Okay, how bad ass is the name The Wandering Midget for a band name? Well, okay, maybe not BAD ASS, but what a great name. Freaky, weird, certainly might not have you imagining some awesome classic doom outfit, but that's precisely what The Wandering Midget are, classic true doom from Finland. So that's pretty much all pluses across the board, insane band name, true doom, and they're from Finland. And as if that weren't enough they have an amazing vocalist, who sounds like a weird super dramatic Ozzy doppelganger, the vocals so over the top they sound almost campy, yet they fit the music perfectly, especially when they slip into a menacing grrrrrowl.
The sound is super live, the drums way up in the mix, the guitars thick and crunchy, the vocals WAY out in front, the riffs are killer too, that sort of slithery Sabbathy groove, mix in some Pentagram, some Electric Wizard, and you're in total druggy stoner doom heaven!
All the tracks are pretty kick ass, but stick around for the nearly 18 minute closer "Wasteland Shrine", a super slow, lurching doom crawl, with some killer leads, and the vocalist wailing so dramatically, the main riff all killer slow motion Sabbath, complete with a weird ambient interlude part way through, the sounds of what can only be a dungeon, dripping water, footsteps, distant rumbles, the guitar slowly creeping up from the murk, all spidery and minimal, before the band kicks in and launches back into their doomy groove, a majestic lumbering jam overlaid with increasingly maniacal vocals, pounding away, through clouds of effects, until the very end.
An oldie but goodie! This deluxe reissue of Whiskeytown's awesome Stranger's Almanac album has renewed the love side in our love/hate relationship with the music of Mr. Ryan Adams. In fact, all the bonus tracks (alternate takes, demos, etc) that accompany their 1997 major label debut album seem superfluous (yet fan-pleasing!) when held up to the solid original baker's dozen songs. To be honest we spent far more time revisiting those thirteen tunes than all of the bonus ones! Alt-country, new Americana... label it what you will, but when the tempermental Whiskeytown were 'on' their feisty, yearning songs were picture-perfect example of the genre's finest.
One of two black metal / noise hybrids on this week's list, the other, from Australian one man band Nekrasov, this one, the latest from Canadian duo WOLD, whose discs of noise drenched outsider black weirdness have held us in their thrall from the very first listen.
But much has changed since L.O.T.M.P, which was an impossible hybrid of Philip Jeck like turntable warble, and walls of blacknoise, classic black metal buzz filtered through sheets of haze and warped shimmer, well, okay, maybe not that much has changed, if anything, the biggest change is how much noisier Wold have become, and how much more they hew to traditional black metal, albeit appropriately skewed and cracked and fractured and WELL fucked.
For those new to the strange world of Wold, they are a duo (formerly a trio), from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. They are called Fortress Crookedjaw (best black metal name ever?) and Obey, there's a picture in the new cd of two really regular looking dudes, not sure if it's Wold, but if it is, never has there been more of a "but they were such nice boys" in black metal. Because the sound of Wold is anything but regular black metal. There are riffs, and harsh screeched vocals, there doesn't seem to be drums very often, none are credited in the liner notes, and you can't really hear them, except on one track, where a primitive drum machine spews out a stuttery waltz, and often even when they're NOT there, we still feel like we're hearing them, the duo unfurl sheets of white hot guitar hiss, walls of crumbling distortion, that seem locked in some sort of static sprawl, kind of looped, but also wavery and warbly, due no doubt to the recording quality, as well as the composition. Tape hiss is much of a part of their sound as the guitars, maybe more so. An array of electronics also add layers of grit and glitch, the sounds grind and scrape, piled on top of each other until often it's a seemingly impenetrable wall of sound. But the wall is cracked, and all sort of fucked up sounds ooze through the cracks. Some tracks are super abstract post industrial ambient scrape-scapes, all grinding rhythms, and swirling hiss, others get dangerously close to classic sounding super raw primitive black metal, but as you listen, they seem to change shape, the riffs, the vocals, a glancing listen reveals nothing untoward, just some killer blasting lo-fi buzz, but once you settle in, the music drags you kicking and screaming into some jagged harsh buzz drenched, off kilter chaotic noise infested blackened sonic underworld.
If we had to pick bands to compare Wold to, it might be Ildjarn, Akitsa, Bone Awl, that sort of super raw, blown out in-the-red underproduced fury, but then add some Faxed Head, for the two share a similarly skewed and totally demented aesthetic, but where Faxed Head do it for laughs, Wold twist it into something sinister and frightening. Certainly Merzbow, as NOISE is a major component, but even when Wold are spewing sheets of what appear to be white noise, the sounds are not that simple, they churn and twist, and hide layers upon layers of sonic weirdness underneath. In fact, on first listen we were a bit put off a bit by the sheer noise level of Stratification, gone were all the warped buried 78 sounds, and in their place even more hiss and buzz and skree, but headphones changed everything. Revealing amidst the harshness an incredible array of strange sonic weirdness, buried melodies, obscured loops, bits of prettiness, almost invisible through the haze and murk and blur and NOISE, but which manage to subtly change lead into gold, turning something almost too harsh and abrasive, into something impossibly mesmerizing, and for the adventurous ear-ed, a veritable sonic wonderland of noise drenched beauty.
It's not often that we so highly recommend an album based on the strength of one song and one song alone, so believe us when we say that even if the remainder of the eponymous debut of Woods Family Creeps was nothing more than field recordings of mice pooping, the two minutes and 19 seconds of pop genius that are "Twisted Tongue" would still make the record a must-have. Thankfully, the rodent-pooping is kept to a bare minimum and the rest of the album is also pretty damn great!
Woods Family Creeps (formally a duo called Woods, now a trio), hail from Brooklyn and their first record under the new moniker displays the kind of charming, good-natured self-indulgence that makes us wax nostalgic about the glory days of tape-hiss drenched lo-fi pop of which we at aQ are all huge fans. You'll pick up on moments of earnest Seba/Sentri/doh songsmithery, deadpan Halo Benders/Beat Happening drawl, classic K Records twee, and even the chimpy charms of Trollin Withdrawl. Despite the occasional forays into white-dudes-with-sitar-envy territory (which seems to be the proverbial onion on the belt of the kids these days and so can probably be forgiven), the overall feel is one of pastoral noodling and lazy campfire sing-a-longs. That said, the loosey-goosey feel that the band cultivates allows them to stretch out into some surprising directions (check out the Italo-soundtrack rock of instrumental closer, "The Creeps"!), but that said we're still thankful that the their 'experimental' side is tempered by the inclusion of solid pop songs with hooks aplenty.
Woods Family Creeps, the record, comes courtesy of of Time Lag Records' "Red" imprint and was initially issued as an ultra-limited LP that sold out in about 10 seconds flat. The cd is limited to 1000 copies packaged in a gorgeous, full-color mini-gatefold sleeve. Don't sleep on this one, as it's sure to go fast!
A whole mess of new releases from Germany's drone records, as always gorgeously packaged, super limited, and some of the deepest, darkest, loveliest and most mysterious dronemusik around.
This one comes from a group called XABEC, whose installment comes pressed on thick maroon vinyl, and housed in a gold embossed 7" cardboard box, with a printed cardstock insert. As always, it's a first edition and is thus limited to only 300 copies.
The A side begins as two simultaneous drones, one soft and shimmery and static, the other more buzzy and distorted, a hissing rumble, wrapping itself all around the main drone. Later on, creepy footstep-like percussion drifts in, and distant keening metallic melodies. Whirring distortion underpins bits of clatter, and various random sounds, all woven into a darkly undulating sonic tapestry.
The B side is a piece from a performance based on music and fireworks, and thus ends with field recordings, captured by Mnortham, the track opens with a flurry of fireworks a cloud of skittery pop, like an army of tiny machine guns, quickly giving way to a wash of deep resonant metallic drones, and a strange alien groove over the top, some sort of squeaky looped rhythm that sounds a bit like Drone meets Kompakt. Weird but quite cool.
Ultra limited one sided vinyl only release from AQ faves Xela. Already out of print, we have the last copies anywhere.
A single long form composition, more classical and minimal sounding than the most recent Xela full length, beginning with gentle simple piano, tinkling chimes, distant whirs, folky steel string twang, subtle percussion, a subtle mixture of cello, piano, vocals, acoustic and electric guitars and effects, all woven into a lovely stretch of active ambience. Soon though this tranquil drift is enveloped in a thick sonic haze of blurred buzz, and the instruments all seem to be deeply effected by the change, the guitars begin to stutter and glitch, the piano detunes and becomes more atonal, throwing out dense little flurries of notes, steel strings scrape and creak and groan, becoming more and more intense, building to a lengthy drone, everything whipped into a frenzy, swirling whirring, intense and dense but still strangely melodic and quite lovely.
Pressed on thick vinyl, packaged in plain white sleeves, each one stamped and hand numbered, limited to 300 copies, and again, already out of print, these are the last copies ever...
Yet another missive from Zaimph, the one woman noise/drone outfit helmed by Marcia Bassett, she of Hototogisu, Double Leopards, GHQ and loads more. As Zaimph, Bassett can be pretty unpredictable, dabbling in blissed out Sunroof! style ragas, cripplingly brutal white hot noise, or super subdued minimal ambience, although she does tend toward the noisy heavy side of things.
Emblem is no different, definitely noisy, and heavy, not to mention textural, expansive, gritty, buzzy and psychedelic. Two long tracks, the first, clocking in at about 10 minutes, is based on a growling guttural grinding low end foundation, what sounds like a guitar tuned so low it sort of rumbles and whirs, creating a gristly fuzzy drone, over which, all sorts of disembodied melodies and fractured harmonies soar and swoop, wreathed in effects, and heavily distorted, the sky above is filled with streaks of crumbling feedback, whirring clouds of hiss and scrape and amp buzz, but always grounded by that churning undulating low end short circuited drone beneath.
The second track, a nearly half hour epic, is not so corrosive, beginning with some languid raga-like buzz, a warm whir drifting in a wide open expanse of barely there shimmer, very dreamy and mesmerizing, other instruments join in, but only swirl gently around each other, a loosely woven midnight sky full of reverberating strings and moaning melodies. It's not until about 20 minutes in, that things get any wilder, and even then, it's just a matter of several of those buzzing melodies becoming ensconced in warbly effects and super charged a bit, upping the intensity, but remaining hypnotic and trancelike, eventually building to a glorious harmonic coda, the tones floating and drifting majestically over a softly swirling sea of sweet sweet buzz and drone.
Beautifully packaged, in an oversized black cardstock sleeve, with metallic silver ink. And be warned, we've actually had these for a while, so as they're not new, they might be tough to restock when we run out.
One of two new releases from the strangely named Zaimph, which just so happens to be the monicker Marcia Bassett, of Hototogisu, GHQ and Double Leopards fame, uses for her solo noise and guitar explorations.
As we mention in the other review, the sound of Zaimph, and Bassett's projects in general can range from soft and lovely to not soft at all and not so lovely, dabbling in noise, psych, drone and raga, often melding all of those into one single organic whole.
For this disc, a 30 minute live set recorded in 2006, after some strange smooth jazz over the house PA and what seems to be a recording of Bassett setting up, things get rolling with a cloud of dark metallic shimmer, that spreads and oozes and envelops the crowd in a soft swirl of whirling effects and blurred drones, eventually, the sound shifts gears and the guitar (at least we think it's a guitar) becomes more caustic, more metallic, the sound more buzzy and sharp, almost like a buzz saw playing out some subtly melodic drone, the sound billowing into thick swells of grind and skree, before slipping back into a deep minimal hum, and beginning the slow build to the eventual cathartic explosion of guitarnoise and fractured FX freakout that finishes the set.
Heavy and noisy, will definitely hit the spot for folks who dig the meaner side of Hototogisu and Matthew Bower's old Total project. Super limited cd-r, that we've had for a while, so there's a good chance these might be the last copies we can get.
