My goodness. The arrival of a Thomas Koner recording has become an incredibly rare event, with the 2003 Zyklop album being the last album he released outside of his busy schedule traveling the world as a video/installation artist. La Barca parallels his globetrotting, as a travelogue presented through the glacial hush of his frozen ambient productions. Each of the tracks designates a GPS coordinate of a particular location, with ghostly remnants of human voices echoing in deep reverb amidst his signature darkened backdrops and slow-motion melodic phrasing. Many of the voices seem to be taken from the announcements from train stations, airports, and other non-placed environments that easily detach from the psychogeographic details of those specific places he designates in those coordinates. So, as much as this album is a travel narrative through various places, Koner intentionally presents the sonic artifacts as connected and unifying rather than endemic and localized. It's a feeling a profound melancholy and detachment that Koner succeeds in embedding into these pieces.
The cd of La Barca went out of print before anybody really had the opportunity to get a hold of it; and that will definitely be the fate of the 2lp version of the album, which features 4 extra tracks not on the cd, making up the entirely of Side D!!
Ah, the second release from the Mimaroglu Music Sale sponsored "No Label" which probably will stick as a name, when it really was meant to be a private imprint with the absence of a label name. No matter, though as this split LP from Mark Lord (the pseudonym of Christopher Forgues) and Morgan Egg (who we know next to nothing about). Forgues has previous work under the Whitehouse inspired project Kites with blistering pierced noise surrounded by shock-horror tactics; and that sensibility has been tempered under the Mark Lord moniker. The only semblance of that former self appears in an appropriated dialogue of a '70s porn, buttressed by some fantastic retro-garde / minimal wave electronics. These looping synth modulations arppegiate and expand along linear pulsations dappled by circuit bent twiddle and scrags of cheap noise. Sort of like a more progressive take on the Units without so much of the punk overdrive. The final cut "Warpath" tops the drum machine propulsion with an almost charmingly playful melody to the counter the insistent synth bass pulse. Really great stuff!
Morgan Egg's snarled drone tempests declares their influences from the classic Italian industrial work by Maurizio Bianchi and Giancarlo Toniutti. Washes of grey static and revolving chunks of leaden distortion meld into the grim atmospheres that Egg laces with oscillating electronics and curiously languid bell tones. Quite a departure from the Mark Lord side, but just as incredible.
This small pressing is less than 300 copies, of which we have less than a dozen. Who knows if more will be in our future.
From the punishing speed of Napalm Death through the narcotic dubstep of Scorn and into the isolationism of Lull, all of the projects from Mick Harris are connected by an utterly bleak outlook on the world and the human condition. This album was released in 2008, marking it the first proper Lull album in something like 8 years (outside of a one-off collaboration and two collections of rarities); and Like A Slow River stands as one of the better releases in his entire discography and it's certainly the best Lull album to date. The five pieces unfold into grey masses of mist, fog, and shadow without much in the way of delineation of shape or form. There are heavy rumbles of distorted basstones as if thunderous explosions were being set off many miles away, and there are slight filigrees of melody coaxed out of the purposefully amorphous drone passages. Ambient music has long favored a reductionist approach, and Harris (like Thomas Koner, BJ Nilsen, and at times Lustmord) instills his dramatic absences with an existential dourness that is signature of the isolationist aesthetic. It's very very cold, very very slow, and very very well done.
Damn. If we didn't know better, we'd swear this was some obscure late '60s psych platter reissued by Shadoks or something. But nope, LA's Magic Lantern (featuring the guitar and keyboard talents of astral traveller Cameron Stallones, the man behind aQ faves Sun Araw) are real and current, and the uninitiated will be scratching their heads in amazement, while those who dug any of the band's past work will find no complaints either. The band expertly channels the sounds of Amon Duul II, Ash Ra Tempel, and blown out Japanese psych, and it's almost uncanny just how "authentic" these guys sound - wah wah pedals, dense organ, grooving krauty basslines, stony non-vocals, and drumming that is, as they say "in the pocket" - all that shit is the LAW here. And while these elements can very often lead to bad bad things, Magic Lantern sidestep whatever tends to snag so many bands, and instead they just kick complete ass. Let's face it, not many bands these days can pull off being, uh, "funky". But a good deal of the songs on Platoon fall into that category, and we seriously can't get enough. Magic Lantern do their thing, and they do it well. The spacious production courtesy of Bobb Bruno (Robedoor, Goliath Bird Eater, Best Coast, and a shit-ton more) certainly suits these songs well, giving them a nice thick haze to swirl about in. It has a nice live feeling to it, and while we're at it, Christ, this band must just destroy live (though it appears they may be on hiatus, bummer). Maybe this might be a bit jammy for some people, but if you like this kind of thing, you will love Magic Lantern.
The cd version of Platoon contains two bonus that comprised the recent Showstoppers 7".
Originally released in 2008 (hence the title) as a tape and a 7", this killer two way split is now available on cd, featuring two Hungarian hordes: long time aQ faves Marblebog, and Vorkuta, who have just one split to their name, but about a million splits.
Marblebog should need no introduction, a weird group of nature obsessed black metal warriors whose sound shifts easily from blackened atmospheric drift to blazing buzzing blackness. Their contribution here falls into the latter category, with some of the heaviest Marblebog we've heard, churning Burzumic riffage, over pounding drums, and some of the creepiest sickest vocals EVER, an impossibly distorted raspy gargle, demonic and alien, and so cool. The track is a long one, and slips from frenzied blast to almost doomy pound to woozy melodic midtempo lope, complete with reverbed guitar solos, to epic almost Viking sounding metallic majesty, to skeletal clean guitar post metal meander. So good.
Vorkuta, counter with an epic 3 part single track, that explodes out of the gate, super raw and primitive, buzzing insectoid riffing, pounding blast beats, and weird croaked sing songy demonic growls that follow the guitar melody exactly, making the whole song seem seasick and twisted, until it breaks down into a tribal drummed churning breakdown, only to lurch right back into the frantic blasting blackness. Vorkuta too dabble in some abstract ambience, clean spidery guitars over crystalline shimmer, cool effected backwards loops, distant chimes, before finishing off with a buzz drenched tangle of grinding black crunch.
Definitely need to hear more from these guys. Who knew that Hungary had such a serious BM scene, beyond just these two outfits too? Judging from the list of related bands, and the pedigree of both Marblebog and Vorkuta, we definitely have some more digging to do...
With close to 20 years of hindsight, so much of what came out of the 1990s sounds dated and rather predictable, an obvious and angsty cheese, even less palatable than much of the 1980s synthetic curd. Plain Records has chosen wisely to reissue the three Mazzy Star LPs, that, despite containing countless guitar solos, have absolutely no cheesy moments. These three brilliant records draw from the bluesy drones of Spacemen 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain (amongst others), dropping most of the irony and jagged edges to create music that might be described as the soft(er) psychedelia to Spacemen 3's harder stuff. As readers of this list know, Hope Sandoval, the singer, sometime rhythm guitarist, and (many would argue) the force behind Mazzy Star, has gone on to create amazing records with her new band the Warm Inventions. She has a voice that penetrates with a whisper, that carries like a wind floating above the music, that is instantly recognizable, and that influenced scores of singers. David Roback wrote most of the basic melodies on all three Mazzy Star records and plays all of the guitar solos. He has an innate sense of space and sound, a slightly twangy simplicity that might fade into just a few notes, or that can explode into reverb drenched ecstasy. You won't find better guitar tones anywhere, especially on So Tonight That I Might See. A lot of the arrangements are sparse, almost minimalistic, but the quality of the recordings and the melodies make even a track with only vocals, a guitar and an organ seem full. Especially through headphones, the warmth of Sandoval's voice is a magical compliment to Robeck's guitar. Everyone from Beach House to Grouper to Cat Power to PJ Harvey owes Mazzy Star a huge debt, or at least a big shout-out. All three of these records are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
She Hangs Brightly came out in 1990 and is the most "rocking" record of the three. The drums are definitely the busiest and the songs less dreamy, less laid back. This record establishes their reverby, slightly twangy sound but hasn't quite found the right mood. This is the Mazzy Star record to listen to with friends because it won't depress the hell out of you.
It's not until 1993's So Tonight That I Might See that Mazzy Star perfects their sonic elegance. The band's most commercially successful record, it's probably got the songs you remember: "Fade Into You", "She's My Baby", the title track. The beats have slowed way down, the vocals have decided to ride parallel to the music instead of right up on it, and the arrangements have become simple and piercing. A shoegaze classic.
Among My Swan is, in our opinion, maybe the best of the three Mazzy Star releases. The overt psychedelia has been taken away and replaced with a confident playfulness, a distinct melancholia. The reverb is turned way down, allowing for the simple compliment of acoustic guitar and Hope Sandoval's vocals to contrast with the sparser layers of fuzzed leads and harmonica. "Rhymes of an Hour" goes all Velvet Underground, losing almost all percussion, floating forward on a drone of strings. A moodier offering for those who find catharsis in despair and loneliness.
With close to 20 years of hindsight, so much of what came out of the 1990s sounds dated and rather predictable, an obvious and angsty cheese, even less palatable than much of the 1980s synthetic curd. Plain Records has chosen wisely to reissue the three Mazzy Star LPs, that, despite containing countless guitar solos, have absolutely no cheesy moments. These three brilliant records draw from the bluesy drones of Spacemen 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain (amongst others), dropping most of the irony and jagged edges to create music that might be described as the soft(er) psychedelia to Spacemen 3's harder stuff. As readers of this list know, Hope Sandoval, the singer, sometime rhythm guitarist, and (many would argue) the force behind Mazzy Star, has gone on to create amazing records with her new band the Warm Inventions. She has a voice that penetrates with a whisper, that carries like a wind floating above the music, that is instantly recognizable, and that influenced scores of singers. David Roback wrote most of the basic melodies on all three Mazzy Star records and plays all of the guitar solos. He has an innate sense of space and sound, a slightly twangy simplicity that might fade into just a few notes, or that can explode into reverb drenched ecstasy. You won't find better guitar tones anywhere, especially on So Tonight That I Might See. A lot of the arrangements are sparse, almost minimalistic, but the quality of the recordings and the melodies make even a track with only vocals, a guitar and an organ seem full. Especially through headphones, the warmth of Sandoval's voice is a magical compliment to Robeck's guitar. Everyone from Beach House to Grouper to Cat Power to PJ Harvey owes Mazzy Star a huge debt, or at least a big shout-out. All three of these records are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
She Hangs Brightly came out in 1990 and is the most "rocking" record of the three. The drums are definitely the busiest and the songs less dreamy, less laid back. This record establishes their reverby, slightly twangy sound but hasn't quite found the right mood. This is the Mazzy Star record to listen to with friends because it won't depress the hell out of you.
It's not until 1993's So Tonight That I Might See that Mazzy Star perfects their sonic elegance. The band's most commercially successful record, it's probably got the songs you remember: "Fade Into You", "She's My Baby", the title track. The beats have slowed way down, the vocals have decided to ride parallel to the music instead of right up on it, and the arrangements have become simple and piercing. A shoegaze classic.
Among My Swan is, in our opinion, maybe the best of the three Mazzy Star releases. The overt psychedelia has been taken away and replaced with a confident playfulness, a distinct melancholia. The reverb is turned way down, allowing for the simple compliment of acoustic guitar and Hope Sandoval's vocals to contrast with the sparser layers of fuzzed leads and harmonica. "Rhymes of an Hour" goes all Velvet Underground, losing almost all percussion, floating forward on a drone of strings. A moodier offering for those who find catharsis in despair and loneliness.
With close to 20 years of hindsight, so much of what came out of the 1990s sounds dated and rather predictable, an obvious and angsty cheese, even less palatable than much of the 1980s synthetic curd. Plain Records has chosen wisely to reissue the three Mazzy Star LPs, that, despite containing countless guitar solos, have absolutely no cheesy moments. These three brilliant records draw from the bluesy drones of Spacemen 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain (amongst others), dropping most of the irony and jagged edges to create music that might be described as the soft(er) psychedelia to Spacemen 3's harder stuff. As readers of this list know, Hope Sandoval, the singer, sometime rhythm guitarist, and (many would argue) the force behind Mazzy Star, has gone on to create amazing records with her new band the Warm Inventions. She has a voice that penetrates with a whisper, that carries like a wind floating above the music, that is instantly recognizable, and that influenced scores of singers. David Roback wrote most of the basic melodies on all three Mazzy Star records and plays all of the guitar solos. He has an innate sense of space and sound, a slightly twangy simplicity that might fade into just a few notes, or that can explode into reverb drenched ecstasy. You won't find better guitar tones anywhere, especially on So Tonight That I Might See. A lot of the arrangements are sparse, almost minimalistic, but the quality of the recordings and the melodies make even a track with only vocals, a guitar and an organ seem full. Especially through headphones, the warmth of Sandoval's voice is a magical compliment to Robeck's guitar. Everyone from Beach House to Grouper to Cat Power to PJ Harvey owes Mazzy Star a huge debt, or at least a big shout-out. All three of these records are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
She Hangs Brightly came out in 1990 and is the most "rocking" record of the three. The drums are definitely the busiest and the songs less dreamy, less laid back. This record establishes their reverby, slightly twangy sound but hasn't quite found the right mood. This is the Mazzy Star record to listen to with friends because it won't depress the hell out of you.
It's not until 1993's So Tonight That I Might See that Mazzy Star perfects their sonic elegance. The band's most commercially successful record, it's probably got the songs you remember: "Fade Into You", "She's My Baby", the title track. The beats have slowed way down, the vocals have decided to ride parallel to the music instead of right up on it, and the arrangements have become simple and piercing. A shoegaze classic.
Among My Swan is, in our opinion, maybe the best of the three Mazzy Star releases. The overt psychedelia has been taken away and replaced with a confident playfulness, a distinct melancholia. The reverb is turned way down, allowing for the simple compliment of acoustic guitar and Hope Sandoval's vocals to contrast with the sparser layers of fuzzed leads and harmonica. "Rhymes of an Hour" goes all Velvet Underground, losing almost all percussion, floating forward on a drone of strings. A moodier offering for those who find catharsis in despair and loneliness.
London's Mark Wastell has been privy to some rather unexpected (and unexpectedly great!) collaborations in recent years. Best known for his work with various quiet, AMM-inspired improvisers from the New London Silence community, he's turned recently to working with electronic musicians with a proclivity for tension, intensity, and blackened soundfields. There's the rather impressive Oceans Of Blood & Blood project that Wastell has instigated with Skull Defekts' Joachim Nordwall, and now there's this duet with Jonathan McHugh. A sound designer of the same name has worked on the Saw series of movies, but we're pretty sure these are not the same character even if there is some rather psychoacoustically challenging noises to be found on Hydrotaphia. With Wastell on his 32" gong that he's been using for many years now and McHugh on an Arp synth, the two begin to coax a series of low-end rumbles very much on par with the Deathprod / early Thomas Koner constructions, with McHugh gradually injecting small squiggles of electrical fizzes that eventually coalesce into a pure high-end tone that will certainly clear out any earwax if you happen to be listening on headphones. This rather bracing duality of low-end rumbles and high frequencies subsides after about ten minutes leaving more of those enveloping, icy surfaces of gong resonance. McHugh dials in a growling drone towards the end of the 45 minute composition, building into a gnarled set of tempestuous, electronic noise with a bleak feel that lends much more to the Dilloway / Michigan axis of American noisemongering. Quite impressive!
For as much hype, attention and press these guys get we have to admit not many of us at the store even heard their debut. We caught a song here and there and we could tell it was fun catchy stuff but we weren't quite sure what all the fuss was about. With their new album we decided to dig in a bit and damn are we glad we did. Because at the end of the day, and all the fashion spreads, magazine covers, teenage adornment, blog hype, it all doesn't matter if the music doesn't hold up. And with Congratulations, MGMT have shown they are a band that can back up their good looks and youthful energy with totally awesome music!
While much had been made about how 'weird' this album was supposed to be compared to their debut, it might be 'weird' for people who are only used to top 40 music, but to us it sounds like delicious breezy psych pop. So awesome how they tap into a really cool Elephant Six vibe, reminding us of some of our favorite records from Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and Apples In Stereo. The album truly is just that, an album. From start to finish they have created a work that flows with such ease and isn't about standout singles, but instead really is about the entire experience of listening to the record from start to finish. With Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3) enlisted to produce the record they knew where to go for just the right touch, a distinctly psychedelic feel that references more of The Beatles psych tendencies than lots of the modern psych peddlers. We also think a lot about one of favorite underrated bands of the past, Beachwood Sparks, as the sounds on Congratulations remind us a lot of some of our favorite BS jams. There is something so genuine sounding and less forced then we somehow were expecting in this record. If we would have received this as some random band's cd-r, we would all be freaking out about what an amazing pop discovery we just made. So just because they are on a huge label and get tons of hype and press, don't write this record off, it deserves your ears because it's really fucking good!
The first batch of the cds comes with a scratch off cover, a weird coin and a 32 page booklet. The first pressing of the lps also comes with a scratch off cover, and is pressed on 180 gram vinyl.
We've worshipped at the altar of Hello Kitty obsessed French ultradoom trio (now quartet) Monarch for years and years now, harboring a secret crush on Monarch frontwoman Emilie and a not so secret crush on their absolutely pummeling black cloud of sound.
Originally released as a super limited lp on Spanish label Throne Records back in 2008, this two part doom drone dirge epic, is now available on cd, the separate sides, "Mer" and Morte" now reunited into one single sprawling nearly 35 minute opus, a glacial expanse of creeping crawling detuned drift, of psychedelic black ambience, of tarpit doomic dirge, of extreme abstract heaviness, of near static pummel. As gorgeous as it is harsh, as heavy as it is atmospheric, the drums so spare, the drummer has time to go outside for a smoke between snare hits, riffage so lugubrious that SUNNO))) sound like speed metal in comparison.
Think Flood era Boris, Corrupted, Moss, Bunkur, Khanate, Orthodox, Catacombs, but then slow it down even more, take those sounds and smear them into washed out blurs, the vocals a distant mewl, an occasional shriek, the cymbals unleashed in hazy clouds of sizzling shimmer. The guitars heavy for sure, but the riffs allowed to ring out and fade to near silence, before the next one hits, more than any of the other Monarch records, Mer Morte finds the band exploring ambience as heaviness, allowing long stretches of guitar rumble to drift unaccompanied except for some hushed wordless crooning.
The second half, formerly just "Morte", cranks up the tempo to a blasting (well, for Monarch at least) 10 or 12 bpm, the vocals way more intense, and in the mix the Khanate vibe is much more obvious, a pounding hellish dirge, utterly intense and cathartic and emotional and brutal, but after a few minutes, the drums drop out, and the guitars are left to drone and undulate and pulse, streaked with feedback, a gorgeous blackened dronescape, peppered with occasional drum pound, but any semblance of 'beat' has been jettisoned, the record plays out, a trancelike stretch of downtuned doomic minimalism, laced with more of those ethereal ghostlike vox, haunting and mysterious and otherworldly, and grimly beautiful.
Gorgeous packaging too, a four panel gatefold Stumptown sleeve, with gold metallic ink on black matte. So cool.
There are so so many sides of Moondog, and so many and incredibly varied sounds he's created throughout his long and eccentric life of music making. From inventing his own instruments to performing on street corners to incorporating field recordings into his songs, to collaborating with the London Philharmonic, the list goes on and on. While Moondog is mostly lauded for the sounds he created with his wide range of instruments, it's the sound of his voice in the songs he sang sprinkled throughout his catalog that have always left us in such awe, generating both bewilderment and delight. Originally released on LP in Germany in 1978, H'art Songs is an awesome disc of Moondog vocal tracks, a few of which we had heard on other collections and were already in love with, as well as a bunch that are brand new to our ears. With piano and his own percussion as the musical backdrop, it's Moondogs's totally unique and intimate vocal delivery and word play that makes these songs so weirdly enchanting. Playful and poetic while also emotional and personal. Just like everything else Moondog created in his life, these songs do feel like they are from a different world. So strange and so damn good. This is a must have for Moondog fans!
The most recent Moss record, previous to this, besides being an awesome chunk of crusty ultra doom, was a bit of a debacle, at least in terms of release and format. The outrageously expensive 10" format, was in fact meant to be a DOUBLE 10", but was not, although the price seemed to still reflect the missing second record. Then the cd came out, including TWO extra tracks, a Discharge cover, which had already been on a split with Monarch, and the 11+ minute "Eternal Return", both of which were apparently meant to be included as that second 10". Or something like that. Needless to say, vinyl folks missed out on "Eternal Return", and the Discharge cover too if they missed out on the Monarch split, even though they sort of already paid for 'em. So the bad news, or maybe the good news, depending on your perspective, and financial situation, is that the third proper Blind Drugged Moss track, "Eternal Return", which was included on the Tombs Of The Blind Drugged cd, but has never been on vinyl, is NOW actually ON VINYL. And it's gorgeously packaged and elaborately presented, so the only downside of that is shelling out another $17 to finally get that track, "Eternal Return", on wax, but c'mon! It's Moss!!
The track itself is a killer, it's Moss, so by now most of the aQ faithful should know what you're getting into, crushing, pummeling, doom drone dirge heaviosity, or as we described them in the Blind Drugged review:
All anguished and distorted, with distended guitar and bass strings hanging loose and low, vokillizations of sheer misery and madness torn from the singer's throat like a still beating bloody heart ripped from the sacrifice, and bits of bent and battered drum kit scattered across the rancid tundra that is Moss's metallic soundspace!
Indeed. We love Moss, and they RULE, and this is definitely worth the price of admission, just seems a tiny bit frustrating having to piece together Tomb Of The Blind Drugged one expensive chunk of vinyl at a time, but hell, we think Moss are worth it.
And the packaging, wow! A thick fold out cardstock gatefold, with not one, but TWO Japanese style obis, one along the side, one holding the sleeve shut right in the middle, plus inserts, a poster, all pretty spiffy. And CRAZY LIMITED. Maybe already out of print, which means these are the only copies we'll ever get.
We have to admit, with all the super limited vinyl, weird 7"s, rare reissues, and all the other cool stuff that was being specially released to celebrate Record Store Day, we were (not so) secretly most excited about a new record from long time faves and two time aQ Record Of The Week honorees Nada Surf. A new record from these guys is always a thrill, and a full length is long overdue, but this is not the new Nada Surf, instead, it's a total Record Store Day release, with the band covering a bunch of their favorite songs, some we dig, some surprises, and some we'd never heard of.
Probably the most amazing thing about this collection, is if you weren't familiar with the songs being covered, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume they were Nada Surf originals, these guys take the originals and OWN then, totally make them their own. Even songs you've heard a million times, like Depeche Mode's "Enjoy The Silence", get enough of a Nada Surf makeover to sound like an original, but fans will still dig hearing their old song reimagined.
Their Bill Fox cover ("Electrocution"), is total sunshiney harmony Byrds worship, and again, sounds like it could be from an old Nada Surf record. They do a Go-Betweens song, that again is a perfect match, it makes sense that they would pick these songs, it's almost the perfect sonic representation of the influences that created Nada Surf. One of the big surprises is the Arthur Russell (!) cover, a gorgeous hushed bit of lap steel laced minimal twang pop, WAY too short at just over a minute.
The rest of the record finds the band tackling The Dwight Twilley Band, Kate Bush, Spoon, The Moody Blues (!), recent aQ faves Soft Pack, Coralie Clement (another obscure choice), and then they finish with two total random covers by bands we had never heard of, Mecromina, their version a lush string laden slab of jangle pop, and the Silly Pillows, never heard the original, but the cover is a carnivalesque bit of piano driven pomp, to finish things off.
Totally fantastic, we've listened to this record about 100 times, and while it's definitely tiding us over, it also has us dying for a proper new Nada Surf record!!
We know you folks love limited edition vinyl releases, as Record Store Day just proved yet again. Well, here's something we just got a handful of copies of, and might not be able to get again - it's on the same label that did the Saint Vitus Die Healing vinyl that sold out so fast. And it's another one for vintage doom fanatics, a vinyl version of the debut album, aka Vol.1, from NWOBHM (aka New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, in this case, make that very very British) cult Pagan Altar! Songs written circa 1978-'81, recorded 1982, not released for the first time officially until 1998, and now available again in a deluxe gatefold vinyl edition. Obscure as it is, this is really a classic, '70s Sabbath/Priest styled (proto) metal, with an authentic occult vibe, powerful and melodic, up there with Angel Witch and, especially Witchfinder General - if you like them, you need to hear Pagan Altar as well!
Amazingly, the band is still around, still quite active, having released a couple other excellent albums, with work proceeding on a new one. They also did a split 7" with Jex Thoth not too long ago. As a matter of fact, Allan had the pleasure of seeing Pagan Altar play live just last week, at the Roadburn Festival in Holland! As far as he was concerned, one of the highlights of the fest (along with one of the only bands there to have been around longer, Comus!!!). When they came out on stage, the silver-haired singer (Terry Jones, brother to lead guitarist Alan Jones) was wearing a feathered top hat, that he gracefully doffed towards the audience, greeting us in a mellifluous Yorkshire accent. He possessed a theatrical, charismatic presence that made him seem not unlike one of the earlier incarnations of Dr. Who! They then proceeded to kick out an utterly classic sounding set of twin guitar NWOBHM, including of course many songs from this album, folkloric metal of witchery and doom, sung in a reedy voice that sounds a lot like a British version of Roky Erickson. They were really, really good.
So, if you're lucky enough to get a chance to see 'em, do so! And, at the very least, if doom and NWOBHM is your thing, check out their recordings, this being a great one to start with, except that we probably won't have it for very long (we only got, like, 8, and already have sold a few)...
The second of two long overdue reissues from this outsider avant pop techno technician, whose Black Noise record had us all in a tizzy, and any hope of that tizzy letting up went right out the window with the reissue of This Bliss, the -other- old title recently reissued, and now here we are with Diamond Daze, the second out of print PdP jam resurrected in the wake of Black Noise blowing up big time.
And like This Bliss, Diamond Daze doesn't deviate too far from what we loved about Black Noise, in fact all three records form this smooth, flowing continuum of blissed out minimal techno skitter, bleary late night pop ambient chill out, moody synthscapes, and throbbing, pulsing drone dance grooves. The weird thing is, if you threw some vocals on these tracks, you'd have a huge pop hit, Phoenix, Caribou, that sort of thing, but instead PdP takes these songs and strips them down, leaves them skeletal and abstract. Synths buzz ominously, beats skitter and shuffle, samples are looped and twisted, and stretched into streaks of washed out his, or lysergic shimmer, the result is not so much dance music or techno, but instead some sort of hypnotic trancelike electronica, a sound more conducive to blissing out, drifting off, than shaking it on the dancefloor.
That said, unlike the others, Diamond Daze features some seriously fuzzed out synth bass, that gives much of DD a way more fierce vibe, and while some of the beats do bang and boom, much of the record is more of a whisper than a howl, the darker more minimal tracks sounding like Kompakt meets Chain Reaction.
Another winner, a gorgeous fantastic, dark and haunting and mysterious collection of electronic mood music, and yet another nail in the coffin of any sort of techno hating we had hoped to ever engage in....
We had been hearing about this collaboration for a while now, definitely excited but not sure what to expect from a meeting of the warped musical minds between weirdo outsider noise jazz terrorists Talibam! and just plain weirdos Peeesseye, who would prevail, jazz or noise? Would it be unlistenable? Would it be unlistenable in a GOOD WAY? Would it rock?
So while the answers are both, both, no, yes, yes, all you need to know is this is a serious chunk of psychedelic spaced out jazz flecked heaviness. It is on Invada after all, home to both the Heads and White Hills, so in that sense, this does sort of fit. The opening track is basically a super charged jazz kraut blow out, the guitars fuzzed out, the organ warbly and wild, everything wreathed in thick clouds of buzz and hiss, loads of effects, total post Hawkwind psych drone free jazz freakout, which shifts gears at some point and becomes even more of a krautrock jam, crunchy and distorted, with some weirdo vocals buried in the mix, eventually exploding into a frenzied freakout, before finishing off with a super distorted, in-the-red churning chugging space drone dirge finale. Phew.
The next track offers some recovery time, a gorgeous raga like buzzscape, minimal percussion, weird production, some abstract twang, but the core sound a thick shimmering layered dreamlike drone. Ten minutes of pure cosmic bliss.
But c'mon, that can't last long with these guys, "Everything for Everyone" is a crumbling, fractured noisefest, weirdly melodic, but chaotic and harsh, some slice and dice weirdness, fields of feedback, and more upper register drones, "A Grey Mountain of Shit" is full on freaked out psychedelic free jazz, with some incredible drumming, wild tangled guitaring, and a weirdo stumbling whatthefuck outro, all Tom Waits like growls, warped synths, and more wild unhinged drumming.
The record closes with the 17+ minute "Year of the Moral Orgy / Grit of the Ghost", which begins life as a sprawling bit of psychedelic dronefolk, a distant buzz, little curlicues of high end melody, random percussion, a smoldering minimally tense dronescape, which grows more and more chaotic and intense, the drone threatening to swallow the song whole, never fully exploding, instead, stumbling to a confusional halt, complete with garbled vox and a slowly collapsing universe of sound.
The return of the female dronenoise dynamic duo, often referred to as the Olsen Twins of noiserock (not sure if that's a dis, or if they came up with it themselves), it's unclear if the band ever actually broke up, but regardless, Make It Real marks the duo's first record in a while.
The most noticeable difference here are the vocals, and well, the songs too, dialed back for the most part is the hazy drugged out psychedelia of old, and in its place is something much more rock, more fuzzy and propulsive and less abstract and spacey. From the first song, it almost sounds classic rock, big echoey drums, heavily reverbed guitars, fuzzy garagey organ, and some full on sixties girl group style vocals, finding their new sound more aligned with groups like Dum Dum Girls, the Beets, Brilliant Colors, Vivian Girls, than with their more tripped out labelmates. The sound suits them for sure, and even in their early days, they still dabbled in this kind of hazy psych-pop, it's just more pronounced here. The druggy groove of the Doors is all over this record (or for a more contemporary reference, Wooden Shjips or the Moon Duo), but things also get more jagged and angular as Pocahaunted channel some old school eighties post punk.
Definitely cool, just be prepared for more song and less space, more rock and less drift, it for sure sounds like maybe the shift in sound was organic, the seeds sewn on past records blossoming here, born from a natural progression, from sound to song, making both the recorded, and the live Pocahaunted experience, much more rocking and danceable. Which is not at all a bad thing.
Everything about this screams "Cult!!". Cult in the "epic true metal" style of Manilla Road, that is. But even doomier than those eccentric '80s metal masters, who are most definitely one of Realmbuilder's major influences. This band has that obscure, underground vibe for sure, as it should 'cause that's what it is, just two guys obsessed with a certain sort of metal and the imaginative realms of fantasy and history that that sort of metal evokes, those guys being one Czar (also of weird black metallers Charnel Valley), who sings and plays drums, and one J.H. Halberd, who takes care of rhythm guitar, bass, and keyboards, as well as harmony backing vocals, and on one track, trumpet! (Lead guitars are handled by a session axeman from the prog metal band Luna Mortis).
Now released by I Hate Records on compact disc after a limited edition vinyl issuance last year, Realmbuilder's debut album Summon The Stone Throwers really creates an unusual, ancient atmosphere, quite convincingly as if they're relating warriors' tales of long-lost ages. From the primitively painted album cover (featuring a mystic castle, wind-blown adventurer, and malevolently skulking wolf-creature all garishly rendered in sunset purples, yellows, and greens) which gives us a flashback to the cover to Manilla Road's Crystal Logic, it's obvious that Realmbuilder are for a select audience only, those with an innate feeling for the raw, doomy, almost psychedelic heavy metal on offer here. Melancholic, melodic, and above all majestic, the seven tracks here comprise chunky spiralling guitar riffs, expressive/depressive vocals, glorious guitar soloing, wordless oh-oh-oh choruses, effective chant-like repetition of the evocative lyrics (we love hearing the words "silver ziggurat" and "colossal glaciers" being sung over and over in the respective songs of those same names). The clean vocals are somewhat nasal and really not-so-metal, comparable maybe to Snake from Voivod and the guy from super obscure '80s Detroit doomsters Coven. And that really helps set this apart, and add to its strangeness and sense of sincerity.
There's much lumbering riffage and galloping rhythms and clashing of swords... with, also, weird quasi-poppy parts that sneak in amidst the grim bombast, which we think might actually cause this to appeal to fans of Steel Mammoth and other "NWOFHM" acts! Though, as we said, this comes across as serious and sincere. So most likely for fans of the aforementioned Manilla Road, and Coven if you've ever heard 'em... Other bands whose fans might dig this, for various reasons, include fellow I Hate recording artists The Wounded Kings, Doomsword, Dark Quarterer, Reverend Bizarre, The Gates Of Slumber, Slough Feg, Cirith Ungol, Manowar, Hyborian Steel, Ironsword, Ophthalamia, Cloven Hoof, Helvetes Port, even Dwarr and some moments of the more recent Darkthrones, just to throw a few names out there that may or may not be helpful without further explanation... Really, though, despite their obvious inspirations (they cite several bands, some of the above among them, before whom they "genuflect") Realmbuilder is ultimately its own unique thing.
Bottom line: the esoteric metallurgists here at AQ can't stop listening to this! As far as Allan is concerned, his favorite metal cd of the year, quite possibly. And although this is quite new, it still almost seems as if a relic from another time and place, like it should come with a papyrus scroll or better yet carved stone tablets, instead of a cd booklet (though the cd booklet it has, with thick, purple-printed paper, is quite nice). Join the cult and bow down before Realmbuilder!
They pretty much had us at "dubstep Shit And Shine". Yep, UK mysterious masked multi drummer-ed noise rock weirdos, who recently destroyed at SXSW, and did a fair bit of damage in the Bay Area recently as well, return with their own take on dubstep, and it's just as fucked up and freaked out as we might have imagined (or hoped), and we have to say it's pretty much how we wish ALL dubstep sounded, heavy and super distorted, blown out, the beats pounding, the bass fuzzed out and crushing, a lurching hypnotic groove, surrounded on all sides by crumbling FX, distorted howls, a dizzying swirl of demented sounds, it's like the Butthole Surfers remixed by Burial, or Kode9 covering Rusted Shut.
The B-side is the blissier of the two, but only just barely, with deep undulating bass, a locked and looped main groove, weird grunts, and blurred voices, little bits of melody, twisted and tweaked, but weirdly tranquil and hypnotic. Some DJ somewhere is gonna whip this out midset and either utterly destroy the dancefloor, or seriously freak folks the fuck out. Much more likely the latter.
Best dubstep jam of the year? Quite possibly...
Latest from The Shitty Listener, still one of the greatest band names EVER, and the work of Jason Honea, a satellite member of the Jewelled Antler Collective, having done time in Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, Knit Separates, Chord Fort, Teenage Panzercorps and loads of others, but The Shitty Listener finds the Berlin-based Honea going it mostly alone, creating, delicate, hushed, ultra fragile minimal anti pop, gorgeous drifts of barely there sound, the various non musical elements as much a part of the sound as anything else. Organs whir, Honea's gentle croon hovers and flits, suspended in a cloud of tape hiss, while all around, children play, footsteps clomp by, dishes clank and crash, as if Honea was huddled in the corner, trying desperately to capture a sound, before the outside world intrudes, and only sort of succeeding, but in that partial failure lies the magic of the Shitty Listener. Each song is a captured moment, alive, and immediate, and organic, this is not music you can play in the store, or blast in your car stereo, this is music made to get lost in, the sonic equivalent of the musician, sneaking up to you and crooning directly in your ear. A pair of headphones, and your transported to the world of The Shitty Listener, where music is only a part of the sound.
The songs are not just home recorded, many are captured out in the open, on walks, in fields, by the beach, near the seaside, birds chirp, people walk by, oblivious to the fact that they are contributing to a magical micro moment of musical mystery.
And for all its low fidelity, the sound is strangely lush, and impossibly warm and enveloping. Hissing melodies and softly strummed guitars are whipped up into blurred swirling clouds of feedback drenched drones, but somehow it's never noisy, just dense, and layered, and even in these noisy moments, you can still hear the detritus of life surrounding the music.
"I Keep Dreaming To Myself" sounds as close to a proper song, until Honea stops midsong to talk, and again, lovely strummed guitar is wrapped around, weird moaning melodies, creaks and rumbles, distant bells, a slowly crumbling collage, which leads right into the 12+ minute "The Burst Heart", which begins with a cacophony of crunch and scrape before settling into an ultra minimal bit of dronefolk, which builds to some intense strumming, before slipping right back to a whisper.
The record plays out in a similar fashion, fractured folk gives way to abstract ambience, gentle croons set amidst fluttering flutes, and strange space-y melodies, loops and drones way off in the distance, while rattles rattle and bells tinkle, and voices chatter in a cloud of burnished hiss, finishing off with the Shitty Listener version of a Murder Ballad, melancholy and mournful, infused with a bit of blurred warmth, some streaks of feedback, some tinkling toy xylophones, some reverberant buzz, before Honea instructs everyone to stop playing, and Shitty Listener's buzz and chime finally stumbles to a halt. So strange and magical and fantastic.
The first proper release from these Swedish metal misanthropes. Their last release, Amfetamin, while quite excellent, was more of a compilation, with only two studio tracks, the others recorded live, and thus wasn't super cohesive.
But that's not a problem here. We weren't sure what to expect really, considering our only exposure to Skitliv previously was the aforementioned Amfetamin, but whatever it is we thought we might here, this is way better, heavier, darker, catchier and creepier, which shouldn't be that much of a surprise really, after all, guitarist Kvarforth plays in Shining, Ondskapt, Manes, Den Saakaldte among others, and the band features Mayhem's Maniac on vocals, and this record in particular features a pretty bad ass set of guests, Gaahl, formerly of Gorgoroth, Attila (also of Mayhem, as well as Aborym and Tormentor), and of course David Tibet from Current 93, who also guested on the first record.
On Amfetamin, Skitliv trafficked in a sort of stumbling abstract doom, and that doom vibe is definitely present here, but the sound is at once more blackened, and more melodic, the grim riffing and harsh vokills wrapped around almost Lifelover style minor key melodies, the songs super catchy, almost like a black metal My Dying Bride or a more well produced Hypothermia, some of the tracks slipping into minimal moody drifts, creeping black ambience, and almost post rock sounding skitter, while all around, clouds of strange effects and processed electronics swirl and swoop, giving the proceedings a definite spaced out vibe.
David Tibet's contribution is immediately recognizable, his track sounding like a black metal Current 93, haunting and otherworldly, his manic vocals over clean guitars, even some piano, before the song explodes in a frenzy of howling buzz.
Elsewhere the tracks occasionally burst into full on blasting blackness, but just as often splinter into a swirling hazy almost pop sounding plod, with cool harmonized guitar leads, and more melancholic melodies. The record closes with the epic "ScumDrug", a smoldering gothic doomscape, all clean guitar, tinkling pianos, growling demonic vocals and distant distorted riffage, a woozy cabaret crawl that eventually morphs into a freaky collaged outro, all garbled voices and rumbling low end pulses, squalls of white noise hiss, and mysterious gurgles, an appropriately twisted ending to a seriously twisted record.
For a while, there was a band called the Muslims, who were seriously hyped, before squeamishness about their obviously problematic moniker found the band changing their name to Soft Pack, only to have the kids cry 'sell out', but hell, one can only imagine trying to get on a plane with a bunch of flight cases filled with strange battery powered devices, all stenciled with the words 'The Muslims'. But hell, whatever they're called, it's easy to see what all the hubbub was about. These guys kick up a seriously excellent racket, somewhere between the lo-fi jangle of groups like Thee Oh Sees and the Fresh & Onlys, classic hooky Britpop and the more seriously post punk rock of the Hot Snakes, which is precisely how this 12" plays out. Opener "C'Mon" is equal parts frantic jangle and Strokes-y indie sunglasses jangle pop, while "Eat Gold" is a pounding and manic with on-the-verge-of-cracking vocals and a definite screamo vibe, and then there's "Answer To Yourself" which also has a Strokes vibe, a little like a way more rocking Hoodoo Gurus, surf guitars, and world weary vocals, garagey, with pounding muted verses and a soaring chorus, while the final track follows a similar sonic path, but adding a bit more grit and distortion. Really good stuff, it's easy to see why these guys were, and still are the talk of the town, it's not hard to imagine them on Matador, or opening for Interpol or on MTV. Which is not a bad thing at all. Especially considering we've been listening to this pretty much nonstop since we got it.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered, with a download code so you can cram these jams onto your computer.
The completely awesome fictional (or is it?) Sun Ra movie now available in a swank DVD edition courtesy of the fine folks at Plexifilm. If you've seen this already you know it's the best low budget science fiction afro-jazz freak film ever made, and you'll want this new version with bonus stuffs. If you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for? Sun Ra was a genius and also had a sense of humor, this film proves. Made here in the Bay Area by some public television guys and shot on the same sound stage (at the same time!) as the Mitchell Bros. famed porno opus Behind The Green Door (!) this is simply out of this world: the music (lots of live performances), the story, the visuals. Sun Ra wrote all his own lines, by the way. This dvd 'director's cut' restores the film to its original 82 minute length, and includes some truly special features, among them a video interview with the director and producer, and and some silent bonus footage of Ra and the Arkestra cavorting at the Pyramids in Egypt!
And for more Sun Ra dvd action, see the review elsewhere this list for The Cry Of Jazz, a 1959 film featuring Sun Ra and his Arkestra.
Yet another intriguing direction for Darren Tate can be found on this micro-edition. Tate's drone work, which began many years ago with his collaboration with Andrew Chalk piloting the seminal project Ora, has slowly given way to a hermetic, sci-fi sound of electronics augmented by occasional scrapes upon the guitar. Here, Tate has stitched together countless episodes of acoustics, electronic, and ecological soundmaking into a single piece, occasionally pushing toward the realm of the sound poetry aesthetics of Henri Chopin. Tate has never been one to hurry through his compositions and that trait is strongly featured here, as field recordings of birds, gentle drippings of water, intimate rounds of vocal ululations, electrically charged raga drones, percussive rhythms, and even some rather lovely post-Fahey / Mazzacane Connors fingerpicking on an acoustic guitar are positioned rather elegantly with a fine sheen of reverb connecting all of these sounds as a gossamer web of echo and decay. Limited to about 50 copies and already sold out from the source.
As much as we dig the collaborations between Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, we're beginning to think we might like these two Norwegians even more on their own, separately. With his latest solo outing, Prins Thomas has reminded us how masterful he is at creating glacial and spacious dance beats infused with waves of blissed out krautdisco. More so than on his collaborations with Lindstrom, Thomas demonstrates that he has a really nice range of sounds in his arsenal, with subtle hints of prog, psych and krautrock all mixed into a blend of his unique electronica. Lots of this record makes us think of some amazing remixed version of the cosmic kraut classic recording by Riechmann, or how Jonas Reinhardt might sound if they really allowed their more flowing and dance-y side to run wild. You can tell that Prins Thomas has a deep love of groups like Neu, Harmonia and The Phantom Band as much as he does of the space disco stylings of Giorgio Moroder, Patrick Cowley and Cerrone.
So many epic and nuanced tracks here, with one of the standouts being "Wendy Not Walter", you have to love the nod to Wendy/Walter Carlos. Further proof that Prins Thomas is not only a student of great electronic music but also one of its best creators these days!
CLASSIC DOOM METAL. Can't get much more classic short of being one of the original Black Sabbath albums, really. Here's the long-awaited reissue of this, the 1984 debut from legendary Chicago doom-mongers Trouble. Alongside Candlemass and Pentagram and Saint Vitus, Trouble were the true heirs in the '80s to the Sabbath throne. And their mild case of Christianity only adds to the doomed vibe (ever read Revelations?) without being overtly preachy and goodytwoshoes like some other "white metal" bands were (Stryper ferinstance). And anyway, we really feel that religious belief totally adds to doom metal. Sabbath's "After Forever" made that official long before Trouble's Psalm 9... which isn't this album's original title, actually. It was self-titled when it first came out, but then they self-titled their fourth, Rick Rubin produced effort as well, so this got renamed. The Rick Rubin one is yet to be reissued, we're hoping it will 'cause it's quite possibly our favorite Trouble album, but this certainly is also an essential, containing several of their most awesome, best-loved tunes, including "The Tempter", "Assassin", "Bastards Will Pay" and eventual title track "Psalm 9". Plus it's also got the instrumental "Endtime" (later covered by Confessor), and their own cover of "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" by Cream!
If you haven't heard Trouble before, well... think Black Sabbath, yes, but different. They've got their own stamp on the trad. doom metal thing. It's fastern'd you'd think. And heavier than their forebears, due to the twin guitar lineup. And already here on Psalm 9, singer Eric Wagner has his raspy (almost Axl Rose-ish, actually) pipes tuned-up proper. It's one of those so recommended, that we're jealous of those of you who'll be hearing it for the first time things!
And this new, deluxe, digitally remastered edition comes with not only a booklet full of photos and liner notes, but also a bonus DVD disc featuring the band performing on a local Chicago Public Access TV show way back in 1982! They're lip-synching, but they look cool -- and the interview portions are so inadvertently hilarious we're actually impressed that these guys weren't too embarrassed to allow it on here. So even if you already have this album, true Trouble fans would be wise to invest in this reissue as well.
Last list we highlighted the doomier-than-thou deluxe cd+dvd reissue of the 1984 debut from Chicago's classic doom metal squad Trouble. And now, here's the reish of their equally heavy second album, The Skull, originally released on Metal Blade in 1985, which features such Trouble 'hits' as "Fear No Evil" and "Wickedness Of Man", along with its epic centerpiece, the nearly 12 minute "The Wish". As with the debut, you can expect plenty of Christian angst, ponderous Sabbathy riffage, and twin guitar duels!
And, the bonus dvd disc this is packaged with has gotta be pretty exciting for fans: a complete live Trouble concert, filmed at a club called Malo's in Aurora, Illinois, circa 1984. There's an on-screen note at the beginning saying: "The following program is historic in many ways. One of the historic elements of this rare program is the old recording technology." And yeah, sure it's a Nth generation video dub, ultra-grainy and wavey. But with so much heavy metal atmosphere!! Lights, smoke, hair, headbanging... So cool. And they play nearly every song from Psalm 9 and The Skull, plus a couple more, including what would eventually become the title track of their third album, Run To The Light.
Whoa. Just when we warmed ourselves to the idea that this would NEVER happen... it happened. The return of Twilight, described out of necessity as a "black metal supergroup", a bad description for something so awesome, but more or less to the point. The core lineup of Blake Judd (Nachtmystium), N. Imperial (Krieg), and Wrest (Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice) soldiered on without past contributors Hildolf (Draugar) and Malefic (Xasthur), and made themselves even more super with the additions, on this recording at least, of Sanford Parker (Minsk/Buried At Sea), Aaron Turner (Isis, etc.), Robert Lowe (Lichens, 90 Day Men, and now OM apparently), and Stavros Giannopoulos, who is new to us but whose presence is at the very least justified by the his awesome name. And yes, we realized how many bands we had to list in parentheses, but if anything, that should accommodate you to the awesome pedigree on display here, letting you know that there is no way in hell it could be anything except completely awesome.
Monument To Time End is not only great, but full of unexpected turns throughout. Unlike its self-titled predecessor, which was pretty much as black as black metal can get (opening song "Woe Is The Contagion" being one of the most terrifying things EVER), there is a surprising amount of diversity here. For example, would you have ever expected this horde to whip out an emo-ish breakdown with disco beats? Probably not, and the good news is that it doesn't suck at all, it just confounds in the best way imaginable and makes you love this band even more. And while the other album was created by swapping tapes through the mail with the fidelity being pretty much what you would expect from such, Monument is a work of well thought out, amazingly produced ART. This no doubt has much to do with Parker's presence and the use of his Volume Studios, not to mention the amount of time that has passed since the first album. Best of all, none of these upgrades in any way represent a more subdued or cuddly Twilight; on the contrary, this shit sounds even more dangerous, unstoppable, and out to kill. But enough rambling, let's talk songs here.
Doomy opener "The Cryptic Ascension" sounds a bit like a more evil Pelican, and Turner's signature is in full effect for the aforementioned emo-ish breakdown replete with disco beats. Imperial's vocals, however, definitely help bring things to another darkened realm. And while we really don't need to say this, we will: FUCK is Wrest an amazing drummer, and his bell heavy work on the ride cymbal helps carry this song to its amazing fadeout before everything is overtaken by Parker's spaced out synth buzz. The word "epic" is thrown around all the time in metal these days, to the point where it seems to have lost its meaning, but here Twilight completely own the term. Really no other word will do; this shit is EPIC. "Fall Behind Eternity" is up next, sounding a lot like Leviathan's creepy ambient moments with more spacey synth until the brutality kicks in with a dizzying blast. On "8,000 Years", things manage to be both soaring and pummeling, and the combined talents of these guys gives birth to some of the most adventurous and impressive metal we have heard in, well, forever. "The Catastrophe Exhibition" opens up with some ominous acoustic strumming and weird ambience with effected martial drums before venturing into unknown terrain where the band sounds a bit like an evil Don Cab being broadcast out of a portal to Hell. The album closes with "Negative Signal Omega", another awesome surprise that begins as a crumbling drone experiment and ends with a choraled vocal chant that is stunningly beautiful. Did you ever think we would use words like "stunningly beautiful" to describe this band when they first came out? Neither did we.
We say a lot of things about all the metal coming in these doors, but Twilight have set the bar pretty high with this album. Monument To Time End will without question end up on many year end best ofs, and with good reason. The greatest success here is the fact that everybody's dirty, blackened fingerprints are all over this project, but the end result is something totally of its own creation. Not many guys could pull this kind of thing off without seeming at least a little bit self-indulgent. Twilight have surprised us all by putting out one of the best metal records in recent memory. Until we fully understand what the fuck happened in Chicago, where the album was recorded, we're just going to be blasting it nonstop. While words may fail to convey just how amazing this is, we give it our highest seal of approval and have no doubt you too will agree...
B-Music / Finders Keepers are the masters of the mix, headed up by DJ / record collector extraordinaire Andy Votel, pretty much every compilation these guys put out is like getting a super far out mix tape from your weird music obsessed best friend who knows everything about ____ (Turkish psych, lost disco, weirdo proto metal, lost soundtracks, Pakistani film music, Hungarian psych prog, etc.). To that list, of music your imaginary best friend (aka Andy Votel and his B-Music gang) is well versed in, you can now add "Mid-Med-Mod-Rock & Spanish Psychsploitation From The 'Cradle Of Spanish Pop'". Phew. Absolute Belter collects a handful of classic jams from the Spanish label Belter, marking the label's 50th anniversary!! Lots of incredible stuff here, plenty of fuzzed out psych, groovy funk, and especially intriguing, weirdo covers of songs by The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Quincy Jones, and most excitingly, Curved Air's "Back Street Luv" done by a group called Control (which is also on that Radio Galaxia comp!). It's a fuzzy, but more poppy than proggy version, makes us wish someone would do a cool anthology of all Curved Air's stuff, so good! But we digress...
The highlights are too many to mention one by one, it's basically a whole record of highlights, but besides that killer Curved Air cover, there's Fusioon's, warm washed out wearily psychedelic "Tocata Y Fug", with its woozy organs, majestic melodies, and weirdo prog-isms, or Furia's theme song "Furia", a heavy psych groove burner, with some awesome harmony vocals, thick basslines, and a killer main hook. Or howabout Soledad Miranda, most famous for being nude in Vampyros Lesbos with some groovy, loungy exotica, all soaring strings and jazzy drums, very Bond theme sounding, and she actually has a great voice. There's Los Mismos' "Jefe Ironside", a sort of disco cop show theme meets hippy jam from the musical Hair, or Control's country flecked bass heavy psychedelia, Los Gritos' "Veo Visions" a sci-fi fuzz groove, with tons of out-there Joe Meek production weirdness, we could go on and on and on and on. Needless to say, but we shall anyway, if you're a fan of the label, and any of their collections, the BYG Deal, Well Hung, Pomegranates, The Sound Of Wonder, well then you're probably gonna want this, or if you're just into cool fuzzy freaky far out psychedelic sounds, this could very well be the mix tape of obscure stuff you've been hoping someone would make you!
Of the hundred of Record Store Day special releases, we got as many copies of as many titles as we could, sold out of most of them, but a few we managed to get enough to list for out of town folks who might not have a local record store do visit on that oh so sacred of record nerd days, one of which is this, a super cool 5 track sampler, featuring new music from some names that most loyal aQ list readers will recognize right away: Blonde Redhead, Ariel Pink, Gang Gang Dance, The Big Pink, Tune Yards.
Most of these tracks will show up on forthcoming full lengths from these groups, but 4 of the 5 are different versions, demos, rough early versions, definitely worth it for fans of any of these groups.
It's weird enough that Ariel Pink is signed to 4AD, but with this first taste of the upcoming record, we hear a whole new side of AP and his gang, not nearly as lo-fi, or twisted, instead, loping, groovy, almost funky basslines, shuffling skeletal rhythms, reverbed guitars, and deep crooned almost gothic sounding vox, a sort of creepy broody ballad, but fear not, it does get pretty damaged by the end, all crumbling FX drenched psychedelic free-eak out meltdown, can't wait to hear more.
Blonde Redhead offer up a demo for a song from their new record, their first music in 3+ years, lush, woozy, electronic, warm and organic, less indie sounding, way more 'adult', like the most accessible Bjork tracks, still really dark and mysterious and beautiful, shimmery and dreamy, just more restrained and mature.
The Gang Gang Dance track, their first music for 4AD is awesome, a sprawling, super spare, stripped down dubscape, thick warbly bass, clipped samples, disembodied vocals, hazy and softly psychedelic, but really mesmerizing and beautiful.
The Tune Yards track is super soulful world music sounding demo, groovy and lovely, with crunchy looped samples, shimmery blurred acoustic guitars, sweet vocals, gradually growing more and more distorted. Cool.
And finally, a previously unreleased track from The Big Pink, all washed out and druggy, total Spacemen 3 / Jesus And Mary Chain vibe, buzzy guitars, buried barely there rhythms, reverbed and echoey and woozily hypnotic.
We have a bunch of these left, but once they're gone we won't be able to get more, so grab one while you can...
Lots of folks probably have no idea what Pinky Violence movies are, but avid readers of the aQ list, might have scene (or hopefully bought!) several records by a local turntablist called DJ Female Convict Scorpion, whose name is in fact borrowed from one of the more famous Pinky Violence series of films.
In the late sixties, traditional gangster movies in Japan were replaced with "Pinky Violence" movies, which embraced nudity and violence and bondage, women in prison, women gangs, who often fought topless, low brow, lowest common denominator, maybe, but many of the films infused the sex and violence with plenty of subtle social and political critiques, and as you might imagine, they caught on, and became a sensation. Often psych rock bands like the Jacks or the Flowers were tapped for music, but just as often, a small cadre of composers created the strange sonic hybrids that were the soundtrack to some of the most over the top films you'll ever see.
From Western style Morricone soundtrack music, all strings and whistles, haunting and ominous, to sultry smoky jazz, groovy fuzz funk, and full on psychedelic garage rock, the sounds here are all over the map. In some ways this could have easily been an installment in Sublime Frequencies' ever expanding catalog of world musics, so varied and catchy and wildly exotic. Jazzy drums underpin fluttery flutes, crunchy fuzz guitar all tangled up with woozy porno funk, sexy sax, wah wah guitars, soaring strings, Eastern melodies, all wound into groovy cinematic funk jazz, xylophones and marimbas, horn sections, strange sound effects, wild drumming, it's hard to imagine how this stuff hasn't been sampled to death by DJ's. super funky, but WAY out there and psychedelic, sometimes dark, but more often jubilant and unhinged and FUN.
Super extensive liner notes, with a history of the genre, the soundtracks, the composers, and of course the starlets, and besides simply being a killer collection of funky soulful cinematic sounds, hopefully it'll get some folks out there to track down some of these amazing movies...
Another special release for this year's Record Store Day, that we managed to get enough of to list and review for all the aQ peeps who weren't able to visit the shop in person.
By now most regular readers of the aQ list are well aware of just how much we love Andy Votel's B-Music label, the dizzyingly eclectic home of recordings from Jean-Claude Vannier, Selda, Mustafa Ozkent, Sarolta Zalatnay, as well as purveyors of all things Turkish psych, lost disco, weirdo proto metal, lost soundtracks, Pakistani film music, Hungarian psych prog and more more more.
We raved about the Pomegranates comp recently, as well as The BYG Deal collection, also, the Sound Of Wonder, Well Hung, if there's one thing these guys do better than anyone, it's make mixtapes, transformed into head spinning, ear tickling compilations, so it should come as no surprise that their Record Store Day sampler is another killer mix. And instead of just being ONLY a handful of tracks you can get on other releases (although some in fact are), it focuses on harder to find B-Music gems, whether from WAY out of print records, or not yet released jams.
Beginning with a killer chunk of slice and dice space synth disco from weirdo French mad scientist Jean-Pierre Massiera, the record flits from sound to sound, from country to country, from era to era, but somehow still manages to flow. Persian psych pop slips right into some gritty synth funk, which leads right into some woozy, tripped out Asian psych, finishing off with some awesome Italo fuzzfunk, wild and trippy and druggy and awesome.
The flipside begins with some warped easy listening which is transformed into some seriously far out skittery fuzzy outsider funk, followed by some "synth bass stoner funk", then a Curved Air cover, taken from the Absolute Belter comp reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, sequing into some exotic soaring string driven dancefloor Bollywood style groove, before finishing off with a bit of Welsh Rare Beat.
Awesome stuff. An absolutely killer mix, and maybe the ultimate party platter of the year. LIMITED too, we probably won't be able to get more of these, so best to snag one while they last...
Reissue of this long lost seventies Swedish release, originally purported to be a Trad Gras Och Stenar album, when in fact, it's something much more interesting. Bo Anders Persson, a member of Trad Gras Och Stenar, as well as Harvester, International Harvester and Parson Sound, traveled around Sweden, collecting field recordings of amateur musicians performing (the title roughly translates to 'Play Yourself'). So this is essentially like a Swedish drone rock, gypsy hippy folk version of Smithsonian Folkways (or Sublime Frequencies).
Wild fluttery flutes, chimes and rattles, whistles and tribal drumming, much of this definitely reminds us of modern soundmakers like Avarus and Sunburned Hand.
Simple hypnotic drumming over acoustic guitars and hand claps, whoops and hollers, still more flutes, violins, strings, hand drums, simple skeletal guitar melodies, lots of jaw harp, will percussion freakouts, occasional stretches of groovy spaced out kraut psych jamming, the whole time, the surrounding sounds become a part of the music, people talking, crowds in the distance, tinkling bottles, birds singing, total idyllic outsider psychedelic hippy jam.
A couple tracks on the B side stand out, one that sounds almost African, gorgeous and moody, percussive, but super melodic, like some sort of marimba, looped and loping and rhythmic and so mesmerizing, and another sprawling rhythmscape, cool, and acoustic, all deep lo thrum, big strings buzzing, a warm whirring sound peppered with all manner of jaw harp buzz, and some almost throat singing, really haunting and mysterious and so gorgeous.
Definitely recommended for anyone into the above mentioned Swedish outfits, but also anyone into field recordings and abstract psychedelia.
Exact reproduction of the original 1970 lp release, and of course, LIMITED!
Sub Pop these days is a seriously varied and eclectic label, they always were, but now more than ever, from folk to noise rock, electronic to power pop. But for most of us, Sub Pop will forver be associated with the much maligned, but frankly still KICK ASS genre they basically invented: GRUNGE. Sure it got watered down, like any scene, but that first wave of grunge is still untouchable: Green River, Soundgarden, Tad, The Fluid, Love Battery, Swallow, Blood Circus, Screaming Trees, Cat Butt, Skin Yard, U-Men, Malfunkshun, Pond...
So when we heard about Sub Pop's 20th Anniversary celebration in Seattle, one aQuarian in particular had to go, a chance to see Green River, Les Thugs, The Fluid, Vaselines, Pissed Jeans, Eric's Trip, Kinski, Comets On Fire, Beachwood Sparks, Seaweed, and loads more, well it was too good not to go. So go this aQ-er did, and it RULED, the old guard destroyed, but the new bands were pretty great too. Some performances were transformative, not hugely into Fleet Foxes at the time, something about seeing them play in a green glade, those vocals soaring beneath the blue sky, amidst all those trees, suddenly their music made sense. A new fan was born. Green River had to be the highlight, members of Pearl Jam and Mudhoney brought back together again to play someof the sickest, swampiest, glammy grunge ever, and it still sounded better than 90% of the bands today.
So to celebrate Record Stoe Day, Sub Pop decided to gather up some of the best recordings from the fest, and release them as a super limited cd. Which is what this is. Most of the above mntioned bands represented. The Vaselines do their classic "Dying For it", Beachwood Sparks sound magnificent, Obits seriously rock, as do Les Thugs, but probably the best moment of the fest, and of this comp is Green River, playing "Leech", a song popularized by the Melvins, but according to Mark Arm's before song banter, it's a Green River track, that was on a tape given to the Melvins way back when, which the band adopted as their own, but now that the legal might of Mudhoney and Pearl Jam are united, Green River plan to "Crush those bastards", which is met with a deafening roar, followed by a performance that makes the case for "Leech" being a Green River original, better than any lawsuit ever could. Joking or not, it's a magical moment, the fest was full of those moments, as is this comp!
For a lot of us, buying comps and reissues and stuff put out by Finders Keepers / B-Music is pretty much a no-brainer. These folks know their stuff. They can DJ for us anytime! So mentioning that The BYG Deal is the latest from 'em might be all we need to say, though dropping some names like Brigitte Fontaine, Jean-Claude Vannier, Daevid Allen & Gong, Giorgio Gomelsky, Robert Wyatt, Vangelis, Ame Son, and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago couldn't hurt. Or perhaps a name like Inter-Groupie Psychotherapeutic Elastic Band - never heard of 'em before, no, but they've gotta be good, right!!? (And they are, their track "Floating" anyway being a blissful bit of la-la-la space psych ceremony).
What we have here is a collection of tracks released by France's BYG, a post '68 radical rock/jazz label that flourished 'til about 1974. We'd heard of 'em before mainly in conjunction with the famed BYG/Actuel series of African-American jazz releases, stuff by the Art Ensemble, Don Cherry, Sunny Murray, etc. But this disc demonstrates that BYG (which according to one graphic here stands for Beautiful Young Generation, though elsewhere we're told it's the initials of the three label owners) was as much about psychedelic pop rock and groovy "hairy funk" as it was about avant-garde free jazz... an awesome blend in our opinion, and blend they do, some of these tracks really hard to classify. Maybe it's the "Total Space Music" of which they speak. In any case, whatever discotheque played this stuff must have been REALLY hip and happenin'.
The music here is almost all super groovy, but often quite quirky too (take Gong's circusy nursery rhyme freakout "Hip Hypnotise You" for instance!), these various tracks loaded with flute, orgasmic female vocals, heavy psych guitar, and equally heavy prog organ (running wild alongside frenetically shuffling drums on Vangelis' "Stuffed Tomato", for example, among many standout spots here). From chanteuse Valerie Lagrange's ye-ye grooves to the poppy psychedelic stomp of Coeur Magique to Banana Moon's Beefheartian crunt, this is pretty far out and awesome.
Here's the complete lineup of artists appearing here: Alice (2 tracks), Francois Wertheimer, Brigitte Fontaine and Areski, Gong (3 tracks), Alan Jack, Couer Magique (2 tracks), Valerie Lagrange, Jacques Barsamian, Alpha Beta, Ame Son (2 tracks), Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Freedom, Vangelis, Paul Semana, Inter-Groupie Psychotherapeutic Elastic Band, Banana Moon, Joachim and Rolf Kuhn. Yep, the disc is crammed, 22 tracks, almost 80 minutes, and the thick cd booklet is equally full up with full color graphics and extensive liner notes, it's amazing the compilers could dig up so much info on this stuff, considering how obscure a lot of this is, but that's their biz!
There's a few tracks you could have run across elsewhere on other reissues, but most of 'em you haven't, that's for damn sure. For instance, the awesomely named track "Astral Abuse" from the rare 7" by Alpha Beta, a one-off Vangelis project. And there's plenty more from other collector's-only, never before on cd sources.
If you liked other B-music compilations like Andy Votel's Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word, this ought to be right up your alley. Likewise if you enjoyed the two Pop Made In France comps we've listed, this is a bit like those (some of the same artists appear, in fact) but way weirder. And of course any fan of Jean-Pierre Massiera's strange productions is gonna find this of interest as well... in fact there's personnel connections to his Visitors project, and connections also to the likes of Magma and Aphrodite's Child for that matter.
Another keeper from Finders Keepers that's for sure, thankfully available domestically, complete with slipcover!
This is, hands down, THEE best dubstep comp we've gotten in, well, maybe forever. So much of the dubstep we get is way too wussy, when what we really want basically is grime without the vocals, the beats banging, big and stuttery, the bass so think and heavy, a wall of throbbing fuzz, that warbly bassline, that distinctive dubstep stutter. And as if in answer to our prayers, This Is Dubstep Vol. 2 opens with what is essentially a killer grime jam, featuring some seriously grime-y flow, over the buzzing bass and hiccuppy rhythm. And we're of, and for the most part, 90 percent of the tracks here are fierce and fiery, dense and dark and way heavy, even the more mellow jams still work pretty well in the context of these two discs, our favorites though, are the ones that are HARD and HEAVY. Chase & Status manage to take one of those diva style dubstep grooves, but chop up the vocals, and add some bin rattling bass, Distance offers up a thick slab of bassy crunch, Joker & Ginz add warbly fuzzed out basslines to some awesome retro synths, Rob Sparx takes old video game music and dubs it out, an awesome lo-fi 8-bit dubstep jam, Demon's track is definitely demonic, weird samples, lurching rhythms, creepy ambience, and a killer drop and some haunting vocals, the Fused Forces track is short but so buzzy and bassy, could have filled up a whole disc with that one, Way Out West also take some diva driven dubstep and add a thick swath of lawnmower bass, Chasing Shadows offers up some of the meanest grinding basslines on the whole comp, and it goes on and on, easily some of the coolest hardest dubstep we've heard, EVER, with just enough melody and vocal parts to keep it interesting for folks who need more than beats and bass, but if you're like us, and it's all about the beats and the bass, then this is gonna be your mix of the year....
Another fantastic collection from Honest John's, this one documenting Unity Hi-Power a London Sound System in the eighties, Jamaican dancehall, reggae and raga, influenced by US hip hop, but more importantly, a unique sound, the result of inner city life in the UK in the eighties, and while the lyrics occasionally discuss inner city problems, life on the streets, poverty, immigration and other similarly pressing issues of the time, the vibe was never that far removed from more earthly pleasures, smoking and partying, dancing in the streets and of course the sheer joy of music making.
And the music is what it's all about here, and the sound is super unique, not that different really from On-U Sound, Bush Chemists, and other purveyors of modern electronic dub, but the instrumentation sounds almost like old Casio keyboards, raw, and primitive and super lo-fi, which definitely gives it a special vibe, the dubs especially, most of the tracks here are paired with a dub version, and with the vocals removed, the keyboards and programmed rhythms really shine, bleeps and bloops, and super lo-fi synthy basslines, plenty of reverbed guitar, echo and delay, of course, but the core sounds are stripped down and skeletal, lo-fi and in some cases almost 8-bit sounding. The tracks with vocals are soulful and jubilant, expressive and emotional, and really fantastic, but we're sort of partial to the dubs, and their weirdly warbly, DIY lo-fi take on classic reggae and dub. So cool.
The original Wicker Man movie has got to be one of our all time favorite films as well as pretty much one of our all time favorite soundtracks. The movie falls into an elusive subgenre of psych-folk films like The Ballad of Tam-Lin, or Herzog's Heart of Glass, that mix pre-Christian folkloric musical elements and themes with a modern or counter-cultural revivalism often with darkly beautiful and sometimes terrifying results. There is no doubt that the Wicker Man as both a film and soundtrack was a key touchstone in the recent freak-folk movement. That the songs featured on that soundtrack with all their barely concealed bawdyness and lyrical waxing of the cycles of nature, sexuality and death were actually based on traditional British folk music is at this point no surprise either. Finder's Keepers does a lovely job here collecting much of the traditional material that formed the basis for the songs performed in the Wicker Man movie. Although the most remembered song from that movie, "Willow's Song" was not traditionally based, it's the song that let us into the perverse mysticism of the movie's characters and made us pay attention to the duplicitous meanings found in the traditional material. Here, that song is represented by a beautiful instrumental version taken from the original soundtrack recordings but not featured on the actual soundtrack release. The cd also features traditional versions of "Corn Rigs", based on a Robert Burns poem, "Gently, Johnny", the Maypole song "Rattlin' Bog", and "Highland Lament", as well as children's songs and instrumental jigs.
There is John Coltrane's saxophone playing, Miles Davis on the trumpet, Jimi Hendrix on the guitar, Harry Partch's instrumental inventions, Erik Satie's piano compositions, all people who were undoubtedly masters of their craft, and right next to all those geniuses is the voice and songwriting of Caetano Veloso!
Now entering his sixth decade of releasing records and sounding as relevant and remarkable as ever. So crazy to think what a journey through life and music this man has had, being one of the forefathers of the Tropicalia movement in Brazil in the '60s, and then having to flee to London in exile for his heroic and uncompromising political resistance, all the while still finding a way to create such beautiful and meaningful music. We can't really think of anyone else who has made awesome records in every decade from the '60s to the present. Think of his musical peers still around from that era, when's the last time an entire album of new material from folks like Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Donovan or Van Dyke Parks actually blew you away? On the other hand Caetano continues to make music that is as challenging and creative as it is seductive and enchanting. His last album, 2006's Ce was one of the most charged, rocking and colorful records released that year. With Zii E Zie some of that same upbeat and rocking feel is still present, but there is also a lot of the more classic, sensual and hypnotizing side to Veloso's music making, as well of course as that voice, a croon that could melt even the most frozen of hearts.
Some of us had the chance to see him live just a week ago, and on the Ce tour, and they were two of the most sincere, engaging and electric shows we've seen in so long. Just goes to prove that you can age with grace and remain as brilliant and crucial as you were as a teenager, as long as you never lose touch with the spirit that has moved you, ever since the beginning. Thank the stars for souls like Caetano Veloso. He's made another wonderful album and continues to prove that he's an international treasure, using music in every possible way for all the right reasons. Highly recommended!
Cloud Seed marks the first appearance of Vex'd on the aQ list which makes no sense at all. Of all the outsider dubstep going on, of which there's more than you might think, but still not nearly enough, Vex'd might just be the coolest, and most compelling, at least amongst folks IN the actual dubstep scene. The core elements are still present, THAT skittery beat, the fuzzy warbly basslines, but beyond that, Vex'd drags the dubstep tropes through the sonic mud, and comes out the other side with something totally original and twisted, and with only a passing resemblance to dubstep proper.
From spare and skeletal do dense and dark, Vex'd's sound manages to be simultaneously lush and rough and raw, the recordings themselves as much a part of the sound, if anything, deconstructing the sound into weird ambience, and dark textural soundscapes, occasionally coalescing into something more dubsteppy.
The opener is super dubbed out, ultra minimal, lots of space, tons of reverb, with Warrior Queen's toasted vox laid over streaks of fuzz bass, loping clanky rhythm, almost like some sort of double dutch jam, but slowed waaaaay down.
But that's followed by some abstract experimental ambience. Hazy and washed out, very Tim Hecker-ish, but laced with some strange grinding skitter, lush string swells, and clipped sampled crunch.
"Heart Space" is maybe the most commercial of the bunch, like a dubstep Portishead, with some sultry female vocals, some awesome warbly bass, all tangled up into a druggy psychedelic dubby drift. But it's all a stumbling druggy descent into madness after that, from the ominous trancelike skitter of "Out of the Hills" to the blurred softly glitchy dreamdrone shimmer of "Out of the Hills", to the super grime-y blown out bass churn of "Slug Trawl Depths", to the warped cosmic hip hop bass heavy dub of "Disposition" with some awesome lugubrious vocals, dipping into Kode9 territory.
The comes the remixes, which are just as good as any of the tracks proper, Plaid's "Bar Kimura" is all swoonsome and swirly and skittery, with a subtle bit of dubstep bass, bleary eyed and sun dappled, with weird crooned vox, "Killing Floor" is the heaviest dubstep jam here, the bass fucking fierce and sharp, the beats jagged, about as hard as it gets, the Distance track "Fallen" gets reworked into something a bit more spaced out, with some serious bass warble, and some fragmented melody. Then there are two sort of classical mixes, one "Suite For Piano & Electronics", is all deeeeeeep drones, rumbling thrum, peppered with streaks of high end, fragments of melody, but overall dark and grim and intense, while Prokofiev's "String Quartet No.2" gets reworked into a stuttery string-ed lurch, super strange and very Timbaland-like, you can almost imagine some weirdo rapping over the top, with lots of grinding strings, and stop / starts.
Finally the record finishes off with two thick, almost doomy dubby dirges. The first layers a simple beat over a thick blackened rumble, an ominous minor key melody, deep thick swells, like a dubby Jesu almost, and then comes record closer "Nails", a creepy, thick swath of industrial crunch and buzz, big pounding beats, cinematic melodies, the bass thick and intense, finishing off with a killer collaged burst of sliced and diced death metal all tangled up with grinding pummeling industrial dub.
So awesome. And while this is definitely the best Vex'd record yet, and well deserving of Record Of The Week honors, this also maybe makes up for somehow not listing any of the other awesome Vex'd records. Another record to add to your aQ dancefloor destroying DJ kit!
Totally awesome breezy lo-fi garage pop from Los Angeles, that we just can't seem to get enough of. While many of WF's lo-fi counterparts these days are all about fuzz and feedback, White Fence is so much more about infectious songs and deep running melody. Like some lost early recording of Chris Knox covering The Kinks or The Zombies, or imagine The Art Museums if they were a little more washed out and blurred and blissy. Also reminds us a bit of a more focused Ariel Pink, as WF are able to tap into such golden pop tones yet give them a nice warped and lysergic twist. While it's for sure going to get lumped in with a lot of our favorite recent garage pop faves like The Fresh & Onlys, Woods, Hanoi James, etc., there is something very timeless about the songs White Fence create. They could just as easily be lost nuggets from some obscure pastoral psych band out of the UK in the late '60s as it could be a Cherry Red band from the Paisley underground in the '80s, or a young Robert Pollard merging with the Elephant Six collective. For sure a strong outsider pop sound, with hints of Syd Barrett and Bobb Trimble. Bottom line is that this is top quality songwriting delivered in such a satisfying way. So damn good!
Don't think that Make-A-Mess pressed a ton of the vinyl so better act fast. But fear not, there's a cd on Woodsist too.
Paralleling what the Australian sound artist Tarab achieves through his magnificent albums, Jana Winderen collects an impressive array of field recordings and edits them into her compositions without much (if anything) in the way of digital processing. For Energy Field, Winderen traveled to the barren land-and-seascapes of Greenland, Norway, and the Barents Sea, using high-end parabolic microphones for the above ground recordings and hydrophones for the seaborne sounds, capturing creaks from massive glaciers, the slippery resonance of ice crevasses, the sounds of crustaceans (remember her cassette for the Tapeworm label, The Noisiest Guys On The Planet?), the chatter of summertime birds, and huge passages of windswept vibration that sound more like one of BJ Nilsen's swarms of drone than anything produced via natural means. Winderen presents three extended pieces that steadily undulate and crest, much like the patterns of the ocean when viewed from a considerable distance, and have been pocked with various tactile recordings of ice cracking, water dripping, the strange bellows from mating fish, and whatnot. Hypnotic, beautiful, and wholly compelling, Winderen's Energy Field is another exemplary entry in the Touch catalog, and totally up our alley here at AQ.
