychedelia, all woven into the Soul Merchants' distinctive sound. The liner notes call the Soul Merchants "Denver's premier purveyors of psychedelic doom", and while around here, psychedelic doom might have slightly different connotations, the music here is definitely dark and doomy and psychedelic. And so of course, recommended.
Packaged in a deluxe double digipak, booklet inside, liner notes and lots of vintage photos.
A small pressing of some 100 copies on Colin Potter's ICR label from this little known project Stimulus. Supposedly, this ensemble began life in a more abstract electronica vein; but here they've managed an excellent recapitulation of the classic Organum sound, with open-ended acoustic drones crafted out of growling textures and distended bellows massing into a dense, static cloud of acoustic energy. Further on, Stimulus blurs guitars and vibraphone into more of a distort-o-shoegazer drone much more in line with Fennesz or Machinefabriek, then shift to a heavy subharmonic bass drone coupled with elongated church organ tonalities. Well worth investigating!
Yet another collection of haunting and gorgeous dronemusic from Antony Milton, who in addition recording as Sunken with Stefan Neville, plays in the Stumps, Mrtyu, The Nether Dawn and about a million others, PLUS he runs the PseudoArcana label, and we think he might even have a real job as well. Not sure how he does it, we're just glad he does.
So as we mentioned above, Sunken is Milton and his pal Neville who also records as Pumice. In Sunken, the two mainly play organs, reed and Hammond, but the two also make sounds with intercoms, tapes, delay pedals, guitars and of course vocals. But the organs are what Sunken is all about, and the sound is awesomely fuzzy, simultaneously lo-fi and lush. The opening track is 30 minutes long and throughout organs whir and wheeze, the sounds they produce so rich and textured, so fuzzy and buzzy and imperfect, the tones crumbling and shifting, the chords wavering and warbly, long drawn out melodies, that sound sort of drunken or seasick, thick tangled layers of sounds, heaving and whirring and churning out long Niblockian drones, but not nearly as static. It almost sounds like obscure NZ outfit Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos covering the Dead C. A sort of droned out free rock, rendered in quavering organ tones and hissy fuzzy warble. Here and there, the tracks splinter apart briefly offering up some skittering electronic glitchery, some analog stutter and skip, before slipping right back into that woozy mesmer.
The second track is a bit more abrasive, what sounds like guitar is strummed into a field of blurred high end buzz and shimmer, but within, tones materialize, bits of percussive whatsits thump and creak, all manner of sonic detritus drifts by, always surrounded by a cloud of organ and guitar whir. And boy does this track remind us of Wreck Small Speakers, which in case we didn't make it obvious already is most definitely a good thing.
The record finishes off with a little lullaby outro, some sweet swoonsome organ, over the top some distorted minor key guitar, the perfect warm and warbly finish...
A beautiful and harrowingly dark cassette release from the mysterious new tape label, Caligulan! Based right here in not so sunny these days San Francisco, Caligulan brings the droney, woozy, doomy skull fuck sounds that make a tape head cringe with sorrowful delight!
The Swanox side is one long track, called "Forests Of Pluto", and indeed sounds like an exploration of some alien, yet wooded planet. Deep and dark doomy folk, other worldly voices emmanating from blackened caves, the sounds of ancient trees creaking in the haunted winter winds, reverb drenched guitars plunked by some wraithy wood elf of the unspoiled natural landscape of old. The sounds of Swanox on this release are both haunting and contemplative, letting the mind drift off into the spectral world of tones. Spooky and strangely beautiful music!
The Scraps Of Dogs side is also a dark beauty, but much nosier and much heavier. The first track, "Nag Hammadi" is sort of a metallic drift. The sounds of metal scraping against metal, churning and contorting itself into every changing sonic shapes. Bass tones rumble in a deathlike scree, creating beautifully distorted drones and thick swells of darkened texture. The second track, "Leave Your Body Behind", Is all fuzz and rumble. It sounds like an Orcish army on a death march, in blizzard conditions. The distorted textures undulate in a syncopated way, while more high end elements swirl around your head, like some cold blowing, northern wind. Drifting drones made up of thick fuzz and crackle, mixed up in some evil witch's cauldron, along with a few blackend frog gullets, filtered through the grimmest, most kult coffee machine you could imagine, till it fills your sonic pot with oozing nefarious soundscapes. The coffee machine of grimnity!
The packaging on this fella is beautiful! Much like the Robedoor tape featured on this list, which is also on Caligulan, The cover is adorned with a gorgeous photo of the Northern Woods. More accurately the Pacific North Western woods, where these two doomy bummers originally hail from. The inside is spraypainted to look like some far off galaxy, and there's a beautiful handmade insert to boot! Along with this tape, and the Robedoor, we got the last 10 copies of this gem, so act now or forever hold your deathlike peace!!!
Wow, Preston Swirnoff has been one busy (and versatile) bee over the last several years. From his collaborative vinyl only releases on Eclipse with Ilya Monosov, to their blown out psych-rock band The Shining Path, his avant jazz outfit, The Seesaw Ensemble and his amazing dub project Habitat Sound System, a record we were blasting all last summer. Maariv is a collection of solo works composed and performed by Swirnoff from 2004-05 only now finally seeing its much deserved moment in the sun. Using 20th century minimalism, ritual drones and early tape and electronic sound experiments as his launching pad, he's tapped into a mystical realm that can be both gorgeous and disturbing.
Each of the four pieces use a different set of instrumentation and various tape loops. The opener filled with rolling piano thunder and a delicious fog of electronics had some of our favorite AQ customers drooling as they heard it blasting from our speakers, as it recalls some of the most breathtaking work by Charlemagne Palestine. The next piece is probably the most intense and disturbing of the lot, as a room full of organs create a cacophony of sound which radiate with a scary and relentless passion. Then comes the most delicate and pretty track in the collection where Swirnoff uses a sequence that Ilya Monosov played on electric-guitar and uses a tape machine and speed control to create an otherworldly gamelan-like sound that would be right at home on a Colleen record. The album ends with a really nice nod to the kind of works that came out of the SF tape music center of the '60s as four tape machines go back and forth between speeds and pitches to create a mesmerizing mood that we could listen to forever!
Whether tapping into the power of Gyorgy Ligeti or showing an amazing range that rivals Barton Smith, Preston has created a vivid work of electroacoustic music that will most surely stand the test of time! Highly recommended!
TAD!!! Fuck yeah! We've long championed grunge around here. Green River, Mother Love Bone, Afghan Whigs, Mudhoney, Rein Sanction, Nirvana, and most of the grunge obsessives here were members of the Sub Pop single of the month club, and cherish records by The Fluid, Blood Circus, Malfunkshun, Love Battery, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Cat Butt, The U-Men, Skin Yard, Gruntruck, Swallow, Green Magnet School, Les Thugs, Pond, Sprinkler and loads more, many of whom only released one or two 7"s. Grunge quickly became a bad word, as the mainstream caught on, and suddenly it was a movement, a style of dressing, a movie with Matt Dillon, but it never took away from how powerful the music was, a sloppy, glammy punky mix of garage rock, heavy metal and punk rock, with huge heapings of POP mixed in. And no one did it better, or heavier, than Tad.
Tad Doyle the man, fronted TAD the band, one of the coolest of the grunge crop. As heavy and intense as any of the other bands at the time, but with a surprising amount of musical complexity, not to mention killer hooks galore. Plus they were just such a cool and weird looking band. Outside of the Screaming Trees, you were not gonna see another HUGE long haired dude fronting a killer rock band. And they played up the whole scary mountain man, right down to the song titles ("Wood Goblins") to the promo photos, that were almost always in the woods, and Tad almost always seemed to be brandishing a chainsaw.
When we discovered there was a documentary about Tad, we were so psyched. We also wondered how a whole movie about Tad would play out, since they weren't a hugely Behind The Music worthy outfit, nobody died, nobody O.D.'d, minimal bad blood between ex-band members, they never got HUGELY popular, they sort of just plugged along. But thankfully the movie is super fun, and super watchable, due in no small part to the fact that Tad is super fucking charming. As is his bandmate Kurt Danielson. They talk about all the different records, their co-headlining tour in Europe with Nirvana, the 8-Way Santa record cover lawsuit, their first major label experience, resulting in being dropped midtour, and their second, with the same result, the "Jack Pepsi" lawsuit, lots of drinking, smoking pot, drugs, interviews with Mark Arm of Mudhoney, Krist Novoselic from Nirvana, Bruce and Jonathan who ran Sub Pop, but most importantly, so much rocking. Amazing live footage of Tad in action, the band were a powerhouse, and Tad's between song banter was funny as shit, and it's amazing to see Tad leaping into terrified crowds.
We even watched it with someone who wasn't all that into Tad or grunge, and they thoroughly enjoyed it as well. Maybe not as much as us. For some reason Tad elicits all sorts of fanboy adoration in even the most jaded of rockers. Might be because they always seemed like underdogs, and they always seemed like cool guys too, but most importantly they just completely RULED. One of the grunge bands that almost all heavy music lovers seem to completely dig. This dvd had us going nuts relistening to all our Tad records, and even suddenly wanting to track down the last two major label records as well.
One of our favorite music dvds of the year for sure. And if that weren't enough, it also includes all the Tad videos, which like Tad, the man AND the band, completely rule.
Oh how we love Victoria Bergsman. From her days with Swedish indie pop sensations The Concretes to her new life as Taken By Trees nobody does bitter sweet pop as spot on perfect as her! Open Field, her debut full length as Taken By Trees was one of our favorite pop records of last year. This new 45 finds her doing the Guns N' Roses classic on the A side, of course in her trademark somber and pretty style and the B side is a new original track that's oh so short but oh so sweet.
Every once in a while, someone will release a record, and we can't help but feel like it was made specifically for us. And for you. Some records just perfectly speak to the aQ aesthetic, as undefinable as that seems to be. This is another one of those cases. Someone thought it would be a perfect combination to match up UK one man ambient drone outfit Tenhornedbeast, with UK slow motion doomlords Marzuraan. And it is perfect. And a fantastic idea, but just because something is a great idea, doesn't always mean someone thinks of it. And we're not saying we had been thinking someone should get these two bands together specifically, we're just glad they did, and we sort of wish we HAD thought of it. But that's neither here nor there. The important thing is that it happened, and now we can all luxuriate in the deep dark heaviness both of these bands explore. And while the bands are indeed different, their aesthetics are not all that far removed. The both exist in some blackened nether region, haunting sonic realms, where heaviness can be expressed in both utter darkness and extreme force, sometimes both, and once in awhile neither.
Tenhornedbeast offer up a nearly 30 minute long sonic ritual, beginning as a bit of swirling black minimalism, but slowly building to a truly intense wall of doomdrone, the sound thick and textured, a churning cauldron of low end buzz and downtuned disembodied riffs, all brought to a boil and poured out in a viscous black torrent, left to flow like some subterranean river. But these deep drones are laced with melodies, and keening high end shards, allowed to shine forth occasionally, but often swallowed up before they can fill those caves with their unnatural light. The track continually changes shape, sound and timbre, various shades of grey and black, lightening and darkening as the landscape changes, a haunting journey through some lost world, where sound replaces sight, allowing us to navigate ever deeper.
Marzuraan counter with what must be one of their prettiest tracks ever. It's still sludgey and doomy, but the notes ring out, the melodies almost soar, the sound fuzzy and glimmering, almost like these guys have caught the shoegaze bug as well. Washed out and blissy, super melodic and melancholy, but the coolest part is that the track seems to warble and waver, almost like someone is manually adjusting the tape speed, so the notes sound drunken and drugged, the track lurches and weaves drunkenly, only adding to the haunting and off kilter beauty. Part way through, the riffs get a little more riffy, and then the vocals come in, a moaning distant croon, and we're most definitely in serious Jesu territory, but that weird speed shifting hitch, keeps it from sounding too pretty, or two blissy. But if these guys keep heading in this direction, they could definitely give Jesu, and Nadja and other metallic shoegazers a run for their money.
The packaging is super swank, a three panel gatefold, each of the front panels diecut with each band's symbol, printed inside and out, housed in a thick plastic sleeve with a sticker affixed to the front.
We loooooooooove the spare and wistful dream pop of Tenniscoats (See, we can put as just as many "o's" in "love" as we do in 'doom'.). Although we must admit, it took us awhile to really get into Tan-Tan Therapy as this time around they collaborated with Swedish band Tape along with other Swedish musicians, resulting in a much broader and much more lush production but also with an even more somber and melancholy feel. The chamber pop instrumentation of horns, woodwinds, organ, cello, zither and glockenspiels along with some subtle electronic flourishes definitely provides richer textures, but we were kind of missing at first Saya and Takashi Ueno's more spare and naive side that comes closer to their Maher Shalal Hash Baz roots. But this release is definitely a grower, and one with each new listen we are loving it more and more.
A brand new vinyl only full length from aQ beloved ambient improvised free rock explorers Thuja. The core group is all present, Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, Steven R. Smith and Rob Reger, joined for these sessions by Thuja satellite members: Greg Bianchini, Keith Evans, Bryan DeRoo and former aQ mailorder mistress Christine Boepple. Collected from various live performances, these tracks find Thuja setting up in various venues around the Bay Area, and transforming each location, at least briefly, into a forest glade, or a darkened wood, or a fog shrouded seashore, using traditional instruments as well as sticks and stones and other found objects to conjure up ghostlike soundscapes , each track, every performance, a slow burning sprawl of humid and humming minimalism.
Almost the entirety of the A side is taken up by an epic stretch of alchemical minimalism, a muted series of washed out melodies, of gentle scrapes and distant shimmers, various notes and chords expressed in long streaks, the guitar lines unfurling lazily, the band eventually coalesce into a glistening high end crescendo, suddenly reminding us of Sunroof! with their upper register ur-drone skree, but here that skree is more muted and muddied, a mournful keening, before the band elves back into a more minimal moonlit crawl. Disembodied slowed down riffs are draped over whispered whirs, while the band lurk in the shadows, letting tiny bits of light spill out, creating barely there sonic patterns, and dusty dreamlike song skeletons.
The B side is even more understated, each track a brief soundscape, exploring dark dusty corners, shuffling through a blanket of dead leaves, the band barely there at all. Almost like they set up their instruments and just stood there, letting the wind and the wildlife create the sounds. When the music does materialize, and take more solid form, the guitars weave themselves into delicate little tangles, drifting over deep resonant swells, all around sounds betray the environment, but become inexorable parts of the organic sound being created, snippets of conversation, voices, footsteps, alongside subtle bits of percussive thump, warbly distant melodies, a deep dark ambience, a gorgeously subtle sound that manages to be quietly propulsive even as it seems to hover motionless.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Fuck, we love this band. We've only heard one tape from these Canadian electronic black ambient weirdos, but we immediately fell under their spell, and have been dying for new music ever since.
This is the latest tape of their damaged outsider alchemical sonic rituals, and if the first one was mysterious and strange, this one, is fucking baffling. All over the map, and completely wacked.
Opening with some fucked up creepy circusy synths, a buzzy tangle of haunting minor key video game forest drone. Then all of a sudden, they launch into a reverb drenched stumble, the drums blown out and spluttering, the guitar sawing away and emitting a cloud of noxious buzzing riffage, dual vocals, one a black metal rasp, the other a moaning whale call off in the distance. Freaky and super awesome. Those muted percussive thumps get more and more chaotic as the musical tension grows and grows, a lurching dirgey lo-fi doom damage workout. And it keeps getting better. And weirder. The next track is all folky, a strummed acoustic guitar, moaned vocals, all sorts of strange drifting FX, followed up by another acoustic crawl, creeping and slithery, the vocals growled beneath minor key piano plinking. Sheets of electric guitar buzz, insectoid electronic grizzle, huge echoey rumbling baritone moans, more mournful acoustic guitar...
Dense and washed out and fuzzy and murky and muddy and fucking genius. Fans of Dead Reptile Shrine, Circle Of Ouroborus, and other outsider metal outfits should be on all fours, cowering at the feet of Uno Actu, and offering up blood sacrifices as homage. We sure as hell are.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each tape hand numbered.
We know, we know... at this point you're probably as skeptical as we are of yet another compilation of ultra-rare, super heavy funk 45s from the dustiest corners of small-town USA, but believe us when we say that the crate diggers behind UK reissue label Jazzman have outdone themselves with this look at the undiscovered funk gems of North and South Carolina. You might recall how excited we here at aQ were about the Florida Funk compilation from last year and this installment is every bit as satisfying.
You'll hear a wide range of styles represented on this collection, from straight up deep funk to tracks that touch on psych, jazz and smooth soul -- 22 tracks in all of fuzzed out guitars, horn hits, break beats, flute solos, shouts, wails, and powerfully soulful vocals. However, where Jazzman really stands out from other reissue labels is in the meticulously assembled liner notes that accompany the record. You'll learn not only about the songs and artists themselves, but also information about the different parts of the Carolinas from which they came. It's a lovingly assembled package of songs, stories, background info, label scans and rare photographs on par with any of the reissue comps to come from Soul Jazz or Numero (and that's saying something!).
We've been spinning this one a lot in the store as of late, and it's been the perfect way to heat up these grey February days. So good!
Search on the keyword "boogie" on our website and you'll get, uh, let's see... 133 hits. This item being the latest, one that would go right to the top if we had the appropriate relevance algorithm at work. And there's actually 19 boogie hits here (well, obscurities actually), rare tracks circa 1941 to 1958. What's this compilation of American oldies music doing on the Belgian avantgarde label Sub Rosa?? And not, say, on Arhoolie or Bear Family? Well we're not sure exactly, but it has something to do with this Dr. Boogie character, he's a DJ from Belgium who has compiled this collection of boogie tracks, all of 'em from awesomely crackly old 78 rpm records that had been amassed over the years by boogie fanatic Bob "The Bear" Hite, better known as the lead singer of Woodstock-era hippie blues rock band Canned Heat (y'know, "Going Up The Country"), who passed away in 1981. Dunno if any of you folks are fans of Canned Heat, but regardless, it makes sense (and is pretty cool) that their vocalist had such a deep record collection devoted to old time rock n' blues boogie woogie. Apparently back in the sixties, he used to host all-night listening parties in his Topanga Canyon pad, and the cuts collected here ought to give you an idea of what those sessions must have sounded like. Wild boogie fun!
How couldn't it be, when it starts off with the excellently titled "Death Ray Boogie" by piano player Pete Johnson? And there's no slack on the next track, Googie Rene's "Wiggle Tail". There's a bunch more uptempo, jumpin' numbers like that one (such as rock n' roll pioneer Bill Haley's "Birth Of The Boogie"), while other tracks here are more languidly bluesy (like guitarist Clarence's Brown's smokey "Taking My Chance"). It's all pretty great old time good times. Other names here, some famous, some now more or less forgotten except by hardcore collectors: Earl King, Etta James, Elmore James, Clarence Brown, Johnny Otis, Otis Rush, Chuck Higgins, Eddie Hope, The Hot Shots, and some crazy cat called Mad Mel Sebastian!
Recommended... and we're happy to hear that more volumes drawn from Hite's historic collection are forthcoming.
Now On Vinyl!!
At this point the Numero Group's Eccentric Soul series is no longer any sort of secret. The world couldn't help but take notice of the amazing job the label has done at digging deep into uncharted and forgotten regional labels and scenes from the heyday of soul and funk. So now, we usually don't have to turn people on to the series but instead we're often asked -which- of the Eccentric Soul comps is our favorite. A very tough question as they have yet to release a dud. But there are two of the releases so far that are a step or two above the rest in their golden soul perfection. The collection from The Big Mack label out of Detroit and Florida's Deep City label, a collection that we still listen to all the time.
So we were quite excited when we found out that Numero was going to mine even further into the Deep City vaults with a follow up collection from the amazing Florida label. Apparently Numero Group got their hands on a box of lost Deep City master tapes so seven of those tracks are on here as well as killer tracks from some of the other Miami labels putting out sizzling soul 45's back in the day. Every song we've ever heard from Helene Smith fills us with chills of excitement and she has two more on this collection, alongside amazing songs from a young Betty Wright, Lynn Willliams, Clarence Reid, The Rollers, etc. Anyone who has been taken by the spell of Miami soul needs to get this immediately and in fact this could very well become our new favorite of all the amazing Eccentric Soul releases. So damn pleasing!
When this first arrived, we thought maybe Important Records had re-released Jefre Cantu Ledesma's serpentine drone solo work of the same name that had come out on Spekk last year. But it seems there might just be more than one Jorge Luis Borges fan in the world, and one of them is James Blackshaw. Those of you who were lucky enough to see him perform live here in our store were witness to his magical powers of acoustic alchemy, and between pieces he quietly mentioned this new release that he had compiled. Bringing together avant-acoustic string pieces specifically recorded for this release by Dutch lute player Jozef Van Wissem (also his recent collaborator in Bretheren of The Free Spirit), Swedish cellist Helena Espvall, of Espers, Japanese koto virtuoso Chieko Mori, as well as Blackshaw himself. Beginning and ending with pieces by Cheiko Mori, we are taken through a twisting sojourn of cross-cultural touchstones and stylistic complexities. The range of classical lyricism and free improvisation highlights each individual's unique contributions while also recognizing a vital connection to each other's methods bringing the whole together. Excellent!
Record collectors, check it out: in a sense, this is a compilation of tracks from some of the rarest records EVER -- even though they were just recorded last year! That's cause they only existed in editions of, like, one. Ok, this is gonna require some explanation. The Gold Record Studio is the latest contraption/conception from our man Jon Brumit (whom we first met when he brought us field recordings from the San Francisco dump!) and colleague Lisa Mezzacappa... Basically a set-up where one-of-a-kind vinyl records were pressed on-the-spot with an antique record cutter for folks who recorded live (and impromptu) in an open-air, homebuilt studio at a local flea market! This was totally free of charge, with instruments and even guest musicians provided, and apparently proved very popular. This took place over several weekends last spring at the Laney College Swap Meet over in Oakland... the City of Oakland actually ponied up some arts-funding money to help make it happen. And it seems like a pretty cool thing, for both the participants (the "recording artists") and now listeners who get to check out the diverse array of talent (and otherwise) who made records at the flea market, the best (and worst? no such distinctions really being made) have been compiled onto this sprawling double disc set. There's contributions from folks of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities. Some musical pros show up (including a couple Serbian prog rockers, and the DJ from the Ghetto Boys!), but also many total amateurs, young kids n' senior citizens. Lots of surprises in other words!
This man-in-the-street, instant-gratification, no-rules recording project really let some folks get, shall we say, expressive. And creative. And downright weird. Portions of this do come off like a rather dubious talent show, or drunk mom karaoke -- but lots of tracks could be some really underground, experimental cd-r fodder, too. As a whole, it's almost like a hypothetical installment of the Sublime Frequencies series dedicated to the sounds of why-be-normal urban America, jumping from track to track with ADD abandon. For instance, among the many tracks of disc one, you've got a woozy improv session with a barking dog factored in, followed a few tracks later by a version of "My Favorite Things" recast conversationally (and humorously) between teenage girls. There's also a pretty badass blues rock guitar instrumental, some crazy scat singing, and a song that sounds to us a lot like The Shitty Listener! And much much more... It's mind-boggling and exhausting and pretty darn special. Even the recognizable tunes that people try (for good or ill) are enhanced in our ears by the bustling flea market field recording happening in the background.
And then, there's a whole 'nother disc. 50 cuts on disc two, starting off with some very lovely solo guitar from "Sam"...which is followed by a much more maniacal track with a shouting child... and then some guy singing "Let It Be"... a super-distorted rap by a teenage girl... and on and on and on. There's definitely some Gong Show moments, which are good for a laugh or can be taken as something maybe unintentionally avant-garde. We really like the more "damaged", confusional tracks (of which there's plenty), where it sorta sounds like the people you hear DON'T know they're being recorded, or at least seem unaware of where the microphone is, or when the song is supposed to start or stop.
Even in the age of mp3 and MySpace, this Gold Record Studio project has taken the democratization of the "music industry" a step further, down to street level! There's just something really joyful about it, possibly due to the serendipitous social interaction happening right then and there at the point of creation. You're getting a glimpse at the inner musical burgeonings of people who until that fateful day they were wandering around the flea market, probably never ever ever dreamed that they would so soon be the proud owners of a physical vinyl artifact with their own singing/rapping/playing/barking/whatever on it, whether silly or serious. And that's pretty cool.
Also, if you get this, you'll definitely have some good material to put on your outgoing answering machine message for months to come... file it with stuff like MSR Madness anthologies of song-poem recordings, or Jacob Smigel's Eavesdrop disc of found sound recordings, although this takes its own unique place in that array of oddity...
- MPEG stream: Lee, Jon, Suki, Brian, Tom, Jesse
- MPEG stream: Emily, Amara, Lucio
- MPEG stream: Sam
- MPEG stream: Birana, Tanaya, Shelley, Micha
Lilith is really on top of the Tropicalia reissues and this time we see back in stock the compilation / collaboration that served as the Brazilian movement's defining manifesto while also highlighting the key musical players: Gil Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Os Mutantes, Gal Costa and producer Rogerio Duprat (with contributions from Nara Leao, Tom Ze, and Vicente Celestino among others). We were surprised to find we didn't review this ten years ago when we first discovered and raved about Os Mutantes and heard about the Tropicalia movement from the late sixties with all this amazing and creative art, poetry and music. Although it's easy to be blinded by Os Mutantes' genius, as they were definitely the most rocking and performative component of the movement, which was made up of mostly singer-songwriters that came from more traditional musical forms of Samba, Fado and Bossa Nova. So perhaps we were less floored musically with that aspect of this compilation at the time, or just didn't appreciate enough the then-radical concept of mashing all these disparate forms of psychedelic rock, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and Brazilian popular styles together in a country that nationalized its traditional music to such a degree that even electric instruments were considered anathema. We are definitely appreciating it much more now. Especially after becoming more familiar with the solo work of each of the contributors, we're more open this time around to the softer nuances of the song writing and performances. Panis et Circencis (Bread and Circuses) is both a celebration and a political critique, a collaboration of unity and vitality and most of all longevity.
That the Welsh well of groovy folk and psych rarities from the '60s and '70s hasn't run dry, is plentifully proven by this album. Finders Keepers presents a second volume of Welsh Rare Beat, again compiled by DJ Andy Votel and two of the guys from Super Furry Animals. Lots of w's and y's in the artist and track names here, there's tunes from the the likes of Galwad Y Mynydd (also the subject of a separate reissue on Finders Keepers), Y Gwenwyn, YNhw, Y Tebot Piws, Chwys, Meic Stevens, Bran, Sidan, Morus Elfryn, Heather Jones, Edward H. Dafis, AD 73, Bara Menyn, Hergest, and more. No, we haven't heard of most of 'em either -- and the ones we do know, we probably heard first on the original Welsh Rare Beat. And while we'd rate that volume a little higher, there's treats galore here, from rustic acid folk to glammy rock to disco prog! Even a kids TV show character takes a stab at rock n' roll. All with a unique Cymaru bent, often with glorious traditional melodies woven through, and gentle voices singing in the slightly phlegmy and certainly indecipherable (to us) Welsh tongue. Informative liner notes are provided, though, to clue us to who these artists were and what they were on about.
Not to be confused with the double e'd Midwestern punk rockers Vee Dee, this is the triple e'd Veee Deee and are American expats living in Japan. Well, at least one of em. AQ customer and long time pal Clay, most well known around here for sending us scathing (and hilarious) anti Keiji Haino hate mail, doing his very best to get Allan all riled up, much to the snicker delight of Andee (another misguided Haino hater).
Anyway, this is all sort of funny, as the sound of Veee Deee is not all that far removed from Haino's white noise psychedelic squall. Whoever is handling the ax duties here, could probably meet Haino on the sonic field of battle and hold his or her own. Dense flurries of rapid fire runs, weird moaning chords, bits of reverbed soft strum, all wound around some fierce and furious drumming.
While there are some Haino-ish elements, this falls way closer to modern freaked out spazz rock a la Strom And Stress, Coptic Light, Hella, Lightning Bolt, especially on the first track, with the band locking into hyper complex convoluted grooves, occasionally slowing things down for some tripped out drift, other times erupting into full on distorted crumbling NOISE. Someone must be manning the recording deck, as there is plenty of fucked up glitch and production weirdness. The second track (of three) is much more rock, with a seriously angular riff, wailed emo vocals, the drums still a chaotic clatter, sounding a little bit like Drive Like Jehu, slowing down for some minimal groove a la Stinking Lizaveta.
The final track mixes the disparate sound of the first two, a definite post rock post punk groove, but here muted and muddy, buried in a sludgy mix, emerging from a cloud of glistening atonal guitar splatter, and throbbing bass, tinkling chime like ambience and what sounds like croaking frogs, and finishing off in a flurry of buzzed out distorted skree. Cool stuff. Can't wait to hear more...
- MPEG stream: One
- MPEG stream: Two
While we have been fans of most of Kurt Weisman's previous projects (Feathers, Witch, King Tuff), this first solo outing on Important has really thrown us for a loop. Spazzy sped up strings, sprightly jigs, woodwind-led free jazz and wincing pitch-shifted vocals remind us more of Cocorosie than the Van Dyke Parks comparisons touted on the label. Weird? Definitely. Wonderful? Not so much.
New Wire magazine time. The usual dizzying assortment of weird new music, from jazz to noise and pretty much every stop in between. On the cover British improv legend John Butcher. Inside, singer songwriter Baby Dee, aQ fave soundmaker Brendan Murray, another a fave, freedrone one woman combo Valet, Global Ear on Brisbane, composer Jed Speare, an awesome Invisible Jukebox with Andrew WK, electronica legends Autechre, artist and folkie Michael Hurley, and of course the usual array of reviews, cds, dvds, lps, eps, performances, installations, festivals, shows, books, movies and loads more. Back page Epiphany found in Atari Teenage Riot's The Future Of War. As always a great read, and if you're anything like us you'll probably end up with a big ol' list of new records and books to track down...
Back in print and back in stock at a slightly cheaper price. But still just as warped and wonderful and weird as before...
The return of Wolfmangler, aka Smolken, who also just so happens to be the man behind Dead Raven Choir. Hot on the heels of a split with UK ultra doomlords Moss, Wolfmangler continue to explore the dark world of doom in their own truly peculiar manner. With bass, electric bass, drum, flute, trombone and bassoon (each band member is also credited with things like umber bulk, water nymph, floating eye, tengu, trapper and of course leprechaun) the Wolfmangler ensemble create a truly unique doom, woven together from wheezing woodwinds, throbbing low end, simple occasional drum beats and weird grumbled growly vocals. The result is not so much a massive doom sound as a creepy ancient court music, plodding and funereal. You can almost imagine some black clad procession trudging along the winding cobblestone streets within some walled fortress. Kerry though it sounded like punk rock slowed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down.
Texturally it's unlike anything we've ever heard. The closest reference might be Skepticism, the way it sounded like their music is being heard through the floor or from a building next door. Wolfmangler's sound has a similar timbre, a bit like some high school marching band dipped in tar and forced to march through a desert of black sand, or maybe like holding a stylus in one hand, and a scratched up 45 of Fleetwood Mac's tusk in the other, and trying to manually play the record by dragging the needle along each groove. Warbly and dizzyingly warped, Dwelling In A Dead Raven For The Glory Of Crucified Wolves is some sort of hellish circus music, the soundtrack to a Fellini film, showed one frame at a time, a New Orleans Funeral Jazz band 78 played at 16 rpm on an old dusty victrola. So gorgeously slow, so pretty and creepy and dreamily doomy.
A two song blast of extreme noise drenched buzz to tide us over until the next Wrath Of The Weak full length (which we actually have in stock, we just haven't gotten around to reviewing it yet). When it was first suggested we check out WOTW, we were told they were the BUZZIEST black metal band around, and damn if it wasn't pretty much true. But if that first record was indeed the buzziest, not sure what this tape is all about. If anything it's even more droney and dense, whatever riffs are happening are blurred and smeared and stretched into one massive roiling buzzscape. There might be drums in there, but if they are they are buried deep beneath the churning black mass of buzz above it. Very close listening reveals some distinct riffage, and even some melody, but back away and it's like standing in a super collider, gloriously and ear splittingly, head spinningly, rib cage rattlingly LOUD. The second side is a bit more defined, but only in that the sound is a little murkier, a little more melancholy, a heaving dirge-y dismal minor key drone, that seems to shift druggily back and forth between two thick shimmering buzz drenched chords, creating a creepy, melancholy melody out of massive walls of crumbling fuzz and blasting black blur. Barely even black metal, but fucking awesome nonetheless.
Fantastic packaging, an all black tape, not even a little window in the middle. Spare black and white sleeve, white on the outside, black on the inside, minimal text, housed in a black and yellow transparent slipcover. Super striking. CRAZY LIMITED TOO. ONLY 100 COPIES. Out of print already, we got a bunch, but they won't last long...
The Midwest is beginning to feel like the new Norway. So is the South. Tons of fucked up grim blackness seems to be constantly seeping outward from the blackened heartland. We're gonna have to come up with some new sobriquets for these apparent movements, MWBM is now a new, more region specific USBM, or maybe ECBM, for those in the South, but the sudden onslaught from middle and Eastern America is threatening to overtake the much lauded West Coast scene, which while still represented by the few elite metal warriors (Leviathan, Xasthur, etc.), hasn't really produced the same number of outrageously creative black metal outfits lately. Much of could well have much to do with the places these guys call home. Black metal is all about isolation, looking inward, darkness and depression, and while those emotions and ideals are indeed universal, it sometimes seems more difficult to be miserable and suicidal and full of grim energy when you're wandering through green trees beneath a sunshiney Spring California day.
But whatever. All you need to know for now, is that the strangely monickered Wrnlrd (thanks to aQ pal Will for the recommendation) is from Virginia, (hail VABM!) And offers up a dense twisted blown out frenzy of utter blackness.
And it's hard to think of a better word to describe it than frenzied. The sound is so thick and gnarled, the riffs so distorted they seem to exist in a churning sonic morass, the guitars and vocals constantly on the verge of crumbling to pieces, the sound so blown out, the drums are barely audible, a flurry of beats buried way in the mix, but that drumless feel only adds to the organic sound of Wrnlrd, this epic heaving cloud of black swirling sonic mayhem, slowly and systematically engulfing everything in its path. But that's not so say the riffs here aren't amazing, they are, and the tracks are surprisingly catchy, and the overall sound is very textural, almost like someone like Christian Fennesz or Tim Hecker recorded it, and occasionally things slow down and the band lurches onto some staggering buzzy dirge, here and there the tracks spread out into near ambient drifts, the guitars ghostly and haunting, but it's all about the gorgeous wall of sound this guy can produce, managing to sound utterly frosty and grim, but also epic and majestic, woozy, drone-y, druggy and utterly and terrifyingly black.
A super limited missive from Xela, aka John Twells, head honcho of the super kick ass Type label. But his work as Xela is much darker than his label might lead you to believe. His is a world of doom. Not old school heavy metal doom. But truly ominous darkened worlds of doom. His is not a doom of huge riffs and pounding drums, but instead, rumbling sinister drones, and haunting ambience. Crumbling black landscapes of mysterious buzz and whispered menace. The A side of this tape is like a field recording of a rickety old dock, jutting out into the choppy waters of the River Styx, old rust chains rattle, rusty lanterns clang against one another, the rotted wood groans and creaks, the wind howls, the choppy water laps at the pilings, black birds circle overhead, an old boat tied up to the dock rocking wildly in the water, straining against the frayed rope, while in the distance, an ominous buzz permeates the air like the stink of decaying flesh, and somewhere, below the surface of the water, or hidden behind the black clouds overhead, some unspeakable beast growls, his ominous rumble like thunder filling the sky.
The B side takes up where the first side left off, that same dock, being lashed by a fierce storm, but instead of rain and lightning, it's decaying black buzz, and howled vocals, a stumbling, lurching doomy drone, recorded on an old tape, the sound dropping out, the speed shifting, slowing down and speeding up, as much a part of the sound as the obfuscated riffs, and the creeping mournful melodies. Fucking awesome.
Red cassettes with metallic gold sticker, in a cryptic printed black and white sleeve, photocopied insert. LIMITED TO 111 COPIES. Already out of print. We got the last batch so act fast.
Woah, this is some seriously filthy and hateful, damaged and demented, utterly raw black metal primitivism. A collection of long out of print demos from the tongue twistingly titled Zarach'Baal'Tharagh, a band/man the label refers to as "The French master of bedroom black metal", and who are we to argue.
Right off the bat, we should just say, that all of you who are into the weirdest of the weird, the damaged, retarded, stumbling, freaked out what-the-fuck black metal we can't ever get enough of, a la Necrofrost, Furze, Dead Reptile Shrine, Striborg, then this is pretty much ESSENTIAL.
The sound will also definitely appeal to folks who dig the ultra personal grimnity of the French Black Legions, but Zarach'Baal'Tharagh takes that sound, and douses it with noise, lets riffs unravel, lets rhythms unwind, songs collapse, and then suddenly seem to fall back together, the drums blast and splatter, stumble and shuffle, the guitars roar and buzz, the vocals a paint peeling rasp, and then there are the leads, wild and dizzyingly off kilter, somewhere between actual shredding and completely random noodling, but all wound up into the buzzing swirl, it sounds perfect. A massively head spinning unhinged blackened assault.
The slow parts are gorgeous and creepy, the guitars wavery and warbly, the drums a stuttery tattoo, some tracks are killer stretches of FX drenched ambience, vocals reverbed and delayed into strange sonic echoes, everything including the blasts of black are muddy and murky and ultra lo-fi.
The record is separated into three parts, Primitive Era, Apocalypse, and maybe our favorite El Borak, the harshest and heaviest of the bunch, the guitar supercharged, the four parts of El Borak, laced with completely wacked Buttholes Surfers style leads, spidery and chaotic, the four parts together forming a totally mesmerizing chunk of looped sounding black buzz, with some AWESOME riffing, but the riff is locked into an endless black groove, over and over and over, the whole thing dragged into some completely other dimension by the damaged lead guitar. So fucking awesome. Some of us around here can't help but think (even though technically this stuff is not 'new') that this could very well be a contender for black metal record of the year. At the very least, damaged demented outsider what-the-fuck black metal record of the year. Either way, totally recommended.
