First record in more than 4 years from these Romanian black metallers, and longtime aQ faves, Negura Bunget. We had almost given up hope at one point of ever hearing new music from NB, as the band had broken up, only to recently reform with just one original member, and yet instead of recording a new record, they chose to RE-record some of their old music with the new lineup. But this, this IS in fact the first new music from the newly reformed Negura Bunget, and considering such a dramatic personnel shift, the sound is relatively consistent with recent NB records, although in many ways, Virstele Pamintului is in fact quite different than OM, the last proper full length.
The band do continue to move further away from their early sound which was a very Weakling-like blasting black Norwegian style metal, growing more and more atmospheric, more folky, more proggy, and at the same time somehow more simple. This is most definitely the folkiest record yet, as the first half of the record is mostly not metal, and the folk element definitely takes center stage here.
The record begins with a nearly 6 minute intro, performed on all traditional Romanian folk instruments, flutes and hand drums, wooden percussion, and buzzing strings, creating a lush, mysterious, foresty feel, until finally the band launch into some proper metal, but it's not blasting or fierce, instead, it's washed out and almost atmospheric, with thick swaths of synthesizer underpinning the melancholy buzz, soaring majestic guitar melodies, the vocals bellowed dramatically, and after less than two minutes, the band shifts back, and unveils a shimmery landscape of long glimmering tones, layered soft focus drones, choir like vocals, acoustic guitars weaving crystalline lattices of subtly tense melody, that had they been swathed in buzz, would make for some serious blackness, but instead here, they just help evoke a haunting dreamscape, finally the drums thunder in, the vocals too, spoken dramatically, but still, it's mostly folky and acoustic, until finally the metal erupts again, and instead of blackness, it's almost a sort of depressive doom pop, very melodic, and emotional and intense, still heavy, just more moody, and it suits them for sure.
After another stretch of dark Romanian folk flecked ambience, track four, again beginning with a dark folk intro, slowly mutates and intensifies, until it too explodes into some black metal, but even here, about as fierce and heavy as the record has gotten, the blackness is rife with acoustic guitars, fluttering flutes, swirling synths, all wrapped around a very Maiden-y melody, woozy serpentine guitars, chugging riffage, all still softened by those folk underpinnings.
And while there are indeed moments of blackened aggression, and bits of blasting fury, that doesn't seem to be what NB are really about anymore, the group seem to be more concerned with evoking emotion, creating a landscape of sound that reflects their philosophy and mythology, the black metal more just an element of the whole, and really not even that prominent of one at this point, instead the modern sound of Negura Bunget is some sort of blackened dark folk prog metal, epic and sprawling, intricate and intimate, not concerned with heaviness or kvltness or any false scene idea of 'true', because when it gets right down to it, the music of Negura Bunget is indeed as true as it gets, true to the self, and to their vision, and that sort of truth is the only thing that can create musical art like Virstele Pamintului.
Two song blast from this rad new duo who tap into some shredding, grungy, post-punk shoegaze glory. There's a really cool late '80s Sonic Youth vibe to these songs too, recalling some of the awesome sprawling and rocking moments of SY records like Sister, Evol and Daydream Nation. We really like how these two songs if pushed one way or another could either be full on shoegaze or total post-punk rockers, but instead they are able to unite those worlds so beautifully. Claiming that a band is like a cross between My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth feels like both hyperbole and unfair to the band to ever live up to those epic influences, and to be honest there have been hundreds of bands who have tried and failed. But these two songs sound so damn refreshing and exude an element of cool that you just can't fake. We can't wait to hear more! And like most/all things on Mexican Summer this is limited so grab one now or see you on eBay later...
It's hard to believe that at one time The North Sea, the solo guitar project of Digitalis head honcho Brad Rose, was more of a shimmery minimal folk thing, cuz at some point, the sound changed, and the North Sea became more about blackened heaviness, dense drones, thick layered wall of sound, still evocative and atmospheric, but way darker, and way more intense.
Based on the opening track of Bloodlines, things seem to have remained dark, and we're digging it, this time around especially as there seems to be more of a focus on electronics and synths, the opening track features a motorik pulse, a tolling bell, all beneath a squelchy synth drone, and little streaks of spaced out effects, ominous and creepy and a little bit alien, eventually exploding into a gristly crush of crumbling buzz and processed synth. Which leads directly into a sprawling dronescape, that begins where the first track left off, a cloud of synthdrone psychedelia, only to unwind into something much more minimal and dark, a creeping sort of bassline drifting along beneath a cloud of hiss and static, which smoothes out into a grinding stretch of muted heaviness, a bit like SUNNO))) but not distorted and downtuned as much as thick and dense and dark. It's not until a few more tracks in, that the clouds finally part, and let a little melody shine through, and even then, those melodies are still being pelted with synth buzz, and wreathed in blackened whirrs.
"Save Yourselves" might be our favorite track here, with its deep sinewy swells, that blossom into lush chordal drifts, the vibe growing ever more menacing, the soft sounds soon surrounded on all sides by intense, not-so-soft sounds, a swirling soft cacophony, the whole track seems to moan and groan, exploding into a frenzied climax, a soaring sonic ritual, where drums come in for the first time, abstract and spaced out, but it gives the track a really intense, propulsive feel.
The final two tracks continue on, the whirling roiling buzz, the sporadic drumming, the wild squalls of psychedelic noise, it's like a sort of free jazz / free noise / free drone hybrid, finally collapsing into the final track, a sea of soft tones, ominous synth pulses, distorted bass buzz, and clouds of cymbal shimmer, what began as tranquil and dreamlike becomes a sort of Carpenter style synth dirge, before transforming into a psych drone blowout and finally grinding to a halt. Epic. And awesome.
More rad psych rock reissue action here, courtesy of the Shadoks label. Their latest batch of cds delve into the prog rock past of a place known for interesting music (and volcanoes, and fairies), Iceland! Svanfridur, Trubrot, and this one, Odmenn, which we're reviewing first 'cause it's one we'd heard before, we already knew we loved it, and it's possibly the heaviest of the bunch. Poppy too, though, these songs are syncopated, swinging ear candy for those into what DJ Andy Votel over at Finders Keepers likes to call "hairy funk". The band formed in 1966, and after several years spent perfecting their groovy and rather heavy progressive blues rock, this record was to be their only full-length release. A double album, 15 tracks, originally released in 1970. All but one of the songs sung in their native Icelandic.
It's a joy, full of irresistibly loping grooves, fuzzy riffage, gentle folky parts, wild guitar solos, and lyrics pertinent to political protest and hippy ideals (so we're told, not understanding Icelandic), yeaaah! There's beautiful, blissed out melodies ("Kaerleikur") and sheer freaked out acid rock excess (the 20 minute, side-long album-ender "Frelsi") and lots of groovy stuff in between. Well, not in between those particular two tracks, as they follow one another, but in between those extremes, across the whole disc, we mean.
We'd recommend Odmenn to fans of other killer Scandinavian psychedelia such as Moses (another recent Shadoks reish), Baby Grandmothers, Mecki Mark Men, and, latterly, Dungen. And it comes with extensive liner notes, as well as vintage photos and graphics, in the thick cd booklet. Very cool.
Over the last couple years no pop band has won over our ears and hearts more then Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Their full length and follow up ep displayed a band capable of creating highly addictive, breezy and melodic pop crafted so meticulously. So two new songs from them is something to celebrate for sure. And they continue their amazing streak of not releasing a single dud yet. It's true every song on the amazing debut full length and the Higher Than The Stars ep were all absolute winners. The kind of records where every few weeks you listen, you have a new favorite song. These two new jams find the band at their most sun kissed, songs perfect for cracking the window and feeling the soft breeze on a warm summer afternoon. While it will always be hard to talk about them without mentioning the sound of classic romantic UK pop of the '80s like The Smiths, James, and The Field Mice, there is no doubt that Pains Of Being Pure at heart have employed those influences with greater results then so many others. And in the process they have created their own take on that classic sound, which all bands that follow in their footsteps will now be be judged by.
Here stands the final report from Finnish electronic music masters Pan Sonic, a heavy, super distorted, seriously aggressive swansong, as Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen have decided to call it quits, years after releasing their first ep on the now seminal Sakho label. Moire patterns of phase-shifting bleeps and spiralling waves held their Sputnik orbits around punishingly simple techno drum programming in their earliest incarnation, with much of their gear being hand-built or repurposed from Russian technology that occasionally crossed the border into Finland. Hence, the Pan Sonic take on techno has always been unique compared to even the most innovative of techno producers, with their typical arsenal of Roland gear. Throughout those 16 years, the rhythms of Pan Sonic have shifted away from the techno monophunk and towards a mechano-electro swagger. Ghosts of Suicide's rockabilly influence, the industrial foundations laid by Throbbing Gristle, and the psychoacoustics transmitted from Xenakis' electronic scores all manifest within Pan Sonic. Much of the poetics of the group's sound are based on the tiniest of objects, amplified through extraordinary means as to express the sublime power of X-rays, radio waves, and the energy housed within the atom itself. The title Gravitoni refers to a hypothetical particle that has been predicted within quantum physics to be related to gravitational force and its correlative relationship to spacetime.
The album begins with the Pan Sonic duo revving their electrical engines and expelling visceral riffs of cathode-ray noise grafted upon urgent breakbeat rhythms whose pace hurtles down the path of linear particle accelerators, smashing into anything that gets in their way. But gradually, the album sublimates the rhythm amidst arctic reverberations of electrical pings cast against the walls of a huge metallic chamber. This progression from the claustrophobic to the expansive harkens to Pan Sonic's masterful 4cd boxset Kesto which took a similar sonic route and which positions Gravitoni as a fantastic finale to an incredible career. So recommended!
After flipping out over PdP's Black Noise record, a gorgeous collection of lush minimal avant techno, that owed as much to minimal pop music, and avant garde soundscapery as it did to Kompakt or Chain Reaction, we became obsessed with tracking down the two earlier albums, Diamond Daze and This Bliss, but unfortunately, both were out of print, and available only for way too much on eBay.
Then whattaya know, a couple months later and both get reissued, and both are just as fantastic as Black Noise.
The template is the same, spares, spare, skeletal, minimal throb and pulse, click and skitter, house music, techno, the template is classic electronic music, but those tropes get all twisted up and remargined as something lush and otherworldly, sexy and organic, This Bliss couldn't be a more appropriate title for this record, as it is truly blissful. Not so much geared toward the dancefloor, this is like after hours chillout music, but imbued with light and warmth and energy and emotion, propulsive, but also washed out, hazy and shimmery, the sounds are prismatic and crystalline, makes sense that this would get reissued via Kompakt, as it's a pretty perfect fit, but unlike some of the Kompakt stuff, that can tend toward the clubby, the sounds on This Bliss remain rooted in sounds more minimal, and more abstract and avant, besides the muted beats, the swooshing ambience, PdP incorporates soaring strings, epic and cinematic, tracks are given the impression of motion, the soundtrack to speeding along some highway in the middle of the night, notes ring out, chiming bell like loops are layered and allowed to drift into the ether.
On the surface, the sound is definitely minimal techno, but it's so well crafted, it ends up revealing itself as so much more on repeated deeper listens. This is the sort of electronic music that could reasonable convert the skeptical, lure in the non believers with it's lustrous nuanced sounds, and gorgeously moody mystery.
TOTALLY RECOMMENDED. We think it's as good as Black Noise, likewise with Diamond Daze, which we'll review soon, and like This Bliss is destined to join the other two records on non stop heavy rotation around these parts...
Time for Pastels fans to rejoice 'cause this wonderful compilation has been freshly repressed! Originally released back in 2007, Truckload Of Trouble collects a heap of these beloved Scottish popsters' singles which were released on Fire Records circa 1986 through 1993. Following on the heels of The Vaselines' Enter The Vaselines reissue, this is indeed a welcome resurfacing of another immensely influential UK indie twee band's music (as a matter of fact, The Vaselines' Eugene Kelly even joined The Pastels fold for a spell!). Sure, the playing chops and singing pitch of these early purveyors of lo-fi might've been somewhat rough-hewn and wobbly through the years, but their melodic hooks were consistently engaging, and their bittersweet lyrics utterly heartfelt. There was a delightful immediacy, an earnest yet wry humor and an abundance of puppy dog exuberance that always shone through. Theirs were the songs of cardigans and crushes which when strung together fashioned the sweetest, ramshackle, jingle-jangle twee pop daydreams! Their cover of Michael Nesmith's "Different Drum" is still one of Cup's favoritest songs for a rainy day. Other blithe standouts include the supremely singalong-able "Nothing To Be Done" and Daniel Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycle" later covered again by their early tourmates Yo La Tengo. You really can trace the sound of so many of our favorite bands back to the inspiration of The Pastels. From Belle & Sebastian, Henry's Dress, Black Tambourine, Camera Obscura, The Concretes, Sebadoh, Pavement, Seam, Jesus & Mary Chain, Dean Wareham (Luna, Galaxie 500, et al), Amelia Fletcher (Heavenly, Talulah Gosh, Marine Research, Tender Trap, et al) and on and on. Beyond the legendary impact their music has had, these songs still sound so damn great all these years later.
Another chapter in the Suicide related 10" series from Blast First Petite. This one features Peaches, Effie Briest, and Alan Vega. The cover of this 10" is the most shocking thing about the release with its illustration of an erect cock adorned with dragon tattoos and dripping with semen. You might think that Peaches would match this image with a dirty-dirty-dirty bit of electro, but her track is a more innocent than sultry cover of "Johnny" from Suicide's first album. Effie Briest takes up an odd track to cover, "Universe" from the little-known Why Be Blue album Suicide released in 1992. Their cover eschews electronics for an atmospheric post-punk dirge certainly worthy of the acclaim they received on their Sacred Bones lp. The Alan Vega track originally came from the 1990 album Deuce Avenue, with a narcoleptic arrangement of electronics and Vega's rockabilly, lip-curled vocals.
Attention, all worshippers of WITCHCRAFT!! What we have here is the next best thing to new music from that more '70s than thou band of Swedish heavy prog downer doomsters, and huge AQ faves. It's the debut solo recording from Witchcraft frontman Magnus Pelander, a four song, 21 minute ep. If you're a real Witchcraft fan, you'll want this. Since Magnus is the prime mover in Witchcraft, and this highlights his distinctive, mellifluous voice as well as guitar playing and songwriting talents, it's one of those "solo" projects that doesn't sound too different from the main band.... except it's mostly acoustic! A few years back, one time when Witchcraft were playing in San Francisco, Magnus told us he had plans to team up with a friend of his back home, who's also his guitar teacher, to do an acoustic album. We'd been eagerly waiting ever since, and it seems that their project has finally borne fruit. Magnus plays 6 string acoustic guitar, electric as well, plus drums and percussion. And of course sings. Meanwhile, his friend Mike (first name only given here, he's shy or something) plays 6 and 12 steel string acoustic guitars, plus piano, bass, percussion, and handles the string arrangements.
AQ's Allan, actually, was lucky enough to get to see the duo's first ever performance, this year at the Roadburn festival in Holland. For him, it was definitely a highlight of the fest, though Magnus and Mike were frustrated by some technical difficulties during their set. Still, they rose to the occasion and delivered some of the most "musical" moments of the whole Roadburn experience. Let's put it this way: Magnus is no slouch on guitar, but this guy Mike was really phenomenal!
The glorious, intricate interplay of guitars Allan heard there is fully on display here, as is the manner in which Magnus bears his heart vocally and lyrically, these songs so personal and emotive, like a lot of the most moving Witchcraft tunes. Some of this has got that sad Sabbath "Solitude" vibe, though the ep starts out on the brighter side with "A Sinner's Child", featuring melodious whistling, and lovely female backing ah-ah-ah's, but also lyrics like "I am a sinner's child / you better wait a while / before you take my hand / can you see Satan smile?" keeping it well within the realm of something dark and occultic that Witchcraft themselves might do. "Hope", which begins just with voice and piano, getting even more intimate in feel than the first track, soon turns into even more of a showcase for this duo's impressive 6 and 12 string chops. They rip... acoustically. Track 3, "You Have Got No Friends To Turn To" is by far the heaviest offering here, Magnus busting out the electric guitar for some plodding riff stomp and amped-up psychedelic soloing, though the track is still adorned with plenty of acoustic filigree and hand percussion. Certainly another one that wouldn't be out of place on a Witchcraft album.
The last, and longest, track, "Stardust", is an achingly beautiful and melancholic ballad, Magus's singing starting off hushed, the strumming almost sacred, a string section gradually building up in the background, piano notes intertwined with the guitar lines, it gets pretty progged out and epic! Allan definitely remembers this one from Roadburn, even in the stripped down way they played it there.
This record recalls at moments the likes of Comus and Six Organs and Aztec Two-Step and even, unintentionally but awesomely, Tenacious D, just a teeny bit. Fellow Swedes Dungen and Bjorn Olsson would be other references. And while in our experience, most people into the whole current indie acid folk scene already do dig Witchcraft, those who haven't heard 'em might find this to be a particularly lush, gorgeous, somewhat mellowed out entree.
LIMITED IMPORT RELEASE, cd version limited to 500 copies. We have black vinyl, with nice thick sleeves.
We've loved Joe Pernice ever since the Scud Mountain Boys, his classic alt-country Sub Pop outfit, the songs sad and wistful, the arrangements lush, and the voice, it was always about the voice, delicate and fragile and so emotional, after Scud Mountain Boys called it quits, Pernice went on to craft similarly evocative and moving country / pop in various guises, Big Tobacco, Chappaquiddick Skyline, and finally as the Pernice Brothers. But whatever name he used, and whatever sound he was exploring, whether it was soft pop, mournful country, or whatever, the sound and the voice were always recognizable.
We complained a little about the last Pernice Brothers, we still dug it, but were worried that Pernice's obsession with soft rock (Bread, the Raspberries, etc.) was dulling his songwriting pen, the hooks less hooky, the sound less sparkly and sharp. But on Goodbye, Killer, it sounds like nothing ever changed. This record would fit anywhere in Pernice's career, and that's not a bad thing at all, jangly, smart pop, flecked with country-ish twang, lush arrangements, big time hooks, and that voice, sounding as powerful as ever, but without losing any of its fragility.
Right out of the gate, we're utterly smitten, "Bechamel" opens with a perfectly lilting vocal melody over strummed acoustic guitar, and straight into not only a killer chorus, but a bridge that's just as memorable. "Jacqueline Susann" gets a little bit more rocking, reminding us a bit of Ted Leo of all people, but there's a certain sort of melody that only Pernice seems to be capable off, every band has had certain sonic shadings, the sort of thing, that no matter who was playing it, that chord progression, or the way the vocals interact with the music around it, total Joe Pernice, and this record is overflowing with that classic Pernice sound.
Those first two songs are definitely a killer one two punch, and we find ourselves playing those over and over, but the whole record plays out fantastically as a whole, the sort of bittersweet perfect pop that there's just not enough of these days.
Our Record Of The Week from List #347, back in stock!!
One genre in heavy music, that a whole bunch of aQ-ers consider critical to their musical development, is in fact WAY underrepresented on the aQ list, partially cuz much of the music that made up that genre happened well before the advent of the aQ new arrivals list, but also because so few contemporary bands can pull that sound off, at least convincingly. What the heck are we talking about? SCREAMO. Yep, wild, chaotic, short sharp post punk heaviness, some of our faves include Orchid, Mohinder, Swing Kids, Portraits Of Past, Heroin, Antioch Arrow... those live shows were legendary, heaving masses of sweaty flesh, the line between audience and band blurred or obliterated completely, sets as short as 10 minutes, still packed with 15 songs of furious hardcore frenzy, there were definitely politics going on too, but it was the sound that had us smitten, the energy, the passion, the emotion, that first wave of screamo was obviously heavily indebted to Rites Of Spring, Die Kreuzen and other early hardcore and post hardcore combos, but the screamo bands took that sound and cranked it up, supercharged it, shortened the songs and blew the living fuck out of it.
Very few bands today can pull off that sound, or even try, there's Comadre, and Ampere, and a few others, and now you can add Pianos Become The Teeth, but the cool thing about PBTT, are that they take that classic screamo sound and meld it to a seemingly diametrically opposed sound, that sort of Godspeed You Black Emperor, slow build epic post rock majesty! And somehow it works. The energy and passion, the bursts of furious howling musical catharsis wedded to something more smoldering and patient, and the mix is pretty fucking fantastic, the group lurching from dense tangles of wild punkish crunch to soaring epic psychedelic blow outs, the songs super complex, constantly shifting mood and emotion, but keeping the tension ratcheted way up. "Quit Benefit" features insane squalls of wild octopoidal drumming, stuttering arrangements and dramatic pauses, haunting stretched out sheets of feedback, cool hard panned guitar jangle, the song a non stop frenzy of ever shifting rhythms, incredibly lush and melodic but all snarled up, but with a distinct melodic vibe running through the whole thing. "Pensive" finds the band locking into a churning slow build, with still more intense and relentless drumming, the guitars sharp and angular, the vocals howled and oozing with pathos, every song is a dizzying mile a minute post punk emo screamo epic, the band slipping so easily from indie jangle to rabid grinding punk and back again, but after nearly 30 minutes of that incredible and insanely cathartic level of sustained energy, the band offer up the final track, "Young Fire", a gorgeous post rock drift, all clean spidery guitars, simple skeletal rhythms, woozy twangy melodies, a slow build part way through to something more heavy, but never letting go, never exploding into a wild freak out, instead, letting the song unfurl lazily, the various sounds slowly slipping away, eventually leaving just a single reverbed guitar to play the record out. So lovely.
And the whole record, so fucking heavy and epic and emo(tional), definitely a big new favorite around here, and for folks who have been missing the days of the Orchid and Mohinder and Gravity Records, this is as about as close as you're gonna get to making it back there, but as is obvious from the above, Old Pride is less about looking back, and more about taking that sound, and dragging it forward, into the NOW.
Been wanting to list this for a while, one of Allan's top "true metal" faves of 2009, now finally available via domestic distribution channels at a non-import price! We first became fans of RAM thanks to the inclusion of their track "Sudden Impact" on the excellent Earache comp Heavy Metal Killers a year or two ago. This is their second full-length, the first RAM we've been able to track down for the store. And it's quite a piece of work. While they're definitely inspired by a lot of '80s metal, and have recorded covers of songs by the likes Black Sabbath and Venom, RAM tend towards a more original, less overtly retro sound than some of their peers - like, for instance, fellow Swedes Enforcer, the slaying second album from whom we highlighted on our last list. As good as Enforcer is at energetically and enjoyably emulating their favorite '80s speed metal masters, RAM manage to do them one better by putting their old school melodic metal chops in service of something a bit more serious, and darker, and dare we say artistic. While we haven't delved deeply into all the lyrics, we get the idea that RAM's songs have a bit more to 'em than the usual metal cliches, they seem to be opining on occultic or philosophical concepts worth of the more erudite of black metal weirdoes, "religious" ones like Deathspell Omega. Or maybe it's just the stylish and meticulous glyphic art and graphic design, done by RAM's expressive vocalist, and evident visionary, Oscar Carlquist, that gives us this notion of unique genius. Well, the bottom line is the music, and there we're mighty impressed even without reference to the cd booklet (which, by the way, informs us that "this album is dedicated to the glory of the relentless truth").
Including a strikingly eerie and intense, mostly instrumental intro entitled "Crushing The Dwarf Of Ignorance", and similar outro "Prelude To Death" (both featuring text written and recited by Mexican poet Adelaida Caballero), you get ten tracks of varied and powerful metal, surging forth with stellar production values, super heavy, sometimes quite speedy, boasting vocals that soar high, but remain vicious, atmospheres arcane, and raging riffs that are worthy, oh so worthy of your headbanging attention. They do justice to the legacy of such assumed influences as Mercyful Fate and Manowar, Iron Maiden and Metal Church, yet while successfully striving to be their own (and more modern) band entirely. And without succumbing to any of the cheese endemic to the genre, they pump out pure power metal majesty, with tracks like the nine-minute epic "Suomussalmi (The Few Of Iron)" reminding us quite favorably of the melodic bombast of an old AQ fave, Blind Guardian. There's lots to capture one's imagination here, while also, as we said, causing heads to bang.
In a word, RAM rule!
Finally, a new issue of Rape & Honey, the miniature metal magazine, that has taken the place of the now deceased Oaken Throne, easily one of the best metal periodicals ever. But when OT was retired, John Mincemoyer, one half of the Oaken Throne editorial team, decided he still wanted to do printed zine, but with a twist, that twist being that each issue is focused on a single band. Lovingly laid out, gorgeously designed and printed, well written and extremely interesting, Rape & Honey is almost like lengthy articles pulled from a magazine and transformed into their own slime volume, and like many of our favorite mags, it almost doesn't matter who it's about, it's great reading, and more often than not, you'll be dying to hear the band after reading all about their history, their beliefs, and most importantly their music.
The first issue focused on the relatively obscure black thrash outfit Razor Of Occam, issue two was all about aQ faves Funeral Mist, and now along comes #3, this time it's all about Weapon, whose Drakonian Paradigm record we raved about not too long back. Bangladesh via Canada, a killer mix of grim blackness and classic metal, with wild solos, loads of harmony guitars, actual melodies, weird production, extreme stereo panning, you can read our review on the aQ site, but you should also grab one of these and dig in. Besides all the interesting stuff in the article, the presentation is superb, this time it's up to 12 pages (not long before it becomes a proper magazine perhaps?), full color, with a super nice center spread, and as always, there are some inserts, a Rape & Honey postcard, and Ajna Offensive ad/insert, and a small printed transparency with Mincemoyer's review of Drakonian Paradigm!
If you read Terrorizer, and Decibel, and used to read Oaken Throne, then there's no reason you shouldn't be reading Rape & Honey!
One of two amazing vinyl-only reissues on the brand new Medical Records label (the other is Record Of The Week Deutsche Wertarbeit). This one, a holy grail of sorts for all the cult disco seekers, a sexy, exuberant and at times wonderfully sleazy hybrid of Italo-disco, French electro, and Minimal Wave weirdness by the one and only Alexander Robotnick (aka Maurizio Dami).
Ce N'est Q'un Debut was released in 1984 after his first single, "Problemes D'amour" became a mega-cult hit in New York underground dance club circles a year earlier. The extended version of that track was prominently featured on the Strut label's Disco Not Disco 2 a few years back, and it fits right in with Giorgio Moroder, Bernard Fevre, Arthur Russell and other Mutant Disco aficionados as a defining dance staple of the era. This mini-lp features 6 killer tracks including the Moroderesque, "Dance Boy Dance", another popular cult single that was probably heard more in gay bathhouses than in mainstream discos due to its lurid minimal rhythms and suggestive whispered singing. Sooo good! Sweaty summer dancing begins here! Don't let this one slip away!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each 180 gram colored vinyl and hand-numbered. We're not sure how long we'll have these, so don't wait too long. Highest Recommendation!
Along with the beautiful compilation of seventies recordings from Roedelius' Selbstportrait series (Diary Of The Unforgotten), we also have this lovely reissue of his 1981 recording Lustwandel. This was Roedelius' third solo record between the chamber baroque miniatures of 1979's Jardin Au Fou and the airy open-ended pastoralism of Wenn Der Sudwind Weht, recorded the same year as this. The music on Lustwandel is a perfect segue between the two approaches, comprised largely of solo piano works with subtle textural nuances of ambient atmospherics and classical inflected melodies, that occasionally transition into works for strings as well as harpsichord. But there are also some strange turns here and there into a warm angularity of soft martial rhythms and ballet moods, as well as some medieval sounding short pieces with pipes and hand percussion. It's a slowly sauntering set that takes its time to move from parlor to forest in an almost pageant like procession. Quite Beautiful!
What a great time this is, and how lucky we are to be living in it, as the back catalogs of both Cluster members, Moebius and Roedelius, have been getting the long overdue reissue campaign they so rightly deserve. So many gems to be found in both of their discographies, in fact, they're almost all gems.
The Diary Of The Unforgotten is a collection of musical sketches that Roedelius made between the years 1973-1978. It never saw release until 1990, and sadly that pressing came and went quickly, so most of us here had never heard these amazing tracks before.
Shimmering with dreamy atmosphere, melancholic and flowing with a soft grace, you can tell Brian Eno was so in tune with these same sounds, sounds which would eventually evolve into their future collaborations as well as on Eno's own records like Before & After Science and Another Green World. What's so miraculous about these tracks is that while they flow with such a golden ease, they were actually recorded in such a lo-fi manner. Roedelius would just let the tape roll and would not add any overdubs afterwards. Perhaps that's why the emotional quality of these songs hits us so strongly. Nine of the ten songs range in the three to five minute range and then there's the epic twenty four minute centerpiece "Hommage A Forst". While we could argue forever about which Roedelius or Cluster offshoot release is our favorite, right now The Diary Of The Unforgotten is making a pretty great case for that honor.
A few weeks back, we made the newly unearthed and amazing Harmonia Live 1974 album our Record Of The Week, and also highlighted two of the four solo albums by Harmonia's Michael Rother that were also reissued at the same time. That's a lot of krautrock goodness to absorb at once, so we are just now getting around to listing those other two Rother solo discs, Flammende Herzen (1976) and Katzenmusik (1979), chronologically his first and third solo efforts. On both of these, as with the previous pair, Rother's beautifully harmonized, multitracked guitars and synths are joined by the incomparable, propulsive drumming of fellow krautrock hero Jaki Liebzeit of Can. And another legendary figure in the scene, Conny Plank, produces.
Flammende Herzen, which means Flaming Hearts in English, is a blissful concoction of motorik beats beneath Rother's trademark shimmering, soaring melodies. It's easy to see why it was a big hit when it was first released (apparently outselling all of Rother's albums with Neu! combined!). Truly gorgeous instrumental compositions that will brighten your day, being sources of both relaxation and energy... ok, that sounds a bit New Agey, doesn't it? But fans of the kosmische krautrock stuff should be comfortable with that, after all, there's a definite overlap, with Ashra, Tangerine Dream, Deuter, and Popol Vuh among others being krautrockers later to cross over to careers in the New Age field... and it's not like you have to get into a yoga pose to enjoy this album (though you could). Such nice music for a drive in the country, or lazing at home on a rainy afternoon, as well. Definitely a fine follow up to his work in Harmonia, tracks like "Feuerland" certainly not ignoring the r-o-c-k part of the krautrock equation in the process of being all spacey and hypnotic.
While we can solidly recommend Rother's solo debut, the other one under review here, Katzenmusik, is a bit iffier (though some folks actually consider it his masterpiece, cf. allmusic.com). On it, Rother moves more and more in that much-maligned New Age direction, mellowing out even further. The blue sky, fluffy white clouds, and arcing jet-trail of the cover photo are well-evoked by the music inside. Twelve untitled, again all-instrumental tracks, all very airy-fairy. Gently uplifting guitar confections ride along on the tick-tock of Jaki's drumming... It's quite nice all right, just without any edginess. If you love Rother, you'll probably want it, but get the others first.
These are both, again, nicely done reissues from the Water label, with the original art and new liner notes.
Got something here for fans of Jex Thoth, the No Neck Blues Band, AND weird religious cults... there's probably some overlap there, we imagine! The Ajna Offensive, best known for black metal releases by the likes of Deathspell Omega and Funeral Mist, and also that fancy Bobby Beausoleil box set not long ago, now bring us the Sabbath Assembly, singing "glorious songs of praise to Lucifer, Satan, Christ, and Jehovah". Huh? These are indeed REAL hymns, and all from one church. Some would say, cult. The explanation: ever heard of the Process Church Of The Final Judgment? This is their music, "reProcessed" by a contemporary psychedelic (super)group of underground musicians, including Jex Thoth of, um, Jex Thoth on vocals, David "Xtian" Nuss (NNCK, Angelblood, Under Satan's Sun), and Randall Dunn (Master Musicians Of Bukkake)!�So you can expect this will be ominous and esoteric.
The subject of a recent Feral House book, the Process Church was a '70s phenomenon, of course, a kind of apocalyptic Jesus-freak cult with radical political dimensions. We're told they wore black cloaks (always cool) and had German shepherds (really?). We first heard of 'em years ago thanks to George Clinton's band Funkadelic, who for a while in the early '70s were, if not followers, at least supporters of the Process Church, who presumably had a chapter in Detroit. Several Funkadelic lps feature Process Church teachings (propaganda?) on the sleeves. The music of the Sabbath Assembly doesn't sound much like Funkadelic, though. Not quite that funky! Nor are they metal as you might assume from the label... it's actually often pretty, mellow stuff, presumably sounding close to what the Process Church folks themselves sounded like when singing the Lord's (or Lucifer's?) praises back in the day, these hymns very hippie sounding, churchy and folky, but also garagey, with twangy guitar and groovy organ, building into throbbing rhythmic psych workouts. It even gets a bit jazzy in spots ("The Power That Is Love"). Still, while this isn't heavy in the guitar dep't the way Jex Thoth's regular band is, it is definitely "heavy" in terms of subject matter. Jex is the perfect vocalist for this, her dramatic, devotional delivery at once both innocent and intense, sincere and sinister. Her exaltations and exhortations rise from a delicate whisper to commanding, demanding heights, sometimes unaccompanied, at others, with backing vocals reinforcing the message.
Be warned, this ain't Sunday school. When Jex asks "will you serve the will of God?", it seems like you had darn well better answer (yes!). Dunno if the Process Church is still around (haven't read the book yet) but if they are, there's a good chance this record might recruit some converts... And at least, it's certainly making us curious to read that book. Creepy, yes, and quite catchy too, we can understand why these folks were drawn to reinterpreting these songs. Though of course curious about what the original source material was (lyrics? vintage recordings?). Perhaps it says somewhere inside the lp packaging, we haven't checked for liner notes as yet. This was produced in association with Feral House, so it would seem the Sabbath Assembly had access to whatever inside archival info there was on the Process Church's musical activities.
As "religious" recordings go, this is what we dig! For fans of Jex of course, and Yahowah 13, Family Jams, Sounds Of Ascension, and other "cult" audio... recommended! For now, vinyl-only, 180 gram, gold-colored. There will also be a compact disc version, out later this month sometime.
We didn't even know this reissue was happening, but both Andee and Allan were so psyched when this came out recently. The first we heard of LA speed metal outfit Savage Grace was back in the day, they had a track on the Metal Blade Metal Massacre II compilation released in 1982, with other rad bands of the time like Aloha, Overkill, Obsession and all time aQ faves Warlord, among others. Even with all that tough competition, their song "Scepters Of Deceit" ruled, and weirdly enough, it featured Ozzy guitarist Randy Rhoads' brother on vocals. The next year, the band put out The Dominatress ep, which besides being their first proper release, featured a saucy lingerie clad dominatrix, er, dominatress on the cover, which was quite titillating for young metalheads like us at the time. A couple years later, the band released their killer debut full-length Master Of Disguise, featuring another infamous cover, this one with a naked woman handcuffed to a motorcycle, with a creepy red eyed cop leering at her, all wreathed in red fog, and the music inside was even better than the ep, not as raw, but still fast and heavy and melodic. This slipcased cd reissue contains both Master Of Disguise and The Dominatress, and tacks on 4 early eighties demo tracks, including their Metal Massacre contribution.
Most metalheads maybe remember these guys, but they might not realize how well this stuff has stood the test of time. It sounds better than ever, especially with the onslaught of retro metal and old school style thrash bands, this stuff just rules. Still. The riffs are killer, the songs are super hooky and stick in your head like crazy, the leads are super technical and catchy in their own way too, the kind of leads that you end up humming along to, the vocals soaring and high and perfectly suited to the music, the drumming intense and also super technical, and while these guys are generally considered to be speed metal, the band they most sound like in many ways is Iron Maiden, the same sort of epic song structures, harmonized guitar leads, there's definitely a serious NWOBHM influence, which makes this stuff so much more than run of the mill speed metal. Just check out the sound samples, if you can resist "Lion's Roar" or "Bound To Be Free", you really have no right to call yourself a metalhead... Oh, and if you liked the new one from Sweden's Enforcer we highlighted a few weeks back, THIS is definitely the kind of '80s speed metal that they're today's torch carriers of.
Includes a massive booklet with lyrics, liner notes, tons of photos, including alternate even saucier shots from the photo session for the Master Of Disguise cover! Recommended, metallers!!
One of our favorite pastimes here at aQ is stumbling across those uncovered gems that may have otherwise remained hidden in internet obscurity. Vancouver, Canada's Secret Pyramid is the perfect example of one of these hidden gems, a humbly packaged cd-r that turned out to blow our freakin' minds. Apparently this guy is one half of Solars, another killer Vancouver psychedelic drone outfit whose tapes have sold-out of here like hotcakes. Picture those same smeared melodies washed away in fuzz, growing drones giving way to sedated vocal murmurs, strummed acoustic guitar embellished with cosmic layers of shimmering delay, all meticulously composed into something that resembles Flying Saucer Attack collaborating with Andrew Chalk.�
"Ghosts of the Sun / Oceans" opens with swirling washes of gently strummed acoustic guitar, layers of howling feedback and cosmic buzz weave themselves in and out of muffled vocal reflections, soft whispers in the dead of night that give way to deep buzzing dark ambiance. Creepy drones hover above the cavern floors like grey mist, distant feedback swells echoing like flutes or distant birds, all building up to a gorgeous fuzz drenched climax that unfolds like a warm jet stream arching across a dim coastal horizon. "Milk & Honey" begins with a deep, dooooomy wash that builds into an entrancing buzz, creepy and hushed FSA style vocals lurch in again, this time reminding us of a contemplative, more droney Suicide. Finally "Permanence" calmly lifts off with a beautifully whirling sound wall, something similar to the cryptic tones of Kevin Drumm's Imperial Horizon, but Secret Pyramid come off as less industrial, and offers up something more mystical, serene and ephemeral. Needless to say, we were really impressed by this debut release and can not recommend it more. "Ghosts" is criminally limited to an edition of 50, so act fast if you'd like to get your hands on one of these hand-assembled cd-r gems!�
Circles Of Silver opens Steven Severin's four-part limited edition Codex Astra cd series based on quotations by the infamous Aleister Crowley. On the inside of the digipak is inscribed, "I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning." Although a familiarity with the occult figure and his writings may offer the listener some insight into the former Banshee's inspirations for these recordings, it does not appear to be a prerequisite to be able to listen to (and enjoy) these instrumental compositions. A penchant for well-crafted drone music might be just as handy!
Creeping clouds of smotherous tones fill every crevice while vaporous hisses drift over top. A somber, beautiful 17-minute aural shroud that's sure to pique the interest of dronescape lovers far and wide.
FYI: The second volume of Codex Astra titled Hours Of Gold, the third Idols Of Glass, and the fourth Wand Of Flame will follow shortly. Each volume will be a limited cd pressing of 777. So be sure to get them while you can!
Note to those who prefer records to cds: the four volumes will eventually be compiled and re-released on vinyl as Codex Astra: ABRAHADABRA (release date tba).
Another issue of this colorful British magazine devoted to cool music from way back when, the psychedelic and punk eras in particular... The cover is shared this ish by the legendary Lee Hazlewood and the cheerful insanity of Giles, Giles, & Fripp (pre-King Crimson psych pop genius). Also inside, everything from the Damned's Captain Sensible, to proto-metallers Bang, to Michael Fennelley of The Millenium and Crabby Appleton, to UK heavy proggers Samuel Prody... and plenty more, old and new. Lotsa reviews, news, all the usual stuff. Basically if you read Mojo and/or Ugly Things, you should be reading Shindig! too.
Oooh, Emo Andee's probably gonna be excited, Hayley Williams of Paramore is on the cover. Throwin' down! Inside, "The Tragic Life Of A Cult Hero": Vic Chesnutt. Sad. Also: Crystal Castles, Ozzy Osbourne ("Nazis, Guns, And Puppies"!), Big Boi, The Gaslight Anthem, and more.
In the 13 years since its original 1997 release, Spiritualized's third lp has become something of a modern classic, and not without good reason. You'll probably want to ignore our original half-assed review of this landmark record, because this is the kind of album which has gotten better - monumentally better, in fact - with age. As the sticker on this handsome reissue states, Ladies and Gentlemen is "A psychedelic gospel album full of confessional songs about heartbreak and drug abuse, a flat out masterpiece." True dat. It is also the album where mainman Jason Pierce was able to bypass the whole "ex-Spacemen 3" tag (though, to be fair, that will probably stick with him for all of eternity, never mind the fact that the dude does go by the name J. Spaceman...) as Spiritualized had definitely come into their own at this point. So, by now many of you are familiar with this album's back story, in which Pierce's ladyfriend/keyboardist Kate Radley up and ran off with Richard Ashcroft of the Verve. Of course, she still found time to play on Ladies and Gentlemen, and Pierce's heartbreak is in full effect here. You will be hard pressed to find beauty and misery done better together than on this record. Instead of whining and whinging, Pierce comes off as legitimately despondent, channeling his deepest emotions to create a vast album that is stoic and ultimately quite triumphant, not to mention pretty rocking and aggressive at points. Pierce's voice sounds like that of a man questioning existence - sometimes sweet and desperate, others times pissed and snotty - as he navigates through a chemically induced state of confusion and sadness. The sophisticated string and horn arrangements are really something else, as are the addition of a full on gospel choir and the keyboard talents of none other than Dr. John. These elements are perfectly integrated into the dreamy, druggy haze Spiritualized has always shrouded themselves in, and it comes as no surprise that this is the big one for most of the band's fans.
The mood is established right away with the gentle and depressing title track/intro type thing, and the band then launches into the rocker "Come Together", complete with soulful female backup vocals and a sort of fuck all attitude. "I Think I'm In Love" rides on an interesting atmospheric groove with bluesy harmonica thrown into the mix and some cool wah wah guitar accents. "Electricity" is another supercharged rocker with some cool dirty slide guitar work and the generally perfect sound of a band with a budget to match their ambitions. "Cool Waves" is a warm, drug inspired gospel track that works great as the penultimate song before ending on the 17 minute closer "Cop Shoot Cop" with it's lazy but tense R&B groove and a middle part that sounds like some sort of sonic hurricane.
We suspect many loyal aQ readers will already own this, but it sure is great having this amazing album available on some nice 180 gram heavy duty vinyl, with deluxe packaging, and if for some reason you've missed out GET THIS NOW! Especially since it's limited (our supplier is already all out of 'em, for the moment at least).
Yet another heavy hitting downtuned blackened blast and dirge matchup, this one between Oakland ultra heavies Stormcrow, and Japan's equally brutal Coffins. Stormcrow start things off with a trudging grim pummel, all sludge and trudge and pound, the vocals a hellish belch, eventually exploding into some thrashing blasting punishment, the band spewing a filthy brew that's equal parts Bolt Thrower and Winter, and over the course of nearly 13 minutes they drift from woozy mournful classic doom, to twisted crusty sort-of speed metal, to sprawling D-beat blasts but always back to crushing lumbering slo-mo sludge.
Coffins definitely exist right there next to Stormcrow in the sonic spectrum, their dirgey downtuned doom laced death metal creep, a grim and harrowing thing, lumbering and monstrous, the sound blow out, the guitars impossibly low, lurching along below some grunted vokills, and some WAY up in the mix drums, the cymbals adding a strange haze of sizzle to the proceedings, and like Stormcrow, Coffins mix it up, slipping from Corrupted style sludge to Hellhammerish primitive death metal and back again, some seriously crusty, crushing, amp destroying, head caving filth for sure. Awesome.
We first discovered the raga drone duo Sun Circle via a cd-r sent to the store, direct from the band, and as mentioned in the review of that very cd-r, somehow the disc got lost, only to be discovered literally YEARS later, only for us to finally listen to it, and be totally blown away. The band was as adept at growling howling humming dronemusic as it was at ephemeral atmospheric ambience, crafting their own variations of classic ragas, filtered through an aesthetic as informed by modern music, noise rock and who knows what else, as it was Indian classical music and 20th century minimalism.
On their newest, Lessness, as the title suggests, the band do indeed work with less, each side of the double lp performed on single instrument, either drums, tamboura or gong, but in doing so, manage to transform the minimal instrumentation into something lush and expansive, rhythmic and hypnotic.
The first side is just drums, and is most definitely the most minimal of the bunch, maybe too minimal for some, with just a very simple spare rhythm, pounded out on a drum, maybe several, but the sound is spare, and simple, but listen close, and listen for the whole of the side, and the sounds grow ever more complex, on the surface the rhythm never wavers, but as you get sucked in, the sounds do seems to come alive, the overtones, the subtle shifts in timbre, constantly evolving, but so subtly, it might not be noticeable unless you're in it for the long haul and have those headphones strapped on tight. Total rhythmic raga bliss.
The second two sides are both produced with just tambouras, and the sound is incredible, thick and layered, gorgeously lush, an organic, and living sound, the subtle colors of the sound reflective and prismatic, constantly shifting, intense and mesmerizing and strangely meditative and psychedelic. On the second tamboura side, the sound becomes a bit more structured, but only a bit, buzzing steel strings, subtly rhythmic, locked into a looped groove, deep rumbles beneath a repeated fragmented melody, the most traditionally raga sounding of the bunch, and like the two sides before it, seemingly unchanging, as if it really was looped, but this is the sort of sound that rewards deep listening, and blossoms into a world of complex sound, just below the surface.
Especially on the final side, which is all gongs, and very much like the Karen Stackpole records on Dielectric, the sounds is deep and resonant and so sonorous, ringing out, layered here and there, but more often left to just hover in space, before fading away, only to have another tone take its place, no processing, just the glorious sound of vibrating metal, dark and mysterious, meditative and hypnotic. So gorgeous.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!
This long out of print cassette, from one of our favorite practitioners of gorgeous and haunting grimdrone doomfolk, finally reissued on cd and vinyl! And with a whole extra chunk of unreleased music...
Penpals Forever proper begins with a flurry of percussive guitar thrum, tons of reverb and buzz, a shimmering black forest of metallic shimmer and deep rumbles, all woven into what up close is a dizzying swirl of sound, but step back and the pattern is evident, a slow sprawling minor key melody, a haunting horror movie creep. A roiling black sea of huge slabs of glacial low end, that blot out the sun, swallowing the various guitars beneath it, moving like massive deathships, the shadows only allowing brief glimpses of the melody beneath. Truly ominous and cinematic. Eyes closed, these are the kind of sounds that would give the weak hearted nightmares, while the rest of us luxuriate in its thick blackened drone drenched buzz.
The unreleased bonus tracks, which are like a whole 'nother record tacked on, are just as good as the original tape. Three long tracks, all flowing together, the first a Philip Jeck like creepscape, all woozy and otherworldly, warbly tones, warped guitar buzz, everything stretched and smeared into languorous layers, while a fog of distant melody hovers in the distance, peppered with soft focus harmonies, drifting and reflective. Which gives way to a thick heady swirl of muted fuzz and slowed down sound, like some mysterious cityscape field recording played at 16rpm and wreathed in a haze of drone and buzz. Until finally the side finishes off with another smoldering dronescape, beginning quietly, while layers of grinding distorted guitars unfurl heaving blackened whirs and rumbles over a backdrop of streaked feedback and strange sounds buried in the murk.
- MPEG stream: A1
- MPEG stream: A2
Latest collection of gorgeous drugged out free folk rituals from these Belgian freaks, and as always, it's a fantastically weird and tranced out affair. Sonic ceremonies of shambling free percussion, layered guitar buzz, shimmery melody, and warped warbly drones, all woven into gorgeous occult psychedelia.
The record opens with a dark and mysterious bit of ambience, swirling blackness, muted effects, ghostly melodies, tinkling chimes, spidery guitars, but gives way to a full on seventies kraut psych jam that almost sounds like Comus, all hand drums, and strummed steel string guitars, fluttery flutes (?), it wouldn't be difficult to imagine stumbling onto some sonic coven in a dark forest, gathered around a fire, creating this dreamy din.
And that seventies psychedelic acid folk vibe continues right into the next track (and the rest of the record really), another hippy jam, all flanged guitar, motorik rhythms and swirly melodic buzz.
The second side begins with a druggy laid back meander, all wheezing organs, shuffling drums, detuned guitars, and mumbled chantlike vox, a shambolic minimal dronefolk that seems to be gradually melting right before our ears.
The next track is a full on chunk of seventies style psychedelic buzz, a squall of buzzing psych guitar, pounding tribal drummage, druggy and dirgey and divine. And finally, the record finishes off with part two of that krautrock jam from side one, this time way stripped down, a minimal kraut groove, laced with warped bits of melody, clattery spare percussion, crunchy riffs, drone-y buzz, all wrapped in a vintage lo-fi production haze, that makes this sound like it could be some lost kraut rarity a la German Oak. KILLER.
Pressed on CRAZY thick vinyl, with eye popping full color cover art. LIMITED TO 506 COPIES. Already out of print at the label, so these may be the last copies we see....
It's been a while since we've heard from Taiga Remains, aka Students of Decay head honcho Alex Cobb, but this is not actually a new record, it's another one of those releases that somehow slipped through the cracks, and we only just now noticed we had a handful of these in stock, and had somehow never listed it, so here we go, Taiga Remains' Xiaguan', a 20 plus minute super limited 3" cd-r, well, super limited when it came out, now plain OUT OF PRINT, so these are the very last copies we'll see, so grab one while you can.
Like other Taiga Remains releases, Cobb takes guitars, and a small arsenal of other noise makers, and weaves them all into something ghostly and abstract, here it's an acoustic guitar, and it's paired up with electronics, bows, loops and chopsticks(!). The result is a strange shimmery dronescape, of bowed and scraped metal strings, lots of layered high end, creaks and groans, streaks of skree wrapped in reverb and left to drift in soft billows of soft focus whir, a dizzying expanse of soft soft noise, that about part way through slips into the lower registers, and the scrapes now in the background, behind a deep cavernous thrum, warm and languid and hypnotic, the thrum growing thicker and more intense, a slow smoldering build that eventually becomes a heaving swell of softly pulsing buzz and whir, before finishing off with a swirling high end cacophony. Good stuff, anyone into abstract guitar drones and minimal free dronescaping will dig this big time. And again, these are the last copies ever!
How could we resist? This Canadian two piece (recently relocated to New York), two psych rock obsessed brothers, covering their favorite Swedish psychedelic folk drone jams of the geniuses known variously as Parson Sound, Harvester and International Harvester. Perfect timing too, as we've all been RE-obsessed with Parson Sound, after the deluxe triple lp reissue of their self titled masterpiece we made Record Of The Week last list. And while we're often skeptical of modern day folks covering CLASSICS, sure it's fun, but does everyone need to hear it, well, in this case the answer is hell yeah! These guys totally nail it, channeling not just the spirit, but the sound as well, from the lilting folky vocals, to the acid fried in-the-red guitars, to the pounding motorik drumming, right down to the recording, which sounds all murky and muddy and OLD, like it was itself some unearthed recording from the seventies. The duo lock into those incredible grooves, so thick and dense but lush and expansive and HEAVY, trancelike and mesmerizing, the sort of jams that should go on forever, slipping from fuzz drenched proto-metal, to dreamy, acid folk, to haunting acoustic laments, vocals doused in reverb, careening over roiling swells of super saturated fuzz and wild chaotic drumming.
If these guys can do this sort of justice to stone cold Swedish classics like these, we've definitely got to hear more. In the meantime, grab one of these before they're gone, whether you're a Swedish psych obsessive like us, or just dig on the sort of space psych drone dirge of bands like Heavy Winged, Eternal Tapestry and the like, this will hit the spot either way!
We know almost nothing about Turnquist, other than he's a guitarist from New York, we even missed this when it first came out a little while back, but we're kicking ourselves now, cuz it's a thing of absolute hypnotic beauty. A gorgeous extended songsuite of looped 12 string guitar, vibraphone, glockenspiel, piano, violin, cello and harmonics, hovering somewhere between 20th century classical, and avant free folk, it's blissy and sun dappled, meditative, utterly lovely, each track a breathtaking expanse of washed out dreamlike drone folk minimalism, dramatic and cinematic but never overwrought.
The first track begins all delicate and crystalline, before the acoustic guitars begins to unfurl soft clouds of shimmery thrum, a small tangle of melody that constantly shifts, slowly changing shape, but retaining a trancelike core, occasionally being supported by tinkling chime, and a gorgeous counter point piano melody, that adds so much emotion and pathos. About midway through the nearly 20 minute track, everything fades out, leaving just the guitar, to spin a glimmering web of looped and layered soft focus guitar harmonics, hazy and gauzy and hushed, only to slip into a warm languid, slow build, like an extra minimal, spacious and spare Godspeed, note loosed one at a time, over a backdrop of soft sonic swells, and blurred pop ambience. So incredibly gorgeous.
The second track is another smeared field of abstract looped Appalachia, almost like a guitar version of Lubomyr Melnyk, a constantly shifting field of rapidly picked steel strings, melancholy melodies, again, anchored by a maudlin piano melody way in the background, softly frenzied and almost dizzying, the hypnotic drone folk give way to something more serene and tranquil, a string swept folk lope, the violin singing sorrowfully over a gorgeously looped steel string figure, evoking loss and memory, and places visited but forgotten.
The final track is the shortest of the bunch, but by no means the least powerful, with Turnquist again setting up the foundation by spinning reflective swirls of steel string guitar, this time the piano much more present, the guitar more a background thrum, the two instruments, dancing and interwoven, subtle but melodically complex, the melodies and overtones and subtly rhythms interacting, this track especially is super cinematic, not at all schmaltzy, just intense, and emotionally resonant, reminding us quite a bit of aQ fave Erik Enocksson, sweetly sorrowful, epic and so dreamlike and lovely.
So recommended, one of our new favorites for sure.
We're pretty sure there's not a person alive who hasn't heard Ke$ha's "Tik Tok", an insanely and inanely addictive chunk of electronic commercial pop, that at least a handful of aQ-ers have ended up digging despite themselves. But WAY before Ke$ha, there was Uffie, a spoiled bratty slutty teenager, who moved to Europe, fell in with the Ed banger crew, and ended up being an unlikely sort-of-star with her inane but AWESOME jam "Pop The Glock", dopey lyrics, autotuned vox, super catchy, we don't know anyone who didn't dig it, whether they wanted to or not, but that was YEARS ago, so it seems fortuitous that Uffie finally unleashes her proper full length debut, right when the climate is right for another vapid, gold digging, slutty, super hot electronic superstar. And of course "Pop The Glock" is here, it is her best song after all, and if it weren't for all the swearing, it's not hard to imagine this being all over the radio, although the vibe is more trashy euro than US mall punk, but still, it sounds as good as ever.
The only problem, is that "Pop The Glock" is so good, the rest of the record sort of pales, but even then, this is a pretty bad ass dose of sweaty, groovy, club bangers, "ADD SUV" should be blasting in every club, total coke and crystal, VIP room, stripper anthem, "MCs Can Kiss" sounds like a modern version of Roxanne Shante, a sort of dumbed down "Cars That Go Boom" (which as already sorta dumb), "First Love" is about as close to a sensitive ballad as Uffie can get, still all about sex, and laced with heavy beats and buzzy synths, and then there's the title track, that almost sounds like Best Coast, summery and sunshiney and fuzzy and poppy, which is weird, but besides "Pop The Glock" might be the best song here...
Obviously, this is poised to be THEE guilty pleasure of the year, but that's only if you feel guilty for digging this, which we don't really at all!
Ural Umbo is the duo of Reto Mader (aka RM74, responsible for a more recent cd on Utech we really dug, highlighted last list) and Steven Hess of Haptic! Scary cinematic dark drone stuff with sudden percussion and electronic glitchery. Rattle and hum! Limited to 500 copies, typical handsome Utech packaging, including a b&w nude cover pic on translucent vellum.
Even if we weren't already aware that the early '70s output of the German record label Kuckuck was pretty darn cool, being a significant part of the whole incredible krautrock thing, we'd be eager to hear this new compilation, following as it does B-Music's other recent celebrations of labels like BYG in France (The BYG Deal comp) and Belter in Spain (the Absolute Belter comp), all of 'em awesome. This well-researched collection, part of the B-Music / Finders Keepers "krautsider music" series, is a tribute to the vision and dedication of the Kuckuck label's founder, Eckart Rahn (about whom several fascinating pages of the text and photo filled cd booklet are devoted). Presented with distinctive graphic style, Kuckuck's always adventurous and ever eclectic roster made records ranging from progressive pop to acid folk to out there kosmische electronics, in other words krautrock at its finest.
There's nine bands represented across the 20 tracks here. You get, among others, the heavy blues rock of Armageddon, the proto-New Age bliss of AQ fave Deuter, Antiteater's soundtracks to Rainer Werner Fassbinder films, the brilliant minimalist hypnorock of Out Of Focus (another AQ fave), the Moog synthesizer experimentation of American composer Sam Spence, and proggy pop pioneers Ihre Kinder (plus various spinoffs), and more. Of the several artists we hadn't ever heard before, Sam Spence was particularly intriguing, especially since the liner notes explain that his Moogs were paid for by the National Football League, for whom he made film soundtracks! We'd be curious to hear more of his Kuckuck recordings based on the two tracks from him included here, which sound something like a more tripped out Perrey and/or Kingsley.
Dunno why they didn't include some Murphy Blend, too, but it's a fine comp anyhow! Any Finders Keepers follower or krautrock fancier should be keen on this. Can't go too wrong with Kuckuck.
Another fantastic entry in this incredible series, chronicling Ethiopian music past and present. Whereas previous installments have been thematically linked by era, or style, or performer, this one is a little bit more interesting, in that it focuses on the traditional Ethiopian music that became the roots for the music we're so familiar with today. Collecting various tracks that were attempts to modernize traditional Ethiopian music, without radically altering it. Folk music, wedding songs, nursery rhymes, traditional melodies, songs that have been passed down and passed on over generations, some musics and melodies so revered that they have been officially elevated to the status of "musical modes of reference" by official doctrine(!), all borrowed and reinterpreted by various singers and ensembles over the years.
The sound is not too different here than on other Ethiopiques collections, although the liner notes do point out that the tracks here are almost all acoustic, utilizing traditional instruments, as well as piano, mandolin and accordion, but to these ears it sounds fantastic, as good as ever, that sound that is so immediately recognizable as Ethiopian, horns and drums and percussion and handclaps, and of course the voices, it's so much about the vocalists, especially here, soulful croons, female back up vox, lots of call and response, deep and rough, smooth and silky, but always so expressive and emotional and powerful, and no Ethiopian comp would be complete without Tlahoun Gessesse, probably the most revered vocalist among Ethiopians, even though he is relatively unknown elsewhere, his vocals so expressive and intense, tackling complex melodies and making them sound like the simplest lullabies, so dulcet and lush, definitely a case of someone who could read the Ethiopian phonebook, and he's in good company here, with a fantastic gathering of Ethiopian vocalists, most of which we're familiar with from past Ethiopiques.
It occurred to us recently that the Sublime Frequencies compilations have a certain hipster cache, that compels folks to buy them or at least check them out, even if they're not that into world music, which made us think that all of those people should be checking these out too, these collections are just as mysterious and powerful and wonderful, each one a gorgeous glimpse into another musical tradition, one that is powerful and spiritual, as well as being funky and soulful!
As always, extensive liner notes, lots of photos, as well as information about the artists, the compilation, the tracks, the history of Ethiopian music, and the politics surrounding the music.
We loved the two previous comps in Lo's Milky Disco series, and this new installment might be our favorite one yet! This time out they get super spacey on us, more spacey than ever before even, it's like the Milky Disco meets the Milky Way, way out in the deeps of space amidst glittering stars, as the subtitle suggests. Driving that point home, they've included two tracks by AQ fave synth-scapers Oneothrix Point Never, at the end of each disc here, but before you get to those kraut-channelling blissout fadeouts, you gotta get down to the main blippity buzzity bizness, mostly instrumental rhythmic contributions from Leo Zero, Ghostape, Hatchback, Ichisan, Soft Rocks, Telespazio, Brassica, Black Devil Disco Club, Cos/Mes, Moscow, Jonny Nash, In Flagranti, NDV, Coyote, Weirdo Police, The Flying Sapphire, and Black Mustang. No, we weren't all that familiar with lot of those, aside from Bernard Fevre's BDDC and a few others, but that's sorta the point of digging into a comp, and we liked 'em all, as you will too if you like cosmic disco awesomeness (fans of minimal wave, Italo-disco, Prins Thomas, Lindstrom, labels like Italians Do It Better and DC Recordings, etc.).
Pulsating beats brings this most definitely to the discotheque dancefloor, of course, though some trax thump house-like more than others, while some are mellower and focus more moodily on minimalist throb and the sizzle of the synth, but they all groove. Disc one is unmixed, disc two mixed, but it hardly makes a difference, as Lo have selected likeminded artists for sure, so on both discs this flows freely from one futuristic funk workout to the next, each of 'em somehow shimmering with cosmic stardust and incorporating similar softly zappin' video arcade FX... While we're hardly ravers, we could stay up late to dance (or sway) to this stuff. Be good to hear DJ'd in a planetarium. And great at home too. Ultimately, utterly hypnotic! Another great Milky Disco odyssey, where to next we wonder? Since they've already gone so far out, to the stars...
Also, let's commend Lo on the handsome design job on the trifold sleeve. We especially like the stylized roman numerals, and alphabet letters, made out of squares, triangles and circles.
The psych rock maven appropriately known as The Psychomaniac is back with another killer comp, one of the best we've heard from his comp-happy label in fact. Super groovy, super fuzzy, super psychedelic!! First off, though, you might be wondering, what happened to Psych Bites Volume One? Why start with the second volume in the series? Well there indeed is a Volume One, and it's probably very cool, but we haven't had a chance to check it out yet. Also that one's entirely devoted to Australian bands, so this new, geographically unfettered volume isn't precisely a sequel to the first. We'd like to review vol.1 too, but for the moment prefer to direct your attention to this disc, which has SO MUCH GOOD STUFF on it, it's kinda ridiculous. Stuff that, when you hear it, you'll be wondering, why haven't I heard this before? (Maybe you have, we knew a few of these tracks, but there's twenty of 'em here, so not to worry.) Recorded circa 1968-1974, with 1970 most heavily represented, and from all over the world, England, Germany (West -and- East), Holland, USA, Quebec, all the way to Nigeria, the unifying factor being only that these tracks are obscure classics to the max. And full of fuzz, let's not forget.
Let's touch on a few of the many highlights. The disc begins with a band with the bizarre name of Zappatta Schmidt, doing a horn-fueled, sweat-soaked, funky-drummed groover called "Someone In The Crowd" that's like if Otis Redding showed up on that old Chains and Black Exhaust comp... badass! That's followed by "Tomorrow Night", performed by the hopefully-named Chartbusters, more ye olde "hairy funk" with jamming organ, which might sound familiar though 'cause it's an Atomic Rooster cover, and a good one. We can't skip Spencer Mac's "Blues Up In Downtown", which keeps the party goin'. And that's followed by Milwaukee's Motown signings the Messengers telling us what it's like "In The Jungle"... good grief, we're mentioning ALL the tracks so far. Well, here's a few further highlights, though it's hard to choose, as you can see...
Gotta mention the kuriously monikered Kannibal Komix (aka Die Anderen) who offer up their klassic "Neurotic Reaction", which sounds like a cross between something by The Count Five and The Sweet, part freakbeat, part proto-glam, all unhinged and awesome. Heard it before on another comp or two, but always kool to hear it again. Another one we already knew was Ofo The Black Company's Afro-funk fuzz bomb "Allah Wakkbar" from '72 (a standout on the Love's A Real Thing comp from Luaka Bop, and also heard on Afrostrut's Nigeria 70 collection). But what's neat is that the almost as freaky flipside to that single, "Beautiful Daddy", is also included here too, new to us! (This disc also includes more Afro-rock from London-based Danta.) Madeline Chartrand's mesmeric "Ani-Kuni" we know we've heard somewhere before, as well, but can't remember where, so glad to have it here. Tranced out Native American chant meets space age psych, with some electric sitar thrown in for good measure. A treasure.
What else? There's the swinging sixties freakouts of Blackbirds 2000's "Let's Do It Together" and Janie's "Psycho", the latter being the sort of get everyone in the studio and get high and see what funny things wind up on the tape party that Kim Fowley was partial to, too. Oh, and this disc also provides a healthy dose of krautrockers: Frumpy, Krokodil, Orange Peel, and the prae-kraut pandaemonium of The Rattles. All good stuff. And the cd booklet provides notes on everything, plus full color graphix.
So, if you have been digging the comps done by the B-Music crew, or Psychic Circle, or similar various artists international fuzz-psych collections like Obsession, Neurotic Reaction, Cherrystone's Rocks, the best of those Electric Asylum comps (also put together by ol' Psychomaniac), etc., etc. then this is for you!
What better way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of your record label? Well if you you're Shrimper, home to the Mountain Goats, Sentridoh, Amps For Christ, Dump, Herman Dune, Refrigerator, Woods and loads more, you get some of those bands, and about 35 more, and you have them all cover songs by arguably your least popular artist, WCKR SPGT! Make sense? Of course it doesn't, but that's not the point. The real point is that WCKR SPGT were, and are awesome, and have been Shrimper mainstays since day one, so they wrote 36 brand new songs, sent them to all their friends, and had said friends record them however they wanted, and this is the result, a gloriously sprawling tribute to the last 20 years of low fidelity sound making, late night tape dubbing, and the power of DIY.
Some of the names here will definitely be familiar, Sentridoh, The Mountain Goats, Refrigerator, Breathlizor, Primordial Undermind, The Ah Club, Amps For Christ, Simon Joyner, Jad Fair, Soul-Junk, and those songs are indeed awesome, but so are any and all of the other 27 jams. But yeah, the Sentridoh track, nicely titled "Smooth Sounds For Your Fucking Face", sounds like it could have been pulled off a cassette from the nineties, lyrics and all, Soul-Junk's WCKR SPGT is all chaotic noise rock, laced with clouds of electronic noise and crumbling distortion, super lo-fi (of course), completely ramshackle, and wicked catchy, the Mountain Goats track is all acoustic guitar and vocals (again of course), but here augmented by cool tremolo guitar, some lush harmonies, not at all the lo-fi boombox howling of old, Refrigerator sounds like Refrigerator, those sad man vocals over trash can drums, detuned guitars, all wrapped in a cloud of tape hiss, with what almost sounds like cello (!), Jad Fair offers some rambling wisdom, over chicken scratch guitars, and a thumping looped rhythm, Amps for Christ transforms WCKR SPGT into twisted and warped electro-Jesus-folk, Breathilizor are as dumb and genius as always, spewing ridiculous lyrics over classic metal riffage, and on and on and on and on...
Some of our new favorites are Peephole Circus, sound like an extra lo-fi take on nineties math/noise rock, their WCKR track crazy catchy, Alan Smithee's woozy jangly drone pop, which is slowly overtaken by strange pulsing electronics, and faux strings, a seriously twisted hybrid that sounds awesome, Golden Boots whose track sounds like it could be the intro music to Mystery Science Theater 3000, with it's strange processed vox, and sing songy melody, Kukunuku's warbly creepy garbled mumbledrone dreaminess, sounding a bit like Ween, the Uncalled For with their fuzzy garage rock stomp...
This all just reminds us that Shrimper, and all the bands that sail with her, still rule, as much as when we were ordering $2 tapes through the mail in the early nineties. The cd features funny liner notes from Shrimper rockstar Franklin Bruno, and a super swank textured paper insert, the tape offers an appropriately more lo-fi and liner noteless version, and if the above raving didn't already spell it out for you, SUPER RECOMMENDED.
So, all good things must come to an end. Volume 5 of The Electric Asylum series is reputed to be the last, turning the lunatics loose. Uh-oh. For your next dose of musical electro-shock therapy you'll have to look elsewhere (maybe P&P's new series, curated as many if not all of these were by "The Psychomaniac", Psych Bites?).
Perhaps this is the last 'cause there seems to be a bit of bottom of the barrel scraping going on. A cover of "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin"? Really? Though, really, everything here has its charms, especially if you're in the mood for some obscure '70s glam. And there are a few quite solid surprises. We'd described earlier outings in this series as specializing in "Bubblegum Black Sabbath" bands. Well, ok, nothing was ever all that Black Sabbathy, but there was a kitschy occult vibe to some of the selections early on, certainly some heavy fuzz as well. Freakrock indeed. But this one definitely leans towards the Bubblegum, goofy more than freaky, which is fun too of course, but maybe not what we were hoping for after the relatively hard rock action of the previous volume, number 4.
As with all Electric Asylum entries, again with more silly names: Colonel Bagshot, Biggles, Squeek, Whistle, Mustard, Baby, Boston Boppers, Dunno... among others. 20 tracks in all by 19 artists. That's on account of them including both sides of the sole '74 single by singer Tracey Dean, a studio project produced by Giorgio Moroder, so that's pretty cool. Definitely one of the standouts here due to the catchy combo of Dean's weird wavery voice (kinda like the guy from Family) and the odd electronics of the production. Another neat one is Iron Horse covering "The Obeah Man", a voodoo-psych number originally by the amazing Exuma. And getting fully glam, the Jets' "Yeah!" is aptly named. So, Vol. 5 not the best in the series, mind you, the most hit and miss, but still not without some glammy, grin inducing gems and jams.
Includes excruciatingly detailed notes on each track in the thick cd booklet, with full color sleeve and label graphics reproduced. Nice. Too bad the cover art is another crappy CG job, dunno why they don't realize that doesn't jibe with the '70s aesthetic of what's been dug up here.
Somehow we slept on reviewing this series when the Yazoo label began issuing them on cd back in the mid-nineties (the cds are still available by the way). It wasn't that we didn't love them, of course we did! But we started carrying them way before our website was in its current form, and they just never made the transition in the usual hectic shuffle of putting together these bi-weekly new arrival lists. Besides, this series really didn't need our help. They always looked very cool and mysterious, promising the discovery of some very far out and lost old world of music that folks here were naturally drawn to while shopping for cult metal, field recordings or obscure psych.
But now that Mississippi, Sublime Frequencies, Honest Jon's, Parlortone, and other like-minded revival labels have spearheaded a much renewed interest in obscure early ethnographic recordings on vinyl, it was only a matter of time that this highly influential series would make the transition to wax, here's the second volume, and it's an amazing and beautiful package. Like The Black Mirror, String of Pearls, Mata La Pena, and Sprigs of Time compilations, this is an eclectic but choice collection of music from many different regions and covering many styles and traditions, from regions including Bulgaria, Puerto Rico, India, Mozambique, Ukraine, Trinidad, Kazakhstan, Ceylon, and Tibet. Highly Recommended.
Another lovingly compiled (by Scott Hull of Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Pig Destroyer no less!) sonically hateful selection of extreme heaviness, grind metal, powerviolence, hardcore, punk rock, and pretty much everything in between, buzzing and blasting and brutal as fuck. A handful of bands we already loved, and a whole bunch we'd never heard of before, it's kinda like the metal mix tape you wish your mean metal older brother would make you.
So let's start with the we know and love. California crew Lack Of Interest spit out 7 tracks in about 4 minutes, blazing blasting punk rock, Noisear spit out insane bursts of frenzied grind, impossibly fast, super dense and twisted and complex, Drugs Of Faith do their dirgey punkish death metal, sludgey and sloppy and chaotic, the mighty Crom offer up "Hags" the longest track on the comp, a grinding, thrashing slab of whatthefuck heaviness, slipping from punkish blast to churning doomy chug, the vocals shrieking and grunting and howling, it even gets sort of pretty for a moment, but only a moment, fuck we love these guys, Ohio pigfuckers Apartment 213 spit out some serious powerviolence, a Neanderthal sonic pummeling, grunted vox, even slipping in a little groove at one point, but mostly just beating your ears bloody with their closed fist crush, Despise you kick down 50 seconds of churning, blasting grind, 2 songs blow by in a blink, but they cram some serious sonic punishment into less than a minute, Voetsek are the only female fronted outfit in this boys club, and they lay it down with some super technical grind metal, and some seriously ball melting vox....
Then there's the bands we're hearing for the first time here: Hummingbird Of Death, Marion Barry, Owen Hart, Septic Surge, Population Reduction, Superbad, Three Faces Of Eve, Idiots Parade, Triac and more, our faves being Hummingbird Of Death, not just for having the best band name ever, but for their chaotic, frenzied on the verge of collapse powerviolence freakouts, Owen Hart's metallic grinding thrash, infused with plenty of classic old school metal riffage, Septic Surge who get their drummachinegun on, a dizzying hybrid of twisted electronic glitchery and caveman heaviness... We could go on and on, a head spinning selection of audial brutality, crushing heaviness, blasting brutality, an overwhelming 74 tracks, all jammed into 78 minutes, by 19 bands, for anyone who likes it fast and heavy. Comes with a massive booklet, all old school punk rock style with each band getting a page for lyrics and photos and contact info. Awesome.
More of a collaborative project than a compilation, Three Locations began with the invitation for a group of artists to contribute three field recordings to a pool, which would then be shared amongst all parties involved for them to use for separate compositions. Nice idea, and it's a pretty great collection of experimental musicians present, including Toy Bizarre, Tarab, Els Viaene, Felicity Mangan, and Klimek, whose presence on the compilation came as a bit of a shock to us, since we've known him for his very digital ambience for Kompakt and Anticipate. The liner notes don't provide all of the details as to the origins of the field recordings. Harbors in Norway, Japanese mountains, and an underground tunnel in Australia are mentioned; but outside of those locales, the sounds that appear throughout the compilation show a wide range between the natural and the industrial. Toy Bizarre offers a diptych of a piece that at first swells to a dramatic crescendo of clattering, metallic rasping that collapses into a somber extended passage of windswept gestures set against a black backdrop. The Belgian sound artist Els Viaene shaped those field recordings into a series of slow-moving, repeating phrases in a Spartan almost Koner-like composition. The ever-impressive Tarab delivers a fantastic track, showcasing much more of a musique concrete strategy that comes across like a John Duncan take on Luc Ferrari. The washed-out noises and environmental dinscapes have been densely layered and spliced into a very active sound field laced with rupturing events. Something's lurking around the corners of Tarab's sound that cannot be qualified as benevolent. Australia's Felicity Mangan counters Tarab's frenzied collage with a delicate tapestry of croaking frogs and aquatic percolations. As for Klimek's contribution, it' bloody fantastic. A fluctuating dronescape of pop-ambient tones hovering out of the extracted field recordings for an elegant construction. Altogether a fantastic end to a great compilation. Limited stock.
There was a time when the idea of a record like this would blow our minds. "There was crazy psychedelic garage rock in South Africa in the fifties and sixties?" But by now, we're sort of spoiled, by the hundreds of world music reissue labels, not to mention the thousands of lost gems and rare records of all stripes from all over the world. So yeah, the fact that this record exists is not hugely surprising, but we are pretty thrilled that it's so good. That all these bands in white South Africa, still under Apartheid, emulating groups like The Beatles and Bill Hailey And The Comets, could come up with stuff this buzzy and psychedelic and super rocking. The root of the music on display here is definitely the early rock and roll we're so familiar with, but the bands here are fierce, the guitars buzz, the drums pound, even the simplest songs are transformed into barnstormers, almost uniformly these groups are characterized by super blown out, ultra distorted guitars, fuzzed out organs, and super intense yowled vocals.
Freedom's Children's cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" is the perfect example. Covered probably thousands of times, it's barely recognizable here, until the vocals kick in, starting with a super distorted stop start intro, then some fuzzy psych leads over a dense groove, the verses are clipped and strangely arranged, with almost a new melody, played by a jagged guitar, the chorus too is drenched in distorted guitar, so goddamn good we almost forget that we're sick of that song. And the originals hold up just as well, the A-Cads, The Upsetters, John E. Sharpe & The Squires, The Bats, Finders Keepers, killer grooves, wild and rocking, loose and groovy and freaked out and frenzied, catchy as all hell and completely as good as if not better than the bands they were trying to sound like. Very few bands we'd ever heard of, but all of them kicking or asses. Maybe one of our favorite international garage rock reissues yet. Includes extensive liner notes, on the songs, the bands, and the political and social climate in South Africa at the time, and what part rebellious revolutionary music played.
Found a few of these tucked away in the closet, one of our favorite records from this mysterious industrial martial folk neoclassical goth pop combo, 2001's E Pluribus Unum. While on all of the various VT records, the band does get seriously industrial, that side of their sound is balanced by their tendency to craft sort of woozy dour gloom pop that at its songiest sounds like some hybrid of the Doors, Spacemen 3, This Mortal Coil, and at its most abstract sounds like some darkly chilling soundtrack music, to some forgotten Dario Argento thriller, or some classic German art film.
The record starts off with tolling bells, and then a guitar riff, wait, it's AC/DC's "Hell's Bells", sampled, and looped, over and over and over, but instead of launching into the song, the riff becomes a weirdly mesmerizing groove, that main riff wrapped in strummed acoustic guitar, and softly swirling effects, laced with pounding martial drumming, all supporting a dreamy dramatic crooned vocal. Fans might remember the track on their Sacrificare record, where they took the Who's "Pinball Wizard" and similarly transformed it into their own weird sort of industrial goth pop.
The rest of the record is more traditionally neoclassical / neofolk, with mournful strings, swirling synths, militaristic drums, haunting samples, snippets of speeches, occasional gouts of crumbling distorted guitar, or growled demonic vox, it's a darkly gorgeous pseudo historical soundscape, a mysteriously varied, epic and majestic collection of otherwordly war songs, hazy sonic propaganda, and blackened doom pop.
Debut ep from this Scottish one man depressive doom laden black metal band and it's a good 'un, mixing lumbering downtuned riffage, howling chaotic blackness, and some serious melody, all wrapped up in a blown out, low fidelity production, that only serves to add a cool creepy vibe to the already grim proceedings.
After a short-ish intro, all sprawling chords, spare drumming and some cool layered super distorted minor key melodies, in come clean, melancholic finger picked clean guitars, weaving a haunting miserable atmosphere, before the song explodes into a murky pound, a stumbling blurred blackness, everything washed out and muddy, the vocals a demonic mush mouthed yowl, tortured and anguished, while the blurred smeared blackness underneath swirls darkly, the loping drumming anchoring the otherwise amorphous black sonic cloud. About 4 minutes in, the blackness flakes away, leaving spidery, distorted melodies, electronic sounding drum plod, all woozy and depressive, and as the track progresses, the sound grows slower and sicker and more dour, finishing off with several minutes of weirdly melodic ultra doom plod.
The vocals are super twisted, reminding us of Shining or even Abruptum, adding a seriously ominous fucked up vibe to what might otherwise me more traditionally depressive blackness. The record that transforms into some trudging spaced out doomic crunch, before slipping into some weirdly clean jangly post rock lope, reminiscent of later Hypothermia, before exploding into some seriously intense, yet still melodic black howling buzz, with those pounding drums, more gloriously inhuman screeching, the result trancelike and weirdly epic. Finally the record finishes off with a short stretch of woozy lilting doom, more pretty and washed out than heavy, thick minor key chords, simple percussion, a gorgeously miserable crawl, that grows more and more anguished, with the chords fragmenting into upper register skree, and the vocals growing more and more hysterical, still beautiful, but also beautifully harrowing.
SUPER LIMITED, and in super swank, hand made packaging...
As it says in the cd booklet, Pure Unholy Black Metal! Indeed. Some seriously grim and frosty blackness from these legendary / infamous Finnish black metallers, totally kvlt, primitive and raw, recorded way back in 1998, murky and blown out, the production fucked and ever fluctuating, the drums way louder than everything, the guitars blurred and black and so buzzy they almost become black drones, but the atmosphere, fuck, this stuff is so dark and haunting and mesmerizing and mysterious, they seriously don't make music like this anymore, even the grimmest of the grim these days, can't conjure up the same sort of blackness, the same sort of hellish hateful ambience, and for all it's lo-fi-ness and sonic shortcomings, the 'sound' is untouchable, it's the sort of blackness we can never get enough of, total trance inducing drone drenched heaviness, that more than a decade later pretty much puts the rest of the black metal scene to shame...
Another reissue from this legendary Finnish black metal horde, Womb Of Pestilence was their second and final record, and is another frosty blast of buzzing black malevolence, sonically similar to The First Possession, in that it's murky and muddy and the drums are way too loud, and the riffs bleed into one another, but it's actually a bit more melodic, while remaining seriously necro. Warloghe are one of the few non French bands that truly sounds like they could have been a member of the Black Legions, think Mutiilation, Vlad Tepes, Belketre, Torgeist, the same sort of atmosphere, the same sort of raw primitive vibe, the feral lo-fi fury, the hellish ambience, in fact, unlike the relentless blasting of their debut, things get weird and creepy and downright experimental once in a while, like on the freaky creepy "Monolith Clad In Fog", a twisted drift of guitar harmonics, black drones, pulsing rhythms and raspy incantations, or the strange crooned almost operatic vocals on "Corpse-Altar-Light", but those moments are indeed brief, only serving to enhance the already grim atmosphere of Warloghe's "Pure Unholy Black Metal".
We had kind of lost track of Windsor For The Derby over the years, we weren't even sure if they were still around but when this new record arrived we realized that they've been at it all along, releasing a new record every couple years. This doesn't stray too much from what made many of us here dig them so much. Intimate and breezy indie rock with a a dreamlike shoegaze vibe. We really love when they get more into the atmospheric side of of their sound, conjuring up such beautiful hazy and wistful states. Against Love divides its time between those dreamy atmospheres and a more straight ahead intimate indie rock sound. Cool.
We were always big fans of Swedish blackened thrash/speed metal outfit Witchery, which makes sense considering that the group includes members of The Haunted, Seance, Satanic Slaughter, Brujeria, Arch Enemy, Nifelheim, Bloodbath, Spiritual Beggars, Mercyful Fate, etc. etc. it's like a Swedish metal supergroup, and recently, Legion joined the band, he of the mighty Marduk, but back in 2006 when this one came out, they still had their old vocalist and were trafficking in blasting, thrashing classic sounding occult blackened metal, that we dug big time. The weird thing is, the last few Witchery records got totally slagged, seemed like everybody hated 'em, especially this one, but we just realized we had a handful of these stashed away, and since we actually DO like it, we figured some of you might too. What's not to like, it's super heavy and thrashing, darkly atmospheric, the riffs are killer, it IS super polished, tight as all get out, a killer blend of modern black thrash, and retro speed metal, wild leads, plenty of midtempo groove, and some serious blasts of lightning speed thrashing that definitely verges on full black metal brutality, revisiting this again, we have to say we still dig it a LOT, and anyone into Swedish metal, black, thrash, speed or otherwise, should definitely check this one out. And pretty soon we'll review the new Legion-led 2010 Witchery as well, Witchkrieg, which we just got in stock...
