We reviewed the vinyl version of this a few lists back, now the cd version is available, and as the title indicates, the cd gathers up all the songs from the lp, and then some, their entire recorded discography! Very cool.
13th Chime were an obscure band for sure, having issued only 3 singles in the early '80s before calling it quits. Their history was not a charmed one for sure, as the band known as 13th Chime came out of another punk band known as The Anticx, whose bass player died during a Dead Kennedy's gig in 1980. The remaining members of The Anticx kept playing as 13th Chime, having found another bassist who helped push the band in a new direction. Perhaps because of the death of their friend, 13th Chime found themselves darkening their sound and embracing the Goth redux of punk at the time. The Damned's Black Album, the first Bauhaus record, Crispy Ambulance, the first Christian Death record, and X-Mal Deutschland would have been the contemporaries of 13th Chime's singles, with their gloomy take on punk whilst all the while maintaining driving, propulsive rhythms throughout. The guitars offered detuned buzzsaw attacks with little in the way of melody, as that was pretty much the role of the bassist (Terry Taylor) whose high-neck basslines lead almost all of the songs (a la Peter Hook of Joy Division and New Order). Mick Hand's vocals are somewhat nasal in delivery, but certainly not without their Howard Devoto charm. There's plenty of Bat Cave theatrics (including some guitar cabinets made out of coffins), clearly dating this material to the early '80s; but even so, 13th Chime were better than most of the bands that seemed to emerge from that scene without these amazing songs to show for it. And all of the tracks these guys ever recorded are featured here on this fine collection from Sacred Bones.
Some DIFFICULT listening from a duo who's whole career is based on making difficult sounds. Bruce Russell from the Dead C, and his countryman Alastair Galbraith, team up for two long form explorations, all improvised, glass harmonica, violin, guitar and clavioline. The first track is a stumbling chaotic minimal assemblage of tones, and lots of space, streaks of feedback, little curlicues of high end guitar, amp buzz, bits of clatter and crunch, thump and rattle, at moments it sounds like the duo gearing up to play, the avant rock version of an orchestra tuning up, but then they'll come together and for a brief moment, offer up a bit of strange melody or buzzing texture.
The second track though is much more musical, after a slow start of truncated melodies and random noisemaking, the sounds begin to sprawl and open up, loooong high tones overlap, the layers shifting and changing timbre, gradually, overtones loosed from their moorings and hovering over the proceedings, a gorgeous tangle of high end feedback, that manages to be quite hypnotic, especially when the band shifts gears, and introduce some buzzing low end, the rest of the track, a slow shifting shimmering expanse of high end tones, and occasional bassy rumbles, the propulsion and rhythm a direct result of the tones interacting.
Weird stuff, and quite difficult for sure, but patient ears will discover a weird bit of unlikely loveliness hidden amidst the sonic brambles.
A quick glance at this, the first release from the strangely named Aderlating, will reveal some very telling clues, the record is called The Nectar Of Perversity Springs From The Well Of Repression, the cover features a terrified figure, clad only in a bit of cloth, cowering from the darkness, and on the other side some sort of ritual that involves a naked woman with burning candles inserted in her ass, laying on an altar in front of mysterious cloaked figures. The songs are titled things like "Cut Off My Penis In Praise Of Black Satan", "Rope, Pig's Blood, Dead Flesh And Two Candles", "Death Knell" and "Doodstorm", so even before we get to the caustic gritty blackened filth on the disc, we're feeling a pretty heavy Gnaw Their Tongues vibe, which makes perfect sense as Aderlating is in fact another project by Gnaw mastermind Mories.
It's a little unclear what differentiates this from a proper Gnaw Their Tongues release, there's plenty of harsh black noise, rumbling mysterious drones, buried riffage and mysterious chanting, creepy almost choral sounding voices, pounding percussion, harsh hissing feedback, crumbling distortion, buzzing black metal guitars smeared into blurred buzzscapes, howling harsh vocals buried in the mix, static, whir, glitch, all doused in effects and buried under layer after layer of distorted noise and noisy distorted. Hell, even sounds like we're describing a GTT record. Fuck it, anyone into Gnaw Their Tongues, you're gonna want this, it could essentially be the new GTT record, the only difference we can hear really, is that it's a little more harsh, a little less orchestral, where GTT employed all sort of almost cabaret like sounds, Aderlating is a much more furiously aggressive and abrasive beast, but even amidst all the white noise and grinding feedback drenched distortion, there lurks all sorts of sonic mystery, be it buried melodies, haunting disembodied voices or fucked up fragmented loops. Needless to say, we dig it. Heavy and harsh and droney and dark and just what we needed to tide us over until the next Gnaw Their Tongues record...
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!! We got about a quarter of those but judging by past Gnaw Their Tongues releases, those won't be around for long...
Not sure what it is about the number 9 but it somehow figures heavily into the mythos of these mysterious grindlords from Australia. Their first release was a super limited 9". This latest disc, another blown out blast of pummeling technical grind, is 9 songs packed into 9 ultradense minutes. Hmmm. 9. 9. 9. Upside down is... 6. 6. 6. Ahem, anyway... As with all great grind, these guys pack more riffs and parts into 9 minutes than most bands can manage in an hour! 9 mini epics, each a dizzying squall of whirlwind riffs, shrieking vocals, chaotic drum splatter and a wall of low end that hits you like a block of concrete to the sternum. The guys in Whitehorse hipped us to these guys so you can get an idea of the sort of heaviness we're talking here. But where Whitehorse destroy with glacial malevolence, AoA annihilate with frenzied fury! Awesome.
Cool little 3" cd-r packaged in a deluxe oversized slim DVD case, with full color insert.
Killer collection of unreleased, super limited, out of print tracks from the last 8 years, from guitarist and soundscaper Oren Ambarchi, who besides making incredible records on his own, has been spending lots of time contributing to SUNNO))) and various SUNNO)) related offshoots. But these 5 tracks, all of them looooong, find Ambarchi doing what he does best, transforming his guitar into utterly new shapes and sounds.
"Intimidator" is the bonus track from the lp version of his In The Pendulum's Embrace album, and is a super minimal arrangement of tones and overtones, a gorgeous ethereal super abstract drone, subtly pulsing and throbbing, occasionally interrupted by an errant strum or bit of glitch, but for the most part, some serious Ikeda style clinical drone minimalism. "Iron Waves" is a remix of a Paul Duncan track, and finds Ambarchi adding guitar, bells and cymbals to the original, the result is a dark and meditative drift, that grows more and more lush, perfectly complimenting the soulful croon of the original, a dark, layered sound art ballad. "Moving Violation" is from a Touch Records comp, and is another gorgeous expanse of dark meditative guitar drift, laced with crackle and glitch, a strange textural patina over an otherwise serene and smooth expanse of muted tones. "The Strouhal Number" is from a live cd released in Australia, and is warm and washed out and beautiful, minus the crackle and distorted grit, this would almost be some super serene meditation music, chiming tones, lilting melodies, dreamlike and so so pretty.
And finally, the 20 minute "A Final Kiss On Poisoned Cheeks" originally released on a clear silkscreened one sided 12" as part of Table Of The Elements Guitar series, still essentially a dronescape, A Final Kiss is rife with sonic activity, so much so that in lesser hands it would be more of a mess, a sort of pretty-ish noise record, but Ambarchi, takes all manner of buzz and glitch, of scrape and hum, and weaves it into a strangely lyrical arrangement. The core of the piece is a thick, undulating low end drone, a muted Niblockian shimmer, that seems not to change so much as shift, reflecting different colors and sounds depending on the angle. Over this nearly constant thrum, exist a veritable universe of strange sounds, streaks of feedback, cricket like electronic chitter, moaning throbbing swells of guitar rumble, brief blurs of warm soft focus fuzz, layers of crumbling distortion, all of the various elements constantly shifting and blossoming, collapsing and then blooming again, creating a super organic flow, another instance of leaving the instruments on the stage, guitars against amps, amps cranked, although here it seems the instruments have come to life, and we are glimpsing their secret lives, as the communicate musically, telling some sort of story, exchanging mysterious messages, which while indecipherable to human ears, still manage to sound magical.
Guitardrone freaks will, well, freak! Subtly heavy, darkly drone-y, slightly noisy, rich and dense and textural. Really gorgeous. And totally recommended.
While we may not drool uncontrollably over Animal Collective like so many do, there's really no denying what a force and influence they have become. If imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery the boys in AC couldn't be more flattered, we've lost count of the bands who have sprung up trying to jump on AC's the multilayered infectious and ambitious psychedelic pop bandwagon, but few come close to that magic sound that these guys really have perfected over the years.
Fall Be Kind is a perfect year end ep follow up to their full length Merriweather Post Pavilion. Almost thirty minutes of high in the sky romantic and epic soaring pop that infuses indie rock with electronics, loops, repetition and vocal harmony to create the sounds and songs that seem to seep into your subconscious. Pretty rad that they are the first band ever to get official clearance to sample the Grateful Dead as they do on the ep's catchiest track "What Would I Want? Sky". But it's the track that follows, "Bleed", that we keep playing on repeat as it's one of the most simple and haunting AC tracks we've heard in ages. And the record closes with "I Think I Can" which would have sounded right at home on Panda Bear's excellent solo album Person Pitch, with its enthralling Terry Riley meets Brian Wilson in a rainbow prism sound. Fans of the band are sure to love what they hear on Fall Be Kind. So while we may not worship, we definitely dig, and there is no denying how great these guys are!
Weird and wonderful one here, folks. And it's for folky folks, though it's got a HEAVY pedigree. A lot of you are fans, like us, of South American stoner rock cosmonauts Los Natas, so you'll sort of (but not really) know what to expect here, Ararat being Los Natas guitarist Sergio Chotsourian's solo side project, and it is psychedelic like the most darkly psychedelic of Los Natas' output, coming closest perhaps to the proggy spaciness of Los Natas' two Toba-Trance discs for Circle's Ektro label, but is even more abstract and stripped down, not actually rock at all, often all-acoustic, "New Weird Argentina" maybe we'd call it! Ararat could be some kind of haunted, campfire krautrock, more like a field recording than the finished product of a studio session (even if the studio is called Death, which is where this was in fact recorded).
It starts off with "Gitanoss", an quietly epic almost 14 minutes of moody late-night strum, ambient hum, echoes, drifting melody, hazy organ drone, ritual percussion, backwards effects... quite a trip, as is this whole disc, Chotsourian climbing his personal Holy Mountain here (Mount Ararat!), it seems, this album a musical sketchbook of his ascent, of sorts.
Track two turns out to be a reprise of "Dos Horses", the album-ender of most recent Los Natas disc, Nuevo Orden De La Libertad, this alternate version not that far removed from the acoustic guitar/piano interplay of the original (Chotsourian just must be very proud of this particular composition, and it is quite nice). Next, there's the spooky "El Carrusel", all billowing fuzz and tinkling bell, like Stephen Wray Lobdell's Davis Redford Triad doing the soundtrack for a John Carpenter film!
While that one got heavy, the next is not, the pretty "Little Grissy" being under a minute of guitar and guitar only, Chotsourian giving a delicate demonstration of his chops for the Takoma crowd, leading into the hushed and melodic "Ganar-Perder", which to us sounds like Ghost's Masaki Batoh reinterpreting "Planet Caravan" or something (it too is a version of a song from Nuevo Orden De La Libertad, but in this case much altered, extended and acoustic). That's followed by the delicate Spanish guitar and atmospheric creaky crackle of the nearly 12 minute long "Magia Negra", one that Sir Richard Bishop fans should enjoy.
Only finale "Castro" is a "real" rock song, sounding like a band (Los Natas, or even Circle), with proper drums, and amps fully cranked, with vocals that Circle's Mika Ratto might think were his own, and even this one stays freaky and uncommitted, 'til it ends with the clatter of abandoned drumsticks, electricity flickering, Chotsourian and his mysterious band wandering away into the desert night.
We always say Boris fans should check out Los Natas. And Boris fans should check this out too, but we think Ararat is also for folks into Six Organs Of Admittance, James Blackshaw, Jozef Van Wissem, Feathers, Steven R. Smith and other Jewelled Antler stuff, all that whole post-Fahey psychfolk scene, with the astral Argentinean/Amerindian/Armenian/Appalachian vibes here flowing as ominous, minimalist mesmer, intimate and entrancing...
A while ago we found a cd-r by this mysterious heavy space rock band (they hail from San Diego as it turns out) and thought it was pretty cool. Probably should have tracked 'em down for the store, but never did, sorry. Thankfully however, Astra have popped up again, this time with a proper cd release on the English metal/doom/psych label Rise Above!�(Issued domestically now by Metal Blade.)
Astra is for anyone into the sounds of prog rock yesteryear (i.e. a lot of AQ customers, and us!) especially of the more Floydian, spaced out variety loaded with Mellotron, Moog, Arp, and other tasty synthesizer wooshery. Some flute also makes an appearance which we always like. The eight epic tracks here very obviously hark back to bands like King Crimson and Yes (note the Roger Dean alike cover).
Astra's melodic vocals also sound quite authentically seventies, mellow and moody and sad, which feeds into the doomy feel you might expect from a Rise Above release, this is at least slightly doomy, in a very old school way, with the keyboards getting Uriah Heepish at times. And like we said, they're obviously fans of the band who arguably wrote the first ever metal and/or doom track, King Crimson, whose "21st Century Schizoid Man" predates even Black Sabbath. Speaking of metal, and keyboards, we might recommend this to those into the most recent, most proggy output of local avant metal fave Hammers Of Misfortune. And also to fans of other "young prog" acts we've listed, like England's Diagonal and Sweden's Gosta Berlings Saga. Everything old is new again, maybe it's not that "progressive" anymore in the truest sense of the word, but it's still a sound we like to hear, and bands like Astra and the others mentioned manage to keep the '70s prog spirit alive without seeming too cheesy or pretentiously ponytailed about it. It helps of course that it's on the heavy side, though not to the extent of our favorite San Diego heavy space prog act, Tarantula Hawk (whatever happened to them????).
Another tasty and colorful slab of vinyl from BMSR. No one delivers warm, warped and fuzzy melodic electronic jams better then these guys. We've fallen deeply in love with their sound over the last few years and they have yet to disappoint. This picture disc offers two great new instrumental tracks that showcase their slower and more warped and warbly side. Still filled with such delicious hooks but we love that these longer tracks allow them to space out and get a little more cosmic and psychedelic. It's still unmistakably BMSR, their signature sound all oozy and melty and drippy and druggy and divine...
The picture disc comes with a coupon for a free download, but you can't beat listening to this on your turntable and watching the colored wax spin around and around as you get lost in their catchy orbit. Very limited so jump on this while you can!
The last missive from these drugged out UK doomlords, the criminally way-too-limited double cd-r Bethmoora, disappeared before most folks could grab one. Rumors of a repress have been going around, and we'll of course grab as many as we can get when and if that happens, but for now, this new chunk of slow and low space doooooom (on an actual cd) should tide you over if you missed Bethmoora.
Two tracks, recorded live (although you might not know it), one 32 minutes, one 18 minutes, both massive sprawling slow motion doomscapes, minimal spidery guitars, and sitar strum, all laid over a thick miasma of rumbling buzz, a thick low end raga, a black sonic fog threatening to envelop the delicate melodies above. The drums come in slowly, when they do, they're spare and sparse, spread way way out, letting the music continue to drift, it's not until nearly 20 minutes into the first track that things begin to ramp up, still slow, and minimal, but the drums are harder, the guitars more distorted, the melodies congealing into woozy riffage, synths beginning to swirl, adding another layer of buzz and rumble, some space-y swoosh, the guitars get all wah wah'd, the band build and build and build, to the edge of a full on psychedelic space rock blowout, but before anything can happen, they reign it back in, and get all meditative once again before fading out. The second track fades right back up, as if it was the same song, the way they used to split long songs on an lp, part one, flip it over and voila, part two, but THIS part two starts off already revved up, the drums pounding the guitars growling and buzzy, backing up a mournful chiming minor key melody, this part too builds and builds, but the band aren't about loud / soft, aren't about the payoff, or the destination, it's all about the journey, and for 51 minutes, Bong do just that, once again taking us on a blissed out drug fueled space psych kraut doom journey to end all journeys!
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A few years ago Will Oldham played the always awesome Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival that takes place in Golden Gate Park every autumn. While the festival has indeed been best known for featuring amazing performances by bluegrass and country icons like Doc Watson, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Earl Scruggs, Gillian Welch, etc. It was such a perfect setting for the twangier side of Oldham's (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's) sound. This new live vinyl only release billed as Bonnie Billy & The Picket Line (the man loves his ever shifting monickers!) finds Oldham and his band totally tapping into a distinctly more bluegrass sound, turning many of their great songs from the past into something completely different and way more country, much of it significantly more upbeat and uplifting than many of the studio recordings. Yet still, it's the slow and stunning rendition of "Lay And Love" that has been giving us chills. It's also fitting Oldham used this opportunity cover a Merle Haggard song, "Ramblin Fever", as well as a Ralph Stanley song, "Hemlocks And Primroses".
It's a true testament to a great songwriter when they are able to rearrange and reimagine their songs in a multitude of ways and Oldham has proven time and time again he's definitely one of the special ones.
Full length number three from this mysterious Texan one man band, whose blend of Burzumic black metal and blown out distortion drenched shoegaze has made this a longtime favorite around here. And even though the record opens with the most overtly metal track we've heard from this guy in ages, with its bellowed demonic vox and angular riffage, it still manages to be super warm and lush and in-the-red, with the guitars SO distorted they seem on the verge of crumbling.
And that feel and vibe becomes even more pronounced as the record proceeds, slow, pounding, woozy weeping expanses of mournful melody, washed out guitar fuzz, loping basslines, with some seriously gorgeous poppy moments, like the strange looping bridge on "Ashes In Her Mouth", with its spidery little repeating motif, or the almost Alcest / Amesoeurs sounding main riff of "Lifetaker", the whole record is weirdly pretty, and melancholy, it's the black metal equivalent of looking at the world on a rainy day through a window streaked with water, the rivulets, distorting everything, making shapes twist and blur, smearing forms into one another, adding a surreal quality to everything, gauzy, fuzzy, indistinct, the tone of the guitars, so dripping with distortion, evokes the same sort of soft focus feel, even though the notes and vocals and songs are still plenty black and quite METAL.
The mood is mournful, but not despondent, more like the sun struggling to shine trough pitch black clouds, the minor key melodies so intense and emotional, draped over simple driving rhythms, not blast beats here, and those guitars, to a certain degree, the defining sound of Brown Jenkins, even at its grimmest and meanest and most brutal, those guitars can't help but sound warm, washing over you, dragging you into whatever lurks below. So good. Definitely one of those rare BM records that manages to be simultaneously intense and heavy and seriously grim, but also dreamlike, mesmerizing and so so hypnotic. For the buzz obsessed, this makes some serious transcendent late night drifting off music...
Man, another favorite of ours that somehow slipped through the cracks. These guys have been rocking for close to 15 years now, they've put records out on Hydra Head, Translation Loss, This Dark Reign, now The End, eight full lengths, even a sort of greatest hits cd/dvd, and we're only now giving these guys some love. Well, apologies to the band, the labels, and to you, if you've somehow managed to miss out on these guys this whole time, you've go some serious catching up to do, cuz these guys RULE. Heavy and dirgey and noisy, definitely reminiscent of the classic AmRep sound, if you dig stuff like Today Is The Day, Botch, Neurosis, Killdozer, all that sort of low slung pigfuck heaviness, you'll probably dig these guys. They sort of get lumped in with the post hardcore / emo outfits, but they're sort of more filthy and fierce, the guitars super thick and angular, crunchy, the drums massive, and the vocals, a totally impossible throat shredding howl, that manages to still be melodic even though it sounds like the dude must be coughing up blood after every show. The arrangements are mathy and complex, lots of starts and stops, and yeah, hooks too, for being heavy and obtuse and fucked up, this stuff is pretty goddamn catchy too.
Been a while since we listened to these guys, but this record is kicking our ass, and reminding us how hard these guys rocked. We're definitely gonna revisit all those old records. That is if we can get ourselves to stop listening to this one, which at this point seems very very unlikely...
We've been trying to get these in stock for a while now, solo record number two from Evan Caminiti, one half of psychedelic doom drone duo Barn Owl. The other Caminiti solo record, Psychic Mud Shrine, introduced us to a world not all that far removed from Barn Owl, or Elm, the solo project from Caminiti's partner in Barn Owl Jon Porras (who just so happens to work at aQ!), and Digging The Void does indeed delve even further into that same blissy druggy void.
Long, low, slow tones, throb, and pulse, layered tones emit subtle overtones, melodies are spidery and barely there, visible through the gauzy whir of the droning guitars, a series of spaced out otherworldly ragas, super minimal and intimate, but at the same time, sweeping and epic. Unlike Elm's, and to a lesser extent, Barn Owl's tendency to get HEAVY, and to dabble in some SUNNO)))-like density, Caminiti keeps it hushed and scaled back, these sonic rituals are not meant to conjure up the same sort of blackened mystery, instead they drift through soft clouds of hum and whir, fragments of Appalachian folk hover over deep rumbles, the sounds are ghostly, the arrangements spectral and ethereal, laced with twang, but just as likely to smooth all the notes and melodies into softened streaks of monochrome blur, and on at least one track, the drone is jettisoned, and an acoustic guitar unfurls long tendrils of steel string buzz and classic folky melody, a darkly mysterious coda, to an already haunting and murky songsuite. So gorgeous.
And of course, ULTRA LIMITED! These are probably the last copies we can get our hands on, you have been warned...
The debut release on what looks to be a new awesome label called Terrible run by Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear fame. This is the debut of Taylor's new solo project Cant and he pairs it up here with a previously unreleased Arthur Russell track!!! Makes so much sense as Taylor was one of the people responsible for putting together and producing last year's collection of songs displaying the more song based and folk/country side of Arthur Russell, Love Is Overtaking Me. And no doubt Russell's legacy has had a huge impact on the sound of Grizzly Bear over the years.
The Cant song is so good! Dare we say it, but it could definitely compete with all of the great songs on Grizzly Bear's super awesome Veckatimest, it doesn't stray too much from the Grizzly Bear sound but gets even more reverby and haunting and melodic.
The Arthur Russell track is quite sonically similar to the tracks on Love Is Overtaking Me, with its rustic twang, but it's infused with the more layered and textured aspects of Russell's sound which means shiver and chill inducing bliss. Needless to say this is a must have!
We'd been trying to get copies of this record for ages, but couldn't find it anywhere. We loved the first Code record so much, a record we described as sounding a bit like a black metal Interpol, and we had heard bits of the new one, and if anything the two disparate elements that made the first record so good, the strange croony gothic component, and the blasting classic Norwegian style black metal, were both somehow MORE and BETTER, if that was even possible. Well finally, we managed to get in touch with the band directly, and ordered a bunch from them, and it's just as good as we hoped or imagined.
Like the first record, the root sound is full bore, super tight and polished Norwegian black metal, a la Satyricon, incredible blackened riffs, insane super technical drumming, majestic melodies, dense convoluted arrangements, but here, those elements have a strangely industrial vibe, not to mention that weird coldwave goth pop influence that so infused their debut. The arrangements this time around are impossible, constantly shifting and twisting, dizzying song structures that manage to baffle and confuse, but remain fierce and furious and most importantly catchy. The band are not shy about their black metal, often lurching into furious bursts of black blasts, howling shrieking thrashing mayhem, but just as often, they shift gears, and the music stretches out and in come the clean vocals, very much like later Borknagar, and like we mentioned before, Interpol, although on Resplendent Grotesque if we needed to break it down comparison-wise, we might describe the sound as Satyricon meets Katatonia meets Deathspell Omega, the pop element is certainly undeniable, but even at its poppiest, the guitars are still grinding away underneath, or the band is lurching through mathy breakdowns or seasick rhythmic changeups, there's plenty of other weirdness too, spaced out collaged interludes, with processed vocals, and delayed acoustic guitars, super hooky Khold-like riffing, but it's the songwriting that really makes Resplendent Grotesque so transcendent, "The Rattle Of Black Teeth" almost sounds like black metal Morrissey, and "Jesus Fever" has a super impassioned wailing clean vocal finish, that is as dramatic and emotional as any of the blacker more metal moments, if not more so, and "A Sutra Of Wounds" starts out as pure pop, before the clean vocals are teamed up with harsh vokills, for a seriously demonic harmony, that extends throughout the whole track. The whole record is a constant battle between light and dark, pretty and ugly, harsh and melodic, and that battle is exactly what makes the sound so unique, so intense, so weird, but so utterly enthralling and fucking brilliant.
Definitely a weird record, and probably not for everybody, grim TROO metalheads might scoff, but we're all about pushing the boundaries of the genre, and moving beyond the typical tropes, hearing sounds and songs that confound and confuse and perplex, we love pure black metal, the grimmer and colder the better, but we also love the endless hybridization of that sound, seeing where it can go, and how far out it can be taken, and these guys have taken the sound somewhere entirely new, and we're loving it. Definite contender for black metal record of the year...
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL, with a bonus track NOT on the cd version...
We heard a lot about this before we got it in which fired up our curiosity just a little bit. Like it says in the title, this obscure post-mod trio with the cool name has been trumpeted as the "first punks" to come outta Blighty, kicking out the jams with an antisocial sneer and snarl long before the Sex Pistols and the Damned and all the rest blew up in '77. And on the strength of the seven tracks here recorded circa 1969-1971, they were indeed pretty darn punk and ahead of their time (at least, in terms of bands who made it into the recording studio). Loud fast rules with these guys, most of the tracks being uptempo rockers, though the lumbering "Love Fighter" will be welcomed by all '70s proto-metal lovers, and supports the argument that these guys are just as much a proto-metal outfit as proto-punk, being something that fans of Buffalo, Toad, Budgie, Nazareth or Black Sabbath would enjoy. Indeed, some of the riffing on here might quite well remind you of Sabbath, and we weren't surprised to learn that they'd opened for the likes of UFO and Atomic Rooster. Metal? Punk? Same dif back then really. The distortion, fuzz, and 'raw power' attitude on display should qualify 'em as pioneers in either camp. Crushed Butler were heavier than the Pink Fairies, anyway, and that (awesome) band is already rightly heralded as punks before their time. So we'd say that the legend of Crushed Butler is hereby confirmed... alongside the Fairies and Third World War and a few others in England (and the Stooges in the States, of course, and some European freaks too) they trashed the happy hippy scene of the day for something uglier, grottier and more dangerous.
Anyone into metal/punk/hard rock history should find this quite a blast.
Before the cd edition came out, there was a 10" vinyl version of this, but that's long gone and this new 12" vinyl edition, as we said, includes bonus material not on the 10" OR the cd.
Not sure how many of you remember the group Code, and their record Nouveau Gloaming, from maybe 3 or 4 years ago. A dizzying blend of blasting Norwegian style blackness a la Satyricon (circa Nemesis Divina) and Interpol, or at least some modern post Joy Division gothiness, and no small amount of Swans like doomic crush as well, oh and a bit of Khold like groove. That record destroyed us (and before you order it, we're not entirely sure it's even still available sad to say). We had been wondering though, quite recently in fact, what happened to Code, only to discover... a new Code record in June (!) and this little project right here: Decrepit Spectre. Featuring Code vocalist Kvohst, who also sings for Dodheimsgard, which should give you a clue as to what sort of blackened crooning to expect from Decrepit Spectre. The rest of the band is rounded out by some serious black metal muscle as well. Members of Ved Buens Ende, Manes and Seth among others.
We're happy to report that Decrepit Spectre basically sounds like Code mk. II, which is a very good thing indeed. A killer mix of frenzied blasting blackness, and moody brooding doom-ed gothiness. At its heaviest, sounding quite a bit like classic Satyricon, but maybe more than Code, DS is rife with those awesomely dramatic vocals, that definitely makes Coal Black Hearses sound like a black metal Interpol record, which as far as we're concerned is pretty much something we always fantasized about, or would have if it even seemed like a possibility. The arrangements are mathy and dense and complex, the riffs buzz and snarl, but there's also plenty of winding twisted guitar melodies, haunting harmonies, and the cool thing here is that even the loping gothy parts, are often underpinned by furious double kick drumming, and conversely, the flurries of vintage black buzz, are often wound around deep moaning sorrowful vocals. A strange combination, but one that still works, and still totally hits the spot for us. We were a bit bummed out by the later Dodheimsgard records, not sure what it was exactly, but THIS is exactly how we hoped those DHG discs would sound, super tech, post black metal, melodic and gloomy, mysterious and dramatic, but at the same time heavy as fuck, crushing and thrashing and pounding, with plenty of creeped out interludes, washed out woozy blackness, harsh hellish vox, insane relentless drumming and the occasional stretch of abstract psychedelic weirdness.
A bit of a bummer this is only 16 minutes long (just 3 tracks), but it definitely has us chomping at the bit for a full length. For now, we'll keep on doing what we're doing, playing this over and over and over, while we wait for the full length (and that upcoming Code full length as well!)...
Released on UK label Paradigms, who seemingly can do no wrong. A limited edition, but unclear just how limited.
From the same studio that produced the amazing prog rock blowout that was the Cannabis India record from last list, comes this amazing flute led free jazz freakout from the Dieter Bihlmaier Selection, and as you probably know full well by now, we're suckers for the flute, especially when it's in the context of some fierce prog or far out jazz, as is the case here, a stripped down trio of just flute, bass and drums, recorded in 1973, this finds the band lean and mean, and so fierce, yet melodic and moody, groovy and jazzy and dreamy, slipping from fluttery drift to full on frenzy, Bihlmaier is an incredible player, expressive and all over the place, pure tones give way to stuttery breathy bursts, wild melodic runs, all tangled up with the bad ass rhythm section who lay down some seriously krautrocky jazz rhythms, locked in tight, mesmerizing and hypnotic, letting the flute do its thing over the top, but occasionally rising up and meeting the flute head on, the instruments doing a dense and dangerous dance, swirling, whirling and wild. The drums and bass get their time in the spotlight, but it's definitely all about the flute, and how the three mesh, even when they're all going full bore, which is much of the time. Hard to get your head around how three guys can be playing so wildly and so free, and yet the sounds can all fit together so perfectly. Heavy and heady and definitely far out, one of our new favorite jazz discoveries. Dying to find out what other amazing stuff SWR has tucked away in their vaults...
We've gone on and on in the past about Ukranian black metallers Nokturnal Mortum and the NM side project Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra. Bands that perfecty straddle the line between true grim blackness and total what-the-fuck weirdness. But the Ukraine has a load of other bands who are just as buzzy and brilliantly black and fucked up. And it just so happens that they all seem to share at least one (the same?) member. Astrofaes, Hate Forest, Lucifugum, and of course Drudkh. All of these projects traffic in the same sort of buzzed out atmospheric blackness that we can't get enough of. Loping stumbling midtempo folk flecked blasts of Burzumic fuzz, long LONG tracks, melancholy melodies swathed in buzzing guitars and anguished vocals, with brief bursts of blast beats and mosquito buzz riffing. Very droney and atmospheric as well as fiercely fuzzy blackly brutal. Fans of Burzum (obviously) and bands like Graveland, Woodtemple and the like definitely need everything by any of these bands they can get their hands on. This is the first Drudkh record from a few years back, we'll be listing the others soon (inlcuding a brand new album for 2006) but we figured we might as well start at the beginning. Forgotten Legends (and all the Drudkh records for that matter) is so good. Dark and bleak and depressive, droney and dirgey and black, but weirdly lovely as well.
Unfortunately, no discussion of any of these bands is complete without a brief look at their politics, always a troublesome sore spot with most black metal. Drudkh focus on 'Slavonic pride, culture and mythology', an ideology only slightly removed from the full on racism of Nastional Socialist black metal bands. Their name in fact means wood in Sanskrit, "the first language of the Aryan race." Oof. We've been through this before with Burzum and Graveland and umpteen others, we love the music, but abhor the message. In some cases, like with Drudkh, it's easy to just enjoy the music and ignore the problematic politics, there are no printed lyrics, no fucked up song titles, just images of forests and sky and rain and darkness, a mysterious booklet with no information but for the words: "sadness, bitterness, pain, despair, loss, agony, solitude, betrayal, melancholy, sorrow," all very mysterious and evocative. For some though, there is no ignoring the message, no matter how subtle or indirect, and the thought of giving any sort of support is unacceptable. That's perfectly fine. But for us, the music -can- transcend the message, and does at least in this case, and the sound of Forgotten Legends is nebulous enough that each listener can take whatever they want from this music, a series of totally mesmerizing, gorgeously depressive black buzzing drone metal epics.
How many bands can you name from Fargo, North Dakota? None. That's the number we came up with. Ever hear of the stoner doom outfit Egypt? We hadn't either.
But this here 4 song mini lp will change all that.
This short lived band hailed from North Dakota, and only managed to commit to tape these 4 tracks, but doomlords and stoner rock freeks will definitely wish there was more where these came from. Lurching doomic slow and low, heavy on the bass, heavy on everything really, but the songs were pretty reliant on thick bass grooves and the pounding drums, lazy sunbaked Kyuss-y riffs were then draped over the top, plenty of wah guitar, and wailed, SUNG not screamed vocals, that were also reminiscent of the late great Kyuss.
This is not funeral doom, or ultra doom, this is groovy stoner doom, classic metal filtered through the sound of old school doom. Sabbath, Pentagram, that sort of thing, heaped with some Kyuss, left out in the desert to bake, doused in LSD, just enough to give it a slightly psychedelic vibe, and let loose. Most of the songs slink along for ages, growling and simmering, slithering darkly, all low end groove, before exploding into furious space rock freakouts, wicked wah guitar solos, thick crunchy rhythms and those impassioned FX soaked vocals. The label suggests that Egypt will appeal to fans of Sleep, Sir Lord Baltimore and Deep Purple, which is definitely true, but expand that to include anyone into classic metal, fuzzy psych rock, and heavy doom metal. And again, fans of Kyuss, and THAT sound, will eat this up.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Mastered By James Plotkin. Amazing eye popping packaging, super thick gatefold sleeve, black and white on the outside, full color and psychedelic on the inside, printed with a spot varnish, super super striking.
More twisted collaged schizophrenic cabaret French pop folk weirdness from mysterious troubadour Laurent Gerard aka El-G! Where El-G's last record was a dizzying shimmery Gainsbourg meets Animal Collective song suite, that slipped from delicate hushed French pop, to more abstract free rock weirdness to epic dense dronemusic, Capitaine Present 5 is something way more out there.
On the surface, it almost sounds like one of those Sublime Frequencies collections, that just features snippets collected from the radio, short snippets, mysterious disembodied voices, a glorious barrage of constantly shifting sounds and textures, but as the record progresses, it becomes easier and easier to become lost in El-G's sound, tolling bells, thrummed bass, maniacal spoken word, bursts of noise, and tangled fractured melody, wheezing organ, delicate acoustic guitar strum, the vocals dramatic and passionate, the single song (?) that takes up the record's one playable side, shifting constantly from total chaos, to fluttery folk, to dreamy avant pop, to mysterious foreign radio play, to Residents-like art rock, to warm orchestral shimmer, to sultry smoldering torch song, to total what the fuck mashup and every possible permutation in between.
It's definitely chaotic, and a bit out there, a total head phone trip for sure, but the chaos is infused with plenty of jangle, subtle hooks, some pretty vocals, and irresistible melodies, even some cinematic strings, which makes Capitaine Present 5 a fantastic, and fantastically confounding listen.
There's something about Finnish black metal that just kills us. Always. Every time. Horna obviously, but also Clandestine Blaze, Vordr, Ride For Revenge, Circle Of Ouroborus, Behexen, Satanic Warmaster, Jumalhamara... and as you can tell by that list, none of those bands really sound like any of the others, but still, they all somehow manage to sound distinctly Finnish.
However, within that expansive Finnish BM sound there is most definitely a distinct subset, one that is particularly grim and frosty and buzzy and blasting, furious and frenetic, which is where Exordium comes in.
Their s/t cd from a while back got short shrift here for some reason, but we did flip for their tracks on the Crushing The Holy Trinity comp. It may have been the first time we had heard them, and we described their sound thusly: "Super white hot hyperdistorted buzz guitar, lightning fast blast beats, killer riffs, the whole thing blown out and recorded so hot the speakers can barely handle it!" Which pretty much still applies, if anything the sound has just gotten more refined, tighter, more polished, but without losing any of their grimnity. Think maybe a little old Satyricon, a bit of early Immortal, some Beherit for sure, but all wound up and revved up and supercharged, even introducing a bit of Khold like groove here and there.
Pure buzzing blackened Northern darkness just the way we like it.
More epic and dense heart-of-the-sun blissed out heavy space drones from Expo 70. And the thing is, we're running out of superlatives, we can only gush so much before we run out of new things to say, which is especially difficult when every record is as good as if not better than the last. So do forgive us if we're repeating ourselves, but hell, any one into spaced out heaviness, and droneprogbliss, who hasn't heard Expo 70 is missing out on one might just be their favorite band EVER.
Like past records, Expo 70 suck the essence out of every Hawkwind record, the soul of every Tangerine Dream record, and filter it through filter of SUNNO))) black hole heaviness, and come up with their own unique psychedelic space rock krautdrone, a sound we just can't get enough of. Expansive and sprawling, dark and meditative, washed out and dreamy, heavy and layered, the opening track on Sonic Messenger is a crushing chunk of low end rumble and pulse, which immediately gives way to some ultra hushed bliss, which smolders and flickers and expands in slow motion like a time lapse film of a planet being birthed. And so it goes, rhythms surface and blink out, guitars groan and whir and weep, synths wheeze and unfurl glimmering sheets of sound, the guitars sometimes coalesce into psychedelic almost-leads, but more often than not fade into clouds of hazy reverb and ethereal delay, the record closes with a 21 minute slow burn that is subtly fierce, a muted ominous swell of sound, wrapped in airy tendrils of fragmented melody, and swaths of gritty texture, a brooding and intense stretch of dreamy darkness.
Once again Expo 70 deliver the divine drugged out sonic space drone bliss.
And while they last (only 150 copies!!), included is a whole extra disc, an actual cd, not a cd-r, 50 more minutes of blissed out krautdrone space psych ambience. Three long long long songs, much more hushed and almost new age sounding that the record proper, except for the first 22 minute jam, that builds to a frenzied psychedelic freak out coda.
Deluxe packaging too, a glossy full color mini hardcover book-like sleeve, while the bonus disc comes in a cardboard sleeve, but there are instructions how to get some bonus stuff for the limited cd via the label's website. Cool!
Every metalhead we know has been freaking out over Hellhammer worshipping all girl crusty black metal outfit Gallhammer. And for good reason, the dew spit up a filthy sludgey blackened pound, that pays proper homage to the 'Hammer that came before. But truth be told, there is a bit of novelty to their appeal, hard to argue with three young cute Japanese girls in bullet belts and Amebix shirts, adorned in spikes and smeared black raccoon eye makeup, making this gloriously unholy racket. And we'd be lying if we didn't admit to at least a few aQ staffers having a bit of a metal girl crush on Ms. Vivian Slaughter.
Thus, those not afforded the luxury of actually seeing Gallhammer play live, have been clamoring for a live video. The music is awesome, but somehow more awesome when that harsh hellish howl is coming out of such a diminutive frontwoman, and this din is being produced by this all female trio. So here you have it, Gallhammer, performing live, like the title says in "the ruin of a church", the band set up upon the altar, in front of glowing stained glass windows, pretty striking visually for sure, and the sound is fantastic, thick and chuggy, pounding and blackened, the vocals a blasphemous presence in this house of God. BUT, the band aren't all that exciting to watch play. They don't headbang, they don't jump around or thrash wildly, and to be fair, maybe this music doesn't lend itself to that sort of action. Instead the band sort of sway back and forth, entranced, occasionally stepping to the mic to bellow hellishly (and it's revealed that both axeslingers have wails that could peel paint!). So minus any sort of extreme action, it is mesmerizing, helped along by the massive riffs and pounding rhythms, the whole band conjuring up some early eighties demons and channeling them into filthy crusty buzz.
There are plenty of extras, two other live shows, a bunch of videos (that are mostly the band rocking out live, but they rock out WAY harder for the camera), a photo gallery (!), and a band interview, but again, it's slow going as it's subtitled, and being translated, so there's plenty of waiting for questions, answers, and nothing wild or shocking, just a mellow conversation, interesting for sure, but not mind blowing.
But so what. It's GALLHAMMER!!! And for all our minor kvetching, this disc is pretty cool, and for now, as close as we're gonna get to sweating and swaying wildly in the pit at a Gallhammer show, and certainly as close as we'll ever get to actually talking to Vivian. Swooooon. So yeah, recommended. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! ABSOLUT NULL PUNKT "Absolute Magnitude" (Blossoming Noise) cd 14.98 AETHENOR "Betimes Black" (VHF) cd/lp 13.98/14.98 AIR "Moon Safari" (EMI) cd + dvd + book 26.00 ALLIEN, ELLEN "Sool" (BPitch Control) cd/lp 15.98/19.98 AMEBIX "No Sanctuary" (Alternative Tentacles) cd/lp+7" 14.98/13.98 AMON DUUL II "Hijack" (Revisited Records) cd 17.98 ANAKRID "Banishment Rituals of The Disenlightened" (Beta-lactam Ring) cd 16.98 ANAKRID "s/t" (Fever Dream Fever) lp 13.98 ANAL MAGIC & REV. DWIGHT FRIZZELL "Beyond The Black Crack" (Paridigm) cd 16.98 ANIMUS "Hallucinations: Ideals Surrounding Water, Sand, And Clouds Of Dust" (Ars Manga) cd 14.98 ANNIVERSARY, THE "Devil on Our Side: B-Sides & Rarities" (Vagrant) cd 14.98 ATAVIST "Alchemic Resurrection" (Rise Above) 10" 17.98 AVSKY "Malignant" (Moribund) cd 14.98 BEHEXEN "My Soul For His Glory" (Moribund) cd 14.98 BUN B "II Trill-(Chopped up not Blopped up version)" (Rap-A-Lot) cd 14.98 BUN B "II Trill" (Rap-a-lot) cd 14.98 BURNING BRIDES "Anhedonia" (Cobraside) cd 14.98 CELESTIAL BLOODSHED "Cursed, Scarred and Forever Possessed" (Moribund) cd 14.98 CLOUDLAND CANYON / MYTHICAL BEAST "split" (Not Not Fun) lp 14.98 CLOUDS "We Are Above You" (Hydra Head) cd 14.98 COFFINS "Buried Death" (20 Buck Spin) cd 14.98 COFFINS "Mortuary Of Darkness" (Kreation Records) 2lp 22.00 COUGH "Sigillum Luciferi" (Forcefield Records) cd 10.98 COURTIS, ANLA / SEIICHI YAMAMOTO / YOSHIMI "Live At Kanadian" (Public Eyesore) cd 10.98 DEADBIRD "Twilight Ritual" (At A Loss) cd 13.98 DISKJOKKE "Staying In" (Smalltown Supersound) cd 16.98 DRUMM, KEVIN "Imperial Distortion" (Hospital) 2cd 19.98 DRUNK INJUNS "From Where The Sun Now Stands I Will Fight No More, Forever" (Alternative Tentacles) cd 10.98 EATER "The Album + Singles Plus" (Anagram) 2cd 17.98 EMPIRE AURIGA "Auriga Dying" (Moribund) cd 14.98 FERN KNIGHT "s/t" (VHF) cd 13.98 FLAMES OF HELL "Fire and Steel" (Draconian Records) cd 18.98 FLEET FOXES "s/t" (Sub Pop) cd/lp 13.98/15.98 GOTO80 "Made On Internet" (Pinipung) cd 17.98 HOLLENTHON "Opus Magnum" (Napalm Records) cd 15.98 I SHALT BECOME "Requiem" (Moribund Records) cd 15.98 IHSAN "Angl" (Candlelight USA) cd 12.98 INDIAN JEWELRY "Fake and Cheap" (dLTD) lp 17.98 INDRICOTHERE "s/t" (Gilead Media) lp+cd 14.98 ITAL TEK "Cyclical" (Planet Mu) cd 14.98 JEPSON, WARNER "Totentanz and Other Electronic Works, 1958 - 1973" (Melon Expander) cd 19.98 JEX THOTH / PAGAN ALTAR "split" (I Hate Records) 7" 12.98 JIMMY CAKE, THE "Spectre & Crown" (Pilatus) cd 17.98 JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN "To Survival" (Chrysalis) cd 13.98 KULTIVATOR "Barndomens Stigar" (Mellotronen) 2cd 28.00 KWELI, TALIB "Eardrum" (Blacksmith) cd 13.98 LES TROUBADOURS DU ROI BAUDOIN "Missa Luba" (El / Cherry Red) cd 17.98 LIL MAMA "VYP Voice Of the Young People" (Zomba) cd 17.98 MACHINEFABRIEK "Bijeen" (Kning Disk) cd 14.98 MACHINEFABRIEK & STEPHEN VITIELLO "Box Music" (12K) cd 14.98 MANIACS DREAM "Turku Hold 'Em" (Lal Lal Lal) cd 15.98 MASTERS, MARC "No Wave" (Black Dog Publishing) book 29.95 MGR "Wavering On The Cresting Heft" (Conspiracy) cd 14.98 MONOLAKE "Hongkong (Remastered)" (Monolake) cd 17.98 MONOTONIX "Body Language" (Drag City) cd/lp 12.98/12.98 MORGEN "s/t" (Phoenix) cd 17.98 MY MORNING JACKET "Evil Urges" (ATO Records) cd 13.98 N.E.R.D. "Seeing Sounds" (Star Trak) cd 14.98 NACHTMYSTIUM "Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1" (Century Media) cd 13.98 NATURAL FOOD "s/t" (Porter Records) cd 16.98 NEED MORE SOURCES "Shed" (Moteer) cd 15.98 NEGATIVLAND "A Big 10-8 Place" (Seeland) 2cd 15.98 NEGATIVLAND "Presents Thigmotactic" (Seeland) cd 13.98 NEMESIS "The Day Of Retribution" (GMR Music) cd 23.00 O LEVEL (TEENAGE FILMSTARS) "A Day In The Life of Gilbert and George: 1977-1980" (Artpop!) cd 17.98 OMEGA "10000 Lepes" (Hungatron) cd 17.98 OPETH "Watershed (Collector's Edition)" (Roadrunner) 2cd 23.00 PATE, JOHNNY "Outrageous" (Dusty Groove) cd PEACE, THE "Black Power" (Groo) lp 30.00 PENTEMPLE "s/t" (Southern Lord) cd 15.98 PINK FAIRIES "Finland Freakout 1971" (MLP (Major League Productions)) cd 27.00 PLUXUS "Solid State" (Kompakt) cd 16.98 PRISONERS, THE "Rare And Unissued" (Big Beat) cd 17.98 PUMICE "Quo" (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98 QUANTEC "Unusual Signals" (Echochord) cd 16.98 REATARD, JAY "Singles 06-07" (In The Red) 2cd 17.98 RILEY, TERRY "The Last Camel In Paris" (Elision Fields) cd 14.98 RUSSIAN CIRCLES "Station" (Suicide Squeeze) cd 14.98 SARMANTO, HEIKKI "Moonflower" (Porter Records) cd 16.98 SEMIMUUMIO "Vamos" (Lal Lal Lal) cd 15.98 SEVEN THAT SPELLS "Black OM Rising" (Beta-Lactam) cd 26.00 SHY CHILD "Noise Won't Stop" (Kill Rock Stars) cd 14.98 SIC ALPS "U.S. EZ" (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98 STAR STANGLED BANGER "s/t" (Aztec) cd 24.00 STOOGES, THE "Gimme Some Skin" (Get Back) cd/lp 17.98/16.98 STUDIO "Yearbook 2" (Information) cd 17.98 TAPE "Luminarium" (Hapna) cd 16.98 TILLY AND THE WALL "s/t" (Team Love) cd 15.98 U.S. CHRISTMAS "Eat The Low Dogs" (Neurot Recordings) cd 14.98 UNEARTHLY TRANCE "Electrocution" (Relapse) cd 15.98 V/A "Des Jeunes Gens Modernes" (Naive) 2cd 27.00 V/A "Disco Italia" (Strut) cd 14.98 V/A "Do The Pop! Redux Part One" (Savage Beat) 2cd 24.00 V/A "Ed Rec Vol III" (Ed Banger) 2lp 29.00 V/A "Ethiopiques 23 : Orchestra Ethiopia" (Buda Musique) cd 15.98 V/A "Japanese New Music Festival 2008" (Magaibutsu) cd 13.98 V/A "Well Hung: 20 Funk-Rock Eruptions From Beneath Communist Hungary - Vol.1" (Finders Keepers) cd 23.00 VILLALOBOS, RICARDO "Enfants (MAGMA REMIXES)" (SED) 12" 17.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "De Stijl" (Third Man / Warner) cd 12.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "Elephant" (Third Man / Warner) cd 13.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "Get Behind Me Satan" (Third Man / Warner) cd 14.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "Icky Thump" (Warner Bros.) cd 16.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "s/t" (Third Man / Warner) cd 13.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "White Blood Cells" (Third Man / Warner) cd 14.98 WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE SON GOD "Out of Body Diva" (Holy Mountain) cd 13.98 WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON "Love & Lamentation" (Pogus Productions) cd 14.98 WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON & RICHARD YOUNGS "Veil (For Greg)" (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98 WILSON, GARY "You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story" (Plexifilm) dvd 26.00 WOLF PARADE "At Mount Zoomer" (Sub Pop) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 YA HO WHA 13 "Feather Of Wisdom" (Phoenix) lp 23.00 YELLOW SWANS "Deterioration" (Modern Radio Record Label) cd 11.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
Now also on (import) gatefold vinyl!!
Much as their biggest literary inspiration, Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian, rose from mere vagabond thief and freebooter to command armies and then become King, Midwestern underground doom sensations Gates Of Slumber seem to be set unerringly upon the path of glory, treading the jeweled thrones of Earth under their sandaled feet. Bigger labels, more press, they do seem way more popular than when we first encountered their obscure, import-only debut some years back. And while their rise in popularity is well deserved and awesome (couldn't happen to a doomier bunch of guys), it's also a bit of a surprise... who knew that there was such a healthy demand for their brand of true doom? Well there is, and The Gates Of Slumber deliver, overtly influenced as always by old school heavy metal, and metal-related things like weird pulp fiction and Frank Frazetta fantasy artwork (the song "Death Dealer" here is actually ABOUT a Frank Frazetta painting as a matter of fact).
Perhaps the sheer sincerity of these guys won people over. Plus for a heavy band into barbarian muscle-metal, they're remarkably emotional and sensitive seeming, their music often quite melodic and full of gloomy atmosphere. Also, they rock. The one-two punch of opening tracks "Chaos Calling", followed by "Death Dealer", is a bit of a shocker. Were Gates Of Slumber ever this speedy before? They almost sound like High On Fire, or Early Man. A killer NWOBHM/thrash mash. But, then, "Beneath The Eyes Of Mars" slows things down and gets way doomier, more like we were expecting, throwing in some subtle Dr. Who synths to boot, and that's when anyone new to TGOS can begin to appreciate the moody side to this band.
Their long standing allegiance to Saint Vitus is most evident on the Lovecraftian epic "Descent Into Madness" (the longest track here), while elsewhere they get into prog and folk just a bit, no really, there's even some female vocals on the penultimate track "The Mist In The Mourning", shades of Hammers Of Misfortune.
Don't worry, though this album has its acoustic interludes, and all-instrumental tangents, and sad singing and sweet soloing, they sound plenty tough too, ferinstance "The Bringer Of War" is a brute. And you gotta love "Iron Hammer", reprised from an early out of print ep, it's of those songs paying tribute to their influences with lyrics entirely composed of the titles to their favorite classic metal songs and albums.
Further pumped up with solid, Sanford Parker production, this is HEAVY metal that cannot be denied. Maybe we will see 'em on a (metal) magazine cover yet - Decibel did just make this album of the month in their new issue, with a 9/10 rating! And we can certainly see fans of High On Fire and The Sword enjoying this just as much as those into the more underground likes of Reverend Bizarre and Electric Wizard.
You can often tell a lot about a band by the other bands they share splits with. And considering the fact that Gnod have done split time with both psychedelic space rockers White Hills, and space psych doomlords Bong, it's pretty much a no brainer. And the fact that these guys can pretty much hold their own with both says it all. And actually, the sound of Gnod does fall somewhere right between Bong and White Hills, beginning super murky and minimal, doomy and slow, the guitars abstract and space-y, fluttery flutes laced over whirring low end, the sound builds quickly to something seriously explosive, the drums pounding, lots of bagpipe like horns offering up more layers of drones, mumbled vox, distortion and noise and effects piling up until the rhythmic almost krautlike groove is buried beneath a heaving churning pile of constantly shifting and swirling sound. Pretty stellar for sure.
The second track here, another 20 minute space doom jam, is much less expansive, instead, it's a solid chunk of hypno space rock, the drums and bass locked tight, weird vocals drift in and out, swirls of space-y FX swoop down from above, the surrounding ambience is ever changing, but the rhythm keeps the song grounded, a head nodding, drug addled non-stop mesmerizing groooooove, lysergic and psychedelic but pretty stripped down compared to that opening salvo. Good stuff for sure. Anyone into the current crop of space rock explorers (like Expo 70, too, whose limited edition cassette/cd-r label put this out) will no doubt dig this BIG TIME.
Here's an impressive collaboration between the underappreciated British drone specialist Ian Holloway and the Arizona-based field recordist Banks Bailey. The two had actually worked together on an album entitled Summerland with Darren Tate; yet A Brief Sojourn improves upon the ideas of composing through interlaced field recordings, tone-bent drones, and synthetic ambience. The opening swells of filtered synthesis coalesce into a dark hypnotic tapestry of buzzing noises, although chirping birds from the Arizona desert that Bailey bring to the composition do lighten the mood. About ten minutes into the piece, the recordings of the birds give way a series of water recordings where washes of distant thunderstorms situate next to closely recorded sounds of rain splashing against concrete. As with the transition from one set of field recordings into another, the synthetic undulations are overtaken by a series of reverberant vocal bellows and stretched out guitar tones, which seem to recall the ritualist pieces of Zoviet France meeting the sodden drone restraint of the Ora recordings of old. Certainly not a bad place to be!
Limited to 100 copies!
Not technically a new release, but the first time on cd for some grim black rituals captured way back in 2004 by one of our favorite Finnish black metal hordes, Horna. And right out of the gate, it's everything we love about Horna, raw and grim and black, filthy and primitive, but also weirdly melodic and catchy, the opener "Piina" initially sounds like classic old school BM, but then Horna inject a woozy melancholy melody, which changes the tenor of the song big time, as it swings back and forth from pounding black filth, to moody lumbering depressive blackness, at some points it almost sounds like a muted muddied lo-fi Iron Maiden, which in the context of Horna's blackened sound is pretty excellent. And that song pretty much sets the template for the rest of the record, a blackened concoction equal parts grim black blast, and strange loping melodicism, the band never blast, but do get to some fairly punkish tempos, but also slip into weird waltzes and stumbling doomic pounds, the lilting melody of "Unohdetut Kasvot, Unohdettu Aani" is deftly wrapped around some furious black buzz, the result is dangerously lovely, and then there's "Oi Kallis Kotimaa", that's almost a sea shanty, with its jaunty tempo, epic soaring melodies and weird grunted sing songy vox, but the band quickly shift back into something much less melodic and way more grim in the form of the churning blackness of "Pohjanportti".
The final three tracks offer up more of that strange blend of buzz and howl, and moody melodic drift, dipping into Katatonia or Lifelover territory here and there, which is well balanced by bursts of serious blackness and gnarled UNmelodic riffs, like the one that bookends the impossibly lovely main melody of album closer "Menneiden Kaiku". Awesome.
We love death metal as much as the next guy (okay, maybe not the NEXT guy, but possibly the next guy after that!), we love all the classics, Incantation, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, but as you might imagine we do lean toward the stranger and more fucked up side of the death metal spectrum. The more twisted and tweaked and off kilter the better, which is probably why we were so into Portal, the Aussie horde whose sound was like a death metal lp left in the back seat of your car all summer, only to be played back on a Fisher Price turntable plugged into a foghorn, everything about that band was so geniusly wrong, the beats were off kilter, the riffs were fractured, the arrangements were dizzyingly chaotic, but totally a case of so wrong it's right, all of those random fucked up elements came together to form what we considered to be one of the coolest and weirdest death metal records ever.
Which brings us to Impetuous Ritual, featuring members of Portal, supposedly channeling the spirit of classic death metal, and were pleased to say, these guys playing classic death metal is still completely and utterly removed from how it actually sounds. Sure compared to Portal, IR is definitely a smidge more traditional, but it's still massively demented and OUT THERE.
The opening track "Elegy" begins the proceedings with an awesome sprawling doomy slow motion chug, that goes on and on and on, like the slow doomy part from a Morbid Angel song, but even filthier and murkier, it's so good, we sort of wished it went on for the whole record, totally mesmerizing and minimal, and thankfully, while that specific part doesn't happen again, much of the record is spent trudging along doomily, a lumbering series of tarpit chugs, and even though the band continually launch into sounds more death metal, the overall sound stays weird and obtuse for the whole record.
Even when the band are blasting full speed ahead, the recording is so murky, and the sound so lo-fi, that the riffs become washed out blurs, sheets of undulating buzz, peppered with bursts of frenzied death metal freakouts, demarcated by stretches of weird blackened drones, and lurching chugging start / stops. The record finishes with the appropriately titled "Dirge", which is more of that lumbering lysergic muddy death metal doom, that sounds like your stereo is melting, or the tape deck is slowly swallowing your tape. So fucking twisted, and so unbelievably awesome. Another metal record of the year contender for sure...
We have very very very few of these so we won't go into too much detail. You probably already know just from the two artists if you need this or not. New work from two of the few women kicking ass in the mostly male 'noise rock' scene. Both huge AQ faves, both who utilize voice and effects, in addition to the usual string-ed instruments to weave dreamlike soundscapes and delicate cinematic ambience.
Both are in full effect here, each outfits offering up gauzy beauty and mysterious haunting murk, distant shimmery drones and abstract lo-fi song fragments. Gorgeous as always.
Printed insert in a gold paint splattered tape case. And as mentioned above, CRAZY limited and gone before you know it.
Here 'tis, the long awaited (with our review longer awaited still, perhaps) fourth full-length opus from a veteran Maryland doom metal band who have finally gone a bit beyond the obvious Black Sabbath emulation that their name suggests. Ok, they still DO sound a lot like Black Sabbath: current vocalist Joe Donelley was frontman for a Sabbath tribute band (and looks a fair bit like Ozzy, in one of his more bloated phases), and of course guitarist Al Morris III is an accomplished riffmeister who's known as "the African-American Tony Iommi" not just 'cause he's a black man who plays an SG and wears fringed leather jackets.
We've previously reviewed a reissue of this band's 1994 album The Passage, and if you liked that one, you'll probably like this, despite the, uh, passage of so many years since that one. The vocalist on that record had more of a Dio thing going on, though, but as we said the singer in their lineup these days is definitely an Ozzy disciple, without doing an outright impersonation all the time, so he's kinda in the mode of Wino.
This new album definitely -sounds- good (and HEAVY), with nice thick, almost slick production, the guitars full and fuzzy. As doom goes, this is on the uptempo side, and it's darn catchy too! Too bad Ozzy didn't simply hire these guys to write/record his last few albums for him (including the vocals!), the title track here for instance would easily be a radio hit, if only it had Ozzy's name on it, far superior to whatever computer-generated product the Oz-man has crapped out lately. Ah well, Ozzy's not doin' it, so Iron Man has to, even without hope of hits.
Sabbath/Ozzy fans open to a modern take on that trad sound, and heck grunge fans looking for something a bit more metal, should welcome the return of Iron Man.
One of three simultaneous reissues of the mid-seventies records Bert Jansch made for the Charisma label. Never before issued on cd, each one remastered under Jansch's personal supervision with extensive liner notes, bonus tracks and extras.
A Rare Conundrum from1977, sees Jansch returning to England and back to a more stripped down acoustic sound after the ambitious folly of Santa Barbara Honeymoon. Charisma at the time was focussed on the new Phil Collins-led Genesis era and gave Jansch lots of room to find a new band and record a new record. Focusing on more traditional, personal, and back-to-basics material ("Pretty Faro", "The Curragh of Kildare"), A Rare Conundrum feels like the most lost and overlooked of the three Charisma records. The backing band Jansch put together for the recording (including members of Dire Straights, Lindisfarne, and Dando Shaft) couldn't obligate themselves to touring, so the album didn't get promoted at all. That's no surprise since it's rather anachronistically out of step with where popular music was heading (punk being the driving musical force at the time), and Charisma's year long delay on its release sealed the record's fate as well as Jansch's stint on the label, which dropped him without notice a couple of years later. The bonus tracks include three song that were included on the European releases of the record under another title before Charisma officially released this record to US markets. A lovely record that is finally getting its much deserved due!
One of three simultaneous reissues of the mid-seventies records Bert Jansch made for the Charisma label. Never before issued on cd, each one remastered under Jansch's personal supervision with extensive liner notes, bonus tracks and extras.
L.A. Turnaround from 1974 came out of a free-fall period between Pentangle's long-time-coming break-up and a label shake-up at Reprise records that found Jansch looking for new digs. He signed to the "Famous Charisma Label" (home of Genesis, Van Der Graaf Generator and Lindisfarne) whose boss Tony Stratton Smith sought to reinvigorate Jansch's solo glory from what he considered the din of the Pentangle years. Legend has it that Jansch was invited to stay at Smith's Sussex country house where he arrived after an all-night bender with John Martyn. When he awoke the next morning, he was introduced to Mike Nesmith (of Monkees fame), O.J. "Red" Rhodes (a renowned slide guitar session player) and Klaus Voorman at breakfast. Noticing a mobile recording studio set up outside as well as a small film crew, Jansch quickly realized he was supposed to start recording right then with Nesmith brought in to produce. Half-recorded in Sussex and then finished in Los Angeles, L.A. Turnaround is the rarest and most sought after of the Charisma recordings, as well as the freshest, and is most linked to Jansch's Brit folk heyday, yet with a warm rootsy sheen evoked by Rhodes' stellar slide guitar. Jansch even reworks one of his most popular songs, "Needle of Death", with an earthy production that adds an edge the original lacked. The bonus tracks include many alternate version of songs plus "In The Bleak Midwinter", a Christmas single produced by Ralph McTell. There is also a film included on the enhanced cd of the recording sessions documenting four of the songs. Beautiful!
One of three simultaneous reissues of the mid-seventies records Bert Jansch made for the Charisma label. Never before issued on cd, each one remastered under Jansch's personal supervision with extensive liner notes, bonus tracks and extras.
British Folk meets West Coast folk-rock on this 1975 follow-up to L.A. Turnaround. Recorded in L.A. with a full on back-up band on a solo record for the first time, Santa Barbara Honeymoon is one of Jansch's more curious efforts. Perhaps that was due to the change in production crew (Nesmith didn't return to produce), but also may be due to the unlikely inclusion of a Dixieland Jazz ensemble on "Dance Lady Dance" as well as steel drums on "Baby Blue" (not the Dylan song!). While this was a financial and critical disappointment at the time, the quality of the songs still shine through, especially in the stripped down versions performed live at the Montreaux festival, included here as bonus tracks. It's one of those records that is very much of its time, but still a worthy touchstone in the context of bands like Vetiver, Fleet Foxes, and Two Gallants who continue to mine those warm seventies sunshine sounds.
KGB Man & Oneohtrix Point Never are both the work of Daniel Lopatin; however, neither of these tapes are marked as to what sound is to be ascribed to which project. Ultimately, it matters not; as everything that Lopatin has touched over the recent year has been golden.
So, here we've got two cassettes, each clocking in around 20 minutes in total length. The first OPN track (well at least on what was the first tape that we grabbed) is a cold undulating set of slightly modulated tones set on glacial cruise control; the flip side of this cassette (which might also be by OPN) continues in this sentiment with a more wash, blur, and synthetic shimmer, still wrangling all of those nostalgic images of a future once imagined but now abandoned. What appear to be the KGM Man tracks finds Lopatin in his subaqueous, sampledelica vein somewhat like those earlier Caretaker recordings but with Lopatin twisting and bending maudlin piano notes into seasick electronic flanges and slippery looped structures. His luminous synth melodies do occasionally flicker through these mutant constructs; and oh yeah, drum machines, you don't find that in OPN. A very nice touch!
Limited to 125 copies of which we only have 10 copies, never to restocked!!!
Seeing is believing. Knowing that the music they make is pretty much mindboggling, perhaps that's why Japanese power-prog trio Korekyojinn elected to package their new album as a double disc set, one an audio cd, the other a live dvd, packaged in a slim, dvd-sized case. The dvd portion provides the visual proof of their ability to play like this live, if there were any doubt about it, while fans already convinced of their genius will enjoy watching it over and over while bowing down in front of the screen chanting "we're not worthy". And since this unit hasn't toured much outside of Japan, it's also the only way we can get to see 'em short of springing for a plane ticket to Tokyo!
The cd constitutes Korekyojinn's 5th album, Swan Dive, an album entirely, amazingly improvised by the trio of Mitsuru Nasuno (bass), Natsuki Kido (guitar), and linchpin Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins fame (drums) plus very special guests Uchihashi Kazuhisa and Hoppy Kamiyama, who contribute on guitar and keyboards/vocals, respectively, on two tracks each.
Of course it gets pretty wild, there's only six tracks but they're mostly all loooooong ones, up to 11, 17, and even 24 minutes in length... yet somehow they manage to keep it up, both the energy and creativity, their frenzied improvisations sometimes sounding rather more like the most complex COMPOSED prog rock music you could imagine (Orthrelm?), it's pretty insane. However, their convoluted chaotic outbursts are occasionally tempered by stretches of truly lovely, melodic, momentary mellowness. Melt-Banana meets Mahavishnu???
With herky jerk rhythms and heavy riffing, jazzy tinkling keys (when Hoppy sits in) contrasting with massively distorted electric bass, plus sheer avant-guitar textural shred-grind (the ante on that, upped by Uchihashi), this pretty much rules. As we had no doubt it would, considering who the heck this is (members of Ruins, Altered States, Bondage Fruit, etc.).
On the live dvd (70 minutes, NTSC, all region), they do a dozen songs, mostly from previous albums (though we think a couple, like the title track, are new), all of which we should mention are pieces in fact composed by mastermind Yoshida, NOT improvs. Again, total math-rock madness, very Ruins-esque, but with guitar. We are not worthy!
All right, this is a relief. Reviewing a freakin' kick ass real ROCK N' ROLL record. Nice to know they still can make 'em. Not that we didn't expect a healthy helping of rockin' from Lima's La Ira De Dios, whose previous album more than lived up to its title, Cosmos Kaos Destruccion (no translation needed, right?). We compared 'em to stonery stuff like Monster Magnet and Hawkwind last time 'round, but on Apus Revolution Rock they've gone even more raw and retro, punking it up '60s garage fuzzmonster style, with nods to surf music and other retro sounds, to the extent of including screaming girls (La Ira De Dios mania!?) in the mix on the blown out opening cut "Revolucion", which has a '50s meets the Stooges vibe that sounds a lot like '70s Japanese jams-kicker-outers Gedo. Good grief! What's not to like about that? And if you like to rock that is. THEY sure do, second track "No Hay Control" not letting up, in fact, cranking it up, it and ALL the dozen tracks on this album delivering nothin' but 110 percent high energy distortodelic rock action.
Need we say more? 'Cause La Ira De Dios really say it all with the slogan on the cd booklet: "Peru Psicodelia Punk". Another one they're fond of: "MAXIMUMVOLUMEROCKANDROLL!!!" If you're looking for catchy amped up anarchistic rawk with tons o' frantic fuzz, and cowbell too, for fans of The Heads, The Hives, Crushed Butler, Mudhoney, Larry Wallis era Pink Fairies, Motorhead, Boris circa Pink, fellow Peruvians / labelmates El Cuy, and other rad rockin' coolness of that ilk then La Ira De Dios have a rekkid for you!! Or if you can, imagine Los Natas on a search and destroy mission to do a Louie Louie and you're close to what La Ira De Dios is dishing out here.
So yeah, reviewing this was a blast, just turned it up and let the rock dictate these words... now the problem is turning it off and trying to put on something else we gotta review, which almost by definition will be less rockin' and thus less worthwhile. Plus somehow, in the process of reviewing this, we had a couple beers...maybe we'll just play this record one more time.
By the way, the vinyl version of this comes with a bonus 7", featuring of all things, a cover of "Shadowplay" by Joy Division (!), whereas the compact disc includes an exclusive bonus video for the track "5000 Anos".
All you really need to know about these Oakland sludge/doom merchants is what is being played, and what bands the various members hail from. So, howabout Graves At Sea, Brainoil and Pig Heart Transplant for a heavy low ended pedigree? And what exactly is employed to create this gloriously grim racket? "Overdriven string corrosion, ambient texture and documentation", "battering ram and subsonic transmissions", "low end frequency discharge, vocal disruption and auditory experimentation" and of course "battery acid, bellows and blasphemy". So yeah, you know where these crushers are coming from. Crushing, punishing doom infused sludge, laced with thick black drones and buzzing abject industrial ambience, all blurred into a massive heaving blackened brutal sonic beast.
Beginning with some sort of alien soundscape, until huge sheets of white noise take over, you're not sure if you hear the sounds of a guitar or maybe just overwhelming electronic wind-like sounds, all strange and buzzing and creepy.
Finally, weird little bits of abstract keyboard buzz and drift before the band kicks in. And WHAM, super heavy and sludgey, like black tar heroin, but also Eyehategod groovy; Khanate vokills that almost exude a black metal vibe. Lots of negative space to make things tense and uncomfortable. A second singer bellows in his best Neurosis voice, the perfect foil for the other more high pitched yowl, all tangled up with a cool. but weirdly sour guitar lick, giving the track a much more twisted vibe.
The record slips from crushing doom, to dense blackened rumble and back again, inserting angelic choral vocals, strange blurred electronics, super intense subsonic feedback, the bass thick and gritty and dirty, the sound here, when the band is rocking, is not at all that far removed from Burning Witch or Zoroaster, but the band pepper their sludgy crush with gorgeous black drone interludes, which makes this more of an EP, only one of epic doom-ic proportions, which renders it an EP that just so happens to stretch out to 50 minutes. Bad ass.
Killer tag team from two of Chicago's finest, Locrian and Harpoon. We've long been fans of Locrian's grim dark drift, infusing their ritualistic black ambience with plenty of black metal, but here, they go full on black, spitting out a slab of dirgey, muted, murky, howled hate. After a rumbling intro, the track explodes into a swirling cloud of frenzied riffing, loping demonic pound, and shrieked anguished vokills, with the drummer from Velnias driving them in their dirgey blackened plod, grim and atmospheric and surprisingly metal. We dig. Ambient drone fanciers might be a bit... overpowered, but everyone else will definitely dig.
The flipside comes from Harpoon, who we've yet to list, which is a bummer as it features ex members of LONG time aQ faves (and tUMULt recording artists!) 7000 Dying Rats. But Harpoon is not comedy grind, no this is some serious metallic brutality, slipping from frenzied blackened thrash, to pounding downtuned doom, throat shredding vox, crushing riffage, all wound around some complex arrangements and of course some seriously brutal drum damage.
A pretty heavy seven inches for sure. And in some seriously sweet packaging. Letter pressed black on black gatefold sleeve on super thick nice cardstock, green and black swirled vinyl, a full color two sided printed insert, and a download card.
We've been meaning to review this for a while, the latest from Mew, another band who have gotten short shrift on the aQ list, which is a shame, cuz we dig em a lot, they're pretty hard to describe though, poppy and a little bit commercial, but also way proggy, strangely twisted, catchy, but in an oblique, WAY left of center way, gnarled guitars, skittery rhythms, gorgeous vocals... thankfully, our customer Derek was able to get a better handle on Mew than we've been able to, so take it away Derek:
The title of Mew's latest record's makes it seem a tad bit pretentious and a bit too "precious." The record is both, but still immensely enjoyable.�(Their last album, And the Glass Handed Kites, was great too - even more rocking, and with loads of low end!)�The sound is a little like late '80s Rush filtered through the Flaming Lips and played by Care Bears in a room made of sheet metal. The Mew guys (from Copenhagen) have come out and said they're a "pop" band, but their notion of what bubblegum pop should be is intricate, proggy, far out and a little spacey -loosed from many of the traditional tropes of pop music. In an alternate universe, they'd be teen idols with hordes of screaming fans and�respected 'artists' simultaneously. (Apparently, there is such an alternate universe, and it's called "Scandinavia", where they're hugely popular - sort of like that odd interval�of pop history here when the members of Yes were showing up on fluorescent Trapper Keepers.)
Outwardly uncool but accomplished�and�somewhat unhinged and really pretty fantastic -�dig the first track, which is actually two different songs played forward and in reverse!!!
We first heard Lloyd Miller on that amazing Spiritual Jazz compilation we reviewed recently, and while pretty much every track was a killer, Miller's "Gol-E Gandom" definitely stood out, beginning with a santur solo, that sounded like a sea of buzzing sitars, until the jazz kicked in, bopping bass, fluid piano, shuffling rhythms, somehow following the melody laid out by the opening santur solo. So magical. We were smitten and were dying to hear more. Luckily, Jazzman endeavored to put together this amazing collection of Miller's various recordings, which was no small feat, considering that even after a lifetime playing jazz, most of these songs were only available on super limited self released records, which made it into fewer hands, and ears, that would seem right considering the power and originality of Miller's music.
He grew up in America, but his father was transferred to Iran, so his family moved there when Miller was 19, and they lived there for 5 years. Then Miller finally moved to Europe, to pursue jazz, after all, Europe was where it was happening, he landed in Germany, later heading to Switzerland, all the while creating these amazing, and mostly unheard pieces, incorporating an incredible array of ethnic instruments with some seriously intense and inspired jazz.
While some of the tracks here sound like straight up jazz, flecked with bits of ethnic instrumentation, others are totally far out. "Le Grand Bidou" finds his group riffing on a single chord, while Miller inserts an Indian style tonic drone played on the micro organ, and the result is bizarre, the whole track twists and squirms and heaves, it's an odd fit, but fit it does, we can only imagine how freaked out purists must have been. and frustrated, considering the caliber of playing, but it's these twisted takes on standard jazz that makes this stuff so magical, and the fact that this was the late fifties / early sixties, it's a wonder Miller didn't become a sensation. This stuff is radical, revolutionary, considering how important the incorporation of African music and instruments into jazz became (Don Cherry, Art Ensemble), how is it that this wasn't equally if not more radical? A white kid from Utah, with impeccable jazz chops, playing all sorts of Turkish and Persian instruments, wrapping standard jazz tropes around Indian arrangements, kind of mindblowing even now.
The liner notes are super detailed, and Miller's life is fascinating, but it's really about the music, and as much as we dig jazz, and fancy ourselves, if not experts, at least super fans, we had NEVER heard Miller before that comp, and this stuff is so cool, and so unlike ANYTHING we've ever heard, from the instrumentation, to the arrangements, to modal systems, some of the tracks are Indian ragas transformed, others seem to eschew the jazz completely and sound like some mysterious magical world music, but it's where the two elements mesh where things get truly magical, tablas underpinning pianos, strange horns droning over upright bass and shuffling percussion, all woven deftly into a strain of jazz that is wholly unique and original. So fantastic, and so utterly and wholeheartedly recommended. Easily THE jazz reissue of the year, if not the decade!
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters is on the cover, providing an exclusive interview about The Wall, on that album's 30th anniversary. The cover-mounted bonus cd is part one of a two-disc Wall covers collection (disc 2 next ish), the track-by-track rerecording of the entire thing by (on this disc) such diverse bands as Papercuts, Ulver, and Astra!
Ok, don't care about The Wall? Well there's also stuff about / interviews with U2, Woody Guthrie, Gene Simmons of KISS, Norah Jones, Mott The Hoople, The Specials, and more. Plus all the usual columns and reviews and whatnot.
John Carpenter. Goblin. Eighties sci-fi soundtracks. If those words have you frothing at the mouth, then this is for you. Also consider the facts: 2 new songs by 1/2 of Zombi, synth wizard Steve Moore, pressed onto limited edition 10" vinyl by Brooklyn's Mexican Summer label. They made just 500 copies, we only got a dozen. 'Nuff said? Another chunk of gloriously grooving yet sinister instrumental electronic sci-fi spaceouts, that sound like they could have been lifted straight out of some late night, straight to video, lost Carpenter flick. It of course sounds quite a bit like Steve's band Zombi, and thus suggest the above mentioned soundtrack music, but could also (like some of Zombi's output too) find a spot in a stargazing "cosmic disco" DJ's set.
Soaring synths, pulsing rhythms, fuzzy synthesized bass, mournful minor key melodies, primitive programmed rhythms, dramatic and moody and mysterious, so totally evocative and dreamy, and a bit cheesy, but in a good way. Shades of Tangerine Dream, this is definitely at the crossroads of spacey sci fi synth music and new age drift, bloopy and bleepy, almost video game sounding at times, but more often like the mood music from Phantasm or Halloween, where the main character is driving along the dark roads, it's probably raining, and while it's not explicitly scary yet, darkness and danger lurk just up ahead.
Ethereal and washed out, minimal and even a bit cold wave, this is total cinematic sci-fi new age space prog dream synth bliss.
Gorgeous packaging, extra thick vinyl, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one machine numbered...
Something happened to Morrissey when he moved to Los Angeles. It allowed him a new beginning of sorts. For the first time in his career he had dropped out of the limelight, he went almost seven years without releasing a record and for the first time since the beginning of The Smiths he really became a true underdog, and cult figure, gaining a revival of fans who maybe weren't around for the first, Smiths wave of Morrissey mania. When he finally returned with a new record, 2004's You Are The Quarry it really did feel like the triumphant second act to an already dramatic and amazing career. His two records since then have maintained that momentum and Swords collects many of the B-sides and non-album tracks from this era.
Many of us who are Morrissey fanatics had grabbed some of the import 7"s that some of these songs come from, which are arguably as strong as any of his album tracks. There's also tons on tracks, not even the most tenacious fans around here were ever able to get their hands on, and all of it has the urgent punch and full sound that his defined his music over the last few albums, which rank up there with some of his best stuff. So many others who once possessed such golden voices really lose it as they grow older, but it's remarkable how intact and spot on Morrissey's vocal delivery has remained. And his songwriting remains utterly clever, strong minded, emotional, political, self deprecating and moving. We really can't think of any of his peers from those early '80s days who have remained so vital in creating great music all these years later.
Not to be confused with the field recordist Murmer or the improv-drone Murmur or even the dubstep Murmur, this Myrmyr hails from Oakland and features Marielle Jakobsons (aka Darwinsbitch) and Agnes Szelag. Together they present fragmented orchestrations of post-classical arrangements alongside minimalist avant-folk gestures and a restrained use of electronics. Strings of all sorts are central to Myrmyr, whether that be cello, violin, cymbalon, harp, or ukulele, as they compose elongated passages which billow out of a cinematic post-classical sensibility and blossom into occasional shanty arrangements which allude to Baltic folk traditions. In moving between the more academic aspects and more folk stylizations, Myrmyr also incorporate male and female vocals into their arrangements. The occasional use of clanking bells and playful clatter of objects does offer some parallels to a few of a more abstract elements of the Finnish freakfolk community, but more often than not, Myrmyr's studied compositions glide more towards the work of Hildur Gudnadottir and Max Richter, rather than Lau Nau. Very nicely done!
We're a sucker for a band name, you should definitely know that about us by now. And a lot of you are the same. The thinking is, if you're that creative with just the name of your band, imagine how nuts the music must be?? Sure, that doesn't always hold true, but in the case of the awesomely monickered Tremor Of The Black Manx, the name couldn't suit the music more.
On the same label as last week's record of the week, the bizarre black metal weirdness of Jute Gyte, comes TOTBM, who we know NOTHING about, but it hardly matters, what does matter is that this is some awesomely confusional and fucked up stuff, like some sort of fractured electronic hyper grind, or maybe we could call it grindtronica, or something like that. The structure is definitely grind, the songs are short, the arrangements are head spinning, but all of the sounds seem to be synths and not guitars, although sometimes the sounds DO seem to resemble guitars, maybe they're just super processed, regardless, the result is a strangely synthesized bit of frantic buzz, tangled melody, moody murky drift, all wrapped around skittering, stuttering programmed drums, that go from plod to pound to inhuman blast in the blink of an eye, dragging the rest of the sounds along with it. Really rad, and WAY weird.
TOTBM are teamed up here with Night Troll, who sound like a slightly electronic, WAY fucked up, ultra lo-fi raw primitive black metal. Ildjarn, Bone Awl, Akitsa, if you love that stuff but wish it was WEIRDER, more damaged and demented, with throbbing sub bass, tangled atonal guitars, processed death metal grunts, and all sort of other random fuckery, then this is for you. Total lo-fi stumbling ultra raw outsider electronic black metal. Which to us reads: SUPER RAD.
Nirvana were always a pretty iffy proposition live. Always sloppy and chaotic, sometimes inspiringly so, other times not so much. It wasn't always clear whether it was a drug thing, or a disdain for playing live, or being sick of the music business, but for all of the perfect pop and classic heaviness to be found on their records, live, things often devolved into total mayhem, often gloriously so. Fucking up songs, destroying drum kits, mixing in random covers, letting songs just sort of stumble to a halt, or more famously, changing the lyrics, singing in a deep baritone and hamming it up when forced to lipsync on TV, or not playing the hit the TV people were expecting, instead playing one of the super noisy thrashers. All part of what made Nirvana so cool, and so fun to watch. We had the records if we wanted to hear those songs, we'd much rather see the trainwreck that often occurred live.
This show, for all it's fucked-up-ness and weird goings on, was anything BUT a trainwreck. Widely considered to be one of the best live recordings of the band, hearing this again, all polished up definitely drives that point home. Lots of stuff from both Bleach and Nevermind, the band sound incredible, the recording does too, and even Kurt's vocals are pretty together, the crowd goes apeshit between songs, and rightfully so, witnessing a band totally hitting their stride, and for a band prone to falling apart live, just utterly destroying.
For folks who don't necessarily watch music videos, the cd should be plenty, but we'd have to recommend getting the dvd too, as there was some crazy shit going on (Kurt being rolled on stage in a wheelchair wearing a hospital gown), hilarious between song banter, some equipment destruction and other stuff worth seeing, that was edited out of the recording for the proper release.
Essential for Nirvana fans, and if you need some convincing as to the merits of Nirvana, check out some of the other reviews elsewhere on the aQ website, and we'll do our very best to convince you that Nirvana were indeed one of the best bands EVER.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
FINALLY! It's here, the first full length from NO BALLS. The new project from TWO of the Brainbombs, and it's just like the 7" (which is sadly now out of print): a noisier, more metal, more stripped down, more mesmerizingly hypnotic, even more fucked up and fractured and RAW, nearly instrumental Brainbombs which means this is fucking AMAZING!!!
If you love the Brainbombs, and how could you NOT, then you'll love this. Looped, motorik rhythms pound away relentlessly, through thick clouds of crumbling distortion, the recording super fucked up and in the red, with a super freaked out spatial thing going on, some of the drums seem to be blasting away right up front, while other drums sound off to the side, while the distorted guitars seem to seep into EVERYTHING, the result is head nodding (banging?) and totally dizzying. It's like these guys took unreleased Brainbombs jams and stripped them down to their bare essentials, then dipped them in a boiling cauldron of blown out distortion, hurling them into the void, picking out just a single riff from each track, and looping it, over and over and over, pounding away at that same riff FOREVER, total maximalist minimalism, like some impossible hybrid of Brainbombs, Gore, Black Flag and Lubricated Goat, hypnotic and mesmerizing, filthy and raw, metal AND punk, post everything noise rock, this shit is so fucked up and fierce.
Angular slashing riffage, buried super distorted vocals, but only here and there, some of that old dented BB trumpet bleat pops up every once in a while too, but those elements are practically swallowed whole by the churning black mass of sound that is No Balls, a gloriously sludgey and psychedelic kraut punk doom, mantra like, but also totally rocking, and simultaneously the best and the worst thing that's ever happened to your stereo. And your ears.
Totally ruling, utter sonic destruction, total musical bliss, filthy and fantastically and utterly recommended. Some of us are thinking... RECORD OF THE YEAR. Oh yeah...
The bad news is these are limited to only 300 copies, and once the batch we have is gone, we probably won't be able to get more. Super simple packaging, black on brown jackets, with that bunny image from the 7", plain white inner sleeve, pressed on nice thick vinyl... grab one before they're gone...
Here's a special sampler disc that was intended to sell for only 99 pence in the UK; but even with the horrible exchange rate and shipping costs, Paranoia In Hi-Fi is still a reasonable $4.98 on this side of the pond. BUT! There's a catch. You have to walk in the door of Aquarius and buy this disc in person! The idea that Nurse With Wound, Dirter Promotions, and Cargo Distribution collectively had, was to encourage the multitudes of Nurse With Wound fans and newcomers to get out into the independent shops and maybe purchase something else alongside this nicely priced cd... so no mailorder for this.
Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound has engineered this anthology as a teasing sampler into the wild and weird world of NWW, by collaging the tracks into a seamless mix and then splicing that collage into 79 separate tracks, making it downright foolish to rip this thing into mp3s. Yup, this is a mega-mix meant to be listened to from beginning to end. True to NWW form, it's a rollercoaster of dada cut-ups, splattered noise, horrifying ambience, post-krautrock jams, and psychedelically inclined musique concrete. We do hear bits from The Sylvie & Babs Hi-Fi Companion, Homotopy To Marie, the Stereolab collaboration, Alice The Goon, the hilarious NWW mash-up with James Chance, and the Inflatable Sideshow alter ego which appropriates Black Sabbath of all things. To all of these things, we here at Aquarius once again say "Thank you, Mr. Stapleton!"
