It's come to that awesome point where just seeing the Captured Tracks logo on a new piece of vinyl from a band we have no idea about is cause enough to throw it on right away and check it out. We actually didn't even need the Captured Tracks motivation with this one as we could tell the A side was a cover of one of our favorite Kate Bush songs ever "Cloudbusting", so the many Kate Bush fanatics that work here wasted no time in finding out what the sounds of Wild Nothing were all about. So while we set the bar pretty damn high when it comes to covering Kate Bush (we did think The Chromatics did a nice job with "Running Up That Hill") Wild Nothing for sure respect the song and the male vocals and lo-fi synths give it a really nice hazy feel. The flipside "Two Promise" might have us hooked even more, a total slow burning late night bedroom jam somewhere between a hazier Neon Indian and a a male led version of Nite Jewel. Dark, catchy and seductive.
Another list, and another batch of obscure tapes from UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one from someone called Leslie Winer, a mysterious former model, a pal of William Burroughs and Jean-Michael Basquiat, a sometime guest vocalist on records by groups like Bomb The Bass, who ditched modeling, dropped off the map, but not before making a record called Witch, considered to be an essential early chunk of proto trip hop, and this batch of tracks, dating just a year or so after Witch, does indeed offer up a gorgeous murky bit of skittery, downtempo weirdness. Obvious references are Tricky, Massive Attack, even Portishead, the same sort of creepy crawly late night shimmer, dark and dubbed out, the rhythms skeletal, the vocals, hushed and whispered, a sort of slow motion toasting, dark croons over billowing clouds of thrum and whir, loping rubbery basslines, slowed down samples, bits of reggae guitar, druggy and dubby, woozy and warbly, everything wrapped in a gauzy haze of record crackle, tape hiss, blurred ambience.
Here and there the drums are cranked up into something more block rocking, but even then Winer transforms it into something more murky and surreal, the bass gets super distorted and fuzzed out (some dubstep foreshadowing for sure), everything wrapped around effected acoustic guitars, more sampled vox, strange little flurries of percussive filigree, all smeared into a mesmerizing bit of shuffling tripped out, psychedelic downtempo moody muddy groove.
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Smolken has always been a confounding personality, the man behind both Wolfmangler and Dead Raven Choir, releasing records on proper metal labels, but also on weirdo avant free folk microlabel Jewelled Antler, mixing black metal, folk music, country, bluegrass, whatever the hell he feels like really, the results sometimes brilliant, often baffling, but always weird and wonderful in their own way.
They Call Us Naughty Wolves marks the return of Smolken as Wolfmangler after more than two years of relative inactivity, and to be honest, we were approaching this with a bit of trepidation. It was after all a record called They Call Us Naughty Wolves, and according to the label was blackened burlesque chamber music, a sort of channeling of pop from yesteryear, not to mention that some of the cds come with a pair of Wolfmangler undies (really! more on that in a second). But really, conceptually and sonically, this is no stranger than past Smolken projects, so we threw it on, and were pleasantly surprised, if one can find this sort of music simply 'pleasant'.
The sound is creepy, and dark, and creaky, and mysteriously ominous, strings moan and groan, a slow lugubrious chamber music, transformed into something much blacker and creepier, the melancholic gloom and string laden dirgery accompanied by a blackened croak, vokills that gurgle and growl, although they are sometimes accompanied by an angelic female counterpoint. The guitar or bass is more a fuzzy blur, a droney rumble, that underpins the strings, cellos or violins driving the tracks, creating the muted melodies, and it's that weird guttural vocal and string combination, that can't help but remind us of those groups like Xynfonica, Shevelreq, Gluttony, Thursar, the twisted metal vox with gnarled guitar synths emulating exotic instruments. So right off the bat, if that stuff is to your twisted taste, then this will definitely hit the spot. But Smolken's vision isn't so damaged or demented, it's definitely rooted in sounds more traditional, a sort of blackened doom chamber folk, which will appeal to fans of dark slow low moody weirdness. Although some of it is definitely WAY weird. The band occasionally slipping into some strangely jaunty jig like Renn Faire folk music, but for the most part, it's just some seriously brooding, surprisingly beautiful, freaked out and fucked up outsider darkness, like Tom Waits' Black Rider blurred and muddied and blackened into some woozy warped soundtrack to a filmic fable of wolves and woods.
Two lucky aQ customers who order this, will also get a companion pair of red (riding hood), women's panties, with a screenprinted image of a wolf dressed up like grandma on the butt, They Call Us Naughty Wolves after all, it'll be totally random, so cross your fingers...
There are lots of remarkable things about this latest Xasthur disc. It was released on his own Disharmonic Variations label for one thing, instead of Hydra Head, his home for the last few records. It features the vocals of folk chanteuse Marissa Nadler quite prominently, which was definitely a bit of a surprise! Even more surprising is that according to Malefic, the man behind Xasthur, now referring to himself by his given name Scott, this is the very last Xasthur record. EVER. He's not giving up music, just black metal. Which might seem less surprising once you've heard Portal Of Sorrow. Whose sound is at once a continuation of the last few Xasthur records, but at the same time, a total departure. Right out of the gate, the title track, is all acoustic guitars, and cooing wordless vox, more some sort of ethereal depressive doomfolk than black metal. Haunting atonal chords, folky guitar strum, wheezing organs, everything warped and warbly and really quite beautiful. Some more 'metal' guitars enter into the picture but they just serve to add filigree to the folky gothic dirge. Pretty weird and fantastic for sure. And for sure to bum out legions of true grim black metallers. The second track is more black metal, but if anything it's WAY weirder than the first track, with what is either the worst, or best production yet, the guitars detuned and atonal, the drums insanely produced cardboard box thumps WAY up in the mix, Nadler's often wordless vocals again soaring and dramatic, while Malefic croaks along in the background, a gloriously stumbling bit of blackened freak folk buzz, moody and murky, with some serious chug part way through, but that chug is accompanied by PIANO, which renders it more some sort of blackened chamber music.
And so it goes, the whole record is not only strangely composed, but the sound itself is totally alien, it sounds accidental, but a sound this twisted and warped and idiosyncratic MUST be by design.
"Shrine Of Failure" begins with clean guitars and floppy bass, a constantly descending melody, the vocals singing right along, before the heavier guitars kick in, but instead of making the song heavier, they seem to float above the already in progress weirdness, adding a layer of distorted buzz, and alternately wild psychedelic squiggles of tangled lead guitar. "Stream Of Subconsciousness" is another washed out doomic dirge, driven by Nadler's angelic croon, and Malefic's warbly guitars, the swoonsome synths, leading to an ambient drift, and then more murky stumble. "Horizon Of Plastic Caskets" is all minimal drumming, swirling synths, distant vocals, a sort of black ambient post rock lope, peppered with Malefic's maniacal screams, which do nothing to take away from the track's haunting cinematic vibe.
"The Abyss Holds The Mirror" opens with some seriously lovely multitracked vocals from Nadler (she's credited with "choir, vocal flashbacks, vocal instrumentation") before the song proper kicks in, and it's a dirgey doomy deathmarch, with church organ, croaked demonic vocals, all set to a heartbreakingly melancholy melody, the whole second half is just organ and vocals, and is the last thing you'd expect to hear on a black metal record.
"Released From This Earth" is all struggling drumming, atonal piano pound, and more of Nadler's heavenly crooning, in some ways, this almost plays out like a Marissa Nadler record, with Xasthur as his band, no disrespect to Malefic, in fact, that's what makes this record so good, it's less about having some token guest vocals, and more about true collaboration, which is exactly what makes this record so fucked and far out and special. Even at it's blackest, it's about as far removed from black buzz and grim blast than you could imagine. Which is what keeps us from mourning the death of Xasthur, and instead has us anxiously awaiting the future rebirth, and phoenix like ascension of whatever comes next.
Jamie Stewart. Some people love him, and some people hate him and some people REEEAAAALLYY love him. Anyone who can inspire that much passion one way or the other has some kind of gift that most do not. Or is it a curse? Anyway, Dear God, I Hate Myself (a Jamie Stewart album title that seems overdue) is most definitely a Xiu Xiu album that will make longtime fans love him that much more and dismissers keep on dismissing. Parts of it harken back to the cacaphony and sweet angst of Knife Play or Fabulous Muscles. Other tracks lean more towards straight (no pun intended) dance music ("This Too Shall Pass Away") and even a little country ("Cumberland Gap"). Through it all, though, is the excellent drum machine programming mixed with all kinds of live percussion and whisper/screamed vocals that give Xiu Xiu their unique sound. The cd version comes with a download code for two bonus tracks.
Electronica, techno, indie rock and more, as always in this magazine, this issue featuring rave shoegazers (?) Delorean on the cover, also Oneohtrix Point Never, Xiu Xiu, Daptone Records, Anthony "Shake" Shakir, Kyle Hall, Mosca, Natalie Storm, and much more. ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
While revered by hardcore fanatics of '80s synth/dark wave sounds, none of us here were familiar with Zwischenfall, an early '80s band out of Germany with a Danish lead singer who made some totally engaging and compelling synth based sounds back int he day. What's striking us the most about this record which originally came out in 1983, is how organic it all sounds. Yes they were very interested in synthesizers and used them with amazing results, but they also incorporated acoustic and electric guitar, trumpet, and bass, years before others really grasped how to intertwine the use of electronics and more traditional instruments in a very fluid and moving way.
Some of the tracks come off like a less stiff Tuxedomoon or an electronic version of 23 Skidoo (the untrained post-Cosey trumpet blurting on "Heimatlose" lends to that reference). We are also reminded of Fad Gadget's synthetic quirkiness, and the early albums of Front 242, which makes sense as Patrick Codney of Front 242 was one of the band's biggest cheerleaders and producers.
There is a dramatic and emotional quality that makes us really fall hard for the songs of Zwischenfall. The emotive vocal delivery of Martin Urban was even compared to Klaus Nomi back in the day (we don't really hear that so much though) but it is for sure a strong and forceful presence that sometimes makes us think of the same kind of drama that folks like Japan were able to communicate through their music. Like all the great releases on Dark Entries the album is lovingly packaged, this time with the bands original press kit, and is quite limited, only 500 copies... so act fast!
