There are a handful of cd-r labels out there who are meticulous, not only with the music they choose to release, but with the packaging, the presentation, the ideas and inspiration behind the label, the theme that runs through all of the music, with everything related to their label and the music on it, which is always so inspiring, especially when everyone you know has a limited cd-r label. One of our favorites is Belgian label Mystery Sea, who specialize in what they call "night-ocean drones", and each disc is gorgeously packaged with full color artwork, that matches the artwork on the disc, and it all reflects the music contained within. We get as many copies as we can, but with almost every Mystery Sea releases we get, they tend to disappear quite quickly.
The latest comes from Ninth Desert, whose sound is anything but arid and dry, desolate and warm. Instead, the sounds on Zone are cold, cool, chilly, wintery, lots of glistening high end, the sounds you might imagine would emanate from vast ice fields, or deep snowy caves, not so much rumble and buzz as sparkle and glimmer and glisten. Even at it's most low-end dronelike, the whirs are wrapped in streaks of keening high end, everything is bright and blown out. It's like the sonic version of laying in a huge snow bank, staring at the sun, everything is white and bright, too much for your eyes to handle so everything sort of glazes into strange indistinct shapes, glowing and shifting, like clouds in the sky, or huge slow moving chunks of ice in the sea. These sounds are arctic, almost alien, like wandering on the surface of some strange planet, everything icy and barren, cold winds whir and whine, the sound of the slow moving glaciers a muted creaking, all smeared into dreamy swaths of high end shimmer. So lovely. And so refreshing to experience a soothing, slow moving drone record, that doesn't rely entirely on low end rumble, but at the same time manages to make upper register sounds as soothing and soft focus as their lower ended brethren.
Like all Mystery Sea releases, strictly LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each disc numbered on the tray card, and gorgeously packaged with striking full color artwork.
The return of the unpronounceably named master of alchemical psychedelic naturalist atmospheric doomed UN-black metal, Njiqahdda, whose last record was a revelation, which is saying a lot as the man behind Njiqahdda also records as Light Shall Prevail, Agathothodion, and as part of Glaciial, not to mention running the kick ass E.E.E. Recordings label.
But with Njiqahdda, there does seem to be something more organic going on, something less tied to the structures and strictures of black metal. There is definitely plenty of buzz and blast, but there's also lots of krautrock style jamming, psychedelic ambience. The sound is much more lo-fi, murky and muddy, but not in that blackened grim way so much as a strange haunting earthy way.
The opening track begins with some swirling black rumble, and mysterious downtuned drones, but when the song proper kicks in, it's not a burst of blackness, instead it's an effects drenched tripped out hypnorock jam, Butthole Surfers style vocals swirl in a sea of trippy druggy FX, the main riff is looped and repeated, the drums propulsive and inventive, if anything this sounds more like last week's record of the week CAVE, than any black metal we've heard . There are some shrieked harsh vocals, some double kick blast beats, but those are strung beneath clean guitars weaving a seasick shanty, the effects cycling and swirling and adding so much weird texture and so many strange layers, that this honestly sounds like it could be some blackened Circle side project. The track unwinds into a dense field of slowly unfurling feedback and more spacepsych FX.
The second track follows a similar pattern, hewing a bit closer to a distinctly black metal sound, but still, the effects are wrapped around everything, the drums are busy and chaotic, the vocals are weird whispers, doused in delay, and allowed to careen amidst the warped riffage and splattery drumming, part way through, the band locks into a nearly Burzumic buzz, but before too long the song slips back into hushed black ambience.
Track three is the blackest so far, a loping, dirgey, depressive minor key midtempo lurch, the guitars surging and soaring majestically, the drums simple and propulsive, the vocals still weird indistinct clouds of echo and shimmer. Tripped out and seriously psychedelic, but definitely black and buzzy, almost blissed out, not really in a shoegazey way, but more like an effects laden space rock.
Finally to finish things off, Njiqahdda takes the last song and dips back into a soundworld much more grim and black, the riffing much less effected, more a churning buzz, still swathed in effects and keyboards, the vocals hissy wraiths hovering overhead, the cymbals so hot and sizzly, they seem to never decay, adding a whole 'nother layer of high end shimmer, finally giving way to a weird looped abstract riffscape, with guitars, roiling pulsing, flecked with stuttery glitch and random abstract crunch, eventually becoming a soft minimal whisper before blinking out.
Shit yeah. If anyone is pushing the boundaries of black metal, it seems to be the ones not even playing it. Unblack is definitely the new black, especially if you like your grim buzz tripped out and seriously fucked up.
Wow! We haven't heard from Noggin in forever. This guitar and violin duo have been kicking up a storm for years now. More than a decade! The last time we had a record from these guys it was before there was even an AQ list! But we loved 'em. They even played an instore at the old store on 24th Street. And they weren't your average free noise duo, even back in the day. Eric O. on guitar, scrabbling and scraping and creating some glorious chaos, and Michael G. who was probably already in his late fifties or early sixties when Noggin played at AQ on violin, so now... in 2006... WOW. The definitive elder statesman of North Western Noise for sure!! you might also remember Michael from his stint playing violin in the killer aggro-post-punk rock combo Behead The Prophet No Lord Shall Live.
So what's the modern day Noggin all about? Pretty much exactly what they were all about 10 years ago. An angular scrapescape, a tangled web of Derek Bailey, Hans Reichel, Lee Ranaldo and Keith Rowe, like a table full of household objects and broken steel strings and fried amps, but all stuffed into a single guitar. A throbbing, angular, rasping. clanging swirl of drone and clatter, with the processed violin, slithering and squealing, keening and braying, and sometimes even scraping right alongside the guitar. A glorious burst of unfettered instrumental deconstruction, playful and wild, dark and deliriously damaged. Cool stuff.
Packaged in a mini 3" jewel case and as with all Jyrk stuff super limited, in this case...
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!!!
We're not going to go into too much detail with this as it is limited to 51 copies of which we managed to snag a whopping 15! So act fast. This is indeed pricey but it sure is cool (and remember only 51 copies IN THE WORLD!). Ohsees is the new spelling for OCS which is the one and only John Dwyer (Coachwhips, Pink And Brown, Dig That Body Up It's Alive, etc) and features a 6" lathe cut, with two tracks recorded in NY, and a teensy little 3" cd-r featuring 6 tracks recorded at home. Ohsees are a strange bunch, and this set is no different, from soft abstract folk, to dreamy drones, to squalls of noisy weirdness, all weird and wonderful and so good. Packaged in an oversized pink and black sleeve, 3" cd affixed to the inside, amidst the liner notes, 6" lathe cut in its own sleeve, each one hand numbered. These will be gone before you can blink. Sorry.
We discovered the 200mg label via their recently released No Skull Left Unturned retrospective, which covered all the various Man Is The Bastard offshoots, the music of course was amazing, but it was also incredibly packaged, with multiple discs, patches, pins, books and booklets, so over the top. We decided to dig a little deeper and discovered a whole slew of strange and mysterious dark sounds, from ambient drone to outsider blackness to noise, everything we heard we dug, so we decided to dig a little deeper and list everything we could get.
This release, from an entity known simply as Ondo, comes to us from Sweden, and is one looooong 40 minute track, of deep metallic dronemusic, thick shimmering layers of distorted sound, reverberating buzz, and smeared streaks of electronics. The sound is creepy and ominous, very cinematic, it's not hard to imagine some long tracking shot of an old graveyard, huge black birds soaring overhead, a dilapidated old house, a rusted out car in the yard, a tire swing barely shifting in the afternoon breeze, the sort of sloooooow shot that builds the suspense, that readies you for whatever horror might lie in wait. That's what the music of Ondo sounds like. Long drawn out tones, deep resonant notes, thick crumbling corrosive rumbles, bits of feedback and snippets of voices, everything dripping in effects and oozing with menace. This is definitely dark ambient music, but it's not all that ambient, it's active, some strange lifeforce inhabits these sounds and propels it forward, along with the listener, drawing us ever closer to some inexorable doom. Awesome.
LIMITED TO 101 COPIES! Packaged in a cool oversized screenprinted cardstock sleeve, inside a 12 page printed black and white booklet on thick cream colored paper, packed with cool creepy old woodcuts.
Record number two from these mysterious Australian technical death metal weirdoes, whose sound, as we mentioned in our review of their debut, Seepia, is anything but traditional death metal, instead, the grunted vocals and crushing downtuned riffs and all the traditional death metal tropes are completely subverted, tangled and mangled into damaged and demented squalls of chaotic blackened noize, having plenty in common with a band like labelmates Wold, as well as old school DM legends like Gorguts, Suffocation or Immolation�
The sound on Outre is a murky buzz drenched sonic swamp, riffs buzz and blast, but are so doused in effects, so dripping with muddy distortion, they appear to be nothing but droning streaks of downtuned sound, until once in a while when they surface to chug briefly, offering up some brief dynamics before being swallowed up again by the band's relentless blur. The vocals are a subsonic demonic gurgle, barking, howling, growling and mewling, but again, so buried in fuzz and hiss, it just sounds like another layer of black buzz. The melodies are dark and twisted, like some vile black weed, the production is dense and thick, the sound druggy and seasick, warped and warbly, the whole thing sounding a little like some cross breeding experiment gone wrong. Gorguts, Wold, Black Flag, Faxed Head, all melted down and heated up and then poured into your cd player, a similarly noxious downtuned buzz oozes from your speakers, a distillation of Portal's convoluted and cracked take on death metal, a sound black enough to be black metal, noisy enough to be noise, and fucked up enough to be, well to be anything this fucked up sounding.
Strange swaths of synth, atonal detuned guitars, simple industrial plods, monstrous slow motion doom, blasts of speaker shredding ultranoise, billowing black ambience all pepper the proceedings, but at its heart, the sound of Outre is most definitely blasting brutal death metal, but the sort of death metal we always wanna hear, warped and twisted and damaged and filthy and crusty and noisy and buzzing and blackened and doomy and completely fucked.
Packaged in a super deluxe mini gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeve, and including super intense band photos, each band member (Aphotic Mote, The Curator and Horror Illogium) wearing a black hood (or what appears to be a mangled witches hat pulled all the way over the face), all standing in front of an old piano, each photo faded and sepia tone, one wielding a violin, the other clutching what appears to be the horn from a Victrola, the third empty handed, but with a noose hanging from his neck. Weird.
Latest bit of black mystery from this mysterious one man band from Santa Cruz, who constantly blurs the line between gorgeous black ambience, and blissed out buzzing blackness.
Deathwanderings finds PC in a contemplative mood, eschewing all buzz and blast, and instead offering up some hazy soft focus dronemusic, channeling folks like Andrew Chalk, Jonathan Coleclough, through his blackened sonic filter.
Most of the tracks here are reinterpretations of pieces by Chopin, Satie and Schubert, stretched and blurred and smeared into soft streaks, gauzy shadows, hushed whispers, the music of breezes and flowing streams, organic and fluid, each track a hazy outline, the actual sounds within fluttering and fleeting, transitory and barely there.
Weird to hear such gentle beauty and subtle sonics from someone capable of kicking up a serious black buzz, but this is fantastic, utterly understated, and completely mesmerizing.
Nothing else to say really, other than metalheads steer clear. This is for the drone obsessed out there, those fascinated with the mystery of and majesty of minimal murk, explorers looking to delve into the heart of the drone. This is it. Right here.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
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You might think that the results of a collaboration between Prurient and Kevin Drumm would be nothing but a seriously noisy and speaker destroying affair, but then you'd be underestimating these guys, and the extent to which they've pushed the noise music envelope.
The last few Prurient records have been less about caustic abrasion and more about dark soundscaping, more about drones and darkness less about shrieks and blinding fury, and well, Drumm has always been capable of a soft touch, and often tempers his brutality with gorgeous melodicism.
With that said, both of these guys are perfectly capable of whipping up serious squalls of crumbling chaos, and do so here and there on All Are Guests, but the key in noise music, at least for us, is dynamics, and these bursts and blasts of sonic fury that pepper the landscape are perfectly balanced by long stretches of subtle drones, field recordings, whirring atmospheric buzzscapes and creepy vocals.
The opening track sets the stage and is a strange one, a dark, lugubrious crawl, with slowed down ominous vocals, reminds us quite a bit of AQ faves Burial in fact! But with a bit more Whitehouse mixed in. A lurching low end slither underpinning haunting disembodied vocals, you can't help but expect some stuttery dubstep beat to drop, although it never does of course.
"On This Slab" is more a proper noise track, with howled distorted vocals, crunchy blown out electronics and glitched out malfunctioning buzz, but all chopped up and arranged into a strangely melodic noisescape, laced with little bits of melody, and dense grinding chunks of almost-melodic buzz, not to mention some spare tranquil stretches. The there's "There Died Venus", a washed out super distorted slab of crumbling blissdrone, gorgeous melodies buried beneath a roiling sea of ultra blown out crunch and buzz, strange rhythms surfacing amidst the constantly shifting layers of whirring sound, in the background a near constant upper register shimmer, wouldn't be all that out of place on a Tim Hecker disc. "Though The Apple Is Rotten" sounds almost like a straight field recording, the sounds of children playing, footsteps, wind random clatter, but in the background there's a lot of other sonic stuff going on, hard to tell if it's just tape hiss, or if the band has woven a delicate backdrop, either way, it's quite cool.
"In Long Rows" is a 10+ minute chunk of minimal dark ambience, think Lustmord, Coleclough, Chalk, but with a bit more grit, a bit more hiss, maybe slightly more lo-fi, and with a brief resurgence of those murky pitchshifted vocals from the first track.
Finally, the last track finishes things off with, well, not a bang, but a burst of grinding whirring, mechanical chaos, like several Wolf Eyes jamming at once, a rumbling rusty metal beast, busted gears and blown speakers, a giant unholy machine designed to do nothing but make this glorious noise, a deep resonant distorted voice, speaking beneath the din, buried below ground in some ancient hellish oratory, the sound seeping up through black cracks in the ancient soil. And even then, as the duo expel a cloud of noxious drone and buzz, they still manage to make it sound almost dreamlike and dangerously close to pretty.
Past outings by The Raveonettes have left some of us here only with brief moments and a handful of songs that we really liked, but never quite managed an entire album to fall in love with (although we loved the first ep!). That changes on Lust Lust Lust, as The Raveonettes have found a way to bring their love of garage pop, girl groups, intoxicating reverb, and just the right mix of bubble-gum yumminess vs. those equally delicious moments of wall of sound distortion. In fact this is making quite a great companion to the latest Magnetic Fields album Distortion that we are still so in love with.
Of course The Raveonettes love of Jesus & Mary Chain and the Velvet Underground is still worn on their sleeves with pride but now they have delivered a great album of their own to show that they don't just look and sound cool, but they actually have the great songs to back it up. So good!
Funny name, Renderizors. But it makes sense when you know that this New Zealand outfit is actually a conglomeration/collaboration of two AQ faves: The Renderers (NZ underground downer pop) and the Sandoz Lab Technicians (NZ underground freeform drone)!!
To quote from a previous review of ours, "Sandoz Lab Technicians may be the most fucked-up and most freeform out of all of the mind-expanding, free noise New Zealanders that we have championed in the past (i.e. Birchville Cat Motel, Dead C, Omit, Anthony Milton, etc.)." Meanwhile, The Renderers are much more in the indie-pop, song-oriented camp, combining post-punk dissonance with bleak depressive melody. Together, you get something that's a very very lovely best of both worlds. Haunted howling winds of gentle feedback quietly accompany the so sweet and so weary female singing from The Renderers' chanteuse Maryrose Crook. Spooky drones both threaten and cajole. Lethargic balladry struggles stoically amidst storms of psychedelic electric distortion, with nihilistic, nasal male mumbling also sharing the mic with the more breathy vox of Ms. Crook. At times we're reminded, maybe mysteriously, of everything from the Velvet Underground to Bardo Pond, Slap Happy Humphrey to Richard Youngs, Pumice to Doodles... and even the echoey '60s dark psych pop of obscure AQ faves Gandalf... though really we'd hope that saying "imagine a mix of The Renderers and Sandoz Lab Technicans" would do the trick! Recommended.
Acid Bath, Deadboy And The Elephant Men, Agents Of Oblivion, we love them all, due in no small part to frontman Dax Riggs. As we've mentioned before, in numerous reviews of the above mentioned bands, Riggs was and is a rockstar, even in the druggy sludge combo Acid Bath, his soaring super dramatic vocals, and twisted surreal lyrics helped transform that band into something much more than just another NOLA sludgerock outfit. With every new band, came progression, away from the heavy, the dirgey, the druggy, toward a sound much more bluesy, glammy, poppy, but always the focal part was Riggs brooding moody croon.
We recently made the reissued Deadboy And The Elephant Men record If This Is Hell Then I'm Lucky record of the week, reissued under Riggs' name, in a bid by the label, we're guessing, to finally push him toward the mainstream, which makes perfect sense. Even more sense once we heard this, Riggs' first proper solo record, from last year. Fans into stuff like the White Stripes, Wolfmother, the Black Keys, no reason they shouldn't be digging this just as much. The sound on We Sing Of Only Blood And Love is a weird slithery Southern bluesy drugrock, incorporating bits of glam pop, gospel, AC/DC groove, but most of all, lots and lots of blues. Makes sense that this came out on Fat Possum, same label as the Black Keys. In lots of ways, this actually sounds quite a bit like the Black Keys, only if they were raised on Eyehategod instead of Howlin Wolf. Supercharged metallic blues, with pounding drums and some awesome churning riffage. But like with everything Riggs does, it's all about THAT voice. As rich and lustrous and over the top as ever, so much so, that at times, it almost sounds like Jimmy from the Frogs, full of trills and soaring almost operatic drama. Which is not at all a bad thing, and that voice all tangled up with these sludgey blues riffs, it's tough to beat.
There's also a bunch of stripped down, more acoustic numbers, sprawling and skeletal. The vibe very Mark Lanegan, sinister and languorous, but where Lanegan's voice is a whiskey soaked baritone, ominous and haunting, Riggs voice again, is intense and almost over the top.
If you're fans of any of Riggs' other outfits, and lord knows you sure as shit should be, you'll definitely need this. But for the uninitiated, this just might be the Riggs record that's accessible enough to turn him into the rockstar he's always should have been.
God, we love this record! We've never stopped loving it. In its fourteen years of existence, it's never sounded tired or dated. Can't say that for a whole lot of other electronica records. So we are really glad to see our good old friend back in print again with this super nice 2cd deluxe re-issue. If you missed this the first time around, then you are in for a real treat, and if you bought this the first time around, you may just need to buy it again to get the whole extra disc of unreleased tracks and alternate mixes. We have been playing this daily since we got it, and we're surprised how many folks have never heard of Seefeel or experienced their incredible ocean of sound.
So what is all the fuss about, you say?
Well, Seefeel at their peak were one of the main players that spawned the nineties electronica genre, at a time when there were only Dance and Rock sections in most music stores. Their sound was a delirious mash-up between the shoe-gazing swirl of My Bloody Valentine, the machinic rhythm programming of Autechre, the ambient chill of Aphex Twin and the driving pulse of Stereolab, with an early hint toward the looping repetitions of William Basinski. They bridged ambient techno and indie rock by foregoing rock music's verse and chorus structures in favor of beats and loops wrapped inside icy motorik rhythms, industrial whirs, blurbs of female vocals and dubby bass lines. Like the best work of minimal composers, Seefeel's long-form compositions create a warmly hypnotic form of static movement that refused to fit neatly into music for either dance floors or chill out lounges.
Quique was their head-turning debut following two EP releases featuring remixes by Aphex Twin. That connection surely gained them a bigger following, but Seefeel was always one of those bands that should have been bigger. Of course such a potent and influential debut would lead to many of their contemporaries, bands such as Bowery Electric, Labradford, Boards Of Canada and Flying Saucer Attack, to take Seefeel's initial explorations in sound further into Post-Rock, Trip Hop, IDM and Neo-Psych territories, leaving Seefeel at a bit of a loss for a follow-up. Signing to Warp, they delved further into a dark ambient direction in the vein of groups like Main, Ice and Scorn, that was just too stark for a wider audience to appreciate. They put out two more albums before splintering off into various side projects such as Scala, Disjecta and Sneakster.
The bonus disc contains six previously unreleased tracks, and three alternate mixes from a limited white label 12" and two ambient compilations. Out of the unreleased tracks, "Clique" sounds like it just barely missed the cut from the original album line-up while "Silent Pool" is a longer version of Quique's closing track "Signals". "My Super 20" and "Is It Now?" are long beat-less swims that are a warmer hint at their future direction and the two other unreleased tracks are versions of opening track "Climatic Phase #3, and "Time to Find Me" from their first EP. It might sound like at first listen that there is some repetition between the two discs, but it's really more in line with classic ambient music's infatuation with the Dub tradition of versioning, the adding or removing of various elements in a song to give it a totally different spin. Each version really does give a different feel even if the basic structures seem similar. Seriously, the second disc is just more of what you love already, and gives us a little more of the stuff we've been missing for ages.
Listening to Quique fourteen years later, it has lost none of its powerful splendor and warmly chilled charm. Add this to the list of favorite one record bands like My Bloody Valentine and Stone Roses. So Amazingly Awesome!!!! Reissue of the year so far and so totally recommended!!!!!!!!!
DFA and Flying Nun Records unite, finally? Who knows why in the hell those two labels would ever get together, other than the fact that DFA's James Murphy seems intent on sticking his finger into every single existing part of music history -- sometimes effectively updating sounds and creating some interesting syntheses. Mr. Murphy's possible personal ambitions aside, the resulting product is pretty great. New Zealand's own Nick Harte comprises the one-man indie arsenal Shocking Pinks, which is an adept synthesis of its own. Try to imagine an album conceived and executed on a strict dietary regimen of Flying Nun, Sarah, and Creation Records, maybe even a little bit of Afghan Whigs' Gentleman. The result is a super chunk (wink, wink) of indie-pop goodness. Controlled, fuzzy guitars find a comfy home next to simple drums and simpler, more twee, slightly out-of-tune vocals, plus a dab of new wave synth-ibility. Not bad! Are we saying this is on par with what amounts to the absolute best indie labels of the '90s? Nah. But it is an awesome trip down memory lane, back to the days when indie rock wasn't perceived as being burnt-out hasbeens playing mediocre material for arena crowds or seriously lame highschoolers with black eyeliner. These were the days when it was acceptable, nay, required to embrace your inner (or outer) nerd and run with it. Yup. Mix tapes, 7"s, and '60s-style bowlcuts. Hell, do lovelorn, daydreaming teenagers even know what tapes are now?! Sigh... Well, half those labels are bankrupt, barely licensed out, but dammit, some of us just aren't done with it all yet. There is one little aberrant track entitled "Smokescreen," which isn't bad at all, but its cowbell and post-punk drumming really have no place on this record. Also, don't be scared of Harte's album closer, a warm and hazy cover of Arthur Russell's supremely beautiful "You Can make Me Feel Bad." Ah, but it feels so good. Recommended.
If you read the Wire, and we know lots of you do, you sure as hell should be reading Signal To Noise as well. Very similar, so lots of stuff that should appeal to you Wire readers, but different enough to make it it's own unique beast. Lots of great writers, and of course they write about tons of amazing music.
This time around, Diamanda Galas on the cover. Inside: Atlas Sound, experimental banjo player Paul Metzger, jazz combo Edmund Welles, chamber group Slow Six, pianist and harpist and Coil sidekick Baby Dee, artist Jeff Schlanger, psych rock trio Radio Massacre International, NY noiseniks Carlos Giffoni, Dom Fernow and Brian Sullivan, and of course reviews galore, shows, installations, performances, dvds, cds, lps, books and even mp3s! Always a great read. And like every issue WAY recommended for music nerds and sound freeks.
We've got to check out anything that has anything to do with the cult Italian soundtrack specialists Goblin. This reissue does -- it's the score to a 1975 television science fiction show, composed by Enrico Simonetti, father to Claudio Simonetti of Goblin, and features Goblin themselves participating as session musicians on these recordings. Simonetti the elder had been a successful bandleader and film composer for years, possibly the reason that his son's band got into the game. Interestingly, the Gamma theme song was apparently a number one hit single in Italy, ironically knocking a Goblin tune (Profundo Rosso!) out of that spot.
But the rare track that Goblin obsessives are really gonna want this for is "Drug's Theme", which sounds like classic example of that group's trademark sinister disco-prog groove. Enrico was definitely inspired by his son's band on that one. However, it IS the only track here that sounds much like Goblin, really. The rest of the album features more typical orchestrated soundtrack material, lush and moody and romantic, with some jazz and Latin flavoring. Doesn't seem too sci-fi, more like cheesy music for a prime-time soap opera. Maybe the best tracks outside of "Drug's Theme" are the couple cuts that feature sweetly melodic female vocals, those are pretty nice. Especially "Chi Mi Cherchera" which reminds us of, say, Francoise Hardy.
A Bay Area band The Society Of Rockets are back with their third album! Although their roots were definitely planted in psychedelic pop, over the last few years their sound has gotten progressively darker and more aggressive. The smoky shades of Our Paths Related intermingles a broad spectrum of other genres and influences -- trippy space rock, gritty blues, rootsy country, mellow '70s rock and maybe even hints of U2 circa "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". However, unlike the current trend of stew-like "experimental psych", these folks' equally trippy music doesn't hide behind murk and meanderings, but shines with terrific songcraft and top-notch musicianship!
The Paradigms label has taken a mysterious turn away from things heavy and metal lately, focusing instead of the dronier and more ambient side of the sonic spectrum. Both the new releases in the latest batch are dark and mysterious, haunting and atmospheric.
Somnam are from Finland, and you know how much we love weird sounds from Finland!
The label references Twin Peaks, Goblin and Ulver, we definitely hear all that, but we also hear John Carpenter, and plenty of Muslimgauze, a sort of alien world music, tribal percussion, muted industrial crunch, swirling synths, all woven into creepy cinematic soundscapes, deep resonant drones beneath keening distant melodies, skittering electronic beats, swirling moody ambience, thick slabs of low end rumble, wavery sci fi synth warble over reverbed piano and crumbling washed out fuzz. It definitely sounds like the soundtrack to some awesome lost seventies Italian horror flick. Fans of Zombi will dig this like crazy, and we've said it before, but why aren't modern filmmakers looking to the world of underground music, bands like Zombi and Somnam, would be just as well served scoring horror flicks and weirdo indie films as they are playing with regular rock bands and making records. For now might was well just throw this on, close your eyes, and imagine all the fantastically grotesque and wonderfully horrific images these sounds invoke.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Packaged in white dvd style cases with full color artwork, and printed inserts.
Oh boy, it's time for more steel pan (drum) music dug up by one of our our favorite reissue labels, Japan's eccentric EM Records. This is the third in their steel pan series (after the Modern Sound Quintet and the Rudy Smith Quartet). Those first two were in a jazz-funk vein, whereas Steel An' Skin is a reggae affair, as you might guess from this disc's title. Reggae and dub and "soca-disco". This hybrid Afro-Caribbean outfit, a merger of musicians specializing in Pan-African percussion as well as the rhythms of the West Indies, and featuring ex-members of the 20th Century Steel Band, was based out of London, England in the '70s. While we particularly liked the jazz-funk grooves of the Modern Sound Quintet, we're also taken by the delightful, sunny appeal of Steel An' Skin's upbeat vibes. While addressing some serious issues ("Fire In Soweto", "Acid Rain") this still has a primarily happy disposition, with soulful vocals and a relaxed atmosphere.
Of course, our favorite track here is "Afro Punk Reggae (Dub)" since indeed it's the dubbiest, and that's what we at AQ tend to go for in our reggae. Never heard steel drums echo-effected like that before! It would also be the track we'd play for peeps who love those "Disco Not Disco" comps.
With typical EM thoroughness, this reissue is about as good as a reissue can get, with a large text and photo filled insert, three bonus tracks circa '84, and also a whole extra dvd disc! That features a 34 minute documentary film from 1979, for which the majority of the music on the audio disc was originally recorded. Directed by Steve Shaw for the Arts Council of Great Britain, the film takes a look at Steel An' Skin's educational workshop activities (the band began as a way to teach African and Caribbean immigrant schoolchildren in London about their cultural heritage). Lots of musical performance and practice footage, dancing, happy kids... as well as scenes from some rather medieval looking, grim inner city slums. Interview segments with Steel An' Skin bandleader Peter Blackman, discuss the unique "black English" experience, and the excitement of bringing musicians and singers from Trinidad, Ghana, Nigeria, etc. together. You can see how the group was a positive force in their community.
In recent months, we've seen several interestin' Sun City Girls reissues come out on cd via the Abduction label, like such previously vinyl-only rarities as the (supposed) soundtrack recordings to Piasa The Devourer Of Men, Dulce, and Juggernaut. Along with the shaggy dog hillbilly joke that is Jacks Creek. So fans of the now sadly defunct Sun City Girls, that cultish, psych-punk, faux-ethnic, WTF? trio, have had some welcome listening of late. However, this new disc, a collection (volume one!) of Sun City Girls singles, has us the most excited yet. That's cause these nine tracks, mostly released as singles on the Majora label back in the day, were actually all recorded during the same sessions that resulted in the acclaimed 1989 SCG album Torch Of The Mystics. That album, now out of print, is almost universally regarded as the band's best, and most popular. We'd agree, it's definitely the unanimous fave here at AQ (well, along with the equally long gone 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda). Too bad Torch Of The Mystics is out of print!! But of course that makes these tracks, cousins to those on Torch, all the more covetable!
Apparently, originally Torch was meant to be a double LP, and most of these tracks were instrumentals that would have been sequenced in amongst the songs that appeared on the final version of Torch. Plans for a double LP were eventually scrapped, and much of the extra material was then released by Majora on the You're Never Alone With A Cigarette 7" and Three Fake Female Orgasms 2x7". However, three of the tracks here are previously unreleased studio recordings, and another track, "The Fine-Tuned Machines Of Lemuria", is restored to its full 12 minute length for the first time (having been edited down for 7" release).
On of the reasons we (and everybody) likes Torch so much is that the songs, sounding much like some sort of alien, Southeast Asian surf rock, were unhindered by the unhinged eccentric excesses that make so many other, more confusional SCG recordings something of an acquired taste. Their unique take on "world music" was at its most accessible on Torch, with some of their most memorable, melodic moments and evocative atmospheres. You're Never Alone..., while not quite Torch part II, is certainly in that ballpark, with the ringing, exotic electric guitar skree of Richard Bishop taking center stage on much of this, ably supported by the drums and percussion of Charles Gocher and the bass playing of Alan Bishop (with sundry other, often ethnic, instrumentation from all). There's glorious folky riffing and moody improvs and plenty of prime SCG wonderful weirdness. Definitely an essential disc for all SCG fans!!
Two new releases from sound artist Nicholas Szczepanik, a long time aQ customer, whose releases have some how so far eluded us, until now. After a handful of super limited cd-r releases, this is in fact the first time we managed to get enough to review and list.
Astilbe Rubra is on Small Doses, another micro-label whose releases we just can't get enough of, every one lovingly and extravagantly packaged, which is surprising considering how limited the releases are. This one is no different, only 104 copies, housed in a gorgeous screen printed diecut fold over sleeve, with a printed insert, liner notes, and each one is hand numbered.
Szczepanik offers this release as a work in process, each track an unfinished idea, meant to be pursued and fleshed out later, but to our ears, these tracks sound perfect as they are. Deep, rich, lustrous sprawls of drone and whir and ambient shimmer. Heck there's even a track called "Shimmer", although it doesn't shimmer so much as crumble and grind and rumble. The opening track begins with a wall of soft white noise, that unfolds gradually, eventually revealing a warm chordal whir within, that stretches out into a long, dreamlike crawl. Lots of the tracks experiment with glitch and hiss and buzz, recording inconsistencies, meshed with abstract field recordings, some tracks are seriously intense, brittle, sharp and jagged, while others are murky and minimal, muted and introspective. Hard to believe these are just works in progress, but if they are, we sure can't wait to hear them when they're finished.
Two new releases from sound artist Nicholas Szczepanik, a long time aQ customer, whose releases have some how so far eluded us, until now. After a handful of super limited cd-r releases, this is in fact the first time we managed to get enough to review and list.
This one comes from 200mg, the same label that brought us the amazing Man Is The Bastard No Skull Left Unturned collection, as well as a handful of other strange dark musics. Szczepanik's disc fits pretty much perfectly, a single long track, expansive and dense, shifting from soft breathless whispery drones, to throbbing crumbling distorted dirgescapes and back again.
Utilizing contact mics, field recordings, found sounds, keyboards, samples, shortwave radio and manipulated vinyl (in particular, according to the liner notes, Neil Young's Harvest!) Szczepanik manages to transform those various elements into a singular new sound, a buzzing, glowing streak of constantly shifting shimmer. Over the course of the track, the sound dips into melodic shoe gazey blur, growling industrial whir, delicate crystalline glimmer, haunting distorted chiming, and washed out soft focus hiss, each sound, every part, melting seamlessly into the next. Super nice.
Packaged in a cool oversized silkscreened cardstock booklet with a pasted on front image, inside a simple stark printed black and white booklet packed with abstract photos of trees and foliage.
Another mysterious little noisy sonic gem from the Small Doses label, one of our new favorite small labels, due in part to the cool shit they put out, but also the fact that no matter how limited a release is, the packaging is super deluxe.
We won't go into too much detail with this one, as it's limited to only 77 copies. We got a handful, but as with most of these things, they will probably go pretty fast.
tH. is the work of a guy named Taylor Holdgraf, and Afflux is a strange composition for glitch and static and feedback and basically all the parts of music that aren't traditionally music. On the surface, Afflux sounds a bit like someone dragging a needle across an lp, or changing radio stations while driving through a tunnel, but it's arranged and structured into strange little microrhythms, drawn out expanses of super minimal drone, high end sine waves waver and shimmer, chunks of white noise are chopped into stuttering sort-of grooves, bits of feedback transform into what sounds like chirping crickets, some parts the hiss and glitch and crackle are smoothed into thick whirring textures, while other parts the grind and crunch are unfettered, allowing for little jagged bursts of super dynamic buzz and speaker rattling bzzzt.
Very noisy for sure, but structured and arranged in a surprisingly listenable, and surprisingly musical way.
As always, gorgeous packaging, a miniature three panel two sided full color vellum sleeve. And again LIMITED TO 77 COPIES.
Two new releases from UK boutique label Paradigms this list, both continuing Paradigms' shift toward sounds more abstract and ambient. An eclectic label for sure, we'd imagine there's definitely some fucked up heaviness lurking in the future, bit for now, we're happy to just drift through gorgeous hazy soundscapes with this latest disc from a group called Tropes, the work of German vocalist and soundscaper Susan Bauszat.
The sounds here are delicate and crystalline, shimmery, gauzy and utterly dreamy, but not without some ominous stirrings, the music is all soft muted synths and strings, guitar, flute, violin, all washed out and blurred into reverb drenched streaks, the perfect backdrop for Bauszat's layered vocals, tangled harmonies, dense and complex, but ethereal and angelic. Think Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Islaja, 4AD record and even more modern cd-r stuff like Grouper and Inca Ore. Dark and mysterious, lush expanses of billowing glistening sound, underpinned by shortwave buzz, insectoid skitter, bits of subtle glitch, swooping backwards melodies and all manner of soft focus sonic texture, but at it's heart the sound of Tropes is a simple stirring folk, vocals lustrous and emotive, drifting dreamlike through clouds of shimmer, abstract tangles of acoustic guitar wound gently around minimal electronic rhythms,soft washed out whirs and haunting cinematic strings. So lovely.
LIMITED TO 750 COPIES. Packaged in a mini lp style jacket, wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
The first time we heard Scott Tuma play guitar, was with skeletal slowcore country legends Souled American. His washed out dreamlike atmospheric guitar parts helped define their sound, but more importantly, introduced Tuma as a truly idiosyncratic guitar player, with a haunting and mysteriously unique sound. Tuma's music was like an acoustic version of Tim Hecker or Fennesz, but whereas those guys use electronics and computers and effects to transform their guitars into blurred dronescapes, Tuma's approach is much more organic, unfurling skeletal guitar lines, a slowed down Appalachia deftly woven into a sprawl of slow motion, washed out, sepia toned countrified ambience. Tuma's two proper solo records, Hard Again and The River 1 2 3 4, are both HUGE all time aQ favorites, so we were pretty excited to hear about a brand new release, especially since we've been waiting patiently for almost 5 years!
Not For Nobody begins quite strangely, a super spare, lo-fi recording of barely there guitar, stretched out beneath reverb drenched childlike vocals, cooing and purring, a bit like a countrified Bjork, the sibilance stretched out into glistening shimmers, the melody, mournful and dreamy, bits of tinkling chimes, and muted ambient clatter, the whole thing sun dappled and soft focus, so strange and haunting, but so lovely and sublime.
The next track finds us on much more familiar ground, a loose tangle of steel string guitar, sounding like it could have come off one of the later Souled American records, but sans vocals, the melodies lyrical and lilting, couched in a thick layered backdrop of warm whir, sprinkled with tinkling bells and chimes, laced with bits of piano, somehow sparse and skeletal, but impossibly lush. Which is sort of Tuma's specialty, turning minimalism into maximalism, but without losing any of the former's hushed urgency or whispered intimacy.
The whole record is quite varied, but each track manages to sound like it couldn't be anywhere else, every one seamlessly leading into the next, a song suite, an album of cohesive musical pieces, not just a collection of songs. The third track, "Eloper", introduces what sounds like horns, for a haunting funereal march, a woozy fanfare that seems to slowly spread out, a simple pulse like rhythm beneath hazy streaks and deliberate minor key strum. The next track begins as a jaunty upper register steel string lullaby, giving way, part way through, to a languorous late afternoon sun dappled sprawl, slightly atonal, gorgeous and bleary eared. "New Joy" buries the guitar in a haze of whirring buzz and warm swirls of lush chords and muted feedback, very liturgical sounding, a dark ambient drift through some ancient crumbling cathedral, while "Rakes" begins as a simple stripped down halfspeed Appalachian hoedown, before transforming into a sea of sawing strings, of layered buzz and extended steel string drones.
The record finishes the way it began, with that ghostly childlike voice, the bits of spare guitar, the massive clouds of delay and reverb, that voice a wraith hovering above the web of subtle minor key guitar, the floorboards creaking, motes of dust tinkling like chimes in a soft evening breeze, creepy, sorrowful, and so completely gorgeous.
Tuma conjures a timeless magical mystery with his guitar. He plays the mysterious traveler, a wandering audio alchemist, turning notes and chords into gold, or rather, golden streaks of dusty memory and soft golden glimpses of some hidden and blurred otherworld. His are sounds to get lost in, to wrap around yourself like some cloak spun from gold thread, to hide under with a flashlight like a child, creating worlds of light and shadow, a sound at once mystical and enigmatic, warm and familiar, and truly truly sublime.
ATTENTION!! The first 100 copies come packaged in a gold on black, cardstock gatefold sleeve, housed in a special oversized handscreened 7" style outersleeve, black ink on metallic gold paper, each one hand numbered. We managed to get nearly 3/4 of that first 100, but the way things have been going these will probably not last long, so once we run out, you'll get the normal, slightly cheaper version (the innersleeve white on brown instead of gold and black, and without the oversized hand numbered outer sleeve).
There seems to be a pattern these days with new bands, specifically the bands who exist in the cd-r underground. The scene is so small and the various labels and groups so closely linked, that it doesn't take much for a new group to blow up, a single well received cd-r on one label, often results in short order in releases on some or all of the various other cd-r labels of note. Sometimes it's frustrating, discovering a band, and then a month or two later discovering that they now have 5, or 10 or even 20 releases. But on the other hand, if it's a band you dig, why the hell not, we would never be ones to balk at more records by a band we love.
Anyway, such was the case with a band called Natural Snow Buildings, who released an insanely limited cd-r, in ridiculously fancy packaging. Practically no one got one, but those who did, raved like crazy, and thus, there are a whole mess of NSB releases about to drop (one elsewhere on this list actually). Not long after that release, half of that duo released his first record under the name Twinsistermoon, and pretty much the same thing happened. Insanely limited, only a few people got it, and word spread, and now TSM are also poised to release a handful of new records. Thankfully, Digitalis stepped in and snapped up that Twinsistermoon recording, and decided to reissue it, so more than a handful of people could hear it, and voila, here it is! Still probably too limited (only 500 copies), but at least briefly, we all have a chance to hear the gorgeous sounds of Twinsistermoon.
Mehdi Amaziane is one half of Natural Snow Buildings, and records on his own as Twinsistermoon. This disc was originally released as a limited run of 36 copies, which says something that it could still create such a stir. But it all makes sense when you finally hear it. This will be like manna from heaven for the dream-drone free noise cd-r set, the perfect mix of abstract folky songsmithery, and abstract raga like buzz, intense minimal tribalism, and shimmering soft focus strum. Even from the first track, imagine the cosmic Ur-drone of a group like Sunroof! intertwined with the fluttery forest folk of a group like Avarus, but then introduce soaring impossible high male vocals, often mistaken for a female, all woven into a buzzing brilliant sprawl. Peppered with bits of percussion, tinkling chimes, backwards guitars, almost Renn Faire like folk, those soaring vocals, hand drums, huge washes of vocal harmonies. Totally epic and expansive, cinematic and grand. And that's just the first track!
The record drifts dreamily from soft folky shimmer, to thick raga rituals. The vocal based songs are uncanny, Amaziane's voice is so high and clear, like Vashti Bunyan crossed with Cat power, the vocals rich and lustrous, emotional and intense, draped over fragments of strummed guitar, and muted percussion. Breathless and intimate, one moment, lush and epic the next, Amaziane could easily have made a record with just an acoustic guitar and his voice, instead, he chose to incorporate a much wider palette, creating gorgeous sweeping soundscapes, washed out drones, thick walls of crumbling distorted sound, steel string buzz would into long stretches of reverberation and shimmer, often erupting into dense tangles of buzz and pound, some tracks sound like a more lo-fi Loop, a sort of rambling forest-ified space rock, others are near static, channeling Sunroof! again as well as folks like Phill Niblock, but as much as we love dronemusic, and abstract buzzing ambience, it's Amaziane's voice that makes this disc so compelling. Anyone can whip up a good drone-y skree, although Twinsistermoon do it much better than most, keeping it musical rather than drone for drone's sake, but very few have a voice like that, and if they do, even fewer know how to use it. In Twinsistermoon, Amaziane transcends the idea of singer/songwriter, creating a gorgeously expansive and organic soundworld, equal parts free folk, abstract noise, minimal drone and hushed intimate songsmithery.
Packaged in a full color, matte finished 6 panel cardstock jacket, with super striking Aztec influence artwork by Amaziane. And again, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
By now, we should be able to safely assume that most AQ list-readers know who Steven R. Smith is. Not only that, but we know a lot of you are in fact big S.R.S. fans, of his solo projects under his own name and as Hala Strana, as well as for his participation in such outfits as Mirza and Jewelled Antler flagship Thuja. Certainly this should be the case after the last few S.R.S. releases. First there was his Owl album that came out a month or two ago, with his first ever vocal performance to go along with his lovely psych-drone guitar. Then two lists ago we had the cd reissue of his Anchorite album, which we made Record Of The Week in fact. And now there's Ulaan Khol. On it you can almost imagine that Steven has donned the black shades and leather jacket of the Tokyo psych underground scene, as this sounds like something that LSD-march, Up-Tight or even Keiji Haino himself might conjure. Acid Mothers Temple's Kawabata Makoto too. But even then, it probably wouldn't be this cosmic and bleakly beautiful.
Suitably majestic sounding, as part of a proposed three album trilogy, Ulaan Khol I consists of nine untitled, instrumental tracks made with guitar and organ. It's a spacious drift of big fuzzy distortion and fragile drone bliss... utterly entrancing. The sort of thing that you just want to keep going, and going... well thank god there's another two volumes of Ulaan Khol yet to come! Recommended.
Ah those French and their electronics, if there's one thing we've learned, they're really good at busting out catchy synth lines and addictive dance tunes. France in the late '70s to mid '80s particularly, held an abundance of innovative and distinct synth-based cold-wave acts, many of whom where under the radar and less popular than the likes of Jean Michel Jarre or Richard Pinhas, but still rich in texture and just as brilliant. We read somewhere that Ruth sold just 50 copies of their (amazing) album released in 1985. The fact that we know next to nothing about any of the artists on this comp makes it even better!
If the Tigersushi Collection, So Young But So Cold that we listed a while back tickled your fancy, Bippp will not disappoint. The folks here at aQ have been eating this up! This compilation, put out by Everloving, licensed from the French label Born Bad, is a marvelous collection of raw futuristic energy and minimalist beats. In it you hear the beginnings of cold wave, dark-wave, post punk, and electro pop. Act's "Ping Pong" suggests everything from The Police to early New Order while the quirky efforts of "Touche Pas Mon Sexe" by The Comix is fast, spastic and bouncy with minimal drum machine effects, slicing synth stabs, and swirly, grinding melodies similar to Kraftwerk or early OMD. CKC's "20h25", catchy as all hell, stands out the most with backing robotic vocals, eerie Casio lines, and a somewhat random slap bass break mid-song. In the pulsing, metronomic works of "Pretty Day" by Mary Moore, another gem in the collection and one of the only two tracks with English vocals, Mary sings about love and death in equally coy tones. TGV's "Partie 1" is sort of a punk anthem (as are a couple others in the collection) with interlocking key patterns and quick, nervous yelps.
Seems a little out of place that the last song, "Rainbow Man", is a tune by Ed Banger (present day French electro monarch) label frontman Busy P (who samples the "Touche Pas Mon Sexe" track by The Comix listed earlier on in the comp) though the Collection's title suggests French New Wave "1979-85"..?? Still a damned good track regardless. And maybe the bait to get some of the young 'uns interested in this cool old stuff. Really it's astounding how fresh in quality the bulk of these songs are as well, as if they could've been released within the last five years, on a label like Ed Banger...
Most of the bands on the compilation apparently released vinyl runs of 1000 or less the first time around. Lacking an aboveground hit by a homegrown version of Depeche Mode or Soft Cell, the scene portrayed on Bippp remained largely hidden. As brilliant and often catchy as the tunes are, they remained weirdly confidential. We can only hope that the release of Bippp leads to reissues of full albums by these acts! We already knew we needed that Ruth record back in print.
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.
This deep and delightful series of late '70s/early '80s UK post-punk DIY art school pop weirdness continues its ongoing region-by-region march. This volume, Messthetics #104, brings us 23 tracks (29 counting bonus mp3s) of super freakin' obscure tracks from South Wales bands circa 1977-81, with some emphasis on a scene surrounding the Cardiff indie label Z-Block. For what it's worth here's the lineup of bands: Czechs, Current Obsessions, What To Wear, Tax Exiles, Flying Brix, Immortal Invisibles, Spitfire Boys, Decadent Few, The Sane, Discount Chiefs, Table Table (now there's a name), Crash Action Winners (doing a Red Crayola cover), Reptile Ranch, Addiction, Boywonders, Hugh Volk, Ralph & The Ponytails, Janet & Johns, and Puritan Guitars (plus Autonomes, John Marlon, and Filmstars among the bonus mp3 tracks). Sounds range from fuzzed out aggro punkishness to naive, singsongy twee pop klutz stuff, all of it wonderfully eccentric and lo, lo, lo-fi. There's enough goodness here to make it tough to pick faves, though Reptile Ranch's "(Don't Give) The Lifeguard (A Second Chance)" stands out as sounding like the music from the scene in a psychsploitation flick when there's a montage of laughing mouths, hedonistic grape-crushing, and dancing girls.
You gotta hand it to Hyped To Death label owner and Messthetics compiler Chuck Warner. This is a true labor of love, and he knows his stuff. No slapdash, ill-informed compilations these! Instead, you get a bunch of brilliant (or at least entertainingly interesting) music you'd probably never ever hear otherwise, packaged with a thick 24 page booklet stuffed with detailed notes on each track, photos, 7" sleeve art, even a comic strip. Super informative, super fun. Warner points out that Wales was never given a lot of attention by the UK music industry, so the whole DIY thing really had an impact there, giving the Messthetics series plenty of treats to dole out this time 'round!
(PS also new in stock, to be reviewed next time: Messthetics #105, a Scottish volume.)
We're always amazed that there's so much great music made in the dim past (well, the '60s and '70s) that remains totally, utterly obscure, and ripe for reissue. The realm of rare pop-psych singles is certainly a good example, and here's yet another great compilation chock full of groovy gems from a international assortment of bands, twenty of 'em, that we've never ever ever ever heard of before (La Quinta Faccia? Carlos Bisso & Conexion 5? Les Problemes? Boneshaker? Procro Magnum? Hamilton Streetcar?). Thanks to the efforts and enthusiasms of today's crate-diggin' DJs (always on the lookout for some unknown tune to get the dancefloor movin') the flow of fab comps like this -- Cherrystone's Rocks, Nightmares at Toby's Shop, The Spanish Trip, Painting The Time, Psychedelic Minds -- is never ceasing, it seems. With bands from Argentina, USA, England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and Australia, Neurotic Reactions is a geographically and stylistically diverse collection. There's sunny pop, freakbeat, sitar psych, garage fuzz, hippy funk, all sorts of bright and colorful good time grooves here! Sure, it's true that a lot of crap gets reissued too (cf. ninety percent of the Radioactive roster), but this collection is quality psyke pstuff. The cd booklet includes brief notes on each track/artist and better yet, full-color thumbnail repros of the 45 sleeves, yay!
Seems like every few months we're blessed with the release of another cool psych rock reissue compilation full of obscure gems... Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word, Neurotic Reactions, Cherrystones Word, Cambodian Rocks, the entire Love, Peace & Poetry series, just to name a few... It's amazing what can be dug up by the dedicated collectors and DJs who put these mixes together, folks who trawl the dusty record shops and flea markets of the out of the way corners of the globe looking for the freakiest sounds. In that tradition, this week's excellent example is entitled Obsession, a compilation named for the reason it exists! And the groovy, swirling, often harder-edged fuzz attacks found here are certainly worth obsessing over. Just little bits of flat plastic to some, but the best things in life to others!
Obsession also sorta sounds like the name of a perfume, and if this was a perfume, it would be a very exotic scent indeed. We can kind of imagine that the Sun City Girls would have found a lot of this fairly inspirational to the "international rock" side of their output. Circa 1967-'73, the tracks here come from all over the world. A whole bunch from South America: Brazil's Quarteto Nova Era, Flavio Kurt, Novos Bahianos, Arnaud Rodriguez, Suely E Os Kantikus. Peru's Sonora Casino and Jean Paul. Uruguay's Ovni 87 and Los Chickichaka. And Argentina's La Barra De Chocolate. Then there's three from Turkey (Ersen, Arif Sag, and the beloved Erkin Koray, with a cut from his Bunalim-related band, Ter, meaning Sweat), and even outfit from India (Atomic Forest, whose track "Obsession '77" is actually what gave this comp its name).
Best of all, most of 'em we'd never ever heard of before -- and yet the killer to filler ratio is muy excellente. You get everything from jungle sounds and loungey vibes to Middle Eastern bellydance fuzz guitar to Mutantes-style tropi-delic pop to slamming go-go dancing beats to swinging horns... and let's not forget the plethora of wild wah-wah'd psych guitar soloing found here. And this comp gets further points for including in the cd booklet full-color sleeve art from the rare original singles, and some textual information too, pertaining to each track.
Subtitled Les Plus Grands Groupes De Rock Des Annees 70 En France, here's a 23 track collection of, indeed, swinging '70s French rock n' pop... we imported 'em directly from France just about as soon as we found out about this and scoped the track list. It's on the same label that brought us those Sixties Girls comps, as well as the now out of print Les Variations and Triangle anthologies, amongst other goodies.
Styles here vary, and not every track is a killer, but that's how comps go. We certainly found enough tres bon poppy psych, prog rock bombast, AM radio sunshine, melancholic balladry, glam production and fat beats and flutes and grooves and blues and more to enjoy, for sure! Some of it's seriously cookin', some of it's on the softer side, and either way for the most part we're falling for the combination of Gallic charm and '70 kitsch on display here.
There's some groups here we'd heard of and many more we hadn't. Here's the line-up: Triangle, Time Machine, Les Variations, Dynastie Crisis, Jupiter Sunset, Ange, Alan Jack Civilization, Zoo, Costa-Yared-Costa, Trust, Tai Phong, Presence, Doc Dail, Martin Circus, Alice, Ilous & Decuyper, Labyrinthe, Trianglophone, Starshooter, Pop Tops, Total Issue, and two "bonus instrumentaux" from Le System Crapoutchik and Pachyderm. Too bad there's not much info given in the cd booklet about all these.
Everyone around here is a huge fan of weirdo music label Rock Is Hell, as are most of you judging from how fast we sell out of their stuff and how quickly it all goes out of print. Pretty much everything on Rock Is Hell has blown us away, the Dig That Body Up It's Alive lp, the crazy Nate Denver's Neck wetched one sided lp box set thing, the super limited Octis lathe cuts, the XbXrX / Total Shutdown double 5", all gorgeously packaged and jam packed with mind melting sounds. With that in mind we worked out a special deal with Rock Is Hell, which will give AQ customers first (and maybe only) crack at the forthcoming ULTRA limited 7" box set!!!
The set is limited to only 400 copies, it will be totally sold out on preorders, so preordering it will be your only chance to get your hands on one. All the records will be pressed on white vinyl with white labels, and the records will be�housed in a silkscreened cardboard box with an inlay and 2 buttons designed by BONGOUT (http://frre.fr.freee.frfr.e.free.fr/). And as a bonus,�the first 50 AQ preorders will also get a secret bonus 7"!!! The singles included are:
Foot Village (USA)
Z's (USA)
Sasqrotch (USA)
Child Abuse (USA)
Death Sentence: Panda! (USA) / Fugu & The Cosmic Mumu (AUT)
Bulbul (AUT)
Bug (AUT) / Reflector (AUT)
Rokko Anal (AUT)
The set will be done and ready to ship in February of next year, but it will be sold out well before then.
So if you want to be one of the lucky few to own this crazy chunk of sonic and visual weirdness, click the buy button and we'll charge you up for one, reserve your copy, and send it out the second they show up (it will be charged and shipped separately from any pending orders)! So there you go, don't blow it!!!
And remember, ROCK IS HELL!!!!!
We always like to have a good '60s/'70s psych-pop compilation to recommend, when we can. Happily enough, this list we do, it's Some Songs Stuck In My Mind, an international comp of utterly killer tracks from rare 45s by 18 different, totally obscure artists that we'll go ahead and list here for the hell of it, so you can feel all collector-music-nerd-snobby if you've heard of any of 'em before: Springwell, Manolo Y Ramon, Don Curtis, The Comforts, Michael, T.M.L., Eduardo Araujo, Bluebeard, Antonio Carlos & Jocafi, Serge Et Christine, La Metamorphosi, Adriano Celentano, Puzzle, Little Sammy Gaha, Francois De Louville, Les Playboys, Vincent, and Injun Joe. All of it wonderfully groovy, fuzzy, catchy and funkily far out. If this were a DJ set spun in a bar 'round here, there would be a either a stompin' dancefloor and/or a bunch of bearded guys bugging the DJ about what they were playing as each track came on.
The cd booklet's got liner notes talking 'bout each track, and lil' full-color pics of the cover art from the original singles. Recommended, in the tradition of Neurotic Reactions (from the same label), Andergraun Vibrations, Cherrystones Hidden Charms, Who Will Buy These Wonderful Evils, Nightmares At Toby's Shop, all those cool Psychic Circle comps, etc.
These days, Portland seems to be at the epicenter of a new wave of seriously creative DIY underground 'noise' rock. From the last Yellow Swans record to the wonderfully incestuous Marriage Records crew, there have been a seriously ridiculous number of great releases in the last couple years. The thing is, though, that while you could argue that there is a "Portland sound," every project is totally distinct, so you can't really go lumping them all into some generic category. Well, Honey Owens' newest release under the Valet moniker is absolutely no exception. It's absolutely amazing. If you've been following her work, and you were lucky enough to grab one of the Fire/Beachside 7"s, you have probably noticed a trend toward more structured and more accessible songs. The pop-ophile in us who loves hooks and pretty melodies was pretty excited, while the nerdy drone-monger side was seriously scared. "What if she goes too far? Too poppy?"
Alas, Naked Acid is simultaneously a seamless blend of previous works, and -- yes -- a step toward tracks that are more easily digestible. It's like Fripp & Eno had a hippie baby with Karen Dalton and Tangerine Dream. But through it all, one thing that keeps us more than happy is Honey's voice. It's gorgeous, but not at all fragile. Not even so much confident. Instead, it seems beautifully unconcerned with those sorts of paradigms. The overall feeling is one of blissful engagement with melody and texture. Analog synth-sounding drones, gentle strumming, then suddenly everything is heightened by vocals and searing psych guitars. Just like a good movie, the final impression of any artistic experience is at least partially governed by the ending. On Naked Acid, the second to last song is "Fire" from the eponymous 7", which quietly dies down before bringing us to the final piece, a techno song. While on paper it may sound off-putting, it somehow works. If you can picture everything else about this record somehow being woven around some sort of late '90s Detroit techno, created in the wake of Basic Channel and Chain Reaction, then you've got a good idea. Maybe the reason it works so well is simply because it hints at unpredictable ambitions of Ms. Honey Owens, and we've got to say, the future is looking pretty good. Absolutely, wholeheartedly recommended.
There was a time when great poppy garage gems were being blasted out of just about every practice space here in San Francisco. It seems like those days are now gone, but luckily The Vaticans have filled that void with some totally fun-filled girl-group inspired garage-pop that hits its mark dead on. Like a more scrappy, stripped down take on early B-52's, the non-electro elements of Stereo Total or the no-frills garage stomp of The Headcoatees. Bubblegum garage-pop done oh so right!
A Little More Blue is an understatement. This is some heavy sadness. Beautiful but really sad. Recorded in London while in government imposed exile, this record, mostly sung in English except for the final track, finds Veloso trying to cope with being a stranger in a strange land. Of course abject times can be deep sources of inspiration as two of his most popular songs, "London, London" and "Maria Bethania", are found here. The latter song, a tribute to his sister, a popular singer in her own right (and who by the way, has been grossly under-appreciated in the whole Tropicalia / MPB revival), has the most moving lyrics: "Maria Bethania, send me a letter / I want to hear that things are getting better."
Highly recommended!
Two dreamy and blissful remixes of "You May Be Blue" and "Been So Long" from the last Vetiver album. Showing frontman, Andy Cabic and collaborator/ producer Thom Monahan (aka Neighbors) successfully opening up their known folk rock imprint into warbled shuffling electronica and kosmiche dub raga drones. Not necessarily for the dance floor, but highly recommended all the same.
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wondrous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (nee: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theater of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Although comprised mostly of covers, Walker already began to show strong songwriting skills on his first solo record, Scott, especially with "Montague Terrace (In Blue)" where he describes unsavory neighbors in his tenement flat, one as a "bloated belching figure", and another "whose thighs are full of tales to tell of nights she's known". But it's "My Death", one of three Brel covers that is the album's centerpiece. Later covered by David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase, Walker's version features such hypnotic orchestration, serpentine guitar passages and swelling stabbing strings that it almost feels like we're being brought to the threshold of death on a cloud of poisonous perfume.
Overall, a fine selection of songs that show his range of performance and promise for the records to come.
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 2 is one of our favorites, not that it's necessarily different from the others but the choice of songs flows perfectly together. In fact the first side of Scott 2 is pure pop vocal perfection, beginning with the Brel cover "Jackie", whose enthusiastically fast delivery is mind-boggling (Youtube this!). Then the bitter torch of "Best of Both Worlds", the Tim Hardin cover, "Black Sheep Boy", the original "The Amorous Humphrey Plugg" about a man escaping from the claustrophobia of domestic life into a tragic fantasy. "Next" is next, one of Brel's most visceral and theatrical tunes about the dehumanizing experience of a military coming of age, which is then followed by Walker's companion sequel "Girls From The Streets" told by the same character as a man resigned to a life of bitterness and depravity. Yet the centerpiece is the fantasia "Plastic Palace People", which begins side 2. A dizzying dualistic fairy tale about a boy's embrace of his youthful innocence and a girl mourning the loss of hers. This kills!
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 3 has the best cover art of the bunch. The others are pretty straight ahead portraits, but 3 is a close up of an eye with vibrantly purple eyelashes. Inside the pupil we see a melancholy Walker, which is apt, as Scott 3 is the most melancholy of the four records. The tempo is slower and apart from the Brel inspired original, "We Came Through" and the quirky acoustic tribute to Cryogenics of "30th Century Man" (featured on the soundtrack to Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic"), most of the tracks on Scott 3 are ballads to the ghosts of romance. Definitely a rainy day record, and probably not the best place to start for newbies.
Whether you are enamored of them or perplexed by them, there is nothing quite like Scott Walker's suite of solo records from the late sixties. Exquisitely produced with dizzyingly lush orchestrations to emphasize full pop dramatic effect, they are also literally dripping with visual and visceral lyricism, filled with vile and wonderous characters and sung in Walker's deeply mellifluent and over-the-top croon. Tortured torch songs, incendiary victory songs, pop fantasias, ghostly ballads, and folk pop are eccentrically intermixed through dynamic interpretations of popular songs, and as the records progress, uniquely original compositions. Each one a perfect piece on its own, yet as a whole suite offers a dazzling entry into an incomparably visual sound world like a rich confection that begs to be slowly consumed. Finally reissued on vinyl, the way they were meant to be heard, we have fallen in love all over again. While we wholeheartedly recommend all four, for those looking for a good starting point, our favorites as whole records are Scott 2 and Scott 4. For those not blessed with record players, the cd versions are also available.
Recorded after the breakup of the Walker Brothers in 1967, the American born British resident Scott Walker (ne: Noel Scott Engel), embarked on these solo efforts to explore his fascination with European musical, literary, and theatrical forms: The creepy wonderment of classical composer Saint-Saens, The French Symbolist literature of Baudelaire and Huysmans, the political theatre of Brecht and Weill, the stark existentialism of Bergman, the theatrical whimsy of Anthony Newley, and most of all, the celebrated street urchin poetry of Flemish singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel, of whom Walker covers nine English versions of his songs throughout.
Seemingly out of step with his time, these records must have been too serious for the youthful psychedelic era, yet too odd for the older pop-vocal market. The first three enjoyed minimal success, enough to get a short-lived TV show, but the fourth (and one of the best) was a commercial flop (probably due to his attempt to release it under his given name; it was later changed to Scott 4). Yet, over the years, these records have developed an increasingly avid cult following, enough of one for Walker to come out of his reclusiveness and occasionally record a new album. Though what he's on about now makes these first solo albums seem like a ride at Disneyland, you have to respect an artist who explores his vision relentlessly and never looks back. Yet, as fans, we will always come back to these first four records, which amazingly have withstood the test of time and should be canonized amongst the most highly influential records ever! High Art or High Camp? Generous heapings of both, please.
Scott 4 is definitely the most unique of the four. It's all original compositions for one thing, but also the arrangements are more upbeat, and while the orchestral elements are there, folk, rock and country elements of guitar and drums appear more than ever before. Still eccentric songwriting abounds. The opener, "The Seventh Seal", a flamenco pop tribute to the Bergman film of the same name about a medieval knight's chess game with Death is full of the pomp we love in Scott Walkers music. And while there are no Brel covers on 4, his influence can be heard on centerpiece "The Old Man's Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)", as well as "Hero of the War". A sequel of sorts to "Plastic Palace People" on Scott 2 can be seen in "Boy Child", one of the most beautifully arranged ballads, while the strings in "The World's Strongest Man" brings tears every time. Yet, weirder still, the final three songs take a strange turn into lush country pop with slide guitar, and back-up vocals (for the first time!) that allude to the direction Walker persued unsuccessfully through the seventies. Still very Stellar!
As always, a must read for those with any interest in vintage grooves and DJ/hiphop/funk/soul/jazz culture. Grandmaster Flash on the cover, also with features on Eddie Harris, Newcleus, Mighty Hannibal, Camp Lo, S.O.U.L., Chuck Brown, the avant-jazz of communist Cuba, and much much more. As usual, packed with amazing color photography and record cover graphics.
We've raved about New Zealander Peter Wright in the past, numerous times, we've even now that we check back at past reviews, raved ABOUT raving about Peter Wright, but we really have no choice now but to do it again. For someone as prolific, and as talented as Wright, he seems to continually to fly well beneath the hipster radar.
Which is maybe good for us, but at the same time, it's hard not to root for someone who seems to effortlessly conjure up such beautiful sounds. But the thing is, we KNOW it's not effortless. The world is filled with folks who have a microphone and some effects, and think they can be soundscapers, field recordists, ARTISTS. And while that sort of spirit is to be applauded, the truth of the matter is, just like with anything, flying a jet, swimming the English Channel, playing the trumpet, racing Formula 1's, some people are just more talented than others. And Wright is just about as talented as they come.
Weaving field recordings into longform drones, creating soundscapes from found sounds and processed guitars, Wright manages to create dreamlike expanses of sonic wonder.
Take the first track here, the title track, it's hard not to imagine Pretty Little Mushroom Clouds. The sounds of birds, and wind, maybe branches rubbing against each other in the distance, while all around these sounds of nature, deep buzzing swells ebb and flow, dark, slightly ominous melodies, swell and recede, a super minimal pulse, a gorgeous cloud of shimmer drifting across verdant hills and blue blue sky. You can almost imagine, lush rolling hills, dotted with wildflowers, cute little houses, scattered copses of trees, birds soaring in the sky, while way off in the distance, huge black mushroom clouds blossom in the sky, but from here, they just look beautiful, the music capturing that moment before everything is turned to ash, a brief vacuum, where even the vilest of objects is transformed into a vivid picturesque sonic snapshot.
Over the rest of the record, the field recordings are much more subtle, relying more on the processed instrumentation, guitars are ground into muted walls reverberating buzz, rife with disembodied melodies, streaks of high end and bits of rumbling drone, some tracks are massive and pitched down, the sound of drifting beneath miles of ice in the Arctic Circle, everything glowing some unearthly blue, all the sounds muted and warbled, others are nearly ebullient, like the perfectly titled "The Devil Wears Sunroof", which from the sound of it we can only assume is a nod to Matthew Bower and his Ur-drone unit, all glistening high end shimmer, and long stretches of buzzing upper register guitar. The final track finds Wright taking all of his various sounds and assembling them into a super hypnotic, strangely heavy looped take on, well, Loop actually, a repeated riff, a static groove, totally mesmerizing and space-y, eventually building to a full on blast of almost Japanoise, before petering out, leaving just the sound of an airport terminal or a train station, or a huge sparsely filled performance space as it's revealed to be, when the crowd finally offers up some applause, for what may have been a live performance, or may have been just a random bit of live crowd sound sampled and woven into Wright's mysterious sonic sprawl.
As always, amazing packaging from aRCHIVE. Six panel full color glossy gatefold, the cd affixed to a nub on the middle panel, while around the jacket, an outer sleeve of printed vellum. Super nice.
Limited to 500 copies, single one time pressing.
Cool. A truly cult band begins to get its due. If you read our list or are otherwise hip to out-there '70s communal psych rock then you already know all about the amazing Ya Ho Wa 13, house band of Father Yod's Source Family, uh, commune. It was just a few months ago that we hosted a book signing with Isis and Electricity Aquarian and other original members of the Source Family, in conjunction with which the reunited Ya Ho Wa 13 played a show here in San Francisco. Wow. That was something.
So, what with the book (The Source: The Untold Story Of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 And The Source Family) and associated publicity, now the Cold Sweat label has done a domestic digipack cd reissue of what might be the best of the Ya Ho Wa's many albums. A domestic vinyl release is soon to follow on the Tee Pee label as well.
Here's more or less what we said about this big AQ fave when we listed the previously available UK import cd edition a few years ago:
Whoah, man. A seriously trippy, dark and clangorous document here from the (very literally) cult group of early '70s rockers called Ya Ho Wha 13. Of all the many albums that the legendary Father Yod and his band of freaky communal-living hippies made back in the day (most but not all of 'em compiled into the massive Aquarius-beloved 13-disc God And Hair box set that came out in Japan some years back), it's always been THIS one that we at AQ (and pretty much every other reputable source too) have heralded as the absolute heaviest and best of the bunch. An essential item for anyone into far-out freeform '70s psych weirdness. And it's got an unbeatable title, eh? Penetration: An Aquarian Symphony. How can we not dig that? So we're quite stoked to have it reissued by itself on cd for those who haven't got and/or aren't ready for the box set. The four tracks here (including one entitled simply "Ya Ho Wha 13") venture from droneing spacey effects laden soundscapes with eerie Eastern-sounding vocal wailing to full-tilt throbbing, percussive tribal lift-off frenzies complete with stabs of heavy guitar distortion. Throw in some whistling to add an off-kilter spaghetti western soundtrack vibe and you've got Penetration. A damaged, dense, intense, quasi-religious psychedelic California-krautrock experience. Even the mellowest parts are still pretty edgy. This 1974 recording is definitely to be considered a cosmic precursor to everything from the drum circle discs of the Boredoms to the improv rock of Reynols to the neo-hippy clank of the No Neck Blues Band. Amazing. And totally utterly AQ-recommended!!
