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.
It's been two long years we've been waiting for this, another mysterious rhythmic communique from French blackened post krautrock alchemists Aluk Todolo. But it's not like they've been idle. Since 2007's Descension, two thirds of Aluk Todolo have recorded a record and toured the world as Gunslingers, and all of Aluk Todolo do double duty in French black metallers Diamatregon, who recently released a new full length on tUMULt called Crossroad.
But as much as we love those other two bands, and we do, there will always be something magical about the strange sonic world Aluk Todolo are able to conjure up. Especially considering they're a three piece, a power trio, drums, guitar, bass. Nothing else, no synths, no strings, just the basic rock band instruments. It's testament to the power these three wield, that they can do so much with so little. Or more accurately, so little with so little. As the music of Aluk Todolo, is disarmingly simple, subtle and minimal, but in its minimalism, lies its power. The power of rhythm, of texture, of mood, these five long pieces are so evocative, so expressive and strangely emotional. Even at its most spare and skeletal, the sound is palpable, almost a physical presence, which is surprising again considering just how stripped down Finsternis actually is.
Descension, Aluk Todolo's debut, was heavy and space-y and rhythmic, we described it as a buzz-less black metal, some of the songs were thick and caustic, others were loping and motorik, but on Finsternis, it's as if the band decided to strip away all the extraneous sounds, leaving just the core, the root, the heart of the music, and that heart beats out a simple, hypnotic rhythm.
The record is split into 4 parts, with a brief interlude, but those four parts are split into two distinct movements. The first, which comprises the first two parts, is much of what we described above, simple skeletal rhythms, surrounded by minimal guitar whir, bursts of grinding distortion, fragmented jangle, keening feedback, but it's all about the rhythm. After a brief burst of mathy chaos, the track reverts to its initial rhythm, this time the bass more prominent, fuzzy, distorted, woozy and mesmerizing, the band locked in tight, the bass and drums solid and unwavering, while the guitar sings in the background, moaning and keening and howling, giving the track an ominous otherworldly vibe, a trudge across some hostile alien landscape, a weary, washed out deathmarch.
Then the interlude, a haunting abstract percussive sprawl, simple percussive thuds set amidst a sea of warped distorted low end, bits of glitch and hiss, and grinding shards of industrial clatter, which gives way to the second, noisier movement, the drums transformed into a simple machinelike pound, snare and cymbal crashing over and over and over, the guitars whipped into a frenzy of blurred buzz and warped swirling blackened chaos, what at first sounds noisy and harsh, soon reveals itself as strangely textural, and as hypnotic as the more stripped down first movement, the guitars slip from monochromatic whir, to insectoid black metal riffing, constantly swirling around the motorik pound and pummel, the final track finds the guitars slipping into ever higher registers, blissing out, laced with feedback, smoothing out into warm smears and blurs, before a brief deconstruction, and a surprisingly tranquil last few minutes, the drums back to a woozy lope, the guitar offering up warm swells and shimmering thrum, the bass throbbing beneath, eventually stumbling to a halt in a cloud of creaking metals and static-like tape hiss. Woah.
Just like Descension, Finsternis is an intense and emotional journey through sound, a haunting and hard to describe exploration of rhythm, mood and texture, a slow shifting otherworld defined by This Heat, Geronimo, Laddio Bolocko, Can, Faust, accessible only via the three shadowy figures that make up Aluk Todolo, whose magic and mystery has been rendered in these glorious black rhythms.
Housed in a multi panel jacket with super striking original artwork by Stephen Kasner, on the always impressive Utech label (whose other two new releases, from Gog and Olivier Dumont, we'll review on the next list, although we do have both in stock if you want 'em, and we're fairly sure you do!).
Part of the joy of music for us is seeing various genres stretched to the breaking point, testing the creativity of the music maker, whether it's electronic, black metal, indie rock, whatever, it's what really keeps music exciting for us. Not that we don't love us some buzzing blasting grim black metal, or perfectly poppy indie jangle, but sometimes all it takes is that black metal being twisted up a bit, or that pop music tweaked a little, or heck even better, combining the two into some impossible grim black indie jangle, to really get us going.
One genre that seems to offer limitless possibilities is DOOM. We've had funereal doom, true doom, black doom, doom folk, doom pop, and within those various permutations, there are still more subsets, ultra doom can be abrasive and harsh and heavy, or washed out and dreamy, doomgaze anyone? But we have to say, we pretty much love most doom, all the various shades of slow and low, doooooooom, the more o's the merrier, the slower, the heavier, the prettier, the more abstract and minimal the better. Which brings us to Quebec's Aun, who to some ears might indeed sound like doom, and heck, certain elements of Aun's sound are most definitely doom-like, but Aun is a perfect example of the above mentioned experimentation. The tropes that define the sound remain the building blocks, but are approached as something malleable, able to be twisted into any shape, and it seems the shape Aun has chosen is something closer to the glacial crawl of SUNNO))) and the metalgaze drift of Nadja. Which is a pretty killer combo, especially in this case, as Aun manages to make that sound, sound pretty unique.
The opening track of this new album is a slow motion sea of heaving black swells, downtuned and thunderous, but blurred into gritty streaks of low end, wreathed in glitch and crackle, underpinned by sheets of coruscating feedback, buried in the mix, offering a subtly melodic counterpoint to the mesmerizing glacial pulse of the thick crumbling near static riffage. The result is a totally mesmerizing, almost raga like doomdrone, that manages to be both tranquil and crushing, dreamlike and HEAVY AS FUCK.
The second track begins hushed and shimmery, minimal and ethereal, while way off in the distance a churning riff begins to pulse and throb, eventually emerging as a thick pulsing wall of crumbling sound, very much like old Earth, but like the track before, crackling with electricity, and then the drums come in (courtesy of none other than Voivod's Away, wow!!), but not like a normal beat, they sputter and skitter, little explosive bursts, not fully kicking in, just peppering the black expanse with machine gun bursts of percussive crunch, before eventually locking into a rhythm, the track becoming a strange almost krautrocky groove, while all around those sheets of guitar undulate wrapping their blackened tendrils around the beat, shades of Aluk Todolo.
The next track is more of the same, that motorik drum beat, but this time the guitars are muted and smoothed out, unfurling haunting melodies beneath the drums, epic and cinematic, and the cool thing is it never gets properly heavy, the guitars remain washed out and minimal, a little spacey, a little psychedelic, the production almost sounds like Xasthur, weirdly lo-fi and lush at the same time, before the track sort of splinters to pieces at the end, allowing the drums to sort of drift off, while those churning guitar drones slowly rev down.
The 'final' track (more on that in a second), returns to the incendiary guitar crunch of the first few tracks, spreading out another dronescape of warm buzz, glimmering glitch, and blown out blurred melody, all hazy and super distorted, there's a brief bit of drum driven dirgery, before the track settles into some softly crackling shimmer.
After the 'final track', there appears to be an unlisted extra track, sounds like maybe it could be live, hardly matters, it fits perfectly with the rest of the record, another expansive buzzscape, all layered ever shifting drones, truncated melodies, strange textures and timbres and overtones, the most abstract of the bunch, a swirling shimmering blackened drift, still heaving and heavy, but way more ethereal and space-y, the perfect final movement for sure.
Equally recommended for doomlords, dronelords, and pretty much anyone who likes it slow, low, mysterious, heavy and BEAUTIFUL.
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.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This latest chunk of mechanized Big Black-ian post metal crush from aQ faves is not only available as a super limited test pressing / needle cleaning kit version elsewhere on this list, it is now also available as this even more limited data dvd-r, which contains 24 bit .wav files of song mixdowns and all the seperate instrument tracks, as well as instructions and artwork files. Why you ask? Well, so you can customize the record how ever you want, ditch the vocals, crank the vocals, blow out the drums, remix it, add sitar, tuba, sing along yourself, you've got the parts, use 'em to make your very own and utterly unique version of Backsliders And Apostates Will Burn! Oh, and you can always still just listen to it, and you should, cuz it rules...
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 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...
We have been DYING for this. The Black Bug I Don't Like You 7" was probably our favorite single of the last however many years, we've played it to death, over and over, just waiting for a full length to materialize, hoping and praying it would be even half as good as the 7", but maybe steeling ourselves for disappointment. But thankfully that steeling was totally unnecessary, as the full length more than lives up to the impossible expectations set by that two song salvo.
This Swedish new wave garage punk 3 piece are a furious feral synth driven monster, their sound equal parts cold wave gloom, riot grrl yowl, in-the-red punk rock, and ultra raw blown out garage pop, but even that's a bit reductive, there's something magical about what these three conjure up, both in sound and song, with just synth, bass, vocals and programmed drums. Their sound is all over the map, from howling pounding furious crunch, to warped woozy synthy drone, to dour pulsing minimal cold wave, to super anthemic almost emo garage rock, and every variation in between. The recording is raw and lo-fi, the drums, the synths, the bass, the vocals, in various stages of blown out distorted crumble, the drums are clipped and weirdly processed, pushed as loud as they can go, the synth too, fuzzy, buzzy, wreathed in a sort of decaying haze, the vocals of frontwoman Lily are wild and unhinged and super emotional, sometimes a playful yelp, sometimes a cold croon, other times a full on hysterical shriek.
But it's not just the sound, the songs are incredible, short sharp bursts of new wave gloom pop. "Fell In Love With" is like a lo-fi riot grrl Soft Cell, with stuttery drums, insanely distorted synth and blown out bass, and Lily's vocals so intense and snarly, a depressive descending melody that is totally irresistible. "Inside Out", one of the few songs with male vocals, courtesy of Lily's partner Ruslav, a brooding propulsive chunk of synth doom, Joy Division via Cold Cave, like a more raw and lo-fi Sixx or Soror Dolorosa. "The Wave" is like an ultra raw lo-fi Aavikko a sort of woozy alien krautrock, "Beating Your Heart Out" is the buzz synth breakup song you blast in headphones to soothe your black and broken heart, a cathartic buzz drenched dirge, "I've Got Eyes" sounds like it could have been on Captured Tracks or Sacred Bones, that sort of modern retro synth wave weirdness that anyone into Blessure Grave or Blank Dogs should lose their shit over, "Make Her" is like some lost riot grrl anthem, run through a bank of busted effects pedals and broadcast through a wall of blown speakers, warped and warbly and crumbling before your ears, but somehow, still heavy and hooky and fucking incredible.
This whole record is visceral and immediate, emotional and bombastic, a bloody screaming sonic gem, equal parts heart and hooks, groove and grind, blast and buzz, an insanely catchy chunk of ultra blown out, bloodied and bruised, gloom-wave noise-pop genius. Record Of The Week, fuck that. Record Of The Year!!!!
We've long been fans of burly bearded post doom crushers The Body, their sound like the classic two man pummel of godheadSilo expanded into something even more majestic and sprawling, black hole heavy, infusing their ultra doom glacial sludge with plenty of post and rock mathisms, the cinematic tension of groups like Godspeed, and heck, they even cover songs by folks like Crass, Danzig, Black Flag and Sinead O'Connor! For a two piece, these guys pretty much transcend and obliterate any sort of limitations that lineup would pose to most mere musical mortals, but that said, plenty of two pieces have seen fit to expand, say to a trio or a quartet, maybe just to record, get a few guests, or even permanently, ditching the duo which sometimes gets focused on more than the music. But few bands (dare we say, practically none) expand further than that, say from 2 members to THIRTY TWO! But that's exactly what The Body has done for All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood, their second proper full length in ages, one that marks ten years as a band, and more importantly, marks a serious sonic shift. No longer are they scrappy DIY punk rock noisemakers, setting their sites above and beyond, these guys have gone for it, meticulously crafting an album of extreme heaviness, of sonic mystery, haunting, and epic, metal for sure, even going so far as to include an actual 13 member choir, and not just for little random bits here and there, nearly seven minutes of the ten minute opening track, is just choir, lilting and angelic, lovely and otherworldly, only making the sudden shift from ethereal vocal harmony to crushing downtuned ultra doom all the more jarring. But the coolest part, is that the parts aren't clearly delineated. The choir continues on into the heaviness, so the howling churning crush, is peppered with gorgeous hymn like vocals, creating some sort of strangely liturgical sounding swirly sludge. And it's not just the vocals, there's saxophone, samples, piano, plenty of noise. And that pretty much sets the template for the whole record.
Besides the Assembly Of Light Choir, who are featured on almost every song here, the record also features Robert Lowe of Lichens offering up some additional vocals, not to mention the other 15 or 16 guests who contribute, beyond the core Body duo of drums, guitar, samples and vocals, a pretty crazy array of soundmakers, more vocals, saxophone, sousaphone, guitar, piano, keyboards, Moog, baritone saxophone and more drums. LOTS more drums. In fact, on the final track, "Lathspell I Name You" drummer Lee Buford is joined by EIGHT extra drummers!!! More on that in a moment.
The second track "A Curse" begins with a loping post rock beat, swirling synths, a melancholy melody, soaring chiming guitars, very moody and slow burning, before the band explodes into full doom, the sound shifts too, the crystalline clearness, becomes big and booming, the sound blown out, but more sort of warm and muted than in the red, the drums massive and pounding, while the guitars swirl in little chordal clouds, and the anguished vocals howl and wail, which gives way to "Empty Hearth", which sounds like some abstract experimental Swans style track, looped sample of what sounds like speaking in tongues, lurching mechanical crunch, glitched out electronics, shrieking vox, the whole song occasionally stuttering to a halt, as if the song was being remixed or was gloriously malfunctioning, there's also some awesome guttural throat singing, laced underneath the start stop, sample skitter, and super distorted bass buzz.
"Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss" starts with tarpit riffery and blurred hiss, strangely atmospheric, the drums skeletal but subtly mathy, the choir adding their gorgeous harmonies, an epic spiritual doom, tolling bells, everything dropping out, leaving just the booming drums, the shrieked vox, those bells, until a thick layer of low end washes over everything, and the track unwinds as some classic funereal doom.
"Song Of Sarin The Brave" begins all blown out and tangled up, sheets of feedback, huge heaving bursts of titanic metallic crunch, mysterious voices, finally the band launches into the song proper, and things get really weird, the drums stripped way down, the whole track slathered in strange murky blur and melting effects, while underneath, a strange sampled voice drifts, through clouds of other voices and mysterious sounds, totally creepy, and beautiful, and so mesmerizing, it goes on forever, and could have gone on way longer, but instead finishes off in a minute long blaze of shrieking black doom sludge crush.
"Ruiner" is another smoldering slow starter, haunting, downtuned minor key riffs ring out, doomic drums pound out a barely there rhythm, again, all underpinned by a strange staticky cloud of hiss and gauzy atmospheric hum, the track starting out super spare, but gradually growing more and more dense, more and more doomy, gathering momentum, not rhythmically so much as sonically, the progression laced subtly with strings and horns, little streaks of psychedelic guitars, until finally exploding into a lumbering dirge, the instruments blackened and crumbling, less riffy than a throbbing organic black buzz, pounding and pummeling before blinking out abruptly.
Which leads us to the final track, the 14 minute, multiple drummer-ed side long "Lathspell I Name You", a heaving, expansive ultra doom epic, a churning looped riff and some busy drumming start the track off, not doomy at all really, more noise rock or post rock, with some gorgeous folky melodies woven in, the choir offering up their lovely harmonies, but in this context, they sound less angelic and slightly demonic, locked into their own looped pattern mirroring, the motorik metal loop underneath, which gives way to a weirdly records, noise drum blowout, voices and instruments hissing and buzzing while a cacophony of drums pound and crash, mesmerizing and hypnotic, before the glacial chug resurfaces, along with the choir, and the band lock into a seriously slow motion, abrasive cathartic doom sludge crawl, the sound growing more and more blown out until every drum hit pegs the needles and distorts everything, making the sound that much more caustic and emotional and intense.
The roots of The Body's sound may be in doom or sludge, or even simply metal, but All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood has taken that sound so far beyond, transforming sludge and doom into something way more transcendent, way more difficult to immediately categorize, it's melodic, and poppy, and mathy, and drone-y, and electronic, and experimental, epic and majestic and mysterious, while somehow still remaining brutal, and pummeling and heavy as fuck. Fans of the usual suspects will probably dig this big time, Moss, Bunkur, Khanate, Monarch, Nihill, Otesanek (in fact the liner notes read: "All Praise To Otesanek And Man Is The Bastard"), Eyehategod, Habsyll, Fleshpress, but be prepared to look beyond the realms of traditional doom, or of conventional heaviness, because The Body are anything but traditional or conventional, and All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood just might be the coolest, weirdest, most original doom record EVER.
Incredible packaging too, heavy vinyl (3 sided, the 4th side is blank), thick, gatefold sleeve, with some chillingly striking artwork, a printed 12" x 12" insert silver reflective ink printed on black cardstock, liner notes and lineup on one side, lyrics on the other...
We had never been that interested in the music of John Butcher, an accomplished improviser and saxophonist, a master of skronk and squeal, whose electronically treated sax is capable of whipping up a serious sonic storm, and who has played with a ton of other incredible musicians, Derek Bailey, Phil Durrant, Eddie Prevost, etc. Not sure why, but for whatever reason, lots of the Butcher stuff we've heard just didn't do it for us. But doing a bit of research after getting this tape in the mail, we're thinking maybe we just weren't hearing the right stuff, seeing as Butcher is much more than your run of the mill avant improv jazz guy, treating his saxes, processing them into strange buzzing drones, and haunted layered pulses, exploring space and timbre, recording in caverns and caves, metal containers and abandoned railway stations and we should know by now that UK cassette label The Tapeworm would not lead us astray.
Two side long live improvisations, the first a three part epic for tenor and soprano saxophones, that takes the sound of the saxes and adds all sorts of grit and buzz and crackle, it almost sounds like an old crackly record of a sax solo being played in a big empty hall, multiple saxes are layered and the overtones throb and undulate, the sounds crumbling and moaning, ringing out, wreathed in a super spacious natural reverb, totally mesmerizingly intense and beautiful. It does get a bit more traditionally jazzy part way through, but even then, the sound shifts from blown out drone, to wild chaotic skronk, to spaced out fluttery dreaminess, to incredibly high pitched symphonies of tangled whistle, that at times almost sounds like guitar feedback. Intense!
And speaking of feedback, the flipside is in fact a sprawling 20 minute piece for 'saxophone controlled feedback' and piano, and consists of deep swirling tones, lustrous fields of muted shimmer, the piano not so much being played as offering up sympathetic vibrations, the whole thing delicate and crystalline, long stretches of hushed distant keening, slipping into warm bell like swells, deep low end rumbles, all laid atop one another, creating a sort of ethereal sonic field of abstract melody, until finally (or perhaps for the first time audibly) the piano enters, offering up isolated plinks, allowed to ring out, as the feedback swirls around each note sympathetically, creating something truly mysterious and otherworldly. So nice.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!
Chicago based rhythmic psychlords and unanimous aQ favorites Cave spark up another set of burners on this 3 song (long songs, we might add) vinyl-only ep, their first for the mighty Drag City imprint. It's great to see this band taking off, going further with each release and pretty much becoming a more focused, more realized version of themselves with each new record.
Opener "Hot Bricks" sounds a bit like a more fleshed out Moon Duo, and boy, we ain't complaining one bit. It moves with a nice organ pulse and a cool hazy groove. The vocals are in the same vein as Moon Duo / Wooden Shjips frontman Ripley Johnson, you know, kind of an Alan Vega styled bad ass croon. The song is steady and rocking but also melodic and dreamy. "Teenager" surprises us once again with a more upfront vocal presence, which we are digging quite a lot. Overall it helps Cave seem more focused AND more stoned, always a good thing, and it's clear that everyone is operating on the same psychic wavelength. The song makes great use of the spacious production complete with some vocal harmonies that sound, for a second at least, like a couple of Gregorian monks after a few bong rips. The band constructs a thick psychedelic haze with burly bass, tight ass drumming, and some incendiary riffage.
Taking up all of side 2 is "Brigitte's Trip", which starts life as a cool, compact jam with more empty space than usual. Over the course of the song, things pick up and head into a heavy midtempo groove with the rhythm section acting as the anchor while everyone goes crazy and takes things skyward. Things slow down again and sound a bit like Dead Meadow's mellower moments, leading us to wonder what these boys will cook up next. Whatever that may be, we're looking forward to it. Until then, we're going to sit back and bask in the glow of Pure Moods.
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.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another back room discovery, a record from a couple years back, released on unblack label E.E.E., a 2006 ep from these Indiana based (un?) black metallers, who mix dark, raw and grim riffage, with strange twisted black ambience, grinding processed glitchscapes and haunting sinister drones.
Five tracks, 25 minutes, after a sprawling graveyard fog intro, all moonlit creep and gnarled bleak rumble, the band explode into "Mists Of Darkness", some super raw heaviness, blasting and chaotic and blown out, primitive and frosty for sure, but imbued with plenty of ominous mystery and warped ambience. A long stretch of acoustic guitar post rock, all spidery jangle and skeletal drift, gives way to another burst of pounding, grunted blackcrush.
"Burn The Twilight" begins with some ethereal looped guitar that grows more and more tangled and squiggly, before finally splintering into another squall of jagged black shards, and stumbling primitive blackness. "Nox Noctis" starts out Slinty, before getting all folky and softly psychedelic, the drums giving it a sort of spacey post rock vibe, the track slips subtly back and forth between the two until some dark minimal piano enters the picture, only to get swallowed up by some swirling turbulent black drones, that final track sprawling and slowly decaying, fragmented melodies and bits of piano, surfacing and the then drifting off into the ether.
Fans of all things E.E.E. and mysterious dark metal and experimental ambient blackness will DIG DIG DIG. And this is out of print, these are the last 7 or 8 copies, so snag one while you can!
All right! Time to rock, AND worship Satan (what else is new?), 'cause the debut full-length from Holland's The Devil's Blood is finally here, released a few months back as an import but now also available through domestic distribution channels, although it's really still the import digipack on Germany's excellent Van label (who also just unleashed in the US the latest Ruins Of Beverast, as well as the massive/morose debut from Swedish doomsters Griftegard, both of which we'll be reviewing next time). Lots of folks (including us, and Darkthrone's Fenriz) were really into the 5-song Come, Reap ep by this female-fronted "occult rock" act, which made a big splash via the Profound Lore label back in 2008, and the alluring promise of that ep is borne out by the eleven tracks of this album. As before, they've got a '70s, doom metal-ly vibe, playing psychedelic heavy rock that draws from the same well of inspiration share by bands like Witchcraft (e.g. Roky Erickson, Black Sabbath, Pentagram, early Scorpions, to cite some they'd mention, or that we think we hear), with ripping guitars and wailing vocals that push all our buttons for this sort of thing. But, we don't know if we'd really call 'em doom metal, they're almost more in full on classic rock mode, these songs uptempo and rockin', bombastic and downright anthemic, buxom singer "The Mouth" in possession of a powerful voice, one that's loud and proud (of Satan!). Delivering the goods across this album, The Devil's Blood come on like an unholy mix of funky Led Zeppelin, Heart, Thin Lizzy, and a bit of Mercyful Fate (for their love of Lucifer, and also the dual guitar action, like some of those others).
THE killer jam here is "Queen Of My Burning Heart", a super groovy number with an incredibly infectious twin guitar riff, it's like Jex Thoth jamming with Birds Of Avalon! Another band we could mention is, believe it or not, the Dead Weather, this kicks ass on them though by being more metal and '70s and devil worshipful. And by the way, we're pretty sure The Devil's Blood are fairly serious about the Satan stuff, heck one of the songs here was co-written by one of the dudes from bloody black metal masters Watain (though this isn't at all black metal like them, maybe black classic hard rock would fit).
Killer power violence tag team, in one corner, newbies The Endless Blockade, who more than almost any current band embody the sound and spirit of classic power violence, and in the other, the grandfathers, and direct descendants of the genre's namesake, Bastard Noise, who have returned to the sound of their Man Is The Bastard antecedents, while still incorporating plenty of twisted Bastard noise noise.
We haven't heard Bastard Noise sound this fierce and heavy in years, throbbing low slung bass, pounding caveman drums, howled feral vox, wild screeches, tangled riffs, all woven into tightly wound tarpit grind jams, lurching and stuttering, stop start, freaked out blasts of furious thrash bookended by lumbering doomy crush, all shot through with streaks of electronic skree, clouds of glitched out FX, in fact, if anything this sounds like the perfect mix of classic Man Is The Bastard and another aQ fave MITB offshoot, Geronimo: rhythmic, hypnotic, cyclical. There are some moments of droned out Bastard Noise electronics, but those moments usually end up exploding into shards of hyper rhythmic pound and chug. So awesome. This would be worth it alone for the Bastard Noise side, but we haven't even gotten to the best part of this split...
Which is "Advanced Directive", an Endless Blockade remix by legendary academic electronic pioneer Noah Creshevsky (we had a killer retrospective of his work on Japanese label EM!), that is a total skittery, stuttery, psychedelic plunderphonic freakout. Riffs and vocals chopped and looped and pitch shifted and reassembled into a weirdly hiccupping experimental power violence mash up, reminds us a little bit of the recent Record Of The Week by Whourkr, with its impossibly complex and head spinning heaviness. Wow. The fourteen minute track that precedes it is a killer too, pummeling, pounding doomic heaviness, that slips into a strange electronic flecked trip out breakdown, and then a super in-the-red grinding buzz drenched feedback slathered noise freakout, before lurching back into some riffy crunch to finish things off.
There is one more track, a remix by noisemaker The Rita, but that one is for the TRUE noise lovers only, 15 minutes of crumbling, blown out, earshredding Merzbowian digicrunch.
We're surprised it took this long for these two avant guitarists to join forces, Final, aka Justin Broadrick, aka the man behind Godflesh, Jesu, Grey Machine, Techno Animal etc, and Fear Falls Burning, aka Dirk Serries. In some ways both have a similar approach to the guitar, both able to sculpt sprawling expanses of layered drone music, transforming six strings into something much more, a sound generator capable of conjuring heaving, roiling dronescapes as well as hushed ambient drifts.
The opening track seems more influenced by later period Broadrick, as it sounds a lot like a washed out, minimalized Jesu track, a slow, warm, lugubrious riff, looped over and over, poppy and melodic, but slowed down enough that it becomes trancelike, with Serries (we assume) adding a sky full of tangled and layered high end contrails, adding a dark tension, and a mysterious beauty to the melancholic main riff, the whole thing wreathed in a gauzy dreamlike production.
The second track is more static, less riff based, and more wide open, a blackened landscape of rumbling low end string buzz, and singing high end skree, the skree muted so instead of being piercing, it's more smoldering, a glowing buzz, that pulses and throbs, the guitars constantly shifting, the layers overlapping and intertwining, gorgeous but still tense and dramatic, easily could have been extended to fill up a whole record and we definitely would not have complained.
The flipside begins with a smokey bit of folk flecked darkness, that definitely reminds us of groups like Earth or Barn Owl, a tiny bit of twang, a subtle choral vibe, warm and washed out, melancholy and minor key, the guitar unfurling skeletal melodies that blossom lazily, and then seem to fade into the background, just in time for more to take their place, a subtly active twangscape of muted buzz and almost country sounding drones, again, drifting ghostlike through a sepia toned haze.
The record closes with a gorgeous, thick bit of dronemusic, the background a sitar like buzz gives the track a definite raga like vibe, while in the foreground, another guitar moans, unleashing warped low end melodic tangles, delivered in slow motion, mimicking the sound of a horn almost, a muted bleat, but pulled into strange alien melodies, mirrored by the ever shifting, and highly melodic background buzz. This one definitely could have been stretched out forever, absolutely mesmerizing, the sort of drone you never ever want to end.
Gorgeous packaging, a black on black sleeve, with a very subtle die cut, revealing yet more black from the sleeve within. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.
It maybe took a little while, but folks around here finally started digging the Grails, A LOT. After their last record, their second release on Neurot, the band went through some personnel shifts, which often trigger the end of a band, but in this case, pushed the band in new directions and resulted in some of their best music to date. That Neurot record was cool, but at the time we had sort of reached our post rock, quiet-loud-quiet saturation point. It wasn't that the Grails weren't a great band, it was because we had raised our bar on moody epic post rock. It was no longer enough to just drift along post-rockily before exploding into epic metallic bombast and drifting back again. As pleasant as that is to listen to, there was SO MUCH of that going around, we just needed something more. Soon after the band released an ep of international psych covers and that was the beginning of a glorious new direction. We knew whatever was gonna come next would be a killer, and thankfully, The Black Tar Prophecies, are indeed just that.
The whole three volumes thing was a bit confusing, and still is. We never actually carried volume one, a super limited split 12" with the Red Sparowes, which went out of print before we could get any, we sold tons of volume two, a limited colored vinyl lp on Aurora Borealis, and as far as we can tell, volume three exists only as the two unreleased tracks on this here cd. Regardless, this is some, dark and amazing, absolutely beautiful music. With the Black Tar Prophecies, the Grails finally shrugged off their influences and forged their own sound, never hesitating to experiment, explore, or fuck around with songs and sound. These musical 'Prophecies just might just be the weirdest, most subtle, least rock set of songs they've ever produced. We were definitely always fans, but when we heard that psych covers ep, on which they covered psychedelic songs from around the world, including AQ faves Flower Travellin Band, well, we were suddenly WAY more than fans. They had us as Flower Travellin Band. Anyway, Black Tar Prophecies takes their obsession with psych rock, and their deft mastery of all things post rock, and turns them inward, into a darker, doomier, moodier place. And we love it. Super gloomy rhythmscapes, jazzy piano, totally dubbed out drums, everything bathed in smoky atmospheric swirl. Reminds us a little of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore at times. Songs that wander down dark alleys, streetlights barely illuminating the murky streets, sonic ghost towns, haunting cinematic postrockscapes, like a more rock DJ Shadow, all low slung bass and shuffling rhythms, very smoky and dreamlike. Elsewhere, dreamy psychedelic guitarscapes, strummed acoustic guitars, beneath fuzzed out moody psych leads, really seventies sounding, like a more abstract post rock Hendrix / Santana thing. But the doom inclined among you will find much to love too, here and there, thick slabs of glacial that will have dronedirgedoom nerds frothing at the mouth, as if to prove they can throw down with the big boys (Boris, Corrupted, Isis, Pelican, Moss, etc...) the band unleash massive downtuned dirges, thick washes of slow sludge guitars woven into tarpit riffs of gargantuan proportion, distortion so blown out it crumbles like dirt clods stuffed in your ears, the recording strangely lo-fi, giving the proceedings a dreary droney, Hawkwind meets Gore sort of dirgedoom vibe. Epic and amazing.
This cd collects both the previously released 12"s and adds two exclusive and previously unreleased tracks!
Most people know Growing as the drone duo of Joe Denardo and Kevin Doria. Well, welcome to 2010, where Growing are now a trio (again, for the first time in a long while) and where the drone seems to have taken a backseat to the band's more electronic persuasions. The new member comes in the form of Sadie Laska, whose vocals and sampling add some nice feminine energy to what was once primarily a dudefest (if two guys qualifies as a "dudefest"). We're sure there are some people wondering what happened, but we're too busy enjoying this new approach, because let's face it, two guys with guitars, E-bows, and a plethora of pedals is all well and good, but you can only go so far with that before wising up to the fact that there is much more to life. What makes Pumps! so great is not only the fact that Growing have switched things up, but how they went about doing it and how, at the end of the day, it still makes total sense that this is Growing. This is a much needed evolutionary step for sure, and the band sounds revitalized. Not only that, but without going too overboard or kissing ass to any trends, the new Growing does fit in quite well with many of today's electronic warriors like recent tourmates Fuck Buttons, Black Dice, and even Animal Collective if you downplayed some of their more hippie-ish tendencies. Growing's new home with the notorious Vice label will also assuredly lead to... well, some crazy shit we would imagine.
The album opens with "Short Circuit", and even though many of you have probably heard of the changes, your first reaction may still be, "Is this Growing?" It is, but with heavy beats and electronic squelches which soon become very melodic. Laska's voice comes in and seems to oscillate from speaker to speaker, creating it's own rhythmic flow that goes perfectly with the mutant dub production style. The sound here is hard to define but undeniably rad and definitely worthy of the title "Short Circuit". Elsewhere, you get some nice '80s video game inspired stuff, like on "Massive Dropout", with it's hi-hat beat guiding you to a portal opening into some weird dimension with laid back, easy grooves. We are tempted to use words like "sunny" and "summery", but those don't seem to indicate the weirdness of it all. On "Highlight" we picked up what seems to be a pretty heavy Kraftwerk influence, in fact some of us were even reminded of the song "Hall Of Mirrors", but maybe we're just crazy. Either way, awesome stuff that is super catchy and really good for headphone listening. Perhaps poking fun at themselves, or even their fans (lightheartedly, of course), "Drone Burger" does utilize a nice drone reminiscent of Spacemen 3's "Repeater" with little keyboard stabs punctuating the atmosphere. Closing number "Mind Eraser" makes good use of a thumping beat and electronic static. The overall feeling of paranoia is heightened by a voice proclaiming, "I love drugs" as other indecipherable voices shoot all over the place before the words "I love you" creepily take the song to it's fadeout conclusion.
Awesome stuff, and definitely a positive step forward for these guys and gal. It's great to see a band manage to surprise while also confirming the identity they already established, making it clear that Growing will remain Growing as long the musicians involved are willing to take risks and keep... growing (sorry, heh).
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.
When faced with a new Harvey Milk record, we're flooded with various feelings and emotions. The first being pure exultant joy, seeing as these guys are quite possibly one of our all time favorite bands EVER. Heavy, melodic, so weird, willfully difficult listening that seems to be impossibly listenable as if to spite itself. Another being a sort of incredulousness, that for all intents and purposes this band ceased to exist, a handful of old records, all that was left of their substantial but unsung legacy, hard to imagine now, but not that long ago, it took a LOT of digging to track down HM records. And finally, we're faced with the sort of feeling we get more and more often, "how the hell are we supposed to review this?", or "what the hell can we say about these guys that we haven't already said?" Well, the practical answer is not much. You can go back and read all of our expansive, wordy, gushing reviews of every Harvey Milk record, and all of that stuff still applies, but the band have obviously grown and changed, their sound while still similar enough, that every new record is worth celebrating and obsessing over, each one is still just different enough to avoid being nothing more than just a Courtesy And Good Will Part 3 or 4...
The untitled opener here is crazy melodic, and instrumental, with a super catchy main riff, minimal drumming, the song sort of swings, eventually the riff is joined by a shimmering layer of buzz, and the song gets just a little bit shoegazey, before returning to the sort of slow doomy, melodic mathy meander. But "I Just Want To Go Home" is more recognizable HM territory, beginning with some super low slung bass creep, before the drums begin to pound, the guitars start to soar and howl, and then those vocals, folks who have yet to hear Creston Spiers vocalize, are in for a treat, or at least a surprise, a gruff howl, weirdly melodic, but so tortured and gloriously emotional, one of the few voices that is totally and utterly unique, here draped over that skeletal rhythm and that rumbling bass, a ghostly sort of abstract doom ballad that creeps and crawls and manages to be both heavy and haunting.
"I'm Sick Of All This Too" is classic HM, super mathy, but impossibly abstract, little squalls of gnarled riffage and drum pound, unfurling bursts of short sharp mathy heaviness, only to ring out, and leave huge spaces, repeated, but seemingly never in the same way twice, finally shifting gears during the last few seconds and turning gorgeously melodic and intense. Only 2 minutes, but the sort of song that could take up a whole side and we'd be psyched.
We could definitely go track by track, minute by minute, but in some ways that sort of reductive description takes away from the magic of Harvey Milk, it's not really what they do, more how they do it. The constituent parts are the same as a million other bands, but there's no mistaking these guys for anyone else. Whatever they decide to do with those parts, their songs, it always turns out sounding ONLY like them. From super melodic slowcore doom pop ("I Know This Is No Place For You" might be their prettiest song yet), to churning, chugging lumbering post doom dirgery, to twisted synth driven dronerock, that gives way to hushed, super intimate, piano driven barely there balladry, to epic, 'classic' rock majesty, sounding a bit like a Queen record left out in the sun, all harmonies, and huge choruses, and big guitars, but all sort of blurred and oozy and melted, into something gloriously warped, and like the rest of the tracks here, something that could only be Harvey Milk.
Two of our favorite local bands team up for some serious noisemaking. Horseflesh usually traffic in longform dronescapes and epic post industrial kraut drone, while Borneo specialize in a sort of pop infused heaviness, that we described as Harvey Milk or Jesu covering Lync or Seam or even Codeine. So the question is not necessarily why these guys decided to get together, the real question is what happened when they did. And Courage Rock is the answer.
A twisted post rock hybrid, not in the sense of post rock the genre, but rather POST-rock, beyond rock, beyond even post rock, the opening salvo finds the Borneo duo unfurling thick, repetitive anti-grooves, thick chugging metallic riffage, pounding motorik thumps, while Horseflesh bathes the whole thing is thick swaths of tripped out kosmische effects, streaks of white noise, layers upon layers of hiss and buzz and crunch, tossing in the occasional squall of bleeps and bloops and swoops. As the record continues, Borneo dial it back a little contributing some more minimal pulse like rhythmic minimalism, while the guitars rumble and buzz, and Horseflesh keeps things thick and murky and spaced out.
Elsewhere, full on bursts of white noise give way to hazy sun baked riffage, a doomy crawl, almost like Earth, wrapped in a speaker rattling undercurrent of tectonic rumbles, long stretches of layered haze wrapped around incendiary feedback, that pulse like thump holding it together, a gloriously noise flecked spaced out druggy drift, rife with stuttery loops, shards of FX and buried melodies, crushing downtuned doomy sludge, almost stonery, with heavy Neanderthal drumming, and woozy minor key guitars, pounding through a cloud of black fuzz and twisted effects, a seriously fierce psych-drone blowout, so good that it makes us almost think these guys should ALWAYS play together...
SUPER LIMITED, in hand painted and hand assembled packaging....
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!!
Not a new record, but a reissue of Japandroids' first two self released eps, and holy shit is this stuff awesome. Heavy, crunchy, hooky, another guitar/drums two piece who can kick up a pretty intense sound, and who wrap that sound into some pretty kick ass ultra dynamic jams. In the past we described the Japandroids as No Age crossed with Superchunk, and that may be even more applicable on these early recordings.
Just listen to the first track and see if you're not sold. The whole first half a lurching stop start crunch, swirling guitars, shouted background vox, crashing drums, the two locked into a killer pounding super rhythmic workout, almost like some sort of noise rock, softened up just a bit so it's closer to indie rock, and then the song shifts gears halfway through and the guitars slip into something much more melodic, as do the vocals, and suddenly we're in serious mix tape territory, the duo channeling classic nineties post rock. Awesome. And that's just the first track. Some of the other songs are way more poppy, channeling more of a Weezer style vibe, but still filtered through their noisy two piece situation, and even at its poppiest, constantly slipping into something mathier or crunchier, and alternately, even at their most jagged, like on some of the tracks from the first (and older) ep, the two can't help but let some poppiness seep into the proceedings. Killer stuff. We can't stop listening to this, which is leading us to believe that we just might like this collection even more than their proper full length...
What might you expect from a band made up of two parts Khanate, and one part Isis / Grey Machine / House Of Low Culture? Probably nothing as pretty and haunting as this. That's right, we said pretty. We were definitely expecting some crushing slo-mo heaviness, figured if that much of Khanate was involved it would have to be screechy and torturous.
And while Jodis is doomy, it's also moody, and atmospheric, slow and spare, spacious and strangely lovely. Occasionally the guitars rev up and get way louder, and it sounds like the band might explode into some sort of bellowing dirge, but instead, they sprawl into an ominous creep, the guitars shimmery, the notes spaced way out, as much about the decay and overtones as the initial note or the overall melody. The vocals are weary and washed out, reverbed and down in the mix. If anything this reminds us of some classic slowcore, maybe Codeine or Seam, albeit a little more abstract, a little less indie rock, but the same sort of moody drift, the same kind of minimal melody, emotional and dark and haunting and dreamlike.
Surprisingly, the drums are super restrained, in fact, the first few tracks sound almost drumless, minus a few cymbal shimmers, some flares and accents here and there. On "Secret House" the drums are active, flurries of fills all over the kit, but not for bombast, again for texture, almost like playing chords on the drums, there are some harsh vox on "Secret House", and they almost sound out of place, disrupting the strange slow tranquility. But once we move on to the next track, we're back to that gauzy melodic drift, the drums again super skeletal, the guitar drifting in the ether, the vocals choral, almost monk-like, super meditative and ethereal.
And the rest of the record plays out in a similar fashion, long drawn out slow burning epics writ small, the three exploring the space around the notes, finishing off with the gorgeous 9 minute "Slivers", the guitar unfurling a fuzzy blurry drone, the drums more active, a bit tribal, but still muted, and the vocals a falsetto off in the distance, the track, heaving and pulsing and shimmering, before slipping into a more abstract drone and then blinking out.
Some seriously gorgeous stuff, a surprise new favorite for sure, getting lots of play late at night, lights turned low, consciousness at rest, on the cusp of some other plane...
We're always so pleasantly pleased to receive music from and by our mailorder customers from around the globe! K is from Portugal. In case you couldn't tell from the album's title, this is some intensely ominous music. Rolling swells of dank guitar generated drones dominate the seven tracks. Industrial grindings and IDM-esque rhythmic sequences occasionally emerge from the deep smothering roar. Chill-inducing and apocalyptic.
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...
Richard Francis is one of the quieter musicians to hail from New Zealand. His sparse productions opt for a restrained set of grey noises and tactile field recordings that softens the archetypal gnarled NZ distortion of folks like Michael Morley, Antony Milton, or Campbell Kneale. He's also not nearly as prolific as those three, which is a shame as Francis' work has proven to be amazingly consistent over the years.
Here, he's presenting a collaborative body of work in collusion with a man who is nothing but prolific, the Swiss-based sound artist Jason Kahn. Given Kahn's studious use of particular noises (white, pink, blue, brown, etc.), Francis has certainly proven to be one of the more complementary musicians that Kahn has worked with over his lengthy career.
The eponymous record presents four extracts from live performances the two managed in both Switzerland and New Zealand in 2007 and 2008. Kahn's set-up often involves pushing particular, restrained noises and synthesized frequencies through the body of a floor tom, and controlling the feedback that can accumulate within that small architectural space; and Francis goes for the virtual systems through the computer interface. But the two can achieve rather similar results with different tools. These gravely, tactile sounds percolate, scrape, and vibrate their way into shifting sedimentary layers which ultimately form a meditative set of broken minimalism. The opening track features a gong-like set of metallic reverberations that billow against an agitated data-stream, which builds through accreted layers of deep low-end drones. Elsewhere, similarly subterranean tones softly rupture with a low-impact distortion grating clouds of grey static. Like on Kahn's groundbreaking album Vanishing Point, fragmented melodies quietly ripple well below the surfaces of noises, occasionally breaking through the hiss in oceanic swells of drone. Very nicely done!
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We never listed this now-out-of-print cd-r from a few years back... but just discovered we actually have over a half dozen copies in our closet! So, grab it now while you can, it's pretty cool if you're into "human" drone sounds. Originally released as a limited cd-r on the Australian label Winter Records in 2005, this was an equally limited reissue by the mysteriously monikered, Keep Breathing. Comprised of three long-form (each over 20 minutes) drone compositions involving circular breathing on what sounds like bagpipes or melodicas, that modulate and flutter around a few notes in trance-like fashion. Reminiscent of Yoshi Wada, Ellen Fullman, Malachi, or even a slow motion Daniel Higgs in instrumental mode. Perfect music to have your chakras aligned to.
Along with folks like J. Lesser and Matmos, Kid 606 has been one of the key figures in bringing the world of techno and electronica to a more punk minded listenership. And over the years the music of Kid 606 has taken many twists and turns, never one to shy from diversity and eclecticism he's put out everything from hardcore four on the floor techno to drill n' bass to ambient blissed out dreamscapes.
We have to admit we haven't always been the biggest fans of all his releases, but he's hit us with enough moments of total musical bliss and magic that we make sure to at least check out every new release he puts out. And while we weren't in love with the last few, we are beyond BLOWN AWAY with what he's created on this deliciously smart-ass-titled new outing. In fact there is something to be said for how smart ass the title and back cover artwork on this record is, because for as clever and mindfucking as Kid 606 can be, it's sometimes the problem with his music. Fortunately he's gotten the snarkiness out of his system via the non musical aspects of this record, and allowed the sounds within to just totally flourish in immaculately crafted, wide ranging electronic sounds.
The albums opener, is almost like some amazing lost kosmiche kraut gem, tones that are so rich, patient and inviting. We were immediately reminded of some of our favorite Kid 606 releases from the past that get overlooked as they show off the non techno side of his musical leanings and are more about creating rich atmospheres with true emotion. Records like The Soccer Girl EP, PS I Love You, PS I Love Me, and the utterly beautiful Resilience. As the record unfolds, Kid 606 still shows that he can draw from a wide range of electronic palettes but it never veers into techno land, instead it reminds us of those glorious days when IDM actually meant something. Those records by Oval, Aphex Twin, Matmos, Autechre, that made so many of us embrace a form of music we had for so long no relationship with.
But this isn't just some kind of IDM rehash, Kid 606 also shows that he can soar, drone and bliss out with the best of them. As there are so many amazing moments on this record that you could think was coming from AQ favorites like Emeralds, Tim Hecker or Oneohtrix Point Never. He also works in some influences of some of our favorite 20th century minimalist composers like Terry Riley and Steve Reich, especially on one of the album's hypnotizing standout tracks "Periled Emu God". And fear not, for those who like a bit of dissonance with their electronica, the Kid still interweaves some more challenging sounds into these tracks, yet manages to do so in a way that creates something larger and organic instead of just being difficult for the sake of being difficult. While there are brief moments with an almost Mego vibe (mostly just on the album's closer) the record while touching on many shades of electronica has an overall unique viewpoint that just sound so so perfect. This is the kind of electronica we haven't been able to find lately. Sure we love dubstep, space disco and drone, but we've been craving the kind of innovation and nuanced composition that so many of our favorite electronic albums of a prior age intoxicated us with. Somehow channeling both the best of electronica's past and creating a vision of its future at the same time, Kid 606 has proven that someone who has created something you love in the past, is surely capable of doing it again. Totally stunning!
Who kicks ass? Frankie Laine, that's who! Those of us here who know that, were stoked to see this new disc on Omni, the awesome Australian reissue label who've brought us a lot of weird '60s and '70s country music obscurities, among other things... this ain't country, but it IS cowboy. High noon showdown gunfighter style. Although Frankie Laine, born Francesco LoVecchio, a Sicilian-American, was brought up in the big city of Chicago, where his grandfather was apparently gunned down by mobsters during Prohibition (!), he made his mark as a singer in part by evoking another mythic, lawless era in American history: the Old West! With songs like "Bowie Knife", "The 3:10 To Yuma", "Wanted Man", "The Hanging Tree", "Dead Man's Hand", and "Gunfight At The O.K. Corral" (all included here), Frankie Laine was the go-to guy for your Western horse opera film theme song...
Yet, as we said, this music not country by a long shot, more like full-throated big band pop. Nor is it weird and obscure, far from it (although several of the 28 tracks here have never in fact been on cd before). Hugely popular in his prime, selling millions of records in the '50s and '60s, Laine was a big star with a big voice. And what a voice! Well supported by the bombastic jazz orchestra arrangements (many courtesy of "Johnny" Williams, later of Star Wars fame), Laine's showstopping tenor is, however, the main attraction. He really belts is out, they called him "Mr. Leather Lungs" for a reason! Perfect for mythic, larger than life ballads of manly adventure, and songs about dreary workingman's toil as well. Some of this material might sound corny to modern ears, but talent shines through, and it's pure entertainment. We can honestly say that folks here who were expecting this to be hokey instead were quite surprised at how much they enjoyed it, comparing it to some of Scott Walker's or Gene Pitney's more dramatic performances! And it's certainly got some of the same "saddles and sixguns" kitsch factor as Omni's enjoyable Lorne Green reissue, but of course Laine is a much more gifted singer, these are actual classics.
Growing up listening to everything from opera to blues to jazz, Laine possessed plenty of technique in addition to a naturally commanding voice, and listening to the title track here for instance, you can understand how folks who originally only heard him on the radio might have assumed he was African American, he almost sounds like Cab Calloway on that one. This disc really spans his oeuvre, including a bunch of his aforementioned hits, plus standards like "Riders In The Sky", along with others we'd never heard before, drawn from a half dozen LPs and a like number of 45's circa 1956-'64. There's all those Western themed songs of course, he also tackles such subjects as bullfighting ("The Moment Of Truth") and coal mining (Merle Travis's "Sixteen Tons", though actually we prefer Tennessee Ernie Ford's version, surprisingly finding Laine's rendition just a bit too cutesy), with odes to femme fatales thrown in as well ("The Swamp Girl")....
As with all Omni titles thus far, nicely done. The 18 page cd booklet includes thorough liner notes (where were learned about his grandfather's demise), lots of photos and album covers. Nice. Definitely one of the best single disc Frankie Laine collections we've seen, all it's missing is "Mule Train". Many of the tracks here were bigger sellers back in the day than most things that Omni has previously reissued, but do YOU have 'em already? If not, you're missing out. Once you've heard "Bowie Knife", you'll be hooked. Or at least, we were, from a very young age!
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 badass slab of psychedelic hypno dirge space rock courtesy of local boys The Lumerians, who definitely have the druggy drone-y dirge dirgey thing down pat. If you dig the Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, Cave, Moon Duo, and other practitioners of blown out drug rock mesmer, well then you're gonna love the Lumerians. Channeling Spacemen 3, mixing in some serious krautrock, adding heaping doses of spaced out FX, these guys lock into a groove and then ride it out, totally hypnotic, cyclical, trancelike. Reverb soaked guitars, murky distorted vox, washed out, looped bass, buried melodies, all blurred and smeared into lysergic drone rock that is totally captivating. Be sure to stick around for the B-side, a barely recognizable cover of the Osmonds' infamous killer jam "Crazy Horses", given a total hazy space drone dreamdrug makeover. So awesome.
Now we have just one question, WHERE'S THE FULL LENGTH?!?
Multiple Personality Disorder was the first cd and first major release for the seminal post-industrial ensemble Maeror Tri; and yes, the album's title does allude to one line of psychological research into the delineation of (in this case) four personalities that often correspond with acute cases of multiple personality disorder. On one hand, this thematic application does make a parallel to the pseudo-diagnostic aesthetics promoted by SPK and Lustmord in the early '80s; but on the other, Maeror Tri's Stefan Knappe was studying psychology throughout university, and those ideas clearly impacted the way he approached music, smearing dark drones and ethereal melodies out of heavily processed guitars, bass, synths, and other instruments through Maeror Tri to provide an evocative, enveloping, atmospheric, and occasionally threatening form of dark ambience.
The four suites of the album include "The Administrator," "The Anaesthetizer", "The Revenger", and "The Protector," each seeking to encapsulate the metaphoric sounds of those aforementioned personality traits. Hence, the first seeks something of a balance that's neither too dark nor too warm in the shimmering guitar drones and backwards masked swells of monochromatism. The second piece is a opiating, druggy drone track, that has a serpentine, oozing quality in the densely stacked rumbles of low-end distortion and shadowy murk. "The Revenger" is a suitably menacing track of down-pitched vocal snarls and demonic growls that grate against a noisescaping drone backdrop. The finale is downright beautiful certainly looking forward to the post-Maeror Tri project Troum and their luminous, billowing drones sculpted with lilting melodies buried under tons of smeared reverb. Multiple Personality Disorder was always one of the best Maeror Tri albums, and one that succeeded through this conceptual framework (which would have caused lesser artists considerable trouble). The reissue does do away with the original Korm Plastics artwork, which wasn't anything really to write home about; so, if you don't have the original and are keen on anything dark and droning, pick this up!
Damn. If we didn't know better, we'd swear this was some obscure late '60s psych platter reissued by Shadoks or something. But nope, LA's Magic Lantern (featuring the guitar and keyboard talents of astral traveller Cameron Stallones, the man behind aQ faves Sun Araw) are real and current, and the uninitiated will be scratching their heads in amazement, while those who dug any of the band's past work will find no complaints either. The band expertly channels the sounds of Amon Duul II, Ash Ra Tempel, and blown out Japanese psych, and it's almost uncanny just how "authentic" these guys sound - wah wah pedals, dense organ, grooving krauty basslines, stony non-vocals, and drumming that is, as they say "in the pocket" - all that shit is the LAW here. And while these elements can very often lead to bad bad things, Magic Lantern sidestep whatever tends to snag so many bands, and instead they just kick complete ass. Let's face it, not many bands these days can pull off being, uh, "funky". But a good deal of the songs on Platoon fall into that category, and we seriously can't get enough. Magic Lantern do their thing, and they do it well. The spacious production courtesy of Bobb Bruno (Robedoor, Goliath Bird Eater, Best Coast, and a shit-ton more) certainly suits these songs well, giving them a nice thick haze to swirl about in. It has a nice live feeling to it, and while we're at it, Christ, this band must just destroy live (though it appears they may be on hiatus, bummer). Maybe this might be a bit jammy for some people, but if you like this kind of thing, you will love Magic Lantern.
The cd version of Platoon contains two bonus that comprised the recent Showstoppers 7".
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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The guitarist from Emeralds explores his psychedelic side on Invisible World. There's always been a kosmische aesthetic in the music of Emeralds, brought on by the spiraling interplay between synth and guitar, whose rapid fire arppeggios blur into trippy drones. Much of those same strategies are employed here on Invisible World, with McGuire channelling Michael Rother from Neu! 75. Some of the loops that McGuire lays down are a bit heavier than what you might find in Emeralds; but then he'll switch things up for something infinitely warmer and more summery, almost like Ducktails or something off an early Ariel Pink record. Recorded direct to tape, with all the hiss and roughness of the recording left as is. And as with all of the Emeralds related tape releases, this one is super limited. So limited in fact that it's already sold out from the label. These are the last and only copies we'll have, so act fast...
It's been well over a decade since our ears have been assaulted by a -new- recording from intense Swiss industrial-jazz juggernaut 16-17, though thankfully in recent years there's been a couple crucial reissues via the Savage Land label, including one, of 1994's Gyatso, that we made a Record Of The Week not too long ago, in 2008.
While 16-17 are long gone, now it's almost as if some of their extreme spirit has been reincarnated in the form of this new band, MIR, whose debut compact disc on Savage Land is in fact produced by 16-17 mastermind Alex Buess. MIR, it turns out, is the project of one-time 16-17 drummer Daniel Buess (who is apparently NOT related to Alex, oddly enough) in a trio with two others. Daniel is credited with drums, metal percussions, and electronics, while the other members of MIR play guitar, bass, organ, and synth, lots of synth. Heavily effected electronics and punishing percussive strikes are definitely the two key elements of MIR's all-instrumental "experimental rock music" sound. They traffic in droning noise, isolationist improv, sludge and skree filled soundscapery, and no wavish punk, MIR synthesizing something both avant garde and physically primal.
Among the seven tracks on this not-quite-half-hour album, the most 16-17 sounding one here is probably "Animal Instinct", with the swingin' jackboot precision of its big rhythmic boom-thwap, floor-scraping distorted bass, and dense layers of abstract electronic groan and drone (however there's no sax attack though, which is one way that MIR differs from 16-17). To mention a few other songs, there's also the skittery grooves of "Jimbo", the sinister shimmering drones of "Organ Donor", the uptempo energetic guitar throttling of "Hit", and the sudden attacks and echoed decay of the darkly atmospheric "Terminal Reverb", which sounds like it's part Starfuckers, part Spectre.
Also we could also compare MIR to a mix of Supersilent and Shit & Shine, perhaps... along with, of course, 16-17. Very cool, and best played LOUD, if you dare.
The Moles are definitely not a household name, at least in most normal households, which is definitely a shame. Not sure how many folks remember the band Cardinal, they only released one proper full length, back in the nineties, but to this day, it remains quite possibly one of the most perfect orchestral pop records ever released. But before Cardinal, there was the Moles.
Untune The Sky is the debut from New Zealand poppers The Moles, the band that Richard Davies called home, long before Cardinal, and while not nearly as lush or orchestral, it's a classic slice of primo late 80's/early 90's Flying Nun style experimental pop. Droning and hypnotic, with lots of jagged unfinished edges, weird almost industrial noise, Brit pop jangle and an almost Morrissey vocal drawl. But for as experimental as the Moles were, all of that experimentalism was wrapped around some incredibly catchy pop, hooks galore, not always proudly on display, sometimes nearly totally obfuscated, but just as often, set up right in front, and allowed to shine, an approach to pop that to this day still seems distinctly New Zealand.
Fans of the Tall Dwarfs, the Bats, the Clean, the 3Ds, the Chills, Straightjacket Fits, the Verlaines, could have easily missed out on the Moles, they were sort of underground even among the already underground, plus they were definitely a bit weirder, but now's the time to right that wrong, this stuff is timeless, sounding as good as ever, some incredible pop songs can be found within Untune The Sky, and half the fun is digging for them.
This futuristic-psychedelic Italian band from the Malleus/Ufomammut outer space orbit has come back to visit Earth again, blasting and baffling our senses with the intense radiation of the three long tracks that comprise this 40 minute disc/trip. As with their previous Monstro, the trio of Lin, Lan and Len again indulge in heavy, throbbing, occasionally spaced-out instrumentals with a rhythmic, industrial edge - something like Godflesh gone postrock amok. Or imagine the soundtrack to an alien autopsy that mixed up the internal organs of Lightning Bolt, Shellac, and Ufomammut. Sick.
MoRkObOt's guitars (both basses!) are distorted and drilling, laced with noise and FX, that gives way to moody electronic expanses, brushed with restrained, jazzy drumming. Indeed, we said "occasionally spaced-out" but maybe it's the other way around, the bulk the album actually consisting of near-ambient void-drone interrupted by the frantic panic of urgent, abrupt riffage and rigid clangorous rhythms. While this idiosyncratic band doesn't sound like most of the "doom" music we sell, believe us it's plenty ominous and intense, the doom it portends (a catastrophic asteroid impact? our sun going nova? the eventual heat-death of the universe?) not in doubt.
The National broke out big with their last album from a few years ago, Boxer, so we are always nervous/excited to see how a band follows up a record that hurl them into a whole new world, with a new level of attention and acclamation. And guess what, they've done it totally right, making a record that might even surpass Boxer. Right from the stunning opener "Terrible Love" we were stopped in our tracks as it's one of those songs that you know when you hear it for the first time you are about to become totally obsessed with it and play it for everyone you know, as we have in the last couple weeks. Luckily the record maintains the strong emotional and driving quality of that song, managing to create songs that are bittersweet, brooding and dour, yet which flow which such ease.
High Violet captures a similar spirit to so many of our favorite '90s records by folks like Red House Painters, American Music Club, Tindersticks and Low. And we even think about what Interpol or The Editors might sound like if they were doused with a healthy amount of valium and brought in a much more stark, emotional quality to their music. We've got a feeling this is going to end up on a lot of year end best lists and it will be totally deserved!
A necessary resurfacing of the NF Orchest. This was an East Bay post-noise project spearheaded by Jim Kaiser, Angela Hsu, and A.C. Way many years ago, marked by leaden electronics and acoustic dinscraping. The group found themselves with the rather trite problem of having too much on their plate - Kaiser performing almost constantly with Hsu, Thomas Carnacki, and irr.app.(ext.) amongst others; and Way taking up the cause of Maleficia, Carrion, and probably a few other blackened projects festering in Oakland warehouses. After five years since the last time we heard from the NF Orchest, the three found themselves plugged into the same PA at the Luggage Store in early 2010, where Kaiser bowed his trusted bicycle wheel, Hsu slashed across her violin, and Way produced all sorts of dread-inspiring, subterranean noises. The resulting sounds have the feel of being recorded way deep underground, with a molten snarl of hellish drone bubbling about atonal plucks and scrapes spiralling through phased delay patterns. Yeah, the violin improvisations in abandoned buildings do resonate with the Hsu / Kaiser end of the NF Orchest spectrum, but Way's heavy, black drones put this into an entire other catagory of spectral dark ambience.
So this is one of those records where the cover totally gives away what's hiding inside. These Philadelphia drift-heads sent us this disc a few weeks ago, and we were totally blown away. The music so nicely reflects the cover photograph: beautiful, expansive oceanic horizons, almost glowing with a looming grayness. With keyboards, violin, three electric guitars and a bass, this five piece really hone in on a super liquidity, an organic, fluid type of drone composition. Their third album out of four, The Distance Brings Us Closer resonates with long, lush tones and delicate melodies that seem to blend and form chords in mid air. Always moving and turning like fog creeping along the forest floor, Northern Valentine has a distinct sound that kinda reminds us of a more darkened and coastal Windy and Carl playing with Rameses III in some giant cathedral. Very dark and mysterious, the record travels through blissed out walls of trance inducing drones and into more textural noisy Fennesz-like atmospheres. Though they call themselves a post-rock band, the guitars and instruments used are so dripping with reverb and delay that it might be more accurate to describe Northern Valentine as a dark and drifting ambient group. At least that's how they sound on this particular record, as word on the street is their other albums have drums and are more propulsive and less drifty. Either way we dig what they're doing A LOT, and couldn't wait to share it with all of you! If you like anything Type records related or that recently reviewed Elegi, you'll love this too! Completely and utterly recommended!!
Loren Chasse, one of the chief swamis of the collective Jewelled Antler sound through such projects as Thuja, Blithe Sons, Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, Ov, and too many more to list (boy, they used to crank out those cd-rs!), records solo under the moniker Of (the similarly named Ov being the duo of Chasse with his wife and AQ-employee Christine, full disclosure). Simply put, we love Of (and Ov), of course... and are always happy when Chasse takes some time away from his other activities (the somewhat less musical of which being his day job as a public school teacher) to craft a new Of album, a phantom tendril from his own personal dreamworld reaching through our shared reality to caress our ears and cause imaginary crystals to glow softly somewhere within that part of our minds attuned to such blissful vibrations. Not to make this sound like any sort of New Age fluff though, as while as ethereal and meditative as this is, Chasse always incorporates some primitive grit into his work, his music full of feedback hiss, quiet distortion, ambient elemental field recordings of nature, the magnified rubbings of rocks and plants, objects close to the ground, part of the earth, illuminated (and given shadow too) by the radiation of a far-off, flaming star.
The music of The Sun and Earth Together is akin to a slowly turning mobile, as if it were giving off drones and tones as well as glinting with color and the reflections of light. As light shimmers, so does this music. As light dims, it dims too. The abstract sculptural shapes of this imagined mobile move in beautiful indeterminate patterns, much as the sounds Chasse conjures from disparate sources* as cymbalom and stones, autoharp and voice, bells and bowls, guitar and zither all drift delicately, and droningly, in phosphorescent clouds and constellations. This disc clocks in at 51 minutes, consisting of four tracks, each one longer than the last, from the three minute opener "Ignimbrites" to the 26 minute closing title track. All composed of tingling, whispered layers of lo-fi loveliness, gentle and graceful and ultimately glorious.
*we're guessing on some of these...
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WAREHOUSE FIND! Another cool discovery, a record we've dug for ages, and were meaning to review, but somehow overlooked until now. So we discovered a handful of these, and figured we oughta get it reviewed and up on the site, better late than never, and all you folks into crushing epic post metal, Neur-Isis style slow build sludge are gonna flip.
Cuz boy do these guys fit neatly right there between Mogwai, Isis, Neurosis, Pelican and the other post metal combos we're partial to, Tides, Mouth Of The Architect, Grails, Rosetta, Mono, Souvenir's Young America, Angel Eyes, Irepress, you know what we're talking about, gorgeous post rock sprawls, all clean guitar and delicate harmonies, gradually building in volume and intensity, until exploding in a frenzy of blown out metallic psych rock, huge heaving swells of churning downtuned crunch, epic and majestic and heavy.
The Other Side Of The Sky also just so happen to have two bass players, so they're able to whip up these dense tangled basslines, infusing their post metal with an extra layer of low end rumble and low slung buzz, perfectly balancing the long stretches of prettier, meandering melody, hushed blissed out ambience, and woozy slowcore, with most tracks working their way toward that explosive, cathartic climax. Shit, we still love this stuff, and these guys push all our post rock / ambient metal buttons. Odds are if you dig any of the above mentioned bands, they'll probably do it for you too.
We only have a handful of these, and it's been out for a while, so if we run out, be prepared to wait for a restock, with the possibility that we might not be able to get more. And eagle eyed aQ-ers might notice the familiar cover art, the same image used on the cover of Servile Sect's Stratospheric...
If you didn't know already, Emeralds synth-advocate John Elliott is one hell of a busy man. Yeah, there's a ton of Emeralds cd-r's and tapes that disappear before we even know about them, and the same goes for a bunch of Elliott's side projects. Outer Space is one of those projects, which has been hailed at times as a solo venture of Elliott's, but sometimes he's wrangling fellow Cleveland jammers to zone out on the electronics with him. Needless to say, this double cassette from Deception Island is the first time we've heard the sounds of Elliott's Outer Space, but it's certainly a very different animal from his Mist project, whose eponymous LP we've managed to stock from time to time. Where the Mist recordings tend toward the airy, effervescent, brighter end of the kosmische electronic spectrum, Outer Space swings toward the darker, grey smears of industrial din through electronic means. Long filter sweeps push the spectral tones and static laced synthesis towards a leaden oblivion via a turgid application of twin Moogs (with Elliott being joined by Jeff Hatfield).
Smartly packaged in a jumbo double cassette case... but be careful with it, we have no idea where you'd be able to find another, if it were to slip out of your hand and smash upon the floor. Super limited to 200 copies, and destined to be out of print shortly after we type these words.
Some of our favorite records over the last few years have come from our customers. As in, recorded and released by, not just recommended by. I mean, it makes perfect sense, that folks into cool weird music, would be making cool weird music themselves, but nevertheless it's always a nice surprise. Whether it's the delicate dreamy folk of Ilyas Ahmed, or the crushing doom of Monument of Urns, it's always exciting to discover that the guy who buys all the weird cd-r's, or the customer who is always ordering super limited vinyl is in fact, making some strange and wondrous sounds themselves.
Such is the case with our Italian mailorder customer Francesco Paladino, who has teamed up with Opum (Paladino seems to prefer the collaboration, having joined forces with lots of folks in the past including dronesters Alio Die) for a record of epic and hauntingly cinematic low end explorations. Field recordings are deftly woven into huge sprawling drones, strangled falsetto vocals and growling grumbled voices drift ominously amidst the slowly swirling low end ambience. Chimes tinkle and random bits of percussion float restlessly above thick fuzzy synthesizers, all the while more and more strange animalistic vocalisations enter the mix. Birdsong and simple percussion are the framework of one track, while a pulsing synthesized throb another, FX swirl effortlessly over the sound of scraping stones, whispering wind, distant chanting. The vibe is strangely liturgical, one can imagine this disc as the soundtrack to some slow moving Italian giallo, Goblin handling the freaked out progged up horror parts, while Paladino and Opum handle the suspense, the dark shadowy corridors, a long walk through a moonlit park, the foreboding feeling that death lurks around every corner. Creepy and sinister and ominously beautiful.
It's been a little while since we've heard from the boys in Pelican, due in no small part to a seemingly endless world tour. They show up in the shop so much, we sometimes think they must have relocated to SF. And this is not exactly a 'new' record, in fact, it's a different version of a song that has already surfaced once a while back on a now out of print 10", "Pink Mammoth", Pelican's 'hit', or about as close as a heavy metallic instrumental post rock band will ever come to a hit, but it's a killer song, and here it gets redone a little with help from Pelican pals These Arms Are Snakes.
It's hard to tell just how different it is without doing a side by side comparison, but on first listen it does sound a bit more washed out and droney, the sound a tad thicker, and more guitar-y, which is obviously because of the various extra players. But it hardly matters, if you haven't heard this song before, you must, and if you have, you probably already dig it and definitely won't mind hearing a slightly different version. Soaring, epic, heavy without actually being metal, the guitars crunchy but clean, the drums busy but restrained, and then there's the hook, that pops up a few minutes in, and seals the deal. There seem to be plenty of extra guitars, getting all tangled up into warm swirls of layered harmonies, and every time that hook resurfaces it's fucking magic!
The flip side finds These Arms Are Snakes redoing one of their songs with the various members of Pelican along for the ride. Loping and mathy, chiming guitar harmonics over a crumbling distorted main riff, the vocals going from weary indie drawl to snarling growly wail, all over a churning motorik rhythm. The vocal harmonies and stripped down rhythmic lope, lock into these dark grooves that totally remind us of late great San Diego trio Three Mile Pilot. Cool stuff for sure.
The vinyl packaging, as with all Hydra Head stuff, is over the top. A blue on blue printed 10" gatefold, incredibly thick, with a third layer of reflective clear ink over the top, and the text in white on top of that. Pressed on thick black vinyl. And probably limited too. The cd packaging ain't so shabby either, blue and pink and clear inks on a brown cardstock, screen printed fold over origami style sleeve, also most likely very limited...
Dave Phillips doesn't give us a lot to go on here, but all of the clues point to this being the most fucked-up break-up record ever. Sure, there's plenty of emo bands and sensitive singer-songwriters who pine over their broken hearts with oh-so earnest lyrics and anthemic crescendos; but if you were to break the heart of a twisted Swiss aktionist with a penchant for violent noise outbursts, industrial-doomscaping, and slaughterhouse ambience, you get an album far more wracked with the depths of abject loneliness. Like we said, we can't be sure that this is a break-up record, but Phillips does state the album was recorded as a "therapeutic process during a period dominated by severe disturbances of loss, mental abysses and despair." And he does dedicate this album to Thala, who may have been his girlfriend at one time, but certainly had appeared in several rather disturbing performances with Phillips. Those performances involved a mattress wired up with numerous contact microphones and the two engaging in rather violent sex, with the noises of the groaning mattress tossed back at the audience through explosive amplification.
Of course, Phillips is a member of the Schimpfluch-Gruppe of Swiss aktionists, alongside Sudden Infant, Rudolf Eb.Er, Raionbashi, and G*Park. He was also the man responsible for that Dead Peni record released in 2008 on Blossoming Noise, and was the drummer for Fear Of God, which was like the Swiss equivalent to Napalm Death way back when. In all of those references, this album with all of its fragmented noises, nocturnal events, funereal dirges from an accordion, and fatalistic dronescaping falls more on the G*Park end of the spectrum, preferring mystery through abstraction rather than scatological expulsions of bloodcurdling skree. A few brief interludes of softened white noise dappled with various forest-dwelling field recordings opens the album, snapping to a halt with a 12 minute uncomfortable track that seems to recycle one of those sexually explicit performances. Phillips clips and cuts the moans of a woman rapt in sexual ecstasy, matching that with a male voice which has been pitch shifted way down to a demonic growl. Yes, this gets into the same problematic territory that you get with Brainbombs or Whitehouse, but given how Phillips treats the male protagonist in this exchange (and especially, if he is the man behind that voice), it's very clear that there is to be no sympathy for him. The despair to which this album speaks is of his own making. At the conclusion of this track, Phillips turns to his accordion which sways between two dour notes and a series of nocturnal recordings. Clusters of notes hammered at the very low end of the pianos keyboard are struck and extended into Lustmordian passages of bleak ambience, and there are further examples of Phillips' Aktionist pedigree with a scream session rhythmically locked to a series of meat-cleaving blows. There is nothing pretty about this album, and it is really quite a depressing opus when you come down to it. Break-up record or not, it's utterly powerful and absolutely not for the squeamish.
These shitgazers from Ohio started their recording career by just dubbing tapes at home and leaving them in local record stores, an endearingly haphazard way to spread the word about your band, and for a band like this, it seemed pretty perfect. Ramshackle and chaotic, DIY and constantly on the verge of collapse, no reason the format and the distribution shouldn't be representative of the music itself. Acid Tape finds PHS returning to the format where it all began, and thankfully even after all the hubbub and hype, after records on Siltbreeze and Woodsist, magazine articles and ridiculous blog love, these guys (and gal) still sound pretty much the same, and Acid Tape sounds like it could have come straight out of the free box on the floor by the front door of your favorite record store, but like those early tapes, it's the sort of 'holy shit' surprise that sometimes lurks in the free box or the bargain bin, part of the record shopping experience that ca never be replicated online. Acid Tape starts off with one of our favorite PHS jams yet, "Unseen Voids", a big swirling cloud of super distorted fuzzed out guitars, simple scattershot percussion, drawled sad boy vocals, tangled melodies, a gorgeous squall of home brewed bedroom psych, definitely worth the price of admittance.
After that, it's a meandering wander through a drugged out busted 4-track shoegaze FX pedal popscape, gnarled wah guitars, skeletal rhythms, woozy almost dubby bass (especially on "Hard As It Gets (Chill Sax Mix)"), super reverbed vox, detuned acoustic guitars, lots of tape hiss, tripped out electronic drums, gnarled riffs, finishing off with a pretty mighty two-fer, the brief but hooky "Gliderz", with it's melted lysergic fuzz guitar, warbly tape speed, and twisted melodies, and he 7+ minute "Bleak Vacations", a Velvets style blues jangle hypno jam, mesmerizing and spaced out, stripped down and dreamily druggy.
Out of print vinyl split now on a limited cassette! Here's what we said about the vinyl version:
Two-way split from these two weirdo soundscapers, the debut vinyl release for Leyna Noel, aka Psychic Reality, after a whole mess of super limited cd-r's and tapes. She lets it all hang out (on the naked sparkly cover too), spreading a clutch of interwoven songs over a whole side, letting them all blend into one organic whole. A dizzying mesh of primitive home brewed new wave avant pop, skittery looped rhythms and weirdly chantlike vocals, playful little almost-African sounding melodies, eventually adding a thick layer of buzzing feeding back guitar, a heaving, churning swirl, that sounds almost metallic, but at the same time weirdly poppy, that mechanical rhythm and Noel's soaring vox the link between the various movements. Blown out fractured cold wave noise pop gives way to hushed abstract ambient drift, which gives way to squalls of Eastern style skronk, and intense swells of howling caterwaul, a haunting intense Diamanda Galas / Lydia Lunch soul purging, only to slip back into a dark swirling abyss, tranquil and shimmery.
LA Vampires are a whole different can of warped distorted musical worms, sounding more like a floorcore, underground noise version of Madlib, taking snippets of old tapes, dusty, scratched up records, adding lots of effects, random bits of noise, extra vox, all under a haze of tripped out lysergic crackle and hiss, a patina of bongsmoke and druggy warble, flutes flutter, voices flit, beats, lurch and shuffle, everything twisted and washed out, and seemingly melting very very slowly right before your ears, cool cool stuff for sure.
LIMITED TO 100 copies!! With awesomely sexy, sparkly, painted, hippy, nude cover art.
This was probably one of the last things we thought we would ever see - a Douglas Quin recording on vinyl! Back in 1998, Quin released one of our all-time favorite field recordings, a cd entitled Antarctica. You guessed it, that now-out-of-print disc featured recordings from various ecosystems around the South Pole and its outlying oceans. Typically armed with his hydrophones planted beneath the surface of the water, Quin picked up all of the clanks and creaks of ice floes, as well as the amazing sounds from Weddell seals whose glissando calls have all of the signatures of early electronic music. Since then, Quin has made numerous trips to both polar regions, including a prolonged stint alongside Werner Hertzog when he collected field recordings of those seals for use on Hertzog's Encounters At The End Of The World.
Fathom is a continuation of Quin's ongoing recordings from Antarctica, with some complementary recordings from the Arctic region as well. Because of those Weddell seals, the Antarctic side of this piece of vinyl is the better of the two. The intertwining chorales of zipping tones from the pinnipeds swimming amidst various chunks of ice are totally engrossing. Quin also manages to capture what sounds like a melting wall of ice, while it drops chunks of ice into the ocean below. Unfortunately, Quin doesn't tell us exactly what we are listening to, and given the unfamiliarity of many of these sounds, conjecture and imagination will serve the listener well. The Arctic side seems to be all ice recordings, although some of those squeaks and squiggles could be from fur seals, squealing beneath the surface of the water.
Absolutely gorgeous packaging with a two-pass letterpress job with one pass with inked plates and another pass providing a tactile emboss to the paper. Very highly recommended.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!
The first few seconds of Lost Language, a blast of fuzzy crumbling distortion will have you expecting the latest slab of monster sludge, or a blast of pummeling downtuned brutality. And the bands pedigree might have you expecting something similar, guitarist Larry Dolan produced the debut full length from metallic post rockers Tides and drummer Mikey Lemieux used to bash the skin for metalcore heavyweights Drowningman. But what you get instead is some killer, super propulsive, slightly mathy, but very moody, instrumental rock, that harkens back to bands like Pell Mell. There's all sorts of definite reference points, Pell Mell is the most obvious, a simultaneously laid back and caffeinated burst of super energetic mathy groove. But can hear lots of nineties indie rock, plenty of SST, a bit of Tortoise, some Minutemen for sure. Surf rock guitars are wound tight beneath thick splashy swirls of open high-hat and frenetic almost funky drumming, the bass is sometimes slithery and dark, sometimes rubbery and almost dub like. Some tracks stretch into languid epics, others fly by, a manic expulsion of chaotic energy. Once in a while they sound a little like a less Joy Division obsessed Interpol, but again with that nineties instrumental rock vibe. The final track is the show stopper, a near half an hour epic, that almost sounds like the band took the first seven tracks and rearranged, reshaped, and reimagined them into one lengthy jam, keening angular riffs, wildly chaotic drumming, a hypnotic neverending epic, with cool backwards guitars, some My Bloody Valentine swoosh, the whole thing constantly shifting from full blown overdrive, to laid back lope, and back again, until the whole thing fades to a haunting soundscape of minimal guitar drone. Finally, a simple tribal rhythm emerges, and the track unwinds, a slowly decelerating coda, all muted rhythmic rumble and barely there melody. So cool.
