Depending on your tastes this is either the most insane and enjoyable record you're gonna hear all year or the record that will drive you utterly and completely crazy. Sounds like a perfect record for AQ no doubt. Always is an a cappella outfit from Australia who loop their vocals to create some super strange and mesmerizingly repetitive sounds. Somehow the human voices become blurred and it begins to sound like you're being swarmed by wild buzzing flies. If each of those flies was whispering the same thing in your ear. Hmmm... In some ways we hear the influence of Steve Reich's early tape pieces but here they end up broken down into shorter tracks that still test the limits of endurance and your tolerance for maddening repetition. Whenever we play this in the store at least a few people end up driven away, yet just as many freak out and need to know what's playing so they can buy it. Listen to the sound samples and figure out which camp you belong in. Just a matter of time before folks like Irwin Chusid and the Incredibly Strange Music brigade freak out to the totally insane sounds of Always.
Bands should really label the side of their records. Especially if it's a split and the band they're sharing the split with has a somewhat similar sound. Similar to how bands that sound like SUNNO))) or Nadja should definitely label the speed a record is meant to be played at, since it often sounds equally good at both (or all three!) speeds.
So we were super psyched to finally get a new record from one of our favorite post rock metal combos, Angel Eyes, and we threw it on, and while it definitely sounded similar, it seemed like a lot had changed. The sound was a strange constantly shifting melange of loping metallic post rock, lurching caustic grind and skittery jazziness. We were pretty sure we had mistakenly put the other band's side on, when they shifted gears and kicked out some seriously epic blackened screamo-y Neur-Isis style jams, and then we weren't so sure. Eventually we did figure it out, especially once we laid our ears on the side long single track epic on the flipside, but we did decide that we did indeed dig this crazy band with the crazy name A Fine Boat, That Coffin!, who definitely take the post rock metal thing and tangle it all up with screamo and grind, although we could do without the bits of jazziness, thankfully those are brief. But for sure, heavy and chaotic and epic good stuff.
But flipping the record over, we suddenly felt right at home again (boy are we gonna feel dumb after all this if that side WAS in fact Angel Eyes), with a sound both warm and lush, heavy and crushing, brooding, pounding minor key melancholic slow building heaviness, epic and majestic, anguished howled vocals over super melodic metallic crush, monstrous and pummeling and almost orchestral at times, laced with cool expanses of shimmery, dreamlike low end guitar, streaks of glistening feedback, chiming bell like melodies, eventually slipping into a super minimal drift, all reverby and echoey, a woozy soft focus slowcore sprawl, that eventually builds and builds and explodes into a super epic emo metalpsych blow out finale. These guys are so good. One of the few bands, amidst the many who now practice this sort of thing, that should have the big boys shaking in their boots.
Cool gatefold sleeves, a bit confusing which band is on which side, but you'll figure it out, and both bands kick ass, but Angel Eyes' sidelong track is worth the price of admission. LIMITED of course, we got our copies direct from the band, their LAST copies, which means when we run out we'll have to get more from the label in Europe, so if that happens, please be patient while we wait for more to arrive from overseas, and needless to say (but since that's the way we roll we'll say it anyway) ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY RECOMMENDED!
Been a little while since we've heard from either of these legendary black metal hordes, one French, one German, but who share much in common sonically, and if you're anything like us, you probably saw the names Katharsis and Antaeus on the same record and already decided this was essential and hurled it into your cart, and you know what? You would be RIGHT. Two new killer blasts of frenzied and gloriously fucked up blackness, both bands offer up something slightly different, but still plenty in keeping with their sound respective sounds.
Up first is Katharsis, or at least that's the side we listened to first, and it DESTROYS!! A blurred expanse of relentlessly buzzing guitars and buried blast beats all murky and muted, a swirling sort of blackness, hovering beneath a creepy deep voice, intoning, testifying, speaking in tongues (?) before the band explodes into a super fast, ultra furious squall of swirling buzzing black metal fury, the vocals really loud and way up in the mix, gargling and growling and slipping into wild falsetto shrieks, doused in reverb and delay, there is also some super surprising poppiness that surfaces during the bridge, super melodic bits all tangled up with the thrashing flailing buzz beneath it, as well as some awesome crazed super shredding guitar leads. Definitely weird, but still completely amazing. Dying for a full length more than ever.
Antaeus have been MIA even longer than Katharsis, and their track, while still pretty ruling, sounds like it could be a demo, or rehearsal, or outtake, but because of that, it gives the song a seriously fucked up and freaked out vibe. After a mysterious blackened industrial drone intro, the band launches into a super fast, almost looped sounding blast, the drums sounds like a machine, except for the strange flurry of fills, the guitars super brittle and buzzy and backed off in the mix, the flurries of lightning fast kick drums are WAY up in the mix, along with the vocals, so much so that it almost sounds like just vocals and drums, with a backdrop of swirling distant buzz. Not as epic and crushing as their records proper, but still plenty heavy and buzzy and black.
Housed in a beautiful printed heavy cardstock sleeve, inside there's a fold out poster sized insert with artwork and liner notes, and the record itself is pressed on some of the thickest vinyl EVER.
ALREADY OUT OF PRINT, so these are the last copies we'll likely be able to get!
It's been quite some time since we've heard from French black metal lords (and lady) Antaeus. Fortunately, the always amazing Norma Evangelium Diaboli label has given us a split 7" with Antaeus and Germany's Katharsis, reviewed elsewhere on this list. But what has the band been up to since their last full length, 2006's Blood Libels? Well, we're not entirely sure. But our blackened hearts have been aching for Antaeus' incomprehensibly heavy blend of thick riffage, terrifying vocals and truly astounding drumming. And that, dear friends, is where Aosoth steps in.
The new-ish (they've been around since 2002 but only released a couple of splits) project of Antaeus vocalist MkM, with the awesomely monickered Bestial Satanic T handling all the instruments and production work, Aosoth effortlessly steps into the top tier of current black metal bands with their first full length. The sound is not too far removed from that of Antaeus, but Aosoth is its own beast indeed. These songs won't be mistaken for anything but black metal, but they are at times quite thrashy and, dare we say, "catchy" throughout the majority of the record. Production wise, this will make you realize that no matter how many black metal bands are capable of producing awesome work with limited means/musical talent, some guys are just a cut above the rest. Who, other than someone truly devoted to darkness, can write riffs this devastating? It's clear that these guys are anything but amateur black metal weekend warriors.
Things kick off with the two part "Aura of Pills", the name of which gives you a pretty clear idea of the strain of mental instability these true black metallers have embraced to further their deviance within modern society. Part I begins with shimmering cathedral-like ambience before snapping into a burley, hyperspeed D-Beat with thick swells of guitar and uber-metal pinch harmonics. Part II is a bit more plodding, but no less heavy, making nice use of the devil's tritone as the vocals bark out pure vitriol, before culminating in a squiggly (maybe not the best word to describe something so evil...) guitar solo. The somewhat hilariously titled "Here to Serve" offers another uncompromising blend of sheer brutality as does the final track, "Prophet's Curse", where MkM's treated vocals gurgle below a queasy, arpeggiated guitar riff as things head into a midtempo dirge that is probably a pretty good indication of what it would be like to die in combat... in a GOOD way.
This album came as quite a surprise, because honestly, we weren't really expecting it to kick our asses this hard. The unknown status of Antaeus is a little easier to stomach when we know the members are up to something as truly worthwhile and unrelenting as this.
It's been almost 3 years since we've heard from the Appleseed Cast, and closer to 7 since we were truly obsessed with these guys, back when their, multi disc Lo Level Owl opus was released. Those two records totally threw us for a loop, encompassing everything we loved about indie rock, taking all the tried and true elements, and pushing them further, creating a massive sprawling concept record of sorts, without ever losing sight of the song, of the melodies, the hooks, the stuff that made it indie rock in the first place.
So since then, the band have continued to plug away, releasing maybe 5 or 6 records, all of them pretty decent, but none doing it for us the way Low Level Owl did. The most recent one before this, Peregrine, came close, reigning in the band's tendency to drift and explore and get all experimental, in favor of something more immediate, and perhaps commercial, mining a sort of Modest Mouse / Death Cab For Cutie sound. But on Sagarmatha, the band seems to have decided to return to their roots while trying something a bit heavier on for size. The opening track, mostly instrumental, is all brooding pop jangle and epic post rock drift, seemingly content to just meander, and we're perfectly content to just listen, and then the band explodes into a super heavy crescendo / coda and suddenly, these guys could (and maybe should) be giving bands like Explosions In The Sky a run for their money. Then the vocals come in, and while it makes it poppier, a hint of Radiohead in the lilting almost falsetto, the vocals are very uncommercially buried in the mix, more just another layer of lush sound, but adding a sweeping epic emotional vibe to the proceedings.
And so it goes, the band mix, dreamy nineties style jangle, with muscley riffage, crushing metallic crunch, soaring chiming arena guitars, and washed out blissy shoegaze blur, into mini indie prog jams, that get catchier and catchier every time you hear them.
They might not be as 'cool', or metal, or heavy, or underground, but fuck it, anyone into Explosions In The Sky, This Will Destroy You, Godspeed, Irepress, Angel Eyes, all that sort of modern metallic post rock, as well as people just looking for some indie pop with more heft, something a bit more cerebral and musically adventurous, should absolutely check these guys out, and while it may be no Low Level Owl (out of print sorry to say), it's still pretty kick ass, and has been getting plenty of spins around these parts.
Snagged these from Ariel himself on his recent swing through town. Four brand new songs that find him and his Haunted Graffiti continuing to push the boundaries of their outsider pop orbit. "Flashback" is almost like their would-be arena-pop hit somehow infusing their warped world into a Cheap Trick like anthem gone so wrong it's right, and we can't help but love the over the top hair metal feel that runs throughout. While the other song on the 'a' side also has an almost party-vibe to it the two songs on the 'b' side have much more of a melty and drugged out feel. These have been flying out of here since we got them in the store so we only have a handful left and when they are gone, we'll do our best to get more but sadly that's probably all she wrote....
Long before we were drooling over the damaged pop sounds of folks like John Maus, Night Control, Gary War and Blank Dogs there was the AM radio gone haywire sound of Ariel Pink and his Haunted Graffiti. No one really knew what to do with his songs when they first starting appearing on wax and disc but it didn't take long for people to realize that something pretty special was at work in this mysterious outsider's approach to making warped and hazy fucked up pop. While you look consider folks like R. Stevie Moore as clearing the way for weirdoes like Ariel Pink, but what makes Ariel's output so interesting is that it's not just that it has an 'outsider' aesthetic but that the songs are so fucking good!
This is a collection of odds and ends (hence the title) recorded from 1997-2004 and it ranks right near the top of his recorded oeuvre. This record is just so fantastic, the sort of record that's perfect to have spinning in your bedroom or living room on those days you just wanna lay around all day and get lost in the alternate universe in which these songs swim and splash and frolic. We were only able to grab a handful of these from Ariel himself when he passed through town recently so snag one fast because when we run out it might take us a while to get more...
If he wanted, Aidan Baker could cruise along making the same record over and over, but a restless musical soul this man must have as even successive releases by his various projects tend to diverge greatly from their various sounds. While Nadja tends to be the most sonically consistent project, existing in the nether gloom of black ambient dream doom or whatever we feel like calling it, his work under his own name has shown the most breadth, veering from clattery noisy experimentation, to ultra minimal drone, to strange collaged jazzscapes, to dreamy slowcore, and one and on...
For Thoughtspan, Baker handles the guitars, drums, bass and vocals, with some help on live drums, violin and trumpet, to weave a gorgeously expansive soundscape of laid back, shuffling yet propulsive, krautrocky jazz. Dark and smoky, dreamy and smoldering, the closest sonic comparison might be the Necks, but where the Necks lock into extended cyclical grooves, Thoughtspan plays more like a 'rock' band, albeit a looped, mesmeric one, locked into a seemingly never ending groove, but as the record progresses the music begins to�gradually crumble, becoming more and more distorted, everything slowly collapsing inward, the scraping of a violin heralding the shift, as any 'rock' is rent asunder, and all that is left is a strange whirring, creaking ambient dronescape. And that's just the first track, although it is 22+ minutes...
The second track, another long one, begins with strange buzzes and metallic shimmers, a very percussive soundfield, peppered with backwards sonic swoops and buzzing steel strings, eventually the drums kick in, and the band is loping into some dense reverbed jam, the buzzing strings stretched out over the propulsive rhythmic framework, eventually fading back into the backwards droning buzz of the first few minutes.�
Finally, the final 16 minute track, finds Baker creating a strange wide open expanse, distant drones and all sorts of strange muted melodies, with moaned, barely decipherable vocals, and in the middle of it all, a drummer, playing on the rims and the floor and on wood and metal as much as on the kit, the whole vibe is very abstract and freak folk, it's not difficult to hear some Avarus or one of those tribal outfits, but unlike those folky forest dwellers, Baker begins to gradually affect the sounds here, smearing everything into warm droning swells and jagged streaks of resonant buzz, beneath which the drums lock into a staggering sort of midtempo lope, it's dirge-y and dramatic, but still sort of blown out and ambient, before finishing off with a burst of blinding distorted radiance.�
Packaged in a mini, plastic dvd style case, full color artwork and full color photographic inserts.�
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!
Long overdue rematch between Mr. Aidan Baker, who is as you probably know also of Nadja, and Thisquietarmy, whose previous collaboration, Orange, cause quite a stir around here. And it still gets a lot of play at home, it's the perfect hazy moonlight drifting off to never never land sort of dreamy drone record. Almost like M83 with everything removed but that glorious soft buzz. Sorry if you missed out that one, it was limited to 200 copies and is long gone, but the good news is, that A Picture Of A Picture sounds like it could be part two. In fact it sounds like it could very well have been culled from the same sessions that produced Orange.
Four long long tracks, each a slow swirling amorphous cloud of gauzy half melodies and thick layered textures, the sound slips from gritty and pixilated, to glistening and soft focus in a heartbeat. These two soundscapers are a fantastic match, it's really impossible to tell who's doing what, and where the work of one ends and the other begins, and it hardly matters, as the two together have created something ethereal and ephemeral, a sun dappled drift, equal parts minimal new age hush, and warm languid dreamdrone shimmer. A few moments find the duo ramping it up, but even then, it's only loud or heavy or intense, relative to the rest of this record, which does in fact spend most of its time hovering, whispering, floating lazing, gradually changing color and shape, it's the musical version of watching clouds drift across a brilliant blue sky, so tranquil and mesmerizing and meditative, even the occasional storm cloud, only serves to infuse the afternoon's siesta with some greys and browns, which perfectly balance the rest of the record's endlessly prismatic palette. So gorgeous. Definitely a new nighttime sonic soporific. Released on Killer Pimp, who also released the Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words cd, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list (psst... it's one of the Records Of The Week!).
As of late 2008 and early 2009, there's been some serious hubbub over Slumberland, the stalwart indie label of Brit-inspired, shoegazing bliss pop, thanks to a couple of kick ass records from Crystal Stilts and Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. So a revisitation into perhaps the quintessential Slumberland outfit seems appropriate. Black Tambourine was a shortlived project featuring two of the guys from Velocity Girl, a chanteuse named Pam Berry, and Slumberland label boss Mike Schulman. They only released three singles, contributed a track or two to compilations, and played less than five shows before breaking up in 1991. Go figure that Complete Recordings anthologizes all of these tracks plus an unreleased single.
Black Tambourine's songs begin as jangly, melodic pop which gets tousled about in a blur of amplifier distortion piled onto reverb piled onto more amplifier distortion and just a little more reverb. Yup, it's the same wonderful sound that was also broadcast from the Shop Assistants, My Bloody Valentine (circa Isn't Anything, well cuz Loveless hadn't been released yet!), Jesus & Mary Chain, the Pastels, and almost any given band on Creation circa 1988. But no matter how great that all consuming shoegaze sound can be, the band has gotta have good songwriting chops; and Black Tambourine had 'em for sure. At times, there's that ramshackle quality of good old American DIY indie pop, but for the most part, the songs are effortlessly catchy and melodic with a swagger pushed forth by Pam Berry's reverb drenched and melancholy vocals. Still sounds great after all these years!
Following up last year's Teen Sounds, SF's Blanketship comes cruisin' along with more delightful aural collage adventures. This time things are a bit more drivin', maybe a bit darker and more aggressive. And unlike many of his past recordings which kept the listener constantly teetering off-kilter with their rapid fire juggling together of puzzle piece samples and mad rhythms, the nine tracks that comprise The Sound Of Fun Surrounds You has a few longer stretches that your ears and toes can catch a grasp of and groove along to for a few bars at least. But that's not to say this cd-r is without its fair share of surprise bursts and giggly bits, those come in spades on the Klangwunder half! Those eight tracks were composed with like-minded People Like Us on WFMU! Always a deliriously good time!
It's a little strange that there are only two collaborative albums from Dan Burke and Thomas Dimuzio, despite their long-standing working relationship which dates back well over a decade. On his numerous travels to California touring as Illusion Of Safety, Dan Burke has often found himself in the Bay Area to perform outside the Illusion Of Safety guise. Instead, Burke's dystopian electro-acoustic techniques have joined forces with the engineering prowess of Thomas Dimuzio (who is responsible for mastering many an IOS record); and during those performances, they've proven to be quite an amazing duo, avoiding many of the follies of on-again / off-again projects or open-up-the-laptop-and-go live collaborations. Dimuzio has an excellent ear and he manages to keep Burke from diving off into the cybernetic rhythms which can make some of the lesser Illusion Of Safety records so dodgy. At the same time, Burke's perpetual audio nihilism provides a solid framework for Dimuzio to add his talents.
Upcoming Events was in fact edited and reconstituted from three of their Bay Area performances from 2004. These recordings consist of electronically mangled drones, mechanoid field recordings agitated through digital means, pure tone manipulation, and unsettled noise culled from tactile crunches, all of which build to discordant crescendos that have the psychological intensity of David Lynch's sound design, certainly rivalling the best work that either Illusion of Safety or Thomas have done on their own.
Steadily increasing drones become a hellish orchestral hum punctuated by metallic screeches which sound like a belt fan on a motor that's just ready to snap off its fly wheel. Elsewhere, unsettling electronics bleat against the tactile rattling of sand crunched against the head of a mic condenser whilst a subharmonic tone ominously rumbles in the distance. With the cover photograph of the armed barricade outside the 2004 Republican National Convention, the album takes on the aura of the soundtrack of a police state. Burke founded Illusion Of Safety in 1983, inspired by the industrial attitudes and aesthetics of Throbbing Gristle. While TG's prescient insights of culture as the death factory may seem commonplace to the media savvy, Burke and Dimuzio render their take on the conspiratorial and paranoiac with remarkable success. Highly recommended!
Finally! A new Burmese record. We've said it before, but it definitely bears repeating. Burmese might just be the best band in San Francisco, and one that not nearly enough folks have heard, or heck even heard OF. And Colony Collapse Disorder might just be their heaviest, tightest, grindiest, most expansive, and weirdly enough catchiest record yet. It's also the first to feature the new lineup, which still includes the two Mikes on bass and vocals, and one of the original Marks on drums, but now adds Weasel Walter and a guy called Tissue to the mix, and HOLEE SHIT. This is pummeling heaviness, grinding chaos, dense crushing metallic brutality, free form noise rock chaos. Hard to know what to call it really, all we know is it rules.
The sound seems to be less Whitehouse and more Crossed Out these days. The long stretches of high end drone and shrieking feedback have now seemingly been all tangled up with blasts of wild octopoidal (literally this time, not literally as in octopus, but literally as in 8 limbed!) drum damage, super distorted bass riffage, layer after layer of grit and grime and crust and filth and buzz, definitely harkening back to their first two tUMULt records, but just WAY, MORE.
Epic abstract sludge grind, blown out blasts of lightning fast crush, lurching stop start arrangements, insane throat shredding vocals that go from shriek to growl to gurgle even stopping briefly at weird croon. Burmese are just the thing for folks into stuff like Discordance Axis, Drop Dead, Melt Banana, the Locust and that sort of sound, who are up for something way more harsh and heavy and fucked up frightening. Baffling and brilliant and noisy and heavy as fuck. WAY recommended as always.
And as always, incredible packaging, released on Rock Is Hell, this is a beautiful full color picture disc, bees and flowers and honeycomb, housed in a spare printed thick sleeve, with a small envelope containing two very mysterious and obtuse inserts. And of course LIMITED TO ONLY 300 COPIES!!!!
Very few voices are as sweet and sultry as the one Isobel Campbell possesses. She can use it to create the breeziest pop gems or as of late for much more dazed and glazed sweetness. Her last solo outing Milkwhite Sheets was a total stunner filled with an expansive beauty that contains some of her best recorded moments. Sadly it came out on V2 just as the label was about to fold so it never got the attention and praise it so rightfully deserved. This ep is actually a 2004 recording that for some reason was never released. It features a beautiful duet with Vaselines / Eugenius mastermind Eugene Kelly, an Ennio Morricone cover and a totally smoking version of the Sonny Bono penned and Nancy Sinatra sung classic "Bang Bang."
Reviewing new Circle albums is one of the very very pleasant tasks to crop up regularly here at Aquarius. 'Cause the ever hypnotic, always weird Finnish band is one of our all time faves as we're sure you already know. Although, it's difficult too, after writing umpteen different Circle and Circle side project reviews, what's left to say but "buy it"!? Well, this time, we might have to qualify that recommendation just a bit.
There's a definite 'your mileage may vary' element to this new Circle, due to the presence of a certain Bruce Duff on vocals. (He also plays lead guitar, and dulcimer on here too!) Duff's the guy from the '80s alt-metal band Jesters Of Destiny, who had their album reissued on Circle's Ektro label some years ago (a fantastic disc, sadly now out of print again). He also sang on Circle's 2006 Earthworm ep, the first two tracks of which inexplicably also reappear here, hmm, why? And presumably Duff's participation is why they called this album Hollywood, as he lives in LA. Of course, Circle's WFT?! factor is always pretty high, so with Duff on board it's just bumped up a few notches more. Let's examine...
The disc starts of with the energetic and remarkably melodic "Connection", also on Earthworm, where we noted it was "almost a pop tune". Well heck it IS a pop tune. Though backed with Circle's usual hypno-rock and some indecipherable grumble-mumble from regular Circle vocalist Mika Ratto. Pretty cool, but we're not sure we'd want a whole album of that... and we're in luck, as Hollywood is a REALLY diverse (and thus hard to grok) platter, although we won't know it until after the second track, "Mercy And Tuesday". Again it's a pop tune (with a lovely, jangly all-instrumental second half). However, the first half has Duff spinning a rhyming tale of sex drugs and rock n' roll, and sorry we might just have to hit skip on this more often than not, the vocals/lyrics just aren't what we think when we think Circle. Instead, they make us think Tom Petty, sort of! But maybe we'll come back around on this one if give it a chance... Next is the other Earthworm track, "Earthworm" itself. If you haven't heard it before, we'll tell you it's frantic and metallic and certainly strange, in the eccentric "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" style that Circle has been championing. If you like side project Steel Mammoth, you'll like it.
But better yet for NWOFHM is the following track, "Sacrifice". Definitely Hollywood's most metal moment. A catchy, chunky gallop with fierce vocals and fleet fingered guitar shred soloing. It sounds something like Swedish retro-metallers Wolf, actually. Horns up from us! Maybe Circle's most successful stab at true metal yet. Of course, there's a sudden change of pace with the very next song, the much moodier and mellower "Spam Folder". Is Duff actually singing lyrics taken from the subject lines of junk emails? Yes, it sounds like he is, but somehow the conceit actually works, they're like 'ambient lyrics'. And then, this disc gets even further from the metal, with the semi-acoustic, ramshackle backporch country-ish ramble "Hard To Realize", some Lee Hazlewood gravel creeping into Duff's voice, cool!
After that, yet another stylistic shift occurs, as we come to the final two tracks on the album, lengthy epics both of 'em. Penultimate track "Madman" is a sort of suspenseful kraut/prog/metal jam, stretching out for 15+ minutes, with Duff doing a sort of Iggy Pop or Leonard Cohen spoken-singing-whispering. Keyboards hover in the background over a repetitive guitar lick and chugging, gear-shifting rhythms. And then finally the disc reaches a glorious climax with "Suddenly" (clocking in at a not so sudden 11:33). It's a massive, melodic, powerful prog masterpiece, a reworking of "Murheenkryyni" that appeared previously only on Circle's live album Rakennus. So much multitracked guitar, that solo and harmonize to the heavens as this track builds and builds. Duff's vocals are also quite effective here, adding to the melancholic, MAJESTIC mood. Wow!
By the end of this, we're quite convinced, and we'll say it for sure: "Buy it!!" Heck we'd get this just for "Suddenly" alone, but there's plenty else on here that makes the all-over-the-place Hollywood a worthy, weird addition to the Circle discography, despite a few missteps.
Seven inches of awesomely depressive distortion drenched new wave downer pop. Imagine a couple of old school synth pop classics, dipped in a vat of white noise, then rolled around in shards of fractured synth buzz and crumbling distortion, a morose and melodic blast of blown out noise-wave, a corrosive chunk of Cure-meets-Whitehouse or New Order-meets-Wolf Eyes. The surface is a prickly wall of in-the-red lo-fi fuzz, a curtain of soft focus blacknoise, but just below that surface lurks a secret heart of classic eighties new wave, the programmed rhythms, the swirling synths, the deep dramatic vocals, but taken together, this is everything we always wanted new wave to be, harsh and heavy and dark and deliriously catchy, buzzy and brutal and abrasive but still fuzzy and hooky and weirdly melodic. The B side takes CC's noisy new wave even further out, the sound generously doused with heaps of that blissy Tim Hecker-ish blur of which we can never get enough.
Coltrane. Larger than life jazz legend. One of the greatest tenors, ever. Musical genius. Some people even think he's a goddamn saint. And yet, I just didn't care all that much. Giant Steps, Love Supreme -- pleasant enough stuff, for sure, but it always somehow struck me as background music. OK, jazz lover, put down your hand! You don't need to slap sense into me. Ascension already did that. Slappped me -- knocked me flat on my ass, actually, the first time I ever heard it. Listening to Ascension really is an intensely physical experience, as you are just pummeled by this wall of sound and emotion and expression. It's seriously one of the most intense and powerful recordings of any kind of music, ever. Hearing it made everything else Coltrane ever recorded make some kind of sense to me, as documents of a search for the ultimate means of expression and spiritual connection through sound. On Ascension, the results of that search reach a kind of force and power that belongs more often to nature than to mere musical recordings. While many critics and fans recognized the utter brilliance of this record upon its initial release, others were unable to follow Coltrane into the outer limits of free expression. Basically, the work reveals itself as a fierce and undeniable classic to the serious and adventerous listener (i.e. most Aquarius customers), although to some people it might still come across as anti-jazz.
For Ascension, Coltrane assembled a ten-person ensemble which included the "classic quartet" lineup of Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones and Mccoy Tyner, with the addition of Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp (tenors), Freddie Hubbard and Dewey Johnson (trumpets), and Marion Brown and John Tchicai (altos). The structure, as such, involves a string of solos bookended by freeform group improv, continuing uninterupted for approximately 40 minutes. The orginizational ideas reflect Coltrane's interest in and respect for free jazz innovators Albert Ayler and especially Ornette Coleman, whose landmark 1960 record Free Jazz is Ascension's clearest antecedent in terms of structure and innovation -- but Ascension pushes the envelope of unfettered expression even farther than that record. The recording session resulted in two different takes; Coltrane changed his mind about which version he preferred after the album's initial release, with represses presenting the alternate take. This Impulse cd, originally re-issued in 2000 but unlisted by us until now, contains both versions for your listening -- I don't know if "pleasure" is quite exactly the right word, as that might imply that the reward doesn't take a bit of work on the listener's part; let's say "for you're listening benefit." Ascension is a true masterpiece, a work to be approached with a degree of awe. Words like "mindblowing" and "essential" seem understated, despcription wise. It altered my understanding, both of John Coltrane and Jazz itself. Anyone interested in improvisational music owes it to themselves to own this.
With all the great records of '80s pop revival we've been diggin' on so much lately (M83, Cut Copy, Hot Chip) it's about time someone did the same with that special time in hip-hop's golden age. Luckily The Cool Kids have stepped up to the plate and made a super fun record that recalls so much of what made us fall in love with hip-hop in the first place. The production and playful spirit captures the old school flavor of folks like EPMD, Eric B & Rakim, RUN-DMC and the first two LL Cool J records. It makes us remember when we would set our VCR's to record those amazing early episodes of Yo! MTV Raps.
We first were exposed to The Cool Kids when they opened for M.I.A last year and while a lot of hip-hop has a hard time translating live, they were so great and full of irresistible energy and youthful charm. We love how stripped down and immediate The Bake Sale sounds. It's clever and dorky but unlike the trend of nerd-on-sleeves 'indie hip-hop' that spawned labels like Anticon and Mush this doesn't have that same kind of smarmy self-consciousness. Instead this is a record that evokes images of spraypaint, video games, colorful hoodies and youthful energy at its best!
For years now, the cryptically (and coolly) monickered Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words has been quietly and consistently releasing some of the most haunting and beautiful minimal dronemusic we've heard, a blend of soft skittery glitch, brooding guitar loops, deeeeeep drone, dreamy drift, and experimental post-everything soundscaping, that is as good if not better than anything produced by the legion of overhyped sound makers constantly fawned over by the public and press alike. We've only managed to review two DLSODW releases so far, both sadly out of print now, but the release of this new one, quite possibly his best, seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally throw our weight behind Dead Letters, and hopefully open some ears to these mysterious and wondrous sounds, and reveal to the hordes of dronelords and free music freeks just what they've been missing.
Dead Letters is the work of Swedish musician Thomas Ekelund, and over the years, his music has drifted from extreme near silent ultra minimalism, to warm whirring dronescapes to muted crunch and clatter to shimmering underwater ambience, but on Lost In Reflections, all of those elements are present, in lesser amounts, the perfect distillation of a lifetime of sounds, here presented more as background then the main event, that main event here being the guitar. Each of the six tracks, however distorted or refracted or fragmented or obfuscated, seems to be borne of the guitar, with Ekelund working his mysterious alchemy and transforming those buzzing steel strings into wholly new shapes.
The opener, "This Room Seems Empty Without You" held us spellbound from the very first few seconds, a bit of reverby guitar, moody and minor key, very post rock, slow core and abstract, the notes hovering in a dark expanse of overtones and deep low end shimmer, the guitar unfurling gradually, subtly processed, peppered with a strange percussive glitch, that gives the music a sort of downtempo vibe, still droney and abstract and free, but with a little Portishead or Bowery Electric mixed in. The glitches coalesce into an almost-rhythm, the end result is some strange minimal instrumental downtuned Galaxie 500 mixed with the brooding barely there drift of Bohren, and a sort of late night lugubrious skitter.
The next track, "Lost & Losing", takes a whole 'nother tack, beginning with bits of scrape and creak, amp buzz, muted harmonics, a subtly percussive textural soundscape, quietly and slowly surrounded by a gorgeously hazy sea of sun spots and solar flares, taking the shoegaze-y shimmer of Nadja and Jesu and dialing it way back, until it's a glimmering sheet of prismatic buzz, all the while those strange sounds from the song's beginning continuing to weave a buried barely there rhythm, everything locked into deep woozy bleary eyed swells.
We have the tendency to go song by song, describing the sound of each, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but often it's not just the sound, it's the mood and the vibe and the feel and the deft and delicate arrangement of those sounds. And Ekelund is a master, taking simple strummed guitars, and wrapping them in a gauzy patina of blur buzz, locking the original riff into a loop, and then gently adding bit of melody, bits of texture, turning something simple into something complex and gorgeous, there are hints of Earth all over Lost In Reflections as well, a particularly abstract bit of fuzzy drift, will suddenly part to reveal a dark elegiac guitar line, slowed way down, creating some sort of underwater blues, while elsewhere, the twang and pluck of the guitar strings is wreathed in sonic sunlight, the sounds allowed to overlap and tangle up, the notes and melodies all wound up, spinning slowly and spitting out sparks, bits of glitch and high end tones, streaks of feedback, until those sounds are smeared into one long undulating stretch, and over the top a string of chiming notes are hung like Christmas lights on a tree, the, guitar often disappearing completely, leaving just a bit of twang to hover and then fade away.
The final track is a monster, nearly 20 minutes, imagine Nadja, Merzbow and Tim Hecker covering Arvo Part, and you might be close. This is some sort of soft noise, blindingly effulgent upper register ur-drone chorale, the streaks and shards of guitars sound like voices, the distortion thick, the effects crumbling and swirling, a glancing listen reveals a wall of sound, but headphones are like a diving bell, allowing us to sink into this roiling sonic sea, that seems to stretch out forever, bottomless and endless, part way through, the song changes shape, that which constituted the whole of the sound up until that point is relegated to a background for these new sounds, a sweeping, loping epic bit of post rock, still washed out and woozy, but with a simple propulsive rhythm, and a gorgeously melodic chiming central riff, darkly fervent and slightly ominous and hauntingly epic, the swirling sounds around those new elements growing more frenetic, thickening, while the song just grows and grows, sprawls and expands, as if any second the heavens will open and the song will become the sonic manifestation of the rapture. So totally intense and powerful and moving and majestic, and simply breathtaking.
Even at her most melancholy, how can anyone be sad listening to the warm and wonderful Blossom Dearie? Perfectly timed just as the weather got nicer, Dearie's light and dry vocal delivery, with its wry yet daffy effervescence and seemingly effortless syncopated acrobatics, is the perfect soundtrack for long sunny afternoon walks in the city.
Truly one of the great jazz vocal stylists especially amongst the white female singers such as Annie Ross and Anita O'Day whose sharp wit and roller coaster delivery delightfully stunned audiences at jazz festivals nationwide in the fifties and sixties. Dearie was perhaps the least deadly of the three, but definitely the most carefree and playful. She was even one of the voices for Schoolhouse Rock!
Sadly, this is also available just in time as a tribute to her life as she recently passed away just a few weeks ago. RIP Blossom, you were truly one of a kind!
We were looking over reviews of all the Decemberists records, and we pretty much raved about every single one, except maybe the last one, the only stinker of the bunch, and heck even that one, featured at least one killer track.
But back around Castaways And Cutouts and Her Majesty, we could not gush enough about these guys and gals, they were like an Edward Gorey drawing come to life, chimney sweeps ands street urchins, tales of Victorian Squalor, frontman Colin Meloy's distinctive voice and his incredible way with words, these guys were tough to beat, every song a super evocative story sung, with characters loveable, loathsome and tragic, truly epic poems set to music.
Besides the Crane Wife, the band's major label debut and one misstep mentioned above, we can't recommend the rest of their catalog enough. Really. We own and love every one. So now we have their long awaited brand new record, a sprawling and epic concept record. And no half assed concept record, this one is carefully plotted, intricate, we've only listened to it a couple times so we're not quite sure exactly what it's about, but it's lyrical and expansive and there seems to be a girl / boy main conflict (hence the title), there are drawings of the main characters in the booklet, the lyrics are total rock opera, male vocals, female vocals, the instrumentation lush, the sound surprisingly heavy here and there. But, and sadly there is a BUT, this is still pretty polished, pretty mainstream, not nearly as raw or urgent as the older stuff, the lyrics while still heads and shoulders above most rock bands, are just not nearly as magical, or clever, or snarky, before, every line was a tongue twister or offered up a clue about some other line, delivered with a smirk and a wink, Meloy was like the narrator of some Tim Burton film about Victorian England (aren't they all sort of), like we said about the Crane Wife, it feels like all the edges have been rounded and dulled. And the amazing instrumentation, here seems lore like filigree, and afterthought, the sound is definitely more mainstream pop. The best moments are when the wheezing accordions come out, which is sadly not nearly often enough. That said, there are some killer moments, a handful of the tracks are really hard and heavy, crunchy guitars, mean lyrics, sure they fit perfectly in the opera, but taken purely as songs, they sort of kick ass, the buzzy chuggy "The Rake's Song", then there's the very Deep Purple-y "The Queen's Rebuke" with thick guitars and heavy heavy organ jams.
So yeah, it's not a mind blower, or a true return to form, but it is a grower, and fans will definitely want this, however they felt about the Crane Wife. For newbies, we'd still have to recommend Castaways, definitely the best Decemberists record, but heck, we like this one more and more with each listen, so who knows, this might be the record that lures you into the Decemberists' squalid Victorian wonderland, and why the heck not, we've missed visiting for sure.
While Joana Newsom is the best known export from the Nevada City/Grass Valley, California music scene, it's looking like her good pal Alela Diane has been getting a nice share of attention lately with her Rough Trade debut, To Be Still. You'd be hard pressed to find an album recorded with more warmth or richness then this one, Diane's sophomore outing. Recalling the magic of early Emmylou Harris and for sure echoing the lush arrangements and immaculate delivery of her old neighbor Joanna Newsom. With a fine cast of players including Matt Bauer and Espers percussionist Otto Hauser, these songs come pouring out with such ease and such an assured and natural warmth.
Back in stock, back in print. One of our favorite No Neck Blues Band side projects, Egypt Is The Magick Number features Adam Mortimer and Dave Shuford both from NNBB but in a more tranced-out continuation of the way way out psyche improv damage of their No Neck mothership. Massive doses of delay, slow floating sheets of white hot psych guitar, shuffling minimal percussion, all dosed with acid, rolled in a hemp and lit afire. The first track is a 30 minute mother, easy to imagine two guys locked in a dark room with a hookah, a broken guitar with one string and a suitacse full of delay pedals. Super tripped out, wide eyed outer space drug drones. The other three tracks are similarly high flying, low crawling excursions into weird acoustic guitar-strum jams, the clattering of pots, and meandering twangy vocals. It's equal parts Sun City Girls, Jandek, and Yahowah. Which obviously means fucking great!
When we first heard about Frozen Cloak, the way they were described to us, was: some of the guys from Reeks And The Wrecks doing black metal! WOAH! We knew we had to hear that. Well, we finally did, and guess what? That description was pretty much entirely NOT accurate, but the good news was, that the actual sound ended up being way more weird and warped and super cool.
Frozen Cloak are definitely buzzy, and dark, and heavy, but in some ways the sound's not all that removed from the weird and wonderful world of the Reeks. The guitars (two of em) are WAY blown out, thick and crunchy and dripping with buzz, the opening track takes that guitar and some cool chaotic drumming and locks it into a sort of loop, repetitive and circular and hypnotic and a bit like a heavier, buzzier Lungfish, a single glorious groovy riff, pounded out, over and over and over, a little bit doomy, definitely stonery, but lurching and groovy and metallic. The song after that is way more out there and abstract, the guitar reverbed and heavily effected, distortion so thick it's crumbling out of the speakers, murky, lo-fi, on the verge of collapsing into a total black hole, a sort of blackened folk flecked downtuned free drone freakout, but shot through with warbly melodies and buried rhythms, the record sort of balances between those two extremes, fuzzy, buzzy, repetitive metallic hypnorock groove, and woozy warped abstract chaotic free for all, the best moments of course being when the two collide.
There are horns too, that add a whole 'nother element, a completely different kind of buzz and drone, all tangled up with the already blurred buzz and stutter of the guitars and drums, the sound is really tough to describe, wish we could make sound samples, but you can check out their MySpace. Regardless, this is most definitely some gloriously off kilter outsider abstract heaviness, groovy and a little bit metal, super hypnotic and so fucking good. And anyone who loved the Reeks And The Wrecks will probably end up digging this bigtime too.
Pressed on milky clear vinyl, shot through here and there with little tendrils of color, housed in a thick full color jacked, with super cool images and very little actual info. WAY RECOMMENDED!
We first heard from Ghast on their split with Yoga, we were pretty obsessed with both bands and have been on the hunt for more from both ever since.
So Ghast have returned, on yet another split, offering up two more loooong tracks of their unique not-quite-doom, a dirgey crawl, that spends as much time shimmering and buzzing as it does pounding and lumbering. The opener here is 21 minutes of grinding corrosive soft buzz, think Tunnels, Wolf Eyes, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, that sort of thing, deep whirring low end, drifting beneath clouds of metallic buzz, plenty of fuzz and hiss, beneath it all, there does seem to be some sort of thick tarpit like riffing, but it's WAY down, more like a distant drone than anything overtly metal, but it does lend the track a serious sense of dread and foreboding, as if any second the track might splinter into pieces and explode into crushing doom, but it never does, instead ratcheting up the tension, like the soundtrack to some super abstract foreign horror film. An actual rhythm dose seem to develop, but it's cobbled together using hissy white noise, ominous whirring synths, buried and blurred vocals, and a super drawn out low end melody, creeping and creeping before the low end drops out leaving just a sea of high end electrical buzz, and weirdly enough the sound of sheep (!). The second track clocks in at nearly 12 minutes, and again, is more ambient than anything, bits of crackle, melted tape loops, field recordings, processed electronics, all blurred into a strange undulating drone, peppered with fragments of melody, some buried riffing, which finally crawls up from the murk, and the band, for the first time in nearly half an hour, launch into some lurching lumbering doom. But the sound is not massive or crushing, instead, it remains murky and muted, more bass heavy than anything, if there is guitar it's tuned WAY down and is locked in with the rumbling bass, the rhythm mechanical and machinelike, with a definite industrial vibe, the track slipping into brief stretches of ambient drone-like shimmer, before the band lurches back into action, pounding away, stripped down, but still heavy and doomy and mysteriously grim.
Rape-X existed until now, as an MP3 file someone sent us a looong time ago, a half hour slab of blown out metalnoise, industrial drone weirdness. We'd notice it on the computer every once in a while and fire it up, and always think, "wow, this is pretty great, I wonder when they'll have a record". Well here it is. And Rape-X is a pretty good match for Ghast, seeing as they traffic in a similarly abstract doomy ambience, falling closer to Wolf Eyes or Blue Sabbath Black Cheer than any classic sort of doom. The vocals are huge part of the sound, and are harsh and super processed, demonic and maniacal sounding, giving the track a bit of a Whitehouse feel, ranting and proselytizing over a constantly shifting backdrop of blackened noise and droning harsh ambience. A glorious metallic cacophony, wreathed in hiss and skree, a bit like a way more static Sunroof!, the sound roiling and churning below the surface like some rough black sea, while that hellish voice continues to testify, the unholy scripture from some lost black gospel.
Caveat Emptor, though: these have a pressing defect, it's minor, but it's definitely noticeable. The band was contacted about it, but apparently there's some bad blood with the label, so there will never be a new, corrected version, so we figured we would list it anyway, since otherwise it's pretty amazing, and the defect is so slight. Basically, the problem is, there's a digitial click at the beginning of each track. Annoying, distracting, yes, but it doesn't affect the songs themselves, so if you can handle that (you can also edit out the clicks yourself on your computer when you import it into your iTunes or whatever), then by all means pick this up, some seriously abject and harrowing doom-ed blacknoize.
Originally released as a super limited cassette, which went out of print almost immediately. Then reissued as an almost as limited lp, which also disappeared in no time. So finally, this long sought after, constantly unavailable slab of gorgeous gauzy, folky dream drift, is available as an actual cd. Probably pretty limited too, but for now, we should have enough to last us a little while.
You probably already know just from the two artists if you need this or not. New work from two of the few women kicking ass in the mostly male 'noise rock' scene. Both huge AQ faves, both who utilize voice and effects, in addition to the usual string-ed instruments to weave dreamlike soundscapes and delicate cinematic ambience.
Both are in full effect here, each outfit offering up gauzy beauty and mysterious haunting murk, distant shimmery drones and abstract lo-fi song fragments. Gorgeous as always.
Woah. What a surprise! See, the German psych/prog/kraut specialists at World In Sound have been responsible for a lot of cool '60s/'70s reissues and comps (Cold Sun, Modulo 1000, Psychedelic Minds Vol.1...) but they also have released some unfortunately not-so-hot cds by a bunch of modern prog and stoner rock bands doing the retro thing, and well, we haven't reviewed any of those based on the old "if you don't have anything nice to say..." principle. Just not worth bothering. BUT, that was until this disc came along. Like we said, a surprise. This Julian Cope approved (Record Of The Month for August '08 on his Head Heritage website) band has come up with a doozy of debut (?) here, a real humdinger from these Gallic guitarslingers. Featuring Matthieu Canaguier on "thunderbass", Antoine Hadhoannou on "prophetic drums", and most importantly, badass-in-chief Gregory Raimo on "guitar & guitar lighter, yaya preach, feedback", this trio's No More Invention sounds something like the French answer to The Heads, or White Hills, or even Mainliner. Utter aggro over the top distortodelic geetar excess. Frickin' savage. SAVAGE.
Nope, not at all what we'd have expected from World In Sound. Not only have they found a current signing that's good, in fact great, said signing are also a lot more punk than we'd have thought. Heck we bet these guys grew up on Metal Urbain, maybe even Soggy! The rabid vocals are somewhere betwixt Johnny Rotten and Mark E. Smith, babbling indecipherably. They also remind us a bit of the guy from The Trashmen (if "Surfin' Bird" was a raving, epick 12:50 long biker/garage meltdown blowout kraut jam called "Lighter Slinger Festival", ferinstance). Some other song titles, just to whet yer sick appetites: "Into The Garage", "The Beheaded Motorbiker's Head", "Black Dwarf Man", "Gigolo Albinos", and (uh-oh) "Auschwitz Boogie". Nothing holy here. Simply full tilt, fucked up, freaking out-out-out. Don't come looking to Gunslingers for songs and melodies and suchlike. Come looking for the blinding white lighting of FX overloaded, speed freak amp-sploitation, and the rhythm section rough-and-tumble of mainlined rock action energy, and you'll find it. Timeless stuff, heck if this WAS a '70s acid-punk reissue we would be less surprised. Gunslingers could do battle with the likes of Gaseneta, based on what we're hearing here. Recommended!
After a few years of unavailability, now this krautrock classic has been reissued again, as a domestically priced digipak on Revisited, as part of their Brain label reissue campaign. This was the 3rd album from Guru Guru, recorded in 1972 with producer Conny Plank, and it was the the last of theirs to really be about the power trio heavy rock (as opposed to the lighter, jazzier stuff they got into later on), and boy do they let it rip on a lot of this. At the same time, Guru Guru's goofier tendencies are also to the fore, as you can see from the picture on the sleeve of a leaping, why-be-normal Mani Neumeier (the drummer), which despite being on the back cover has become one of the iconic krautrock album art images, along with Kraftwerk's traffic cones, Faust's X-ray fist, and Amon Duul II's Shrat-the-reaper...
There's four long songs on Kanguru, none under 10 minutes, one of 'em over 15. And you'll quickly hear why, for instance, Makoto Kawabata and all the Acid Mothers Temple folks are so into this band. Psychedelic freakiness that's HEAVY, yet playful. "Oxymoron" is a trippy groove, featuring treated vocals chanting "smelled like shit, but it wasn't it" (presumably a drug reference). High or not, guitarist Ax Genrich gets let loose to slay it up on his axe, Hendrix-like. "Immer Lustig", "Baby Cake Walk" and "Ooga Booga" also all feature plenty of complex, burnin' guitar/bass/drums interplay, with the latter boasting the doomiest fuzz riffage. Wild stuff, it must have been a blast to see these guys play!
Guru Guru's previous album, Hinten, had a track called "Bo Diddley". Kanguru's songs are also suggestive of primal '50s rock n' roll influences - although stretched waaaaay out, and given a hippified, improvisatory, drugged-up makeover! Hmm, have you ever seen the live video of early Black Sabbath covering "Blue Suede Shoes" on a European TV show? Maybe the Guru guys had seen that too and it got 'em thinking...
The return of one of our favorite depressive black metal bands, a band we loved before we even heard them, almost entirely because of their bad ass band name, Happy Days. Yep, Happy Days. Black Metal. It does make sense, trust us. So these guys call the sunny state of Florida home, but you'd never know it from the very unhappy racket they stir up, stumbling practice space drums, dreary minor key riffage, vocals both harsh and howled, and mopey and moaned, and some truly unlikely sound samples. But these guys are WAY more than the sum of their parts, they manage to evoke so much with so little, their sound seems simple, and is to a degree, but they manage to take simple riffs, and weave mesmerizing soundscapes of moody miserablism, the repetition lending a definite gravitas to the already intense and emotional melodies and riffs, the vocals are of course anguished and tortured, but there are so many bands who do this sort of thing, that it really is something special and ineffable that makes these guys stand out so dramatically.
Whereas they sampled Fight Club (!) on the first record (and granted, we normally hate when bands use WAY too obvious samples, but there's something about the ones these guys choose and how they come across removed from the film, more on that in a second), and it was definitely funny hearing Brad Pitt on a black metal record, but also, his words recontextualized, sounded more sinister, and similarly here, Happy Days chose to sample Breakfast Club, again a weird choice, the bit where Judd Nelson is acting out a typically abusive holiday with his father, and another where the asshole principal is lecturing the students in detention, well first, what was more depressing that high school really, so in that way, it was a pretty good choice, but those two soliloquies, taken out of the context of the film, sound SO much more hateful and harsh, like scary and brutal and seriously sinister, it's really strange, and it does suit the music, and then the segue into the music, it's really dramatic, but forget about the samples, it's all about the music, and the music here is really fucked up and dark and powerful. The opening track is the same riffy lament, over and over and over for 4+ minutes, laced with a drifting minor key melody over the top, so totally mesmerizing and hypnotic, maybe our favorite part of Happy Days, when they forego proper BM tropes and just unfurl some sort of lo-fi slowcore looped dirge. The second track is another simple, gorgeously melancholic riff, this time supported by a simple plodding drum beat, the sound of thunder and pouring rain, and some super harsh bellowed vocals, but the arrangement, and the sound, makes it anything but harsh, more sort of washed out, soft edged, and miserable sounding. A lot of the songs sound a little like slowed down Katatonia songs as played by the guy in Varghkoghargasmal, a sort of epic doomy dreaminess, but all stumbly and off kilter, more about raw emotion and passion and the dark spirit than the actual execution or recording quality.
The 14+ minute title track is maybe our favorite, yet another impossibly catchy main riff, a descending melody, so depressive and mournful, the vocals a strange spoken diatribe on misery and loneliness and death, the drums again and simple plod, the guitars occasionally offering up strange little squeaks or squiggles, but for the most part locked into a never ending loop, until about halfway through, when everything shifts, leaving just some simple jangly Hypothermia-like clean guitar, over equally simple and stripped down drums, lilting and sad, before the distorted guitar kicks back in along with some harsh growled demonic vox, that just seems to up the intensity.
The final track is another brooding slow lumber through atonal misery and angular minor key miserablism, but here the vocals are unhinged and unleashed, the guitars seem slightly out of tune, the vocals following suit, slipping from screech to Muppet-y gurgle to wild whoop to raspy yowl, but still managing to evoke some sort of mysterious sorrow.
These guys are definitely far out, and their sound is an acquired taste, even for the depressive black metal inclined, and on some level, it's hard not to think maybe they're taking the piss, but it hardly matters, once you let this weirdly warped chunk of sonic misery wash over you, you sort of have to give in, it's at once soothing and enthralling, buzzy and bizarre, fractured and fucked, and is quickly becoming one of our new favorites. We might like it even more than the first Happy Days, which is saying a lot.
Definite recommended listening for the black hearted and frozen souled, released on one of our new favorite labels, Self Mutilation Services in Mexico, hopefully more depressive weirdness from them to come (and when we run out it might take a little while to get more as they're being shipped up from Mexico, so please be patient)...
Now these are the sounds we've been waiting for! From reading our lists it may appear that we aren't big -modern- jazz enthusiasts as there usually aren't tons of newer jazz titles on our lists, but the truth is just not much of the newer sounds coming from the jazz underground really excite us, or maybe we're not hearing 'em. Of course there are some exceptions here and there and this album by Dave Hurley is a refreshing reminder of how alive, soulful and transcendent modern freeform jazz can be.
Channeling the sounds and spirit (and you'll note, the album cover look) of '70s cosmic and out jazz luminaries like Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Elvin Jones, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Steve Reid, Khan Jamal, etc., and with an understanding of how to craft a lush musical journey armed with a full palette of sounds that brilliantly touch on different areas with such a dynamic sonic scope. From majestic moments to full on freak outs and so much in between this is by far one of the most exciting and well crafted out-jazz records we've heard in such a long time. Hurley is a major player in the San Diego music scene and has appeared on records by folks like The Shining Path and Habitat Sound System (who also tapped into a warm and vintage '70s reggae sound on their debut). He's also one of the drummers in free-jazz legend Byard Lancaster's new ensemble. What makes this record so cool is that as well as the psychedelic jazz influences, there are some really intense and freakish moments that could be at home on some improv jam by Japanese psych bands like the Ruins, Boredoms, or Acid Mothers Temple. Hurley knows that it's not just about how loud you can skronk, but instead how much impact each sound has and what you draw from those sounds, and what those sounds can eventually evoke and illuminate. Too many in the modern free jazz scene rely on a one-trick pony philosophy of brute force that just doesn't have the soul and spirit to make it anything but noise. Thankfully, Hurley and his crack band understand how to to bring such fullness of sound and richness of delivery in creating music that is truly transcendent. Highly recommended!
MISSISSIPPI ALERT! MISSISSIPPI ALERT! MISSISSIPPI ALERT!
This latest release from probably our favorite vinyl reissue label is a beautiful reissue of Armchair Boogie by the one and only folkie's folkie Michael Hurley! Released in 1971 this was Hurley's second album and it sure is a stunner!
Produced By Jesse Colin Young from the Youngbloods and originally released on his Raccoon imprint, this is a low key, occasionally strange piece of charmed backwoods Americana. Songs about werewolves, penguins and English Noblemen that display his keen songwriting abilities and dry humor, all wrapped around simple spare, sweet back porch folk.
It's an intimate, deep and vulnerable sounding ultra personal music, the kind of music that is better heard than described, better experienced for yourself, a music that on the surface seems simple, and surely is simple, but offers much to the listener, speaking to the heart, and the soul, as much as the mind.
If you were going to get one Michael Hurley album, this would most definitely be the one. After listening to this, it will make perfect sense why he has fascinated many of the later breed of folk songwriters including Cat Power, Devendra Banhart and Tara Jane O'Neil. On vinyl, the way it was meant to be!
This is a nice treat for fans of the freakiest of the sixties British acid-folk scene, Incredible String Band, as this two disc set covers rare and unreleased tracks from the band's golden era. Due to some amazing research and archival sleuthing, this compilation of tracks recorded between 1966 and 1972 unearths lost outtakes from various albums, alternate versions, live radio performances as well as an early rehearsal recording of a Leadbelly cover. Though all the tracks have merits on their own, the range of line-up changes and fidelities don't make for a completely consistent listen. But the highlights are pretty fantastic including "Secret Temple", a beautiful track sung by Licorice McKechnie that was only available as a BBC recording, a 13 minute live radio version of "Maya", complete with sitar(!), and a six minute multi-epic suite composed for a mime troupe performance ("Poetry Play #1"). Probably not the place to start for unfamiliar beginners, but for fans, there are jewels aplenty!
The eagerly anticipated follow up to the nearly perfect noise pop tUMULt twofer of Iran's s/t and Moon Boys albums, whose sound was a strange hybrid of Pavement-y jangle, Sebadoh sad boy folky flutter, and full bore crumbling Merzbowian noise. We described Iran back then as Smog covering Skullflower, Pavement on Siltbreeze, Harry Pussy covering Built To Spill, you get the idea. But much has changed in the years and years since those records were recorded.
First off, Iran mainman Aaron Aites moved to Norway and made a movie about black metal called Until The Light Takes Us (doing the festival circuit, maybe coming to a theater near you soon!), then returned to the states ending up in New York (instead of SF) and reconnecting with former Iran member Kyp Malone, now of course in TV On The Radio (Kyp also played in an awesome band out here in SF called Rocket Science and The Nigger Loving Faggots, wonder how come that band never gets mentioned in TVOTR press releases haha), and spent a good long while recording Dissolver with Kyp, two new bandmates as well as Kyp's TVOTR bandmade Dave Sitek, producer extrordinaire, handling the production. Sounds like a recipe for a hit record, and Dissolver is definitely about as close to a hit record as Iran's come. To give you an example, I (Andee, who put out those first two Iran records) heard this playing up in the front of the store, went up to see what was playing thinking it was either the Evan Dando solo record, or some weird Lemonheads disc. A lot of that has to do with Aites' voice, which is definitely Dando-esque (in the old days it was buried in buzz and hiss), but also, the new sound is all super well produced jangle, lush guitars, skittery drumming, and multitracked vocals, plenty of harmonies, oooh's and aaah's, even a bit of soul here and there.
There are still some noisy experimental bits, but on Dissolver those are relegated to their own tracks, like "Digital Clock And Phone", a swirl of processed psych guitar, but even that ends up sounding less chaotic and more textured and cool. There are also some moments of punky thrash, bits of blown out pop psych and various shades of jangle and drift, but this is basically just a classic sounding slab of nineties style indie pop, a little modernized maybe, a little more fucked up and freaked out than usual, but catchy and hooky as hell. Fair warning to the noise poppers that loved the first two Irans, the pop is fully in tact, but the noise is sadly (for some) nearly no more...
Whether sizzling with sensual dancefloor jams or slowburnin' with melodies and late-nite disco sounding keyboards, the newest Jeremy Jay record has reaffirmed that this young man from Los Angeles has a very special ability to create songs that make you swoon as they seep into your consciousness. The sort of swoonsome songs that will get your body moving like Molly Ringwald circa Sixteen Candles / The Breakfast Club!
With a sound that's equal parts '50s innocence, early '80s new romantic, and late night disco clouds of heaven, Slow Dance finds Jeremy Jay proving that he truly has a unique vision and voice. His debut ep, Airwalker, was like some lost Factory gem while the debut full length A Place Where We Could Go had more of a singer songwriter vibe, Slow Dance finds Jeremy Jay riding such sweet grooves with a record that while less rocking than Airwalker and more dancey then A Place Where We Could Go, soars delightfully, jam packed with such sparkling romantic pop chops. This is exactly the sort of record that could unite fans of melty disco delights those who thrive on a steady diet of The Smiths. There is no denying the infectious charisma that simply oozes from Jeremy and his music. His songs and stage presence reminds us of another eighties movie trope: that beautiful rebel you desperately want to go to prom with, and you do, but then you guys ditch out early and he drives you to inspiration point and plays you his new song. Slow Dance sounds almost how we imagine David Bowie, if he were in his early 20's today and releasing records on Italians Do It Better. It's kind of ridiculous how many times we've played this already, just within the first week of its arrival, and we don't think we're going to grow tired of it anytime soon. Highly recommended!
Wait, what? Are we having a collective ultra-doom induced dream? A NEW Khanate record?? We'd practically been ready to slit our wrists (or should that be, ready to *stop* slitting our wrists?) when we heard that this sludgey supergroup (featuring members of SUNNO))) and Old) had split up a while back. But here's Hydra Head with a new, vinyl-only (for now, see below) Khanate release! Turns out, it's music they recorded back in 2005-2006 by James Ploktin, Stephen O'Malley and Tim Wyskida, with vocals apparently added later on by the inimitable Alan Dubin. And it's a pretty killer Khanate set, a fitting finale really, taking things to an extreme, emotional, and artistic level that they'd perhaps never reached before - or ever will again, seeing as how this is indeed their last album.
There's four tracks, "Wings From Spine", "Clean My Heart", "In That Corner", and "Every God Damn Thing". All of 'em claustrophobic and chaotic, but it's doomic slow-motion chaos, a ballet of percussive skitter, sculpted feedback, washes of grim drone, and crucially, insane wailing vokillz. Of course, with Khanate (and Dubin's new project Gnaw) a lot depends on how into his vocals you can get - and maybe you should be worried about your mental health if you get really into 'em! His misanthropic throat-peeling rants about, well, every Dubin-damned thing are perhaps an acquired taste, or affliction. We're fans though, yikes...
Musically, on Clean Hands we were struck by the lengthy semi-ambient stretches, seemingly improvised, that provide a disturbingly quiet yet creepy backdrop for Dubin's bloodcurdling extemporizations. The restrained rumble and clatter of these segments certainly build the tension, for the release that comes when the really heavy parts kick in, as of course they ultimately do. The thirty-plus minute "Every God Damn Thing", which takes up all of the B side, is especially hushed and ambient sounding, humming and hissing with fractured bits of amp buzz and jack/cord glitch, it's Khanate at their most Sinistri/Starfuckers-ish. Experimental, more than metal.
So, this here is the assuredly limited, swank domestic vinyl edition. Real nice O'Malley design, colored vinyl (the one we're looking at now is "caramel vanilla swirl", yum). Apparently, someday there's gonna be a domestic cd version too, with a bonus dvd, but on that "Every God Damn Thing" is given a major edit, shortened to, like, 8 minutes. Also rumored, a picture disc vinyl version (dunno if we'll see that) and a Japanese cd edition on Daymare which we think will include the full half-hour version of "EGDT" heard here... not sure when/if we'll ever have that though, either. Just fyi.
Legendary UK noise merchant Gary Mundy (Ramleh, Skullflower, Broken Flag collective) returns with Kleistwahr, a project that fits nicely within the legacy of a man known for harsh electronic noise. While we struggled to find any detailed information on Kleistwahr, we can say that anyone digging Skullflower's more recent forays into blown out guitar skree (and we know there are plenty of you out there) will find much to love here. The four songs making up The Return contain all the air raid siren guitars and eardrum pulverizing feedback we have come to love, but things take a surprisingly beautiful turn on side two, with warm droney keyboards weaving a haunting melody that perfectly compliments the album cover, a stark photocopied image of a building foundation sitting exposed in the snow surrounded by dead trees. Though the songs are instrumental, Mundy is able to perfectly convey a feeling of despondency and sadness, genuine emotions that definitely set Kleistwahr apart from the multitudes of floorcore outfits, all hunkered over effects pedals making lots of noise, but very little of it as compelling and emotionally charged as this.
Part of Noiseville's awesome Outer Bounds Of Sound series, with each lp limited to a one time pressing of 300. We received 20, so you know what that means...
After a flurry of contemporary releases, Chris Connely, Chicago Thrash Ensemble, Mako Sica, PlusTapes returns with another mindblowing archival release, this one comes from Korea, and is the collected works of an all girl trashy rock and roll garage band called the Korean Black Eyes, who totally kick ass. Brash and snotty and groovy. The opening jam, is all buzzing bass, reverbed surf guitar, pounding drums, bleating sax, and some seriously raspy bad ass lead vocals, complete with wild throat shredding screams, her voice rough and raw and so passionate. The second track finds the Black Eyes getting all groovy and funky and soulful, adding some warm whirring organ to the mix, channeling Sly Stone and Funkadelic, but giving it their own twist. The vocals are amazing, and pretty much make the band, sung in English, but with a SUPER thick accent, and it's that total rock bad girl voice, weathered from whiskey and cigarettes, but still so sexy and sultry.
The interesting thing, as with many of these bands, is how did a band like this survive in Korea in the early seventies? In a time when this sort of rock was not at all encouraged. And most certainly not by women.
But we're so glad they did. And we're so glad PlusTapes tracked this stuff down. The B side even gets all ballady, opening with a Moody Blues cover, but it's not at all cheesy, their version is smokey and mysterious, sung in Korean, the sax slithery and slippery, the sound humid and heavy. And then they go off and finish the record with "Jesus Christ Superstar", epic and groovy, and subtly psychedelic, and again the vocals just seal the deal. It's criminal how good these women are. In different circumstances they could have been, should have been huge, and certainly the vocalist would have been a superstar with her tough and sexy Tina Turner / Janis Joplin yowl. Total kick ass bad girl garage rock and roll genius.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! Pink tapes, each one hand numbered and hand decorated, with cover art by Plastic Crimewave.
We've been meaning to review something from this SF duo for a while now, the mysteriously monickered Z.V.H. and V.J.C, who make up the equally mysterious Lascoviec (formerly Angkor Vat). But their demos disappeared before we had the chance, and we've yet to receive the forthcoming split with Hungarian black metal masters Marblebog, but thankfully, Dark Hidden Productions has compiled their first two demos, Gesamkunstwerk and Gunshots Ring Out Over Vinland Streets, both originally released in 2006, onto one cd, and added a few bonus tracks to sweeten the deal.
Lascoviec traffic in droning, hypnotic, trance like black metal buzz, the guitars long washed out streaks, the vocals a distorted croak, often sounding like another layer of static, the melodies are melancholy and sorrowful, some tracks have programmed drums, pounding away machine like under a buzzy blurry blanket of epic majestic chordal whir, others are harsh and chaotic, with the drums lost int he mix, leaving just a thick undulating sheet of acid riffing and tortured vokills. There are plenty of clean guitars, and tranquil folky interludes, but just as many grinding ultra raw blackened dirges, the guitars thick and viscous, the vocals more of a animalistic hiss, the drums a buried throb, here and there dreamy washes of synth surface, but far from being tranquil, they're fuzzy and distorted, and slightly ominous, with a definite Tim Hecker or Philip Jeck vibe. Elsewhere the band craft weird sort of new wave sounding reverbed guitar jam, but still subtly creepy and haunting. Swirls of strings build ominous tension before exploding into super sharp jagged shards of weirdly blown out clean guitar riffing over relentless blastbeats.
And that's sort of what's so amazing about these guys, their sound varies so dramatically, from record to record, but even from song to song, sort of like the EEE stuff, the texture and the production are as critical as the songs and the riff, some are muted and murky and bassy and lo fi, others are sharp and angular, the guitars sonically are all over the place, sometimes soft and subtle, sometimes downtuned and sludgy, sometimes buzzy and brittle, the drums more often than not are buried WAY down in the mix, but that just makes the songs sound freer, as if they could fall apart or drift away at any moment.
Grim and gorgeous, twisted and intense, dramatic and a bit fucked up, long sheets of buzzed out bliss butted up against short sharp raw blasts of true blurred blackness, often getting all tangled up within the same song. What's not to like, this is some seriously amazing shit. Buzzy and black enough for the grimmest of warriors, but tripped out enough for folks into freaky outsider blackness.
Fair warning: Lasoviec are on Dark Hidden Productions, a label with dubious political leanings, and with definite ties to the Pagan Front, the hub for all things NSBM, aka National Socialist Black Metal. Although the band seem to be more concerned with themes cosmic and spiritual, nature and mythology, there are definite racist implications, the link is undeniable, so regardless of the band's stance, the label's is clear, and thus, another instance where the listener has to decide if the music trumps the possible unpleasant politics.
Here's the sophomore album from SF's Low Red Land! It finds the band traversing more rocky and turbulent territory than on their 2006 debut Weight Of Nations. Dog's Hymn is laden with far stormier moods, darker tones, and increasingly weathered vocals. Layers of churning post rock guitar lines build densely overcast atmospheres. Overall, still very emotively reminiscent of Doug Martsch (both in Treepeople and Built To Spill) in its cathartic delivery especially on tracks such as "Better Angels" and "West Texas", but also brings to mind The Weakerthans or a more rocked up Mountain Goats. Good stuff!
Madlib's and J-Rocc's tribute suite to the late great J Dilla offers 42 instrumental hip-hop tracks of stony, wobbly and loping tape edits. It's testimony to the power of J Dilla's uncanny ability to wring the golden essence of perhaps an inessential soul side, that even the best hip hop producer in the biz can't quite capture the same magic as the incomparable Donuts. But this wasn't done to outshine the master, only to make his star shine brighter, and with a new Dilla anthology on the way, we're realizing more and more what a huge talent we lost.
Still worthy to burn a tree or two to, and be fully satisfied!!
If we were talent scouts for Slumberland records we'd be jumping all over San Francisco's Magic Bullets, who hit the scene with this self released 12", filled with a dreamy and dramatic '80s indie-pop sensibility. We're reminded a bit of the great Pains Of Being Pure At Heart record on Slumberland that we've been pretty addicted to, but there is something a bit more brooding and bittersweet in the sounds of Magic Bullets. A strong Smiths sensibility shines through these four songs for sure, and while everyone seems to be going the fuzz-pop route these days it's actually kind of refreshing right now to hear these flowing dreamy-pop nuggets that soar so nicely on their own without relying on lo-fidelity fuzz for instant credibility. We're sure these guys wish they could have come of age in the early '80s Manchester scene but we're super happy they are here now creating songs that while nod to that era still sound so fresh and relevant. We're kicking ourselves for missing their recent show opening for The Homosexuals and Brilliant Colors, but if this 12" is any indicator we're gonna be hearing lots more from these Magic Bullets. The band only pressed a limited amount of these records and they each come with a free download card so you can crank these jams on your iPod!
One of the most amazing Reggae debut albums of all time. Originally released in 1976, The Mighty Diamonds hit the scene with this rich roots album which decades later still stands as one of the fullest and warmest sounding reggae albums ever captured on tape. While the bulk of their lyrical content was all about hardcore political resistance, they were able to make their message go down so smooth as their vocal harmonies are some of the sweetest since the heyday of Studio One. Slow and steady with an ease that just flows through the album and makes it one of those records we just have to blast when the sun is shining so bright. Behind the amazing vocals are some serious chops courtesy of the kick ass ensemble gathered for this album which included (of course) Sly & Robbie. You can hear how they were influenced not only by the early years of reggae but also such a strong sense of Motown melody and a doo-wop sensibility. A total classic that we're happy to finally list.
Wow! This beautiful album not only introduces the world to an amazing but uber-obscure folksinger who recorded these songs in 1962, but it also manages to resolve the hazy origins of one of the most recorded tracks of the sixties. But more on that in a second. Niela Miller is one of those folks that should have been way more popular than she was, but always seemed to work behind the scenes or at best, hovered at the periphery. She saw Dylan's first professional performance, took up guitar after meeting Eric Weissberg (of "Dueling Banjos" fame), loaned Pete Seeger her guitar for a show, and refused a request by Judy Collins to record one of her songs. Her voice is ghostly and unusual; high in register, but delivered with an earthy blues-soaked urgency, as she sings these songs about the meaner sides of love and the men who did her wrong. Which is ironic in a sense because the guitar progression and theme of her song, "Baby Don't Go To Town" ( a track about a women who flirts with other men to get her lover to pay attention to her) were basically stolen from an ex-boyfriend and reinvented as "Hey Joe". Yes, that "Hey Joe"! The timeless track of love gone wrong and its murderous consequences covered by Hendrix, Love, The Leaves, Tim Rose, The Byrds and countless others. That A-major progression was essentially the first thing most novice guitar players wanted to learn in the sixties before "Stairway To Heaven" and "Smoke On The Water" came around. But Miller never got any credit for this song, because no original recordings were ever distributed, and she subsequently faded into other pursuits of teaching and counseling. While it's definitely an interesting back story, it's by far not the only reason to give this a listen. The ever-reliable Numero Group christen their new vinyl-only subsidiary Numerophon with this restored reissue, made from a transfer of a one-of-a-kind acetate Miller recorded at Variety Recording Service in 1962. The acetate was badly damaged with skips, crackles and a noticeable warp. Though it's not a perfect recording, the resulting sound lends itself to the kind of music Miller made, antiquated and other-worldly, cushioned with a bit of reverb and steeped in the beautiful strains of regret, loss and hope. Highest Recommendation!
Yeay! This record is most definitely Mirah's best release since her brilliant sophomore outing Advisory Committee. While some artists would be better off by employing a less is more philosophy, when it comes to Mirah we think she shines brightest when it's more more more. More lush arrangements, more movements within a song, more experimentation with instrumentation and electronics. Of course she does sound just fine all spare and stripped down, but it's when she gets ambitious and shoots for the stars that her real magic takes form. And with (A)spera that magic is glowing brightly. The opening track "Generosity" might be her most pleasing single since the infectious "Cold Cold Water" and the entire album has a sureness of vision that resonates from start to finish. While we could see this being the kind of record that wins her a new set of fans, it should still very much please those who fell in love with Mirah way back when. Taking inspiration from folkies, twee popsters and indie rock, as well as wide-eyed dreamers (imagine Lois merging musical minds with Bjork and Lisa Germano) Mirah has carved out a sound that is truly her own!
The fourth record from Boston's most enchanting female songstress has left us breathless and almost at a loss for words! Ms Nadler really hits the nail on the head with this effortless marriage of hauntingly rich vocal cascades and captivating song writing. Quite the magnificent album, Little Hells features Nadler joined by a full band whose rhythmic weight anchors each song as her reverb-shrouded vocals drift into the dawning sky. If you've a penchant for lonely country charm with a gothic twist, and melancholic hymns possessed by a familiar nostalgia, this is soooo for you! Conjures visions of Victorian churches on golden plains at midnight, flickering shadows in hallways of rickety old barns. As far as production goes, we've never heard Nadler sound so dense and layered with such an array of instrumentation embracing the core slide guitar, bass and drums. And yet for all the gothic folk elements at the heart of this record, Little Hells is perhaps Nadler's poppiest release to date. Stunning!
The return of Nightbringer! One of the best USBM bands going, hailing from the frosty, wintry climes of Colorado, whose last release (or at least the last one we got) was an insanely kick ass split with Temple Of Not (a sort of drone-y Nightbringer side project), a record that most of the black metal folks we know consider a masterpiece. Ourselves included. So there were seriously high expectations for this, their first full length. We can safely say, even after only a few listens, this will WAY surpass expectations and will likely be topping a lot of year end lists, a total contender for black metal record of the year.
There is a cd version that we'll be getting eventually, but this vinyl version is SO much cooler. First off, it comes in a killer box, but more importantly, it contains nearly 30 minutes more music! So odds are the troo grim black metalheads are gonna want one of these super limited boxes. The rest of you can wait a couple weeks for the cd.
Nightbringer's sounds is a dense swirling blackness, spaced out and subtly psychedelic, incredibly thick and textured, a bizarre hybrid of Darkspace and Deathspell Omega, but also plenty of old school raw black metal, long stretches of lurching doom, the sounds are not necessarily unfamiliar, but it's how they're employed. The guitars are the strangest of all, slipping from classic buzzing riffage, to sweeping majestic epic chords, to super strange ultra fast trills, almost like a tremolo, something we've heard very few BM bands do, it's really haunting and otherworldly, and adds to the sort of blackness of space vibe, and offers a cool counterpoint, the main riff lumbering along, the drums a chaotic slowed down plod, but then that strange guitar part unfurling these rapid fires runs, that almost sound like drones, long drawn out tones, making the whole thing so haunting and tense, in fact for a black metal record, much of Death And The Black Work is spent not playing fast at all (minus that awesome weird guitar part), the band is almost more like some alien blackened doom, that occasionally erupts into a thunderous blast, before slipping back into their buzzing black sprawl. But when they do get fast, it's fucking manic, frenzied, gloriously fucked up and feral, a buzzing blurred onslaught, that has few equals. We could go on and on but fuck it, this is IT. This is black metal supremacy. Mysterious and otherworldly, furious and blackly epic, total grim and frostbitten outer space brilliance. And yeah, this just might be black metal record of the year after all.
LIMITED of course. And fair warning, ALL the boxes have some sort of very light cosmetic damage, actually damage might be too dramatic, they all have light scuffs on the edges, or seem a bit worn in places, but that just make them seem even more like some lost sacred scroll, some ancient book of the dead, discovered beneath the ruins of a church, and minus those slight imperfections, these boxes are precious black jewels, emanating a timeless malevolence, that will no doubt feel right at home on that candle lit skull laden black altar you keep all your records on at home.
The latest slab of wax, brimming as always with tasty sensual seduction from the fine folks at Italians Do It Better comes courtesy of a Los Angelino who has been creating a well deserved buzz with her slow burning and wholly satisfying take on old school 8-track dance music. With nods to Debbie Deb and classic '80s and '90s R&B as well as a total shoegaze sensibility, this is how we imagine Grouper might sound if she ever made a dance record. The woman behind Nite Jewel is a multimedia artist who dabbles in many worlds (video, performance, installation) but damn we are loving the sultry jams she is whipping up in her bedroom most of all, sounds that are perfect for dancing in OUR bedrooms. So nice!
We know, we know, it's too much to hope for, and it's never gonna happen, but somehow we just can't seem to stop thinking about it, and we're sure these guys are sick of hearing it too, and will no doubt be annoyed that it gets mentioned in ANOTHER review, but heck, that's what happens when your frontman fronted one of the greatest post punk bands of all time! And yeah, we're talking about a Drive Like Jehu reunion, and yeah, we called them post punk, cuz what else do you call a band like that, a band that is essentially sounds like no one else. But whatever, we're wiping it from our minds. Then though, there's Hot Snakes to contend with Rick From Jehu's post-Jehu and pre-Obits combo, who were nothing like Jehu, but instead were a raw, sloppy, garage-y ball of super rocking fire. Which brings us to the Obits, who on first listen do in fact sound quite a bit like the Hot Snakes, due in no small part to the fact that it's Rick Froberg (or as Rick From Jehu as he's still know to many) singing and playing guitar, but this is altogether something new, a bit more refined and perhaps, a little like an older wiser Hot Snakes maybe, where the Hot Snakes were all pent up aggression, and wild thrashing garage stomp, the Obits traffic in something much more measured, but no less rocking. Still garage-y and super stomping, but tighter, more varied. Froberg sings as much as he howls and wails, the guitars here don't just crash and clang, they shimmer and twang, there's definitely a surf element, the drums crisp and tight, the guitars spidery and crystalline more than crunchy and heavy. These guys played at our SXSW showcase and were awesome, so kick ass and energetic, and so so tight, taking that garage rock thing they have down pat and adding in all sorts of unlikely -other- stuff, some Beefheart bits, plenty of Mudhoney rawk swagger, but all filtered through the Obits unique take on rock and roll, and that's basically what this is, rock and roll, not punk rock, not post punk, not post rock. Just rock, or okay, maybe RAWK.
Needless to say, if you're a fan of any of Froberg's bands, especially Hot Snakes, this will definitely hit the spot. But even if you don't know what the hell we're talking about, Jehu this, Hot Snakes that, as long as you're into bad ass rock and roll, groovy garage, indie jangle, or any combination thereof, you should definitely check these guys out.
Cool packaging too (Froberg's an incredible artist as well btw!), all vintage and old comic book looking, the cd is in a cool Japanese style mini gatefold jacket with an equally cool (sort of creepy) printed inner sleeve, the lp similarly housed...
Certainly one of the best things about working at a record store is coming across new bands that give you that undefinable, but very real feeling in your stomach where you can't imagine having ever gone on without THIS band. Even better is discovering something from the distant past (not too distant in this case), something whose existence could have eluded you forever had good fortune not smiled down in the form of a reissue.
Onna were the Japanese duo of Keizou Miyanishi and Mafuyu Hiroki, whose 1983 7" has thankfully been rescued from obscurity by the mighty Holy Mountain label, and has been blowing minds left and right here at aQ. One of the coolest things about this record is just how surprising and unexpected it all was, the whole "1983" part in particular. With a nod to the past but no doubt out of place in the early 80s, Onna were without question inhabiting a world of their own. The most obvious point of reference soundwise would be legendary psych/noise enigma Les Rallizes Denudes, especially in the vocal department. This is a very good thing for anyone who loves those somewhat lazy, partially detached, Japanese sung vocals of groups like LRD and LSD-March.
The use of a drum machine keeps these two songs pulsing like a mechanical heartbeat, which when combined with the fairly free form guitars, definitely gives this record its own vibe. Side 1 begins with a meditative two chord lament before noisy, white hot guitar squalls begin creeping about in the distance as simple and repetitive bass lines keep the foundation strong and focused. The second track introduces catchy psych guitar chords with a machine modified quasi-girl group drumbeat, the bass again holding things down nice and steady. The heavily reverberated strummed guitars bubble about as fake cymbal explosions recede and return over and over again, until a prolonged fadeout is replaced by a locked groove note that keeps this record spinning endlessly, just as it should.
The lack of information on Onna only adds to the mystery (and just a note, they are not affiliated with those other Japanese psych monsters Christine 23 Onna). PSF has issued an album by the group called Katawa, which we will definitely be paying close attention to after this 7". Until then, the only things we have to judge the duo by are the perplexing ugly/beautiful cover featuring an androgynous female figure lying naked on a bed (is she sick and decaying? is she just hanging out in bed? waiting for a lover?), and more importantly, their music, which we cannot recommend highly enough. Seriously, how many 7" singles would receive this much of a write up? You know this one is a winner.
PS for the non-turntable-havin' folks, apparently these tracks are also to appear on an upcoming cd collection Holy Mountain's putting out with other Onna stuff...
Love her or hate her, Yoko Ono is the rare kind of artist that is hard to be indifferent about. There are those of us who love nearly everything she does, and there are at least one of us here who can't stand her at all (though perplexingly, that said person is a HUGE fan of Harry Pussy whose singer's vocal style is wholly copped from Yoko's, so go figure.). While this is not a new reissue, we recently found out it was still available, and if you were ever going to buy only one Yoko Ono release, this is definitely the one!
This double album, Fly, released in 1971 after the concurrently released Plastic Ono Band solo debut lps with husband John Lennon is a widely varied but creatively inspired affair with an amazing back-up band (featuring Ringo Starr and Klaus Voorman) that covers both straight-ahead rock numbers as well as mind-melting experimental realms. The sixteen minute proto-krautrock groover "Mind Train" is a definite highlight, sounding like Yoko fronting Can or Faust, but this disc also covers tender acoustic pieces, outsider blues, femme folk, fluxus noise experiments, as well as her trademark howling scream jams, some full throttle noise, others more restrained inner turmoil. But for all its variation, it flows together like a complete piece that grossly engages and vulnerably assaults in equal measure. Probably not for everyone, but highly recommended nonetheless!
