Holy shit. GORE! Easily one of our favorite heavy bands EVER. This is the sort of review that is so intimidating. A record we have loved for years and years, listened to hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, and then to finally have to put into words what it is that makes it so good, so special, whatever it is that makes these two of our favorite records EVER!!!! How much do we love these records? Well, whenever we would find one used, we would buy it just to give it to someone who needed to hear it, so much so that Andee at one point was even talking to the band about a comprehensive career spanning box set. But why you ask? Difficult to explain, especially without being able to play it for you, so since we just got these lps reissues in, and since they WILL be coming out on cd as well, we're just gonna go ahead and list these lps now with an abbreviated review, assuming that most Gore fanatics will need these anyway, and most heavy music fans have probably at least heard OF Gore, if not heard them once or twice, so they too might also want to pick these up. When the cds come out, we'll list them properly, with a longer more fleshed out and more gushing review (if that were even possible... IT IS!), with sound samples and everything, but for now...
Gore were a Dutch instrumental power trio trafficking in ultra minimal heaviness, like an even more minimal Melvins, but sans vocals, their songs made up of one, maybe two riffs, pounded out over and over, a bit like a more metal, proto-Circle.
Hart Gore and Mean Man's Dream are the first two Gore records, but play like part one and part two of a single song cycle. Crushing, pummeling, heavy as hell, repetitive, motorik, but weirdly melodic and impossibly catchy, we can't stress enough how massive and seminal these records were and are. Gore mastered a sound that would go on to influence countless heavy bands, and yet, somehow, these two records stand solid decades later as YEARS ahead of their time, masterpieces of heavy rock, of minimal metal, of proto-math metal, of hypno rock, this, as they say is THE SHIT.
For now, all we can say, is if you are at all into heavy music, these records are about as essential as it gets, your life will be changed, the way you look at music, what you consider heavy, how you hear other heavy bands, all of that will change, for the better. Trust us.
For Gore fanatics, like us, these are ESSENTIAL, the new designs are gorgeous, incorporating the timeless original album covers with new drawings and a beautiful super stylized layout. Inside, the records are pressed on nice thick vinyl, with printed inner sleeves adorned with tons of rare photos as well as extensive liner notes detailing the history of the mighty Gore! And most importantly, both record come with a whole extra lp of live tracks from the same era! Unreleased and unheard until now!
BUY THESE NOW!
Finally available on vinyl. One of our favorite records by longtime aQ faves the Grails. Where as the title suggests, The Grails cover and reinterpret "Three Psychedelic Rock Songs From Around The World", including one of our favorites from the Flower Travellin' Band. And since this is part of Southern's Latitudes series, it is indeed limited, this time to 1000 copies worldwide, which means 500 made it to the US, 50 to AQ. Packaged in that now immediately recognizable black and white woodcut style Latitudes sleeve. Pressed on obscenely thick white vinyl (with bits of black swirl in some of them), one sided, the flipside featuring one of the most intricate and striking etchings we've seen so far. Also includes the same insert that came with the cd. Needless to say, these are gonna fly out of here. Probably won't be able to get more, so be quick, or be dead...
We already loved the Grails. Then they have to go and cover Flower Travellin' Band. What the hell are we supposed to do now? Love them more?? Okay, fine. We love them more. Any band that has the balls to take on "Satori" deserves all the respect you can give them. This is volume 4 in Southern Records' Latitudes series, the first three of which (William Whitmore, Shit & Shine, Ginnungagap) we were only able to get a handful of each, which of course sold out in no time. We managed to get 25 of these, but there is no guarantee we'll be able to get more, so be prepared to be disappointed. Sorry. We tried to order 50, but what can you do?
So anyway, "Satori"! What a completely amazing song, those of you who for some reason don't already own Satori by the Flower Travellin Band, please remedy that immediately, you will not be sorry. And the Grails do an amazing job of turning "Satori" into a Grails song, it's still heavy, and it's still got that Eastern vibe, In fact it sounds a little bit Sun City Girls with its fiddle parts, but it's a little more mellowed out, and post rocky, and they wisely forgo the vocals which would be pretty darn hard to emulate.
The second track they take on is the Byrds' "Space Odyssey", a brooding twangy dirge, with dubbed out drums and absolutely dreamy lapsteel and slow building washes of cymbal sizzle, gloriously dark and hypnotic.
Finally, it's on to the UK (remember, this record is titled Interpretations Of Three Psychedelic Rock Songs From Around The World) to tackle "Master Builder" by Gong. The first half is a creeping crawling fog of shimmering guitar overtones and rich chordal swells, eventually building to a full on wild and woolly prog attack with wild drumming, mad fiddle sawing and major guitar freakout. SO AWESOME!
Another missive from the wilds of foresty Finland, this time two of our favorites team up, we think, for maybe the first time ever. Jan Anderzen, he of Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Islaja, Tomutonttu and Anaksimandros (phew!), and Hirvonen, he of the mighty and mysterious Uton (who have a new lp reviewed elsewhere on this list) together, as Hevoset.
Between the two of them, these guys have probably released 50 or 60 records all told. maybe even more, and they definitely have similar methodologies, but each has their own distinct take on music making, mixing folk and free noise and ambience and drone, so it makes sense that the two would be drawn to each other, and the results are quite fantastic, infusing elements of both artists' various groups into something new, yet oddly familiar.
The vibe here is definitely more drone-heavy, the tracks all seem rooted around various long tones, lots of layers, plenty of looped repetition. The opener begins with a scalding burst of grinding buzz and squealing feedback, what sounds like processed throat singing and strange keening high end tones, before slipping effortlessly into a murky lullaby, all muted plunks and shimmery whir, before wheezing high end melodies surface from below. The next track again roots itself in the drone, but this time, it's more washed out and dreamy, organs wheeze and whir, the melodies looping and overlapping, while over the top, a guitar feeds back and grinds out a strange burnished melody. A few tracks eschew the drone all together, instead, offering up strange tribal rituals, simple percussion, mewling wordless vocals, haunting abstract guitar groan and skree, others are super minimal stretches of shimmering tones, and woozy plucked strings, spread out into drifting amorphous soundscapes, while others sound like symphonies of scratched records, blurred and smeared into something much less distinct, but even those tracks take those disparate sounds and ground them in a loose drone framework, creating a surprisingly varied, but quite cohesive, and imminently mesmerizing collection of abstract drone divinity.
LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES!!!
Ms Jolie Holland has never been a shy wallflower, but we've never heard her sound as gutsy and world-weary womanly as on this, her fourth full length! Whereas her first two albums (Catalpa and Escondida) were hushed timeless jewels set in wistful earthy rural landscapes and perhaps intended to be listened to in small intimate gatherings, her last album Springtime Can Kill You brought more of the city folk and country rock into the fold, and The Living & The Dead continues forth. Stellar guests include M. Ward and Marc Ribot! Her sparkling performance here might be likened to a coming together of Cat Power, Lucinda Williams and Lisa Germano. Fans of those fine artists, definitely check this out! As well, on songs like "The Future" she almost sounds like a female Conor Oberst... not a bad thing in our books! Highlights: "Palmyra" and "Fox In The Hole" and the giddy album closer "Enjoy Yourself".
There's really no point in beating around the bush anymore, Hototogisu are in fact a noise band. Before the cd-r boom, and the micro-label explosion, Hototogisu would have been releasing records on RRR. Not that there's anything wrong with being a noise band, but the duo that make up Hototogisu get described as drone, and free-rock, and black ambient, and all manner of descriptors, but basically this is in fact noise music. Soft noise for sure, and pretty noise almost certainly, but the drone and ambient elements are just that, elements of the big thick layered noise these two can make.
Marcia Bassett of Double Leopards and GHQ, Matthew Bower of Skullflower and Sunroof!, together fuse all of their various sonic proclivities into one huge heaving organic whole. That while drone-y and dreamy and ambient and shimmery, will be a tough sound to get lost in if you don't have at least a tiny soft spot for noise.
But the key here is the way the noise is shaped and crafted, this is now power electronics or face melting Japanoise, instead, this is a dense brew mixing the blurred crush of Total, the upper register ur-drone of Sunroof! and a big ol' chunk of swirling free guitar psych, a bit like a room full of Keiji Hainos jamming wildly, but slowed way down and layered and layered into a whirring buzzing howling free psych drone noise blur.
Like much music of this ilk, a glancing listen will reveal nothing but sound, a wall of deconstructed guitar noise, sheets f feedback, all garbled and chaotic and intense, but listen close, climb right in there, and you'll find yourself in a soundworld alive with melodies and rhythms, textures and harmonies, swirling skies of overlapping overtones, of crunchy buzzy anti-riffing, of warm whirring psychedelic ambience, a sounds as hypnotic and as mesmerizing as records much more mellow and subdued. Sort of like how the buzz of black metal can lull the listener, this caustic 4 sided slab of abstract guitarscapery, this heady and heavy blown out psychedelic din, can be strangely soothing and dreamy, while somehow miraculously managing to be noisy and abrasive and brutally blown out at the same time!
Gorgeous, super deluxe matte finish gatefold sleeves, and of course ULTRA LIMITED. ONLY 700 COPIES!
In the past we've alternately described Ignatz as space folk drone or alien Appalachia, owing much to Ignatz's blend of buzzing lo-fi murk, and Folkways style folk guitar. A confusional mix that works magically, Fahey meets Uton, or James Blackshaw recording with Starving Weirdos, a stumbling buzz infused sprawl as spacious as it is clattery and chaotic. Beneath the drone and ambience there was always a blues element to Ignatz, the guitar playing, distinctly blues in its alien Appalachia, but usually, those blues were sublimated by all the other various noises happening, the only trace being the bits of pick and strum, that weren't blues so much as bluegrass, and even then it was sort of twisted and abstracted. Well, III is Ignatz's blues record. And while this may be far out, and idiosyncratic and lo-fi and a bit freaky, this is most definitely BLUES. Big time.
Right from the beginning, it's mostly just guitar and voice, the guitar effected and processed, the sound a little warped, the leads and melodies cracked and off kilter, but locked into a distinctly blues progression. The vocals raw and rich, a deep distorted croon, wrapped languorously over the creeping riffs and warbly melodies. It may be blues, but it's some seriously outsider blues for sure. And the whole first half of the record continues on in this fashion, unfurling haunting alien blues, "Gazing At The Fire" probably being our favorite, as the guitar gets all twisted up, stuttering and skipping, making all sorts of staccato rhythms within the various chord progressions, wreathed in space-y FX, and turning the song into something even more avant garde.
The second half of the record finds Ignatz retuning to a more familiar sound, that mysterious murky drone folk, buzzing guitars, sad plaintive vocals buried in the mix, notes and chords detuned, everything warped and warbly, strange bagpipe like melodies stretched out over wide open expanses of reverb spring buzz and tape hiss, angular melodies and high end trills. The final track sounds like Ignatz jamming with Jandek, the guitar super warm and washed out, the vocals pained and anguished, the whole track thick with murky ambience, and a muted mumbled percussion, haunting and creepy and beautiful.
At first we were thrown by the new bluesier Ignatz, but it's still such a unique sound. We can only imagine, while listening to this, that III was in fact made in the '30s or '40s, recorded by some mysterious old man in a cave somewhere in the South, and these tapes were literally dug up, discovered in the collapsed cellar of some old shack, wrapped in a bloodied flannel shirt, with a note written in rust colored ink, nothing but song titles and strange cryptic symbols. And even if that's not how it happened, it sure sounds like it did...
One would usually never align The Beach Boys with early freak folk, but then this strange and lovely oddity suddenly emerges out of nowhere and all kinds of links can be made. Stephen John Kalinich was (and still is) a poet and songwriter who with the help of Lindsey Buckingham in a project called Zarathurstra and Thelibus cut a demo of "Leaves of Grass" inspired by the Walt Whitman poem. Moving to LA in the mid-sixties, he met the Wilson brothers and based on the strength of the demo was signed as the first artist on their newly formed Brother Records imprint. He co-wrote songs mainly with Dennis such as "Little Bird" and "Be Still" from the Friends album (one of our Beach Boys favorites) as well as songs from the recently reissued "Pacific Ocean Blue". "A World Of Peace Must Come" was to be his debut release. Recorded by Brian Wilson at Brian's house in 1969, the tapes were immediately lost and never heard from since... until now. The production is not what you might expect from Brian Wilson, instead these are beautiful lo-fi recordings of beat-like impressionistic poetry and song, backed by simple arrangements of acoustic guitars, field recordings and tablas, with bits of dialogue between Brian and Stephen interspersed. One can't help but be reminded of the Jewelled Antler collective's foresty acoustics when listening to tracks like "The Deer, The Elk, The Raven". Or the gentle spoken word psych of Bobby Brown. Like Eden Ahbez was to Nat King Cole, Kalinich was a strange visionary figure in the Wilson's lives, and this is a fascinating document of their relationship, and an interesting curio of The Beach Boys in their peak era. Now if someone would only reissue that American Spring album........
Just got these in today, list day, four new aRCHIVE dvd titles (Ai Aso, Mick Barr, Khlyst, and Suishou No Fune). So, we haven't had a chance to watch 'em yet but since they're limited and all we figured you'd rather we just went ahead and listed 'em now rather than waiting 2 weeks. And all four artists are pretty cool after all.
This one's a live set (possibly the only one ever) of sheer DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM from James Plotkin's post-Khanate outfit, Khlyst, which also features Nordic maiden/extreme vokillist Runhild Gammelsaeter of Thorr's Hammer fame. It's pro shot, with multiple cameras, at a CMJ Hydra Head showcase gig in 2006. Again, we haven't seen it, but we're looking forward to what must have been a very very heavy evening's entertainment.
Lovely packaging, as you'd expect from aRCHIVE, with a matte paper cardstock fold-over featuring gorgeous, disturbing paintings by Stephen Kasner, with text silkscreened in metallic ink. The dvd has a handstamped black sleeve of its own inside the folder, which itself is nestled in a PVC bag. Nice. Limited, OF COURSE, to 500 copies!!!
We're very excited about these two remaster/reissues from Germany's La Dusseldorf! La Dusseldorf were THE masters of anthemic open and clean-sounding happy funky krautrock, inspiring the likes of Eno and Bowie (Heroes-era). They crafted repetitive hypnotic percussion with layers of super clean life-affirming melodies that were driven by minimal lyrics. Neu! co-founder Klaus Dinger and drummer Hans Lampe (who joined Neu! for their 3rd album 75) formed La Dusseldorf following the breakup of Neu! They were joined by Klaus' brother, Thomas, on percussion and vocals, Harald Konietzko on bass, and Nicolas van Rhein on keyboards. Any fan of Neu! will immediately recognize that Neu! sound, which is still evident here, but where Neu! was icy and detached, La Dusseldorf is positive and practically bubbling with warmth. Like Harmonia (a product of fellow ex-Kraftwerker, Michael Rother), La Dusseldorf albums have an incredible, ahead-of-their-time production level and truly sound like they could be a current release (we've already witnessed a couple customers' disbelief at the year it was originally released!) Viva, their second record, is filled with Krautrock anthems, culminating in the 20 minute long Cha Cha 2000 - an epic of krauty proportions. If you've been reading some of our more recent lists, we should distinguish that La Dusseldorf do not fall in the krautrock sub-genre of WWII-effected dark & broodish-type stuff, a la German Oak. La D. better fit into the uber-clean & hypnotic song-kraft family of Neu!, Harmonia, Cluster, Can, Kraftwerk, etc. Both the self-titled and Viva releases are highly recommended as an integral part of any Krautrock kollection!
We're very excited about these two remaster/reissues from Germany's La Dusseldorf! La Dusseldorf were THE masters of anthemic open and clean-sounding happy funky krautrock, inspiring the likes of Eno and Bowie (Heroes-era). They crafted repetitive hypnotic percussion with layers of super clean life-affirming melodies that were driven by minimal lyrics. Neu! co-founder Klaus Dinger and drummer Hans Lampe (who joined Neu! for their 3rd album 75) formed La Dusseldorf following the breakup of Neu! They were joined by Klaus' brother, Thomas, on percussion and vocals, Harald Konietzko on bass, and Nicolas van Rhein on keyboards. Any fan of Neu! will immediately recognize that Neu! sound, which is still evident here, but where Neu! was icy and detached, La Dusseldorf is positive and practically bubbling with warmth. Like Harmonia (a product of fellow ex-Kraftwerker, Michael Rother), La Dusseldorf albums have an incredible, ahead-of-their-time production level and truly sound like they could be a current release (we've already witnessed a couple customers' disbelief at the year it was originally released!) This self-titled 4-song cd is absolutely classic Krautrock! "Silver Cloud", with its huge drums and layers of simple, syrupy melody create one of our favorite krautrock songs ever! At the time of this album's release, it was played on German radio a bunch and even became a "funk" hit! "La Dusseldorf" opens with the chanting of a football [soccer] audience and leads into a pulsating anthemic rhythm also joined by the valliant one-word chant of "Dusseldorf". If you've been reading some of our more recent lists, we should distinguish that La Dusseldorf do not fall in the krautrock sub-genre of WWII-effected dark & broodish-type stuff, a la German Oak. La D. better fit into the uber-clean & hypnotic song-kraft family of Neu!, Harmonia, Cluster, Can, Kraftwerk, etc. Both the self-titled and Viva releases are highly recommended as an integral part of any Krautrock kollection!
Everybody except a tiny handful of folks missed out on that Josh Lay cd-r on the last list, sold out in a flash, but for those of you who missed out, here's a brand new 7" from Mr. Lay, drummer for aQ faves Cadaver In Drag. But of course the sound here is a bit different than the cd-r. The first side begins with a noisy drone, but soft noise, an undulating layer of deep gurgly rumble and highend whir that gradually grows thicker and more ominous, until it explodes into a blast of chaotic blackness, a weird abstract black ambience with howled demonic vokills, a bit like a black metal track with the guitars and drums removed, haunting and evil and black, but more a sort of blackdrone. The flipside is all drone however, never exploding into any sort of evil blackness, instead opting to lurk in shades of grey, slithering and shimmering and whirring.
Super fancy trifold gold ink on thick black cardstock sleeve, and LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!
Another chunk of classic old school style doom from Sweden's I Hate Records. This time from a band called Lord Vicar, whose name should give you a clue as to what they're all about. From Reverend to Vicar? That's right, Reverend Bizarre's axeman Peter Vicar has joined up with vocalist Christian Lindersson of Count Raven, Terra Firma and St. Vitus to craft some total Sabbath worshipping heavy doom. And it is pretty excellent. Killer loping tempo, druggy doomy guitar, wailed almost Ozzy-ish vocals, think Pentagram, Pagan Altar and the like� fans of that sort of classic doom will dig this big time. There is some surprising folkiness to be found here and there, but it never takes long for the band to lurch back into full on doom groove destruction. Lord Vicar also include in their ranks members of Centurions Ghost, While Heaven Wept and Revelation for extra doom cred, if any more were needed!
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES! Packaged in a thick matte sleeve, pressed on heavy vinyl, with a color insert with lyrics and liner notes.
Lest we forget, it bears repeating that LSD-march is named after the final song on side two of the first album, UFO, by heavy krautrock legends Guru Guru back in 1970. That the modern day Japanese band chose such a moniker implies taking on not just a certain influence, but something to live up to. Are they worthy? Well, we think LSD-march have already proved pretty deserving of their name. But if there was ever any doubt, this new album ought to settle the question. It's seeeeeeeeeeeeriously trippy. I mean, wow, man. Honorary krautrock magna cum laude!
And surprisingly, that's -without- really sounding like the usual LSD-march fare. The sunglasses-at-night-Les-Rallizes-style-distorted-guitar-blowout side of LSD-march isn't exactly in evidence. The mellow, melodic VU-ish balladry for which they are also known is not to be found here, either, this doesn't have the slow and sad vibe of LSD-march's previous studio outing Constellation Of Tragedy. This is a different beast, far freakier really! There IS guitar on here, of course, but the focus isn't on riffs, but rather primitive rhythmics, built in part from tape loops and tape edits. These tracks are shambolic, stripped down, not really song-like, much more confusional and counterintuitive than we'd have expected, except that we were prepared for this by the odd, interesting material on the eclectic, experimental 2nd disc belonging to LSD-march's earlier Beta-Lactam opus, Nikutai No Tubomi. It's as if a lot of other, heavier LSD-march stuff is what they do when they're in public, playing a "rock show", all amped up and emo, but this is more like what goes on at home, at the LSD-march Temple down the block from that of the Acid Mothers, unwinding, getting high, and fooling around with some weird DIY psych that's more playful than it's dark, more delightfully demented than downer depressive.
The freakiness is in full effect right off the bat. Track one, "Kumoitachikumo", has a skittering beat wending throughout, hippie hand percussion intercut with distorted abstract noises and weird chanted Reynolsian vocals. We could imagine a cool 12" techno/disco edit of this, actually. Like something Eye from Boredoms would remix. We're also reminded a bit of the recent AQ Record Of The Week from Finland's Fricara Pacchu. And it just gets curiouser and curiouser... a few tracks later, "Aimakuramaku" sounds like a jam session for drum kit + chirping crickets. Maybe it is?
The carefully channeled cosmic chaos and lo-fi psych ritual found on Uretakumo Nakunarutorika could be Ya Ho Wa 13 and Amon Duul inspired, the cut-up weirdness perhaps a nod to early Faust. And there's parts that are even sorta Sun City Girlsish, like track five, "Uzunisase", utilizing a looping lick of exotic Eastern-sounding psych guitar, that halfway through gets mutilated and mangled by some abrupt tape edits. And actually they do slip on the shades to delve into some eerie dronology a few times too...
The strange sounds here really manage to invoke a lot of AQ-approved musicks, from the aforementioned krautrockers, to (most definitely, and dear to our hearts) the '90s underground Japanoise outsiderness of the Boredoms and Omoide Hatoba, to peeps from the freakfolk Finnish scene like Anaksimandros and Avarus. In fact, if you told us that LSD-march had moved to Finland and recorded this deep in the woods there, we'd believe it. Now that's a recommendation!!
We know that's not the case, though recommended this is, as it was recorded at someplace called Black Snowflake, by a sound engineer named Richard Horner (which doesn't sound Finnish, or Japanese for that matter, does it?), who also happens to be credited with some voice and electronics, alongside the two usual LSD-march band members, founder Michishita Shinsuke ("vocal, guitar, bass, electronics" it says) and drummer Takahashi Ikuro, ex-Fushitsusha (here, credited with "vocal, instruments"). Also worth mentioning, is the swank packaging, a thick, colorful oversized glossy cardstock sleeve, like a miniature LP jacket. First 500 limited copies only, anyway.
Yep, another Machinefabriek, but as we've repeated over and over in the past, we've dug pretty much everything we've heard, and this new one is no different. In fact if anything, this might be a good one for folks who have been overwhelmed by all the various cd-r's and collections, as this is one of the few proper albums, a collection of songs, written and recorded as a whole, to be listened to as one single album. To be totally honest, it doesn't sound all that different than some of the other releases, but repeated listens does reveal a distinctive sonic thread running through these 5 songs, all dark and brooding and beautiful. warm whispered whirs, strange scraped strings, bits of buzz and softly plinked piano, snippets of strings woven into the dreamy drift, looped samples wreathed in crackle and hiss, slowly blurring into soft shapes and sounds, not unlike something by Tim Hecker or Philip Jeck, strange abstract percussion, bits of crunch and rumble, acoustic guitar, the title track bordering on folk music, although appropriately abstracted and blissed out. The record closer is gorgeous, a sprawling minimal epic, 25 minutes long, guitar harmonics adrift in a sea of shimmering soft drones, slowly building, smoldering and glowing warmly, the various tones twisting and stretching out into more layered drones, eventually growing quite active, the guitars stuttering and processed, crunchy and crumbling, almost like Oval, before easing back into the dark swirling background, a deep resonant whir, drifting through a field of percussive thumps, distant chimes, and random room sound, before disappearing completely.
Quite lovely for sure, fans will definitely need this, and if you've been holding off, wondering which of the many Machinefabrieks to finally check out, this might just be the one...
This new release from hip hop's hardest working man in show business showcases two of his musical personas coming together: the hip hop producer and the master of the sound sample. Collaged together like a stony late-nite radio set, with snippets of loops and breaks abruptly breaking into full guest MC-led or laid back R&B productions. The highlights are definitely all the Beat Konducta tracks - amazing! Madlib has the ear (and the extensive vinyl collection) to select and isolate just the right sample. Among the many delights that surround the listener are cat meows, raunchy casual conversations, scratches, psychedelic meanderings, and countless layers of recorded sound. And the women represented on this are all fantastic - from the spaced out visions of Georgia Anne Muldrow to the cool R&B grooves of Stacey Epps and Frezna, whose "Yo Yo Affair" recalls a cognac dipped Roy Ayers sea cruise. Unfortunately the duds come from most of the guest rappers. Is that a cultural thing to say you like the music without the vocals? We wish we liked the raps more but we've just about had enough of dated aggressive braggadocio and homophobic rhymes. But we can't dismiss the solid music that backs all of these tracks.
Vast celestial ventures, blinding cosmic rays, rhythmic inductions, psych jams from another planet! Well, not exactly another planet. Sun soaked Long Beach locals, Magic Lantern have generated quite the buzz over the last year or so after a steady output of limited cdr's and tapes.� We managed to catch one of their kraut-bliss live sets over the summer and we were really blown away. High Beams, their first vinyl release, is a finely crafted representation of Magic Lantern's sheer psychedelic power. Heavy blistering riffs swimming in a primordial ooze of spaced out organ, ripping solos, and luring drones.�By far the most solid and impressive recording we've heard from these dudes.�A fully engaging experience, High Beams maintains a nice balance between more intense, freak out, explosive-type jams and mellow, soft-daze meanderings. Pressed in an edition of 500 by the Not Not Fun family, this album is a must have for fans of anything cosmic! Trust us, you need this!
For their sophomore full length, Canada's Menace Ruine return not exactly as the heavy noise inspired black metal band you know and love, but as a neo-folk, noise-rock powerhouse. You may be wondering like us: did we miss something? And what exactly is the link? Well, maybe it's the misanthropic, anti-humanist ethos shared by both neo-folk and black metal artists that somehow ties them together. Or maybe it's the fascination with all things medieval. Or maybe it's the general brooding and ever-present sense of darkness. Could it be written off as a shared love of sonic tension? Wait, wait ... there is a difference between them somewhere, right? As the label astutely points out, in the wake of both Leviathan and Nachtmystium covering Death in June, this sort of explicit crossover makes tons of sense. And really, it might be a tad reductive to simply say that this sounds like a black metal band that wrote songs for Der Blutharsch, but it's not too far off the mark. Menace Ruine probably couldn't escape their uber-noise tendencies even if they wanted to, but other than that, the comparison essentially holds true. It is also worth noting that the label mentions an upcoming Merzbow collaboration. Woah! Man, you know a record is good when it isn't simply good, but it leaves your head spinning trying to figure out what just fucking happened, and if you've read this far then you've seen all our questions. This is what you'd hear if Moss, The Dead C, and Douglas P were caught in the middle of some bizarre, church burning audial orgy. Potential fans of something that could convolutedly be described as tortured, grim, militaristic folk-noise will absolutely want this. And if that doesn't scream recommended, then we're not really sure what the hell does.
This long in the works split finally sees the light of day. Two aQ faves together on one super limited lp. MGR, the solo project of Mike Gallagher from the mighty Isis, and Xela, the project of John Twells, who also runs the kick ass Type label.
We've yet to get around to reviewing the new MGR full length, but this track is definitely whetting our appetite. Simple finger picked guitar over, shimmering streaks of sound, layers of glimmering gossamer whir, loping and laid back, eventually some BIG guitar comes in, huge crashing chords, allowed to ring out and slowly fade away, the notes pulsing and beating against each other, building to an epic coda, all majestic and intense, like a stripped down Isis, the original guitar slipping into the ether, the huge chords crashing further and further apart, eventually stopping all together, leaving murky blurs of guitar cacophony, smoothed into dense swells, still intense and almost heavy, but more blurred and washed out, the notes and chords and harmonics swirling in a roiling sonic sea.
The Xela track begins with a squall of feedback and squiggly distorted electronics, harsh and jagged, eventually drums surface, the electronics are reigned in a bit, angelic voices drift in, everything bathed in some ethereal shimmer, the drums stumble and skitter, cymbals crash and sizzle, the electronics flit and flutter like clouds of lightning bugs, the sound gradually grows heavier and more dense, a low end gathering beneath the surface, the sound is almost like some free noise Arvo Part, haunting and choral, but those electronics continue to squelch and glitch, the drums skittering chaotically, the vocals wreathed in effects that turn them into shadowy blurs, the track becoming blurrier by the minute, more tranquil, the vocals smeared into glistening chords, the whole track like the soundtrack to staring into a dying sun. Really amazing, and unlike anything we've heard from Xela before.
SUPER LIMITED! ONLY 350 COPIES!!! All hand screened with some seriously creepy cover art. We only got 30 copies, and will not be able to get more!
Over the last couple years Mi Ami have become a serious and sweaty inspiration for the music scene here in San Francisco. Whether it's playing and hosting all night dance parties in living rooms, or DJ'ing African jams and cosmic disco in dark rooms with reckless abandon, the three guys in Mi Ami have shown that they have a deep and vast appreciation for music of all styles and variations. This is a band whose record collections are as likely to have vinyl from DNA and JFA as they would M.I.A. and MDC. But thankfully, they are one of the few bands who makes music as cool and exciting as the records in their collections. It's been so hard to actually get a hold of any of their recordings until now, unless you were lucky enough to snag one of their previous slabs of vinyl at one of their high energy body moving live shows. Chances are that this will likely be most folks' first chance to get a hold of Mi Ami on record, and this 12" is a really great introduction to what they're all about. And what they're all about is all over the map, from dub to disco, no wave to post-punk. Yet somehow they find a way to meld all those sounds into something distinctly their own. While members of the band were previously in Black Eyes and even did some time in The Rapture, Mi Ami is truly a beast of it's own vision. "Ark Of The Covenant" finds them firing at full throttle with no-wave aspirations and heavy grooves to keep the blasts hitting so right. The B-side which is "The Ark (Version)" finds them dubbing out with such spacious delight, the energy and vibrancy reminds us a lot of how we felt when Tussle first hit the scene. We can't wait to see what the future holds for Mi Ami as they continue to pull from such rich and varied influences from the past while feeling so committed to the present.
Not sure how many of you remember Last Of The Juanitas, but they were a super bad ass, noisy and sloppy, wild and heavy post rock / math rock band from San Diego, who were legendary for their raucous live shows, and who put out a handful of awesome records, with a sound falling somewhere between Don Caballero, Drive Like Jesu, the Champs, June Of 44, that sort of thing. they never really got their due, but those records are definitely worth tracking down.
Also notable was their bass player, Lana, who besides being a bass ass bassist, was also pretty much everybody's inde rock crush, ourselves included. But here we are years later, and Miss Lana Rebel is a genuine country music chanteuse. And we're not talking No Depression, or alt country, this is genuine, minor key, twangy, heartbreak country music and it's so good. If there's any justice, everyone who loves Jolie Holland and Patsy Cline and everyone in between, will discover Miss Rebel and shower her with the love and affection that was denied her in Last Of The Juanitas.
Her voice is sweet and soulful, but just appropriately rough and raw, plenty of slippery lap steel, dobro, upright bass, even musical saw, the songs simple and striking, melancholy melodies, plenty of twang, so so so gorgeous. Country music fans, new and old, should definitely check this out.
Beautiful chipboard, silkscreened sleeves, each one stamped, numbered (LIMITED TO 208 COPIES!!) and signed by Miss Rebel herself. Also included is a song book complete with liner notes, lyrics and chords so you can play along.
As always (this is their 3rd album), the exclamation point in this Norwegian industrial-skronk duo's name is quite appropriate. They definitely provide some bang for your buck, if you're into this extreme style of choppy, panicked trash-compactor "jazz", wherein sizzling electronics collide with machine-like percussion in a satisfyingly spastic frenzy. Electric guitar, keyboard, drummachine, drums, and something called "supercollider3" (a software program?) are deployed for maximum density and intensity, sounding something like a bunch of John Zorn types trapped in an exploding Radio Shack.
The album title One-Way Ticket To Candyland only makes us think that these guys have already splurged on the sugary treats, certainly seeming a bit hyperactively agitated by -something- in their quirky, chaotic music making. Yet the weird thing is, despite their jitters, they have such a knack for getting all the little pulsating puzzle pieces of their only seemingly messy compositions/improvisations to fit together remarkably well, turning this way and that like tiny, precision cogs in a well designed machine. All their herky-jerky blurting turns out to be exactly according to spec.
Knowing this, they almost get sassy, in that there's a bit of smartass punkrock 'tude to their (instrumental) song titles, from "The Shitman" to "Oh My God It's Rave". Shades of Don Cab!
It would be so easy and profitable for Juana Molina to simply streamline her sound, to make things nice and easy and to compete with the likes of Feist and Beth Orton for permanent cafe stereo time, but lucky for us, she keeps pushing and challenging herself, creating original and challenging music while still managing to weave a sensual and seductive spell with her sounds.
Her voice is the main instrument, and it's her voice that carries Un Dia, with its seamless mix of organic instrumentation and subtle electronics. It's hard to believe that someone this creative and musically talented was once a bigtime sitcom TV star in Argentina. Makes so much sense how committed she seems to her musical vision as she already enjoyed a kind of mindless popular culture celebrity so she doesn't need to pander to commercial blandness with her music. It's not to say that this is difficult or unpleasant music because its not, quite the contrary but similar to folks like Bjork and Brigitte Fontaine decades earlier, Molina belongs to a strong brigade of visionary women who know how to blend experimentation with melody and pop sensibilities for music that is both rewarding and pleasurable. This might be her finest moment yet!
Mount Eerie has always been a bit hit or miss for us, same with the Microphones, both musical projects of the quite prolific Phil Elverum. The sound tends towards a hushed downer bedroom folk, simple instrumentation, heartfelt lyrics, vocals almost whispered, but various record have twisted that sound into different shapes, especially in the Microphones, where Elverum would add bursts of distorted psychedelic rock, jagged guitars, or horns, or Stereolab style Moog buzz, but the thing with the Microphones was that the sound was always better than the songs it was wrapped around. With Mount Eerie, it seemed Elverum was exploring a more intimate side to his sound, his Sentridoh to the Microphones' Sebadoh. But even then, we were never totally taken with any of the Mount Eerie releases. At least until now.
Lost Wisdom is absolutely gorgeous. We're tempted to credit the addition of Eric's Trip's Julie Doiron, but while that's a HUGE part of it, the songs here are fantastic. Recorded beautifully, wonderfully arranged. At times it sounds like an acoustic Built To Spill covering the first Iron & Wine record, if that makes any sense. Acoustic guitars, some subtle distorted crunch, simple barely there percussion, it's mostly about the vocals, Elverum and Doiron creating amazing harmonies, each wandering off on their own here and there, before returning once again only to get all wrapped up in each others' melodies. Sweet and sorrowful and sad, dreamy and melancholy, Elverum slips from warm soft croon to fluttery falsetto, Doiron's voice is fantastic as always, so melodic and rich, but also raw and rough around the edges, passionate and the perfect foil to Elverum's sad boy swoon. And the songs are gorgeous. Minor key and strangely lush for being so stripped down. The opening title track is worth the price of admission alone, just listen to the sound sample, so dark and beautiful, so wistful and haunting, a strange arrangement, full of tension and release, and some gorgeously obtuse melodies, even some strange room clatter in the background that ends up sounding like as much a part of the song as any of the instruments. We've been playing this whole record like crazy, but that first track, wow, just might be one of our favorite songs of the year.
WAY recommended.
Sounds like our buddy, Thee Ohsees mastermind and man about town Jon Dwyer, has fallen in love all over again with the sound of raw garage rock. The last Ohsees album was way more punchy and rocking than previous releases, and now this split finds Dwyer sounding almost as fierce as he did in his Coachwhips days! Yet, he's still managed to find awesome ways to add a little something extra n' arty to that Ohsees sound.
The two Ohsees songs end before you know it but they're so good and infectious that we've just been playing them over and over and over.
Meanwhile, The Intelligence make a great foil for Thee Ohsees as they know a thing or two about how much more rad garage rock sounds when it's doused in reverb, crumbling keyboards and lo-fi vocals. Lars Finberg, the mastermind of The Intelligence (and a former member of the A-Frames) has had a bunch of records on In The Red which makes perfect sense as they have become THE label for bands with true raw garage spirit. Their three songs on this split, including a Vulvettes cover are such perfect blasts of haunting and infectious lo-fi garage rock ass kickery.
Features awesome artwork by Jay Howell and Joe Roberts and is already out of print at the label so you better act fast if you want one of these.
Every crate digger worth their salt has come upon the Asian record dilemma. Records (often Chinese) that look so awesome and full of promise with their mysterious photography, strange graphics and humorous English misspellings, only to be underwhelmed by the most boring, pedestrian and oft-times sickly sweet music contained within. But what's a cratedigger to do when they are actually IN Asia and have to wade through stacks upon stacks of such records knowing they can only bring home a tiny batch? That's the dilemma the French-Vietnamese producer Onra found himself in on a trip to Vietnam where scouring through various flea markets, he picked up a stack of promising but highly worn records. Like the best of recent instrumental hip-hop records by J Dilla, Madlib (especially his Beat Konducta Indian series), and Oh No processed through the radio collage filters of Sublime Frequencies, Onra was able to mine pure gold from the scratchy sounds he collected abroad. Bits of operatic theater, odd sixties easy-listening covers, traditional flute and string ensembles, love songs and obscure soundtracks chopped into loops and grooves with all the rough crackle and sheen kept in tact. Soooo Awesome!!!!
The welcome return of the mighty Plastic Crimewave and his druggy spaced out SOUND. Another vinyl only missive from the outer reaches of whatever galaxy these guys call home. Unequal parts Stooges, Monster Magnet, Hawkwind and the Butthole Surfers. Freaked out murky space garage jams, with plenty of psych guitar crunch, woozy, drone-y melodies, wild squiggly leads, plenty of groove and swagger, snarled vocals that remind us of Crazyhead or Zodiac Mindwarp (how are those for obscure references), all wound up into swirling buzzy blowouts, that go from slow burning throb to heart of the sun freakout, the guitars unfurling distorted streaks of sound, the drums solid and steady, the bass spreading out like a thick black fog. Been digging the Heads, White Hills, Titan and that stuff, and somehow missed out on Plastic Crimewave? Now's your chance to catch up.
The second side finishes off with a super long, sprawling space kraut dirge, that sounds a bit like a more psychedelic Circle, looped and reptitive and hypnotic, tons of effects, a repeated riff, the background a ever increasing swirl of buzz and whir and reverb and delay, the whole track seeming to slow down and melt into an oozing ambience, that drifts and shimmers and rumbles before fading out completely.
What more do you need to know? If you're jonesing for a druggy tripped out krautdrone space rock fix, you've come to the right place...
Another gorgeous chunk of swirling drone drenched psychedelic drift from this crushworthy LA duo. We raved about their recent Island Diamonds cd reissue, while lamenting the relative dearth of Pocahaunted reviews on the aQ site. Well, here's another record to aid us in our quest to make things right.
Chains finds Pocahaunted blissing out big time, weaving hazy stretches of krautrocky avant drone pop, over four songs, two sides of vinyl, once again assisted by Mr. Bobb Bruno. The vocals chant-like and repetitive, the drums a simple propulsive plod buried in the mix, the guitars swirling and blurred, washed out and woozy, plenty of FX, delay, echo, a laid back druggy Velvet Underground style slowjam, dirgey and doomy, but weirdly folky too.
The next two tracks tread similar ground, dropping the drums at one point to get super abstract and shimmery, but before long they slip back into another murky echo drenched slow jam, rife with dubby rhythms and all manner of muted, blurred and smeared ambience.
The fourth track, and the one that gives the record its name, is a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Chains", which took us a while to even recognize, the band twist it all up and pull it apart, and craft it into something that could very easily have been a Pocahaunted original, the melodies sprawl, the vocals are crooned and wailed, wreathed in reverb, the drums a soft skitter, the two vocal lines intertwining dramatically, turning the original, already a pretty intense song, into something much more brooding and dark, druggy and krauty. Awesome.
Cool color collage cover, xeroxed insert, and pressed on swirled yellow vinyl.
Rusty Santos is one of the more underrated players in the Animal Collective universe, having contributed his behind the scenes production and post-production skills to many of the band's best sides and side-projects including Jane, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink as well as friendly contemporaries such as Grizzly Bear, Ecstatic Sunshine and Tickly Feather. With his new project, The Present, he emerges from the shadows offering us cool blasts of cosmically expansive and largely instrumental avant free rock of the kind we've seen largely on the Kranky label. Like a spacier Lucky Dragons or early Animal Collective gone vibrantly electronic, the long form pieces on World I See weave through three predominant idioms: blown-out Boredoms-style tribalism; fuzzy sculpted and layered noisy drones collages; and cool percolating lush and glitchy Ben Frost style electronics. "Love Melody" is the dreamiest cut on here, but then again each cut has moments of both drifty loveliness, soft male and female wordless vocalising and restless yet playful abandon. Excellent!
Not sure what there is to say about Mr. Jack Rose that we haven't already. Most faithful readers of the aQ list are no doubt well versed in Rose's music, but for those who aren't, Rose is a practitioner of his own unique brand of modern Appalachia, a master of the steel string, whether finger picking or playing with a slide, Rose can coax amazing sounds from a guitar, and all by his lonesome create lush steel string guitarscapes, that range from haunting and mysterious to folky and familiar.
This super limited lp gathers up 3 long live tracks, all quite different. The first is a track from Kensington Blues, a big favorite around here, recorded live in Chicago, and is of course amazing. Swirling clouds of notes, tangled melodies, shimmering drones, almost like Lubomyr Melnyk on the guitar, incredibly fast finger picking, the notes whirling and piling up into blurred chords, all woven into a rich layered expanse of droning folk. So fantastic. The second track was recorded live by longtime aQ customer, Berry Kamer, for the VPRO radio show in Amsterdam, and demonstrates Rose's more traditional side, much more classic folk and Appalachian sounding, folky and wistful, dreamy and gorgeous and fluttery, but still plenty dense and deep, with more incredible fingerpicking, but much more subtle, the result some classic Fahey style pick and strum.
The whole of side two is taken up but a single looooong high end drone exploration, that harkens back to Rose's days in his old group Pelt. Previously released on the now WAY out of print vinyl only compilation By The Fruits..., this track finds Rose getting all Sunroof! with a gorgeous wavery field of high end drones, and metallic shimmer, buzzing pulsing layers, overtones and buried melodies, glistening and glimmering, all upper register tones blurred and smeared into effulgent streaks, moaning and scraping and singing, the various tones allowed to burn bright and blend into the surrounding tones, a serious chunk of divine ur-drone for sure.
Folks who have been going crazy for James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, Matt Baldwin and the like, will definitely dig this. Rose fans, well, you know you need this already. The drone track will definitely hit the spot for Sunroof! fans and anyone into otherworldly and transcendent drone music.
INCREDIBLY THICK VINYL, super heavy black and white sleeve, limited to less than 1000 copies, we have a bunch, but as always, they will probably disappear quick...
Another filthy, fucked up slab of crusty chaotic blown out whatthefuck noise rock, from the same black bottomless pit that produced the Rusted Shut full length we went nuts for a while back. These Texan freaks kick up a wicked din, equal parts Butthole Surfers, Brainbombs and buzzy black metal. BUT, they take those pieces, chop em all up, dip 'em in liquid LSD, roll 'em in hash, light them on fire, then have the guys in Faxed Head record them onto a wax cylinder. They then relearn the songs, record them in a big metal shed, with broken mics and a busted up 4-track with all the levels stuck at 10. At least that's what it sounds like.
These guys should have been as big as their Texan noise rock brethren, Buttholes, Scratch Acid, Stickmen With Rayguns, but even in such drug addled freaked out company, these guys still managed to sound fucked up.
These 4 tracks were recorded in 1997, supposedly during the same sessions that produced the full length, but somehow these track sound even more far out and freaky than the record. Sheets of atonal organ and SUPER distorted vox over stuttery skipping rhythms and tons of hiss and distortion, that eventually slips into an organ drenched Brainbombs-y groove, throbbing bass, buried drums, and organ and vocals so loud, that every time they come in, the rest of the tracks almost disappear completely. Slowed down voices, rumbling downtuned guitars, a definite and distinct Buttholes vibe.
The flipside is a bit more atmospheric, the first track sounding like Goblin gone fucked up fuzz rock, all haunting and creepy and sort of ambient, but still roiling and noisy and harsh. That gives way to a pounding closer, big distorted drums, throbbing bass, all muted and muddy so it sounds like it's coming from the car behind you stopped at the light. How they make this racket is beyond us, it's inhuman, so heavy and noisy and drugged out. The instrumentation might be a clue, featuring "godstrike", "earthscreamer" and of course "dums" not drums.
At first we didn't know quite what to make of this, but repeated listens, have almost convinced us that if this were not just an ep, not vinyl only, over a decade old, and not WAY too fucked up for most ears, it just might be our record of the year. Still might be, but be warned, this is some seriously UNeasy listening.
Eye popping full color cover, nice cardstock insert, and pressed on nice thick vinyl.
For the Biblically impaired out there, Salome was the stepdaughter of King Herod, ruler of Galilee, and her infamy comes from the fact that she was convinced by her mother Herodias to seduce her stepfather (euwww) with an eye to getting him to promise her anything she wished. And what she wished was the head of John The Baptist on a platter. Why? Because John condemned the marriage of Herodias and Herod. Harsh.
Thus Herod did her bidding, and she was able to present John's severed head on a platter, to her satisfied mother. One of the most gruesome Biblical moments for sure (although only one among MANY), that has oft been the subject of paintings and plays. But that sort of cold hearted brutality, that sort of gleefully grim bloodshed, how would that play out sonically? Well, perhaps a bit like Virginia's Salome, a female fronted slow motion sludge juggernaut, whose sound falls somewhere between Eyehategod, Khanate and Monarch. Four long songs, each a gloriously filth encrusted, downtuned dirge, with frontwoman Kat's vocals a raspy wraithlike shriek, that is at times a dead ringer for Khanate's Alan Dubin. The music, while definitely sludgey and pummeling is rife with surprising melody, even some of the slowest heaviest parts sound more like 16 rpm Sabbath than the more static and sludgey dronedirgedoom that's all the rage. But the band definitely mix it up, some lo-fi jangle here and there, some classic UK doom sounding mournful melody, some incredibly lugubrious chug and churn, some rocking parts that have a bit of a Melvins feel, all stretched out into slow slithery spaced out ultradooooooom.
The record closes with the 21 minute "Onward Destroyer", which while incredibly heavy and sooooo slooooow, manages to be weirdly pretty, with clean guitar melodies drifting in between the rest of the song's abstract spacious plod, almost like a funereal doom Low. Some awesome sheets of Eyehategod style feedback, with the band eventually kicking it up a notch, and -almost- rocking, a midtempo doomic groove, more harsh hellish vox, and an amazing stretch of feedback that sounds almost orchestral before the band pound out a sludgey groovy slow motion finale.
Monarch, Moss, Eyehategod, Khanate, Thou, Corrupted, Bunkur, if that sounds like your ideal playlist, then this is pretty much a no brainer. But for folks into troo classic doom more than this extreme modern variant, Salome might just be the perfect gateway to whet your appetite for something more black and more grim, and with a few more o's. Doooooooooooooooooooooooooom........
Both the cd and the lp are limited to 500 copies. The lp is already out of print, so when those are gone, that's it, but the cds should be around a bit longer, although probably not much.
First vinyl release from At War With False Noise and it's a doozy.
The A side is a band called Seppuku, who not long ago sounded completely different and were called Testsuo! Ring any bells? No matter, what we've got here are two songs, the first a caustic slab of Eyehategod, caveman Sabbath style sludge doom, classic Sabbath riffs melted down into something much more raw and viscous, the vocals a feral howl, practice space drums that plod along bravely amidst the doomic din, all wrapped up in a warm swirling cloud of downtuned buzz and lurching drone. The second track is way more spare and space-y, some sort of tripped out abstract krautjam, the drums skittering along in wide open expanses of whir and rumble, riffs drifting in clouds of glittering FX, cookie monster vox waaaay off in the distance, a stumbling druggy meander that eventually careens into a chaotic free psych blow out. Sounds like a lo-fi noise rock version of Bardo Pond or Comets On Fire, but after WAY more pot and too much Hawkwind. Wait. There's no such thing as too much Hawkwind. Awesome.
The flipside is by Mutant Ape, and sounds a lot like you accidentally set the needle down directly on the label instead of on the wax. A horrifying white noise crush, electronics grind and squeal, feedback shrieks and all sorts of blown out sounds crumble and collapse only to be set afire and shoved through your melding speakers. This is indeed NOISE, and is truly for those partial to such things, or with ears of steel. And of course, it's a good aural palate cleanser, flip it over between spins of the Seppuku side, blow out all the doomy riffs, so you can begin again�
LIMITED TO 220 COPIES. Oversized gatefold sleeves, with laser printed full color paste on artwork, and a photocopied insert.
Continuing their eastward migration, former Victoria, BC natives Shapes And Sizes make a bigger leap from Vancouver to Montreal, and have a new split 7" with their Austin, TX buddies Weird Weeds to boot. The charming Canadian foursome offer up the peculiarly titled, mildly eccentric and invigorating "Junker / That Fat Hand", while WW presents a more low-key, stripped down and subtly uneasy art-folk number "Hold In The Light". Kewl!
This is not newly reissued, it's just an old fave that gets played like crazy in the store but has never gotten reviewed, until NOW!
It's still astonishing to listen to records Nina Simone made over forty years ago and hear the kind of experimentation in song structure and delivery she used while transforming songs into creatures that became totally her own, all the while infusing so much soul and emotion into each note.
Pastel Blues came out in 1965 and fits so nicely into that mid to late '60s era of Nina that we are so in love with. The same era that produced High Priestess Of Soul, Let It All Out, Silk & Soul and Wild In The Wind. Bookend with two of her greatest musical moments, the leadoff track "Be My Husband" which has become a staple cover of Antony & The Johnsons and the ten minute closer "Sinnerman" which finds her at her most fiery, frantic and riveting. In between are so many more beautiful and sad sounds filled with her soft piano and distinctive vocals, a sound rich with such universal feelings of loss and sadness, yet burning with life and hope and passion.
We've said it before but we will keep saying it, this is an artist that demands a serious and deep relationship by music lovers of all varieties, 'best of' recordings are great but Simone's albums, especially in this era are so strong and carefully constructed from start to finish that they reward so richly, repeat listens. Without Nina so many of our modern day AQ favorites like Antony, Cat Power, White Magic, Devendra Banhart, etc. wouldn't exist as we know and love them. Another essential Nina Simone album!
This side project from members of UK dark prog acts Guapo and Miasma & The Carousel Of Headless Horses presents a second album, following one from last winter on Aurora Borealis, and it's quite aptly titled: Shivers and Voids. That's what this sounds like. Creepy, soundtracky, dramatic droned out weirdness under the stars... stirring and sinister stuff, with martial drums and ominous keyboards. Stargazer's Assistant takes much more of an abstract, soundscapey approach to "prog" than do either Guapo or Miasma, though you will certainly hear some similarities.
This disc, which clocks in at just under 25 minutes all told, consists of 3 tracks but it may as well just be one long, programmatic piece, beginning with the nine minutes or so of "Night Soil", a seductive nightmare that finds the listener sleepwalking on a ghostly, imaginary battlefield somewhere, with explosive detonations and snare rolls violently sundering the heavy-drone-gloom that undergirds the track, making it even scarier. The title track then provides a 4 and a half minute interlude of clanking chains, acoustic guitar, and melodic, monkish chant, heavily layered and effected, delving a bit into Richard Youngs experimental folk territory, quite nice... And then "Dream Kingdom", at 11 minutes long this disc's truest epic, also serves up its most baleful bombast.
Should appeal to fans of the aforementioned acts, as well as the likes of Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, Darsombra, and anything else you can imagine that would mix field recordings and doomy organ and electronic noise and droning loops... in other words, right up our alley, obviously!
We were immediate fans of Marnie Stern's debut from last year so we were excited to finally get our hands on her follow up which kicks ass just as much as her great debut. Let's get this out of the way, someone at one of those powerhouse video game companies needs to get Marnie Stern on Guitar Hero immediately! We can't think of many axemasters who shred so hard and with as much wild exuberance and technical proficiency as she does. Such a rad spazzed out sound she has carved out for herself. Kind of like if Eddie Van Halen in his prime was moonlighting with no wavers and noisemakers and Chrissie Hynde was on the mic after loading up on helium and amphetamines. Somehow Marnie Stern has all that crazy and manic talent in her hands, fingers and lungs! With Hella's Zach Hill once again pounding the skins and twisting the knobs, they've managed to crank out another high fueled adrenaline pumping blast of songs that sometimes sound like nursery rhymes interpreted by some dream collaboration of Erase Errata and Lightning Bolt. Did we mention how much this shreds?!!!
Just got these in today, list day, four new aRCHIVE dvd titles (Ai Aso, Mick Barr, Khlyst, and Suishou No Fune). So, we haven't had a chance to watch 'em yet but since they're limited and all we figured you'd rather we just went ahead and listed 'em now rather than waiting 2 weeks. And all four artists are pretty cool after all.
So, this one is from Japanese Tokyo Flashbackin' bleak psych-folk unit Suishou No Fune, featuring live footage from their 2007 East Coast USA tour, as shot and edited by James Plotkin. There's material from shows in NYC and Philly, and a segment where they jam with Bardo Pond and somebody called Harmonica Dan (like we say, we haven't seen it yet, but we'll guess he plays harmonica). So that all sounds pretty rad, if you like this band as much as we do. And Bardo Pond too!
The dvd is approximately 1 hour long, and is packaged in a swank four-panel foldy card thing in a PVC bag, with art/design by Stephen O'Malley. Limited, OF COURSE, to 600 copies!!!!
We have to hand it to Atavistic, it's undeniable that the vaults containing Sun Ra's recordings from his long and strange brilliant career must be so vast and daunting, it's amazing what an incredible job they've done over the last few years mining so much of the best and most diverse output of this free jazz master.
Secrets Of The Sun was a really important and transitional Sun Ra album as it was recorded in New York shortly after Sun Ra and some of his Arkestra made the move to the Big Apple from Chicago. It has traces of the bebop and exotica of early Sun Ra yet the more out and freewheeling side of Sun Ra clearly makes its presence felt at times, this is truly one of those Sun Ra records that strikes a perfect balance between melody and chaos. In fact Secrets Of The Sun is a really great and colorful jazz record that those who are often scared away by the skronky side of free jazz might want to check out. It's not without it's freakout moments for sure, and it's pretty amazing to think this was recorded in 1961 and still sounds way more intense and out then most No Wave or Noise bands today!
With a sound partially Earthbound, and partially drifting way out into the depths of outer space, Secrets Of The Sun is an awesome snapshot of Sun Ra on his way from one world to another while still managing to be forever ahead of his time.
More divine modern shoegaze, we just can't get enough. Fergit Belle And Sebastian. Camera Obscura, who's that? There's a new yummy band in town who're giving those bands a run for the money and adding a healthy dose of shoegaze-y shimmer -- umm, but the town they're in is not actually Glasgow. Nope, these kids are a trio from Philadelphia, but Ben Daniels and his twin sisters Robin and Lauren sound remarkably authentically wooly tartan'd. From now on when you think of Scotland, you just might find yourself thinking of A Sunny Day In Glasgow. Scribble Mural Comic Journal is a swirlin' shoegazin' blissed out treat all awash with fuzzy guitars and dreamgirl vocals in the lovely tradition of Sarah and Slumberland Records. With heaping helpings of gauzy Cocteau Twins swirl and abstract deconstructed My Bloody Valentine buzz. Press 'play', curl up in a windowseat, and enjoy!
So many bands use periods like they use umlauts, just throwing them into to make their band name seem more fucked up or evil or grim. So we fully expected that T.O.M.B. were doing just that, until we discovered it does actually stand for something: Total, Occultic, Mechanical, Blasphemy.
Which is in fact a pretty good name for these guys. Cuz this is indeed some seriously occultic mechanical blasphemy. This one man band from Pennsylvania is one of the new breed of black metallers, with a healthy appetite for NOISE, but in T.O.M.B., that appetite is sated in a fairly unique way. Every song here was recorded in a different location, various places in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, all in some way spiritual, whether they were the location of some tragedy, or perhaps they are supposedly haunted, each one adding their vibe and spirit to the recordings, not to mention their bizarre acoustics.
The tracks here range from blown out blurred dronemusic, thick with distortion and buzzing guitars howled vocals, and tons of reverb from the huge concrete environs, while others are more straight ahead blackened buzz, but even those tracks are far from straight ahead, the two disparate sounds often getting all tangled up in one another, or even overlapping, the more metal parts slipping from loping mathy black metal to furious thrashing, cool start stop dynamics, haunting minor key melodies...
But the best tracks are definitely the ones that sounds like some fucked up grim metal band set up at the bottom of some cistern or on the wide open floor of some burnt out factory. The drums a machine like pulse, the guitars a howling cloud of droney buzz, the vocals just adding to the din, every once in a while bits of guitar drifting to the surface, some tracks it sounds like the band is playing in another room, very much like it sounds standing right outside the door of a club, but way more murky and washed out. Because of the field recording aspect, the sound quality varies dramatically, and tends toward the raw and lo-fi, but that's the point, it's the industrial city version of Nordic bands recording in the woods, this is band out in 'the wild', incorporating the surroundings into their sound, almost creating a new kind of USBM, this is definitely not for everyone. The sound is damaged and really strange, the metal here is plenty buzzing and blasting, but more often than not is wreathed in reverb, or buried in murk, or just plain fucked up, but awesomely fucked up. Headphones help for sure, there's so much to hear, so much going on beneath the noise and within the black buzz. Definitely one of the coolest weirdest black metal records so far this year...
Pummeling, cavernous and, needless to say, HEAVY. Portland's Tecumseh offer up another cathartic dose of slow motion, glacial rust. Dream-doom realizations of soul sucking necromancy. Sprawling, low-end riffs shrouded in warm distortion, drifting feedback and subtle electronics. And like we've said before, with this type of ambient sludge, its all about THE RIFF, and Tecumseh has definitely got it down. So while some of this plays like an homage to Earth 2, Avalanche and Inundation manages to take things a step forward. The gorgeous chord progressions move with a tectonic hugeness that is more marvelous and immersive than most drone-sludge outfits. Towering and fully engulfing, Tecumseh's brand of heavy hypnosis will weigh you down into infinity and leave you there to rot. Usually a three piece consisting of two basses and one guitar, Tecumseh appears as a five piece here with two other dudes on electronics and cymbals (at least that's what we heard, since the liner notes don't mention instrumentation). This cold ripping disc of hollow desolation is highly recommended for your next descent into hell.
Remember a couple lists back we reviewed a Paradigms disc by a mysterious, very cool instrumental space rock band called Titan? We told the story of how, some months previous, these guys had sent us some cd-rs to check out, but with no contact information. And then when they finally did follow up with an email, and we tried to order some, we got no response! So we never ever got those cd-rs, but the Paradigms cd was a nice surprise.
Well, of course what happened was this: the slightly-flakey-but-nice Titan folks (hey this IS some kinda stonery drug rock, so some flakiness is to be expected, eh?) read our review, and emailed to see if we still wanted the cd-rs.... only they didn't have the one they'd sent us originally any more. But they did now have a new cd-r release, recorded at the same sessions as the Paradigms cd release. Plizmarmelade is a single 40 minute long track, starting off skronkily aggressive, with the noisy bite of a Lightning Bolt, before getting building into a relentlessly energetic, almost... jaunty... crazy crunching howling throbbing bass groove, like Zombi or Circle or Pharaoh Overlord on happy pills, freaking out on the guitar solos and sci-fi effects!! Acid Mothers Temple would be proud of this. Eventually the pills wear off and things fade into a calmer, deeper, droned-out zone, still way out in space. Wow. Basically krautrock from Brooklyn, that's the deal here. If you dug their Paradigms release, this should turn you on too.
We do have a bunch of these, but since they're cd-r's in home-made looking (silkscreened) digipacks, chances are they're limited...plus who knows if Titan will email us back if we need more...so get 'em while you can.
Shugo Tokumaru crafts some of the most endearing, clever and catchy pop we've heard in a long time! Carrying on a great tradition of Japanese pop that is nuanced yet so damn playful and impossible not to fall in love with. What makes him and this record so special is how easy and effortless he makes it all seem. Whether using toy instruments to joyous perfection or using his soothing voice to swing the melody of a song back and forth, this is someone who is both a skilled songsmith and a wide eyed daydreamer. The songs and spirit of Exit make us think of some amazing creative pop combination of Haruomi Hosono, Rob Crow, Gruff Rhyss, Cornelius and Vetiver. The range on Exit is astounding, from short caffeine fueled recess anthems to more introspective daydream blissed out gems. That's why the more we listen we really keep thinking of how Shugo Tokumaru seems so much like a Japanese version of Rob Crow, as so many songs on this record could totally fit in sound and style on Heavy Vegetable, Thingy or Pinback records. It's rare that someone is able to be both so playful and thoughtful with the songs they create, but Tokumaru proves with this batch of playful delights that he's in that upper class of truly great pop songsmiths, every song a hook filled gem with an undeniable heart of pop gold. Highly recommended!
Dear Science is album number three for TV On The Radio, and it's already been hailed far and wide as a triumph of art-rock adventurousness striving for pop perfection. That said, we're finding this album more hedging toward a Bloc Party meets Radiohead with Peter Gabriel singing (yes, frontman Tunde Adebimpe still sounds a hell of a lot like mid '80s Peter Gabriel). There's plenty of soulful horns, post-Velvets jangle-drone guitars, and whimsically rickety electronics amidst these atypical tunes. This isn't a bad thing at all, but we have to say that Dear Science lacks the epochal hits that defined TV On The Radio. There's nothing like "Staring at the Sun" or "Wolf Like Me," seeking more a slowburn arc of an album instead of the urgency dotting their first two records.
Of all the freaky Finnish forest folk we hold so near and dear, Uton continue to be the most mysterious, musically for sure, but also, just in general, with far fewer releases than many of their countrymen, most of those releases containing little or no information, featuring bizarre abstract artwork, strange song titles, or no song titles at all, and a gorgeously twisted outsider music to match.
On this latest, bizarrely titled, lp only release, the first strange thing we noticed was the grooves on the record when we slid it from the sleeve, both sides had a whole bunch of super short tracks, almost like how a record of locked grooves appears, and indeed, Straight Edge XXS is a series of about 30 short tracks, but listening straight through it doesn't necessarily sound that way.
Fans of Uton need not fear, and Finnish music freeks will still feel right at home in Uton's warped and warbly avant folk free noise sound world. Little bits of abstract percussion, scrapes and rattles and bits of crunch and buzz, fluttery flute, strange warped loops, hand drums and chimes, chanted vocals, mysterious invocations, the sound slipping from muddy and murky to glimmering and sun dappled, extended stretches of woozy almost krautrock, fragmented bits of psych folk, haunting ritualistic invocations, layers of buzz and hiss, freaky falsetto crooning, fractured arrangements, all of these super short sonic mini landscapes, deftly woven into a super freaky, surprisingly cohesive, yet still distinctly and deliriously damaged whole.
Amazing, super intricate collage cover, and of course LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES!!!!
Another winner from Sublime Frequencies. And while we made sure to stress that past "vinyl-only" were indeed vinyl only, lately, those vinyl releases have been slowly making it to cd. BUT, for the vinyl folks out there, these do disappear fast, and fetch big bucks on eBay once they're gone, so you're not gonna want to snooze on this one. Listening to this again, now, for maybe the 20th time in 2 days, it's becoming clear we'll probably have to make this a Record Of The Week as soon as it comes out on cd, but for now, even though it's only a highlight, it really couldn't be more of a MUST OWN.
And like many of the Sublime Frequencies before it, we find it hard to not think that maybe folks don't need to be making so much music, releasing so many records, when so much amazing outrageously creative music is already being and has been made all over the world, for so long, much of it never heard outside of a very few people. Maybe we should have some sort of national policy, where bands can turn in their instruments, and in exchange get a recorder, a plane ticket, and an expense account, with which they can roam the world bringing back some of that unheard and lost music. Heck, sign us up right now!
Anyway, this new release is a collection of Rai music from the early seventies, from Algeria, and these particular cuts are samples of some of the sort of "outlaw" Rai performers, a modern strain that has been neglected and ignored, and takes this classic Algerian music form, and adds electric guitar, trumpets, wah wah pedal, and whips it all up into an infectious brew equal parts Ethiopiques, Bollywood and garage rock. Or something close to that. This stuff is truly hard to describe, and the liner notes, while informative, are printed on an eye popping blue on red old school 3-D colored background which makes the text swim and sway before your eyes. And offer more on the history and the players than what Rai music actually is (there's a good description on Wikipedia). But for the purpose of this review, as it should be, we'll just focus on the sound. And what a sound!
Warm whirring organ drones, trumpets EVERYWHERE, really the defining sound, wild chaotic tribal drumming, crooned dramatic vocals, groovy, soulful, funky, raw and lo-fi, like a garage rock Ethiopiques, but with a strangely raw Bollywood vibe, the trumpets peppering the murky grooves with strange fanfares and jazzy melodies, here and there distorted guitars surface, wrapped in wah wah, reverb and echo all over the place, some songs super frenzied, others laid back and dreamy, Indian melodies draped over almost surfy grooves, really pretty fantastic. Hard to imagine that folks who have been digging all the Sublime Frequencies releases, or the Yaala Yaala reissues won't go crazy for this stuff.
Group Doueh, Group Inerane, and now this, a pretty mind blowing, near perfect, far out world music three-fer, and that's not even counting the 30+ release that came before. ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED.
LIMITED TO 1500 COPIES, 180 gram vinyl, super thick gatefold sleeve, full color, with tons of photos and liner notes inside.
20 tracks as awesome as "Ballroom Blitz" by The Sweet?? Well, no, not quite. That would be a tall order. But this Blitzing The Ballroom comp (subtitled 20 UK Power Glam Incendiaries) does boast quite a few corkers. Stormers. Blitzes. Whatever the glam slang is for kicking ass (with bubblegum stuck to yer boots). And, like the '60 garage psych before it that so many previous Psychic Circle comps have dug into, '70s glam's definitely a genre that works great in the various artists compilation format. So many one-hit-wonders (or one-hit-wannabes), you can fill a comp with killer songs from bands (or "recording projects") that made just one or two singles, taking their shot at the top of the pops and then disappeared faster than a melting ice cream cone in the summertime heat. While The Sweet, Slade, T-Rex, and a few other greats from the glam scene have stood the test of time, so many obscurities have been forgotten. And that's what this comp concentrates on, bands with such disposable, adolescent-appeal names as Frenzy, Tiger, Panther, Screemer, Giggles, Stumpy... Nope, never heard of 'em either, but Blitzing The Ballroom demonstrates they're each worth 2-3 minutes of your time. And despite the bubblegum goofiness, they are all examples of glam ROCK. The back cover blurb accurately speaks of the "harder edge" that a lot of these selections share (hence the words "power" and "incendiaries" in this disc's subtitle). Maybe not headbanging but definitely hard rockin' with a silly grin on yer face.
As per usual with the many fine comps from the Psychic Circle label (so many we'll never get to 'em all, but cherrypick our faves), this comes complete with full-color graphics and informative liner notes on each track in the cd booklet, often tracing these acts back to their members' origins in the the '60s pop psych scene, or following their fortunes forward into the punk rock/new wave era. Screemer, for instance, featured a ex-member of heavy Hendrixy NZ rockers Human Instinct. And there's a track here by Peter Dunton, the vocalist/drummer who earlier on was a member of AQ fave proto-metal, prog-psych trio T2! (His track actually doesn't seem all that glam, sounding much like the calm, melodic heavy psych of T2, but that's cool too).
Hmm. Now that they've ventured into the glam singles scene of the early/mid '70s, can we look forward to Psychic Circle bringing us a NWOBHM comp of heavier stuff from later in the decade?? We wonder...
One final teaser before the tUMULt release of Varghkoghargasmal's Drowned In Lakes full length. Another glorious slab of "wooden metal" from this German one man band, that as always, is not particularly metal, or wooden. In fact, it's more like some strange off kilter krautrock, warbly organs, stumbling drums, lurching grooves, off kilter tempos, simple downtuned clean guitar strum, haunting keyboard melodies, all tangled up into a gorgeous creepy forest jam. The track begins all doomy and droney, the keyboard wavering over the deliberate drumming and the muted riffing, very spare and space-y, eventually locking into a more propulsive groove, the drums impossibly off, in an amazing way, totally in their own dimension, the guitar a mere mumble, except for the spidery melody that holds the whole thing together, the keyboard louder than anything else. Imagine a cross between Avarus and Benighted Leams and you might get something close to Varghkoghargasmal. Awesome as always.
Splitting the disc with V. is October Falls, another one man band, this one from Finland, who specializes in dark ambient folk, and here, it's just that, all mournful minor key acoustic guitar, lilting and sorrowful, moody and meandering, so darkly pretty.
Super thick sleeves and jackets, a handful are on colored vinyl, so you might get lucky, LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
Warmth seem to exist only in the realm of split 7"s. We're sure they probably have a handful of cd-r's or cassette tape releases (actually at least one cd too), but this is the third split we've gotten from these guys, and this will probably be the third time we talk about how we want o hear more than one song!
The Warmth track here is indeed warm, beginning as a slow smoldering, barely there shimmer, but over the course of the side, the sound intensifies, getting more abrasive, more caustic and crunchy, eventually building to a sort of Wolf Eyes rumble, which is soon streaked with jagged shards of feedback, and swooping upper register tones, all smeared across the roiling buzzing crunch of the background drone. We can only imagine what might have happened if this were an lp instead of a 7" and the track was allowed to sprawl and spread and mutate for another 15 or 20 minutes.
The flipside comes from a band with the tongue twisting monicker Medroxy Progesterone Acetate, which a quick internet search revealed as a drug to decrease the production of Testosterone and to reduce the sex drive in males, aka "Chemical Castration" sometimes given to convicted rapists and sex offenders. Hmmm...
So what would something like MPA sound like? Maybe like this, a murky, fuzzy, muddy sprawl of rumbles and whirs, haunting melodic swells, squalls of glitch and buzz, teapot whistle melodies, disembodied voices, woozy, stuttering loops, tape hiss and sea sick warble, all beneath a gauzy lo-fi haze. Quite nice actually, if not a bit creepy.
Both tracks, and both bands are quite recommended, this 7"s is definitely a good taster, and yeah, we still want to hear more Warmth, and now we, ummm, want more Medroxy Progesterone Acetate...
Beautiful die cut silkscreened sleeve, LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! most likely already out of print, we have a handful...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES
Those unintimidated by metal of the power, folk, or medieval variety, hail! Waylander are back yet again with another album of Irish folk metal, set to sharpen the listeners mental and metaphorical swords. Sometimes when we write these reviews it's hard to know what to say. It seems that there are metalheads who can vibe on flute and other folk instruments, and there are those that don't. Well, we believe that this record is one of those rare times a band can bridge the gap. While the harps and such blaze on, crunchy guitars and howling vocals keep things from ever getting too gimmicky. Basically, it stays heavy even with some unusual instrumentation, which can sometimes feel like it's softening the song. And with song titles like "Taker of Heads," or "To Dine In The Otherworld," these guys are on the path to pure metallic nirvana. Any true metalhead will easily find something to love about this record. Give it a listen, and we think you'll agree. Recommended!
