Awesome archival release from Alter Echo and ERS-One, featuring Dr. Israel, who aQ folks might remember from his killer dubbed out Sabbath cover. But this here disc is a killer chunk of low-slung, proto-dubstep, a thick slithery dubby groove and some super filthy buzzy low end, cranked the whole store shook, gunshots and toasting here and there throughout, the whole vibe hazy and ghostly and druggy and laid back, but that bassline and the minimal rhythm is totally irresistible.
One sided single, in a plain yellow sleeve. WAY LIMITED.
Not to be confused with the -other- Ancestors, the noise drenched, blackened lo-fi, blown out raw as fuck punk metal outfit, no, this is something all together more stoned and groovy, spaced out and ROCK.
Don't know too much about these guys other than they're a 5 piece from LA, and man can they riff with the best of 'em. Two looooong songs, one nearly 17 minutes, the other almost 22, each a sprawling stoner rock psychedelic groovescape. Think Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, Earthless, Dead Meadow, Acrimony, Los Natas. The songs are less proper songs, and more epic jams, the actual verses and chorus and vocals relegated to popping up here and there, while the majority of the song is spent rocking the fuck out, unfurling majestic sun baked soundscapes of riff and groove and killer leads EVERYWHERE. Occasionally, the songs bliss out, and get all tripped out and druggy, with soft Santana-y guitar squalls, and tons of effects, but those parts inevitably build and build until suddenly the song is back in full swing, the band lurching and lumbering and grooving relentlessly. This is the sort of jam band we can get behind, epic heaviness and endless riffery.
The second track is almost Melvins-y at the beginning, howled vocals over slow churning guitar grind, before slipping back into something way more sixties and psychedelic sounding. Like the super kick ass outro of every killer space rock song all stitched into one epic mega-jam. Near the end, the track blisses out and transforms into a loping moody dirge, with reverbed guitars and haunting female vocals way off in the distance, finally kicking back into gear for the last few minutes, a whirring minor key organ making the groove seem melancholy and strangely funereal.
Killer stuff for sure. Any one into heavy heavy post rock, stoner rock, riff heavy jams, sweet leads, or ANY or any of the above mentioned bands will most definitely dig this.
Housed in a sweet digipak with awesome artwork by Arik Moonhawk Roper!
It's been three years since Antony & The Johnsons captivated us, along with the rest of the world, with the devastatingly gorgeous I Am A Bird Now. But luckily we've been able to hear his voice on lots of releases since, as he's lent his striking vocals to records by folks like Bjork, Matmos, Current 93, Yoko Ono, Michael Cashmore, Nico Muhly and channeled his inner disco diva on the great Hercules & Love Affair debut. But of course we've still been craving a new full on Antony & The Johnsons album and it looks like that's on the horizon, but for now there is this brand new five song ep that once gain offers up that ineffable magic in Antony's voice and that unique songwriting that is still such a sound to behold.
The title track, which leads off the ep. literally made us freeze and fill with goosebumps the second we first heard it and "Shake That Devil" would make the best companion piece to Nina Simone's "Take Me To The Water/I'm Going Back Home". The ep's closer is filled with solemn soul and mournful glory making this a totally essential slab of dark beauty. Only one of these songs will be on the brand new album, so of course this is a must have for all Antony fans!
Chris Atkins, Colin Potter, and Phil Mouldycliff are the British drone / field recording collective working as APM. Potter is a brilliant technician whose work we are well acquainted with through his long-standing contributions to Nurse With Wound, Ora, and Monos, not to mention his impressive solo work of processed field recordings and sinister electronics. Mouldycliff is a multimedia artist whose has worked with Loren Chasse, Michael Nyman, and Keith Rowe, and we've had a few of his recordings pass through here. But this Chris Atkins is a character we cannot impart much in the way of a shorthand biography. In any case, APM had travelled to the rustic environs of the Sprint Mill in the northwest of England. This Mill is currently inhabited by one Edward Acland, an eccentric artist who had recently opened up the Mill to various installations and performances. Presumably, APM had performed at Sprint Mill; but it's equally likely that they just collected a plethora of field recordings from all of the Industrial Revolution-era machinery, antiquated plumbing, drafty windows, and the overgrown gardens from the grounds of the Mill. This becomes a beautifully rendered collage slipping between the natural detritus surrounding the Mill and the haunted resonance of the tools in the Mill. Thus, massed aggregates of leaves, sticks, and branches coagulate into watery field recordings of rain, wind, and rushing streams. Throughout, the trio gently intrudes with looping structures of rasping metal where the bell-like chiming of the metal is tempered by the years of use. Where you might expect the drone to be dominant given Potter and Mouldycliff's previous work, it's far more rustic and less all-consuming than we might have thought, although there are some mighty fine drone elements to this album! An excellent piece of manipulated field recording for sure along with the likes of Murmer, Tarab, Jgrzinich, and Loren Chasse!
Lately, we just can't get seem to get enough of all the great mystical ambient music happening. Portland's At the Head of the Woods, a solo project of James Woodhead (Blood of the Black Owl, Elemental Chrysalis) is the perfect example of this super beautiful, dim and desolate sound that we love so much. Considering the band name and all, we thought it'd be a good idea to take this album along for a Sunday evening drive through the redwoods. And man, it turned out to be the perfect experience. Nothing like lush, woodsy dronescapes to accompany an evening drive. Striking acoustic and electric guitar melodies played over round, turning tones that move and crawl across the forest ground like dense fog. Awesome stuff. We know how easy it is for a drone album to become a bit one dimensional, but this one really takes the listener along for an epic journey through still meadows and onto seaside crags. The album builds momentum from hovering vocal and guitar drones to slow rural dirges lead by full on pummeling, sloooooow-paced drums. Reminds us a lot of the newer Earth albums, but slightly darker and more mystical, with less of the country twang. There's a great balance between colorful textures and engaging composition, really makes for an immersive listen that's sure to make you feel like you're watching sunlight fade behind the silhouettes of towering trees.
A while back we made the debut full length from drum machine noise rock duo The Austerity Program our record of the week. And we still throw it on pretty regularly. Heavy, abrasive, hooky, a modern Big Black, but with a way better sense of humor.
We've been waiting patiently for the band to release something else, and now the waiting has finally paid off. A brand new two track 7", featuring "Track 20" and the oh so illusive "Track 1". One of these days we'll figure out their modus operandi, do they just pick numbers at random to attach to songs? Or, as we hope, are they chronological, all written in a flurry of activity, and picked out haphazardly for various releases. Thus this 7" would contain one of their more recent tracks, and the very first one! It sort of sounds like it too, but more on that in a second.
"Track 20" brings it all back, it starts out all slow and brooding, but soon launches into a surprisingly melodic blast of machinelike metal, of industrial noise rock indie pop, not sure what to call it, but it most definitely hits the spot. Super distorted guitars, Justin Foley's anguished howls, the drums as sharp and creatively programmed as ever. Part way through there's a killer mathy breakdown, the riffs splintering into space, complete with some swooping backwards high-hats, and a big finish where the drums get wild enough that it almost sounds like a real drummer.
But the flip side, "Track 1", is KILLER, super dynamic stop / start arrangement, the riffing eventually locking into a seriously buzzy loop, the whole track turning a wee bit black metal in face, even the drums get turned up a notch with flurries of double kick drum, underpinning the instrumental crush above. In some ways, it almost sounds unfinished, like a sketch almost, but even in its sketch like form, it's most definitely one of our favorite AP tracks yet!
SUPER LIMITED of course, packaged in a cool thick sleeve made out of some mysterious map, inside, a little sticker guiding you to a download of the two tracks!
Teeter-tottering betwixt morose indie-rock songishness and purely textural, experimental soundscapery, this avant garde and all together moody international trio, consisting of Dean Roberts (Thela, White Winged Moth), Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayr (Radian, Trapist) brings us their second album for Kranky, following up 2004's Jealousy & Diamond. Slow and steady and suffused with low-key drama, Uneasy Flowers should satisfy anyone's yen for (again) an uneasy-feeling yet smoothly executed mix of New Zealand indie-murk free noise and European glitch-drone laptoppery. The album is pleasingly bathed in a glow of wavering distortion/feedback (shortwave static style), scattered with This Heatish percussive patterns (from Brandlmayr) and fragile vocals (from Roberts). Nice!!
Not only have Barn Owl become one of our favorite musical projects right here in SF, but they are now serious contenders to the throne of best purveyors of deep hitting and soul satisfying drone anywhere in the world. While just about everything they've released up to this point has been way too limited and thus are now all sadly out of print, they finally have a release that while still limited will at least get to reach a lot more ears then anything they've put out so far. These are sounds that deserve to be heard by anyone with an appreciation for all things droney, stoney and drifty, done so totally right.
While drone-folk bands have become a somewhat common entity in the last couple years, it's actually rare when you hear one that you really feel true soul and spirited passion from. From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light finds Barn Owl striking a perfect balance between sparkling sonics and commanding doom. Imagine Sleep/OM running in the mud with sticks and stones and then meeting up with Windy & Carl, Bardo Pond and Tom Carter. The lp format suits the duo so well, as their songs are filled with deep and slowly swirling grooves. We just listened to one side over and over and over before we even moved on to the second side with which we then did the same. There is both patience and payoff in Barn Owl's sound. Music that makes you want to close your eyes because you know you are entranced by atrists that know so well what they are doing. While they pressed up way more lps than anything else they've released, it's all relative, meaning these LP's are not going to be around too long, in fact we weren't even able to get as many as we ordered. Highly recommended, but act fast!
Super limited new slab of sickness from these purveyors of gloriously abject noise drone filth. So limited in fact that it's already out of print, and we have the last 20 or so.
Brutal ambient filth from the Pacific Northwest, as only BSBC can do it. Moving further and further away from any semblance of doomdronedirge and more into a totally abstract free noise direction, albeit their sound still infused with an element of doom.
These two tracks are sprawling soundscapes of hissy buzz, industrial clatter, rumbling drones, post industrial ambience, an almost static wall of murky sound, but distinctly depressive and doomy for sure. A continuous grinding low end assault, that makes Khanate and Bunkur seem downright musical, which they actually are compared to BSBC, who seem to be more interested in evoking terrifying feelings with sound, of creating a bleak and soul shattering soundworld from walls of black buzz and rumbling doom drenched drones. Mission accomplished.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. THESE ARE THE LAST COPIES EVER. Creepy black and white sleeves, pressed on thick white vinyl.
BRAINBOMBS! LIVE! Not sure about all of you, but that's pretty much all we needed to hear. A live document of a rare Brainbombs performance, captured way back in 1993, Burning Hell era, in all its sludgy, filthy, misanthropic lo-fi glory. And it is lo-fi, BIG TIME. The sound is reminiscent of the Les Rallizes Denudes records, super hissy and in the red, captured on a shitty tape player most likely, all the sounds in-the-red, and much like with Les Rallizes, that sort of sound most definitely suits the Brainbombs. The perfect compliment to their already murky and muddy sound.
The bad news is we could only get 15 copies, it's already sold out, and out of print, and these are the last copies we'll ever have, and by now you all know what that means...
There are few voices as pure and natural as Anne Briggs, an untrained but highly influential figure of the British Folk Tradition. This is a fine reissue of Briggs' first album from 1971 comprised mostly of traditional material that has only been previously available as expensive imports. While a few songs are backed by her guitar playing, a large number of them are sung a cappella. But with a voice like hers, the songs don't need much accompaniment. "Go Your Way" is one of our all time favorite songs period and well worth the price of admission. If fans of Shirley Collins or of all portents of magical folk music haven't already discovered and devoured Anne Briggs' scant but essential discography (she only recorded 30 songs before her self-imposed retirement at age 29!), the time has come!!
Picking up so nicely where their Matador debut left off a couple years back, Brightblack Morning Light are back with a new set of dreamy hippie hymnals that sway and melt with ease and affection. Adding subtle horns and gospel-like back up vocals to their slow and beautiful songs, they've made a record that after constant listens has seeped into out souls wrapping our psyches in warm and woozy sound. With rich connections to the land and the sky Brightblack are able to make music that feels natural and ethereal and unlike so many others polluting the world with overly forced takes on psych-folk. There is something undeniably sincere and for real about the tender and textured sounds that BBML create. Their stunning opening set last year for Vashti Bunyan showed that even when the pressure is on these are people whose music and presence is always so relaxed and tranquil and dreamily psychedelic, their bodies and spirits so at peace. Make sure to spend some serious time with this record as it's one that really benefits from deep listening, and will reward you with its deep melting glow.
Oh how we miss having Owen Ashworth, aka Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, as a neighbor since he moved away from the Bay Area a few years ago, but luckily his busy touring schedule finds him in town quite often, so we do get frequent visits, and the store is always brightened by his easy going and sweet demeanor, and lucky for us he's own of those rare folks whose music is a direct reflection of his personality.
Owen's latest offering finds him in top form, with many of the short tracks being instrumental it makes sense that some of them were written for the soundtrack to the indie film Stay The Same Never Change, as they do such a perfect job in setting a breezy and daydreamy atmosphere. In many ways this is CFTPA at their/his stripped down best, while we did like some of the recordings that came out of Owen expanding his efforts with a full band, truth be told the true charm of his music comes directly from his rudimentary DIY approach to electro-pop. The few tracks that do have vocals had us thinking a lot of Stephen Merrit when he's doing Future Bible Heros and the overall feeling of this twenty minute ep captures a colorful and rich, melting sensation that's as earnest as it is endearing.
Finally! Some new music from Chicago drone kraut post everything combo, Cave, whose now sadly out of print Hunt Like Devil record was one of favorite jams of the last however many years. The funny thing too, was that Cave was sort of an accidental discovery, as we were way into the related band Warhammer 48k, whose sound was a confusional crush of noise rock, space rock, and psych rock. So is really shouldn't have been that surprising that some of those guys would split to from another somewhat confusing, but no less appealing hybrid - Cave's sound a sort of post krautrock, looped guitars, tribal percussion, almost funky, definitely groovy, wild and energetic, mesmerizing and totally hypnotic, falling somewhere between the blown out swirl of Hawkwind, the looped mesmer of Circle, but with groovier, almost alien dancefloor vibe, or better yet, some cosmic ritual, like a spaced out drug drenched drum circle, but with heavy guitars.
For this ep, the band launch into action with the weird protofunk of "Butthash", a bouncy groover, with swirly synths, caffeinated rhythms, and buried vocals, a bit angular, a little new wave, equal parts krautrock, and spaced out shimmer, but all tangled up and kaleidoscopic, which leads directly into "Machines & Muscles" with its Circle-like guitar groove, some hand drums, very tribal and looped sounding, suspended in a field of space streakings and smears of soft effects in the background, the drums get a little more obtuse, a bit busier, but that main riff stays LOCKED in, until it begins to get ALL tripped out, distorted, effects drenched, swinging from speaker to speaker, dizzyingly tripped out, and then finally, the drums kick in proper, and we're in total hynorock bliss, little bits of keyboard pepper, the stuttery rhythm, the main riff staying solid and unwavering, while all around it various other sounds swoop and shimmer. Fucking awesome. Live they must stretch that out for ages, at least we hope so, in fact we sort of wish that this wasn't only a 7". Thankfully, it's NOT only a 7", as it comes with a cd-r, that includes the two tracks from the 7", and also an awesome even more blissed out version of "Machines & Muscles", the keyboards much more prominent, the vibe much more electronic and new wave, almost like Circle meets Stereolab, with plenty of buzz and glitch, lacing the propulsive groove. As well, there's a brief 85 second closer, that sounds like it was yanked from the middle of an hours-long live drug jam, with tripped out keyboards, buzzing bass, looped drums. Such a tease to only give us a 85 seconds!
And as if that weren't enough, the cd-r also includes a super abstract prismatic video / light show, to accompany, Cave's relentless space-y groove, all rainbowed blur and staticky colors, swirling and shimmery and a perfect visual complement.
Comes in a full color sleeve, pressed on swirled green vinyl, with a proper printed cd-r, and of course CRAZY LIMITED!!!!!
The second of two new releases from the UK's Trensmat Records, the first being the long awaited Cave ep elsewhere on this list, and this one, the first we've heard from a one man band from NY called Cheval Sombre, whose sound is a delicate, druggy slowcore, not all that far removed from folks like Galaxie 500 or Spacemen 3, the music soft billowy swirls, slow burning soft focus buzz, all drifting gently beneath hushed soft vocals, that are sometimes a dead ringer for the Spacemen.
As with all Trensmat 7"s, the record also includes a bonus cd-r, featuring the tracks from the 7" as well as an extra bonus track. The opener is a gorgeous lazy, late night slow crawl, soporific and cough syrupy, no drums, just long slowly unfurling ribbons of guitar and keyboard, and those sweet lullaby like vocals. The second track, produced by Spacemen 3's Sonic Boom, is an even murkier blurrier version of the opener, all the sounds muted and smeared into indistinct streaks of buzz, the vocals flipped backwards (you know how we love backwards!), the whole track woozy and off kilter, melty and psychedelic, but still dark and dizzy and dreamy.
The bonus track on the cd-r, also features a slowcore, bliss rock guest, Britta Phillips from the duo Dean & Britta (with Dean from Galaxie 500) produces, the result, another hazy, washed out soft around the edges slow folky drift, all glimmering guitar, tinkling chimes, reverbed vocals, all floating in an expanse of sweetly swirling lowercase musical murmur. So lovely.
Fans of druggy slow motion blessed out psych pop (who isn't?!?) will definitely love this. Full color sleeve, printed cd-r, and of course, as always, SUPER LIMITED!
In the early '90s, I (Jim) remember seeing a peculiar cassette listed in the RRR catalogue for several years. It was some sort of collaboration between Coil (who I was enthralled with), The New Blockaders (who I was curious about through their work with Organum), and Vortex Campaign (who I thought had a cool name, but knew nothing about). Foolishly, I never picked up that cassette, especially since the damn thing was limited to 50 copies. Oh well. Thankfully, Important Records is doing their best Vinyl-On-Demand impersonation with a hefty reissue of an terminally obscure piece of early noise culture. There's still no background information as to the identity of Vortex Campaign, other than that they are Belgian and that they invited both Coil and The New Blockaders to collaborate on that one off cassette back in 1984. Since then, Vortex Campaign did make an appearance on the Broken Flag 5lp anthology released by Vinyl-On-Demand; but beyond that, they're still a mystery. Coil had gone on to great things in all realms of occult electronics mired in psychedelic darkness; and The New Blockaders had manifested explosive recordings of hellish noise in their pursuit of anti-art.
This lp collects the two sprawling collaborative tracks from that cassette, leaving off the solo Vortex Campaign tracks - just to make me kick myself even more for not buying that cassette back in the day. These are two complex collages of snarling loops, dragged through shit, vomit, and blood leaving a bruised and stained mess of obsessively repetitive growls, blisters, and blurts of industrial noise. The energy on these two tracks is profoundly negative, and could be easily confused with anything that Prurient or Wolf Eyes might muster in this day and age. Supposedly there was a cd version of the cassette, but that too is out of print, leaving this vinyl-only production from Important as a rare glimpse back at these recordings. Limited to 500 copies. We only got a paltry few and that's IT.
NEW ON MISSISSIPPI RECORDS. Just thought we'd get that out of the way, since it seems like folks want anything and everything this tiny Portland label releases, and for good reason, they have amazing taste for one, their records look and sound fantastic, and probably most importantly, most of their releases have never been available on vinyl before.
Originally released on Arhoolie in 1969 (and still available from them on cd!), this lp features the collected wildness, weirdness and wisdom of one George Coleman, also known as Bongo Joe, on vinyl for the first time in AGES (you may remember Bongo Joe was on the bonus 7"s that originally came with the first pressing of the Mississippi release Life Is A Problem!)
George Coleman is not called Bongo Joe because he plays the bongos, it's because, well no one is sure exactly, but he does play the drums, or more specifically, the giant oil barrel. Modified of course. Coleman's instrument of choice is a 55 gallon oil drum, its sound customized by dents and bulges and tears created with a small axe. He beats this oil drum with hammer handles, the bottom of the barrel filled with sand and buckshot to create a sort of rattle. And while that might be amazing on its own, it's Coleman's singing, or rapping, or whatever it is, probably somewhere right in between that really seals the deal. When former aQ staffer Byram worked here this was his FAVORITE record and he played it incessantly, and we all eventually grew to love it, a totally wacked stripped down freaky funky sort-of-steel-drum rhythm and blues, Coleman calls it "fundamental beat music", as played by a crazy Texas street musician, who has plenty to say about pretty much everything, and does so quite eloquently, and a bit confusionally, a wild unhinged delivery that some folks around here have likened to Wesley Willis, but we think it's way more soulful, like James Brown crossed with Screamin' Jay Hawkins, imagine one of those guys jamming with Moondog, and voila!
Bongo Joe played all over Texas, once with Dizzy Gillespie, for presidents, for Muhammad Ali, in front of the Alamo, he eventually ended up in San Antonio after a retirement community complained about the racket he was making outside. And at one point he shot a man who he thought was going to rob him while he was performing. Woah.
But none of that matters as much as the music, and the music is amazing. Far out and funky, rhythmic and stripped down, wild and strange and beautiful and pretty much unlike anything else you'll ever hear.
[Fair warning, Mississippi is a pretty DIY operation, so very often the lps are not in absolutely perfect condition, the records themselves are immaculate, but sometimes the sleeves have slightly bent corners or something similar, all very minor, but super vinyl collector nerds beware]
First things first, allow us (well, Cup at least!) to proclaim that one song on this 1980 Alice Cooper album shines brighter than all the rest! That'd be "Clones (We're All)", the album's absolutely infectious, unexpectedly New Wave second track. It's another dose of AC social commentary, but this time it comes cloaked in the guise of remarkably clean synthesizer pop, a la Gary Numan. Makes for a very surprising contrast to Alice's trashy glam rock past which still lingers a bit in the album opener "Talk Talk", a cover of the garagey sixties Music Machine nugget. As for the rest of Flush The Fashion? Sorry, it simply pales in comparison, and hasn't aged quite as well, though it has its moments, and it's interesting to see ol' AC grapple with the onset of the eighties, dealing with such issues of the day as "Leather Boots", being "Nuclear Infected", and "Aspirin Damage". Plus, THAT one "Clones" song is sooooo good!
FYI, this is another one of those Rhino Encore reissues supposedly available only for a six-month window.
We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
Burning Black Intensity is the new album, and offers up a taste of what will be found on the soon to come sprawling tUMULt 2cd full length, and if BBI is any indication, then two whole cds of this stuff is going to DESTROY. This record begins with some creepy, orchestral Peter And The Wolf type sounds, strings and percussion, sampled we assume, while DRS croon over the top, offering up wavery clean vocals, strange incantations, and various other vocalizations, the result is truly twisted. This goes on for several tracks before the band launch into some black metal, but DRS black metal is a whole other thing, the drums buried in the mix, barely audible, the guitars strangled, and gnarled, buzzing, blurred and murky, dueling vocals, one a high howled screech, the other a rumbling demonic gurgle, both drenched in reverb, both howling maniacally, and relentlessly, while the guitars churn and the drums stumble, the whole thing lurching drunkenly, super raw and primitive and lo-fi and fractured and FUCKED for sure. The next track demonstrates that no matter how weird it gets, everything they do is deliberate, the guitars are thick and fuzzy, the drums simple but propulsive, the riff a near static black groove, the bass, pulsing and undulating, more typical black metal vocals screeching over the top, while way in the distance a voice shrieks hysterically, the two vocals all tangled up, the guitar spewing forth a super mesmerizing singular riff, totally hypnotic and trancelike, the vocals growing more and more unhinged. The next track is a murky muddy Wold style soundscape, melodies and guitars smeared and blurred into bleary eyed streaks of sound, the vocals an ominous rumble, the drums a chaotic blast beat, while the guitars swoon woozily, the whole track dizzy and druggy and weirdly dreamlike, the vocal eventually growing more and more warped, almost cartoonish, sing songy and almost operatic, wrapped in fluttery flutes and more distorted soft buzz.
Needless to say, this is brilliantly twisted stuff, totally wacked, outsider blackness, as true as any of the more classically TROO black metal, but unlike those, DRS are true only to themselves, any resemblance between their music and other black metal is not only coincidental it's a fluke, as most of this sounds like nothing you've ever heard.
Our long standing love affair with Deerhoof is still in full force after all these years. Not only do they continue to make fantastic and rewarding music, but they've managed to remain in touch with the wondrous spirit and deep creativity that made them so irresistible right from ther beginning. While their sound has been fleshed out and fine tuned over the years, they have not lost any of the unique and off kilter elements that made their music so special. They're perhaps the only band you can play for your two year old niece AND your weird druggy psychedelic uncle, and chances are they both would be bopping and bouncing and grinning like crazy and loving every sound coming out of the speakers.
Offend Maggie could just be their most effortless sounding outing to date, it's so cool that despite being such precise and proficient players they've found a way to make their songs jump, hop and skip through all sorts of wonderful shapes and colors without ever sounding self conscious. There is a delightful freedom and sense of play and wonder in these songs that has us falling in love with Deerhoof all over again. Much like the most recent outing by Stereolab, the songs on Offend Maggie really start blossoming after repeated listens and we're pretty sure we'll be spinning this over and over for the rest of the year. It's almost a decade since they were our little San Francisco secret, and now they've shared tours with the likes of Radiohead and The Flaming Lips, and earned a spot as one of the more popular and respected bands in the indie rock world while keeping their music so innovative and inspired and original!
Dressy Bessy have always been known for perky lo-fi indie pop that rides the fence between sweet and twee. As with pretty much all of their Elephant 6 Collective cohorts (Of Montreal, Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc), Tammy Ealom (formerly of The Minders), John Hill (also of Apples In Stereo) are seldom at a loss in the candy-coated pop hook department. That said, many of the tunes on their fourth album, the suitably titled Holler And Stomp, jump out with far more crunch and punch than the band has ever mustered before. Maybe we should've taken the hint from their chosen cover art - an illustration of a trash and graffiti strewn alleyway with a street sign that says "Dressy Bessy Way", a butterfly smoking a cigarette flitters by. Hmmm, a Dressy Bessy makeover (or make-under)? The pumped up sassy, edgy attitude led to immediate comparisons with contemporary gal-fronted bands such as Metric and Teegan & Sara!
In the last few years Dungen have gone from being a mysterious underground Swedish psych sensation to one of the most beloved bands in the indie music landscape. With 4 they prove they deserve all the acclaim and recognition that's come their way as they continue to evolve and expand their sonic horizons in such pleasing ways. It's not always how hard you hit but instead what kind of magic you can create with sound, thus this is probably the least rock sounding record Dungen have made, and we think the lush arrangements and warm texture suits them perfectly. While this could still pass for some lost gem from the Scandinavian psych underground of the early '70s there is something so unique and distinctive about their sound. They are one of those bands that after hearing only several seconds, their signature sound is already evident. But unlike folks such as Clinic who also have a sound we like but continue to make the same record over and over, Dungen have proven to be imaginative and skilled songwriters who move forward with each release, while remaining the Dungen we know and love. It's almost like they've been listening intently to the more nuanced and atmospheric psychedelic reissues from Ennio Morricone we've seen lately. Along with the new record by The Alps reviewed last list, this Dungen is more exciting evidence that that folks are still finding fresh (also lush and gorgeous) ways to enter a psychedelic state of mind. So great!
Eagle Keys (which is probably just the name of the record, not the name of the band, but since it's on the spine we're calling 'em Eagle Keys) is two dudes, one whom we know and one whom we don't. Respectively, there's electric bassist Tim Olive, who we most recently heard in the Supernatural Hot Rug And Not Used duo recording from EM Records. He's been in some other bands over the years, including Nimrod and Soap-Jo Henshi, best known to Japanese-music nerds like ourselves. The other fella is Francisco Meirino, responsible here for "computer and acoustics". Together they have produced two long tracks, "Eagle Keys Part One" and "Eagle Keys Part Two", about 50 minutes total of crinkly-crankly improvised soundscapes, littered with abstract, atmospheric detail. Part One begins with shuffling clicks and whirring hum and rattling gurgle, sounding a bit like some sort of shaggy electronic beast snuffling through its dinner. Long quiet drones and sizzling hissing and ominous creakings and chaotic clankings occur as this duo rummage about with their instruments and and objects and microphones, the whole process finally building into a dense, satisfying distorted drone-howl at almost the very end of its 34 minutes. Then, the 15 and a half minute Part Two is more about gentle flutter and whispered feedback. It's spooky and hissy and whistle-y (enough so that at points, dogs might not like it!). It comes to an end with a sudden, satisfying "clunkgluntch"!
Of the many, many prog rock reissues out there, here's a recent one we HAD to list, the 1969 debut album from this UK band. Why? Well, track two "Isadora" reminds us a bit of the flute-laced pastoral pagan-folk ceremony of AQ faves Comus! Elsewhere this band unleash psychedelic freakouts amidst jazz-inflected grooves, wielding electric violin, distorted guitar, and "Sumerian saxophones" in a mixture of rocked out fiddle frenzies, tricky time signatures, folky vocal melodies, and moody Eastern atmospheres. It's a mystical-Mingus hybrid, as played by a rock band, their wide ranging non-rock inspirations also allowing for one track, "Communion", to be based on a Bartok string quartet.
We'd compare 'em to contemporaneous acts like early King Crimson, and violin heavies High Tide, though these guys seem a bit more, uh, playful than either of those groups. Despite (or because of) such songs as "In The Stable Of The Sphinx", East of Eden's Ancient Egypt schtick has got to be a little tongue in cheek - check out the band photos, they simply can't be serious in that King Tut drag they're wearing! Their music certainly sounds like it comes from Swinging Sixties London, rather than out of a dusty sarcophagus. It's groovy, baby. Ferinstance, the riffy "Centaur Woman" is like Cream with bluesy harp seguing into an eruption of full on free improv horns, and also boasts an extensive bass solo (hence the tagline for that one: "half-woman, half-beast, half bass-guitar"). If they had let themselves go much further out, maybe they'd have started sounding like Japan's Food Brain from around the same time. But instead East Of Eden stick with what might play in the pop scene of the day, being exotic but not overindulgently experimental.
This nice new reish includes three previously unreleased bonus tracks - two demo versions and a cover of "Eight Miles High"!
Maybe not the most important nor most influential '77 punk band from the UK, no, but definitely one of our personal all time faves! And Eater were both one of the earliest (forming in '76, debuting with a single in March '77) and youngest (they were literally schoolboys, their drummer Dee Generate was only 13 years old!). That's pretty punk, innit? Being snotty and pissed off wasn't a problem for them. Neither was writing high energy, highly catchy tunes that usually did the dirty deed in under two minutes, tops. Gotta love the poppy punk power of tracks like "Public Toys", "Room For One", and their age-adjusted Alice Cooper cover, "Fifteen". They also covered tracks by T-Rex and the Velvet Underground, always infusing 'em with their own teenaged punk 'tude. Which admittedly (and not unexpectedly, giving their age/testosterone combo) gets a little un-PC on their own "Get Raped", though that's still a catchy number too...
They're all here, 'cause this comprehensive Eater anthology consists of their album, The Album, and a bonus disc collecting their singles cuts. Maybe you've heard the Sex Pistols a few too many times, but probably not Eater. We're pretty stoked to have this new reissue to recommend. Get it!!
Second of two new releases from this Portland black metal horde, the first, Kali, reviewed a few weeks back, was a glorious chunk of epic and majestic, nearly symphonic buzz, three looooong track separated by gorgeous little ambient drone interludes. We still have a few of those left, but in the meantime we just got release number two, and while structured differently, if anything, it's even more massive and grandiose, triumphant and fucking EPIC.
As we mentioned in the review of the other disc, there does seem to be some questionable politics lurking below the surface. Nothing obvious, not in the song titles, the lyrics or the artwork, like most black metal it seems to be more concerned with nature and misery, war and death, but folks who are sensitive to the problematic politics that underscore a lot of black metal, might do well to read the other Eldrig review. But if you can look past that stuff, and as we mentioned it's not really that difficult here, as the band seem more concerned with crafting soaring blackened buzzscapes, and the cryptic lyrics (if you could make them out at all) are cries of war and wails of anguish.
But the music, holy shit. The sound of Eldrig manages to be buzzing and grim and brutal, but at the same time, the riffing is totally majestic, almost chiming, the melodies soaring skyward, the drums a furious thrashing framework, the vocals a barely audible howl, all woven into what sounds like a black metal Explosions In The Sky or a Satanic Godspeed. Spiraling riffage that just builds and builds, the melodies so intense and emotional, everything peppered with swaths of swirling keyboards, but unlike the other Eldrig, here the riffs sound almost like classic eighties metal, little bursts of NWOBHM tangled into much blacker shapes. But the sound is somehow impossible poppy, like if you stripped all the snarling guitars and the demonic rasps, the blasting beats, you'd be left with some sort of simple catchy lullaby, or some perfect pop song, but here it's buzzed and blackened into some impossible black metal hybrid. So fast and furious and black, but so goddamn catchy and moody and melodic, culminating in the near power metal sounding outro to the final track "Death To The Unwilling", with classical sounding keyboard runs, chiming keyboards, and super poppy riffage, all whipped into a glorious frenzy, before it fades out with a strange skipping cd sound, and then returns with a programmed drum fill, only to explode into an even more over the top power/back metal frenzy with epic keyboards, those majestic riffs, all wrapped in wild squiggly leads, only to eventually fade out into some churning, mournful, abstract riffage.
Super limited! We may have gotten all we can get of these, so when we run out, prepare to either be disappointed, or to wait a while for us to track down more.
It a bit weird we've never listed any records by LA space rockers Farflung. They've been plugging away for almost 12 years, and A Wound In Eternity is in fact record number 12. At least one or two of us here have some old FF records in our collection, regardless, it's finally time to right this very wrong.
Self proclaimed the heaviest and trippiest FF record yet, A Wound In Eternity is indeed both trippy and heavy, due possibly to the recent addition of various new members, their sound as always borrows heavily from Hawkwind, Monster Magnet, Kyuss, the usual heavies, but with their own distinct twist, and listening to this now, we're feeling a definite glam vibe, a bit of garagey-stomp, really catchy and hooky, but just the tone and the arrangement is sort of reminiscent of classic seventies glam, albeit super charged and a bit more drugged up and spaced out. Which is probably why we hear so much Monster Magnet in FF's sound, they have a similar over the top glamrock meets space metal crunch.
Chunky riffs, propulsive rhythms, dramatic vocals, all wound up into a set-the-controls-for-the-heart-of-the-sun stoner psych space rock blowout. The tracks often burn slow, sometimes pounding away, other times drifting lazily through space, but most of them culminate in huge drone-y psychedelic freakout outros, everything wrapped in swirls of FX, the guitars blossoming like supernovas, the drums growing more and more chaotic. A few tracks have a definite Circle vibe going on too, the group locked into super mesmerizing looped hypnorock grooves, but even then, the band eventually looses themselves from gravity, drifting into the stratosphere, only to burn out in a blaze of blinding, deafening distorted effects drenched buzz...
The lp version is ultra deluxe, and while they last, we have the super limited edition cd version, that comes in a fancy mini-lp style gatefold sleeve, and includes the same two bonus tracks that are on the lp.
What a title! Don't know what the heck it means, but we love the sounds contained inside. Released on Jozef Van Wissem's Incunabulum imprint, this is a beautiful solo 12-string record by Chris Forsyth, Brooklynite multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Peeesseye (PSI). But this has a different approach to the solo guitar genre than we've heard before. Focusing on a restless back-porch style minimalism, Forsyth layers overlapping and slow repetitive cascades of mandala-like rhythms and patterns with subtly shifting melodic changes. Often undercut with organ drones, cymbal washes, and minimal percussion, the sounds unfold like intricate patterns of Oriental tapestry or Tibetan sand-paintings, captivating and mesmerizing us into circling and swirling trance-like states. Quite lovely and very limited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another timeless gem from Chicago's Josephine Foster. Her third full length, This Coming Gladness is a heartfelt collection of breezy folk tunes that don't veer too far from Ms. Foster's usual stylings. Her wavering, Shirley Collins-ish voice we know and love is accompanied by Victor Herrero on lead guitar and Alex Nielson (Richard Youngs, Jandek) on drums. The two do a fine job of creating a warm, relaxed environment that perfectly envelops the voice and words of Ms. Foster. And inside on the sleeve is an awesome picture of the beautiful Ms. Foster herself, posing wearing a plastic armor breastplate, like an ancient warrior. What a charming gal.
The first (and before now, only) Fotheringay album from 1970 is one of our favorite records of the British folk era, but they were a group that from the beginning seemed like they were never meant to last. Led by a post-Fairport Sandy Denny and her husband, former Eclection guitarist Trevor Lucas, Fotheringay was more like a temporary dalliance away from the larger entity of Fairport Convention with Denny departing for solo stardom (and tragedy) after their first album, and most of the other members joining Fairport later on. A second album was in the works but never completed, well, until now that is! The Fledg'ling label has gone to great lengths to rescue the shelved tapes and restore the tracks to their seventies British folk glory. The sound is incredible and typical of Joe Boyd and using a light touch, sounds like a lost artifact from a previous era. While these are mostly traditional tunes and covers, their are five original compositions including two from Sandy Denny that have been little heard before now. We can't say that it betters the first album, but there are plenty of great songs for fans of this era. Named after the castle where Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded, it's interesting that after 38 years when this recording was started and long after it's two principle members have passed on, that the ghosts of the past are singing once more.
It's unfortunate that we've not listed any G*Park recordings until now; but it's certainly better late than never. G*Park is the work of Marc Zeier who has been quietly generating some of the most evocative musique concrete / electro-acoustic whatnot / broken drones / softened noisejunk since the mid '80s. These recordings had mostly been on cassette back in the day, with a couple of discs appearing over the past decade thanks to Blossoming Noise and the defunkt Zabriskie Point label. He's also an auxiliary member of the aktionist Schimpfluch collective, although his work shares little of their scatological hyper-violence of smeared fish guts, vomit, and bloodletting. Yet, the G*Park recordings mirrors the sinister vibe of Schimplfuch through his delicately disfigured field recordings and tape-cut manipulation. Zeier presents a masterful collage of disjointed repetitions from handcranked mechanisms that rupture with bellowing drones and aqueous gurglings. Elsewhere, air raid sirens explode through the laser-whipsnap recoil of cellphone tension wires being struck, and the reverberation of prepared piano abuse slams against densely packed drones into thunderous punctures. These pieces are clinical studies of decay amplified from a microscopic order; and considering that Zeier's occupation is a plankton fisherman (seriously!), perhaps these are the birth pangs and death throes of those tiny creatures. A very highly recommended piece of sound art!
Scott Goodwin is probably not a name most of you know off the top of your head. But as the man behind minimal drone combo Bonus, we were pretty excited to hear what he had been up to lately, especially since the Bonus discs we'd carried in the past were some of our favorite minimal drone music,
Impeccable Surface is definitely less rumbly and buzzy and low end than Bonus, but no less drone-y or hypnotic, this 32 minute disc begins with a pulse like high end tone, some strange klaxon, bleating out a machine like throb, while beneath and all around it, thick textured electronic tones ebb and flow, swallowing the pulse entirely, then fading to a distant whisper, the sound incredibly lush and full, the sounds slipping back and forth from ear to ear, heavily panned, the sound very spatial and expansive. A few minutes in and another, louder layer of tones join the fray, and seem to swoop wildly over the proceedings, but begin to blend with the various other sounds, and suddenly it's almost like one of those paintings you stare at a different shapes emerge. The tones blend and then beat against each other, the sounds stuttering, buzzing, transforming into smooth long harmonies, and then back again, a glorious sonic tangle, that seems to spin and change shape, change colors, change appearance right before our ears. A dog whistle tone soon joins in and the whole thing gets that much more intense, until finally, at about the halfway mark, the piece becomes much more minimal, a single tone undulating, wavering, joined by another tone, way off in the distance, the distant ultra high tone eventually eclipsing the lower tone, until it sounds like Ryoji Ikeda or Francisco Lopez. The main tone lurches back in, and suddenly the tones are winding in and out of each other's space, drawing all sorts of minimal melodies and not quite rhythms until the track shuts down, leaving just that impossible dog whistle tone, and then silence.
Some seriously incredible minimal drone music for sure. The usual suspects will definitely need this. And of course, be warned, SUPER LIMITED, when we run out, we may not be able to get more.
As Grails continue to grow and develop, they move further and further away from the various other groups and scenes they tend to be most associated with, deftly carving their own distinctive sonic niche, one that incorporates post rock, doom metal, world music, psych rock, jazz, drone, in less capable hands it would be a mess for sure, and Doomsdayer's Holiday while definitely all over the map is hardly a mess, all the various sounds and songs somehow woven into a surprisingly cohesive whole.
The opener definitely sets the stage, with some strange animal call, the beating hooves of horses, super blown out drums, swirling drones and buzz, and then some angular Marc Ribot style guitaring, the track sounding like a post apocalyptic heavy metal Tom Waits jam that builds into a cinematic crescendo, albeit one wrapped around a very Maiden-esque guitar part. Confusing for sure, but pretty damn exhilarating. The track ends with the drums getting all dubbed out and everything melting back into just the sounds of thundering hooves.
But then out of nowhere, the second track begins with some sort of horn, playing a distinctly Middle Eastern melody, the drums kick in, the guitars come crashing down, and again, it's like some metallicized Sun City Girls or something. Like Neurosis covering Torch Of The Mystics, perhaps! Eventually the track morphs into a jazzy psychedelic breakdown, and then a super spacious guitar flecked dronescape. Awesome stuff, but as we mentioned, definitely difficult to describe. The is a record by a band at the top of their game, with the time and money to experiment, and some of the stuff here sounds like the band exploring, but thankfully most of it works pretty really well. There are long drawn out folkdrone jams, with fluttering flute and meandering steel string guitars, there's slow burning psychedelic space rock, strange interludes of jazzy free drumming and glitched out electronics, field recordings and space-y ambience, some metallic chamber jazz (not sure how else to describe it), some killer Eastern tinged mathy post rock, still more sweeping epic Godpseed like vistas, deep dark guitar drones that morph into haunting apocalyptic doomfolk, finally finishing off with the longest track on the record, the 8 minute "Acid Rain", a wide open wander through a glimmering sun drenched world of soft psychedelic rock, the guitars all shimmery and warm, the melodies ebullient and effervescent, before slipping back into a warm swirl of soft drones and glistening harmonics, a surprising finish to a surprising record.
We reviewed a record by Canadian drone combo Ashtorath a few lists back, an amazing disc of dark and harrowing, cinematic dronescapes. Released on one of our favorite labels, NOTHingness. As we mentioned in that review, NOTHingness closed up shop, and in its place was born Consouling Sounds. We proclaimed Ashtorath the last NOTHingness release, when in fact there was one more, this, the 2005 demo from Grivf, a mysterious funeral folk metal one man band from Denmark. Reissued as a super limited cd-r last year, this is in fact the first we've heard from Grivf, and we have to say we're pretty into it.
Falling sonically somewhere between Skepticism and Make A Change Kill Yourself, but with long stretches of spacey dark ambience, no drums to speak of, so even at its heaviest, the record sprawls and oozes, the vocals a rumbling demonic gurgle, the guitars mournful and so so depressive, everything swathed in distortion, the melodies minor key and miserable, the tracks crawling and slithering, through black clouds and even blacker fields of sonic misery .
Some tracks lace acoustic guitars over pounded piano, unfurling a creepy funereal folk, that broods intensely, only to be swallowed up by a wave of crumbling distorted buzz, and harsh blackened vokills, but the guitar and the piano never stop. Instead infusing the black metallic drone with a super creepy vibe, elsewhere strings and synths play the same part, spreading out into long grey streaks, everything washed out and lit by a dying black sun, this is some of the most fantastically and gorgeously depressive music we've heard in ages. A few of the tracks take distorted riffage, steel string guitars, and piano, and let them get all tangled up, weaving a heartbreaking doomic black lament, weirdly melodic but still oh so melancholy.
Dark and depressive, heavy and slow, ambient and abstract, drone-y and sludge-y, miserable and mournful, drone-y and utterly haunting, some seriously essential listening for the black hearted.
SUPER LIMITED. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. We did get a bunch, but these are the last copies, the label is defunct, so once these are gone, they are gone forever.
Another winner from Sublime Frequencies! We're beginning to think with all this hidden music to be discovered and lost classics to be recovered, there's definitely no point in having so many new bands, we oughta just have some of them swap their gear in and just join the hunt for all this amazing music we miss out on...
But until then we've got the Sublime Frequencies fellas on the case, and this latest discovery has definitely got to bee one of the best yet. Group Inerane are spearheading the Tureg Guitar movement, inspired by the musicians who used this music as a political weapon in the Libyan refugee camps in the late eighties, early nineties. This is how the blues should sound. Groovy, intense, funky, emotional, dark, gorgeous, the guitars grinding and crunching and wailing, slithering and soaring, accompanied by chanted and sung vocals, that are perfectly woven into the lush fabric of the various guitar parts. The riffing is fluid, but also bit jagged and rough. The opening track is a killer. One of the most amazing and intense songs we've ever heard, worth the price of admission alone. Just guitar and vocals, chunky and propulsive, but also weirdly slippery and sinewy, the melody swaying back and forth from major key to minor key, an incredible hook and the riff, well, one of THE best riffs ever.
Most of the rest of the record is more a sort of African surf rock, fuzzy and twangy, with surfy guitar, soaring vocals, the whole thing wild and festive, jubilant and celebratory, but hold up, the final track on side one, "Nadan Al Kazawnin", is something else entirely, with its super distorted grimy guitars, a totally blown out in the red production, the riff looped and hypnotic, the vocals intense and heartfelt, the whole song howling and buzzing, sounding as gorgeously fucked up and raw as some experimental indie avant noise group, the guitar is indescribable, incendiary and white hot, all tangled up with the vocals, and bathed in distortion, wouldn't be out of place on some super limited cd-r... Totally amazing.
Pressed on super thick vinyl. Packaged in a heavy duty, full color gatefold sleeve, with tons of photos and liner notes...
LIMITED ONE TIME PRESSING OF 1000 LPS!
We love doom sludge dirgelords Harvey Milk. That should be painfully self evident by now. So you can imagine how thrilled we've been with the recent spate of HM action. A brand new record!! (reviewed elsewhere on this list) A mind blowing DVD documentary (last week's record of the week) and this, a deluxe reissue of perhaps Harvey Milk's finest moment, an all time doom dirge slowcore sludge classic, Courtesy And Good Will Toward Men. Until recently, Courtesy was available on our very own Andee's tUMULt label, in a super swank, hand assembled, die cut, letter pressed sleeve, designed to replicate the original vinyl release. But as the supply of those dwindled, and interest in the Milk began to soar, Relapse leapt into the fray and offered to re-issue it with a bonus disc! So here we have it. The packaging, while maybe not as cool as the handmade version, is still quite striking, but the real attraction here is the addition of a bonus disc, Live At TT The Bears, a previously cd-r only release, long out of print, that features HM at their Courtesy prime, completely laying waste, proving they could create the same malevolent beauty live, in front of a crowd that sounds like it couldn't number more than 20 people. But oh how we envy those lucky souls. So basically, if you're new to Harvey Milk, but are a fan of any sort of slow, heaviness, that for the love of all that is unholy, pick this up, it is your new favorite record. And if you already have a copy, well, if you're as obsessed with HM as we are, you'll just have to buy it again. The bonus disc is SO worth it. Here's us gushing about Courtesy way back when the tUMULt version first came out:
Crushing and pummeling majestic beauty, interspersed with delicate moments of hushed whispery strum. Lumbering downtuned hyper-rhythmic skull crack dropped delicately into suffocating expanses of near silence. Delicate pointillist piano mutates into a dirgey exercise in tension that sounds like a lost Dario Argento soundtrack performed by the Melvins. Lilting and melancholy near-ballads are disrupted by incessant and brutally heavy riffs. Amidst the pummel and beneath the negative space swirls a barely audible maelstrom of whispered vocals, warbling turntables and whirring vacuum cleaners, all adding to the confusional brilliance that is Harvey Milk. And their heart wrenching cover of Leonard Cohen's "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" features what has to be the most tortured and anguished vocal performance ever recorded.
Too heavy to be post rock. Too weird to be metal. Too everything to be anything, Harvey Milk are unconventional and wholly unique, both structurally and sonically, touching on territory mined by the likes of Gastr Del Sol, Codeine, Queen, Husker Du, Man Is The Bastard, the Melvins, and ZZ Top, but slowing it down, making it HEAVY, and fucking it up. Making it more beautiful, while making it difficult to listen to at all.
Hypnotic, repetitive and jarring. Unpredictable, exhausting and perplexing.
And although we do get carried away now and again, and declare certain records best ever, and weirdest ever, without any trace of hyperbole or irony, we can unequivocally proclaim that Courtesy And Good Will Toward Men is quite possibly, the greatest, heaviest, weirdest, saddest, most beautiful record ever made. Seriously.
My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be. What an awesome title. And the record cover, a bull and a rooster and an ornate candle, the words Harvey Milk in tiny blue type over the rooster. On the cd, the text: "Harvey Milk is Cronos, Mantis, Abadon". Song titles like�"Where The Bee Sucks, There Suck I",�"The Anvil Will Fall" and "Merlin Is Magic". By now most avid AQ customers are very familiar with the mysterious sludge rock power trio Harvey Milk, but when we first laid hands on this disc, back in 1994, we had no idea what to think. As if�the artwork wasn't enough to have us scratching our heads, the music inside was even more willfully difficult. And still is. Obviously borne of some serious Melvins worship, Harvey Milk, took the already difficult sound of the Melvins to new heights, or depths, crafting lengthy sludge jams, packed with as much space as riffs, long expanses of spastic John Bonham like drumming, vocals a whiskey soaked gravelly bellow, guitars thick black sheets. This was without a doubt some of the strangest music we had ever heard. But at the same time, somehow the most beautiful. The sound�of Harvey Milk was some impossible blend of noise rock, math rock, post rock, punk rock, twentieth century composition and METAL. All tangled into one huge gnarled black hole of sound. A sound that crawls more than it rocks, but when it does rock, it blows away pretty much any other band in the land.�
Lots of you no doubt already own Courtesy And Goodwill Toward Men, arguably one of the greatest records EVER, heavy, sludgy or otherwise. If you don't you need to stop reading for a second and go buy it right now. We'll wait...........
Okay, Courtesy was HM record number two, and found the band 'tightening' up their sound, taking the chaos of My Love, and crafting it into, well, more chaos. It's hard to say how they changed between these two records. My Love is a tiny bit faster. The best way to describe it is like this:�My Love is to Courtesy, the way Nirvana's Bleach is to Nevermind, more immediate and raw, but with some of the best songs the band ever wrote, and like Bleach, it's a record that tons of fans continue to insist is the best thing they've ever done. And while we are of the mind that Courtesy is in fact the best Harvey Milk record ever (unless you ask Allan, who would probably say The Pleaser, the -other- HM reissue this week, a killer disc of Harvey Milked ZZ Top worship) returning to My Love has us maybe reconsidering. We can't actually decide. There are so many amazing songs on My Love that we had forgotten about, as good as anything on Courtesy. It would probably be more realistic to proclaim�My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be /�Courtesy And Goodwill Toward Men as the ultimate math-sludge-slow-motion-dirge-doom-whatever one-two punch EVER. Maybe the greatest first and second record combo of all time. Needless to say, if you're at all into the current crop of slow motion doom mongers, and have somehow missed out on these records, you will lose your fucking mind (and odds are loads of you have never heard My Love as it's been out of print for ages). It's no exaggeration when we say every song on My Love is darn near perfect. But a few of our favorites:
"A Small Turn Of Human Kindness" was the absolute first peep we ever heard out of HM, and it's brutal and beautiful, so utterly confusing and unlike anything ever. A�frustratingly obtuse abstract jam, even calling it a jam is stretching the definition of the word jam, there's LOTS of space, the track begins with a minute of weird electronic noodling, a huge wash of cymbals and guitar scrape, a killer BIG drum fill, and then... nothing... a weird barely there buzz, some cymbal dings, a moaning cello.... How amazing is that?!?!? It isn't until halfway through the song before the riff finally kicks in, and even then, it's like pulling teeth to get these guys to let loose and rock. In fact, it's not until the last two minutes that the band really go for it. And it was worth the wait, but before you know it comes�"Women Dig it", slowing everything waaaaaaaaay back down. A super drawn out exercise in tension and release, with long stretches of just drums, big Zeppelin style drums, accompanied by mewled vocal, but which features one of the most awesome riffs EVER, so much so, that when it kicks in, it makes you want to rock the fuck out, which you could do if it wasn't just played once every couple minutes.... oh the glorious frustration!!! It's the sort of riff most bands would not only kill for, but that most bands would repeat over and over and over and base a whole song� around, whereas the Milk kick out that riff maybe twenty times, in the whole song, and all clumped together, with the rest of the song spent plodding and drifting and doing anything but locking into a killer groove. But that's what makes Harvey Milk so great, when that riff DOES drop, it's a ridiculous release, like an orgasm, this unbelievable rock-out relief, but like with most things it's the wait, the build up, that is the best part. Or at least the 'other' best part.
Another classic Milk track is�"The Anvil Will Fall", a moody drifting whispery ballad, peppered by huge bursts of downtuned pummel,�when out of nowhere, in come the strings, some patriotic hymn, an almost recognizable tune that Creston sings along too in his warbly raspy croon, even kicking it up into a wicked falsetto, before petering back out into the original hushed crawl, eventually launching into a super moving moody goddamned ANTHEM. The sort of song that should have sludge fans teary eyed with hat in hand, and hand over heart. And finally...
"Where The Bee Sucks, There Suck I", besides being the best song title maybe EVER, it's also one of the greatest songs ever, a really really�fucking weird song, howled tortured vocals over a relentless tribal drum fill with occasional bursts of Zeppelin like riffage,�before the guitar transforms into a static rumbling drone, and the drums just sort of do whatever the hell they want, for ever it feels like...�and then the band launches back into it and it's some relentless bastardized groovy Southern sludge jam, but like all HM songs, they stop not long after to just sort of wander, and plod and wait, and pause, before doing it all over again....
We could go one and on, and get all mushy and fanboy about every single song on�My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be, but you get the drift. This record is magical. Majestic. Freaked out. Furious. Heavy as anything you've ever heard. Strangely pretty. Mind meltingly difficult. Crushing. Confusing. Baffling. Brutal. And pretty much one of our favorite records ever...
Formerly known as Worship (they released a small cd-r pressing under that moniker), the elusive group who now answer to the name Headdress continue their dusk lit creep through the enchanted wilderness. On Turquoise they craft a beautiful loosely woven tapestry of ivy-like guitar tendrils, lichen-encrusted percussion, solemn mossy male vocals that reside somewhere between Jandek and M. Ward. The album's fifth song "Babylon" sounds strangely like a deconstructed folk rendition of America's "Horse With No Name". Whether intentional or not, the glinting familiarity of the latter's central melody adds to the existing subtle hallucinatory atmosphere of the proceedings. The crowning jewel of rough hewn Turquoise though is the sixth track titled "Moon Of Shedding Ponies". It's a frayed, meditative instrumental populated with generous turns of a rainstick and what sounds like howling wolves or banshees.
If you dig the rustic, abstracted psych-folk sounds of Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice and the many bewitching branches of the Jewelled Antler Collective, don't miss this!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Earlier in 2008, we received a fantastic collaborative project from Darren Tate, Ian Holloway, and Banks Bailey. At the time, we were well acquainted with the work of Darren Tate, thanks to his ongoing British drone eccentricities as Monos and his former Ora project with Andrew Chalk, Colin Potter, and others; but Ian Holloway and Banks Bailey were two whose work we didn't know anything about. Thanks to a suggestion from a long time customer here at the shop, we looked into the solo projects from Mr. Holloway; and damn if that tip didn't pay off with this fantastic cd-r (with more to come from Holloway in the coming weeks!). Self-released in a tiny edition of 50 copies, A Lonely Place is a breathtaking composition for time-stop dronemusik, achieving a similar stasis and similar dark beauty as Andrew Chalk did on his masterpiece East Of The Sun. It's hard to say what Holloway used as a source material for the album -- maybe guitar, maybe long-thin wire constructions, maybe field recordings, or maybe not. Like plenty of dronemusik before, it's the production that guides Holloway's success, as his deft manipulation of acoustics and electronics generates smoke, fog, and mirrors through sound that result in this amazing piece of long-form drone-smear. There's billowing swells of deep architectural space. Kosmiche electronics, rasping gong tones stretched toward infinity, and subharmonic thrumb swaddled in soft focus reverb. Think Expo '70 gone ashen black or Aidan Baker's ambient work at his most somber. Altogether wonderful, altogether very limited.
BACK IN PRINT!!! Perhaps you've heard the quiet rumbling accolades for The Human League's early non-synthpop recordings. Up until now, only mere glimpses were available via their Reproduction album from 1979 and to a lesser degree 1980's Travelogue. Well, here's a UK import of twenty previously unreleased songs that predate their '80s glory. They were compiled from the label's own collection of bootlegs as well as from restored master tapes that have been locked away in the group's studio for over two decades. In those days ('77 to '79) they were also known as The Future. Decidedly un-pop, this Human League was an altogether different entity back then with a line-up that included Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh (who went on to form Heaven 17). Actually many of these works were performed by only these two gents. It was they rather than Philip Oakey who pretty much ran the early Future / Human League show. They constructed much more abstract and exploratory soundscapes with a heavier, graver mood than the later Oakey-fronted fluff that would bring the group fame (i.e, the weak songwriting, thin synth sounds, and off-key vocals of "Fascination").
Odd, yet effectively frail falsetto and deep spoken vocals converse over the low viscous electronic marches and swooping spaced-out analog synthesizer excursions with no drums or guitars. It actually would be quite at home accompanying the art-wave film Liquid Sky or on a bill with the Residents. Truly, much of this sounds quite fresh and adventurous today. All except one track were produced by Ware and Marsh. Note: the sound quality does vary from track to track, however this compilation still stands up as a revealing and intriguing document of this group's early works. Much more impressive and much less dated than both Heaven 17 and later Human League combined. Recommended.
Another subtle beauty from these slowcore veterans out of New York. While they've done a superb job of quality control over the years there have been a few outings that while not bad were somewhat forgettable, but such is not the case with this lovely ep! Sitting somewhere perfectly between the devastatingly sad side of Low and the head out of the window daydreams of Red House Painters these are seven songs we've been listening to over and over as we stare into space and let the world pass by, as we catch our breath and linger in the sweet breeze of these gorgeous songs. There's even a few really nice moments of twang and folk on this ep but it's their slow sad beauties that we love the most.
Ryoji Ikeda scored the soundtrack for CS Leigh's film See You At The Regis Debray; and this two disc set is the entire soundtrack to the film split into two sections, approximately 45 minutes each. We've not seen the film; but from what we can gather, it describes a few days in 1969 when Andreas Baader (of Baader-Meinhof fame) spent with the French intellectual Regis Debray, while Baader was on the run from the German authorities. Debray himself had quite a storied past, having spent time in a Bolivian jail for associating with Che Guevera.
Ikeda's soundtrack begins as you would expect any Ikeda album to start: with a slow-building ascension of precisely micro-shifting digital tones. Ikeda cuts to a collage of the jarring ring of telephones that dissolves into a repetitive strum of a low-slung guitar that sounds very much like a Morricone sample from The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. This detours into a subterranean field recording of various clanks, muffled rumblings, and distant voices. Then an elegiac chorale of reverb saturated drones with snippets of radio transmission (bells? gongs? chimes? those same digital tones?) completes the first disc. The second disc returns to that Morricone riff, only flushed out this time, given more of an Achim Reichel energy of bad-ass Western twang matching futurist arpeggiation. These 15 - 20 minutes of the soundtrack are the highlight of the album, and make us wish Ikeda would do more of this type of work. The rest of the second disc consists of an eerie collage of someone panting heavily transitioning to a collage of chimpmunked AM radio hits then to dissonant guitar squalor sort of like early Nurse With Wound, before turning to a collection of old Spanish political speeches, perhaps Che Guevera?
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The first proper record from Illusion Of Safety in well over 5 years emerges from the Russian label Waystyx, meaning that this will not be around for long and will not be easy for us to track down once these are gone. Just a caveat before we launch into the, um, virtues of this exercise in muscular electronics and brainmelting dronescaping. Illusion Of Safety began well over two decades ago, firmly embracing the death factory imagery and psychological tension that came through the work of Throbbing Gristle, John Duncan, and The Hafler Trio. While the grizzly subjects of torture and sexual violence have dissolved over time, Illusion Of Safety's interest in unsettled soundscapes, collages, and electronic walls of noise remain as powerful as ever. Illusion Of Safety has always been a revolving door project centered around Chicago's Dan Burke; and In Session finds Burke alone at the helms of Illusion Of Safety, concocting a dizzying series of arcing electroshock compositions filled with intense dynamics and rapid crescendos of incremental noise quickly nosediving into subharmonic tones and microtonal squiggles, with plenty of slow building elements in between. The piercing drones that dominate the Illusion Of Safety palette are matched with crumbled textures from electronic circuits on the verge of collapse (see Wolf Eyes, Carlos Giffoni) and contact microphone agitation (see Tarab, Eric La Casa, Loren Chasse, etc.). There's one track of grim psychedelic arpeggiations which sounds as if Prurient were attempting a Terry Riley piece, with bad intentions running through the phase shifting loops. Totally fantastic, if not totally disquieting!
A couple of years ago, Aquarius enjoyed a brief moonlight gig as an art space (which we hope to make happen again someday), proposing the same curious aesthetic on the visual front as we continue to do on the musical. One of the more intriguing exhibitions we hosted was from an ambitious, if under-recognized artist by the name of Matthew Waldron. His meticulously eccentric drawings, paintings, and assemblages depicted mutated beings conducting psychic surgery upon each other with all sorts of psychosexual overtones. These provocative and compelling images held their own with the classic Surrealist works of Hans Bellmer and early Salvador Dali. At the same time, Waldron introduced us to the equally ambitious catalogue of sound constructions that he had been quietly making in the Santa Cruz mountains under the moniker irr. app. (ext.). These albums followed in the deconstructed / abstracted sound collage traditions of Nurse With Wound, The Hafler Trio, and HNAS, often times surpassing the quality of those which came before. Sadly, very few people had heard of irr. app. (ext.) because of Waldron's unfortunate round of luck with record labels and general low profile.
Jump forward to the contemporary era, and things look entirely different. Today, you will find Waldron a mainstay in the Nurse With Wound performance entourage, being whisked away to play in all sorts of unlikely European festivals; and irr. app. (ext.) has consistently released albums that build upon the successes of those which we had heard before. So for us here at Aquarius, it's very satisfying to see an artist we once supported have their career take off...
And that leads us to Cosmic Superimposition, the second in a proposed trilogy from irr. app. (ext.) of releases based upon the writings of Wilhelm Reich. Cosmic Superimposition was a book that Reich had written in 1951; and in that book, he argued how the superimposition of multiple energies is the common functioning principle throughout the natural world. It was through these ideas that Reich arrived at the ideas of Orgone, cloudbursting, etc. On the single 45-minute track that comprises Cosmis Superimposition, irr. app. (ext.) presents a revolving set of organic fluctuations that wax and wane in accordance with a well-tuned internal logic. Glassine ambient passages of processed environmental noise slide into the sustained harmonics of bowed metals which in turn couples with the off-kilter phase pattern of an exhaust fan whose motor is not quite properly aligned. All the while gurgles from streams, clatter from subterranean actions, singing bowl reverberations, and dark elliptical cycles of blackened electronics pock the stately progressions of Cosmic Superimposition's dronemusik foundation. As is stated in the liner notes, Waldron repurposed the source material from the first stage of the trilogy Ozeanische Gefuhle; but Cosmis Superimposition is hardly a replicant remix of the first. Rather, the ghosts, shadows, and ripples of his earlier album emerge in the fluid ambience of the second as bridge that points to Waldron's ambitious and highly successful undertaking. One of the best records of 2007, for sure.
If anyone has the ability to carry the post-Surrealist torch of Nurse With Wound, it would have to be Matt Waldron through his irr. app. (ext.) project. Like Nurse With Wound's eccentric genius Stapleton, Waldron would never qualify himself as a Surrealist, but it's a good jumping off point to describe their respective works. With Ozeanische Gefuhle, Waldron establishes irr. app. (ext.) establishes himself as one of the most gifted sound-sculptors whose work have passed through the doors of Aquarius. If you've ever picked up any drone / minimalist / ambient records or even just anything that Andee has poetically described as 'completely fucked', then you owe it yourself to pick up Ozeanische Gefuhle. This review could ramble on and on, but let's cut to the chase and state the obvious, this album is brilliant.
Strangely enough, Ozeanische Gefuhle -- as great as it is -- almost disappeared into the ether, as it was slated for release a few years back on another label who just sat on it for years, much to the chagrin of Mr. Waldron. Fortunately, the good people at the Helen Scarsdale Agency rectified the situation and made sure this album got its due recognition.
The title itself is an allusion to Wilhelm Reich, who used the term to describe the natural state of every healthy organism as connected to and engaged with the world around it. Such ideas in lesser hands would result in limp idylltronica with New Age sentimentality; but this is not the case for irr. app. (ext.), who solidly grounds this record upon a fundamental drone, which slinks its way through numerous field recordings and performative gestures. Waldron's masterpiece emerges as a tidal current of electronic sound, rumbling through blackened spaces and soaring with divine expressivity. As good if not better than anything by Nurse With Wound, Organum, :zoviet france:, Phill Niblock, and the Hafler Trio. Yeah, it's that good!
There was a time where we were pretty obsessed with Jackie-O Motherfucker. They definitely put out some amazing material. Nice freeform jams that offered up sounds new and exciting. But it seems, that maybe, that time is past. Tedious instrumental passages and really horrible vocals, mixed weirdly too but not really in a good way. Not sure what happened, but whatever it is, we wish it hadn't. Definitely don't bother with this one, there are plenty of other amazing JOMF records still available.
Here at AQ have always been big supporters of most anything Stones Throw puts out. We get off on the dense, sample driven rhythms and beats from the likes of the late great J Dilla, Madlib, his brother in crime Oh No, MF Doom and the rest of the gang. They're untouchable. There's always bound to be pristine production and everything always fits in its right place, reviving forgotten gems and bringing them back to life with new meaning, new avenues of sound experimentation. They are truly in a league of their own! But one thing's for certain, they have been known to go a bit leftfield at times, straying from the vein of deep, hard hitting breaks and indie hip hop tunes, as they're mainly known for, with releases from artists like the more vintage punk driven Baron Zen, spacey funk pioneer Gary Wilson, Madlib's brokenbeat soul alias DJ Rels, and now... their latest attempt, Mr. James Pants.
Straight out of Spokane Washington, James' Stones Throw stint began as a position as a trusty intern at the office headquarters in Los Angeles, until he was finally taken in by his dream DJ, none other than label founder Peanut Butter Wolf as "the next big thing", with a long awaited offer to release an album. He's a goofy lookin' dude that seems fun to hang out with, which could easily relate to the music he produces. Actually, a friend of AQ grew up with him and he supposedly has a shitload of analog equipment in one room, and the majority of the time takes a non directional approach, simply "jamming out" improv style and once the arrangements are all melded together they blossom into an addictive psychedelic haze.
That's pretty much the gist of Welcome, it's a James Pants one man band, jam session. Full of layers upon layers of percussion, at one point it can be mistaken for various remakes of funky Fraggle Rock theme songs, the next it's drumless atmospheres of milky synthesis, and warm tones backed with random drops of spastic and muffled vocal samples, like unexpected crowd roars and yelps. He even sings/wails a bit throughout numerous songs which at times sounds like drunken howling, surprisingly fused into blissful, whispered singing and creepy vocoded melodies. Cosmic indeed, each tune is saturated with unexpected change ups and transitions. The instrumentation is a melting pot of space-y and druggy vibes, wah synths, harps, dubbed out wood blocks, and the occasional off beat guitar riffs. Picture an enhanced drum circle on Mars with guest appearances from Bootsy Collins and Tangerine Dream, far fetched, yes but listen and see for yourself. Stones Throw described it best, comparing it to '80s Soul, Electro Boogie, Early Rap, New Wave, and Post-Punk Disco, definitely one to check out!
That's right, we're not crazy. We knew we'd be hearing some more skweee soon. Skweee? That's the Scandinavian DIY funked-up, glitched-out instrumental electro subgenre that we got all addicted to when we discovered it last year. We raved about two rad skweee comps, the Museums Of Future Sound Vols. 1 and 2, released by the Swedish skweee-centric Flogsta Danshall label. And we figured we'd be hearing more, once word really got out.
Well, it's England's Planet Mu label who now takes the lead in getting down with the skweee, signing Eero Johannes for his debut album. Eero had a track on MoFS Vol. 2, which also appears here (re-recorded?): "Finnrexin". That one is killer, but there's lots more here besides that's cool too, from the nervous blip-blip-blippage of "HAL Manifesto" to the 8-bit-y video game funk of "Natt I Sparvagnen" to the utterly catchy "We Could Be Skweeeroes" (which we'd encountered before on the internet)...
Indeed, all 13 tracks on this eponymous disc find Eero droppin' the bass with some slammin', squelching fat beats, gettin' jiggy with it, yet somehow (mostly) stayin' chill and relaxed at the same time. He's got a knack for working catchy melodies into his tracks, however frantic they may be. While our preference in skweee leans towards the stuff that's most lo-fi damaged and fucked up, and Eero's music, whilst crunchy, is sorta on the somewhat more polished/produced side of skweee, we're digging it plenty, spinning it a lot in the store.
Heck, didn't we tell ya? This is just the beginning. Warp had better make a skweee signing soon too.
Best skweee album of the year, so far!
All right, gonna wrap up the Kiss reviewing, for a little while anyway. Talkin' this week about not one, but THREE Kiss classics: Hotter Than Hell (1974), Dressed To Kill (1975), and Rock And Roll Over (1976). With these three reviewed, that means we will have covered all the Kiss studio albums up through 1981's Music From The Elder, except the universally loathed Unmasked... which might be for the best. (Crucial albums Alive I and II also remain to be reviewed.)
I don't mean to give any of these three short shrift by doing 'em briefly all together, it's just that lengthy reviews might not really be necessary. So, to begin: Hotter Than Hell, Kiss's second album, followed up their self-titled debut with another strong collection of songs, perhaps chief among them the heavy headbanging groove of Ace's "Parasite" (later covered by Anthrax) and the majestic lecherous lament of Gene's "Goin' Blind" (later covered by the Melvins). Meanwhile, tracks like "Let Me Go, Rock And Roll", "All The Way", and the title track are ones to crank come party-time. Actually the whole record is pretty much a rockin', rollin' barn-burner, aside from the aforementioned dirgey "Goin' Blind", and also album-ender "Strange Ways", whose lyrics and metallic plod have a sinister vibe that could weird out some partygoers. Cool though! Really, nothin' in they way of weak ones here, though maybe Paul's opener "Got To Choose" will be a bit too Bad Company sounding for some. Hotter Than Hell is an accurate album title I've gotta say, though it's too bad it didn't get the production job it deserved.
Next up, Kiss platter number 3, Dressed To Kill. There's a bunch of fairly poppy, finger snapping, boot-stomping hard rockers on here, Kiss again (almost) reminding us of the MC5 circa Back In The USA on opener "Room Service"... The immortal hits from this album include the Stonesy "C'mon And Love Me", mission statement "Rock And Roll All Night" (which you've probably heard a few million times too many), and "She", which lumbers a heckuva lot like BoC's "Godzilla". They go all flowery and acoustic for the first half of one song, but snap out of it in time to kick some ass ("Rock Bottom"). Incipient self-parody may be noticeable here, with groupie-themed lyrics and rock n' roll anthems making soon-to-be predictable appearances, but that's ok, some of my favorite Kiss albums later on are ALL self-parody and none the worse for it.
And then we skip ahead ('cause I've already reviewed the intervening Destroyer) to Rock And Roll Over, which fits in between the big D and Love Gun as their 5th studio album. This one starts off with one of my very favorite Kiss songs EVER, "I Want You", with its deceptively pretty n' sweet melodic intro immediately bursting into godlike amps-on-11, chest-thumping heavy metal riff rock that's about as catchy as it gets. Lyrically, it's the lustful essence of Kiss. But is Paul singing romantically about a longtime love, or rather more sleazily about the blonde in the third row, center, who just caught his eye? Probably the latter. Gene's "Calling Dr. Love" was another hit here, and definitely meant for that blonde... in fact, not just her, but all the willing ladies in the audience, no doubt!
What else? Peter sings an acoustic ballady number that's not too bad, "Hard Luck Woman", likely intended as this album's "Beth" (the sensitive, surprise hit he had on Destroyer, though this time, Paul wrote the song). Otherwise, not too much to say. "Take Me", "Love 'Em And Leave 'Em", "Makin' Love", "Mr. Speed", etc., it's all decent enuff Kiss stuff but nothing really stands out for me. Well, dumbest one "Ladies Room" maybe stands out, but not in a good way. But, dumb or not, Kiss knows what they're doing, and you'll be singing along to lots of Rock And Roll Over before it's over. And besides, it's got "I Want You"!
Ok, with these three albums, maybe that's all the Kiss we'll be reviewing for a while. Whew! But I'll start another series of reviews of another overlooked (by AQ) band, next time...
All right, gonna wrap up the Kiss reviewing, for a little while anyway. Talkin' this week about not one, but THREE Kiss classics: Hotter Than Hell (1974), Dressed To Kill (1975), and Rock And Roll Over (1976). With these three reviewed, that means we will have covered all the Kiss studio albums up through 1981's Music From The Elder, except the universally loathed Unmasked... which might be for the best. (Crucial albums Alive I and II also remain to be reviewed.)
I don't mean to give any of these three short shrift by doing 'em briefly all together, it's just that lengthy reviews might not really be necessary. So, to begin: Hotter Than Hell, Kiss's second album, followed up their self-titled debut with another strong collection of songs, perhaps chief among them the heavy headbanging groove of Ace's "Parasite" (later covered by Anthrax) and the majestic lecherous lament of Gene's "Goin' Blind" (later covered by the Melvins). Meanwhile, tracks like "Let Me Go, Rock And Roll", "All The Way", and the title track are ones to crank come party-time. Actually the whole record is pretty much a rockin', rollin' barn-burner, aside from the aforementioned dirgey "Goin' Blind", and also album-ender "Strange Ways", whose lyrics and metallic plod have a sinister vibe that could weird out some partygoers. Cool though! Really, nothin' in they way of weak ones here, though maybe Paul's opener "Got To Choose" will be a bit too Bad Company sounding for some. Hotter Than Hell is an accurate album title I've gotta say, though it's too bad it didn't get the production job it deserved.
Next up, Kiss platter number 3, Dressed To Kill. There's a bunch of fairly poppy, finger snapping, boot-stomping hard rockers on here, Kiss again (almost) reminding us of the MC5 circa Back In The USA on opener "Room Service"... The immortal hits from this album include the Stonesy "C'mon And Love Me", mission statement "Rock And Roll All Night" (which you've probably heard a few million times too many), and "She", which lumbers a heckuva lot like BoC's "Godzilla". They go all flowery and acoustic for the first half of one song, but snap out of it in time to kick some ass ("Rock Bottom"). Incipient self-parody may be noticeable here, with groupie-themed lyrics and rock n' roll anthems making soon-to-be predictable appearances, but that's ok, some of my favorite Kiss albums later on are ALL self-parody and none the worse for it.
And then we skip ahead ('cause I've already reviewed the intervening Destroyer) to Rock And Roll Over, which fits in between the big D and Love Gun as their 5th studio album. This one starts off with one of my very favorite Kiss songs EVER, "I Want You", with its deceptively pretty n' sweet melodic intro immediately bursting into godlike amps-on-11, chest-thumping heavy metal riff rock that's about as catchy as it gets. Lyrically, it's the lustful essence of Kiss. But is Paul singing romantically about a longtime love, or rather more sleazily about the blonde in the third row, center, who just caught his eye? Probably the latter. Gene's "Calling Dr. Love" was another hit here, and definitely meant for that blonde... in fact, not just her, but all the willing ladies in the audience, no doubt!
What else? Peter sings an acoustic ballady number that's not too bad, "Hard Luck Woman", likely intended as this album's "Beth" (the sensitive, surprise hit he had on Destroyer, though this time, Paul wrote the song). Otherwise, not too much to say. "Take Me", "Love 'Em And Leave 'Em", "Makin' Love", "Mr. Speed", etc., it's all decent enuff Kiss stuff but nothing really stands out for me. Well, dumbest one "Ladies Room" maybe stands out, but not in a good way. But, dumb or not, Kiss knows what they're doing, and you'll be singing along to lots of Rock And Roll Over before it's over. And besides, it's got "I Want You"!
Ok, with these three albums, maybe that's all the Kiss we'll be reviewing for a while. Whew! But I'll start another series of reviews of another overlooked (by AQ) band, next time...
