It seems like we were the only people who loved the last 1349, the experimental black industrial aboutface that was Revelations Of The Black Flame. A twisted, lurching tangled of convoluted blackness, and abstract black drone, some of the darkest weirdest black metal shit we'd heard in ages. But folks pissed and moaned, "why isn't it fast?", "where are the blast beats?" and on and on and on. But c'mon, were we the only ones who did NOT want to just hear Liberation Part 4, or Beyond The Apocalypse Part 3? Seems like it.
Well, all the haters can breathe easy, cuz Demonoir is a return to the frenzied black blasts and insanely furious buzz that defined 1349's sound, but listen close, and there's still some weird shit going on. First off, every song is separated by a short instrumental track, each one denoted "Tunnel" plus a digit, contributing to the seamless flow of the record, and allowing the more by-the-numbers blackness to get some breathing room. These interludes range from effects drenched metallic drones, to creepy backwards pianos and acoustic guitars, woozy minor key melodies, and blackened industrial wastescapes, super tense Herrmann like cinematic ambience, to deep cavernous drones, and washed out shimmery white noise.
But it's not just the interludes, the band may have managed the impossible, melding their grim frosty blast of old, with their obvious desire to twist and transform and experiment. The result is some seriously epic and convoluted and yeah sort of experimental black metal, but subtle enough that folks how just want to bang their hands or thrash about, will be perfectly happy, while the rest of us can strap on headphones and get way lost.
"Atomic Chapel" is total classic 1349, but not quite, creepy spoken word, some weird start stop arrangements, some atonal piano buried in the mix, mysterious voices, chanting, all tangled up with some of the fiercest black metal ever. It's a pretty potent mix. Elsewhere the blasting blackness gets weirdly melodic, almost NWOBHM in parts, but then the band stretches it out, transforming it into a droned out chugscape, rife with wild moaning leads, that turn into effects drenched squiggles.
The pianos pop up now and again throughout the record, as do some more surprising melodies, more unlikely arrangements, the title track being maybe the strangest of the bunch, a woozy midtempo workout, all hissed and whispered vox, tangled spidery guitars, a super progged out arrangement, psychedelic and moody and fucking awesome.
On first listen we were sort of bummed out, thinking that the band had caved, and ditched the experimental stuff to placate the naysayers, but after listening a bit closer, we're beginning to think that in some ways, it's almost MORE subversive than Revelations Of The Black Flame, not so overtly fucked up, but infused throughout with a sort of insidious weirdness, that will worm itself into the minds and souls of the grim kvlt masses, whether they realize it or not.
A Certain Ratio, who took their name from a lyric off Brian Eno's flawless pop album Taking Tiger Mountain, began their career alongside fellow Mancunians Joy Division back in the late '70s, crafting a sound that evolved through the bleak references of punk
In addition to the first disc which collects many of their best songs (although hardcore ACR fans might take issue with some of the selections), what's extra nice about this reissue are the b-sides and rarities that comprise the second disc. Those of us who missed out the first time around and are perhaps only familiar with the ACR tracks on the wonderful In the Beginning There Was Rhythm compilation will be surprised to hear that the driving dance-iness of those tracks were balanced out by the decidedly more gloomy sound typical of Joy Division's dark and angular choppiness. Far more punk than dance. Another fine case of a band's demos and rarities being a valuable good listen, instead of being collected for collectors' sake. Highly recommended!
It's really hard to keep up with these guys. We love pretty much everything they do, but they are quite possibly one of the most prolific bands around, and it can get frustrating, trying to take it all in, and sometimes that frustration can manifest itself as not giving a shit, which would be a shame, cuz whenever we find ourselves not giving a shit, and we manage to overcome that reaction, we are always totally blown away by the magical musical mysteries these guys are capable of conjuring up.
In O To Infinity marks two milestones of sorts for the bands, and for fans, one is the return of Cotton Casino to the fold, the other is the group's musical progression from their seminal cover of Terry Riley's "In C", the band figuring that the denotation of a specific key is mostly arbitrary, thus we have these 4 extended sonic explorations, each in their own key, those 'keys' being 'O', 'A', 'Z' and of course 'Infinity'.
And as much as we love all the different facets of AMT, this might be our favorite, their blissed out cosmic space drift, long form dronescapes, otherworldly kosmiche ambience, lush clouds of swirling effects, muted churning rhythms, guitars transformed into mysterious noisemakers, long tones layered and intertwined, the swoop of processed backwards sounds, but heck, this is AMT, so the do end up rocking out, launching into a propulsive krautrock groove, jamming away within that constantly swirling and shifting cloud of swirling psychedelia.
"In A" is all chants and grunts and weird vocalizations, some sort of alien ritual, performed in yet another cloud of shimmering drones and grinding muted hiss, a demonic barnyard emitting mewls and squeaks and groans, all bathed in reverb and delay, building to a dizzying outer space swirl. "In Z" is a futuristic freak out of strange bleeps and bloops, laid over some sort of abstract cosmic jazz drift, subtly rhythmic, but way free, a shimmering fog of glistening electronics and malfunctioning effects, which gets downright crunchy and chaotic near the end.
And finally, "In Infinity", which contrary to what we were expecting, is the most 'rock' of the bunch, a wild sprawling avant jazz, space rock, future funk groove that goes on and on and on, a motorik beat, underpinning wild electronic squiggles, woozy synths and organs, all manner of tangled instrumental freakout, culminating in a total heart of the sun, bleary eyed prismatic sonic blowout.
Another AMT winner, to add to that dedicated shelf in your house that by now must be bowing beneath the weight of the previous hundred or so winners. Regardless, WAY recommended.
Metalheads are definitely a weird bunch, their likes and dislikes, what is considered true and cult, versus stuff labeled poser or false metal. In some cases it's definitely cut and dried, but in others, there's really no rhyme or reason. For instance, take Depeche Mode. Almost every metalhead we've ever met, loves Depeche Mode. Why? There seems to be no metal connection, other than a sort of darkness or gothiness. Yet, DM remain a fast favorite, with more than a few metal bands covering songs by them as well. Which brings us to Alcest. For the life of us, we can't figure out why these guys are so beloved by black metallers, even the ones who go on about frosty grim kvlt hordes and generally listen to only extreme buzzing blackness, they all seem to love Alcest. Not that there's not plenty to love, it's just Alcest are barely metal at all. Sure there's some harsh vocals now and again, some distorted guitar, even some blast beats but that's about it as far as it goes metalwise. And the thing is, even when Alcest do dip into some blasting blackness, it's more shoegazey and dreamy and washed out and melodic, which speaks to why we love this band so much, their ability to create this glimmering blown out dreampop using tropes usually reserved for musics much more harsh and heavy.
This latest record finds the band perfecting their ever evolving formula, merging a sort of depressive melancholic black metal, with total blissed out shoegaze jangle pop. On Ecailles De Lune, even the heaviest moments are infused with an undeniable poppiness, a sort of ethereal dreaminess, that turns this into one of the least likely black metal records ever.
The band can be perfectly summed up sonically in the nearly 20 minute two part opening salvo, jangly guitars, hushed vocals, explode into a sort of prismatic shoegaze post pop, all big chords, pounding drums, everything wrapped in a soft psychedelic haze, crooned sad boy vocals, way down in the mix, slow builds to Godspeed like crescendos, angelic female background vocals, lush harmonies, spidery tendrils of minor key guitar, finally within the last minute of the first part, slipping into a buzzing blast, but as mentioned above, it's not so black and grim as if is epic and effulgent and soaring and majestic and beautiful. The second part opens with spare chiming guitars, before some almost actual black metal erupts, a woozy descending minor key melody that quickly shifts into something much more moody with harsh vocals showing up for the first time. It's frenzied and buzzy, but still more dreamy and druggy than black, and then just as quickly as it started, the blackness fades, leaving a loping rhythm, sweet chiming clean guitars, and then the rhythm drops out too, and the song plays out with just a soft tangle of reverby guitar notes and ethereal female vocals.
"Percees de Lumiere" begins all Lifelover-y, with swoonsome soaring shoegaze pop and harsh vox, only to splinter into prismatic dreampop partway through, dreamy female vocals over softly churning chords underneath, so nice.
"Solar Song" is some sort of Slowdive / Swervedriver / My Bloody Valentine hybrid, warm lush chords, soaring vocal harmonies, a killer main melody, total classic pop wreathed in layers of washed out fuzz and swirling sonic gauze, maybe the 'hit' here if there was gonna be one.
An 8+ minute closer might have you expecting a blasting metallic finale, but instead, we're treated to a smoldering sprawl of soft strummed, chiming gloom pop, no drums, just layers of glistening guitars, warm lush vocals, a slow burning chunk or rainy day post-metal dreamfolk balladry. woozy, washed out, hazy, dreamlike and utterly gorgeous.
While they last, we've got the limited digi-book packaging version of this fine album.
Cult cinema buffs might recall The Films Of Kenneth Anger: Volume One and Volume Two, a pair of dvds that we carried a couple of years ago. They were amazing and highly coveted documents of the filmmaker's works, not only because his films had been so elusive (and when they were found the prints and VHS dubs had seen better days), but also because Fantoma did such a beautiful job with the presentation (dvd digipak with slipcover and 48-page booklet). Feel free to check out our reviews for them if you want to "read and weep". Sadly their lifespan was fleeting, and those dvds are both now out of print. However, all is not lost because Fantoma has just released a new double dvd set to take their place. It compiles Anger's Magik Lantern Cycle... or in other words, his films circa 1947 through 1981: Fireworks, Puce Moment, Rabbit's Moon (both the 1950 and 1979 versions), Eaux D'Artifice, Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, Kustom Kar Kommandos, Invocation Of My Demon Brother, and Lucifer Rising. Plus the extras include the Rabbit's Moon outtakes that were included on Volume One, and Anger's 2002 film about Aleister Crowley's art among other goodies. While you don't get the deluxe packaging of its predecessors, you do get all of the restored films in one spot at a nicer price!
We hadn't paid too much attention to this band, but listening now to this super swank lp version of their second full length, Eras, we're beginning to think we have definitely been missing out.
The record begins with some murky, muddy, washed out psychedelic drone rock, motorik beats, thick clouds of churning chordal distortion, glistening melodies, super shoe gazey, but super dark and blurred as well, but the record soon slips into something more dreamy and twangy, Eastern melodies over a mass of soft swirling drones and minimal percussion, vocals buried in the mix, ghostlike and mysterious, some big booming drums, very druggy and psychedelic, reminds us of Wooden Shjips, or Moon Duo actually, and the whole record sort of weaves back and forth, between weirdly bombastic post industrial shoegaze dirgery, and a more sort of Velvet Underground / Spacemen 3 style psych drone sprawl, but with a little Scenic style atmosphere mixed in. Sound strange, and it is a bit, but the band make it work, a constantly shifting psychedelic rock bliss out / trip out, that should definitely appeal to fans of the current crop of space gazers.
As with all Equation releases, the design and packaging are fantastic, super thick 180 gram vinyl, deluxe full color gatefold jacket, printed inner sleeves, various inserts, LIMITED TO 425 COPIES, each one hand numbered...
For the third in the series (or second, because we don't think there was actually a Vol. 1) of collaborations between new bands and their older progenitors, we get this beautiful collaboration between Arp (Alexis Georgopoulos of The Alps and Q&A, and formerly of Tussle) and Anthony Moore (Slapp Happy, Henry Cow). Inspired by Moore's early and little heard minimalist compositions from 1971's Pictures of a Cloudland Ballroom, rather than Moore's later art-rock leanings, the duo build upon old and new material, utilizing piano, cello, synth and tape manipulations into eight pieces of gorgeously placid minimalism. Two of the cello based tracks are dedicated to Robert Wyatt and Arthur Russell and you'll hear their influence as well as shades of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Eroc, and Franco Battiato. The final song, "Slow Moon's Rose" is the only vocal track, sounding like a lovely lost Slapp Happy outtake sung by Georgopoulos instead of Dagmar Krause. A far cry from the last collaboration in this series between Excepter, Chris & Cosey and J. G. Thirlwell, but one with more depth, as it feels like a true collaboration between two mutually inspired artists rather than a couple of interesting remixes. Highly Recommended! And ultra limited!!
This is probably gonna sound like total sacrilege. And it is, we know it is, but it's all we can think when we're listening to these guys, quite possibly our favorite drum machine driven duo, is that yeah, they sound like Big Black, the super distorted guitar chug, the sung spoken vox, the thick floor shaking bass, the fucked up and funny lyrics, it's like Big Black, bit kind of, well, you know, BETTER.
There we said it. And before you get your hate mail machine in motion, realize, that we revere Big Black, every single song, a fucking misanthropic masterpiece, but if you were to ask us, what could make BB better? Well, we would have said, let's see, you could make it heavier, make the songs more complex, add tons more dynamics, fuck it, the Austerity Program is just that, like a super charged, ultra heavy, way more complex Big Black, but they are so much more, they have taken that sound, that classic, timeless (to us at least) sound, and made it all their own.
The super tense slow build of "Song 25", with its sprawling guitar buzz, and hushed spoken vocals, gradually growing more and more intense, the drum machine and buzzing bass soon joining in, a churning low slung dirge, the guitar doesn't even show up until a minute left in the song, but suddenly the track is transformed into a lurching metal machine prog blow out, with some awesomely weirdly clipped rhythms, chugging guitar, it's the sort of part most bands would (and should) stretch out for minutes, but the AP make it last seconds, cuz they know, they have way more up their sleeves.
"Song 26" explodes in a throbbing downtuned crush, stopping, starting, stuttering, hiccupping, until things bliss out, and suddenly it's a shimmery whispered drift, only to lurch into a grinding metallic robotic pound, finally finishing off with more churn and crunch. "Song 27" starts off all distorted strum and more clipped drum machine, droney and tense and hypnotic, before splintering into a stop start stutter, that explodes into what sounds like "Jordan, Minnesota" at triple speed, and then back again, a fucking epic proto prog metal jam with some MIT worthy drum machine programming, and anguished ultra pissed vox.
"Track 29" might be the weirdest, and perhaps the coolest of the bunch, a cloud of soaring guitars, a chugging bass, and another robotic looped rhythm, but the vocals are sung, sweetly, a lovely melodic counterpoint to the churn and chug beneath it, taking some subtle detours throughout, but always returning to that relentless crunch, another track, that seems way too brief at 5:30, epic and melodic and majestic and heavy and fucking awesome.
We've listened to these 4 songs about 20 times, and we're bound to go 20 more, but they've got us really hoping there's a full length around the corner. And yeah, that means buy it, it RULES.
All it takes really is one song. Sometimes that's the key to understanding a record, to loving a band. A record can seem just sort of okay, but then that one song can work its magic and make all the other songs make more sense, and then suddenly it's not just that one song anymore. That's happened with lots of our favorite records, and is exactly what happened with this, the debut from Avi Buffalo, a group of young Southern Californians, whose sounds is a little bit Built To Spill, a little bit Elephant 6, a little bit Shins, you know what we're talking about, jangly and hooky, indie pop, but smart indie pop. The sort of stuff we do dig, but also the sort of stuff that is EVERYwhere.
So while we found this record pleasant enough, it wasn't until "What's In It For?" that everything clicked, a pretty much perfect slice of wistful jangle pop, with sly sad boy emo lyrics, spidery melodies, simple major chord jangle, the about to crack vocals, and the chorus, and absolute killer, with some super cute and charming background harmonies, that seem to get looser and looser as the song progresses, plus how can you not love a young songwriter who compares his crush's lips to two little pieces of bacon?! So after playing that song about a million times, we started letting the whole record play, and all the other songs blossomed into other songs begging to be played a million times, and who are we to argue? Sunshiney and summery, melodic and subtly catchy, songs like "Summer Cum" with its weirdly sing songy verse and heart wrenchingly twee chorus, or "Five Little Sluts", with its chiming guitars and strange serpentine vocal melodies, that manage to be catchy as heck, even though they're so unlikely. Which is sort of the story with the whole record, unlikely, off kilter, but so catchy and heartfelt and awesome. Definitely a new pop fave.
All right, a new Billy bao, a crazy expensive fancy pants lp, sorry about that, not sure why it's so expensive, it's super limited, imported from overseas, original artwork by HENRY FLYNT!, cool silkscreened plastic sleeves, all that stuff probably contributed to the crazy price, but for the noise obsessed, and specifically BB obsessed among you, it'll take more than $36 to keep you away from another slab of damaged, caustic noise punk weirdness from this demented noisenik.
And demented this stuff is, beginning with a loooooong stretch of barely there hushed crawl, voices, drones, all way down in the mix, played in the store it almost sounds silent, but don't crank the volume, cuz soon from the silence explodes a monstrous chunk of downtuned dirgery, wrapped in swirls of warped buzz and woozy layered crunch, a simple caveman beat pounding away, weirdly hypnotic, like some sort of kraut-noise-rock, which gives way to stuttery staticky stop and start rhythmic hiss, spitting out an almost martial sounding rhythm, underpinned by strange mumbled vox and peppered with shards of feedback and deep tectonic rumbles.
After still more near silence, BB and co. spew some seriously Merzbowian thud rock, all wrapped in jagged squalls of white noise and grinding feedback, stumbling rhythms, that sound like they were made out of distorted voices. Soon after comes maybe the coolest part of the record, a twisted bit of skipping stuttering skittery free jazz, almost like some drunk turntablist spinning dusty old Coltrane records, at the wrong speed, while some nervous footed punter continually kicks the plug out of the wall only to plug it right back in again, dizzying and almost carnivalesque.
After still more whispered drift, another bout of pounding feedback drenched noiserock, culminating in a final stretch of near silence, punctuated by sharp bursts of caustic blown out crunch and fucked up grinding howl, rhythmic and dementedly mesmerizing. Woah. Some serious outsider noiserock damage for sure. Definitely headphone listening, but headphones WITH earplugs!
As mentioned above, super swank packaging, pressed on 140 gram vinyl, housed in a jacket with original artwork by Henry Flynt, in a cool hand screened sleeve, imported and limited, and thus the hefty price tag...
This late '70s, all-time disco classic and longtime crate diggers' obsession has been pretty impossible to find for years and years. Luckily it's finally been reissued on wax and what a great thing too, cuz this is one unique and outrageously fun record.
Bumblebee Unlimited were a studio project conceived by legendary producers Gregory Carmichael (Phreek, Inner Life) and Patrick Adams (Musiq, Universal Robot Band, as well as producing countless classics, check out the Master Of The Masterpiece records that compile so many of the amazing songs he helped create). With Bumblebee Unlimited they made this awesome high energy bee-minded record highlighted by the infectious nearly nine minute lead off track "I Got A Big Bee". With sped up vocals, the song in any other hands would have just been a novelty, but with the gorgeous arrangements and rich grooves, it still remains a total dance floor classic. This record has so many of dance music's greatest hands all over it, besides Adams and Carmichael, it was also recorded at the legendary Blank Studios with Bob Blank controlling the board.
Sting Like A Bee is all uptempo disco burners with those sped up vocals giving it a dizzying edge and moments on the record also foreshadow the sounds of the House scene that would blow up a few years later. Kind of like if the Jackson Five in the mid '70s got high on amyl nitrate and let all their inhibitions run free and wild. A must have for disco lovers!
This beloved 1970 folk album is back on its original format... VINYL LP! Plus this reissue comes with a bonus 7"! Hurrah!
Here's what we said about the cd version:
We're pretty damn excited that this album is now available again. Inspiration for this turn of events must certainly have something to do with Ms Bunyan turning up on Devendra Banhart's recordings recently. Without a doubt Vashti Bunyan has played a big influence on the young Banhart's song writing, and fans of Devendra should definitely take note. This record is so incredibly charming! Having been expelled from a London art school in 1964 for not narrowing her field of studies to either music or painting, Vashti Bunyan took to singing her songs on the streets of London. She eventually left the city, hitching up a cart and horse to journey across the countryside, heading for the remote Outer Hebrides islands. It wasn't long before fans tracked her down to record an album. The album was released in 1970 and disappeared in relative obscurity -- only later being sought out fanatically by record collectors. Featuring accompaniment by such notables as Robin Williamson (fiddle, mandolin, Irish Harp) of The Incredible String Band and Simon Nicol (banjo) of Fairport Convention, Robert Kirby (string and recorder arrangements) who played with Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan's music is an exquisitely delicate folk music with melodies reminiscent of hornpipes and shanties. Her clear voice is so full of innocence, and she sings so earnestly about her horse and the countryside full of hayfields and waiting for love and the simple rewards, like nice tea, that await after a long day's journey. It's so beautiful, it makes me want to dress in peasant garb (like Vashti on the cover) and forget all about the 21st century.
In 1979, Nigel Ayers and Caroline K began recording as Nocturnal Emissions, a project then that was spurned by the nascent Industrial Culture of Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, and SPK. Their early recordings - Tissue Of Lies and Drowning In A Sea Of Bliss especially - are classic recordings of information overload aesthetics through abrasive drum machines, electronic noise, tape psychosis, and aggressive sequencing. At the same time, the two began Sterile Records as a means to put out their own recordings and those of likeminded malcontents (i.e. Lustmord, MB, Controlled Bleeding, Konstruktivits, etc.). By the early '90s, Caroline left Nocturnal Emissions to Ayers and disappeared from the public eye; but she did manage one solo record in Now Wait For Last Year.
By the time that Caroline recorded this album, Nocturnal Emissions had grown disenchanted with Industrial Culture, especially all of the blood and horror from the requisite medical imagery that went hand in hand with the punishing electronics. At the same time, Sterile Records had transformed into Earthly Delights promoting an agenda of post-Eno driftscaping. Now Wait For Last Year was actually the first lp to land on Earthly Delights, standing as a fantastic and underappreciated swath of industrially tainted ambience.
Sodden loops of melancholic dronings open the album which all spiral into a 20 minute mantra of murky haze reminiscent of some of the Zoviet France recordings from around the same time period (Mohnomische, in particular), furthered along by a lurching set of mechanical rhythms buried deep in the background. This is followed by a nocturne synthesized from medieval chants and percussion not unlike, the earliest Dead Can Dance or the Fairlight driven works of Coil. The dirge-paced synth number Chearth is more in keeping with John Carpenter score (although certainly less bombastic). Klanggalerie had acquired three bonus tracks from Caroline's estate (she died in 2008), featuring her in more of a Suspiria meets Richard Pinhas vein of mood engineering.
Well, this is a weird one! A four-way split of Portland bands with two of the bands playing at the same time on each side(?!) You have to pan hard right or left to hear each band alone. I guess it sort of makes sense when all the bands seem to traffic in a kind of ramshackle mumbly Americana with a bent towards the freaky. It just builds an added layer of bizarre disorientation to the proceedings when you play them at the same time. Pretty cool but super weird and really limited!
The UK's Cathedral, a band who first appeared back at the dawn of the nineties, should be well known to a lot of AQ customer types for their undisputed significance to the doom metal scene. Back when they first started dooming it up, doom metal wasn't exactly the happening subgenre it is today, and they were one of the proud few carrying on so blatantly the Black Sabbath tradition. While contemporaries Eyehategod (and before them, Saint Vitus) adapted a slowed-down version of the Sabbath sound and went in a more punk, feedback filled direction with it, Cathedral took Sabbath, slowed it down even more, but also progged it up (flute!) to make at least one majestic, melancholic masterpiece of slo-mo sludge, Forest Of Equilibrium, their debut full length. After that, their long career to date has seen 'em pass through a more commercial, stoner rockin' phase (with unfortunate extra lashings of '70s disco kitsch), several albums worth of that, after which they got a bit more serious and heavied it up for a couple comeback discs (Endtyme in particular) that sounded something like their earlier stuff, before again allowing their innate British silliness (and love of indulgent '70s progressive rock) to take over for the wonderfully WTF? album The Garden Of Unearthly Delights in 2005. At that point, it became clear that Cathedral had been around long enough to get to do indeed whatever the fuck they liked, and what they liked, and still like, is that aforementioned '70s prog! So now, five years later we have their newest opus, and in grand prog tradition it's a double album, that's right, two discs all a-sprawl with progged-out quasi doom eccentricity unlike ANYTHING else (not even Solar Anus). Aptly titled, The Guessing Game.
Disc one (dis) eases us into things with an intro instrumental entitled "Immaculate Misconception", all Hammer Horror Hammond organ, malevolent and pounding, heralding (along with the sounds of a crying baby) this latest Cathedral conundrum, the remaining tracks confusionally consisting of, among other things, herky jerky bits, sudden metal riff-storms, folky motifs, cowbell rockin', and characteristically curious vocals from the gruff gargley throat of mainman Lee Dorrian - probably the weak link here for some, his singing never really being Cathedral's strong suit anyway. No offense meant, he's the heart and soul of Cathedral as well as the excellent Rise Above label, but we'd imagine he doesn't ever win any karaoke contests. However, what you ALSO always get with Cathedral are heavy as heck guitars, and yes their axes are still wielded weightily and have THAT tone (recently borrowed by hotly tipped Finnish doomdeath act Hooded Menace, fellow fans of the '70s Spanish "Blind Dead" movies). And, in addition, they unfurl wild psych solos in quite satisfying fashion. So, amidst everything else, purist doom fans should enjoy the heaviosity of such cuts as "Painting In The Dark" and "Death Of An Anarchist", though they'll also have to deal with the headspinning circusy prog with which this album is rife, especially on tracks like "Funeral Of Dreams". Not to mention the almost post-punk-funk of "Cats, Incense, Candles & Wine"!! That'd be the first disc's most weird-ass one, wrapping up with acoustic guitar and whistling, believe it or not. Works for us, though. Forgetting that it's Cathedral you're listening to (not hard) might help, though that realization also adds to the insanity.
While we needn't go through it in detail, disc two is equally out there of course, another idiosyncratic melange, full of Sabbathisms and silliness, with surprises (?) ranging from King Crimson-y dramatics to to grinding doompunk to Goblin inspired hairy wah-funk. They get their groove on, all right, sometimes to taste-defying effect... Also we gotta mention the final track, "Journey Into Jade", with lyrics that recount Cathedral's own history/discography, discussing each album of theirs in turn! Even Darkthrone has never done that, yet. Though less open-minded listeners might not hear the forest (of equilibrium) for the trees, devoted Cathedral fans (those who like ALL their stuff, even the most outre) shouldn't be disappointed, and non-doom, non-metal prog peeps might want to give this a spin as well.
Pretty tough to resist a group called the Chicago Thrash Ensemble. So why even try? Ever since their kick ass blood splattered cassette on PlusTapes, we were pretty much totally obsessed with CTE's awesomely retro shredding classic thrash metal, and thankfully nothing has really changed on this, their first foray into vinyl, if anything the band sound better than ever, heavier, catchier, and with another passel of kick ass tunes to boot.
Like the tape, these guys are channeling their thrash heroes, but it comes out a bit more punked up and raw, which only makes these jams rule even more, thick dense buzzing riffage, wild pounding drummage, howled vox, galloping rhythms, some seriously chugging breakdowns, all wound up into epic classic thrash destruction. Any one who has been digging aQ faves Speedwolf should definitely check these guys out, but where Speedwolf was all Motorhead and Venom, these guys are way more Slayer, Exodus and D.R.I. Or something. Either way, these guys rip, and as we mentioned in the review of the tape, any band that sounds this heavy and ruling on record, are probably insane live.
Awesome packaging too. Screen printed cardstock sleeve, black inner sleeve, and coolest of all, a plastic sheet of baseball cards, one for each band member complete with various rock stats, mixed in with some actual baseball cards, the record is one sided, the B-side is silkscreened with a cool hanged man image. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!
Sure, Cindytalk's The Crackle Of My Soul for Mego was an interesting diversion into laptop electricity; but that album would have been way better off had Cindytalk's Gordon Sharp steered the album toward the direction of this split 10" with Robert Hampson. Cindytalk gravitates towards the dissonant drones of bowed cymbals, foggy electronics, skittered percussion, and growling guitars, which all enjoy much more of a recorded-in-a-concrete-bunker vibe with all of the sounds dripping with heavy reverb, giving the pieces the feel of Organum, Thuja, or RV Paintings. Pretty amazing stuff, in fact. The Robert Hampson piece seemed to have Cindytalk in mind when he composed it (even though it's dedicated to John Cale), as it's very reminiscent of the Cindytalk piano / ambient pieces from In This World. Hampson also doesn't rely upon the concrete juxtapositions of his Touch output, instead settling upon a drone from a harmonium to buttress a lilting series of repeating piano clusters that spiral around deep ringing bell tones and washes of hiss and static. Again, we think Hampson should be producing more music like this, which is probably the best piece he's done since the Main album Motion Pool.
For the longest time, the Web Of Mimicry label seemed to exist mostly for all things Secret Chiefs 3 related, all post Mr Bungle avant rock, but they've also done heavy stuff like Asva, and the recent Good For Cows record, which totally defied expectations, we were imagining some sort of genre splicing freakout, but instead we were treated to a disc of seriously sludgey avant doom heaviness, granted there's SC3 connections in those bands too. But now there's this, the latest full length from these Philadelphia metalheads, whose Web Of Mimicry debuts is seriously one of the heaviest records we've heard in ages.
Massive sprawling metallic epics that channel the machinelike chug of Meshuggah, through all sort of dark ambient soundtrack atmospherics, brooding slow building post rock, and crushing ultradoom. The first track alone, is 20 minutes of all over the map metallic crush, from the churning chug of the first few mintues, before working through dense math metal tribalism, a soaring vocal driven post rock slow build, replete with psychedelic solos, some lurching start stop doom that is quickly transformed into more impossibly mathy grind and chug, only to explode into a sort of slow motion industrial doom plod, all soaring distorted guitars and caveman crush, fucking totally epic and insanely heavy.
There's six proper songs, all long and epic and convoluted and complex, separated by brief interludes, birds chirping, droning buzz, super distorted howling screams, hushed rumbles, but hell, they're the only breather you'll get, the proper tracks are relentless, leaping deftly from crushing Neurosis style pummel, to wild tangled Dillinger Escape Plan style frenzied hyperblasts, to random bits of haunting piano, slow motion doom plod, to weirdly melodic clean singing, to hiss drenched buzz, but always back to that churning chug, until the final track, a super weird assemblage of stuttery static, processed field recordings, damaged effects, a patina of crackle and hiss, all of whioch fades out leaving just super spare, solo piano.
Killer stuff. No idea how we never heard of these guys before, or why they're not all over Terrorizer and Decibel, but we'd be surprised if that didn't change real soon.
You don't really hear much about Combat Astronomy, except from us at Aquarius Records (do you?). Which is weird, 'cause this band should be a lot better known than they are, among fans of heavy and/or freaky music, considering they're already on their third (and a half, counting a split) cd release, one that has been long awaited, for a certain subset of AQ-customers in the know. For those not in the know, we'll say that basically CA sound like a Justin Broadrick or Kevin Martin industrial metal act (Godflesh or God, something along those lines) mixed up with freeform improv horn-skree, for results both brutal and beautiful. This band, or we should say this collaborative trans-Atlantic project, to be precise, is the unholy spawn of American sub-bass sludge technician Jamie Huggett and British improv reedsman Martin Archer (and friends). Thus they don't play live that often, which might have something to do with their low profile. They're self-described as an "intense hypnagogic industrial/jazz/prog/doommetal hybrid", and we can't think of any other outfit that better fits that mouthful. As we now know to expect, CA's new disc dishes out uber heavy doomic annihilation, bludgeoning with squelching bass and machine-like beats, the entire thing in fact percussive in its distorted rhythmic impact, amidst ominous organ and rising electronic drone. Yet CA also has a prog/classical side, thanks to Archer's woodwinds and also some female vocals, first introduced to this previously all instrumental act on their 2nd album Dreams No Longer Hesitate, returning here only wordessly, to eerie, avant garde effect. With that in mind, and all the heavy bass, Magma fans might find this to be their extreme sludge combo of choice. We'd also of course recommend Combat Astronomy to those who appreciate the likes of Painkiller, 16-17, Scorn, and even UFOmammut...
And Earth Divided By Zero might just be their best disc yet, keeping the expanded palette of sounds found on their last outing, but leaving aside that disc's occasional surprise explorations of vocal (prog) pop song-ishness, instead forging a more organic synthesis of what we REALLY dig about this unit, the grinding low end and squealing sax skronk, the heavy rhythms and atmospheric, ambient-ish interludes. Not that it's without melodic surprises, like how track two tries to lull us with a placid piano intro, shades of Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore... but soon enough the bass and distortion attack is back in force. Punishing, but such sweet punishment.
ATTENTION: LOVESLIESCRUSHING FANS!! We managed to get a handful of these split 12"s direct from the man himself, one side a gorgeous slab of hazy LLC style shimmer, the other an equally lovely bit of abstract guitarscaping from a new to us outfit, it's already out of print, we have a handful of copies, but they will probably not be around for long.
The Cortez side is of course Scott Cortez, the man behind Lovesliescrushing, and the sound is quite similar to much of the LLC stuff, in particular the fantastic Voirshin record, hushed and hazy, ultra minimal, a blurred lovely stretch of softly layered drones, glimmering and glistening and aquatic sounding, very much reminiscent of William Basinski, like if you locked up the tapes that were the source for this record, in 20 years, it'd be all crumbling and decayed and disintegrating.
The flipside is from a group called Language Of Light, who we've never heard until now, a good match for Cortez, similarly washed out and ethereal, but more structured, chiming guitars streaks over processed metallic shimmer, with muted hazy melodies, before the sound shifts to something much darker and ominous, a jagged processed loopscape, weirdly warped and noisy, but that quickly gives way to the final movement, more lovely guitar ambience, blurred and gauzy and otherworldly.
Moniek Darge is a Belgian composer, performer, and artist with quite an extensive history, but she's probably one who hasn't really gained much of an audience outside of the European academic circles. That's a shame, as she's done some amazing, wild, and engaging work over the years. She runs the Logos Foundation, which is something of a thinktank for experimental practices with plenty of high-brow theory coating their post-Fluxus happenings, many of which seem to involve a whole lot of nudity! Throughout the three decades of work through the Logos Foundation, Darge has been involved in building strange variations on music boxes, various robots & automatons, and pneumatic devices that must have been an influence on Yoshi Wada's post-bagpipe installation pieces. On the compositional side for Darge's, there's a unique hybridization of musique concrete practices, avant-garde vocalization, and a dystopic / mystical realization of minimalism.
Beginning in 2006, Darge embarked on the first of several journey to the Isle of Crete, working with local artists, presenting intermedia events, and composing the three extended pieces on this album. While one idea purported through the sound work was to conjure the mystical atmospheres of an ancient cult and its utopian principles, Darge's work here, as it typically has been, is haunting, eerie, and disarming. Deep moaning vocals open the first piece, emerging as a lugubrious chorale of intertwining ululations and eerie utterances. A melancholy drone, maybe from a harmonium, settles into the background while Darge, brings recordings of cicadas and variously untuned bells into the mix. It's not unlike Fursaxa or Christina Carter as reinterpreted by Luc Ferrari. The second piece is dominate by an impressive display of field recording prowess of the whipping winds around one of the mountains on Crete, with various clanks, metal creaking, and bells breaking up a recurring narrative of spoken texts. The final piece is a collage of aquatic tumblings, more cicadas, and more swirls of wind with an interest in the sound ecology of the island, rather than the narrative properties mentioned above. This compelling album has been released on Kye, the label run by Graham Lambkin from The Shadow Ring. Now, there's a nice endorsement!
Some people have issues with live albums. Fair enough, but anyone who has seen Dead Meadow in concert will undoubtedly know that this is where the band truly shines. However, Three Kings is more than just a live record, featuring a couple of studio takes as well, and an accompanying DVD that the band sees as the main attraction here, with the audio portions serving as the soundtrack.
In the time that has passed since Dead Meadow's last live album, a good 8 years or so, they have risen from an obscure indie answer to Sabbath/Free/whatever stoner rock to pretty much one of the more legitimate legacies of those legendary heavies. Considering the generally lukewarm reception to their last studio full length, Old Growth (a shame to say, but...), it's nice to hear Dead Meadow holding things down expertly on stage, and we've been able to reassess some of the songs from OG as they are presented here and we're actually digging them quite a lot. The sound is nice and upfront, a fairly accurate representation of the concert experience, with warm fuzzy guitars, shitloads or wah wah, awesome sustained bass, drumming that's all over the place without sounding too busy for it's own good, and singer Jason Simon's love-it-or-leave it whine. The songs mostly come from the band's Matador catalog, with a few exceptions of earlier tracks. Just listening to all this stuff we were struck with the reality that this band has been around for a long-ass time now, building an awesome legacy for themselves and existing in a realm where most bands won't ever get to before throwing in the towel. Maybe the thing with Old Growth had something to do with them resting easy in their comfort zone after nailing a sound for so many years. But this makes us realize, or at least hope, that that album was just a slight misstep, and we're keeping our fingers crossed that they have plenty of great records still left in them. Honestly, to the Dead Meadow fans at aQ, so many of these songs sound, well, CLASSIC. Adventurous, highly melodic stoner rock that isn't afraid to wander, with some shoegazing grandeur and a heavy blues influence that would not fair well with a lesser band.
Oh, but there's more, and that comes in the form of the DVD. Judging from the cover of Three Kings, you might be inclined to think that maybe the boys in Dead Meadow have stepped off the deep end... but then you realize that this is EXACTLY what should happen! They've been at it since 1998, so we're all in favor of some minds being lost, and the band has pulled a bit of a The Song Remains The Same with some crazy visual renderings. Ambitious? Sure. Ill advised? Perhaps. But it's really something else altogether, a bit ridiculous, but in a good way, and it integrates the music with good results.
The film begins with the ramblings of a crackhead before fading to a shot of the band walking around in druid robes in the desert. Huh? It then cuts to Dead Meadow tearing it up on stage in their adopted hometown of Los Angeles. The professionally shot live footage is actually pretty amazing, showing the band in all their psychedelic glory with some close up shots revealing the nuances that might otherwise be lost within the sheer volume. There's some more desert wandering, which never overstays its welcome before going back to the concert. The vignettes are undoubtedly the results of being really, really high, and they are actually pretty funny at times (we hope that was the intention). I mean, can you really argue with the idea of drummer Stephen McCarty's amazing mustache and long blond locks as he stumbles through a mountain of sand in corduroys and a tank top with a seriously sun blistered face? Or what about Jason Simon chainsmoking and studying books on the paranormal? There's even some ultraviolence when bassist Steve Kille whips out a handgun and blasts the shit out of some dude in front of his chick. You really don't have to pay too close attention to dig what's going on, and whatever the replay value of the DVD might be, it's safe to say that after this many years, Dead Meadow has earned this. Three Kings is ambitious, weird, and a nice reminder of the power of a band that may have been taken for granted in recent years. Two thumbs up.
More good readin' for all you metal fans. This issue has Exodus on the cover, but also 1349, Cathedral, Darkthrone, The Ruins Of Beverast, Fenriz, The Ocean, Pentagram (with their 1985 album Relentless being inducted into the Decibel "Hall of Fame"), a studio report from Torche, a feature on one-man death metal bands, and plenty more, including all the witty usual reviews (78 of 'em) and columns.
The proof's in the pudding... indie girl pop is alive and well! Evidence? Patience, the sophomore full length from those Bay Area sweeties known as Dreamdate. The follow up to 2007's Come On Now is as perky, peppy and pretty as its predecessor, but maybe a bit more self assured. Patience is packed with one dozen youthfully spirited, mid-fi tunes that'll put a skip in your step and a jingle-jangle charm in your heart! Most certainly for fans of cub, Tiger Trap, Heavenly, Lois and The Shams, as well as recent like-minded combos such as Summer Cats and Dum Dum Girls! And they even give a snuggly nod to the original cuddlecore queens Cub with their cover of the Vancouver trio's ditty "Go Fish". Ooooh la la! Oooh eeee cha cha!
New San Francisco band featuring ex-members of Elephone. While they're still in their infancy as a band they have recorded a debut ep, almost like a demo, just to get their music out in the world. And from the sounds of these four songs they're off to a pretty good start. Driving guitar fueled rockers that remind us a bit of folks like Interpol, The Editors and even Afghan Whigs. Will be cool to see what the future holds for them. And super cool that this ep so cheap.
Record number two from these Cascadian black metallers, originally released in 2007, now remastered and partially re-recorded, replacing the original electronic drums with live drumming, and dividing the original hour plus epic into more manageable song length tracks, while still playing out as one single sprawling black metal naturescape.
Not sure what the deal is with these guys, they've obviously been around since 2006, when their debut Rain was originally released, but since 2007, we've heard nothing new, only the eventual re-release of their first two records. Not that we're complaining, well, okay, maybe we're complaining a little, but only cuz we want more, and are dying to hear what these guys sound like circa NOW.
But The Hunt will hold us over for now, like Rain before it, an expansive blackened collage of murky blasting blackness, and slow creeping ambient dronemusic, often lumped in with their Cascadian brethren Wolves In The Throne Room, and while there are definitely similarities, they tread markedly different sonic paths. WITTR channel the majestic blackness of SF legends Weakling, taking that sound and infusing it with their own naturalistic take on BM, adding female vocals, folky acoustic guitars, and plenty of polish, while Fauna seem to lurk in the shadows, with a sound more immediate and intimate, almost feral sounding at times, the drone element key to their sound, the black blasts are trancelike and mesmerizing, the ambient stretches expansive and haunting, the sound even here, gussied up and remastered, still sounds more DIY and punk than Wolves, and it suits them, the ferocity of the forest primeval, mixed with the mysterious tranquility of the endless night.
The Hunt is a blackened journey, a moonlit creep, ominous and drifting like some black fog, giving way to explosive fury, passionate howling and blasting metal, that slips into woozy melodic doominess, as easily as crushing grim blackness, in fact much of the heaviness on display leans toward a more melodic melancholia, spidery minor key guitars weaving together stretches of foresty folk and blasts of frenzied riffage, sometimes locking into dynamic doomish mathiness, but just as easily transforming that into churning gnarled black metal pound.
The final two parts here might be Fauna's finest moment, a dizzying tangle of stop start riffing, tense and dramatic, giving way to the moody final movement, a dirgey drift, with soaring vocals buried beneath the crumbling minor key distortion, melodic and mournful, peppered with furious blown out blasts, laced with acoustic guitars, finally fading out leaving just the sounds of the forest.
Swank packaging too, black on black origami style cardstock sleeve, with a printed black on black cardstock insert.
We had no idea that Thomas Fehlmann had been making music for more than 30 years, beginning with his time in the band Palais Schaumburg moving on to his work in Detroit/Berlin techno group 3MB (with Juan Atkins and Moritz von Oswald), finally playing in the Orb to this day, as well as tons of solo records, quite impressive for sure, but this one, this is something else, selections from a score Fehlmann did for a film called 24H Berlin, which is the longest documentary film in history, a full 24 hours long, the filmmakers employed 80 cameras, and followed various Berliners over a 24 hour period, documenting a day in the life in Berlin. It's hard to even fathom trying to compose 24 hours of music, thankfully, Fehlmann shared those duties with another composer, so he probably needed to only come up with 12 hours worth of music, but still, incredible.
And the sounds here are of course gorgeous, that Kompakt sound we love so much, a lush mix of old school techno, modern Berlin dub, and washed out dreamlike pop ambience, if you didn't know this was a soundtrack, you might just assume this was a regular Fehlmann release, which for listening purposes it might as well be. After some cool, late night skitter and thump, the record blossoms into some truly lovely dronemusic, prismatic and crystalline, before slipping back into some clipped stuttery dub and we're off.
The whole record is very warm, and soothing, dreamy, melodic, from the hushed pulse of "Speeding", definitely evocative of late night drives, to the almost Kraftwerk sounding "In The Wind II", lilting and lovely, but underpinned by a busy bit of warbly bass, to the hazy ethereal blurscape of "Von Oben", that eventually transforms into some minimal ambient techno, to the lush and warmly melodic closer "Schieben", which musically sounds like a time lapse photo of a city growing dark as the sun slips beneath the horizon, reminds us of Tim Hecker or Fennesz, so gorgeous.
The songs are balanced pretty evenly between beats and ambience, the two elements constantly blurring into one another, the result being a lush, easy flowing, drifting, dolorous electronic dreamscape.
Longtime readers of the aQ list should be familiar with Ben Fleury-Steiner even if they don't realize it. There's been three discs of freaked out avant drone drenched rhythmic psychedelia as Light Of Shipwreck, which is in fact, Ben Fleury-Steiner, tons of releases on the Gears Of Sand label, which BFS just so happens to run, but this is the first proper solo record under his own name, and it's gorgeous.
Unlike Light Of Shipwreck, which was typically a dizzying assemblage of repeated rhythms, layered and collaged samples, careening chaotic drum damage and dubbed out industrial weirdness, on Keep A Weather Eye Open, Fleury-Steiner traffics in something much more tranquil, a series of dark and dolorous dronescapes, some thick and textured, corrosive and chordal, others hushed and minimal smooth and crystalline, a sound that veers from dense cavernous black ambient rumbles to shimmering shoegazey drift, from Troum to Lovesliescrushing. "Tender Is The Opaque Morning" is delicate yet ominous, long streaks of distant high end sound underpin reverbed plinks, and moaning strings, a smoldering lightly blackened haze, while "Purple As The Dawn" is a wispy smear of hushed new age etherea, "Feedback Of Day" sounds like it was recorded in the hull of a rusty old ship, "Blue Sonar" is a blue sky full of sun dappled clouds, the sound of light dancing on leaves. The cool thing about all these songs is the distinction is not all that distinct. The pretty delicate numbers bleed right into the more haunting mysterious tracks, and both are infused with elements of the other. A sound not so much perfectly balanced between light and dark, but one that is both simultaneously, depending on the track, on the context, a hidden battle beneath the surface, the result, a strangely otherworldly collection of ever evolving, totally mesmerizing, and strangely mysterious dronemusic, dark enough to require active listening, but blissed out and tranquil enough to be the soundtrack to late nights and slow drifts into oblivion.
Coming up with a new album on the heels of a hit like Los Angeles is definitely difficult, but Flying Lotus have created a pretty perfect follow up with another amazing disc of esoteric electronica, rife with everything we loved about LA, as well as some serious sonic twists and turns.
While their past releases always found Flying Lotus with a foot firmly planted in the world of hip-hop production, Cosmogramma finds Flying Lotus branching out much more with an energy that is both frantic and majestic, a combination that is pretty damn hard to pull off, but they do manage it here with flying colors!
What makes Flying Lotus so unique and sound so ahead of their peers is that you can't sum up their music with one word, genre or catch all phrase. Yes there are moments of dubstep, and hints of their more hip-hop minded past but there is also a nice use of instrumentation including harps, strings, horns, and keys that help give the record a rounded and celestial feel. But along with those majestic and pretty moments there is a whole lot of frantic and urgent energy that runs throughout the record. Like the last outing, there are a few tracks with guest vocals (including Thom Yorke!), and with all these varying ingredients, what makes Cosmogramma such a success is that they all meld together so seamlessly and create a true album listening experience. This is a start to finish listen, in that you get to really feel the music, and get swept away by the range of sounds and the feelings that weave all these songs together into a single organic and expansive whole. So great!
Hard to believe we've never listed this before, it's been reissued a bunch of times already, being a bit of a classic of underground USA '60s private press psych. Now it's out on cd again, with we're told a vinyl reissue upcoming on the Mexican Summer label too. So about time we gave it a write up, 'cause if you haven't heard it before and are at all into the 'early heavy' this is indeed one to check out!
From LA, Fraction played druggy, Doorsy, psychedelic proto-proto-metal, loaded with loping, lumbering fuzz riffs. It's very sixties, hippy/biker garage heaviness, yet almost no longer dated, if Fraction were part of today's psych scene, they'd fit right in with Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, Dead Meadow, and suchlike. Well, except we'd be a bit surprised by the deep growling Jim Morrison style vocal intonations, a gruff voice that sways and screams with utmost sincerity and conviction, and truly elevates Fraction into ultra cult classic status. The singer's cryptic lyrics are vaguely Christian-Apocalyptic, and Fraction manages to make heavy (in the "that's heavy, maaaan" pass-the-joint sense) music to match. Recommended If You Like: Blue Cheer, High Tide, Sam Gopal, Iron Butterfly, Negative Space, B.F. Trike...
Ben Frost was a total unknown to us until just a few months ago, when we heard his track on the recent Mary Anne Hobbs Evangeline mix cd, which was soooooo good, a huge surprise, a totally left field electronic drone jam stuck in the middle of a dubstep mix. Some of us were definitely thinking jam of the year, even though the record it was taken from had come out the year before, but holy crap, it totally stole the show, and we knew we had to hear more. So we tracked down the full length, but then, to be honest, became a little nervous before digging in, worried that we might discover that THAT track, the one we were already obsessed with and already had, might be the only good one on the record. Thankfully nothing could be further from the truth. And in fact, a few of the other tracks are now vying to knock that one out of the top spot.�
Theory Of Machines is a tough one to describe. It's electronic, but rife with strange glitches, with deep buzzing drones, blown out psych jams, mysterious murky minimal techno, all somehow woven into something totally cohesive, ultra dark and ominous, and so fucking kick ass. The record begins with the title track, the one from the Hobbs mix, but for those of you who might have missed that one, here's how we described it:
An extended slab of slow burning blurred dronemusic, that over the course of its 9 minutes builds from soft shimmer to dense crumbling Tim Hecker style smeared gauzy beauty, to thick caustic blown out soft noise, to an super distorted almost-trip-hop. The sound is immense and epic, and so gorgeous, wreathed in crackle and underpinned by buzzing downtuned lowend, streaked with soaring synths, the track's climax, all skittery beats beneath clouds of hiss and whir and crackle and fuzz is totally intense and gorgeous.�
Indeed! If lots of folks didn't already own the Hobbs mix, we would be declaring this worth owning for that track alone. But the follow up, "Stomp" is just as good. A shimmery minimal glitchscape, tons of space, swells of hissy buzz, and off kilter fractured beats, drifting in and then out, leaving long expanses of whispery hush, a blown out electric guitar, super processed, is smothered and muted into a stuttered decayed riff, struggling to let loose, the drums begin to pound, the guitar grinds out a noisy crunch, before retreating again, leaving just that soft almost techno skitter finally culminating in a super fuzz drenched industrial pound, a looped rhythm beneath that same damaged riff filtered through all sorts of static and short wave interference. It's so intense and weirdly ominous and sort of exhausting to listen to. So cinematic and fraught with tension. When the song ends you almost feel like you just crawled up from the sewers after being chased over rooftops, having the shit kicked out of you, leaping from a helicopter, saving the damsel in distress, and discovering that the city before you lay in ruins. So evocative and dramatic.�
The next track, while still dark and haunting, is a bit of a respite, a moody trawl through a glitched out low end drift, peppered with a mysterious sonar like single note high end pulse, a subtle shuffling beat hovering just below the surface, the hiss and static swirling and crunching while a distant melody floats in an expanse of soft shimmer. A quick two minute arrangement of big beats, grinding electric guitar, whirling ambient buzz offers up the record's most 'rock' moment before slipping into the final jam, which is not so much a jam as it is an extended drift, deep resonant tones, ring out, decaying ever so slowly, the various sonic ripples blending into one another, creating soft, shimmery minor key melodies, underpinned by deep pulsing bass, that you almost feel more than you hear, very tranquil and serene, eventually jazzy drums come in, melodies coalesce into something much more tight and arranged, becoming a sort of dreamy jazzy slowcore, softly dramatic, with what sounds like swoonsome strings and warm organ warble, a surprisingly dreamy and sun dappled finish to a record that is otherwise pretty caustic and dark. Which is precisely why it's so good. Totally unpredictable, a jarring mash up of rock elements all fucked up and processed, glitched out electronics, of dark brooding drone and cinematic ambience, all woven into a creepy, menacing, beautiful batch of sound.
For the past couple of years, we've really been digging the recent unearthing of little known private press new age music whether it be Collie Ryan, William Eaton or Iasos. Lately we've been especially excited about this reissue from Universal Sound, of Edward Larry Gordon's 1978 debut. Gordon, or Laraaji, as he is otherwise known, creates long-form trance-inducing compositions using electronically enhanced zithers, auto-harps, kalimbas and other acoustic instruments that shimmer and radiate in beautifully meditative pulses. This record comprised of two thirty minute tracks, "All Pervading" and "Bethelehem" gained little notice upon its initial release, but thankfully it caught the attention of Brian Eno who subsequently produced his follow-up Days of Radiance for the EG Editions Ambient series in 1980 to wider acclaim. You can tell that Gordon was much inspired by earlier progenitors of cosmic music from Sun Ra to John and Alice Coltrane. You can especially hear the harp-like shimmer of Alice Coltrane in his treatments of the open tuned zither that he plays while in a complete meditative state. Really gorgeous stuff!
If you were ever curious to hear how Moondog might have sounded had he been recorded by Joe Meek, then here is your chance! Trunk records rescues this exquisite rarity from complete obscurity that displays the early influence of The Viking of 6th St. on a group of Britain's finest jazz players. Recorded in 1956, and engineered by a young Joe Meek, the underrated alto saxophonist Kenny Graham assembled a band of amazing session players, including Stan Tracey, Phil Seamen, Danny Moss, and Ivor Slaney (who recorded the horror soundtracks Terror and Prey we reviewed awhile back, though he is here in less horrific mode), as well as the evocative vocals of singer Yolanda to record this two part tribute. The first part, The Moondog Suite, covers ten of Moondog's early compositions, five short percussive pieces and five longer songs including "Utsu, "Chant", "Fog On The Hudson" and Lullaby". The six pieces in the "Suncat Suite" (Suncat, get it?) are all originals inspired by Moondog's pieces. These range from short eastern influenced numbers to more complex compositions of mesmerizing exotica, sometimes swinging, and at other times more moody. The production for both is sharp. The percussion zings, the vibes crisply resonate and the horns and woodwinds sound impeccable. Trunk scores again with this amazing reissue.
This is a strange one, definitely not for everybody, but for those of you into freaked out, noisy, goofy, silly and stupid, whatthefuck weirdness, then Guaranteed Katch might hit the spot. Knowing that this stuff was recorded in Ohio with the guy from Sockeye, legendary fucked up lo-fi punk noise weirdos (who have a connection to aQ faves Breathilizor) should tell you enough about these "experimental noise rock" / "jazz core" to know whether to venture in, or run away screaming. Even we're not sure which to recommend. But that in itself, at least around here is its own sort of twisted recommendation.
Stumbling, noisy, chaotic, puerile, punky, jazzy, like the brain damaged little brother of Mr. Bungle, these guys mix and match, sludge and samba, noise and jazz, punk and pop, but this is not the Naked City sort of genre splicing, no, this is more a sort of ADD, kitchen sink, too much weed and a 4-track, channel surfing, ritalin overdosed, neighbor terrorizing, basement lo-fi noise punk jazzbo misfit metal, who-knows-what sort of dizzying DIY damage.
Not sure what else to say, be forewarned: only for the brave, or the ballsy, or the dim witted, preferably all three! And as with all Equation records, this one is packaged pretty sweetly, pressed on thick brown vinyl, with tons of inserts, a fancy full color jacket, bonus tracks not on the original cd releases, and LIMITED TO ONLY 333 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
Hallow is a group of blackened noisemakers loosely related to blacknoise merchants Ancestors (whose new ep is reviewed elsewhere on this list) and their debut double lp is in fact the soundtrack to an art show by Hallow mainman (only man?) Mark McCoy, who is also the mainman of Ancestors, which means the two are probably more than loosely related. Fuck. Who are we kidding, Hallow sound like a meaner, less black metal, more fucked up hardcore Ancestors, and anyone, and we mean ANYone who loves those Ancestors records, absolutely needs this too.
In addition to fronting these to monstrous metallic behemoths, McCoy also creates some super intense artwork, strange assemblages of ruined buildings, of crumbling riggings, collapsing structures suspended in space, intricate to the point of being the work of a madman, these drawings are captivating, incredible, precise and ultra detailed, and in their own way, they are imbued with some sort of fucked up energy, they seem, sad, they seem violent, abandoned, lonely, possessed, EVIL even. And thus, McCoy created Hallow, who recorded a series of songs, of soundtracks, each to accompany one of his pieces. Included is a booklet, oversized, featuring the various drawings, it's up to the listener to determine which song, accompanies which drawing. But again, it hardly matters, on their own, the images are breathtaking, and the music, even minus the art, Hallow create a serious racket.
The A side plays out like an Ancestors records, a bunch of short sharp tracks, furious frenetic post hardcore black metal buzz and pound and blast, super harsh, hellish, hateful, awesomely buzzy riffs, wildly blasting beats, walls of feedback wrapped around lurching anti-grooves, the songs stuttering and lumbering and exploding into jagged freakouts before locking back into some churning rhythm or white hot blast.
The B side is split into two longer tracks, sonically similar to the A side in some ways, but a whole different beast in others, the first a noisy depressive dirge, epic and spacious, definitely doomy, the guitars heavily distorted and processed, effects all over the place, the vocals insane and harsh and noisy draped over the sheets of buzz and blur and the spaced out plod below. While the second track is similarly plodding and depressive, the sound is even more blown out, the guitars blindingly effulgent, all of the sounds on the verge of total collapse, but at the same time strangely melodic and epic.
The second record is split into two sidelong tracks, and for some reason we can only think they accompany the images on the front and back cover. The first is a thick corrosive noisescape equal parts Wolf Eyes and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, caustic and abject, tangled strands of feedback wound around thick heaving slabs of distorted low end, all melted down into something thick and black and viscous. The flipside is super abstract, all high end, chittering, chirping, stuttering, squeaking shards of upper register squelch and glitch, Morse code beeps, chirping crickets, wheezing creaks, a hauntingly melodic field of fragmented skree, chaotic and abrasive, but also textural and abstract and actually sort of beautiful.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Gorgeous packaging, striking McCoy drawings on the front and back, pressed on thick vinyl, inside a thick oversized booklet featuring all of McCoy's drawings and some practically unreadable liner notes.
We've got a bountiful harvest of, ah, Harvestman this list, two releases from the psychedelic alter ego of menacing Neurosis guitarist Steve Von Till, and that's very much okay by us, seeing as how we loved the first Harvestman album Lashing The Rye, and then utterly freaked out over the second one, In A Dark Tongue (made it a Record Of The Week in fact). Now, this week we've got Harvestman doing Hawkwind covers on a three-way split with U.S. Christmas and Minsk (highlighted nearby) and this, the third "official" Harvestman full-length. So far, they've all been a bit different, beginning with the druidic Brit-folk elements of the debut, morphing into the mindblowing space rock mantras of album number two, and now, an Italian horror soundtrack??? Literally, yes! Not long ago, Von Till received a commission to score an Italian film of psychological suspense oddly entitled h2Odio (or, for English speaking audiences, Hate 2 O). So, he entered his remote upper Idaho home studio and basically let his beard take over, eventually resulting in this instrumental soundtrack... don't expect spooky prog-funk a la Goblin, though! This seems more inspired by the cosmic kraut soundtracks of Popol Vuh. It's a spacey, mellowed out affair, hushed and hypnotic, full of quietly meandering psych guitar, ghostly synth pulsations, and washes of distorted drone, lovely and dark... it's not really scary scary music, just somewhat sinister, but equally soothing. We don't know much about the movie itself, this soundtrack is sufficient pleasure for us anyway, but we do imagine that if the characters/victims in the film could actually hear this music, they'd probably feel quite resigned to their fates.
And now it's been released in a numbered, limited edition, in a spiffy black cardstock wallet. 71 minutes, 16 tracks, of which five, however, originally appeared on Lashing The Rye (we'd guess the director especially wanted those in his film, and then asked Von Till for more?). Listen meditatively, and become resigned to YOUR fate.
It would be pretty much impossible to fuck this one up. Steve Von Till's (of Neurosis) Harvestman, along with psych heavies U.S. Christmas, and sludgy metallic post rockers Minsk, all covering their favorite Hawkwind jams. Exactly. We didn't even really have to hear this to know we needed it. And we were not disappointed.
U.S. Christmas are definitely right at home tackling these Hawkwind tracks, as there's plenty of Hawkwind in their sound anyway. Musically, their versions are dead ringers, the same sort of urgent guitar crunch, the swirling clouds of effects, the big difference is the vocals, sounding more like a super harmonized Paul Stanley, which is not a bad thing, but it's definitely a bit weird, and does help to make these songs their own. And the songs they picked, tough to beat: "Master Of The Universe", "Psychedelic Warlords", "Orgone Accumulator" and "You Shouldn't Do That" (notable also for the specificity of vocal duties described in the liner notes: "Do That"s, "Shouldn't Do That"s and "You Shouldn't Do"s, all split between various band members). Needless to say, if this was just a U.S. Christmas Hawkwind ep, we'd be in, but there's more more more.
Harvestman too are no stranger to psychedelia, and we can bet Steve Von Till has a pretty serious Hawkwind collection, and he proves it with some cool versions of some of our HW faves, "D Rider" sounds like a Von Till original here, stripped down and acoustic but with plenty of effects, and that unmistakable rasp. "Down Through The Night" also sounds like just acoustic guitar, but wrapped in a thick swirl of hissing space psych effects, and some awesome vox, "The Watcher" is bluesy and slithery, and sounds like Hawkwind via Tom Waits, while "Magnu" is all propulsive crunch and psychedelic swirl.
Finally Minsk drop the hammer, on "7X7", "Assault & Battery / The Golden Void", and "Children Of The Sun", and get all spaced out and druggy and psychedelic, letting their pounding post rock get swallowed up in clouds of buzz and blur and his, they even let loose with some sax! Finishing off with a straight up acoustic "Children Of The Sun", which is all sun dappled and dream, until near the end, when it transforms into a churning chugging psych space stomp.
Anyone who dug those Trensmat Hawkwind covers singles is gonna want to check this out, and if you love Hawkwind as much as we do, and as these guys obviously do, you're probably not gonna be able to resist. So why try? You shouldn't do that.
We first got an earful of P.E. Hewitt on that recent Spiritual Jazz comp, and we knew we had to hear more, we just didn't realize that it would end up being an massive triple cd / triple lp boxset collecting Hewitt's first three albums in their entirety. But we're definitely not complaining, this is some incredible stuff, especially considering that these three records were recorded when Hewitt was but a teenager, between the ages of 16 and 19, yet already an accomplished vibraphonist and composer. These albums, as good as they sound now, went mostly unheard then, the first, Jawbones, was released in an edition of 50 copies, his second and third, Since Washington, and Winter Winds in runs of 100. So until now, only 250 copies TOTAL of these three albums existed for the last 40+ years.
Listening to these now, it's hard to believe what could have happened had Hewitt's fortunes shifted just a bit, record deals, world tours, there's really no reason someone so accomplished as a teen shouldn't have gone on to sit aside other legends in the jazz pantheon, but as it turned out, until the eighties, Hewitt stopped playing music entirely.
There's loads more about Hewitt's life and music in the massive booklet, as well as a lengthy interview conducted right here in SF last year, not to mention original liner notes from the three records, tons of photos too, but it's still all about the music, and the sounds on all three records are some of the most amazing jazz you've never heard, not far out or free or freaky, not skronky or avant, instead, these records are classic, masterful, emotional and intimate and spiritual, the vibes warm and melodic, his equally young band tight and incredible, modal jazz that swings and grooves, rhythmic and soulful, piano, bass, drums, sax, trumpet, vibes and flugelhorn, occasionally vocals, not traditional jazz scat, but instead, Hewitt provided rhythmic words that functioned more as some sort of invented language, the result, again, mysterious and so soulful. So so recommended. Anyone who has been digging the recent spate of obscure jazz reissues from folks like Lloyd Miller, Nathan Davis and of course that Spiritual Jazz compilation will LOVE this, as will anyone into classic, timeless, lost genius jazz.
Both the 3cd and the 3lp come in super deluxe boxes, with each record housed in exact reproductions of the original artwork, and a huge booklet of liner notes, photos and interviews.
It's been a while since we heard from Holy Fuck, we were pretty into their debut, a swirling mash up of blown out loops and space krauty synths, of fuzzy bass and fractured beats, and it seems like maybe things have gotten even more twisted and far out on this latest. After a slow tranquil drone, that gradually builds to a wall of white noise, comes a sort of looped Beastie Boys style funk jam, all loping bass, wah guitar, shimmery synths, but it's not necessarily as simple as that, it sounds, well, created, not played, so there's an element of lurch and stutter, the sounds jagged and not entirely smooth, occasionally locking into parts that almost sound like skipping cds, peppered with little shards of glitch and squelch. And that's sort of the way the record plays out, fuzzy, synth heavy grooves, that sound a bit motorik, a bit spaced out, super propulsive, and heavy in their own way, sometime slipping into almost jazzy sounding post rock, a la Tortoise, but still like that opening track laced with all manner of subtle electronics and production weirdness. There's definitely a pop element, as well as a space age bachelor pad vibe too, a la Stereolab, and tracks like "Silva & Grimes" are total krautrock Neu! worship, repetitive and hypnotic, swirling synths and clouds of distorted buzz wrapped around total head nodding beats, and while those elements inform the rest of the record there's also plenty of big block rocking beats, Daft Punk style synth wave, lo-fi electronic skitter and crunch, and a closing jam that's like some super cool eighties new wave jam, super charged and doused in crumbling distorted synths and buried blown out beats.
Latin might just be the weirdo dance party record of the year... And both the cd and the lp come in super cool, super swank diecut covers!
Technically this doesn't come out until next Tuesday, so locals will have to wait until then for us to put 'em out in the store, but mailorder customers, go ahead and order like normal, since it'll take at least until Tuesday for you to get your package anyway, most likely.
Not only did we make the last Home Blitz our Record Of The Week, we also had them play our showcase a few months back at SXSW, and despite showing up super late, and having to cram an abbreviated set into 20 minutes, they kicked serious ass, super crunchy and jangly and hooky and frantic and just completely killer.
This single is the first new music since their O.ut O.f P.hase full length, and both tracks sound like they could have been outtakes from the same sessions. "Perpetual Night" is another chunk of HB's noise rock / power pop jangle and crunch, guitars are as jagged as they are jangly, the drums are super lo-fi practice space pounding, there's some piano this time around, and then those whiney, snotty irresistible vocals, all wrapped around a super catchy noise pop blowout. But it's the B side that steals the show, "Murder In My Heart" sounds like it could have been snatched off some best of the eighties power pop comp, albeit a tad more ragged and off kilter, but just total classic eighties style power pop jangle, hooks galore, some cool squiggly leads, weird vocal harmonies, but all somehow tangled up into some seriously perfect pop.
Before even hearing a note, we were sold. You really can't argue with an album called Into The Cryosphere, not to mention the fact that this bears the stamp of the always amazing Profound Lore label, AND this duo features Ryan Lipinsky of doom lords Unearthly Trance and punkers Villains. The Howling Wind definitely writhe in some of the same blackened sludge as UT, but with an approach that is heavily indebted to the hateful black metal we can never get enough of, with a thrashiness that is hypnotic, relentless, and pretty much the kind of thing your mother wouldn't ever want you listening to. Their punked out approach snakes around the Cryosphere through all sorts of passages, taking you along for a super negative death trip reminiscent of Deathspell's more thugged out excursions on Kenose. The riffs are thick and burly, the drums heavy as fuck, and you will marvel over how appropriate a name like The Howling Wind is, as the whole album seems shrouded in an uncontrollable, icy wind. Not surprising then that the band would cook up song titles like "Teeth Of Frost", "Ice Cracking In The Abyss", and "A Dead Galaxy Mirrored In An Icy Mirage". Lipinsky certainly sounds like a man of conviction here, with his super tough, throatshredding vocals telling you how it's gonna be. Totally nihilistic and hateful with a sense of fuck all despair, it's also surprisingly catchy with riffs just won't let up, which will surely keep this one blasting out of our speakers for quite some time.
Now both volumes of this previously vinyl only deconstructed classical epic are available on one cd with new artwork! Here is what we recently said about 'em:
If the recent Leyland Kirby 3cd epic, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was, left you jonesing for more washed out spectral ambience culled from classical sources, than here's the next best thing.
Indignant Senility is one of many monikers of Portland-based tape-manipulator, Pat Maherr, who also operates as DJ Yo-Yo Dieting, Sisprum Vish, and Moms Who Chop. For this project, Plays Wagner takes its obvious source material from old found thrift store records of Richard Wagner symphonies and operas. With all the dust and wear still intact, Maherr runs the source material through layers of filters and processing until they are mere specters of their original sound, stretching and distorting these inspirational masterpieces of classical music into something altogether alien and dark, but strangely familiar. Murky deep-pitched strings, ghostly choral voices slowed, and blurred into tremulously washed out and ephemeral murmurs, slow-rising intensities and tonal vibrations. These were then recorded on to cassette tape from which this recording was mastered from, adding to the slow, mournful decay of the ruined grandeur of the original source material.
It's easy to see why classical music always seems to be haunted, even without much manipulation. But their is something to be said about the grandeur and power of classical music's biggest ego deconstructed into something so unearthly and spectral and yet so beautifully sad that even at it's most reduced, one still can't remove the huge flow of powerful feeling inherent in the recording. The ghosts can be exorcised but never fully banished. Highly Recommended!!
Another awesome collection of lost unsung country from Omni, this time, a collection of tracks from country music legend Waylon Jennings, from a period in Jennings' career that most folks consider a low point, before he had busted out as an 'outlaw', a younger man, playing by the rules, just another cog in the Nashville country music machine, whose music, to many, was safe and predictable, constantly simply striving for a hit. This collection begs to differ, big time, gathering up a whole mess of Jennings' best tracks from the period, and while to be fair, the sounds are definitely different than what we're used to from this outlaw, a lot of these songs are pretty fantastic. If these tracks were recorded by any other country singer, no one would bat an eye, but the enduring power of the outlaw era to follow seems to have permanently tainted these songs, which is definitely a shame.
The title track is dark and ominous, with some sitar like buzz, and some awesomely cinematic strings, and of course Jennings nails "Delia's Gone", haunting and intense, complete with some cool creepy female backing vox, this whole collection is super cool, weird covers, strange instrumentation, fuzz guitars, more of that sitar like buzz, lush instrumentation, lots of pop, subtle psychedelia, he may have been trolling for a hit, but it seems like maybe he was still doing his own thing, even if it was a bit too subtle for most folks to notice.
Fans of any of the Omni reissues will dig this too, and Waylon obsessives might do well to give these tracks another try. As always with Omni, the cd comes with a massive booklet packed with tons of photos, liner notes, old album covers and all sorts of other Jennings ephemera.
Make no mistake, the second Jesus And Mary Chain record Darklands, now reissued on vinyl (yay), is not a reprise of the self-immolating punk-pop of their debut Psychocandy - but it would also be a mistake to dismiss this record. Cuz it's is a pretty damn good record in its own right! William and Jim Reid had perfected the monstrous JAMC sound of excess distortion and treble fuzz that suffocated the trad rock swagger and bubble-gum pop hooks on Psychocandy; and it's easy to make the case that the Reid brothers scratched their head with the question, "Okay, what next?" In answering that query, Darklands turns to the craft of the song, working towards what would become the Creation / Cherry Red Brit-pop vernacular. The songs jangle above drum machines programmed to replicate any given Phil Spector production, the basslines are all but an after thought for rhythm buttressing, and there's a bit of the bittersweet distortion cast as a darkened halo around these tunes. But Darklands is an album of melody and harmony, pure and simple. Bright guitar leads drift out of dour minor chord riffs while Reid brothers push the moping whisper vocals to some downright punchy and definitely catchy vocal melodies. The lyrics maintain a uniform mopiness that fits the Reid brothers' signature black leather and sunglasses at night demeanor, with rainclouds being the dominant theme: "Nine Million Rainy Days," "April Skies," and "Happy When It Rains." Sure, poetry this stuff ain't, but these downright poppy tunes are so good as to move beyond any lyrical foible.
And yeah, Psychocandy is the record that made JAMC legendary, but Darklands may have been the album with its dedication to the song, that spurned where My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and maybe even Oasis would take Brit-Pop into the '90s.
K11 is sound artist Pietro Riparbelli, whose concepts are based on spaces as much as sounds. On the last K11 record, Riparbelli recorded short wave radios and receivers placed in Aleister Crowley's Thelema Abbey in Cefalu, Sicily, letting the sounds resonate and reverberate, creating gorgeous clouds of echoey drone and deep haunting rumble. For Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D., Riparbelli set up inside Assisi Cathedral in Umbria, again employing shortwave radios and receivers, harnessing the natural acoustics of the building, in this case, the cathedral's lower basilica, where the remains of St. Francis are kept. Adding only bits of organ and voice, Riparbelli has created an epic abstract dronescape, haunting and mysterious, the tones layered into huge walls of sound, allowed to ring out, sometimes fading to a distant shimmer, other times exploding in a cacophonous roar.
There's tolling bells, disembodied voices, blurred into ghostlike streaks, crumbling natural distortion that occasionally builds to a heaving chordal crush that could be Nadja or Tim Hecker. In fact, much of the sounds here, field recordings and recontextualized field recordings, organs and voices, begin to sound as old as the cathedral they were recorded in, some ritualistic conjuring, as if some strange sonic entity laid dormant for hundreds of years, only to be awakened, and captured on magnetic tape. Or imagine some strange recording device that doesn't just capture sound, but the sound of all the spirits and spiritual energy that ever existed in a certain space, hence the strange voices, the howling buzz, the keening melodic shards...
Less an exercise in field recordings, and more a gorgeous assemblage of field recorded sound. Not knowing the source of the music, one would still be captivated by these thick droned out buzzscapes, and epic high end ur-drones, the mysterious shimmer, the smeared voices, it definitely has the feel of some damaged turntable installation, like Philip Jeck set up in the dungeon of some castle, but knowing the mysterious source, and unique setting, only makes the music within that much more arcane and enigmatic.
The cd includes a video of the cathedral where the music was recorded as well...
All right! Chicago electro rockers Lazer Crystal return with MCMLXXX, the band's first album for indie tastemakers Thrill Jockey. We raved about their previous vinyl only outings, released in small batches on the HBSP - 2X label, and for those who maybe missed out, we should point out that Lazer Crystal features a member from aQ mega faves Cave, as well as two dudes from Mahjongg, a band we have for some reason never listed but dug nonetheless. Those connections, however, really only make sense after the fact, because Lazer Crystal's sound is probably more indebted to Giogio Moroder, Kraftwerk, and possibly labelmates Trans Am. The songs here are propelled forward by heavy drum machine beats with lots of cool robo-tom rolls and synthesizers galore. Vocals alternate between a sexy, icy croon and robot styled vocoders. This stuff just oozes out of the grooves, throbbing relentlessly throughout the entire album. And while it's sure to get asses moving on the dancefloor, there is also a cool, very ominous vibe on display here. The songs all have that great "running from something" sort of feel we all know and love, not unlike some of John Carpenter's soundtrack work.
Super recommended, and while we have both cds and lps, we ain't gonna lie - the lps, with their totally ball tripping cut out artwork, certainly take the cake in the packaging department.
The easiest way to describe Les Discrets is thus: anyone who loves Alcest or Amesouers, is gonna love these guys too. Which makes perfect sense, they're French, their sound is a blissed out shoegazey post-black metal pop, and heck they even share members with Alcest.
But unlike Alcest, whom these guys shared a split release with not too long ago, Les Discrets have pretty much eliminated all and any blackness from their sound. Only the barest traces, only shadowy vestiges remain, no harsh vocals, no blast beats, no frenzied riffing, no Les Discrets is like an even more poppy blissed out Alcest, all jangle and chime and soar and shimmer. And as we mentioned in the Alcest review elsewhere on this week's list, these guys are inexplicably beloved by black metallers. With Alcest it makes a bit more sense, as there is actually some blackness, but the blackness in Les Discrets has been infused with sunlight, transforming black into bursts of greys and blues, hazy and gauzy, a sound more akin to Katatonia really, majestic and epic and heartfelt and emotional, still heavy for sure, even a little mathy, but more than anything, lush and dreamy and shimmery, shoegazey and softly fuzzy, lots of clean guitars, acoustic jangle, crooned vocals, warm whirling effects, all mixed into the woozy distorted crunch and softly blown out buzz, the result, while not remotely black metal, is turning out to be one of our favorite shoegaze gloom pop records ever!
This week's AQ-list has got the goods for Hawkwind fans all right - not only do we have that Harvestman / Minsk / U.S. Christmas disc of Hawkwind covers, but we're also highlighting the latest from Litmus, the Head Heritage and Rise Above approved British band who are basically a more-metallic Hawkwind for the current millennium. We doubt they'd deny it. Taking off (in rocket ships, of course) from where their countrymen left off (not that Hawkwind ever actually did leave off, we're pretty sure that venerable institution is still at it in some incarnation or other, but you know what we mean), Litmus do the space rock thing with an abundance of youthful energy and verve, rocking hard and spacing out in the best spirit of vintage '70s Hawkwind, to the over-the-top utmost really. Not only are the riffs big and heavy, not only are the rhythms propulsive and ecstatic, not only is everything infused with all the electronic sci-fi whooshings, bloops and blips, zips and zaps, etc. that you'd expect, but most crucially they also possess the POP element that Hawkwind also had, something that often gets overlooked by a lot of the other current bands who cite Hawkwind as an influence. These songs are damn hooky and melodic, destined to lodge in your skull, and not just due to the use of mantra-like repetition, which of course is also a Hawkwind derived feature too. Bands like White Hills and Cave share some of these tendencies, but none are more Hawkwindlike than Litmus!
We loved their 2007 Rise Above debut Planetfall, and this follow-up pushes all the same buttons, providing another excellent, epic hour of heavy duty space-prog bliss, complete with soaring vocal uplift, loads of searing synth, and ripping guitar leads. These lads are so pro, and aglow.
Needless to say, for fans of Hawkwind. Also other old, bold, cosmic prog. And more modern stoner(henge) metal. Thus for fans of labelmates Astra, too. Man, we'd love to see 'em live...
Another oft-reissued, minor classic from the sixties, flower power pop-psych with a good gimmick: Lothar wasn't the singer, instead Lothar was the name of the group's Theremin, with the Hand People referring to the actual humans in the band, the Theremin as you probably know being an unusual electronic instrument invented in the 1920's by Russian scientist Leon Theremin, that you don't actually touch to play (the instrument, not the scientist). Its weird, wavery sound should be familiar from old horror soundtracks, and the intro to the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations". Also we sold a ton of the album by classical Theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore that was recently reissued on vinyl by Mississippi.
Lothar wasn't The Hand People's only electronic gadget, either, they also utilized Moog synths, tape decks, and more. So you'd expect something along the lines of Silver Apples, maybe, or the United States Of America, but this isn't quite that avant garde, though some tracks, like "It Comes On Anyhow" with its loops and edits, or the spacey-synthy instrumental soundscape "Paul, In Love", are certainly all about the electronic experimentation. Yet, others like "This May Be Goodbye", are vocal-oriented, laidback, sunshiney songs with the electronic elements almost an afterthought, but nice nonetheless. Really it seems like The Hand People would try just about anything (not sure if Lothar got a vote), musically they're all over the place, the 13 tracks (+3 bonus cuts) on this, their 1968 debut, running the gamut from groovy garage to Byrdsy countryish pop to the abovementioned styles, happily veering into novelty tune territory too, ferinstance their "switched on" version of the Woody Woodpecker cartoon theme (!?), and the freak scene that is "Sex And Violence", a far out goof that sounds a lot like something Kim Fowley could have produced. Pick of the litter is probably the lead-off track "Machines", a bonafide classic consisting of rhythmic clink and clank, disjointed groove and poppy psych, almost proto-Devo if not proto-industrial, and reminding us of some of Bruce Haack's compositions. Neat-o.
Collaboration number two from Robert Lowe (of Lichens) and visual artist Rose Lazar. The first was a small bound book of artwork, that came with a 3" cd featuring Lowe's gorgeous hazy soundscapes created with just voice and effects, while the book was filled with Lazar's mysterious multi colored geometric artwork.
This latest release once again features music by Lowe, but this time, he's using a series of monophonic and polyphonic synthesizers to create burbling, shimming, blissed out synthkrautdronemusik, that seems to perfectly reflect the prismatic textural artwork on the sleeve (more on that in a second).
Opening track "Crayon Gym" is total Klaus Schulze / Tangerine Dream / Neu! krautworship, pulsing and throbbing, rhythmic and hypnotic, while the next track "Fantomoj De La Vitro Domo", is way more Carpenter / Goblin style creep, haunting minor key melodies, moody swirling ambience, with some swooping sweeping effects, but still mesmerizing and a bit psychedelic. The whole record is an ever evolving, sun dappled and starlit sprawl of slow shifting synth textures, dipping into krautrock, new age, free drone, and blurring them into a dreamlike expanse of lush and psychedelic krautsynth shimmer.
The record comes housed in a massive 6 panel, two sided, 36" x 12" fold out sleeve, adorned with artwork from both Lowe and Lazar, strange tangled bits of pen and ink, weeping clouds, mysterious caves, smeared rainbows, and piles of diamonds.
