Yep, this is in fact a 10", and it does indeed cost $100, and heck we're not even marking it up at all! We're just giving folks a chance to nab one of these, which are limited to JUST 25 COPIES, to help Root Strata pay for this year's On Land Festival. Last year was incredible, and this year looks to be even better (you can read more about it in the intro to this week's list!). But a four day festival, with bands from all over the world, is a massive undertaking, and costs a lot of money, so every little bit helps, thus we have this, an insanely limited, and pricey object / artifact, two sides of droned out blissful psychedelic drift, Ilyas Ahmed recorded live last year at the On Land festival.
Thick swaths of humid guitar drone, muted muddy vocalizing, spidery melodies, skittery percussion, all blurred into swirling clouds of psychedelic shimmer, with the B-side getting heavy, the band locking into some serious space rock throb, before blissing right back out, the sound sprawling into a smoldering rage flecked drone-psych driftscape, so nice.
Only a very few of the 25 left, these are obviously mostly for obsessive Ahmed fans, folks who want to help support the On Land Festival, folks with money to burn, or some combination of the three!
Sweet packaging too.
We actually thought this was going to be the SF band Baths we've been hearing so much about but turns out there is actually a Baths from LA who are way different but totally awesome as well (the San Francisco Baths are changing their name and we're anxious to hear a record from them one of these days too). This Baths is a one man warped electro-hip-hop artist out of Los Angeles who fits so perfectly on Anticon. This is a record that really does sound like the natural progression for the label and its sound really needed and deserved. Approaching left field pop with the same kind of vision that folks like Black Moth Super Rainbow/Tobacco have, infusing hip-hop production and beats into a much more nuanced and Technicolor soaked melodicism. Crazy to think this guy is only 21, as the music he makes sounds so assured flows so flawlessly. Armed with J Dilla like beats and Neon Indian sounding production, this is totally hitting the spot right now!!
It's been way too long since Keith Berry has put anything out. The last time we had one of his records in stock, it was the impeccable 2005 album The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish, which was housed in an oversized box filled with fragrant flower petals. On that album, Berry's somber ambient constructions looked forward to the hauntological wash of Leyland Kirby, but also ran parallel to Thomas Koner's isolationism and the miniscule musicality of the later works of Bernhard Gunter. There had been rumors of an album to appear on The Helen Scarsdale Agency; for reasons unknown, the album never surfaced. Outside of a compilation track here and there, this British artist has kept a very low profile until this breathtaking album, released as a part of Elevator Bath's ongoing series of picture discs. Berry presents five extended pieces of soft-focus ambience, whose elegant suspension of sound gently bends along a majestic orbit with huge expanses of sounds undulating with ghostly melodies transmitting from way back behind Berry's dense fog. Where Kirby imbues his work with a maudlin strain, Berry's casts an eye into heart of the sublime. Something beautiful is afoot here, and at same time, the feeling is darkened and just unsettled enough. Let's hope that it's not another 5 years between albums, as Berry is too good a composer to be forgotten about! Limited to 233 copies.
Black Keys are back with another rompin' output of heavy hitting soul fueled rocking jammers. Catchy, fuzzy and soulful, a formula the duo has been perfecting over their short but high-profile career. As much as we were scared of what this less damaged, more refined sound might be, we were happy to find that these songs are super infectious and truly well-written. In fact this album really feels so much more unified and spot-on then some of their past outings. Some of us who had never really been the biggest of fans are finding ourselves listening to this over and over. They've tapped into this really cool spirited sound that makes us think of what it might sound like if the White Stripes and Devendra Banhart joined forces, as there is a super cool T. Rex vibe going on throughout Brothers. We could see so many folks digging this, from fans of garage rock, pop and psych to '60s/'70s fanatics. We usually shy away from new stuff that incorporates a blues-like aesthetic in its rock n' roll but The Black Keys have really mastered it, and begun to execute and understand that understatement can ring really loud. This is a killer rock n' roll album!
This is not new, but we only just discovered these guys and holy shit! Blutch are a Belgian trio who specialize in extreme heaviness, crushing downtuned sludge, but not ultradoom like Moss or Bunkur, instead, these guys go the Melvins route, spitting out, weirdly loping, almost groovy slabs of lurching, lumbering heaviness. Think the Melvins, Harvey Milk, even a little Torche. The Melvins comparison is especially apt, as the vocals tend toward that Buzz Osbourne sort of hushed croon, laid over stuttering start/stop chug, the songs loping and meandering, like some huge black wounded beast.
Some of the tracks slow down to a near funereal crawl, the guitars sprawling into clouds of SUNNO)))-like thrum, the drums less propulsive and more abstract, chords ringing out, riffs unfurling in thick black swells, peppered with little squalls of tangled guitar gnarl, or brief bursts of chug and thud, sometimes building to something almost epic and soaring, other times slowing down to a near glacial drone. The band lock into killer slow motion grooves, and the music begins to sound looped, totally hypnotic and mesmerizing, trancelike, the sound slowly, almost imperceptibly shifting, sucking you in, before an avalanche of crumbling distortion and collapsing riffage buries you alive. Here and there the tempo is jacked up and Blutch begin to sound like some classic death metal band playing at 16 rpm, but even then the songs usually morph into some tripped out abstract exercise in mathy metallic tension and release, or explode in a frenzy of almost grind level screamo fury, but always slipping back into some sort of blackened crawl.
The final track, at nearly 10 minutes, is the prettiest, yet least metal of the bunch, a swirling sprawl of blackened guitar buzz, of shimmering thrum and whir, strange reverbed percussion, moaning minimal melodies, all blurred into an epic slow motion crawl, the production muted and muddy and murky, adding even more to the lugubrious subterranean sound.
If this record wasn't 4 years old, we'd probably be screaming 'metal record of the year', but even still, since like us, probably most of you missed out on this entirely, no reason not to dig it like it was brand new, and like it really could/should be metal record of the year, cuz for those of you who aren't sticklers about such things, release dates and year end lists, well, no matter when a record came out, it's new when you hear it for the first time, even years after the fact, and based on how much we've been digging this heaviness, it's giving most of 2010's heavy releases a serious run for their money...
At long last, a new release from the elusive and mysterious Borful Tang (for his head scratching back history, please refer to our reviews for his Root cd and On The Back Of A Dying Beast 2cd-r). A mischievous sound collagist, he's like some peculiar sonic macrame'd synthesis of Negativland, John Oswald's Plunderphonics, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the Sun City Girls / Sublime Frequencies camp... but he doesn't stop there! He then can match immersive wits with the best of the dronologists too. At times Herd And Unherded is languidly lulling, at others it's a barrel of percolating loopiness, while still at others sinisterly possessed. Mr. Tang is clearly something of an obsessive collector of sound sources. He's amassed a vaultful of tapes and vinyl - field recordings, video game soundtracks, religious AM radio broadcasts and other disembodied voices to name just a few. He consults with them, meticulously pares and processes 'em, and the pieces are then refashioned into something which is altogether new, yet haunted by the eclectic phantoms of the past. Add to this sonic palette an arsenal of a homemade electronic gadgets, and you have something festooned with mad scientist goggles and soldering goo. Go on, give your ears a wild feast to munch on. Recommended!
What more do you need to know? Two new songs, one from sludge pop masters Torche, and one from Japanese psychedelic post doom drone metallers Boris. The Torche track is of course incredible, taking their crushing downtuned pop and stretching it WAY out into a sprawling downtuned prog-pop, post-metal epic, with bursts of frenzied riffing, pounding drumming, weird almost industrial sounding percussion, constantly shifting tempos, slipping from weird doomed out feedback drenched crush, to Melvins-y lurch and lumber, to full on power-pop-in-metal's-clothing, to pounding relentless metallic chug. It's only 6 minutes but there's plenty of Torche-y goodness crammed into those 6 minutes...
The Boris track is twice the length, and takes its sweet time, a brooding slow build, all minimal skeletal guitars, and strange distant grinding ambient whirr, before exploding into a washed out woozy slowcore, that goes right into a full on black metal blast beat, accompanied by barely audible insectoid riffing, while over the top, dreamy sweet pop vocals are draped, making for just about the strangest juxtaposition ever. But it works, it's bizarre, and unexpected, but it sounds like some weird black metal / dream pop hybrid, and it sort of slips back and forth for the rest of the song, the blackened shoegaze side often bleeding into the lumbering slowcore side, the various elements constantly shifting, but that strange black metal pop thing making this really really rad. After a long stretch of shimmering ambient drift, the song shifts gears yet again, and the band get all sludge-y and doomy, their monstrous plod laced with both melody and bursts of grinding hissing noise, before blinking out as if the tape suddenly ran out.
Killer artwork from Hydra Head's Aaron Turner, and of course crazy crazy limited, we got a bunch of these, but are not sure if we'll be able to get more once they sell out, so get one while you can, and we apologize in advance if you can't...
BTW: This is the same Boris / Torche record that was released in Japan last year, only now getting a domestic release, same music, but new artwork! So if you plunked down for the expensive import, you already have this, and don't need another one, unless of course like most Boris fanatics you need multiple versions of the same release. But for everyone else, do not hesitate, this rules, and you most definitely NEED it!
In their short time as a band everything that Bronze has touched has pretty much turned to gold... er, bronze. Without even a full length out yet, they've managed to win us and so many others with their mind melting live shows and the great slabs of wax they have put out (we still have a few of the 10"s left!). This brand new picture disc 7" continues their fiery streak, both songs so driving and infectious fueled by analog synths delivered with a Silver Apples like sensation. What's so cool about Bronze is that they aren't just about nailing a certain sound or style but they seem to be really interested in creating cool songs. The vocals are prominent yet they glide and warp with the textured instrumentation, so it all becomes part of the same swaying sound. It's kind of like if you stripped early Jane's Addiction of its LA rock tendencies and wrapped it around a Sonic Boom/Experimental Audio Research soundscape. Can't wait for the debut full length, but these two songs have been keeping us flipping this chunk of wax over and over as we can't get enough of these psychedelic pop gems. Limited to 500 copies so grab one fast. So damn good!
Two new, 7"s of delicious skweee here folks! From the same Portland label, Poisonous Gases, that previously brought us Lazercrotch. Now they've gone and signed up a genuine Scandinavian skweeer, Daniel Savio from Sweden, as well as Portland's Michael Bruce (NOT the guy from the Alice Cooper Band we're pretty sure).
Bruce's 7" is squarely in the skweee tradition, dropping the bass and the blip-bloop of 8-bitty sci-fi video game SFX across two groovy instrumentals. Very cool, glad to see US skweee making a showing. Too bad Bruce didn't come up with a catchy monicker like Lazercrotch though, we've probably be guaranteed to sell more of 'em...
Another gorgeous sprawling collection of smoldering guitarscapes and warm liquid lysergic drones from Evan Caminiti, one half of psychedelic drone-doom-duo Barn Owl, and while West Winds does in fact touch on some of the same sonic territory as past solo efforts, it definitely moves in a much darker, much heavier direction, exploring blackened sonic vistas that have only been hinted at in Barn Owl but that have been gradually becoming more of a focal point on Caminiti's solo ventures. Which is obvious from the opening track, "Night Of The Archon", which begins all tranquil and serene, spidery tendrils of guitars unfurling in a reverbed expanse of billowing shimmer and layered chordal drift, before the guitars begin to rumble and grind, the distortion a living breathing thing, crumbling and glowing like sonic magma, moving glacially, and engulfing the sounds all around, spitting sparks of fragmented melody, before finally spiraling back to ground, the crush receding, leaving an ethereal cloud of chiming harmonics and distant hushed whirr.
But even with the darker vibe, and the heavier overall sound, none of the emotional resonance has been lost, even the heaving slabs of rumble and crush, are shot through with subtle harmonies, with lush layered textures, the tracks slipping from thick swells of almost post industrial sounding blackdrone to gorgeous Arvo Part sounding chorales, a constantly shifting landscape of hazy streaks of blurred melody, gauzy flecks of folk, soft tangles of reverbed twang, slow motion melodies rendered in thick slabs of coruscating guitar crunch, blissed out dronedrifts laced with almost pop like melodies, a little shoegazey, a little Morricone, a little Earth, a little SUNNO))), and a lot of Barn Owl, this is epic, expansive, highly personal music for the soul, evoking the desert, of starry nights and of the landscape painted red with the blood of an burnt orange sun, "Path To The Sea" is maybe the most propulsive, like the score to a post apocalyptic Leone flick, wheezing harmonium melodies over rumbling burnt black guitars, bits of twang laid upon a woozy almost Western lope, which leads directly into the 10+ minute closer "Black Desert Blooming", which does in fact live up to its title, the vibe arid and sun baked, the sound black and bleak, beginning as maybe the most harrowing and intense track on the record, only to blossom into the most abstract, the thick rumbling crush peeling away, leaving just soft swirls of layered guitars, to overlap and intertwine hypnotically, a minimal blurred loopscape, growing ever more indistinct, and ever more hushed, until even the guitars drift off, leaving a gradually dissipating cloud of blackened rumbles, of distant metallic blur, all keening and moaning and finally fading out completely.
LIMITED TO 600 COPIES, pressed on thick vinyl, housed in a gorgeous matte jacket with original artwork by Caminiti, includes a printed insert and a download card. Plus, it's available at aQ two weeks before the official release date!!
It's not often that a group you have never been into, and maybe even actively disliked, makes something that totally blows you away. Well it's happened! None of us at AQ have ever been Chemical Brothers fans, we always found them so forced, contrived, and too much like the glossy stadium rock version of electronic music. But damn we are forgetting about that past right now, as Further is one of the most explosive, dynamic and epic electronic records of the year. Maybe their day in the mainstream limelight is done and they could make the record they always wanted to or maybe they just evolved, refined their taste and got so much better. Either way, we LOVE it!
Further is a blast of fuzzy and spaced out electronics filled with a driving force and such a rich sense of melody. In fact the first few times we played this in the store everyone working came up front to see what M83 record it was, as it has that really dynamic and engaging scope of sound. It's also reminding us of some cool combination of the cosmic odysseys of Etienne Jaumet mixed with the catchy hooks of Ratatat.
While their past releases relied so heavily on the influx of guest appearances, this record finds them sticking to a unified vision that doesn't depend on outside star power and have thus finally found a way to reach the stars and outer galaxies of sound all on their own, with such stunning results. Who says you can't get better, to teach old dogs new techno tricks? We never would of thought we'd say this, but the Chemical Brothers have made one of our favorite electronic records of the year!
We've had these for a while now, meant to list this ages ago, not sure what happened, but regardless, here you go, the latest, greatest blast of grinding death metal brutality from the brilliantly named Circle Of Dead Children. A furiously fast, ultra downtuned selection of brief blasting bursts of death metal drenched ultragrind, most clocking in at under a minute, but even the briefest blasts pack in a million parts and a billion notes. Head spinning, ear splitting, mind meltingly technical grind, think Discordance Axis, Creation Is Crucifixion, Cephalic Carnage, you know the sort of blazing destruction we're talking about. Plus awesome cover art and killer song titles like "No Tears Fall Through Hollow Eye Sockets", "Chemical Goat". Just what you need for that next gore soaked, techgrind, mathmetal fix for sure!
Not sure why, but we never really paid much attention to Louisville sluggers Coliseum, they maybe seemed too punk, or something, whatever it was, we're sort of kicking ourselves now, cuz this new one, their third, is a serious barnburner, although from what we hear their sound has changed quite a bit, still punk for sure, but super melodic, a bit metallic, and catchy as all get out. Maybe somewhere between the pop sludge of Torche, the muscly cock rock of Turbonegro and the post Kyuss hard rock of Queens Of The Stoneage, big chugging churning guitars, crushing powerhouse drums, killer hooks, thick fuzzed out bass, and the vocals, probably the most distinctive element, a harsh raspy howl that manages to be fierce and melodic, rough and raw, super intense and emotional, perfectly paired up with the throb and crush of the music pounding away beneath. The more we listen to this, the more these songs get stuck in our heads, and the more we dig 'em!
Features guest spots from Bonnie Prince Billy and members of Jawbox, Rodan, Squirrel Bait, Shipping News and Rachels, a sort of who's who of Louisville underground rock...
Another gorgeous outing of hushed acoustic sprawl and hauntingly grey ambience from San Francisco's Common Eider, King Eider. It's record number three from this mysteriously monikered band of outsiders, now expanded into a four-piece, still led by Rob Fisk, former member of both Badgerlore and Deerhoof.
We've always been impressed with the ghostly decay that seems to be so effortlessly flowing through CEKE's sound, a perfect balance of organic drone and instrumental songwriting, all bundled together into a seamless journey into the coldest, deepest woods. We must say that Worn immediately appears more melancholic and somber than past CEKE releases, whether it's the doom laden vocal drawls of Grouper on "Ennui" or George Chen's heaaaaavy buzzing guitar riff on "All They Will Find Is Blood", we're totally blown away!
Swells of gorgeously shimmering vocal melodies weave in and out of the rumbling distorted guitars like some shoegazing doom opera, an ocean of distortion buzzing under a glowing sky, so serene and moving. What we really love about Worn is while there are defiantly heavy moments of sheer epicness, there are also moments of precise composition and gently guided ambience. "The Rabbits Will Come Again" unfolds with gracefully bowed notes ringing out into the moonlit sky, while distant bells and shimmering feedback melt into the mournful piano. Vocal sighs and whispers set the mood for a deep forest seance, super chilling and super amazing. In addition to the special appearance made by Miss Grouper, don't miss out on Tom Carter's whirlwind cameo on "Earth Liver"! And don't forget, this one is limited to 300 copies, complete with lp covers that fold out into full size posters, lovely packaging for this ice cold, psychedelic epic!
Since his old band The Passionistas called it quits, it seems like Myles Cooper has really come into his own, finding his voice and expressing himself in a wide range of mediums from his confessional/performative YouTube page, to his DJing and presence at the super fun High Fantasy night at Aunt Charlies (one of our favorite bars in the Tenderloin), and his live solo performances. "Gonna Find Boyfriends Today" is a super sugary beyond catchy, fairy tale of a song, kind of like Sesame Street merging into a campy night at a gay bar filled with smiles, rainbows, cotton candy, and an endless stream of sweet and cute boys. The B-side "Lord Love Music" is way more stripped down and raw sound reminding us a lot of a young Calvin Johnson or Ian Svenonius, stylized and super sassy. In some ways Cooper is like the version of Hunx & His Punx that you could take home to your mom, with a beguilingly preppy and wholesome demeanor, but what makes him intriguing is that you know under that surface something warped and more nuanced is going on.
And here is the link to Skye Thorstenson's crazy video of the track to check out, ought to give you a better idea if this is for you or not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaObXRFg5y8
This 7" has only been released overseas and is limited to 300 copies so best grab it super fast if you want one.
Now on Vinyl!
One of the trends that we've noticed in the last several years with many of our favorite music makers is that it's seemingly become about releasing as MUCH as you can as OFTEN as you can. And while it's awesome to get so much new music from bands you like, there is still something to be said for really taking your time and crafting fully realized albums that may take a few years to wait for. At the rate that everyone is putting out releases, we almost just figured that Crystal Castles had somehow vanished or had broken up since we haven't heard a peep from them since their infectious debut from a couple years ago.
Luckily they are indeed back and sounding perhaps even more focused, frantic, infectious and engaging than on their debut. (Though would it have killed them to have spent just a few more minutes and come up with an album title? Having two self-titled discs is a bit confusing!) Equal parts '80s flashback, electro-pop with cold wave persuasions, primitive electronics, post-punk spazzy convulsions (the first track would have sounded right at home on one of our favorite spazzcore records by folks like The Locust, The VSS, or Clikatat Ikatowi), and catchy pop prowess. This is one of those records that really does appeal to so many different musical ears, and just about all of us at AQ can't stop listening to it. While it's not too unusual for Andee and Allan to come running up to the front of the store to see what's playing, this time it was Cup, whose desk is the furthest from the front, who had to make a beeline to the speakers to find out who it was covering '80s Canadian glammy new wavers Platinum Blonde! And the fact that Crystal Castles even chose one of the lesser hits of theirs to cover, not to mention that singer Alice Glass hadn't even been born yet when the original was released, just proves this duo has done their homework over the years and are now WAY ahead of the pack!
Like The Knife lending a helping hand to lead Adult. back to greatness, or Caribou, Hot Chip, Goldfrapp, Chromatics, M83 and The Junior Boys all somehow poisoned by a much darker goth-like magic potion. Even those of us who are usually a little shy when it comes to beat orientated music are totally digging this as there is something much more weird and nuanced happening than on lots of other electro-pop records that come our way. It's super fun but not dumb, varied but not erratic, gets out-there but not alienating, sexy but not a put on. Bottom line, it's a fucking awesome record!
Current 93 records require a considerable amount of effort in order to dig into the allegorical poetics of David Tibet. For 25 years now, Tibet has been exploring religious and philosophical esoterica, situating Biblical thought next to the theosophy of Crowley. But this dualism has been brushed under the rug over the past decade thanks to an interest in the gnostic texts originally penned in the ancient Coptic language. As to the background to Baalstorm - ostensibly the principle character of Current 93's 2010 album - we can't really say that we have any clue. Perhaps, a minor archon in a pantheon of deities lost for many generations? Yes, Tibet's visions continue to flow unabated across arrangements produced by a revolving cast of characters. The previous album, Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain, was a boiling cauldron of proto-metal riffs with numerous musical allusions to Blue Oyster Cult, Chrome, and Black Sabbath; and Baalstorm somewhat splits the difference between that album and the fairy-folk darkness of albums like Soft Black Stars. The compositions from the likes of James Blackshaw, Alex Neilson, John Contreras, Baby Dee, and Andrew Liles are delicate and occasionally twist into comparatively tense minstrals for cello, acoustic guitar, hand drums, and a spare amount of electronics.
If only all electronic music sounded this sick, so heavy and distorted and twisted! From the same label that brought us Cloaks' Versus Grain records, a big favorite around here with it's noisy, chaotic, industrial crunch, Dead Fader do something similar, taking a root sound that's equal parts dubstep, electro, and that sort of synthy heavy Ed Banger stuff, and then cranks it WAY up, the beats are thick and distorted and crumbly, the synths are thick and fuzzed out and also WAY distorted, there's noise all over the place, rumble and buzz and whir and skree, feedback, glitched out damage, but all woven into super funky fucked up grooves, it's like some modern electronic record given an old school DHR makeover, reminds us a lot of Fever, for those of you who remember them, their record maybe one of the heaviest most distorted sort-of-hip-hop records ever.
The label compares Dead Fader to Burial playing through Slayer's backline, which isn't really that far off the mark, the sounds here are in-the-red, blown out, there are distorted almost black metal vocals buried in the mix, streaks of feedback, the beats and synths careen wildly, panned super hard, swinging from speaker to speaker, it's dizzying and relentless, dark and dense, abstract and freaky, with weird bursts of Goblin-y prog, thick pulsing synths, creeping monklike chanting, flurries of skitter and stutter, crumbling walls of electronic sound that are practically metal in their timbre and intensity, but for all its crunch and pummel, all its ferocity and aggression, and fucked up weirdness, it still manages to be melodic and groovy, funky and fun, the sort of dancemusic that we always wished existed, and it makes even the most intense jams and block rockin' beats from folks like Daft Punk or the Basement Jaxx or the Chemical Brothers or whoever sound downright flaccid.
Electronic record of the year? Quite possibly...
A brand new full length from black ambient soundscaper, Drakh, the last prolific former member of black ambient terrorists MZ412 (his more prolific partner being Nordvargr!), and it's on one of our favorite labels too, Brazil's Essence Music, who in the past have brought us incredible releases from Acid Mothers Temple, Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, Boris, Merzbow and Rapoon. But this is not the regular release, we are honored to be the only place in the world, other than the label itself to be selling the super limited, deluxe, handmade boxset version, limited to just 99 copies, completely sold out, except for a handful saved just for us, and for you. These are pricey, but they are incredible, gorgeously and lovingly assembled, with TONS of extra stuff, and there are only about 10 copies left, so get one before they're gone. More on the record proper in a second, but figured we'd best explain what all comes in the box, in fact first there's the box itself, a completely handmade and hand assembled collage-painting-relief book-like boxset housing a long accordion folding insert with 11 attached landscape postcards - based on the album's theme and artwork - displaying stunning abstract watercolor paintings. Just like the box itself, each one of the pieces is uniquely and individually hand painted (no screens) by artist Iremir Oscar. In addition to the custom 6-panel digisleeve packaging, featuring stunning and desolate photography by Seldon Hunt, also included is a mini cd-r with four album remixes by some of Drakh's partners in sonic crime - Nordvargr, K. Meizter, Des Esseintes and Cordell Klier!
WOW. Like we said, there are only about 10 of these left, we are taking PRE-ORDERS for these, they are NOT in stock, once we know how many we need, we'll order them from Brazil and should have them within a week to 10 days. So if you order this with other stuff, your order will ship minus the Drakh box, which will ship by itself, or if you are a regular mailorder customer, probably in your next order, but you will be charged for it NOW, but if you want one, definitely don't dawdle.
The latest blackened drone missive from Drakh, as mentioned above formerly of MZ412, and most notable to aQ-ers, one half of the Nordvargr / Drakh duo, whose last record was released on Andee's tUMULt label. Bethlehem is a sonic travelogue, it's unclear if the sounds themselves are culled from the actual locations, or if these sounds are merely inspired by various places Drakh visited over the last few years, but the theme is reflected in a surprisingly varied sonic palette, which is not at all the grim bleak blackness of his past outings. Bethlehem begins as a dark dreamy swirl, laced with strange industrial rhythms, it's almost like the darkest creepiest dubstep ever, laced with voices, slow creeping swells, the dark skitter gives way to something much more ominous, a crumbling distorted dronescape, laced with strange snippets of spoken word, a creaking mysterious melody, and lots of crumbling hiss and crackle, before drifting into a sort of extra abrasive stretch of pop ambience, the core sound a hushed melodic drift, but wrapped in a sparking staticky gauzy, simultaneously dreamlike and strangely abrasive. Which sort of describes the whole record, deep heaving soft focus swells pulse and throb beneath a patina of buzz and whir, strange electronic percolations skitter atop a sea of electronic glitchery and blackened rumbles, like a malfunctioning Portishead, hushed warm washes of chordal hum slowly splinter into what sounds like Philip Jeck spinning old dusty field recordings, buzzing black noise is muted and smeared into bleary grey blurs, that seem to melt into warbly melodies, and slowly decaying looped crawls, crumbling industrial beatscapes lurch and lumber, a strange mechanized sonic beast, loping through a gorgeously hypnotic rhythmscape, so epic and evocative and mesmerizing, the whole record the perfect hybrid of blackened ambience, blissed out drift, and that sort of gauzy looped Jeckian soundscapery. Fantastic!
We WILL have the standard version, keep your eyes peeled for it on a future list, or ask us to reserve you one, but those of you who want the DOUBLE DISC HANDMADE DELUXE BOXSET, now's the time...
Have had a couple of these in stock for a while now, but never listed 'em. Decided it might be a good idea, since those of you looking for Chinese thrash metal that sounds a lot like Slayer ought to be stoked. They even have a song that's called "slaaaaaayer!!!" (yeah with six 'a's, three exclamation points, and a lower case 's'). That's what it's called in English, though the lyrics are in Chinese).
Explosicum hail from Nanchang, China, and share a member with No Colours recording artists Be Persecuted ("the first Chinese black metal band"). In addition to Slayer, it's a cinch that this old school thrash is influenced by Overkill and Bay Area bands like Exodus. Conflict is the band's first and so far only album, enough for us but definitely a decent dose of blazing battery, widdly guitar, and shrieking vokill aggravation, proving once again that thrash (and metal) is a universal language...
Freshly reissued as part of the Dynamophone Folio series! Fjordne's The Last 3 Days Of Time album was previously released as part of the label's special Parcel series - each volume came packaged in a round metal tin. The Folio series comes in a full color single-fold cardboard sleeve. Just as lovely the second time around!
Here's what we said about the release back in 2008...
Wonderful! As is reflected in the icy blue cover art, this is a wintry album - contemplative and shimmering soundscapes populated by acoustic guitars, piano, fleeting vocal gasps and seemingly microscopic electronics. Imagine a not so distant Japanese cousin of the Diskont album by Germany's Oval. Yes, it's that good! Winding and unwinding like the delicate clockwork mechanics revealed amid the feathers of the diminutive birds on the cover, these ten tracks are simply gorgeous from start to finish... as has been pretty much everything released to date by this fine, young SF independent label. Needless to say, very recommended! A perfect fit for those who've also been enjoying the soothing immersion into the releases on labels such as A Room Forever and Mystery Sea.
Wierd Records (home of Xeno & Oaklander, Martial Canterel, Led Er Est, and those great vinyl compilations) presents another fine reconstitution of '80s darkwave or, for the purposes of the French duo Frank (Just Frank), "Vague Froide Moderne". Well actually, they're half French, with one of the boys growing up in New Jersey before transplanting to Paris. Synths, guitar, bass, and drum machines are applied to the skeletal, if lush arrangements of Frank (Just Frank), with the lyrics mostly being handled in French. Much of the songs take their cues from The Cure's bassist Simon Gallup who, especially on Faith and Seventeen Seconds, guided those songs through his bouncy goth basslines. As such, the guitars for Frank (Just Frank) mostly chime and jangle while the the basslines lead the tunes, whose detached emotions are furthered through the atmospheric synths and pleading vocals. The Brutal Wave? Hmm. A bit of a stretch as a title for this album which is far more sanguine than the title suggests. Nevertheless, Frank (Just Frank) deliver what is expected of Wierd these days, with allusions to the likes of B-Movie, For Against, Eleven Pond, OMD, Siglo XX, and of course, The Cure. We like.
We first encountered The Freak Scene as the lesser half of a two-fer cd reissue with the very tangentially related Devil's Anvil album Hard Rock From The Middle East. THAT awesome album was recently reissued solo by Rev-Ola, and highlighted here last year. Now for those that need it, there's also a separate cd reissue of The Freak Scene as well, via the Lion label.
As you might guess from that band's name and album title, The Freak Scene were a bit of a psychedelic-era novelty, a studio project put together by producer/songwriter Rusty Evans for CBS Records. The record exploits all of the trippy tropes of the times, from Eastern-raga modes to LSD-inspired lyrics. It's no classic, but does include at least one truly great psych-pop track, the Nuggets-worthy "A Million Grains of Sand". The Freak Scene also indulges in dated but amusing free-form sound-collage experiments like "...When In The Course of Human Events (Draft Beer, Not Students)" which tries to make a statement about the whole sixties counterculture vibe. It's a mix of Pete Seeger, Laugh-In, and LSD party. Total Vietnam-era pop culture hippie kitsch, worthy of reissue for the nostalgic entertainment value. As with all Lion reissues, nicely done, with plenty of liner notes and vintage graphics. There's also nine bonus tracks, bringing the total to 21 and making this the definitive edition for sure. Those tracks are 1966 demos for songs that mostly either wound up on Psychedelic Psoul or another project Evans and other Freak Scensters were involved with, The Deep, and their album Psychedelic Moods.
What do Aidan Baker, Gnaw Their Tongues, Alkerdeel, Persistence In Mourning, Caina and Expo 70 all have in common? Well they've all released records on ultra cool Portuguese micro label Universal Tongue. And to that list you can add these guys, the strangely named Gorgontongue, one part Arizona black metal outfit Ganzmord, one part Oklahoma funeral doom horde Persistence In Mourning. Although the parts don't necessarily predict the whole in this case, as The Lighter Side of a Suicidal Mind is not in fact metal, black, doom or otherwise, instead this duo are exploring some grim, haunting, oppressive black ambient otherworld, blending soft noise, field recordings, mysterious murky effects, layered drones, much of this sounds like a prettier, less harsh Gnaw Their Tongues, sort of epic and cinematic and dramatically doomy, but also a bit like a more grim blackened Expo 70, that same sort of glimmering slow burn kosmische krautdrone, but laced with strange processed vox, crumbling industrial detritus, swaths of wheezing organs, buried barely audible rhythms, the occasional hellish shriek, tangled bits of detuned acoustic guitar, dubbed out electronics, ghostly vocals, woozy arpeggiated melodies, keening feedback, bits of Dead C like free rock drift, sprawling expanses of space-y ambience, various bits of crash and clank twisted and transformed into strange sonic streaks, rumbling low end pulses, crumbling walls of corrosive metallic crunch, tinkling chimes, all drifting through epic black expanses and dense squalls of psychedelic abstract effects-damaged buzz, culminating in the near meditative final track, a haunting, black ambient driftscape, hushed and haunting and weirdly lovely.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!! Housed in a Blue Ray style dvd case, with a printed two sided front cover, and a printer insert / mini poster.
Hallow is a group of blackened noisemakers loosely related to blacknoise merchants Ancestors (whose new ep is reviewed elsewhere on this list) and their debut double lp is in fact the soundtrack to an art show by Hallow mainman (only man?) Mark McCoy, who is also the mainman of Ancestors, which means the two are probably more than loosely related. Fuck. Who are we kidding, Hallow sound like a meaner, less black metal, more fucked up hardcore Ancestors, and anyone, and we mean ANYone who loves those Ancestors records, absolutely needs this too.
In addition to fronting these to monstrous metallic behemoths, McCoy also creates some super intense artwork, strange assemblages of ruined buildings, of crumbling riggings, collapsing structures suspended in space, intricate to the point of being the work of a madman, these drawings are captivating, incredible, precise and ultra detailed, and in their own way, they are imbued with some sort of fucked up energy, they seem, sad, they seem violent, abandoned, lonely, possessed, EVIL even. And thus, McCoy created Hallow, who recorded a series of songs, of soundtracks, each to accompany one of his pieces. Included is a booklet, oversized, featuring the various drawings, it's up to the listener to determine which song, accompanies which drawing. But again, it hardly matters, on their own, the images are breathtaking, and the music, even minus the art, Hallow create a serious racket.
The A side plays out like an Ancestors records, a bunch of short sharp tracks, furious frenetic post hardcore black metal buzz and pound and blast, super harsh, hellish, hateful, awesomely buzzy riffs, wildly blasting beats, walls of feedback wrapped around lurching anti-grooves, the songs stuttering and lumbering and exploding into jagged freakouts before locking back into some churning rhythm or white hot blast.
The B side is split into two longer tracks, sonically similar to the A side in some ways, but a whole different beast in others, the first a noisy depressive dirge, epic and spacious, definitely doomy, the guitars heavily distorted and processed, effects all over the place, the vocals insane and harsh and noisy draped over the sheets of buzz and blur and the spaced out plod below. While the second track is similarly plodding and depressive, the sound is even more blown out, the guitars blindingly effulgent, all of the sounds on the verge of total collapse, but at the same time strangely melodic and epic.
The second record is split into two sidelong tracks, and for some reason we can only think they accompany the images on the front and back cover. The first is a thick corrosive noisescape equal parts Wolf Eyes and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, caustic and abject, tangled strands of feedback wound around thick heaving slabs of distorted low end, all melted down into something thick and black and viscous. The flipside is super abstract, all high end, chittering, chirping, stuttering, squeaking shards of upper register squelch and glitch, Morse code beeps, chirping crickets, wheezing creaks, a hauntingly melodic field of fragmented skree, chaotic and abrasive, but also textural and abstract and actually sort of beautiful.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Gorgeous packaging, striking McCoy drawings on the front and back, pressed on thick vinyl, inside a thick oversized booklet featuring all of McCoy's drawings and some practically unreadable liner notes.
Damn. This is just amazing, another winner from Monk, compiling 8 different Delta blues greats on two lps, with the central focus on the mighty Son House. House's seven cuts here are from a legendary 1930 session in Grafton, Wisconsin for Paramount that also recorded Charley Patton, Willie Brown (also featured here), and Louise Johnson. It's pretty unbelievable to imagine these titans of American music all piling into a car in Mississippi and making the trip up to Wisconsin, but what is even more awesome is the music itself. These recordings capture House at his absolute prime, which is saying a lot considering what a force he remained throughout his many years. The level of intensity cuts right through Paramount's substandard recording quality, with House's former preacher voice booming over his expert slide playing, sounding like the toughest son of a bitch on the block and making so much else sound flat out weak in comparison.
While Son House will most likely be the main selling point for this, the other bluesmen are no slouches. Rube Lacy offers two tracks of classic Mississippi blues, mournful and propelled by a steady rhythm, while the obscure Kid Bailey's only two recordings are featured here, detailing a masterful understanding of his craft. Willie Brown is perhaps most famous for being namechecked in Robert Johnson's "Crossroad Blues", while some have speculated that he might actually be Kid Bailey. His "M & O Blues" and "Future Blues" are the only two sides known to exist from a total of six, and they are certainly worthy of their legendary status. Brown's gravelly voice and harmonically rich guitar playing were perfected from years playing side to others (including House, Patton, and Johnson), but there is no question that he stands as a powerful and assured soloist on these tunes.
Garfield Akers' four cuts (also his only known recordings) show off his clear, higher register vocals which often soar to an amazing yelp over his nonstop strumming, in which his chords almost seem to float. His two part "Cottonfield Blues" also feature second guitar from his pal Mississippi Joe Callicott, who contributes two songs himself. Jim Thompkins, another Delta enigma, is featured on "Bedside Blues", one of only two known recordings, while Blind Joe Reynolds (sometimes known as Blind Willie Reynolds and other names to remain one step ahead of the law), shows off his prowess with a bottleneck slide to go with a highly focused and intense vocal delivery.
Some of you may have trouble keeping up with the sheer output of labels like Monk and Mississippi, but this comp stands out as a prime collection of classic blues that will appeal to anyone with even the slightest interest. If you don't know where to start, look no further.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
After a seemingly endless streams of reissues, comes some brand new music from folk legend Michael Hurley. Recorded over the last few years, Blue Hills finds Hurley in mostly solo mode, accompanying himself on one side with electric piano and old pump organ, while on the other side it's just acoustic guitar, with a tiny bit of violin on one track. The results are pretty stellar, Hurley's voice is rough and worn, a little ragged, but it suits these melancholic compositions. "In The Morning", with its strange melody and haunting electric piano ends up sounding mysterious and otherworldly, the soundtrack to a big empty house on a grey rainy day. The pump organ tracks have a similar vibe, darkly emotional, wistful, mournful, the wheezing organ a perfect compliment to Hurley's countryish croon, which slips smoothly from whiskey soaked to a surprisingly smooth falsetto.
On the second side Hurley straps on an acoustic, and goes all back porch blues, down home country folk, and his voice sounds amazing, delicate, a little wounded, wrapped around simple crystalline melodies and folky fingerpicked guitar, add some buzz and hiss, and it could be some rediscovered old timey field recording. The record finishes off with Hurley re-doing one of his old songs, originally recorded in 1963, and although this was in fact recorded last year, it again sounds timeless, Hurley's falsetto floating dreamily over skeletal guitar melodies, and moaning violin. So nice.
Mississippi John Hurt's lone recordings from his younger days get a nice looking vinyl reissue from the good people at Monk. The material here has been available numerous times throughout the years, but if you missed out, GET THIS NOW! Before his rediscovery in the 1960s, Hurt had recorded a mere 13 songs in New York and Memphis for Okeh after winning a talent contest. Then, like many of the original bluesmen, he faded into obscurity and continued to work the land as a sharecropper, playing music on the side. Hurt possessed an expert style of intricate fingerpicking and an easy going vocal delivery which made quite an impression on his audience in the '60s. The greatest thing about his work is how effortless it comes across, even though this is some pretty unbelievable and complex guitar playing, not to mention highly melodic. He doesn't sound like a man in a hurry or with too much to worry about, despite some of the lyrical content and the oppressive nature of being black and living in Mississippi (or anywhere in the Western world for that matter) during this time, and Hurt never seemed quite as bleak as some of the other Delta greats. This, of course, does nothing to diminish his power, and this one definitely gets our seal of approval.
It's been a while, and we've waited patiently, but finally, it's the triumphant return of JonnyX And The Groadies, longtime aQ faves, and really, how could they not be? Self christened as the world's only "party black metal" band, these guys lay down some seriously grim black riffage, some howling hellish vox, but all wrapped around programmed beats, swirling new wave synths, howled chaotic screamo, all wound into a baffling, brilliant chaotic black synth, punk wave whatthefuck. And if anything, in the last few years, these guys have gotten even better, and WEIRDER. We described them in a past review as "Drop Dead, Arcturus, Teen Cthulhu, The Locust, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Behead The Prophet No Lord Shall Live, and Cradle Of Filth all packed into a sweaty filthy Portland Basement, playing before some strange mix of metalheads, emo kids and the walking dead!", which still pretty much applies, but these days, the blackness is way more intense, the riffing epic and frenzied, the songs super convoluted and complex, slipping from thrashing pound to inhuman blast and back again, but somehow, the new wave-ness has been cranked up too, with songs slipping into warped stretches of pulsing electronic drums, squelchy fuzzy synths, and occasional face melting blackened psychedelic blowouts of frantic guitars, screaming synths and chaotic drummachine damage, and besides all that, the songs RULE, catchy as hell, super varied and twisted and confusingly over the top. If these guys weren't from Portland, and weren't called JonnyX And The Groadies, and if they weren't one of the most awesomely motley looking crews ever, the long haired burnout glam metaller, the bearded metal lumberjack, the Dr. Jeckyll mad scientist, and of course the skeleton suited voodoo axeman, then they'd probably be oft discussed by the grim troo black metal hordes, a few championing their fucked up far out avant blackness, but most decrying their sullying of the true black traditions, so it's probably better that they exist well outside the black metal world, where they're free to twist their own peculiar brand of warped synth driven grind punk undead party synth brutal blackness into something this far out and fucked up and totally genius.
Available both as a cassette and an lp, the lp version comes with a big full color poster.
It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!!
So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right....
Left And Right (from 1969) starts off with a bizarre intro for bouncy cinematic string section and a ranting Roland Kirk as well as sound effects (breaking glass etc...).The record stays pretty far out with Expansions, the 20 minute, 9 part epic, sounding equal parts swinging sixties soundtrack, Morricone score, jazzy funereal dirge, and shrieking grandiose epic! The strings play a huge part on the rest of the record, fleshing out and gussying up some smooth dreamy, late night jazz workouts into gorgeous cinematic melancholia.
It seems like time for a rant again. Don't worry, I'll make it short. Roland Kirk is God! Or at least as much a god as Mingus, Sun Ra, Davis or Coltrane. So here's your chance to see what you've been missing. And what the majority of jazz fans can't get their narrow heads around: soulful, jazzy, funky, groovy, funny, soul shaking, gut busting, tear jerking brilliance from this musical genius. Master of every instrument he picked up (as well as a handful he invented!), able to play three horns at once (not as a gimmick, as a way to play three melodies), blind since birth and later suffering paralysis from a stroke, wandering around NYC with a huge wheeled staff with various horns duct-taped to it as well as a portable tape recorder that he used to record the sounds of the world and would sometime incorporate into live performances, a brilliant and funny orater, telling jokes and stories, ranting and testifying, preaching and proclaiming, and once even handing out cocaine to folks in the crowd. This man was remarkable. Musically, socially, personally. Unclear why he tends to get overlooked, and underappreciated by the majority of jazz fans. Too weird I guess. But I know that won't bother you (speaking here to YOU, the erudite AQ list subscriber) !!!
So it's always a happy day, when some new Kirk gem is unearthed, or some classic Kirk record gets the re-release/remaster treatment. So kudos to Collectables for reissuing 7 essential and timeless Kirk masterpieces. Some terrible design ideas though: the cheesy Collectables logo, HUGE ADS taking up whole pages in the cd booklets, and the 'Collectables Jazz Classics' tag line pasted everywhere over the original art, making them look like those bargain collections you find at truckstops or drugstores. But it's all about the music right....
Originally released in 1969, this finds Kirk in a very soulful mood. The jazz here is only an afterthought, with these funk/soul/gospel numbers heavy on the horns, the testifying and the party/dance vibe!! Covers of '"I Say a Little Prayer" (a Kirk staple) and an awesome version of Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour" complete with Kirk's over the top Biz Markie style vocals!! The second half was recorded live at the Newport Jazz Festival and features some smoking versions of "One Ton", "Three For The Festival", and a Coltrane melody, all interspersed with Kirk's insanely inspired introductions and some of the wildest, most intense flute playing EVER!
Rumor has it that Nika Danilova will be moving to Los Angeles upon completing her studies in Madison, WI. Perhaps a precursor to things to come for Zola Jesus when she does land in SoCal is this 12" with Nika laying swoonsome goth vocals upon slow-motion codeine-dub tracks provided by Amanda Brown (here in the guise of LA Vampires, but perhaps better known as half of Pocahaunted.) Much like the last few Pocahaunted records with their ghetto-tech downer dub, casting an evil eye on any sunshine vibes, Brown's production comes across like a lo-fi, home-built Scorn with basslines that sulk and stalk from the nastiest of noir alleyways and beats that could be lifted straight from a Chopped & Screwed remix. It's well suited to what Zola Jesus has delivered on her earlier constructions of equally lo-tech industrialisms; and her voice as always is frigid, strong, and operatic. Many of the songs clock in at less than 3 minutes, which is pretty much just right for these looping skeletal tracks. The seven track ep ends with an incredible cover of Dawn Penn's "No No No" taking the already zombified rocksteady ballad to a narcotic, love-sick zenith (or nadir, depending on how you look at it) of woozy, chemically zonked dirge-n-dub.
From the album cover -- an oddly staged photo featuring four long haired dudes with peculiar, only-in the-seventies fashion sense (high top Converse sneakers or bare feet, tube socks, floral print shirt and white vest and pants, bathrobe, shorts, little red hat...) relaxing at a cafe table -- you wouldn't necessarily guess that this is as heavy as it is. But it is. Though this first (and best) album by Spanish hard rockers Leno dates from 1979, it definitely sounds a few years older than that. Total early '70s heavy proto-metal in sound (which means that if you come into the store looking for it, you'll find it in our new "heavy '70s proto metal" section that lives in our "vintage psych rock" rack) for fans of all that stuff like Dust, Toad, Bang, Buffalo, Budgie, Blues Creation, Socrates Drank The Conium, etc. Wild, riffy stuff with tough, rough wailing (Spanish-language) vocals and lots and lots of *killer* guitar that gets almost Sabbathy in spots. Man, we love finding obscure stuff like this that sounds so classic the second you put it on. Pretty darn kick ass.
Latest from Swedish blackened doom pop weirdos Lifelover, which we have been trying to get for a while, and it's a doozy, melding the twisted demented depressive black metal strangeness of their early records, with the more streamlined, lush heaviness of their most recent recordings, resulting in what might be their most full realized release yet.
Featuring members of Ondskapt, Hypothermia, Dimhymn and IXXI, one could be forgiven for expecting something much more grim and black, hateful and harrowing, but instead, the band have been moving more toward a sound much more akin to groups like Katatonia, epic, lush, depressive doom pop, the guitars and drums massive, the melodies melancholy and mournful, but with the unhinged maniacal vocals that defined the first few records. Live videos display the group's incredible (and incredibly bloody) stage presence, with the vocalist, wearing a white long sleeve dress shirt, and doing some strange herky jerky dances, but within a few songs, things get decidedly darker, that white shirt soaked through with blood, the band locked into a frenzied fierce assault, but STILL, the music manages to be lush and sprawling and epic and weirdly impossibly poppy. Not sure why it works, or even how, but Lifelover are not only master showmen, but masters of crafting off kilter blackened pop. And Dekadens is most definitely testament to that. Not nearly as weird or experimental as past records, the first four tracks are a practically flawless explosion of the sound these guys have seemed to master, the production loud and lush, the riffing incredible, the drums not blasting, but pounding, the vocals a shrieking caterwaul, all wound into some incredible heavy pop music, still with hints of blackness, some double kick drumming, chugging guitars, those vocals, but however much of that there is, this still is ultimately pop music.
The second half of the record, things get a bit weirder; "Androider" almost sounds like some sort of alien modern rock, if it weren't for those unhinged vocals, it's not hard to imagine a song like this ending up on MTV, with some woozy clean guitar breaks, a soaring chorus, and some clean crooning vox, eventually slipping into a gorgeous minor key lament. "Visomdsord" is all clean guitar and skeletal drumming, soaring melancholy melodies, weirdly processed spoken vocals, gloomy Joy Divisiony basslines, and a second half that gets more and more dreamy and abstract. And then finally "Destination: Ingenstans" has possibly the poppiest main riff of the bunch, total sugary sweet, still distorted and crunchy, but majestic and major key, before a brief hushed drifty interlude, and then a burst of mathy proggy blackened heaviness, maybe the heaviest thing on the record, before the song chills out again, returning to something much more meditative, clean guitars, jangly and shimmery, the only vestige of blackened weirdness, a still tortured hellish howl, creating something at once dreamlike and melodic, haunting and harrowing.
So goddamn good. Lifelover are probably one of the most original 'black metal' bands around. And one of our favorites, and it's hard for us to imagine anyone listening to Dekadens not agreeing wholeheartedly...
We first heard Lo Borges as singer and songwriter on the mighty Clube Da Esquina, Milton Nascimento's 1972 epic double record, we listed awhile back. That record has been a consistently steady seller since we listed it, and with good reason, it's incredible! But while Nascimento and Borges actually collaborated together on much of it, it's mostly regarded as a Nascimento record. So it's great to see Lo Borge's self titled debut solo album from the same year finally reissued by the Water label, to shine a much deserved spotlight on this underrated artist. And we have to say, it's equally as incredible and essential as Clube De Esquina, Eduardo Mateo's Mateo Solo Bien Se Lame, Caetano Veloso's Transa, or Gilberto Gil's Cerebro Electronico! With a nod to the cover art, those are big shoes indeed!
Recorded when he was just entering his twenties, the scope of artistry on display seems to be by someone so much more experienced. Not only is Borges at the top of his game as a singer and songwriter, but the arrangements and musicianship are just as dazzling. Most of the songs barely squeak over the two minute mark, but he packs so many ideas into a song without losing its central focus and at the same time giving everything lots of space. Here and there a string section drops in and out, a flurry of baroque piano, soaring flutes, a jazzy organ swell, searing electric guitar, hints of electronic psychedelic washes. At times romantic and mysterious, other times more urgent with rhythms picking up and slowing down in tempo to evoke a wide range of emotive qualities. This is a record we'll probably be playing all summer long. We can't recommend it enough!
Full length number two from Lynch, the latest super hyped phenom in the ever expanding world of warped and warbly, garage pop, and for good reason, after having been a sideman for tropical folk bliss outfit Ducktails, Lynch has really come into his own as quite a crafter of dreamy lysergic folk pop, slippery woozy acoustic guitars drifting through starry fields of undulating shimmer, his sound both stripped down and spare, lush and lysergic, trafficking in similar sounds as Ariel Pink, Gary War, John Maus, a sort of retro pop re-envisioned, but Lynch doesn't douse everything in reverb, or wrap sounds in damaged FM radio detritus, instead he weaves intimate hushed pop songs, lacing them with subtle psychedelia, abstract spaceiness, his vocals a soft falsetto, drifting over minimal muted drumming, folky acoustic guitar strum, buried wah guitar warble, dreamy druggy laid back basslines, fluttering flutes, tinkling chimes, twisted fuzzy synths, the vibe abstract and ramshackle, a bit dubby here and there, a little new wave-y in places, but for the most part, Lynch weaves lush little stretches of hazy dreamy folk pop, his vocals ethereal and angelic, making everything sound wistful and heartfelt.
There is at least one moment of rambunctious rocking: "Ears" features big drums, some tangled incendiary psych rock leads, some freaked out damaged squalls of guitar noise, but even then, it's super melodic and poppy. Just a subtle variation in the sweetly serene folky fabric of the rest of Mare. Which keeps it from sounding like just another in the seemingly endless stream of homebrewed bedroom garage pop records, and transforms it into something much more timeless and classic sounding, a sort of sweetly twisted modern folk flecked soft rock, so good!
Comes with an mp3 download card as well...
For all that's made of M.I.A.'s politics and persona, it's important not to forget that what makes her music so fucking special is how it taps into such a purely physical sensation. Her last album Kala was an absolute game changer. The kind of record that reshaped everything around it. You could almost use her name as a genre, as so many folks were inspired by it and after her debut, we began hearing so many people try their hand at the M.I.A. sound. From Santogold, Gang Gang Dance, Rainbow Arabia, Rye Rye, Bonde Do Role, Thunderheist, Buraka Som Sistema, and on and on. Her influence crossed so many cultural lines and on so many fronts, not just her sound but also her fashion, imagery and overall aesthetic. And it's easy to see why, there is something so dynamic, urgent, spirited and alive about what M.I.A. is doing.
It's so hard to follow up a record that was as close to perfect as we think an album can be, but god damn she has found a way to maybe do it. Maya blasts right out of the gate and makes it clear its going to be an uncompromising, visceral and frenetic ride. With great collaborating producers like Diplo, Switch and Blaqstarr back on board as well as bringing in dubstep sensation Rusko as well as Sleigh Bells guitar shredder Derek E. Miller. But much like Bjork, M.I.A. is a master of curating and surrounding herself with super talented producers and players, yet taking all the pieces of those elements and crafting them into something much bigger and more fully realized. The record is paced so perfectly, after an onslaught of charged, dirty and sweaty tracks she offers fresh breaths through some catchier pop minded jams and then its right back into the line of fire. Maya, is both the most angry and tender of the albums she is made so far. Because while its filled with so many unrelenting politically fueled anthems it also finds M.I.A. singing about the courage of falling in love and getting weighed down by gravity, which shows us the range she is capable of and will continue to explore.
It seems certain folks love to build people up only to knock them down. In recent months M.I.A was torn to pieces in a tacky/petty feature in the New York Times and many of the same blogs and online music critic establishments who championed her in the first place, and who are now taking cheap shots at her, personally and musically. But all that is meaningless. Truth is, M.I.A. continues to be an absolute force of nature. Creating music that really can and does unite so many different kinds of people and makes you sweat in ways that feels empowering and full of purpose. She has taken the spirit of punk, hip-hop and dance music to make a sound that is so singular and spectacular. Maya is another striking achievement from one of the most important, outspoken and brave artists of our generation.
An excellent bit of black noise and somber ambience found here! Maleficia is the East Bay duo of A.C. Way and Ilysea Simpson, who craft spectral noises from a small arsenal of junked electronics accompanying voice and violin. The band's name is defined as the curse that witches were thought to inflict upon people or farm animals as acts of revenge through their pacts with the dark forces, and the album's title alludes to the mid-summer Celtic festival whose ancillary is the more well-known Samhain. As one might imagine, a rather ghostly veil of shadow and Iron Age mysticism abound in the work of this Maleficia. Out of an initial fug of gravel-throated noise which decays into an overarching atmosphere of nocturnal desolation, the two interlace a series of loops from those aforementioned instruments which come together as an arc which moves from the misanthropic electronics of early Maurizio Bianchi toward the hallowed collages of Current 93 by way of Phillip Jeck. Easily the best material that Maleficia have set to recorded media to date, but alas this clocks in at a brief 16 minutes.
We reviewed the Charles Manson Sings disc on ESP a while back, and everyone kinda freaked out. We couldn't keep 'em in stock. Cuz beyond being a psycho, and a cult leader, and the mastermind behind a handful of gruesome killings, he was also some sort of musical visionary, a damaged folk troubador, obsessed with music, and with becoming an actual musician like his pals in the Beach Boys, his songs were dark and brooding, but strangely beautiful, haunting, intimate and personal. He had a really unique voice to, throaty and velvety smooth, like a raspier Nick Drake.�
This set of songs was recorded after just getting out of a prison stretch in the '60s, almost a year before he recorded his first and only proper album, and another year before the Tate / Labianca murders that would seal his place in history forever.�
The sound is rough and raw and lo-fi, but only adds to the strange power of these songs and performances. We described the recordings on Sings as "reverb drenched beatniky psychedelic freekfolk" and while there is some of that here, the sound here is much more stripped down and traditional sounding. Barebones and simple, it's all about Manson's voice and the guitar, and both sound divine. Moody and melancholy, slightly hippy, dark and thoughtful and really intense and pretty. Sure serial killer obsessives will be all over this, especially because most of the tracks have Manson going off on weird little rants after or before each song, stories, jokes, philosophies, usually delivered with a self conscious giggle, snippets of conversation with the guy recording these sessions or whoever else happens to be in the room. There's even a three minute interview included. It's definitely a bit creepy, especially knowing how everything would end up.�
But the music, taken on its own, is still super powerful, some gorgeously raw chunks of raw acoustic folk. Fans of classic stuff like Nick Drake, Townes Van Zandt, Bill Fay, as well as folks into Banhart, Vetiver, Espers, Fursaxa, Wooden Wand and any of the more song oriented modern freakfolks will definitely dig this like crazy, and probably oughta pick up the ESP disc as well...
Latest from the Mexican Summer label, in their ongoing campaign to seemingly release at least one record by every one of the coolest bands around these days, which has been a pretty serious success so far (barring the always inordinately OUCH-worthy Mexican Summer pricetag), and continues to be, with this, a brand new ep from SF power pop drone rockers The Mantles, who with the opening track, "Cascades", a brief two minute blast of some seriously perfect pop, render the aforementioned pricetag a non issue, cuz, you NEED this track, and if there was ever a $26 jam, this is it. Easy, the shortest, sharpest, catchiest track the Mantles have produced, it's still got some of that Velvet Underground swagger, but it's doused in power pop perfection, a crazy killer main melody, some sweet "ooooooh" background vocals, propulsive drumming, all wrapped in a dreamy haze, we'd be surprised if you didn't find yourself playing that one track over and over and over. But once you've got that out of your system, you can dig a bit deeper, the very Wipers sounding "Situations", all dour and minor key, the sun dappled hypnorock of "Lily Never Married, sounding a bit like a slightly more upbeat Spacemen 3, "Summer Read" all fuzzy and retro, with another cool tangly guitar melody, the sound crunchy and raw and urgent, a little Swell Maps, and still a lots Velvets, and finally, "Waiting Out The Storm", a brooding dirgey slowpop gem, all minimal drumming, and super distorted low slung riffage, laconic vocals, laid back and woozy and druggy, think Loop or Spacemen 3 again, but even slower and more washed out and lysergic, the sort of jam that live could get stretched out forEVER... Rad stuff. Way recommended. But remember, it's on Mexican Summer, so it's limited and odds are it will be gone in a flash...
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Taking a break from obscure reissues, lost world music artifacts, and unearthed country and folk and blues treasures, Mississippi looks to long time aQ fave Mirah for a brief two song blast of fuzzy, horn flecked reverby sixties girl group sounds. Yep, not what we usually expect from Mirah, but we're loving it. The first clue is the cover photo, which features Mirah in fishnets and knee high boots on an old motorcycle in a grafitti'd alley, and once inside, that's exactly what it sounds like, warm washed out old school 'Leader Of The Pack' style jangle and croon, shuffling rhythms, loads of delay and reverb, soulful horns, plenty of back ground "oooooh's and 'aaaaah's, total Lesley Gore, Supremes worship.
The flipside is another soulful groover, this one more sultry, a woozy sexy after hours sixties soul ballad, Mirah's voice lush and smoky, the horns warm and languid, all wrapped around an irresistible main melody, at once total old school, but somehow re-envisioned as a modern bit of retro garage groove, so good.
Do you like your rock 'n' roll a little, um, weird? Moira Scar, the catchily jarring new project from Roxy and LuLu of Floating Corpses infamy, touch all the right nerves with their first self-titled release. The opening number, "Salley Meander", sounds like The Crystal Stilts if Brad Hargett sang in falsetto. "You Make Me Scream" channels The Cramps pretty heavily and is complimented by some free-floating psychedelic synths and horns. "Blood Moon" finishes off the first side nicely with more horns, a cacophony of horns, in fact, one that brings to mind the jazzier moments of The Nation of Ulysses or Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes. By far the best track on the record, "Gnu Groove (Wildebeest Wiggle)", opens up the second side. Roxy's vocals flow from falsetto to baritone to passionate screaming all within about ten seconds, riding the wave of jangly guitars and a simple but effective drum beat. Not to mention the awesomely anticlimactic guitar solo..... This record, clocking in at just under 23 minutes, will have you flipping back to side A just after side B spins to a close. Highly recommended!
A brand new full length from our favorite doom-drone / doom-gaze duo, Nadja, and it's on one of our favorite labels too, Brazil's Essence Music, who in the past have brought us incredible releases from Acid Mothers Temple, Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, Boris, Merzbow, and Rapoon. But this is not the regular release. We are honored to be the only place in the world, other than the label itself, to be selling the super limited, deluxe, handmade boxset version, limited to just 149 copies, already completely sold out, except for a handful saved just for us, and for you. These are pricey, but they are incredible, gorgeously and lovingly assembled, with TONS of extra stuff, and there are less than 10 copies left, so get one before they're gone. More on the record proper in a second, but we figured we'd best explain what all comes in the box, in fact first there's the box itself, hand painted and decorated using several techniques, collaged, stitched and an intricate ink layering painting process. The box is gorgeous, but inside, you'll find the standard edition of the album, lavishly assembled in a custom 6-panel digisleeve housing a set of 6 cards set with beautiful watercolor paintings and artwork by Portuguese artist L. Filipe dos Santos. PLUS, as a bonus, an alternative DOUBLE cd-r set comprising the album (same version/mastering) and a DTS 5.1 version of it - this one mastered/mixed by Anders Peterson and including an exclusive remix - housed in a 6-panel package with a striking and utterly different artwork by Iremir Oscar and Essence head honcho Uirajara Resende PLUS an inedit live recording from earlier this year, also on cd-r. That's FOUR discs instead of just the one. PLUS, honoring the album's theme - skin and blood - there's also an individually painted and hand-assembled 16-page book - each page is totally unique - and strange souvenirs, like a pen-like object and a large painted band that holds the whole set together.
WOW. Like we said, there are less than 10 of these left, we are taking PRE-ORDERS for these, they are NOT in stock, once we know how many we need, we'll order them from Brazil and should have them within a week to 10 days. So if you order this with other stuff, your order will ship minus the Nadja box, which will ship by itself, or if you are a regular mailorder customer, probably in your next order, but you will be charged for it NOW, if you want one don't dawdle.
And if you are a Nadja fan, you're definitely gonna want one of these, sure all Nadja records are pretty great, but this one is incredible, an hour long three part epic, the heaviest, most lush and orchestral and intense record we've heard from these two yet. The opening track, clocking in at 25 minutes, begins as a hushed bit of dreamy drift, all gauzy and washed out and shimmery, layered melodies, shifting and swirling and so lovely, very Pop Ambient in fact, until about 12 minutes in, when the drums kick in, the guitars explode, but it doesn't simply get heavier, or louder, it sounds orchestral, huge moaning melodies, what sounds like strings or horns, epic and kaleidoscopic, the sound living and breathing, prismatic and totally warm and glowing, a heaving chunk of blissed out dreamlike heaviness.
The second movement is more traditionally heavy, a chugging churning slab of lumbering doom, the pounding drum machine and buzzing riffs, wreathed in a swirling cloud of hiss and buzz and Technicolor effulgence, a sort of incendiary Godflesh style industrial crunch, with buried howled vocals, and constantly shifting patina of glitched out effects and electronic buzz, which gives away to the 26 minute closer, beginning with super spare acoustic guitars, which drift into a shimmering field of prismatic glimmer, eventually exploding into another slab of blown out orchestral epic dream doom, totally majestic, and almost choral sounding, wrapped in sheets of staticky buzz, the sound getting more and more fierce and intense and threatening to blow your speakers, total chaos and catharsis, blissful but ultra intense, finally, relenting, and leaving gorgeous sonic vapor trails, laced with buried boy girl vox, a dreamy understated coda, to a seriously epic bit of orchestral buzz drenched bliss. So great.
We WILL have the standard version, keep your eyes peeled for it on a future list, or ask us to reserve you one, but those of you who want the QUADRUPLE DISC HANDMADE DELUXE BOXSET, now's the time...
Ever wonder what it would sound like if Yoko Ono joined doomdrone duo Nadja? No? Well, we're guessing it would sound a little like this collaboration between Canadian doomgaze two piece Nadja and Italian chaotic weirdo avant punk duo OvO. The overall sound here seems to fall more toward the Nadja end of the sonic spectrum, but OvO definitely add their own twisted vibe, the result something dark, and creepy, and abstract, and occasionally very heavy and very fucked up and awesome. Separated into four movements and based on some strange concept about killing a wasp in a cup of coffee, the record begins with some loping heavy slowcore, big drums, lush clean guitar chords, and all sorts of swirling weirdness, detuned melodies, harmonics, strange FX, long stretches of ambience, buried guttural vocals, streaks of feedback, it's not until nearly the end when OvO vocalist Stefania lets loose, with her childlike Ono-ish trill, operatic and creepy as hell, sometimes slipping into a monstrous gurgle, but just as often wailing like a banshee, while the music churns underneath. Can't help but be reminded of Bloody Panda too, the same sort of weird vocal / heaviness hybrid.
The second and third movements are shorter, and continue on in the same vein as the opener, with loping post rock rhythms, swirling blackened ambience, haunting chiming melodies, thick guitar thrum, more FX, Stefania's vocals never quite getting to the maniacal shriek stage, instead, slipping from hushed whisper, to almost black metal rasp, to cookie monster gurgle, the vibe almost Goblin-ish, heavy and dark, but cinematic and really creepy, the third movement the heaviest so far, a lurching doom, trudging grimly beneath wild drumming, and even wilder vocals, until finally, the 13 minute denouement, the final movement, which begins like some horror movie soundtrack, all fragmented melancholy melody, and deep heaving low end, droney and so ominous, gradually building to a strange industrial style drone-plod, which eventually explodes into something primal and tribal, pounding drums, those trilled super dramatic vox, an intense cathartic climax, which eases back into that ominous drift, this time with the vocals in full effect, the result, dark, bizarre, intense and fantastically out there!
Also found we had a couple of these, never listed. Another band doing the whole old school thrash metal revival thing, this time from Finland. The cleverly titled Apocalyspe. Now Or Never is their debut full-length. While they don't quite attain the rabid off-the-rails insanity of our particular Finnish thrash faves Pyrotoxic (RIP), they're still pretty entertaining if you're into the current wave of thrash nostalgia. Fast, frazzled, chugga-chugga-chugga bleaaaargh right out of the gate, and it doesn't let up. Wretched vokills lay down the thrash law over pummelling battery and razor sharp riffin' guitar grind. For fans of Slayer and the like.
The return of Swedish black metal masters, Ondskapt , who alongside blackened brethren like Funeral Mist, Deathspell Omega, Watain and the like, keep the black fire burning, but unlike the weirdly melodic classic metal of Watain, or the gnarled and twisted blackness of Funeral Mist and DSO, Ondskapt are something much more raw and primeval, primitive and TROO, their sound still hewing closely to the classic BM sound, the buzz and the blast, the howled monstrous bellow, the epic riffage, the frantic frenzied brutality, but where Ondskapt truly shine, is in their ability to conjure up atmosphere, to create a sound that evokes horror and misery and grim blackness, sure the riffs slay, and the band is brutal and punishing, but their sound oozes with a black spirit, an abject hopelessness that black metal is meant to embody, and that ambience, while not always overt and obvious, finds its way into every note, and every riff, the sound becomes more than black metal, it becomes blackness ITSELF, the buzz and blast just a mechanism for delivering that true grim blackness.
The tracks here are epic and intense, veering from relentless blasting black metal buzz, to woozy lumbering doom, to pounding midtempo dirge, the riffs are epic and melodic, the melodies majestic and soaring, the drums powerful and crushing, the vocals hellish, but again, it's less what the various elements are doing, and more HOW, it's like these sounds are some sort of conjuration, a grim black ritual, moaned clean vocals, spiraling warped Burzumic buzz, depressive melodies and intense sorrowful ambience, all woven into a more traditional black metal framework, the sum a magical and mystical sonic spell that imbues the sound with an atmosphere of utter dread and black grimnity, and makes Ondskapt blackened high priests of black dread and demonic sonic evocation, and Arisen From The Ashes is their gospel.
Man, it took a while - a REALLY long while - but we finally got enough of these suckers to list. By now, many of you are familiar with Japan's amazing Onna, whose self-titled anthology on Holy Mountain turned many a head not all that long ago (we made it Record Of The Week). Though they first emerged in the early 1980s, the band was clearly carrying on a psychedelic tradition in the vein of many of their countrymen from the previous decade. But even calling Onna a "Japanese psych" band doesn't describe just how strange and awesome this band is. Katawa was released in 2007, and though the sound is drastically different from the band's catchy first single, this is still clearly Onna, which always operated under the leadership of guitarist/singer Keizo Miyanishi. The same unsettling themes still seem to be present - the cover here being quite similar to the anthology but not so grotesque this time around - with the hallucinatory lyrics printed in both Japanese and English... so if you were wondering what Onna might be singing about, wonder no more. The lyrics work perfectly for these songs, pained and sexually deviant laments performed with just acoustic guitars, voice, and lots of feedback. The results are creepy, poetic, and just plain weird at times, tending to focus on lost love, nightmarish delusions, and a general sense of hopelessness.
Opener "Salamadra Salamander (The Three Sisters)", which you might remember from the comp, is 13 minutes of rhythmically strummed acoustic guitar and wandering vocals with a dose of electric feedback shrieking above in the atmosphere. Mournful as hell and spacious sounding, it is also murky and ultra depressive, droning on in a sort of Jandek way with lyrics focusing on, um, the narrator's three penises... Damn. The total weirdness here could have come from any time within the last 45 years or so, but it also stands as a definite legacy of Les Rallizes Denudes, especially in the vocal department, as Miyanishi shifts from low moans to high pitched wails. "The Prophet (After Pushkin)", which sounds like it may have been recorded in a live setting, features a discordant acoustic guitar strummed with a heavy hand and bursts of controlled feedback that surface and recede like an earsplitting sonic wave. The song is sort of sour sounding, but also kind of pretty in its own miserable way, with lines like, "Tormented, I stumbled through a gloomy waste". With a super atonal and out of tune guitar adding a sparse, strangely piano-like sound, "Estelle's Making Herself Up" comes off like a Japanese version of the blues that gives a nice glimpse into someone's sad, demented soul. You almost feel like you're spying on Miyanishi as the sounds of a chair shifting gives things a strangely intimate feel. The mood so far is shaken up a bit on the next number, "Silver Dove", with upbeat, folky strumming and lyrics that seem a little more hopeful, but still reeeally fucking weird. "Morning Blues (Moaning Song)", sounds a bit like '60s proto-punks Godz on a bummer before the album closes with "Bamboo Otoko," where a scarlet beast comes around and crushes Miyanishi's balls. So, by now you should probably know whether or not this one's for you. Hardly the easiest stuff to digest, but patience yields some amazing results for the adventurous listener. Nice gatefold mini-lp style sleeve.
Boston's Ophibre (aka Benjamin Rossingol) has been releasing tiny editions of cassettes, cd-rs, and at least one reel-to-reel tape for the past five or six years. His work often revels in forgotten / obsolete technologies whose artifacts and residues become the source material for his crusty drones, abraded noise, and splattered musique concrete constructions; he couples those sounds with a dry blackhumor that falls somewhere between GX Jupitter-Larsen and George Macunias. This album, released on Intransitive's new series of hyper-limited cd-rs, draws from Rossignol's experience with an MRI machine while he was participating in a few medical studies to help pay the bills. As the giant powerful magnetic spun around him, Rossignol found himself hearing a complementary series of harmonic tones that didn't appear to be originating form the MRI. He wasn't sure if those sounds were hallucinatory or if they were some peculiar acoustic phenomenon that he had discovered. Here, he's attempting to replicate that experience through configurations of controlled feedback, synth overdrive, and dead-eyed noise. The first track is a screeching rasp of magnetic noise, particle accelerated vibration, and hurricane fury, that's well-suited to the likes of Birchville Cat Motel and Hototogisu; but after this 15 minute blast of noise, Ophibre's sublime, yet gritty dronescaping takes over with mirrored tones and hazy echoes that appear like the tracers from a bad drug reaction, flickering upon his murky immersions. All things that we dig in our dronemusik! Limited to 100 copies.
Wow, What a nice and welcome surprise for early electronic music fans! This 2cd anthology is the first re-issued work from one of the most important and unsung heroes of electronic music, Daphne Oram, co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic workshop. Beginning her career in the forties with the BBC as a "music balancer" (an arduous task of syncing recorded taped music with a live performance feed so that broadcasts would remain uninterrupted in case of war-time blackouts), Oram spent most of her nights fascinated with synthetic sounds and experimenting with oscillators and tape machines, as well as composing unperformed orchestral works and sound pieces for film and play commissions. Promoted to music studio manager, she campaigned for the BBC to provide electronic music facilities for composing music and sound effects using electronic music and musique concrete techniques for use in its programming which led to the founding of the Radiophonic workshop in early 1958. However, her desires to compose music and further her studies and development of synthetic music theory, caused her to leave the BBC a year later. Working off two grants from the Gulbenkian foundation in the 1960's, and supplementing her income through advertising work, she developed her most unique contribution, the Oramics composition machine and the drawn sound technique, an elaborate mechanism that allowed her to create pure sound through the transcription of drawn lines. For being the first woman to direct an electronic music studio as well as the first woman to design and construct an electronic music instrument, her legacy remains largely unnoticed in this male-dominated field. She lectured extensively and wrote one of the most philosophical books on electronic music, called An Individual Note of Music, continuing her developments with early Apple computers until a series of two strokes forced her to retire. She died in 2003. Culled from an extensive archive of compositional pieces, film and play commissions, early sound experiments with the Oramics machine, and advertising jingles, this anthology covers material from the late fifties to the early seventies. Fans of Delia Derbyshire, Raymond Scott and early electronic music enthusiasts of all sorts will find lots to love here. Highly Recommended!!!!
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Another fantastic African artifact, this one, the first in a six part series, and as the title suggests, these tracks were recorded in 1970 as part of the First Biennale Of Arts And Culture For The Young. Orchestra Regional De Mopti, was a state funded group, who performed nationwide, in festivals and competitions, their sound incredible, lush and celebratory, looped guitar figures, fluttering flutes, lots of horns, wild drumming, call and response vocals, the music infused with emotion and passion, the sound trancelike, droning and hypnotic, many of the songs lock into super mesmeric grooves, the guitars tangled and gorgeously gnarled, minor key and slightly melancholy, but simultaneously exuberant and effusive, the vocals skipping wildly over the darkly meditative music underneath, while those songs are dark and dour, unwinding and unfurling like lost ballads, others are upbeat and bouncy, danceable even. The band really are incredible, it's hard to pick out just one element, the guitars slip from wild and spidery, to jangly and major key, to woozy and understated, the horn section almost sounds like a marching band, but their playing is so soulful, funky and groovy, and the vocals, slipping from chantlike murmur to mysterious hushed croon, to wild and nimble tongue twisting wail, these sounds, and these musicians are just beautiful and moving and so passionate. Definitely one of our new Mississippi faves, and already dying to hear more. Anyone into Ethiopiques, Sublime Frequencies and the like will dig this big time!
