Regarding Mastodon, here at Aquarius we were fairly early adopters, being pretty into the mathy, very metal metalcore of their first ep and album, which we reviewed quite enthusiastically at the time. But, as their career continued, we got bored and began to lose interest in 'em. Unlike most folks - as of course Mastodon have since gotten quite big. We didn't even review their last album, but when this new one came in (and thence flew out, as it's been selling quite well here already) we eventually gave it a spin and opening track "Oblivion" immediately made us sit up and take notice. Hmm, Mastodon have changed. They've pretty much done away with the shouty 'brutal' death vocals in favor of a variety of more melodic vocal options, many of which are displayed in "Oblivion", from an Ozzyish wail to singing that sounds more 'grunge', like Alice In Chains maybe. When a few years ago they first dabbled with 'clean' vocals we weren't as into it, but now it works, 'cause in doing so, they've added a definite 'pop' element to what's in other respects totally technical proggy metal a la recent Opeth or Enslaved. In addition, metalcore and even emo are mixed in to Mastodon's weird (but successful) hybrid, that in that first track alone manages to makes us think of all those artists we just mentioned along with both Torche and Coheed and Cambria!
We already had Mastodon pegged as prog (they did a whole concept album based on Moby Dick, remember? And this disc's got a four-part, 11 minute track about Russian royalty or something) but being complex and epic AND pop, that's pretty neat. There's a lot going on here, lots of nifty details, as well as sheer metallic might, and it seems that Mastodon have finally arrived at a point where all the different stuff they do works in context, compositionally. We'll definitely be giving this album (and maybe their previous one too) some repeated, closer listens. Perhaps our expectations were unfairly low and shouldn't have been, but in any case we have to say that this new disc seems worthy of all the attention Mastodon had been getting lately from pretty much everyone but us.
No point in being coy or beating around the bush. Might as well come right out and fess up (as if the aQ list faithful didn't already know). We LOVE this band, ever since the Apply Some Pressure cdep released way back in 2005, and every record since. Sure, A Certain Trigger might be their best record, but we dug Our Earthly Pleasures BIG time. It was definitely a grower, but it didn't take long for it to end up a daily play. Same thing with Quicken The Heart, at first we weren't sure what to think, we're always sort of hoping that MP will return to the hyper caffeinated Interpol meets XTC sound of that first record and come up with another song that rivals the impossibly kinetic hook filled jam that is "Apply Some Pressure", but just like with Our Earthly Pleasures, after a few listens we no longer found ourselves wishing for that sound of old, we just let these new songs wash over us, and with every listen they blossom more and more, and now at least half of the songs here rank as some of our favorite MP jams. Jangly new wavey guitars, propulsive drumming, buzzy synths, and killer vocals, amazing melodies, and hooks galore. There's only bum in the bunch, and weirdly enough it's the first single, hearing that before the record showed up had us a bit worried, but now that it's here, we just skip that song (and heck, even that one is growing on us) and play the shit out of the rest of the record. Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Nine Black Alps, we love all those bands, but there's just something about Maximo Park that makes them our favorite.
We get so spoiled working in a record store, we know what records are coming out months before they do, and we sometimes get them a few days ahead of time, it does make you less excited, how you were as a teenager, but every time there's a new Maximo Park record, we find ourselves counting the days, and then heading to work on that Tuesday knowing that it'll show up sometime that day. That's a cool feeling, one we miss for sure, and one that is evoked by a surprisingly few bands. Needless to say, this record rules, if you're in the market for some smart, angular, new wave-y pop, you couldn't do much better than Quicken The Heart.
Pretty much everything we've heard on Sublime Frequencies has totally blown us away, the music so emotional and passionate, and in many ways so alien, sounding like nothing we've heard before. It's a music that transports us, fills our minds with images of the musicians, of their homes, the clubs, of all these places we've never been, the people, the children, their families, the instruments, we can't help but imagine this music as it's being made. Thankfully, the fine folks at SF have also been releasing dvd's, allowing us to see these musicians performing, recording, each dvd focusing on a region or a style of music, and every one breathtaking, whether it's the impossible expanse of the desert, the gorgeous landscape, the houses and town squares, experiencing late night markets, wild parties, impromptu performances, crazy jams, we've never been anything less than enthralled and blown away by these documents. And this one is no different.
Shot over two years, Mayet travelled all over Africa, specifically Southern Morocco and the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott, no narrative, just a dreamlike journey across vast expanses of land, long stretches of ragged road, amazing buildings, and ruins, into people's homes, and public spaces for (sometimes private) performances with some amazing groups, in particular aQ faves Group Doueh, whose two songs are dramatically different, one is at home, and features a man on guitar, and a woman on drum and vocals, the two reclining in what appears to be their living room, the second, is an actual performance, in a club, packed with women in the most dazzling clothing, Technicolor and elaborate, a huge video screen playing videos, and the band just chilling on a couch against the wall jamming, while some of the ladies dance. So awesome!
So much amazing music, lots of it by groups we hadn't heard until now, but need to hear more from, so much to see, to take in, sometimes it's just the ambient sounds, the people, the cars, daily life, other times those scenes of daily life are set to music, but the real magic comes from being transported right into someone's home and getting to sit right in front of the players and experience the sound, as it's being created. Magical.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. All region.
The classic proto-punk record made by these weirdo American GI's in Germany circa '66, now reissued on vinyl. Not too many in stock...
A private pressing from Keith Fullerton Whitman of a live recording of a collaboration with Geoff Mullen back in 2006, through the Uppercase Sound series that Brendan Murray curated in Somerville, MA. While both of these avantniks have been known for their heady guitar-driven dronesmears, this mostly finds the two grappling with all of the filters, oscillators, pedals, and electronics that can be crammed into a suitcase. Guttural renderings of pink noise, refracted vibration, and Derbyshire punctuations of tonal electronics slide in and out of rhythmically tapped structures amidst indeterminately placed squiggles and LFO sweepings. Much of the electronics mirror a deep-space, cosmic exploration although the 'recorded in the middle of the room' quality of the recording somewhat tempers any transcendent qualities. Well, it WAS recorded in the middle of a room. And yes, they did bring their guitars; and Mullen provides some choice moments of narcotized strums cast through heavy amounts of delay, which combined with Whitman's somber tone-bent electronics foreshadows the industrial psychedelia of Emeralds or Infinity Window. Each LP comes with a slightly different cover, with each featuring a still from the video documentation of the event, or something similar. In any case, it's limited to 300 copies... and give it about ten to fifteen years, this soon to be out-of-print document might just show up as a Creel Pone cd-r. Ha!
Covers records can definitely be a cop out. They're easy, and fun, and who doesn't want to just jam out to their favorite tunes. But some covers records do transcend, whether it's song choice, theme, or those particular versions and interpretation, the right covers, played the right way, can be as good if not better than a band's records proper. Which makes sense as you're typically covering songs that are, at least to you, if not everyone, 'classics.'
Which brings us to When I See The Sun Always Shines On TV, which is in fact, a collection of covers, many of which might seem like super obvious choices. Which is okay, it's as if Nadja wanted to acknowledge their influences loudly and proudly in the face of folks who accuse them of ripping off some of these very same bands. And at least half of these tracks are actually by bands that we've compared Nadja to in past reviews. So we were sort of psyched to see how instead of infusing their own music with the influences of other bands, they might approach it the other way around, taking these songs and bands they love, and filtering them through their own sound. Alongside those obvious choices though are some totally out of left field choices, that on the surface seem to make no sense, but in the context of this collection fit perfectly, and when heard all buzzy and blissy and Nadja'd up, sometimes sound better than the originals.
The album opens with My Bloody Valentine's "Only Shallow", and Nadja make it their own, which is no small feat considering how iconic that main riff is, but heck, in the past we'v talked about how everything sounds better slower, well imagine that jam, slowed way down, and beefed WAY up, so what was already THEE shoegaze anthem of all time, is transformed into a lurching, heaving, crumbling mass of glorious blurred and blown out soft focus heaviness. Then comes Codeine's "Pea", another obvious Nadja influence, we would have gone for "Cave In", some doom band needs to cover that one, but "Pea" suits them, they don't even rock it out that much, it's a bit heavier, but not much slower, and Aidan Baker's soft tentative croon is a dead ringer for Codeine's Stephen Immerwahr. The band also tackle the Swans, and the Cure, the latter's "Faith" stretched out to almost 13 minutes, and expansive glorious woozy gloomy sprawl.
But it's the unlikely choices that seal the deal. A-Ha? It's the track that gives this comp its title, and although we're not familiar with the original, the Nadja version is gorgeous, heavy and poppy and gloriously blown out.
Then there's the Slayer cover, "Dead Skin Mask" from Seasons In The Abyss, not as obvious a choice as "Raining Blood" or "Angel Of Death", but for Nadja a much more suitable choice, that main riff, sounds soooooo good, all sludgey and washed out, that main melody even more seasick and woozy sounding, the new version somehow even creepier than the original. However our favorite two tracks here are definitely the least likely, one you may have heard, one you most likely haven't.
First, Elliott Smith's "Needle In The Hay", which of course is a fantastic song, but in Nadja's capable hands, it becomes even more harrowing, much more minor key, the vocals worn and weary, the drums a trudging death march, all beneath a thick layer of droning buzz and keening keyboards, and then that main hook, so epic and mysterious and sorrowful. You can almost imagine this is what Smith was imagining when he wrote it. And as much as we love this whole disc, this is the one we keep returning to.
And then there's "Long Dark Twenties", which was previously releases as a super limited 7", and which just happens to be a cover of a song from the Kids In The Hall movie, and yeah, that makes no sense at all, but as far as we're concerned it's become a Nadja song, we actually reviewed that song in depth when we had the 7", so let's revisit that briefly:
Folks who managed to catch Nadja performing live at aQuarius not too long ago, were treated to quite possibly the heaviest, catchiest, grooviest Nadja track yet. An awesome hook filled seventies rock style ultra jam, wrapped in thick clouds of billowing distortion and anchored by the crunch and pound of programmed beats, Aidan Baker's vocals a whispered croon, Leah Buckareff's bass throbbing and rumbling, but the main riff, SHIT, unbelievable, even after our ears stopped ringing, we were all humming that riff for days...
Well the funny thing we learned later, was that there song was in fact a cover. And an incredibly unlikely cover at that. The only obvious link between the original and the band covering it? Canada. The song, some of you might remember, is in fact from the Kids In The Hall movie Brain Candy, and proves that Nadja can turn hooky pop into hooky sludge-y doom. The chorus is an absolute killer, and similar to how Torche transform pop into skullcrushing hook filled heaviness, Nadja take that pop and wrap it all up in some of their distinctive blissed out fuzz and we're talking HIT. Well, a hit if there were actually some sort of blissdoomdronesludgepop chart. Which there should be. And there sort of is, in our heads, but anyway...
So yeah, for folks who missed out on that single, or who just want to have it on cd instead of vinyl, well, it's worth the price of admission for just that jam. But thankfully, every song on here is a crushing doom drenched, pop infused, slow motion chunk of dreamy blissed out, ultra catchy heaviness. And even though it's not technically a proper Nadja record, it just may well be our favorite Nadja record yet.
When you're on...you're on...and if you are The Oh Sees these days, you ARE ON FUCKING FIRE!!! Seriously we haven't seen a band hit a sizzling stride like Thee Oh Sees are currently experiencing in AGES. So we welcome the tidal wave (yes, we went there) of releases from them in the last year with totally open and eager ears. Their newest album Help, an aQ Record Of The Week recently, will most likely find it's way on to many of our year end favorites list, we can't stop listening to it! So it should come as little surprise that these two new non-album tracks are also totally perfect, ultra catchy blasts of pure garage pop genius! It's actually such a perfect time for Thee Oh Sees to be cutting singles as they seem able to continually whip up memorable, endearing and super kick ass songs, which will hopefully mean more singles to come!
Makes perfect sense that Tidal Wave was released on Woodsist and the full length came out on In The Red, as both of those labels sounds lately, perhaps owe a sonic debt to the blown out magic Jon Dwyer has been blasting out for the last decade. Get one while you can!
Now available on vinyl!
One of our favorite cuts from the recent African Scream Contest compilation was from the Benin based Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Contonou, a stellar Afro-funk collective that in various line-ups recorded over 500 tracks between 1970-1985. This is part one of a planned two volume release, this one focusing on a prolific string of singles released on various private labels between 1972-1975. As the story goes, the band were signed to a major African label and recorded at a high quality studio (which will be the focus of the second volume), but while the label head was away on business, the band would take matters into their own hands, recording various singles for small independent labels, often at people's homes with only one microphone for the singer and the band in a close semi-circle behind him. The sound quality with such limitations is actually quite amazing and really displays the group's tight -knit musicianship. Like Fela Kuti's legendary band, the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou deal in heavy James Brown inspired Afro-funk, but more centered on guitars and organ than the horn section. This is one of the best and most consistent anthologies of West African music from a single group we've seen in these parts all year! Highest recommendation!
Is there any song more perfect than "Strawberry Letter 23"? We can't think of a song that conjures up as much synaesthetic sensations that we literally can sense colors and aromas every time it plays. We came to it from the Brothers Johnson 1977 version who had the bigger hit with it (and it's good too), but when we finally heard the original where Shuggie Otis sings and plays every part, including glockenspiel, acoustic and electric guitars, piano and percussion plus a choir full of vocals, we knew his was the one! Of course it's one of the star tracks on Shuggie Otis's second record Freedom Flight from 1971, the album he recorded right before his epic Inspiration Information. Produced by his father, Johnny Otis when Shuggie was just 15 years old, here he ventures into a more psychedelic soul mode after releasing two records of more bluesy late sixties electric guitar jams. That bluesy guitar feel hasn't quite left, but in a similar way Prince channeled Hendrix and Sly Stone, Otis applies this amazing sweetness and light to the heavier acid-y guitar work. "Sweet Thang" "Purple" and the 13 minute closing title track show that Otis wanted to take the soul blues thing to another dimension altogether. While the other tracks like "Ice Cream Daydream", "Me and My Woman", and "Someone's Always Singing" are tasty little nuggets of funk pop. In fact, we suspect that Prince took more from Shuggie Otis than he did Hendrix and Sly Stone put together!
Four of the songs from Freedom Flight were on the Luaka Bop cd reissue of Inspiration Information, but that doesn't mean the rest is not as good. And of course it's on vinyl which is the best way to hear this! Recommended!
Here Comes Shuggie Otis was the debut album of the child musical prodigy. Recorded at age 14, and produced by his father, Johnny Otis, it's a mixed bag affair of instrumentals and a few vocal numbers. Otis's vocal abilities weren't quite up to par yet with his other releases and he was just beginning to show his songwriting abilities. "Jennie Lee" shines a light towards his later psych-soul work, and there's interesting moments of baroque pop and funk. But the record is focused primarily on his rootsy electric guitar work in which he is amazingly talented, yet it doesn't satisfy as much to us as his later work. But if you want all three solo records of Shuggie Otis, there finally available on vinyl all at the same time. And that's a damn good thing!
We were super psyched how crazy people went for the Ovens, whose debut full length (which crammed together 44 songs and THREE actual albums onto one disc) released earlier this year on tUMULt was easily the pop record of the year, if not EVER. These guys are total geniuses, spitting out song after song, usually a minute or less, often MUCH less, each jammed with hooks and melodies and goofy lyrics and shredding leads and pounding drums that most bands would kill for. We compared them to some impossible mix of Weezer, the Beatles, the Melvins, the Fucking Champs and Guided By Voices, and while that might capture their essence, what they do is so much more than the sum of their influences.
This 10 song 15 minute ep, recorded way back in 2003 (when they were still called the Peels), is raw and rough around the edges, much punker, but is still rife with incredible songwriting, some kick ass guitar shreddery, ridiculously catchy hooks, and those same gorgeous instrumental interludes, lyrics about how the songs sound better in their heads, getting wasted, sleeping, dying, puking and all sorts of gloriously mundane stuff. They're definitely still a pop band, but back then, their punkishness really shone through, with some of the punkest jams reminding us of the Dwarves at their poppiest, balancing their more strummy Beatles-esque moments, the two sides of the band constantly battling for supremacy, neither winning, more often than not resulting in a wild ultra chaotic falling apart draw.
The band hate this record, but fuck it, there are some awesome jams here, and anyone who bought the tUMULt full length will most likely dig this one too.
We can definitely get all hyperbolic and gushing when we're super into something, nothing wrong with that, so with that disclaimer out of the way, we can once again proclaim that these guys just might be one of our favorite local bands. Here's hoping the rest of the country, the world and the universe catch on soon.
Barebones garage blues rock will never go outta style. The musical style's core balance of simplicities and rudimentaries make it fairly to easy for bands to get started. Likewise, that primal, from the gut quality is also a major part of the reason why its appeal is so immediate. Without question it's super fun to play, but just as elusive to really nail. Seems each year brings another revival. There'll always be a fresh bunch of upstart ne'er do wells to carry on the torch - especially in the wake of the White Stripes, The Black Keys and their legions of copycats - but just as many who soon falter and fall off the radar. That said, it seems like there's been enough breathing room for the Vancouver female duo The Pack A.D. to stomp out its own genuine garage grit in mighty fine form. Funeral Mixtape is their remarkably razor sharp and composed live-to-tape sophomore album. Their stripped down instrumentation of electric guitar and drums surely make it a breeze to play every nook'n'cranny on the road, and they've tirelessly done so! As a result singer/guitarist Becky Black and drummer Maya Miller have their chops pretty darn tuned into each other's. Be forewarned, initially from their press photos we thought they resembled a leather-clad Indigo Girls, but these ladies are an altogether different brooding beast. A few soulfully expressive phrases out of Black's lips made that perfectly clear. Funeral Mixtape is a fierce, loose rocker peppered with plenty of raw nerves and open wounds. Far more unrelenting than their piano interlude laced debut full length Tintype of only a few months earlier! Plenty of smokin' stomp, raunch and swagger.
Psst, we've also just gotten in a few other new and new-to-us titles on this fine Vancouver indie label by Neko Case's early band Maow, The Awkward Stage, Buttless Chaps and Immaculate Machine!
Oh dirty, sassy, strong Miss Peaches is back with another clutch of sweaty and sexy dancefloor jams. By this point you probably know where you stand with Peaches and those of us already in love with her mischievous and intoxicating sounds are finding lots to delight us on I Feel Cream. While not hugely different than past releases, Cream does have a slightly shinier production (courtesy of Simian Mobile Disco and Digitalism) and there are a few tracks where Peaches sings full on and proves to have a pretty good singing voice. But fear not, she still gets down and dirty and keeps most of the rhythms and beats primitive and stripped down. It's a perfect blend of the new sleeker Peaches with the more raw dancefloor roots of her great debut Teaches Of Peaches from almost a decade ago. We would rather hear this blasting over the airwaves than Lady Ga Ga anytime! While AQ staffers have been pretty split over the years on Peaches (she does tend to create a love or hate response) those of us who love her sound and what she does, what she stands for, and the music she makes, are feeling pretty damn good about I Feel Cream.
Reel Music keeps churning out the underrated soul gems! Along with the Yvonne Fair (reviewed elsewhere on this list), we've got Esther Phillips' second album for Creed Taylor's Kudu label released in 1972. Phillip's had a hard-living life and that deep hurt shows in every note. With a smokey nasally voice that recalls Dinah Washington and sometimes Nina Simone, Phillips had unbelievable vocal talent with forays into jazz, blues, disco and even country. But her versatility made her difficult to market and most of her early records met with varied success. Plus her constant battles with drug addictions that began in her teen years took such a toll on her life that she was dead before 50. But she found some success later in her life for the five records she recorded for the Kudu label in the seventies. These featured stellar session players such as Ron Carter, Bernard Purdie, Maceo Parker and Eric Gale. Her seasoned experience after stints in rehab, reverberate throughout the proceedings, making every emotive note truly felt. Her first record From A Whisper To A Scream is perhaps our favorite (And we hope that gets reissued too!) with its devastating cover of Gil Scott Heron's "Home Is Where The Hatred Is". But Alone Again Naturally is perhaps the least known to us, though it garnered her a second Grammy nomination. Released for the first time on cd, it starts out with Bill Wither's stalwart soul-funk classic "Use Me" and covers much sultry and smokey soulful ground including songs by Aretha Franklin, Gilbert O'Sullivan (the title track, natch), Eddie Floyd, and Big Joe Turner. We're very glad to see this underrated soul singer get some much due recognition!
The UK's Blackest Rainbow brings us another offering of wispy acoustic guitar wanderings, this time from Dewey Mahood, guitarist for Portland's Eternal Tapestry, who recently rolled through the shop and dropped off a bundle of goodies. Mr. Mahood takes his solo endeavor to unexplored dim, gloomy territory with Visions of Otherness, a fog shrouded offering of deep drones layered under somber finger picked forestscapes. Creepy weirdo slide guitar and ritualistic percussion, flutes calling from the deep mountains, Visions of Otherness beautifully recalls the dense woodlands and foggy mornings of Portland. Super cool stuff if you're a fan of woodsy drone music and creepy acoustic downer-folk. And don't forget, this cd-r comes in a limited edition of 200 and will be gone before you know it, so don't miss it!
Gorgeous and long overdue reissue of this out of print death metal classic from Australia. But don't let the words death metal throw you. We're not huge fans of straight up death metal either. But this is anything but straight up. In fact this is most definitely one of the weirdest, most damaged death metal records we have ever heard. From the same label that brought us the truly bizarre WOLD record from a few lists back, this is sort of along the same lines as the no-wave death metal of Gorguts' classic Obscura record, Portal takes traditional death metal and douses it in chaotic noise, twisting the arrangements into serpentine blurs, so fast and furious that it almost becomes a buzzy blurry drone, any faster and it would be a full on noise record, like Total or Skullflower playing death metal maybe. But then on top of that, replace all the standard downtuned DM riffs with impossibly manic squiggly Black Flag like riffing, sounding quite a bit like little metal spiders running up and down the neck of the guitars. Riffs and squeals of feedback shooting out like bolts of lightning, the drumming impossibly complex and blasting away beneath the churning ocean of writhing riffs, the vocals just another squirming barely discernible presence amidst the super distorted tangle of metallic riffing and blasting drums. Sometimes all the disparate sounds lock into weird metallic stuttering loops, buzzing and repeating hypnotically. And every once in a while the metal dissipates into gorgeous, gauzy, ambient drones, whirring and shimmering, like old machinery and black and white films, backwards loops, strange pitch shifts and gritty industrial percussion, a dizzying swirl of abstract sound, very reminiscent of Jeck or Basinski, but those respites are brief and are soon swallowed up by further waves of Portal's confounding crush.
Packaged in a gorgeous gatefold mini lp sleeve, with striking glossy filigree on the front cover, a printed inner sleeve and booklet with lyrics / liner notes.
You gotta love Psychedelic Horseshit. First off, the name. And of all the new breed of 'shitgaze' bands, the super lo-fi noisy pop outfits that seem to be popping up with remarkable regularity, PH are the only ones who continually manage to sound more fucked up and lo-fi while managing to at the same time sound tripped out and impossibly lush. Some jangly out of tune guitar will wrap itself around some deadpan vocals, some stumbling almost tribal drumming, lots of tape hiss, even some dropouts that sound like maybe they recorded on an old cassette tape they found in the back seat of the tour van, until suddenly they'll bust out with a blown out glimmering wall of progged out arena keyboard bliss, all wozzy and warbly but soaring and totally retardedly majestic. And then they slip right back to their Pavementy lo-fi lurch and stumble, before whipping out another insanely catchy hook, or burst of musical nirvana.
As much as we love the SOUND, and lots of the bands who now practice it, Psychedelic Horseshit still manage to sparkle like a dirty diamond in a sea of even dirtier diamonds. According to the sleeve, these are B sides from the forthcoming full length, and hell, if these are the album rejects, we can't wait to hear the jams that made the cut! WAY recommended.
This is the reissue of the second album from The Pyramids, whose other two records we raved about last list. Released in 1974, it opens with "Mogho Naba" with some mantra-like chanting over a frenetic groove straight out of something on one of the Ethiopiques comps while the lead flute and saxophone played by husband and wife leaders Idris and Margo Ackamoor duel it out in a sort of ritualized frenzy, the saxophone becoming more smeary and free, ending with the reemergence of different kind of flutes playing around the same tone like a busted calliope, before that riff comes back and takes us out to the next track, "Queen of the Spirits". Leading with a beautiful lilting flute melody that gains energy and dynamics with lots of ethnic percussion. But being about the Queen, this is Margo's track with the sax kept at bay except for some key transition moments, merging into a Brazilian carnival percussive breakdown and ending with beautiful languid flute and Ethiopian harps.
Side Two has the record's shortest and longest tracks. The first one is the 18 minute "Nsorama (The Stars)" that leads with Margo's intoning the word over a piano and a soft percussive riff, sounding like a more tribal version of a Doug Carn or Alice Coltrane track full of brooding majesty as the horns and flutes come in all plaintive and slow that keep this pace for awhile before the flutes let loose over the calm, but the frenzy on this track is minimal, in fact it becomes really minimal in parts with just a sole percussive rhythm taking the space for a few minutes before the key elements slowly reemerge. Definitely, one of their loveliest tracks! The final number, "My Africa" is more call and response mystical chanting over a repetitive piano and bass riff. This is the most vocal-centric track and in its listing of African homelands suggests a settling peace as it fades out. Such a beautiful record!!
A few years ago, they surveyed a drowned, underwater village in a dammed up valley, and on the album before that, they lowered a microphone deep into a hole in the ground, making some unusual discoveries... well, not REALLY, but in their musical imaginations. Now, enter with Reigns into the 'house on the causeway'. That's right, it's the return of our favorite moody, mysteriously conceptual site-based post rockish indie gloom pop electronica act from England! Again they're exploring/evoking an imaginary locale, and what creepy things may or may not have happened there, through their mostly dreamy, little bit nightmarish music... They've got something in common with a lot of the artists on Miasmah and Type labels, though less soundscapey, more actually song oriented. They also are reminding us a lot of Tarwater this time around. Maybe that's accentuated by the inclusion of more in the way of vocals (usually quite processed, however) on some of the tracks here, while in the past they'd been primarily instrumental, with textual information (or disinformation) presented in the cd or 7" booklet...
The House On The Causeway seems to feature two (related) modes of song - the purely instrumental, slowly unfolding ones; and the slightly more uptempo ones with singing/rhyming and skittering drum beats... It's all quite lovely as always with Reigns, their looping piano notes and ambient electronics a blissful reverie, but also as always an eerily lurking menace persists, both sonically (minor key ominousness that emotionally suggests horrors but shocks only sparingly, as with the distorted noisy outburst at the end of "Crex, Crex, Crex") and intellectually via the accumulation of sinister signifiers in the cryptic lyrics, songtitles ("Everything Beyond These Walls Has Been Razed", "Mirrors At Night", "Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen") and artwork that the listener can't quite square with the seemingly sweet music, music that seems to conceal whispers and weepings.
Mr. Scott Herren sure likes to keep busy. We just listed his newest project Diamond Watch Wrists, an indie rock minded collaboration with Zach Hill from Hella, he also has a brand new Prefuse 73 album in the works, but somehow even with all that going on, he's also managed to crank out another Savath & Savalas album. S+S is the project that allows Herren to explore a more delicate, breezy and tropical sound. Teamed up with a great ensemble of musicians, which includes dreamy vocalist Eva Puyuelo Muna, La Llama might be the most fully realized and satisfying Savath & Savalas recording yet, channeling the sounds and sentiments of '70s Brazilian/South American soft-psych greats like Joyce, Milton Nascimento, and Congregacion, yet infusing that sound with a modern element that keeps the music from sounding purely nostalgic. Understated and richly flowing with an ease and breeze that is totally hitting the spot!
If you're gonna tackle the works of Gavin Bryars and Philip Glass you better be capable of doing it right, exploring the beautiful restrained sounds of the originals, while managing to add something new to the music, and Sentieri Selvaggi are very much up to that task with this simmering and lovely short two track ep on which they perform one composition by Bryars ("Sub Rosa") and one by Glass ("Facades"). In many ways Sentieri Selvaggi are the Italian equivalent of the Kronos Quartet, not so much in sound but in spirit, and their mission seems to be bringing engaging, challenging and soaring contemporary music to ears who might not otherwise be exposed to those remarkable sounds. Fans of equally beautiful and moody music makers like Sylvain Chauveau, Erik Enocksson, or Rachels, will find these two tracks hit that same sublime spot.
The last Shitmat record was just a tad too ravey for us, when what we really want from Mr. Shitmat, is wild pounding ragga jungle. He's probably responsible for one of our favorite ragga jungle records ever, Killababylonkutz, a whole record of multiple version of the same dancehall jam, but holy shit did that one slay. Wild drill and bass, over the top toasting, bizarre samples, all chopped up and looped into chaotic careening slabs of junglized pummel.
Since Killababylonkutz, Shitmat has moved more and more toward straight up rave music, sometimes doing sort of mashup thing, other times going for the goofy retro angle a la the recent Zomby, record. No matter how much we liked all of those records, we couldn't help hankering for more of the hard stuff. Well, it looks like Shitmat heard our prayers somehow, cuz even with that title, this is the hardest most jungly record since Killababylonkutz and we've been going nuts.
Sure there's still plenty of rave-y jams, and mashup bits, but there's also plenty of wild chopped drum and bass, some serious chunks of ragga jungle here and there, even some toasting, and Shitmat lets his spastic programmed insanity run wild, spitting out dizzying tangles of impossiby complex drum jams, making even the cheesiest of dance grooves sound hard and heavy. The best jams are definitely the ragga jungle numbers, worth it for those 3 or 4 tracks alone, but like we said it's all pretty great, and makes for excellent listening even for the dancefloor phobic!
Awesome Cabbage Patch Kid cover art too!
Another super limited missive from this latest incarnation of the mighty Skullflower, recorded earlier this year in Paris, which finds the band expanded to a four piece, including original SF member Stuart Dennison. One long nearly hour long track, and in keeping with the recent spate of SF releases, The Paris Working is more on the noise tip, eschewing any of the more riffiness that came before, replacing it with a wall of crumbling in-the-red, white hot psychedelic squall. Is there drumming? Maybe, but most of the time they're buried beneath an avalanche of pummeling free psych crush, heaving, roiling, churning, grinding guitar damage blown out into whirling clouds of sparkling high end glimmer and dizzying kaleidoscopic skree.
As with most of the noisier Skullflower discs, a glancing listen reveals a sound not that far removed from straight up noise, but closer listening, further investigation, and a pair of trusty headphones reveals a sprawling world of tone and timbre, strapping on headphones to listen to this disc is like watching a 3D movie without glasses, and then finally slipping on a pair, and the whole thing comes into focus, comes alive, colors and shapes, and in the case of The Paris Working, sheets and shards and streaks of sound, swirling and careening and hovering and billowing out into a massive Technicolor fog of gorgeously chaotic abstract freeform guitarnoise.
AS ALWAYS, CRAZY LIMITED, WE GET THESE DIRECT FROM SKULLFLOWER, SO WHEN WE RUN OUT IT MIGHT TAKE US A WHILE TO GET MORE (ASSUMING WE CAN GET MORE)...
We initially gave this a spin just 'cause of the cool band name, without knowing really what to expect. Turns out that this ep from Seattle's Sleepy Eyes Of Death is fantastically full of fuzzed out, synth-heavy shoegazing post rock. Six spacey, soaring, cinematic songs, seemingly inspired by the nexus of new wave and krautrock (or Trans Am and John Carpenter and Kinski and Klaus Schulze...).
Perhaps the briefest and best description we can come up with is: M83 meets Zombi. There, that ought to do it! Seriously, that's what this sounds like, and thus it's a quite recommended treat 'cause we love both those bands, and the combo is a natural one. Whooshes of distorted electronics, interlaced with airy melodies, mark these melancholic, majestic tracks, mostly instrumental but for a sparse few moments of processed, computery robo-vocals. Though the pulsating rhythms sometimes are purely electronic, deliberate drum beats on an actual drum kit are often also poundingly present, adding more of a muscular human factor to the proceedings.
Though we've never seen their live show, we're not surprised that someone is credited with "lights and fog" in the cd booklet. You could imagine that they had a role in the studio too, 'cause you can almost HEAR lights and fog on this recording, lights flashing with atmospheric radiance, sonic clouds of synth-fog billowing from speakers...
Gorgeous collaboration between long time aQ fave Steve R. Smith (Thuja, Hala Strana, Ulaan Khol) and clarinetist Gareth Davis. The two got together last year and created this suite of impressionistic soundscapes, dark and dolorous, Smith creating heaving swells of reverb drenched soft sound, reminding us a bit of Scott Tuma, but adding layers of scrabble and scrape to the proceedings, all manner of texture to what might otherwise be soft minimal dronemusic. Instead, the sound is rough, and vibrant, alive and visceral. Davis doesn't play clarinet so much as coax some amazing sounds from it, sometimes it's a bit of hushed rumbling whir , other times it's thick feedback drenched layers of buzz, but it perfectly compliments Smith's atmospheric free folk shimmer and scrape.
Long expanses of minimal low end spread out serenely, a sun dappled drift, that seems surprisingly tranquil, but over that, Davis and Smith add more and more, never overwhelming, but creating the perfect balance of soft focus melody, and in-the-red droning smolder, the sounds shifts from deep and minimal, to dense and heavy and almost metallic, with the guitar and clarinet constantly woven together in woozy soft tangles of sound, that build and build but just as quickly seem to dissipate, drifting back into the warm whirling reverby drift underneath. So gorgeous.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Screen printed on insanely thick cardstock, ultra heavy and handmade.
Alan Sondheim is a legendary writer and critic, he's also quite the accomplished musician, his fantastic Ritual-All-7-70 album was recently reissued on ESP which we should get around to reviewing quite soon. This collaborative effort is in fact not archival but a brand new record, released on the insanely prolific and always impressive Porter Records, on Julu Twine Sondheim teamed up with lap steel guitarist Myk Freedman for some improvised folk, that manages to bristle with energy, sounding quite abstract at moments, but surprisingly composed at others.
Incorporating a unique arsenal of instruments, including zither, banjo slide guitar and even something called a parlor guitar, the duo crafted this gorgeous songsuite, the playing is often quite percussive, and aggressive, subtle strumming and abstract finger picking is all tangled up with intense strumming, and atonal scrabbling, here and there the instruments are wreathed in thick buzzing feedback, other times the melodies are spidery and abstract and allowed to unfurl lazily. Sondheim contributes a kick ass banjo solo, that sounds simultaneously like classic bluegrass, but also slightly chaotic and seat-of-the-pants sounding. Freedman counters with a gorgeously languid slide guitar solo, all drifty and woozy and ethereal, but the record works best when the two play together, and off of each other. Lots of reverb and room sound, strange haunting Eastern sounding melodies, occasional squalls of detuned hillbilly psych freakouts, stumbling lurching atonal melodies drifting into soft shimmering avant Appalachia, squiggly slippery slide wound all around off kilter chromatic riffing, and once in a while, the two come together perfectly and unfurl a warm washed out drone-y guitar raga, that we wish would just go on and on and on.
Everyone into Blackshaw and Rose and Bishop and Baldwin and Ahmed And Akiyama and other modern acoustic guitarists should definitely check this out. Same sort of sound, but way more tripped out and otherworldly and mysterious and jazzlike. RECOMMENDED!!!
Reliable sorts these Canadians are, aren't they? The Sons Of Otis are back, and fans (like us!) of their monolithic stoner rock / blues / doom will not be disappointed. It's all here on their fifth full-length album. Lumbering fuzzed out riffs, check. Spacey electronic atmospheres, check. Glacial pace, check. Psychedelic soloing, check. Heavier than thou jamming, check. Feedback, check. Gravelly, effects-laden, echoey vocals, check. Drugs, check (we're pretty sure!). They even continue their tradition of including super stoned sounding cover versions of classic tracks by their old school influences, this time 'round giving the Sons Of Otis treatment to two faves: Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Cry For The Bad Man" (here titled "Bad Man") and Motorhead's "Iron Horse"! In both cases it's like the original has been dipped in tar, dosed with drugs, and slowed down to 16rpm, especially "Iron Horse" which segues into a billowing dense ambient drone definitely not derived from the original Motorhead composition, the whole track lasting over 18 minutes!
The Otis originals here will (slowly) kick yr ass too. "Haters" starts things off with a scowl, and they don't lighten up much... later on "Tales Of Otis" enters into almost Khanate-like ultra-doom territory, and it's hard to tell if Sons Of Otis are trying to take off into outer space or burrow deep into the earth. Definitely (as always) for fans of UFOmammut, Electric Wizard, Boris... and for folks who'd like to know what it would sound like if Monster Magnet mated with the Melvins.
It's hard to know what else to say, either you're a fan of this and every other Sons Of Otis album, or you need to take more drugs.
Sublime Frequencies record number two from the mind blowing Omar Souleyman! In reviewing the last Souleyman disc we compared the sound to something resembling a Middle Eastern Aavikko, which if you're anything like us, sounds AMAZING. Totally over the top chaotic world music rife with soaring strings, cheesy eighties drum machines, wild synths, and amazing buzzing saz melodies, and if anything this new disc is even more over the top.
More than ever, Souleyman's music sounds very Bollywood, festive, wild, sweaty, energized, intense and relentless, rooted around rhythm, the various melodies and vocals slither and swirl, unfurling woozy Eastern melodies over the non stop beat. It's definitely dance music, and party music, just not the sort of dance / party music we're used to.
The recording is fantastic too, very lo-fi, the texture and timbre of the sound shifting constantly, from murky and muddy, to bright and brilliant, could be that these cuts were culled from various tapes recorded and released over the past decade, but that only adds to the fun, and if it's anything, this music is fun. Funky, groovy, and fun fun fun. Sometimes the melodies are so rapid fire it begins to sound like some sort of alien video game music, then moments later it will slip into something darker and folkier, before exploding again into a wild burst of psychedelic dance chaos! Dabke apparently is a style of music, THIS music, a kind of party music rarely heard outside of Syria, as it's considered not important enough to export, but as far as we're concerned this is some of the most amazing music we've ever heard. For more background info on Souleyman, check the review of the older record on the aQ site, plenty of background on his life and his music, but it's hardly necessary, the sounds here definitely speak for themselves, and what they're saying, is buy this record now! It's so so so so so essential. And heck, while you're at it, you might as well pick up the other one as well (which is now available on vinyl!) if you haven't already, they both completely rule!
Lately we've been revisiting some of our old favorites, with Records Of The Week from Loop, the Telescopes and Swervedriver, but as much as we love those bands, and we do LOVE them a LOT, we can't help it, our hearts will always belong to Spacemen 3. The dreamiest and druggiest of the bunch, pretty much every record, every different stage of the band, every song, has utterly entranced us. Blurred and bleary jangle pop stretched out into meditative space rock mantras, no one could conjure up the same sort of woozy elegance that these guys could. And while this is not a new record proper, and most of us have spent years tracking down every bit of recorded Spacemen 3, even a new ep with alternate mixes and some rare gems has us all in a tizzy. And judging from the responses of aQ customers, you're probably the same way. We've been selling out of these over and over, and have only just now gotten enough to list.
So drug addled space rock freaks of the world, we give to you, DJ Tones, a super limited (only 2000 copies) ep, containing TWO PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TRACKS(!!!), a radically different mix of their Red Krayola cover, and on cd for the first time, a track called "I Love You", originally released as a white label vinyl only promo, limited to 50 copies. And finally, a studio version of the track "Ecstasy Symphony".
For folks who are new to Spacemen 3, this might not be the place to start, although it wouldn't necessarily be bad, but may we recommend Playing With Fire, or Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To, for the rest of you, the obsessed, buy this now.
Up first is "These Blues", a gorgeous laid back jangle pop jam, that might convince us that Oasis probably own some Spacemen 3 records, along with "Modulated Tones", a gorgeous fuzzy minor key minute and a half of looped echo drenched guitar, so great, the kind of thing that could have stretched out into a whole Spacemen 3 set, both those tracks UNRELEASED!
Their cover of the Red Krayola's "Transparent Radiation" is the Violin Mix, so besides the skeletal guitar and drawled vocals, the bulk of the song is carried by strings, and the result is pretty divine. "I Love You" is a weird one, a programmed beat, beneath a stuttering synth rhythm, super echoey vocals, spare guitars, all moody and woozy and eighties sounding. Quite cool for sure, a little garage-y, a bit poppy, and all very druggy and dreamy. And finally, "Ecstasy Symphony", nine minutes of lush drones, dense and layered, slow motion melodies played out over long streaks of near static sound, total divine, sun dappled ur-drone bliss.
Packaged in a trippy little paper sleeve, a bit pricey for 5 songs (although it is nearly half an hour) but for fans of all things Spacemen 3, absolutely worth it.
And again, LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES WORLDWIDE!
PLUSTAPES ALERT! PLUSTAPES ALERT! PLUSTAPES ALERT!
Just making sure you see this, because this tape is a winner, and as you should know by now with the Plustapes, once they're gone, they are GONE!
So it should be obvious that we LOOOOVE French Pop, especially of the female variety. We always try to keep the ones we love in stock, the Swinging Mademoiselle comps, The Sixties Girls comps (most now sadly out of print), The Pop A Paris comps, and of course the classics, Jane Birken, Francoise Hardy, Brigitte Bardot and even the stars of the non-female variety, such as Gerard Manset, Serge Gainsbourg, and Jean-Claude Vannier, we are just constantly going nuts for. But you would think by now that we have heard everything that the genre has to offer, that the well must have surely run dry, when lo and behold this tape comes out of nowhere by someone we've never heard of, with little to no information to be found, working us to a frenzy all over again.
Yes, Who Are You, Anna St. Clair? What little information we've been able to gather is that she recorded several 45's for the Fontana label in the late sixties and early seventies. Whether this tape is merely a collection of the singles or if there was ever an original full length lp collection we're not sure. But one of the three arrangers on the singles, is none other than Jean-Claude Vannier (Melody Nelson, Cannabis, L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches), which certainly piqued our interest, or rather 'peaked' our already heightened interest even higher. And thankfully, this tape doesn't disappoint. There is of course a lot of Ye Ye, with fast paced pop arrangements, but also slower more brooding balladic moments and soft sadder pop gems. Her voice is pretty and soulful with a melancholic edge that recalls the early Andrew Loog Oldham produced singles on Immediate of Vashti Bunyan, Nico, and Marianne Faithfull, and even Dusty Springfield comes to mind too, but with a swirling chamber pop orchestration of harpsichord, flutes, organ, harp and bells and deep bass. 14 songs are offered, without a dud among them. Sooo Good! We've developed quite a crush on this little known chanteuse! Why this has remained so obscure for this long boggles the mind. We ordered a few more of these than we normally do, because it's so good, but even than they won't last too long. Buy now or cry later!
The first thing we thought when we threw this on, was, man, it's gonna be pretty tough to top Domkirke. The last SUNNO))) release, vinyl only, found the duo of Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley recording their low end Earth worshipping drone symphonies in an actual cathedral, incorporating the cathedral's church organ. Hard to imagine anything heavier.
For Monoliths and Dimensions, the duo drafted in all sorts of extra help. The usual suspects sure, Attila Csihar on vocals, guitarist Oren Ambarchi, but also, a veritable orchestra, French horns, violas, piano, hydrophone, English Horn, Conch Shell, double bass, and that's just on album opener "Aghartha", which on first listen sounds like the SUNNO))) of old, all churning low end, slow motion glacial riffage, but as the track progresses, the heavy riffage peels back, revealing, a sea of moaning horns, Csihar's haunting intoned vocals, creaks and groans, and the actual sound of water (the hydrophone?), eventually getting super abstract and minimal, before fading out completely.
"Big Church" featues four guitarists (Ambarchi, O'Malley, Anderson and Earth's Dylan Carlson) as well as trombone, trumpet, organ, tubular bells and a choir!!! The choir giving the track a definite Arvo Part vibe, haunting and choral, drifting ethereally over the slow burning rumble of the multiple guitars, before locking into a strangely melodic almost slowcore creep.
"Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia)" featueres yet another expanded lineup, this time including a "Man choir", the track begins all standard doom, crushing lugurbrious riffage, growled gurgeled vokills, but the man choir's deep haunting chant adds a whole other dimension, creating a sort of choral doom hybrid, much like the other track, but this one remains much darker and heavier.
Finally, the record closes with Alice, this time with horns AND strings, and the song that probably is most responsible for describing this record as "SUNNO))) with strings". It starts out all woozy and twangy like some nineties slowcore jam, except for the Morricone-ish horn swells, the guitar crunches few and far between, the sound quite spare and skeletal, and weirdly enough, downright pretty, a shuffling slow motion drift, the whole thing surprisingly melodic, and spacious, quite possibly one of the loveliest (and most unlikely) SUNNO))) tracks yet.
SUNNO))) have done wonders with their limited sonic pallete, who would have thought a one time Earth cover band would have survived this long, and resulted in such an impressive body of original work, but the group have grown and expanded and explored, they manage to incorporate all manner of sounds and textures and guest players, to realize their ultimate vision, while somehow keeping the core sound intact. We only just got this in, and we've been listening to it like crazy (which should tell you something), and the more we hear it, the more we dig it, especially that last track. Quickly becoming one of our fave SUNNO))) discs...
Incredible packaging as always. Deluxe booklet, exquisitely designed, with lyrics, lineups, diagrams, photos, illustrations, some of the pages vellum, all housed in a transparent printed vellum slipcover.
Not long ago we highlighted a cool compilation on the Psychic Circle label devoted to '70s British glam rock, entitled "Blitzing The Ballroom" - an obvious reference to a song and band that didn't actually appear on the comp, The Sweet and their biggest hit, "Ballroom Blitz"! That song is an immortal glam anthem, up there with anything by Slade, T-Rex or Gary Glitter... and definitely provided some inspiration to the far more obscure acts who populated that collection, Sweet being a band who began as bubblegum lightweights but soon became glam champs with hard rock guitar chops.
So, if you're one of the folks who picked up that comp, and loved the catchy, campy, kick assery found on it, and DON'T have anything by The Sweet, well this new double disc anthology is just the thing for ya. Particularly since Sweet's albums, with the exception of Desolation Boulevard, are still sorta hard to come by in the States (and on top of that, their discography is a confusion of UK- and US- only releases, including separate versions of the same albums with wildly different tracklistings). It's probably easiest to go with a comprehensive 'best of' like this one, which brings together tracks taken from various of their albums '73-'80, plus the b-side of the "Love Is Like Oxygen" single, a boogie number called "Cover Girl".
There's 16 songs on each of the 2 discs, ranging from the band's earliest pre-fab pop incarnation circa 1973 to the quasi-metallic, semi-symphonic genius stuff they came up with once they came into their own in the mid '70s... all the way to their declining years as the '80s were about to dawn, the glories of glam far behind them, the new wave getting a try out. All of Sweet's styles are represented here, starting off with the bubblegum pop likes of "Funny Funny" and "Alexander Graham Bell"... soon The Sweet start revving it up, though, with tracks like "Little Willy" and "Wig-Wam Bam" being just as sugary as their earlier stuff but with extra rock n' roll oomph. Then track ten, disc one rolls around, with THAT drum intro, and it's time for a good ol' "Ballroom Blitz", that the band has been building up to! And that's more or less when the action really starts, the rest of disc one filled with equally worthy hits like "The Six Teens", "A.C.D.C.", and "Fox On The Run". Total teenage kicks, delivered with panache (and vocal harmonies) that we imagine would surprise and thrill quite a few Queen fans.
The Queen comparison continues on disc two, which also provides some real evidence for considering Sweet something of a METAL band, ripping it up with a pop/prog twist. Definitely the likes of "Action", "Sweet F.A." and "4th Of July" (which reminds us of a jazzy Uriah Heep) display their share of heaviness! There's a reason why the Scorpions covered Sweet songs (they did - we've heard a bootleg!). The Sweet were pushing into Queen -and- Led Zeppelin territory for sure (they parallel some non-metallic Zep moves here too, like their funk side, a bit). Eventually, as the disc progresses, they tend to retreat from the rock, the kitschy synths taking over from the guitars, as the band tries again for pop hitmaking success, leaving you to wonder what would have been had they simply 'gone metal' instead... ah well, 'twas good while it lasted.
As with any anthology, one can quibble with the selections, we'd have included more tracks from 1976's Give Us A Wink! (like the stomping, almost Sabbathy "Cockroach") but, all in all, the compilers of this set did pick the best Sweet stuff for the most part, without over-representing any one facet of their career (which we might have done, if we'd be asked to make our own, single disc collection, concentrating on the more metal side of Sweet, the stuff that sounds like it would fit comfortably on Queen's Sheer Heart Attack...).
Fun stuff from an often underrated yet talented band whose commercial success came at the expense of classic rock cred, though if you give this a spin you'll realize they were indeed badass rockers, when they wanted (or were allowed) to be... again, if you're partial to any '70s glam jams, you've gotta get into The Sweet! And if you thought this band was all just "Ballroom Blitz" and nothing else, you've got another think coming, especially when you hear the song "Action".
Blackest Rainbow has been pretty damn consistent in their survey of the pharmacologically tainted realm of dronemusik, releasing great albums from Aidan Baker, Barn Owl, Elm, Tom Carter, Jazzfinger, more recently that Bong / Quttinirpaaq split, and certainly this incredible split between Taiga Remains and RV Paintings. The former is the work of Alex Cobb, who also runs the equally great label Students Of Decay; and the latter is a side project of the Starving Weirdos. Both sides of the LP dwell heavily upon reverb saturation grafted onto acoustic dronings from various sources - probably guitar, certainly some bells, maybe a long-stringed instrument. Such is a typical strategy for RV Paintings, but is somewhat novel for Taiga Remains, whose driftscape sensibility tends more towards the smooth surface arcing for tone and harmony. If Blackest Rainbow hadn't etched the names of each artist into the surface of the wax, you'd have a 50 percent chance of guessing who was doing each side. Perhaps Cobb was deliberately trying to coax more of a RV Paintings sound from his gear and vice versa. The major difference in these two sides only becomes apparent when RV Paintings begins to gently tap across sheet metal, gongs, and a drum kit a la Eddie Prevost from AMM. The drone is still the central feature, and the percussive serves to levitate and propel the drone forward. Really great stuff found here, and limited to a mere 400 copies.
We made the first compilation of Telescopes singles a Record Of The Week late last year, so it would make sense, that the second volume might receive the same honors. As we mentioned back then, we've been pretty obsessed with that particular era in druggy space rock, be it the Telescopes, or Spacemen 3, or Loop, or Swervedriver. There seems to be a resurgence in interest, as more and more young bands discover that sound and attempt to make it their own.
We're not complaining of course, we love that blown out, druggy drone rock, looped riffage, and simple pounding krautrock rhythms, effects and drones, swirling and shimmering, and the recent spate of reissues drove that home, both Loop and Swervedriver getting the deluxe reissue treatment, and reminding us why they STILL rule, and why few bands could ever hope to create the same sort of druggy sonic space magick.
That said, this Telescopes singles collection offers up another side of the band, some of that old sound is still present, the pounding droning churning riffage, the swirling spaced out effects, the buried vox, the trancelike arrangements, but if anything the band have taken their sound even further out, ditching any semblance of proper rock arrangement, sometimes playing the same riff for 6 minutes, other times crafting a slow hushed drone-y crawl, dabbling in abstract slowcore, space-drone, and various other abstractions in sound we don't really have proper names for yet, and you know what? We love it. It's like everything we love about space rock and krautrock and slowcore but just smeared and blurred and pulled apart and reimagined as something way more psychedelic, way more minimal, and so much more compelling and arresting than another disc of fuzzy space-y rock jams (not that we wouldn't love that too), instead, these are explorations, experiments, but only to the degree that they digress from various space rock tropes, offering instead, something wholly other, a sound that is avant and challenging, but at the same time warm and enveloping and inviting. This is timeless trance music, even at it's heaviest, The Telescopes have created some sort of ur-rock, loosed from all the usual rock and roll strictures and allowed to ooze and sprawl and billow and shimmer and explode into ever expanding clouds of blinding glimmer and prismatic tonal shift, and it's ever so divine.
Even though this is technically a singles collection, none of these tracks sound like proper singles, instead, as mentioned above, they barely retain any rock or pop, instead existing as slow shifting fields of looped mysterious sound, infused with elements of the rock and pop that came before.
The opener "Winter #7" is absolutely stunning, a hushed bassy crawl, with ethereal barely audible boy girl vocals, distant horns, plenty of crumbling ambience and buzzing crackle, wheezing keyboards, fans of Crescent and Flying Saucer Attack and similarly abstract space rock will be smitten. Which leads directly and seamlessly into "The Perfect Needle #4" (a title that smacks of Spacemen 3, as does the track itself), a slow smoldering drift, all muted drones, mumbled vox, buried percussive thumps, a sort shimmering patina of glitch and crackle, totally space-y and meditative, which leads directly into the first 'rock' song, "Another Sky" which takes a woozy warbly Loop-ish riff, and then, yep, loops it, creating a totally mesmerizing riffdrone, while all around it effects swirl, voices hover, shards of squiggly guitar streak past sheets of blurred psychedelic supernovas, utterly entrancing and irresistible.
And so it goes, a trajectory set for the outer reaches of the galaxy, but it's not where we're headed, it's how we get there, and the soundtrack to the ride, from the murky muted jangle laced shimmer of "Household Objective #2", the pounding flute flecked effects drenched space garage groove of "Dsm-1v Axis", which gets almost industrial at one point, to the strange muted whirring dronescape of "Another Whip", to the buzzing guitar stasis of "The Blue Shroud Of Alkatraz", with its static charged sheets of crumbling high end, wrapped in tendrils of skree and softened crunch, underpinned by a deep moaning tangle of droneguitar, finally discharging in a warped burst of glitched out effects and fractured buzz. And there's still more to discover, with every listen. Headphones, while not required, will allow you to delve even deeper, allow you to escape your earthly bonds and get lost in the Telescopes world of bleary eyed fuzz, hushed minimal mystery, greyed out guitar grime, and looped outer space shimmer.
Giancarlo Toniutti has certainly increased his activity around the turn of 2009, having released two new compositions after going almost a decade between records; and now, he's authorized a hefty overview of his early work, with a forthcoming boxset on Vinyl-On-Demand and this cd reissue of La Mutazione, originally released on Broken Flag back in 1985. Toniutti is earnestly long-winded in his academic defense of his work, speaking in highly technical terms and with willfully obscure references (i.e. the semio-cosmologist Rene Thom and the idiosyncrasies of the Athabascan dialect, seriously); and cd booklet of La Mutazione comes with a signature essay from the man on how this work came to be and what theoretical ideas revolve around these sounds.
The three tracks on this disc (the two original cuts on the LP and a unreleased bonus track) harken to
the early '80s as Toniutti darkened of cosmic electronics from the likes of Cluster, Tangerine Dream, and Conrad Schnitzler through the lens of Whitehouse, Nurse With Wound, and Throbbing Gristle. At the time, Toniutti had just matriculated from the Conservatory of Venice with a heady amount of education in Stockhausen, Schaefer, etc. These three musical poles come together in this dark, dark, dark construction of layered static, analog synth explorations, and even some field recording. The totemically named track "The Tree" situates upon an oppressive drone of low frequencies scraped by waves of radio static, which parallels the early work of John Duncan in many ways. Throughout "The Tree," Toniutti injects a lugubrious bubbling of synthetic notes with similarities to the untrained atonalism that Maurizio Bianchi had grafted to the cancerous power electronics of Regel and Das Testament from the early '80s. Those same synth notes snap into a morose two note melody on the aptly named "Nekrose," which is even darker in atmosphere and creepy intensity than the first. The bonus track "Apoplettica" is a darkened delay exploration with clanking loops and unsettled harmonic drones that foreshadows the guttural psychedelic blackening that Mark McGuire alludes to in Emeralds.
A triumph back then, and a triumph now.
Last list we reviewed Guru Guru's UFO. This UFO has nothing to do with that, but at the same time more than you might think, considering the obvious connection between the genres of krautrock (Guru Guru) and space rock (UFO). If necessary, ignore the goofy bigfoot-emerging-from-crashed-flying-saucer artwork that they've put on this package (though, actually we kinda like the concept if not the execution of that image) and just please read the following, fans of heavy '70s stuff...
Although this is called Beginnings, it also represents an entire, complete oeuvre - the early '70s proto-metal/psych era of this band, whose more commercially successful, pop-charting output afterwards was quite a bit different (but awesome in its own right, in fact, most folks only know that stuff and haven't heard this material). Later in the '70s, on albums like Phenomenon, Force It, Light's Out, and Strangers In The Night, they became hard rock royalty, showcasing guitar whizz kid Michael Schenker (originally from Germany's Scorpions). But before arena rock success, before Schnenker, UFO's guitarist was a fellow named Mick Bolton. This earlier UFO incarnation much more psychedelic and spacey, that's where they got their Unidentified Flying Object name, playing self-described "space rock". Their second album, UFO 2, was subtitled "One Hour Space Rock" in fact. That sounds totally krautrocky, doesn't it?
This double disc set is a pretty good deal, containing all the tracks from this era of UFO: their debut UFO 1, the aforementioned UFO 2, and their live album, uh, UFO Live. The 1970 debut is definitely one for the proto-metal freaks out there, having much in common with early Blue Cheer and contemporaneous Black Sabbath... it's a heavy boogie album all right. They do a song simply titled "Boogie" and boy does it, chooglin' along all awesomely distorted and heavy. In addition, they do for Eddie Cochran's '50s hit "C'mon Everybody" what Blue Cheer had done for his "Summertime Blues". And then there's their own "Evil", another brutal blues-based rawk number indeed. It's not all hard rockin', though, there's a few sluggish, spacey ballads like "(Come Away) Melinda" and "Treacle People" to up the moodiness quota and make full use of Phil Mogg's powerful voice.
It's 1971's UFO 2 where they really launched out into space, with such tracks as "Silver Bird" and "Star Storm". The latter is almost 19 minutes long, but title track "Flying" is even longer at 26:30. They don't neglect the proto-metal riffery here, with "Prince Kajuku" in particular seeing 'em kicking out that brand of jams, but "Flying" and the other extended pieces are psychedelic spaceouts akin to Hawkwind... you could also imagine Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple enthusiastically air-guitaring along to this at home!!
The 1973 live album offers more of the spacey stuff, along with the boogie, drawing from both UFO 1 and 2 for material, its tracks filling up the remainder of disc two here, along with the non-album "Galactic Love" single, making for an excellent value for your $16.98.
Interestingly, the three UFO albums represented here weren't hits in England, but did pretty well in Germany and Japan... When guitarist Bolton quit, they replaced him briefly with Larry Wallis from the Pink Fairies, then future Whitesnake axeman Bernie Marsden, before snatching the young Schnenker away from the Scorpions... and the rest is history. THIS is history too, just more the hidden kind!
For those of you not familiar with Monster Island, it's an imaginary land, created by artist Pete Fowler, filled with Technicolor cartoon monsters, bats, Yeti's, sea serpents, as well as a strange group of long haired residents, from grungy space rock musicians, to antlered rednecks, Fowler's art so dreamy and trippy and far out (and even sports some Fowler tattoos!!). A few years ago, there was another Monster Island compilation, that one was more focused on free folk and acid psych, perfectly complimenting Fowlers druggy land of wonder. Somehow, this second comp, is equally apt, exploring a whole different sound, and we can only assume, a whole different side of the island, and thus of course a bunch of new and fascinating beasts and mysterious folks...
Monsterism Island, at least sonically, is some imaginary haven of carefree, melty bliss and this is the freaky soundtrack to that wonderful world. The vibe this time around is some sort of really cool late '80s/early '90s video game soundtrack, lots of bloops and bleeps and skittery beats, imagine maybe a more tripped out, woozy and breezy soundtrack to Sonic The Hedgehog. The sound is all over the map, from colorful dreamy electronica, to groove heavy jazz to soft-psychedelic shimmer. Occasionally we're also reminded of Boards Of Canada as well as some obscure library music (makes sense that Johnny Trunk has a track on here!). We could have done without some of the 'goofy' spoken interludes and it does get a bit smooth sailin' in a party love boat kind of way, but still a nice fun ride for sure, then again, what would you expect a world of kaleidoscopic weirdness and wildly prismatic landscapes, groovy mystery bands and a wild array of wee beasties to sound like anyway?! Cool packaging too, featuring some of Fowlers gorgeous artwork.
So strap on the headphones, throw this in the stereo and head here:
http://www.monsterism.net/
And let yourself get WAY lost...
Don't know if you had a chance to see this documentary about Scott Walker, but we highly recommend it! It has so much awesome footage of the Walker Brothers, his early and later solo career, plus it features the recluse himself, opening up about his long, varied, and eccentric life as he was prepping his last record, The Drift! This is not so much the soundtrack to the documentary as it's a companion tribute record to the enigmatic pop genius (at least we don't remember hearing these cover versions in the film!). On the surface, this can seem kind of bad, but it's actually much better than we thought, though definitely not as good as the originals, but then again, how could they be? There's an interesting mix of folks on here, a few that are new to us (Bee and Flower, Sally Norvell) but also ones that we like a lot such as Damon and Naomi, Saint Etienne, Dot Alison, Laurie Anderson, Ulrich Schnauss, Jarboe, and Peter Broderick. Though it gravitates towards lighter interpretations than we would have preferred, (only Jarboe attempts any song from the Drift) we have a feeling this was meant as an entry point for folks unfamiliar with Walker's wide ranging and sometimes difficult body of work.
Even being the sort of person who knows almost nothing about drugs, I do know the usual preferred delivery method for pot is inhalation, not ingestion (to the lungs, not the stomach). Not that you can't cook it up in a brownie, but the guys in Weedeater sound like they just shovel handfuls of weed straight into their gaping jaws, like some sort of drug crazed harvesting machine, or like a stoner rock engineer dumping coal into the engine of a locomotive, which makes sense, as it's obvious these guys need enough weed to power the relentless, downtuned, full bore stoner metal crush found on God Luck And Good Speed.
A relative stoner rock institution, Dixie Dave and company have been spewing their filthy, crusty, blown out, drug rock for going on 10+ years now, and before that Dixie fronted the equally heavy and even crustier Buzzov-en, so this man knows his way around a stoney riff and a druggy groove, and this shit sounds just as good now as it did a decade ago, and I don't even smoke pot. So I can only imagine how amazing this must sound high�
But even NOT high, Weedeater destroy! Like some impossible crossbreeding experiment gone hellishly wrong, one part Eyehategod, one part Sleep, one part Corrosion Of Conformity, one part Bongzilla, guitars tuned so low the strings drag along the ground, amps stacked so high, they need a ladder to crank those knobs to 11. The vocals a harsh demonic mewl, almost more black metal than stoner metal, the drums simple but massive.
Recorded mostly by Steve Albini, except for one track by CoC's Mike Dean, and that track is the weirdest of the bunch, just bass, banjo and baritone crooning, a creepy stoner country ballad, which somehow sounds right at home amidst the crushing low slung heaviness surrounding it on all sides.
Plus song titles like "Wizard Fight", "Weedmonkey" and they even cover Skynyrd's "Gimme Back My Bullets"!
Packaged in a cool mini gatefold lp-style sleeve, the art embossed and printed in gold metallic ink, with a little hymnal inside with all the lyrics, just like a mini stoner bible.
Okay, field recording nuts, this one is for you. Just who ARE the noisiest guys on the planet you ask? Why, that would be the decapods of course, aka the ten footed crustaceans, a la crayfish, crabs, lobster and shrimp!
The real question then, is what kind of noise do these noisy guys make? Well, thanks to Jana Winderen (whose Surface Runoff 7" on Autofact we raved about a while back), we now know. Describing it is the hard part. Not sure if this is a recording of their little feet on some surface underwater, or them swimming around, it doesn't sound as much like a field recording as it does some strange fuzzy, buzzy, glitchy drone record. Which is actually pretty cool. A swirling cloud of muted clattery crunch, muted skitter, what sounds like record crackle or tape hiss, static even, all over little bumps and creaks, almost like the sound of something hitting the mic, but it seems more likely that this is the creatures doing what they do, elsewhere, there seems to be rocks shifting or moving against each other. You can also hear the sound of running water, splashes, maybe it's just the current, it's a pretty awesome fascinating sound, very textural and abstract, layered and otherworldly. As a field recording artifact, it's definitely weird and wonderful and enthralling, but simply based on the sonics, it's a pretty awesome listen, minimal and drone-y and abstract and surprisingly soothing.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, these are probably the last copies we'll get. Includes a cool tape cover, with drawings of a decapod and liner notes detailing interesting facts about the creatures.
Hey remember when The Wire was basically a jazz magazine? This issue's cover star Ornette Coleman harks back to those days for the UK's number 1 new music magazine. Inside, there's the usual eclectic array of coverage, from The Shadow Ring's Graham Lambkin to Korean-American avant vocalist Bora Yoon to AQ faves COMUS!! Plus guitarist Andy Moor from The Ex does the Invisible Jukebox, there's a scene report from the desert of Yemen, and of course plenty of stuff gets reviewed... yessir, another fine issue of The Wire.
For their latest collection of homebrewed electronic analogue filth, the boys in Wolf Eyes have decided to join the Hospital Productions roster, home of Prurient, Cold Cave, Ash Pool, Grey Wolves, Prurient, Kevin Drumm, Malkuth, and in some ways it's a perfect match. While all of that typically crusty and blown out Wolf Eyesian buzz and glitch and ruble and whir is all intact, Always Wrong actually displays a fairly significant shift, not just in sound, but in song writing. Unlike past efforts which tended toward the epic side long abstract noise jams, AW is practically a collection of songs, with vocals playing a much more significant part, sure they still offer up serious shards of skree and dense chunks of jagged buzz, but the manage as always to make their noise MORE than just noise, texture, timbre, mood, melody, and for the first time, SONGS.
The record opens with some electronic buzz and some muffled percussion, and right up front some snarled vox, spitting all kinds of venomous vitriol, over a strangely haunting glitchscape, before finally erupting into a clattery clangy Wolf Eyed Whitehouse jam. Tons of feedback, swooping electronic tones, clipped and stuttery chunks of buzz and squeal, all somehow woven into a lurching, stumbling malfunctioning industrial lumber. But it's the next track where things get really interesting, beginning with another high end squall, the streaks of skree get smoothed into haunting melodies, backing up a drawled gloomy almost Lou Reed sounding vocal, underneath it all a darkly gothic bassline, all murky and buzzy, some crunchy riffage popping up here and there, the whole thing a darkly swirling, but still crunchy and caustic, bit of coldwave, that should definitely please fans of the dark and morose, the brooding and black.
"Broke Order" sounds almost punk rock, crushing crumbling detuned crush, over grinding mechanical rhythms, dense clouds of blurred buzz, and yowled vokills, a lumbering lurching ultra heavy distortion drenched monstrosity, that again, manages to still be weirdly, if just barely, melodic.
The rest of the record drifts druggily between those different sounds, "Pretending Alive" is a slow crawl, of reverbed metallic percussion, jazzy horns, lots of layered amp buzz and tape hiss, spidery disembodied guitars, "We All Hate You", is another strangely post punk post industrial almost new wave sounding jam, more moody vox, heavily effected electronic beats, thick gritty textures, and woozy minor key melodies, finishing off with "Droll / Cut The Dog", starting our downright pretty, long form drones, deep resonant rumbles, tense minor key melodies, very creepy and cinematic, the buzz and glitch kept to a minimum, eventually shifting gears into another sort of industrial coldwave outro, all pounding minimal rhythm, sung spoken vocals, warm washes of washed out hiss, dense tangles of undulating drones, and as always, lots and lots of glorious blown out buzz.
As far as we're concerned, Austin's American Analog Set were one of the most underrated indie-rock-pop-emo bands of the late '90s and early '00s. They made some of the most hushed and moody bedroom indie rock we had ever heard, crating the perfect music for lazily relaxing with that special someone, but equally ideal for those lonely nights with only your memories to keep you warm. AAS had the earnest sincerity of Death Cab For Cutie, but also displayed a maturity in sound and scope that appealed to fans of folks like Low and Red House Painters. At the helm of American Analog Set was Andrew Kenney, who possesses one of our favorite voices...just so damn pretty! Soft and comforting and emotive without resorting to whining or typical indie boy tortured mewling. While we were sad to see American Analog Set call it quits a few years back (they should/could have been bigger than The Shins and DCFC!) we were super excited to see that Kenney has a brand new project Wooden Birds, and the Birds' sound pretty much encapsulates everything we loved so much about his old band. Slow and steady, warm melodies tucked tightly into each song, and Kenney's voice sounding as seductive and entrancing as ever. Nothing that Kenny does ever feels forced or heavy handed, he's able to deliver sentimental songs that slowly melt their way into your ears and wrap around your body like that amazing soft blanket you've had since you were little and wouldn't trade for the world. So nice!
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 : ----*
Part two in the Young Widows four part split single series, with cool glossy psychedelic covers that will fit together into one big puzzle, once you have all four. And hell, so far, we can see no reason not to want all of them. The first one, was a split with Bonny Prince Billy, both sides ruled, the YW song in particular, we mentioned that it was way too good to have been left off the record, but here we got again, with another killer jam, that sounds way too good to be an album reject (although you could look at it more as a single A-side!), anyway, Young Widows kick out the super thick, nineties style post/math rock heaviness, all churning bass and pounding rhythms, some scary effected vocals, the sound very Shellac-y, which is in no way a bad thing, short, sharp, heavy as fuck, and catchy as all get out. Beginning to think these guys might be one of the best sort of noise rock bands going.
Teamed up here with Japanese spazz rock legends Melt-Banana, who begin with some awesome progged out rock opera slow build, all skittery drums, squiggly keyboards, epic guitars, which suddenly changes gears and the band are spitting out their instantly recognizable fractured bouncy chipmunky prog pop, this time rife with all manner of wild guitar weirdness, outer space electronics (at least that's what it sounds like, could be more guitar) and some crazy crazy HOOKS!
As always, super limited, number two in the series, another winner, plenty to keep us satiated while we wait for parts 3 and 4! ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
