Part of a new(ish) metal movement in the UK, Winterfylleth, along with Fen and Wodensthrone (who share a member or two) are spearheading a wave of Neo-Pagan black metallism, that entails, lyrically, plenty of nature and Anglo-Saxon history, while sonically channeling a sound similar to heathen BM combos Drudkh, but sprinkled liberally with the Viking vibes of Enslaved. In fact, besides the fact that Winterfylleth are from the UK, they do often sound criminally like a Viking horde from Norway, plenty of chanting vocals, deep crooning, sea sick tempos swaying to and fro, long stretches of washed out acoustic folk, but WF also manage to supercharge that sound plenty of the time, slipping easily into furious black blasts as easily as they slip right back into some Nordic style chant.
The sound is dense, the guitars crunchy and thick, the atmosphere alternatingly grim and foresty, black and brutal, the drums loud in the mix, the vocals a harsh raspy howl (when they're not a crooning or chanting that is), the tempos hover mostly around the mid, but do lurch into frenzied bursts of maniacal buzz, as well as sometimes slowing all the way down to a doomic lope. When the band lock into a stretch of classic black metal buzz, they definitely remind us of prime era Darkthrone, but even then, often unexpectedly the band will introduce clean singing, or some strange melody, or spew out some super tangled chunk of blackened psych, and that's when Winterfylleth really shine, when their various influences mix and blur, creating some new, less easily defined strain of black metal, yet one that still hews close enough to its various roots to appeal to the various black factions. Repeated listens definitely reveal more and more, the songs open up and become deeper, more layered, more complexy, melodies surface, what was once blasting and black, becomes strange shades of buzzing grey, the acoustic tracks sound gorgeous, timeless, like old school British folk, with the guitars wreathed in sun dappled reverb, and unfurling lilting minor key melodies, often immediately giving way to huge churning blackened almost-grooves, or exploding into full bore, blown out black metal grimnity.
Fans of Enslaved, Negura Bunget, Drudkh, and the like will definitely dig...
Wire Thicket is the duo of Alex Cobb, aka Taiga Remains and Students Of Decay head honcho, and field recorder and musician David Kirby (whose Inside, It Is Ringing cd-r we just discovered a few more copies of, it's relisted elsewhere on this list!) and this is as far as we know their only release.
Self avowed practitioners of "power drone", the main track here is a single 15 minute chunk of slow burning low end smolder, that thickens as the track progresses, layer upon layer, the tones shimmering and burning white hot, soaring, moaning, almost a symphony of deep resonant tones, by the final few minutes, the tone has shifted from corrosive and ominous to effulgent and sun dappled, serious Sunroof! ur-drone territory, massive and epic and heavy, yet mesmerizing and meditative. The sort of track that deserves to drone on forever and ever. There's a second shorter track, a minimal hushed coda of sorts, a glimmering whisper drifting ghostlike over a vast black expanse, a little bit new age-y, a bit black ambience, the perfect comedown chill out after the exhaustive and cathartic first track.
Packaged in a mini 3" jewel case with a printed full color cover. Limited to 100 copies, but looong out of print, we have only a handful left, and you know what that means...
As always, this issue of The Wire is required reading 'round these parts, what with having Antony of Antony & The Johnsons on the cover, as well as a primer on West African psychedelia, plus features on Florian Hecker, Graveyards, Noodles, Band Of Holy Joy, and more. One particularly interesting piece on a series of experimental BBC radio documentaries done in '50 and '60s by a couple of folk singers.
Also: plenty of reviews, columns, charts, all the usual good stuff. And, for the back-page "Epiphanies" item, there's Jonny Trunk waxing enthusiastic about Library Music. ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
San Francisco psych-lords Wooden Shjips have definitely got the Christmas spirit this year! They've recorded a gift-wrapped "cassingle" featuring their interpretations of two seasonal hits, "O Tannenbaum" and "Auld Lang Syne", 8+ minutes each, suitably psyched-up Wooden Shjips style!! How cool is that. Even cooler, ALL proceeds from our sale of each of these - the whole five bucks - go directly to the SF Food Bank as a donation, as per WS's request. And doesn't "cassingle" seem Christmas-y? 'Cause it sounds like "jingle", as in bells, y'know.
Of course, this tape is a limited edition release. Only 100 copies made, not all of which are for sale (the WS giving away the rest to friends and family as Xmas gifts, naturally). They let us have 35 copies, and needless to say, better act fast if you want to stuff somebody's stocking with one of these, 'cause they'll be gone faster than you can say "Kris Kringle". Or "cassingle". First come, first served, ONE per customer, regardless if you've been naughty or nice.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
People have been chomping at the bit for more Wooden Shjips, and finally, here it is, a tour only 7" that sold out in a flash, and has been repressed in a super limited number so folks who may not have been able to make it out to see 'em play, can finally get their hands on these two new tracks.
The sound of Wooden Shjips has changed very little from last year's full length, but then you know what they say, why fix what ain't broke, and there's nothing broke about WS's glorious druggy din. A washed out retro fuzz drenched blues jam, equal parts Doors and Spacemen 3, the bass a deep relentless pulse, the drums simple and motorik, the guitars unfurling thick clouds of blurred buzz and blissed out riffage, occasionally coalescing into psychedelic leads, but just as quickly dissipating back into the druggy murk, the vocals a lazy drawl, drifting through shimmering clouds of distortion and blurred effects, and of course, the organ, wheezing and whirring, adding a thick warm blanket of chordal buzz over everything. The sound on these two tracks is really much more Spacemen 3 or Loop than Doors, dark and deep and druggy, swirling and lo-fi and fuzz drenched and totally hypnotic. And just maybe enough to tide us over until the next full length...
LIMIT ONE PER CUSTOMER!!!
For those of you who missed out on the limited edition double cd version of the Wooden Shjips debut release on Holy Mountain, here's a proper reissue of that bonus disc, now in a digipack instead of a paper sleeve, and with the addition of the Shjips' now out of print Summer Of Love 7" (never available on cd before!).
This disc has the three tracks from the Shjips debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists.
But unlike the bonus disc that came with the first pressing of the Shjips' debut, this disc tacks also on the Summer Of Love 7", an 11+ minute slab of everything we love about these guys: a relentless, neverending blown out fuzzy groove, all warm whirring organ, fuzz guitar, and throbbing bass, the drums a super solid motorik framework, the vocals sort of sung / spoken, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, the strangest addition are the haunting horns that drift and moan ghost like over the fuzz jam below. By the second half of the track, the band have locked it in and sound like they are never gonna stop. A looped cyclical minimal fuzzrock jam that sounds almost like some crazy crossbreeding of the Doors and Spacemen 3, which should appeal to Circle, Salvatore and Magyar Posse fans as much as all the druggy psychrock dronesters out there.
Anyone who missed out on that bonus disc NEEDS this. For everyone who DID get it (and there are a whole lot of you), you just have to figure out if it's worth buying again to get that extra S.O.L. 7" material on cd.
Either way, killer stuff and absolutely essential!
When we first discovered the mysterious and impossible to pronounce Wrnlrd, on the tip from an aQ customer, this one man band was way underground, with nothing but a clutch of cd-r releases, but since then, word has spread, and besides getting written up in all sorts of magazines and blogs, he's also released a critically lauded lp on Flingco Sound System, a label run by on of the guys who used to run Kranky.
And that record is fantastic, distinctly black metal, but with Wrnlrd's country and bluegrass roots showing through, and banjo on a black metal record is not something you hear every day! But in the beginning, the sound of Wrnlrd was a furious raw black blast of programmed drums and superdistorted riffage, garbled hellish vokills and snarling, swirling blackened psychedelic metal blowouts.
Mldthr is "record number 2 (Flower of 1, Cause of 4 and 7)" in the confusingly numbered discography, see the Wrnlrd website for more on that, a strange bit of numerology that is as confounding as Wrnlrd's music, and Mldthr sounds quite a bit like In From The Night Herd and Cperadt, which makes sense as those are the two numbers that follow Mldthr. That chart actually extends into the future including albums named, but yet to be recorded.
Anyway, like Wrnlrd discs 3 and 4, Mldthr is a swirling black vortex of shimmery black ambience, mechanical blasts, grinding black crunch, creepy stretches of murky black ambience, processed gurgles and almost industrial rhythms, everything raw and gritty and lo fi, blown out and super distorted and in the red, moody and muddy, with bits of found sounds, strange samples, all sorts of weird shit lurking below the surface, but to get below the surface, you have to plow through a torrent of frenzied black industrial buzz, the sound mechanical and machinelike, but imbued with asort of dizzying swirl that mkes it all feel warped and off kilter, twisted and a bit damaged. Which, if you're anything like us, is exactly how you like your black metal.
Another gorgeous fuzzed out collection of washed out abstract dronescapes from aQ faves Xela, this one a four track, hour long sprawl of glistening, shimmering, crackle and hiss drenched drift. Type label head honcho John Twells, takes the sound of Xela, a sound we had previously described as "Dead C meets Pop Ambient meets Gooom" (Gooom the early home of M83, Abstrackt Keal Agram, Purple Confusion and others), even further out this time, letting the various sounds ring out, spread out, decay and space as much a part of the sound as the notes and arrangements. The amazing thing about Xela, is that it's almost not even music, it often sounds more like a manufactured field recording, sometimes recognizable - are those footsteps? the sound of running water?, the creaking of old machinery? - but just as often, a sound that is totally alien, is that the sound of strange creatures rustling below the surface of some barren asteroid? Is that a recording of magnetic fields, or of spirits or ghosts, or maybe even something there are no words for? Which is what makes the sound of Xela so magical, and mysterious.
In Bocca seems to be steeped in religious symbolism, with a mysterious sigil on the cover of the lp, Latin song titles, and even sonically, it's like a wander through the catacombs beneath some old abandoned church, as if envisioned by Tim Hecker and Philip Jeck, with plenty of loops, smears of hiss, muted buzz, fields of crackle, fragmented melodies, all drifting amidst and among all manner of sounds, footsteps, chiming bells, short wave interference, bits of guitar (?), warm chordal swirls, woven into an incredibly evocative soundscape, that most definitely brings to mind another time and place, a world of darkness and grey skies, of stone walls below the ground dripping with moisture, of dusty shafts of sunlight filtering through bent bars, painting the dirt floors blurred shades of black and brown.
The opening track is thick with distortion and buzz and crackle, its beauty sublimated by all the extraneous noise, but it's that noise that give the track its texture, that turns a drone, a drift, into something much more tactile, a sound that is felt as much as it is heard, but the second track, shrugs off all of that noise, at least in the beginning, leaving just the muted sounds of a carillon, drifting down from a crumbling tower, mournful and funereal, before from below, surfaces swirls of soft electronic buzz, which become more and more smooth and blurred, finally existing as a sheet of warm whir over the ever tolling bells.
All four tracks seem to exist as a single multi movement piece, each slipping smoothly into the next, in the third movement, the bells drift off, and over them are laid deep moaning tones, the buzz and crackle now merely a whisper, a haunting slow motion creep into a thick waterfall of pink noise, before distant drums (courtesy of the dude from Heavy Winged) announce the beginning of the final, and longest movement. Tribal, militaristic, but spare and still abstract, the drums unfurl a skeletal rhythm, while all around it, the sounds become more and more frenzied, feedback, squalls of amp buzz and hiss, cymbals explode like fireworks in a black sky, the background scribbled with electronic squiggles and jagged shards of distortion, growing more and more blown out, the drums growing wilder and wilder, buzzing synths emerging from the chaos, until the drums drop out and the track has been transformed into a spaced out synthscape, all layered and pulsing, buzzing and blissful, as if suddenly, the dank stone floor gave way, and the listener, the catacombs, and everything as we know it, collapsed inward, emerging in some otherworld, a neverending expanse of glimmering, glistening blackness, a slow motion swirl of mysterious voices and distant drones all stretched out along thick streaks of looped buzz stretching off into the void.
The cd is packaged in a normal jewel case, with quite striking, and bloody artwork, the 2lp is limited (of course) and comes in a thick chipboard brown jacket, adorned with a simple black symbol right in the center.
Time to don your white robes, brush out your white beards, and slip on your headbands. Yahowa has returned! Well, no, not Father Yod, who perished in a hang gliding accident 33 years ago, but the psychedelic rock band of mortals who survive him: the legendary Yahowa 13! Now the core tribal trio of Djinn Aquarian (guitar), Octavius Aquarian (drums), and Sunflower Aquarian (bass). And they definitely have kept the faith, white robes and headbands and all, biding their time up on Mount Shasta or at Rainbow Gatherings or maybe out in astral space, until the stars were right and the time had come for the music of the Yahowa 13 to again surge forth spreading the word of Yod. Who would have thunk it possible? That they'd be back, and so damn good too?
We wouldn't have believed it, either, but we saw 'em with our own eyes, when they hung out at Aquarius one afternoon not too long ago for a book signing, and then played a fantastic show (well, except for when Sky Saxon joined them on stage, but that's another story...) at the Cafe du Nord that same night. Wow. (There's a live LP document of that show, actually, entitled Feather Of Wisdom, that we haven't ever listed but do still have a few copies of in stock, act quick if you want one!).
Yep, Sonic Portation, their first studio album in over 30 years, is good. Better even than several of the original Yahowa discs in the totemic God And Hair box set! Seriously. The track record of bands from the distant past "getting the band back together" and doing something worthwhile is often dismal, with some pleasant exceptions (like Trad Gras Och Stenar, of whom this reminds us!). So that this is so good is a sweet blessing. A blessing consisting of hypnotically throbbing, head nodding, guitar-heavy psych rock in service to the power of Yod, his presence still felt. It begins with the longest of the six jams on the disc, "E Ah Oh Shin", pushing 12 minutes. The other songs are shorter, though we'd be happy if they'd gone on longer... the completely enthralling, choppily rhythmic chant of "Yod Hey Vau Hey", which we recall as a highlight of their live show, is here only a mere, uh, 4:20. Of course the whole album flows together in a spiritual and improvisatory trance-state anyway. The sorta Circle-ish rhythm section gets into a groove around which Djinn's guitar does various far out things. From shimmering blissfulness (he plays with a feather, sometimes) to heavy washes of distortion, Djinn's sound hints at everything from surf music to oldies garage rock n' roll to the Sun City Girls. The group's music is mostly instrumental, with some weird vocals chanting or growling in the background once in a while. But the instrumental interplay is key. The Higher Key.
We started off this review with the assumption that this would be for folks already hip to the whole Ya Ho Wa thing (as so many AQ customers are). But even if you -weren't- already a knowledgeable fan of this group's cult (in more than one way) output from the '70s, when they existed as the musical arm of The Source, an LA religious commune led by the charismatic, bearded guru known as Father Yod, we'd recommend this. Heck if this wasn't Yahowa 13, but some kids named Crystal Master Antjler or something, we'd still be all over it. As would Arthur magazine, and all the hippy hipsters of today. Make it a limited edition cd-r release, with handmade covers, and tell us it's some spaced out new band from of freaks from Finland or Japan, and we'd be convinced. Seriously (again). We always have said the original Ya Ho Wa stuff was the closest West Coast American psych came to the best krautrock, and again this is krautrock like Acid Mothers Temple is krautrock. Three decades later, their love and dedication shines through. Whatever you think of religious cultish hippyish stuff, it's kinda heartening that these guys are still so into it! And we're into it too. What a fantastic reunion. Most mystically recommended!!!
PS for those who want to learn more about Ya Ho Wa, we still have copies of the aforementioned book, The Source.... look up our review elsewhere on this site.
Holy shit!!! This has to be our krautrock (re)discovery of the year. Definitely contender for krautrock reissue of the year!! We have been listening to this NONSTOP since it came in. We had heard OF Yatha Sidhra, a German group whose only record, A Meditation Mass, was released in 1974, but until now we had never actually heard it. Apparently the record was massive flop which is utterly shocking hearing this now. Everything we could want in a krautrock record, loooong tracks, simple tribal percussion, flute all over the place, simple effected guitar, crooned almost chantlike vocals, squalls of totally heavy super distorted freaked out psychedelia, wild drumming, tons of effects, as well as long stretches of tranquil drift and fluttery folky shimmer.
The opening movement of the Mass begins with all manner of rumbles and drones, before it slips into a lilting laid back groove, all soft guitar curlicues, spare percussion, warm languid bass, and flittering flute, the track drifts lazily, occasionally erupting into ultra brief psychedelic blowouts, the flute howling, a cacophony of frenzied drumming, only to settle right back into the mellow drift. The second movement is a little more active, the drums more propulsive, piano draped over deep dubby bass, and the flute fired up and swooping wildly, jazzy but still pretty krautrocky.
The third movement is probably our favorite, clocking in at 12 minutes, the song starts out by returning to the opening groove, loping bass, fluttery flute, spare guitar, the drums a bit more aggressive, some angular guitar solos, all wrapped up in tripped out FX, eventually the song shifts into a more upbeat shuffle, the drums getting wilder and more chaotic, the guitar going nuts, spitting out psych leads all over the place, until the band locks into a serious blowout, the guitar white hot, the drums freaking out, the bass swooping back and forth, everything doused in so many effects the whole track seems to crumple and crumble under the weight, flanger and phaser and echo have everything totally tripped out and druggy, the drums and flute engage in a wild battle, a free jazz krautrock psychedelic frenzy, before finally simmering down, and slipping into a super soft lazy lope, the flute floating over a deep bass and minimal drum workout, finishing off with another drum vs. flute freakout, everything again dripping with echo and delay, as of the whole band was slipping deeper and deeper, moving further and further away.
The final movement, revisits the opening, the band slip smoothly back into that original groove, the guitars way more effected, the drums a bit more tribal, the flute still drifting above it all, the whole band locked into a totally dreamy, blissed out krautdrone drift, with the instruments dropping out one by one, eventually leaving just the guitar, wreathed in effects to shimmer and finally fade out.
So freaking amazing. Boggles the mind that these guys, and this record aren't spoken of in hushed reverence and worshipped along with Can and Faust and all the other krautrock legends. Hopefully that will change with this reissue, and even if it doesn't, at least we know how mysterious and magical A Meditation Mass really is...
Packaged in a super spare digipak, with a big book of liner notes (in English and German) and a bunch of photos.
Two Live Crew meets Le Trim with the politics of Bikini Kill - Hell Yeah! These three bold and brave women from Florida have created that hip-hop record we always wished existed. Tearing down the often misogynistic and homophobic content of the modern hip-hop scene without a sense of fear or apology and all the while creating tracks that are so damn fierce and on fire. Crunk meets riot grrrl in such fun and pleasing ways! With their super dirty mouths, pumping infectious beats and a spirit that can't be denied it was confusing to find out that some of them identify as being Christians, but that all seems to be irrelevant as their music is so bumping and it's own beast. Their live shows are already legendary, known for playing without their shirts on as they shake their large and in charge bodies with no shame in their game. They've already gained big name fans likes The Gossip and CSS and what makes them so great is that they are equal parts full on fun and full on fire. They don't come off as preachy or uptight, quite the contrary, their songs aim to empower and shake a whole lot of booty in the process and they succeed with flying colors!
Full on d.i.y. scrappy and delicious garage punk jams brewed up by the Bay Area's own Brontez, best known for being in Gravy Train and beloved by many for his amazing DJ nights (such great taste in music!) and his overall contagious inviting and exciting spirit and high energy. Ever since moving to the bay from Alabama several years ago he's injected such a great bolt of sexually charged queer spirit into what can often be such a straight and white dominated punk rock scene. In true punk fashion he taught himself how to play guitar and with Gravy Train on a bit of a hiatus had songs pouring out of him that begged for a home so The Younger Lovers was born.
His covers of The Rip-Off's and The Replacements show how he loves his rock n roll to be loud, fast, scrappy and full of relentless energy. We love how honest and direct his lyrics are, whether coming clean about his wandering heart in "Ballad For All My Bandmates And Lovers" or singing about how he can't resist a hottie in "Low Top Chucks & Skinny Jeans." You can tell that Brontez loves punk, garage and riot girl a as much as he does girl groups and sassy bubblegum pop. These are songs that are as rocking as they are endearing, making us want to jump and dance as much as they make us wanna lick an ice cream cone and have a pillow fight with a room filled with our punk rock crushes. So damn fun!
