Originally released on vinyl in 2005 on the Sun City Girls' Abduction label, Blood Operatives Of The Barium Sunset was at the time the first Alvarius B release in 7 years, a project of Sun City Girl Alan Bishop, accompanied by long time SCG accomplice Eyvind Kang as well as Randall Dunn, Tim Young and Andrew McGinnis.
Alvarius B is some sort of weirdo psychedelic cabaret folk music, somewhere between Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and show tunes (?). The opener is a swampy bit of country folk, all slithery acoustic guitars, junk yard percussion, weird voices, Bishop's snarly vox, lots of buzz and tense atmospheric shimmer, and the lyrics, an over the top tale of miserable miscreants, while the second track is even more Tom Waits-ish, a piano ballad, haunting and melancholy, distorted and creepy, over a chorus of nighttime crickets, as if Bishop was set up on the porch of some old house on the edge of a black swamp. From there on, the sound slips into a strange lilting doom folk, Kang's viola, moaning over some atonal strum, and Bishop ranting like a madman. Deep chanted vocals draped over jagged acoustic guitar, a distant choir competes with some strange grunting, jaw harp, moody hushed vocals drift over a latticework of spidery steel string buzz, super dramatic and over the top, helps that that one is actually a cover, a piece by Italian horror soundtrack composer Fabio Frizzi, lyrics of course courtesy of Bishop. Which is what turns it into something much sicker and more hauntingly demented than even Frizzi could have ever imagined.
They also tackle a Morricone track, and a traditional, but it hardly matters, Bishop and company make the songs their own, transforming them into oozing, misanthropic swamp folk dirges, creepy, and funny, and fucked up, exactly what you'd expect from one of the Sun City Girls, an aural roadtrip through the hellish mind of a madman, a lost world of run down houses, bleak swampland, of destitution and despondency, but viewed through a serious cracked lens, that makes even the most dismal and brutal and miserable situations and characters seem endlessly fascinating and mysterious. Awesome stuff, essential for Sun City Girls obsessives of course, but maybe a bit TOO out there for the general population, which is precisely what makes this so awesome.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!!
When we first discovered the timeless otherworldly space drone psych folk of Amen Dunes, we couldn't shake the feeling that it had to be old, some lost psych holy grail. For all its fuzz and warble and crunch, it had this strange timeless quality, at once personal and intimate, as if, like many small private pressings, the actual pressing was just going through the motions, a sort of validation that meant very little to the creator, but for the listener, the fact that these sounds were captured, it was perhaps as important as the creation itself. We of course eventually accepted the fact that Amen Dunes was not in fact some strange guru-like mystic, white bearded and black robed, living in a cave somewhere (somewhere that just so happened to have recording capabilities of course) and was in fact, a young guy, a music maker, band dude, who just so happened to be able to channel the spirit of some lost time, be it the sixties, seventies, eighties... the sound of Amen Dunes, was, and is, a soft cacophony of jangle and buzz, laced with elements of raga and drone, folk and country, all woven into an idiosyncratic whole, that somehow sounds like all of those and none of those. Ever since that record, which of course we made a Record Of The Week, we had been dying for more.
With the release of Murder Dull Mind, the reason for no new recordings is made obvious, as the man behind Amen Dunes, Damon McMahon, was in fact living in China for the last few years, where this ep was recorded in his apartment. Mostly improvised, these songs manage to capture the same spirit as the debut, but definitely takes the Amen Dunes sound in a new, more hushed and intimate direction.
That sound is still ritualistic and psychedelic, beginning with a strange incantation, alien vocal harmonies, sounding a bit like a more ominous Beach Boys vocal track, wound around deep synth thrum and mysterious flickering electronics, before giving way to spare skeletal acoustic guitars, all reverby and hazy, wrapped in tangled psychedelic filigree, echo drenched vocals, and some soaring distorted and blown out choruses. It's like some sort of woozy Eastern tinged raga psych-folk, a bit like the first record, but more stripped down, occasionally abstract and buzzy, but just as often downright poppy. While elsewhere, simple snare drum skitter shuffles beneath urgently strummed steel string guitar, the sound almost Latin, way blown out vox, also suggestive of seventies acid folk. The A-side finishes off with a caustic noise jam, a swirling squall of chaotic psych guitar noise, buried voices and gnarled string buzz collide with buried percussive stutter and howling Haino-ish freakouts.
The B-side features 3 tracks of soft spacious almost country sounding reverby folk, strange vocals drift amidst hazy streaks of washed out sound, atmospheric and weirdly lush, very rainy day sounding (in fact, on one of the tracks, you can hear what almost sounds like rain in the background), the whole thing simple and stripped down, personal and emotional, yet still somehow subtly lysergic and psychedelic, a gorgeous intimate sonic missive, a fervent fever dream in sound. So good.
We're beginning to consider Greg Ashley to be one of the most underrated musical minds of the past decade. Whether with his band The Gris Gris or on his own great solo recordings, Ashley has demonstrated so much versatility and creativity in conjuring up the most sublime psychedelic sounds. Requiem Mass And Other Experiments is an instrumental outing that finds Ashley crafting a powerful work that evokes the dramatic and kaleidoscopic side of Ennio Morricone, the winding prog odysseys of Bo Hansson and the more cinematic moments of Pink Floyd, like on More and Obscured By Clouds. But Ashley has a distinct and instantly recognizable guitar sound and knows his way around swirling melodies, so that the sound becomes totally his own. And even beyond his own instrumental prowess, Ashley is able to set all of those other elements in such a warm and intimate sound. It's no surprise that so many Bay Area bands are turning to him to record their records, because he really does understand the beauty of analog warmth and is uniquely able to capture a timeless quality in overall sound. While it's a sprawling, pastoral and haunting ride, what makes Requiem Mass And Other Experiments such a satisfying listen is the way in which Ashley also understands restraint and constantly displays such exquisite taste. Its paced so well and ends before you want it to, which in our book is always a good thing, because then you want to go on the ride again and again instead of burning out on an overstretched vision. So good!
It's finally here, the debut from Cali sunshine retro poppers Best Coast, and as much as all the internet hype might make you want to think otherwise, it's just as good as they all say. The seven inches we've heard definitely already had us hankering for a full length, and as much as we dug those singles, the band has benefited big time from some serious production upgrade, the sound on Crazy For you finally realizes their potential. All the comparisons to Spector's wall of sound and sixties girl groups, now totally make even more sense, the sound here is totally timeless, fuzzy and reverby, like a treasure trove of rare sixties 7"s, but at the same time lush and lustrous and subtly modern, the guitars warm and liquid, and the vocals, wow, Bethany Cosentino manages to channel every torch singer and chanteuse that she was ever inspired by, her voice rich and smokey and passionate, every line sung with such conviction, the songs melancholic and wistful, a heartbroken longing infusing the sad songs, a pure unfettered joy, and enthusiasm for all the little things, sunshine, love, friendship, oozing from the happy ones, the drums simple and propulsive, the background vocals soft focus clouds of oooohs and aaaahs, Bobb Bruno's understated guitar parts sealing the deal, mirroring the vocal melodies but occasionally spiralling off into soft psychedelic swirls, and the songs, the songs are so good, catchy and fun, and dreamy and heartfelt, and like the sound, totally timeless, opener "Boyfriend" is an instant classic, the melody utterly beguiling, the perfect encapsulation of what Best Coast do so well, right down to Bruno's minimal leads, which perfectly compliment Cosentino's harmonies, the soaring chorus, and the simple propulsive rhythm that drives the song. "The title track is another practically perfect summer pop gem, more jangly and driving, like a sixties girl group jam as interpreted by vintage Unrest, more oooh and ahhhs, and plenty more hooks. The whole record is overflowing with perfect pop, with summery vibes, everything you could possibly want from a feel good pop record. And while they last, we have the version that tacks on the bonus track "When I'm With You", the closest thing the band has to a 'hit', a woozy, soporific intro, quickly exploding into a gloriously infectious pound, the main melody so awesome, and the chorus, a stone cold killer, the harmonies, the arrangement, the fuzzy guitars, the drums, everything. Perfect. Yeah okay, we totally love this record. Like crazy, and we're pretty sure you will too.
We know very little about this band Big Troubles, but damn, the four songs on this 7" are totally kicking our asses. Reminding some of us of being stoned in a dorm room in the '90s listening to Unrest, Guided By Voices, Sentridoh, and The Pastels, all at their most DIY and primitive. With a fucked up lo-fi and reverb filled sound, Big Troubles do have a similar aesthetic as so many of the recent wave of lo-fi pop peddlers like Woods, Blank Dogs and Best Coast but they also tap into that cool C86 sound that the Art Museums explored earlier this year. But there is something a bit more scrappy and fucked up indie rock sounding about these jams. The 7" starts off with a guitar sound reminiscent of the opening to My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything, and then proceeds to slip into a more rudimentary rocking sound. We've loved so much of what Olde English Spelling Bee has put out (Ducktails, Rangers, Julian Lynch, Forest Swords, James Ferraro, etc.) and we're stoked to see them entering the world of 7"s now as this is the label's debut in this format.
Maybe best know as a side project of post hardcore punks Fucked Up, the Bitters are a totally different proposition. Like their last record, their 12" on Mexican Summer, this record too is a primo slice of jagged ramshackle post punk, but this one's even MORE ramshackle than the last, which is in no way a bad thing.
The Bitters specialize in a sort of angular reverby crunchy jangle pop, that owes way more to early eighties groups like Swell Maps, guitars are sharp and jagged and distorted, the drums loud and in-the-red, but for all its clang and crunch, the sound is still lush and warm, dense with texture and melody, some twisted tangled riffage, all that wrapped around echoey vocals, strident and almost yelped, the resulting sound retro, but still vibrant and original, the jams rife with sonic references, the coolest being the ones that fall somewhere between Polvo and Blonde Redhead!
Sassy and sharp, punky and poppy, perfectly balancing between the new school of off kilter garage pop, and that classic C86 punk pop sound, the vocals are especially distinctive, the perfect match for the music, driving, propulsive, frenetic and hooky as hell. The two songs on the B-side get a bit moodier and tripped out, the songs extended and sprawling, one an almost ballad, the other just a perfectly noisy dirgey chunk of killer, classic retro post punk buzz and crunch.
It's definitely weird to call something like this 'pretty', but what can you do? Of all the Blue Sabbath Black Cheer records we've heard, this one is definitely the prettiest. Of course it's all relative, one man's pretty, is another's harsh head caving blacknoise, and perhaps another's ear shredding doombuzz brutality, and weirdly enough, it's sort of all of those things, but in the realms of doombuzz blacknoise, this sidelong sprawl is indeed, a strange shade of tranquil, at least at first.
It's BSBC so the ingredients should no doubt be familiar by now, the sound equal parts blackened crumbling, distorted buzz, and glacial hellish downtuned crawl, but here the crunchy, crumbling surface layer hides a slow shifting sonic interior, a whirling buried shimmer, soft sheets of crackle and whir, everything constantly bombarded by huge heaving industrial booms, like mortar shells, along with strange creaks and distant crashes, like some strange Wolf Eyes / Skinny Puppy hybrid, being broadcast through rusted out Soviet era loudspeakers, as the city literally crumbles all around you. Ambient but abrasive, tranquil but harrowing, a field recording of collapsing tectonic plates, rendered in 'music'. Near the end, the sound takes on a power electronics vibe, due in no small part to the creepy, bellowed guttural processed vocals, but still the sounds behind the demented caterwauling, continue to ooze and crumble and throb and crunch and creep.
BSBC are teamed up with an outfit called Griefer, who use their side of the lp to offer up a strangely cinematic stretch of buzz and glitch, lots of super distorted synth fuzz, peppered with strange machinelike creaks and groans, wrapped around super processed alien vox, all draped over a continuously throbbing synth pulse. Hypnotic and almost soundtracky, Griefer slip from heaving speaker destroying crumble, to whirring spaced out synthscape to blurred electronic crunch, often all three colliding in a thick noise-drenched psychbuzz synthdrone blowout, not so much harsh and brutal as intense and evocative.
Pressed on sick swirled green and brown sewage colored vinyl, housed in hand screened sleeves, with two printed, two sided cardstock inserts. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!
We've long been fans of burly bearded post doom crushers The Body, their sound like the classic two man pummel of godheadSilo expanded into something even more majestic and sprawling, black hole heavy, infusing their ultra doom glacial sludge with plenty of post and rock mathisms, the cinematic tension of groups like Godspeed, and heck, they even cover songs by folks like Crass, Danzig, Black Flag and Sinead O'Connor! For a two piece, these guys pretty much transcend and obliterate any sort of limitations that lineup would pose to most mere musical mortals, but that said, plenty of two pieces have seen fit to expand, say to a trio or a quartet, maybe just to record, get a few guests, or even permanently, ditching the duo which sometimes gets focused on more than the music. But few bands (dare we say, practically none) expand further than that, say from 2 members to THIRTY TWO! But that's exactly what The Body has done for All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood, their second proper full length in ages, one that marks ten years as a band, and more importantly, marks a serious sonic shift. No longer are they scrappy DIY punk rock noisemakers, setting their sites above and beyond, these guys have gone for it, meticulously crafting an album of extreme heaviness, of sonic mystery, haunting, and epic, metal for sure, even going so far as to include an actual 13 member choir, and not just for little random bits here and there, nearly seven minutes of the ten minute opening track, is just choir, lilting and angelic, lovely and otherworldly, only making the sudden shift from ethereal vocal harmony to crushing downtuned ultra doom all the more jarring. But the coolest part, is that the parts aren't clearly delineated. The choir continues on into the heaviness, so the howling churning crush, is peppered with gorgeous hymn like vocals, creating some sort of strangely liturgical sounding swirly sludge. And it's not just the vocals, there's saxophone, samples, piano, plenty of noise. And that pretty much sets the template for the whole record.
Besides the Assembly Of Light Choir, who are featured on almost every song here, the record also features Robert Lowe of Lichens offering up some additional vocals, not to mention the other 15 or 16 guests who contribute, beyond the core Body duo of drums, guitar, samples and vocals, a pretty crazy array of soundmakers, more vocals, saxophone, sousaphone, guitar, piano, keyboards, Moog, baritone saxophone and more drums. LOTS more drums. In fact, on the final track, "Lathspell I Name You" drummer Lee Buford is joined by EIGHT extra drummers!!! More on that in a moment.
The second track "A Curse" begins with a loping post rock beat, swirling synths, a melancholy melody, soaring chiming guitars, very moody and slow burning, before the band explodes into full doom, the sound shifts too, the crystalline clearness, becomes big and booming, the sound blown out, but more sort of warm and muted than in the red, the drums massive and pounding, while the guitars swirl in little chordal clouds, and the anguished vocals howl and wail, which gives way to "Empty Hearth", which sounds like some abstract experimental Swans style track, looped sample of what sounds like speaking in tongues, lurching mechanical crunch, glitched out electronics, shrieking vox, the whole song occasionally stuttering to a halt, as if the song was being remixed or was gloriously malfunctioning, there's also some awesome guttural throat singing, laced underneath the start stop, sample skitter, and super distorted bass buzz.
"Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss" starts with tarpit riffery and blurred hiss, strangely atmospheric, the drums skeletal but subtly mathy, the choir adding their gorgeous harmonies, an epic spiritual doom, tolling bells, everything dropping out, leaving just the booming drums, the shrieked vox, those bells, until a thick layer of low end washes over everything, and the track unwinds as some classic funereal doom.
"Song Of Sarin The Brave" begins all blown out and tangled up, sheets of feedback, huge heaving bursts of titanic metallic crunch, mysterious voices, finally the band launches into the song proper, and things get really weird, the drums stripped way down, the whole track slathered in strange murky blur and melting effects, while underneath, a strange sampled voice drifts, through clouds of other voices and mysterious sounds, totally creepy, and beautiful, and so mesmerizing, it goes on forever, and could have gone on way longer, but instead finishes off in a minute long blaze of shrieking black doom sludge crush.
"Ruiner" is another smoldering slow starter, haunting, downtuned minor key riffs ring out, doomic drums pound out a barely there rhythm, again, all underpinned by a strange staticky cloud of hiss and gauzy atmospheric hum, the track starting out super spare, but gradually growing more and more dense, more and more doomy, gathering momentum, not rhythmically so much as sonically, the progression laced subtly with strings and horns, little streaks of psychedelic guitars, until finally exploding into a lumbering dirge, the instruments blackened and crumbling, less riffy than a throbbing organic black buzz, pounding and pummeling before blinking out abruptly.
Which leads us to the final track, the 14 minute, multiple drummer-ed side long "Lathspell I Name You", a heaving, expansive ultra doom epic, a churning looped riff and some busy drumming start the track off, not doomy at all really, more noise rock or post rock, with some gorgeous folky melodies woven in, the choir offering up their lovely harmonies, but in this context, they sound less angelic and slightly demonic, locked into their own looped pattern mirroring, the motorik metal loop underneath, which gives way to a weirdly records, noise drum blowout, voices and instruments hissing and buzzing while a cacophony of drums pound and crash, mesmerizing and hypnotic, before the glacial chug resurfaces, along with the choir, and the band lock into a seriously slow motion, abrasive cathartic doom sludge crawl, the sound growing more and more blown out until every drum hit pegs the needles and distorts everything, making the sound that much more caustic and emotional and intense.
The roots of The Body's sound may be in doom or sludge, or even simply metal, but All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood has taken that sound so far beyond, transforming sludge and doom into something way more transcendent, way more difficult to immediately categorize, it's melodic, and poppy, and mathy, and drone-y, and electronic, and experimental, epic and majestic and mysterious, while somehow still remaining brutal, and pummeling and heavy as fuck. Fans of the usual suspects will probably dig this big time, Moss, Bunkur, Khanate, Monarch, Nihill, Otesanek (in fact the liner notes read: "All Praise To Otesanek And Man Is The Bastard"), Eyehategod, Habsyll, Fleshpress, but be prepared to look beyond the realms of traditional doom, or of conventional heaviness, because The Body are anything but traditional or conventional, and All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood just might be the coolest, weirdest, most original doom record EVER.
Incredible packaging too, heavy vinyl (3 sided, the 4th side is blank), thick, gatefold sleeve, with some chillingly striking artwork, a printed 12" x 12" insert silver reflective ink printed on black cardstock, liner notes and lineup on one side, lyrics on the other...
FINALLY! The 1996 debut (as reissued in 2001 with an extra track!) from this Japanese psychedelic sludge trio, now available on vinyl for the first time EVER, and we're talking super fancy thick vinyl, with gorgeous heavy gatefold sleeves, and all new artwork, and yeah, Absolutego does indeed come complete with that bonus track! And it's Boris, so you know these are WAY too limited and will be gone in a flash, so grab one now before you're trawling eBay for a copy later...
Here's our original review of this all time aQ slow and low, heavy heavy classic from when we first listed the cd and when many folks were hearing Boris for the very first time...
Ok, here's one for all the AQ customers who we know are always hankering for the state-of-the-art in "drone-metal" (i.e. those who can't get enough of the likes of Earth, Melvins' Lysol, SUNNO))), Corrupted, Esoteric, etc.). Thanks to noted label-of-doom Southern Lord, we've got the full-length debut from this amazing Japanese band. Southern Lord's new "Super Low Frequency Version" (a nod to Earth 2) of this former import, features new artwork and a seven minute appropriately named bonus track, "Dronevil2". That makes this a 73 minute, two-track disc, as the title track itself is one of those rare, slow motion, maximum riff glacial drone songs that stretches out over (previously) the entire length of the record! Heavy duty stuff indeed. It makes sense that the name Boris comes from a Melvins song. And also that one of their other albums is a collaboration with Japan's king of dark psych guitar, Keiji Haino. Recommended, for all doom freaks.
Yowza! We are *so* excited to finally have stock (and at a nice price, too) of this masterpiece of heaviosity by the amazing Japanese band Boris, who have become big AQ-faves over the past few years. The more-than-aptly-titled "Amplifier Worship" is their
A good shorthand description of "Amplifier Worship" would be to say that it sounds like a cross between the low-end riffage of Boris' obvious heroes the Melvins, and the more recent, rhythmic trance experiments of their countrymen the Boredoms. Psychedelic punk metal, utterly crushing. Pretty much essential to anyone who is into "heavy"! If you like the dirgey sludge of Corrupted and Earth, as well as the more rocked-out sludge of Sleep and Melvins (circa "Ozma" and "Bullhead"), you'll love Boris! Recommended!!
We first discovered Colorado drone bliss pop-gaze duo Candy Claws via their last record, In The Dream Of Sea Life, a gorgeous collection of sounds and songs composed and recorded to sound as if they were in fact at the bottom of the ocean, warped and woozy, dark and aquatic, but for this new record, Hidden Lands brings the sounds of CC to the surface, lets them breathe, sprawl and blossom. Apparently based on a book called The Secret Life Of The Forest, these songs are meant to evoke all manner of 'secret lands', the worlds inside living creatures, the Earth millions of years before humans, all of the things that have gone on and still go on that we don't yet understand or can't yet observe. Pretty heavy, but fear not, the music is light in comparison, a washed out psychedelic dream pop, a little orchestral, a lot Elephant 6, chiming guitars, buried angelic voices, simple percussion, lush synths and singing strings, a sort of power pop blurred into something much more ambient and ethereal, there are hints of Neutral Milk Hotel, Beach Boys, Jellyfish, but in keeping with the science angle, it's like CC took scrapings from those bands and grew Hidden Lands in a petri dish, only to then plant the resulting lifeforms in the garden outside, in the shade of big oak trees, at the foot of some snow capped mountains, and then recorded the various growths, a hazy, slowly expanding sun dappled shimmer drenched fragmented pop. In some ways, the underwater element of the last record still feels present, it's like listening to jangly indie pop, broadcast through a hydrophone, the vibrations traveling through the water, and arriving at our ears, bent and twisted and beautifully warped. A little carnivalesque, a little psychedelic, a little shoegazey, this is some sort of otherworldly impressionistic pop, there may be hooks, and verses and choruses, but they're blurred and smeared and muted and mixed, the song structures seems to have come unglued at a fundamental level, allowing this dreampop to become even dreamier. So fantastic. And totally recommended for anyone into woozy, hazy, droney, dreamy blisspop.
Within a few seconds, eagle eared aQ-ers will most likely recognize that struggling vocal warble, that earnest about to crack falsetto, which just happens to belong to Daniel DiMaggio, frontman of those aQ faves, punky ramshackle noise poppers Home Blitz. But Car Commercials is a whole different ball of wax, instead of the frantic frenetic bounce of Home Blitz, in Car Commercials, DiMaggio and his CC partner Dave Sutton, weave something much more intimate and personal, way more twisted and bizarre, some seriously damaged outsider bedroom folk, think Jandek, Daniel Johnston, that sort of thing, detuned guitars, sporadic percussive flourishes, strange atonal chords, tangled not quite melodic melodies, the vocals, sung spoken, whispered, yelped, it almost sounds like a Sebadoh record that was left in the sun, all warped and melted and lysergic and fucking bizarre. Guitar thrum drifts through clouds of reverb, the vocals sounding like they were recorded through busted headphones, guitar chords ring out and seem to crumble to pieces, this is some seriously whatthefuck home recorded weirdness.
The flipside cranks up the volume a bit, but everything else remains appropriately twisted and detuned and damaged, just more psychedelic and chaotic and noisy, the junkyard percussion more intense. The record finishes off with the two part "Bag Saga", maybe the most musical of the bunch, part one, a haunting moody, dirge, all distorted acoustic guitar, and wheezing keyboard, the second part, all spidery and abstract, building to an electrified sonic catharsis, all buzz and thump and croon, before crumbling to a halt.
Definitely not easy listening, harking back to the early days of DIY tape trading, where you could send away for something sight unheard, and get back a home dubbed tape that could very well blow your mind, or your speakers, or both. We dig this a lot, but then we like a lot of weird demented shit. So reservedly recommended, folks after pretty melodies and dreamy pop and pretty harmonies, steer clear, but if you're in the market for some serious home brewed 4-track cracked bedroom folk damage, then this might be for you...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, includes a free download...
Long overdue collection from this sort of unsung Northwest indie rock combo, whose music was often described as "chamber rock" since most of their songs are hushed and contemplative, and laced with pianos and strings, all very dramatic and heartfelt, melancholic and dreamy. They did achieve a certain amount of notoriety, sold a bunch of records, but just never seemed to be able to make the jump to the next level, even though their sound was so obviously in line with lots of bands who did. Modest Mouse is an obvious comparison, the lilting vox, the strange harmonies, the bands even toured together, but CW's sound is much more folky and stripped down, the drums often played with brushes, acoustic guitars, the vocals urgent, and plaintive, the melodies sweetly sorrowful, the male female harmonies utterly sublime. A few of the tracks do in fact get weird, but that mostly means some strange effects, or adding a bit of noisiness, but for the most part, the songs here are soft and sweet and delicate, darkly dreamy, mysterious enough to appeal to folks into the darker slower side of underground pop, groups like Low, Galaxie 500, The For Carnation, Ida, Bedhead, and even more accessible indie rock like Modest Mouse or Pinback, but catchy and pretty enough that you'll definitely find yourself wondering why these guys (and gals) weren't more popular. Although two of 'em did wind up in another group that HAS had some success, Band of Horses!
A fantastic collection, gathering up tracks from the group's three out of print full lengths, as well as a couple compilations, lovingly packaged with a HUGE foldout poster/booklet, packed with photos, liner notes and other ephemera, all housed in a swank slipcover. Essential indie pop for sure!
The field of psychedelic hypnno-drone rock in San Francisco keeps getting wider, and more amazing. Along with Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun and The Lumerians comes the slow growth space rock of Carlton Melton. We raved about their first self-released cd-r, Live at Point Arena, CA recorded in a genuine geodesic dome, and we're psyched that they have returned with a vinyl only follow-up! While the first cd-r had a more rough around the edges shambling momentum to it (after all, the band had pretty much formed just to record in the dome!), Pass It On has a more penetrating and focused feel. Recording in the dome once again, the songs have the slow motion but still very heavy vibrations of White Hills, Moon Duo, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd. In fact, the album begins with a heavy cover version of Pink Floyd's "When You're In" from Obscured By Clouds, which builds with intensity setting up the stoned pillowy cushion freefall of follow-up track "Found Children". "Off The Grid" takes a more divergent path through the woods with freaked out tribal rhythms and strange loping pulsations and alien guitar swells. Side two begins with a reworking of a track from the Point Arena cd-r called "Fucking Funky Shit" now renamed "Digging In" that utilizes its bass and drum rhythmic foundation as a means for the guitars and organ to arc off into the stratosphere before descending into the final track "Sequoia", which burrows deep into the earth with a smouldering drone that leaves us, for the lack of a better analogy, cosmically wasted. On redwood colored vinyl. Recommended!
There was a time a few years back, that if you lived in San Francisco, you could stumble into a bar, or a club, and find yourself transported to some fucked up and freaked out otherworld, an eye popping blacklight, dayglo world of huge cardboard buildings, and weird costumed, big headed characters, a musical world, set to the strains of some sort of demented detuned, industrial post bluegrass, a noise drenched 1800's hoedown, all detuned banjos, screeching violins, wheezing organs, scattered percussive splatter, little bursts of frantic bluegrass with twisted falsetto vocals, set amidst, thick streaks of undulating drones, and shards of crumbling noise, it was a bit like a stage production of Oklahoma, as performed by members of Faxed Head, stumbling and demented and confusional, a massive crumbling sprawl of sonic whatthefuck for sure.
In keeping with their confusional / obscurist approach, Caroliner took on a different name for every record. The Sabre Waving Saracen Wall originally released on vinyl in 1992, found the band christened Caroliner Rainbow Fingers Of The Underground & Their Breakable Bones, and was yet another document of the group's fractured faux historical sonic explorations, equal parts avant rock prankery, pure demented songsmithery, and an unhealthy interest in musics of the past, not to mention a visual aesthetic that fell somewhere between special ed kindergarten and drug addled Keith Haring, all blobby shapes and retina burning patterns, geometric constructions, and of course gallons of dayglo paint. The perfect backdrop for the group's unhinged pageantry. On record, it plays out like some unearthed wax cylinder, a recording of some sort of educational radio play, about the old west, but translated into some alien language, the soundtrack a demented deconstructed noise drenched country / folk, complete with random sound effects, strange voices, and what sounds like a small chamber ensemble wrestling with a bluegrass band, as the various players begin to lose brain function, resulting in a gloriously stumbling, lurching soundtrack, that starts out weird, and only manages to get weirder.
Not sure why suddenly this reissue popped up, but Grux from Caroliner just popped in with a stack, packaged in that distinctly Caroliner fashion, all strange folded multi color papers, glued and photocopied, the sort of packaging that once you open, you can never reassemble, which when you think about it, suits the group's sound to a 'T'. Not necessarily limited, but they are pretty fancy and handmade, so when we run out, it might take us a little while to get more...
BACK IN PRINT! Previously this was an import from the Japanese label Leafhound, sadly now defunct. But fortunately someone has just reissued it, domestically! Here's what we said about this essential anthology back when we first listed it in 2004:
Will the Japanese stoner sludge serial killer onslaught never end?? We sure hope not. We're finally able to list this double cd collection of old, rare, unreleased and out of print tracks from one of the heaviest bands in Japan. Corrupted may have the market cornered on sludge, and Boris definitely has the drone-dirge segment all sewn up, but that leaves Church Of Misery to duke it out with the equally brutal Green Machine for the groovy, druggy, sludge-y stonery BIG RIFF contingent. Early Works definitely helps the cause, with two discs bursting with splattery serial killer soundbites, plague-of-locusts riffery, skull crushing drumming, and a truly hellish howl of a lead vocalist. Plus unlike many of their metallic brethren, CoM can indeed SHRED, and whip out squiggly acid soaked leads at the drop of a hat, giving the proceedings a classic psych-rock / drug-rock feel, on top of the already suffocatingly heavy sludge already oozing from every crack. Disc one collects the long out of print split with sHEAVY, featuring odes to Manson, Charles Whiteman, and Jim Jones, as well as the Taste The Pain mini-album with songs about Dahmer, Graham Young, and Ed Gein, as well as an insane version of Iron Butterfly's "In A Gadda Da Vidda." Disc two collects lots of random compilation tracks including a Trouble cover, a Black Widow cover, a Death SS cover and an unreleased track. Church Of Misery are so amazing, it's too bad that their singleminded obsession with serial killers, and their continued use of serial killer soundbites keeps them from appealing to a wider audience. It is too bad, but who can argue? The music is strangely and perfectly suited to CoM's tales of murder and mayhem, victims and killers.
Warehouse find! Here's a great release from a few years back, released as part of Drone Records 10" series. Cisfinitum is the work of the Russian dark ambient practitioner Evgeny Voronovsky, who augments his sound design with a grim intensity with more than a few industrialist illusions. During a concert that Voronovsky presented in Germany for a Drone Records showcase, it's been reported that he managed to empty the room through the cross-contanimation of his deleterious frequencies. We gotta wonder just what the hell he did, as the audience who would go to Drone performance in 2005 would surely know what they're getting themselves into!
Devotio was clearly not the recording that he presented there. While psychologically dark, both of these extended tracks are sourced entirely from church bells. Voronovsky stretches out the incredibly rich resonance and compacts dense layers of these drones whose fundamental frequencies begin to detour away from harmonic purity and into uneasy dissonance. This isn't a dissonance of scraped metal or overblown distortion, but rather a finely tuned cross-hatching of frequencies beating against each other. Voronovsky couples this slow development of aggressively tuned minimalism with additional layerings from alarm bells (or he's processed his church bells to sound like alarms), and growling swells of blackened noise. Certainly for fans of Hazard, Troum / Maeror Tri, any of the more clinical aspects of Cold Meat Industries, and the headspace of Lustmord. Highly recommended!
We've been going pretty crazy around here for the epic atmospheric dubstep of Clubroot, heaping crazy effusive praise on both full lengths, the second of which, we managed to get a very few copies of a super deluxe edition, that featured a second bonus disc, that we thought was maybe even better than the album itself. Those tracks were not included on the vinyl version, or on the single cd version, but now, that bonus cd has been pressed up as a super limited 12", so folks who bought the vinyl, can grab one of these, to make their version of II-MMX complete, and folks who bought the cd but didn't get the bonus disc, now's your chance to nab those extra 3 songs, and trust us, it's well worth it.
And for those new to the magical musical mystery of Clubroot, the sound is lush and expansive, trading the skeletal skitter and ominous minimalism of most dubstep for something totally different, something otherworldly, bursting with warmth, synths and voices, everything gauzy and hazy and hauntingly beautiful, organic and dreamy.
These sounds are an ever evolving mutant strain of dubstep, ethereal and ephemeral, washed out and spectral, melancholy and wistful, vocals play a much bigger part on the second record, which we can tell you is what usually turns us off when it comes to jungle or dubstep, but this is no diva shit, instead, the female vocals are ghostly and soulful, drifting amidst the various other layers, adding a distinctly human dimension to Clubroot's sound.
Imagine some mysterious blend of the Orb and Portishead, a sort of dark, brooding, chill out sound, and you'll get a rough idea of what to expect here. Long stretches of gauzy synthy shimmer hovering over rumbling bass, but instead of just explosive squelches, the bass is sculpted into something way more melodic and textural, giving the songs heft and weight unconnected to the dancefloor. The vocals, while sometimes left to drift and float, othertimes are chopped and processed and become another rhythmic element, and the beats, well, while the 'beats' themselves hew pretty close to the dubstep standard, they deviate enough to keep things interesting, sometimes getting all shuffly and spare, but other times more tangly and dense like some sort of slowed down jungle, but always perfectly suited to the sounds swirling around it, and the beats remain unobtrusive, more a part of the overall sonic scenery, which helps to make the sounds here so soothing and mesmerizing.
For true dubsteppers, Clubroot might be so far removed as to not necessarily qualify as dubstep at all, but for the rest of us, that's not a bad thing at all, which is why Clubroot occupies a special space in our heart (and record collections) somewhere right between Kode9 and Burial...
The three bonus tracks from the original double cd bonus disc, take all of the above and weave them into something even more magical, incredibly captivating and catchy, but still haunting and otherwordly, groovy and funky for sure, but that's not really what it's about, as much as painting pictures in sound, or opening a portal to another dimension, these tracks are like the soundtrack to some space station chillout after hours session, or some early morning fog cloaked empty earth stroll, or an eyes closed, mind open astral projection inner space exploration. This stuff is both epic and cosmic, intimate and personal, and still ranks as some of the most incredible electronic music being made today.
And a note for vinyl folks who bought II-MMX on wax, the sleeve for the lp version is oversized, just a bit, to leave space for this here 12"!!
We often marvel at how songwriters can keep churning out the hits, especially someone like Tim Cohen, who not only writes all the songs for the Fresh & Onlys, who have averaged close to 5 releases a year since their inception, but somehow, even after all of those records, has so many songs, that he also needs to release solo records, and that's not even counting all his various other groups and side projects. But as we've said in the past, if it ain't broke don't fix it. And yeah, it can sometimes be frustrating keeping up, especially if you're a completist, which many of us record nerds tend to be, but heck, the extra effort is most definitely worth it.
Cohen's newest solo full length continues his winning streak, with another collection of weird wonderful pop, folk flecked, with strange arrangements, lush harmonies, and incredible hooks, take the opening track, "Oh Oh Oh", with its cool drum/handclap rhythm, urgently strummed acoustic guitars, and rough crooned vocals, and then with about a minute left, the song shifts gears, and multiple vocals join in, for a gorgeous harmony refrain. Then there's "Wonderful Life", that sounds like some classic fifties jam, except for the weirdly gloomy basslines, the woozy keyboards, the reverbed guitar twang, and the super dynamic start stop breakdown. "A Mind Of Their Own" is all horns and harmonicas, "Laughter" evokes just the opposite, dark and brooding, with a distinctly Scott Walker vibe, "Send No Sign" is another old fashioned classic pop sounding number, all walking basslines, jangly guitar, but then there's some cool surprisingly prog sounding keyboards, and then more horns, super dramatic and EPIC, and that's sort of the magic of Cohen's songwriting, especially on his own, on the surface, what sounds super familiar, classic even, is quickly, often subtly subverted, and transformed into something else entirely, but something else, that impossibly STILL sounds familiar and classic, even though it's so obviously not. Another fantastic collection of fantastically twisted and (im)perfect pop from one of favorite modern songwriters...
Obviously, if you're gonna call your band Conan, your sound had better be pretty darn burly! And barbaric. Well, this UK doom outfit is definitely worthy of the name. Their music is not by, nor for, wimps. Slow, low, and loud = HEAVY. Even Arnold might have had trouble bench pressing these riffs! The plodding, shuddering distortion on display here is kinda like ultradoom in the vein of Moss or Bunkur, but not quite so slow, speeding up as necessary when the crushing riffs are really ready to go in for the kill. The production is amazing, as are the downtuned sounds these dudes get out of their guitars and amps, sooooooo bludgeoningly blown out. Conan's a guitar/bass/drums trio but sounds more like bass/bass/bass/bass/bass/bass/bass... oh yeah and drums which hold up their end of the heaviness equation just fine. Meanwhile, the vocals, when there are any, are a distant bellow, a high wailing, soaring over and staying out of the way of the massively occupied bass frequencies. They make us think of Yob for sure, but quite not so Geddy Lee, a bit more shout-y, so Harvey Milk would be another good comparison. For a lot of this, actually, not just the vocals. And the Melvins too, say one of their epic sludgeathons like "Charmicarmicat" or "Night Goat". And as long as we're namechecking other bands, how 'bout godheadSilo? Corrupted? Early Sleep (circa Volume One)? Yeah Conan is worthy of being cited amongst such legends. Again, they'd better be, with a name like Conan.
Originally released on limited vinyl last year by Throne over in Spain, sadly, we didn't get any of those. But now thanks to Aurora Borealis, we have it on compact disc, in a nice silver and black digipack. 4 songs, 33 minutes, infinite heaviness.
After all the hype, the drama, the "is it coming out or isn't it?", the beautiful book packaged with the blank cd-r so you could download this record illegally, we sort of expected to be blown away, but at first it was just the opposite, we were actively bummed out, not just disappointed, but appalled. Mostly because this was the last recorded music we'd hear from two of our favorite songwriters EVER, Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse and Vic Chesnutt, both of whom took their own lives. And frankly it kind of sucked. But we've listened to it a few times now, and it's not nearly as bad as we first thought. It seems more like a case of too many cooks, there's no way a record featuring so many guest stars and contributors could be cohesive, or at least the chances are pretty slim. Especially when you look at the list: Black Francis, Julian Casablancas, Vic Chesnutt, The Flaming Lips, David Lynch, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, James Mercer of The Shins, Nina Persson of the Cardigans, Iggy Pop, Suzanne Vega and Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals. And the record sounds exactly like you'd expect from that list, like a crazy mish mash of styles and personalities, of sounds and approaches, none of which really work at all with each other. The real question is WHY all of those people? Some sort of friend rock situation? Strip away all the bullshit and all the guest vocals and probably hidden in there is a really good Sparklehorse record. But instead, it's more like a compilation, and not an especially cohesive one, which is maybe fine, but some of the songs, the more rocking ones specifically, are stinkers, and definitely disrupt the flow. Chesnutt's track is pretty great, his voice always so intense, tortured and emotional, perfectly complimented by Linkous's gorgeous hazy production. Which in places does sound incredible, the guest-less Linkous tracks are pretty good, or the ones where the guests try to fit themselves into Linkous' sound instead of the other way around, but even then, for the most part there are no rough edges at all, which was always the best part, the crackle and buzz, the glitch and hum, the happy accidents, but throughout, the production slick and glossy, a little TOO slick. How we would have preferred some sort of super intimate DIY Linkous / Chesnutt collaboration, but alas, it's never to be. So best we just take what we can from this mostly disappointing collection. We'll probably end up picking 4 or 5 songs, to load on to the iPod, and then just forget all about the rest...
Some seriously heavy, seriously groovy metallic sludge from these Philly bangers, three tracks of crushing downtuned heaviness, and while the sludge factor is pretty high, so is the groove factor, which keeps Deathbeds from slipping into torpid trudgery, and instead let the bands swing. Somewhere we saw these guys described as Iron Monkey meets Entombed meets Helmet, which now that we think about it is a pretty decent description, but you might also want to mention Eyehategod, maybe Crowbar or Down, there's a definite NOLA vibe, a slithery Sabbathy pound. The drums are way up in the mix, like getting pelted with cannonballs, the guitars thick and crunchy and massive, then there's the vocals, a monstrous deep bellow, reminiscent of Coalesce, that impossibly intense rrrooooaar, which is a weird match for Deathbeds' stonery groove, but fuck it, it definitely works, or doesn't work, but in not working, makes it work even more. Or at least makes it its own thing. And the vocals do shift gears here and there, slipping into something more shrieky, but always back to that monstrous howl. And yeah, the songs are pretty dang catchy too. Churning and chugging and pounding, we've actually gotten a little obsessed with these three jams, listening to this 7" over and over, and it definitely has us dying for a full length.
Cool creepy full color sleeve, pressed on green vinyl, comes with a download coupon too, LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
Cool cartoony comic book cover portrait of Danzig (back in saddle with a new album, y'know). Inside this issue of the USA's best glossy metal magazine: Coliseum, Wormrot, Apostle Of Solitude, Nevermore, Dismember (in the Hall Of Fame with their 1991 classic Like An Ever Flowing Stream), Pantera's Vinnie Paul, and a eulogy for Ronnie James Dio. Among much else!
Part two, in Demdike Stare's planned trilogy of 12"s, a comprehensive hauntological study in sound. For those new to Demdike Stare, we tend to fall back on this succinct description: black metal dubstep, or sometimes this one: a blackened dub record on Chain Reaction. Either one should give you an idea of the sort of dark sonic energy these guys conjure up. Thick claustrophobic atmospheres, skeletal rhythms, thick throbbing bass, skittering dubbed out beats, disembodied voices, all woven into a swirling organic mass of dub flecked blacktronica, the sound seeming to grow ever darker, as evidenced here on part two, which is thematically related to the Book Of The Dead, and focuses on the space between death and rebirth. Rendered in greys and blacks, in buzz and rumble, beginning with some woozy late night Portishead style downtempo trip hop, low slung looped skitter and swell, lush swirls of cinematic strings, ghostly choirs, a softly lurching rhythmic stutter, a deep cavernous throb, sounding like a ghostly stripped down dubstep. Which gives way to heaving expanses of black tidal thrum, muted scrapings, all wound into hypnotic pulses of dark energy, laced with distant chiming melodies, a haunting, gauzey faded memory in sound, drawn from radios with dying batteries and gradually slowing turntables, a soft focus symphony of creaks and rumbles and blurred low end shimmer. The A-side finishes with a swoonsome smear of looped ambience, like a field recording of an after hours nightclub captured in a temporal loop, warm an druggy and fuzzy, strangely hypnotic and rhythmic, totally trancelike, a creeped out wasteland soundscape, mysterious and chilling, which is eventually augmented by thick slabs of corrosive low end, and heavily reverbed industrial clatter, which eventually emerges into a strange sea of crackle and hum, of warbly rhythms, chiming bells and distorted crunch, sounding a bit like Jeck spinning Pole record, abstract and spaced out and hauntingly lovely.
The B-side opens with thick streaks of ghostly mesmer, all washed out and slowly decaying, underpinned by thick swaths of dubstep style bass wobble, but muted and smoothed into soft smears of undulating blackness. Subtle skitter surfaces, as do distant voices, the sound getting more and more dubby, a bit like a Caretaker record on Chain Reaction, that sort of hazy abstract drift, but anchored to barely there beats, the buzz building to an intense coda, all the while wrapped in throbbing woofer punishing low end.
Some super stripped down rhythms are laid over a swirling ghostly backdrop of fragmented melodies and a buried house music thump, tangled and blurred strings wrap the proceedings in a veil of softened reverb and subtle echo, the almost Eastern sounding pulse and swell reminding us a bit of the late great Muslimgauze.
Finally, the record collapses into some sort of melancholic sonic reverie, a hushed ambient outro, a tranquil sea of soft swirling swells, clouds of echo and reverb, a dreamy darkness, a blackened pop ambience, laced with muted streaks of fuzz and hiss, but all gradually sinking into Demdike Stare's endless trancelike billowing blackness.
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!
***Grizzly Bear Alert!!!***
Department Of Eagles has been going at it even before Daniel Rossen's voice would become so recognizable via his work in Grizzly Bear. In fact he started Department of Eagles before he even joined Grizzly Bear, and when you listen to DOE records you really do see the special ingredients that he brought to GB and which really helped bring that band to the next level on their last two records, Yellow House and Veckatimest. There is something so woozy, warm and haunting about his vocal delivery and songwriting. This is a collection of unreleased songs & sketches from 2003-2006 and shows both the very moody as well as catchy and poppy sides to Department Of Eagles. Stripped down to their core, these are songs that you could imagine augmented by a full orchestra, but what makes them cool is that they stand so strong on their own, with Rossen handling guitars, bass, banjo, drums, piano and cello all on his own, while his partner in crime Fred Nicolaus adds additional guitar and takes care of the drums. It might be a little while until there's a new Grizzly Bear album, but this collection will tide us over in the meantime. A must have for Grizzly Bear fans!
NOTE: The lp also comes with a cd version of the record.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year, or don't have ANY access to the internet at all, you no doubt know all about these guys, South African rappers, whose video for their jam "Enter The Ninja" seems like maybe the most watched video on YouTube, and hell, it makes sense, besides being a goofy jam, with some ridiculous rapping, the video itself is incredible, besides frontman Ninja's wild gesticulating delivery and weird homemade tattoos, there's the strange figure who pops up throughout, a weird looking dude suffering from progeria (the premature aging disease), the set decorated with strange Keith Haring style drawings, and best of all the utterly crushworthy Yo-Landi, who sings the refrain, a little elfen pixie with super angular haircut, who over the course of the video, lays on the bed in a school girl uniform, eventually stripping down to a flash dance T-shirt and some dollar sign panties, the whole time doing ninja sword moves. Even more notably, Yo-Landi was offered the leading role in the American remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (which she sadly turned down). Besides all that, the jams are often, goofy, funky, over the top, catchy as hell, it seemed too good to be true, and it sort of was. It was eventually revealed that Die Antwoord was a high concept musical art project, Ninja and Yo-Landi having both been members of an art collective, and active performers in the South African hip hop scene for years, and doing TV comedy, but fuck it, that almost makes it even cooler, that all those tattoos are fake, that the whole South African redneck angle is a put on, but it's no more of a put on than some satanic devil worshipping black metal band, it's all theater, and Ninja and crew are masters.
This little 5 song teaser is pretty great, but as with most bands who rely heavily on image, without the videos, it's a whole 'nother situation. And for most of us, who have spent the last year obsessively watching Die Antwoord videos, and worshipping Yo-Landi from afar, it's just not the same without the visuals, that said, this is some pretty serious synth driven hip hop techno synth groove, "Enter The Ninja" is the most commercial of the bunch, which makes it the least interesting, definitely a Die Antwoord gateway jam, but then "Wat Kyk Jy?" makes it all better, thick synths, pounding rave beats, goofy raps, strange voices, intense thick bass lines, then there's the autotuned "I Don't Need You", a sort of Kanye style hip hop ballad, but "Fish Paste" is THEE jam here, formerly titled Jou Ma Se Poes In A Fish Paste Jar", which translated is "Your Mom's Pussy...", yep, ridiculous, but the track itself is a stripped down Miami Bass style strutter with some bad ass rapping from both Ninja and Yo-Landi, and some more thick synths, deeeeep bass, and some totally over the top lyrics. The record finishes off with a remix of "Enter The Ninja", which is pretty cool, but we still find ourselves listening to "Fish Paste", watching the videos, and waiting patiently for the full length.
For those who did somehow miss out, peep this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_pS46YRMIQ (keep an eye on those Dark Side Of The Moon boxers!) and of course this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc3f4xU_FfQ
Real or not, Die Antwoord might just be our new favorite band. And yours...
Here's the second album for No Quarter from Brooklyn's Endless Boogie, and boy howdy do they live up to their name, there's a couple songs here upwards of eight minutes long, also tracks that clock in at 9:36, 10:49, and even 22:36! That one, entitled "A Life Worth Leaving", is the album's finale, recorded live on cassette for maximum sweat and grit and grunt. Though the whole album isn't much different. With extreme repetitive blues rock grooves, Beefheartian holler, and loads of wild electric geetar wail, it's hypnotic shitkickin' psychedelia like Wooden Shjips and ZZ Top and Circle and the Rolling Stones all jammin' together for ever and ever.
If you liked EB's previous album Focus Level, you'll like Full House Head too. And like we said about that record, the one thing that sometimes doesn't work for us is the vocals, they're a bit too "authentic" to really be authentic, if you know what we mean. But we could be wrong, maybe the singer (whom we assume is also playing guitar or something) really is a grizzled old white blues hippie dude with a long beard, wearing a floppy leather hat, and spitting tobacco juice out the side of his mouth when not pouring the whiskey in. 'Cause that's what he sounds like, or sounds like he's trying to sound like. But anyway he certainly shuts up and plays his guitar plenty so we're not really complaining. And actually, when he is on the mic, we like him at his most gruff, psychotic and strangled, like the ranting of "Top Dollar Speaks His Mind", not so much the more intelligible singing/speaking of "Slow Creep", which is one of the album's mellower moments, if you can call a nearly 11 minute long track a moment.
But mellow this mostly isn't. Mesmeric, though, yes. At their best, Endless Boogie's psychedelic choogle gets positively savage, and we start thinking, it's like Blue Cheer's Randy Holden crankin' it out backed by the Plastic Ono Band rhythm section, or something equally fantastical. Not sure if it really sounds like that, but that we'd even think it for a second is a good thing. So, yeah, while we once had our doubts about this band, again we've been convinced. The real deal, or what passes for in this day and age. Go unto it and get into it, brothers and sisters! Unless the name Endless Boogie totally turns you off. In which case, 'tis truth in advertising, thus this ain't for you.
What more can we say about these SF garage poppers that we haven't already? This here's another double shot of pretty much perfect pop music, less and less garage rock sounding with every release, conjuring up that perfect mix of a little bit 'now', fuzzy, reverby, crunchy, and a little bit 'then', lush harmonies, timeless hooks, wall of sound production, female back up vox... not to mention plenty of jangle and strum, ooohs and aaahs, and songs that stick in your head like crazy.
The A-side is all propulsive drumming, fuzzy organs, chiming guitars, some low slung Joy Divisiony basslines, and an almost new wave croon, dreamy falsetto back up vox, and of course everything wreathed in echo and soft focus effects, transforming classic sounding jangle pop into something slightly more swirly and psychedelic. The B-side is much more swaggery and groovy and surfy, with one of those riffs you know you've heard somewhere before, total old school classic Beatles-esque pop, weary heartfelt vocals, some tinkling xylophone style melodies, and the back up vox steal the show, wrapping the track in an irresistible almost ethereal sounding sixties girl group haze. So good. Any other band this prolific, close to 10 releases in less than 2 years, might be hitting some sort of saturation point, but with these guys, we still can't ever seem to get enough.
You kinda know what you're getting into with a band name like Gangrenator, and a title like Tales From A Thousand Graves, not to mention the eye popping cover art, some sort of demonic battle between a feather headed monster (that looks a bit like Iron Maiden's Eddie), and a huge muscled and horned behemoth, surrounded by rainbow colored skulls, blue faced yetis, and sword wielding Viking skull demons, okay, maybe you don't know -exactly- what you're getting into, but it's a safe bet, it's gonna be heavy and brutal. Which Gangrenator's debut indeed is, a blasting thrashing grinding onslaught of howled, glass gargling vokills, that sound a bit like a way meaner and blackened Lemmy; churning downtuned riffage; and some seriously chaotic skull caving programmed drum damage. A swirling frantic avalanche of grinding death metal / metallic grind, depending on the track, some jams are furious metal blow outs, complete with wild howling guitar leads; others are gnarled blasts of tangled grind freakout, super complex arrangements and some serious metal chops all wound into a crusty blackened crush.
Make sense really as these just aren't any grinders, these guys have a serious metal pedigree: Dodheimsgard, Decrepit Spectre and Code among others, big time aQ faves, but here, ditching their avant metal leanings and getting filthy, indulging in some serious downtuned caveman pound and pummel, and we're digging it big time.
After a bit of a dry spell, in terms of electronic records that had us freaking out, it's been pretty much nonstop freakouts for the last little while. Pantha Du Prince's Black Noise record, the reissue of his This Bliss and Diamond Daze albums, all three records minimal and skittery, bleary and chilled out, moody and synthy and drone-y, occasionally pulsing and throbbing, a little groovy, a little pop ambient, a little techno, all wound into an ever evolving world of mysterious and magical electronic sound. Then came Actress, the new record Splazsh, not to mention his earlier Hazyville, again, both dancing on the edges of electronica, pushing the boundaries, skittery minimalism, weird playful collages, looped and hypnotic, chopped and recontextualized vocals, glitch and squelch and ambient shimmer, as well as twisted beats. And that's not even mentioning other electronica faves like T++, Vex'd, Klimek, Thomas Fehlman, Emeralds, Oneohtrix Point Never, but the reason we mention Actress and Pantha Du Prince, is that the music of Glitterbug seems to exist in a similar sonic continuum, melding washed out dreamlike ambient shimmer, with stripped down minimal post techno, pulsing kosmische krautrock with more earthbound stutter and skitter, and while this is in fact record number two from Glitterbug, aka Till Rohmann, a German DJ / producer / artist, we're already pretty smitten, as we imagine you might be too, especially if like us, you've been listening to the above records as much as we have.
A sprawling double disc, recorded in the studio and on tour, with field recordings from various tour stops incorporated into some of the tracks, sometimes as just another unrecognizable sample, adding rhythm and texture, but other times it's more obvious, the sounds of life and the world, only further adding energy and emotion to an already organic electronic sound. The record begins with a warm softly pulsing expanse of glimmering synths, a subtle melody, looped and hypnotic, laced with shimmering melodic counterpoint, all hazy and sun dappled and dreamlike, peppered with bits of piano, the perfect blend of abstract kosmische krautdrone and pop ambience. The second track introduces some drums, which sound real, and a bit jazzy, before a more obviously electronic beat joins in, then some thick warbly buzz, some deep low end rumble, some chiming melodies, and we're off, propulsive and mesmerizing, washed out and softly psychedelic, but super chilled out and warm and luxurious and lush. The next track slips right back into more cosmic synth space bliss, reverbed tones ring out, overlapping, layered, underpinned by awesome intense slabs of low end, more felt than heard, the result is almost like a more stripped down, more electronic Expo 70, spacey and abstract, but with some subtle momentum, less driving and more drifting, but so dreamy and divine, another track that could have filled up the whole rest of the record and we would have been perfectly happy, and there are plenty of tracks like that on these two discs.
And so it goes, for the next two hours, Glitterbug's sound slipping seamlessly from pulsing minimal skitter, to murky muted throb, to ethereal glimmering drift, to hushed crystalline shimmer, to abstract drone flecked house music, to dark, almost dirge-y Carpenter style synthscapes, more often than not, those various sounds bleeding into one another, overlapping, intertwining, the sounds lush and lustrous, rich and organic, the rhythms spare and skeletal, sometimes delicate, other times dense and dark, but always fantastic and futuristic, blissed out and beautiful.
Not to be confused with '90s Pathological Records heavies God, THIS God were from Australia, and in the eighties, these teenagers kicked up a serious ruckus, a ramshackle rambunctious grinding guitar heavy punk rock equal parts Stooges, KISS, the Replacements, the Ramones, the riffs crunchy and fuzzy, the drums wild and loose, the vocals a buried bark here, a deep Nick Cave-ish croon there, the songs KILLER, heavy and hooky and melodic, the vibe snarly and snarky and pissed off, just listen to "Gunk" and you'll be sold, a seriously hard and heavy blast of punky pop, churning riffs giving way to some sweet melodies and some bad ass guitar leads, and that's just the first track, from there on out, it's non stop rock. Big riffs, big hooks, fuzzy and distorted, trashy and ramshackle, occasionally dipping into something a bit more restrained, more melodic, but it's never long until the next burst of adrenalized crunch and pound. This is definitely some primal rock energy, essential listening for all worshippers of THE RIFF.
Super nice packaging, their complete recordings on two discs, all remastered, including singles, and rare covers (KISS and the Stooges!), as well as a recording of their final gig in 1989, also includes a big ol' booklet of liner notes and photos.
All right, another "hawk" band. Lately there's been Freedom Hawk, and Doomhawk. Being somewhat "stoner rock", this is one that should also appeal to the same folks who liked Freedom Hawk. And going way back, maybe even Hawkwind. Though the classic '70s rock band that these guys most remind us of is Thin Lizzy. A LOT. They're overtly, utterly under the spell of Thin Lizzy (a band that's more influential now than ever it seems). The melodic but husky vocals are like a gruffer Phil Lynott, the twin guitars twine together harmoniously in classic Lizzy fashion. And heck, in case we didn't get it, they even do a song entitled "For Those Who Love The Lizz" that not only sounds like Lizzy, but has lyrics that cleverly consist of references to that band's songs, like "the hero and the madman", "renegade boys back in town", "that blue orphanage in the shade", etc., as a tribute to their Irish inspiration! Although, overall, Gypsyhawk are more than a tribute, bringing in elements of garage, doom, punk, prog, and good ol' metal along with the specific Lizzy/Lynott influence.
Turns out, Gypsyhawk vocalist/bassist Eric Harris used to be in blackened thrashers Skeletonwitch, another killer band we like quite a bit. What we heard was that he got kicked out of Skeletonwitch, or otherwise quit the band, while they were on tour. This happened in Los Angeles, and instead of catching a Greyhound bus back home to Ohio where Skeletonwitch are from, though, Harris decided to stay in LA and start his own band there! Which, we gotta say, is a pretty darn rock n' roll thing to do. Thus, Gypsyhawk was born. And they're quite a bit different from Skeletonwitch (whose dual guitars dated from a different era) but equally awesome. For those into more melodic stuff, anachronistically proto-metal, especially so. These guys have the riffs, the leads, the melodic hooks, and the heaviness, to be right up there in the "hawk" band pantheon. Rockin' and majestic stuff that should go down well with fans of Lizzy-lovin' bands like Bible Of The Devil, Hot Fog, Falcon, and Valkyrie.
A fine debut, and it's adorned with fantastic purpley-blue and gold artwork (that looks a bit Erol Otus-y), nicely packaged in a digi (the cd) or gatefold sleeve (the lp). And the vinyl version is limited, there's 200 on purple wax, 200 on half-and-half purple/multicolored splatter, and 100 clear with color splatter, we've got an assortment of the first two.
Hopefully we made it clear, we're stoked on this!
Some of you may know Grant Hazard from Oakland-based band The Very Hush Hush, whom we have carried records from in the past. For his first solo effort, Hazard gives us an instrumental cd of icy cool but beautifully melodic ambience. Comprised mostly of minimalist solo piano inflected with spacious textures and droning loops, Hazard's classically-trained musicianship serves him well in recalling the dulcet tones of impressionist composers such as Debussy and Satie, the modern day minimalism of Brin Eno and William Basinski, and touches of the dark-natured cinematic temperaments of Bohren & der Club of Gore. Limited to 500 copies. An excellent debut!
Some 'supergroups' seem more likely than others, often made up of guys who already played together, or who had shared histories, maybe toured together, but then there's this one, called The High Confessions, which barring some secret connections (which probably do exist), seems pretty dang mysterious and unlikely, but then the unlikely ones are always the best ones.
One part Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, one part Chris Connelly of Ministry and Revolting Cocks, one part Sanford Parker (Minsk, Nachtmystium and Twilight) and one final part, Jeremy Lemos of White/Light, who has also recorded Smog and Stereolab among others. Wow. A pretty motley crew for sure, but it definitely works. And like all good collaborations, it never obviously points to a single member. There's definitely an industrial vibe, especially on the opener "Mistaken For Cops", with its Teutonic pound, and sung/spoken vox, but then there's spidery swirls of psychedelic guitar, thick washed out production, deep low end pulses, there's even a little bit of a proggy vibe as well. The 17 minute "Along Came The Dogs" begins with a rumbling stretch of black drones, and martial drums, sampled voices and collaged vocals, thick warbly low end synth buzz, a skeletal motorik pulse, which gradually transforms into a sort of industrial / krautrock hybrid, all swooping muddied electronics, a little bit Can or Faust, more sung/spoken vocals, this time tangled and overlapping, a strange sort of round almost, the jam wreathed in swirling clouds of buzz, and peppered with thick stabs of reverbed bass synth crunch, growing more and more stripped down and skeletal before finally grinding to a halt. Only to have "The Listener" creep in, a brooding moody drift, all minimal percussive pulse, driven by lush piano chords, and woozy dramatic vocals, shot through with bits of feedback, the vibe still pretty krauty, and proggy, spaced out and psychedelic.
"Dead Tenements" begins with a thick corrosive churn of synthdrone, which is soon joined by some smoldering guitar growl, some muted feedback, and an I-am-Iron-Man kick drum throb, before the vocals come in, a snarled croon, a gorgeously bleak sonic death march, that about halfway through explodes into something much more fierce, dense tribal drumming, the various strands of drones growing more incendiary, the vocals more intense, before dropping out completely and leaving the drums to drive an awesomely hypnotic heavy krautdrone coda, trancelike and divine. Finally, "Chlorine And Crystal" finishes things off, another brooding dirge, the bassline thick and distorted, wreathed in fuzz, the guitars crystalline and lysergic, a pop song slowed way down and transformed into a sort of depressive Wipers style ballad, albeit with a bit more crunch, a lumbering chunk of hypnorock dirgery, that seems to crumble as the track progresses, eventually leaving a strangely distorted rhythm, pounding it's way through a cloud of glistening harmonics, held aloft by some low slung bass fuzz, and a slowly fading industrial kraut groove.
Indian Jewelry's Free Gold emerged as a minor masterpiece of off-kilter neo-psychedelia back in 2008. Synths, drum machines, a sparse use of guitars, and way tripped-out effects spiralled throughout, but it was the vocal melodies - all ghostly, sexy, slightly confused, and daydreaming - that turned the record from becoming just another interesting diversion. For the 2010 album Totaled, the Houston duo turn inward for a more sinister take on their woozy, dreamtime psychedelia, that comes across almost like a ghetto-tech reanimation of the Flaming Lips' Embryonic. Indian Jewelry's fried electronics transmit throbbing, dirge-like sequences and skeletal rhythms, augmenting the fried neurons of zombified vocals, alternately delivered by Tex Kerschen and Erika Thrasher. The vocals are less of a focus here, positioned as an undercurrent of narcoleptic bad-vibes sort of like the sounds of a transistor radio murmuring in the apartment next door. The atmospheres throughout have the feeling of getting dosed /stoned on (insert drug of choice) and then wandering around an industrial wasteland at twilight. The colors beautifully serve to highlight the more rundown parts of urban living.
For every band the hype machine catapults into the stratosphere of underground indie rock next big thing-ness, a hundred others get pushed aside, forgotten or ignored, many of those WAY more deserving of the accolades, and the praise, and more importantly, the ears of the listener, but for whatever reason, wrong label, no hyped tours, bad business sense, no blogosphere freakouts, no connections to other even cooler bands, those bands can only do so much, which often means simply making an incredible record, that practically nobody hears. Some bands tough it out, make more records, eventually getting noticed, and then everyone can return to that old record and finally proclaim it a masterpiece, and lament the fact that it was so overlooked, but many bands put everything they have into that record, energy, creativity, money, time, and when nothing happens, they just give it up, which is always a sad sad thing.
So what does that have to do with Wisconsin psych pop combo Jaill? Nothing really, other than the fact, that these guys have been around since 2002, have released a bunch of other records, but with That's How We Burn, have made probably the best, catchiest psychedelic indie pop record of the year, maybe the last several years, yet they rarely pop up on blogs, we rarely hear tastemakers shouting from the mountaintops about Jaill, or about That's How We Burn. Compare that to, say, Best Coast, who we also love, but whose every move, every sound is covered by every blog in the world. It's weird, cuz this Jaill record, holy shit, for folks who hear hundreds of new records every month, many of them amazing, for ONE SINGLE record to get played over and over, as in 5, 6 even 10 times a day, well as far as recommendations go, it's pretty tough to beat. But as with most pop records, it starts with one song, that one song that sinks it's hooks into you, and won't let go, and no matter how good the rest of the record is, you just can't stop yourself from listening to that same song over and over and over. And on That's How We Burn, that song is "Thank Us Later", from the first few seconds, you'll be hooked, the slithery melody, the weird drum fill, the echoey guitar jangle, and then when the vocals come in, all weary, slipping from croon to almost falsetto, and then the chorus, a fucking KILLER, the sort of chorus that some bands build a whole career on, and then there's an equally catchy bridge, the whole song pretty much perfect, a little bit surf rock, a little bit Brit rock, a little bit modern garage pop, but the song itself, it's the kind of jam any of the current crop of lo-fi garage poppers would KILL for, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps, Male Bonding, we could go on and on, but the songs on Jaill stand up to anything any of those bands can come up with, and then some.
And where as lots of records we love have one of those opening one-two-three punches, an opening salvo that slays, and makes the whole record super front loaded, but on That's How We Burn, those one-two-three punches are everywhere, in fact, pick a song, and it's the first in one of those kick ass salvos, and yeah, sure, the opening three tracks are tough to beat, "The Stroller" is dark and hypnotic and a little bit gloomy, mixing in some Interpol and Rapture to their more slacker surfy sound, and weirdly it suits them big time, and it has a wicked crunchy chorus, the whole thing driven by some serious bad ass riffing, and some cool harmony vocals, which leads right into "Everyone's Hip" which sounds more slackery, a little bit like the Soft Pack or the Strokes, mixed with a bit of pavement, with a weird angular verse, and totally insanely hooky bridge and a cool doo wop-y chorus. Finally, "On The Beat" finishes off that opening salvo with something a little bit more laid back and laconic, the guitars droney and hypnotic, and another irresistible chorus, lots of crunch and thump and chug, and some cool vocal harmonies.
Which leads us right into "Thank Us Later", 1-2-3 salvo number two, and of course we STILL aren't tired of listening to it, but after another time through, we're led right into "Summer Mess" an awesome stripped down acoustic jam, with some snarky lyrics, but with the heartfelt delivery, and the amazing melody, it's pretty tough to fight, and finally, another guitar comes in, and some simple percussion, making the last 30 seconds lush and sunshiney and summery. And finally part 3, "She's My Baby", a driving groover, with another cool chugging guitar part, clanging chiming chords, and yet ANOTHER amazing chorus, which by now should lead you to the conclusion that these guys know their way around a hook, and aren't afraid to jam a whole mess of them into a single song.
We could keep going, another three-fer, starting with "Snake Shakes", which begins with the bassline from Billy Squier's "Everybody Wants you", before the vocals transform the song into something much more lilting and jangly... But you get the drift, pretty much every song here is awesome, catchy and crunchy and jangly and hooky, and unlike the horde of bands today who think enough reverb and weird lo-fi production techniques will disguise the fact that there's nothing going on underneath, Jaill, don't bother, cuz they don't need to, maybe that's why they're not getting the hype the so deserve, not noisy enough, not weird enough, not lo-fi enough, not hazy sixties girl group enough, but fuck it, who cares, this rules, we love it, and we think you will too, and we can't offer up any more hype than making this an aQ Record Of The Week and the thousand or so words you just finished reading...
Monk Records returns with a second collection from legendary Texas blues master Blind Lemon Jefferson. The bulk of these songs were recorded in Chicago in 1927, showcasing Jefferson at the height of his powers, before boozing and the reckless lifestyle practiced by many bluesmen caught up with him at the end of the decade.... unless he died in a snowstorm, as has commonly been reported. Either way, Jefferson was the first superstar of the blues, and while he laid the groundwork for many other artists, he is truly one of a kind, an unbelievably powerful guitarist with a voice to match. Despite his star status, most of Jefferson's story remains a mystery, but when you listen to his music, you know this could be no one other than the man on the cover (the one known picture of him). His voice is a ghostly, high register wail rendered even more distant by Paramount Records' notoriously lousy sound quality. Still, none of Jefferson's power is diminished, and you will be blown away by his playing and his unconventional song structures, which often switch rhythms mid song for totally unexpected results. Two of the songs here, "He Arose From The Dead" and "See That My Grave's Kept Clean", were released under Jefferson's gospel oriented alter ego "Deacon L.J. Bates", presumably to put off record buyers who might take issue with prime Jefferson cuts like "Black Snake Moan" and "Easy Rider Blues". Lighter numbers, such as "Teddy Bear Blues" and "Hot Dogs", with its tap dancing rhythm accompaniment, help to showcase the wide range of material Jefferson knew so well, and this is essential stuff for anyone who wants to understand the origins of the blues. It doesn't get better than this.
In Permafrost, we have the third and final chapter of this series of reissues from Type, documenting the long out-of-print isolationist composition from Thomas Koner. As with the previous recordings - Nunatak and Teimo - the German sound artist has masterfully captured the frigid atmospheres of the most northern ecosystems, and the title Permafrost leaves little to the imagination as to where this one will be travelling. Cold. Barren. Black. Sublime. The sounds are thoroughly abstracted into shifting blocks of grey noises slipping above seismic rumblings of infinitely bellowing low-end frequencies. By doing so, Koner eschews the use of the gong scrapes and metallic glistenings which graced those early records, adopting the bleak ethos which he continued to master on such albums as Kaamos and Daikan (the latter of which is probably the pinnacle of his career).
All of Koner's work is required listening for anyone who has been interested in drone-based recordings from any time period (e.g. Eno, Lustmord, Chalk, Hafler Trio, Roland Kayn, Alan Splet, Bernhard Gunter, BJ Nilsen, Kevin Drumm, etc.). His subtle use of movement and half-melodic phrasing in his arctic-driven ambience has warranted him quite a reputation, and fortunately none of his reissues fail to sound timeless, breathtaking, and bone-chillingly beautiful. Highly recommended.
We listed the documentary about the notorious late '80s Valencia Street rock bar, The Chatterbox, a few lists back. Now we have copies of the official book written by vintage Aquarius Records employee, Alfie Kulzick!
SF music scene vets will no doubt fondly recall the days of the Chameleon Lounge bar which was located on Valencia Street a few blocks away from aQ. It was a beer-soaked and black velvet painting festooned underground rock haven through most of the '90s. These days that spot is now occupied by a considerably less gritty and tattered bar called Amnesia. However, you'll score super duper old school cred points if you can remember the venue that predated the Chameleon... The Chatterbox!... even more so if you have some first hand memories of your own! And if you do happen to have some of your own then you're probably in this book, aren't you?
Most of us here at aQ were either still underage back then and/or hadn't made our way to the Bay Area yet. So unfortunately we weren't privy to the club's glory years circa 1986-1990, but we all can now catch a time machine-esque sneak peek via this book. It's packed with plenty of live rawk photos, punk fliers and vivid anecdotes with the likes of Hewhocannotbenamed, Boom (of Boom & The Legion Of Doom), Buck Naked, Ginger Coyote, Blag Dahlia, Gary X Indiana, SF Dogs, Sister Double Happiness, among many many others. Plus amazing photos and stories of touring bands such as the Dwarves, The Mentors, and Nirvana. We spotted friends like Chewy and John from Hammers Of Misfortune in there too (back then, in the band Osgood Slaughter). It makes for a wildly colorful patchwork of recollections (er, though the pics themselves are all black and white)! And it gives equal love to the music acts, the staff and the patrons, conveying the beloved neighborhood bar's strong sense of community, and offering a vivid raw glimpse of the late '80s SF music scene.
The book's layout and content really captures the feel of a well-worn zine from back in the day. Y'know, cut'n'pasted together with love and very rough around the edges, almost like it was assembled in the wee hours at the Kinko's on Market Street (back when it was open 24 hours).
Fuck Yeah!
Now available on vinyl.
Newest one from James Murphy finds him going back and forth between dancefloor burners and less electronic more rock sounding numbers. Lots of people are freaking out about this one. Somehow it's not moving us too much. Sorry.
It's hard not to jump right into discussing the packaging that Invisible Birds has crafted for this opus by the peripatetic Japanese experimentalist Lethe (aka Kuwayama Kiyoharu), but that will have to wait for later on in the review as it's the incredible, occluded sounds that Lethe generates that are of true import here.
For many years now, Kuwayama had been recording the resonance of various abandoned spaces, first around his native Japan and more recently from sites far far away. He seeks out an old warehouse, airplane hanger, the hull of a ship, or any massive slab of architecture shaped by concrete and/or steel which happens to have an open door (or broken window) and a choice amount of natural reverb and resonance. There he collects whatever he can find within the space to use as source material to resonate those industrial spaces: slabs of metal, empty water tanks, sodden wood, broken glass, small bones, and the flotsam that had collected on the floors after years of neglect. Out of these found objects, Kuwayama has an uncanny knack for producing natural, acoustic drones which hold a haunted aesthetic amplified through the cavernous reverb of those crumbled cathedrals to industry. Given the seemingly surreptitious nature of Kuwayama's wanderings, these recordings are swaddled in the darkness of night with only candles or a bonfire somewhere in the far corner of the building as his illumination. It has to be said that Kuwayama does overlay and edit all of his recordings into composition, following liked minded artists such as Tarab, Eric La Casa, or John Grzinich.
Catastrophe Point 7 begins with this process at a site deliciously referred to as Arsenic in Lausanne, Switzerland. Well, it turns out that Arsenic is a contemporary theater space in current use, and despite his non-feral residence, Kuwayama offers an incredible assortment of acoustic drones, noises, and textures. Bellowing tones emanate from a variety of long plumbing pipes, replicating the circular breathing strategies of Yoshi Wada; and around these leaden flutterings, he scrapes uneasy textures and builds clattering crescendos. The point about Arsenic not being a totally disused space comes to the forefront about halfway through Catastrophe Point 7 as he rolls a piano into the empty theater space and sets forth a melancholy series of clustered piano tones, much like his one time collaborator Jonathan Coleclough produced on his signature album Period.
Catastrophe Point 8 was recorded in an abandoned space. This time, it's a former power station in Scotland. A mournful acoustic drone, perhaps from a similar set of plumbing pipes heard in the Swiss recordings opens this disc, with small crumblings of wood, glass, and concrete positioned close to the microphone. Set in spatialized contrast to these closely miced sounds, Kuwayama captures various clanks, thumps, and other bumps in the night all decaying in the prolonged reverb of that power station. It's a much more Spartan affair than the first disc, but just as effective in its haunted sensibility. Highly recommended listening!
And yes, the packaging. The discs themselves are housed in a beautifully printed letterpress folio, with a lengthy booklet written by fellow industrial shadow-master Giancarlo Toniutti. For this small art-edition, Invisible Birds has housed the two discs in an archival, embossed box with another booklet of photographs from Kuwayama and a snippet of 8mm film. The art edition is beautifully done and well worth the expense. Needless to say, they made just 100 of the art edition!
We've been fans of Jana Hunter's from her first split with Devendra Banhart a few years back. Here with her new band project, Lower Dens, Hunter shakes off her usual singer-songwriter mode and gives us a more beautifully atmospheric indie-rock side that we just can't stop listening too. With big crunchy distorted dueling guitar riffs, driving rhythms and reverbed vocals that have a more urgent and energetic feel sort of like vintage PJ Harvey fronting early Deerhunter, while occasionally veering down a hazy and somnolent path giving off a Low or Galaxie 500 vibe. Plus some of the song titles are hilariously vivid, especially the last one, "Two Cocks Waving Wildly At Each Other Across A Vast Open Space, A Dark Icy Tundra". How can you not be curious? Probably one of the most rocking and energetic albums we have heard on this label. Solid!
Another gorgeous missive of warped hazy dream pop from the guy who is fast becoming a sort of figurehead for that scene, a scene that includes Ducktails, Ariel Pink, Gary War, John Maus, not to mention the more rocking outfits like Thee Oh Sees, Sic Alps, Ty Segall, but Lynch has definitely struck out on his own, chucking the reverb and low-fidelity-for-low-fidelity's-sake for something much more melodic and heartfelt, a soft focus classic pop that is as much about song as sound, and which definitely looks to groups like The Kinks, the Bee Gees, the Zombies, and other classic pop combos, but manages to infuse that sound with some of the fuzzy warble that the kids seem to dig so much.
These two songs are no exception, "Droplet On A Hot Stone", is a loping, fuzzy, heart-on-the-sleeve pop gem, lots of fuzzy keyboards, lush vocals, simple spare drumming, jangly guitar, some crunchy buzzy psychedelic melodies, all wreathed in a gauzy sun dappled production. "Nen Vole" dips back into a little bit of the tropical summer flavor that was such a big part of Lynch's former outfit Ducktails, it's the lo-fi pop equivalent of mint juleps on the lawn, a lazy hazy summer afternoon pop drift, acoustic guitars, and still more wheezing keyboards. It almost sounds like Ween, if they were less jokey and more serious about crafting perfect pop. So nice.
And both songs were originally recorded for a full length called Born2Run, which was never released, but is included as a bonus cd-r here, with both the tracks from the 7", but also the rest of that unreleased record, all of which is just as nice, woozy, washed out, fuzzy, softly psychedelic, a little bit tropical, a lot summery and sunshiney, jangly and dreamily warped. And other tracks are definitely more warped than the single's tracks, mostly instrumental, with lots of tripped out production, a sort of Joe Meek meets The Beach Boys vibe, heavy on the experiments, but even the experiments end up being dreamy and hooky and gorgeously mesmerizing. WAY recommended.
We find stuff all the time, tucked away in the close, in the backroom, copies of records that somehow slipped through the cracks, record we hoped to eventually get more of, but eventually forgot about, it's pretty exciting to (re)discover these mysterious releases, even more exciting when we can't for the life of us remember where they came from, who ordered them, or when we actually got them.
Which is the case with this killer split of ultra heavy funereal doom metal, which we've had for almost 5 years, but only just now realized we had never listed. Which is a shame, cuz both these bands are pretty incredible.
Maiden Voyage are from the UK, and traffic in some seriously extreme miserablist doom, not crushingly heavy, as much as depressive and dark, reminding us a bit of Esoteric, that same sort of weird production, spaced out and a little bit brittle, making the sound more druggy and psychedelic, the guitars are still thick and fuzzy, the riffs glacial, the rhythms a snail's pace pound, the vocals a belched demonic grumble, but the melodies are skeletal, and the songs seem to dissipate into near ambience, the riffs ringing out, leaving just ghostly traces of spidery psychedelic guitars, it's actually more like some sort of doom-d slowcore, than any sort of true doom, which is what makes it so cool. Haunting, and creepy and atmospheric and a little bit damaged.
Maiden Voyage are teamed up with another UK funeral doom combo, the awesomely monickered Amaranthine Trampler, whose sound is strikingly similar, which makes sense, as both bands are one man bands, and than one man is THE SAME GUY! Amaranthine Trampler offers up another weirdly lo-fi bit of lumbering bleak misery, the vocals a bit more chantlike, the vocals a little bit more caustic, but overall, still moody and miserable, a bit ambient and abstract, thick swaths of chugging, some almost groove, giving way to grim funereal crawls, and like Maiden Voyage, those spidery psychedelic melodies and the weirdly lo-fi vibe and doom-ed slowcore feel.
Needless to say, if you're a fan of haunting mysterious outsider doom, and depressive ambient grimness, twisted drugginess and damaged black psychedelia, all spread into thick swaths of downtuned creep and crawl, then best snag one of these before they're gone...
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered, but since this came out close to 5 years ago, odds are it's undoubtedly out of print by now. We only have 4 or 5 copies, so if you want one, you'll have to move a little faster than either of these guys...
Not quite black metal, though doubtless Menace Ruine would happily bask in the smoldering embers of a charred church somewheres up north. Not exactly militaristic neo-folk either. Nor are they a noise band. Well, maybe noise. But that's only part of it. Their dark, distorted drone textures are also often adorned with witchy female vocals, a la Jex Thoth. So, three albums in, this Quebec girl-boy duo of Genevive and S. de la Moth are still quite hard to define, though we know we like 'em, and the Menace Ruine music they make (indeed a mix of noise, drone, folk, and black metal moves) is grim as well as sometimes quite gorgeous, that is if you're like us and can find the beauty in ten-minute long tracks of misanthropic sonic miasma. Perhaps it's the way the ceremonial lamentation of Genevive's gentle singing merges with the slowly churning electronic extremes of intense, dense distortion and feedback... Certainly this new release via Aurora Borealis (following previous efforts on Alien8 and Tour De Garde) is a fine continuation of their unique post-black metal noise-folk aesthetic. If you liked The Die Is Cast that came before this, you'll probably like this too. And fans of bands as diverse as Burial Hex, Dead Raven Choir, Velvet Cacoon, Current 93, Wolf Eyes, and Alcest, among others, ought to check out Menace Ruine if you haven't already.
**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.
The moody, obscurantist ensemble Multer had its origins in the industrial / field recording outfit ABGS, who in turn had some connections to Cranioclast. Of course, these are references that mine the post-industrial currents of German experimental music; those dour atmospheres persist in the current Multer guise, but with an ear for what the likes of Village Of Savoonga had been up to (remember how great that band was?), in addition to all things Drone Records. The first of the three tracks on this 10" interweaves drone guitar chords into a two note melody that oscillates plaintively above of a set of electrical pulses. The whole ambience of the track is thoroughly evocative in its gloom that elegantly sits upon the lattice work of skittering rhythms and that simple turgid melody. The second cut wraps fuzzed out stabs of guitar noise above angular march of drum machines and electronics. Much closer to the Morr Records sound than what's ever appeared from Multer in the past. And the finale returns to the guitar drone, but blown out through distortion, all shoegazing and maudlin in its slice of noise that sheds all of its layering to reveal the melody hidden with. Really nice work found here; but limited stock!
Milton Nascimento's North American debut record from 1969 came at the end of the huge wave of the bossa nova movement that had infiltrated the American imagination since Astrud Gilberto's "Girl From Ipanema" with Stan Getz in 1963. A&M records and producer Creed Taylor were behind some of the best records of this period including albums by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Joao Gilberto, and Nascimento's Courage is no exception. Beautifully arranged and sung, this is where many of his most popular Brazilian songs were heard for the first time including "Vera Cruz", "Morro Velho" and "Bridges (Travessia)". Singing in Portuguese, English and sometimes wordlessly, this is a breathtaking record. While it doesn't have the psych flourishes and Tropicalia bent of Cluba Da Esquina, from a few years later (a unanimous store favorite!) it's still an essential record and perfect for lazy and wistful summer evenings.
Man, have we been waiting for this! Why? Well, does Chrissy Zebby Tembo mean anything to you? The group that backed him up on his wonderful My Ancestors album from 1974 have a rare record of their own that's just been reissued, the electrifying indeed 45,000 Volts, and it's another killer document of Zambian heavy fuzz rock ("Zamrock"!) from the '70s! Founded by Paul Dobson Nyirongo, otherwise known as Paul Ngozi, a Hendrix-styled guitarist (he even did the trick of playing with his teeth), the Ngozi Family band released this winning album in 1977, and now that we've heard it, it goes right to the top of the selection of awesome garage fuzz rock from Africa in our collections, a small but ever growing category thanks to ruling reissues like this (we're also looking forward to Shadoks' impending cd edition of The Witch album, also from Zambia, next month, you should be too). And it's not so lo-fi as that Tembo disc, much better sound, though the production still sounds very "live", we think it's perfect, capturing both the thud and grace of the Ngozi Family's music.
There's ten tracks (including one bonus from a 7"), containing so much raw FUZZ! Burbling, sizzling, wah wah action. Along with wicked beats, soulful sincere vocals (some songs in English, others in a Zambian language, Nyanja perhaps), and groove that just won't quit. Most of the tracks are in a Western psych-rock style with distinct African influences, though a couple tracks near the end of the disc are much more like traditional Afrobeat, with hand percussion and mass chanting vocals. As far as the rock stuff goes, even when they kick back on the mellower, more sunshiney numbers there's still lotsa fuzz and snappy beats. And Ngozi actually translates to Danger in English, so you know that they don't neglect the harder and heavier fare on this album. Particularly proto-metal-ish is "Night Of Fear", with immensely fat riffing and echoed lyrics about graveyards and nightmares! Here and elsewhere we're reminded of Los Dug Dugs. Heck even a little Blue Cheer. And of course Ofege and Chrissy Zebby Tembo and others from Africa.
Timeless stuff, highly recommended. Tembo's My Ancestors, reissued on the same label, is already out of print on cd, and this reish is equally limited too, 500 copies only, so get it while you can. FYI there's also a vinyl version but our supplier is already out of those, at the moment anyway, if we're able to get more we'll list it then.
By now, most faithful aQ list readers are quite familiar with Swedish sound artist/field recordist/musician BJ Nilsen, we've heaped praise on most of his records, each a dark delicate balance of strange haunting sonic landscapes, and deftly manipulated sound, drones and textures and abstract explorations of sound, from the macroscopic to the micro, from thick sheets of rumbling low end thrum, to hushed crystalline chimes, to barely there snippets of found sound, to charged stretches of barren electronics.
This super limited cassette gathers up two live performances from back in 2008, both gorgeous examples of Nilsen's delicate and expressive soundscaping. Barely there shimmers, strange animalistic croaks and grunts, shimmering ultra delicate sine wave skree, deep whirling almost industrial sounding thrum, swoonsome stringlike melodies stretched into yet more layered drone, shards of muted glitch and crackling buzz, smeared into gauzy clouds of soft focus haze, the sounds whirling dizzily, druggy and drifty and dreamy, lush almost sci-fi cinematics, draped with softly crumbling melodies, and fragmented streaks of grinding high end, all woven into a surprisingly lush chunk of blown out dreamdoomdronemusic, a bit shoegazey, a little ethereal, but still rife with mechanical whirs and strange bits of found sound, samples and other sonic detritus, that makes it sound a little like a Philip Jeck performance, all warped and warbly. Whew! Fantastic stuff, not surprisingly, and most likely super limited, so grab one pronto!
Fancy full color covers, with some cool Savage Pencil collage/artwork inside and out!
