Benny Nilsen is a man perfectly content living in the northern regions of Europe, having grown up in Sweden and living no further south than Berlin. For while the long nights of winter can gnaw at one's soul, the long days of summer are something to look forward to. If his collaborative albums with Stilluppsteypa were the existentially grim albums of drunken wintry behavior, then The Short Night is his portrait of the summer time dreaminess of sunflecked, arctic nights. Having been such champions of Nilsen's work back when he was recording as Hazard for Ash International, we find it a little strange that so many people have qualified The Short Night as 'dark.' True, if you were to compare this album to the lilting work of Colleen or even to fellow label mate Biosphere, The Short Night would appear quite dark; but in the context of Nilsen's entire discography, The Short Night is a dramatically colorful piece of work. Sure, Nilsen's sustained low frequencies and a few moments of growling noise do have their devilish undertones; but throughout the album, Nilsen punctures these impressionist clouds with elegant electronic chorales of ethereal melodies that are surprisingly beautiful for BJ Nilsen. There is a melancholy to Nilsen's work, but melancholy isn't always synonymous with dark, as is the case here. In many ways, Nilsen has found himself trekking into the territories previously ventured by Fennesz and Machinefabriek, creating a transcendent sound through the tension between shoegazing / drone-based driftwork and subtle discordant agitation. This record is highly, highly recommended!
Last year the Smalltown Supersound label clued a lot of lucky listeners outside of Japan into the wonders of the all-girl, uber rhythmic skronk rock groop Nisennenmondai, by reissuing the trio's Tori and Neji eps together on one cd (Heartworm then doing an lp version). That sure whet our appetite for more, and here it is!
Destination Tokyo starts off with a real choo-choo train of a track, "Souzousuru Neji", the crazy choo-choo threatening to go off the rails, propelled by nervous no wavey percussive jitter, feedback scraping around the edges of the beat. It's super repetitive, incessant, awesome. Part This Heat, part Liquid Liquid, part Children Coup d'Etat (a Japanese avant-rock band from the '90s, anyone remember 'em? We mention them 'cause of what sounds like a violin in the mix here). The track builds and builds for about 13 minutes, the bass pulsations protruding, the beats pounding harder, the whole thing getting denser and denser, intensifying until the sudden stop on a dime suck the air out of the room ending at about the 13 minute mark. Whew. Though then the Nisennenmondai girls pick it up again right quick with the chicken scratch groove of "Disco", another seemingly endless build up. That's their formula, and we sure dig it! Relentless high-hat, chiming and chirping guitars, layered and looping...
On this full-length, Nisennenmondai's music is still mostly instrumental (with the exception of the brief, a capella babytalk of track 3, "Miraabouru") but is presented with quite a bit LESS noise and distortion than on those two early eps, Nisennenmondai this time going for more of a spare, skeletal, minimalist sound, though still one that effortlessly builds and builds and builds to juggernaut proportions. It is much more "dancefloor" friendly, with song titles like "Disco" and "Mirrorball", not to mention the cover art, that must be the intention, but in a very motorik, krautrocky way. While "Souzousuru Neji" is probably the heaviest cut here, at the opposite end of the disc, the kosmiche synth wooshes and melodic loveliness that adorn the final, title track display Nisennenmondai at their calmest and krautrockiest, it's definitely one for fans of Neu! and Harmonia and the like. Heck this track could be Circle or Salvatore, playing at an ambient airport with planes and helicopters blissfully buzzing around. What is not to love???!
Elsewhere on this list you'll find our two favorite Nomeansno records, Wrong and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, both Records Of The Week, as they were destined to be, considering lots of us here consider those to be ALL time favorites, which makes it even weirder that some of those very same people had never even HEARD of Mama, also newly reissued.
Mama turns out to be the very first recordings from the brothers Wright, before they added a guitar player, total proggy mathy poppy rhythm section genius, even back then, in 1982! If you think Nomeansno sound weird by early nineties punk rock standards, imagine a band like that in Canada in the early eighties, playing local clubs or bars, people must have been very very confused. Cuz even in these early recordings, the band is pretty much fully formed, pulsing sinewy basslines, mathy complex drumming, and the same sort of strange sung spoken vocals, the same snarky vocals, but back then there was also a bunch of keyboards, which added another strange vibe to their sound. And the funk element was way more in play, a few tracks are definitely flat out funky, but even then, the band twist it all up into something unique, although nothing here is really punk rock exactly. It's a cool glimpse into the sounds and songs that would eventually get transformed into the post punk math prog juggernaut that NMN would eventually become.
We weren't sure what to think at first, but the more we listen to this, the more we're digging it. Tripped out, stripped down, sort of new wave. At least one of the tracks does get pretty fierce, and sounds like it could maybe be a demo for a track from the first record, "No Rest For The Wicked", fast and furious, buzzy, a little bit heavy, the bass already a force to be reckoned with, but then the track after sounds like some twisted cruise ship lounge band whatthefuck. Definitely confusing, but that's part of their charm.
The four bonus tracks are from a 7" that preceded the release of Mama, and feature guitar finally, as well as sax on one song, and an early version of "Forget Your Life" which would later show up in a different version on The Day Everything Became Nothing, but this is the raw, original lo-fi version, and again, it sounds surprisingly true to the final version, except for some wonky keyboards, that we almost wish they had included in the new version.
Cool stuff for sure, but definitely only for fans, mere dabblers should first pick up Wrong and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, but trust us, you shan't remain dabblers for long.
When reviewing a record you've had and treasured and loved for years, or decades, the pressure to do it justice is immense, so much so, that it seems almost impossible. But once in a while you gotta try. So here we go. Two of the MOST essential punk rock / post punk records ever, recently remastered and reissued, which gives us the opportunity to not only gush about records that have been on constant rotation since we were in our early twenties, records that totally changed the way we listened to music, but to also hopefully turn on the few folks who may have missed out, or who may not have even been alive when these records came out.
Nomeansno, from Canada, most folks know the name, but not everyone has actually heard these guys, but almost every single person we know who has, was never the same. The sound is super rhythmic and mathy, punk rock, but totally proggy as well, the focal point is on the bass and drums, manned by two brothers, Rob and John Wright, one of, if not THEE, tightest rhythm sections ever, the bass lines thick and throbbing and distorted, the drums chaotic but so tight and precise, the guitar, handled by a member who always remained unnamed - "Someone (but we're not sure who)" credited with "other things" on one record, or "none of your fucking business" on another - which is ironic cuz the guitar playing besides being BAD ASS was also so integral to the sound, they were a punk rock band after all. And the vocals, super high in the mix, dramatic, howled, crooned and yelped, melodic but raw and rough, sometimes sort of spoken, but always sharp tongued, spewing some of the best and funniest and intense lyrics. And as always, none of that would mean shit if the songs weren't great, and these songs are GREAT, so hooky and heavy and weird, a testament to these guys is that even the most obtuse tangled whatthefuck jam will stay lodged in your head forever.
Then there's the funky aspect, which we had planned to discuss at length, but listening to this again, the funkiness is implied, subtle, based entirely on the fact that almost all the songs are bass driven, and some are weirdly stripped down to just bass and drums and vocals, but this is not bullshit funky, this is elements of funk used the way they were meant to be, mixed into a churning, super complex, angular, jagged set of songs that manage to be both heavy and crushing and confusionally complex while still being poppy and hook filled and so goddamn catchy.
We tried to pick just one of these reissues to focus on, but eventually could only get it down to two, so both seemed like ideal candidates for Record Of The Week, especially considering that at least half of the folks here freaked the fuck out when we got these back in. We'll talk about each separately, but we have to suggest just buying both, you won't regret it, they're equally classic and timeless and heavy and catchy and far out and freaking awesome!
The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed is a compilation of sorts, collecting the album Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed from 1988 and The Day Everything Became Nothing 12" from that same year, but for most of us, these two have always been bundled together so The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed plays like one long, surprisingly cohesive record. And right out of the gate it's a killer, with the manic bass heavy groove of "The Day Everything Became Nothing", with crunchy guitar and over the top vocals, and a dense super tangled arrangement, and seconds after hearing it for the first time, we knew these guys were gonna be our new favorite band, and other punk rock bands were gonna have to step it up a notch. We could seriously go track by track, it's been long enough now that every single track here is seared into our brains, the kind of record where even the spaces between songs are part of the flow of the album, but we can definitely pick out a few highlights.
"Dark Ages" might just be one of our favorite songs ever, from its super mathy freaked out intro, to the loping hooky bass groove, the minimal guitar flourishes, the killer chorus, the super weird drum part, it's like some insane progged out punk rock opera crammed down into 5 minutes, just listen to the sound sample, if you're not smitten after this one, we might just have to give up on you! "And That's Sad" is a looping super complex rhythmic workout, with some cool, moody minor key breaks, that all gradually build right back up to the frenetic freakout that opened the track. If you slowed down "Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed", it would probably sound like Harvey Milk, a super spare, sludge-y stop start work out, that sounds like no other band at the time, or hell even now. "Victory" is a brooding drift of low slung bass, and muted tribal drumming, but as with all NMN, these long passages are separated by unbearably catchy choruses and here too, some tangled mathiness, that never seems showy or flashy or unreasonably complex, it's how these songs needed to sound, every part, no matter how weird or superfluous seeming, is perfectly places, and a few listens in no one could disagree. "Teresa, Give Me That Knife" is about as punk as these guys get, furious, frenetic, blasting drums, frantic guitars, with an insanely technical chorus, and a haunting creeped out prechorus, that is just as catchy as any other part of the track. And then there's "Real Love", most folks' favorite, a weird sort of heavy punk rock doom ballad, big crunchy guitars, long sprawling breakdowns, some crushing drumming, the chorus a lumbering almost waltz, with dramatic howled vox, which switch to a spoken croon in the 'verses', finishing off with a massive blown out super heavy sprawling outro, and again, the song, as unlikely as it maybe sounds on the surface, or with a glancing listen, is impossibly catchy, and somehow having heard it maybe hundreds of times, we're still not anywhere close to being sick of it.
Easily an all time, lifetime, desert island top 10 favorite for sure. And thus, just about as recommended as a record can be!
When reviewing a record you've had and treasured and loved for years, or decades, the pressure to do it justice is immense, so much so, that it seems almost impossible. But once in a while you gotta try. So here we go. Two of the MOST essential punk rock / post punk records ever, recently remastered and reissued, which gives us the opportunity to not only gush about records that have been on constant rotation since we were in our early twenties, records that totally changed the way we listened to music, but to also hopefully turn on the few folks who may have missed out, or who may not have even been alive when these records came out.
Nomeansno, from Canada, most folks know the name, but not everyone has actually heard these guys, but almost every single person we know who has, was never the same. The sound is super rhythmic and mathy, punk rock, but totally proggy as well, the focal point is on the bass and drums, manned by two brothers, Rob and John Wright, one of, if not THEE, tightest rhythm sections ever, the bass lines thick and throbbing and distorted, the drums chaotic but so tight and precise, the guitar, handled by a member who always remained unnamed - "Someone (but we're not sure who)" credited with "other things" on one record, or "none of your fucking business" on another - which is ironic cuz the guitar playing besides being BAD ASS was also so integral to the sound, they were a punk rock band after all. And the vocals, super high in the mix, dramatic, howled, crooned and yelped, melodic but raw and rough, sometimes sort of spoken, but always sharp tongued, spewing some of the best and funniest and intense lyrics. And as always, none of that would mean shit if the songs weren't great, and these songs are GREAT, so hooky and heavy and weird, a testament to these guys is that even the most obtuse tangled whatthefuck jam will stay lodged in your head forever.
Then there's the funky aspect, which we had planned to discuss at length, but listening to this again, the funkiness is implied, subtle, based entirely on the fact that almost all the songs are bass driven, and some are weirdly stripped down to just bass and drums and vocals, but this is not bullshit funky, this is elements of funk used the way they were meant to be, mixed into a churning, super complex, angular, jagged set of songs that manage to be both heavy and crushing and confusionally complex while still being poppy and hook filled and so goddamn catchy.
We tried to pick just one of these reissues to focus on, but eventually could only get it down to two, so both seemed like ideal candidates for Record Of The Week, especially considering that at least half of the folks here freaked the fuck out when we got these back in. We'll talk about each separately, but we have to suggest just buying both, you won't regret it, they're equally classic and timeless and heavy and catchy and far out and freaking awesome!
Wrong, from 1989, was the follow up to the life changing Small Parts album and The Day Everything 12" from the year before, and guess what, it too was life changing, managing to take the sounds and songs from the records before and make them heavier, more complex, more intense. The opener "It's Catching Up" is just so heavy and intense and brutal, the bass about as thick and distorted as it can get and still nail the flurry of rapid fire notes, the drums are devastating, not sure why this guy wasn't a drum god to all the aspiring drummers out there (although he was to Andee, who did get his autograph way back in the day), the guitars sharp and jagged, all wrapped around an insanely catchy hook, and somehow they manage to make it sound punk as fuck at the same time. "The Tower" might be our favorite here (amongst a record full of favorites), with its dirgey Black Flag vibe, more impossibly thick and distorted bass, and a weird staccato chorus, with one of the strangest and most anguished vocal parts ever, but so hooky, which leads right into a killer tangle of head spinning mathiness. Another favorite (like we said, they ALL rule), is "Rags And Bones", with easily one of the best bass lines ever, and some tangled complex drumming to go with it, some bizarre lyrics and a total pure pop chorus, of course doused in distortion and punked up a bit. "Brainless Wonder" is impossibly dense and heavy, like a skipping Black Flag record, before it slips into something a bit more groovy. "Two Lips, Two Lungs And One Tongue" is a short sharp blast of weird vocal / instrumental tangle, with the band locked into the repeated titular phrase. And then there's "All Lies" which is sort of the "Real Love" of Wrong, an epic punk rock prog rock sort-of-ballad, long sprawling moody breakdowns set between dense tribal math rock workouts, moving and emotional and dramatic, all building slowly to a killer super catchy stop start chorus.
Phew, we're just about gushed out. If you can't tell, we love this record A LOT, and The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed, both are easily all time favorites, desert island discs for you list making nerds, essential listening for anyone into punk rock, post punk, pop punk, heaviness, hookiness, great music... as we were listening to this again, Allan asked me why bands weren't good anymore, and I couldn't really think of an answer. Absolutely and totally and utterly recommended.
This remastered reissued has two bonus tracks from a 7" released by Mr Wrong, aka NMN bassist Rob Wright, which sound a whole lot like the record proper!
Not sure how we stumbled across this. And it seems foolish to state once again, in a review of a house music record we have been digging BIG TIME, that we don't in fact really like house music, so fuck it, we found a couple tracks by Omar S on some aQ pal's website, and were immediately blown away, apparently he's a bit of a big deal in the world of house music, from Detroit (obviously), and while most Fabric comps feature proper DJ sets, for this one, it's all him spinning his OWN tracks, which is just fine with us, we've been listening to this nonstop since we first got it in.
Needless to say, this is a variant of that kind of house music we DO like, super stripped down, minimal, skeletal, very Kompakt for sure, mostly just beats, wrapped around barely there loops, abstract melodies, tons of space, all about the pulse, just listen to "Strider's World", that's the track that sucked us in. It begins all crunchy and big beated, before mellowing out a bit, and then... what? The main rhythm is some looped video game sound (from the game Strider? We checked, being the nerds that we are, and it didn't seem like it), how rad is that? Draped over a skittery rhythm and a repeating minor key melody, it's only 4+ minutes, but we would have been psyched for it to be twice that long. Heck, we would have been happy if the whole 72 minutes was just that song, but it hardly matters, the rest of the disc is pretty much just as rad, bloopy and skittery and hypnotic. Hard to imagine people dancing to this stuff, but for chilling out, it's perfect, all blissed out and late night sounding, dreamy and totally mesmerizing. There are a couple tracks that get a bit to 'diva', but just skip those and the rest of the disc is pretty much flawless, and definitely one of our new favorites, and once again, has us reassessing our seemingly barely applicable anymore generally negative stance on house music...
Like all Fabric comps, comes in a cool metal box, wrapped in a printed slipcover. NICE.
Here it finally is. Oneida's loooooong promised TRIPLE album, itself part two in a trilogy of releases that appear to chronicle the long and epic history of Oneida itself. We're still trying to piece together a narrative, but judging by song titles like "Story Of O" and "O", not to mention the album title, the fact that the previous record was called Preteen Weaponry, and artwork that seems to imply the chronicling of said long and epic history, we're just going with our gut on this one. Either way, with a decade plus of mostly ups, Oneida have delivered what is arguably their best record yet, or at least since 2001's psychedelic mind fuck Anthem Of The Moon, and it's really one of the most challenging, out there, and overwhelmingly rad albums of the year. The greatest thing about this band is how they use psychedelia as a blueprint, reinterpreting it in the process, and twisting their tunes into something beyond simple classification. There's heaps of krauty goodness, ominous electro groove, strange dubbed out hellscapes, and bluesy psychedelic squall, but in the end Oneida sound unlike anyone else, not even themselves on their other records (though we won't neglect to mention that anyone digging the recent works of groups like Circle and Cave will find plenty to go crazy for with this one).
One of the most noteworthy things about Rated O is the truly astounding precision playing that keeps everything in place. Everyone in the band (now augmented by Shahin Motia of Ex-Models and long time collaborator Barry London) is an ace performer, but GODDAMN is drummer Kid Millions' sense of pure rhythm mind boggling. The patterns Kid creates are essential to holding it all together, and his cyclical drumbeats are definitely the kind of next level shit that we should all aspire to. Coupled with literally some of the best fuzzed out organ tones ever committed to tape (EVER) and plenty of amazing psych guitar work, Rated O rocks and sways in all kinds of different directions, and it goes without saying that over the course of almost two hours, Oneida have given themselves plenty of time to seer their super repetitive jams deep into every nook and cranny of your brain. Throughout it all, they never cease to surprise, amaze, and with one song in particular, completely terrify (more on that in a bit).
Rated O plays out like a long journey, with each disc representing specific elements of the diverse sound Oneida has forged over the years. The album begins with the uncharacteristic yet somehow totally appropriate "Brownout In Lagos," an electro-dub sort of number with a constant sub bass presence providing much of the movement as atmospheric noises swoosh about. When the awesome guest vocalist comes in you have to remind yourself that you are listening to Oneida as your eardrums are pounded into supplication. "What's Up Jackal?" sounds more like what you might expect from these guys, with feral, distorted howls and a bubbling, percussive organ accompanied by all kinds of synthy ambience and what sounds like an electric sitar. While they have no difficulty pounding out expansive drugged out numbers, this song perfectly displays Oneida's unique talent at creating tense, claustrophobic psych pieces that seem much more focused than anything that could be produced with mindless jamming. No doubt, the big surprise here is "The Human Factor," which pretty much succeeds at redefining "heavy". We almost couldn't believe what or who we were listening to, since this number is more what you might expect from Khanate of Fleshpress. The song begins with an impossibly slow, yet super tight drum pattern, which remains throughout the 13 minute song. The only other sound is provided by an electronic hum, and eventually creepy siren noises and the most HELLISH, completely out of control screaming we have heard in ages. We're still trying to figure out just how Oneida managed to create such an unsettling and awesome piece with so little, making most doom bands sound like Dan Fogelberg in comparison. This song obviously tested the limits of many folks, but if you are able to sit back and focus, you will find yourself marveling at the almost comedic yet totally fucked up intensity of it all.
Disc 2 is the most typically Oneida-sounding of the three, starting with the epic jam "The River." This song is very much in the vein of the material from "Each One Teach One," with awesome repetitive organ pulses and fuzzy guitars that are both heavy and beautiful. Things really take off with this song, as the majestic sustained guitar chords and somewhat mournful vocals add a good amount of emotion. "I Will Haunt You" follows into similar psychedelic territory with big MC5 guitars and a generally mountainous sound.
The final disc is the loosest and seemingly most improvised of the album, its three songs venturing farthest into the drug zone with their lumbering improvisational feel. Closing number "Folk Wisdom" is a huge 20 minute piece, perfectly sounding like the culmination of the entire record with its epic, growing intensity before ending with a queasy organ blip. If you've gone about things the right way, you will have listened to all of Rated O straight through, and you will wonder just what the hell hit you.
Double albums are often enough to scare the shit out of any discerning music fan, and triple albums are generally unheard of. But Oneida cannot be generalized in terms of what is going on now or in the past. They are one of the few bands that truly has found its own unique voice and has taken things into realms most bands would never consider. Rated O is a serious piece of work, maybe a little too intimidating for the casual listener, but enough to keep Oneida's rabid fanbase jonesing for part three of the trilogy.
Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never and one half of Infinity Window) has produced this bizarro DVD of visual esoterica culled from YouTube videos of '80s computer animation and straight-to-video clips with ghastly amounts of digital effects. Much of the imagery is familiar to anyone who grew up watching MTV and Night Flight in the early-to-mid '80s, although Lopatin's sources occasionally sport Cyrillic texts flashing across the screen, which may point to even more obtuse references from Russian television. Nonetheless, his aesthetic choices gravitate to those cathode ray / neon glows which seemed to grace the cover of every issue of Omni magazine and were also endemic to every single computer animation project freshly broadcast from the cable access station circa 1985. He takes snippets from these videos and loops them into mantras of a woman affectionately displaying the new fangled piece of technology known as as compact disc, an overlapping series of neon hexagons floating freely on blackened backdrop, spiral stairstepping patterns of glowing squares descending to oblivion, and an ultra-cheesy rainbow bridge wavering towards an gleaming city in the distance. There's one snippet which seems to be culled from a Hipgnosis video, although it's one we're not familiar with; but it's got many of the signatures of Hipgnosis -- a psychosexual reconfiguration of the human body (here a woman's hands seductively caress each other while water pours from above almost as if coming from the palms of her hands) and barren Dali-esque landscapes cobbled into modern architecture.
Like his Betrayed In The Octagon LP for No Fun, Lopatin constructs a soundtrack that is equal parts John Carpenter soundtrack, Richard Pinhas arppegiation, and Klaus Schulze cosmic tapestry. His glissandos of analogue synth bubble and glide with a cybernetic optimism that the world is going to be a much better place through the pursuit of technology. Lopatin does include two numbers based on samples from an '80s pop tune, sounding much like an Ariel Pink song both in its no-fi production and unsettled sentimentality.
A weird and wonderful collection! And yes, it's limited to something like 100 copies!!
Woah! Talk about an unexpected, yet killer collaboration. In this corner, arctic electronic experimentalists Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen (aka Pan Sonic), from Finland. In the other corner, blackclad Emily The Strange lookalike and psych guitar shaman Keiji Haino, from Tokyo, Japan. Both parties know a thing or two about manipulating electricity, noise, and drone. You'll hear plenty of that here, the Vainio/Vaisanen/Haino trio recorded live in Berlin, November 2007.
Heck, we're always happy hearing Haino in any setting, but it turns out that Pan Sonic are particularly perfect to accompany him, they bring the darkness too... note that it's usually Haino's unique presence that makes itself felt most prominently in any collaboration with which he's been involved (Boris, Merzbow, Sitaar Tah, Zeitkratzer, etc.), and such is the case here, even the title is obviously Haino-esque. And nothing else sounds like his occasional, anguished vocals, which when they appear here, are in stark organic contrast to the digital, mechanical machinations of his co-conspirators Pan Sonic.
Guttural throat-torn outbursts from Haino screech forth over palpitating drum machine clicks and throbbing low-end pulses. Sizzling buzz and whirr wreathe the proceedings. Haino's whale call guitar feedback breaches the dark void, Tibetan monks are channelled. The dynamics shift from mysterious quiet groans and beautiful keening drones to loud, out and out distorted glitch/guitar warfare... It's been a loooong time since there's been an album from Haino's band Fushitsusha, but this is the next best thing!
Well, we dunno if you can download a blackhole but basically there's equivalent blackness and gravity on this compact disc, that we'd be happy to sell to you. And unlike any download, it's housed in nice Stephen O'Malley designed digipack packaging with the artists' names in spot varnish on the cover.
We got another amazing batch of vintage blues reissues from the wonderful Monk label. Look elsewhere on the list for reviews of a two lp set by Blind Willie McTell and an lp by Blind Willie Johnson!
One of two new volumes of Charley Patton's vintage recordings from 1929 on Paramount from the undisputed King of the Delta Blues. This one featuring the two-part "High Water Everywhere", widely considered to be one of the best blues songs ever, and 14 other amazing tracks. With his loud gravelly whiskey soaked and cigarette coated voice, he could pound the fury out of a song and deeply influenced much of the later urban blues that came out of Chicago. Incredible!
We got another amazing batch of vintage blues reissues from the wonderful Monk label. Look elsewhere on the list for reviews of a two lp set by Blind Willie McTell and an lp by Blind Willie Johnson!
One of two new volumes of Charley Patton's vintage recordings from 1929 on Paramount from the undisputed King of the Delta Blues. This one featuring his more spiritual sides including the devastating "You're Gonna Need Somebody When You Die". With his loud gravelly whiskey soaked and cigarette coated voice, he could pound the fury out of a song, and here sin and salvation were just two means to get around to the core of some of the most ferocious music ever made!
A while back, it seemed like everyone, ourselves included, was totally obsessed with a French black metaller called Neige. Doesn't ring a bell? How about his shoegazey post-black metal outfit Alcest? Or his fuzzy black metal gone bliss pop combo Amesoeurs? His fracutured new wave black metal combo Valfunde? Or even his more 'traditional' black metal outfit Peste Noire? Yep, you got it now.
Been a while since we've heard from Neige, since then, he joined another 'dark metal' band, and he's also joined long time aQ faves Forgotten Woods. While that's pretty exciting, and we're always up for hearing more of what Neige has to offer. We also sort of wish he'd just cut down on the various side projects, so we wouldn't have to wait nearly as long for a new Amesoeurs, Alcest or Peste Noire record.
But while we wait patiently, we can now revisit the first Peste Noire full length, with the unwieldy title La Sanie Des Siecles - Panegyrique De La Degenerescence, finally reissued! We've been dying to list this, but until now we haven't been able to get enough. Above we call Peste Noire Neige's more traditional black metal group, but that designation is really relative, as the music of Peste Noire, while being black and buzzy and heavy and grim, is also totally tweaked, fractured and fucked up, rife with all manner of whatthefuck, from gorgeous sweeping melodies, to strange samples, so completely confusional arrangements, to bits of liturgical music mixed into the buzz, to some serious pop tendencies. But somehow it all works. That is if by works, you mean, constitutes one of the most awesomely fucked up lo-fi melodic outsider black metal records ever!! We raved about the latest Peste Noire a while back, the awesomely titled FolkFuck Folie, and everything we loved about that record (also just reissued) is present here as well, but if anything, all of those things are just, well, MORE. More fucked up, more freaked out, more melodic, more lo-fi.
Just take the opener, "Nous Sommes Fanes", begins with some record crackle, before the band lurches into a weird drunken waltz, sounding more like the Reeks And The Wrecks than any black metal. The guitars and drums swing woozily, the drums and cymbals super blown out, over the top, an ultra distorted guitar spins a web of damaged leads, before slipping into a strange moody post rocky drift, replete with big boomy reverb drenched chords. But then the second track kicks in, and we're back in more recognizable black metal territory, and even though it's buzzy and black, it is incredibly melodic, poppy almost, the melodies soaring and epic, the track is peppered with blasts of blasting grimness for sure, a bit of a crusty punk vibe all tangled up with the buzzing blackness, but even when the song is blasting blackly, close listening reveals all manner of melodic weirdness going on beneath the surface, and it doesn't stay below the surface for long, as the song shifts into loping minor key almost-dirge, before finish up how it started, with that strangely emotional super melodic soaring blackened buzz.
And so it goes, the band lurching from midtempo lope to roaring furious blast, to almost doomy plod, all strangely muddy and murky, the various parts twisted and gnarled into something totally unique. The guitars are incredibly varied, going from Ved Buens Ende like Slint-worship, to filthy Darkthrone-d crunch, to gorgeous almost folky finger picking, some serious moments of Opeth-y flutter peppered amidst the crusty blackness.
The second to last track "Dueil Angoisseus (Christine De Pisan, 1362-1431)" is all gorgeously bleak and buzzy, midtempo and melancholy, but then draped over the top is super clean, classical guitar, way up in the mix, that gives the track the strangest vibe, makes it sound strangely pretty. Finally, the disc finishes off with "Des Medecins Malades Et Des Saints Sequestres", which begins with a tangle of effects drenched hammer-ons, unfurling a haunting, off kilter melody, the drums a distant lo-fi pound, when the song kicks in, it's almost eighties metal, albeit filtered through a grim French black metal lens, but the riffing, so classic, and so cool sounding when cloaked in a filthy production and that demonic rasp. But this song too, shifts into some strange other space, and is suddenly
infused with what sounds like a wall of whirring organs, those hammer-ons return, and the song is some strange minor key doom pop epic, that flits back and forth between that eighties riffing, super distorted, and that sprawling metallic poppiness, before transforming into a blaze of super effected metallic chug, finishing off with a strange super distorted almost-jig (!), the drums huge and pounding, while the guitar plucks out a strange distorted melody, much like the opening track.
Needless to say (funny how we always say that after SAYing it for several thousand words), this is one of our favorite black metal records ever. Fucked up, but black and heavy, poppy and hook filled, but still grim and buzzy, if you loved FolkFuck Folie, you'll love this, if you dig Amesoeurs and Alcest but want to hear that sound dipped in filth and painted black, well then this will definitely do the trick. If this was brand new and had just come out, it would be, without a doubt, one of our records of the year (not just black metal either), but as it is, this is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL AND RECOMMENDED!
Ascetics is probably the best thing we've heard from Jim Kaiser's Petit Mal project or any of the various collaborations he's done with like-minded Bay Area improvisers and noise tacticians. There's long been a dourness to his junkyard concoctions, but that attitude really seems to click on this short program 3". An overlapping drone from what could be generated from Kaiser's ever-present bicycle wheel, which he has bowed and banged for many years now. The strategy here seems to be less banging and more bowing, or at least extracting the resonant hues from that commonplace object and working those sounds into a thickened drone. On the first piece, Kaiser couples this with a downtuned acoustic guitar strumming, which harkens back to those few records on which Zoviet France sent acoustic guitar chords through their mottled bank of tape delay mechanics. At the same time, there's something sorrowfully doom-y about this track. The second piece lightens things up, but only a little bit, as the predominant tone is of an oppressive haze congealed out of tape hiss, distant amplifier destruction, and traffic noise. On top of this, Kaiser situates a melancholy slow-motion score for piano for a much grittier re-interpretation of Brian Eno's classic Thursday Afternoon. Fantastic stuff here, and super limited to boot!
You probably already heard a lot of the hype surrounding this record, and you know what? It's all totally true! Phoenix have created one of the best and most infectious pop records to come around in a very long time. We're talking start to finish every single song having hooks and melodies that sound so fucking great and are both breezy and catchy as well as so totally immaculately crafted.
This is one of those rare pop records that is both so smart and so fun. Imagine Saturdays=Youth era M83 covering the Strokes!!! Although comparisons seem a bit silly here as Phoenix have really made a super unique record, that kind of perfect summer pop jam that most bands only dream of and often spend their whole lives trying to make, only to fall flat over and over again. No matter where you are or what you're doing, when you listen to this record you're totally transported, it's a refreshing rush, the world seems sunshinier, the skies bluer, everything just sparkles and glistens. So cool and suave and slick in the best way, it's impossible to not fall in love with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. So many folks we know, who are into experimental music or electronica or other branches of more esoteric minded sounds, have just fallen head over heels for this new Phoenix record which is truly a testament to its undeniable universal appeal.
While past Phoenix records always had at least a few totally standout tracks, none of those records can possibly compare. Some of us here, pop fanatics for sure, were pretty skeptical, having not been that impressed with past record, and not believing the hype, but after hearing just the opening track, naysayers were silenced, and almost immediately transformed into rabid fans, playing this to death, in the store AND at home. Sparkling, hook laden, well produced power pop bliss. This one's gonna be a bigtime contender for pop record of the year!
Numero Group strikes again! Why Pisces never made it into the canon of classic American psychedelic groups of the sixties like Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and The Grateful Dead is not so much a mystery as it is a latent lament. It's pretty clear why, since none of their music ever got released during their lifetime, but hearing this now, and it sounding so much more fresh and relevant compared to the overrated dinosaurs mentioned above, we sometimes wish the past could get a do-over, or at the very least we wish nostalgia could get a better soundtrack. Pisces would be at the top of our Summer of Love facelift!
Not just a curio from what might have been, the songs that this Rockford, Illinois group conjured could have made a classic album, had the core members overcame the obstacles of being an unknown band in the Midwest, perhaps toured or promoted themselves better, or at least hired themselves a decent manager. Focused so much on their sound, they were tireless studio workhorses, constantly augmenting their pop songs with innovative studio effects: delay, phasing, and layers of overdubs. Working with such blinders on is always a difficult proposition to long term success, plus having a sexy female guest vocalist that was never quite a core member of the band, steal most of the spotlight, only to be whisked away to start a failed solo career doesn't bode well for a band in dire need of a solid foundation.
But we think if they managed their image better, they could have been as big as Jefferson Airplane. Their songs are definitely better. Pisces were perhaps more influenced by British psych than the stuff that was happening on the west coast, but their darkly tinged lyrics full of creepy wonder and kaleidoscopic imagery are more chilling and beautiful, yet evoking the male and female harmonies of that more famous group. At times, it also reminds us of other obscure weirdo sixties soft-psych groups like Fifty Foot Hose, Neighborhood Children, Peanut Butter Conspiracy and H.P. Lovecraft, yet with a consistent sonic vision unclouded by annoying record label interventions and dated cliches. A Lovely Sight indeed!
Interpol were always a little sleazy. Their slicked back hair and skinny moustaches and black suits. That whole vibe. But hell, it suited them, and it didn't matter all that much cuz the songs were so fucking great. Even though officially the identity of Julian Plenti is a big secret, only the truly dense won't have figured out that this is in fact Paul Banks from Interpol. There is after all a picture of him on the cover, and his voice is pretty unmistakable, and the songwriting too, definitely reminiscent of Interpol. This was supposedly his "sexy" and "sleazy" record, by his sexy sleazy alter ego, but disregard all the pretentious bullshit, what this is, is a pretty bad ass dark pop record, laced with plenty of electronics, nods galore to classic Interpol, and some awesome songs. The last Interpol record was a bit of a let down for a lot of folks, so while this is not necessarily a return to form, and not really an Interpol record, it does for us, function as something to tide us over until Interpol get their shit together and come up with another record to rival Turn On The Bright Lights.
Opener "Only If You Run" is total Interpol right out of the gate, with some extra electronic flourishes, but a loping gloomy bass line, Banks's recognizable croon, a killer hook, some weird production, some chiming guitars and big drums, synths too, and a little bit of skittery programming. Track two, "Fun That We Have" is even better", some crunchy guitar, a moe menacing vibe, yet another very Interpol sounding melody, some glitchy electronics, some weird lyrics, and some lush production. "Games For Days" is another killer, muted electronic percussion, brittle guitar chug, dense dark minor key chorus, some big crunchy guitars and yes, yet another Interpol sounding vocal line. Don't hold it against him, Banks is a huge part of Interpol, so Interpol is of course a big part of him, and thus informs his songwriting, which as we mentioned before doesn't bother us one bit. We're digging this a LOT.
Here it is, at last. The long rumored ART BOOK from Michel Langevin, aka Away, the drummer and visual conceptualist for pioneering Quebecois avant-thrash-metal geniuses Voivod. Away's artwork, the ultimate in sci-fi school binder imagery, helped define his band's unique appeal. Heck, although the music was amazing, one of the other big reasons to buy a Voivod album was to get all that cool artwork, it got to the point that their cds had a piece of Away-art in the booklet for each song, one per page...
We first heard he was putting a book together a few years ago, it was supposed to be published by the Troubleman label, or at least that's what we'd thought, but nothing ever materialized, and then suddenly out of the blue a few weeks ago we got an email from Martin Popoff, the Canadian metal scribe responsible for the three massive Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal volumes we've reviewed in the past, saying that HE was doing a book with Away, and now here it is!
A hefty, hardback, 12"x9" coffee table tome, 184 pages, in full color when appropriate, Worlds Away is what we've been waiting for. TONS of his artwork, of course. Stuff you'll remember from the albums of course, but also sketchbook pages, flyers, demo tape covers, logos, picture discs, as well as art he's done on commission for other bands... Eye candy for Voivod fans oh yeah. And then there's the text, Away interviewed by Popoff, chapter after chapter delving into the world of Voivod, the music, the art and their connection. The early years stuff is surprising but not surprising as we learn about his artistic inspirations as a kid in the '70s (Magma album covers, Gene Simmons' boots...). The history of the band is traced, their evolution from raw thrashers to spaced-out art rockers, along with the evolution in Away's creative / technical process. Turns out the cool monochrome, sorta low res images from the Nothingface album look like that 'cause of the memory limitations of the computer he was using, for instance. Also we get the story behind the 3-D art for The Outer Limits album (which almost didn't happen). We probably don't need to go on, those of you who want this book probably already know it.
FYI, since these aren't cheap, and we're not a bookstore, and it's pretty much for fans only, we only got a few. So if and when we run out it will remain to be seen if we can get more.
VOIVOD!!!!
We first heard about Italian one man outsider black metal band Rhuith, via the Hammer Smashed Jazz blog, one of our favorites, a blog that doesn't offer bands' music for free, instead highlighting cool releases and directing folks to places where they can buy em. So this band Rhuith, were apparently a killer weirdo black metal band from Italy, who besides crafting grim twisted outsider buzz, also has a serious obsession with dark pop and classic eighties music, which most definitely found its way into the band's sound, but also meant that he would often cover music from that era, as well as offering up blackened versions of distinctly non-metal tracks, Depeche Mode, Portishead, Placebo etc. Our kind of band for sure!
So we finally got in touch, and small world, ends up, Rhuith is a long time aQuarius mailorder customer. Which sort of makes sense, considering his twisted take on black metal and the fantastically unlikely hybrid that is Rhuith. So we managed to get a whole bunch of his most recent release, Voormithadreth, a four song demo, LIMITED TO 66 COPIES! Which just so happens to include two bonus tracks from another out of print releases, one of which is his Portishead cover, which is worth the price of admission alone.
SO what does Rhuith sound like? Imagine a super lo-fi take on classic black metal, the riffing frenzied and buzzy, the drums way down in the mix, pounding away, but the vocals, holy shit, so over the top and out there, slipping from long slow reverbed mooooooans, to effects drenched shrieks so loud they blow out the whole song. Another track sounds all swampy and garage-y, midtempo and groovy, the vocals even more freaked out, with some strange dubbed out effects, so it almost sounds a bit like a black metal Butthole Surfers. The 48 second long "The Owls" is a furious bit of primitive blast and buzz that leads into the loping Burzumic dirge that is "The Son, The Lion And The Phoenix", a keyboard flecked bit of creepy black doom, with more crooned vocals, and a second half that's all warped and twisted guitars, and swirling distorted effects, weirdly pretty.
Two bonus tracks, the first a gorgeously poppy bit of blackened jangle, a killer main guitar part that sounds straight out of the Breakfast Club soundtrack, but super distorted, the sound crumbly and raw, the vocals a hissy demonic shriek, a killer combo of harshness and pure eighties pop, peppered with some super creepy minimal breakdowns, all spoken word and low slung drones. And then the Portishead cover, an amazing version of "Over", no drums, just super blown out downtuned guitars, playing that main riff over and over, the vocals deep and emotional and dramatic, this could easily be a Rhuith original, and dare we say it adds a whole new vibe to the original, and the more we listen to this, the more we just might like the Rhuith version better. Dark, and haunting, and hypnotic, just today, we've probably listened to that one track 10 times. Can't wait to hear what he decides to cover next. But it's not just the covers that make Rhuith so special, he has definitely cultivated a unique sound, one that touches on lots of stuff we dig, but twists it all up into something new and bizarre and bad ass. It's rare to be digging a record so much, that you find yourself ALREADY looking forward to the next one, but that's exactly how we're feeling with Voormithadreth!
Packaged in a dvd case, with a black and white cover, and inside a xeroxed insert, both the cover and the disc itself hand numbered.
It's been a while, but it's time to haul out all those extra doom 'o's we've been saving for an occasion just like this. The return of ultra doomlords Rigor Sardonicous, they of the monstrous glacial downtuned crawl, the 'evil' cymbal (more on that in a second), the growled demonic vox, the lugubrious slow motion trudge, all that stuff we love, and all the stuff that can usually only be described by a whole handful of extra 'o's in doooooooooom.
But the opening track threw us for a bit of a loop. All weirdly folky, with chanted vocals, and fluttering flutes, some haunting almost Renn Faire court music, which quickly gives way to clean mournful minor key clean guitar, could this be the same Rigor Sardonicous? All doubts are wiped away moments later when the whole sound shifts down about a hundred octaves, the crumbling super distorted guitar spreads out like a black fog, the drums pounding, the cymbals still way up in the mix (beginning to think it's their trademark), and then the vocals. WOAH. Impossibly gurgly rumbles, like a frog croaking from the bottom of a tarpit, perfectly complimenting the band's murky plod. Weirdly the band does speed it up, but everything is so muddy and blurred that it almost makes no difference. You can hear what sounds like a little girl way off in the distance, as if she's locked in the dungeon of some great black beast. This is some awesomely creepy, heavy, and fucked up dooooooooooomy shit for sure.
If it's even possible, this is the most extreme Rigor record yet. The guitars more dense, heavier, even more downtuned, the vocals absolutely inhuman, it does almost sound like some super slow dooooom record, slowed down even more. And when the band do 'rock', they still out-doom most of their slow motion contemporaries.
Nothing else to say really. Been digging the most recent Moss, the Corrupted reissue? Still loving those Monarch records, the recent Trees disc? Fancy yourself a doomlord? Well strap on your armor, your headlamp, some industrial strength ear protection, and crawl headfirst into this black tarpit of sound, Rigor Sardonicous take even the heaviest and slowest sounds somewhere even slower and lower and so much doooooooooooooooooooooooomier�
The recent vinyl reissue of this totally essential Terry Riley album has given us the opportunity to finally review a record that holds a special place in many of our hearts. A Rainbow In Curved Air is pretty much the ultimate in hypnotizing cosmic bliss out. Two long tracks in which Riley used electric organ, harpsichord, rockischord, dumbec, saxophone and tambourine, to create a sound in which his minimalist background served as a launching pad for him to really reach the outer limits of sound, a sound that is about as perfect as a soundtrack to sunrise we could ever imagine.
A Rainbow In Curved Sky was originally released in 1969, it was the first album Riley made for Columbia records and it's still so baffling and amazing to think there was a time when major labels would release such brilliant, noncommercial transcendent music like this. After doing some digging around we realized that one of the main reasons that Riley amazingly ended up on Columbia was because fellow electronic pioneer David Behrman had landed a job at the label, so he brought Riley into the land of Columbia and produced this amazing album.
Forty years after it's genesis, these are still sounds that make us stop in our tracks and suck us in, allowing us to get lost in the most amazing sonic daydreams one could imagine. A Rainbow In Curved Air has proven to be a model for several generations of cosmic music makers. It's safe to say that without this record there wouldn't be folks like Arp, Growing, Emeralds, White Rainbow, etc. Beyond recommended and totally essential!
Durch Die Wuste was the first solo outing by Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster/Harmonia fame, and originally came out in 1978 on the always impeccable Sky label. Melding his tastes for classical composition, spaced out ambience, and electronic rock possibilities, this album found Roedelius simmering in warm rolling waves that just invite you to get lost and daydream in their subtly hypnotic pull. What's most amazing and compelling about this album is how organic it all sounds. Years before folks were really getting a grasp of how to intertwine traditional instrumentation with electronics, Roedelius was doing it masterfully. We're also so taken by the divine percussive quality that rises to the surfaces on lots of the album, especially the record's last two songs where Roedelius manages to play the drums himself and creates an amazing orbital groove that we could listen to forever. Durch Die Wuste manages to combine both his more dark and outsider tendencies with his ability to create the ultimate in shimmering cosmic bliss. We can't believe that some of us had never heard this record before, we are so beyond happy that it's been reissued as this stands up against any of Cluster's breathtaking moments. Highly recommended! Oh and for those of you who need/prefer to have this on cd it will be reissued in that format in August!
Can't imagine a team up that would have lo-fi underground noise poppers more in a tizzy than this, Roman Soldiers, which is actually Blank Dogs AND Gary War together for the first time, crafting some of the most warped and warbly and ultra tweaked new wave downer pop ever, even by both groups already warped and warbly standards.
This plays at 45, but fair warning, it sounded pretty rad at 33, even more miserable and murky, but that's the advanced version, only for those of you who think you can handle it.
Two tracks, both a sort of creepy sci-fi electro new wave top 40, a definite Butthole Surfers vibe, mostly due to the vocals, which are SUPER heavily effected, muddy and reverby, the guitars are jagged and angular and jangly, of course there's plenty of synths all over the place, rumbling and buzzing, the whole record gloriously washed out and woozy. The flipside is total Gary Numan worship, thick slithery synths, cool laid back distorted vocals, a killer main hook, just some practically perfect doomy gloomy electro pop, again infused with that alternate universe FM radio wooooze. Here's hoping these guys stick it out together long enough to whip up a full length!
After the amazing job they did with production on last year's Erykah Badu record New Amerykah Pt.1, we were really anxious to hear what the Sa-Ra Creative Partners would brew up on this new album of their own. Taking the best of psychedelic soul's past and placing it into a kaleidoscopic vision of hip-hop's future this ambitious double disc proves that Sa-Ra really are at the forefront of modern day leftfield soul/hip-hop/funk. You can for sure hear the aesthetic they laid down on Erykah Badu's latest as well as healthy hints of De La Soul, J Dilla, and lots of nods to funk luminaries like Prince, Zapp, Cameo and Parliament. This is the kind of record you can blast out loud for late night hang sessions or through headphones for an ultra stylish, personal and intimate, interstellar psychedelic soul experience.
One of the most treasured voices in Mali's musical landscape, Oumou Sangare has been making rich and rewarding music for over twenty years now. She is really one of those rare examples of someone who is respected and loved so deeply by her neighbors all throughout West Africa, as well as having the good fortune to see her music spread throughout the rest of the world in more recent years, to equal fanfare. Drawing upon the influence of folks like Ali Farka Toure and Youssou D'Nour in her ability to inject so much melody and passion into her songs, and with over forty amazing musicians playing on the record, the sound and instrumentation is beyond lush, and serves as an equally strong force to counter Sangare's beautiful and timeless voice. This is true soul music!
Metalheads! SF local metal faves Saviours have just finished up recording their new, third full-length (following last year's killer Into Abbadon). To whet our appetite for its impending release, they've just put out three limited edition 7" singles, with devilish, medieval lookin' b&w artwork courtesy of Tim "Draugar" Lehi.
The 7"s feature demos of raging tracks that will appear on the new album, along with (on singles #2 and #3) exclusive cover tracks of songs by old school metal greats Saxon and Judas Priest respectively. Those fit right in with the Saviours' badass denim-and-leather thrashing.
In addition, each 7" comes with promotional extra item tucked into the sleeve - #1 has a large sticker, #2 has an embroidered patch, and #3 what we guess you'd call a mini-comic, one page, photocopied. Very cool, fans act fast! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES EACH, we only got a few.
Metalheads! SF local metal faves Saviours have just finished up recording their new, third full-length (following last year's killer Into Abbadon). To whet our appetite for its impending release, they've just put out three limited edition 7" singles, with devilish, medieval lookin' b&w artwork courtesy of Tim "Draugar" Lehi.
The 7"s feature demos of raging tracks that will appear on the new album, along with (on singles #2 and #3) exclusive cover tracks of songs by old school metal greats Saxon and Judas Priest respectively. Those fit right in with the Saviours' badass denim-and-leather thrashing.
In addition, each 7" comes with promotional extra item tucked into the sleeve - #1 has a large sticker, #2 has an embroidered patch, and #3 what we guess you'd call a mini-comic, one page, photocopied. Very cool, fans act fast! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES EACH, we only got a few.
Metalheads! SF local metal faves Saviours have just finished up recording their new, third full-length (following last year's killer Into Abbadon). To whet our appetite for its impending release, they've just put out three limited edition 7" singles, with devilish, medieval lookin' b&w artwork courtesy of Tim "Draugar" Lehi.
The 7"s feature demos of raging tracks that will appear on the new album, along with (on singles #2 and #3) exclusive cover tracks of songs by old school metal greats Saxon and Judas Priest respectively. Those fit right in with the Saviours' badass denim-and-leather thrashing.
In addition, each 7" comes with promotional extra item tucked into the sleeve - #1 has a large sticker, #2 has an embroidered patch, and #3 what we guess you'd call a mini-comic, one page, photocopied. Very cool, fans act fast! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES EACH, we only got a few.
Do you like sax? Do you like the Ruins? Then, hey, have we got a deal for you! Ruins drummer/mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida teams up with jazz improviser Ono Ryoko (alto sax) in this new unit, Sax Ruins (sorry, no idea what that name means, how did they come up with it?). The Japanese band Ruins has been Yoshida's vehicle for heavy duty, ultra mathy, Magmoid post-punk prog mania since 1985, and has pretty much always been a drums / bass two piece, Yoshida accompanied by several different insane bass players over the years. Their last album was 2002's Tzomborgha, also on Mike Patton's Ipecac label... and then in 2004 bassist number four (Sasaki Hisashi) left the band, yet to be replaced as far as we know. So Ruins is now defunct, or at least on an indeterminate hiatus, but that hasn't stopped Yoshida from performing Ruins songs, in a mindboggling one-man-band format called Ruins Alone. And now, in the Sax Ruins duo!
As you might expect, it's hyper frenetic and jumpy, but also... boppy. The buoyant saxophone helps make this duo's uber uptempo activity feel positively infectious, a joyful noise indeed. And it's not all frantic musical athletics, there's room here for some really lovely, melodic passages too, as on "Epigonen". Ono Ryoko really pulls out all the stops, drawing on her experience playing not only jazz but also funk/R&B, prog, and psych (the latter in collaboration with Acid Mothers Temple). She delves into extended techniques, circular breathing and such, and somehow is a match for Yoshida in the endless energy dep't. Together, what they unleash here is exciting stuff, way more complex and catchy than your average freakout. Imagine a stripped down, pepped up marching band playing really wild Carl Stalling / Raymond Scott style cartoon music. And wisely, Yoshida has kept this instrumental, none of his crazy vocals getting in the way of the sax blasts.
The 17 tracks here include saxified reinterpretations of classics from the Ruins' vast catalog, such as "Hyderomastgroningem" and "Pallaschtom", plus some new tunes too, including the album's title track and grand finale, that one a showstopper for sure.
So, again, definitely for fans of Ruins - who also like saxophone. And those into the likes of Zu, Flying Luttenbachers, 16-17, Alboth, and other exemplars of jazzprogcore craziness. Oh, and of course any John Zorn / Naked City fan ought to be ecstatic! Dunno if we'll really need any MORE albums from Sax Ruins though, 'cause as cool as this is, we're still keen for more Bass Ruins...
Wish we had more of these, apparently it's out of print already (until they repress, c'mon) and we only have a couple...
It's been raining Ty Segall the last few weeks with a slew of rad vinyl offerings that have flown out the door. This new split LP with Black Time finds Ty at his most raw and rocking! Seven brand new songs including a smoking cover of The Dwarves "Be A Caveman" from back in their total garage punk days. Black Time were new to our ears and they definitely prove that London can get raw and fuzzy with the best of them, as their way lo-fi and in-the-red sound make them a perfect match for Segall. Maybe a bit more punk in sound and aesthetic then TS while still totally tapping into the more damaged and distorted side of primitive garage punk. Such a good time to be a fan of raw and impassioned garage rock cause folks like Ty and Black Time are totally coming correct.
Record number two from these practically indescribable musical miscreants, er, GENIUSES. Where to begin? There's a label called Hekaloth, who in their own way are championing what they consider to be the most important musical advancement in recent history, the guitar synthesizer! And how do they do that? By making these insane records of warped warbly atonal synthesized guitar, accompanied by raw demonic sounding black metal rasps. And if that weren't enough, each record is a concept record, about some historical battle, and each one has some sort of theme: guitar synths mixed with jazz, or mixed with world music instruments, or Asian folk instruments. Did we mention the record covers? They generally feature statues or action figures piled atop and around guitar synth modules, which look just like stereo components, often laid out so the synth modules look like landscapes upon which some medieval battle just so happens to be taking place. In the past we've raved about the first Shevalreq record, as well as discs by Gluttony, Thursar and Xynfonica, to read more wild raving and hyperbolic ranting about these amazingly fucked up records check the website, needless to say, this upholds the high standards set forth by those curious collections of freaked out and fucked up weirdness.
The guitar synth sounds a little like a weird cheap organ, the melodies atonal and warped, there are different modules the player can install in the guitar synth, so out of nowhere some weird melody will surface that SORT of sounds like a koto or something. As far as we can tell this newest Shevalreq is meant to be a little Asian, but once we decided that, in swoops another track that sounds like the sound track to a Nintendo 64 Dungeons And Dragons game, all Renne Faire tinkle and lilting melody, and of course that deep ominous rasp. Some folks here are driven INSANE by this stuff, but some of us LOVE it, this shit is absolutely nuts. Totally bonkers. It appears to be serious, which only makes it more insane and impossibly awesome. Read the other reviews, listen to the sound samples, this is absolutely essential listening for folks into freaky outsider sounds and any sort of fractured fucked up musical weirdness.
Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk rock label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get one from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed.
We haven't heard much from Sweden's Skull Defekts, but what we have heard we like. A lot. In fact, if there was any justice in the world, these guys would be battling Wolf Eyes for the hipster noise rock crown for sure. It's not that these guys sound like Wolf Eyes, although they do a bit, it's more that they are exploring the same territory, but without the goofy in your face vibe of Wolf Eyes, instead choosing to open up their sound a bit more, make it lighter, more abstract, and in the process a whole lot more compelling.
The A side is a side long drift through a wondrous world of noise and noises, atmosphere and ambience. A heady ambient buzz, disrupted by little whorls of distorted crumble, endlessly shimmering, the sound twisting and mutating, changing color and texture, sometimes sounding blissful and serene, but just as quickly becoming damaged and dangerous. An epic exploration of a multi-layered glacial drift, not so much 'noise' as noisy in parts, not so much brutal as intense and dark.
Side B is split into three tracks, the first features a simple cavemen pound, around which swirl and streak stretched out sheets of grinding guitar noise and abstract sonic fields. A slowly shifting soundscapes of layer after layer of buzzing fuzzed out noises. And again, not 'noise' just dreamily noisy. The second track is the most Wolf Eyes sounding, although it's a much more blissed out spaced out version, not so aggressive, a roiling landscape of damaged electronics, abused guitars, and abstract percussion, all twisted into a slithering sonic beast. The final track is the most mellow, but even then, the sound is harrowing and ominous, the perfect blend of low end buzz and rumble, and coruscating upper register psych guitar shimmer. Very hypnotic and leaves us wanting to hear a LOT more from these guys.
Attention British Horror fans! We have here, released by a new a label run by one of the guys from sampling groop Quiet Village, two previously unreleased soundtracks on one lp from New Wave of British Horror director Norman J. Warren: Terror (1979) and Prey (1978). Warren, best known for three horror movies he made in the late seventies (the first one was Satan's Slave), had a film style similar to Dario Argento, highly explicit and gory supernatural thrillers filmed on a low budget with modern day settings and using younger actors, a sharp contrast to the classic period-set hammer films earlier in the decade. Composed by Ivor Slaney, an in-house composer for the DeWolfe Library, the music is deliciously creepy.
Terror sounds like a lost soundtrack by Goblin, beginning with proggy synths and organ dirges augmented by female vocal moans that are equally wistful and uh, well, terrifying! There are a couple of groovy interludes, one of them a short blues-rock number, the others more pensive, but the final tracks are full bore high-pitched synth drones that had the hairs on the back of our neck standing up on end! Also, an interesting piece of side trivia is that Terror stars Tricia Walsh, better known as Tricia Walsh-Smith, the you-tube sensation famous for videos berating her ex-husband to the general public!
Prey feels more like classic British horror scores, offering up at first soft and pastoral themes using harpsichord, organ and piano. From what we can gather from the sounds and the tagline (A Carnal Lust That Defies Earthly Expectation!) is that this is a rather twisted love story involving birds, as bird sounds emerge here and there. The lilting music soon turns to what sounds like a terrifying merry-go-round and then we get bits of sounds from the film itself of screams and flesh being ripped apart by massive bird-like creatures. There are a couple of party numbers, one a jazzy theme sung by someone who sounds like Caroline Peyton, the other by a lounge band, before the final twisted Moog dirge comes into play with snippets of doomy dialogue. Great creepy stuff!
NOTE: A cd version is coming out in a couple of weeks or so, for the vinyl-impaired! Meanwhile this lp is limited to 1000 copies.
More from this cult Illinois '80s metal combo. We highlighted their actual album reissue of 1985's Winter Kill up above on this week's list. This disc collects the previously unreleased tracks from the sessions for their aborted second album, 1987's Free The Beast, along with some early demo material circa 1981-'84. The first, title track starts off with some Satanic backwards vocals and things just get more evil and metal from there! Crazy stuff, super long songs, screechy vocals, well you know if you've heard Winter Kill...
Get Winter Kill first, and if you want more of this band's very '80s over-the-top metal onslaught, which you will, then pick this up. This new edition also includes a bonus video clip but we haven't checked it out yet.
Yeah, yeah, another obscure '80s cult metal band reissued. I'd heard about this group and how amazing they were supposed to be for a long time, but when I first got the cd reissue of their only album, 1985's "Winter Kill", it sounded just like I expected: high pitched vox, widdly guitar solos, Maiden-esque songwriting... cool, yeah, but nothing special. BUT, then I listened to it again. Something about this, some X-factor, makes it VERY special (or maybe it's just me). Rather than sounding like they're derivative of Maiden, Priest, and a host of mid-'80s Metal Blade bands, Slauter Xstroyes somehow do what they do so perfectly that THEY sound like the Platonic ideal of '80s true heavy metal, the template for every other band, the originators rather than imitators. Of course this isn't actually the case, yet a few listens into it, "Winter Kill" was having that effect: while it's on your stereo, it's the ultimate in metal. I bow down. Fans of the likes of Omen, Cirith Ungol, Warlord, Manilla Road, Attacker, and Brocas Helm should add this to their collections for sure. Classy, slightly eccentric, skilled, and -- the kicker -- full of actual emotion. Absurd as it sounds -- and the vocalist's squeals do sometimes sound absurd -- this metal is for real and meaningful. From the heavy droney keyboard intro, through the album's intervening moments of galloping attack, doomy riffing, and acoustic bliss, to the closing anthem "Mother, Mother Fucker" these guys rule. If you can listen to Spinal Tap for more than comedic value, as I can, you'll agree.
Sokai Stilhed is the stage name for the soft-spoken Heather Cullen, whose vocal and sound-sculpting abilities should be taken quite seriously given the strength of her work on this hand-spun release. There's plenty of things that Cullen employs that immediately give us pause. First of all, there's the perpetual crackle of old vinyl achieving a golden patina which accentuates her otherworldly reverberations; but most importantly is her voice which drawls haunting reconstructions of Appalachian psalms which crosshatch a world-weariness with a hallowed adoration for the divine. Even as she pushes her own voice deep in the recesses of the faux-tape compression and dreamily droning ambience, there is a potency and strength to her voice. Given the opportunity, she could belt out a bluesy, a capella number at a Baptist church that would give many people the shivers; but instead of that well-trod path, she fragments her own voice to complement the delicate artifacts from guitar, autoharp, field recordings, and her trusted Loop Station. These tracks emerge as if stitched from spider webs, catching hold of whatever may fall into the web, but they are ephemeral if nothing else. If Philip Jeck were given unrestricted production over a Cat Power record, it would sound pretty close to this. These editions are handmade by Cullen featuring a candle-burnt and wax sealed piece of paper mounted to the cover and also featuring the album's track titles. It remains to be seen just how limited these are... A fantastic release, no matter how you look at it!
We went a little nuts for the debut release from Anduin a while back, the project of Souvenir's Young America keyboardist Jonathan Lee, taking SYA's Western tinged post rock doom, and stretching it out into something much more subtle and ambient. But SYA is back to remind us just why we were so into Lee and his crew in the first place, with two brand new tracks of sweeping epic, spacious and cinematic post rock, rivaling and perhaps surpassing any of their more well known contemporaries.
The guitars chime and ring out, the drums propulsive and subtly mathy, lots of deserty ambience, moody melodic swoon, crunchy almost metal guitars here and there, haunting blissed out stretches of soft strummy drift, slippery slide guitar and pulsing electronics. There are some haunting processed vocals, distant and heavily effected, tribal rhythms, lots of space, little bits of glitch here and there, slightly doomy, with a distinct twang, gorgeous and dark, but always mysterious and hauntingly dreamy. Can't wait for the next full length.
The flipside features a new (to us at least) group called City Of Ships, who prove to be a pretty good match for SYA, starting their side with some washed out ambience, glimmering guitar harmonies, shimmery cymbal washes, all before the band kick in and get all mathy with tangled squiggly guitar leads and hard hitting complicated drumming. And unlike SYA, City Of Ships are NOT instrumental, the vocals a raspy croon that get more and more wild eventually veering into almost emo territory, the sound a mix of June Of 44 and a mellower Neurosis. Long stretches of mellowy meandering peppered with jagged bursts of crunch and pound, the tracks building to seriously epic climaxes with grinding metallic guitars, angular and sharp, with howled vocals and wild chaotic drums. Good stuff.
Packaged in a super swank fold over 2 color hand screened gold colored sleeve, each one hand numbered, with a photocopied insert, and LIMITED TO ONLY 300 COPIES!!!
No, it's not an album of dubs that Sprung Aus Den Wolken wrangled out of their Cassettencombinat studio; but these stripped down recordings represented the first officially released work from the seminal art-punk / industrial outfit, originally released back in 1981 on ZickZack as an eponymous album. That said, these were not the first recordings for Sprung Aus Den Wolken, as their Cassettencombinat studio / tape imprint had been recording a prodigious amount of material which actually warranted a 3lp boxset for Vinyl-On-Demand, much of it through the Sprung Aus Den Wolken moniker. Alexander Hacke and Kiddy Citny were the principal agents of Cassettencombinat in the day, and here on Dub & Die, Hacke was still in the band at the time, having not fully committed to the Einsturzende Neubauten cause. He proves once again to be an excellent foil to Kiddy Citny's punk poetics.
Compared to the sparkplug frenzy of the Faux Pas collection, Dub & Die is downright minimalist with lots of room spacing strangulated guitar and the loping basslines amidst the primitive electronics with Citny rambling as loose as ever but with considerable restraint. None of this is a bad thing, especially when the title track comes across like a German version of Young Marble Giants. There are other tracks tracks whose jittery funk mutations allude to a junkyard mish-mash of Gang Of Four and A Certain Ratio, and a few which do hold worthy comparisons to the early Neubauten spring-loaded Industrial numbers. Klanggalerie once again has unearthed a great record, which is limited in this cd reissue to 500 copies.
What is it about Kinshasa? The capitol city of the Democratic Republic Of The Congo first brought us the mind blowing Konono No.1, who fashioned PA's and amps out of old car parts, and rigged up thumb pianos with home built pick ups, crafting one of the most unique and fascinating and exuberant sounds we had ever heard. Now, also from Kinshasa, comes Staff Benda Bilili, an even more unique musical combo (as if that were even possible). A group of senior paraplegic street musicians, who live in and around the grounds of the zoo, who travel in cool custom built wheelchairs that look more like motorcycles, they sing and play guitar, and are backed up by a young all acoustic rhythm section, featuring a 17 year old prodigy, who plays wild psychedelic leads on a one string 'guitar' made from a tin can. There are pictures in the booklet, it's hard to believe anyone could conjure such amazing sounds from this little bit of scrap and string, but the proof is right here.
The music itself is not as far out as Konono No.1, it has much more of a traditionally folky feel, a distinctly highlife vibe, the vocal harmonies form the core of the sound, lush and laid back, stunningly intricate and gorgeous, the various stringed instruments buzz and twang, simple drumming holds it all together, and the occasional wild tangled squiggly solos on the tin can lute, sounding slippery and super high, the songs build to festive codas, and just as often slip back into something much more contemplative.
Feel good, sunshiney sounds that make you want to dance or drift off, you can almost imagine these guys all parked in their motorcycle wheelchairs, rocking late into the night around the campfire or under the streetlights. But you don't have to imagine, there are a handful of live videos too, so you can watch these guys create these amazing sounds live, sitting on the grass in the park, under the trees, hanging out in after dark lit only by firelight, and seeing that little kid rock out on the tin can lute, WOW. Also includes a really cool trailer, for what could either be a documentary about the band, or it could just be a short film / trailer for the record.
Needless to say, but we will anyway, TOTALLY recommended, especially for anyone who loves Konono No.1!!
On my visit to Finland a few years back, I (Andee) was lucky enough to have Jussi from Circle as a host and guide. Which meant our three priorities were: recording/jamming, eating Finnish pizza (the BEST pizza IN THE WORLD), and of course record shopping (when Jussi was visiting HERE recently, he insisted on record shopping every single day!!). The record shopping was a blast, as it always is in a new city, especially in a new country, but it wasn't all just browsing, there were a bunch of Finnish records I was dying to get my hands on, and would probably never be able to find outside of Finland. But there were also a bunch of bands that I had never heard, but that Jussi insisted I NEEDED to hear, bands that informed his music, and most of the underground Finnish music we were into. One was a band called Mano Mano, a killer classic Finnish rock band, another was Motelli Skronkle, a totally twisted sort-of-pop/folk band (whose records will hopefully be reissued soon on Jussi's Ektro label), and the other was Pekka Streng, in fact Jussi insisted I buy ANYTHING on Love Records, a legendary underground Finnish label, but especially Pekka Streng. We did eventually manage to track it down, and it was just as good as promised, but somehow even weirder and more idiosyncratic, especially for a record that came out in 1970.
Love Records seems to have been reactivated recently, having released those Arctic Hysteria compilations, as well as the super rad Psychedelic Phinland collection, and now, Streng's only two releases, from the early seventies, both released in the years before he died tragically at 26.
Magneettimiehen Kuolema was his debut, and finds him with famous Finnish prog rockers Tasavallan Presidenttii as his back up band. But don't be expecting full on prog, no this is way more folky, tinged with psychedelic rock, and yeah, a little prog. While the sounds on Magneettimiehen Kuolema are not that overly strange, you have to remember this was 1970, and much of the sounds here were WAY ahead of their time. At its core, this is a dreamy folk rock record, a bit of twang, fluttery flutes, acoustic guitar, some spidery psych guitar, a little whistling and of course Streng's soft dreamy vocals. Think Nick Drake or Pugh Rogefeldt or Joakim Skogsberg, but then mix in field recordings, lush piano, dramatic crooning, skittery Indian sounding percussion, buzzy sitar like guitar drones, some wild psychedelia, strange glitchy electronics and analog synths and some seriously strange arrangements, but ultimately, all wrapped around Streng's simple heartfelt folky pop. So good. And it's easy to see how influenced ALL your various Finnish faves were and are by Streng... Es, Circle, Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, Anaksimadros, Kiila, Islaja...
Reissued with three bonus tracks, and new liner notes, which are unfortunately (for us at least) all in Finnish.
Holy crap those suicidal black metallers have nothing on Stunt Rock. At least in terms of pure self loathing misery. They talk a good game, and the music is appropriately miserable and melancholy, but their depression is so abstract, so much so that in some cases, it sounds as much like a gimmick as 'Satanism'. But this is indeed depression. Misery. REGRET. Past Stunt Rock releases didn't really give any idea that all this lurked below the surface, but this release more than hints at it, it takes his Stunt Rock heart, and pins it open, like a high school dissected frog, letting us poke and prod, and examine all the blackness inside.
It's also pretty funny too, if you think folks like Ivan Brunetti are hilarious, which we do. In fact, this is totally the record we could imagine Brunetti releasing. And it is in fact a sort of instruction manual, covering such topics as to how to choose a new mate, and to avoid the mistakes you made in past relationships. A page of little tags to place on your belongings for after you die when people dig through your stuff (for your pornography stash, for your box of old love letters, etc.), a very Brunetti like comic detailing a botched suicide attempt among other things.
The Prescreening A Potential Love Interest multiple choice form is amazing, it goes on for pages and pages, and is so gloriously black hearted. The there's the Learning To Forget & Adjusting To Living Alone section, also pages and pages, teaching you to do just as the title says, try different routes to work, repaint, get a new social circle, new wardrobe, but it's super well written, wry and bitter, fucking brutal here and there. There's also an activity section, with a form to write down all the songs you want played at your funeral (the first is filled out for you, Creed's "My Own Prison" haha), as well as a sort of last will style form, with spaces for things you want to leave for folks, as well as spaces for the people you want to make sure DON'T get anything (and the specific things you want to make sure they don't get. There's also an amazing section called Upsetting Things You Wrote When You Were Young. Poems, letters, lists of people who wronged you. But they're all blacked out CIA document style, leaving just the caustic comments by the author. All of this is gorgeously hand drawn and printed in a 10" book housed in a super nice cardstock screen printed hand numbered cover, each one hand numbered, the front a three color illustration of a blood splattered sink.
And there's a record. a 2 song 10", two parts of the same piece, titled somewhat cryptically "Dear Christian Girl (Parts One And Two)", a DJ Shadow style indie rock soundscape, lots of amazing (and amazingly depressing) samples, funny, fucked up, sad, melancholy, the song simple and hooky, but stretched out into a more electronic sort of groove, with thick buzzing synths wrapped around the Slint-y guitars, loping rock drumming, subtle hooks, no proper vocals, instead, the tale of the mysterious Christian Girl and Stunt Rock's saga of regret is told in a continuous mix of voices and sounds, of vignettes and fragments, in shuffling beats and melancholy melodies. Pretty great. And the perfect companion for the book. And as if that weren't enough, you also get a cd-r, with the same music as on the 10". All told, you get a 10" vinyl record, a 32 page book with hand silk screened covers, 3 Stickers, 1 Button, a cd-r and 1 of 4 different hand silk screened posters.
And we know all those forms are jokes, but we're really tempted to fill them out. Fun and funny, but only if you're a twisted bitter old crank, like us!
Supersister were a seventies Dutch prog group who released a quartet of classic albums, but none more classic than this, their 1970 debut. And this, Present From Nancy, is so goddamn good, if we had our way, we would have ordered a ton of these and made it a Record Of The Week, or at least PROG Record Of The Week, although it's more like a contender for Prog Record Of The FOREVER!! But sadly, we've been unable to get more than a few at a time, even now we have less than ten copies, and while we should be able to get more, it might take us a while, but we figured it would be better at least that a few of you prog freaks were able to get your hands on these, rather than no one at all.
So what's got us all hyped up? What's so great about Supersister? Just listen to the three sound samples, easily one of the best one-two-three punches in classic prog. A dense relentless, super technical ELP-ish workout, with manic piano, fuzzed out organ, incredible complex drumming, impossible time signatures, killer melodies, some amazing flute leads, and yet even at its most manic and relentless it manages to be both jazzy, groovy, heavy and catchy as hell! In the title track, flutes flutter wildly over the bass piano drum jam locked in beneath, with the band occasionally exploding into awesome flurries of piano and flute before the band bursts back into action. Then there's "Memories Are New", with its warm looped fuzz organ, and lilting vocal, thick crunchy fuzz guitar, and again some incredible drumming, and a way with composition that manages to make even the most obtuse time signatures and strange arrangements flow perfectly. Finally, "11/8", named for the time signature we suppose, is another dense acrobatic instrumental workout, the organs and synths fully fuzzed out, even the pass is super distorted, working through rapid fire flurries of notes, the drums somehow locked in tight, with the synths occasionally stuttering into skittery buzz, before the track devolves into heavy downtuned chords and tinkling piano, so dynamic and varied and again, the rare sort of prog that gets stuck in your head like a pop song. AND THAT'S JUST THREE SONGS.
The rest of the record continues in a similarly proggy vein, but gets even weirder, adding all sorts of dark shimmering drones, bizarre bits of a capella, pounding fuzz guitar jams, dreamy drifty almost new age sounding soundscapes, and this reissue tacks on two singles, the first one sounds like the Zombies or some other sixties/seventies dream pop outfit, with a B-side that is SO bizarre, a woozy organ driven jam, with a heavily accented spoken word story about an alien or something, complete with processed alien voices. The other single is an Elvis style honkytonk jam that is also truly bizarre, while the B side is a Doors-y groove, with weirdly crooned vocals and warm organs, and what can only be a kazoo solo. This band did get increasingly goofy with each record, almost too much to take by the end, but Present From Nancy is Supersister at their heaviest and grooviest and proggiest. And definitely remains one of our favorite prog jams EVER.
It's strange what a huge influence Bay Area black metallers Von ended up being on pretty much everybody. Not really all that surprising really, they did after all totally destroy. Filthy and grimy and so heavy and primal and raw. It seems like every black metal band has at one time or another covered Von, there was even a full length tribute, and of course, there have been about a million bands who did everything in their power to channel the spirit and ferocity of Von, one of the most successful being Swine, the Von worshipping side project of a guy called Swine appropriately enough, frontman for Hateful Abandon, whose most recent record, Famine (Or Into The Bellies Of Worms), a collection of blackened gothic gloom, we highlighted a while back.
On Marked By The Baron, it's Satanic Blood Angel time, ALL the time, blasting drums supplied by a furious frenzied drum machine, the guitars thick and gritty, buzzy and intense, the vocals drenched in reverb and effects, grunting and growling, as much as howling and shrieking. The sound manages to be weirdly moody and dramatic too, with moaning guitar melodies drifting over the churning black filth below, giving most of the tracks a weirdly wistful vibe, considering how fast and furious the rest of the music is. Rapid fire, frenzied and relentless, pounding and punky, but so atmospheric and with such a vile vibe, and that aforementioned moody melancholy, culminating in the final track, that dips into some super emotional classic sounding doom, even slipping into some mournful clean guitar, and after a few minutes of silence, returning with a bit of washed out dreamy drone, weird.
But beyond those little bits of strangeness, this is some gloriously heavy, harsh, beautifully depressive, raw blasting blackness.
Brand new album of electronic flecked tribal spaced out druggy free folk krautrocky weirdness from the Belgian "Funeral Folk"collective known as Sylvester Anfang (now spelled with a 'Y' instead of an 'I' for some mysterious reason) who have continued to evolve with every record.
The now out of print Satanische Vrede lp introduced us to these guys, with a garish lp sleeve featuring the band shirtless, wearing white hoods, holding goats on leashes, an image that somehow reflected the music inside disturbingly accurately. A primitive, ritualistic, orgy of abstract percussion, tripped out psychedelia, wandering free folk, some serious space rock, and a hint of something blacker and much more sinister.
This is only technically the second proper full length, but things have somehow gotten even more space-y, more druggy, more krautrocky, and thus more ROCKING. The record does start off with a strange sonic ritual, all mysterious spoken word, squiggly electronics, chaotic noise guitar backdrop, tons of effects, streaks of feedback, long swirling tendrils of whirring shimmer, but then BANG, the record launches right into "Na Regen Komt Sondvlred" mid-jam, as if someone just walked in on the band and pushed record without the band even noticing, locked as they were in full on transcendental space psych jam mode, relentless motorik skeletal beat, warm warbly low end pulse, and guitar, LOTS of guitar, distorted and wah wah'd the fuck out, flitting from moaning croonsome melodies to dense tangles of freaked out chaos, the whole sound and vibe so druggy and trippy and divine. The first band we thought of was German Oak, as this also sounds like it could have been recorded in some massive underground stone bunker, then Hawkwind, then some mix of the two, a seemingly endless mind expanding, speaker melting ur-jam, and we're only two songs in!
The two part "The Devil Always Shits In The Same Graves" is a massive twenty minute songsuite, that seriously smolders, the guitars twangy and Morricone-esque, the vocals a distorted scowly growl, the guitars spidery and sitar like, buzzing lazily, the melodies Eastern sounding, the drums laid waaaaay back, like listening to the Wooden Shjips at 16 rpm, but turned way down, for some late night bliss out. The second half is almost like a mirror of the first, but doused (dosed?) in noise and delay and distortion, a blurred lysergic Hawkwind outro rendered in effulgent streaks of buzz and fuzz, even more abstract and drone-y and space-y than the first part.
The four tracks in between cover a lot of ground, although never straying too far from that psychedelic buzz drenched krautrock that forms their core, from warm languid muted dronescapes, a thick smear of undulating effects laden warble over what sounds like a buried pop song, to still more white hot (outer) space rock dirge-ery, thick ropy basslines supporting swirling garage fuzz organs and tangles of psychguitar as well as dense clouds of malfunctioning electronics and haywire effects, to dense swells of super intense spacekrautdronegroove that could/should go on forever, to long stretches of glistening high end guitar shimmer and moaned sorrowful vocals, all wrapped in soft billows of dreamlike delay, to woozy garage kraut dirges, all detuned riffage, and pounding machinelike pulse, blurred buzz and otherworldly effects.
The whole record seems to melt together into one oozing organic meta-sound, a glorious extended space jam with a trajectory set somewhere in the distant future, a dizzying journey through innerspace, a slow burning series of sounds, fragments of the whole, sent spinning into the ether, streaked with starlight and glimmering reflectively in the muted glow of distant suns, a glorious bit of space rock, beamed to earth, into a clearing, in the middle of a forest, lit by firelight, channeled through the figures gathered there, surrounded by a stone circle that on closer inspection is revealed to be a haphazard assemblage of amplifiers, the cords running along the dirt of the clearing like black vines, the various figures hunched over, each wielding some sort of implement, their movements downright demonic in the firelight, and the sounds that come drifting out of the clearing even moreso....
Try as we might (and see above, we are obviously trying!), words hardly do these sounds justice. One of the best records of the year so far for sure...
We could find out almost nothing about this bad ass art pop trio from Seattle. Other than, well, they're from Seattle, they're a trio, their record is on the same label that released the Pretty & Nice record, and they were named for some weird executive car developed by Chrysler in the eighties. Oh and apparently the drummer is a teenager who still lives with her Mom (OK, we did find something out about them on the web). The art pop thing we just figured out on our own about 2 seconds after throwing this disc on.
The label sent us a press release, but it was jam packed with all sorts of surreal dadaist mumbo jumbo, we sort of wanted to reprint it here, but it's loooooong, and heck, it really has nothing to do with the glorious racket these guys (and gal) kick up.
Angular guitars, yelped almost new wave sounding vocals, lots of effects, tons of reverb and delay, some notes and vocal parts get looped and spin off into the ether, the guitars chug and chime and even jangle, the bass is rubbery and has a distinctly Joy Divisiony vibe. The overall sound is jittery and manic, frenetic and frenzied, Bouncy and brittle, lo-fi and off kilter. Lots of early nineties college rock reference points but filtered through the cracked lens of the current lo-fi noise pop movement. Folks into stuff like Wavves, Blank Dogs, Gary War and the like might find TT to their liking as well.
Passages get repeated over and over, turning cracked no wave pop into something much more abstract and mesmerizing, songs explode into furious squalls of freaked out mathy blow outs, guitars soaring, drums splattering all over the place, the vocals desperately howling along, hooks are there, but are wrapped in delay and buried in the murky mix, some of the tracks so drenched in effects that they seem to blur before your very ears, only to suddenly snap back into focus and stumble through an awesomely dense tangle of atonal guitar and stuttery drum damage. Warm synths warble woozily, draped over crunchy riffage and sea sick melodies, the whole record a sprawling chaotic swirl of fractured pop, that we can't seem to stop listening to.
Yet another collaboration between local filmmaker Paul Clipson, and musician and Root Strata co-head honcho J.C. Ledesma (although the first three of the previous collaborations were with Ledesma solo, so technically this is the first one with the whole band) and it's another fantastic feast for the eyes and the ears.
Clipson is a master of Super 8, his films more about light and shadow than the particular images, street lights, lit buildings, reflections of the moon or the sun on bodies of water, all become streaks and blurs, trains racing by, escalators, street signs, are examined close up and become textures, moving designs, Clipson often layers image upon image creating lush tapestries of dense visuals, sometimes high contrast, sometimes colorful and saturated, here, the first film is a nighttime cityscape, but rendered city-less in Clipson's able camera, instead a series of shapes and lights and textures, visuals that play like a score to some late night symphony, Tarentel offer up an equally busy sonic backdrop, mostly percussion, a tribal wash of toms and the occasional flurry of snare, shrouded by soft distant shimmers, looped guitars, also blurred and smeared, all very abstract and ethereal, a perfect match for the visuals.
The second film, Over Water, begins with shots of rivers reflecting the sunlight, photographed from a plane, clouds, edged by sunlight, a constantly shimmering slideshow of water in its various forms, already gorgeously abstract, with no help from Clipson, although he edits them and occasionally superimposes to create even more abstract impressions of water, the music this time around is equally hushed, no drums, just shimmery guitars, distant loops, lots of textural buzz, and warm barely there whirs, super delicate and dark. Finally, Tuolumne finishes off the program, the visuals impressionistic, close ups of what seems to be leaves and water, slow moving streams filmed with bubbles and a strange white scum that makes gorgeous patterns as it floats atop the nearly black water, branches offer a high contrast foreground, Tarentel counter with the most active of their scores, a muted insectoid buzz, drifting atop a deep thick smoldering thrum, which builds to a gorgeous almost metallic crescendo.
Gorgeous packaging too, sort of mimicking Clipson's films, light dappled vellum, yellow on a warm brownish backdrop, that folds over and into itself, a small Xeroxed insert inside, and like the first three installments, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!
Latest blast of nihilistic Teutonic post punk from this Jewelled Antler offshoot, and while much of the TPK sound we've come to love is still present, in some ways the sound here is a whole different beast. Surprisingly poppy, lo-fi, and jangly, a little gloomy, yep, sounds right at home on a label that features Blank Dogs and Gary War. The music is all low slung and murky, not nearly as angular as other TPK records, instead, these guys whip up their own brand of lo-fi new wave pop, the main thing that still screams TPK are the vocals, an echo drenched Teutonic almost-shout, intense and booming, heavily accented, and in German as far as we can tell, a strange juxtaposition to the woozy bass heavy grooves underneath. The guitars are minor key and melodic, sometimes chiming and almost Cure-like, the combination makes this sound like it could be some last rarity reissued on Vinyl On Demand.
The side long B side is musically all washed out and dreamy, with a killer main riff, all fuzzy and doomy, the whole track laced with warbly organs, a sort of off kilter cold wave vibe, until those vocals swoop in and twist it all up. Awesome!
Every once in a while, someone will release a record, and we can't help but feel like it was made specifically for us. And for you. Some records just perfectly speak to the aQ aesthetic, as undefinable as that seems to be. This is another one of those cases. Someone thought it would be a perfect combination to match up UK one man ambient drone outfit Tenhornedbeast, with UK slow motion doomlords Marzuraan. And it is perfect. And a fantastic idea, but just because something is a great idea, doesn't always mean someone thinks of it. And we're not saying we had been thinking someone should get these two bands together specifically, we're just glad they did, and we sort of wish we HAD thought of it. But that's neither here nor there. The important thing is that it happened, and now we can all luxuriate in the deep dark heaviness both of these bands explore. And while the bands are indeed different, their aesthetics are not all that far removed. The both exist in some blackened nether region, haunting sonic realms, where heaviness can be expressed in both utter darkness and extreme force, sometimes both, and once in awhile neither.
Tenhornedbeast offer up a nearly 30 minute long sonic ritual, beginning as a bit of swirling black minimalism, but slowly building to a truly intense wall of doomdrone, the sound thick and textured, a churning cauldron of low end buzz and downtuned disembodied riffs, all brought to a boil and poured out in a viscous black torrent, left to flow like some subterranean river. But these deep drones are laced with melodies, and keening high end shards, allowed to shine forth occasionally, but often swallowed up before they can fill those caves with their unnatural light. The track continually changes shape, sound and timbre, various shades of grey and black, lightening and darkening as the landscape changes, a haunting journey through some lost world, where sound replaces sight, allowing us to navigate ever deeper.
Marzuraan counter with what must be one of their prettiest tracks ever. It's still sludgey and doomy, but the notes ring out, the melodies almost soar, the sound fuzzy and glimmering, almost like these guys have caught the shoegaze bug as well. Washed out and blissy, super melodic and melancholy, but the coolest part is that the track seems to warble and waver, almost like someone is manually adjusting the tape speed, so the notes sound drunken and drugged, the track lurches and weaves drunkenly, only adding to the haunting and off kilter beauty. Part way through, the riffs get a little more riffy, and then the vocals come in, a moaning distant croon, and we're most definitely in serious Jesu territory, but that weird speed shifting hitch, keeps it from sounding too pretty, or two blissy. But if these guys keep heading in this direction, they could definitely give Jesu, and Nadja and other metallic shoegazers a run for their money.
The packaging is super swank, a three panel gatefold, each of the front panels diecut with each band's symbol, printed inside and out, housed in a thick plastic sleeve with a sticker affixed to the front.
We've always loved the Terminals, one of the originators of the NZ sound that once was the specialty around aQuarius. Their early nineties albums were so fantastic, moody and dramatic, epic and dark, lo-fi, but sprawling and expansive. It's been a while since we revisited these guys, and this, their 3rd album, from 1995 just got reissued so we've been immersing ourselves once again, and holy shit does this stuff still sound fantastic. Wild buzzing distorted guitars, thick synths, dense driving drumming, but it's the vocals that seal the deal. We had sort of forgotten how over the top and dramatic they were. Like a punk rock, lo fi, rougher rawer Antony maybe? It's a wonder, without it, the music is swirling and chaotic, a sort of dark gothic pop, intense and emotional, slipping from woozy laid back drift to frenetic almost psychedelic freakout, but then mix in those vocals, and we're talking some nineties noise rock cabaret, some Antony, a little Michael Gira, a bit of Nick Cave, some hints of Paul Banks from Interpol, heck, listening to this again, we realize a whole bunch of new bands who have been mining the goth pop and new wave past owe a LOT to these guys, even if they don't realize it. Driving, moody, intense, infusing their more straightforward dour pop with the noise rock of their NZ brethren, creating a charged hybrid that smolders intensely, even at it's most minimal and mysterious, but which becomes evident when the band lets loose and explodes into freaked out blasts of grinding guitar and splattery drum chaos, only to reel it right back in and slip back into some brooding jangle or lurching clanging doom pop dirge.
Includes two bonus tracks and liner notes from aQ customer and pal Jon Dale!
A tremendous cassette only release from the Terrors, an unknown project presumably based out of Los Angeles who offers up some totally desolate, bedroom recordings for cheap synths, guitar, voice, and -- because it's on Monorail Trespassing - snippets of noise. The first track has this creepy, nocturnal repeating motif of minor key melody that is trying to be a Rhodes keyboard but is probably something much more disposable, but that melody could be something easily found on a Labradford album or even a Bohren and Der Club of Gore track, but run through William Basinski's tape machinations. Ghostly splashes of droning guitar ebb and flow around that melodic passage, furthering the darkened gloom which settles around the track. This alone is worth the price of admission! The next track and a few fragmented moments on the other side feature vocals from the Terrors. It's a painfully lonely voice singing into a crappy microphone, which accentuates the melancholy vocal melody wrapped with plenty of tape hiss and an occasional downer strum on an acoustic guitar. These songs appear as a cross between Devendra and Grouper, as these roughly hewn takes on whatever was at hand with the pure emotion coming through the songs, cast in a hue that is profoundly depressed for the Terrors. The last track on this cassette ends with a arcing wash of white noise, that almost sounds like Terrors set up his recording under the flight path of LAX, just to get the rush of a plane taking off to conclude this track. It's a C-30 tape, and limited to 125 copies. Really great!
What just-released reissue on Circle's Ektro label do you think the Circle guys are most excited about right now? No, not their own Taantumus (one of our Records Of The Week). It's more likely this, the 1983 ep from Jon-Mikl Thor, Canadian bodybuilding champion and tongue-in-cheek (???) he-man heavy metaller extraordinaire. It's been slickly repackaged with bonus tracks, for a total of eleven songs in all. The first six are from the original 12" ep, followed by four additional tracks taken from a 1986 soundtrack album Thor did called Recruits - Wild In the Streets (though these, for some reason, aren't noted as such), plus there's one more bonus cut, "Muscle Rock (The Vulcans Arrive)".
Right from thunderous opener "Lightning Strikes", this disc is a triumphant (and, we'll certainly admit, goofy) '80s metal assault, of course... but also essentially POP music. Which part of what's cool about Thor, is the idea that back in the day, you could make music like this with hopes of becoming an actual pop star. So he's somehow simultaneously the most metal thing ever, we mean, he could kick sand in Manowar's collective faces and get away with it, but also totally, totally poppy. Thor wasn't doing this stuff to be a cult metal icon, not originally, he was trying to "make it" in the world of commercial rock/pop music. Let's not forget he performed on the Merv Griffin show! It just so happened that back then, metal (and sci-fi / fantasy too) was on the rise, and a guy with Thor's barbarian physique was ideally suited to exploit those new pop culture phenomena to the max, whether through music or in the movies. Although Thor never did get that huge (other than in terms of muscle, of course!) he did well enough to still have a career today, one now that survives more on irony and nostalgia, of course, but is still all about entertainment.
As is Unchained, throughout which you'll find catchy choruses, heavy riffage, brawny vocals, and flashy guitar work. But also lots of new wavey synths, laid on thick on the likes of "Lazer Eyes" and "Anger", the latter being probably the least actually angry sounding song about anger we've ever heard, though it does rock nicely. Rock is what Thor does, for sure, from the swinging chug of "Rock The City" to the galloping "When Gods Collide".
We figure this combo of utter absurd over the top metal-ness AND the not-so-brutal pop elements are why our favorite Finns are so into Thor. The silliness of their self-proclaimed subgenre "NWOFHM" (New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal), which is as much pop it is metal, definitely had a precursor in the heavy metal vaudeville of Thor. Also, of course, Thor is quite literally one of their gods, right? (His use of Nordic mythological references done in a much more upbeat fashion that most Viking black metal does it today.)
Definitely for fans of Steel Mammoth, Krypt Axeripper, another other NWOFHM favorites. Also for fans of Manowar (duh), old Cirith Ungol (have you ever heard their demos with the excess synth??), and we'd recommend this to anyone who was into that '80s Joe Hasselvander disc we highlighted not long ago, too.
