The second full length release from Arp (aka Alexis Georgopolous from Q+A and The Alps), not including the very fine collaboration with Anthony Moore released earlier this year, The Soft Wave expounds and expands upon his stellar debut, In Light. The kosmiche synth textures from that release that harkened back to Cluster and Harmonia are still evident, but the compositions are stronger and more complex. The frame of reference has widened and one can hear touches of the instrumental works of John Cale and David Bowie as well as bits of fourth world Brian Eno and Debussy. But Arp uses these familiar qualities as departure points into his own refined world of space and sound that he builds upon with a dynamic sense of warmth, pattern and texture. There's even one vocal track, "From A Balcony Overlooking The Sea" that alludes to a progression yet to come. We're looking forward to it!
Another strange sonic missive from this mysterious (black? doom?) metal outfit, whose first record was a big hit around here, the strangely monickered Uterine Acid Swishes, a confusional sprawl of clean post rock guitar jangle, downtuned noise drenched doomic dirgery and grim blasting blackness, all wound up into a seriously twisted chunk of outsider blackdoom metal weirdness.
Like Uterine Acid Swishes, Last Living Dream is made up of three ultra long songs, the shortest about 15 minutes, the longest nearly 27 minutes, and that half hour jam just so happens to be the opener, and begins with some spidery skeletal guitar (some slide guitar too it sounds like), a little piano, all wreathed in echo and reverb, melancholy and minor key, before the sound of birds leads us into the song proper, and explosive blast of frenzied riffing, pounding drum damage, and some seriously gurgled demonic growls, the melodies insectoid and buzzing, the track slipping from blown out and dense to more muted and melodic, but fierce at all time, lurching from frantic blast, to midtempo pound and back again. Dizzying and chaotic. About 7 minutes in, the track peels back in a chorus of shrieks, leaving some atonal clean guitars to drift over the echoey drum crunch and guttural vocal bellows, the vibe sort of twisted and poppy, but still blackened, leading into another blown out blast of black buzz, before finally stumbling into a funereal ultradoom plod, the distorted guitars dissipating, leaving just weirdly recorded drums, distant jangle and those vokills, only to burst into another wave of pounding fury, and finally unfurling with a weird abstract post rock jangle meander.
"Where Ghosts Go To Die (The Swamp)" is almost like a second part of the first song, a pounding churning blackness, laced with mesmerizing melody, the drums boomy and low fidelity, their strange sound only adding to the already strange vibe, this track too slipping from relentless blasting, to lumbering sonic death march, to cool tangled midtempo mathiness, with plenty of chug and grind and pound, finishing off with some creepy classical piano, before finally slipping into the final number, "Through A Tunnel Of Trees", swirling winds, strange percussion, spidery guitars, a tangled haunted ambience, almost militaristic sounding with those drums, the heaviness creeping in, a super sludgey doomy drift, the vocals and guitars spreading out in a black fog, over the pounding drums, minor key melodies drifting up from the deep, a few bursts of black blast and a few twisted bits of blurred fuzzed out guitar churn later, the track shifts gears and settles in a spaced out, Hypothermia like outro, all booming drums and chiming, crunchy guitars. The whole thing more polished and songy than the last record, but no less grim, twisted and doomy... black, bleak and HEAVY.
A tour only lp from long time faves Burial Hex, aka Clay Ruby who also ran the amazing Skulls Of Heaven label, and who here has joined up with the mysterious Kinit Her for a twisted collection of psychedelic ritualistic acid folk, but laced with bits of industrial crunch and electronic buzz, strange almost black metal vocals, and mysterious field recordings.
Haunting, and ominous, long streaks of feedback and buzzing electronics are blurred into extended drones, peppered with minimal martial percussion, steel string guitar buzz, bits of avant Appalachia, bits of twang, soft swirls of effects, and strange strident vocals, that are definitely reminiscent of Comus (!), a little demented and frenzied and intense. Murky crumbling soundscapes drift beneath clouds of frantic psychedelic leads, simple motorik drumming locked into simple hypnotic grooves, underpinned by flurries of bombinating guitars, then a second set of vocals, even more strange, howled and hellish, almost sampled sounding, struggling to be heard through the mix, only making them sound more hysterical.
The flip side offers up another side of this collaborative ritualistic folk, this time, it's just piano, picking out a mournful melody over a field recording of crickets, the piano occasionally erupting into manic dense bursts of notes, over the whole thing some super freaky, gurgled demonic vox, a strange juxtaposition for sure, made even strange by soaring strings, and mysterious bits of industrial crunch, of twisted electronic percussion, and the vocals, howled and shrieked and even more intense than before, all over that creeping minor key piano.
So disturbing and fantastically bizarre, haunting and in its own twisted way, quite lovely, a warped modern more industrial take on Comus style seventies freak folk, which totally manages to capture the same sort of witchy occultic vibe via these satanically sinister ritualistic sounds...
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!! We have less than 15!
Latest batch of super heavy, blown out, in the red, psychedelic space rock from this ever shifting collective, recorded live, in the Burnt Hills / Flipped Out basement presumably, with FOUR guitar players, a bassist, a drummer, and someone playing XYLOPHONE (!), this is some serious freaked out heaviness, a constant barrage of tangled psychedelic riffage, wild swirling squalls of smoldering leads, the drumming dense and frenzied, the bass more a low end presence than an actual bass, adding to the thickness and the viscosity of the sound, a cacophonous sidelong basement jam, but played as if the house was a starship, and if these folks just rocked hard enough, the house might lift off and carry everyone in it into the heart of the sun, and play hard they do, constantly slipping from thick drumless guitar drones to full on flurries of free noise freakout, but always returning to the mesmerizing space rock groove that seems to run through the whole jam. Thick and explosive and freaked out, druggy and deliriously over the top, a sonic homage to Fushitsusha, White Heaven, Aural Fit, High Rise, Les Rallizes Denudes and all the gods of psychedelia. Fucking fierce!!
LIMITED TO JUST 99 COPIES, we have about TEN. Housed in beautiful green and silver, almost metallic looking, silkscreened sleeves, each one hand numbered.
When we first discovered mysterious Northwestern black metal outfit Velvet Cacoon, it wasn't just their blown out buzz that had us enraptured, it was all the rumors and weird stories about the band itself, that they were some sort of eco-fascists, who had built a huge gasoline-driven HARP which was responsible for their massive buzz. We later discovered that the whole eco-fascist / droneharp thing was a ruse, a put on, the band intentionally fucking with what they considered to be a contemptible black metal scene. It was then revealed that Velvet Cacoon were in fact a couple of drug obsessed dandies, who when they weren't crafting some of the most stunning black metal weirdness, were waxing about the various drugs they took, and their decadent lifestyle. But all that stuff only made them more interesting, and gave the sound a certain twisted cachet, coming as it did from these unlikely creators.
As it happened, the band got fed up with the drama and the internet message board bullshit, and decided to scrap Velvet Cacoon entirely and start fresh. A new band, a new name and a new sound. Thus we have Clair Cassis, whose sound really is not all that far removed from the washed out black buzz of VC, but does distinguish itself in some important ways. The first being the song length. The band described CC in an interview as being a more pop Velvet Cacoon, and so it is, the shortest song is under 3 minutes, the longest just less than 7, the band forcing themselves to be more succinct, to move through their musical ideas in a more structured and less unhindered way, instead of letting songs and parts drone on and on. Not that we minded before, in fact, we like it when our black metal drones and buzzes endlessly, but there's something to be said for the opposite approach, which tends to force the write to craft SONGS more than SOUNDS. The other big difference is the bass. And with that the above mentioned pop element. The lack of bass in black metal is practically a running joke, the brittle buzz and furious blasting of most black metal generally relegating bass to a barely there buzz, so when a black metal band takes the bass, and makes it as much a part of the sound as the guitar, it changes the whole shape of the sound, in the case of Clair Cassis, gives it a sort of woozy, gothic, cold wave vibe, black metal is dour and depressive by its very nature, but here it's gloomy and haunting, an emotional sort of darkness and depression.
This new sound/direction is immediately noticeable on opener "Ambercandle" which begins all warped and woozy, the riffs twisted and seemingly melting over the pounding doomy drums, when the track finally kicks into gear, the bass drives the songs, thick and dense, the notes slippery, haunting gloomy low end swells that add some pathos to the already loping minor key dirge, besides that it makes the sound so much heavier. Even on the next track, "The Feathered Fog" which begins with a somewhat standard burst of blackness, droney and relentless, still the bass is there adding heft, and a melodic counterpoint to the frenzied riffage, and then when the song switches gear, lurches into halftime, the bass swoops right to the front and the song transforms into a woozy seasick dirge.
And as you listen, the record definitely reveals itself as more than buzzing black metal, and knowing what we do about the folks behind it, it's not hard to imagine them creating this otherworldly pop music, and simply choosing to cloak it in black metal finery, which definitely explains the catchiness, the heavy bass and buried grooves, but it's probably best to not analyze it too much. A casual glancing listen will definitely provide plenty of black metal pleasure, the guitars are thick and gnarled, the drumming (real this time it sounds like) heavy and blasting, the arrangements trancelike and hypnotic, with long stretches of deep shimmering drone music, as well as plenty of pounding doomic dirgery, Velvet Cacoon fans won't be disappointed, but digging deeper reveals all the other subtle sonic alterations that make Clair Cassis simultaneously much more accessible, but also even weirder than VC. The songs may be shorter, but they're no less complex and convoluted, in fact in some ways, they're even more, considering parts don't drone on, the band flits from part to part, from blast to plod to drift to blast again.
"Pearls & Pinesmoke" is another standout, a soaring blasting droner, thick with bass rumble and throb, grim enough, the drums a little loose and chaotic, the vocals a creepy croak, and then the breakdown comes, and it's total melodic black nirvana, half tempo, the guitar still buzzy, but the bass unfurling an insanely melodic and ridiculously catchy part, that totally transforms the song, and then the sound shifts again back to blasting buzz, somehow the bass remains, adding unlikely melody to even the blackest bits, and fear not, a part that good comes back again, fans of Alcest and Amesoeurs will be in heaven. And after a strange interlude, the track shifts again, into another woozy, differently melodic dirge, laced with more melodic bass, but this time wrapped around spidery acoustic guitars, all still wreathed in crumbling buzz.
Finally the record finishes with the awesomely titled "Hazelhearted In The Seaparlour", which explodes immediately into a dense churning blast, heavy and harsh and layered, with a strange midtempo bridge/chorus, that features a strangely bouncy, and again surprisingly melodic bassline, way up in the mix, changing the focus of the song, before dropping out again and letting the guitars take over, before the track finally fades out, leaving nothing but the wheezing strains of what almost sounds like elevator music, or the music they play in the middle of the night at outside malls, the sound here replete with random bits of found sound, footsteps and other curious ambience.
And just leave it to the fickle folks who disbanded Velvet Cacoon at the height of their popularity to nip their new band in the bud as well, which apparently is exactly what happened. Clair Cassis is no more. But what a way to go. There is a second record floating around, who knows if it will ever get properly released, but for now, this one is not surprisingly shaping up to be a serious contender for black metal record of the year!
Latest blast of swampy, bluesy, clock-cleaning noise rock crush from these Philly noiseniks, who originally sounded way more noisy, channeling the Dead C and Harry Pussy through their twisted stumbling sonic chaos, but have gradually been shifting toward a sound that's more gothic and grim, and like we mentioned above, swampy and bluesy, situating them somewhere amidst nineties AmRep-ers like Lubricated Goat and King Snake Roost, not to mention some Swans, a little Damned, even some Misfits, but their sound is definitely all their own, mixing in some Western twang, some spidery angular psychedelic guitars, and a weirdly dour new wave vibe. They're barely recognizable as the same band, but we dig the new Clockcleaner as much as the old Clockcleaner, just for different reasons. This new CC sound like they could tour with the reformed Swans or Nick Cave's Grinderman, or Woven Hand, they have that same sort of slithery filthy blues vibe, the vocals especially, now, totally deep and dramatic, the first three tracks on this 4 song ep are total gothic swam blues, and should have folks who dig Nick Cave, the Holy Kiss, HTRK and the like all in a tizzy, but it's the record closer "Midnight Beach" that really has us thrown for a loop, Clockcleaner impossibly sounding like a dead ringer for Interpol. Yep, sure crustier and a bit more lo-fi, but the new wave croon sound remarkably like Interpol's Paul Banks, and the arrangement, the melodies, even the tripped out heavily effected guitars sound almost electronic. At first it was a little unnerving, but now we're loving it. And hell, as much as we dig Interpol, who can argue with a dirtier, more low fidelity noise rock version. We sure as heck can't...
Hot damn! Lyn Collins has always been one of our favorite funky soul singers who for some reason never gets the widespread attention she so totally deserves. If you aren't familiar with her, all we really have to say is that she was discovered by James Brown and was a major part of his live revue, as well as being cousins with Bootsy Collins, and she manages to be just as cool as that combination sounds. Even if you think you haven't heard Lyn Collins you probably have, as the title track to this album was sampled by '80s hip-hop one hit wonders Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock on their perpetual party jam "It Takes Two." But those who know the power of Collins' voice are aware that she has laid down some of the most fierce and moving soul and funk tracks of the '70s. With James Brown at her side as producer and writer of several songs here, Think (About It) has the deep grooves of the best of the JB's records but with a strong and sassy female perspective, Collins belting powerfully over such righteous songs. The album is mixed with uptempo funk filled burners, a few slower ballads, some nice doo-wopish moments and her take on the Bill Withers classic "Ain't No Sunshine."
She is usually one of those artists that just ends up being heard via a track on a compilation but she is someone who for sure deserves to have an entire album in any music lover's collection.
Never heard of Commix? Neither had we. They're a Metalheadz drum and bass outfit, who traffic in the sort of mellow-ish jungle we never got that into, lots of soulful vocals, the beats clipped and minimal and everything bathed in ravey washes, but hold up, you might wanna give this a chance, as this is essentially a new Burial track, a remix that totally transforms Commix's sound into something way more washed out and ethereal, dark and druggy, a sleepy sprawl of ambient dubstep drift, it's the first new music from Burial in AGES, and it RULES. We sort of forgot how much we loved this stuff, deep softly swirling synths, muted buried melodies, clipped skeletal beats, disembodied vocals, chopped and looped and woven into mysterious moody sonic smears, all occasionally washed over by lush swells of hazy shimmer, total late night, chill out dubstep dreaminess. Might help hold you over until the next Burial full length.
Hot on the heels of their stellar Root Strata release Worn, SF's Common Eider, King Eider are back with a brand new, VERY limited, splendidly dark dose of somber, atmospheric folk. After being so instantly won over by Worn, we couldn't wait to hear what kind of grim beauty lay behind this gorgeous one-sided 12" picture-disc.
Amnesia patiently opens with deep stretches of weeping violin, quiet vocal haze creeps into the murky horizon, subtle cymbal splashes accent the deeply ambient swells and the piece grows into a huge orchestral bellow. A single composition that breathes and changes like a sweeping ocean tide, a wash of crystalline tones wavering from the forest floor, long-form melodies echoing from the evening sky, the strings, vocals and minimal percussion all melting together into a gloriously kaleidoscopic fever dream! So gorgeous!
Packaged in a cool heavy PVC silk screened sleeve, the record pressed on white vinyl, the B side also silkscreened, super striking looking, and criminally LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES, these will be gone in no time, so be quick!
We're always on the lookout for new music metal magazines, cuz as much as we love Decibel and Terrorizer, it's the cool DIY mags that really cover the stuff we love, in a way that seems totally genuine, driven purely by a love of the music, whether it's the now defunct Oaken Throne, or Salt (not strictly metal), or Asgard Root, we can't get enough. Which is why we were so thrilled to discover the curiously named Convivial Hermit, while at the same time confused as to how we missed the first 4 issues of this incredible magazine. Based in Warmonster, Pennsylvania (!!!), TCH covers a wide array of dark and heavy underground music, black metal, doom, psychedelic folk, industrial, and pretty much everything in between, as well as artists and filmmakers and whatever the hell else they feel like. This is issue five, and it's a doozy, featuring legendary slowcore doomlords Skepticism, Chinese neo-folk outfit Baishui, USBM horde Nechochwen, Korean metallers Sad Legend, Norwegian metal outfit Wallachia, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, Orson Welles' film Mr. Arkadin, mysterious Russian black metallers Walknut, black metallers Algaion, symphonic neo-folk group Rome, longtime aQ fave Steven R. Smith, Russian doom metal label Solitude Productions, Lovecraftian metal weirdos Fungoid Stream, funeral doom outfit Helllight, an essay on the dying art of compilations and reviews of some of the editor's faves, French Illustrator Chris Moyen, death metallers Affliction Gate, Spanish black metallers Beelzeb, German black metal horde Drengskapur, Italian black metal unknowns Adversam, an essay on hermits (!), acid folk legends and ALL time aQ faves Comus, Czech black metal weirdos Master's Hammer, French black metallers Aorlhac, legendary dark ambient soundscaper Raison D'Etre, Chinese label Pest Productions (whose releases we have featured on the aQ list recently!), an thoughtful essay on record stores and the future of recorded media (for which this 'zine would get our recommendation alone, read this!), and then of course, TONS of reviews, records, magazines, shows.
The magazine is massive, beautifully laid out, fun to read, packed with old faves and new discoveries, just might be out 'new' favorite metal mag!
We do love our lo-fi New Zealand indie rock, and South Auckland's Coolies apparently realize that we like it best really lo-fi... and noisy... 'cause that's what they deliver! We're not surprised we dig 'em so much, 'cause their current drummer happens to be Stefan Neville, of AQ-fave NZ noise-popsters Pumice (and The Futurians, etc.), and he also recorded, mixed and edited the material on Master. Otherwise consisting of girls (Tina and Sjionel), who started the band as teens, Coolies have been around since the late '90s, releasing a 7" back in 2000, and a 10-song tape recorded on a ghetto blaster... but this is their first full-length cd, comprising music made over the past four or so years since Stefan joined the band. Raucous, energetic, poppy, punky, "annoying" (their word), "brilliant" (also theirs, but we tend to agree), the ten tracks on Master, most of 'em short sharp shocks, should appeal to NZ noise nerds, as well as peeps into today's burgeoning garage punk girl-groop soundz like Vivian Girls, Brilliant Colors, Grass Widow... the DIYness of this also brings to mind those Messthetics comps of '80s UK cassette culture. Oh and we're also reminded of Kleenex/Liliput. In short, the Coolies are cool. If you're in the mood for some raw, angular, urgently rhythmic "pop" songs that is! From the same label that brought us recent the Record Of The Week by Fabulous Diamonds, another Down Under fave...
('Tis also on vinyl, we're out at the moment, but should get some soon...)
For any fan of the now sadly defunct Sleater-Kinney, this record is a big deal, especially because it's so damn good. Don't expect some bastardized revisitation of Sleater-Kinney, though, 1,000 Years is something different: ever so slightly twangy, a little soulful, the beats minimal but masterful. Even Corin's iconic voice, the reason so many people either intensely loved or intensely hated Sleater-Kinney, has taken a different path. On every SK record, Corin's vocals were always right up in your face with an intensity that no other vocalist of her era could match. On 1,000 years, the vocals are layered in reverb and buried in the mix instead of riding on top of it, letting guitars and washes of organs or strings fill up the space. Corin's voice is so versatile and so good, however, that its strength is evident even though it rides low in the mix. You find yourself wanting it, needing it, so that when her voice does rise up, its impact is that much more emotional. Some highlights include "Dragon" which starts out as an acoustic ballad and then blossoms into swelling symphonic choruses, using Sara Lund's excellent percussion as a bridge between the two moods. The final song on the record, "Miles Away," is so beautiful, so perfect, so sad. Just piano, vocals and a bit of acoustic guitar. Those somewhat softer songs are tempered by garagey jams like "Riley" that do actually sound somewhat like Sleater-Kinney, if SK had added strings or piano and a bit of noisy experimentation to something off Dig Me Out or All Hands On the Bad One. Corin Tucker has surrounded herself with excellent musicians for her first solo outing, and the fact that she keeps her own voice out of the spotlight only serves to highlight just how powerful it is.
Corridors is the moniker of one Byron Westbrook. This New York based composed has been charged as Phill Niblock's technical assistant at the renowned Experimental Intermedia loftspace where Niblock has been hosting literally thousands of shows since the late '60s, and he also spent time in one of Rhys Chatham's ensembles a few years back. Westbrook's own work doesn't stray too far from the minimalist stasis of either Chatham or Niblock, although Westbrook is far more interested in the slippages of his frequencies and more of an impressionistic, ephemeral sound instead of Niblock's signature heavy overtones or Chatham's swarming density. Sourced from guitar feedback, Farfisa, autoharp, trumpet, and viola, Westbrook's sounds have been smeared into elongated passages of wavering tonefloat, which he layers, loops, and morphs into some beautiful tapestries of shimmered and glassy-eyed drone. There's a rich, crystalline quality to his sounds, which seem to levitate and lift-off into the otherworldly, atmospheric, and even astral from time to time. Fans of Coleclough, Stars Of The Lid, Basinski, and Celer would be well served in picking up this exceptional recording.
The two dudes in Cowards have popped up in a number of New York power electronic and noise outfits, with The Cathode Terror Secretion being the one we've stumbled across before, thanks to their power-noise-grind album on RRR. Cowards are clearly a different beast, although huge voltage blasts of distortion and noise continuously cycle through their impressive Forgotten Resonance disc. Between the noise, Cowards produce beautifully evocative orchestrations for all sorts of resonant droning shimmer, impressionist rumble, and spooky ambience. Growling vocals and distant bursts of infernal vulcanization add cinematic flares of dark ambient drama or a deconstructed form of blackened drone metal with nothing but the spectral pall of the original left behind. Out of this post-industrial moodscaping (think Lustmord, Cranioclast, Yen Pox, and even some Coil tracks), Cowards present a couple of effect strategies for noise intrusion. At times, they slowly build tumultous mechanical howls and aggressively battered noise out of their ominous ambient constructions, but at others, it comes by way of avalanche with textured noises quite literally tumbling from above. In the dynamics of loud / quiet and placid / caustic all presented with remarkable digital clarity, we're reminded of those exceptional Aaron Turner productions - House Of Low Culture, The Lotus Eaters, and Old Man Gloom (well, at least in terms of the loud / quiet thing, as there's no chugging metal riffage to found here). Pretty awesome, but pretty limited. Just 300 were made!
Date Palms is the new project of heavy electronic / cassette tape manipulator Gregg Kowalsky and Marielle Jakobsons (Myrmyr, Darwinsbitch) and is a strange, yet fantastic fusing of Eastern style raga drones, and hypnotic Spacemen 3 style bass buzz, which seems like a weird combo, but it definitely works, situating the Oakland duo right between those two not so disparate (as you might think) sounds, the music almost like some sort of slowcore spacerock dronedrift, writ abstract and minimal and Eastern, if that makes any sense. Sure it's on Root Strata, and both Date Palms are individually involved in the avant garde, but this could have easily come out on Kranky, or some other similarly outrock label, and these two could totally tour with a band like Low, or Stars Of The Lid, their slow smoldering drift a perfect fit, but the exotic array of Eastern instruments, and the duo's deft arrangements, and meticulous crafting of this hushed meditative minimal dronemusic, most definitely positions this just as easily outside the realm of 'rock music', and firmly in the world of the 'experimental'.
The opener is a perfect example, beginning with layered drones, the sound is immediately recognizable as some sort of Eastern raga, but the minute the bass comes in, the sound is transformed, and we can't help but hear Spacemen 3, at their most blissed out, and heck, they did make a record called An Evening Of Contemporary Sitar Music after all, which if we're not mistaken contained no sitar at all, the point is, Date Palms are channeling the same sort of druggy psychedelic minimalism, but adding that distinctly Eastern element, this opening track sounds like a way slowed down Moon Duo, with the keyboard swapped for some mysterious Indian instrument, and the guitar swapped for a bass, the groove is glacial, and is the perfect anchor for the more abstract buzz and drift. The bass does dissipate briefly, and at that point it sounds like Indian classical music, but then when the bass comes back in, along with some gorgeous melodic guitar counterpoint, the sound is brought right back to something more Western. The push and pull is dizzying, but subtly so, a fantastic hybrid, that works perfectly, combining to musics that both traffic in repetition and drone, the resulting hybrid is absolutely mesmerizing, the sort of rare sound that would appeal to the space rock bliss out crowd as much as the abstract minimal dronemusic crowd.
The rest of the record follows suit, the warm liquid basslines introducing a looped style mesmer, while all around, the duo introduce various bits of percussion, tinkling chimes, processed tape loops, sympathetic overtones and harmonics, on at least one track, the sound grows particularly fierce, the drone and drift wrapped in a squall of tangled psychedelic guitar, but that leads directly into the most blissed out of the bunch, the nearly 14 minute centerpiece, a smoldering drift where the bass part is so slow it almost sinks right into the background buzz like another layer, this time the processed guitar shimmer definitely evokes Sound Of Confusion era Spacemen 3, a gorgeous blurred dronescape that is utterly hypnotic, and 14 minutes is not even nearly long enough. The record closes though with what to us is the strangest of the bunch, definitely the most traditionally melodic, with a proper 'riff', the bass pronounced and fuzzy, and the melody played on an organ, the vibe almost classic rock, weirdly enough, but again, slowed waaaaaaay down and stretched waaaaaaay out, resulting in another gloriously abstract bit of raga drone slowcore drift.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Now that the Profound Lore label has released this Chicago-based metal band's fourth full-length, we think more people are gonna start paying attention to 'em. We know WE are. Though we thought we knew what they sounded like before, we were blown away by this. Note we said "metal" band, and didn't qualify that in any way. Didn't say black, thrash, doom, true, etc. That's 'cause Dawnbringer are sorta ALL those things. Well, they used to have a lot more black metal aspects, death metal too, as we remember. But through a process of experimentation it seems they've arrived at THIS sound, a perfection, a distillation, a PURE metal sound that is traditional... yet advanced and yes, still experimental.
On Nucleus, Dawnbringer bring it, all right. They can be triumphantly shredding in speed metal glory, or NWOBHM-ishly rockin' ("Swing Hard"), or thrashy ("The Devil" approaches black metal velocities), and then slow, sad and majestic... sometimes all within the same song. And SONG is the operative word, as is singing, the versatile vocals often approximating the melodic gruffness of Lemmy, or James Hetfield, sounding tough, yet vulnerable... so Dawnbringer have their Motorhead and Metallica sounding moments, also musically reminding us of Maiden and other old school metal greats. Another reference point would have to be Hammers Of Misfortune, if you stripped away most of Hammers' prog elements and exposed the metal core.
'Tis utter headbanging heaviness, inspiring "invisible orange" style air-grabbing for sure, but not without neo-classical artistry as well. Impressive as hell, especially considering it's mostly the work of one man, Dawnbringer being masterminded by multi-instrumentalist (and singer) Chris "Professor" Black, a former member of psychedelic black metal act Nachtmystium, also drummer for power metallers Pharaoh and the genius behind NWOBHM worshippers High Spirits (whose demos cd we HAVE to review here soon!).
We always have trouble knowing what to say about a new record from legendary New Zealand noise rockers the Dead C. They don't come very often, but when they do, it's kind of a big deal. We know it will be amazing. We just don't know how. Which is probably what's kept this band so exciting and vital for so many years.
Equally adept at crafting strange muted noise drenched pop songs, as they are sprawling expanses of chaotic abstract sonic experimentalism, we really can't think of a Dead C record that we don't love. And with most bands, nearly 25 years into their career, the later era records, no matter how good, almost always pale in comparison to the early ones, the ones made when the band were hungry, and young, and full of piss and vinegar, rebellious and angry, wanting to make us much noise as possible, and piss off as many people as possible. But somehow, with the Dead C, while their sound has definitely changed, in some ways dramatically, we have to say, we actually do like the new records just as much as the old ones. They're still noisy, occasionally poppy, rhythmic, dense and intense, they're just different, as they should be, 30 releases and 2 decades on, and Patience is no different, a sprawling fantastical songsuite of hypnotic rhythms, swirling ambient noise, murky melodic drift, album opener, the 16 minute Empire, is a gorgeous hazy psych jam, meandering mesmerizing, the drums pounding away through an ever shifting cloud of grinding super distorted heavily effected guitarnoise, the result is a sort of psychedelic krautrock, a weird mash up of German Oak and High Rise maybe, the sound appropriately lo-fi, but still somehow lush and loud, about midway through, the band pulls apart the various elements of the first half, the guitars unfurling in hazy streaks of burnished melody, the drums even more minimal, offering up strange scattershot bits of cymbal crash and snare shuffle, before stumbling back into forward motion, like a blissier more mellowed out version of what came before, the drums again motorik, but the noisy guitar squalls a bit softened, a little dreamier, as the song marches lazily to its conclusion.
There are two shorter tracks next, the brief interlude of "Federation", with its swirling cymbal sizzle, and murky churning guitar thrum, and then the more proper song lengthed "Shaft", which tempers some intense blown out guitar damage, with a beat that almost sounds electronic, thumping and jittery and surprisingly groovy, a perfect foil for the roiling crunch and rumble and screech all around, but for a band with a record called Patience, they've been known to not have much, and in that spirit, terminate the strangely groovy jam and transform it into something way more loose and free, a huge billowing wall of tangled guitar, of swirling feedback, and grinding scraping amp punishment, which somehow, doesn't sound harsh or noisy, just hypnotic and far out.
Finally, the band bliss out into the smoldering epic closer "South", loping mumbled low end melodies, wreathed in everpresent amp buzz, while over the top, guitars pulse, and streak, and shimmer, the guitars growing more restless and animated, offering up gorgeous chunks of fragmented melody, of truncated riffage, textures and overtones, whirs and crunches and howls, all the while the track pulses along hypnotically. Eventually the drums lurch into the fray, offering a chaotic, unpredictable rhythm, with which the rest of the band counters an incredible array of freaked out psychedelic guitar weirdness, finally, the drums lock in, and it's like a crumbling noiserock This Heat, strange high end squiggles, thick blasts of chordal rumble, plenty of static and hiss, the track pounding away, until finally the drums retire, leaving a sky full of squiggly super distorted high end, which then too dissipates, leaving, a churning minimal riffscape, pulsing, and heaving, and still surrounded by that ever present amp buzz, before just ending abruptly. Incredible as always.
Okay, so maybe we DO know what to say.
The new ish of our fave American metal mag is here. On the cover, looking AWESOME... Dimmu Borgir. Inside: Swans, Enslaved, Autopsy, Torche, Monster Magnet, Pig Destroyer (studio report), Angel Witch (Hall of Fame induction!), Unearthly Trance, Dawnbringer, Melechesh, Woe, and more, including all the usual clever columns and pointed reviews and such. For metalheads who want to stay hip, it's a must-read.
As the opening sun soaked moments of Halcyon Digest begin, we kind of immediately knew we were in for a special outing by Deerhunter. They really haven't made a misstep yet, but this is a record that finds them reaching new levels of excellence. They have found this incredible way of crafting songs that can transport you into a daydream, whisk you into a bubbly underwater world of warm sound, and then hit you so spot on with timeless pop melodies, which swirl with an effortless delight. The record is paced so perfectly that just when you think you're going to get all dazed and wasted a new song will come up with rushing hooks and irresistible melodies, but then once you're afraid of getting a sonic sweet tooth cavity, new layers and textures come and take you to a breezier and more haunting destination. Feels like they've been digging lots of Velvet Underground, Chapterhouse, and the most stoney moments of Built To Spill. The album flows so fantastically from beginning to end that we've found ourselves deeply hooked. Our favorite Deerhunter record yet!
We probably don't even need to bother with a review for this one if we start out with this detail: Dispirit is the latest project from John Gossard, best known as the mastermind behind SF black metal legends Weakling as well as gothed out metallers the Gault and doom merchants Asunder. But that wouldn't be giving something as awesome as this the respect it deserves, because this shit SLAYS. That part probably isn't too much of a surprise. What IS a surprise is how Dispirit can crank out a rehearsal tape that shames pretty much any other black metal band out there today. The lo-fi recording actually works perfectly in establishing an atmosphere that is, yes, grim, but also just HUGE and cavernous sounding, not to mention just plain eerie. The end results are the perfect soundtrack to dying in a mud pit in some war torn hell hole with flames all around. Or a score for the end of the world, civilization crumbling, the world as we know it descending into the pits of hell. We can only wonder what the future holds when this band sets out to make a record proper. No doubt the reason for this cassette's success is the fact that these guys can tear shit up like no one's business. Their use of mournful, heavily sustained guitars will certainly appeal to fans of Weakling, while the plodding doominess that leads these two songs to their furious, blast ridden midsections and majestic outros shows the link to Asunder. In a world where there is simply too much black metal, it's bands like this that make you realize why you became obsessed in the first place. Gossard possesses the perfect black metal vocal style, a terrifying banshee shriek that refuses to be buried beneath the equally impressive relentless instrumentation and blitzkrieg drumming. While retaining the essence of black metal, Dispirit also remain unique and true to themselves with a style of black metal that is distinctly American. Unbelievable stuff.
Stoner rock really gets a bum rap, not sure what it is, but there's really nothing not to like, it's heavy, groovy, the guitars are thick and distorted and blown out, the drums pounding, the vocals wailing, the riffs are epic, it's one of those sounds that even still we can't seem to stop digging. C'mon, Kyuss, Orange Goblin, Roachpowder, Acrimony, Solarized, Los Natas, Spiritual Beggars, Freedom Hawk... Plus there are plenty of bands that aren't technically stoner rock, but essentially are, Sleep, Monster Magnet, Soundgarden. Maybe tastes changed, or the scene got saturated, or there were just too many shitty stoner rock bands, but as far as we can tell, groups like Sleep really aren't that far removed from groups like Kyuss, the Sabbath worship, the drugs, the groove. But fuck it, we're not here to mount a defense of stoner rock (or are we?), we're here to extol the virtues of one of our favorite stoner rock outfits ever, Sweden's Dozer, whose kick ass first two records have just been reissued as a double disc, with a bunch of bonus demo tracks to boot.
So what's the big deal about Dozer? Well after Kyuss, they're probably the band that most embodies that classic stoner rock sound, in fact, in some ways they're a dead ringer for Kyuss, the sun baked guitars, the wailing vox, the killer riffs, needless to say if you LOVE Kyuss, and have never heard Dozer, man are you in for a treat, and
Every single person who bought either or both of the Freedom Hawk records a while back or either of the Acrimony records (and we know that's a LOT of you!), you're almost definitely gonna want this too. Mesmerizing, hypnotic, the grooves locked in tight, killer psychedelic leads, hooks galore, and riffs, we mean RIFFS, massive super rocking RIFFS. For all the blasting black metal and creepy crawling ultra doom, neither evoke the same sort of visceral headbanging response as this stuff, how could it, like all classic stoner rock, this is Sabbath, sped up and supercharged, totally heavy, and totally rocking, and few do it or have done it better than Dozer. This collects their first two long out of print Man's Ruin records, In The Tail Of A Comet from 2000 and Madre De Dios from 2001, both now augmented by extra demo tracks, that sound just as good as the records proper.
We were actually a little surprised how goddamn good this stuff sounds still 10 years later, but man, it sure does. Any one into groovy heaviness, or Sabbathy headbanging riffage, this shit will definitely hit the spot!
Comes packaged in a super swank full color six panel digipak.
Now on vinyl!!!
Ready to space out and drift off into a Swedish psychedelic never-never land?? Well if you are, Dungen is back and will take you there. The sixth album from these Scandinavian faves delivers the usual Dungen goodies. 10 new tracks, some proggier, some soft-rockier, some straight-up poppier than others, all quite nice! Oh and let's not forget the searing psych guitar freakouts like the one that erupts in track 5, "Hogdalstoppen". So fans of Dungen will be pleased - and at this point we'd like to assume you all are already familiar with Dungen, and thus most likely fans... which means we can reduce redundancy review-wise by simply saying, yeah, get this, you'd like it! Dungen don't go in any strange new directions here, it's just more of what we dig about 'em, though perhaps compared to their previous album 4 (which was their fifth, oddly enough) they return a bit to "the rock" from where they were on that one. Certainly Dungen can make the loveliest of lovely music when they wanna, or indulge in urgent rhythms and bursts of distorted guitar jangle. And all of it is carefully arranged, everything in its place, even when they're doing the freakout thing. Somehow they have the ability, in the all-instrumental first track for example, to be both blissed out and kick up a garagey ruckus at the same time. Elsewhere, the bliss out is nothin' but, with gentle female vocals, strings, and handclaps keeping the beat.
Listening to this, for the first time we realized that Dungen reminds us a bit of XTC side project The Dukes Of Stratosphear; it's partly mainman Gustav Ejstes' voice (even in Swedish), partly his pop smarts, and of course partly Dungen's fantastical, effortless retroishness... but at this point maybe we can say that Dungen have moved from "retro" category into the one designated "timeless"!
Summer in San Francisco is a funny thing. It doesn't really happen, most of July and even August is chilly, grey, and windy. We know we have no room to really complain about the weather here, but it can get you down. Luckily we do usually get this small blast of Indian Summer that hits late in September and we all run to the park, the beach, a lake, anywhere to soak it all up as much as we can, as we know it will be gone before we know it. So in these times of packing in as much summer as we can in just a handful of days we really need and relish when an end of the summer jam shows up just in time to blast as we play in the sunshine.
El Guincho has given us the perfect bright, bouncy and colorful soundtrack that's beyond perfect for tapping into the carefree vibe of running through waves and playing in sand, the fleeting summer state of mind that is already on its way out. Picking up perfectly where his 2008 debut left off, and even upping he quality of songcraft and irresistibility. While El Guincho is from Spain, his music really sounds like someone so in touch with so many great sounds being made across the globe. It's a universal kind of super smart and catchy dance minded pop, filled with so many cascading melodies, catchy rhythms and such impeccable taste.
One of those perfect records that seamlessly mixes synths, samples, and live instruments along with warm and welcoming vocals to create songs that are made for letting down your guard and soaking up some much needed joy and sunshine. So damn good!
The Absent Coast is the debut recording from the duo En, made up of James Devane and Maxwell Croy (one half of the duo that runs the Root Strata label), and is a gorgeous collection of melancholy, otherworldly dronemusic, a varied selection of miniature epics, each an evocative and emotional travelogue in sound, utilizing organs, melodica, piano, guitar, vocals, koto and various other instruments and devices, the duo weave lush expanses of layered, organic sonic energy, warm buzzing tones stretched into sheer blissy shimmer and lush chordal swells blurred into gauzy slow motion melodies become an ever shifting soundtrack to a series of fading memories, brief flickering filmstrips in sound, the indistinct images allowing the listener short glimpses of stories untold, decisions unmade, lives yet to be lived.
The opener is a rich crumbling landscape of layered shimmer, crackling with electrical energy, an energy which gradually dissipates, eventually leaving a smooth glassy stretch of gently pulsing thrum, eventually fading out completely, the resulting vacuum filled with a miniature symphony of scraped steel strings, their overtones ringing out in the ether, leaving shadowy melodic traces, those strangely melodic metal scrapings overflowing into yet another sprawl of lush layered longform dronemusic, a sea of softly undulating buzz, a mesmerizing field of sympathetic steel, which then itself blossoms into yet another bit of drone, this one a sun dappled bit of ethereal ambience, peppered with deep distorted notes, and flitting electrical fields, all wrapped in a woozy cocoon of burnished blur.
And so The Absent Coast unfolds, waves of hissy white noise wash over plaintive piano like some late afternoon sonic sea, glistening fields of celestial glimmer shed notes like falling stars, the result a prismatic cascade of unfulfilled wishes rendered in sound, deep drifts of muted melody are stretched and pulled apart, letting the light from within infuse the sounds all around them, ghostlike drones change color before our very ears, like the leaves turning, Jeckian dirges crawl glacially through moonlight, spitting sparks that smolder in blues and greens, leaving the glow of gradually dying embers, a delicate piano's notes send sonic ripples into the ether, the melodies overlapping and intertwining creating subtle ever shifting patterns that gradually flicker and fade, and finally, hushed sonic shadows give way to a soft sun dappled blush, which in turn becomes a slowly intensifying radiance, a sky full of luminous flares, a visual symphony of sound, lush and rich and almost orchestral, only to finally dissolve, the colors fading to brown, then black, the sound following suit. So so nice.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
Hail! Our favorite Viking black metal band is back again, with another tour-de-force, their 11th full-length album. A long way from where they started with their first teenaged demo back in 1991, and amazingly still totally kicking ass, artistically and otherwise (unlike a lot of their contemporaries from the '90s Norwegian black metal scene who have definitely fallen off). Nowadays, Enslaved play "Viking Metal" as if Vikings grew up listening to tons of '70s prog rock like King Crimson, Yes, and Pink Floyd. They've been sailing their longboats in that direction for quite a while, on such great releases as Monumension, Isa, and Below The Lights. And their previous album, Vertebrae, was probably their spaciest, most Floydian excursion yet. If you were on board for that one, you should like new one this too, which while of course quite proggy, seems heavier and more fearsome sounding than the relatively mellow Vertebrae. "Clean" melodic vocals are still present, confidently so, along with plenty of nasty blackened raspy vokills of course. The clean singing towards the end of opener "Ethica Odini" might throw the unexpectant listener for a Radiohead/Muse styled loop, but as majestically "poppy" as it gets there, Enslaved maintain an equally extreme allegiance to the metal side of the equation elsewhere in the same song. So it goes throughout the record, with memorable melodies languidly adjacent to uptempo aggressive outbursts, the ardently experimental Enslaved juggling jagged orchestration, jazzy chords, complex rhythms, lush symphonics, atmospheric ambience (the lulling droney soundscape of "Axioma"), and straight-up metal mayhem. Somehow the sudden sonic shifts are accomplished oh so smoothly, so this disc is simultaneously speedy and haunting. While fire and steel are part of their arsenal, these Vikings also know how to conquer with catchiness!
Of all the recent groups channeling the spirit of cold wave and the gothic miserablism of Joy Division, Factums are by and far the absolute weirdest. Capable of whipping up incredible chunks of gloom pop, the instead, often opt for creating totally twisted gloomscapes, weird faux soundtracks, pulsing rhythmic expanses, a series of fantastically warped variants of a sound that is rapidly becoming played out. Which is why these guys remain mysterious, fascinating, and with every record, you really can't be sure what you'll get.
This one sided 12" (the B-side features and awesome etching) offers up three tracks of twisted low fidelity mystery, the first, a pulsing murky rhythm, laid beneath strange processed super rhythmic synths, all glitchy and squelchy, peppered with echo drenched vocal samples and stripped down percussion, eventually the sounds coalesce into a cool retro electro synthbuzz loopscape, super distorted, the sounds crumbling and completely in-the-red, a strange hypnotic lo-fi groove, crunchy and almost industrial sounding, laced with bits of heavy guitar buzz, all processed and clipped. Weird as fuck, but really really cool.
The 2 part second track is also weird, but in a totally different way, a creepy melancholy music box like soundscape, hazy and out of focus, mumbled vocals buried in the mix, the whole thing totally woozy and druggy, the second part introduces electronic rhythms, clouds of cymbal shimmer, strange reverbed guitar strum and warbly organ whir, a fantastically confounding dirgey, gauzey electro gloom music box ballad. Or something. Whatever it is, we dig it. A LOT!!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!
Latest mysterious missive from these Italian post punk noise rock drone folk oddballs, whom we initially discovered via a strange unmarked package that just showed up in the mail one day. We like to think it was preordained, cuz these guys seem like they belong in aQuarius. As the above descriptor again demonstrates, these guys are definitely hard to pin down, their sound constantly mutating, not just from record to record, but from song to song. A gloriously dark and haunting world of sound, that here takes the form of a brooding sort of dirgery, reverbed guitars, simple plodding percussion, wheezing organs, drawled down-in-the-mix vox, occasional bursts of strange effects, a mesmerizing bit of dronerock, equal parts post and kraut, fans of Circle will dig too, it's that sort of minimal meditative cyclical hypnorock, but here dialed way down, to something more brooding and haunting.
The whole record is equally compelling, shimmering guitars wreathed in hissy static, tense stretched out drones, pulsing percussion, slow building churns drenched in sonic grit, abstract vocals, all very dramatic and intense, brooding and darkly ominous, a swampy slithery gloom, some sort of apocalyptic slowcore balladry, like a way more minimal and abstract Woven Hand, occasionally peppered with creepy Comus like acid folk vocals, but for the most part stripped down and murky and gorgeously malevolent.
And they finish off with Leonard Cohen's "There Is A War", which the group easily transform into their own, with sung/spoken male/female vocals over looped sounding fuzzy melodies and propulsive muted rhythms, the whole track at once ominously Teutonic, but also strangely melodic and mesmerizing. Which pretty much describes this whole record. Such a weird and amazing band, such a weird and amazing record. Definitely recommended for anyone into dark and droney, murky and mysterious, dense and dreamy, which we'd guess is a whole heck of a lot of you!
So this is the first time any Aretha Franklin record has been reviewed on the aQ list. And of course with some artists it's just kind of universally known how amazing they are and most of you probably don't need us to gush about the obvious. But we do know, that with certain larger then life artists who have been reduced to so many collections and best of's, its easy to sometimes miss out on the mind blowing actual albums that are in their back catalog. Young, Gifted And Black is an absolute essential album created in 1971, right in the heart of our favorite era of the queen of soul's undeniable prowess. This is one of those start to finish mind blowing records without any filler in the mix. While so much soul from this era was about singles, Aretha had the ability to craft such rich and full sounding records and this is really one of the most satisfying examples of her brilliance.
All of us can remember the first time we heard "Rock Steady" as it's one of the most groove filled burners of all time. A song that still makes dance floors shake all these years later. But the record has so much range and is so dynamic, this is what true soul, gospel, and funk really sounds like. Named after the Nina Simone song which she also covers on the record, Young, Gifted And Black is the work of someone fully coming into their own and owning their moment with such fire and conviction. When we saw this was being reissued on vinyl at a really low price we knew we could finally gush about Aretha, and so now if you don't somehow own this record already, we really believe it's time you did!
Not actually for sale 'til Tuesday (10/12), but if you want one then we can hold it for ya...
Yet another fantastic new record from these SF garage poppers, they really crank em out, but hell, every record is jammed with fuzzy jangly crazy catchy perfect pop, so we're sure as heck not complaining. Especially with the band's recent trajectory, their sound getting darker and more melancholy, without losing any of its inherent fuzziness or hookiness. Like on their last record, Play August In My Mind, Play It Strange continues to nudge their core sound, a sort of classic sixties tinged garage/powerpop, all ooooh's and aaaah's and simple rhythms and lush organs and sweet harmonies and big guitars, into territories much more murky and not so nearly sunshiney, adding lots of melancholy minor key mystery, plenty of twang, brooding moodiness, reminding us of classic gloom rockers like the Wipers and Kommunity FK, but also of groups like the Leaving Trains or the Hoodoo Gurus, the result a fantastically moody dark retro jangle garage pop shot through with bits of more classic pop sounds, a la the Zombies, but on first listen this totally sounds like it could have come from LA circa 1985, like these guys could have been playing the Scream club with Tex & The Horseheads, Jesus And Mary Chain and the Abecedarians, plenty of post punk jangle mixed in with that sixties shimmer, the vocals deeper and more dramatic this time around, some of the songs sounding like old school sixties pop ballads, while others still brim with plenty of hazy reverb, crunchy guitar, woozy organ, tribal drumming and big hooks.
Finally, now on cd!!! With hella bonus tracks...
Gary War definitely found a perfect home for his tweaked and twisted pop, right next to the best of recent outsider pop deconstructionists like Ariel Pink, Kurt Vile, John Maus, Blank Dogs, etc. With his latest lp he carefully stretches his already compelling sound into even more tripped out directions, some gorgeously bizarre, warped catchy, electronics melded with ultra fucked up pop that sound like they really belong on some sort of amazing Ariel Pink/John Maus collaboration. While his last records oozed with residues of '70s psychedelia, Horribles Parade almost sounds like an amazing deconstruction of new-wave gone way weird. Like if someone got a hold of old master tapes from Devo, the Units and Gary Numan and doused them mysterious liquids, messed with the speed a bit, and played it all back on an old analog reel to reel through shitty speakers in the room next door. Deliciously delirious.
There's been seven bonus tracks added to this cd version, including "Anhedonic Man," previously released as a one-sided single, as well as the entire Galactic Citizens 12" ep, about which we wrote the following:
The attack of the killer outsider jams continues! One thing the recent crop of left of center damaged pop deconstructionists have in common is their rapid fire release schedule. Seems like everytime we come up for air there's a new slab of wax from Blank Dogs, Ariel Pink, Kurt Vile and now Gary War. But we ain't complaining one bit cause we've loving it. And so far, everything we've heard from Gary War has KILLED, and these six brand new tracks are no exception. While Ariel Pink has made clear his love of and inspiration from R. Stevie Moore, it seems that for Gary War his true influence is Joe Meek, as evidenced by GW's tripped out production and bubbling/collapsing electronics.
Those elements are fused with some seriously strange skewed pop and has us imagining what it might have sounded like if Meek lived long enough to have produced fucked up new wave albums. Of all the current warped pop peddlers Gary War really does feel in sound and spirit closest to John Maus, as they both use really primitive electronics to help achieve their otherworldly approach to pop gone wrong, so damn right!
This Ghast thing continues to confuse. There's the sick and sludgey Canadian Ghast, and then there's these guys, a Welsh blackened doom horde whose sound is similar enough to keep us constantly wondering if we've got the right Ghast. Both bands traffic in slow and low and heavy, serious doooooom for sure, but the Canadian Ghast are filthier and crustier, more a twisted sludge, like Bunkur or Moss, whereas these guys are more classically black doom, their sound melodic, but still grim and black, flitting easily from epic doomed trudge to frenzied blasting blackness. We've been digging their May The Curse Bind record A LOT (it was also just reissued as a swank double lp!) and had been DYING for more, and finally here it is, in the form of Terrible Cemetery.
First, how amazing is the name Terrible Cemetery, it almost sounds like one of the guys in the band let his kid name the record, grim and scary maybe, but also sorta dorky, which just makes it cooler. The music though does sort of evoke a scary cemetery, the opening track a haunting loping bit of midtempo minor key blackness, with a KILLER main riff, seriously harrowing, lumbering melodic doom, rife with sick guitar buzz, plodding drum pound and maniacal screeching vocals, the second half finds the sound shift into full on black metal, with still more killer riffage, weirdly melodic, wound around a relentless blast beat, and more shrieked vox, total classic (c)old school black buzz for sure, raw and filthy and EVIL.
The 20 minute title track is up next, "TERRIBLE CEMETERY", and right away it sounds like it, buzzing bass plod, spare skeletal drum pound, then clouds of frenzied buzzing guitar, howled demonic vokills, the vibe mournful and menacing, a gorgeously abject miserablist black doom death march, super emotional and intense and heavy, the track explodes in a brief stretch of gnarled black buzz, the guitars droned out and melodic, lending the blackness a strange sense of melancholy, only to shift back into a gorgeously epic plodding dirge, again epic and majestic and gloriously fraught with emotion, and like the first track, totally classic black metal flecked TRUE DOOM!! TROOOOOOOOM!!
German Oak isn't the only recent reissue from the murky zone of long-lost krautrock to get us frothing lately. There's also this welcome reissue of the Golem album, via excellent archival imprint Lion Productions (and their UK associates Acme Records). This one has a mysterious backstory indeed. We'll briefly try to give you the basics here, though there's lots more info in the liner notes that come with this release... During the mid '90s there was a resurgence of interest in krautrock, when all kinds of long lost kraut classics were being reissued on cd (many via the grey area Germanofon label), and Julian Cope came out with his infamous Krautrocksampler book. Virgin UK got into the act with a series of compilations called Unknown Deutschland. They featured tracks by some totally unknown bands, The Nazgul, Golem, Temple, Galactic Explorers, and others, supposedly originally released as limited edition lps (100 copies? 25?!) by an art gallery associated label called Pyramid, circa '72-'74, amazing archival stuff indeed. But were they fakes? Perhaps '90s recordings, cashing in on the krautrock boom? Some thought so, on account of how nobody had ever seen or heard of these records before. Definitely it seemed likely that all were the work of the same bunch of musicians, recording under different names. Eventually a label called Psi-Fi came out with reissues (?) of some of the individual albums, which hardly settled the question. This, one, by Golem, even deepened the mystery, as someone named "Genius P. Orridge" was credited as producer... Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV fans will find that rather curious. Who knows, maybe a coincidence.
The controversy has never been definitively settled. But the general consensus is that these recordings do date from Germany in the '70s, maybe more like the late '70s. In any case it's the music that matters, and yeah by that measure there's no doubting that Golem is prime krautrock indeed, sure sounds like it to us! Freeform, all-instrumental, organ and synth heavy space rock for fans of Gila, Guru Guru, Ash Ra Tempel, etc. Five long tracks (including a 14 minute 3 part suite) of superbly spaced out jamming, loose and lysergic, with an edgy, throbbing pulse throughout, and blasts of fuzzed out guitar. Title track "Orion Awakes" starts the trip off right, dark and heavy, "Stellar Launch" also builds up from nervous atmospheres and propulsive motorik rhythms to sheer ecstatic chaos, "Godhead Dance" wah's it up a la Hendrix, "Jupiter & Beyond" (the suite) is suitably far out and freaky, and the repetitive riff rock finale of "The Returning" is a catchy fuzz buzz, almost pop, yet ultra distorted, that reminds us a heck of a lot of AQ garage psych faves The Heads!! Spacemen 3, too. Also could almost be something from one of J. Cope's Braindonor discs too. Super cool.
Like we said, packaged with copious liner notes, this edition far superior to the long out of print one on Psi-Fi, though that did have nice silver metallic cover that this doesn't replicate. Here's hoping that Lion next reissues The Nazgul one, it's good too, how could it not be with a lineup consisting of Frodo, Gandalf, and Pippin?
Now available on vinyl!
Here's our review of the cd version when we first listed it way back in 2004:
Portland's Grails sweep back into earshot with their second release, Redlight, the follow-up to their impressive debut The Burden of Hope, which drew comparisons to Dirty Three, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Mogwai. As before, Grails play dynamic instrumental post-rock powered by violin, piano and lap steel alongside the usual guitars/bass/drums. If anything, they've upped the ante on the debut, getting even more moody and massive in sound. There's no Sun City Girls cover this time around though...instead the surprise here is the saxophone playing on "The Volunteer" by special guest Steve Mackay...yes the same Steve Mackay whom you might remember from an album called Funhouse by the Stooges!
The Burden of Hope is the debut full-length by Portland, Oregon's Grails (featuring a member of Jackie-O Motherfucker we're told), revealing them to be a confident, powerful, melodic, entirely instrumental post rock outfit. Their dynamic (quiet-loud, soft-heavy) music is led by violin, which makes this sound a lot like the Dirty Three meets Mogwai or something, with touches of Eastern European folk musics. And when, halfway through the album, they break into a spirited cover of "Space Prophet Dogon" from the Sun City Girls' masterwork Torch Of The Mystics, it makes perfect sense -- they hew pretty close to the original, yet it sounds like one of theirs. This collection of storm-tossed instrumentals is a moody listen, from the quietude of piano and shimmering cymbals to massive rages of guitar/violin/drums. Atmospheric, emotional, sad and dangerous. And totally beautiful.
We're constantly shocked by the fetishization of the eighties, the music, the fashion, it was really only a matter of time, and yeah, folks who didn't grow up in the eighties probably have a way different perspective, but we're even more shocked by how good some of the new wave of eighties worship has been sounding to us lately. Culminating in this, a new 7" from Greatest Hits, a pretty apropos name considering, they sort of do sound like a strange amalgamation of various eighties hits.
Beginning as if it was coming out of an old transistor radio, the song quickly swoops out and explodes from the speakers, a fantastically cheesy burst of kaleidoscopic sound, a sort of super danceable eighties pop, fuzzy, and groovy, and crazy catchy, lots of electronics, drum machines, even some 'scratching'(!), but it's all just a little twisted up, the vocals sometimes chopped and looped, the sounds a bit distorted, everything a little bit twisted, but at its core, it's total weirdo retro MTV eighties dance pop. The second track is murkier and darker, but still rhythmic, with woozy, funky bass, and cool strangely twisted guitars. The next track is all fuzzy and squelchy, rife with cheesy synths, girl vox, minimal drum machines, it sort of sounds a little like a weirder Vanity 6 of all things. And finally, the final track returns to the exuberant energy of the opener, sounding almost punky, with a total "Video Killed The Radio Star" or "Dancing In Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop)" vibe, lots of weird sound effects, wildly manic drum programming, some killer vocals, lots of warbly synths, all strangely reminiscent of our misspent teenage years.
Not a brand new record, but instead a reissue of a 2006 album from one of our favorite cellists, Hildur Gudnadottir, who in the past has contributed brilliantly to records by Sigur Ros, Mum, BJ Nilsen and others, but whose solo records are even more fantastic. Focusing of course on the cello, she also incorporates zither, gamelan, viola, piano, vibraphone and more into a sound that's haunting and brooding, mystical and mysterious, the instruments subtly treated, melodies multitracked, gorgeous lush landscapes of blurred string sections, cinematic swells giving way to hazy murky blur, notes stretched out into warm whirling melodic tangles, complex counterpoint, ever shifting overtones, every track here a gloriously lush and emotionally charged miniature epic that hovers in some impossible space between classical, avant garde and drone, but always with a distinctly human element, these are the sort of deep and powerful songs and sounds that effortlessly evoke a sense of wistful melancholia, emotions that are definitely at odds with the smiling candid snapshot cover photo, these tracks like miniature soundtracks for fading memories and lost loves...
So gorgeous.
Unanimous aQ favorite Daniel Higgs, he of the mighty Lungfish and more recently a prolific solo artist, returns with a collaboration featuring fellow Baltimore noisenik Twig Harper, best known for his work in Nautical Almanac. Anyone keeping up with Higgs' output is undoubtedly aware of his brilliant grasp of minimalism, and with a voice like that, few people are complaining. While his recent solo work has included instruments like banjo, a shruti box, Jew's harp, and some spacey electronics, the emphasis here is on Higgs' voice and his words. Harper's sparse electronic accompaniment works perfectly on these performances, adding subtle layers of sound that never venture too far into full on noise territory while adding some necessary dimensions to Higgs' spiritual narratives.
Comprised of seven pieces, Clairaudience Fellowship represents another evolutionary step for these two artists, utilizing spaciousness to a new effect. Higgs' voice is the one constant, mutating electronically throughout the record and sounding kind of like an alien delivering a religious sermon underwater. We're not entirely sure how Harper's sounds are made, but they often come off like field recordings of watery drips and breathy repetitions that soon change into clipped electronic noises, causing you to wonder what it is you are really hearing. Musically, one can detect similarities to the experiments of a wide range of groups like Cromagnon, the Red Krayola, Yahowha 13, and more recently, Amps For Christ. It might be misleading to call this "folk music", but then you have to wonder what such a term even means in 2010, and in a more abstract way, it seems pretty apt for this stuff. By the end of the record, Higgs' voice is warped beyond comprehension with only the occasional decipherable word popping up. Still, you know whatever it is he's saying, Higgs is speaking the truth steadily and surely. While it's hardly the feel good hit of the year, Clairaudience Fellowship is an amazing and engaging listen to anyone willing to sit down and pay attention. By now we can always count on Daniel Higgs to keep things surprising and interesting. Harper ain't no slouch either. Highest possible recommendation.
Revisiting the recently reissued Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again album from sonic sculptor and hazy dronescaper Tim Hecker made us realize just how long it's been since we'd heard any new music from this long time fave. And how badly we wanted, nay NEEDED more. Well, actually, it's only been a year or two, but for all the groups who kick out release after release at a ridiculous clip, why is that folks like Hecker, who we actually would want a new record every few months, forces us to wait years? The obvious reason is that unlike the legion of hack drone outfits who just tape down a key on their keyboard and run it through a delay pedal, Hecker's music is carefully crafted and meticulous, deep and lush and layered, it not only sounds beautiful, but it sounds alive, infused with emotion and energy, soft noise that manages to sound both organic and melodic, a deftly assembled landscape of crumbling distortion and processed guitars, smeared samples blurred into woozy expanses of whir and haze and buzz and shimmer. In a scene that now seems to be overflowing with wannabes, it's easy to see who they all wanna be, cuz Hecker still makes it sound so easy, and magical, and mysterious.
On this welcome new (and quite limited) 7", Hecker made a 9 minute track called "Apondalfia" and split it in half, spreading it out over two sides. If you're a fan, you already know what to expect, if you're not yet, this will definitely convince you, and yeah $15 is pretty intense for a single song 7", but when you consider that you'll most likely listen to this about a million times, well, $15 divided by a million is not so bad after all is it?
Price tag aside, Apondalfia is a gloriously washed out sprawl of warm fuzz and softly swirling melodic squalls, all of the edges smoothed out, but leaving plenty of grit, the guitars way more obvious than in the past, but it's hard to tell exactly what they're doing, they seem to be unfurling stange little woozy warped melodies, that seem to loop and layer and shift constantly, ringing out and bleeding into the various sounds around them, all beneath the thick sonic swells and a glacially churning shimmery sonic gauze. So beautiful and deliriously hypnotic, we've already listened to it 4 times just writing this review, so it's already down to less than $4 a spin, but we're not about to stop now!
WAY recommended. We just wish there was WAY more than 9 minutes...
Great group name, and an album title that really says it all! This mysterious 1968 exploito-psych album of disputed provenance, newly reissued on cd, lives up to its Supreme Psychedelic Underground billing, all right. It's really doesn't even matter if it's the pseudonymic work of a young Deep Purple, as some Purple fans are convinced. Others will tell you that while maybe the guitar neck wringing sounds a lot like Blackmore, and the bombastic organ pounding sounds a lot like Lord, it's not them - instead, it's dudes from krautrock proto-metallers Lucifers Friend! Which as far as we're concerned is an equally appealing theory. We don't know what to believe, are they or aren't they? You decide, we'll just groove to these crazy sounds, man. With wild organ and wah wah guitar up the wazoo, the tracks here range from instrumental freakouts ("Time Race") to novelty tribal weirdness ("We Like The White Man") to baroque prog hoedowns ("Courante") to, well, there's all sorts of swingin' acid rock action here folks! A few faves to mention would be the Eastern-tinged "Shalom", which is infused with all kinds of weird noises and sound FX as well, the super groovy shake-and-shimmy "Let Me Shoot You", and definitely the awesomely Bo Diddley-ish "Turn Turn", probably what would be this record's hit, if it had one.
It's interesting that these days, actually, we've kinda gotten to the point where it almost makes more sense to say that a '60s psych artifact like this one was "ahead of its time" and compare it to today's crop of psychedelic freeks, instead of the other way around. Certainly there's moments here, when the pulsating, wailing sounds get really far out, that we could think for a second we were listening to, say, a Sun Araw album. At other times, of course, it's VERY "of its times", and that's rad (in a kitschy way) too. The jarringly tripped out "Spy In Space" could only have been made in the '60s we're pretty sure, woah.
Certainly fans of MK1 Deep Purple ought to check this out, even though the theory that it's a German studio project, featuring ex-members of beat groups The Rattles and The German Bonds (who would eventually form Lucifer's Friend) seems fairly likely to be the correct one, since those very same folks cut another similar exploito-psych album under the "band" name Bokaj Retsiem around the very same time. That album was simply titled Psychedelic Underground, so maybe they thought they did an even better job as Hell Preachers, Inc.!
Ultra limited, sprawling triple cassette collection of murky, mechanical hypnogogic loopscapes, from Belgian soundscaper and synth minimalist Innercity aka Hans Dens. While on his previous cd-r for Ruralfaune, he crafted a sound more in keeping with the current movement of blissed out synthkraut dronemusic makers, on Arupa Travels, Dens' sound falls more in line with the other Innercity releases we've heard. Gloriously tripped out lo-fi blisscapes, rife with decaying loops, streaks of blurred noise, buried rhythms, strange sped up voices, crumbling low end drones, field recordings, Jeck like skipping-record landscapes of dusty crackle and muted melody, ethereal expanses of gorgeous hazy ambience and heaving slabs of rhythmic crunch, lush swells of soft noise, peppered with mechanical creaks and layered whirs, a bleary eyed soft focus drift, rendered in chunks of low fidelity hum, mysterious bits of soundtracky post rock meander, gauzy clouds of sci-fi synth, haunting stretches of ominous cinematic shimmer, and deep dense slabs of otherworldly psychedelic minimalist drift. So fantastic.
ULTRA LIMITED!!! Only 30 copies, we have about a dozen left. Comes in a cool oversized plastic clamshell case (like they use for language tapes), with a printed fold out insert.
We've always been big fans of Jose Gonzalez's soft touch sensual guitar playing and breezy songwriting, but with the latest from his full band Junip we think we've been hit with the most impacting and satisfying album he's created yet. The record is brimming with an immediacy that matches the intimacy that Gonzalez always excels in bringing to his songs. But with Junip, there is much more of a driving vibe and a wider range of sound that makes for such a satisfying listening experience. We hear nice touches of Arthur Russell-like innerworld melodies and nuanced delicate and unique elements within each song that remind us of the first couple Pinback records. There are even some awesome and tasteful hints of prog-pop that we've been digging so much. This has everything you want in a really smart and emotional pop record, the playing is impeccable and draws you in from the get-go, and Gonzalez's warm and woozy voice becomes the icing on the cake, total seduction! Fans of The Sea & Cake, Pinback, Kings Of Convenience, Elliott Smith, Iron & Wine, Arthur Russell, American Analog Set, make sure not to sleep on this, as this is becoming a major contender for one of our favorite records of the year!
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
One of two new Mississippi Records releases this week, this one from L'Orchestre National De La Republique Du Mali, one of several groups (this one designated 'A' as they were the first) organized as the National Orchestra for Mali, on the heels of Mali's independence, featuring the best musicians in the country, each sworn to "serve their country by contributing with all their genius to the protection and revalorization of Malian musical art". As not all the musicians could perform in the same band, thus were born the different National Orchestras, those designated 'B' and 'C'.
This version of Mali's National Orchestra was led by legendary Malian musician Keletigui Diabate, and the record is so fantastic, lush and melodic, with warm lustrous guitars, gorgeous vocals harmonies, and while most of the record is festive and celebratory, there are a few tracks that are a bit darker, more minor key, and those are the ones that definitely stand out, "Janfa" is the tale of a lost love, and sounds like it, intense and dramatic and melancholy, with some incredible and complexly melodic guitar playing, while "Duga" is an extended almost Ethiopian style groove, with tendril like guitars, incredible sung/spoken vocals, emotional and moving, the whole thing strangely and subtly psychedelic, those tracks perfectly balancing the rest of the records ebullience. So good.
Pressed on super thick vinyl, and housed in a heavy full color sleeve, the back featuring the liner notes from the original release.
All right folks (specifically, psych lovers and/or Japanophiles)... here's a literal "warehouse find", copies of a long out of print cd that we ourselves discovered during a visit to one of our suppliers, recently! It was worth all the dust-induced sneezing to find, too. Fans of Japanese uber heavies Zeni Geva might know the name, as Leningrad Blues Machine was the heavy, shambolic psych outfit led by KK Null's guitar partner in ZG, Tabata Mitsuru (who was also an early member of the Boredoms as well). Bass player Hayashi Naoto also was in UFO or Die, FYI. This blown-out blues explosion of a debut was originally released via Null's Nux Org label in 1993, but the songs on this disc were actually recorded much earlier, as it consists of material from two shows at Egg Plant, Osaka in November of 1987 and February of '88, plus a couple tracks recorded to 8-track in Kyoto's Queer studio, 1987. There's nine tracks total, although the song "Russian Asshole" appears THREE TIMES in different renditions. That's brilliant, we think. Evidently it can be considered the Leningrad Blues Machine's "theme song". And it's a good 'un, a great example of the distortodelic, fuzz and feedback filled garage stomp at which they slay, in the tradition of near contemporaries The Heads, fellow countrymen High Rise, or spiritual forefathers Blue Cheer, whose classic cover of "Summertime Blues" is in fact sampled and looped as the intro to LBM's own "Bad Blossom" here! Speaking of ye olde influences, "Woodstock Monster" definitely channels some Stooges and MC5. But in 1988, stuff like that wasn't exactly off-handedly "retro" the same way we'd think about it today - it was just weird! LBM are also way more chaotic and noisy than a really retro band woulda been back then. You can also hear that they were on the same path as certain Seattle bands around the same time, or a few years later... this is Japanese proto-grunge, from a year or so before Mudhoney's earliest singles hit the racks. In LBM's case, it's grunge with grim grandeur, when you hear the melancholic majesty of tracks like "Roman Castevet" and other lugubrious epics here, which also bring to mind the more recent generation of downer "Tokyo Flashback" acts like Up-Tight, Miminokoto, and LSD-march.
Recommended to fans of The Heads, Mudhoney, Zeni Geva, people who think some Russians are assholes, etc. Grab it quick, we really only found a few, and then that's it, they're gone... though we do think that LGM themselves are possibly still active, sometimes, even now. And probably playing some of the same songs. For sure, "Russian Asshole"!
Lots of folks out there are no doubt familiar with Oakland's Lil B, the self proclaimed "Based God", he's got about a million Myspace pages, nearly as many albums, most floating around the web as free downloads, his sound confusional and WAY brilliant, warped beats, lots of twisted synths, and his flow, totally tweaked and twisted, like a less lethargic, less mumbly Sensational, but with rhymes that are equally baffling, but no knowledge of Lil B and his other jams could have prepared us for his Weird Forest debut. Gone are the beats, as in NO beats at all, gone is the twisted buzz, the warped samples, in their place, warm liquid shimmers, sun dappled and meditative, whirring tranquil synthscapes, a sort of Tangerine Dream style drift, all muted whirring blurs and stretched out layered synth drones, all underpinning Lil B's rhythmic next level flow. Strip those rhymes away, and what are you left with? Full on NEW AGE. Yep, this is some tripped out, weirdly psychedelic NEW AGE HIP HOP. It's a seriously polarizing listen, some of us are a little obsessed and can't stop listening to it, plenty of other folks are driven INSANE by this confusional collision of unlikely sonic bedfellows. Think Sensational rapping over Ray Lynch's Deep Breakfast, or a beatless WuTang record constructed entirely from Tangerine Dream samples, that should be enough for you to decide if this is your cup of acid laced tea or not. Check out the samples, decide for yourself, but we're pretty psyched on this bizarre chunk of new age spoken word synth hop for sure...
NB. there is a cd of this, but they went fast, hopefully we'll be able to get some more of that format soon...
There was this awesome time around four or five years ago when we were being blown away by one obscure psych folk reissue after another. Records by the likes Mark Fry, Roger Rodier, Mark Fosson, Eduardo Mateo, and Bridget St. John all came into our lives back then and would become total treasures near and dear to our hearts and ears. Since then there have been lots of awesome reissues of full on psych, international burners and early '80s gems but it seemed the well dried up a bit on great lost folk from the early '70s, as just not that much of it had been coming our way, and the one's we were hearing weren't all that spectacular and probably remained obscure and unheard for good reason: they just weren't that good. But this 1975 album by Ted Lucas is totally hitting that special soft spot we have for hazy and drifty psych-folk and immediately transports us and lulls us into a gloriously stoned and zoned state of mind.
So yes, these are totally stoned and lovely folk songs that bring to mind a more rustic Nick Drake, that amazing first solo record from David Crosby or a totally unpolished and stripped down Eric Clapton. We also think fans of Linda Perhacs, Charles Manson (the singer/songwriter, not the cult leader!), Vashti Bunyan, The Search Party, Gary Higgins, and Bert Jansch will totally dig what was going on in the music of Ted Lucas.
Majeure is the drumming half of electronic sci-fi prog synth duo Zombi, and explores similar territory on his 3 song debut. A measly 3 songs you say? Yeah, but 3 songs in 42 minutes! That's right, sprawling spaced out sci-fi electronic minimal kraut disco epics of the highest order. Fusing the creepy film music of Vangelis and John Carpenter with the pulsing hypnotic minimalism of Steve Reich or Philip Glass, even some propulsive motorik Can style krautrock, all woven into sprawling spaced out psychedelic futuristic retro faux film music, layered synths, looped melodies, and a killer mix of programmed rhythms and live drumming, the vibe is ominous and epic, so evocative, it's impossible not to imagine some sort of insane fight in zero gravity, jump suited androids grappling amidst a strange neon latticework, or some futuristic car chase, through dimly lit streets, a grim crumbling futureworld, where the outcome of said chase will determine the fate of humanity.
The opener, the awesomely sci-fi named "The Dresden Codex", is a total future space disco kraut jam, the first half a throbbing mesmerizing krautdronesynthscape, eventually, bass drifts in as does awesomely fuzzy bass synth, the melodies dramatic and epic, a slow build that gets more and more intense before fading out into a stripped down moody bit of synthy drift, before exploding back into action, the live drums going nuts, suddenly it sounds a bit like a way more sci-fi Trans Am too, with a little M83 fuzz thrown in for good measure. "Teleforce" is all afternoon special straight to video science fiction, with its throbbing low end synth, and simple drumming, but the sound quickly gets thicker and more dense, and all ominous and intense, thick layers of rumble and whir over that machinelike pulse, then in come soaring strings, and after a brief bit of tension building Carpenter like spaced out minimalism, a lazer battle ensues, the track churning and chugging amidst a sky full of swirling effects and lazerblast-like pyew-pyew-pyew's...
Finally, the album finishes off with the 18+ minute "Timespan", beginning with a cloud of rumbles and whirs, before the sky fills with flecks of synth and space-y FX, a haunting bit of Logan's Run ambience, before the track slips right back into some groovy eighties sci fi synth disco, and for the next 10+ minutes, we're careening though a neon lit future world, battling on dancefloors, soaring between strange obelisk like structures, dodging lazer fire, running for our lives from lumbering robots, and finally destroying the mainframe and liberating the human race, all to the strains of some of the coolest, retro sci-fi sounds since, well, since these sounds weren't really retro at all.
Making an awesome album even awesomer, the cd version (but not, sadly, the vinyl) comes with a bonus remix disc (reissuing an out of print 12"), featuring reinterpretations of the album tracks by Steve Moore (the other half of Zombi), Justin Broadrick of Jesu, and Black Strobe. Moore takes "Timespan" and roughs it up a bit, giving it a more bruised, darkened and ominous cast, still an eighties soundtrack, but this time it's some dark foreign film, death more imminent, the end of civilization a foregone conclusion, but this is the sound of a ragtag group of survivors, hurling themselves into the void, on a desperate quest to save the universe, all to the strains of a pulsing Goblin / Carpenter score. Broadrick takes "Teleforce", and does something to it, hard to say exactly what, but suddenly it sounds like a warped Moroder post rock remix 12" spinning off kilter, warbly and hypnotic, eventually blissing out, more and more minimal and skeletal and softly psychedelic, before a bad ass dubby last few minutes, thumping muted rhythms, underpinning eighties new wave synths, and clouds of M83 style haze, a fucking killer groove that would seal the deal had the deal not already been WELL sealed. And finally, Black Strobe rework "The Dresden Codex" into something much more house-y and minimal, a sort of gleaming late night futuristic drift through mysterious silvery danceclubs, and exclusive penthouse parties, everything prismatic and blurred by a space age cocktail of psychotropics, a night spent cavorting in your gleaming surrogate body, your consciousness painting the town red, while your physical form sits safely in stasis at home, this is the sound of that soul shearing, head spinning rush, as an entire night's debauchery is downloaded in a 17 minute timelapse sonic injection, a heady, hypnotic, burst of electronic color. So rad.
The double compact disc comes in a super fancy, oversized mini lp style gatefold sleeve. And the vinyl version, also gatefold packaged, includes a digital download so you can iPod it.
Latest from Minneapolis one man raw black metal horde Marsh, who we last heard from on a split with black metal weirdos Lonesummer. Here, Marsh is teamed up with a group called Thorazine Gaze, who we had never heard before but who are pretty amazing, starting things out with a plodding bit of freaked out, depressive, super creepy plodding black metal, the guitars raw and echoe-y, the recording super lo-fi, the vocals super distorted and insanely inhuman sounding, also wrapped in delay and reverb, the result is a dark droning, blackened trudge, with a gloriously melancholy main riff. The next track picks up the pace a little, but the sound remains, grim and miserable, yet still strangely minor key and melodic, the music almost pretty, but the vocals, so intense and tortured and so processed and distorted they end up sounding like dense squalls of white noise, drifting over the pounding D-beat flecked grimnity underneath. The record tends toward the midtempo, but those fucked up vocals push this more toward the realms of groups like Bone Awl or Akitsa, which is absolutely a good thing.
Marsh starts of his side with a stretch of creepy, soundtracky black ambience, laced with strange industrial creaks and whirs, looped melody, a haunting tense slow build, swirling FX, downtuned distorted crumble, echo drenched melodies, before finally exploding into song, but instead of the frenzied black blast we were expecting, it's some creepy depressive gothy doom pop, deep dramatic vocals, clean guitars, low slung Joy Division basslines, all wrapped in a gauzy lo-fi swirl, the rhythms programmed and machinelike, the track laced with occasional shrieked vokills, but for the most part it's weirdly dark and melodic, before finally stumbling into something way more black and harsh, stumbling drums, strange atonal guitars, harsh vox, twisted melodies, everything woozy and off kilter, abstract and gnarled. Finally finishing off with a bit of pounding post rock / black metal, that manages to buzz and brood, the sound blown out, but definitely still warm and melodic. Good stuff for sure. Wondering when some label's gonna finally step up and release a Marsh full length. Until then, better act fast. LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!! We have about 10, not sure we can get more...
Despite a solo discography that tallies well above 30 titles, Mark McGuire has quipped that Living With Yourself is, in his mind, his 'first' album, because it was the first album to emerge as a properly replicated cd and slab of vinyl without originally getting released first as a micro-edition tape or cd-r. Fair enough. McGuire is also the principle guitarist for Emeralds, who also has a discography with a boatload of releases; the man specializes in sustained flares of kosmische guitar arpeggiations recalling Manuel Gottsching and Achim Reichel. In both Emeralds and his solo work, he's at his best when his guitar seems to effortlessly transmit bittersweet, counterpoint melodies within his arching dronerock compositions. It takes Living With Yourself awhile to get to those epiphanous moments, after McGuire churns through a Takoma inspired acoustic guitar workout situated alongside home recordings of some family gathering with a cassette deck recording the affair. By the time, McGuire arrives at "Clouds Rolling In" a distant melancholy settles upon his Durutti Column like guitar lines that skitter in circles to build his impressionist atmosphere. Similarly moody tracks lead up through the album's conclusion, a straight-up, instrumental-rock number with his stratospheric guitar riffs buttressed by a drummer, edging much more into the cinematic Explosions In The Sky territory. Certainly not what we were expecting, but could this be the lead in for McGuire to start scoring movie soundtracks?
Of all the various collaborations that krautrock maestro Moebius of Cluster fame has been involved in, we have to say this 1983 collaboration with Gerd Beerbohm might just be the most mind blowing of them all. Originally released on Sky, it's been out of print for ages, so we were so thrilled when we saw Bureau B was going to reissue it, as it's a record that foreshadowed so many sounds of the rhythmic underground that we would love for years to come.
The record opens with "Minimotion" a totally menacing and suspenseful track that sets the mood perfectly for the rest of the record. Like the darkest side of Goblin, or what John Carpenter would want to base the tension of an entire film around. The next two tracks "Hydrogen" and "Narkose" are stunning in how ahead of their time they sound, even now. It's like an otherworldly version of minimal techno, practically the blueprint for what the Chain Reaction crew would be creating more then a decade later. Like the sounds of a steam engine filtered through the lens of a horror movie, so mesmerizing and menacing. The record's final track is the epic 21 minute "Doppelschnitt" and really should be played as loud as possible and made as required listening for anyone making minimal techno or any sort of electronica really, as this shows you the hypnotic possibilities of this sound. No doubt folks like Villalabos, Monoton, Moritz Von Oswald, and Carl Craig got their ears on this album early on, as this record really laid out the ingredients for what would go down in Berlin and Detroit in the years to follow.
But what makes Double Cut so incredibly special is not just that it was ahead of its time, mastering a genre that hadn't even been invented yet, but that in its minimalism, they made a record that creates such a strong mood and has such a distinct overall sound. It's like being trapped in a completely distinctive outer dimension. It wouldn't surprise us if David Cronenberg was hip to this record while he was making Videodrome. It's not often you get to talk about records that completely set the stage for a whole movement of music making to come in its wake. This is one of those records, and we're so damn glad its back in the world where it belongs. A unanimous favorite for sure, as everyone here at the store is totally in love and in awe of Double Cut!
Not yet reissued on vinyl but we're told that will be coming soon, hopefully.
