Liars are such a strange band, we've mentioned it before, but it definitely bears repeating, it seems like they get some sort of sick satisfaction out of gleefully subverting all expectations, some sort of thrill from annoying their loyal fanbase. Every record could go in any of a million directions, some far less appealing than others, and often, it's those less appealing directions that the band find most alluring. So it's usually best to approach a new Liars record prepared to be, at the very least disappointed, quite possibly pissed off.
Sisterworld however was immediately appealing, yeah, sure, a bit weird, but it's the Liars, this time they unfurl a sort of slow burning mystery of a record, super dramatic, with some gorgeous guitar playing and rough, whiskey soaked vocals, moaning cellos, sweet vocal harmonies, a twisted dark pop, with bursts of angular noise rock. Album opener "Scissor" might be one of the best songs they've written, with brooding, moody verses, a soaring bridge with lush harmony vocals, and a crashing synth driven breakdown blow out.
The rest of the record is sort of a schizophrenic mess, but in a good way, the band dipping their toes into woozy gloom pop, twisted cabaret, dreamy swirly string laden swoon, weird angular synth punk, hushed crystalline balladry, skeletal new wave, atonal noise flecked indie rock, furious buzzing dirge rock, but all the various shades and permutations held together, by that Liars vibe that's hard to quantify, but for being as scattershot as Sisterworld seems, it's also a weirdly cohesive set of songs, twisted for sure, but well crafted, and oddly and subtly catchy to boot.
While they last, we have the super deluxe, double disc, which comes in an incredible accordion foldout mini hard cover die cut book packaging, and a whole disc of remixes, from folks like Atlas Sound, Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio, the Melvins (!), Devendra Banhart, Thom Yorke, Boyd Rice and more! Most of the remixes are super radical, the songs all twisted up and reimagined, without losing the essence of the originals, a few add electronics, a couple get all chopped and screwed and looped, one or two are heavied up, and one even gets some female rapper action, pretty wacked, but what would you expect from a remix of a record that's already pretty weird to begin with? The more we listen to the remix disc, we almost might like it more than the record proper....
With every single release these guys get better and better, their sound, a constantly evolving, ultra dense blend of abstract black metal and deep ambient dronemusic, the early records were more about energy and vibe than execution, still eminently listenable, heavy and atmospheric, black and brutal, but their skills as composers and arranges have definitely made leaps and bounds, arriving finally at Territories, the latest sprawling epic from this Chicago duo, here, aided and abetted by a whole bunch of guests, including Blake Judd from Nachtmystium, Andrew Scherer, drummer for black metallers Velnias, and Mark Solotroff, power electronics maestro, and man behind Bloody Minded and the BloodLust! label.
And the guests make their presence felt right away, on opener inverted ruins, a smoldering doomic plod, more power electronics than black metal, with Solotroff ranting over a sea of swirling buzz and skree, glitched out electronics, and some simple stripped down drumming. Over the course of the track, it begins to coalesce into a more ominous creep, shedding noise as it goes, before finally slipping into a deep shimmering drone, which introduces the next track, a lush, slow building cinematic dronescape, constantly shifting layers, drifting through clouds of cymbal shimmer and blackened buzzing strings. It's not until nearly the end of side one that black metal rears it's ugly head, a flurry of manic riffing, and they're off, a pounding midtempo blast of raw feral blackness, insane shrieked vocals, chaotic drums, muted riffs, all blurred into a blackened haze, lo-fi and muddy, but also epic and intense.
The flipside opens with another bout of power electronics, dueling synths unfurl undulating layers of wheeze and warble and buzz, laced with shimmering overtones and fragmented melodies, a churning black sonic sea, that eventually fades out leaving, a smoldering stretch of shadowy guitar, of blissed out ambience, a short stretch of crystalline chiming guitars laid over a warm whir, shoegazey and blissed out, which finally leads into the closing track, the weirdest of the bunch, with organ and saxophone, acoustic guitars, and pretty much all the gusts present and accounted for, a bleak buzzing driftscape, sort of post industrial, keening melodies over fractured buzz, and deep rumbles, creaks and skree and groaning low end, finally explode into full on melodic black metal, martial drumming, epic riffing, more tortured vokills, cool tangled woozy minor key melodies, a swirling druggy ambience, weirdly catchy and otherworldly, but still heavy and psychedelic, maybe our favorite track, and the perfect way to wind down this serpentine blackened outsider drone metal journey...
The first published work in Francisco Lopez' ongoing Untitled series was Untitled 74, released on Table Of The Elements in 1998; and in less than a decade that number of untitled compositions has bloated to well above 200. With this Russian release, Lopez collects many of the Untitled recordings, dated from 2006 and 2007, giving some credence to his numbering systems. Perhaps, he didn't just start with #74 and jump around; rather he's constantly making field recordings, composing new works, and considering raw material from various collaborators, with too much work to get everything released.
It's been a while since we had to cautiously approach the work of Francisco Lopez with the concern that he might be issuing an inaudible or near-inaudible record, and even those long periods of silence which do pop up on some of his records are completely done away with on this collection. The reason for this is that each track is a discrete composition of repurposed environmental sound, stretched, blurred, occluded into magnified hiss, aerated drone, grotesquely exaggerated texture, and industrial hum snapped against the sounds of the Amazon and the Costa Rica rainforests, whose rich bird and insect life chatter in polyphonic choruses. Source material on a couple of tracks was provided by Rapoon and Lawrence English; and there's a piece that Lopez composed for an avant-garde chamber ensemble, that certainly presents an ominous atmosphere of piano stabs against agitated strings and rumbling double bass, very Zeitkratzer. As a whole, this 2cd set is Absolute Lopez near his absolute best!
Chorus was a record by the post-shoegazing duo Lovesliescrushing that was released via an obscure Peruvian imprint called Automatic Entertainment sometime in 2007. Needless to say, it's an album that practically nobody has heard, barring a download from a blog or something. Despite the novelty of this incredibly rare record, Chorus was also a major departure for the duo in that voice was the only source material for all of the blissed out driftscapes, with Scott Cortez eschewing the fizzed, opiated, and blurred guitar in favor of effects-heavy treatments upon the wordless vocals of Mellisa Arpin-Duimstra. Crwth is a re-edit of the raw material used for Chorus, emerging with a very similar muted hue of softed loops and delicate drones that hang gently upon the backdrop of digital dust blown upon a velvet surface. For those of you who had gotten a hold of the limited 2cd boxset on Projekt (or had been familiar with the last couple of Lovesliescrushing albums for that matter), this sole use of voice isn't all that much of a stretch, as Lovesliescrushing has been pushing a trajectory away from the beautiful noises of their MBV-inspired Bloweyelashwish and toward an angelic, slightly melancholy ambience with only the flicker of a song structure hovering at the bottom of their echo chamber. It's been said that Lovesliescrushing finds themselves between Slowdive and Fennesz; yes, that's true, but the reductionism down to an essential beautiful sound is taken even further than that imagined hybrid. Really, this is quite fantastic.
CLEAR VINYL! Limited release!!
Back in '97, when this utterly distorted slab of Japanese psychrock was originally released on compact disc, we were perhaps a little bit more succinct in our reviews than we are now, saying simply in two sentences:�
Nanjo, Kawabata and Yoshida return, with another blast of High Rise-style psychedelic riffery. Turn it up past, like, "2", and give your stereo speakers a few final thrilling moments before they fry.
Still true! Perhaps, for those just tuning in, we should add that Asahito Nanjo is the bassist from legendary PSF-label psychedelic speed freaks High Rise, Makoto Kawabata is of course the hairy bearded "motor psycho" guitarist from the beloved Acid Mothers Temple, and Tatsuya Yoshida is the eight-armed drummer from Magmoid prog duo Ruins, just to mention the primary crucial underground Tokyo acts these cats have been involved in. Mainliner Sonic was the trio's 3rd album, give or take a cd-r or cassette or two, if we've got the chronology correct. And it's just one of two Mainliner efforts with Yoshida on the drums, a lineup that happened to be identical to that of another, more spazzed out band, Musica Transonic.�
At a little more than a half hour in length, these five tracks represent a typical in-the-red session of Mainliner's more Les Rallizes Denudes than thou loud garage psych improv groove mayhem. Really, you've heard of "fuzz monsters"? This is, like, fully 94 percent fuzz, almost like a blast of Merzbowian noise, with some crashing drums and raucous riffing and squiggly soloing buried beneath. Totally trance inducing. All the noisiest garagiest bands today PLAYING AT THE SAME TIME might not be able to top this. For fans of Acid Eater for sure!!!
The cd version has been out of print for years (though we hear rumors of a reissue on a Chinese label...) so it's even awesomer to have this vinyl edition on new label Assommer (run by one of the guys from the LA psych band OGOD, currently on tour in the USA with Acid Mothers Temple).
Mako Sica first came to our attention about a year ago with their awesome cassette on PlusTapes and an insanely limited 12" on Permanent Records. They really struck a chord with us, as the Chicago trio conjured an intimate collection of songs that sounded lush and expansive in a way other groups only hope to achieve. The cassette was lo-fi, but not as an excuse, and now the band ventures to new realms with their proper full length debut. Recorded live in an actual studio with no overdubs, the higher fidelity is used to the band's advantage, as they are able to properly expand upon the sound they nailed on the home recorded cassette. The three lengthy songs on Dual Horizon are the result of musicians who clearly understand the importance of working together as a unit to achieve something else entirely. Sure, there are bands (or more often than not "dudes" with solo projects) doing similar things throughout the globe - you may be reminded of a more Americanized version of Urthona with less distortion, or perhaps Expo '70 if their interests lay grounded in the desert instead of the cosmos - but Mako Sica is its own beast altogether, and more than most, these guys use negative space as an instrument unto itself for a truly unique feeling that is as beautiful as it is unsettling. It should also be noted that Dual Horizon was recorded by Todd Rittmann of US Maple fame, another band these guys recall at times, though after a couple handfuls of peyote.
"I'itoi" opens the record with wordless droning chants and some sparse bells. An atmosphere is established as windy sounds creep in, giving things a nice ominous vibe. Eventually, something begins to take shape as it bubbles out of the haze before turning into a thick ambient fog. The song is evocative of the middle of nowhere, the badlands from which the band took its name, and sharp bursts of jagged guitar snake about while voices continue to swirl in the mix. The sound is huge but still remains grounded by the musicians who refuse to lose control of their instruments to psychedelic noodling. Soon, a steady rhythm comes in and takes things heavenward as one guitar takes the lead with super fast picking on the high notes while the other holds down the role of bass. Things eventually change direction with a pronounced drumbeat taking you to another place altogether. "5th One Is The Dark" begins life with a softly muted root note taking the lead during the lengthy buildup. A tremeloed guitar begins to sound like something blowing in the wind, and though it's a bit "surfy" sounding, there are no waves in the desert, and it becomes another part of the band's enveloping sound. Sustained feedback and a voice soon work their way in, and though you can hear words, you are unsure of what is taking form. The song is dramatic and highly cinematic, managing to conjure the incomprehensible hugeness of nature while also sounding affirmative of the cycle of life that will continue after we're gone.
Taking up all of side 2 and clocking in at 21 minutes, "Dunes" rides out with giant sweeps of low end before everything drops and a steady tom rhythm comes in like a heartbeat. The guitars come back with a submerged melody and jangly high notes as you venture to the far reaches of your mind, and at around the 4 minute mark, things actually start to move with the flow of a "rock" song, but in a very minimal way, again utilizing the the open space around the band. It's interesting how the drums avoid using cymbals too much, as this works really well with the band's lineup; nobody overtakes anyone else and they sound like a living, breathing unit, and even though there is a lot of improvisation going on, the band clearly knows where to take things. As the song winds down, more voices emerge and disappear, with a blaring trumpet melody helping to further disorient you in the best of ways.
The record itself is pressed up on some awesome black and white hazed vinyl and includes a download card for those of you who plan to wander off under headphones with this thing playing on repeat. And while we're at it, we should point out the fact that there's only 250 of these bad boys out there, so don't sleep on this!
This was a total left field surprise, what on the surface appears to be some lost seventies retro rock, proto metal, fuzzy, groovy, heavy jam, is in fact, the work of two electronic musicians who cobbled this disc together via samples, computers, effects and yeah, some actual instruments. We weren't sure how we felt about it at first, but after a few minutes we were pretty much sold. And have been jamming this ever since.
For actual seventies proto-metal freaks, and retro reissue obsessives, this could definitely rub you the wrong way, but for the rest of us, who can dig some twisted modern take on the shit we LOVE, then this might totally hit the spot.
The guitars are fuzzy, the organs are warm and warbly, plenty of twang, some Morricone-esque moodiness, some rad old hard rock drumming, killer vox, hand claps, plenty of jangle, hooks galore, there are also plenty of rad psychedelic interludes, with twisted backwards guitars, swirling FX, all sorts of primitive electronics and layered collaged sounds, but it's the songs that seal the deal. Super heavy, totally groovy, while to these ears it sounds like classic proto-metal, to some folks around here it sounds more like current retro revivalists like White Stripes, Earl Greyhound, Wolfmother, but this stuff is so much cooler and weirder, the little studio tricks that make certain notes stutter, the samples that are played like an instrument but are still wreathed in record crackle, lots of backwards sounds everywhere, it's like some lost sixties psychedelic hard rock lost gem, reimagined and reinterpreted using modern day technology and it RULES.
Back in 2006, Lasse Marhaug released an album with Joachim Nordwall from the Skull Defekts and Johannes Helden called When The Ice Is Leaving, Scandinavia Is Burning. With a title like that, the album should have been all fire and brimstone of Nordic noise: abusive, throttling, and demonic. It was not. Instead, that was the album you would expect from an album called The Quiet North; and The Quiet North is certainly not quiet. Pure brutalist noise is what Marhaug has in store for us. This wall of obsessive, oppressive distortion comes by way of guitar, various effects pedals, and various pieces of metal to tremendous effect. This is not a subtle record, the various squalls from the guitar strings being grabbed with bloody fingers and scraped with those pieces of metal have the crazed wall-of-sound frenzy you could hear in any number of Matthew Bower productions setting upon a rumbled low-to-mid range distortion that comes across like a two ton pile of gravel being slowly dumped upon the roof of a tin shed. The album begins with a bang and does not let up until its abrupt conclusion some 30 minutes later. Exhilarating to say the least.
Two new songs from this local Oakland sextet who are not afraid of tight and compositionally complex pop epics. Like a mix of Aavikko's energetic synthetic pop, Grizzly Bear's vocal harmonies and Liars urgent avant leanings, Maus Haus are probably amongst the hardest working local musicians and it shows! This white vinyl 7" comes with a download card for both songs plus three other brand new tracks from their Sea Sides EP. That's a lot of bang for your bucks!
The return of our favorite crust punk obsessed black metal horde, Meads Of Asphodel. Not sure if they've always been so into eighties punk, but over the last few records, the band have seen fit to mix it up, sprinkling classic covers amidst their epic pagan black metal jams, seems like a weird mix, but somehow, in the twisted sonic world these guys inhabit, it sort of works.
Two new tracks, a creepy, medieval intro, buzzy synths, rumbling drones, a growled distorted proclamation, some weirdly cheesy piano, tinkling chimes, sirens, a serious dose of whatthefuck, which gives way to 7 minutes of totally majestic, and classic sounding pagan blackness. NWOBHM inspired guitar harmonies, wrapped around pounding drums, chugging black riffs, the arrangements convoluted and complex, peppered with soaring synths, creepy processed vokills, some haunting interludes, with more of that creepy spoken word, and then right back into the tangled epic thrashing. And then it's on to the covers, some of which make perfect sense, some of which don't at all, which only makes them that much cooler. Doom, Hellbastard and Conflict, the Meads versions of which are appropriately raw and pounding and thrashing, the Hellbastard track has some strange piano melodies draped over chugging guitars and monklike chants, the Conflict cover is weirdly produced, turning the metallic crust punk into something almost cabaret sounding. We had never heard Skeptix before, but the Meads version is awesome, fierce and fast and melodic and heavy as fuck, definitely gonna have to track down the original. Then there's the last cover, going waaaaay back to the roots of heavy metal, The Kinks' "You Really Got me", which the Meads tweak, making the main riff minor key, so it definitely sounds black metal, the vocals over the top and WAY goofy, at first it seems so silly, but as the track plays on it makes some sort of twisted sense, and definitely suits the Meads' fucked up sound.
The Meads share this disc with countrymen Old Corpse Road, a sort of naturalistic folk flecked black metal band, but barring the intro of the first song, there's nary any folk to be found, the band spitting out epic, almost orchestral sounding blackness, not that far removed from Cradle Of Filth, with keyboards WAY up in the mix, wild shrieking vox, even some creepy plonking piano melodies, and that's when the folk comes in, the band breaks down into a sort of jig, launching into a jam that wouldn't be out of place on a Finntroll record, complete with group sing along, incredibly catchy, and the more we listen to this, the more we find ourselves digging these guys. Three looooong tracks, super dramatic, over the top, keyboards all over the place, wild vocals that slip from deep croon to hysterical shriek, a tangled almost circusy bit of blackened chaos that is totally kicking our asses. Which means WAY recommended, for both Meads AND Old Corpse Road, and we definitely need to hear more OCR...
It's been well over a decade since our ears have been assaulted by a -new- recording from intense Swiss industrial-jazz juggernaut 16-17, though thankfully in recent years there's been a couple crucial reissues via the Savage Land label, including one, of 1994's Gyatso, that we made a Record Of The Week not too long ago, in 2008.
While 16-17 are long gone, now it's almost as if some of their extreme spirit has been reincarnated in the form of this new band, MIR, whose debut compact disc on Savage Land is in fact produced by 16-17 mastermind Alex Buess. MIR, it turns out, is the project of one-time 16-17 drummer Daniel Buess (who is apparently NOT related to Alex, oddly enough) in a trio with two others. Daniel is credited with drums, metal percussions, and electronics, while the other members of MIR play guitar, bass, organ, and synth, lots of synth. Heavily effected electronics and punishing percussive strikes are definitely the two key elements of MIR's all-instrumental "experimental rock music" sound. They traffic in droning noise, isolationist improv, sludge and skree filled soundscapery, and no wavish punk, MIR synthesizing something both avant garde and physically primal.
Among the seven tracks on this not-quite-half-hour album, the most 16-17 sounding one here is probably "Animal Instinct", with the swingin' jackboot precision of its big rhythmic boom-thwap, floor-scraping distorted bass, and dense layers of abstract electronic groan and drone (however there's no sax attack though, which is one way that MIR differs from 16-17). To mention a few other songs, there's also the skittery grooves of "Jimbo", the sinister shimmering drones of "Organ Donor", the uptempo energetic guitar throttling of "Hit", and the sudden attacks and echoed decay of the darkly atmospheric "Terminal Reverb", which sounds like it's part Starfuckers, part Spectre.
Also we could also compare MIR to a mix of Supersilent and Shit & Shine, perhaps... along with, of course, 16-17. Very cool, and best played LOUD, if you dare.
Syd Barrett is the cover star, this issue featuring "the inside story of Madcap Laughs" with input from David Gilmour, Robert Wyatt and others. Also this ish: Captain Beefheart, Dr. Feelgood, Charlotte Gainsbourg, the reader's poll 2009, and more. Including, believe it or not, an interview with Sly Stone, who has a new album coming out! As always, LOTS to keep most music junkies busy reading here. Plus there's a free cd on the cover, a "recreation" of Madcap Laughs, covered track-by-track by a diverse selection of artist including Hush Arbours, Skygreen Leopards, Hawkwind, J Mascis, REM, Jennifer Gentle, Hope Sandoval, Robyn Hitchcock, and more!
Over the past few years, Darren Tate has been wandering into some wildly weird electronics, broadening the scope of his aesthetic beyond the seminal recordings he made with Andrew Chalk (amongst others) as Ora, and more recently through Monos. For the most part, Monos has been a collaborative project between Tate and Nurse With Wound engineer extrordinaire Colin Potter, but at other times, we're pretty sure that Tate is the only one behind the wheel. For Above The Sky, the Monos line-up includes Tate, Potter, and fellow British dronescraper Paul Bradley; and this record is a top notch, vintage sounding Monos disc for sure.
The extended pieces found on this album were culled from the one and only live Monos gig in 2006, the handful of recordings from that gig were processed, recreated, forgotten about, rediscovered, and processed again throughout various starts and stops over the next four years. The resulting album is surprisingly coherent, presenting itself as a sinewy mass of undulating drones dappled with various textures, shadowy events, field recordings, subtle instrumentation, and then some. The ghostly ambience that introduces this album is sublimely beautiful, like the druggy drones of Nurse With Wound (e.g. Soliloquy For Lilith) or the permafrost laden expanses of Thomas Koner or even a darker version of Leyland Kirby's much-lauded hauntological ambience. Distant sound elements of scraped metal echo to the foreground, as the latent sounds from some occluded ritual in some forgotten place. Shimmering acoustic clouds of resonance peel away into field recordings of numerous birds flitting about. Later on, semi-melodic phrases hover near the event horizon dominated by ominous electrical vibrations and dilated drone fields. Seriously, this is fantastic stuff!
The first 135 copies of Above The Sky feature a full extra disc worth of material that easily complements that found on the album proper. Needless to say, these won't last long!
FINALLY AVAILABLE ON CD! Here's what we said when we reviewed the now out of print vinyl 12" version:
All right! Moon Duo returns with another hazed out transmission from some lost dimension (otherwise known as San Francisco), this one courtesy of the always cool Sacred Bones label. The duo (obviously) features Ripley Johnson from local heroes Wooden Shjips, and their sound is not too far removed from Ripley's main band, maybe a little more ethereal and not quite as overtly "rocking", but definitely following a similar path of hypnotic, fuzzy repetition that we can't get enough of.
Moon Duo are capable of creating powerful songs from very little and they obviously understand the power of simplicity. Each of the four songs on this ep utilize the same hypnotic drum machine groove, altered to various pitches and speeds to accommodate each individual song. The result is like a mechanical heartbeat, throbbing relentlessly with krauty precision, and almost serving as some sort of chain to link each of the songs together. The record begins with "Killing Time", which sounds a bit like a Joy Division part looped forever as the soft, distorted vocals lurk beneath melodic guitars and fuzzy background static. With its buzzing organ and controlled feedback, "Speed" rocks a bit like Suicide augmented by shrieking guitar pulses and, uh, harmonica? Maybe. The cool thing here is how sounds blend together in a cyclone of warm, pulsating analog goodness. At times you are unaware of what you're hearing, and even though it gets noisy and overblown, the results are always catchy and super melodic.
Side 2 begins with "Dead West", which has a cool underwater feel. The song fucks with your perception of time and place, as it could have been recorded 40 years ago or 40 years from now. Sonically, it is a bit reminiscent of fellow California space travelers Sun Araw with its percussive guitar strumming and shimmering psychedelic feel, as a little keyboard melody stands at the center of things while the rest of the sounds oscillate all over the place. "Ripples" gives off a Spacemen 3 vibe as the drumbeat is slowed significantly. The guitars have a nice bit of twang to them, and the sounds once again appear to get caught in some sort of musical whirlpool as they merge together before a cool fadeout.
Picking up where the last ep left off, Killing Time finds Moon Duo descending even deeper into a state of super rhythmic, dreamy psychedelia. Just the way we like it.
Having been around for years and years (with the cult following to show for it), this Norwegian band now release their umpteeth album, however just their third for Rune Grammofon. Apparently we missed their vinyl-only 2nd one for the label, whoops, but we really liked their RG debut a couple years ago, Little Lucid Moments. And again, this is a similar hard-to-pin-down hybrid of trippy space rock, indie rock pop, and, as befits this disc's Blue-Oyster-Cult-lyric-derived title, even a little bit of metal. Maybe more than a little bit on the 13 minute opening track "Starhammer (Feat. The Electric Psalmon)", which goes through several musical mood-swings, at certain, most metallic points sounding a lot like Black Label Society, believe it or not, complete with big grungy riffs and harmonic pinch squeals a la Zakk Wylde, with vocals too that sound a bit Ozzy-esque, though elsewhere on that track (and album as a whole) they wander far out into abstract Pink Floydian space...
By the way that's not the longest song on here, either, the disc wrapping up in epic fashion with a 20 minute, 4 part suite entitled "Gullible's Travails". In between, there's some shorter songs, including the delicate piano lullaby "Close Your Eyes" and the rockin' roadhouse spaceout "The Bomb-Proof Roll And Beyond (For Arnie Hassle)", but their kitchen-sink-inclusive prog aesthetic is operative throughout, Motorpsycho utilizing Moogs and mellotrons, horn players borrowed from Jaga Jazzist, dreamy vocal choruses, and plenty of hard rock guitar. Occasionally they take some twists and turns we don't like quite so much as others, and also they're one of those bands we'd probably like even better if they didn't sing in English, but mostly Motorpsycho's arty indie/stoner rock meets cinematic synth sound, confusionally crammed with shimmering psychedelic jamming, edgy energetic rock riffage, and lovely laidback poppiness, is quite pleasing!
NOW ON VINYL! Cool. We've never had this fifth Mutantes platter on vinyl before, but it's just been reissued, and the cd is AWOL, so here's what we said about that version, a few years back:
One more time, welcome to the mixed-up Technicolor tropicalia psych-pop pleasuredome that is the music of Brazil's one and only Os Mutantes! This, their fifth album, from 1972, was their last with original vocalist Rita Lee before the band headed off into way proggier '70sness on later efforts of that decade, and it's one splashy send-off all right. We've said before that Mutantes discs #1 (Os Mutantes) and #2 (Mutantes) are the absolute must-have essentials, with #3 (A Divina Comedia Ou) running a close third... but #4 (Jardim Eletrico), and this fifth one too are also full of great Mutantes moments that fans should certainly hear! (And it should be added that if you dig Yes, tracking down some of those subsequent Mutantes efforts might be worth it as well...)
It should come as no surprise to Mutantes aficionados that as a collection of songs, Mutantes E Seus Cometas No Pais Do Baurets is all over the place, from the McCartneyesque, Moog sizzling "Balada Do Louco" to the groovy, wacked-out prog-funk of the nearly 10-minute long title track. You'll hear peppy '50s rockabilly pastiche ("Posso Perder Minha Mulher, Minha Mae, Desde Que Tenha O Rock And Roll"), Zep-heavy fuzz rockers ("A Hora E A Vez Do Cabelo Nascer"), lovely folkiness ("Vida de Cachorro"), and a honky tonk piano beerhall singalong ("Todo Mundo Pastou II"). And one of Allan's (but not necessarily everybody else here's) favorite tracks has got to be the ultra kitschy, goofy "Dune Buggy"... there's certainly lots of humor and bizarre bits woven in and out of pretty much all these tunes, again as per Mutantes' usual modus operandi (as is the Beatles influence felt throughout). Definitely a fun listen!
Brand new double disc from prolific drone doom duo Nadja, each disc a whole record unto itself one crushing and heavy, the other blissed out and shimmery, but both discs meant to be played together simultaneously, Zaireeka style, if you're so inclined (and equipped).
Both discs sound a bit clearer on their own, the doomier disc is spacious and spaced out, bass driven with simple programmed drums, hushed vocals, lots more tripped out effects than usual, a dizzying cloud of glimmers and chimes, swoops and bleeps, all wrapped around simple lumbering crush and heaving swells of lush heaviness, very Godfleshy sounding actually, pretty stripped down, long stretches of low end rumble and drum pound. One track is all ambient, washed out and hushed, some woozy slowcore drift, that gives way to a final track that is gorgeously caustic, blown and and sun baked, heavy heavy heavy, the weird thing is that without the second disc, it definitely sounds less lush, more murky, which for Nadja is not actually a bad thing. Probably most folks don't have a way of listening to both discs simultaneously, so know that the first disc is a killer blast of sludgy Nadja doomdrone that sounds great as it is.
The second disc is a much more abstract affair, obviously as it's meant to add texture and depth to the original, but it actually sounds pretty amazing on its own, all looped and hazy and gauzy, very Philip Jeck sounding in places, and in fact, this second disc has becomes a great late night drifting off record, with only one track that gets loud, and even then it's a soft cacophony of tones and blurred melodies, like a timestretched gamelan broadcast through a kaleidoscope.
So together, it's a little difficult to get the balance right, but when you do, it sounds pretty neat, the slower prettier numbers seem to work better, as the two tranquil drones have an easier time blending, the heavier jams get pretty chaotic, but listening to the final super heavy track, with both discs blasting, it is pretty transcendent, if there was some way to run both these through headphones at the same time, it might just send you spinning into some other dimension, certainly it'll probably invoke some sort of spontaneous hallucinations. Heavy, and pretty, and together, way dense and psychedelic!
And the packaging, wow! A huge hardcover book-like digipak with full color fold out panels, inside two printed inner sleeves (the only bummer being that their are no pockets, so the sleeves just sort of fall out when you open it), super striking for sure, and super limited too we're pretty sure.
Along with the gorgeous washed out ambient nature doom of Celestiial, and the epic outsider black metal mystery of the most recent Blood Of The Black Owl comes this, another new release on the cult Bindrune label, the first record from amazing one man band Nechochwen, a black metal act of sorts, whose intent is to explore Native American Indian heritage, through sound, but this is a strange hybridized exploration of Native American culture for sure.
Beginning with classical guitar, tribal hand drums, ominous spoken word, streaks of keening high end guitar, wailed emotive wordless vox, it definitely sounds a bit Native American, until the band launch into some seriously blasting full on metal, thrashing blackened riffage, pounding drums, with flurries of double kick, growled gruff vokills, rife with sprawling arrangements and epic melodies. It's thematically focused on the tribes that dwelled in the Ohio River Valley nearly two millennia ago, not that you'd necessarily know that from just listening, but it definitely infuses the sound with a unique vibe, that you're unlikely to find in much music, let alone black metal. Acoustic guitars, simple loping drumming, and chantlike vocals, in fact much of the record is acoustic, darkly melancholic, lush and warm and hauntingly beautiful, with fluttery flutes, hand drums, sitar like steel string buzz, occasionally erupting into blasting blackness, or twisted bits of rhythmic churn, or plodding ambient doom, or creepy black ambient drone, masterfully exectued, an expansive, incredible exploration of history through blackened folk flecked sound. Like other those Bindrune releases, not quite like anything else.
For a country whose entire population is only half that of San Francisco, Iceland has an exceptionally prolific arts community. One could easily look to the big Icelandic names in pop music (i.e. Bjork and Sigur Ros); but there's also slightly lesser known (but even more adventurous) music from the likes of Johann Johannson, Apparat Organ Quartet, and the entire output of the Kitchen Motors institution. But our personal favorite from Iceland remains Stilluppsteypa, whose dada drunkenness and black humor has developed arctic undercurrents to their increasingly bleak drone-based work. On Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna, the Stilluppsteypa duo of Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson have hooked up once again with the Swedish sound artist BJ Nilsen, perhaps best known for his triumphant elemental drone work as Hazard released through Touch. Sigmarsson sums up the communal idea behind this album as a "love for drones, Scandinavia, and alcohol." Of course, he then proceeds to type a polysyllabic onomatopoetic bunch of drunken text that makes our extend-o-spelling of doom seem trite by comparison.
The previous collaboration Vikinga Brennivin was an homage to the Icelandic firewater of the same name; yet it held a clarity and singlemindedness rarely attributed to alcoholic excess. Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna has that same contradictory dualism of conceptually relating to being fucked up without totally losing a grip on reality. Or perhaps these three Scandinavians have gotten so loaded that they drifted into a parallel universe of liquid physics and amorphous gravity. Needless to say, Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna is another masterful album of alchemical drone, that's even darker and more morose than its predecessor. Sonar pulses and crackles of wood break up the jet-black atmospheres of frozen electronic drones, resonant frequencies, and hallucinatory echoes rippling way out on the outer regions of the event horizon for this sonic black hole. At times falling close to the constant spiralling of Nurse With Wound's Salt Marie Celeste, and times recalling the best isolationism of Thomas Koner, and yet at others surpassing the blackened ambience of Nordvargr. Somber, magnificent, and exquisitely constructed!
Strange but kinda cool department: This is the second album (we missed the first) from this international, intergenerational hybrid kraut/psych/spacerock band, featuring members of Peru's La Ira De Dios, the USA's Dragonwyck, and Germany's Karmic Society and Treacle People. Well, we're fans of rockin' fuzzpunks La Ira De Dios anyway, don't really know the others. Apparently, inspired by residual '60s psychedelic vibrations, these likeminded folks got together to do some jamming, and that's what this is, all improvised, each track edited down from one-take jam sessions! Well, except for the surprise SLAYER cover, they do "Black Magic" from Show No Mercy! (Or, had we been paying attention, maybe not such a surprise, as apparently they also did Metallica's "For Whom The Bell Tolls" on their first album, we'll have to look into that...)
Otherwise, it's all in the realm of spacey stoner rock jamming with lots of fuzz guitar, Hammond organ and Hawkwindy FX, also wailing female vocals dubbed in over top (someone channelling their inner Grace Slick). Not the hippest band in the world, no, but fun and far out. Their unexpected speed metal obsession sure helps heavy it up, keeping this from totally retro tie-dye hippiedom, while at the same time, they manage to make Slayer fit in with their spaced-out sound. Some parts remind us of Circle, some parts remind us of Jex Thoth!
We get a lot of weird black metal here, that is after all some of our favorite stuff, but this may just be the first disc we've gotten from an anarcho vegan pagan black metal band! We've gotten a few cd-r's from this Kentucky based one man black metal band over the last little while but have been waiting patiently for a proper full length, that we could get enough of to list, and this, Collapse, is it.
And it was well worth the wait, a crushing, expansive, super varied chunk of crusty outsider black metal. Rife with news samples, killer mathy and not typically black metal drumming, spidery guitars wrapped around the usual buzz drenched riffage, the sound not just grim and buzzy, but epic and majestic and melodic. The first song is nearly 16 minutes long, and shifts through more parts and moods than most black metal full lengths. The opening 5 minutes is all intro, or seems it, a lilting minor key drift in the beginning, a pounding blackened buzz later, all underpinning depressive newscasts, before the song really explodes, literally almost, as the blasting and buzzing and pounding is interspersed with recordings of gunshots and explosions, perfectly tangled up with the music so it's difficult to tell what's drumming, and what are reports from tanks and guns, pretty effective, and noisy and chaotic, the song shifts gears a few more times, from doomy plod, to furious blast, to stripped down bluegrass, pretty sure that's a banjo, maybe even some slide guitar, but weirdly haunting and twangy, and somehow it doesn't sound out of place at all.
The second track is another 15 minute epic, which begins as many metal tracks do with the sound or thunder and rainfall, before more acoustic guitar joins in, still more slide, very twangy as well, then the drums come in, and some chimes or bells, a strange combination, loping and folky and darkly mysterious, it's not until nearly halfway in before the track explodes in another frenzy of black buzz, croaked vox, frenzied riffage, blasting drums, building to a super noisy coda, before an outro made up entirely of insect buzz.
After another 10 minute blowout, equal parts menacing majestic pagan blackness and abstract drifting folkiness, comes the strangely melodic final track, all hand drums, bongos maybe, almost jaunty guitar melodies, hushed whispered vocals, minimal, but strangely distorted drums, all wound around a stomping murky insistent doomfolk outro.
Needless to say, way recommend, an exciting new variant of the ever evolving sound of black metal, one we definitely never expected, but are digging big time.
The Harry Partch vinyl reissue campaign continues with this sprawling double vinyl reissue of Partch's master theatrical work, Delusion Of The Fury. Written between 1963 and 1969 and combining an ensemble playing Partch's unique instruments with operatic vocalists, mime, dance, lighting and staging, it was designed to create an experience more akin to the ancient ritual theater of the Greeks than traditional or modern stagecraft. Over the course of two acts, the first tragic, the second more comedic are intertwining stories of conflict and reconciliation. The first, based on a Japanese Noh play, is about a prince's pilgrimage to make amends for killing another prince in battle. The prince and the ghost meet, reliving the death scene over and over again until they necessarily come to a point where both life and death have to reconcile each other. The second act is from an African tale about a deaf hobo and a mother searching for her missing son in which a simple misunderstanding arises and is exacerbated by the law who thinks the two parties are merely a married couple having a tiff. Instead of fighting the judges decision, they decide to become a family. So again, there is a reconciliation with death and a reconciliation with life. The music using the elaborate instruments and 43 tone scale that Partch invented creates amazing microtonal bell sounds and gamelan like rhythms with slow chords underlying the faster paced rhythms. They act in part like the forces of nature that lead the characters through their various predicaments, and emphasize the stories larger tragic and comic resonances. There is nothing in modern music that quite resembles Harry Partch's one of a kind musical vision and it's great to see these available on vinyl once again.
HOLY SHIT! If there was gonna be a dubstep jam of the year, this is IT. Lee Perry taking on Black Sabbath's immortal "Iron Man", and it's a twisted, speaker shaking, dancefloor destroying, bass heavy whatthefuck for sure, with Perry's vocals slurred and laid back and definitely a little drunken sounding, the chorus a woozy pitch shifted sing along, with that classic main riff replaced by thick stuttering bass wobble, the drums wildly skittering, the whole thing dense and bassy and HEAVY. The flipside is the 'dub' mix, and if anything, it just takes the best parts of the original (which is basically EVERYTHING) and twists them all up, and makes them somehow even MORE, the bass more distorted, the beat harder and more convoluted, the vocals chopped up to mirror the stuttering bass, all wound up into a totally irresistible dubbed out, bass heavy, dubstep CRUSHER. We can only imagine what must happen when a DJ lets this one rip. Fucking epic. Now we need to hear Lee Perry take on a whole record of Sabbath dubs. But for now, this will do, BIG TIME. And of course WAY limited, ONLY 300 COPIES. Grab one while you can...
The sudden breakup of garage punk legends Dead Moon caught more than a few people off guard, but we safely assumed Fred and Toody Cole, rock n' roll lifers by definition, wouldn't sit still for too long. Now Fred and Toody are back at it with new drummer Kelly Halliburton, and fans of the Coles' vast musical history will surely rejoice. The sound is not too far removed from Dead Moon - in fact, we might go as far as to say that it isn't in any way removed - so if you dig scuzzy, no frills rock free of all bullshit, this will be right up your alley. Descending Shadows cuts right to the point with production that is upfront and immediate, not at all over the top, working perfectly for these impassioned tunes. Vocals are split pretty evenly between the Coles and there is plenty of great husband and wife punk harmonizing. The songs are full of classic Pacific Northwest fuzz and grit, with Toody's simple driving basslines and Halliburton's steady pound working right alongside Fred's melodic riffing. For fans of Dead Moon, this one is a no brainer, while Descending Shadows is also a highly worthy place to start for the uninitiated. Really awesome stuff, not surprisingly.
Brand new, ultra limited, super deluxe lp from these architects of grim drone and black ambience, after a gorgeous Drone Records 7", and two full lengths, Astral Death and Cosmic Birth, both brimming with dark waves of glacial crush and blurred abstract shimmer, comes Archaic Techniques Of Ecstacy, another fantastic exploration into dark sonic depths and empty black space.
In the past we've compared these guys to Sunroof!, SUNNO))) and Wolf Eyes, and it's always worth noting that R.Y.N. includes a member of UK doomdrone heavyweights Marzuraan, but R.Y.N. are definitely their own beast, unafraid to deviate dramatically from 'their sound', or to take that sound and pull it apart only to reassemble it into something even darker and more abstract. Which is sort of what seems to be happening on Archaic Techniques Of Ecstacy, two side long tracks that creep and drift, that ooze and crawl, a haunting collection of muted clatter, and creaking industrial ambience, like a field recording of some abandoned mining colony in the middle of nowhere, the wind shifting bits of metal, the resultant clang and clatter, groan and hum strangely musical. Long streaks of buzzing whir, like an airplane passing overhead, way off in the distance, the shimmer of soft breezes, the various elements casting flickering shadows, moonlit and menacing. Eventually the sounds coalesce into something more dronelike, a raw, minimal, layered bit of lowercase rumble, but infused with all manner of smeared texture and deep subterranean hum.
The flipside is even more harrowing, a soft squall of dense tones and blackened reverberations, a whirling swirling black hole of sound, metallic buzz muted into greyed streaks, laced into and layered over an endless abyss of abject minimal whir, a roiling churning sea of slowed down chimes, or blurred vibrations, or melted tones, like a black sonic cloud eating away at the very fabric of its surroundings, a crumbling grim decay rendered in sound, fantastically haunting and totally mesmerizing.
As with all Equation stuff, the packaging is incredible, a cool 3 panel dark brown on light brown fold over jacket, with a super heavy stickered inner sleeve, as well as a handful of inserts on nice thick textured paper liner notes, woodcuts, and of course LIMITED to 233 COPIES, each one hand numbered. So nice.
While they are most certainly still very Pink Floyd-esque in their interstellar expansiveness, the beloved Radar Brothers' fifth album has what might be their most straightforward pop songs to date... and we're digging 'em! The mood is downright upbeat and breezy at times, but it totally works with the band's warm enveloping sound which also suited their earlier slow creeping melancholia just as well. The Illustrated Garden is a wistful instead of solemn listen, and a wonderful follow-up to their last full length, Auditorium. Songs such as "Rainbow", "Radio" and "Horses Warriors" are perfect for cruising down the West Coast on a warm spring or summer day with the top down. As always, recommended!
It should be noted that the British label Second Layer released a Skullflower album entitled Malediction only to be followed up by a Ramleh album with the title Valediction. Given the cross pollination of ideas / band members / history between these two seminal ensembles of drugged-out, bleakly rendered psychedelic noise / anti-rock, it's hard to read the similarities of these titles as a mere coincidence.
The good news about Valediction is that this in NO WAY resembles the regrettable 10" that Ramleh produced in 2009, even as this album is technically the first full album by Gary Mundy and Anthony DiFranco since 1997 (the Ramleh we made a Record Of The Week last time was a reissue of a couple '80s era cassettes). Valediction qualifies as a return to their power electronics aesthetic that they built around the likes of Whitehouse and helped promote through their Broken Flag label, originating back in the early '80s. Here, squalls of hiss, noise, distortion, and compressed low-end rumbles blast forth with a hurricane fury, exhibiting the same misanthropic disdain for humanity as found in the early recordings but coupled with an oozing psychedelic panache that could only emerge from the many years of exacting the heavy psych noise-rock of albums like Works III or Boeing. "Valediction VI" is much more a propulsive track, with a punk bassline chugging through a thick wall of churning distortion while Mundy issues a chanting vocal stream of indecipherable words through a guitar pickup (or maybe it's a megaphone, who really knows with how wonderfully shitty it sounds), ending with a searing chunk of Merzbow-like noise. Awesome.
Another chunk of weirdo lo-fi retro pop whatthefuck from the always amazing Olde English Spelling Bee label, this one from one man band Rangers, aka Joe Knight, whose sound takes the poppiest moments of James Ferraro, that sort of late night eighties cheesy soundtrack sound, and runs it through some Ariel Pink alien FM radio, mixes in a little Roxy Music, a little PiL, and what comes out sounds like some alternate universe, slightly off center angular, barely funky, retro MTV pop, all swirling synths, groovy rhythms, crooned vocals, melancholy melodies, all wrapped in old VHS tape haze, a blurred wayback machine, turning cable access shimmer, mirror balls and sports coats over T-shirts and overproduced videos into sound, a sound that falls squarely in the current hypnogogic camp, but lists WAY toward the avant yacht rock side of the sonic spectrum. Definitely twisted, a bit psychedelic, woozy and warped and warbly, while subtly subverting the sounds of our childhoods into a dreampop that manages to be weirdly transcendent, totally retro, and enthusiastically cheesy. Ariel Pink and John Maus fans will go nuts for this, as well as anyone who wishes they never threw away that box of videos in the garage, that had every single video from '82-'87, recorded off Night Flight, every morning after the parents went to bed.
After a way too long break, Hidden Shoal return to aQuarius, with two new gems, both from long time aQ faves, the first is the latest from SF dreamdronedrifter Wes Willenbring, reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this right here, the latest from German outfit Sankt Otten, who we originally described as a mix between Bohren And Der Club Of Gore and Portishead (they're often described in the press as the German Portishead), and really Bohren and Portishead, can't do much better than that. But we were excited to hear how these guys might have changed over the last couple years, and in fact, their sound has shifted quite a bit.
At least in the beginning, the murk and the muted minimalism has been replaced by something much more washed out and ethereal, glimmering and dreamlike, the opening track is a weightless swath of gauzy chordal shimmer that leads directly into a deep throbbing bass synth, we were prepared for a descent into darkness, but weirdly, the sound shifts toward something more epic, a chiming gamelan like melody, over warm soaring synths, skittery drums, a sort of laid back droney downtempo shuffle, but laced with a weirdly major key melody.
It's around track three, where the group slip into some serious downtempo trip hop territory, a gorgeous hazy trawl through greyed electronics and blackened ambience, more laid back skitter, thick throbbing bass, and all sorts of sweeping swirling melody, dark and epic and mysterious. But SA continue to defy the German Portishead pigeonhole, by cranking up the tempo, veering into a sort of krautrock by way of Four Tet one minute, whirling Pop Ambience the next, synthy sprawling blissed out prismatic new age the next, over the course of the record slipping back and forth between these various sounds, sometimes melding several at once, a gorgeous, moody sonic journey, from haunting atmospheric darkness, to sun dappled rhythmic mesmer, to spaced out psychedelic synth, to eighties sounding new wave to hushed dreamlike ambience, to creepy slowcore crawl. Awesome stuff.
That's right, we've got a handful of these cool posters we commissioned to promote/commemorate this year's aQuarius recOrds and WFMU sponsored South By Southwest showcase. They were for sale at the show, and the remaining copies we've got we're now making available to our local and mailorder customers (who, if you weren't lucky enough to be in Austin, hopefully listened to the show via WFMU's live feed).
EXTREMELY LIMITED EDITION! Only 90 copies printed. Of which we only got half, a few of those went to the bands, which means not many of these left. Handscreened. Two color (one is dark green on light green, the other is blood red on grey). Featuring original art by one of our favorite underground artists, Savage Pencil! It's a crazy tangled squiggly mass of angry bird heads and strange intricate tendrils, it's super striking, and of course also features all the bands who played the show, as well as all the other show info. They're super sharp, and as they say, suitable for framing, so get one while you can. If you order one with other stuff, it will have to ship separately in its own tube, and so will require an extra separate shipping charge, just so you know.
For bigger better pictures, go here:
http://twitpic.com/1b719b
and here:
http://twitpic.com/1b71df
That's right, we've got a handful of these cool posters we commissioned to promote/commemorate this year's aQuarius recOrds and WFMU sponsored South By Southwest showcase. They were for sale at the show, and the remaining copies we've got we're now making available to our local and mailorder customers (who, if you weren't lucky enough to be in Austin, hopefully listened to the show via WFMU's live feed).
EXTREMELY LIMITED EDITION! Only 90 copies printed. Of which we only got half, a few of those went to the bands, which means not many of these left. Handscreened. Two color (one is dark green on light green, the other is blood red on grey). Featuring original art by one of our favorite underground artists, Savage Pencil! It's a crazy tangled squiggly mass of angry bird heads and strange intricate tendrils, it's super striking, and of course also features all the bands who played the show, as well as all the other show info. They're super sharp, and as they say, suitable for framing, so get one while you can. If you order one with other stuff, it will have to ship separately in its own tube, and so will require an extra separate shipping charge, just so you know.
For bigger better pictures, go here:
http://twitpic.com/1b719b
and here:
http://twitpic.com/1b71df ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
We weren't expecting to like this as much as we do, but this record really kills!! His first recording in 16 years, Gil Scott-Heron doesn't overindulge, rather I'm New Here shows a much leaner and meaner side to this artist who has never had a hard time examining his demons. "Me and The Devil" is a contender for single of the year as this Robert Johnson blues classic gets a dark almost Portishead-like update. But this isn't just a younger makeover for a classic artist, it's closer in kin to the respectful reinvigoration of Johnny Cash's later American releases. The arrangements are spare, though inspired by the minimal chill of dubstep in parts, they suit Scott-Heron's tough spoken word turns that pepper the album throughout. The Bill Callahan-penned title track sounds like a world-weary folk dirge from the early seventies by Lee Hazlewood that is a stand-out among many
on here. A fine return to form!
Another blast of fuzzy jangle rock bliss from aQ fave Ty Segall, two killer jams of stripped down warped garage pop.
The A side, taken from Ty's recent Lemons album, starts out all strummy and jangly, with some seriously fuzzy bass, the vocals a reverbed croon, shifting into a falsetto here and there, at one point getting all tangled up in effects in a twisted distorted psychedelic freakout. There's even a super rocking PIANO SOLO! But all that stuff is just icing, on what is a killer hook, and a crazy catchy jam.
The B side is a little more grimy and buzzy than the first track, sounding almost like the Stooges "Search And Destroy" slowed down to a garagey dirge, but again, Segall wraps that jangle and crunch around a hook most bands would kill for. Awesome.
It's about time someone took all these 7"s and compiled them on a single collection, cuz like all the rest, this one is limited too, and will likely be gone before you know it.
Most people probably already have an opinion on She & Him before they even hear a note of music. That's fair enough, after all, it would be easy to automatically hate the musical project of doe eyed actress Zooey Deschanel and her collaborator M. Ward. But if you actually take a few minutes to give this a chance, the less cynical of you might be pleasantly surprised, provided you aren't expecting a drastic redefinition of the sonic landscape. She & Him make easygoing, upbeat pop music with lushly orchestrated production (courtesy of Ward, who clearly knows a thing or two about makin' music) and a sunny vibe that will no doubt bring up thoughts of worry free summers and young love. Deschanel's voice is girlish and innocent, never forceful or attempting to wander beyond her range, instead just keeping things sweet and simple, and she certainly has a knack for crafting songs that are catchy, heartwarming, and fun. While there isn't too much stylistic variety on display here, the songs do flow together as a whole quite well, with plenty of acoustic guitar leads, sweet sounding string accompaniment, and lots of dreamy, layered vocals. This should definitely appeal to fans of Camera Obscura, Velocity Girl, and other similar sounding outfits, and hopefully people can overcome whatever hangups they might have and just enjoy this for what it is, a totally likable sweet and sunshiney pop record.
The third full length by this Stockholm based band is the first to reach our ears... thanks to those fine folks at Merge Records. Seriously, have they ever steered us wrong? We think not!
Although the black and white band photo on the front cover made us think this was an obscure '80s Talking Heads or Camper Van Beethoven record, Shout Out Louds are a perfect fit on the label who delivered Superchunk, Destroyer, Arcade Fire, The Clientele, She & Him, and Camera Obscura among many others. If you dig pretty chiming guitar lines and sweet boy vocals, don't miss this! The album starts out with a punch then gradually mellows out over the course of the next few songs. Along the way they incorporate elements of '70s soft rock, '80s art rock, '90s college rock. Yes, that's a lot of rock rock rock, but they do dish out the pop aplenty too! Definitely for fans of New Pornographers, Death Cab For Cutie, Peter, Bjorn And John, and The Pernice Brothers!
What else do you need to know besides this: SUPER LIMITED SKULLFLOWER 7". Not much we'd imagine, but heck, just in case, it might be good to know that this chunk of Skullflower guitarnoise, veers dramatically away from the spate of recent releases, that focused on a more harsh, speaker shredding, ear wrecking intensity, and slips back to something a bit more warm and washed out, definite Sunroof! territory for sure, albeit less upper register skree and more wall of thrum low end crush. Blissed out and melodic, think Jesu, Nadja, SUNNO))), but totally and distinctly Skullflower, heavy, and harsh, dense and intense, but shot through with pretty melodies and constantly shifting layers and textures, a dizzying drift of soft focus muted Merzbowian buzz. So good. Had this been stretched out into a full length record we'd be talking serious Record Of The Week contender for sure.
The flipside comes from UK one man black metal horde White Medal, who counters with his own murky slab of downtuned distortion drenched doomic black buzz, a heaving sea of muddy low end and swirling muted chaos, the drums blasting away, but buried in the mix, the vocals a howling demonic inhuman wail, the sound so blurred and blackened, that it sounds almost static, even though beneath the surface, the drums are blasting, the riffs grinding, a glorious smear of woozy melancholic buzzing blackness, dense and ferocious, but washed out and weirdly melodic. Both sides rank up there with some of the best stuff we've heard from either outfit. But act fast, only 400 COPIES!
Hmm. There's no point in really "reviewing" Spacemen 3 records at this point. They're surely one of the top 10 greatest bands to ever exist and even with their influence touching so many bands everywhere, no one - NO ONE - sounds like Spacemen 3. They just got it in ways other bands couldn't. Simple as that. It sure is great to have the band's Glass Records output, their first three full lengths, available on vinyl (some nice 180 gram vinyl to boot) for the first time in God knows how long. They look amazing in their heavy duty sleeves, and after years of absorbing every molecule of the shitty looking Taang Records cd versions, seeing these records as they were initially presented puts things into perspective even more. They just look so classic, so timeless, and so many years later, it makes perfect sense why we felt like we uncovered some secret portal when we discovered this band. Any song they ever did is the perfect soundtrack to any moment of any or every day.
Performance was released to fulfill contractual obligations with Glass, sort of an easy solution before moving on to bigger things. Still, it comes completely recommended, as it captures Spacemen 3 in a live setting on the Perfect Prescription tour, and there's no reason to complain about that. Apparently they weren't exactly pleased with this particular set, and the drums are surprisingly low in the mix, but they tear things up just as you would expect, with the molten guitars taking over everything everywhere. Recorded in 1988 in a setting one could imagine the band being quite comfortable in - Amsterdam - Performance is a fiery run through some early classics, and it will no doubt give you further insight into Spacemen 3's revolutionary approach. Goddamn, there sure aren't any bands like this these days.
Hmm. There's no point in really "reviewing" Spacemen 3 records at this point. They're surely one of the top 10 greatest bands to ever exist and even with their influence touching so many bands everywhere, no one - NO ONE - sounds like Spacemen 3. They just got it in ways other bands couldn't. Simple as that. It sure is great to have the band's Glass Records output, their first three full lengths, available on vinyl (some nice 180 gram vinyl to boot) for the first time in God knows how long. They look amazing in their heavy duty sleeves, and after years of absorbing every molecule of the shitty looking Taang Records cd versions, seeing these records as they were initially presented puts things into perspective even more. They just look so classic, so timeless, and so many years later, it makes perfect sense why we felt like we uncovered some secret portal when we discovered this band. Any song they ever did is the perfect soundtrack to any moment of any or every day.
Sound Of Confusion was the band's first statement after building up a repertoire for a few years. It's their most aggressive record and even though the future was full of surprises, it is the album that set the template for how most people will describe Spacemen 3: loud droning guitars, a minimal but intensely psychedelic approach that is almost violent in its focus, and of course, an inseparable cloak of drugginess. Lyrically, you just can't fuck with songs like "Losing Touch With My Mind" and their mindblowing cover of Juicy Lucy's "Just One Time", retitled as "Mary Anne". The album contains three originals, and three amazing covers that manage to become originals, and a sort of original/cover hybrid. Everything Spacemen 3 did is worth your time, they're definitely an appropriate band to get obsessed with, so why not start at the beginning?
Hmm. There's no point in really "reviewing" Spacemen 3 records at this point. They're surely one of the top 10 greatest bands to ever exist and even with their influence touching so many bands everywhere, no one - NO ONE - sounds like Spacemen 3. They just got it in ways other bands couldn't. Simple as that. It sure is great to have the band's Glass Records output, their first three full lengths, available on vinyl (some nice 180 gram vinyl to boot) for the first time in God knows how long. They look amazing in their heavy duty sleeves, and after years of absorbing every molecule of the shitty looking Taang Records cd versions, seeing these records as they were initially presented puts things into perspective even more. They just look so classic, so timeless, and so many years later, it makes perfect sense why we felt like we uncovered some secret portal when we discovered this band. Any song they ever did is the perfect soundtrack to any moment of any or every day.
For some people, it's Playing With Fire. For others, probably most, it's The Perfect Prescription, Spacemen 3's ultimate statement and the record where everything was working together in absolute harmony. The record cover itself seems to completely capture the essence of Spacemen 3, with Sonic Boom and Jason Pierce holding their guitars, eyes closed, no doubt concentrating deeply on the contents of their minds. It seems fair to call this their pinnacle, as things would become increasingly more split between the group's mainmen from this point on. The Perfect Prescription is one of those rare albums that is completely beyond criticism. Don't even try. Beginning in classic Spacemen 3 style with "Take Me To The Other Side", the album subsequently incorporates a wide array of influences and styles, from soul to gospel to country, making it clear that, even though they did it better than anyone else, there was far more to this band than just walls of fuzzed out drones. Even with this diversity, everything on the album belongs to Spacemen 3 - especially their cover of the Red Crayola's "Transparent Radiation" - and they were able to harness all their powers into something which is, yeah, pretty fuckin' definitive. We could go on forever, but we won't.
Special "under the influence" issue. No, they didn't get all their writers drunk. Instead, the idea is, "a bunch of stars grill their idols", hence, Britt Daniel talks to Ray Davies, Charlotte Gainsbourg talks to Kim Gordon, Ted Leo talks to Paul Weller, Billy Joe Armstrong talks to Paul Westerberg, Gerard Way talks to Iggy Pop... plus there's the usual other stuff you'd expect to find in an issue of Spin.
We knew when we heard their debut 7" from last year that The Splinters were going to be a band to keep our ears on. With their debut full length they've shown just how damn good they really are! As these four ladies from right here in the Bay Area have such a knack for creating uptempo, catchy and super smart post-punk jams. What's most refreshing about The Splinters is that they have carved out their own niche at a time when so many other like-minded bands are all going full on lo-fi in their take on Young Marble Giants, Black Tambourine, Vaselines, etc. Splinters have a totally different, much more song based approach that recalls some of our favorite '90s Kill Rock Stars and K records bands. Lots of the songs on Kick have an awesome Sleater Kinney vibe, but way more stripped down, poppy and hooky. It's like they found the magic of the Carrie Brownstein moments on records like The Hot Rock and merged them into their more economic approach to crafting songs, with no wasted space or filler. We're also reminded a bit of totally awesome and underrated bands from the past like Helium and Slant 6. And while we are sure The Splinters would fit just fine on bills with bands like Girls At Dawn, Vivian Girls, Brilliant Colors, etc., it's so awesome they aren't blindly following any trends but instead making music in a way that feels so true to themselves. Awesome!
We are huge fans of weird turntable music, from Jeck, to Gum, to Otomo Yoshihide, to Martin Tetrault, but as much as we love all of those folks, our heart belongs to Strotter Inst., aka, Christoph Hess, an older Swiss turntable mad scientist, who creates Frankensteinian record players with multiple arms, weird obstructions forcing the needle to jump and skip, strange strings and rubber bands, that the moving parts pluck and strike, all creating gorgeous mechanical symphonies of sound, with JUST the player, when the manipulated records are added (and they often are NOT), things only get more expansive and lush and amazing.
This latest release from Hess finds his interest in fucking with lps and their players extending to even the pressing process, with the various tracks mastered at different speeds, requiring a small diagram on the label demonstrating which part of which side plays at which speed. Not that it necessarily matters, as Hess' crazy sonic concoctions sound great at any speed.
The sounds here follow on from those on the many other records of his we've reviewed, like some sort of minimal DIY krautrock, or a band like Avarus, populated exclusively by homebuilt noise making robots, all assembled from turntables, it is unbelievable to hear these sounds and know they were designed and planned by Hess, but it's the machines that are creating these gorgeous hypnotic rhythmscapes.
Hypnotic, repetitive, cyclical, but always shifting subtly, crackle, scrape, rumble, hiss, skip, all deftly arranged into propulsive grooves, the rubber bands offering up melody, strange rubbery tones, percussive, but definitely melodic, while the turntable itself, when not striking or plucking the bands, unleashes strange grinding rhythms, peppered with percussive scapes, haunting textural whirs, the rhythms almost tribal, often skeletal and sparse, but just as often dense and layered, when the records are included in the sound making, the various manipulated grooves, spit out even more strange clicks and moans and bleeps and even some strangely appropriate counter rhythms.
Absolutely fantastic stuff, we would imagine as amazing to see as to hear, lucky for us, there's a good chance, Hess will be in the US soon, and will hopefully be visiting aQ for a demonstration / performance.
Latest cloud of smoked out dub psych damage from this one man band, a massive sprawling double lp, every song bleeding into the next, one epic druggy abstract sonic trip. The Sun Araw sound keeps drifting further and further out, and in the process, approaching something that sounds a bit like reggae, but filtered through a cracked Not Not Fun filter, and a bank of busted amps and malfunctioning effects pedals. Oh and pot smoke. Lots and lots of pot smoke.
Woozy, warbly, prismatic, sun baked (and just plain baked), stripped down, dubbed out, inner space drift. Wah Wah guitars hover over skeletal rhythms, reverb and delay coats everything in earshot, disembodied chantlike vox are draped over SA's twisted mutant lo-fi dub. The record drifts into some warped murk, still peppered with plenty of upstroke reggae guitar jangle, but wrapped in wheezing keyboards and some super distorted fuzz bass.
The second record begins all ethereal and new age, some hushed glimmering ambient drift, near static, before launching into some dubby krautrock, muted and muddy and minimal, flurries of keyboard tangle spray notes at the relentless motorik pulse, still more abstract vox and lots of gorgeously spidery guitars, all tangled up into minor key melodies that seem to fade into the background, the whole record sort of hazy and ghostly, while somehow remaining krauty and dubby. The sidelong final side strips everything away, or piles it all on, blurring and smearing and winding everything into a dense layered drift, looped and hypnotic and psychedelic, that wouldn't sound out of place on a Monopoly Child Star Searchers record. Rad stuff. Thick vinyl, full color gatefold sleeve, and yeah, probably limited.
The February '10 issue of the UK's ultimate extreme metal magazine (always a must read we think) is here. Finntroll are the cover stars, and they deserve to be, what with all the trouble they went to with makeup, costuming, prosthetic troll ears and stuff. Plus they're awesome. Also this ish: Sigh, Shining (the jazzy one), Rotting Christ, Cathedral, Ov Hell, Anaal Nathrakh, Eyehategod, Cannibal Corpse, Nirvana 2002, Chthonic, White Wizzard, Claw, and loads more. Also, news of a Godflesh reunion, a special feature on the origins of "metalcore", and a bit about the upcoming Roadburn fest that Allan's gearing up to go to.
By now, most AQ customers are probably well familiar with Mr. Scott Tuma, who we of course first discovered playing guitar for legendary stoner slow-mo-country geniuses Souled American, in some ways, his underwater woozy guitar haze helped define that group's sound, and after striking out on his own, that sound became more and more distinctive, and we of course became more and more obsessed with Tuma's incredible abstract Appalachian soundscapes, equal part ambient drone music and haunting minimal guitar music.
Dandelion might just be Tuma's darkest and most abstract outing to date, after several brief tracks of music box ambience, delicate chimes, hazy melodies, wheezing smoldering rumbles, disembodied shimmer and rickety barely there rhythms, the record unfolds into it's first longform piece, an absolutely gorgeous driftscape, clouds of hiss and blur swirl softly and in slow motion, before a skeletal banjo, picks out a mournful melody, one note at a time, letting each note drift into the ether, before sending the next to follow. Around this haunting bit of abstract drift all manner of field recordings, sirens in the distance, chirping birds, whipping winds, tinkling chimes, rustling branches, a riveting stretch of folkdrone ambience for sure.
A brief bit of tangled glistening guitar melody leads into the second epic, this one ominous and foreboding, slivers of guitar buzz and shards of feedback draped over a softly swirling morass of muted buzz and smeared psychedelic swirls, clouds of cymbal shimmer hover in the background, as do tinkling chimes and flurries of abstract percussion, before fading out into a hushed bit of skeletal Appalachia.
The flipside is three loooooong tracks, the first taking up almost half of the side, beginning with dense swells of low end, a blackened dronescape that almost sounds Wolf Eyes worthy, abject and bleak, grim rumbles beneath ashen layers of whir and hiss, those sounds seem to gradually coalesce into melodies, and what sounds like strings, the mood shifting dramatically, more cinematic, and epic, still haunting and dour, but infused with a warm glow, laced with still more random free drum skitter and glimmering cymbal shimmer, the gradually evolving sound stately, and elegiac, darkly and mysteriously lovely.
The record finishes off with two more tracks, more like the older Tuma recordings, less dark, with that woozy Souled American vibe, delicate crystalline guitars set over reverbed landscapes of amorphous sway and drift, the two tracks forming the perfect sun dappled cloud covered coda to a fantastic, and fantastically enigmatic songsuite, from one of our favorite sonic alchemists...
Doubtless many movie (and music) buffs would agree that Italian '70s and '80s "giallo" (horror/thriller) cinema, from directors like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, had soundtracks usually as evocative and inspirational as any visual aspect of the films, soundtracks which often stand as effective works of art all on their own. The scores by prog band Goblin being perhaps best known, influencing such modern day bands as Zombi and Crime In Choir. Now here's another, utterly blatant and most excellent example of Italian giallo soundtrack worship by a current artist: Umberto!
Umberto is actually a one-man band, that man being Matt Hill, live collaborator / touring member of AQ faves Expo '70! Under his guise of Umberto, he has just released his first album as limited edition cassette and cd-r on the Sonic Mediations label run by Expo '70 mainman Justin Wright. While Expo '70 has proven to be especially adept at channelling the heavy kosmiche bliss of prime '70s krautrock a la Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, Umberto is equally savvy at conjuring the dark, suspenseful soundtrack-y sounds of Goblin and the like. With, some cosmic Klaus-y krauty-ness thrown in as well. This definitely sounds like it could be an actual soundtrack, in fact, someone should MAKE a film just to use this as a soundtrack. You can certainly do so in your imagination, aided perhaps by the cinematically suggestive track titles, which include "Running Blade", "Intermission", "Dream Sequence", "Shower Scene", and "End Credits" (the only track here with vocals, otherwise it's all instrumental... and the vocals on this last track are some sort of hard-to understand, chant-like invocation). Listen with the lights off for best results.
Umberto has a heavily synthesized sound, keyboards buzzing and droning and squelching, crunchily distorted or eerily ethereal, sounding at once like ominous Gothic organ music and also spacey futuristic electronica. Mechanical drumming plods along, propulsive beats adding to the menacing atmosphere. There's also plenty of fat disco synth-bass, and we bet folks into Italians Do It Better 12"s, or Black Devil Disco Club, or even skweee would get a kick out of this too, not just Goblin fanatics... but yeah Goblin fanatics (and John Carpenter and Zombi fans too) REALLY ought to check this out! Very cool, very creepy, and even at times kinda catchy-groovy.
Just one glance at the cover of this 7" should send most doom obsessives into an involuntary frenzy, the weird black and white washed out image, the twisted barely legible writing, so distinctive and immediately recognizable, but this is not in fact a lost record or weird reissue from New York doom legends Winter, but is in fact, the next best thing, two contemporary outfits, tackling their favorite Winter tunes, an homage / tribute to a criminally under appreciated band, especially considering that their sound predicted pretty much all the slow and low heaviness going on these days, and that the sound, and most of the bands that practice it, would sound a whole lot different if it wasn't for these guys, whether they know it or not.
Up first are long time aQ faves Unearthly Trance, who add their own twist but don't drift too far from the original, lumbering, lurching, plodding crusty doom sludge bliss, a filthy midtempo plod, peppered with bursts of double kick drumming, guttural vox, and of course twisted tarpit guitar buzz. UK sludge beasts Volition also don't mess with Winter's sound all that much, unfurling a blackened and dense bit of sprawling doom, that more than classic ultra doom, sounds more like a grindcore record played at 16rpm. Both sides rule, essential modern megadoom, and if you've yet to discover the dismal joy of Winter, maybe these two tracks will convince you to track some of that shit down. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered, and these are the last copies we'll be able to get...
Beginning back in 2002, Framework is a radio show hosted by Patrick McGinley, who presents his listeners with an hour dedicated to field recordings and their use in composition. The first broadcasts appeared via Resonance FM in London, with syndication of the show expanding through various stations online and over-the-air in Belgium, Greece, and on occasion New York. The shows are stellar productions (even when streamed online) with McGinley often able to solicit exclusive field recordings from his numerous contacts around the globe. In celebration of the 250th broadcast and in support of his original host Resonance FM, McGinley has assembled this amazing 4cd document of exclusive compositions that in some way, shape, or form incorporate the art of field recording into the final piece. The list of contributors is quite large, and certainly acts as a who's who in the realm of avant-garde composition, featuring Phill Niblock, Asmus Tietchens, Peter Cusack, Steve Roden, Giancarlo Toniutti, and of course Chris Watson (arguably the pinnacle of sound ecology). But there's plenty of those who we here at aQuarius have long championed: Loren Chasse, Michael Northam, McGinley's own project Murmer, Jonathan Coleclough, Tarab, Keith Berry, John Grzinich, Eric Cordier, Richard Garet and our own Jim Haynes.
With four discs, there's a lot to cover and a surprisingly large amount of high caliber material. So, here it goes... Wooden creaks, bell strikes, and distant bird calls slowly percolate to the surface of Jonathan Coleclough's collaboration with Ben Owen, who collectively augment those sounds with Feldman-like gestures of windswept tonal clusters. Stalwart concrete / sound artist Toy Bizarre offers a compacted mass of water sounds; and Mark Schrieber offers a composition of squeezed noise courtesy of a windshield wiper grating against a contact microphone. Jim Haynes scrapes slabs of slate together before transmitting a harmonic overdrive of clustered bell-n-shortwave tone-floatation. Toshiya Tsunoda's exquisite study in low-end vibration patterns originated from a rope lashed from a boat to pier in his native Japan. Seth Nehil turns the cacophony of a traffic jam into a meditative thrum punctuated by mechanical gestures, aerated hisses, and oblique moanings. Having set contact microphones upon several pieces of wood mounted to a small dam, Maksims Sentelevs captured a polyphony of chiming noises amidst the bubbling watery percolation that's quite unsettling. Eric Cordier's haunted ululations and distant squeals loop hypnotically, making allusions more to horror sound effects rather than typical field recording fodder, even if the material is probably the sound of a gull screeching just off the shoreline. Jeph Jerman's grey hiss of a field recording scrabbles with the sound of insects rummaging around bamboo, all the while sounding like an extract cassette from the bottom of a tarpit. Conducting something of a small ritual with objects around his apartment, Loren Chasse layers textural sounds into an enthralling, mysterious mass of hushed sound. Tarab's corroded drones and tactile spillages from pure field recordings are as captivating as ever, proving that he's one of the more under-recognized composers around today. Steve Roden's contemplative, lulling piece is beautifully composed from two notes on guitar quietly plucked against the hiss of a rainstorm recorded back in 1930s on a 78 as an early sound effects record. Keith Berry's hauntological ambience could easily give Leyland Kirby a run for his money. Industrial rumble and concrete bunker reverberation dominate the low-end frequencies of Jez Riley French's exceptional contribution, perfectly situated next to the obscurant documentation from Giancarlo Toniutti's rattlings of ironworks and deep environmental droning. Chris Watson makes no secrets as to the source on his recording "Ravens" who sound as ominous and cackling as you would expect. Phill Niblock's contribution was sourced from a field recording he made back in 1986 of church bells, but elongated digitally into a slightly atypical piece for the minimalist, as it's less than 6 minutes long!
Whew! All of this and more. There's also the fact that this is limited to 250 copies. Actually, none of these discs were to be available in shops at all, but McGinley made one exception to this rule, allowing Aquarius to have a handful of these. We have less than a dozen, and it remains to be seen if we'll be able to get more. Yes, it's expensive, but it is worth it for the material at hand, plus the proceeds are going to support McGinley's production for Framework and Resonance FM.
You know music is beyond powerful and soulful when it can be all about faith in something you don't personally believe in, yet you can't stop listening to it! The sentiment, passion and energy put into the music transcends any one specific belief and becomes more about the music and its ability to truly tap into raw spirit and deep conviction.
Such is the case for the amazing gospel jams compiled once again by the always dependable Numero Group, in their second volume of gospel burners that we think might even outshine their first installment from a few years back. These are the reeeeal deal, unfiltered sounds that were blasting in black churches in the 1960's. Informed by the soul and deep funk of popular secular music, folks took that inspiration into their churches to create sweaty, impassioned deep grooved fiery and catchy songs that spoke of their deep running spirituality and beliefs. And it's just impossible not to get swept up in the spirit of these songs. Musically it's just some of the most solid, groove filled and exquisitely performed soul music we've ever heard. The equivalent of getting to hear Aretha Franklin or James Brown let it all hang out in the house of the Lord. Most of the tracks here come from Chicago, whose long history of spiritual soul is reaffirmed once again.
While most of us here are everything from Atheists to Buddhists to Jewish to Quaker to Agnostic to worshipers of nature and sometimes even Satan (got to represent out black metal tendencies) we all can't help but testify to the righteous sounds in this collection. For the duration of the eighteen songs on Good God! Born Again Funk, we are all devout believers! Vinyl version coming in a few weeks, by the way...
There's been a deluge of reissues and compilations of groovy '70s music from West Africa coming out lately, on this list in fact you'll also find Soundway's Nigeria Special Vol. 2 reviewed, with another one, their Nigeria Afrobeat Special comp, waiting in the wings. Well we just say, bring it on! If it's as good as THIS, we want to hear it!! Lagos Disco Inferno (the title says it all) is brought to us via the Academy label, who were responsible for that amazing Ofege reissue, among other great releases. Compiled by vintage vinyl fiend Frank Gossner (who does a blog called Voodoofunk), this is packed with a dozen tracks of burning, sweat-soaked funk/disco grooves, total dancefloor fuel, recordings circa 1976-'82 from Nigerian artists including Blo, Pogo Ltd., Doris Ebong, Grotto, Nana Love, Tirogo, MFB, Paradise Stars, Christy Essien, Geraldo Pino, Asiko Rock Group, and Emma Dorgu.
Track one, Doris Ebong's "Boogie Trip", with her persuasive vocals and some psychedelic electronic FX, is an insanely funky, and freaky, number that gets the party started right, in fact, it features the sounds of a wild dance party going on in the background (as there should be!). And track after track, the Lagos Disco Inferno party doesn't stop... right though to Nana Love's almost 15 minute tour-de-force "Hang On", which ends the album leaving you wanting more, more, more. Damn.
This is simply amazing from start to finish, a f*cking awesome comp, if you don't dig it then we doubt you've even got a funky bone in your body. The acts here could certainly compete with American contemporaries like the JB's, Kool & The Gang, and the BT Express, these exuberant tracks bursting with chicken scratch guitar, fat bass, ecstatic vocal squeals, and tight horn sections being put through their paces (ferinstance, on the aforementioned "Hang On"). James Brown is clearly a big influence, and Christy Essien on "Take Life Easy" sounds like she could have been one of his funky divas. To mention a few others, though we can't begin to pick favorites, we like how Geraldo Pino's "African Hustle" mixes in "Blow Your Head" style JB synth wiggle and vocal exclamations worthy of Jimmy Castor. "Everybody Get Down" by Asiko Rock Group is over 8 minutes of sheer get down grunt indeed. Pogo Ltd.'s insistent "Don't Put Me Down" also delivers the JB's vibe we enjoy (sounding a bit Ethiopiques too), while MFB's "Boredom Pain" has got more of a laidback groove, with soulful vocals and an eruption of fuzzed out acid rock guitar soloing that kicks in part way through - this could easily be something from those recently reviewed records by Amanaz or Witch from down in Zambia... Hey, but rather than talk about all twelve tracks, let's just say two words: get this! And again, two more: get down!!
Includes knowledgeable liner notes, the cd in a digipack, the vinyl in a nice gatefold sleeve.
