People give us a lot of shit for overusing the word 'buzz', but when you're describing black metal, very few words truly represent just exactly what it is about black metal that MAKES black metal what it is, yeah, it's riffs and blast beats and voKILLS, sure, but c'mon, without the buzz it would be, well, something else entirely. Plus you try and write almost 3000 reviews every year and see how many other words for buzz you can come up with.
Anyway, this is the first proper full length from this already legendary third wave black metal super group, now a duo featuring the mighty Dirge Rep on drums (he of Gehenna, Gorgoroth, Enslaved, Aura Noir among others) and Taipan (from Norwegian thrashers Amok), but having previously included members of Gaahlskagg, Borknagar, Carpathian Forest, Krypt, Deep-pression, Desekrator, 1349 and others.
This current duo offer up some seriously TRUE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL, if those words get you going, then stop right there and add this to your cart, love Gorgoroth and old Emperor and Darkthrone and that sort of thing, not blasting or furiously fast, nothing especially fucked up or far out, more just pounding and thrashing and buzzing, black black black metal. Some killer riffing, awesome epic melodies and creeped out ambient bits, frantic chaotic drumming, classic sounding old school black metal vox, harsh and raspy, all wound around total vintage sounding classic Scandinavian blackness. Lots of hooks buried beneath the layers of buzz, and as mentioned some CLASSIC black riffs, every listen we dig this more and more, But then it's a sound that we, and we're pretty sure lots of you, are total suckers for. So if you're in the mood for some pure grim frosty kvlt old school black metal, this is definitely it.
Incredible cover art, haunting and artful and a bit garish, with a thick booklet, mysterious artwork and lyrics. Cool.
The singer who sounded the most like Joni Mitchell on the Numero Group's excellent Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies Of The Canyon compilation, Caroline Peyton was far from a mere imitator. Thus the label gives her a more close-up inspection by re-issuing her debut private press lp, Mock-Up complete with bonus tracks of a live recording and three vocal cuts from The Screaming Gypsy Bandits, an acid rock and jazz outfit Peyton recorded with in 1972. While her songwriting, piano playing and occasionally acrobatic vocal delivery easily place her in the realm of seventies singer-songwriters, Peyton displayed an exploratory penchant for vocal experimentation that was far from the norm. The wordless vocalization of "Bill Monroe" reminds us of a less unhinged Patty Waters, while the Screaming Gypsy Bandit tracks reveal some eastern mystical jazz vibes that makes us want to pay deeper attention. If you're fans of Linda Perhacs, Collie Ryan and other obscure folk mistresses, then check this out for sure!
One of our favorite far out noise records, from Israel! Back in stock, but probably not for long...
Noise is always a tricky proposition. Some folks just want that harsh, brutal, paint peeling, speaker shredding white noise aural assault, while others (like us) like their noise with a little bit of structure, and texture and -gasp- maybe even some melody and dynamics. Our favorite noise records tend to be those that do something special or original with noise. There's plenty of Merzbow we could do without, but a handful of his discs are truly innovative blasts of gorgeously crafted corrosive sound. Gate's Golden is another example of a 'noise' record that manages to be as pretty and mysterious as it is harsh. And there are a bunch of noise(y) discs that completely kick our asses, records from Hijokaidan, Hototogisu, Hanatarash, Gerogerigegege, Incapacitants, Nerve Net Noise and more, sure we love us some full bore NOISE!!, but typically, of that stuff, the discs that gets the most play, are the ones that aren't just a straight wall of noise.�
We recently reviewed a killer disc of remixes, various artists reinterpreting and recontextualizing tracks from�Kurdish Melodies On Zorna by Zadik Zecharia, a pretty solid AQ fave. The Zorna is�a traditional Kurdish instrument like a longer more narrow trumpet or Scottish bagpipe, and Zecharia got work magic with his, weaving dense tapestries of joyful sound. The highlight of the remix record was Israeli noise unit Poochlatz's mix, turning Zecharia's playful Zorna into an instrument of doom and gloom! It definitely had us hankering for more.�
So�here it is, the latest release from Poochlatz, a single nearly twenty minute track, and it's pretty caustic. Harsh and bleak and distorted and blown out and indeed very very noisy. But there's a lot going on, within the noise and beneath the surface. The whole track exists in a black cloud of squealing feedback, moaning slabs of downtuned guitar, jagged slabs of glitched out electronics, everything muddy and murky and crumbling, but beneath this wall of abject brutality, hover strange barely audible majestic melodies, what sounds like snippets of songs buried way way down,�howled blackened vocals, distant demonic roars, streaks of sound all tangled up with smears of disembodied percussion, some almost black metal riffing pulled apart into weird blurry buzzes. On first listen, it's like sticking your head in a hornet's nest, but once your head is firmly lodged in there, the buzzing and constant stinging begins to feel soothing, almost tranquil, you head begins to swell, your ears swollen shut, all sound reduced to thick slabs of whir and shriek, so intense and strangely alien. Think Whitehouse versus Skullflower versus Wolf Eyes versus Prurient with some strange shoegazery pop ambient referee trying desperately to keep the fight fair and failing miserably. A beautifully brutal slab of dreamy (nightmarish?) noise. Recorded live too!
Ever since Death Cab For Cutie made the leap to a major label, it seems that everyone's been waiting to see what new band on Barsuk fills that indie void. While Ra Ra Riot do have a similarly earnest and sensitive poppy vibe, their delivery is much more peppy and their brand of pop has more chamber undertones and classic power pop chops that the more classic indie rock sounds of DCFC. But judging on the number of folks that had been hounding us to get this in stock after their sold out show at the most recent Noise-Pop fest they may soon be glowing in some bigtime popularity. We hear lots of Elvis Costello and some of the songs sound like The Strokes covering Arcade Fire. We give them some bonus points for covering Kate Bush's "Suspended In Gaffa". Not breaking any new ground but certainly delivering catchy tunes in a fine tradition, and who knows, they might just be the next big thing?
Man do we hate good-byes. Whether to an old friend or to a favorite band, saying farewell ain't easy. Especially for Iowa City's Raaccoo-oo-oon, who offer up this self-titled lp as their official last release. And though we'll miss tediously typing out all the necessary c's and o's to correctly spell the bands name, we feel this last record is a worthy farewell gesture. Seems like they really gave it all they got here, blown out noisy post-everything chaos, they nobly go down with the ship on this one. Noise rock annihilation, highly recommended for fans of Dead C or Skull Defekts! Don't miss your chance to say goodbye!
Oh man, does this hit the spot. Total old school, abject, cold and clinical, noise drenched industrial, a symphony of rusty old machines, the cranks and levers operated by rotting corpses, this crumbling sound factory situated upon a blackened expanse of charred remains and ruined cities, the voice a reverb drenched howl, a totally hypnotic rhythmic clatter creates the skeletal framework, while all around, clouds of hiss and buzz are woven into slow shifting almost-riffs, lumbering, stumbling, dark and dour, shot through with barely there streaks of melody, a brief bit of cinematic apocalyptica, the flip side, features another lurching steam punked Skinny Puppied rhythm track, this time pelted by bits of glitch and fuzzed out sine waves, a female voice speaks over the top, telling tales of violence and mayhem, in a calm measured tone, a strange contrast to the looped decaying sprawl of Redrot's harrowing soundscapery. Deep processed vocals are morphed into thick undulating tones, fragmented electronics wrapped around a frizzled underwater pulse, a swirling backdrop of creak and crunch and whir, the motorik lo-fi robotic beat in lockstep with a growling alien commentary. Awesome stuff for sure. So awesome in fact, that we just listened to this like 3 times in a row, and we're only really stopping now because we have other reviews to write...
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!!
The pastoral half of Cluster explores his penchant for French romanticism in this dazzling suite of spacious baroque minimalism from 1979. Produced with the assistance of Peter Baumann, Roedelius broadens his focus as a traditional composer and displays ample musicianship with an eclectic array of instrumentation: flutes cellos, pianos and harpsichords, steering away from the abstracting qualities of the sequencers and processors normally employed in his main group. There's a carnivalesque playfulness to the tracks here, suggesting carousels and waltzes, penny arcades, and street performers, but with a refined restraint that evades schmaltz. Like the perfect accompaniment to a Resnais film, each piece is a delightful handmade miniature strung together in a labyrinthian web. Liner notes by longtime friend Asmus Tietchens with six bonus tracks ONLY on the cd version, including three new songs, and three remixes from the album. Beautiful!
Yesss! Everyone knows we love pretty much all sides of the late Arthur Russell. But as much as we love his avant composer and country pop tangents, we always keep coming back to his left-field disco productions of the late seventies/early eighties which is what introduced him to us in the first place. On this excellent compilation, we get 10 mixes from Russell's legendary Sleeping Bag Record imprint, and luckily it's not all a rehash of what's been featured on other Arthur Russell compilations. Using lots of different monikers, we get cuts from Bonzo Goes To Washington (Featuring Bootsy Collins), Felix, Dinosaur L, Indian Ocean, Sounds of JHS 126, and Clandestine (w/ Ned Sublette). With a penchant for odd sounds, strange vocal inflections, and long late-night dancefloor stability, Russell imbued his mixes with off kilter breaks and enough subtle rhythmic details that keep you invested in the groove without them ever becoming monotonous. Highlights include the Ronald Reagan cut up fuckery of Bonzo goes to Washington and the underwater hip-hop of Sounds of JHS 126's "Chill Pill" with its slightly staggered hard panned dual vocals creating a kind of Terry Riley "You're No Good" effect. But the star track is Walter Gibbon's 12 minute plus mix of Dinosaur L's "Go Bang!". We were a bit wary when we saw this wasn't the Francois Kevorkian mix, because in our minds that track is just about untouchable, it's so damn awesome. But Gibbons breaks down the original slowly stripping it to its essence and making a whole new song out of it that isn't so much mutant disco as it is early house. Yet he still manages to keep its oddities in tact: the shrill organ drones that last a little too long, the changes every 24 measures, Lola Blank's flat delivery (here cut up and reformed into new shapes). So awesome and Soooo Recommended!!!!!!
Scorched earth skronk from some of the best in the business... that'd be the Japanese underground improv psych power trio super group Sanhedrin, who consist of monster guitarist Keiji Haino of Fushitsusha, monster drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, and monster bassist Mitsuru Nasuno of Altered States. Before this, they had a cd on PSF under the name Sanhedolin, and before that, there was a unit called Knead (Haino + Ruins) but basically it's the same thing. Freeform freakout distortodelic action. Really heavy-duty stuff, fans of Haino know what to expect, if you've been waiting a while to really hear him crank it on the axe again, this is the thing to get! There's eight tracks, about 66 minutes filled with feedback and fuzz, recorded live to multitrack in 2007 at two separate performances. A combustible chaos of roiling drums, seesawing rhythms, angular wandering bass grooves, and, above all, thick wooly slabs of ultra-distorted guitar. Chaotic vocal babble (Haino? Yoshida?) intrudes only occasionally, and amidst all the mayhem there are some relatively serene (but heavy) stretches of black metal-ish amplifier drone bzzzz... Pretty killer! We can't imagine hearing any band of noise rocking whippersnappers doing this sort of thing any better.
We don't normally quote from label blurbs, but can't resist this grammatically confused sentence: "Is equal to of the whole body which passion gushes from." Dunno exactly what that means, but y'know, it's probably true! The disc is some kind of limited edition, originally tour-only merch sold at shows in Japan. It's packaged in a glossy black cardstock tri-fold sleeve + obi, adorned with some odd, colorful collage artwork - a typewriter, a dragon, telephones, fish, a frog, a tuba, a Gibson SG guitar, an eyeball with squid-like tentacles...
We're a bit late on the draw for this, but it's taken awhile for this record to fully sink in and work its mysterious magic. Like a hybrid of The Knife and M83, these electro-dream popsters make intriguing and dynamic shoe-gazey ear candy, that both baffles and delights. A fine self-assured debut!
This awesome slab of blackened outerspace buzz and drone metal weirdness, originally released as a cd on the amazing Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting, who brough us those killer Gog records, now reissued on vinyl, on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label!
Stratospheric is a fantastically bizarre, and hauntingly beautiful slab of alien black metal. Not sure what else to call it, it's definitely black metal, but it's weirdly blissy and electronic sounding, more like Alcest or Amesoeurs than old school grimnity, but even then, it's still weirder, like it must have been played by robots or insects, or some massive black metal machine assembled beneath the surface of some mysterious moon. You can almost picture some mechanical monstrosity, pieces of human flesh, various organs, somehow built into the machine's inner workings, everything grinding and sparking all in a Herculean effort to produce this glorious droning buzzing blackness. A cloud of black buzz that will eventually drift through space and time swallowing any planets in its path, and extinguishing all life it encounters. Heck, even the cover of the record is the view from some sort of alien lander, looking out and the cold dead ground of some red planet, as if any minute some huge horrible black beast will lurch into view over the horizon, dashing all of our ideas about said planet being uninhabited.
The sound of Servile Sect is epic, and majestic, the guitars glistening sheets of sound, the surface of that sound peppered with bits of electronic shimmer, causing the long drawn out riffery to reflect and refract, tiny little sonic events occurring every second, the surface alive and constantly squirming and changing color, but viewed from afar, it's simply a blown out undulating buzz. Those guitars are digitized and processed, spread into thick smears of warm glowing whir, the riffs barely discernible beneath the constant roar of Servile Sect's sonic swirl
The vocals add just more buzz to the mix, howling and wailing, but stretched into streaks of sonic violence, and drums, assuming there are any, are buried, festering beneath layer after layer of crushing guitar fuzz, emitting noxious rhythms that don't so much blast or pound as they do explode into tiny squalls of still more buzz.
Occasionally, the buzz abates, leaving the guitar to sway lazily, the notes ringing out, the guitars lurking in the distance, but it's never long before the lilting melody is engulfed by a colossal buzzing roar, and the band locks into another extended psychfuzzblackdrone.
Another out of left field immediate AQ black bliss classic.
Fans of the new wave of droned out dreamy metal, black and otherwise: Nadja, Angelic Process, Ameseours, Alcest, etc. will dig this, as will dronelords who like their drones heavy and loud and yeah, a bit metallic...
It seems like maybe we're becoming a little predictable sometimes, letting the name of a band, or some insane cover art get us all gaga over a record before we even hear the music. But while it's only a theory, it seems like in most cases, the music is just as good as the artwork. Or the band name. For years, we've applied that theory to our record shopping and have rarely been disappointed.
So here we are again. You obviously know where this is heading since we ARE reviewing this record, AND highlighting it, but a while back, it was just a name, Fantastikol Hole. How could we not be curious, if not utterly smitten. A band called Fantastikol Hole? C'mon. SO we tracked down every shred of recorded music from these guys and got just a little bit obsessed. But this is the first one we could track down enough of to list. Four bands, all amazing, all totally different, all French we think, a record so heavy and weird it took TEN labels to release it. And after all that talk of Fantastikol Hole, they only have three tracks here, but it's enough to get you as obsessed as we are.
So what exactly are Fantastikol Hole all about? Super aggro, mathy, convoulted experimental heavy rock weirdness. Stop start stuttery arrangements, huge slabs of Neurosis-y sludge, bits of shimmer and drone-y ambience, wild tangled squiggly leads, angular atonal riffage, howled distorted vocals, long stretches of crumbling doomy buzz, and that's just the first song of three. The second is even more manic, a sort of proggy grind, with tons of space, and weird stops, jagged riffing, swirling dizzying bursts of buzzing fury, programmed drums, explosions of impossibly convoluted synth swathed hypergrind, shortwave radio interference. The third track is only two minutes, but they spend it plodding along doomily, a huge downtuned riff, wrapped around a simple percussive thud, the vocals processed and super distorted, so genius. Complex and confusional and mathy and heavy as fuck. We need to carry more Fantastikol Hole. We will remedy that as soon as humanly possible.
But what about the other fantastikol bands here? Well, there's Shall Not Kill, who offer up three tracks of their own brand of heaviness, a groovy stoned, heavy as fuck plodding midtempo post punk sludgy doom, rife with harmonized lead guitars, yowled vocals, super psychedelic squalls of twisted tangled leads, busts of furious octopoidal drumming, some super fast Maiden style jams, some blissed out droney dirges, but always returning to some sort of cracked classic doom sound.
Up next is Tekken, who are fast and fucked up and furious, a white hot metallic hardcore, bordering on grind, with weird samples, blasts of incendiary buzz, pounding chaotic drumming and snarling punk as fuck howled vocals. The last track finds their grinding punk chopped up and flipped backwards, slathered in static, turning it into some weird fuzzed out, stuttering soundscape of skipping punk rock cds and shortwave interference.
And finally, comes the band Moon, whose three long tracks fall somewhere between ultra minimal dronemusic, and the slow motion sludge riffery of Old Earth or SUNNO))), nearly ambient the slow low rumbles eventually build into a lugubrious downtuned crawl, the buzz occasionally receding, and revealing a glimmering glistening shimmer beneath the rumble.
A pretty weird combination, but a tough one to beat. We've found ourselves digging for more stuff from all four of these bands, although our heart still belongs to Fantastikol Hole.
WAY recommended.
Hazily drifting along like a fog over the bay, San Francisco's own Sleepy Sun have been making quite a name for themselves as of late, and it's easy to hear why with this 10" single. Being their first recording for the fairly high profile ATP label, it's not difficult to imagine Sleepy Sun's dreamily drugged out psychedelia hitting the spot with both the potheads and the indie rockers. To put it simply, Sleepy Sun are a jam band. But don't let the words "jam band" scare you away, as this has less to do with Widespread Panic and hacky sacks and more to do with, well, JAMMING, while thankfully keeping a steady hand on actual songcraft. It seems like the logical progression a band like Dead Meadow should have made after their shoegazey Feathers album. One customer thought it sounded a bit like a male-fronted Cat Power, which isn't necessarily too far off the mark, as the band possesses an earthy, bluesy sound with a definite nod to classic rock. The best thing about Sleepy Sun, however, is how effortlessly their songs are presented. They aren't "retro" or anything like that, instead using psychedelia as a stepping stone to venture off into their own realm full of burly bass lines, focused drumming and tasteful use of wah wah pedals (something easy to fuck up). The vocals are especially ethereal, and one can easily envision these tunes being made by a bunch of stoned angels jamming it out in the spheres.
This limited release is pressed on appropriately cloudy vinyl with purple splatters and comes quite recommended.
Austin-based painter and installation artist, Daniel Hipolito has been composing and releasing music in limited releases under the moniker Smokey Emery for awhile now, but we've only just finally managed to get some for the store. Composed of far away drones and loops, Hipolito builds his compositions like he builds his cave-y black and white painted installations and environments, cinematically, with a fine-tuned sense for mystery, vague longing and subtle dramatic flair. Like the lights of heavy traffic at sunset or a slowly sinking ship, there is an ineffable lonely quality to these compositions that is both beautiful and doomed, but fully engaged enough to still make us keep listening. Each cd-r is hand packaged with a unique photographic cover and wrapped in a vellum envelope. Lovely and Limited!
Sorc'Henn's last disc, Harmonium Pieces & Dead Reveries, which was released on Faunsabbatha, the more 'metal' sub label of Ruralfaune, wasn't actually a metal record, more a dark dronescape, whirring expanses of Lustmordian Wolf Eyes style post industrial buzzing black shimmer.
This latest Sorc'henn disc, released on Crucial Bliss (another sub-label, this time of Crucial Blast) is even more removed from anything metal. And in many ways anything dark. At least the 21 minute opener, which plays out like an Argento soundtrack composed by Oval, all shimmering layers, and skipping cds, looped ambience, that glimmer and glistens, a bit of Philip Jeck, a little Tim Hecker, all fuzzy and crackly melodies locked into haunting loops, while over the top, a child's voice whispers, and in the background bits of bird song. Truly creepy, but simultaneously quite lovely, totally mesmerizing, would have been happy if this track was stretched out to fill the whole disc. Odds are you'll find yourself listening to it over and over, luxuriating in its haunting mystery, eyes closed, picturing some old crumbling estate, surrounded by dark forests, a child peeking from the heavy curtains in an upstairs window.
After that, the sound gets even more fuzzed out and crackly, a warm washed out hiss, speckled with bits of crackle and pop, a slowly unfurling minimal melody way off in the distance, the sound of thundering low end drifting by like black clouds, warm whirring organs, bits of electronic glitch, deep throbbing reverberating buzz, all leading up to the 27 minute long final track, a totally demented black musickal ritual, deep rumbles, growled Darth Vader like invokations, bits of industrial clatter, squalls of hiss, whirling streaks of effects, detuned guitars, woozy melodies, thick waves of crumbling buzz, slivers of feedback, creaking and groaning machinelike ambience, distorted chimes, disembodied vocals howling and moaning, a truly harrowing black and bleak soundscape, finishing off with a brief snippet of an old timey French piano ballad, adding even more mystery to the song's already eerie and mystical vibe.
Like all the Crucial Bliss releases, packaged in a cool 3 panel full color fold over sleeve.
Start small? Heck no, not our man Jon Mikl Thor! His debut album from back in 1977, reissued here on cd for the first time ever, finds him quite big in all his massive, muscle-bound glory (that's him on the cover). The burly, bodybuilding singer had been Mr. Canada 1973, after all. But, on the other hand, this is NOT the heavy metal album you might expect from exposure to his later musical output and overdeveloped, barbarian physique. Let The Dogs Out is much more eclectically new wave in its approach to hard rock than the '80s metal Thor with which we were familiar. Which was a pleasant surprise, if you don't take it too seriously. Is it a good album? Well... is the Rocky Horror Picture Show a good movie? Like that midnite fave, this album is kinda '70s glammy, and definitely quite campy at times. But it's also undeniably poppy. Pretty cool, on its own terms.
Kitschy fun that might merely have been a one-off, 'incredibly strange music' entry from a beefcake wannabe rock star but for two things - Thor actually went on to have something of a successful career (as tongue-in-cheek as it might be), AND it's got some cool songs on it, or at least a bunch with a certain clumsy charm. You get the full quota of cowbell, Thor's over the top vocal stylings of course, and once in a while something more, where you're like, hey that was pretty good... and now it's stuck in my head!
The title track is a quasi-classic of not quite metal, not all that heavy, but still quite rockin' good time music. "I'm So Proud" ("...to be the man I am") could be a more macho Jobraith with a goofy hint of Devo. And "Sleeping Giant" seriously sounds like a bubblegum BRIAN ENO! Yep, not exactly what we thought the He-Man of Heavy Metal would have done for a debut. Maybe this album is not for everyone (like the humor impaired), but as with all Thor's stuff we've heard, and shows we've seen (yes, we've seen him play more than once!), entertainment is job one, from square one.
This 30th anniversary special edition reissue's got seven bonus tracks added to the album's original 10 cuts, among 'em the super corny "I'm Thor". While that one is a mite embarrassing (except we're pretty sure Mr. Thor is quite capable of laughing at himself too) there's other stuff here that makes us wonder, however briefly, if this album isn't in fact totally brilliant.
We first heard from Norwegian black metallers via their Paradigms release Unholy Holocaust, way back in 2006, at the time, we had had no idea who these guys were, so we weren't sure what to expect, but what we got was a frosty blast of classic old school Scandinavian style grimness. A sound that fit perfectly amidst the elite, Immortal, Satyricon, Darkthrone, Enslaved, Emperor, yet Throne Of Katarsis definitely added their own twist, incorporating bits of fluttery folky acoustic guitar, and bit of druggy doom, even some super catchy Dissection / Iron Maiden like guitar melodies. Since then they've released one other record, An Eternal Dark Horizon, which found the band dialing back the melody and upping the grim frost, while keeping the acoustic guitars, to appropriately black and brutal effect.
So now here we are, 2 years later, and if anything (and if it were even possible), things seem to have gotten even frostier and grimmer in the Katarsis camp, there are still acoustic guitars here and there, but their appearances are brief, mere flourishes, mostly intros and outros, while the band seem more intent on thrashing and blasting coldly and blackly. The guitars here roooooaaar and the vocals howl, and the drums are boomy and crash and pound, the melodies are epic and majestic, the sound is super hot, super loud, everything doused in distortion and reverb, plenty of buzz obviously, but the sound is immediate and raw and furious and frenzied, almost like a classic nineties demo, cranked and re-energized, these guys sound fierce as fuck, tempering their cold Nordic steel with -just- enough melody and texture to keep it interesting, but no more, keeping the proceedings here, as mentioned above, repeatedly, cold and wintery, and frosty and grim, and heavy and so very black.
Not to be confused with the much more prolific Czech depressive doom-ed black metal Trist, German one man band Trist is the ambient drone side project of Benjamin Konig, who is also the frontman for Lunar Aurora, an amazing black metal band we love, but have yet to list here (which will be remedied as soon as possible, we promise).
Initiation comes via the same label that has been gradually re-releasing all the Paysage D'Hiver demos over the last couple years, and is a collection of various long out of print and even at the time barely available demos, recorded between 2000-2003. Nothing black metal here, but plenty blackness nonetheless, Trist explores slow, hazy, otherworldly ambience, black drones and delicate Lustmordian soundscapery, a sound that falls somewhere between the gauzy digitized smear of folks like Tim Hecker and Aidan Baker, and the abject electronics and post apocalyptic sonic sprawl of groups like Wolf Eyes and Emeralds, infusing it with that distinctive 'black metal intro' vibe. Not obviously synthy, and definitely not overly guitar based, the sound on Initiation is blurred and washed out, melodies exist but are only glimpsed fleetingly, the longform drones and extended drifts are heavily textured with, warm whooshing whir, distorted crumble, ethereal fields of hiss and click and pop and rough sandpaper like buzz, definitely very dreamy and moonlit, but also ominous and grim, very cinematic, evoking some alien wasteland, burnt and ruined beneath a smoke filled sky, something lurking in the shadows, the ground littered with death and destruction.
Folks who loved that Cities Last Broadcast from last list, will definitely dig this too, as it mines the same sort of wasted unpopulated barren planet vibe, and take the more abstract dronescaping of folks like Machinefabriek and Jasper TX and Xela and Aun and Svarte Greiner somewhere much more cinematic. Bits of new age seep in here and there, chunks of slow motion doomdrone now and again, mysterious loops and bits of glitch surface throughout, giving many of the tracks an avant turntablist vibe, like Strotter Inst or Jeck, this is certainly not what you might expect from a grim black metaller, instead Initiation plays out more as a dense and varied and layered work of tense instrumental minimalism, of gorgeous and harrowing experimental dronemusic, and of course bleak black ambience, maybe too abstract for metalheads, but folks into drone and doom and drift and all that cd-r floorcore rumble and shimmer would do well to grab one of these right quick.
By their very nature, Moog records are inherently goofy. And to a certain degree, to modern ears, the Moog keyboard too just sounds kind of silly. There's probably not a Moog record, commercial or otherwise, that would convince the Moog haters out there otherwise. You either love that instantly recognizable sound or you don't. The other possibility is that somehow, you've never heard a Moog (or at least didn't realize you had since, those pesky Moogs pop up all over the place!) and in that case, it's a record like this that might just open your eyes and blow your mind.
That's the other thing with Moogs, it's what you do with them and how you use them. Plenty of modern outfits use Moogs, and in those groups the sounds they conjure up are more textural, thick undulating slabs of analog buzz and bleep, space rock is and has always been all over the Moog, but when it was first introduced, as a modern sound making synthesizer, people's first response was of course to try all sorts of applications, one was bound to strike a chord with the record buying public. So thus there was a glut of 'popular music played on the Moog' records, everything from top 40 to soul to rock and roll, and yes country.
Which brings us to Gil Trythall, an academic who ended up achieving a modest bit of fame (or infamy) for his renditions of classic country tunes, performed on the Moog, and collected on two volumes: Country Moog: Switched On Nashville, and Nashville Gold: Switched On Moog, both released in the first few years of the seventies.
Before these records, Trythall was a musical academic, creating experimental sound and performance pieces, music concrete, using light shows and tape manipulation, film projections, and all manner of sounds. He was convinced to try his hand at a record of country Moog renditions, and thus spent months buying 45s and painstakingly creating new sounds and his own version of classic country jams, and these are the results. And they are pretty fantastic, lots of faves, here transformed into something much more futuristic, at least seventies futuristic, anyone into Perrey & Kingsley know exactly what we mean. The rhythms and the tones of the Moog are so immediately recognizable, the sound warm and warbly, but also mysterious and magical, and just a little bit robotic, this disc opens with the Moog-ified "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and it's a rapid fire totally silly, Moog jam, you can almost picture this as the soundtrack to some wacky montage where everyone's moving in fast forward (in fact elsewhere on this disc, Trythall tackles "Yakety Sax", better known as the Benny Hill theme, here transformed into "Yakety Moog"). The tones are clipped and relentless, woven into an alien robotic hoedown. Right after that there's Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues", with vocodered / Moog-ed vocals, and some buzzy crunchy Moog leads. "Harper Valley P.T.A." gets a woozy warbly makeover, "Orange Blossom Special" sound almost like a countrified ELP jam, and Trythall's version of "Wichita Lineman" is surprisingly sweet and easy listening-ish, the Moog muted and subtle, not difficult to imagine this as the music for some love scene in a Spike Jonez movie or something.
And so it goes. Moog obsessives, fans of exotica and incredibly strange music freaks have probably been after these discs for ages, for everyone else, this is some wild wonderful, fun and funny stuff. And as with everything Omni puts out (like recent record of the week Plantation Gold, which this fits right in with as a weird country record), beautifully packaged with extensive liner notes and rare photos and artwork.
We're excited to get this brand new second release from England's Urthona, bursting with more of what we termed "shoegazing freeform rural-psych-noise-guitar-drone" in our review of their first disc. The liner notes credit "all sounds, including field recordings in Devon and Wiltshire" to Neil Mortimer, he who is one man mystic band that is Urthona. Ah, field recordings. You know we love nature sounds here at Aquarius. Wind, water, uh... massive howling psychedelic electric guitar blow outs? Since when did you need earplugs for an out of doors ramble? Well, maybe you do, if it's with Urthona! After all, the cover for Urthona's first album I Refute It Thus showed Mr. Mortimer standing atop some Cyclopean stones out on a moor, posed with his Gibson Les Paul guitar thrust downwards like he was summoning feedback from the granite, and the cover of this one depicts an waterproof-anorak-wearing Mortimer again with guitar on a mossy green rock in the middle of a series of cataracts somewhere on a wooded mountainside deep in the wilds of Dartmoor. Does Neil Mortimer always take his electric guitar along on hikes? When he's hiking with his pal, druid dude Julian Cope (who took the photos), apparently so...
Thus, while woven into these tracks there are some environmental audio samples taken from Mortimer's soggy tramps about the West Country, including "footfall squelches" mentioned in the liner notes, there's also mega amounts of amped-up guitar (played through his favorite "Durham Electronics Crazy Horse fuzz pedal"). Of course, he's not really recording the guitar out in the great outdoors. But definitely when he's back in the studio making Urthona music, he's got the ancient English landscape he so loves on his mind, channelling that earth energy into waves of glorious rumbling guitar fuzz. There's moodier moments, but mainly what Urthona unleashes is an ever expanding, exploding, grinding white light distortion drone meant to be played loud, generating vibrations as physical and solid as those giant rocks and stones found on the album covers. Amidst which, once acclimated, listeners will discern melodies slowly moving, gentle and glacial. It's something like a more organic, psychedelic, pastoral SUNNO))). Remember think global, act local? Urthona thinks local, acts cosmic.
Just as with Urthona's previous disc, this one also consists of three loooong instrumental tracks, this time they are: "Urthona's Barbaric Yawp Sounds Over The Roofs Of The World" (19:06), "The Waters Of The Fen Have Brought Forth Flowers" (17:43), and "Born Psychedelic" (19:56). Each one makes you glad to be alive and appreciative of such "barbaric yawp", indeed! (At least, if you too were born psychedelic.) It's on cd-r rather than cd this time, but the packaging is still super fancy, just like that of the debut, in a tri-fold eco-friendly wallet with insert cards of William Blake artwork and various evocative quotations.
More spiraling, spastic yet melodic punk-prog from this radical Brooklyn band - radical both politically, and in the, like, "rad, dude!" sense of the term. A mere two-piece (with the occasional guest helping out on a couple songs herein, when the use of trombone and throat singing became necessary), The Usaisamonster draw comparisons to Lightning Bolt but go off in a lot more directions fancy and fantastical than that band. Maybe, imagine a hectic hybrid of Lightning Bolt, Koenjihyakkei, Heavy Vegetable, Deerhoof, Sun City Girls, and Uz Jsme Doma... Certainly opener "Cocaine Wedding" sounds something like that. Though later in this album, Usaisamonster mellow out a bit (never, however indulging in much of the campfire hippy folk stuff that imbalanced some of their previous albums).
"Above All It's The Songs" is the title of one such mellower song here, one that comes the closest to being playable on '70s AM radio of anything these freaks have done, which is not too close of course. And above all it IS the songs we love 'em for, Space Programs simply being another fine collection of the Usaisamonster brand of bizarre but sincere-sounding songsmithery. Done with distorted stabbing guitars, catchy quirky rhythmic grooves, deliberate vocal chant (a la Om), sudden changes (from gentle placidity to roiling frenzy), and interesting, odd lyrics (as always evincing their interest in Native American heritage).
Samy Ben Redjeb, the man behind the Analog Africa label, allegedly went through some 3000 records before picking the 14 tracks that make up this amazing compilation of mid-'70s sounds from Benin and Togo - the two smaller countries that happen to be sandwiched between Nigeria and Ghana, two of the dominant cultural forces in African music at that time. As much as the music included on African Scream Contest shows the influence of those neighboring heavyweights, there are plenty of other elements coming into the mix. You can hear Afro-Cuban horn blasts and clave rhythms alongside samba grooves and James Brown funk. That you can hear blues and soul being filtered through highlife, Afrobeat, and even traditional choral music is one of the things that makes this period of African music so exciting: no one influence holds any more sway than any other, and the result is something totally unique that manages to be strangely familiar while sounding like nothing you've ever heard in your life.
Like the title says, this stuff is definitely raw - you can hear musicians who not only taught themselves how to play, but in doing so created their own culture, national identity and music. For every influence pulled from elsewhere in the world (be it US funk or Brazilian rhythms), there's something distinctly regional through which it gets filtered; for example, Benin is the birthplace of voodoo, and that must surely have been an influence on the sense of wild abandon and frenzy that this music manages to capture so perfectly. Simply put, this is heavy stuff!
The standard for these kinds of compilations has been set incredibly high by labels like Strut, Sound Way, Soul Jazz and the like, but if anything Analog Africa have raised the bar even higher. It took three years of research, crate digging, interviews and detective work to put this compilation together and it shows: this presentation of the music, liner notes and archival materials is meticulous, loving and borders on obsessive. This is an amazing collection of songs that once again shows the incredible depth of cultural output happening in Africa in the '60s and '70s. It's a great time to be a fan of these musics, and this stunning compilation shows us exactly why. Recommended!
I'm no doctor, but I have heard of rockin' pneumonia and boogie woogie flu. But what if the symptoms are an outbreak of twangin'? Well if you've heard the popular Phantom Guitars comp, released last year on Psychic Circle, you'll know what to expect. This is in fact officially Phantom Guitars volume 2, another fab collection of early '60s electric guitar instrumentals in the style of The Shadows and The Ventures. 26 more tracks of vintage reverby twang n' strum n' stomp, compiled by Nick Saloman, of Bevis Frond (and now Psychic Circle) fame. So giddy up and get it, Phantom Guitars fans. The acts on here, mostly British, are as follows: Ahab & The Wailers, The Blackjacks, The Boys, Alan Caddy, The Cannons, The Cliffters, The Eagles (but not THE Eagles of course), Rob E.G., Gordon Franks Orchestra, Jim Gunner, Richard Harding, The Hearts, Peter Jay & The Jaywalkers, Les Champions, Mandrake, Nero & The Gladiators, Judd Proctor, The Rapiers, The Ramblers, The Runestones, The Saints, The Saxons, The Sunspots, Teddy Vento & Dietrich Pregl, The Volcanos, Bert Weedon. More evocative perhaps are some of the track titles: "Train To Moscow", "Ghost Train", "Just For Chicks", "Husky Team", "The Phantom Stage", "Django", "Jezebel", "Desperado"... 'twas a simpler time, the swingin' sixties... There's a surfy sound going on here (a couple tracks reminded us of the Hawaii Five-O theme) and quite obviously a spaghetti western vibe too (the wordless background vocals on The Boys' version of "Polaris" seem fairly Morricone-ish, ferinstance). Sometimes moodily suspenseful, at other times energetically exotic, always groovy, and just plain fun stuff. Like the original volume of Phantom Guitar twangin', definitely cool and recommended!!
This new Numero Group comp and we assume new series of comps, is like the inversion of the Eccentric Soul series in that instead of a small regional record label head honing in on a key stable of talent, this is about a custom studio that invited its local community to record their own songs and music. Felton Williams started his Double U Studio in Ecorse, Michigan, a small suburb downriver from Detroit in 1967 (it lasted until 1981). With a knack for home built electronics and instruments, his studio was open to anyone who wanted to cut a record, and with Motown changing the course of soul music just upriver, he had a lot of takers. But unlike other custom record presses, Williams would own the publishing rights and release the records on a series of labels, Revival, Compose, Cass and Solid Rock, acting as a kind of Alan Lomax figure in hopes of recording vital regional talent for cultural prosperity. Luckily, Williams had a nearby pool of talent in his local church and the bulk and the best parts of this comp focuses on the amazing gospel soul sounds that came out of this studio. Though there's also soul, funk, jazz and even some garage rock cuts too, it's the gospel cuts that are worth the price of admission and anyone who's been digging the Mississippi Record gospel comps, should look here too, because there are some monster jams from Shirley Ann Lee, Bobby Cook and The Explosions and the beautifully named Deliverance Echoes. Can I get an Amen!
Another year, another collection of gauzy, washed out atmospheric shimmer from Kompakt. The latest in their ongoing series chronicling the more ambient (and poppy?) side of techno, but unlike past installments, there has been a serious shift this time around. Not only are there a bunch of new artists, but the sound itself has definitely been transformed. Before, Pop Ambient seemed to be more about processed electronics and bleary eared synthscapes, like techno with the beats stripped away, but this time around, while those electronic and synth elements haven't been abandoned completely, the sound seems much more organic, more Kranky than Kompakt, more like a sound unto itself. We use Pop Ambient to describe much of our favorite drone music, hazy, shimmery, gauzy, dreamy, be it Tim Hecker, Aidan Baker, Jesu and the like, Pop Ambient, for us at least, has become a sort of analog to shoegaze, a drifting sound blurred and smeared and indistinct, while somehow remaining melodic and mesmerizing. Its relation to techno tenuous, if entirely nonexistent at this point, having taken off a life, and a sound of its very own.
Every Pop Ambient comp has been a huge hit around here, so much so that we just naturally assumed that we had probably made all of them Records Of The Week in the past, but upon checking, we realized only one had made ROTW. Well, now TWO.
2009's Pop Ambient focuses much more on real instruments, horns, guitars, pianos, all woven into the already familiar landscape of soft synths and barely there rhythmic pulses, a swirling slow moving ambience, that flits from haunting chamber music, to looped post rock, to deep drone.
The first thing you might notice, is some very aQ artists amidst the usual suspects, sure there's Klimek, Andrew Thomas, Burger / Voigt, but then also Tim Hecker and The Fun Years, as if they had asked for our 2 cents in putting together this year's comp. And sonically, we couldn't have done better ourselves. Much darker, and more mysterious than past installments, surprisingly varied, but it works beautifully as an album, not just a collection.
Warped orchestral fanfares are slowed down and blurred beautifully, with a subtle rhythmic undercurrent, warm woozy horns blurred into sun dappled streaks, shimmery dramatic strings wind around plaintive piano, gorgeous and soundtracky, moody free jazz records get spun at 16 rpm, the piano plucking out a funereal dirge, flutes woven into wavering sheets of sound, record crackle everywhere, bits of electronic shimmer get stretched out into gauzy looped soundscapes, simple repetitive guitar figures lope dreamily over long stretches of harmonized horns, epic sweeping swells of dramatic buzz ebb and flow over buried melodies, distorted guitars unwind amidst swirling clouds of gritty textured ambience, skittering Oval-like loopscapes stutter and glitch soft focus tendrils of electronic whir, spidery guitars tangle with looped samples, locking into impossibly dreamy drifts of hypnotic repetition.
It's a breathtaking collection of sonic wonder, of sounds we truly consider to be Pop Ambience, haunting and otherworldly, subtly dark, sometimes ominous, always gorgeous, and of course totally recommended. And while this is a no brainer for the Pop Ambient obsessed, the minimal techno folks, and the Kompakt fanatics, this record might prove to be a new favorite for anyone into Stars Of The Lid, Pan American, Labradford, Eluvium, Windy And Carl and other purveyors of deep drone and nocturnal drift.
We've been lucky lately with all the cool comps of reissued fuzzed out vintage rock that have been coming our way, particularly including quite a few from the Psychic Circle label, discs like A Visit To The Spaceship Factory, Cosmarama and White Lace And Strange. Folks (like us) into late '60s/early '70s intersection of psych-pop, prog, and proto-metal have been very very happy with those. This one's not on Psychic Circle, but might as well be. It immediately piqued our attention with its subtitle, "Rare British Acid Freakrock". We weren't disappointed. This is freakrock indeed, from the wild synth soloing on Asylum's "Suzy's Back" to the demented drama of Monsoon's awesomely overwrought "Night Of The Fly". And as for rare, well we'd only heard of two of these acts before, Atomic Rooster and Steel Mill (whose "Get On The Line" is heavy, hairy funk by way of the Beatles, in the vocal dep't). Meanwhile the obscure likes of J.C. Heavy, Legs, Iron Horse, Galahad, Choc, Grumbleweeds, Satisfaction, Mighty 'Em, Puzzle, Renegade, and all the other none-hit wonders here are welcome discoveries. And this is only volume one, bring on volume two!
At its heaviest, The Electric Asylum offers up we might term "Bubblegum Black Sabbath". Doomy and druggy, but also poppy and groovy. Lumbering fuzz riffs and soaring female backing vocals abound (you'll find both on Rainbow Family's "Travellin' Lady"). Elsewhere, there's some kitschy horns, badass drum breaks, and lots of wah wah guitar... More than a few of these tracks, like Iron Horse's "Magic Love" and Galahad's "Rocket Summer", would have fit in nicely on Psychic Circle's recent Blitzing The Ballroom collection of glam rock rave ups, being hard rockers with handclaps and "hey!"s. There's 20 tracks total, a colorful cornucopia of catchy craziness that we're definitely digging.
Killer intercontinental compilation from Israeli label Heart & Crossbone, who in the past have brought us equally killer releases from black thrash duo Barbara, weird noise metal combo Cadaver Eyes, ultra noisemakers Lietterschpich, blown out avant noise rockers Grave In The Sky, one-man experimental grind band Mildew, and most recently, the mysterious field recording-ed skitter and clang of Lagan Tapes. Not a bad track record at all! For this comp, curiously called What Pleasing The Lord Looks Like Marriage, they've gathered up 8 of their favorite extreme noise and metal bands, 4 from Israel, 4 from Japan, some mentioned above, all pretty kick ass.
First up is Ryokuchi, a bass and drums doom duo from Japan, who start out with some shakuhachi and tribal drumming, before launching into a crushing, lurching sludge, dense downtuned heaviness, tons of shrieking feedback, chugging crunch, and bellowed vox. Cadaver Eyes are up next, their track begins with a thick caustic slab of undulating drone, all buzzing overtones, and layered rumbles, eventually the drums kick in, and a Khanate-like pace, the vocals tortured and harsh, the backdrop a low end slow motion doom, definitely for the ultramegadoomlords out there. Back to Japan for Zenocide, who also offer up their own sludge-y slowness, with some incredible, monstrous vocals, WAY up in the mix, the music a stripped down sort of stonery doom, think Church Of Misery crossed with Corrupted, but those vocals, holy shit, SCARY.
Not sure why Lietterschpich appended 'diet' to their name, this doesn't sound any lighter or less heavy than past outings, instead, more super abstract percussive freakouts, shimmery soft noise and dubbed out doom, a swirling skree or chopped and processed sounds, all layered over a wall of buzzing crumbling sound, and those chaotic drums. MONEYISGOD from Japan are another band new to us, but again, we have to say HOLY SHIT, these guys are fucked up and heavy and awesome! Buzzing glitchy layers of noise, super blown out heavy percussion, and the occasional vocal blurt, like a way more ominous angry Boredoms, quickly giving way to a cloud of caustic white noise, all the while those drums keep pounding away. Poochlatz are another longtime aQ fave from Israel, and here they get their Whitehouse on big time, although it's like a muddy, murky, muted Whitehouse, another squall of swirling noisiness, of fuzz and buzz and hiss, peppered with strangled super processed vox, the whole thing stuttering and skittering and constantly pulsing and throbbing, almost like a Buttholes Surfer noise mix!
The comp finishes off with two more new-to-us combos, first up Remesh, from Israel, who are also plenty noise, there noise expelled in great big blown out gouts, industrial, heaving, hissing, effects drenched vocals bellowing beneath that undulating sea of harsh sound, but not so harsh that it isn't listenable, although certainly harsh enough to keep away all but the very iron eared.
And finally, Japan's Nerveless, mistakenly credited as Neverless, who close things out with a massive 20 minute noisedoom freakout. There is a riff, a massive crumbling super distorted bassy one, that lurches glacially, while all around it swirls dense sheets of low end throb, and a symphony of what sounds like that wind-on-microphone crackle and crunch. It's like Corrupted and Boris filtered through a blown Merzbow subwoofer. Noisy, but strangely hypnotic and heavy.
Like all good comps, this will definitely leave you wanting more from most, if not all of these outfits, another noisy heavy winner from Heart & Crossbone!
Some cool post rock doom weirdness from Sweden, taking all the usual elements, pounding drums, chugging downtuned guitars, etc, and mixing in plenty of post rock, which yeah, is not such a huge deal these days, but all the PIANO probably is! Yep, Piano! Vaka is piano driven, drum heavy post doom heaviness. The drums, like the piano are crucial to the sound, recorded LOUD, way up in the mix, locked in with the piano, creating these killer brooding slow burning post rock epics, pounding, hypnotic, looped, repetitive, imagine a doomier heavier more stripped down Godspeed, or Neurosis if you swapped out most of the guitars for piano. That all makes sense when you realize Vaka is basically a one man band, the same guy playing drums and piano, crafting his perfect band, a crushing, pummeling, doomic piano / drum duel, with occasional bellowed vox, moaning cellos, and distorted riffage.
Because of the focus on the piano and the drums, the sounds often ends up sounding less like doom metal or post rock, and something much more akin to post punk / post industrial a la the Birthday Party, or Einsturzende Neubauten, Swans or even Cop Shoot Cop, very rhythmic, dark, with a hint of cabaret, grand and epic and dramatic and majestic, pounding and for sure industrial at times, definitely melodic, yet still dense and mathy and heavy.
Brand new vinyl only 12" ep from long time aQ fave Honey Owens and her (often) one woman project Valet. We've been raving about Valet for ages, since the first few cd-r's on Owens' Yarn Lazer cd-r label. Her sound has definitely grown more refined, gotten a bit more polished even, but still manages to sound intimate and fuzzy, warm and languid, dreamy and druggy.
False Face Society is another fantastic collection of diamond eyed free folk drift, with Valet now expanded to a quartet, and a lot less reverb than on past outings, so less murk and mumble, in exchange for something a bit more crystalline. The vocals are still delivered in a darkly druggy haze, but the music now glistens and glimmers, shines and sparkles, the combination at once ethereal and ephemeral, lush and layered. And all very dreamlike.
Imagine some dark meandering free folk, slowed waaaaaaay down, dipped in acid and then played back frame by frame, a stop motion sprawl of flutter and whir, of woozy warble and unmoored psychedelia. The guitars are spidery and spare, effects are looped within soft clouds of slow shifting textures and spaced out melodies and Honey O's angelic soporific croon.
The single song-ed A side amps up a bit part way through, the drums get tribal, and the various abstract strands of sound and melody coalesce into some seriously hypnotic high end shimmer, transformed into a weirdly propulsive bit of Sunroof! like ur-drone, the guitars gradually growing more buzzy and distorted.
Two shorter songs n the B side, the first all spaced out synth blurts and distant drifting psych guitars, moaning strings, slivers of feedback and barely there wordless vox, while the second finds Honey O. tackling "Rainbow" all by her lonesome, and yeah, we're talking about THAT "Rainbow", as in Boris and Michio Kurihara's "Rainbow". Here it becomes something super minimal and tripped out, tons and tons of space, reverbed emptiness, shot through with delicate traces of melody, hushed voices, wah wah guitar unfurls lazily, muted understated percussion lurks beneath soft swirls of minimal buzz, and of course Honey O.'s sultry FX-wreathed vocals, the guitars getting more and more psychedelic, over a backdrop that seems content to just hover and shimmer and drift. Druggy, languorous and so so lovely.
Packaged in super heavy, full color sleeves, pressed on thick black vinyl, with a photocopied insert, and a download card, so you can get these tracks for your iPod (although, when we tried, we couldn't figure out where or how to download the tracks on the Mexican Summer website).
Attention hard rockers and proto-metal freaks! Finally, the self titled debut and only release from Canada's Warpig gets the deluxe reissue treatment, thanks to those rockers at Relapse. After numerous shoddy bootlegs, this is the first time this record has ever been officially available on cd, and the first time it's been available at all since the original record was released in 1970. Very much in the same vein as the recent Relapse Pentagram reissues, this is some serious stuff, heavy and psychedelic, groovy and dark, Warpig were a heavy rock outfit very much in the spirit of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly, Blue Oyster Cult...
Heavy heavy riffs, thick fuzzy organ, kick ass drumming, and wild wailing vocals, lengthy extended riffing, organs atop guitars, slithery snake-like leads, throbbing sludgy bass lines, and catchy-as-fuck songs...
Every track is a killer: the wild proggy Jethro Tull-ish groove of the opener "Flaggit", the "In A Gadda Da Vida" meets Black Sabbath jam "Tough Nuts", they even had a song called "Melody With Balls" fer chrissakes!! One of the best (and strangest) tracks is the lengthy instrumental epic "Advance In A Minor", a dense moody, almost classical sounding metallic prog workout, with loping minor key stretches of muted low end guitar strum and simple piano chords, strung between killer bursts of mathy prog, staccato and dynamic, the whole track eventually twisting itself into some slow burning hard rocking blow out, propulsive and relentless. Later on in the record is another lengthy jam, the strangely titled "U.X.I.B.", rife with wild wailing leads, a groovy main riff, fuzzed out organ, and long stretches of blissed out space rock drift, with the vocals not joining in until nearly halfway through. Unlike a lot of supposedly heavy "proto-metal" records, where one or two of the tracks rock super hard and the all the rest are just bad twelve bar blues bar rock, every track here kicks ass, heavy and proggy and groovy and spacey and pretty dang metal for 1970. Quite recommended! Includes all new artwork, rare photos and brand new liner notes...
In the few months since we first gushed about our new found obsession, a weird little buzzy noise pop band called Wavves, it seems like a ton of other folks have been feeling the same way about the urgent, catchy, blown out and energetic sounds this young lad from San Diego has been whipping up. Already following up the great Woodsist debut is a new record on the bigger Fat Possum label, but not to worry the sound is still way blown out and in the red, and the songs still make you wanna sweat and jump and play with your friends in the burning sun. What makes Wavves so great is that they really are drawing from such classic sources yet infusing new life and energy into those sounds. Imagine the best parts of the Beach Boys, the Ramones and the Misfits, all channeled into some buzzy lo-fi shredder and you begin to understand the world Wavves calls home. Since we still have the debut on heavy rotation it caught us a bit off guard to find a brand new full length already, and another self titled one, but we get the feeling that Nate Williams (just 22 years old) is at one of those special creative peaks where songs are just bursting forth with no end in sight. And heck, we're not complaining, not one bit, cause when the songs are this damaged and catchy and kick ass, he can keep cranking them out FOREVER. Here's to a THIRD self titled record, BRING IT ON!!
By now, Wolves in the Throne Room have established themselves as one of America's most gifted and awesomely dependable black metal bands, and their third long player, Black Cascade, picks up right where their recent Malevolent Grain ep left off. All the elements of their expansive, blackened psychedelic approach are here: sprawling songs with a methodical attention to song structure, relentless drumming, perfectly interlocking dual guitars, tortured raspy vocals, and an ability to seamlessly merge synthy ambience with a furious but often very melancholy black metal onslaught. There seems to be a legion of haters out there, ready to label the band as a bunch of PC hippies who aren't adhering to whatever rules they assume apply to a style of music that is pretty nihilistic and iconoclastic by nature. But fuck those people. This band is great and truly deserves whatever accolades come its way.
The ever-present density of WITTR's sound is further heightened on Black Cascade, their bio proudly emphasizing the old school analog sound they have achieved through vintage recording gear and classic tube amps. While we don't want to ramble on about various pieces of musical equipment, it should be noted that these devices have certainly helped the band to capture a sound music nerds might refer to as "organic". Sure, we at aQuarius love all the homemade bedroom black metal that sounds as if it was recorded in a blender during a tornado... The sound on Black Cascade, however, is clear and upfront, though hardly refined or polished. It is quite rock n' roll in a classic sense, which works great when the band breaks out some Thin Lizzy-esque guitar harmonies on the first track "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog". Mossy, ultra distorted guitars hang like a thick black cloud (or a sea of fog, if you will) in the atmosphere as the drums create the necessary propulsion that make a Wolves in the Throne Room song sound like it could, and should, carry on FOREVER. Song #2, "Ahrimanic Trance" is, true to its title, a hypnotic, trancelike black metal trip into some long forgotten wilderness. The song gives one a feeling of being transported at high speeds across the landscape while watching from the back of some primitive vehicle, a sense that is carried on in the next track, "Ex Cathedra". The final song, "Crystal Ammunition", starts life as a dizzying, hyperspeed slab of pure black metal before morphing into a beautiful lament that may (or may not) reference the melody from Malevolent Grain's "A Looming Resonance". It's seems like things will culminate in the ultimate fadeout. But, uh, what happens after the fade out? As everything gallops off into the distance, otherworldly guitar chords and tambourine are the only sounds evident. Eventually these too recede as they are overtaken by a phased out synthscape. Fucking awesome.
While this album was great from the moment we first put it on, repeated listens have been revealing more and more. To say this is a huge departure from what Wolves in the Throne Room have accomplished in the past would be inaccurate. It is, instead, the sound of a group who, with each record, becomes a more realized version of itself.
We almost sold out of these after only a few days, without even reviewing / listing it, but then it IS a new Xasthur record, and it IS a super limited (500 copies) cassette version, and cassette means cult, in a cool oversized clamshell case, with original artwork by Hildolf from Draugar, and inside, it also contains a photocopied booklet, 3 pins and a patch! So yeah, no real surprise that those flew out of here. We did manage to get a handful more of these, but seeing as how these have been selling pretty much nonstop, who knows how long they'll last.
Beyond all that stuff, we're pretty psyched for sure. Finally, a new record from Xasthur, aka Malefic, a one man doom-ed depressive black metal machine, whose last release, Defective Epitaph was a huge hit around these parts, due in no small part to the shift from drum machine to actual drums, no programmed beats, actual kit bashing rhythms courtesy of Malefic himself, and the result was pretty stellar, creating a sound even more raw and murky and lo-fi than past efforts, but no less bleak or introspective or amazing. So now comes All Reflections Drained, soon to come on double lp, and we would assume cd, but for now available only in the very old school, very metal, and very kult kassette format. And it's very much a continuation of Defective Epitaph, from moment one, the sound boomy and reverb drenched, echoey and WAY lo-fi, loping doomy guitars, stumbling midtempo drums, and then WOAH, the sound shifts, and the drums double time it under a layer of thick low end dramatic piano, creating some strange Skepticismy drift, over the relentlessly buzzing blackness below. The mix is REALLY weird, fractured and gloriously fucked up, the sounds shifting and merging into one another, the songs too, woozy and warped and seasick sounding and a bit waltzy, the drum sound super raw and distant and for the most part buried in the mix, minus some flurries of kick drum that practically explode. The guitars are washed out and melancholic, lumbering doomily through hazy clouds of muted buzz and soft focus hiss, lots of creeped out ambience, and dark soundscaping, way less of a focus on vocals, in fact several songs in, and we barely noticed any, minus some far off clean crooning and some rumbled mutterings, the usual blackened harsh rasps seemingly lost in the swirling off kilter mix.
If anything this record is a logical extension of the direction Malefic had been taking the sound of Xasthur, like a Defective Epitaph part two maybe, but somehow quite a bit doomier, and WAY weirder, more spaced out and experimental, with a serious focus on dark brooding non-metal parts, hints of slowcore and drone abound, some parts are downright orchestral, and the sound is definitely even murkier and mysterious than ever, dripping with buzz and tape hiss, blown out low end (that sounds like a tuba or something similar) and thick crumbling distortion, but fear not troo grim hordes, it's still plenty depressive and dolorous, minor key and epic, miserable and moody, gorgeously buzzy and bafflingly brilliant.
Again, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!! And these will probably disappear FAST... To be sure, there will be a vinyl and perhaps cd version coming out eventually, but they won't be as kvlt as this! ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Back In Print!!!! The Source book was awesome, but before that, there was this dvd, you need it too...
If you're at all like us, you're a fan of the Ya Ho Wha 13 records. big fans don't know much more than that the Yah Ho Wha 13 was a band that belonged to a '70s hippy religious commune (some would say, a "cult") known then as the Brotherhood Of The Source and now as the Source Family, that was based in California (and later, Hawaii), led by a fellow named Father Yod, who eventually perished in a hang-gliding accident. Pretty mysterious really. And if you're like us you're curious about the folks who made all that weird music. Well, now you can learn the rest of the story from this DVD documentary. And it's a long story -- about two and a half hours. Very entertaining though. In part 'cause the actual facts are so strange, in part 'cause the interviewees are really rather charming... and in part 'cause this was a student film project. The filmmaking isn't so much amateur or low budget as it is simply bizarre. It fits with the subject though!! The young filmmaker himself sometimes appears on-screen, hosting the proceedings. A lot of the time, he has the back of his head to the camera, superimposed Mystery Science Theatre 3000 style over whatever he's discussing. Weird. And he really tries to generate a "psychedelic" mood with the use of computer animations and the overlaying of multiple video images. It's a pretty darn trippy movie he's made. But once you're used to it, you'll be able to focus on what the former "Family" members are talking about in the interviews. You'll learn that Father Yod's real name was Jim Baker. And that supposedly he was an Olympic athlete and WWII hero. Well, that's what his former followers still think. Further viewing will reveal how Tarzan, salad dressing, Jodie Foster's dad, and the Egyptian pyramids, among many other things, all play parts in the story... And don't worry, in addition to the present-day interviews, this makes use of all sorts of vintage footage and photos, both "home movies" and what appears to be a local Los Angeles TV news feature on the Father Yod and his followers from back in the day.
In a lot of ways, this film is basically a case study in how to start and run a cult. In Jim Baker/Father Yod's case, the idea is to become an esoteric-wisdom-spouting father figure to a group of "lost" youths (it's helpful if there happens to be a whole hippie generation running around looking for spiritual enlightenment and belonging). And get them all working at your successful health-food restaurant, to make money to pay for Rolls Royces, mansions, and nice suits. And have amazing hair! (The sequence where one former Family member describes the colors and texture of Father Yod's hair is really intense!) For instance, would-be cult leaders probably are curious to know just how Father Yod wound up with so many attractive young "wives"? Well, he taught his flock that women were god-creatures, creative spirits who should be utterly liberated and free to choose their partners as they wished. If a man was chosen, he should accept the attentions of the woman gratefully, no matter what. Now, could Father Yod help it if many of the women in the Family chose him, leaving many of his male "children" without partners? No, he could not.
An interest in cults, gurus and sixties spirituality aside, despite the fact that the Ya Ho Wha 13's music (which you'll hear throughout the film) doesn't really get discussed much until about an hour and a half into the movie (and Djin Aquarian, the guitarist in the band, isn't talked to for some reason, though you can find a fascinating 2003 interview with him online here: http://www.nicepooperzine.com/interviews.html, and of course he's in the Source book), this is still pretty much essential for any fan of Father Yod & Co.'s musical endeavors. We think you'll "hear" a lot more next time you spin one of their albums, after viewing this. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! ACID WITCH "Witchtanic Hellucinations" (Razorback Recordings) cd 13.98 AI ASO "Aida" (PSF) cd 22.00 ATOM TM "Liedgut" (Raster-Norton) cd 17.98 AURA NOIR "Hades Rise" (Peaceville) cd 15.98 BARRACUDA, RANDY & MESAK "Black Vaseline" (Harmonia) 12" 16.98 BIRD, ANDREW "Noble Beast" (Fat Possum) cd 13.98 CARTER, ANITA "Songbird" (The Omni Recording Corporation) cd 16.98 COLTRANE, JOHN "A Love Supreme" (Impulse) lp 16.98 COLTRANE, JOHN "Sun Ship" (Impulse) lp 16.98 COLTRANE, JOHN & JOHNNY HARTMAN "s/t" (Impulse) lp 16.98 CONDO FUCKS "Fuckbook" (Matador) cd/lp 13.98/14.98 DALEK "Gutter Tactics" (Ipecac) cd 16.98 DISTANCE "Repercussions" (Planet Mu) 2cd 16.98 ELOY "s/t" (Revisted) cd 17.98 EMPIRE, ALEC "Plays Staubgold: Rauschgold" (Staubgold) cd 14.98 ENFORCER "Into The Night" (Heavy Artillary) cd 15.98 ENVENOMIST "Helix" (Killer Pimp) cd 11.98 FAITHFULL, MARIANNE "Easy Come Easy Go" (Decca) cd 16.98 FAUST "C'est Com... Com... Complique" (Bureau B) cd/lp 17.98/17.98 FAUST "Schiphorst 2008" (Salamanda) 2cd 23.00 FENNESZ / DAFELDECKER / BRANDLMAYR "Till The Old World's Blown Up And A New One Is Created" (Mosz) 2cd 16.98 FRIDGE "Early Output 1996-1998" (Temporary Residence) cd 14.98 FRUMPY "2" (Philips) cd 17.98 FRUMPY "All Will Be Changed" (Philips) cd 17.98 GAINSBOURG, SERGE "Aux Armes Et Caetera" (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98 GAINSBOURG, SERGE "L'Homme A Tete De Chou" (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98 GOBLIN COCK "Come With Me If You Want To" (Robcore Records) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 HIGH RISE "Psychedelic Speed Freaks Live 1986" (PSF) dvd 27.00 IBLISS "Supernova" (Garden Of Delights) cd 22.00 IELASI, GIUSEPPE "Aix" (12K) cd 14.98 JEPSON, WARNER "Totentanz and Other Electronic Works, 1958 - 1973" (Melon Expander) cd 19.98 KELLARISSA "Flamingo" (Mint) cd 16.98 LINES, THE "Flood Bank" (Acute Records) cd 14.98 LIVERPOOL "Por Favor Sucesso" (Shadoks / Normal) cd 17.98 LOW FREQUENCY IN STEREO, THE "Futuro" (Rune Grammofom) cd 17.98 LUSTMORD "The Dark Places Of The Earth" (Vault Works) cd 16.98 MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ W/ MASAMI SHINODA "s/t" (PSF) dvd 27.00 MANDIBLE CHATTER "Grace" (Magnanimous Records) cd 14.98 MASTODON "Crack The Skye" (Reprise) cd 13.98 MONKS "Black Monk Time" (Light In The Attic) cd 16.98 MONNO "Ghosts" (Conspiracy) cd/lp 15.98/15.98 MONO "Hymn To The Immortal" (Temporary Residence) cd 14.98 NEGATIVE SPACE "Hard, Heavy, Mean & Evil" (Vintage) cd 12.98 O.W.L. "Of Wondrous Legends" (Locust) cd 14.98 O'MALLEY, STEPHEN "Keep An Eye Out" (Table Of The Elements) lp 15.98 OFEGE "Try And Love" (Acadamy) lp 14.98 OFERMOD "Tiamtu" (Ajna) cd 15.98 ONNA "Katawa" (PSF) cd 22.00 POWERHOUSE "s/t" (Erebus) cd 17.98 RAPE X "False" (At War With Noise) cd 14.98 RED FANG "s/t" (Sargent House) cd RIGAS DEN ANDRE "Valla" (Harmonia) 12" 15.98 RUSTED SHUT "s/t" (Fleece Records) cd 14.98 SHOGUN KUNITOKI "Vinonaa" (Fonal) picture disc lp 23.00 SHOLI "s/t" (Quarterstick) cd 14.98 SMASH "We Come To Smash This Time" (LSD) lp 32.00 STRIBORG "Perceiving The World With Hate" (Displeased) cd 14.98 STRINGS OF CONSCIOUSNESS & ANGEL "s/t" (Important) cd 14.98 SULTAN, MARK "Hold On / I Hear A New World" (Sub Pop) 7" 5.98 TAAKE "s/t" (Century Media) cd 12.98 THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES "Tail Swallower And Dove" (Suicide Squeez) cd 14.98 V/A "Cazumbi: African Sixties Garage Vol-1" (No Smoke) cd 25.00 V/A "Source Records 1-6, 1968-1971" (Pogus) 3cd 43.00 VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR "Time Vaults" (Abstract Sounds) cd 13.98 VAN DUREN "Are You Serious?" cd VEE DEE "Public Mental Health System" (Criminal IQ) 2lp 21.00 VILE, KURT & THE VIOLATORS "The Hunchback EP" (Richie Records) 12" 14.98 VIRUS "The Black Flux" (Season Of Mist) cd 15.98 WALKER, PETER "Long Lost Tapes" (Tompkins Square) cd 14.98 WEIRD OWL "Ever The Silver Cord Be Loosed" (Tee Pee) cd 14.98 WIMPLE WINCH "Tales From The Sinking Ship" (RPM) cd 16.98 WOLF "Ravenous" (Century Media) cd 12.98 YELLOWBEARD "s/t" (Ultra Eczema) lp 30.00 _______________________________________________________________________ Please place your order via our website. 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