Nite Jewel made her way into our hearts in a big way last year with her awesome full length and various 12"s of late night, laid back seductive soft dance jams. Since then her fan base has expanded deservedly, and as we write this she and her new band are on tour opening up for Panda Bear.
Am I Real gives us six brand new tracks of blissed out hazy synth pop that finds her songs gaining a newfound warmth and intimacy and proving that she is far from some clubkid come-down fad. In fact this is not for dancefloors but much more for bedrooms and sun soaked daytrips when you just want to get lost in a soft breeze and sway gently back and forth in a half conscious state of mind. Like this perfect intersection of 4AD dreaminess and the soft drift of Sara Records, but infused with a much more synth and smoke machine vibe. She continues to have a golden touch as we love everything she's done so far and this just continues her hot streak!
BACK IN PRINT!!!!
Steve Stapleton has always viewed Insect And Individual Silenced as a monumental failure. So much so, that he had resisted every attempt by friends, colleagues, and other labels to convince him to reissue this album. Yet, with this reissue, he's finally been convinced to the contrary. Insect And Individual Silenced emerged as the fourth Nurse With Wound album back in 1980, and found Steve Stapleton out on his own as the principal soundmaker for the ensemble. Yet he had convinced Jim Thirlwell (Foetus) and Trevor Reidy to join him in the studio, just to see what would happen. According to the liner-notes, the studio sessions found Thirlwell fucking around with his amplifier, cable buzz, and the jack-plugs; Reidy brought in a drum kit, which he skitters across on one of the three original cuts on the album; and Stapleton had his arsenal of junk, toys, and tapes. Through the aid of drugs and alcohol, Stapleton mixed and mastered the album; and quickly sent it off to get it pressed. When the albums arrived, he admits being horrified by the results, qualifying it as "a dismal failure, a dreadful pressing, and an appallingly carefree mix -- in fact a seriously misguided project altogether." So he vowed to never reissue the album by burning the masters.
Yet some 25 years later, a confluence of events forced Steve to reconsider his position, and as Steve finally returned to the work, he now admits being "pleasantly surprised." That said, Insect was reissued through Raash Records in 2007, with that label dissolving amidst unseemly rumors; and now the album gets a proper reissue through Stapleton's United Dairies, complete with a lengthy bonus track that was commissioned for a unpublished 'suitcase edition' through Raash.
Insect is an album guided by the slice of a razor, as tape edits had to be done by hand. Stapleton's collage techniques have always been deft in their erratic disruptions and maniacal detours, and Insect is no exception. The first track "Alvin's Funeral" is a wonderful and wild ride through demented sounds all going in multiple directions at once, which make it easy to get lost in this maze of distortion, sound effects, and splattered guitar noise. There's an urban gamelan of springs and bowls with the varispeed being fucked with as the tape drags across the recording heads; there's the screeched sound of metal dragged against the floor, overblowing what the magnetic tape could handle (ah, what a lovely sound compared to the ugliness of digital peaking!); there's a sampled scream from Disney's Haunted Mansion LP; and then some surprisingly sublime moments where a collaged section of distant female vocals duet with a string of shells being shaken. But the jump cuts and quick edits of dynamic volumes between the quiet and loud that keep this moving at a frantic pace. The second piece seems to have much more of that aforementioned studio session present with skittering drums and searing white hot guitar noise grating against the ears. The third track is a precursor to the screeching metal collages of Organum, albeit far more feral and atonal. This brings us to the the bonus track "Tooth, Teeth, Milk, Teeth, Skin" which is very much a contemporary collage of eerie female vocals looped into a mesmerizing ambience blown apart by harsh, musique concrete jump-cuts.
It's obvious that what Steve Stapleton may view as his own personal failure is greater than most everything that's come afterward from any of the post-Industrial soundscapers.
We won't go into too much detail with this one. Another instance of something being way too limited, and us getting way fewer copies than we asked for. LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, and of that we got 10. Just ten. And it's the first in a series of 3, so if you manage to snag one of these, and want in on the other two in the series, best hit us up to preorder you one NOW.
And odds are you're probably gonna want this (and perhaps the other two), a 40 minute recording, captured back in 2006, related to O'Malley's Table Of The Elements 12" and his record on iDEAL, and for all of O'Malley's dabblings in various permutations of ambience and minimalism and guitar manipulation, Cocon & Oiseau De Nuit finds him doing what he does best, that sort of SUNNO))) guitar creep, thick swaths of pulsing rumbles, of crumbling distorted crunch, heaving slow motion melodies, wrapped in gauzy sheets of amp buzz, blissed out low end whirs, super saturated glacial heaviness, blurred and smeared into washed out blackened dronemusic of the highest order. Hypnotic and gorgeously grim.
Nice full color tape covers, with massive booklet (all the pages are black/blank, just adding to the overall blackness), and again, we only have 10 copies, and those will no doubt be gone in a flash.
Sorry...
Dig the creepy cover, the extended claw like arms extended above a shadowy shawled woman, the whole image hazy and ghostly, and inside, strange electronic ghostly minimal dream pop that is the perfect soundtrack for that image, and for a lost world of similar sights, of blood red moons, of creatures in the dark, of low lit mysterious after hours underground gatherings, welcome to Witch House. No doubt most folks have already heard something about this new movement/genre, a twisted sample heavy dark minimal electronic music, which may have begun life as a witchy sort of house music, but has blossomed into a whole cadre of bands, make spooky, and evocative, and darkly lovely music. Most of these sounds released on limited tapes or cd-rs or as free downloads, the bands all named with strange option-control heavy keyboard characters, little black triangles, underscores, tiny crosses, jumbles of &'s and *'s, even OOOOO is written oOoOO, and who knows how it's pronounced. We could list some of the other bands, but it's probably just as easy to set your font for Zapf Dingbats and peck away at random!
But for all the secrecy and purposeful obfuscation, when you finally get your ears on this stuff, it is indeed, pretty fantastic. Woozy, warped, haunting, hypnotic, mysterious, dark, retro, futuristic, minimal, electronic, sampled, looped, depending on the group, it could be some sort of bewitching IDM shuffle, or some horror movie sampling bit of plunderphonia, or in the case of oOoOO, a gorgeous chunk of electronica flecked otherworldly dream pop. Skeletal and shoegazey, a soft pop cold wave wreathed in a ghostly haze, like Cocteau Twins or Slowdive but chopped & screwed. There's a little of that eighties sci-fi synth soundtrack stuff that's so popular right now, but somehow here it sounds more genuine, more a part of the admittedly twisted whole. Swirling effects, spectral ambience, atmospheric synth shimmer, occasionally slipping into some dark and sinister propulsive kraut disco, vocals clipped and looped into clouds of psychedelic soft noise, other times, the sound drifts more toward eighties MTV style yacht rock, but again, dubbed out, slowed down and wrapped in a blurred gauze, and throughout it all, the wispy angelic wraithlike female vocals, ethereal and ephemeral, a dreamy sonic thread that holds it all together.
Gorgeous stuff for sure. Anyone into all that hypnogogic pop stuff, or tripped out lo-fi cold wave, as well as folks like Zola Jesus, Nite Jewel, or even Beach House and other shoegazey dreampoppers, here's something just a bit darker, and a bit more out there, for when you're wandering the streets at night, or holed up in your house, lights out, candles lit and emotions dark, needing something pretty and poppy still, but infinitely more murky and mysterious.
This brutal Brooklyn boy-girl two-piece unleashes their second full length, also vinyl-only like their debut (too bad for those of us who like cds). Once again, Orphan are UBER heavy, with thudding thunderous drums and destructive distorted bass, laying down total metal riffery, decapitatin' lovers left and right... but also, there's an undeniable "pop" streak in these songs, which can get quite bouncy-catchy, and can even remind us a bit at moments of an evil Nirvana, stripped down and buffed up, bathed in extreme amp buzz and fuzz. Or if not Nirvana, then Unsane. Also, the bassist's shredded throat-torn vokills are varied enough to manage a fair amount of memorability and character (the song "Soda Pressing" is in fact almost sung cleanly, though still meanly, making us think of Dan Higgs in Lungfish, actually). Orphan's arty/weird side is also on display, most obviously via some rather atypical track titles for a metal record, like "Love Is A Stealthy Hitman (Love Is A Healthy Stuntman)", "Mister Sensitive", and "Thug Luv (Gun Oil)". Also, probably less for punk cred than just 'cause they figured it would slay, they do a Born Against cover, "Well Fed Fuck".
As we've said before, those who lament the late great godheadSilo should check out Orphan. Another heavy two-piece they could be compared to is Black Cobra, and as much as we like BC, we have to say Orphan do it better! So, fans of grinding bass heavy distorted-to-hell art metal duos, you really oughtta take this Orphan home! Hmm, but be careful... while being orphaned is an unfortunate plight, you get the idea that THIS Orphan might be so by choice. They probably killed their parents and the rest of their family!
Numbered, limited to 500 copies. Oh, and stay tuned for another Orphan release soon, a split with a Baltimore band called Dope Body being released by Black Tent Press...
This is a doozy of a release, and one that seems custom made for aQ. Weirdo black metallers Pyramids sent songs and sounds to a bunch of bands to rework, reinterpret, remix or reimagine in any way they saw fit. The list of bands alone should havemost aQ folks frothing: Tenhornedbeast, Fear Falls Burning, Windy & Cark, Wereju, Burial Hex, Yen Pox, Josh Lay, Black Seas Of Infinity, Encomiast, Bones Of Seabirds, Nicholas Szczepanik, Rise Of Because, Jeremy Bible, Amber Asylum, Bass Communion, Hoor-Paar-Kraat, Light Of Shipwreck, Mamiffer, Ulan Bator, Across Tundras, At The Head Of The Woods, Blood Fountains, Oakeater, Neuntoter Der Plage, Rabbit Girls, Wicked Messenger, Sigullum Dei, Black Roller Crop Rotation, 9922, Exit In Grey, The Spirit Dies, Luasa Raelon, Wyrm, Sin Of A Higher Strain, Drowning The Virgin Silence, Paradin, Bjerga/Iverson, Fences, Le Knell, Andrew Weathers, Mystified, Nils Helstrom, True Colour Of Blood, Teeth Collection, Great Falls, Hiroki Sasajima, Offthesky, Ala Muerte, Romance Of Young Tigers, This Will Destroy You, Ghoul Detail and Lunar Miasma. Phew. Instead of going through the whole collection song by song, group by group, we'll let you suss it out for yourself, the sounds are all over the map, noisy, heavy, pretty, ambient, rhythmic, brutal, psychedelic, some of the tracks sound like remixed Pyramids, others you'd never know, it's an epic and sprawling collection, that for the most part is pretty fucking great. The packaging is incredible too. SIX HOURS of music of FIVE TAPES, the tapes red, printed in silver, all housed in one of those plastic clamshell cases, like for language courses, but his one has a custom stamped placeholder in the otherwise empty sixth tape slot, and is covered in a full color printed glued on cover. Inside is a black on silver metallic printed insert, and all of this is housed in a red cardstock slipcover, sealed with a metallic silver wax seal! WOW. Limited to 300 copies, we're taking pre-orders for this, we're only getting as many copies as we get orders, so if you want one don't dawdle...
Scores for sound installations often have a way of not really translating when heard outside of the installation. Steve Roden is one of the few sound artists who has perfected the balancing act of creating a sublime sonic experience through his installation work which also translates equally as well on disc. Transmissions (Voices Of Objects And Skies) was originally commissioned by the Fresno Art Museum, and found Roden creating a metonymic environment that bridged childhood wonder with the rough technologies of tin-can telephones and daydreams of space travel and NASA. The installation itself was an 8 channel sound piece spread over 64 speakers which were all mounted within tin cans and suspended from the ceiling alongside countless other tin cans that housed low wattage colored light bulbs, creating a fantastic chandelier of muted light that was perfect for the delicate compositions. Roden states in the liner notes that the source material for the album was recordings of satellites by amateur astronomers from the 1960s through the 1980s; and through Roden's impeccable reductivist filtering and manipulation, he arrives at a slow-motion collage of electronic bleeps which might have more in common with a distantly flickering flute than anything electric in origin. Nevertheless, Roden turns these sounds into looping lullabies and subtle declinations of sound. It's one of the best pieces we've heard from Roden and is certainly recommended!
Frankie Rose has been behind the drum kit for three of our favorite bands of the last few years, Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, and Crystal Stilts. But now she is poised to show that she can lead, sing and create such warm and woozy songs with her very own band, as this is one of the most satisfying pop records of the year! Her past band experiences for sure help shape the sound of what she is doing here, yet these songs are crafted with such care and an intimacy that allows the tracks to be both dreamy, haunting, and catchy. This is the kind of record that stands so strongly on repeated listens as it's not just a cute bubblegum play at girl group glory, but instead it uses the warmth and reverb of that golden era to create songs that leave a mark and make you want to come back for more again and again. This record has hit at a much more emotional spot than many of the similar minded records that have come out in the last few years. Her group helps makes the record come to life with such nice three part harmonies and a cohesiveness that is not slick so much, but instead feels so wonderfully natural in its golden warmth. In a year of great pop records, this one is finding its way to the top of the list!
Compact disc version ON SALE until October 8th, for 11.98, $2 off the normal price!!! (Sorry, no discount for the vinyl.)
You gotta love this band. First off, best band name EVER. Really. Except for the fact that it could get 'em confused with the British rapper The Streets, this band's acronymic moniker S.T.R.E.E.T.S., which stands for Skateboarding Totally Rules, Everything Else Totally Sucks, can't really be beat as a band name. The album title is pretty good too, as is the skeletal skater carvin' in the prog parody cover art complete with faux Roger Dean logo. Or at least that's what we think, and we don't even skate! Too bad they broke up (members went on to Bison B.C. and Children, the latter of whom were possibly named after one of the songs here). But at least this, their third and final album, originally released in 2005, is again available, now reissued in a digipack with 5 bonus tracks! Keep the dream alive!!
The disc starts off with a skit, yes about aliens invading from the Planet Gnars... there's pretty piano, sci-fi warfare sound FX, and a portentous voice-over... before the face-melting retro-trash skatecore riffage of track two "Keep The Dream Alive" kicks in and the band goes off. Spiralling guitar frenzies, chugga chugga riffs, throat ripped vocals, gang shouts, pick squeals, adrenalized hook in mouth songwriting stylez. We're hearing many parts Megadeth, Iron Maiden too (the wooahh-ooaha-ooohs!" of "Peace On Earth" ferinstance, and some galloping action elsewhere), some D.R.I. crossover of course, a touch of Motorhead, and maybe even we're catching a hint of Heart's "Barracuda" in here someplace. Sweet. But whoops, then when you've got 'em pegged as whirlwind skankin' skate party thrash metal, they'll do somethin' like suddenly slow it down and get all moody and post rock there for a minute, like right in that very first song in fact. So S.T.R.E.E.T.S. has some twists, obviously a sense of humor ("Armageddon Wasted" is a song title here... geddit?), and most importantly, they totally rip. Simply bad ass and infectiously grin-inducing, surprisingly melodic mosh fodder.
The ironic thing is that the S.T.R.E.E.T.S. motto that forms their name is proven to be untrue, by the band themselves. Cause they couldn't possibly be skating and playing this music at the same time, and this disc definitely falls into the Rules, as opposed to Sucks category. Basically there's NOTHING that's not ruling about this. They're even Canadian (from Vancouver). It'd be stupid not to have this in your collection, since you're gonna wanna be spinning it all the time, and looking at that cool skeleton on the cover. Equally recommended to fans of 3 Inches Of Blood, and Annihilation Time...
As lead singer for Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier's voice is instantly recognizable, so suave and sensual, able to effortlessly create such colorful and swaying sensations, with just her voice. Along with Stereolab Sadier has also released gorgeous records with her side-project, Monade, and finally she goes at it solo with one of the most emotional and ethereal sets of songs she has ever created. While The Trip will immediately remind you of Stereolab, the difference is that it's not so much about the dynamic scope of sounds and colors that Stereolab swirl in and out of, but instead, The Trip, is much more languid, allowing Sadier's vocals to sway in a soft breeze while she sings about loss, memory, and grief, dark emotions, but the record was made after the suicide of her younger sister. What has always made Sadier's voice so special is the way that even when the subject is somber and sad she still can evoke a dreamlike aura around it that allows for sparks of hope and enlightened acceptance.
So sad to think of how much loss Sadier has had to suffer in the last few years, not only losing her younger sister, but the tragic death of her Stereolab comrade Mary Hansen. We could all learn a thing or two from Sadier's ability to remain so graceful and elegant after such painful loss and sadness and finding a way through her music to carry on and pay tribute to the legacy of people who have meant so much to her. A record we know we will be turning to even more when the days start to turn cold and we need warmth that we can count on.
Local folks may have seen these guys tearing up stages around town. Although maybe tearing up isn't precisely what these guys do. They're much more of a brooding behemoth. But they're much more than that. Almost confusingly so (but in a good way!) Anyway, Skin Horse are a trio who traffic in long stretches of plodding doom, mathy jangle, and epic post rock, laced with haunting atmospherics and deep black ambience.
This 3 song cd-r is their debut, and each of the three tracks is totally different, and in some cases almost sound like different bands, but somehow, the tracks do manage to fit together, a little disjointedly, but still strangely cohesive.
The opener begins with a sheet of guitar noise under static and strange voices, soaring harmonics, and rumbling drones, when the band do finally kick in, it's a sort of slowcore, dronedoom hybrid. Plodding and downtuned and heavy, but weirdly melodic, the guitars heavy and abstract, the drums a caveman pound, vocals a harsh shriek, Khanate fans will be all over this, as will all ultradoomlords.
But only maybe until the second track, which begins with dark minor key guitar jangle, which erupts into some awesomely nineties sounding mathrock, all clean guitars, and convoluted arrangements, before locking into a spiraling freakout, all tribal rhythms, and squealing feedback, a stuttering riff and swirls of FX, launching immediately into the final track, another blast of angular clean guitar mathrock, but structure like doom, so the chords ring out, the drums crash, but there's tons of space, some super abstract arrangements, killer dynamics, all wrapped around a super intense main minor key melody, the kind of stuff we could listen to forever, before again, locking into an extended outro, a cool woozy chugging groove, that eventually gives way to a brief stretch of moody Slintish drift to finish off.
We've been inundated with post rock metal bands, or post metal or whatever, but Skin Horse are as far as we can remember the first band to fuse math rock with serious doom metal, and we're definitely up for hearing more.
Packaged in hand sewn, hand screened red or black pouches, LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
We'd been dying to hear more Skin Horse ever since their self released 3 song ep from last year, a killer mix of lurching black doom, mathy post rock, and epic dark ambience.
So here we have one new track (it's a long one though, nearly 14 minutes), and it definitely takes off right where the ep left off. Beginning with a dark brooding slowcore skitter, although it's laced with some super strange warbly downtuned tones, that make the whole thing sound a bit twisted and off kilter. The heaviness builds, as heaviness so often does, but here it just wraps itself around that initial post rocky guitar part instead of obliterating it completely, making for some seriously moody heaviness. Once things get going, the guitars are slathered on thick, and allowed to bow and bend the otherwise straight ahead jams into yet another warped groove, there do seem to be vocals, but they're buried way down in the murk.
About halfway through, Skin Horse shift gears and get super intense and aggro, going all mathy, offering up bursts of ultra tight rock, before splintering into some plodding ultra doom, the vocals a caustic wail, the guitars an oozing black buzz, the drums a massive plod, and just as you're getting into that slow motion groove, they shift gears again and bliss out, the guitars becoming nearly translucent, drifting over a sea of sizzling cymbals, weird bits of sampled preaching, dense grinding effects laden buzz, building to another mathy metallic frenzy, before almost dubbing out into a long, sprawling outro. Killer stuff, definitely need to see these guys pull this off live.
Skin Horse share this two song half hour split with a band called Nanda Devi, who we'd never heard before now, but who definitely seem like a good match for Skin Horse. Their 18 minute epic begins with layered sheets of noise, buried bits of melody and softly strummed guitars, which give way to some surprisingly melodic post rocking, the drums massive and LOUD, the guitars simple and stripped down, swirling and building into some metallic Godspeed territory, in come the howled Neurosisy vocals, but the cool thing is, the guitars are still not heavy or distorted, instead jangling and shimmering and singing and soaring, a good contrast with the raw gruff vocals and the wildly chaotic drumming. They too shift gears part way through, the drums getting all tribal, the guitars getting more angular, and beginning another slow build, until a second guitar swoops in adding all sorts of spaciness to the proceedings. Another bout of howled vocals, and the song unwinds in a flurry of tripped out spaced out swirling whirling epic heaviness. Bad ass. And BOTH bands here come WAY recommended.
Not the clicks and cuts Thomas Brinkmann. Not the runout groove sampling Thomas Brinkmann. The General Eclectics series from Mr. Brinkmann's Soul Center presents him in a straight forward, monophunk techno guise, and he's damn good at it! All of the tracks present on this disc were culled from two eps released earlier in 2010, plus a couple of bonus tracks to sweeten the deal. Brinkmann draws from rare groove samples of soulful Hammond organ stabs and rolling basslines to tumble into his swaggering techno rhythms and minimal electronic twinkles. The opening track "Marmalade" has the midtempo swagger of the Sopranos theme, but pushed with a deeper, slow-motion techno-funk heard way back when Mo' Wax was cool. Brinkmann offers a more Kompakt inspired track of German engineered motorik techno with some creepy detuned spoken vocals on "Walk With Me," somewhat reminiscent of the Ester Brinkmann tracks with Blixa Bargeld's chant in lieu of a more polite vocalist. The rhythms thicken considerably on the last three cuts of the album, taking on more of a Mr. Ozio production for a more muscular techno coupled with robotic vocals and acid-inspired electronics supplanting the funk tropes from the earlier tracks. Brinkmann's always been a fantastic producer; and even without some of the great conceptual overtures and technical gimmicks which he's thrown at us in the past, he can certainly deliver one hell of an electronic groove record! We've been playing the heck of of it here at the store, EVERYBODY digs it.
Sigh! The sound of The Soul's Release on their lates EP is all glistening and softly subdued, but there's an undercurrent of emotive urgency. 'Tis quite a kin to a number of other artists on the fine SF label Dynamophone - purveyors of nothing but the loveliest of atmospheric, mostly instrumental music - such as Amman/Josh whom we've also reviewed this aQ list. We've definitely noted an affinity with Icelandic music makers Mum and Sigur Ros. Where The Trees Are Painted White conjures visions of feathery wings gliding across guitar strings while melted icicle droplets strike piano keys in the depths of a wintry eve. Regardless of what season it may happen to be though, it's easy to imagine this frosty music causing your breath to appear in slow drifting clouds. Nice!
On the cover, Merge records darlings Arcade Fire. Inside: Nick Cave, Kid Cudi, Lissie, Brandon Flowers, Jamey Johnson, and Oneohtrix Point Never even gets hotlisted! Plus tons of reviews, photos and a link to get 18 free songs from folks like Dungen, Abe Vigoda, Marnie Stern, Bad Religion, The Corin Tucker Band, No Age, etc.
Mavis Staples is not only a living legend due to her work with the almighty Staple Singers, but she continues to be such a force and guiding light of spiritual, deep hitting gospel-soul. On her new album she's joined forces with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy who produced the album as well as writing two tracks. While sometimes people scoff when big names and indie rock icons take on projects with folks from different eras and genres, we actually think it's super rad. If it turns on a bunch of kids who love Wilco and don't know much about the legacy of Mavis Staples then that in itself is already worth it, but also Tweedy is so respectful of the voice and importance of Mavis Staples, so he hasn't tried to make this some sort of hip indie rock gospel record. Instead he just helped give a strong and steady backdrop as rich and bold as Staples' commanding voice. She covers a wide range of folks like Allen Toussaint, Randy Newman, Reverend Gary Davis, and John Fogerty. The songs are filled with the kind of gospel, blues and soul energy that has been a part of her musical trajectory from the beginning.
Often times legendary soul and gospel singers in their later years are marred with overslick and processed production, but You Are Not Alone shows that if you keep it to the basics with the nitty gritty perfection of a top notch band, recorded with much warmth, then that wise voice is really allowed to soar to the forefront with everlasting impact.
The boys in Stirling Says have really beefed up their sound and cranked the amps and feedback since we last heard from them on their split 7" with Katie The Pest. And we think this added punch serves them so well! Balboa has such an awesomely raw and free wheeling guitar driven sound, reminding us of that awesome intersection of the late '80s SST scene (Dinosaur Jr, Leaving Trains, Screaming Trees, Das Damen) and the early beginnings of the Sub Pop roster (Eric's Trip, Seaweed, Sebadoh) and that sound is so totally refreshing right now! So much of the recent output of guitar driven rock seems to be so centered on its lo-fi/outsider aesthetic, we've been missing what it feels like to just have a great short two minute song hit you in the gut with a wall of guitars and soaring vocals. This is the kind of record perfect for roadtrips as the songs on Balboa really do flow with a never-ending summer charm.
We had long heard rumors that the Sun City Girls had been working on a cinematic album as something of a follow-up to Torch Of The Mystics and 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda, two of our all-time favorite, classic albums from the Girls' idiosyncratic catalogue of punky psychedelia dissolved through Southeast Asian pop, free jazz, and Ennio Morricone soundtracks. But with the tragic death of drummer, poet, and polyglot savant Charles Goucher in 2007, it seemed that the Girls would end their career with the grand tease of an album of this sort never to be released. Fortunately, those recordings were not the stuff of urban legend or of unfounded fantasy, and the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop has finally completed the album with the help of long time SCG cohort Scott Colburn! So here it is, the final SCGs album, and it's a worthy (and really quite accessible) capstone to their idiosyncratic discography.
Morricone has long been an influence and inspiration for the Sun City Girls, and especially Alan Bishop. In fact, he's been responsible for some of the best Morricone compilations issued over the years (i.e. Morricone 2000 and the Crime & Dissonance 2cd on Ipecac). As much as Bishop had been infatuated with Morricone, the homages to Morricone had been heavily disfigured and mutilated within the playfully murderous aesthetic of the Sun City Girls, where nothing is sacred and everything is fair game with the Girls' crosscultural appropriation. But for Funeral Mariachi, the Morricone riffs are situated in beguiling songs wholly devoid of the Sun City Girls' curmudgeonly fuck-you stances. In other words, Funeral Marachi is a damn good record. So good that it will probably invite a lot more people to investigate the wonderfully frustrating and woefully inaccessible back catalogue of the Sun City Girls.
Introspective, haunting, and at times beautiful, Funeral Mariachi opens with "Ben's Radio" where the Bishop brothers breakthrough a mid-tempo spy thriller number with a staccato duet of call and response avant-weirdness coupled with blurting atonal horns. Unmistakably Sun City Girls. In "Black Orchid", the group turns in the first of many Morricone references, where the Girls' are equally enamored by the incidental vocal melodies that worked throughout all of his scores. Here the Girls' offer a sad ballad for Richard Bishop's always stunning acoustic guitar and Alan's falsetto vocals bellowing his polyglot language. "Blue West," with its high-lonesome chorales, bad-ass guitar licks, and a mournful arrangements, could have been straight out of a John Ford movie. "Holy Ground" might as well be the Girls' answer to Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls to the Heart of the Sun" with Alan's caterwauling voice droning behind the diabolically chanted vocals, beautiful guitar leads, shadowy atmospherics, and weirdly playful calliope melodies. "Mineral Wells" and "El Solo" turn towards the more saccharine moments of the Morricone oeuvre with loungy piano, reverb whistled melodies, and actual female vocals (and not Alan mimicking a woman's voice). "Come Maddalena" is in fact a Morricone cover, from the 1971 Italian film Maddalena, perhaps known only for its soundtrack. Again, a rather moody atmosphere is set for plaintive, yet fuzzed out guitar melody. So fucking good!
The vinyl of Funeral Mariachi is undoubtedly limited, but a cd is scheduled for release later in October, we're told.
Nine years is a seriously long time, but with this latest Superchunk record it might as well have been nine months, heck even nine weeks. It's like they never left. Nine years since their last record, but listening to Majesty Shredding you'd never know it. Yeah, it's a cliche, but in this case it's true. Hardly any bands make it 20 years, and even fewer sound this good after two whole decades, and the crazy thing is that while there are a million bands that sound like Superchunk, or at least have been TRYING to sound like them, the truth is, that nobody sounds like Superchunk. The songs, the sound, Mac's voice, the harmonies, the melodies, Superchunk are definitely one of those rare bands who have a totally unique sound, not so much in that their sound is unlike anything that's come before, instead they've just taken a sound, in this case, a fuzzy punky pop, and made it all their own, refining it and twisting it into a shape that is distinctly and uniquely Superchunk. Don't believe us? Have a listen to the opening one two punch of "Digging For Something" and "My Gap Feels Weird", two songs that stack up against pretty much anything the band has ever recorded. "Digging For Something" is the single, and it makes sense, totally catchy and hooky and super rocking, but also totally classic nineties style college rock, as if they wrote it back in 1991 and only just got around to recording it this year. Cool spidery guitar melodies, loose wild drumming, and a chorus that KILLS. But then there's "My Gap Feels Weird", supposedly a song based on a random post dental procedure comment, but one that could speak just as easily to the gap between these elder statesmen of indie rock, and the current crop of pop punk contenders, but whatever it means, it's possibly the raddest Superchunk jam in years, rollicking and rambunctious, with a cool weird hooky chorus, complete with some cool falsetto vox and a a verse that manages to be just as catchy as the chorus! We'd love to break down the rest of the record more, but these first two track have been on nonstop repeat play since this first came in. But fear not, as we dig deeper and deeper into the rest of the tracks, it's obvious, like past Superchunk records, it's all killer, no filler. Now excuse us while we go back and listen to this again from the top!!!
Michael Gira has made his point that Swans has been reactivated, and that this is not a reunion. The distinction may be important to Gira, but it's pretty clear that he doesn't want the world to think he's jumping on the bandwagon of every cool band from the '80s and '90s getting back together again. But the fact remains that Swans dissolved back in 1997, and Gira took some of the musicians from those Swans gigs and sessions to form his grizzled folk ensemble Angels Of Light. Given the acoustic songs that Gira would sometimes wrangle as a counterpoint to Swans' signature brutality, the transition for Gira from Swans into Angels was a logical one. Over time, Angels developed into a lush ensemble with twinkling psychedelic aspects of a bright baroque aesthetic never revealed in the harrowing, abject tracks from Swans.
In early 2009, Gira embarked on a solo tour, showcasing a bunch of new material that seemed to be harkening back to the sound and fury of Swans, in spite of their minimalist presentation through just acoustic guitar and voice. On more than one occasion Gira quipped that he was thinking of making another Swans record. And that brings us to My Father Will Guide Me, ushered forth by a squadron of atonal guitars and lumbering percussive crashes. The album really does sound like it could have been produced in 1999, right after Soundtracks For The Blind, which was thought to be the final studio record for Swans. Sure, there's no Jarboe (for obvious reasons), but Gira did recruit guitarist Norman Westberg to return to the fold, as he was responsible for the guitar sound for the band from Filth up through White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity - in other words, the most brutalist period for the band. That buzzsaw rasp which Westberg produced is very present in Swans resurrection, cutting through the thug-fist basslines and lockstep drum rolls. The sound of Swans is very much intact, but Gira's songwriting has constantly grown, with his booming voice still wailing doom and gloom through the lens of an American apocalypticist. Devendra Banhart also makes a guest appearance on a track equally noted for its discordantly brash trombones and trumpets with their resembles to divebombing arcs. If only every band that got back together could make a record with this much intensity, drama, and power. Utterly brilliant.
Michael Gira has made his point that Swans has been reactivated, and that this is not a reunion. The distinction may be important to Gira, but it's pretty clear that he doesn't want the world to think he's jumping on the bandwagon of every cool band from the '80s and '90s getting back together again. But the fact remains that Swans dissolved back in 1997, and Gira took some of the musicians from those Swans gigs and sessions to form his grizzled folk ensemble Angels Of Light. Given the acoustic songs that Gira would sometimes wrangle as a counterpoint to Swans' signature brutality, the transition for Gira from Swans into Angels was a logical one. Over time, Angels developed into a lush ensemble with twinkling psychedelic aspects of a bright baroque aesthetic never revealed in the harrowing, abject tracks from Swans.
In early 2009, Gira embarked on a solo tour, showcasing a bunch of new material that seemed to be harkening back to the sound and fury of Swans, in spite of their minimalist presentation through just acoustic guitar and voice. On more than one occasion Gira quipped that he was thinking of making another Swans record. And that brings us to My Father Will Guide Me, ushered forth by a squadron of atonal guitars and lumbering percussive crashes. The album really does sound like it could have been produced in 1999, right after Soundtracks For The Blind, which was thought to be the final studio record for Swans. Sure, there's no Jarboe (for obvious reasons), but Gira did recruit guitarist Norman Westberg to return to the fold, as he was responsible for the guitar sound for the band from Filth up through White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity - in other words, the most brutalist period for the band. That buzzsaw rasp which Westberg produced is very present in Swans resurrection, cutting through the thug-fist basslines and lockstep drum rolls. The sound of Swans is very much intact, but Gira's songwriting has constantly grown, with his booming voice still wailing doom and gloom through the lens of an American apocalypticist. Devendra Banhart also makes a guest appearance on a track equally noted for its discordantly brash trombones and trumpets with their resembles to divebombing arcs. If only every band that got back together could make a record with this much intensity, drama, and power. Utterly brilliant.
And no, the vinyl sadly does not include the music from the extra disc found in the limited deluxe cd set.
After a couple of live cd-rs, a tape, and numerous live shows, the energetic but short-lived free music trio Sword & Sandals have called it a day. Comprised of John Dwyer (Thee Oh Sees), Randy Lee Sutherland (Freak Out label) and visual artist Shaun O'Dell, the trio bow out with their most layered, expansive and exciting release to date! Containing seven tracks, their normal instrumental set-up of two saxophones and a drummer is fleshed out with bells, flute, piano, bass clarinet and even a synth. Good & Plenty is definitely channeling the spirit of those BYG Actuel release from the late sixties from the likes of Don Cherry, Sun Ra or Sunny Murray. The dueling dynamic of O'Dell and Sutherland's horn interplay is not one of willful free jazz cacophony, but a means to reach a harmonic connection through disparate starting points, often sounding like the horns are worrying back and forth over the same small tonal point creating a tense movement of sound. But unlike their live shows and recordings, the horns are not always locked in battle. The overall flow of the record tempers the noisy urgent moments with quieter moody tracks of looser and more playful rhythms, sometimes ramshackle and other times more martial with strange washes of bell sounds, out of tune piano, weird bleeps, and minimal plaintive horn drones. It's one of those records where the band has finally come into their own, harnessing the ferocious energy of their live shows into something deeper and more reflective and at times quite beautiful. Limited to 300 copies, each lp comes with a download card. Highly recommended!
It must be practically impossible for a band to follow up a record like Torche's Meanderthal and not disappoint, a seemingly universal favorite, topping pretty much everyone's year end lists, and rightfully so, a pretty much perfect slab of super catchy, ultra heavy sludge pop, like Nirvana's Bleach writ brutal and pummeling but no less impossibly infectious. So what's a band to do? Well obviously more of the same. But if you're Torche, you go one better, and somehow make a record that's even catchier. Is that even possible? Well judging by the 2 minutes of opening track "UFO" it sure as fuck is, with a killer main riff, and some super catchy guitar harmonies, some vocal oooooh's, and a total stop start power pop / pop punk verse, it's pretty much perfect, they even throw in some minor key chug, just for a second, so no one can claim they sold out. And it just doesn't stop. The 52 second long "Lay Low" is just as catchy, wild drumming, and a killer hook, and some weird stumbling stop start weirdness near the end that definitely makes it official, these guys are the real kings of pop, just so happens their pop is twisted and sludgey and heavy as fuck.
Eight songs, in 22 minutes, and consider that the last two tracks combined are close to 11 minutes, which means most of the other songs clock in at 2 minutes or less, but who needs more, it's like the Guided By Voices school of popsmithery, why beat a chorus into the ground, leave the listener begging for more, and you can always just set it on repeat, after all we just listened to "UFO" and "Lay Low" about 10 times in a row.
"Shine On My Old Ways" is epic classic pop, with a bad ass start stop riff, squealing feedback filling all the spaces, the band have a definitely Melvins/Kiss thing going on, but dipped in some Archies style sonic sugar. And a little Queens Of The Stoneage too. Just like Meanderthal, this has us wondering why these guys aren't HUGE, maybe they are and we just don't realize it, but we think some band like Fallout Boy or the Killers or Interpol should take Torche on tour with them. Why the hell not?
And if the first _ of the record was short sharp perfect pop, the last two tracks, while still equally poppy lets the band sprawl, "Face The Wall" is a smoldering fuzz pop epic, soaring guitars, big booming drums, super melodic vocals, the whole thing dark and brooding but still melodic, leading right into "Out Again", a meandery dreamy super rocking melodic almost krautrocky noise pop dirge, repetitive and hypnotic and a weirdly perfect way to finish off a record made up primarily of 2 minute heavy pop songs. So awesome! We never should have doubted...
We've been pretty big fans of North Carolina psychedelic space rockers U.S. Christmas for a while now, especially after hearing them take on some Hawkwind covers on the recent Hawkwind Triad covers record on Neurot (along with Harvestman and Minsk), that might have been the deal sealer, in part cuz these guys are so obviously beholden to the space rock gods themselves, their sound a modern reimagining of Hawkwind, albeit filtered through a sort of slow build, loud/quiet/loud metallic post rock thing. In the past we described these guys as "Neurosis + Hawkwind + some twang + more space" or Red Sparowes meets Tarantula Hawk, or even Deadboy And The Elephantmen meets The Heads, which all pretty much still apply. The guitar are thick and the riffs a sort of spaced out version of modern Earth, that subtle twang ever present, even when the band is churning out huge avalanches of crumbling downtuned heaviness, hell, there's even what sounds like slide guitar happening here, super distorted and effected, but still all slippery and twangy.
The vocals are way more up in the mix this time too, a multi tracked melodic howl, that suits the smoldering effects drenched heart of the sun space rock drift, and like their space rock forefathers, they may be crafting songs here, and writing riffs, and lyrics, but when the band truly shine is when they just let loose, unfurl, spreading out and unleashing a blown out psych sprawl of twisted swirling space-y heaviness, which they pretty much do in most every song. The band do mix it up here, some of the tracks are dark and folky, with acoustic guitars and strings, others are all swampy and bluesy, like Sixteen Horsepower or Woven Hand, apocalyptic and ominous, and a few mix the two, like the closer "The Moon In Flesh And Bone" which sounds like a country jam transformed into a sort of twangy space rock ballad, with wild psych guitar leads, and a brooding droned out finish, but for our money, these guys are at their best when they're spitting out thick gouts of druggy space psych excess, which as we mentioned before, is most of the damn time!
Compact disc version ON SALE until October 8th, for 12.98, $2 off the normal price!!!
We sure love us some ambient experimental drone metal, thick slow moving rivers of molten riffage, near static black downtuned drift, doom to the Nth degree, glacial, a massive crumbling low end creep, it's one of those sounds that we can never seem to get enough of, a sound that manages to be fierce and brutal, but also soothing and hypnotic.
We're always on the lookout for more of that sort of stuff, and then one day a mysterious disc just showed up in the mail, a stark sleeve with just a skull, the band name, Utsuro Bune, and the album title, the maybe somewhat unfortunately punny The Drone Remains The Same. But that's definitely the only unfortunate thing about this dense black hole of a disc. A single guitar recorded live to two track tape, no overdubs, the sound is massive, and not at all static, the first track is a weird swirling black psychedelia, sort of Keiji Haino doing SUNNO))), the guitar buzzing and grinding and emitting massive gouts of blurred blackness, of pulsing crumbling heaviness, pulsing and throbbing, occasionally stuttering, before slipping back into a reverberating black cloud. The sort of obtuse abstract heaviness we could have dug for the length of the whole cd. But there's more, and it's all equally good. The second track is more serene and tranquil, harder to figure out how a single guitar with no overdubs worked here, a looped bit of swirling low end, fragmented melody, and a buzzing bit of looped percussion. Another track that is way too short. The disc continues on, first with a thick cloud of lush harmonious guitars, a rich chordal whir that seems to swing from speaker to speaker, a melodic counterpoint slowly building behind the raga like ur drone, gorgeous and epic and totally hypnotic, then, another bit of claustrophobic subterranean drift, deep billows of downtuned shimmer, of creeping metallic thrum and whirling muted melody, and finally, a lush washed out bit of processed shoegazey loopage, that sounds a bit like blackened pop ambience, whirling and softly warped and divinely dreamy.
Super sweet stuff, Even sweeter that it showed up mysteriously just as we were hankering for more low end dronemusic and minimal metal drift.
SUPER LIMITED cd-r, comes in a cool reversible vellum sleeve...
We sure are glad to have labels like Tompkins Square. They've proven to be masters at putting together amazing compilations that go way beyond simply throwing together a bunch of old songs. With recent favorites like Fire In My Bones and Unheard Ofs & Forgotten Abouts, this label has gone about documenting great, sometimes very obscure music, while also placing a strong emphasis on its social and historical importance. While these songs will not be mistaken for anything in the modern era, it is clear that they remain an essential part of pretty much everyone's story; the themes on display here are inseparable from our reality.
Bloody War compiles American folk songs recorded in the wake of World War I - ya know, the "war to end all wars" - stopping on the eve of the even bigger shitstorm we call World War II. The songs themselves are part of a lineage of war themed music that stretches back through the ages of America's conflicts, starting with the Civil War. Some of this material is suitably bleak, but more surprising is how hopeful, even humorous, much of it is. We today can envy these sentiments, since we all know things have gotten so much worse. Thinking how warfare has changed so drastically and become way less... um, "personal", it is easy to imagine the unifying power of songs like Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarlton's "The Rainbow Division" (named after the 42nd Infantry Division of the National Guard that would "stretch over the country like a rainbow"), where thousands of men battled it out together, side by side. Likewise, John Carson's "Dixie Division" draws on the Southern pride remaining from the Civil War (disagreeable as most people buying this comp will find that to be) and uses it as a rallying cry to Southern regiments in Europe. Other numbers tackle the crushing realities of war, like the starkly titled "He Is Coming To Us Dead" by G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, a song that is actually quite upbeat sounding in its instrumentation. Other songs of course focus on bringing the troops home - something we can all relate to - like the self-explanatory "Everybody Help The Boys Come Home" by William and Versey Smith.
Stylistically, you get plenty of masterfully played guitars, fiddles, and banjos, something we can all get behind. We certainly appreciate the historical context of these songs, but they are also simply a joy to listen to. It would be nice but naive to say that humanity has learned from its past mistakes. But if one thing is certain, war will always give us something to sing about. Too bad people like Toby Keith came to that realization too. That guy sucks. Bloody War does NOT.
It should also be mentioned that proceeds from this compilation benefit the organization Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Yay! Always cool to get a new comp of crazy, colorful, psychedelic pop rock treats from way back when (and way far off too, internationally speaking).�The comic bookish cartoony cover art gets the swinging '60s (and early '70s) concept across, plus we were already fans of a couple previous comps on the same label, Neurotic Reactions and Some Songs Stuck In My Mind. So we were curious to hear this, and quite pleased with what we heard! 15 cuts full of fuzzy guitars, funky drum breaks, exuberant vocals, Hammond organ orgies, and other facets of freaky, garagey goodness, all from rare 45s by bands straight outta Argentina circa '69-'75, that the detailed liner notes in the illustrated booklet will explain were part of something called the "Rioplatense scene".
The lineup: Bosques, Dynamita, Los Fantasmas, Gipsys, Caballo Vapor, Kon-Tiki, Brujos, Wooky Toky, Los Barbaros, Victoria, Them (no, not that Them), Asfalto, Jarabe De Menta, and Little Green Men. Lots of great stuff. We love the backwards effects on Kon-Tiki's "Viaja Al Ayer (Turn Back Time)" which sounds like something by Peru's We All Together, old AQ faves. It's actually one of the prettiest, most restrained songs here, the others go for a variety of pop music that, y'know, really POPS. Like, ferinstance, the sheer organ-heavy FUNK of Caballo Vapor's cut. Or the unhinged mayhem of Gipsys' "Oh! Malala" (they get two tracks here, and the other one, "Kamasutra", is pretty wicked too). Wild, wacky, and fun are what you should expect, especially from the band that calls themselves Wooky Toky...
Spanish import, limited to 500 copies.
Three little words guaranteed to get us all excited: Turkish psych comp. That's all it takes. (A fourth word, used in the title here, "Freakout", doesn't hurt either.) Compilations like Turkish Delights, Hava Narghile, and the Turkish installment of Love Peace & Poetry have all been staples here at AQ, and have turned us on to so many amazing bands like Mogollar, Ersen, and 3 Hur-el. Our only worry with a new Turkish psych comp is that it will redundantly duplicate tracks we've already got, but fortunately that's not the case with this one, only a few of the 18 tracks here had we heard before, with some of the artists being completely new to us. And, also, awesome!
Focusing solely on selected rare 45 rpm 7" singles releases, dating from the late '60s to 1980, this comp is evidence that it was a groovy decade in Istanbul for sure. Funky -and- folky (yes, often at the same time), these tracks incorporate all the fuzz guitar, ethnic instrumentation, percolating percussion, exciting rhythms, and soulful vocals we've come to expect from the Turkish psych scene. It's a mesmerizing mix, there's a lot of highlights here, we can't really mention 'em all, but just to give you an idea, the first track, by Okay Temiz, sounds almost like it could come from that soundtrack by Rockford Kabine we made Record Of The Week recently, a sultry and "exotic" instrumental groove with some wild whoopin' elements that remind us of a Jean-Claude Vannier production. Then there's the cinematic strings and quasi doomy-riffing of Erkin Koray's dramatic "Sev Digim". And Alpay's "Seni Dilenyorum" is one we'd play for a friend wondering what all the vintage Turkish psych fuss is about. If they didn't dig that, we'd feel real sorry for them.
In addition to those, the line-up of artists here includes Kardaslar, Cem Karaka, Apaslar, Beyaz Kelebekler, Ajda Pekkan, Sevil & Ayla, Baris Manco, Rifat Oncel, Ersen, Onder Bali, and Arif Sag. And fortunately, the deluxe digipack includes a thick 40 page booklet, full of liner notes about 'em all, along with original 45 sleeve art. Nicely done, as comps/reissues go. And on top of that, most of the other Turkish psych collections we mentioned at the top of this review are now out of print, so this will become a go-to comp for us in one of our favorite genres.
Wow. This is one amazing boxset, visually, sonically, and for a limited time we're selling em, taking preorders now in fact, so if you want one, by all means order away, cuz you are probably gonna want one. Our pal Keith Utech offered to let us sell these special fancy box sets that were otherwise only available via the Utech website; no other store has 'em! (Thanks, Keith!).
So, what's this all about? Well over the past couple of years, Utech put out a series of handsomely packaged cds featuring artwork by Stephen Kasner, discs by Skullflower, Heavensore, Runhild Gammelsaeter, The Stargazer's Assistant, Klangmutationen Schwarzhagel, RST, Final, Aluk Todolo, and Blood Fountains.
This box contains all 9 of those releases, PLUS an exclusive remix cd featuring one track apiece from each of those artists. Those ten discs, which come in a very nice custom engraved, matte black box, are accompanied by a folded booklet featuring text by Kasner and Jenks Miller. In addition, you get a folder, also black, signed and decorated in silver ink, containing nine cards of Kasner's art. Each set is numbered out of 90, signed, and no two are completely identical.
We've reviewed most, if not all of the releases within this fantastical box, so you can look elsewhere on our site for the write ups, though we imagine you probably already know if this is something you want or not. (And might be kicking yourself if you already bought all nine cds separately, yeah, we know...). Basically, very special packaging for a collection of some really great, dark, experimental, heavy, weird cds!!
If you want one, let us know, Utech will get 'em to us really quickly. But we probably won't hold your order for it, we'll either ship it separately when it comes in, or if you're a regular orderer, we can just inlcude it in your next order!!
First new music from these Scottish indie pop legends in 20 years, and it sounds like they never left. Well, almost. Some of us got to see the reactivated Vaselines play at the Sub Pop 20th anniversary celebration in Seattle, and they sounded incredible, the core two piece of Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee augmented by members of Belle And Sebastian, a lineup that lent some serious heft to their sound, that heft is well represented here on this 2 song teaser for their upcoming full length, only their second proper album in 2+ decades, and the first new music since 1990's full length Dum Dum.
And right out of the gate, "Sex With An X" sounds like it could have been beamed here straight from the early nineties, sure a little more full and lush, not nearly as ramshackle, but still playful and coy, jangly and simple, the lyrics mantra like, sweet boy / girl harmonies, a killer main melody, a little crunch, hand claps, summery pop perfection for sure. The flipside, "Roaster" though, which is exclusive to this single, is maybe even better (reason enough to buy this, since the A side will be on the full length), darker, and fuzzier, a little grungy and low slung, minor key, still laced with sweet harmonies, but much more reminiscent of Kelly's post Vaselines band Eugenius, Vaselines style jangly indie pop infused with a some spaced out shoegazey crunch. Both songs are really good, but we're so digging the B side, it kind of has us hoping for more of the same on the full length. We'll just have to wait and see...
Includes a download code as well.
No one with a pop bone in their bodies can argue that the first Weezer record (the Blue album) is anything but an all time classic pop record, a practically perfect slab of indie rock / power pop. Most of those same folks loved Pinkerton too, record number two, flawed, but in an awesomely idiosyncratic and crazy catchy way. Even the Green album, record #3, had some great songs, the Weezer sound was still intact, and sure there were some misfires, but those were made up for by some serious gems. Maladroit was an underdog record, revisiting it now, it's pretty dang good, but at the time, it was, to Weezer fans, all but the most obsessive, the beginning of the end.
Make Believe is where most of us gave up, the insipid hit single "Beverly Hills" the worst offender, but the record, as well as the one that followed, the Red album, were pretty much total writeoffs. Mainman Rivers Cuomo was more of a novelty song writer and occasional tabloid personality. Then something happened with Raditude. The last record, awesomely stupid cover art, and some lame collaborations, but there were some seriously almost classic Weezer jams hidden in there. And now we come to Hurley, their latest, and maybe best in a long while, weirdly enough, it's also their first NOT on a major label, but whatever, the important thing is, this record is pretty good.
That classic Weezer sound in full effect, the thick chugging guitars, the vocal harmonies, the soaring power pop choruses, the goofy pop culture referencing lyrics, but for the first time in a long time it actually works, and even the weird experimental bits, acoustic ballads, some synth drum machine drive groovers, they all sort of work. It's no masterpiece, that's for sure, if you want a Weezer masterpiece, go get the self titled debut, or if you want some Weezerish perfect pop, check out the Ovens, but if you've been dying for a great Weezer record, well then this might be the one. Or if not great, pretty dang good. And we're digging it more and more with every listen!
And did we mention the awesomely ridiculous cover art, a picture of Hurley from the TV show Lost! Recommended, mostly for longtime Weezer fans, but heck, it's definitely good enough that it might win over some new fans for sure...
For some reason it's been hard to get this in stock for any period of time, which is a shame as it really is the kind of record we wish we could have been blasting all summer long. Wild Nothing make such breezy sun soaked pop, sort of along the lines of Beach Fossils but with much more of a shoegaze and dreamy feel.
Gemini is filled with such comforting songs that tap into '80s dreampop yet strip it all down to the essentials. We've been digging on how many new records have come out taking us to a Galaxie 500 kind of place but all taking us there in a different way (Cloudland Canyon, Altar Eagle, Lower Dens, etc.). Wild Nothing's songs aren't just about hooks or catchy choruses but instead they are about the swirling and sun soaked vibrations they create. Like if Swervedriver learned to get its feet wet in the ocean or if Pains Of Being Pure At Heart calmed down a bit and weren't so precious and instead were a bit more stoned and into the honey drizzled side of Jesus & Mary Chain. Makes us think of being in a car on a warm day with the windows down as college radio is blasting the good stuff and all that matters is the breeze brushing against our bodies and the scenery passing by and turning into seductive rushes of shapes and saturated colors.
This month's cover story is all about about the "rogue transmissions" of "radio art", interestin' for sure. Then there's pieces on the Los Angeles Free Music Society improv collective, Swedish minimalist composer and Henry Flynt collaborator Catherine Christer Hennix, French sound-poet Anne-James Chaton, the techno "shanty-town sound" of Belem, Brazil, and more... Including Mike Watt taking the Invisible Jukebox test, and all the usual news and plethora of reviews. Plus a cover-mount cd sampler.
We couldn't have been more excited to see Salem on the cover of this new issue of the always great XlR8R. Can't wait for their full length to come out! Also interviews and features on El Guincho, Matthew Dear, Arp, Karizma, Lazer Sword (featuring former AQ'er Antaeus!), Tristan Perich and his amazing 1-Bit Symphony which we made record of the week not too long ago. As well as record reviews, gear tips & reviews and tons more. For sure one of the best music mags around!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The last time we heard from Zomes, aka Asa Osborne, he of the mighty Lungfish, and later, the stripped down but equally mighty Pupils, we couldn't get enough, declaring his self titled debut on Holy Mountain our Record Of The Week, a stunning collection of fragmented loop music, single melodic figures, repeated and layered into trancelike shortform miniature ragas, as shamanistic as his long time partner Daniel Higgs, but taking a much more subdued and kosmische path.
On this way too limited cassette, Osborne continues on his sonic path, but expanding his sound, or rather the scope of his sound, the source is still minimal, warm layered synths, but here, those layers are stretched into slowly undulating sidelong swells, like Riley or Reich, Osborne, unfurls lush melodies, lately them drift and shimmer, melodies surfacing and then fading out, before a new set of melodies take their place, dreamlike and softly psychedelic, sun dappled and gorgeously gauzy, this is total krautdrone new age bliss, utterly lovely and serene and tranquil and divine. Both tracks here are transcendent and transport the listener to some hazy otherworld, everything blurred and muted and washed out and soft focus. Imagine a way prettier and more minimal Expo 70, and you'll get an idea of what sort of spaced out cosmic drift these 2 improvisations offer. So totally lovely.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! Already out of print, these are the only copies we'll be able to get... ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
