Public Guilt is quickly turning into one of our favorite labels. A definite sound and vibe, but no two releases alike. An amazing visual aesthetic, sublime packaging, and some of the most beautiful, the heaviest, and most fucked up sounds we've heard in ages.
Public Guilt were one of the labels responsible for the amazing triple cd Untitled collection, a box gathering up some of the best 'noise' music of the last few years, they were also responsible for both discs from ambient guitarorrists Destructo Swarmbots, and this here super limited 3" cd-r just so happens to be the work of one of those Swarmbots.
The sound here is similar to the DS records, but where those records took guitars and stretched them into spaced out drones and whirring soundscapes, the music on Saturday, is much more obviously guitar music. Swarmbot Bianca Ala Muerte, is joined by Max Bondi, a UK experimental soundmaker, and the two, create a glistening, sublime world of subtly processed steel string buzz, breathless drift, and occasional bursts of fuzzy softpsych buzz.
The opening track is a lovely little tangle of playful guitar melodies, woven tightly amidst drifting wordless vocals, dreamy and hypnotic, the second track takes the same guitars and runs them through the computer, transforming them into stuttering soft edged swells, culminating in a crushing slow motion metallic dirge coda, throbbing crumbling heaviness, pulled into bleary eyed sheets of distorted bliss. The rest of the disc tends more toward the lovely and soft focus, with only super brief bits of downtuned crush. Instead, bits of glitched electronics, distant whistling, whirring chordal swirls, choral like voices, are all laid over the framework of delicate spidery guitars, and drifting melodic blur.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Packaged in screenprinted mini 3" foldout sleeves, blue black and metallic silver ink, with a printed vellum insert.
One half of epic cinematic ambient black chamber doom soundscapers Pussygutt strikes out on his own to create an epic bit of abstract doom creep, that strips down the Pussygutt sound to its essence, and creates something equally as haunting and harrowing. Clean spidery guitars unwind over squalls of distorted rumble, drums offer the occasional thud, feedback streaks and shimmers, the sound subtly intensifying, but never really moving beyond a slow motion moonlit drift. It almost sounds like Slint at 16rpm, a glacial post rock, laced with hints of doom, allowed to creep and crawl through an ever shifting field of whir and buzz and shimmer.
The song(s) continues on the B side, the drums and guitar dropping out leaving just a high end shimmer like a soft focus Sunroof! ur-drone, until some of the doom drifts back in, lush swells of ominous keyboard, muted chugs, sloooow minor key guitars, distant vocals, the overall affect way more pop and pretty than Pussygutt, but still retaining the same overall grim vibe, eventually finishing off with another soaring sheet of harmonized high end which gives way to that original spidery guitar line, drifting all by it's lonesome in an epic expanse of black, only to be joined by delicate pointillist piano for the slowly slipping away outro. So nice.
Beautiful packaging, a silver on black silkscreened tri-fold sleeve, released on Pussygutt's Wolveserpent label. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, hand numbered...
Killer underground black metal battle to the death between the Finns and the Italians, released on Finnish cult metal label Bestial Burst. Angmar, from Finland (not to be confused with the French Angmar) offer up some fuzzy plodding blackness, dirgey and primitive, ultra lo-fi and buzzy, with simple drumming, and super anguished vocals. A sort of buzzing black thrash with some old school Celtic Frost moments here and there.
The True Endless from Italy counter with their own black blast, some serious buzzing black Mayhem worship. Lightning fast swirls of thick fuzz guitar, manic riffing and blurry blast beats. Two tracks of completely blown out Norwegian style classic blackness, bookending a gorgeously depressive doomic dirge, with sludgy guitars, plodding glacial drumming and howling guttural vocals.
Slightly sexist (sexy?) aside: The True Endless also feature on bass, Soulfucker, quite possibly the hottest corpsepainted lady we've ever seen!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
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Holy shit! Record collector nerds and weird music obsessives might as well prepare to give up their first born or take out another mortgage on the ol' homestead, cuz this series of ultra limited 8" SQUARE lathe cuts is gonna break the bank, but it's so so so worth it. This is the first in a series that looks like it will include a who's who of noise rock / free rock / avant noise / free folk luminaries, including SO many all time AQ faves it makes our heads spin. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The first batch of these babies just showed up, three titles, each a custom hand cut, Peter King lathe cut, 8", and SQUARE!!! Packaged in gorgeous square and triangular die cut sleeves, super fancy textured paper, with a paste on front cover and a printed insert, each insert hand numbered, each release limited to 150 copies. Phew.
For those new to the lathe cut, it's a hand cut record, on polycarbonate not vinyl, they are more fragile than normal vinyl, and after repeated plays the sound quality can degrade a bit, but in our experience, in most cases it just makes them sound cooler. Peter King is THE MAN when it comes to super limited small run lathe cut releases, and pretty much every cool band you can think of has gone to him for some super rare or limited release or another.
So anyway, these are clear, they are 8"s across, shaped like a square and are insanely limited, and thus, pretty dang expensive! This is the second in the series and features Astral Social Club, an offshoot of the mighty Vibracathedral Orchestra. And as you might expect, this is two sides of gloriously buzzing raga like ur-drone. Glistening, glimmering, shimmering, sparkling, guitars and sitars and strings and reeds all tangled up in a blissed out harmonious buzz, albeit very melodic, with weird subtle sonic colorations and constantly shifting overtones. So lovely!
Ultra limited new vinyl only release from UK noisemakers Astral Social Club, a perfect follow up to their recent aQ Record Of The Week, Octuplex. But unlike Octuplex, which mixed ASC's new found obsession with beats and dance music (albeit of the very twisted and alien variety) and their more classic ur-drone sound, Plug Music Ramoon, tends toward the latter, 2 sides, 4 loooong tracks, revisiting the sort of old Astral Social Club / Sunroof! / Skullflower sound we're so fond of. Drawn out notes, layered and interwoven, lots of shifting textures and mesmerizing drones, lots of upper register tones, some seriously blown out space drone meditative bliss out for sure. ASC this time around, as evidenced by the insert, are a three piece here, synths, woodwinds, guitar, and LOTS of effects.
The first track is brief and glorious, a smoldering shimmer of looped melodies and layered drones, sun dappled and dreamily fuzzy, very very lovely and warm and hypnotic. The second track, taking up most of side 1, begins as a murky fuzzed out krautjam, like later Skullflower, a simple, motorik beat, buried beneath a swirl of processed sounds and fractured effects, before the swirl explodes into full on cacophony, a wild space rock free jazz freakout, dizzying and dense, fucked up and free, the rhythm all but swallowed up by the massive blown out ball of skree and buzz and glitch, but noisy as it is, still retaining some semblance of melody.
The second side begins with another krautjam, this one much more spare and stripped down, a tribal sort of drum circle workout, very little in the way of wall of sound, more a steady propulsive beat, augmented by subtle bits of clank and clatter, extra percussive filigree, subtle effects, sounding way more like something you'd hear from Avarus or Kemialliset, muted and minimal, slightly mechanical and totally mesmerizing, and most definitely a bit tripped out. The closer is another softly smoldering dronescape, woozy loops, lots of crunch and grind smoothed into further layers of warm buzz and mysterious melody, a little carnivalesque, dizzyingly off kilter, like a symphony of warped 78s, the end result is a short stretch of washed out, soft focus, subtly rhythmic ambient drift that would do Tim Hecker of Philip Jeck proud.
LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES! We had trouble getting enough in to list, so this might be it. Please don't cry if/when we run out. Super nice thick jackets, each one hand numbered, with a thick textured paper insert.
People went nuts for the most recent record from local psychedelic space rockers 3 Leafs, and rightfully so, a primo clutch of tripped out, druggy drift. The Auricle finds one of those Leafs exploring another quadrant of the outer reaches, this time with a drastically different arsenal, violin, French horn, ukulele and sampler, sounds strange, but this trio makes it work, a healthy dollop of reverb, a little delay, the violin unfurling loooooong velvety ribbons of sound, the French horn moaning out melancholy melodies, the Ukulele spinning out little upper register trills, sent spiraling into the ether, the sampler... well, not sure what it's doing, probably just taking all of the rest of the sounds and subtly twisting and transforming, the end result is something that is definitely space-y, abstract and atmospheric, haunting, playful pizzicato melodies surface here and there, the violin sometimes drifting into more traditional sounds, making this sound like a chamber ensemble drifting through space, and that's just the first track.
The rest of the record definitely branches out a little, from warped minimal sort-of-bluegrass, looped and hypnotic, to otherworldly music box like warble, to clattery almost industrial sounding machinemusic, to deep almost new age sounding ethereal ambience, to strangely drone-y old timey back porch blues, to slow spaced out slowcore lullabies, all tied together by the woozy washed out reverby production, and the strange and wonderful instrumentation.
More grim buzzing black metal from Finland! For some of us, that's all we need to know, but then, go ahead and check inside and discover that the lyrics were "written and stolen from various sources", by someone called Ancient Fisherman, who just so happens to be Albert Witchfinder of the mighty Reverend Bizarre!! Fuck yeah!
So in addition to digging through the RB archives and releasing almost as many records posthumously as when they were actually a band, Mr. Witchfinder indulges his glacial ultra doom side as The Puritan, and offers up musical black masses in both Armanenschaft, and now Azrael Rising.
Relentless and furious, buzzing and black, the Ancient Fisherman's partner Vitutor lays down some serious grimness, channeling the Nordic elite, but also countrymen like Horna, Ajattara, Beherit, Sargeist, the Finnish elite, and Azrael sounds right at home. Long epic stretches of sweeping keyboards, give way to loping sprawls of midtempo Burzumic buzz, before slipping into lightning fast blasts of blown out blackness. One track stands out, as it harkens back to Reverend Bizarre, a seriously doomy trudge, the vocals slipping from harsh and screechy to bellowy and demonic, while the riffs churn and the tempos lurch, before the last song crashes in, a blown out hiss drenched burst of midtempo drumming, washed out blurred buzzing guitars, and vocals that are wild and gloriously unhinged.
So there you go... Black metal. Finnish. Albert Witchfinder. Buzz. Blast. Grim. What else do you need?
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Originally released as a cd-r in 2002, so limited we never managed to get ANY. So for lots of Baker fans, this will probably be your first chance to wrap your ears around Letters.
Really hard to know what to say about Baker anymore. He definitely has a sound, unlike his dirgier more metallic blissed out doom duo Nadja, his solo stuff tends toward the super minimal, the dark and droney and drifty, the hushed and shimmery, and Letters is no different. But within that somewhat well defined sound, there is in fact much variation, subtle as it may be.
On Letters, Baker offers up soft billows of sound, which are wrapped around a hushed vocals, more of a murmur actually, but instead of a drone record, it transforms the sound into some super minimal slowcore, the pop element sublimated to almost non existence, the vocal melody being the only thing keeping the track from sprawling out into abstract smears and blurs (not that we mind that either mind you). The instrumentation is simple, just guitars and cymbals, but deftly processed into something deep and sonorous, and surprisingly melodic. Streaks of high end drift in and out (guitar or falsetto vocal, it's hard to say), as the record drifts dreamily. The sound does change dramatically here and there, deep overlapping low end tones, soft squalls of spaced out effects, glimmering streaks of washed out doomic blur, stretches of almost symphonic shimmer, the guitars transformed into hushed string sections, but it all resolves in an extended outro of soft deep swells. As always, absolutely lovely.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!!!
Awesome soundtrack to some strange low budget film about the failed East German space program. Haven't seen the movie yet, but the soundtrack definitely has us curious. Especially considering the players, Jim Becker of Califone, Jim White from the Dirty Three, and lots of other folks who have backed up indie luminaries like Smog, Bright Eyes and more...
Beginning with some creepy shortwave radio, and some spoken German (Conet Project anyone?) the record quickly switches gear and launches into some awesome (Turkish style?) fuzz psych, blown out and wildly rocking, but with the strange addition of mandolin over the top. Ends up sounding like Calexico meets Erkin Koray!!
But like any soundtrack, the music is dictated by the scenes on the screen, so the sound are all over the place. That said, they gel surprisingly well on their own, it helps that many of the tracks are linked by strange radio broadcasts, mysterious German voices, and other distressed broadcast sounds. The rest of the music is a blast, from soft rock big band jams with horns, albeit imbued with a strange buzzy steel string element, to lonesome strings and wheezing accordion, shuffling percussion, a full on free-jazz drum solo that gives way to a primitive Logan's Run space rock synth drone, laid back blues rock, weird off kilter pop, and near the end, that opening blast of fuzzy psych gets revisited, this time with vocals, and it's even cooler.
Pressed on 180 gram swirled pink cotton candy vinyl, housed in an amazing jacket, an oversized matchbook style sleeve, screen printed and letter pressed, black and metallic silver ink on thick brown paper, liner notes printed on the attached inner sleeve, quite striking.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!
A copy of this just showed up in the mail one day, all the way from Australia, a long time ago, but then somehow disappeared, lost we can only assume, amidst all of the stuff that is continually piling up here at aQ. Eventually, after some back and forth with the band we managed to secure another copy, and WOW are we glad we did. We were expecting something heavy and dark, not sure if it's the name that maybe had us confusing them with the Bird Blobs (bad ass Aussie garage punks) or the fact that they were pals with the Grey Daturas, either way, this is anything but dark and heavy, instead, Bird Traps traffic in something much more ethereal and ephemeral, slow shimmering soundscapes, cinematic and warm, lush and emotional, long slowly unfurling melancholic melodies, sun dappled and soft focus, dreamlike abstract chamber music of sorts reminding us of William Basinski, the Caretaker, Rachel's, Klimek, Max Richter, Tim Hecker, Belong, but unlike many of those sound sculptors, the music of Bird Traps is not distorted, or decayed, not warped or blown out, but IS hushed and delicate, mysterious and gauzy, a softly spun series of mini epics, long tones stretched out over hazy expanses of minimal whir, of blurred minimal melody, the songs developing gradually, soft swells giving way to gentle washes of crystalline sound, completely mesmerizing, able to envelop the listener in a velvet cocoon of sonic tranquility, but infused with just enough pathos and emotion, to make the sounds compelling, evocative, intimate and intense. A soundtrack to a slowly shifting, nearly static sepia toned film of the sky melting into the horizon, the stars fading into the cloak of night, this world slipping into the next...
What the heck's up with Glasgow these days? Until recently, Glasgow was all sunshiney jangle pop and brooding epic post rock. Or so it seemed. Maybe we haven't been paying attention. Maybe it's been a while since we took a good hard look at the seedy underbelly of Glasgow's music scene, but something sinister is definitely going on over there, cuz all sorts of filthy, brutal, heavy, sick sounds are oozing across the sea and into our cowering frightened ears. Next list we'll probably be listing a record by another Glaswegian crew called De Salvo, who are scary as shit, and here we've got the latest from Black Sun.
Black Sun is a bit of a name over there, but they're a new name to us, although it only took a few minutes of this filth for us to realize folks over here, especially the ones into massive dronedirgedeathcrush and slow motion ultra doooooom will likely be freaking out big time.
Three tracks, all 'versions' of the same song, the first, 19+ minutes taking up the whole of side one, is all lurching downtuned lumber, squealing harmonics, all locked into step with the pounding drums, the vocals tortured and anguished and WAY up in the mix, the sound somewhere between Khanate, Eyehategod, and Neurosis. About halfway through the sound simmers down a bit, a low slung softly churning bass rumble, clean minor key guitar lines all spidery and skeletal, warm whirring keyboards, that eventually slip into a groove that sounds uncannily like a slowed down Three Mile Pilot. Clean crooned vocals, laid over the woozy rhythm, before exploding back into stuttering metallic stop start lurch, gradually growing more and more noisy and unhinged.
The flip side takes the same track and jacks up the industrial vibe, way more low end crunch, a bit murkier and muddier, the vocals buried in the mix, little streaks of feedback peeking out from behind thick caustic slabs of rhythmic pound. Very reminiscent of Godflesh or Pitchshifter, relentless and machinelike, but wreathed in swirls of strange keyboards, and mysterious effects and all manner of fucked up guitar filigree. In some ways superior to the A side, at least to these ears. And finally, the second half of the B-side offers up the 'dub' version, which takes the more industrial version of "Paralyser" even further, the rhythm stripped down, the guitars processed and clipped, the vocals twisted and doused in effects, the arrangement all spaced out, the drums pounding one second, careening from speaker to speaker the next, the whole track actually is panned pretty hard, making headphones essential for experiencing the full dizzy drift. Definitely left us wanting more...
Essential listening for the usual suspects. If your favorite sounds are most often described with the adjectives doomy, crumbling, blackened, pummeling, crushing, heavy, crusty, metallic, slow motion, glacial, filthy, then my friends, you should prepare to kneel in supplication, and stare directly into the Black Sun...
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, housed in a very Godflesh looking sleeve, with a heavy cardstock insert, liner notes on one side and strange bloody symbols on the other.
Long rumored, long awaited, Bohren and Der Club Of Gore's installment in Southern UK's limited edition Latitudes series is, finally, here!! While the Latitudes series has included a disparate selection of interesting artists, including AQ faves like Circle, Shit & Shine, Grails, and now Bohren. You'd think they were asking US who they should put out! Certainly if they HAD asked us, we'd have said Bohren, we're (as you probably know) huge fans, we're still in awe of the live show they played in San Francisco a few months back, also something that we didn't ever think we'd see. The stage was in total darkness except for small lights shining from directly above each musician, one bassist, one keyboardist, and another who played keys, bass, and sax as necessary. And while it was unfortunate that there was no drummer (for some reason he couldn't travel with the band) their usual slow tempo meant that the keyboardist could "play" sampled drums fairly effectively, though doubtless it would probably have been even better had the actual drummer been there (however, one of our friends who was at the show didn't even realize there was no live drummer present, due to the darkness, and the fact that the glowing Bohren skull-head logo in the center of the stage looked like it was on a bass drum head!). Their music was so beautiful, and sooooo heavy. Literally one of the HEAVIEST performances we've ever witnessed, SO MUCH BASS it was insane. And remember, they're essentially a jazz group.
So, we like Bohren. You like Bohren (or if you haven't heard 'em, may we suggest their most recent album, Dolores?). And so we're both excited that this is here. Heck, we've been waiting for it for a while. Apparently the Latitudes folks like to get people all in a tizzy by announcing things YEARS in advance of the actual release. As a result, Bohren fans have been asking about this one, since, well back when Barack Obama was still an unknown community organizer, it seems. We had sorta given up hope of ever actually seeing it come out, assuming it was a figment of someone at Southern's overactive imagination. But then what do you know, out of the blue, with no warning, here they are. We got ALL the copies we're gonna be able to get, and good luck finding it elsewhere. So act fast if you want one.
Here's the lowdown: Like the previous Latitudes volume, from White Magic, this is an ep, just one song in fact, and while Bohren have been known to make some looooong songs, this one is "only" 10 and a half minutes in length. But of course what with Bohren's typical mesmeric glacial pace and soporific atmospheres, when "Mitleid Lady" is playing it's as if time has stopped, anyway... the bass frequencies throbbing gently, the sparse snick...snick...snick of the drummer's high hat, the dulcet liquid tones of electric piano melodically meandering... eventually the merest suggestion of a sweet whisper of smoky saxophone... ahhh the unique slo-mo "jazz" of Bohren is utterly entrancing as usual. This track was recorded back 2006 (we said it was long awaited), after their Geisterfaust record and before the more recent Dolores, and sounds like it could easily have found a place on either album. But having it here on its own disc is actually rather nice, as a "concentrated" (not really) dose of Bohren's special sound to savor.
It's also an attractive collectible artifact, in the usual die-cut, cardboard Latitudes packaging, including an insert with text in German on one side, and a curiously unexpected picture of the mostly all-bald Bohren guys on the other side - all four of them dressed in black, of course, but standing in a grassy park on a sunny day somewhere, three of them wearing shorts, two of 'em in sandals and flipflops!
LIMITED EDITION! 1000 COPIES ONLY! We got less than 100, and that's IT. And don't ask us when the also-announced 12" vinyl version is coming out, we don't know...
We almost didn't list this, as we only managed to get 5 copies of it, and all of our distributors told us it was out of print. But just for the heck of it, we contacted the label directly, and they still had a stash that they were willing to sell us, which is a good thing, cuz it's amazing! And it's CRAZY expensive, but when you see it (and hear it) you'll realize it's pretty much well worth it.
Never heard the name Karl Bosmann before, but he seems to be sonically aligned with the doomdreamdeathdrone crowd. And that's precisely what this is, although a bit more varied than usual, this one's definitely for the SUNNO)))-set (umm� sorry), a huge old chunk of low end drone. Multiple variations on the glacial near static crawl, some glimmering and effervescent, others grinding and thick, crumbling and abrasive, at least one seems to be all processed vocals, looped and smeared into some weird Steve Reich-ian drone and coupled with a wash of minimal low end shimmer, and one is all detuned guitar strum and disembodied buzz. Easy to hear some Wolf Eyes and definitely some Vulture Club. All of side 2 is a single slow burning sidelong epic, very Fear Falls Burning sounding, beginning as a whispery shimmer, building to a massive clamorous Sunroof! style din.
And let's not forget the packaging. Holy shit, it would be worth it even if the record sucked. Embossed metallic silver on matte black jacket, inside a metallic silver on black insert, a metallic silver on black sleeve, even the record labels are reflective silver, super striking and SO worth the extra scratch.
It's been 5 years since the last Bunkur record, the appropriately titled Bludgeon, possibly one of the slowest, heaviest sickest doomdronedirge discs EVER. Corrupted, Esoteric, Khanate, Asva, Rigor Sardonicous, Skepticism, Fleshpress, all heavy and slow, but it always seemed like Bunkur managed to push that sound a little further. And if anything, record number 2 from these guys, titled Nullify, might have thrown down the gauntlet, creating a single, sprawling, 77 minute cloud of oozing slow motion black hate. Until Corrupted come through with their rumored triple disc single song, Nullify might just rank as the one to beat. That is if by beat, you meant create a doom record, that was impossibly slow, with instruments tuned insanely low, a sprawling skeletal song structure that is so spare and sparse it seems essentially structureless, with vocals that sound like you're vomiting up your internal organs, drums that sound like they're playing to some subterranean deathmarch, and basslines that aren't really lines at all, more like subsonic tones emanating from some bottomless pit. Cuz that's what it would take to out-doom these Dutch destroyers. But hell, why bother, better to just sit back, and let Bunkur's filthy black tide wash over you.
Slow, and epic, not really 'heavy' as much as dense, dark, deep and dismal, in fact Nullify almost sounds more ritualistic and abstract than doomy, like a heavier blacker Abruptum, lots of rumbling and groaning and howling and creeping and oozing, here and there the band do lock into something more propulsive, and by that we mean like 4 or 5 bpm, the drums offering up some chaotic fills, the bass swelling and undulating, but just as quickly whatever forward momentum is generated is dispelled and the band grinds back to a near static rumble. In a weird way, this is almost a drone record, strangely soothing in fact, a blurred smeared expanse of rumbling buzzing low end, the vocals and grinding riffage, so low and filthy and downtuned, that they just sound like more layers sound, but strap on some headphones, and it's like being sucked into hell, a harrowing sonic journey through the deepest pits of the underworld, every crushing thrum like the soul shattering footstep of some massive demon, every streak of hiss like a fiery blast of hellbreath, intense and brutal, massive and mysterious, punishing and pummeling, a gorgeously grim expanse of ultra, mega, multiple o'd, beyond funereal, kvltish hell doooooooooooom. And thus, gets our highest, or perhaps lowest, recommendation.
We're a sucker for pretty much anything Finnish. The weirder the better. So when we discovered Cleaning Women, a trio of Finns, who dressed up like ladies, housecoats, stockings, the whole nine yards, and who performed on an assemblage of customized kitchen appliances and household items, stoves, ironing boards. drying racks, clothes horses, we were sold before we even heard a note.
Luckily they had the music to back up their eccentric presentation, a strange chaos of wild percussion, blown out fuzz bass, and crooned vocals. Their second record was a soundtrack of sorts, and ended up being way more varied and schizophrenic than their debut, and once again, for record number three, the simply titled U, they've shifted gears again, and really hit their stride. Where as before, it seemed like the music was secondary to the concept, here, the music is dark and brooding and hypnotic, poppy and melodic, minimal and mesmerizing, they even seemed to have ditched the drag, if the band photo is any indication, they're still glamorous, and odd looking, but in a sort of Euro vampire glam rock way. But the music. Wow. Everything we loved about the first two records distilled and compressed into something magical.
The opening track is like a super minimal junkyard Circle, with its endlessly repeating main riff, the clanky percussion, the woozy seasick rhythm, there's even a creepy interlude partway through, with tolling bells, booming metallic rumbles and mysterious reverbed whistles, before the band launch back into it, this time adding vocals, the Circle comparison becoming even more apt, like an industrial Circle covering Morricone or something? However you slice it, it's amazing.
The second track almost sounds like an analog Kraftwerk, with it's blooping bassline, and motorik melody, mix in a little twangy guitar, swirling synths, super cinematic and dramatic. The third track is a pop gem, with it's dreamy vocal melody, and softly propulsive rhythm, and pizzicato strings, it almost reminds us of Uz Jsme Doma, but way more mellow and shimmery.
"The Miners' Song" sounds like a warped Pink Floyd outtake, until the main riff kicks in, fuzzy and fierce and downright heavy, and suddenly we're back in hypnorock territory, but with a distinctly playful pop edge.
The second half of the record is more of the same, from super minimal bowed string dronescapes, rife with surfy twang and delicate shimmer, to strange otherworldly cabaret pop, with xylophone like percussion, and cool Eastern melodies, to clattery math pop workouts that sound like some mad mix of Nomeansno and Sparks, to the eight minute closer "Scythians", which again veers into Circle territory, spidery looped melodies over simple motorik rhythms, reverbed and softly woozy, before shifting gears, introducing chanted vocals and slipping into a super dramatic slow build, culminating in a cool hauntingly harmonized choral outro.
Absolutely WAY recommended.
How can you not love a band called Schnauzer? You can't. Not. Love them! We discovered a super fucked up looking cd in a bargain bin somewhere and bought it just cuz the band was called Schnauzer, and of course it was awesome and of course we were immediately obsessed. So here's a brand new disc from these miscreants, and just so you now what we're talking about here, the cover features a mugshot of some shifty looking dude with a wicked devillock, the songs are called "Total Lunatic" and "Blasted Beyond Belief", and here's a message for the listener in the liner notes: "Do NOT attempt top contact this band. Any efforts to do so will further agitate the members of Schnauzer. If you don't like us now, you CERTAINLY won't like us should we become angry. LEAVE US ALONE." Fuck yeah! And the sound? A furious pounding metallic hardcore, a howling vocalist that sounds a bit like Fozzy The Bear from the Muppets, filthy, cruty, blown out, heavy and MEAN as a Schnauzer!
It's a split with some Cleveland band called Crossface, who are cool, NY style hardcore, short pounding and brutal, two tracks, but it hardly matters really, it's ALL ABOUT SCHNAUZER!!!!!!!!
Break out the headphones, relax the body, and close the eyes, it's another one from the devastatingly droney and dark Darsombra, whose debut Ecdysis disc we really liked a couple years back. We like this just as much, maybe more. There's a great deal of melancholic, mesmeric beauty in Darsombra's isolationist grinding and evil ambient shimmer. We can imagine Darsombra's human operator, Brian Daniloski from the Maryland metalcore band Meatjack, up late at night alone in his home studio, lights dim, wreathed in smoke, hunched over his guitar and synth and effects and whatever else he uses to conjure this music, willing himself off into another place, out into the void of space, riding the dense waves of his own creation, returning only at dawn with another track for this album finished.
Let's discuss these tracks, but not in order... The echoey minimalism of "Drops Of Sorrow" is simply glorious, it's Riley or Reich from a psychdronedoom perspective. Or perhaps krautrock's Achim Reichel & The Machines playing Black Boned Angel!? Elsewhere, there's more gloom and glory, from the hushed sinister soundtrack melodies of opener "Auguries" to the haunting, spacey drone-whispers of "Night's Black Agents" - this disc's longest track at 17:34, reminding us of the 'Vox Insecta' work of old AQ fave Q.R. Ghazala. Then, with an intro of ommming voices (or synth) there's "Lamentings / Auguries", featuring sparse melodic guitar weepery buried beneath fuzzed out layers of deep, electronic drone and distortion. Again, this definitely sounds like it would make good soundtrack material for some eerie, arty Italian horror flick. And further cementing our love affair with the abstract attractions of Eternal Jewel, the calmly vibrating "Incarnadine" brings some rays of light to this disc at its very end, with its peacefully repetitive clusters of gentle chimings over a quiet drone.
Packaged by Public Guilt in a nice black, gothically graceful gatefold sleeve, this is definitely recommended. Imagine Expo '70 cloaked in black, performing a seance with Tony Conrad and Lustmord, and you'll have an idea of how much we must like this!
Dark Entries has only a couple of releases under their belt, but the aesthetic of the label is firmly dictated by those releases: darkened post-punk electronics and dour new wave. Obscure reissues seems to be the focus for Dark Entries, but then there is Death Domain, a contemporary one-man band out of Baltimore, who might as well have been releasing work in Belgium circa 1983. The two tracks here fall between two somewhat obscure sounds -- Kas Product (who you might recall doing the title track to the So Young But So Cold compilation of French coldwave from the '80s) and Leather Nun (in particular the Slow Death single recorded for Industrial Records way back when). Death Domain have the aggro rhythms of Kas Product cranked through the most primitive of drum machines, and the life-support system synths that Leather Nun provided for that one single. All together, it's pretty damn good. Yeah, Cold Cave again rears their oh so influential of late head here, but think Cremations, not Love Comes Close.
Limited to 500 copies, with glow-in-the-dark silkscreened covers!
Another in this new super limited series of 3" cd-r's from Public Guilt, who you might remember having co-released the mindblowing Untitled 3cd box set, a collection of noise music, then ended up being more music than noise (only slightly) and got us excited about noisemusic all over again.
The only time we had ever heard from Decimation Blvd, was on that very same compilation, but it's not the only time we've heard from Tradd Sanderson, who is Decimation Blvd., as he is the famed "noise choker" for the mighty Cream Abdul Babar, quite possible the best band ever with the worst name ever. Sanderson contributed lots of grind and grrrrr, skree and shriek, buzz and drone to CAB's punishing metallic post rock.
But here, Sanderson is loosed from the confines of being a backup player in a rock band, and employs an arsenal of electronics and synths, samples and guitars, and carves out a super creepy post industrial cinematic soundscape, that veers from glistening almost Oval like underwater blissout, to crumbling Skinny Puppy like ambience, to full on squalls of white noise, muted into murky whirs and peppered with electronic glitch and buried percussion, to shrieking high end chaos, finally finishing off with the very creepy closing track, HUGE, but spare pounding percussion, dense flurries of grinding electronics, thick washes of distorted whir, and a final burst of face melting sonic fury.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Packaged in screenprinted mini 3" foldout sleeves, orange and black ink, with a printed insert on shimmery metallic paper.
Always an exciting day at AQ when a new slab of vinyl from Italians Do It Better comes our way. Earlier this year we got totally addicted to the debut full length from Desire, a record that was so spot on in its 80's sleek and sultry, late-night dance jams infused with a dark romantic aching yearning. With the intoxicating vocals of Megan Luise setting such a perfect tone for the impeccable production of Johnny Jewel (Glass Candy, Chromatics, etc.). So it's rad to get different versions of two of our favorite songs from the album. Side one gives us a totally lysergic slow burning stretched out version of "If I Can't Hold You Tonight" and then a completely stripped down minimal vocal version. Side two starts off with an instrumental version of their cover of "I Can Dream About You" followed by a goosebump inducing 8-track demo of the song that proves that Desire are not just about style and dancefloors, but that their music really does evoke such strong emotions. The 12" offers a much more minimal and slow burning side of Desire then the more over-the-top, all out 80's disco vibe of the full length. We're melting into this wax!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Last year, in our never ending quest for the weirdest black metal ever, we discovered the mysterious and perplexing Emit. And while technically they may in fact be black metal, realistically, they are more of some sort of ambient, ethereal, damaged drone outfit, spewing a deconstructed, abstract whatthefuck crash, clang and creep. Definitely black, but more in mood than sound. Either way, we were totally taken and were super psyched to discover a new record from these freaks, a split with Vrolok, more on them later. On their half of this split, Emit start off the proceedings with all vocals, the first track a soft shimmery swirl of ghostly reverbed vocals, floating and drifting, the second track is more vocals, this time some sort of monkish chant, low and liturgical, over a whirring distant drone. It's only by track three, that any sort of 'metal' becomes evident, but even then, it's metal of the most abstract fucked up kind. A buzzing blasting burst of lo-fi blackness, that starts of blazing but as it forges forward it falls apart more and more, each separate element becoming more distorted and more twisted and tweaked, until it's like listening to Darkthrone on a transistor radio through an endless series of funhouse mirrors. Woah! The rest of the tracks delve deeply into a dark realm of medieval ambient drones, a sort of more damaged Abruptum, with haunting atonal detuned guitars, and creepy tiny monster vocals, occasional bursts of super distorted black buzz and sonic shrapnel, but for the most part, a dizzying onslaught of chaotic creepiness and bizarre blackness.
Vrolok while not nearly as weird as Emit, are definitely a bit more overtly black metal, but are the perfect match for Emit with their furious and fucked up black buzz. From the tumultuous blast of blazing lo-fi blackness of the first track "Hellchoir (Pestilence 1440)", a snarling, squirming riff, tangled up with lightspeed blast beats and buried under all sorts of suffocating sonic sludge, to the weird martial soundscape of "Black Chemical Waltz", a super blown out simple drum beat, amidst swirls of subsonic drones and buzzing weirdness peppered with creepy distorted snatches of found sound and bits of conversation, to the epic blackness of "Inverse Devotion" sounding like a glorious collision between Xasthur and Immortal, albeit recorded on a busted 4-track, to the epic closer "Between The Astral Shades", which starts off as a shimmering creeped out ambient soundscape, turns into what sounds like Bathory recorded in a high school gymnasium, and finally morphs into an ultra distorted seasick black dirge, replete with anguished howls and washed out black drone guitars, the whole thing blurring into a glorious blackened dronedrenched waltz.
More absolutely essential bizarre blackness for sure!
Another blast of furious blasting blackened sickness from Swiss one man horde Enoid, masterminded by Bornyhake, who also does time in the equally awesome Borgne. We reviewed the Enoid full length Ataraxiis a few lists back, and Suicide Genocide takes up right where that one left off, furious and frantically blasting black metal, Norwegian style, and yeah, he's Swiss, but the sound is classic Scandinavian black metal, the riffs epic and soaring, the drumming brutal and lightning speed, the vocals demonic and bile spewing, the buzz cranked WAY up, the tracks dense and complex lurching from maniacal frenzied blasting, to sludge-y doomic pounding to weirdly melodic, often all those elements colliding midsong. And he's not just a killer player, he's capable of crafting some pretty excellent songs too, hidden amidst all that gnarled blackness and buzz drenched blast, lurk plenty of hooks, subtle perhaps, but there nonetheless infusing this filth with a vibe that keeps it from being just another slab of grim black whatever.
What is it about the Swiss, it's hard to pinpoint, but we're becoming mildly obsessed with bands from Switzerland, Paysage D'Hiver, Darkspace, Wacht, Ordo Infandorum Rituum Occultus (both reviewed elsewhere on this list), Sun Of The Blind, Borgne, and yeah, like the Ukraine, it's probably all the same 4 or 5 guys, but who cares, they've tapped into something, that's positioning Switzerland to give France and Norway And heck, the Ukraine a run for their black metal money.
Another blast of glorious noisy weirdness from the Grey Daturas' Diagnosis...Don't! label, this time from the strangely name EOH (named for Rob from the Daturas' son Max's imaginary friend! cool), a trio of drinking buddies (featuring Rob from the Daturas) who channel their drunken unruliness into recording session after recording session. This 20 minute chunk of dark drones and abstract free noise was culled from hours and hours of wild drunken recording, and the results are surprisingly cohesive and listenable. Still dense and noisy and intense, but with a soft touch. More whisper than roar, more drone than screech. A Wolf Eyesian industrial murk march. Dense swirling layers of thick pulsing guitar distortion, wavering and warbling in thick sheets laid over everything, peppered with occasional cymbal crashes and what sounds like some sort of throat singing. This is some seriously massive ur-drone shit. Huge industrial wastescapes, abstract spare stretches of low end rumble swirling like black fog over ruined landscapes of damaged amplifiers and detuned guitars. Haunting, and desolate but strangely lovely. Essential listening for the drone obsessed among you.
Packaged in thick textured paper grey mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. Nice.
And as always, this is SUPER LIMITED, and odds are we won't be able to get more. We did get a whole bunch, but don't let that keep you from ordering it now or you'll be kicking yourself when these are gone...
When we ordered this Japanese import, we were like, a split release between Japanese psychedelic stoner/doom rockers Eternal Elysium and San Francisco's own metalcore two-piece Black Cobra? Gotta get that! When it showed up, we were surprised to discover that the entire Black Cobra half had exactly the same tracks as those found on their recent full-length Feather And Stone, which we've already reviewed and raved about. Whoops. So... some of you already have that. However, if you want to get it again, you'll also get 23 minutes of Eternal Elysium material that only appears here. More likely, this is a good call for those who haven't yet picked up the Black Cobra album and also like (or think they might like) EE. Or simply for EE fans who don't mind getting the Black Cobra stuff as well (why would you?) as a bonus. Even at the import price, it's still 2 for the price of 2 (or 1.5 more like it) on one handy disc, not too shabby of a deal, really. So, let's say somethin' about the music for those ignorant of EE and/or BC:
Eternal Elysium always has us a little confused. Strange band. Sometimes they're straight up Sabbath-meets-grunge complete with vocals hinting at Alice In Chains or Soundgarden... and then there's the NWOBHM influences... and the groovy retro-sixties stuff... that's all here, plus of course random weirdness like the brief track "Golden Seaweed", with sped-up chipmunk voices. They try hard to make a stoner drug thing you wouldn't understand, but certainly something that fans of Boris, Solar Anus, and Church Of Misery should check into, to rock out to.
As to the BC half, here's what we said about Feathers And Stone before: Two man heavy riff-machine Black Cobra return with another pummeling release... Picking up right where Bestial left off, Feather And Stone shreds from the start. Brutally punishing circular riffs, heavy as all hell doomy moments, throat ripping screams, and incredibly hard hitting and precise drums. The fact that this massive sound comes from two fellas is pretty damn amazing. The album has all kinds of peaks and valleys. Amidst the constant time signature shifting, and brain-burning riff heavitude, there are a couple of beautifully dark intros and outros thrown in, giving the album a very balanced feeling. But it's mostly just crushingly heavy and ripping. If you can imagine a heavier, much more misanthropic Karp, that's kind of what they remind us of. Feather And Stone is a must for anybody needing a little taste of thrashing triumphant, sometimes doomy and dark, sometimes fast and techy, but always heavy and punk as fuck ROCK music... For fans of Cavity, Karp, Floor, Torche, and things that kill shit! (Note though that unlike the domestic edition of the BC album, there's no cd-rom live footage included.)
The only real downside to an Expo 70 single, is that it's ultimately frustrating in its brevity, as the music of Justin Wright, aka Expo 70 (or Expo '70, they seem to have lost the apostrophe on recent releases) is far better served by longer formats, lps, cds, and while both of these songs are indeed fantastic, it's almost criminal to cut them off after only 4 or 5 minutes, these are the sorts of sounds meant to sprawl and ooze and spread and extend for ages and ages. But as far as complaints got, it's a minor (and not entirely negative one), you'll just have to stick close by the turntable so you can lift the needle and set it right back at the beginning again.
No great surprises or strange sonic twists, just more of that thick dark gloriously heavy space kraut drone we've come to expect. The A side is some seriously deep and drone-y outer space exploration, warm languorous tones over a softly grinding and pulsing buzz, sweeping and epic and darkly mysterious, glistening melodies shifting from speaker to speaker, very new age-y for sure, but a sort of dense and blackened new age.
The B side begins all growling buzzing low end thickness, laced with space-y squiggles, long high end streaks and glimmering tones, beneath the blissy drift is a warm whirring and a softly corrosive crumble, all wound up into epic slow building swells of deeeeep deeeeep buzz. So nice.
Gorgeous full color covers, and of course LIMITED, it's already sold out from the label, so these will be the last copies we can get.
We won't go into too much detail with these as we only got a tiny handful of each. Latest batch of ultra limited lathe cuts from New Zealand label CMR. Each one packaged in a super striking, simple cardstock jacket, most with printed inner sleeves, Limited to 60 copies, of which we got the remaining stock. Once these are gone, they are gone forever.
We had never heard Eye before, but they seem to be the new outfit of NZ underground luminary Peter Stapleton (Flies Inside The Sun, Sleep, A Handful Of Dust) and no surprise, fans of any of his past work will for sure dig this.
The 7" is a crumbling soundscape of shortwave interference, wavering tones, constantly shifting drones, all very sea sick and dizzy sounding, bits of whispery static, all swaddled in a thick buzz, with lots of strange effects, and what sounds like the hiss and whisper of an army of ghosts that builds and builds to a fever pitch.
The flipside is more of an old school NZ freerock jam, all tribal rhythms under a swirling sea of fuzz and distortion and bits of skree. Layer after layer of constantly shifting grit and grime, propulsive and blown out, but still sort of shimmery and almost ambient.
This lathe cut comes with a cd-r, which contains a single 38 minute track, more glorious abstract soundscaping, bits of rhythms here and there, lots of buzz and hiss, strange disembodied melodies, lo-fi and constantly shifting and drifting, eventually building into a seriously heavy fuzzed out jam, complete with strange horns and bursts of random musical snippets. Cool.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
We get sent a ton of stuff to check out. And it's awesome, truly, So much amazing music to discover, but at the same time it's so overwhelming. But every once in a while a record pops up that makes it all worth while. Such is the case with this disc from these Italian weirdos Father Murphy. What makes it even cooler is that this record, and this band, are SO hard to describe.
It's a bit like folk, a little bit like post punk math rock, a little avant noise, but stripped way down into something skeletal, they definitely sound a little bit like one of the new breed of freak folk psych folk cd-r outfits, but at the same time, they sound like NOTHING you've ever heard. Detuned guitar plod, spaced out rhythmic thump, lots of deep shimmery ambience and FX drenched drifts, wavery falsetto crooning, warbly organs, and the occasional bursts of feral yowling, wow. Unhinged, fractured, freaky, passionate, super intense and awesome.
In discussing Father Murphy, other reviewers have mentioned Robert Wyatt, This Heat, Samla Mamas Manna, we also hear plenty of Marc Ribot in the guitars, all angular and off kilter, there's also some mysterious female vocals that surface here and there, field recordings, crickets, birds, all beneath weepy mournful Morricone-ish twang, a sound both woozy and ominous, dreamy and dense, a glorious deathlike dirge, part Dirty Three, part fluttery forest folk, a little wheezy organ dirge pop, some slooooooowed down Blonde Redhead, like we said this is super hard to describe. but what we do know is we love it. And you will do, if your tastes run toward the dark, the dolorous, the mysterious, the haunting, the dirgey and the deathlike.
Incredible packaging. The cd housed in a die cut multi layered fold over sleeve, that housed in a thick outer vellum jacket so the images on the inner sleeve are just visible through the blurred finish of the outer sleeve.
VERY LIMITED!
More warped otherworldly sound collage murky warble from one half of the late great Skaters. And like everything else we've heard from Ferraro post-Skaters, the sounds on Citrac, a two lp collection of mostly previously released material (but most so limited you probably never heard 'em anyway), are a blurred jumble of fantastically twisted time machine lo-fi anti-pop. Ferraro along with his ex-bandmate have been credited with spearheading the so called 'hypnogogic pop' movement, but pop seems to have very little to do with this. Pop CULTURE maybe. Visually, the jacket and inner sleeve are adorned with all manner of eighties cheesiness, which thankfully isn't necessarily reflected in the music. Instead, Ferraro takes his arsenal of music making devices, busted effects and falling apart 4-track, as well as a handful of samples from cop shows and after school specials and late night made for TV movies, and goes about, snipping and pasting and looping and smearing those various sounds into some totally tripped out krautdrone, psych-synth, buzz-loop weirdness.
All of the sounds here are murky and muddy and sound like they were recorded on an old VHS tape and then duped over and over and over and over. The percussion is clattery but buried in the mix, tons of reverb and delay, much of the first disc sounds like a John Carpenter soundtrack spinning lazily on a fucked up turntable while someone holds their thumb down on the vinyl, causing the record to slip and slow down, the whole thing peppered with strange howled vocals (or what sound like vocals). The end of side two features a sonic event that seems to pop up all over these two records, an awesome lurching synth-psych loop, that could have gone on FOREVER, but ends way too soon. Also, as far as we can tell, the first record is meant to play at 45, it definitely sounds like Ferraro at 45, but it sounds really cool at 33 too, even more industrial and woozy and washed out.
The second disc though, sounds like 33 is the correct speed, 45 makes it a bit manic, but still pretty intense and psychedelic, but at 33, it's way more aggressive than the first record, more industrial too, like a doom metal Wolf Eyes or something, albeit way more fucked up and fractured, loads of low end, metallic percussion, and some sick inhuman barks wreathed in effects, at 33 it's creepy, at 45 it becomes some sped up soundtrack video game alien techno. Weirdly twisted and almost proggy. Rad stuff for sure.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!
Brand new full length album from Justin Broadrick's (Jesu, Godflesh, etc.) Final project, which in the past was a sort of solo guitar thing, or so we thought. On Afar, the eight numbered tracks are arrangements of processed loops, with nary a guitar in site. Which becomes harder to believe the further we get into the record.
The sound here is dark and mesmerizing, each track a slow cycling soundscape, rife with shifting textures and pulsing almost-rhythms, the sounds super varied, but all woven together into one cohesive songsuite. Fans of Tim Hecker and Philip Jeck will dig bigtime, as well as guitar drone aficionados into stuff like Fear Falls Burning.
Layers of crunch and buzz are locked into swelling, swaying hypnotic rhythms, the textures and timbre shifting gradually, the looped aspect not always immediately noticeable. Deep rumbles beneath softly processed whirs are woven into stretches of haunting cinematic shimmer, fading into swooping backwards melodies peppered with bits of glitch and crackle. Elsewhere slow burning 'guitar' sounds buzz explosively into epic and majestic sheets of buzzing woozy blur, before being scattered by dense tangles of reverberating metallic hum and rumbling low end way off in the distance. A few tracks definitely dip into Jeck territory with stuttery looped vocals and clipped samples and muted skitter, before finishing off with a hushed bit of whispery murmur.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. We get these direct from Broadrick's Avalanche label in the UK, so when we run out it might take a couple weeks to get more, assuming there are still some left. Nice thick picture disc in a thick PVC plastic sleeve.
BACK IN STOCK!!! Martin Franklin and Michael Northam began communicating in the early '90s, both engrossed with the realm of possibilities extant in the laboratory that was the experimental cassette culture. At the time, Northam was beginning a career of sound-art globetrotting by way of festivals, residencies, and the generosity of others, having emerged from the Austin, Texas sound community that spawned the likes of John Grzinich, Olivia Block, Rick Reed, and Seth Nehil. Martin Franklin had gone on to form the British ambient ensemble Tuu, with releases through Beyond, Hic Sunt Leones, and Amplexus. It seems that Franklin and Martin enjoyed a single three hour session back in 1991, and out of that session came the original set of recordings which made their way on to a cassette, released by Sounds For Consciousness Rape, and later onto cd by SDV Tontrager. As both the cd and the tape have been long out of print, we can't comment on the differences between the original recording and this 'recovered' remix of the original source material.
Franklin and Northam settle organic textures from metal, dirt, and wood clattering against each other and building softened drones amidst the aggregated sounds. It makes perfect sense that Northam would later work with Darren Tate in one of the final Ora recordings, as these sodden ambient passages and quietly gritty noises share plenty of similarities. Northam had also brought to the session a cassette deck rewired to generate feedback systems, and Franklin had a handheld dictaphone with static and white noise broadcasting through the hypercompressed speakers. These elements give the recordings a rough hewn edge which counterpoint Franklin's sinewy ambience and ghostly half-melodies which are evidence of the contemporary remix work. Altogether, this redux has a darkly ritualized feel of isolationist drones divining something tactile out of the void, much like one would expect from the occluded sounds of the recent Drone Records catalog.
We have to admit, when we first got this in, there were some Freedom Rock jokes, "Is that Freedom Hawk? Well, TURN IT UP", but that lasted precisely until we threw it on the stereo, at which point "Is that Freedom Hawk? Well, TURN IT UP" stopped being a joke and became a COMMAND, something we found ourselves thinking if not saying every time someone put it on in the store. Easily the heaviest, hookiest, grooviest slab of stoner rock / hard rock / classic metal we've heard all year. Huge sun baked riffs, throbbing fuzz bass, crashing drums, and howled Ozzy like vox, and most importantly some seriously catchy songs. Think a killer mix of vintage Kyuss, early Queens Of The Stone Age and classic Ozzy. It's stoner rock for sure, it is after all on the stoner rock centric Meteor City label, but it's so METAL, and so so poppy and catchy, and yeah heavy, totally rocking, very likely to induce headbanging, or at the very least air guitaring. One or two folks here thought maybe it was too derivative, and hell these guys do plunder and purloin, but they were quickly won over by the sound, the songs, and how these guys OWN their influences. Even the folks less inclined toward this sort of stuff, we've caught throwing this on when they though no one was listening.
At first we thought this was just a fun record, a sort of guilty pleasure even, but fuck it, this RULES, a killer hard rock / stoner metal record, well crafted, the playing bad ass, the sound warm and crunchy, the songs so catchy, guaranteed to stick in your head like crazy. We could go on and on, and usually do, but the true test is really how much we end up listening to something, and how often it gets played in the store, and if that's really the case, well, then this might just end up being one of THEE records of 2009 (in fact it even made it onto one aQuarian's top 10!!)...
What more do you need to know? A new Fresh & Onlys 7", which means two more slabs of perfect pop. Not as fucked up and lo-fi as most of their contemporaries, the Fresh & Onlys traffic more in a total classic pop, Beach Boys, Kinks, Raspberries, Shoes, Cheap Trick, Beatles, sure it's rough around the edges, there are some woozy effects, the sound is wee bit lo-fi, but you'd be hard pressed to find any underground combos making pop as pure and catchy as these guys.
The title track is a soaring chunk or nearly perfect power pop, with a chorus to die for, amazing harmonies, and a lush yet lo-fi sound. The flipside is a little bit more shuffly, with acoustic guitars, skittery percussion, a much less obvious hook, but one that definitely sounds like something sixties and British. Awesome. Another band who seem to be bringing back the heyday of the 7", not merely a dumping ground for leftovers, but instead a showcase for a band's best and most immediately appealing songs...
Another split record featuring two aQ faves, each offering up a sidelong slab of dreamy dronemusic, with each giving it their own subtle twist.
Taiga Remains, aka Alex Cobb, head honcho of the Students Of Decay label, unleashes a deep reverberant drone, all shimmery metallics and soft low end swells. As the track progresses though, the sounds gets more and more dense, thickening, sprawling, becoming more ominous, the bass deepening, within this viscous flow, lurk buried melodies, steel string buzz, super deep melodic rumbles that surface like some massive sea creature before slipping back under. Near the end the sound becomes almost orchestral before finally flickering out.
Gareth Hardwick takes the other side, and his sound is much more tranquil and gentle than the Taiga side, but still similar, almost like the same piece, just stripped to its essence, warm languid layers drifting to and fro, unfurling a soft slow motion melody, melancholy and wistful. About halfway through, electric guitars join in, pulsing and buzzing over the soft shimmery drift, adding an ominous edge, layer upon layer, constantly shifting, overtones appearing and disappearing, the whole thing warm and thick and mesmerizing. Almost metallic but managing to remain somehow soporific and soothing.
Pressed on ultra thick vinyl, housed in a plain green sleeve, and VERY VERY LIMITED!
A gorgeous and mysterious one sided lp from GazHeart, a duo made up of artist Rita Ackerman, and No Neck Blues Band's Dave Nuss. The two played together in Angelblood as well, but these recordings were made after the breakup of that band, on the duo's annual trip to visit Ackerman's family in Budapest. During late nights in the backyard, with Nuss beating on coffee cans and broken bottles, Ackerman sang lyrics she had created using automatic, unmeditated writing. The results are beautiful, innocent, playful, haunting and very mysterious.
This consists of a series of short tracks, each with a slightly different tribal rhythmic component beneath Ackerman's vocals, which range from ghostly chantlike recitations, to sweet cooing, to wild wailing. The record drifts from tripped out FX drenched clang and clank beneath childlike gurgling, to campfire handdrums and sweetly almost whispered vocals, to hypnotic almost looped sounding tribal drums tangled up with breathy ethereal hum, to Casio style drum machine pitted against manic vocalizing and buzzy synth melodies, to the final track, the percussion super abstract, with chimes and bells, the vocals sung by a little girl, very cute and innocent, but also quite haunting.
Fans of Deerhoof, OOIOO, Tenniscoats and obviously No Neck and Angelblood will definitely dig.
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Housed in a thick sleeve, with Ackerman drawings on both sides, each the opposite/negative of the other, printed on nice thick paper, the lp is one sides, the flipside has an original Ackerman etching. Cool.
Wow! if you've a penchant for rustic melancholia richly rooted in American country folk traditions, don't miss this new SF quintet's debut album. Although these days The Gilded Rooks are a full band of five, for these recordings which were captured in Nashville, TN, the band leaders Jessy Brown and Devon Angus were backed by locals Red White Blue. From the sounds of things, they got along smashingly well. The performances are terrific!, so easy-going and relaxed, you can easily imagine that they've been playing together for years. Scarecrow's Pockets is wonderfully drowsy and withery in mood and tempo. Brown's honeyed lilt and Angus' considerably more bristly, Waits-tinged delivery play off one another beautifully. The band tastefully embellishes the core guitar, bass and drums with piano, lap steel and organ, as well as surprise appearances of bright horns and a ghostly whisper of musical saw - all while still maintaining plenty of space to allow the duo's vocals to truly take flight. Each of the dozen songs is burnished to a mellow, whisky hued glow. Very warm and inviting despite the plaintive tones. Highlights are the opening title track, "31 Pages (Of Country Music)", and the closing "Joan Of Arc Of Bernal Hill". Along with the ten originals, they transform Jules Shear's "All Through The Night" (popularized by Cyndi Lauper) into a sweet shadowy lullaby, and also do a terrific rendition of Richard Thompson's "Walkin' On A Wire". Recommended!
As we all make our 2009 favorite lists, we started thinking about what label released the most rad music and Captured Tracks would be pretty hard to beat with their amazing onslaught of killer releases this year, from folks like Blank Dogs, Brilliant Colors, Roman Soldiers, Dum Dum Girls, Gary War, Grass Widow, Woods, Thee Oh Sees, The Mayfair Set... God damn! They put out more amazing records in one year then many labels do in a decade! So it's so fitting that in the final days of 2009 we get one more slab of wax from Captured Tracks that we can't seem to stop listening to.
The Girls At Dawn for sure fit into the Captured Tracks aesthetic and would sound right at home on a bill with any of the above mentioned bands, yet they totally have their own unique charm that has made us so smitten with them. The way they infuse a haunting girl group element into their raw garage pop is totally hitting the spot. Makes us think of Grass Widow teaming up with The Sandwitches or a more lo-fi Slumber Party, or maybe Slant 6 / Quixotic doing Phil Spector and Thee Headoatees covers. In other words this is fucking great!
We first heard the Golden Ring on the amazing compilation Raks Raks Raks: 17 Golden Garage Psych Nuggets From The Iranian 60's Scene, and we knew we had to hear more, and just like that, a collection of 7"s and assorted tracks from the band that was one of the first and most important Iranian garage bands, mixing traditional Iranian music and instrumentation with Western pop of the time, like the Beatles, the results were mindblowing, totally ahead of their time, even know these songs sound incredible, catchy and groovy, but also totally psychedelic and mysterious.
The band never recorded a proper album, which makes this collection all the more amazing, every track here rules, it's a wonder this wasn't reissued ages ago. This is head and shoulders above much of the stuff that gets touted as lost classics.
The collection begins with "Tulip" that sounds like it could have been a Joe Meek production, in fact much of this record had us thinking it could have been a made up band masterminded by Meek, it's that far out, and that brilliant. "Tulip" adds swirling organ to twangy surf guitars, definitely offering a nod, intentional or otherwise to the Telstars, but it's track two where things get really good.
"Beauty" begins with tinkling melodies, and Bollywood like vocals, the sound swirling and definitely psychedelic, very dynamic and groovy, but them in come soaring operatic female vocals, and did we mention the stop start breakdown complete with whistling, so good, so totally classic, but at the same time, so unlike any of the other vintage garage rock we've heard.
And so it goes, much of the record is definitely very Middle Eastern sounding, almost like Iranian folk music given a garage makeover, the Beatles influence is definitely all over the place, as is plenty of whistling, and more of that swirly organ, the production is fantastic, lush, but definitely experimental, there's harmonica, giving those tracks a twangy Morricone vibe, there are dizzying organ driven rockers, the sound murky and washed out, the melodies tangled and weirdly atonal, there are some parts that sound very Bollywood, others just sound totally far out.
"Sun Full Moon" is a favorite, the whole song warped and warbly, guitars bending and swerving, the harmonicas practically melting, it sounds like the pitch is constantly shifting, like a mistake in mastering, but the result is super tripped out and amazing. This whole collection is just fantastic, hard to work on the list cuz this is pretty much all we want to listen to. Totally recommended.
Imagine a slow, but nervously tense rhythmic krautrock ritual, but one that seems like somehow the likes of Bo Diddley, Link Wray, or Hasil Adkins would feel at home sitting in on... you're in Full-Blown Expansion territory.
Early last year, when gonzo French psychpunkrockers Gunslingers were over here on tour, they stayed at Allan's house, and their guitarist Gregory Raimo gifted Allan with a copy of one of his solo releases, an LP attributed to GR & Full-Blown Expansion, which has now been reissued on compact disc. A darn good thing 'cause we'd have wanted to list the LP but it was limited to just 300 colored vinyl copies and we never managed to get any for the store. Now that it's on cd version we've got a chance to justly rave about this wigged out, trance inducing music! While we already were familiar with some music made by the other 2/3rds of the Gunslingers trio, who y'know also play in the much more black metallic and equally awesome bands Aluk Todolo & Diamatregon, we didn't know as much about Gregory Raimo.
Judging by the motorpsycho acid rock six string action GR unleashes in Gunslingers, whom we tagged as trafficking in "utter aggro over the top distortodelic geetar excess" and compared to The Heads and Mainliner, we expected, well, a total amped-up electric geetar full-blown blow-out on his solo set. And yeah, you DO get some of that here all right, particularly later in the album on tracks like "The Scene (Slowly's Getting Louder)" which sure as heck does get loud and fuzzy, like Kinski or your fave Tokyo Flashback psych. But even more crucial to this album may be the roiling, percolating rhythms, evident right away in opening 12+ minute track/trip "Descent Along The An-Ti-Fohn-Nul" which had us convinced this was rad right off the bat, along with its spacey vibe, slashing bursts of guitar distortion, and greasy, drawling bathed-in-effects vocals...
GR's percussion is described thusly, in cryptic but no doubt accurate fashion: "regular & extensionist drums, loco-drums & asymmetric drumming". Crude and entropic it might be, but very effective in propelling these tracks into the a very krauty zone. Some parts are mantrically mesmeric, others more "free" and chaotic, but hypnotic, definitely repetitive and raw.
This record really sounds like a bunch of freaks jamming intently, late at night. Enough so that it's almost weird that it's actually a one man jam, GR playing ALL the instruments, guitar, drums, organ, bass, vocals, effects... layering 'em together via 4-track overdubbing. It's 43 minutes long, but how many man-hours went into it? We're reminded of a looser, garagier and greasier A.R. & Machines, maybe, this krautrockiness somehow bringing in freakbeat rockabilly leanings, so Guru Guru for sure, also considering GR's song titles like "All Stoned Day Long They Take You"!
Each track is different, same weird krauty vibe but different, from the twangy surf licks reverberating over groovy bass lines heard in "Tranfiguration On A Sepiachord", to the druggy jazzy moody improv skitter-skatter scribble-scrabble of "The Metal Spike", to "The Intercessor Speaks" which sounds like a more chaotic Circle or dubbed out Doktor Kettu, to the electrically zapped This Heaty droning finale of "Blind Black Or Pearly White" wherein the electronics really take over... Assuming he recorded this at home, what the heck do his neighbors think? Utter madman in the next-door apt.?! Thanks GR!! We want to hear more from Gunslingers, of course, but are also looking forward to more Full-Blown Expansion, too!!
Get this while you can, we hear the digipack is kinda limited too, it comes with the same graphics as the original LP and has liner notes by Billy Miller from the legendary Texas psychsters Cold Sun!
The long awaited debut from Grey Machine, the collaborative beast featuring Justin Broadrick of Jesu, and Aaron Turner from Isis, just two songs, it's a teaser for the forthcoming full length, the A side a track from the record, the B side an exclusive remix available only on this here 12".
So what exactly does Grey Machine sound like? Definitely not as blissy as Jesu, although some of those elements still remain, if anything, it's closer to Godflesh in tone, lumbering and industrial, wish some surprising bits of modern electronic music (dubstep!) which manage to be deftly woven into GM's sound without sticking out or sounding forced.
The track from the forthcoming full length is a monster for sure. A wild cacophonous chaotic noise jam, that features crunchy post industrial rhythms wrapped around a thick blown out blast of dubstep style bass, the vocals fuzzy and lo-fi buried way down in the mix, some woozy dark descending riffage, the timbre prickly and abrasive, but beneath all the churning and roiling heaviness (and it IS heavy) are some awesomely melodic guitar lines and some tripped out spacerock FX draped over the almost jungle bass and drums (or should we say drum + bass).
The B-side is a super stripped down dubbed out groove, tons of space, the beats spare and skeletal, rubbery and bassy, over the top of some howled distorted vox (a la Godflesh), in the background streaks of guitar buzz, blurred bits of droning ambience, all sorts of space-y effects, the track pounds away, drifting through little clouds of blissed out crunch and more of those seriously bassbin destroying, thick buzz drenched dubsteppy basslines. Super cool. Bodes well for the full length!
Old school 12" style packaging. Black vinyl, no labels, plain white sleeve, with a black and white sticker affixed to the front. And of course, LIMITED!
Another new release, and another incomprehensibly confusional band name from James Ferraro, formerly one half of warped soft noise duo the Skaters, now a bonified solo phenom, with about a million cd-r's and tapes and lps under various monikers, including his very own actual mom and dad approved name
For Grippers Nother Onesers, Ferraro does more than loop and sample, there seems to be some actual riffing going on, as well as lots of singing, a warbly warped reverb drenched falsetto, over fuzzy fractured riffage, even some drumming, but all the instruments are smeared and blurred and muddied, so instead of coming even remotely close to sounding like a proper rock record, it still sounds like a Ferraro jam, but this time it's got more of a Ariel Pink meets Prince vibe (mostly cuz of the vox), the music tweaked and twisted, the fact that it's actually being played and then buried under a patina of muted hiss and hum, makes it all the more compelling. We're sure there was actual playing on other records, but this one sounds the most like a band, albeit a damaged drugged out band from another dimension, where all communication takes place via busted up old transistor radios, and all record players shift from 33 to 45 constantly, so all sounds seem to twist and melt before your very ears.
The soulful falsetto crooning is the high point here, turning even the most disjointed fucked up Jeck-ian jam into a dizzying slab of alien soul pop. Fans of Ariel Pink and other warped poppers, if you're not already hip to Ferraro's groove, now's the time...
Gorgeous new album of sprawling abstract ambience from this mysterious trio, featuring one member of Pan American and also Necks drummer Tony Buck, and it's on Flingco which in the past has brought us lps by outsider black metal horde Wrnlrd and buzz heavy dronesters Cristal (plus the guy who runs Flingco used to run Kranky!). Phew, pretty bad ass and we haven't even gotten to the music yet!
And the music here is truly strange, delicate, spacious, spare, minimal, but lush and expansive, The Necks is not a bad jumping off point, there is a sort of cyclical feel to the dronemusic here, Bucks drumming is similarly restrained and abstract, offering up a steady stream of snare skitter, or softly billowing clouds of cymbal shimmer, using percussion to create more layers of drone, while the rest of the band coax warm, soft focus swells from their instruments, the players creating a moody ebb and flow, chiming notes and bits of melody drift along the slow moving sonic currents, the whole side unfurling in gorgeous hazy slow motion.
The flip side is even more dark and minimal, again, the focus is on deep bell like tones, the subtle interactions of the notes, the incidental melodies, a warm bleary eyed murk, that grows deeper and deeper, until it's more felt than heard, which is when the percussion becomes the focal point again, a muted cacophony of thumps, a flurry of chimes, the click and clatter of wood on wood, eventually fading out, leaving just a smear of ultra low drift. So nice.
And while they last, we have the SUPER LIMITED version, only 100 copies made, that come with a dvd-r, featuring a live video mix recorded at the Empty Bottle in Chicago in 2007, a cool video that accompanied the band, sourced from manipulated found footage with a live analog VHS loop mix.
Oh yeah, each lp comes with a download card, so you can get a digital version for your computer!
The return of Heatdeath, record number two, and once again, just as hard to describe as the first one. A sprawling soft cacophony of buzz and whir and drone, laced with bits of glitch and hiss all woven into a multi part abstract freenoise epic, that plays out like some futuristic symphony gone haywire.
Fuzzy staticky whirs drift above warm shimmers, mechanical crunch is smoothed into blurred anti-rhythms, thick layers of distortion ripple over roiling depths of hiss and buzz, occasionally a metronomic sonar like beep keeps the time, waves of pink noise crash over shard of keening feedback, occasionally coalescing into thick roiling shoegazey sort-of-doom, all abstract and dreamy, but still rough and raw and doused with crumbling distortion, wild drum freakouts muted and muffled until they become skittery landscapes of thump and shuffle, long stretches of washed out Tim Hecker like ambience, and a long stretch of warped haunted house creep, peppered with soft chimes and deep cavernous drones. All over the place sonically, but the various parts blend perfectly, drifting into one another, taking the form of one single epic abstract chunk of noisy drone-y buzzy doomy mystery.
Gorgeous packaging, thick jackets in super thick PVC sleeves, black inner sleeves and heavy vinyl. Each record comes with a download coupon as well! LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
This band is definitely tough to pin down sonically. Their sound is equal parts black metal, industrial, free jazz and electronica, but the resulting sound resembles none of those. Or perhaps all of them simultaneously. Hard to tell.
Which is sort of what makes this band so magical. A duo from Minnesota, whose first release is on a Belgian label, continues to confound from the sound to the dearth of information on the sleeve. But as confounding as this record is, it's also fantastic. Totally vibrant and alive and freaked out and joyous, while somehow managing to be grim and brutal and weird as fuck.
But how to accurately describe them... They are a duo, so of course one is tempted to throw some reference to Lightning Bolt in there, and there is some LB to Heatdeath's sound, a relentless churning, maniacal energy, it's impossible to imagine the drummer can play like that nonstop for whole sides of an lp, but he does, and the axeman keeps up just fine thank you. A closer and slightly more accurate comparison, might be a black metal, or black industrial Necks. There is a definite element of slow shifting stasis, no distinct riffs, and no real distinct rhythms, but more a roiling black hole of chaotic drumming and denatured riffing, like the Necks covering Abruptum. Wow. Indeed. The two tracks constantly shift, moving from slightly more tranquil drift, to fullbore crash and buzz, and it sounds improvised for sure, but at the same time, it almost seems composed, the two players shifting seamlessly from part to part, mood to mood, creating gorgeously expansive soundscapes of intense instrumental interplay, and churning abstract ambience, often the two colliding and getting gloriously tangled up.
Packaged in thick plastic sleeves, black on black fold over jackets, and each lp includes a coupon so you can download the whole record for your iPod.
LIMITED TO ONLY 250 COPIES!!!!
Another missive from the wilds of foresty Finland, this time two of our favorites team up, we think, for maybe the first time ever. Jan Anderzen, he of Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Islaja, Tomutonttu and Anaksimandros (phew!), and Hirvonen, he of the mighty and mysterious Uton (who have a new lp reviewed elsewhere on this list) together, as Hevoset.
Between the two of them, these guys have probably released 50 or 60 records all told. maybe even more, and they definitely have similar methodologies, but each has their own distinct take on music making, mixing folk and free noise and ambience and drone, so it makes sense that the two would be drawn to each other, and the results are quite fantastic, infusing elements of both artists' various groups into something new, yet oddly familiar.
The vibe here is definitely more drone-heavy, the tracks all seem rooted around various long tones, lots of layers, plenty of looped repetition. The opener begins with a scalding burst of grinding buzz and squealing feedback, what sounds like processed throat singing and strange keening high end tones, before slipping effortlessly into a murky lullaby, all muted plunks and shimmery whir, before wheezing high end melodies surface from below. The next track again roots itself in the drone, but this time, it's more washed out and dreamy, organs wheeze and whir, the melodies looping and overlapping, while over the top, a guitar feeds back and grinds out a strange burnished melody. A few tracks eschew the drone all together, instead, offering up strange tribal rituals, simple percussion, mewling wordless vocals, haunting abstract guitar groan and skree, others are super minimal stretches of shimmering tones, and woozy plucked strings, spread out into drifting amorphous soundscapes, while others sound like symphonies of scratched records, blurred and smeared into something much less distinct, but even those tracks take those disparate sounds and ground them in a loose drone framework, creating a surprisingly varied, but quite cohesive, and imminently mesmerizing collection of abstract drone divinity.
LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES!!!
We won't go into too much detail with these as we only got a tiny handful of each. Latest batch of ultra limited lathe cuts from New Zealand label CMR. Each one packaged in a super striking, simple cardstock jacket, most with printed inner sleeves, Limited to 60 copies, of which we got the remaining stock. Once these are gone, they are gone forever.
Hometown Feilding (yep, that is the correct spelling) is yet another NZ ensemble we had never heard until now but are digging quite a bit, their sound a crumbling abstract world of fuzz and crackle, haunting alien melodies, strange bits of fragmented rhythms and chunks of melody, almost like some old wax cylinder recording, all the music buried under layers of grit and crackle, weirdly and nosily pretty. Definitely essential listening for the hiss and crackle turntable crowd...
Wow. Or maybe not wow, 'cause we should be used to it by now. But yeah, wow. ANOTHER Swedish band that seems, magically, to be from the '70s, though they're actually quite contemporary in 2010. Like AQ faves Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Dead Man, Elope, Dungen, Graveyard, et. al., newcomers Horisont possess the secret to sounding so '70s, that they probably think Nixon, or maybe Ford, is still the US President. At the latest (and at their most metal), it wouldn't appear that their influences extend beyond the early years of the NWOBHM. (Though that's not to say you won't flash on QOTSA or something while listening to this, but its more akin to vintage and obscure likes of, say, Highway Robbery and Vardis.) And not only do they sound '70s, but like those other Swedish bands we mentioned, they're damn good, too.
In fact, it's from the same label that brought us Dead Man that we've imported the debut cd by Horisont. We ordered it on LP too, but unfortunately they arrived damaged, hopefully we'll get more soon and be able to list the vinyl next time. And while vinyl (or 8 track?) might be the appropriately retro medium for this music, even on cd Horisont kicks out the heavy progressive blues rock in utterly killer fashion, a la early Sabbath (but with maybe more in the way of uptempo energy), Led Zeppelin, UFO, and we think we even hear a little Aerosmith. And what's even more awesome, track 4, "The Unseen", reminds us of Uli-era Scorpions too! Also of course, Horisont sound a lot like their Scandinavian '70s prog-psych uncles, November, Life and others. This IS pretty dang bluesy, and rockin', with high, wailing vox, tasty guitar licks, lumbering riffage, and a propensity for cow-bell-knockin' boogie. They make no bones about it, they even named a song "Horisont Boogie", just in case you didn't believe us. All right! Yet, we must say they boogie quite elegantly, and they also have their mystic moods too, getting mellow and melancholic on occasion, and about half-way through this ten song set, they switch from singing in English to their native language, which adds to the "progg" vibe most charmingly.
Classy, catchy, way impressive stuff, especially for a debut. We're looking forward to seeing 'em play live someday (no, we don't know if they're gonna tour in the USA any time soon, but they ARE playing at the Roadburn festival in Holland next year that Allan here has plans to attend...). We don't know how they do it, but they do. All lovers of '70s proto-metal prog heaviness, who dig hearing a new band doing it right, give it up for Sweden and HORISONT!
This is what that Dead Weather blues rock album we never got around to reviewing really shoulda sounded like, although Dead Weather, for all their supergroup status, and bonus points for covering Pentagram, aren't of course Swedish and that's not their fault we suppose.
Record number two from the mysteriously monickered Hum Of The Druid, and as we mentioned in the review of the first lp, that's exactly what you'll hear, some serious druidic hum, which is just something we made up so you'll just have to take our word for it. The follow up takes the already intense and heavy caustic drones of the first lps and takes it even further. Darker, filthier, heavier. At times it almost sounds like field recordings of a construction site chopped up and assembled into something slightly more musical, at others it sounds like Earth, circa 2, overdosed and slumped against a wall of Sunn amps cranked to 10, and at still others, it sounds a bit like someone spinning Masonna records on a busted Victrola. Indeed.
Massive swells of sound, all low end, and we mean VERY low end, super blown out, crumbling, Merzbowian, vast expanses of speaker destroying rumble, giving way to stretches of sound much more tranquil, like Masami Akita mixing Wolf Eyes. Sheets of murky industrial drift wreathed in corrosive buzz and wallowing in downtuned tectonic filth. Some parts sound like wind blowing on a microphone, but cranked to danger levels, other parts sound like a million turntables with the needle stuck in the run off groove of some super scratched up old record, peppered with the clatter and clank of some alien machinery, it's almost like a stereo test record, but instead of tones, it's a series of long, sprawling slabs of super intense drone, and speaker shredding grind and buzz. It's all very deep and abrasive, caustic and corrosive, but actually strangely mesmerizing.
Gorgeous and super creepy cover art too! We only have 15 copies and then it's gone for good...
