Lodged somewhere between The Seeds garage aggression and The Kinks pop lyricism is Florida's greatest sixties "never-was" band, We The People. Supported by two strong in-house songwriters, We The People were almost too pop-savvy and musically accomplished to be called a garage band, but they could tear it up with the wildest proto-punk groups out there but also deliver smart and clever lyrics, killer pop hooks and dreamy psych vibes. The opening Morricone-ish guitar hook of "In the Past" (covered by The Chocolate Watch Band) is the clincher, along with the feedback rave-ups of "You Burn Me Up and Down" and "Too Much Noise" and the moody tremolo pensiveness of "(You Are) The Color Of Love" and "Alfred, What Kind of man Are You?". Unfortunately, they never received any wide national attention, despite being signed to RCA Victor, and after one key songwriter jumped ship, it pretty much sealed the band's fate. This anthology collects their best and most essential singles, a much needed pairing down from the completist 2cd set Sundazed issued a decade ago. While it has almost the same tracks as the early Collectables reissue, the tracklisting is greatly improved for better flow, making this feel like the album that was never made. Seriously, there's not a bum cut on here, and they're all original songs. Essential!
It's almost impossible to keep ourselves still and write about this new White Magic release as every time we listen to it all we want to do is spin and jump around. We've only had New Egypt in our hands and ears for a week now but we've already lost count of how many times we've pressed repeat to hear this ten minute track over and over again. Like some kind of amazing mantra on love, hope, paranoia and what the future could hold, this is White Magic at their fiery and feverish best!
Taking some of the ingredients of what was previously our favorite White Magic song "One-Note" from their Through The Sun Door debut over four years ago and stretching it out with even more dynamics, more fire and a dizzying spell that casts its magic in such physical ways. What separates White Magic from the psychedelic folk masses is that they create music that actually creates a strong physical sensation as well as tapping into emotional realms. It's impossible to listen to "New Egypt" and not have your body start responding physically to the sounds, it's perfect for strapping on headphones and taking on the city and walking faster and with more purpose than ever before.
We'd been hearing that this was supposed to come out for several months, but somehow the timing of it finally arriving now seems so perfect for the crisp October air, as this really sounds like a ceremonial offering to the season of fall. There is a flame ignited at the core of what White Magic creates that's truly connected to all the Earth elements while still inhabiting a space that's filled with intriguing mystique. Make sure to play this one loud as we've found it resonates with such striking glory when it blasts through our skin and inhabits both the inner and outer realms of our psyche.
Packaged with the latitudes series usual classy cardboard aesthetic with a gold embossed pyramid on the cover giving a clue to the transcendental song that is within! While this one is a bit pricey for its length coming it at over a dollar a minute, the song makes that math equation a no-brainer as it really is a priceless gem!
Dream-drone, slow-slowcore uberwunder duo Windy & Carl are long-time favorites of Aquarius, and by long we mean looooong. As in, we've been with them the whole way, and this fall marks 19 years for the project. So anyway, we were plenty excited when we finally got a copy of this, their newest record. Hot on the heels of Windy's lovely (and haunting) solo record, these tracks were actually started at the same time and nearly went unfinished. Thankfully they were saved! Press releases mentioned vocals, vocals, vocals. Those who know W&C probably understand that "lots of vocals" is relative. Two or three songs a record with Windy singing is kind of a lot! Yeah, so when we got this we were totally blown away. Again! Man, there's definitely a reason we hold them in such high regard: they never fail to take us exactly where we want to go. If you're a fan, you already know that W&C can conjure up the dreamiest six-string drones, never, ever drums, and the sweetest daydream vocals, employed sparingly and pretty damn perfectly. Fans of Labradford, Stars of the Lid, maybe even the quietest Low, this is already - or soon to be - your favorite band! We love Windy & Carl, and we want you to have the chance to love them, too. This is definitely a great place to start. Oh, and check out "Snow Covers Everything," it might be our favorite track on here. If you couldn't tell already, recommended!
First off, clever cover design this time 'round! A DIY lookin' b&w xeroxed array of cassette tape spines. It's in the spirit of this issue's special 14 page guide to music's "Unofficial Channels" - mixtapes, bootlegs, mp3 blogs, pirate radio and so forth. This special section includes an article by Edwin Pouncey about "Black Metal's unholy cassette rituals", talking about the likes of Dead Reptile Shrine! Amongst other interesting angles on the subject...
Also in this issue: 1-bit wonder Tristan Perich, rappers Yo! Majesty, SF improviser Gino Robair, Dutch electronic composer Dick Raaijmakers, Anthony Braxton in the '70s, Alan Licht interviewing experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, Hal Willner doing the "Invisible Jukebox", Robert Wyatt on a favorite piece of poster design, and much much more including the usual ton o' reviews.
Record number six from this far out fractured one man black metal horde hailing from Virginia. There's some serious significance to the numbers in the world of Wrnlrd. Check out his website for some truly mind bending numerology, and maybe you will understand the non musical significance of the unveiling of Oneiromancer, the first vinyl release, and sixth overall in a proposed nine part cycle. We've raved about the music of Wrnlrd on past lists, and judging by how difficult it is to keep in stock, you all feel the same. We'd been hearing about Oneiromancer for a while now, rumored to be the best and most fully realized Wrnlrd disc yet, and we're inclined to agree.
Much of Wrnlrd's sound is improvised, in the spirit of automatic writing, and most of the vocals are spontaneous wordless vocalizations, with the lyrics incorporated later, which definitely adds to the mystery and goes some way to helping explain how unlike most black metal Wrnlrd's black metal really is.
The record opens with what we can only describe as high end doom, upper register chords allowed to ring out, left hanging, abstract with tons of space, a slow churning soundscape of chiming chordal shimmer. Which quickly gives way to some old school metallic chug, peppered with ultra lo-fi buzz, the skree of feedback and simple pounding drumming. The next track explodes in a frenzied blast, machine like rhythms beneath riffs so distorted and blurred they sound like static drones, occasionally interrupted by stretches of black ambient shimmer and whirring minimal drones. There are some dark haunting doomy bluegrass hybrids too, steel string twang drifting over deep resonant rumbles and throbbing black murk.
All of side two is taken up by the epic "War", with distinct multiple movements, woven into one organic shapeshifting whole. Beginning with acoustic guitar, melancholy and slightly atonal, stumbling tribal drumming and soft static guitar buzz, interwoven with subtle backwards loops, which gives way to a dirgey blast of primitive and raw blackness, which is quickly pulled under a tripped out FX laden drift. After that it's a loooong stretch of muted buzz, all murky and muddy, buried drums, like suddenly the speakers blew, until the track shifts once again into a super distorted in-the-red blowout, finally fading out, leaving a minute or so of swirling warped backwards warble to lead us out. Schizophrenic and deliriously damaged, some of the most far out "black metal" we've heard. We can only imagine what record 7,8, and 9 hold in store!
LIMITED ONE TIME PRESSING OF 500 COPIES. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Housed in a super swank gatefold sleeve, printed in metallic ink, and includes a download code to get you the whole record digitally for your iPod.
Massive Minneapolis instru-metal discovered (for us) by our friends in Hammers Of Misfortune a few years back in 2004. We instantly became fans upon hearing their first album. As did many of you. They followed that with an equally powerful second album in 2006. Now, another 2 years later, they're up to album number three, and we're proud to have such a burgeoning Zebulon Pike section in our metal bin!
If you haven't heard ZP before, just imagine a mathy yet melodic, all-instrumental, and even more epick version of doomsters The Sword... Or, as we have said before, a mix of old Pelican and The Fucking Champs, with immense twin guitar harmonies and stonery heaviness. There's always been a "post-rock" side to 'em along with the metal, the post-rock coming on strongest on this third effort, with the the 2nd part of their loud-soft dynamics dialing up the atmospheric prettiness over significant stretches of these extended, and otherwise utterly heavy compositions.
They're named after American 1800's explorer Zebulon Pike, but to our ears Zebulon sounds like some sort of science fictional, metallic element found on the extreme edge of the periodic table. As in, "the asteriod is composed almost entirely of solid zebulon." Or, "this chunk of zebulon possesses strange radioactive properties!" So connoting something both heavy and, um, technically advanced. But the being named after the pioneer who lent his name also to Pike's Peak makes sense too, in that ZP's music is not unlike a craggy mountain range, full of peaks and valleys, tall granite spires and bottomless chasms. This is mountainous metal. Their riffs are of avalanche proportions, their long songs (three on this disc, the shortest a mere 10:55, the longest 16:25) move with the inexorable power of giant glaciers, having slow but majestic momentum, though they pick up speed now and then for a sudden rockslide or volcanic eruption. The vast heavens above and beyond those peaks are also visited by ZP, especially on track two, "Star-Ocean", dusted with spacey, Zombi-esque synths in an cosmic interlude at about the 10 minute mark.
It's a mystery to us why this band isn't better known. Why they're still putting out their records themselves on their own label, why they haven't gotten the sort of attention awarded bands like Baroness and Pelican and Mastodon and Om and Hammers... Why aren't they signed to Southern Lord or Hydra Head? Where's the limited picture disc vinyl and diehard boxsets and stuff? What about tours? But they're too good to stay our little secret forever! Anyone into metallic post-rock and/or stonery sludge ought to enjoy exposure to that Zebulon radiation we mentioned...
