A quick look online reveals a crazy amount of negative feedback and terrible reviews for this, the newest record from Norwegian black metal supergroup 1349. Most of that negativity stems from the fact that everyone seemed to be hoping for a Hellfire Part 2. Hellfire being their last record, a frenetic non stop blast of frenzied lightning speed berserk blackened buzz. Which is strange, because we were actually hoping for something different. Hellfire was SO fast, and SO relentless, so much so that in many places it just became a furious black blur, which is fine, and we do love that record, but where does a band go from there? Certainly not faster, but somehow, faster seemed to be what most folks expected. What we can tell you is no one expected THIS. Slower. Weirder. Even a Pink Floyd cover. Could this really be 1349? It is, and it's awesome. Dark and lurching doom-ed blackness, shades of Celtic Frost for sure (whose Tom G. Warrior did some production work here). So fuck the haters, we already have a Hellfire, this is something way more interesting and original.
The record opens with some anguished screams, which give way to a long drifting dronescape, deep rumbling dark ambience, thick and layered, caustic and ominous, before finally lurching into song, but not in a black blast, more of a chugging pound, a little bit of tangled blackness, and then woozy, midtempo meander, atonal chords, off kilter rhythms, lots of start and stop, the tempo sort of sea sick, the vibe still WAY sinister, but much more abstract and avant, and way doomier, and it suits them. At first it seemed like maybe drummer Frost was wasted here, but finally, he has the opportunity to do something other than blast maniacally.
The second track is more of the same, a lumbering doomy bit of avant blackness, with gnarled riffs, simple pounding percussion, the arrangement mathy and convoluted, sounding more like Thorns or Khold or Tulus, which is a very good thing.
The record does offer up some blasting black metal, but not a whole lot, as one disgruntled reviewer put it "there's like maybe 10 minutes of ACTUAL black metal on the whole record!", which is true, the majority of the record is still 'black', but much weirder, slower, atmospheric, with a few straight up ambient tracks, long snarling dronescapes, spaced out stretches of gauzy piano wrapped in streaks of feedback, and bits of glitchy buzz, drifty chunks of guitar flecked rumble and whir, all butted up against awesomely twisted bits of black doom weirdness.
One of the best tracks sounds like a Deathspell Omega jam slowed way down, "Uncreation" is all woozy and tangled and almost gothy at points, but with cool bursts of staccato almost industrial sounding chug, and those dense black riffs, pulled apart and wrapped around the pounding rhythms.
The record closes with the haunting "At The Gate..." which begins like some doomdrone record, all downtuned guitar drone, thickening and sprawling like some noxious black cloud, it eventually splinters into a song, but all that means is the wall of guitar buzz and grinding low end is peppered with occasional drum pound, distant guitar leads, and super creepy processed vocals, before eventually blissing out and drifting off.
And let's not forget the Pink Floyd cover. It's almost unrecognizable, but for THAT bass line, super fuzzy and distorted, drifting through swirling layers of effects, the vocals whispered and doused in delay, the drums a machinelike pound, the guitars unfurling all manner of strange sounds, drones and whirs and shrieks and buzzes, no proper riffs, it's the bass and drums that drive this track, the guitars left to fill in the surrounding space with all manner of blurred black ambience. Haunting and spaced out but still plenty black.
As if that weren't enough, while we have 'em, Revelations comes housed in a slipcover, with a bonus disc, a live recording, from in Sweden in 2005, raw and lo-fi and fierce and furious, perfect for folks still hankering for some Hellfire, this should definitely satisfy, meanwhile, the rest of us can revel in 1349's strange new direction. WAY recommended.
A Broken Consort is only one of the monickers under which UK sound artist Richard Skelton performs, and this, Box Of Birch, only one of many releases under various guises, but the first to receive any sort of widespread release.
Skelton started a private press after the passing of his wife, who was a visual artist. She left him all sorts of unfinished works, drawings and sketches, and the purpose of the press was to release her artwork posthumously, collaborating together, her art, his music, a tribute to her memory.
But it's not just the source of this music and the story behind it that makes Box Of Birch so dark and heartfelt and bittersweet, the music itself is a gorgeous tribute to a lost love, to sorrow and remembrance, moving forward but also to never forgetting.
Haunting and lush, the 4 long tracks here are epic and orchestral, long tones, layered drones, darkly minor key melodies, a muted blissed out sort of cosmic space drift. Dark dreamlike ragas constructed from softly strummed guitars, wheezing accordions, tinkling percussion, all manner of buzzing strings woven into deep gentle sonic swells, it's at once abstract and ethereal, but also subtly song based, the tracks feel composed, as much as they feel free. Strings saw out intensely emotional melodies over having soundscapes of dark dark shimmer. The music here is not at all tranquil, not new age-y or easy listening, no these are complex, emotionally charged sounds, these songs, or pieces, throb with passion and energy, they ooze sadness and misery, but also mange to evoke hope, the long slow burning drones seems to constantly drift heavenward, glowing and glistening, a timeless expanse of rumble and whir and buzz, effulgent and everbright, shrouded in darkness for now, but the warm heart within seems to grow with every listen, in every song, an organic living progression, as the record plays, it seems inevitable that the mysterious warmth, will undoubtedly overpower the dark.
Absolutely gorgeous. Lovely artwork too. Recommended for folks into blissed out drones, deep buzzing ragas and minimal abstract space rock: Lamp Of The Universe, Sunroof!, Expo '70, Emeralds, Astral Social Club, Golden Sores, Barn Owl, etc...
Just like the phases of the moon, and the cycle of the seasons, and the rising and setting of the sun, we can always count on the regular appearance of another rad release from Japanese psychedelic freaks Acid Mothers Temple. And for all we know, maybe they too are an integral part of the rhythm of nature, and we begin to wonder, if they DIDN'T have a new disc of cosmic jams out every month or so, would the universe come to an end? Well no worries, that's not gonna happen. Based on current trends, the flow of krautrock inspired music from bearded guitar guru Kawabata Makoto & Co. seems unlikely to abate, at least not in our lifetimes, and possibly not before the sun itself goes supernova.
So, as destined, here's the Dark Side Of The Black Moon, billed as a sequel of sorts to the remarkably SUNNO)))-y, super heavy fan fave Recurring Dream & Apocalypse Of Darkness, released on Important last year. Although, we thought that the intervening Important release of Glorify Astrological Martyrdom qualified as that already. (Hmm, all three feature cover art by Seldon Hunt, maybe it's a trilogy of sorts?). In any event, this one is pretty extreme too, always intense though not doomdrone heavy, as it's less about riffs than it is about sheer wailing psych guitar abandon, swirls of electronic FX, manic dervish rhythms, possessed vocal chant, and other contributing factors towards total disorienting delirium, this album's apparent purpose.
The 13+ minute "Space Labyrinth or Eclipse On Friday" eases the listener into it... if you can call explosions of distortion and spooky wordless vocals "ease". Loads of gtr feedback n' skree are included as well. Next track "Astro Kama Sutra: Take Me To The Outer Limits" then if anything ups the ante, though this disc does have its mellowed-out moments of space-babble - as on the quietly meandering "Blessing Of The Load Galaxy", track 3. That's followed by the chaotic groove of "Space A Go Go"... and then we get to the title track, 17 minutes long, each of those minutes building in feverish intensity. Whew!
If you want more, well, get the deluxe gatefold double lp vinyl edition instead of the cd, 'cause it adds two bonus cuts, "Universe In Witch's Blue" and "Intergalactic Space Trackin'"!
It's the case with lots of our favorite bands that the magic and awesomeness of any group comes from the collaborative energy every member puts forth into the overall sound. It's not so much one member leading, or one guitar part, or one vocal hook that makes a band awesome. Put it this way, the whole is always greater than its parts. After leaving the infamous Young God Records and losing key member Ryan Vanderhoof, Akron family find themselves in a state of creative purgatory. We were surprised to hear Set 'Em Wild sounding so unconfident and unsure, one song lead by a post-rock guitar splurge, then the next a funky bassline from some sweaty disco romp. Not to say we don't fully appreciate the weird and unconventional approach these dudes have always taken, but there's something missing here. In all fairness, the production and performance is up to par with past Akron records, rich group harmonies, catchy pop hooks, atmospheric wash and delay, but the overall magic that linked all these key elements into something tangible seems to have unfortunately faded away...
John and Michael Gibbons of the infamous Bardo Pond have been on quite a roll lately. As if the three other recent Bardo Pond related vinyl-only releases on Important weren't killer enough, here's another one to complete the four piece series of mind melting guitar driven psychedelic haze. Alasehir finds the Gibbons brothers in cahoots with drummer, Jason Kourkouni. The result is a smoldering heap of fried out, stoned to the bone, free psych madness! Plumes of smoke rising behind towering tube amps and blistering feedback, stoner doom riffs plodding on and on into the distant horizon, menacing solos hovering above waves of crashing cymbals and driving drums, all building and building into some Parson Sound, doom kraut heaviness. We love how blown out the record sounds, every instrument being dragged to its far off limits, we could've sworn we heard the wax start to melt right under the needle. This one is also limited to 500 copies, and those of you with a sweet spot for blistering guitar heaviness will not want to miss this. Recommended!
The most calm and serene of the four Bardo Pond related lps from Important, Alumbrados documents the mystic explorations of John and Michael Gibbons through the hazy scope of loosely arranged cosmic atmospheres and acoustic psychedelic ethno-droones. Though it probably goes without saying, Monochord reaches out from the deep ringing center of an ancient gong, sending soaring tones of bowed acoustic guitar, buzzing sitar, and ritual percussion high into the midnight sky. A short step away from the driving, more rockin' sound of their Alasehir project, Alumbrados shimmers with the distant glow of woodland lanterns and dreamy grasslands, all effortlessly sculpted into a somber raga-esque drone masterpiece. Calm acoustic finger picking in the distance, ritualistic percussion thumping away, all drenched in an eastern wash of buzzing strings and far off flutes. Limited to 500 copies, this one will be gone in no time, so pick it up while you still can!
Not only is this collection of golden voice reggae icon Horace Andy one of our favorite dub records of all time, it just might be one of our favorite records PERIOD, dub or otherwise... We know that's one seriously bold statement but just listen to the sound clips and read these words and you might just be convinced.
For decades now Horace Andy has been making some of the most crucial, sizzling and seductive music we've ever heard. In more recent years he's been exposed to a whole new generation thanks to his work with folks like Massive Attack, who he totally stole the show from on their kick ass collaboration. So rare and rad for someone who continually makes quality and moving music for as many years as Horace Andy has to keep getting better, and pushing boundaries. This record finds Andy at his dubbiest and best. Recorded at all the great Jamaican studios like Channel 1 and King Tubby's with production by Bunny Lee and a band of bad ass and out of control heavyweights: Sly & Robby the rhythm section, Augustus Pablo on keyboards, Tommy McCook on Sax, Earl 'Chinna' Smith on guitar, that's so far beyond simply an all star ensemble. Together they help make a dubby, dreamy and tripped out backdrop of lush sound for Andy's gorgeous voice, and it all melts together so perfectly. This is one of those records we turn to on so many occasions. When we need to relax, calm down, get perspective, bliss out, recharge, check in with ourselves... a go to records that will always be there for you. Totally essential!
More operatic and buzzing grim black metal madness from Japanese horde Arkha Sva, who team up here with a French BM band called Winter Funeral who we had never heard until now. More on the Arkha Sva tracks in a moment, odds are most aQ black metal freaks are already sold by the two exclusive AS tracks anyway, but Winter Funeral definitely deserve their due. This is some seriously twisted bizarre blackness. The track begins with almost indie rock sounding jangle and some tribal sounding drums, all beneath gorgeous choral hymns, a strange combination, but it sounds amazing. Creepy and haunting and really beautiful. A shirked vocal joins the fray, and the choral vocals drop out... leaving some frantic buzz, and then the band lurches into some more traditional blast and buzz. The sound is murky and muddy and muted, the vocals a grow, the guitar weirdly pretty, sounding like Alcest or Amesoeurs, until the screams return, maniacal almost operatic howls, which is what stylistically ties these bands together most, as Arkha Sva employ even more over the top operatic shrieks, but the bands do make a good combo. The end of the Winter Funeral track finds the weird minor key indie jangle returning, but this time all tangled up with the harsh demonic vox.
Then comes Arkha Sva, and of course, both tracks utterly rule. Fuzzy and blown out and a little lo-fi, chaotic drumming and tangled atonal riffage, and an insane array of shrieks, almost veering into Bathtub Shitter territory for a minute. But then the song breaks down into some cool convoluted, cinematic stop start thing, epic and strange, very dramatic and soundtracky, reminding us of a more black metal Devil Doll or Death SS. The second track is a creeped out doomy plod, the guitars anguished and jagged, the vocals a continuous howl / growl / gurgle, it almost sounds like black metal Black Flag, before the track explodes into more frosty grimness, the guitars a churning swirl, multiple vocals all over the place, growls and shrieks and another feral wail that's entirely over the top.
So fucking awesome. Equal parts traditional black buzz and fucked up far out blackened weirdness. We only got 15 of these, and it's been out for a little while so, once we run out, not sure we'll be able to get more.
The series continues... Neil Campbell and his Astral Social Club return with two more installments, each a limited cd-r of trippy, druggy, spaced out dronemusic, but more and more the sound of ASC has been drifting toward some sort of otherworldly dancemusic, and that's just how number 18 starts off, with a dense chunk of drone-raga house music, a thumping 4 on the floor beat, that pounds its way through swirling clouds of blurred buzz and industrial crunch, the beat flips backwards, and the surrounding sounds just get more thick and dense. The rest of the disc is all over the map, from super tangled speaker abusing blasts of strangled high end and stuttery glitch, to washed out noise drenched loops, all warm and fuzzy and textural, to super minimal muted buzzscapes, to cool jagged downtempo anti-grooves, to barely there hushed rhythmic skitter, to gorgeous fluttery ur-drones that slowly transform into billowy almost pop ambience, to crunchy heard-through-the-floor dancefloor throb and so it goes. Definitely the sound of the more beat oriented ASC, but even at its beatiest, Campbell still has a way with drones and ambience, wrapping every beat here in swirling squalls of soft noise, crumbling distorted rumbles and twisted glistening effects. Awesome stuff as always. Each in a handmade sleeve with all sorts of random clippings affixed to the front.
The latest in the ongoing Astral Social Club cd-r series is in fact a collection of live recordings, gathered over the past 9 months, recorded in multiple locations with a bunch of guests including a veritable choir on the last track.
6 tracks, 34 minutes, the first track sounds like Yello's "Oh Yeah" chopped up and reassembled into a dizzyingly skittery psych jam, the beat relentless, wrapped in all sorts of chirping high end squeaks and bleeps, looped and super hypnotic. The second track, from the same set, takes that first number and strips away the frantic rhythms, leaving just a buried pulse, and a thick swirl of high end hiss and smoothed out glitches, a droned out high end drift, that manages to entrance with that barely there beat. The final track from that same show is a chaotic cacophony of sci-fi stutter, and fractured effects, a symphony of what sounds like lazer pistols, looped and layered into a head spinning sonic free for all, underpinned by some haunting almost Goblin-y super distorted mood music.
The second set of tracks is a much murkier affair, the first track an endless Sunroof!-y drone, long tones overlapping and intertwining, the second pulls back the skree, leaving a cool, industrial sounding drum loop, that is soon joined by a house-y 4 on the floor kick drum high hat pulse, which transforms the song into some sort of damaged, house-drone-industrial mash up, but again, ASC are able to turn it into something hypnotic and if not danceable, at least in some strange way groovy. The final track is another murky industrial flecked crawl, spread out over what sounds like some strange undulating drone, but on closer listening is in fact a sort of choir, but they all seem to be moaning or humming, not a harmonious exactly, but it does make for some truly strange and haunting textures, a very abstract, organic human dronemusic. Cool. And definitely the first time we've heard anything like it.
Each cd-r is housed in a printed cover with a pasted on live photo.
So rad to finally have this Beastie Boys classic back on wax, all fancy gatefold 180 gram vinyl style. Originally released back in '92 it was a record that so many of us were dying for, as it was their first record in almost four years following the classic yet not totally embraced at the time sophomore outing Paul's Boutique. While they pretty much mastered the art of sampling on that album, they decided to pick up the instruments themselves on this one and along with their buddy Money Mark they hashed out most of the instrumentation themselves. There is a gritty aura to Check Your Head which found the Beastie Boys embracing their punk roots and finding how to create their own grooves which were just as tasty and funky as all the great stuff they had sampled in years past. Another Beastie Boys album that has passed the test of time, and whenever we blast this there's definitely some nostalgia but we're also reminded of how damn good these songs still sound!
If you asked us at the beginning of the year what records we were anticipating the most, we wouldn't have mentioned anything from Finnish black metal pioneers Beherit, simply because their rebirth was really the last thing we expected. Following the band's super blasphemous and chaotic odes to Satan in the early '90s, leader Nuclear Holocausto took over the reigns to become Beherit's sole member, steering the project into dark ambient waters with nary a trace of metal remaining, eventually pulling the plug altogether in 1995. But here we are with Engram in 2009, and the big question is, duh, what does it sound like? After a brief glitchy noise, you are confronted by an accented voice that proclaims, "Because. I just fucking hate this world," and then we're off into the hate filled world of Beherit that we know and love best. These guys could certainly show the younger generations a thing or two, as it becomes immediately clear that Beherit has returned as a furious and totally unrelenting black metal force that retains plenty of what made the original band so great, but with enough surprises to show that there is plenty left to say.
Joined by his longtime partner in crime Sodomatic Slaughter on the skins, as well as two new members, Nuclear Holocausto has created an album that serves Beherit's legacy quite well indeed. In terms of the actual fidelity, it would appear that Beherit has embraced modern recording technology, as they sound significantly beefier than on their earlier efforts, which essential as they are, generally sound a few steps below "piss poor". This album sounds burly as hell, with thick, super heavy riffs and classic black metal blasts, all topped off with Holocausto's croaking vocals and plenty of atmospheric synths adding an exciting and unexpected element to the songs. Like the classic Drawing Down The Moon album, Engram is full of weird, spaced out keyboards that, even today, put Beherit in a realm of their own. The way the keyboards go against the main riffs really bring things into psychedelic territories, and while there are plenty of super fast numbers here, some of our favorite moments are when the band take things down a notch, like on the monolithic 15 minute closer "Demon Advance", a doomy two chord juggernaut with strange oscillating noises and some of the most vile vocals we've heard in a while.
Engram seems to have metalheads across the globe divided, but Beherit were never really an easy band to pin down. Of course, the use of synthesizers will always be an area of controversy when it comes to metal, but Beherit have always taken a unique approach with their electronics, venturing into spacey realms that most black metal bands don't even know exist. If you're willing to spit in the face of orthodoxy, and if you like hellish riffs, awesome puking vocals, and powerful drumming, Engram should be an obvious choice. It's good to have them back.
Belong, belong (couldn't resist) in a world of washed out sound, faded memories and blistering layers of sound. Imagine the warm crackles of Endless Summer era Fennesz, a touch of Godspeed You Black Emperor aimed at monumental peaks and valleys, a Flying Saucer Attack eyes half closed eyes half open delivery with a My Bloody Valentine shimmering layer of sound thrown in for good measure. A duo from New Orleans, Belong do a really nice job of taking from their influences but also having their own unique take on the whole gauzy smeary ambient free noise sound. Their take being a thick heady blast of sound that doesn't at all lose any of its gauzy dreaminess. October Language is that great kind of record that can take on different lives when played soft vs. loud. It allows you to enjoy it quiet, as a textural layer that you can dream beneath or drift away on top of. Or you can blast Belong and they'll take you out of your dreams, and your head and into another state completely. So nice!
After 2007's much lauded Dodsvisioner album, Sweden's Bergraven returns with another set of odd gothic-tinged post-rocking blackness. While the music of Bergraven definitely fits well within the realm of black metal with its overall mood and spirit, Till Makabert Vasen is a hard one to pin down. Things never get insanely over-the-top metal, at least not in a typical way, instead opting to create a decidedly eerie and disconcerting atmosphere with all the tension found in the build up. The instrumentation here seems to imply an expert awareness of restraint, and how effectively it can be used for achieving a certain uneasy feeling. Not that this bears any resemblance to the Doors, but think of "The Crystal Ship" to get an idea of how negative space can be used to create a powerful sense of focus without getting all aggro. The gruff vocals are upfront and strong, sounding pretty pissed, but as they are sung in Swedish we can only assume... But they are definitely very interesting, as black metal vocals are generally known for being shrieky or bellowing, often buried in the mix as just another part of the maelstrom. Here Bergraven mainman Par Gustafsson's voice retains a surprising clarity that you simply can't ignore. While the vocals never seem to get too frantic or out of control, they retain a forcefulness that, at the heart of it all, is pretty damn metal.
Another noteworthy aspect of Bergraven's approach is the seriously impressive musicianship and the overall song structures, which are just plain weird and quite unexpected. The guitars seem to have just as much to do with '90s indie rock heroes like Drive Like Jehu or Unwound as they do with black metal, while the Slinty rhythm section keeps things moving in a winding, snakelike manner with all sorts of mathy weirdness. The songs kind of swirl within their own self-contained world, never getting too expansive or wandering, but retaining a high degree of concentration. One is reminded at times of Lifelover, or even Deathspell Omega's weirder, jazzier moments from Fas, with sour, discordant guitar chords and plodding, sometimes sparse drumming helping to set the generally unwavering vibe that keeps this one flowing evenly.
Whatever it is that Bergraven sings about, one certainly detects a sense of isolation and loneliness. The artwork features strange images of an empty chair in a forest and a man, presumably Gustafsson, sitting in a cabin in front of a fireplace with his face blurred out, making it clear that you will never know too much about the mastermind behind the music.
With Dodsvisioner, everyone seemed a bit confused that Hydra Head was venturing into such dark waters, but to us, it makes total sense. That label has always championed a unique commingling of art and metal, and it is clear that Bergraven has no problems stepping outside the norms of its genre.
Big Business had always sounded a bit like the Melvins, which made perfect sense, as the drums and bass duo also function as 2nd bass and 2nd drums in the Melvins. But they always had their own thing going on, a sound that while still heavy and obtuse, was weirdly melodic, a sort of metallicized fractured pop. We meant to review last year's Here Comes The Waterworks, a totally classic chunk of hooky heaviness, equal parts heaving metallic heft, and twisted melodicism, but somehow it slipped through the review-writing cracks here, whoops. We were mostly expecting more of the same on Mind The Drift, but holy shit, it's even better than Waterworks. Way more epic and sprawling and proggy, showtunes is probably not the best word to use to describe the songs here, but that was definitely our first thought, not cheesy showtunes like your parents made you listen to in the car on long trips, no, BB's tunes could be the soundtrack to to some otherworldly Broadway musical jam packed with twisted carnivalesque epic songsmithery, smoke and streamers and flames and leering demonic faces, twisted shapes, colors psychedelic and kaleidoscopic, but more than anything, the songs are incredibly catchy, the vocals soaring and dramatic, a huge development from the punk rock howl of their earlier recordings, the instrumentation is lush, fleshed out by a guitarist, and the arrangements are impossibly complex, lots of stop / starts, amazing vocal interplay, some of the most incredibly irresistible melodies ever, all woven into super tight, dense mini-epics. It's not metal, it's not punk, it's not post rock, it's bits and pieces of all of those, but cobbled together into something completely jaw droppingly over the top, but not ostentatious, the songs might feel grand and majestic, but it also feels like these guys could just reel off a new song at the drop of a hat and it would sound as good as any of these. The band do get rough and raw, and rock out a bit, but they shine on those aforementioned numbers, where they kick out the sprawling dramatic soundtracky post punk show tune jams, like some impossibly rad mix of the Melvins and Meat Loaf (circa Bat Out Of Hell). Our favorite track is probably "Gold And Final" (although it seems like every time we listen to this we discover a new favorite), with its super tense brooding verse, the little looped effected stutter before a devastating chorus, and an insane hook. We've been humming this song nonstop since we got this. Just listen to the sound sample, totally timeless, like some classic rock jam transported forward in time several decades, but picking up all sorts of detritus in the process and growing gradually slightly more warped and twisted. So good. Could be a contender for record of the year. Really.
Incredible packaging too, done up like found vintage postcards, the song titles and credits worked into mysterious missives, all the images washed out, complete with a Big Business post mark and everything.
For those who can't get enough Bjork (we know who you are) how about this, the two audio compact disc, two video dvd disc edition of Voltaic, the live companion to the eccentric Icelandic singer's latest album Volta! No, we're not reviewing it, really, just letting you know it's here... calling your name...
Sinsemilla is a total masterpiece, originally released in 1980, but which somehow most of us managed to miss out on completely, until just recently. When we finally did hear it for the first time we knew this would be one of those lifer discs, a record that would never leave our collection, and that would get repeated play for years and years to come.
Black Uhuru formed in Jamaica in the late '70s and with this, their third album they drafted the blueprint for the possibilities of how wide reaching and soul satisfying reggae songs could really sound. We stress SONGS as this is a collection of some of the most well crafted, melodic, catchy and deep grooved reggae jams we've ever heard. So good, it's tough to imagine that this isn't some sort of greatest hits album, every single track sizzles with a personality of its own that grabs your attention and keeps you coming back for more. With nods to Patrick Adams, a revolutionary spirit and a true yearning for that elusive state of happiness, this is a record that even though we discovered late, will most likely rank as an all-time AQ reggae favorite. Eternal summer jams!
Long rumored, long awaited, Bohren and Der Club Of Gore's installment in Southern UK's limited edition Latitudes series is, finally, here!! While the Latitudes series has included a disparate selection of interesting artists, including AQ faves like Circle, Shit & Shine, Grails, and now Bohren. You'd think they were asking US who they should put out! Certainly if they HAD asked us, we'd have said Bohren, we're (as you probably know) huge fans, we're still in awe of the live show they played in San Francisco a few months back, also something that we didn't ever think we'd see. The stage was in total darkness except for small lights shining from directly above each musician, one bassist, one keyboardist, and another who played keys, bass, and sax as necessary. And while it was unfortunate that there was no drummer (for some reason he couldn't travel with the band) their usual slow tempo meant that the keyboardist could "play" sampled drums fairly effectively, though doubtless it would probably have been even better had the actual drummer been there (however, one of our friends who was at the show didn't even realize there was no live drummer present, due to the darkness, and the fact that the glowing Bohren skull-head logo in the center of the stage looked like it was on a bass drum head!). Their music was so beautiful, and sooooo heavy. Literally one of the HEAVIEST performances we've ever witnessed, SO MUCH BASS it was insane. And remember, they're essentially a jazz group.
So, we like Bohren. You like Bohren (or if you haven't heard 'em, may we suggest their most recent album, Dolores?). And so we're both excited that this is here. Heck, we've been waiting for it for a while. Apparently the Latitudes folks like to get people all in a tizzy by announcing things YEARS in advance of the actual release. As a result, Bohren fans have been asking about this one, since, well back when Barack Obama was still an unknown community organizer, it seems. We had sorta given up hope of ever actually seeing it come out, assuming it was a figment of someone at Southern's overactive imagination. But then what do you know, out of the blue, with no warning, here they are. We got ALL the copies we're gonna be able to get, and good luck finding it elsewhere. So act fast if you want one.
Here's the lowdown: Like the previous Latitudes volume, from White Magic, this is an ep, just one song in fact, and while Bohren have been known to make some looooong songs, this one is "only" 10 and a half minutes in length. But of course what with Bohren's typical mesmeric glacial pace and soporific atmospheres, when "Mitleid Lady" is playing it's as if time has stopped, anyway... the bass frequencies throbbing gently, the sparse snick...snick...snick of the drummer's high hat, the dulcet liquid tones of electric piano melodically meandering... eventually the merest suggestion of a sweet whisper of smoky saxophone... ahhh the unique slo-mo "jazz" of Bohren is utterly entrancing as usual. This track was recorded back 2006 (we said it was long awaited), after their Geisterfaust record and before the more recent Dolores, and sounds like it could easily have found a place on either album. But having it here on its own disc is actually rather nice, as a "concentrated" (not really) dose of Bohren's special sound to savor.
It's also an attractive collectible artifact, in the usual die-cut, cardboard Latitudes packaging, including an insert with text in German on one side, and a curiously unexpected picture of the mostly all-bald Bohren guys on the other side - all four of them dressed in black, of course, but standing in a grassy park on a sunny day somewhere, three of them wearing shorts, two of 'em in sandals and flipflops!
LIMITED EDITION! 1000 COPIES ONLY! We got less than 100, and that's IT. And don't ask us when the also-announced 12" vinyl version is coming out, we don't know...
It always seems to happen this way, we spend ages and ages trying to track down recordings from an elusive band, hearing rumors about 7"s and cd-r's and tapes, and then suddenly, BOOM. Or in the case of these guys, Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom... the recordings come bursting forth, and again, in this case, the sounds spew from speakers and headphones like some viscous black torrent. Which can only mean one thing, the return of drugged out sludge drone mavens Bong. If ever a band was more appropriately named, Bong are ready to take them on. In fact, the only way a band could prevail monicker-wise, they'd have to be called Bong Blood Hell Froth, or Bladed Bong Skullorb, or something, and even with a name all ready for battle, it's doubtful their pathetic sounds would be any match for Bong's thick, sprawling doomscapes of sitar like buzz, churning bottom heavy crunch, and at least on one of the tracks here some serious drum pummel.
Three discs, five tracks, three hours, recorded in pubs, under bridges and in restaurants, one can only imagine the smoldering ruins these guys left in their lumbering drug-doom wake. Their live sound much more rocking then their doomed out minimal records might lead you to believe.
The opener on its own is worth the price of admission, a relentless buzzy, space-y sludgey groove, with some killer drumming, chaotic, mathy, but locked in pretty tight, the cymbals offering up a layer of warm swirling sizzle, the vocals a haunted demonic chant, the rest of the sonic space taken up by woozy washed out buzzing sitar like strings, a sort of Sleep meets Circle meets SUNNO))), a downtuned krautrock crunch, smeared into an endless drug drenched space rock groove. The second half of disc two offers up more of the same, with the drums even more frantic, the band rocking propulsively, not so sludgey as heavy and fierce, the song slipping into a tranced out sonic tarpit partway through, before exploding into a tangled doom-math outro.
The two tracks on the second disc see the drums pulling back a little, letting the guitars and vocals interlock, the result some sort of ritualistic groove, albeit wrapped around some serious percussive heft, the second of the two tracks blissing out pretty nicely, the band slipping comfortably into something a bit more meditative and slowcore sounding, but still the guitars smoke and smolder, the drums, while restrained, still sound urgent, the track seething with dark intensity, and minimal doomic menace.
The final disc, a nearly 40 minute single song set, is the heaviest and densest of the bunch, somehow fusing the blown out ur-drone of groups like Sunroof! with a fuzzed out garage doom space stomp. Think White Hills, the Heads, Monster Magnet, this is the sort of doom that's bursting with barely restrained psychedelia, like watching some black star explode, swirling red and yellow gouts of sonic fire spilling forth from a heaving black hole of sound. The sound lo-fi, lots of noise and reverb and distortion and ambient noise, the sound crumbles and breaks apart here and there, the band slipping easily from ponderous trudge to blissed out shimmer, often merging the two into some soul shearing psychedelic doom.
A few of these tracks were already released, but as a cd-r in a limited run of 50 or something crazy like that, so odds are, like us, you never even saw 'em. These are proper, real cds (NOT cd-r's), packaged in a dvd style case, with printed inserts. And is also limited, this time to 300 copies!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A split waiting to happen if there ever was one, both by name, and by sound, blissed out ambient soundscapers Gnod, best know for their split with White Hills, and beloved drugged out space rockers form the UK Bong.
The real bummer is that we tried to get a ton of these and only managed to wrangle TEN. Otherwise this would have been up with the highlights and the review would be about 10 times as long. But since odds are we'll probably get more orders for this than copies we actually have, we'll keep it brief.
Gnod offer up a warbly looped pianoscape, peppered with distant percussive rattles, draped over slow deep ambient swells, all building to a dense blackened rumble. Nice. Bong counter with more of that thing they do, rad tripped out FX drenched space rock, replete with sitar like buzz, kosmiche krautrock drumming, incendiary guitar buzz and deep chanted vocals, the sort of song that could, and probably should go on forever, but here fills up the side with gloriously dense hypnotic psychedelic heaviness.
The 7" comes with a cd-r, with over 50 minutes of extra stuff, one massive 30+ minute Bong jam, and three shorter Gnod tracks. Again we have less than ten, we really did try, all but the very quickest on the trigger, prepare to be disappointed.
Wow, this band keeps on evolving in wonderful ways! British Sea Power's latest musical outing is a soundtrack for the classic 1934 documentary Man Of Aran by explorer / filmmaker Robert Flaherty. Somberly foreboding, these mostly instrumental passages could easily seem like they were torn from the dramatically atmospheric books of Godspeed You Black Emperor! There are some really gorgeous, gloomily grey stretches that balance cloudy drones with delicate melodies played out on guitar, piano and strings. Nice. The rock band in British Sea Power only really surfaces a few times ever so fleetingly - midway through the proceedings on "Boy Vertiginous", then on the rugged number "Spearing The Sunfish", and on the finale "No Man Is An Archipelago" - but it fits effectively and doesn't seem incongruous. An added bonus: the cd is accompanied by a dvd that features the film with its new score!
By now you've no doubt heard these guys. Or at the very least, you've probably been sent the video for their song "Freaxxx" by a friend (or enemy). It's been viewed on YouTube about eight hundred gazillion times. And at least a gazillion of those times was US!
If we were really honest with ourselves, and based our love of a band entirely on these criteria: how many times have we listened to a specific song by this band, how many times have we watched a video by this band, how many hundreds of people have we sent a video by this band to, and how much time have we spent talking about this band, be it positive or negative? Well in that case these retarded Crunk-core goofs would be our favorite band EVER.
Ever since we first discovered these guys on YouTube, we, as well as many of our friends have been totally obsessed. A bunch of slacker girl jean spikey hair indie dorks playing a totally fucked up and dipshitty hybrid of Southern style crunk with all its low slung hip hop beats and buzzy synths, and screamo... the emo offshoot that involved, well, as far as these guys are concerned, lots and lots of screaming. So if you can imagine some white indie rockers rapping about Bentleys and Cristal and bitches and ho's while one of the guys screams dramatically every few seconds, while the band pout and preen, with a bunch of slutty looking indie chicks and a huge pink pig, well, you're either totally disgusted, totally mesmerized, or most likely BOTH.
It's like a trainwreck, both audial and visual, but at the same time, we CAN'T STOP WATCHING. Plenty of our friends have expressed a similar dilemma, an utter and extreme hatred for these guys, but the seeming inability to stop listening to it, watching the videos, or even buying their records. Yeah it's stupid, puerile, dumb as fuck, and a waste of brain cells and airwaves, but in some weird way, it's kind of clever, definitely fun, and to be totally honest, some of the sounds and songs do sorta rule. "Freaxxx" is the obvious jam, watch the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8F5YSA1Oz0
You just can't look away. And it's a little bit catchy. What the fuck?! We've dug way stupider and way more annoying stuff than this in the past, so why not just embrace it. Both Allan and Andee ordered their old ep, which also features the other jam "Bree Bree", the chorus of which is a screamed 'Breeeee Breee' meant to sound like an oinking pig. We shit you not.
So there you go, you can't fight it. You might as well buy it, you may not listen to it on your own, but we guarantee you'll play it for everyone you know. The ultimate "you WILL not believe this shit" disc. Which means in some insanely backhanded way, this is indeed recommended.
Ok, raise your hands, everybody into Electric Wizard and Moss and Sleep and Reverend Bizarre and Om and, uh, Solar Anus, do you all have a copy of Cathedral's 1990 debut album Forest Of Equilibrium in your doom collection?? If not, total doom-foul. You must rectify that immediately, we decree. And now's the time, 'cause Earache has just reissued this all-time doom classic with not only an entire out of print ep tacked on as bonus tracks, but also with an extra dvd disc featuring a 40 minute documentary shot in 2009, about the band's early daze... which means folks who DO already have the original might want to consider the upgrade.
Now, as we've said before, British band Cathedral's debut was one of the saddest, heaviest slabs of doom ever heard, magically melding slowed-down Sabbath riffage, depressed prog-folk flutes, and ex-Napalm Death throat Lee Dorrian's gravelly vocals. It belongs in any doom metal top 20, maybe top 10, we would argue. And the band never made a better record, though the four song Soul Sacrifice ep that immediately followed this was also pretty fine (and that's what's included here as bonus tracks!).
From the morose, molasses-slow strains of album's opening, the acoustic guitar and flute intro entitled "Picture Of Beauty And Innocence" that leads into the majestically crushing "Commiserating The Celebration", the unique quality of Forest Of Equilibrium's take on classic, epic doom metal is evident. Early Cathedral's gruff gothic exhalations and chugging downtuned doomic riffs is something quite special to behold, preferably sitting on a pillow or lying prone on the floor, perhaps wreathed in pot smoke, directly in front of a very loud set of speakers. There's something warm-blanket soothing about it, the utter sobbing misery expressed somehow comforting.
These guys never made a secret of their heavy progressive, proto metal, psychedelic '70s influences (proudly listing obscure bands known only to bearded record collectors and aging hippies in their cd booklets' thanks lists at great length) but unlike Witchcraft, for instance, Cathedral didn't attempt to emulate those bands exactly, rather they incorporated certain elements of '70s prog (like the occasional flute!) into their much heavier-than-thou Sabbath/Candlemass derived sludge metal, going to an epic extreme (at the time) hitherto unmatched of sheer glacial-paced melancholia. Remember, frontman Lee Dorrian's former band Napalm Death was one of the FASTEST bands ever, so his next band Cathedral had to be the SLOWEST, the equivalent of grindcore at 16rpm. With of course ultra-long songs (the first track clocking in at over 11 minutes). The Soul Sacrifice ep did see the band speeding up a bit, and Lee letting loose with a few Ozzy-derived "All right!" exclamations, which led eventually to the slightly too much tongue in cheek let's boogie '70s kitsch stoner rock that characterized the middle period of their long career. But never fear, that came later, Forest Of Equilibrium is deadly serious, utterly doomed and despairing. And oh so beautiful.
For those who have the original, some further notes on the extra stuff included here:
Soul Sacrifice ep includes an extended version of the title track, also on Forest, plus three others: "Autumn Twilight", "Frozen Rapture", and "Golden Blood (Flooding)", all of which could have fit in perfectly well on the album itself style-wise, though the production is a bit different sounding.
Then, the bonus dvd documentary about the formation of the band and the making of Forest Of Equilibrium is going to be quite interesting to fans. It even includes an interview with the artist responsible for all of Cathedral's fantastical cover art, and concludes with the music video for the track "Ebony Tears".
When you think deep soulful psychedelic tinged rock the first name that probably does NOT come to mind is Chubby Checker. But guess what, he did in fact brew up a totally potent batch of psych rock burners that somehow slipped completely under the radar.
Apparently Chubby was living in Holland in 1971 when he hooked up with some eccentric and unknown hippie rockers who all seemed to be smoking some seriously good stuff and together they recorded this batch of seriously scorching tracks! Forget everything you know about Chubby Checker. This is not "The Twist", or the golden-oldies or a novelty come-back with the Fat Boys in the '80s. This is impassioned psychedelic rock killer with deep grooves and a super emotional and intense vocal delivery from Chubby. Every time we play this in the store someone thinks it's some rare Hendrix track or an unreleased Arthur Lee gem or some amazing group like Black Merda finally being resurrected. In fact just about all of these songs could have appeared on any of the recent spate of psych reissue comps that we have fallen so in love with (Nuggets, Cherrystones), and actually we were given our first sneak peak into this secret world of Chubby Checker a few years back on the great collection Mr. Toytown Presents Vol. 2: Nightmares at Toby's Shop. We never thought we'd finally hear the whole disc, heck, we didn't even think there -was- a whole disc. Turns out there was, now on cd as Goes Psychedelic though it was originally released on some budget labels variously under the titles New Revelation and Chequered.
There are some mind blowing songs here. Songs that aren't just cool cause it's neat and weird and interesting that they are actually being sung by Chubby Checker but songs that stand on their own two feet and grab your and shake you and sound so damn good! What's also so cool about this recording is that 9 of the 11 songs were actually written by Chubby, so it's not like some hip producer just grabbed a bunch of great songs and slapped his name and voice on them. He shows such an amazing range, from scorching stingers ("Love Tunnel") to druggy cookers ("Stoned In The Bathroom") to darkly solemn tales ("He Died"). What an absolute surprise of a record! We haven't been able to stop playing it since it arrived to AQ. We're completely addicted! And we think you will be too.
A killer live DVD from our favorite Japanese, serial killer obsessed, stoner groove doom lords, Church Of Misery. We've gone on and on in the past (and elsewhere on this list, their debut was just reissued) about how much we love these guys. Some impossible mix of Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Antiseen and Boris. Heavy as fuck, groovy and spacey, blown out and super psychedelic. Live it's everything we would have hoped for. A band of crazy Japanese hippies in ripped concert shirts, bell bottoms, berets, dreadlocks, furry coats, big ol' silver rings on every finger, flying V's, on a tiny stage, heads banging, hair swirling, in a closet sized dark club, packed to the gills with a heaving, sweaty, head banging crowd. The sound is amazing. A truly MASSIVE guitar sound, huge blown out crumbling riffs, the band a whirlwind of lurching groove, and a bass player who wears his bass lower than anyone we've ever seen (even the Ramones!). SO low in fact, that the body of the bass is at shin level and he ends up sort of playing way up on the neck. Awesome! Three live shows filmed over the last two years, a handful of CoM classics as well as some free form freaked out space jams. Also included are videos for "Filth Bitch Boogie" and "I, Motherfucker" (best song title ever maybe), both look quite similar, filmed in creepy black and white, on fuzzy degraded film stock, haunting shots of two emotionless girls making out, dead bodies in forests, plenty of violence and gore (mostly perpetrated on the band themselves) and of course the band trudging through mysterious woods all very Sabbath-like. So cool.
Packaged in a blood red Japanese style DVD case. NTSC and ALL REGION!
We all were really excited when we saw that Animal Collective had picked Grouper to open their tour, how cool that Grouper's dreamy and hazy sounds would reach so many new ears at all of their sold out shows. While it might not seem like an obvious match, we think there is much in Panda Bear's aesthetic that drew him and the rest of his gang to Grouper's daydream delights. Enter City Center, who we first heard on a split 7" with Grouper and who to our ears sound a lot like a much more slowed down and blissed out and dreamy Panda Bear. While using similar sounds and ideas, tons of reverb and the same sort of repetition that made the Panda Bear album so unique, City Center never reaches the same kind of ecstatic boiling point, instead keeping things in more understated and lingering. Like the perfect foggy Sunday morning or lazy laid back late night soundtrack, the sound of City Center floats and flows with such ease. Fred Thomas, better known for his band Saturday Looks Good To me, will probably now end up being more well known for City Center, building from his indie-pop roots into something a bit more atmospheric. Nice.
The Climax Golden Twins have always had their hands in as many cookie jars as they could; and all of the records are true adventures in sound that could include fucked-up collages of old 78s, thudding art-rock that has earned them opening spots for Sonic Youth, blissful ambience for narcoleptic art-installations, clattering urban gamelan presentations, and plenty more. Eerie Fragrance hits all of these marks and then some, having originally been released as a cassette back in 1995. The original title to the cassette was Eyeless Formation, but has been redubbed as Eerie Fragrance for the vinyl reissue. There's also a couple of extra tracks which didn't appear on the original cassette which had appeared on compilations from around the same time period.
The album quickly revolves through a collage of improvised bursts that accelerates up to an unsettled loop of a woman possibly in the midst of a breakup repeating her pleas over a turgid thrumb of static and rumbling drone which spills out of a series of peculiar squeaks and squiggles. As such, these moments have more in common with Nurse With Wound than their geographical and spiritual neighbors in the Sun City Girls; but is certainly well within the scope of CGT's esoteric collages. Noirish loops and raucous crowd noise tumble out of the beginning of the flipside, with guitar plucks that sound more like rubber bands snapping in the distant. Artifacts of tape noise and crusty debris inhabit a set of overlapping loops topped with gnarled scrapes on the guitar. Crunches of leaves and thick industrial field recordings give way to seasick wooden creakings, laughing gulls, and bellowing foghorns. As disconnected as all of these elements appear after the fact, they all work rather effortlessly in the context of this recording. Really great!
One of two discs vying for our personal dubstep disc of the year. The other is the recent Mordant Music disc, which we'll try to review next time, an unlikely collaboration between Mordant and the Skull Disco crew, and this, the first full length from mysterious atmospheric dubstep soundscaper Clubroot.
We know nothing about this guy (or these guys?), other than he takes that dubbed out skitter we love so much and sets it in expansive fields of swirling ambience, creeped out dronescapes and all manner of super evocative and gorgeously textural soundworlds. Where as most dubstep is super spare and stripped down, skeletal even, the sound here is lush and sprawling. Thick layers of synths whir and shimmer and buzz, deep swells throbbing and pulsing, everything hazy and gauzy and washed out, every song some sort of otherworldy dreamscape, shot through with some super bad ass bit of pounding churning dubstep stutter. The massive basslines and fluctuating synth buzz that usually adds texture to typical dubstep, here just becomes another element in Clubroot's mysterious mist shrouded sonic landscape.
The cover features a lonely tree, set atop a rocky outcropping, the sky dense with clouds, the picture all misty and hauntingly lonely seeming, which perfectly reflects the mood of the music here. Strip away the beats, and you'd still be left with an incredible bit of blackened new age swirl, of abstract kosmiche krautdrone, but add the beats, and these sounds become something entirely other. This is definitely not dancemusic, this is mind expansion music. Late night, lights off, starting at the stars drifting off, other dimension, spaced out, dream dub music.
Clubroot taps into the same darkside as Burial, and Kode9, and the more atmospheric beatmakers, but where those guys pull back before the fog grows to thick, Clubroot pushes forward, traveling through the dark forest, into some forbidden zone, some land lost in time, lost from time, a massive emptiness, as beautiful as it is lonely and ominous, and this is the soundtrack to that lost world. So intense and haunting and unlike any other dubstep, or electronic music even, that we've heard before. The rare sort of record that lets even the most jaded and heard-it-all listener get totally, and fantastically lost.
And if you need more than our effusive gushing praise, look no further than Fenriz, 1/2 of legendary black metal duo Darkthrone, a long time lover of techno and electronic music, who has this to say about Clubroot:
"This is the sort of soaring dubstep I'd never expect to come out of the US! I just transferred the adorable "Embryo" track to my MP3 player FAVES 09 list, as I am going tenting and swimming in a forest lake tomorrow with some connoiceur-friends [sic]. It's sleek and not nasty, the melodic kind and not the grimy. But wait a minute, it seems like the newest tracks are on first, as the last songs drift into some de-tranced balearic style, even with vocals stabs and 90s synths! Blimey."
And if you can't trust Fenriz on matters of dubstep, then who can you trust? WAY recommended. And quite possibly dubstep record of the year!
We are totally in love with this new Cluster album. Not just because they are living legends of krautrock who helped shape electronic music as we know it. Not just because they are in their '70s and still making amazing music. Not just because their instore performance here at AQ a couple years ago left everyone in awe... those are all reasons why we love Cluster in general so it would be easy to just talk about all their past attributes, but the new record doesn't rely on the past, at all!
While Cluster have released a few live records recently, this is their first full on studio album in fourteen years! On Qua they do revisit some of the classic Cluster sounds immortalized on records like Zuckerzeit and Sowiesoso, but what we really love about the album is how they aren't just rehashing the Cluster of old. They continue to explore different sound palettes and the musical options and directions those new sounds open up to them. Using their synths they carefully craft these seventeen tracks and while each seems to have a life of its own they are woven together in such a compelling way. Listening to Qua is hearing two masters at their craft weaving sounds together, creating such interesting patterns, shapes and colors. Still at the top of their game all these decades later, Qua ranks high in their mighty back catalog.
Who would have thought we'd ever see a new Coalesce album, ever again? After a spate of unbelievable records, and a fairly acrimonious breakup, we figured we'd have to make do with Give Them Rope and Revolution In Just Listening and Functioning on Impatience, which hell, is the sort of 'making do' most bands would kill to be able to offer their faithful. But this new Coalesce pretty much picks up right where the last one left off, after a 10 year break, the sound is immediately recognizable, churning chugging super complex mathy post hardcore metal fury, stop start arrangements, lurching mosh worthy blowouts, the guitars massive, the drumming relentless, and the vocals, how can Sean Ingram still sound like this ten years later? Actually how can he even speak after a decade of vitriolic bellowing. But for all that stayed the same, a lot has changed in the decade since Revolution. On "The Comedian In Question", the band break down into a sort of droned out lope, and the vocals slip into some clear crooning, the sound is definitely sort of Alice In Chains, but on Coalesce it sounds so good. Great in fact.
Then there's the beginning of "Wild Ox Moan", a total lo-fi distorted blues jam, again with clean vox, the guitar clangy and clean, some slippery slide slipped in as well, before the band erupts into another furious pounding anvil to the skull. Long stretches of reverbed nylon string guitar butt up against some of the heaviest punishment these guys have ever doled out, which is saying something considering they're old enough to be the parents of most of the kids in the crowd (not counting us old guys), cool angular Drive Like Jehu high end guitar melodies wind around bizarre vocals and spill over into a weirdly groovy churn that sounds as much like Pantera as it does Coalesce, some stripped down jazzy moodiness, and at least one track that is so awesomely off kilter and slippery and dizzy, the whirling woozy guitars constantly causing the listener's head to spin, and while all the weird shit sticks out the most, it's really not the most prevalent stuff going on here, although the weirdness does seep into most of the more classic Coalesce sounding riffage, even so, the majority of this record IS in fact classic sounding Coalesce, just a bit more twisted, still heavy as fuck, and still weirdly catchy, maybe more so then ever, the weird stuff only makes it cooler and more fun.
Killer packaging too, beautiful silver and black-on-black digipak, with one of the most elaborate die cut booklets we've ever seen.
We were big fans of William Fowler Collins' debut album, Western Violence & Brief Sensuality, so we're very happy to see that his follow-up, Perdition Hill Radio is being released on one of our favorite experimental labels, Type. Fitting right at home between Koen Holtkamps's dreamy effervescent drift and Svarte Greiner's darkly spectral shipwreck atmospherics, Collins offers an intense nocturnal Western counterpart to the unrelenting Southwest heat of his debut. And from the image of a dim moon behind a dark looming hill on the cover, it's obvious this is a much more doom-laden outing than before. Like slow motion black holes opening in the dark desert sand, the guitar drones that Collins conjures undulate and pull us down into a nether world of enveloping starless night, the air electric with magnetic activity and static radio transmissions that churn and dissipate in an infernal ebb and flow of sonic waves. Like moving indiscernible shapes in the dim light, uncertain sounds peek out through the din, prowling animal growls, ghostly disembodied dialogue like EVP transmissions buried under sheets of noise that at times conjure images of passing trains, horse-led stagecoaches, mysterious Native American rituals, and swarms of flies. The song titles like "Grave Robbing In Texas" and "Slow Motion Prayer Circle" only add to the dread and mystery of what those fleeting sounds could allude to. On the album's 21 minute centerpiece, "Dark Country Road", the far-off echoing twang of a slide guitar can be heard fading into the distance before a mountainous dronescape rises out of the still air and crests tunnel-like into an inky pool of uneasy shimmer for much of its length (the vinyl version ends in a locked groove!). Only on the last song, "The Ghosts of Eden Trail", does the sound brighten up into a beautifully levitating and expansive drifting ambience offering just a glimpse of torturing hope. The limited double vinyl version contains a side-long bonus track, "Saturnine Reverie" not on the cd. We have often said that Earth's later records are Cormac McCarthy novels in song, but Perdition Hill Radio is the closest comparison to an imagined soundtrack for The Road that we have ever heard, and that of course means this has our highest recommendation!!!
Death Cheetah is probably a name new to you, it was to us, the man behind Death Cheetah though you might know as the guy who painted that bad ass pile of skulls album cover for the recent AmocomA record on tUMULt, he also contributed to the short lived Matter tape of the month series we reviewed a while back, but this super limited 3" is the first recording from the curiously named one man band, a teaser for an upcoming full length, but it's doubtful that could possibly be as cool as these. LIMITED TO 20 COPIES, of which we got ALL 20, each one hand painted, every single one super striking and unique, just like the music inside.
Three tracks, the first one is some sort of brooding Bohren like crawl, all skittery brushed drums and deep rumbling low end, ominous hushed vocals, little muted flurries of soft focus keyboard, a blissed out nightmarish creep, slithery and shimmery and dark dark dark, almost jazzy, but more in a Necks sort of way, some seriously deeeeep slowcore minimalism, that builds to more of a downtempo plod near the end.
The second track is totally different, stuttery dubbed out drums, dubstep style fuzzed out synth bass rumbles, shouted distorted vocals, a woozy post punk dubby groove, flecked with shards of reverb drenched guitar, streaks of synthesizer, it sounds like some lost eighties DIY deathfunk jam, but a bit more freaked out and abstract. The closing track veers more toward the minimalism of the opener, spare bits of guitar flutter, jazzy skittery drums, flickers of flute, acoustic guitar, tons of space, a slow slow late night drift, abstract and dreamy, smoke-y and gauzy and so so nice.
Hard to get a handle on just what Death Cheetah is all about, three tracks, three different directions, but we like them all, and in some strange way they do all link together, and flow, and when taken with the meticulously hand painted covers, this is a gorgeous piece of outsider soundart, and one that won't be around for long, grab one of these quick or steel yourself for a long wait for the full length...
Many of you will recall that a few years back, we had the pleasure of reviewing six (6) different limited edition cd-r releases by this murky and mysterious improvised instrumental free rock ensemble from Finland, which features members (we eventually determined for sure) of mega AQ faves Circle! In those reviews, which taxed our powers of description, we said things like:
"A Finnish drug thing you wouldn't understand."
"Lo-fi, low-key freakout."
"Imagine a cross between Circle and Thuja."
"Imagine Hawkwind or Acid Mothers Temple locked in a cave with broken instruments."
"Installments from some massive on-going jam still happening right now... outdoors under the ever-dark winter sky."
"Slow, meandering, very stoned ambient psych jamming to the max."
"Imagine if you had neighbors who lived below you in a WWII bunker and all they did all day was listen to certain Fushitsusha albums, this is what you might hear through the floor."
Now, all six of those cd-r's have been out of print for some time now. But Doktor Kettu's spacey jamming is indeed on-going, and now they're back with a brand new disc, Soft Delirium, and ALL our lines quoted above could easily apply, again. This time it's a real cd, not a cd-r, from Super-Metsa, a division of our friend Jussi's Ektro label that brings us so much stuff by his band Circle and other strange treats. In the typical Doktor Kettu tradition, there's but three long tracks on this disc, each of them an extended, wandering journey through darkness and light. The twelve minute, 44 second "Wulff" which opens the disc, billows forth, amplifier hum and droning chords riding abstract waves of percussive tinkerings to eventually unleash some seriously dense, distorted muzz. Someone's having a Tokyo Flashback, even though these guys are from Finland! Track two, "Triggeri" (9:56) is a bit gentler. Rather pretty, reminding us a bit of Circle's exquisite Miljard. Quiet music you'll want to play loud. And then the disc's third and final track "Kosmonaut", provides even more brooding ambience, exhibiting the ominous, twilight moodiness of another AQ fave, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. It's over seventeen minutes long, but for us that's barely long enough. These pale rumblings, with surges of percussive texture and slow, slow hints of melody, could flow on endlessly and we'd be forever entranced...
We've definitely said it before, but it bears repeating. As much as we love endless squalls of black buzz, long drawn out low end drones, noise of every stripe, and music that is less music and more SOUND, we do love SONGS. And bands who write songs. Kick ass super rocking songs. When we step back and observe objectively, it's strange how few 'rock bands' there are. Guitars, bass, drums, verses, choruses, and yeah, we know that's not nearly enough, but when a band like that has the chops and more importantly THE SONGS to back it up, then holy shit, look out.
We heard Double Dagger for the first time on Thrill Jockey's Record Store Day release Records Toreism (of which we have a very few copies left!), we described their song as "kick ass, super distorted, howly, drum heavy, bass heavy, arty, angular, crunchy, almost a bit metal post punk", which we're happy to report is still the case on this, their debut full length.
A chaotic, heady mix of all the things we love about math rock, post rock, noise rock, emo and screamo, equal parts Fugazi, Pavement and Fucked Up, a churning juggernaut of thick super distorted bass, pounding mathy rhythms and yowled vocals that definitely sound like the perfect mix of Ian Mackaye and Stephen Malkumus, and yeah, NO guitars, not that you'd ever notice, the bass is massive, thick and undulating, sometimes dripping with crumbling distortion, other times as clear as a bell, definitely reminiscent of Lightning Bolt's Brian Gibson, but way more indie rock. And the songs, awesome, super mathy and complex, weirdly dense and convoluted, but with hooks galore, totally takes us back to the nineties glory days of this sort of sound, and reminds us how awesome music can be when it IS more than just cool sounds. And these songs have been lodged in our heads like crazy since we first got this in, and it's obvious from listening to these guys rock, how amazing they must be live, wild and sweaty and blown out and fun as fuck. Which pretty much perfectly describes More.
Sometimes it's hard to believe that certain records just go out of print. I mean who would let the Conet Project go out of print, or Souled American, or the Incredible String Band. It's even weirder when the record is not old or obscure. Then it's usually some bureaucratic red tape or major label bullshit that keeps people from hearing some great record. Such is the case with the second, ultimate release from San Diego's Drive Like Jehu, originally released on Interscope in 1994. A record Allan and Andee and Jim and Sadie and Windy and quite possibly the rest of the AQ staff would rank as one of the best rock records ever! Easily as good/important as Slint's Spiderland. For those who don't know, Drive Like Jehu was fronted by John Reis of Rocket From The Crypt (who has now reissued Yank Crime on his own Swami label) and featured vocalist Rick Farr (his rock name, he's also known as Eric Froberg) who later went on with Reis to play in the Hot Snakes. Drive Like Jehu also just happened to have one of the tightest rhythm sections EVER. E V E R! Yank Crime is a tightly wound record of 'post rock' (before post rock meant watered down instrumental indie rock bullshit) with head nodding, repetitive grooves, propulsive, ultra concise drumming, and some of the most inventive guitar playing we've ever heard. All topped off with Farr's distinctive high pitched vocals (familiar to all you folks who dig the Hot Snakes) The songs are looooong and hypnotic but never boring. The band locks into totally intense, static grooves, that can go on for minutes before exploding into mayhemic bursts of controlled fury. So goddamn good. Anyone who likes the Hot Snakes MUST own this record. Drive Like Jehu is like a hyper charged, heavier, more intense and complex, MUCH BETTER Hot Snakes. Anyone who likes Feuhler or Don Cab or Slint or Engine Kid or almost any post rock will discover what all those other comers had been shooting for. This is IT. Trust us. An automatic AQ "record of the week" selection as soon as we heard it was finally being re-released -- with three bonus tracks to boot! ("Bullet Train To Vegas" and "Hand Over Fist" from their Merge label 7", and the original version of "Sinews" from a Cargo/Headhunter compilation.) So even if you have the original you might want to get this reissue for those.
The return of Ukrainian black metal legends Drudkh! In the past, the Ukraine have given us Hate Forest and Nokturnal Mortum and Astrofaes and Lucifugum and so many more, but Drudkh somehow always manage to overshadow their blackened brethren, their sound transcendent and otherworldly, at once grim and frosty and black, but at the same time timeless and epic and majestic and melodic. Few black metal bands could release an all acoustic folk record, and imbue it with the same sort of intensity and emotion, but Drudkh did just that with Songs Of Grief And Solitude, a folk record that one might assume would most definitely not appeal to metalheads, but we've yet to meet a black metal freek who didn't also love that record. Definitely speaks to the band's power and originality and energy.
Something strange seems to be going on currently with Drudkh and their catalog though (or maybe with Drudkh and their old label Supernal), all of their previous records are currently out of print and unavailable, which makes the arrival of Microcosmos even more timely. Continuing on from where the brilliant Estrangement left off, the sound of Drudkh is a dizzying blend of old world folk music, melodic metal, and of course grim buzzing blackness. The record begins with a brief bit of baroque court music, some old school folk, all buzzing strings and simple percussion, Eastern melodies and warm wheezing textures, before the second song kicks in with a flurry of frenetic buzz and wildly blasting drums, the main guitar immediately unfurling a totally epic and timeless sounding melody. The band establishing in a matter of seconds that they have returned, and all other black minions must bow down or be smote. The nearly ten minute epic is packed with twists and turns, as we described Drudkh songs in a past review, an epic sonic journey, from soaring washed out melodic whir, to howled blasting fury, to woozy mid tempo grooves laced with heart rending minor key melodies, stretches of Deathspell-ish gnarled riffage, even a drifty acoustic interlude, with steel string guitars, weird bits of buzz and fragmented riffage and some scraped atonal bass, before lurching back into a blown out Godspeedian majestic black coda.
And so it goes for the whole record. Four songs, all hovering around ten minutes, the guitars intense and massive, the melodies and arrangements so unlikely but so perfect. Strip away the buzz and take away the vocals, and this would be some super dense tripped out folk flecked post rock epic, but as it is, Microcosmos is next level black metal, their naturalist vibe is totally present, the songs and sounds organic and lush, evocative of forests and fjords, of grey skies and snow covered mountains, but the magic most definitely lays in the songs, even the harshest heaviest parts are impossibly melodic, and even the pretty parts often splinter into total buzz drenched chaos. The bass is all over the place (a rarity in the realm of black metal), throbbing and pulsing, adding melodic counterpoint as often as it does texture and ambience, the vocals appropriately harsh and howled, but really, they seem to just merge with the music, a gorgeously blackened metal that easily slips from relentless blasting, to Burzumic plod, to seasick lurch, all blended into a sound that while on the surface is most definitely black metal, is ultimately a strain of blackness that could only be Drudkh.
In the past we've mentioned the bands possibly problematic politics, but recently the band issued a statement to the effect that the absence of lyrics and information, the no photos, no interviews, no website policy is purposeful, and this dearth of information is what led some folks to posit that the band espoused ideals in line with the NSBM movement, when in fact, the band claim to be apolitical, and to promote "individualism, self-improvement and estrangement from modern values." So there.
Latest from Encomiast, a long time aQ fave, whose expansive mysterious dark drones have never failed to blow us away, but this is not just a new album, it's a sprawling double disc concept record split between two separate groups, and recorded in one of the most haunted buildings in Colorado. The story behind this record revolves around the Belvedere Theater in Central City, Colorado, a group of musicians repeatedly visited with the idea of capturing EVP (aka electromagnetic voice phenomena), where else but an extremely haunted old theater would one be able to capture the voices of the dead, but alas, no such sounds were discovered or captured, BUT, the musicians did manage to record, and those recordings were reworked into the two discs found here. The first is by Encomiast, the second is by a group called The Copper Thieves, which is Encomiast along with members of Mandible Chatter. Both discs conjure up the dark spirit of that theater, each in its own way.
The Encomiast disc is downright frightening, all creaking moaning low end, deep ominous rumbles, all manner of tiny sounds drifting up out of the inky blackness, cold and sinister, abstract and ephemeral, the sounds of the theater's busted up old grand piano, smeared into blurred atonal clouds of clustered notes, the overtones drifting like lost specters, voices moan and bellow, the natural room sound as much an instrument as anything else, these deep dark drones totally evoke the spirit of that haunted space, headphone required, to truly get lost, and submerge yourself in these seemingly bottomless sounds.
The Copper Thieves disc is not nearly as minimal, but just as ominous and haunting, the piano again plays a big part, but the notes are distorted and blurred into a massive warm wall of softly crumbling sound, which gives way to a strange haunted house of thumps and creaks and glitches and disembodied voices, groaning layers of low end thrum, soft filed of overtones overlap chiming bells, pounded notes on the piano drift up from below like monstrous growls, the disc finishing of with long tones, that seem to glow, warm and almost sun dappled, as if capturing shafts of light, drawing delicate lines on the dusty floor, and illuminating the snowflake like motes drifting in the still air.
Both discs are fantastic, darkly evocative, and gorgeously droney, for fans of Lustmord, Andrew Chalk, Jonathan Coleclough, Troum, Organum and other droning denizens of the dark...
LIMITED TO ONLY 200 COPIES, a double cd-r housed in a textured cardboard box, hand stamped on the outside with two printed inserts featuring liner notes and photos.
Brand new record from this Finnish aQ fave, every new album a slowly blossoming mystery in sound, whether it's manipulated chunks of old vinyl, rickety campfire psychedelia, or expansive soundscapes of delicate crystalline shimmer. Es is the musical monicker of Sami Sanpakkila, who also plays in some other aQ Finnish favorites, most notably Kemialliset Ystavat and Kiila, and who is often joined by various members of the ever shifting and constantly collaborating Finnish underground community.
Kesamaan Lapset seems to be a record composed and performed entirely on keyboards and synthesizers, the opening track is a gloriously sun dappled chunk of skittery sunshiney new age synths, lush swoonsome swells of fuzzy whir, tinkling little melodies, and soft tangles of squiggly glitches, looped and chopped, like a more kinetic caffeinated Oval. The follow up begins with some circusy lo-fi keyboard melodies, that get more and more dense and intricate before the vocals swoop in, super effected and lush, wrapped in delay and reverb, ghostly and otherworldly, drifting lazily and dreamily over the softly chaotic jumble of tones and melodic fragments, managing to be pretty and soft, but fractured and off kilter at the same time.
The first of the two long tracks is a slow building dronescape, thick swells of warm lush organ whir, beneath delicate spidery piano melodies, the whole thing growing ever brighter and more insistent, various keyboards beginning to stutter and skitter creating all manner of incidental rhythms before finishing off in a dense swirl of hissy soft focus drift.
The 21 minute title track is all woozy dream pop, female vocals, over a constantly undulating bed of looped pianos and swirling synths, male vocals offer up some unlikely harmonies, horns slowly surface as do gauzy clouds of effects, before transforming into a deep, dark, almost brooding bit of keyboard driven drift, replete with all manner of Oval like digital glitch, warbly and underwater sounding, super hypnotic and intense, eventually giving way to a strange bit of majestic fanfare before fading out in a brief blur of warm abstract melody.
The final brief track is a buzzed out coda, all electronic glitchery, fuzzy drones, plonked electric piano, howled vocals buried in the mix, tons of grit and texture, buzz and whir, like a way more abstract Animal Collective.
Certainly a bit different than any of the other Es releases, but in its own warm and warped, tripped out and twisted way, a logical extension of Es's ever expanding soundworld. And we dig it.
As always, the packaging is super cool full color 4 panel gatefold, with some amazing childhood photos, printed insert with more cool art and liner notes, and a gold and white printed obi.
Third missive from our new favorite modern ambient space rock / krautrocky outfit. As if there were even any other contenders. These guys (or this guy rather) came out of nowhere and just blew our fucking minds. Expo '70, aka Justin Wright, has, over the last few months. given us two full lengths of gloriously dreamy kraut infused dronemusic, looped cyclical guitars, thick waves of smeared riffs and muted murky FX. A heavier, dronier take on Eno, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel. This latest transmission from the deepest reaches of the Expo '70's universe, is by far the heaviest and most aggressive sounding yet, as if they decided to give the boys in SUNNO))) and Earth a run for their money. But this is not just some massive slab of caveman sludge, instead this is an ominous soundworld of thick coruscating waves of grinding low end guitar fuzz, roiling and churning, but with a propulsive inner pulse, like some lost Ash Ra jam dipped in tar, and launched into the ether. Or if the other two Expo '70 records were the sounds of drifting weightlessly through space, the stars a distant shimmer, everything muted and slowly shifting, like some huge black expanse of water, Center Of The Earth is the sound of the sky buckling, the galaxy fracturing, of being sucked into some mysterious other universe, a subterranean world beneath our visible existence, murky and turbulent, a darkness impenetrable except for a few swirling swaths of grey light, quickly tangled up in the dark, the endless drift into a black hole, the sound a reverberating whir, a massive resonant hum that thickens and intensifies, until you can feel the drone in your bones, every cell in your body vibrating sympathetically, until you slip into glorious blackness. The final track is like the aftermath, your ship a ruined wreckage, floating through the sky, just another piece of debris in a sky full of memories and regrets and ruin, a drifting blissed out space rock riff beneath abstract streaks of psychedelia, wrapped in a gauzy film, the rays of some alien sun lighting up the sky and wrapping you in warm shadows. So gorgeous.
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What more to say about Justin Wright and his Expo 70 that we haven't already? Every record so far a deep dense slab of drifting droning outer space krautdrone heaviness. And this 22 minute single song ep is no exception.
Taking the glacial downtuned rumble of SUNNO))), and sending it spinning into the outer reaches of the galaxy, Wright crafts another expansive psychedelic, smoldering downtuned dronescape, merging a blissy dreaminess with a seriously caustic heaviness, the two blend and blur into one single epic long form drone, flecked with delicate melodies, constantly shifting textures, overtones surfacing all over the place, the entire track a single heaving organic whole, throbbing and pulsing and whirring and rumbling, if they decided to remake Cosmos (how could you without Carl Sagan?!?!?) updated and modernized, this would be the soundtrack for all of the various and glorious goings on in the universe, exploding supernovas, births of planets, swirling black holes, this is the sound of blackness extending into space, spreading out endlessly, forever and forever.
Gorgeous and breathtaking, Expo 70 is definitely creating some of the most gorgeous dronemusic we've ever heard. And Ostara is yet another fantastic addition to Wright's stunning, and constantly expanding body of work.
LIMITED TO 102 COPIES. Comes in a mini plastic sleeve, with a diecut triangular insert that folds out into a pyramid. Cool!
We get sent a ton of stuff to check out. And it's awesome, truly, So much amazing music to discover, but at the same time it's so overwhelming. But every once in a while a record pops up that makes it all worth while. Such is the case with this disc from these Italian weirdos Father Murphy. What makes it even cooler is that this record, and this band, are SO hard to describe.
It's a bit like folk, a little bit like post punk math rock, a little avant noise, but stripped way down into something skeletal, they definitely sound a little bit like one of the new breed of freak folk psych folk cd-r outfits, but at the same time, they sound like NOTHING you've ever heard. Detuned guitar plod, spaced out rhythmic thump, lots of deep shimmery ambience and FX drenched drifts, wavery falsetto crooning, warbly organs, and the occasional bursts of feral yowling, wow. Unhinged, fractured, freaky, passionate, super intense and awesome.
In discussing Father Murphy, other reviewers have mentioned Robert Wyatt, This Heat, Samla Mamas Manna, we also hear plenty of Marc Ribot in the guitars, all angular and off kilter, there's also some mysterious female vocals that surface here and there, field recordings, crickets, birds, all beneath weepy mournful Morricone-ish twang, a sound both woozy and ominous, dreamy and dense, a glorious deathlike dirge, part Dirty Three, part fluttery forest folk, a little wheezy organ dirge pop, some slooooooowed down Blonde Redhead, like we said this is super hard to describe. but what we do know is we love it. And you will do, if your tastes run toward the dark, the dolorous, the mysterious, the haunting, the dirgey and the deathlike.
Incredible packaging. The cd housed in a die cut multi layered fold over sleeve, that housed in a thick outer vellum jacket so the images on the inner sleeve are just visible through the blurred finish of the outer sleeve.
VERY LIMITED!
More crushing slo-mo heaviness from right here in SF... For a while it seemed like most of the bands we were hearing ooze out of the Bay Area tended toward the psychedelic (Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, etc), or at the the other end of the spectrum, the abstract and avant, but SF has a rich history of extreme heaviness as most music obsessives are well aware, and recently, there seems to be yet another heaving, pummeling wave of misanthropic metallic crush burbling to the surface, Prizehog for one, a killer 3 piece, drums guitar and synth, who we dug so much we had play our South By Southwest showcase, and they did in fact lay waste. And now Flood, another band that seem to have a little Harvey Milk in 'em, which is NEVER a bad thing. A sludgey, doomy, lugubrious crawl, lots of space, chords sprawling and ringing out, the drums a sporadic pound, the song almost skeletal, until the band lock in and PULVERIZE.
The weird thing about Flood, is that even at their heaviest, they still sound a little dreamy, a little blissed out, the sound more woozy and washed out and warm than jagged and sharp, but somehow that doesn't at all take away from their power. What it does more than anything, is add a space rocky psychedelic element, sometimes subtle, other times more overt, but always seemingly present.
The vocals bellow, wreathed in clouds of reverb and delay, the songs groove, but slowly, dizzily, the band tight, but able to sound loose. There are long stretches of blissed out minimal shimmer, some cool, moody mathy breakdowns, even some abstract ambience with waves crashing, wind, bird call, but all woven into Flood's tripped out, doom-ed stoner space sludge. Killer stuff. For anyone who digs, Sleep, Om, Harvey Milk, Prizehog, Melvins, Wildildlife, Like A Kind Of Matador, Zoroaster, Electric Wizard and all those sorts of spaced out heavies.
Found just a few of these lurking in our closet, that we hadn't listed, though they've been here since 2007. It's this mournful but rockin' Italian band's most recent release, though, and if you're looking for some sheer blackened doomic metal this disc is still quite potent. 58 minutes, 5 songs of dark depressiveness that quite befits the name Forgotten Tomb, their songwriting taking a variety of twists and turns along the way. Sounding like a black n' roll Katatonia at the start, they then experiment with some more avant-garde Slint-y bits on other tracks, and also allow vocalist "Herr Morbid" to switch between the wretched raspings typical of black metal to a clean vocal style for some of these songs. Fans of Lifelover could do well to check this out, it's in a similar vein, perhaps deliberately so.
Killer debut from this French one man post rock outfit, whose sound definitely leans toward Jesu and Nadja and that sort of fuzz drenched dirginess. From the first few second of the opening track, the 'band' launches into a blissed out hazy drift, programmed drums pound out a hypnotic beat, the guitars swirl, wreathed in thick crumbling fuzz, and then the vocals, holy cow, they sort of seal the deal as far as Jesu-ness is concerned, a dead ringer for Justin Broadrick's reverb drenched soft croon.
If anything, imagine a more laid back, driftier dreamier Jesu, which sounds like a very good thing, and it is. The songs to get chunky and riffy launching into stretches of muscled metallic pound, and just as often the sound slips into super minimal drones, whether it's synths or guitars, it's difficult to tell, but the end result is the same, warm fuzzy rumbles and blissed out murky whir. Then the drums kick in, then the vocals, and the sound is squarely back in Jesu / Nadja territory.
Folks looking for something totally original, that they've never ever heard before, might fight Fragment a little frustrating, but for anyone who loves THAT sound, the blissed out shoegazey metallic post rock shimmer of Jesu, or the distorted drenched dream doom of Nadja, and wants more more more, and might even like that sound even more if it were softer and prettier, well then Fragment will definitely hit the spot.
A perfect collection of late night drifting-off soft metallic drift. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Probably the last copies we'll be able to get...
What's that? A whole disc of unreleased vintage Funkadelic jams?? You don't gotta say that twice, we're on it like Michael Phelps on any passing bong. Yep, we were pretty excited when this showed up here, as Funkadelic are one of our favoritest bands ever. Early '70s psychedelic funk rock genius, y'know. If you're not already hip to the whole Parliament-Funkadelic "thang" (which we don't have room to properly enthuse over here), this wouldn't be the first disc of theirs to get, though it would certainly whet your appetite to hear more. If you want our advice, noobs should pick up Maggot Brain and Up For the Down Stroke and a few other "actual" P-Funk albums first, before getting Toys. For folks who are already fans, though, we heartily recommend this disc to y'all!!
Toys features four songs with vocals and five live-in-the-studio instrumentals, the best of which really let Funkadelic axemaster Eddie Hazel show off his Jimi Hendrix inspired wah-wah wailin'. There's alternate (slower, heavier, harder) versions of "You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure" (herein called "Heart Trouble") and "The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg" (sans vocals) which appeared on later Funkadelic and Parliament records, respectively. Other tracks, like the nearly 11 minute long "Slide On In", are total (and totally badass) improvs. Though not all are so extended, to wit the brief laidback goof "2 Dollars & 2 Dimes". Meanwhile, poppier, songi-er fare includes "Talk About Jesus" (a gospel-ly tune, duh) and "Stink Finger", a bright and sunny number, which you might not guess from its title. Now, we'll admit this buried treasure ain't all gold, one of the lesser tracks here to our ears would be the just a bit too straight jazzy "Magnifunk", though this keyboard-led jam does get wilder as it goes on. But Funkadelic's throwaways are still way better than most other bands' best stuff, of course.
Also this includes an alternate "karaoke" version of the throbbing freakfunk classic from Maggot Brain, "Wars Of Armageddon", the original of which probably inspired half of that Wicked Witch album we highlighted recently. And another reason to buy Toys is for the bonus mpeg video clip, a 16mm promo film shot for "Cosmic Slop" featuring the band in outlandish outfits frolicking in the streets of New York City circa 1971. Wow. It's about the coolest thing ever. What a bunch of groovy freaks!!
Can't imagine true Funkadelic fans not wanting this. We only wish could dig up even more from the Westbound vaults! And it's nicely packaged with colorful graphics, and lengthy, enlightening liner notes by P-Funk expert Peter Bowman.
Not sure how we first heard about Gnaw Their Tongues, pretty sure a customer recommended them, but believe us when we say that the words Gnaw Their Tongues had barely left their lips (or maybe more accurately, the words had barely left the email and reached our cerebral cortex) and we were already smitten. How could they not rule with a name like that? The question was merely HOW they would rule, dark and creepy? Heavy and harsh? Doom? Blacknoise? Drone? Howabout all of those?! Oh yeah, it's almost like someone snuck into the AQ barracks in the middle of the night to scan our minds and see what kind of bands we dreamed about, the bands our subconscious really wished existed.�
They took all the data back to their lair, the one hidden beneath that big scary mountain, and spent years analyzing it, and creating equations, chemicals, compounds, months in an underground lab, until eventually the whole project was forgotten.�
Until years later, when a record store employee was hiking and discovered the ruins of some old, well, it looked like a fortress, maybe a lair, and decided, against all the wisdom gleaned from a million after school specials, to explore. Way down deep in the dusty recesses of this old forgotten lair, this record store feller discovered some sort of portal, rusted shut it seemed, and adorned with messages in some strange language, an alien tongue if you will, they looked like warnings, but what the heck, shit like that only happens in horror movies, so the feller went about trying to unlock the portal, and after what seemed like ages, the lock clicked, and the rusty metal swung open, and suddenly all was blackness, and dripping red, and agony and misery, and hell embodied on earth, in the form of this filthy black musick.�
That filthy black musick was this, the first recorded document by these mysterious black beasties known as Gnaw Their Tongues. Who spew forth a caustic noxious ultradoom. A black metallized lurch and stumble, harsh, hellish vocals buried beneath an avalanche of corrosive guitar, strange alien ambience, and mechanical monster drumming. Horrible and grotesque and dizzyingly brutal, but with tiny vestiges of beauty and melody, occasionally visible through the dense black sonic fog. Stretches of distorted doom verging on the beautiful, separating gut wrenching squalls of utter black chaos. And that's just the first track.�
The second is like the first, only fast. Really fast. Like sticking your head into the middle of a lightning storm. Like Velvet Caccoon and Wold and Amacoma all playing simultaneously, at full volume, broadcast through Konono's PA, untiil your ears bleed, but it's not all pain and suffering, this� whirling world of sound is again strangely melodic, twisted into some almost pop like shapes, but always quickly bathed in blackness and sent spinning� back into the fray.�
"29 Needles" is a step away from the end, and is some sort of industrial plod, a garish landscape of bleak brutality, sparse ultradistorted percussion, clouds of caustic whir, creepy ghostlike voices, the sort of sounds that make Wolf Eyes sound like the Carpenters. A musical death march through a world of fire and death and destruction, of keening musical misery and downtuned sonic punishment.�
Finally, the prophecy is complete with once the sounds of "Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen" reach the ears of mortal man. The plants wither and the sky grows dim, our hearts beat slower and our blood begins to boil, the earth begins to crack, and slowly we sink into the depths of the underworld, and this is the sound that the end of all things makes. A lonely slowed down low end caterwaul, a rumbling whir peppered with jagged streaks of harsh noise, thick swells of coruscating sonic malevolence, storm clouds of hiss and buzz, a pounding skull splitting din from the heavens, an electrical storm that singes every nerve in your body, leaving you paralyzed, supine, blind, and mute, with only your ears ringing painfully, just barely able to make out the dying gasps of life as we know it.
When the opening tune of Nevermint kicks off, we were immediately struck by its remarkable Pixies-ness. Clearly that venerable band's impact has been mighty on Grand Lake. It resurfaces often on this their debut album. That has its up side and its down side. You get a immediate sense of familiarity which might be a plus if you dig the Pixies. On the other hand, they run the risk of swift dismissal with folks who don't like those rock vets or soundalike bands in general. Funnily enough though, that particular song's title is "Concrete Blonde On Blonde"(!). So we were sort of expecting them to sound like... umm, Johnette Napolitano or Bob Dylan, but no. Fortunately it is actually on the numbers where Mr. Black and co.'s influence is less apparent that these Oaklanders (led by former Port O'Brien singer/bassist Caleb Nichols) really shine brightest, melting into some delightful hazy daydreamy indie pop with warm boy-girl vocal harmonies. Check out "Blue Hoodie". We're only half kidding when we say we'd prefer that they lay off the Pixiestix, heh heh, and dish out more of their own honey pop sweetness. Recommended if you like Caribou, Loney, Dear, and/or fellow Bay Area pop band The Papercuts who also have a terrific new album out now! They go together really well!
The Grey Wolves, a British industrial, provocateur duo, has been in operation since the mid-'80s, presenting themselves with a patchwork of antisocial, right-wing images under the pretense of a critique against contemporary cultural paradigms. They make the case that if they can get anyone in their audience to "think" about the political implications that run amok through daily life, then their antagonism through Nazi imagery, Osama Bin Laden t-shirts, poses of sexual domination, and even their name (a Turkish right-wing political movement responsible for hundreds of murders in the '70s and '80s) are justified. Unlike Throbbing Gristle and Laibach whose irony and wit are self-evident in their darkened theatrics, The Grey Wolves play fast and loose with all of these allusions; and more often than not, they stand as sympathizers to right-wing causes rather than as cultural critics.
Given how much of black metal aligns itself with the far right and how some of those bands can kick-ass in spite of their politics, we can't wholly denigrate The Grey Wolves on their questionable politics attempting to disguise themselves as art. This is doubly so considering that the reissue of Judgement is a pretty great document of tape damaged, lo-fi murk and rumbling noise. Hospital merely states that Judgement was originally released "in the late 20th Century," but given that the Grey Wolves had yet to adopt the post-Whitehouse aesthetic of power electronics found on their '90s recordings, we can safely say this was one of their earliest documents from the mid-'80s. The blown out 4-track recordings enjoy a crackling, ominous hiss which accompanies plenty of lo-fi crumpled rhythms and minor-key melodies sculpted out of feedback. While certainly snarling and nasty, many of these sounds could easily transition into any of more abrasive moments from turntablists like Philip Jeck or Gum. The Grey Wolves were gifted in terms of sound construction; and this album is thankfully devoid of any overt political statement. If only the rest of their catalog had such foresight.
Most of you weird music obsessives should probably remember Dutch black ambient freaks Stalaggh, whose MO was creating harsh atonal drones and buzzes, hellish noise drenched soundscapes as backdrops for various vocalists, those vocalists all inmates at a local psychiatric hospital. Yup.
The results were chilling, and creepy, and pretty fucking demented and incredible. Those Stalaggh recordings made even the evilest black metal sound totally tame in comparison. Some seriously emotional, demented and damaged, psychological sonic terror.
Since then, the band has regrouped, now called Gulaggh, with a similar plan of attack, with one little twist, according to the band, Gulaggh will be about "the perversion and inversion of Classical music combined with the vocals of the mentally insane". Definitely sounds good. Or maybe good is not the right word. But like Stalaggh, it seemed like Gulaggh would be equally disturbing.
So here it is. One track, 45 minutes, of totally haunting, mysterious... music? Sound? Soundart? Hard to know how to classify this. The sound of a voice, reverbed, over a deep distant thrum, all wrapped in little bits of hiss and creak, long tones rumble and drone, and then the voices begin to surface, mewling and moaning, groaning and mumbling, all over an insidious low end thrum, horns bleat, various bits of percussion pound scrape, and still the various voices get louder, more and more frenzied, the overall vibe ever more terrifying. The sound does seem to get classical, but more like an orchestra tuning up, abstract tones and atonal bleats and blurps, and then things go fucking apeshit, with all the vocalists, shrieking and screaming and howling, pounding on walls, stomping on floors, the cries growing more and more anguished, then out of nowhere some random drumming comes in, just in the middle of this cacophony of howls and shrieks, building to a frantic climax, before the voices begin to fade, swirling screams, sounding more like kids on a playground, but still intense knowing these aren't kids and they aren't on the playground. The horns step it up, honking and skronking and bleating and moaning, the drums skittering to a halt, then it's a weird fade out, quite voices, humming and murmuring and squeaking beneath the slowly fading horns, streaks of feedback, and that commanding, authoritarian voice from the beginning returns, the track ending how it started.
Holy shit, definitely super intense, and squirm inducing, somewhere between abject black ambience, a horror movie soundtrack, an educational film, a field recording, and a smattering of stumbling musical experimentation. Freaky as all get out, but in it's harrowing miserablism, does lurk moments of beauty, bits of melody, but for the most part those are definitely overshadowed by the evil and misery and terror, that the maniacs in Gulaggh have somehow rendered into music. Or at least sound.
Reservedly recommended. Difficult listening of the highest order, but would definitely be right at home on your cd shelf next to the Conet Project, the Ghost Orchid EVP recordings, and other mysterious and challenging collections of sounds found and otherwise.
Pentagram man in sleaze metal shocker! Big hair, bullet belt, snakeskin boots. Sometimes (all the time) you just can't beat good ol' skool heavy metal, '80s style! This reissue is just that, authentic underground '80s metal, recorded circa '84 and '86, capturing the party time sleazy rock vibe of the big hair era, but with an extra doom twist, so while arena Ozzy is one influence, Witchfinder General is another. And Pentagram, definitely Pentagram. That's 'cause this Joe Hasselvander fella is best known as the longtime drummer for those American doom metal legends. (His other claim to fame: since the late '80s, he's also been the drummer for NWOBHM stalwarts Raven.) He was a member of Pentagram for years and years (until recently), in particular a crucial member of the band when they were but a duo, he and wizened vocalist Bobby Liebling together creating Pentagram's comeback classics Review Your Choices (1999) and Sub-Basement (2000), Hasselvander playing not only drums but guitar and bass as well on those albums, as well as penning a good portion of the material! (Reissues of which are back in stock this list by the way.)
So, anyone into Pentagram should be curious about the solo material Hasselvander recorded back in the '80s, and your curiosity will be rewarded if you pick up this disc... it rocks! And demonstrates again that he's a talented multi-instrumentalist, metal songwriter, and a pretty decent singer as well.
It's basic, heavy, fun stuff that's stick-in-your-head catchy. Track 4, "Loud Enough", was echoing 'round my brain for days after first spinning this - you know when you start thinking of a song, your humming it without knowing it, but can't figure out what it is? Listening to as much music as we do here at AQ, that happens now and then, and it took a while before I was able to identify the chorus occupying my mind as being from that song, and this disc.
There's 16 tracks total on this disc, consisting of the Lady Killer lp from 1984 and the Roadkill sessions from '86. Plus, there's two bonus tracks. One's a live recording circa 1979 from another Hasselvander band, Overlord. And then another a live track, "The Ghoul", performed by Death Row (aka Pentagram) from 1982, with Bobby L. on vox of course, another reason for Penta-fans to get this.
The Roadkill material comes first on the disc, probably a good thing 'cause it sounds much better - though all of this has raw sound quality, the budget production of Ladykiller material is especially fuzzed and frazzed with distortion, sounding more like a demo than Roadkill does, even though Roadkill was a demo (later issued on vinyl in the late '90s), while Ladykiller was an actual release in '84.
Apparently Lady Killer was originally intended as an exploito-metal project, supposedly to be an all-girl band a la Girlschool. But when the female singer hired for the session failed to show up, Joe had to sing instead, with no prior vocal experience. He also played all instruments except lead guitar. Universally panned upon release, it's got a bit of a cult status now... but the Road Kill material is stronger, Joe's vocals much improved (since he had a chance to practice 'em) consisting of 8 demo tracks, six by Joe and two by former Pentagram guitarist Victor Griffin. Songs from Road Kill like "Back Door Man" and "Under The Gun" seem like they could have been hits... in the '80s anyway. Kinda like early Twisted Sister, early Motley Crue, or early W.A.S.P (with that extra doomy vibe already mentioned). Heavy and hooky, meat and potatoes American metal, nothing too high falutin', but with tons of underground '80s metal atmosphere.
This is packaged with a thick cd booklet full of lyrics, liner notes from Joe, and vintage photos (including an unbelievably wasted lookin' pic of the now-deceased guy who played guitar on Roadkill, Jay Smith). Recommended to all heshers and headbangers!!
