There's no doubt about it, Rocket From The Crypt were one of the most exciting and entertaining rock bands to come out of the '90s PERIOD. In the pre-Strokes and pre-White Stripes landscape they were the only ones really championing the eternal power of rock n' roll's spirit to indie, punk, garage, and pop kids across the nation. John Reis was born to be a lead man, with his fiery guitar playing, witty mind and Elvis meets Johnny Thunders stage presence. R.I.P. is a recording of their last ever live show which went down in San Diego on Halloween of '05. Anyone who saw RFTC live knows that they always brought the goods full throttle. Their shows were meant to make your body move, and we can remember the great feeling of so much sweat pouring out of our bodies at so many of the amazing Rocket shows we got to see. Not many other bands could inspire so many people to get tattoos of their logo (which if you had one you could get into any show they played for free). The band called it quits before they got stale or tired, as even 15 years after their birth they still could tap into the fires of rock n' roll like magic when onstage. As with all the RFTC records, there are some super funny liner notes by Mr. Reis himself. Long live RFTC!
Local boys Saviours are kind of SF's answer to The Sword from Texas and Early Man from New York. The New Wave Of American Indie Ironic Hipster Metal, y'know? They're on the same label as The Sword, home also to the heavy psych likes of Dungen and Danava. Yet while an argument can be made that The Sword and Early Man are indeed indie ironic hipster metal at best (which doesn't stop 'em from rockin', we should note!), a loud listen to Saviours new full-length Into Abbadon ought to convince the most diehard metaller that these dudes are in fact fully, no foolin, METAL. If the cover art (by Joe "Motorhead" Petagno) didn't already. Nothin' ironic about it. Not that such arguments matter much anyway, what's important is, does this album rule or not? Our call: yea, and verily, it doth rule.
The sinuous guitar harmonies in the first track "Raging Embers" remind us a lot of the late great epic doomsters Solstice, whilst track two, the title track, gallops out of the gate like a mixture of The Fucking Champs and High On Fire... And on it rages, a showcase of sheer metal mastery. No ballads. No death metal monotony, or black metal makeup. No trendy emo bullshit. Just pure pedal to the metal, metal.
The riffage is righteous, the guitars shred, it's old school '80s to the max but HEAVY as heck. The only element that keeps this from attaining total true metal acclaim from the 'heads here at AQ are the punkish vocals, hoarse and shouty and not-so-melodic. Your mileage may vary, lots of folks like that style. But anyway the vocals are more than made up for by the guitars, which provide plenty of melody amidst the aggression, and atmosphere too. As well as, like we said, shred. Tasty solos abound, including guest six string tickling from Tim Lehi of Draugar and Isiah Mitchell of Earthless!
In truth, we're a little surprised by how much we dig this album (and Crucifire too, before it). Maybe because they're local we had been taking Saviours for granted, or feeling a little bit of an unwarranted NWOAIIHM backlash. Also we've seen them live many a time (they have a knack for opening for a lot of touring metal bands we want to see) but didn't really fall under their spell until hearing 'em at home, when all their true metallic grandeur could really sink in, without the distractions of shitty sound systems or somebody spilling beer on us. Songwriting nuances are revealed on record that were were perhaps numb to in person. At the end of the day, we're pretty into Into Abbadon.
We admit it, we're cool packaging junkies. Which is different than being a collector. It's just that we like to have the music we love, all wrapped up lovingly in artwork and packaging that was as well thought out as the music. That's one thing you'll never get from an MP3, some crazy gatefold pop up, or some curious origami like creation wrapped in twine. The possibilities are endless. And we're constantly amazed at what artists come up with to compliment their music.
So before we get to the music on Scald's latest Fluke, we have to talk about the artwork. Some of you, whether you know it or not, are probably already familiar with the artwork of Scald drummer Paul McCarroll, who did the layout and design for the Nordvargr / Drakh on tUMULt, laid out AND painted the cover for the over the top Nordvargr / BSE Hypergenome666 box on Old Europa Cafe, he also did the cover for the forthcoming Pyha on tUMULt (yes, it's really finally coming out) as well as tons of other stuff, but this one takes the cake.
A beautiful oversized glossy gatefold, the images all washed out and dark, a crucifix in the forest, all sorts of harrowing photos, a die cut pocket for the cd, and A COMMUNION WAFER printed with the Scald log. A real communion wafer! How evil is that?! Holy shit. Apparently it took ages to find someone who would or could print on a communion wafer, but it was worth it!
Scald are a long running outfit, who sort of straddle the line between crusty punk, furious grind and buzzing black metal, their songs are complex and serpentine, the riffs massive and mathy, the drums furious and pounding, massive fuzzed out basslines, strange time signatures, lurching tempos, howled shouted vocals, the tracks are woozy and chaotic, chugging, churning, definitely hear some Amrep noise rock amidst the blasting buzz. The first 5 songs are a furious assault, that should totally hit the spot for metalheads and noiserockers alike.
But Scald have another side. A much darker, dronier side, which they indulge on the epic 25 minute closing track (longer than all the other tracks combined). A sprawling and expansive noise flecked dronescape, the usual suspects are referenced, but Scald definitely create their own sound, super creepy, and dense, with long stretches of hushed whispering shimmer, strange voices, bursts of jagged grinding crunch, strange swooping backwards effects, dense rumbling low end drones, muted glitch and all sorts of garbled interference, super cinematic, almost like a straight recording of some mysterious seventies art film, dialogue and all. Fucking awesome.
If Aquarius Records wasn't located in the temperate climate of San Francisco, would we be so enamored with the sounds of ice? If we had to deal with burst water pipes or having to shovel through several feet of snow just to get to the front door or trying to stay warm in bone chilling temperatures, the romance of ice would probably be lost on us. But as it stands, we love the sounds of a frosty winter. Give us the sounds of the windswept Nordic tundra, the subaqueous squawks of Antarctic penguins, the clank of Finnish oddballs building instruments out of ice, and these frigid recordings from one of our favorite sound artists.
Ice, the source material for Matt Shoemaker's contribution to the Ferns series of 3" cds, which seems to be on the way to rivalling Metamkine's Cinema Pour L'Oreille series of electro-acoustics through their set of expressive drones and molded field recordings. This all-too brief composition begins with a stoic set of raw field recordings from drippings of cold water, the crack of ice breaking under temperature fluctuations and pressure, and unsettled squigglings of water being forced through tiny fissures. After several minutes of this squishy introduction, Shoemaker sets forth a parabolic arc of dense gray drones whose frosty demeanor matches the source material. Eerie blasts of pierced electric tones mark the track's crescendo, after which Shoemaker authors a steady retreat in density back towards the dripping and crackle. Fans of William Basinski, Chris Watson, and BJ Nilsen should definitely take note of this excellent recording!
We've raved before about this cool metal band from Ohio, after they blitzed us with the sweet strains of their previous album At One With The Shadows (2004) and more recent self-released ep, Worship The Witch (2006). The strength of those releases, as well as the excessive, impressive showmanship with which they deliver their '80s influenced blackened speed metal of death in the live arena, has heightened their profile in the realm of underground US metal -- hence their deal for this new album. They've been touring hard, and getting great word of mouth, which we're happy to amplify. Perhaps the hype will even allow them to cross over to the indie audience that likes bands like The Fucking Champs and Early Man, we imagine that could easily happen -- though this ain't no ironic hipster metal, we know these guys are bona fide metalheads from the Midwest.
They just came through town recently on tour, opening for Nachtmystium, who had to cancel their SF appearance at the last minute -- but we don't think anyone in the crowd that night went home disappointed after Skeletonwitch, thrust into the headlining spot, got up there and wrecked everybody's neck, slaying in style with energy and aplomb. Killer show, killer band -- and this is a killer album.
Not only can they play, AND have good songs, but they have all the details down too, little details that are TIGHT. Like, for instance, when they play live, the two guitarists are on either side of the stage, both shredding on matching Flying V's. Good enough, but what makes it really tight is that one of the guitarists is left handed, and stands stage left, so both guitarists' Flying V's are pointed in opposite directions, flanking the scary singer and roving bassist, which just looks cool. You might think, on album, so what if the guitarists have such visual symmetry? Well damn if we don't think that we can HEAR it. Or at least hear that they're the sort of band that might cultivate that sort of old school, larger than life presentation.
This album certainly showcases their strengths: The aforementioned dual guitar shred (shades of Maiden and At The Gates). Blazing technicality in the service of solid, memorable, melodic thrash metal songs. And dynamic, demonic vocals (grunts, snarls, screeches) from a frontman who is also awesomely expressive nonverbally on stage (constantly pulling exaggerated faces and making almost sign-language hand-motions to illustrate his lyrics).
FYI, for fans who already have the Worship The Witch ep (or are thinking about getting it): 3 of that disc's 4 tracks are repeated here, albeit in rerecorded form. They also redo four songs from their now-out-of-print debut, which is fine 'cause the production here is much much better than on that first full-length.
Another new one from Swedish noisemakers Skull Defekts, who like much of the new breed of cd-r underground outfits, have gone from unknown to prolific in the blink of an eye. This latest comes courtesy of the Cut Hands label, and is crazy limited, only a hundred copies�
And while past Defekts records have been strongly rooted in rhythm, this two tracker is much more about texture and mood, timbre and ambience, with any rhythm merely a muted pulse, a submerged throb, or a bit of dizzying skipped looping. The opening track is 21 minutes of low end murk, soft shimmering drift, smeared pixilated glitch, moaning bass tones, a distant swirl of disembodied voices, croaks and creaks, blurred into another buzzy layer, the track building in intensity, the tones growing thicker and more corrosive, streaks of feedback draped over sonorous tones, all wrapped in a whirring cloud of soft insectoid buzz.
The second track, also 21 minutes, is much more chaotic and confusional, voices swirl dizzily, chunks of glitchy electronics suspended in a roiling sea of constant low end buzz, smears of malfunctioning effects, sine wave skree and crumbling distortion, all looped into some haunting post industrial collage, eventually smoothing out into a long stretch of layered rumble and whir, but still shot through with jagged shards of percussive clatter and sizzling electronic grind. Sort of Pan Sonic meets Wolf Eyes which is most definitely a good thing.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in cool oversized, textured paper, three color silkscreened gatefold sleeves, the disc attached to a nub on one of the panels, a printed black and white insert, each disc hand painted.
Who are the Skull Snaps, you say? Well, if you have been paying attention to hip-hop of the last eighteen years, you will instantly recognize the opening drum break of "It's A New Day" sampled by The Pharcyde, Gang Starr, Lords of The Underground as well as dozens of others who have sampled that riff and tons of others from this obscure New York soul group. Recorded in 1973, The Skull Snaps, a trio of guitar, bass and drums with killer vocal harmonies, had a more popular following overseas in the Northern Soul scene for such tracks, as "I'm Your Pimp" and "My Hang-up Is You" than they did in the US. Chock full of hooks and breaks, The Skull Snaps lone album is an amazing lost soul document that is finally getting its due. Plus it gets points for being one of the best album covers ever! Hip-hop legacy aside, this is a soul record right up there with Baby Huey, Curtis Mayfield and The Chi-Lites. Features 2 bonus tracks not on the original album. So Cool!
We don't list a whole lot of PUNK rock, and it's not cuz we don't love punk rock, everyone at aQ has iPods full of Crass, Flipper, Die Kreuzen, Misfits, Didjits, Amebix, Channel 3, Spazz, Sore Throat, Naked Raygun, Rudimentary Peni, Man Is The Bastard, Black Flag, well, you get the idea, but modern day punk just doesn't often do it for us. Every once in a while something kicks our ass and usually it comes out of nowhere. Such is the case with Norwegian aggro grind punks Slaxxmaal, this being their first ever vinyl release and it's a doozy. 7"s, 19 songs, many clocking in at 15, 10, even 2 seconds. Furious thrashing grinding chaos, vocals that shriek hysterically one second bellow monstrously the next, guitars more angular and obtuse than most punk rock riffing, and drums like an avalanche of percussion, all wound up TIGHT, into short sharp bursts of blinding deafening fury. Some tracks slow things down, like the opener, with it's almost sludgey groove, Greg Ginn-ish guitar freakouts and howled demonlike vocals, but the band typically explode back into super aggressive blasts of grindpunk destruction. Awesome.
Comes with a printed lyric sheet, all in Norwegian, tons of photos and a bad ass skull cover.
Hard to resist a Sun Ra record with a title like that, eh? And drum machine, too! The late, great, interplanetary legend of Afro-cosmic jazz and his band recorded this newly reissued album live on planet Earth (precise location: Milan, Italy) back in 1978, at the height of disco fever. But of course it ain't really disco!! Instead it's far out free jazz grooviness, full of futuristic synth freakouts and even tinny, metronomic drum machine shuffle. All of which you'll find on the worth the price of admission alone 26 minute title track, which also incorporates the Arkestra's signature "Space Is The Place" chant at one point. Nor does this set stint on screaming horns and energetic battery. Or for that matter mellow, melodic moodiness. Highlights are many, among them the gurgling chaos and solar sax blurt of "Sun Of The Cosmos", and the eerie, glistening, jittering "Dance Of The Cosmo Aliens".
Featuring the lineup of John Gilmore (tenor sax, drums, voclas), June Tyson (vocals), Michael Ray (trumpet, vocals), Luqman Ali (drums, vocals) and last but not least Sun Ra himself (piano, organ, Moog synth, rhythm machine, vocals), this expanded double cd reissue of Disco 3000 is definitely cause for rejoicing amongst Sun Ra (and cosmo alien) fans. Over two hours total, this includes the original three tracks from the '78 vinyl release along with NINE more bonus tracks taken from the thankfully well-preserved tapes of the same performance, is packaged in a handsome trifold digpack, and comes with a cd booklet with photos, graphics, and liner notes by trumpeter Michael Ray, who had just hooked up with Sun Ra not long before this recording took place. His mind is still blown! Share something of his experience here...
As we've said before, we've both loved and not-loved-quite-so-much past releases from the modern day kraut-tronica duo of Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) and Bernd Jestram. But overall we like 'em pretty well. So we're sorry we didn't get around to listing this disc when it came out... last year... since it's certainly a nice enough entry in the ever so textural Tarwater discography. We particularly dig the track that sounds like underwatery video game music, sonar pings in a soundscape of moodiness...
A Star Of Beards (NOT to be confused with the album A Beard Of Stars) is a new compilation of unreleased tracks, live recordings and demos from mystical psych folk legends Tyrannosaurus Rex. Like most completist collections, the sound quality is not the greatest, but Tyrannosaurus Rex (before Marc Bolan discovered the electric guitar) was always a lo-fi beast, so fidelity may not matter to super fans. Not necessarily essential, but folks curious to hear the origins of freak folk, get in line right here!
B9 Bis was a label compilation from Sandwich Records, a Brussels' based post-punk and new wave imprint that mirrored itself after the Rough Trade model of running an underground label through an underground record shop. This compilation originally came out in 1980, showcasing what Belgium had to offer the world in the way of melding oblique electronics and moody theatrics to the post-punk ethos, which had already been established by the likes of Joy Division, Devo, and Magazine. Unfortunately, export sales for the label were never terribly strong and the label folded, despite the fact that the Belgian scene later exploded out of the electronic body music spurned on by Antler Subway throughout the decade.
What's found on the compilation is a solid cross section of the contemporary sound of 1980: slashing punk guitars, lumbering basslines, angular art-rock tunes, and tinkering with new-fangled synthesizers and sequencers. The influences of the aforementioned bands are worn proudly on the sleeves of many of these bands with admirable results. The standouts from the original comp include the pre-Front 242 project Prosthese with a cold burst of Klaus Schulze electronics, the jangle power pop of Digital Dance, and the bleak Joy Divisionisms of Satin Wall.
LTM have flushed out a full cds worth of material with a bunch of ancillary projects also from Belgium at that time including an early Front 242 track, an early b-side from the overlooked Siglo XX, and the Factory Records endorsed The Names. A very good investigation into a forgotten chapter of post-punk.
Over the last several years Finders Keepers / B-Music has mined and shared some of the most amazing sounds from the psychedelic past, bringing folks like Selda, Jean-Claude Vannier, The Yamasuki Singers and Susan Christie into heavy rotation in these parts. Record diggers will be so envious of what Andy Votel and his equally talented collection of record collecting friends (including Gruff Rhys, David Holmes, Cherrystones, Jazzman Gerald, etc) dug up for this comp of rare finds from all over the globe. Lots of fuzz, heavy psych, deep grooves, and tripped out delights from all across the globe. We were especially excited to finally get to hear a track by Indoor Life, the drugged out post-punk project of legendary San Francisco disco producer and Sylvester collaborator Patrick Cowley. Once again the Finders Keepers crew have mined some obscure psych gems that will be pleasing our ears for a long time to come!
The Numero Group goes digging deep once again and come up for air with some mighty fine disco and proto-hip-hop jams from the super obscure vaults of an early '80s NY label called Tap. From start to finish this lavishly packaged collection offers up helping after helping of killer grooves and funky jams, from that magical era where funk and disco were the seeds that would blossom into the hip-hop scene that would soon blow up bigtime.
While names like Jackie Stoudemire, Magnetism, Arnie Love & The Lovettes and Fabulous 3 MC's might not have become household names, after listening to their tracks on this comp you will be wishing you could get your hands on more of their goods. Every time we put this on we start to have fantasies about being in NY during this era and blasting these songs on a playground while we do some double dutch and then catch ESG playing a show in the Bronx, and afterwards heading to the Paradise Garage where we dance the night away with Larry Levan.
This is going to go right up their with The Third Unheard, Big Apple Rappin and the new Funky Nassau collection as one of our favorite party perfect comps of all time. And of course there's a massive booklet with liner notes detailing the full of the story of the Tap label and all the trouble and adventures it took to actually get these amazing sounds into the world. We are so glad they did!
We're so thrilled that the Strut label seems to have come out of hiding recently with not only another great Disco Not Disco comp but now this highly essential collection of jammers from The Compass Point studios in the Bahamas as well. Compass Point was where Chris Blackwell of Island Records fame held court with a house band and production team spearheaded by Sly & Robbie. This collection brings some of the tightest and catchiest jams recorded at Compass Point from 1980-86. Whether it's Grace Jones, Talking Heads, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Gwen Guthrie (mixed by Larry Levan!), Ian Durry or Chaz Jankel, they were all reaching a creative and grooving peak during this magical era inside Compass Point. While Sly & Robbie have lent their skills to thousands of songs this batch really demonstrates that when they were at their best, those guys helped cultivate a whole new sound and feeling that brought elements of dub and Jamaician roots into disco, soul, funk and new wave.
We can't get enough Funky Nassau, just about every single day since this has arrived whoever's been working up front has been blasting this like crazy (if you've been in lately and now have the lines "I'm Spasticus! Autisticus!" stuck in your head, that's why!) and we're pretty sure this will start getting some heavy rotation on your stereo as well. So damn good!
Amazing compilation of lost folk and blues from this relatively new Northwestern label (even though they're called Mississippi), who apparently have tons more killer comps on deck and coming soon. We can hardly wait! But for now, we're perfectly pleased to just dig into this one (and the other new Mississippi release, the�Lipa Kodi Ya City Council comp of African music, reviewed elsewhere on this list), a gorgeous chunk of dusty, sepia toned old timey blues, recorded between the years�1927-1948, all of it fantastic. Like a modern day Folkways, Mississippi has gathered up a gorgeous and varied collection of lost music, from campfire fiddles, to tap dance rhythms, to smokey night club joints, to brassy big band, to amazing yodeling, to Latin flavored rhythm and blues, to back porch stomps, to soft and shimmery crooned blues, it's all fantastic, the recordings raw and emotional, immediate, fuzzy and lo-fi, straight from the original 78's. Absolutely essential. The perfect vinyl addendum to your Smithsonian Folkways'�Anthology of American Folk Music box set.�
We're pretty smitten with Mississippi Records. Not only are they a cool little record store in Portland Oregon, like AQ and OM and a handful of others, helping the neighborhood record store stay alive, they are also an amazing label, releasing remarkable vinyl only compilations, as well as a handful of limited release from underground musicians. In the past we listed the I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore 1927-1948 comp. Packed with lost old time blues (now sadly out of print), and the equally amazing Lipa Kodi Ya City Council collection that featured tons of rare African music, from high life to ju ju to pop to choral music...
And now we have the latest release from Mississippi, Life Is A Problem, which collects some totally mindblowing gospel rarities. A few we had heard of, like Utah Smith and Bishop Perry Tillis, but so many we had never heard or heard of before, and it's all fantastic. And so varied. Some tracks are classic gospel, all voices and handclaps, others are wild psychedelic freakouts, with slippery slide guitars and rambunctious percussion, still others are super soulful, some are sermons set to music, testifying over groovy guitars and warbly organs. The sound quality varies wildly too, from the crackly hiss of old 78s, the fiery and furious sound of blown out analog tapes, some are washed out and ethereal, others immediate and intense. But again, they're all fantastic, and wild and varied enough that even folks who aren't always into gospel, might dig this stuff for what it is, super creative, original, out there, personal and super inspired music, that transcends genre for sure.
Like all Mississippi releases, super nice handmade packaging. This one includes a printed insert featuring liner notes on each of the performers on the comp from Yeti Magazine's Mike McGonigal, as well as a bonus 7" featuring Bongo Joe Coleman doing "This Old World Is In Terrible Condition.
Obviously VERY recommended.
This deep and delightful series of late '70s/early '80s UK post-punk DIY indie pop weirdness continues its ongoing region-by-region march! This volume, Messthetics #105, brings us 24 tracks (33 counting bonus mp3s) of super freakin' obscure tracks from 7" singles and demo cassettes by Scottish bands circa 1977-81, with a focus on the extremely underground, art-school spawned "Sound Of Young Scotland". Best known band here is probably Fire Engines. And let's not forget Scrotum Poles. But for sure there's plenty of gems (as usual with these comps), in fact, track for track this may be one of the best so far. This also includes the likes of 35mm Dreams, The Exile, Fakes, Metropak, Radio Ghosts, Rapid Dance, Restricted Code, Brills, Dirty Reds (pre-Fire Engines), He's Dead Jim, and many more.
Lots of lo-fi bands that formed before they either owned instruments or knew how to play them. And they were only tangentially inspired by the '77 punk explosion down London way. The band Vertical Smiles even offer a critique of the commercial aspect of the punk movement on their sarcastic song "New Clash Single". Some of the acts here go for an energetic attack but we're most taken with the more moody, melodic, sometimes monotonic skinny tie new wavey ones...
As usual, this labor of love is packed to the max with photos, art, and well-researched, extensive track notes in the super thick cd booklet. This is the comp to pick up before you go getting anything else by, say, Franz Ferdinand.
There will probably never be that one good comprehensive collection of British Folk Rock that will please both stalwart fans and those new to the genre, though this one comes close solely by not attempting to be all-encompassing. Mining the vaults of Island Records, who licensed recordings from so many bands that recorded for Joe Boyd's Witchseason Productions, Rev-Ola has been able to put together a genealogy of sorts mainly through Boyd's and Island's biggest folk rock act, Fairport Convention. Through them we see threads to other seminal Boyd acts, Nick Drake, and Incredible String Band (though, the Island holdings of the String Band discography is from their later Scientology years); other Island Records folk-rock successes such as Traffic, John Martyn and Amazing Blondel; as well as many of Fairport's spin-off acts: Fotheringay, Albion Country Band, Richard and Linda Thompson, solo Sandy Denny, and many of Ashley Hutchings' one-off super-group projects. This is a good entry place for beginners as, apart from The Incredible String Band track, you get a good mix of classic and rarely heard tracks such as Sandy Denny's "Man of Iron" which was only previously released on a rare soundtrack, and other little heard tracks from Dr. Strangely Strange, and John Locke, whose early twentieth century recording provides the scene's founding roots . For such a seemingly small cluster of bands, this compilation covers a lot of ground.
Giddy up! Let's rumble! It's a plethora of twangorama on Phantom Guitars, the new disc from the fab Psychic Circle label, who have brought us a ton of cool comps of '60s and '70s prog and psych grooviness (some recent highlights including White Lace & Strange, Blow Your Cool, and Return Of The Instro-Hipsters). This one, like several of those, was compiled by Nick "Bevis Frond" Saloman, who we're beginning to think must have the most amazing record collection ever. This disc wanders back a few years earlier than usual for these comps, to delve into the way out world of British instrumental guitar combos circa 1961-'64. Well it's mostly instrumental, but for some non sequitur exhortations of excitement that might lend a song its title...
Basically, before the Beatles, one of the biggest pop sensations of the era in the UK were The Shadows (sorta analogous to The Ventures over here in the USA, with a dose of Duane Eddy and a lick of Link Wray). The 25 tracks here are from some of the groups that followed in their wake, with monikers like The Falcons, The Champions, The Executives, The Cougars, The Players, Group X, The Gladiators, The Vengers, The Planets, The Hunters, The Violents, and The Phantoms, just to name a few of 'em. Generally awash in reverb, these cooler-than-thou guitar twangers specialized in surfy, cinematic Spaghetti Western suspensefulness and galloping grooves. Nick's picked a bunch of winners, not a duff track in the bunch if you're into these sort of vintage sounds. Zounds! If these bands were from Indonesia or Cambodia or someplace more exotic than the British Isles (or Sweden, he's included one Swedish band actually) we're sure we'd sell a ton of this disc, so c'mon why not give it a go anyway?
FYI, one of the tracks was written by John Barry, another one produced by Joe Meek. How do we know? Well the cd booklet includes notes on each track, for which we are always grateful, though learning that for instance Group X was actually The Martin Jay Five and that they made only two singles but did manage an appearance on a TV show called Thank Your Lucky Stars isn't really as interesting as just groovin' to their catchy beat (in their case, boasting some jazzy sax along with the six string bendin'). Darn cool.
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.
Record number two from very probably the only band you've ever heard that hails from the Faroe Islands, which as we discovered reviewing their first record, are right between Iceland and Norway. And as we mentioned in that review, stylistically, they did seem to fit somewhere between the grim buzz of Norwegian black metal, and the soaring bliss of Icelandic rock.
But neither of those really encapsulate the strange sound of Vhernen. Definitely more on the doom side of the black spectrum, Vhernen augment the typical guitar, bass and drums with electric cello and harp, which definitely adds a super haunting vibe to the proceedings. Just take the opening track, a relentless buzzing riff, a pounding blast beat, howled vocals, but over the top a moaning mournful melody, WAY louder than any of the other instruments. The harp joins in as well, sprinkling the grim buzz with pizzicato plinks and plonks, on first listen one might chalk up the weirdness to poor mixing, a 4-track experiment gone awry, but keep listening, and the record seems to blossom, the moodiness and intensity grows and grows. After all, who decided that guitar and drums are meant to be the lead instruments, or meant to be highest in the mix. After all, most of the photos we've seen of Vhernen feature someone playing the electric cello. Which might lead one to believe that the cello is in fact the instrument that defines Vhernen's sound, and quite frankly it pretty much does.
Every song has a thick swath of blackened buzz running through it, but that sounds ends up being washed out a and blurred into almost dronelike smears, while the cello weaves lush mournful melodies over the top.
Many of the tracks end up blurring the blackness so completely that they becomes hazy greyed ambience, like the second half of "Insolstice", that sounds like a Tim Hecker track, or the 15 minute closer "Lopransfjordur-Ende" which spends most of its time as a gorgeously minimal whir, before spreading out into an almost classical sounding shimmer. In fact for what is ostensibly a black metal record, Vhernen spends much of it's time drifting and whirring, glistening and glimmering, buzzing and blurring, which helps turn simple buzz and blast into a gorgeously dreamy and blissy slab of blackness.
It's a good week for rock n' roll. Uh huh, look out, Baltimore (or as they prefer, "Baltamont") psychpunk badasses Vincent Black Shadow (the REAL Vincent Black Shadow) are back! If you heard their AQ (and Julian Cope) recommended debut, you know exactly what to expect. If you're new to the VBS, well, think wretched rawk action and psychotic reaction. Simply put, this is trashy Stooges worship at its uber-distorto, heavy-ass best!!! Just take a listen... that vocalist is a streetwalking cheetah with a heart fulla napalm, am I right?! Goddamn right I am. He's backed up by reckless riffing, the guitar strangulation plenty raw and primal. You're not gonna need to be told that this is obviously meant to be played loud. It's a throbbing testament to bouncing off the walls and breaking shit (and maybe rolling in broken glass and peanut butter). Ah, life's simple pleasures. File with such outwardly bound jams-kickers as The Heads, Cope's Brain Donor band, and Boris (circa Pink). But with more of an ugly attitude. Like maybe the Pissed Jeans wrestling with Plastic Crimewave.
Nine tracks, a little over a half hour. On the short side maybe, but that still means the cops are gonna show up to tell you to turn it down (and stop stomping around, jumping off the furniture, disturbing the neighbors, etc.) long before the record's over. Which means...fuck the neighbors, fuck the cops... you're going to jail.
It used to be that Japan seemed to do everything better than the US. Cute things were way cuter, bizarre things were way more bizarre, music, art, comics, it's like that whole infinity plus one thing, anything the US could come up with, Japan could just make it ONE more.
We're beginning to think the same thing about Finland, specifically in regards to music. It's like magic. Black metal. Ho hum. From Finland. WHAT THE FUCK! WOAH! And it's not some weird fetish thing, there is definitely something going on. We're in no position to figure out what it is, but whatever it is, we're grateful for it.
This is record number three (but the first one we've ever listed) from Vordr, a mysterious Finnish trio that just happens to count one of the Circle Of Ouroborus guys as a member, which would normally be enough for us, but don't be expecting CoO style fractured folk flecked stumbling black weirdness, no this is way at the other end of the spectrum, super raw primitive harsh buzzing blackness, a la Bone Awl, Akitsa, Ancestors, and like those bands, this is almost as much a punk record or a noise rock record as a metal one. There are moments where you can hear a little Darkthrone or Hellhammer, but it's way more rough and furious than that, lo-fi and murky and muddy and noisy, the riffs usually midtempo, but sometimes lurching into a furious blast. The songs end by falling apart, and sort of stumble into motion, the guitars are brittle and buzzy, the drums so low in the mix they're often just another layer of hiss and buzz, there's even some cowbell here and there (!) but it's the vocals that make or break, and as far as we're concerned it's MAKE. Big time. Hysterical falsetto shrieking, punkish howling, on the verge of cracking, super intense and emotional and over the top, but low enough in the mix so it's not distracting, but it somehow perfectly balances the churning old school black metal noise rock buzz beneath it.
Definitely fit perfectly on your shelf between your Nuit Noire, Circle Of Ouroborus, Akitsa and Bone Awl records�
Needless to say SO UTTERLY RECOMMENDED.
Time for a new Wire magazine, and a whole heaping helping of weird and wonderful new music. This month, on the cover, Gudrun Gut, inside: dubstepper Benga, free noise combo Religious Knives, techno minimalist Robert Hood, Global Ear on Bogota, Columbia, media artist Cory Arcangel, Invisible Jukebox with Michael Rother (Neu!, Harmonia, etc.), free jazz legend Henry Grimes, legendary and much missed hip hop producer J Dilla, a Primer on seminal avant rock outfit Henry Cow, the usual ton of reviews, cds, lps, shows, installations, films and otherwise, a back page epiphany from Volcano The Bear's Daniel Padden on his favorite world music discoveries.
This month's Wire comes with the latest in their sporadic Wire Tapper series of samplers. This one, as always, is packed with new music from Talvin Singh, Kaffe Matthews, Our Sleepless Forest, Illusion Of Safety, Pink Skull, Fluorescent Grey, Nico Muhly, Never Enough Hope, Yellow6, Tangtype, Lars Akerlund and more!
Witch's self-titled debut from 2006 was one of our absolute favorite "stoner/doom" metal releases of that year (or any year sez Allan!). An unlikely "supergroup" combo consisting in part of members of folk-pysch collective Feathers, with famed alt-rock guitar god J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. on drums (not guitar!), Witch exceeded all expectations with their slow and Sabbathy, heavier than thou, utterly righteous psychedelic doom mastery. OMG, oh my Iommi, the riffs!!
Perhaps aware that they couldn't really outdo (or outdoom?) themselves riff-wise, the debut being such a tough act to follow in that department, the Witchy ones have smartly decided to accentuate some other aspects of their sound on their sophomore slab. So while the first Witch had held hints of SST styled '80s punkishness, our first impression of Paralyzed is that it's definitely much more punked out than its illustrious predecessor. Perhaps Mascis, who used to keep time in hardcore/grind band Deep Wound way back when, wanted more of a workout on the drums. It's quite chaotically energetic and uptempo aggro a lot of the time, along with indulging in their usual lugubrious headbanging trancification. A little less Vitus, a little more Flag (is the song "Gone" a nod to Ginn's other band?). And maybe more Frost, less Sabbath.
Not that they don't bring the riffs, it's just that they don't quite match the 10 on a scale of 1-10 magnitude of those from the likes of "Changing" or "Rip Van Winkle" from the self titled album (how could they?). However, the speedier (in parts) Paralyzed does certainly boast a bonanza of snakey lead guitar action, liberally dosed in tripped out psychedelic FX. We gotta hand it to singer/lead axeman Kyle Thomas, he shows no signs of nervousness taking tangled solos with none other than (let's not forget) J. Mascis bashing away behind him. Nor is he shy on the mic, his vocals sometimes reminding us of the sneer/snarl of Blaine from The Accused... with, still, a bit of the Ozz. Other observations: sometimes we think we hear the cries of garagey pop jangle buried alive on some of these tracks, and at times we might (might) describe Witch as sounding like a way more badass Dead Meadow. Also the more lumbering tracks here ('cause they do slow it down) remind us of some early Melvins or Steel Pole Bathtub. It's a pretty rad, reverby mix altogether, an cool collision of heavy psychotic shambling psych and corroded crossover punk/metal. We're digging it. Comes in a black digipack adorned with the apocalyptic, druggy, melty-looking artwork of bros Luke and Kyle Thomas, which makes it even cooler.
The last we heard from Scottish ambient doomlords Wraiths, was their amazing full length Plaguebearer on UK label Paradigms. That disc was a caustic collection of deep ominous black ambience, light on the ambience, heavy on the, well, heavy. If anything, Oriflamme is even moreso, as it predates Plaguebearer, originally released as a super limited cd-r, now available again, however briefly, as a limited lp.
These are the roots of Plaguebearer, in fact, it sounds like it was definitely cut from the same mouldering black cloth. There is nothing serene or soothing about this sort of ambience, it's harsh and chaotic, corrosive, roiling, ominous and thick, heavy for sure, but more than anything, it's incredibly dense.
Layer upon layer upon layer. Huge chunks of industrial grind, massive pounding, and bursts of corrosive crunch, super processed vocals, synths and streaks of feedback, deep rumbling drones, whirring and hissing, it's the sound of wandering through the pits of hell. Huge demonic machinery, massive gears and pistons, caked with black soot, and unspeakable grime, churning away endlessly, shadowy figures toiling behind the flames, the sounds of hammer on stone, of gnashing teeth, and hopeless wails, all seeming to come together into some hellish symphony. A glorious and gloriously abysmal industrial black noise drone, a sound not unfamiliar to fans of MZ412, Merzbow, Wolf Eyes and other proponents of caustic low end explorations and buzzing sonic filth.
The second half of Oriflamme is much less dense, and more spacious, as if after barely making it through the industrial wasteland of part one, the listener has emerged in a massive cavern, so high, the rock walls just disappear into blackness, the only things visible are those illuminated by the guttering flame of your lantern, your mind left to decipher the strange and mysterious soundworld lurking just out of sight. Distant moans and shimmering black murmurs, bits of glitch and crunch, smeared into swirling black shadows, heaving swells of blackness, streaks of electrical interference, billows of earth shaking rumbles, hissed voices, deep creaks and monstrous gurgles, wind like whirs, wavering electrostatic buzz, all spread out into a harrowing and bleak doomscape, as disturbingly (and impossibly) beautiful, and it is absolutely grim and brutalizing.
Gorgeous super striking covers, like some old lost dust covered tome, and don't be fooled by the frayed and tattered edges, they're printed on the sleeves. And as if we even needed to tell you, EXTREMELY LIMITED!
We always say "we only have a very few of these, so we won't go into too much detail" and then we pretty much always do. But not this time. Nope. Cuz we only have 8 copies of this. We got a bunch, but most sold before we could get them reviewed and listed.
So for a lucky few of you, here's a brand new, awesome split tape, LIMITED TO 99 COPIES and already out of print.
One side: Type records head honcho John Twells' ambient doom outfit, creating another haunting, crumbling, creepy world of doom-ed sound, epic and heavy, intense and soaring, layers upon layers of coruscating guitars, woven into moody moving droning beauty. The other side: new discovery Ajilvsga, another ambient doom outfit, a duo, one half of which is Digitalis overlord Brad Rose, their side is a thick viscous grinding sludge of blown out guitars, crumbling distortion, heaving slow motion glacial heaviness, that manages to imbue its buzzing creep with haunting melodies and strange blackened beauty.
Gorgeous full color covers printed on textured paper, each one hand numbered, gone before you know it... ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
We were under the impression that Yeti, absolutely one of our favorite magazines, focusing on all aspects of the art world (music, drawing, fiction, fashion, performance, etc. but with a definite focus on music) was meant to be quarterly, or three times a year, or at LEAST twice a year, but since we've only just gotten issue five, and it's been about 5 years since issue one, well, just keep telling yourself, some things are worth waiting for. Never more true than with Yeti, a definite labor of love, assembled and compiled by long time aQ pal Mike McGonigal, with the help of an incredible array of writers, artists and musicians. Every issue jam packed with some familiar faces, but usually more new discoveries. Which is precisely how a magazine should be.
So what's going on in this long awaited fifth installment? Well, we just got it in, so none of us have had time to dig in deep yet (most of us will probably do just that this weekend, it's the perfect thing to curl up in a big chair with, headphones on, rest of the world shut out), so we'll just have to give you a quick overview.
A brief exploration of the marriage made in Hell between folk music, dead cultures, myth and highly technical modern extreme metal, excerpts from the Pinakothek web log (that's blog to you), an interview with Will Oldham, drawings by Saul Chernick, Mike McGonigal examines Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground", fiction by Meredith Brosnan, German graphic artist Unica Zurn, NY rockers Akron/Family, an interview with Nicola Bowery (wife of late fashion / performance artist Leigh Bowery), drawings by Kyle Field of Little Wings, a chat with P.G. Six, fiction by Kevin Sampsell, a 1969 interview with Mississippi Fred McDowell, drawings by Kevin Arrow, an excerpt from some WEIRD online chatrooms, awesome travel diary from Sublime Frequencies' Hisham Mayet with lots of amazing photos, paintings by SF artist Michelle Blade, and Yeti does that cool thing, where all the advertisements are in the back in their own section.
PLUS, Yeti comes with a cd of rare and unreleased exclusive music from a very aQ array of artists: Atlas Sound, Akron/Family, Iron & Wine, Mt. Eerie, Deerhoof, Dean And Brita, Blind Willie Johnson, Spiritualaires, Phoaming Edison, excerpts from Radio Sumatra, A Hawk And A Hacksaw and a bunch more!
A band called Zombie Battle Axe. A record called ...Now You Are Dead. Released on Slut Factory, the same label that released the latest record by Iron Bitchface. So of course we were expecting some sort of grinding metallic weirdness. Some throbbing techno grindcore, something spastic and freaked out at least, but lo and behold, Zombie Battle Axe is nothing of the sort. Instead, ZBA weave dark, creepy crawly cinematic soundscapes that sound like they could have been plucked with out of a movie by John Carpenter or Dario Argento.
Long wavery synth tones, whirring and shimmering like that dense fog that always seems to be creeping along the ground in cemeteries.
Long drawn out melodies, mournful and melancholy, the sound of rain and wind, thunder and lightning, lots of howling wolves, deep dolorous drones, layers of buzz and hiss, all recorded super lo-fi, so the tape hiss adds to the mysterious murk.
Some seriously haunting cinematic ambience, drone music wrapped around some scratchy old Halloween sound effects record, dubbed onto an old cassette, stuffed into a beat up old tape player, buried in the front yard and broadcast through 3 feet of worm filled black earth. The perfect soundtrack for midnight strolls along muddy swamps, raising the dead, leering and lurking in dark alleys searching for your next victim or for your next super-eight home made giallo.
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