Equal parts J Dilla, Flying Lotus and Actress, the full length debut of London-based "post-dubstep" duo Mount Kimbie is easily our new favorite night time listens. With stoned soul edits, heavenly string washes, wonky ping pong rhythms, underwater electronic atmospherics and an off-kilter but hazy production, Crooks and Lovers is all about the post-club come down. Chill and subdued, often dreamy and strange but super immersive and narcotically propulsive. The kind of sound that wraps around you, compels you along into its strange slippery rhythms, before finally lulling you into a beautifully warped hypnogogic sleep state. Highest Recommendation!
This is the one! If you've ever heard someone playing Milton Nascimento, some sweet soothing sounds dazzling your ears, chances are it was this record. As many of us can attest to, just picking out any Milton Nascimento record can be a bit risky as his entire back catalog is quite varied and there are some not so hot moments, but all sins are forgiven with this record, an album that we dare say ranks as one of our favorite albums of all time!
Clube Da Esquina is a stunning disc of psychedelic pop that manage to be as dreamy and pastoral as it is tropical and full of life. Bursting with warmth and rich color this is a record we will never get sick of. It's not psychedelic in an obvious look-how-weird-I-can-be way, but instead it's about a slow melting lull, soft swirls and subtle shifts in sounds. One moment it's the dreamiest most lovely song you've ever heard and the next the warm sun is shining and all you want to be doing is running and twirling in the sand. As lush, gorgeous and dynamic as anything Caetano Veloso has created. We can't praise this record enough! Lo Borges is the big unsung hero of this album, not even 20 years old when it was made he helped with many of the arrangements, sang and wrote many of the songs...
Truly a perfect album from start to finish, an hour long trip filled with sunshine and surprise, melody and sophisticated glory. It's no surprise that songs on this record have been covered by the likes of Savath & Savalas and Tortoise and Bonnie Prince Billy. As these are songs that will always sound so alive and of the moment. Undoubtedly it's a record that's had a huge impact on everyone from Devendra Banhart, The Shins, Eden Express, Beck, Brightblack, Vetiver, Jose Gonzales, etc. And a must have for anyone who loves folks like Veloso, Gerard Manset, Eduardo Mateo, Congregacion, Alceu Valenca, Serge Gainsbourg, The Beatles, Melting Glass Box, Magical Power Mako, etc. No matter how obscure or mainstream your tastes tend to be, this is one of those records whose beauty and genius just can't be denied. We know we're always telling you about so many amazing records that you really just can't live without, but this time (again!) we really mean it!
New Miminokoto, same as the old Miminokoto? Kinda! And that's a good thing, if you're a fan of the Japanese psych underground and this particular manifestation of the "Tokyo Flashback" vibe, Miminokoto both new and old being one of those bands, like LSD-march, Up-Tight, and Suisho No Fune, in the glorious distortodelic tradition of '70s masters/mysteries Les Rallizes Denudes... Yet, it's not it's not the quite same, as the old Miminokoto, 'cause lead guitar wrangler and vocalist Masami Kawaguchi has left the band (forming his own "New Rock Syndicate"). To replace him, they recruited Suzuki Junzo, formerly of Overhang Party, a Tokyo psych scene vet who has no problem at all slipping into the role of New Miminokoto frontman, bringing his own dark aura to bear on guitar and vocals, alongside the bass of Nishimura Takuya and the drums of Shimura Koji (ex-White Heaven).
Recorded last year, this release is also actually not all that "new", we've been wanting to list this for a while, just finally got enough of 'em in stock direct from Japan, and can now say: get it, it's great! Gorgeous stuff, when they get mellow, and gorgeous too when all amps are set on 10. There are indeed plenty of languidly paced mellow meanders, as well as fuzz-filled blow-outs, dense and devastating. And even at their loudest, Miminokoto manage to be quite mesmerically melodic, as they do during the more gentle shimmering sections of this set as well.
The seven tracks here include two fantastic covers of songs by the late Kaneko Jutok of Kousokuya (another long time Tokyo psych institution, a la Fushitsusha). They utterly fit the Miminokoto vibe, of course. Another vibe we're getting here is that of Neil Young, maybe it's 'cause we've been listening to his heavy new one, Le Noise... there's probably a lot of people who'll pick up that new Neil (also reviewed this list, and recommended) who'll never ever hear, nor hear of, Miminokoto... but we bet they'd like this, as long as the language thing doesn't get in the way for 'em. Sure, you don't know what Suzuki is singing about (only one title is given in English, "Wrong Distance", which is kind of clever) but it doesn't matter. The emotion in his voice - not to mention the emotion cranking through the guitar amps - conveys enough! This has been a go-to late-night listen for us ever since it showed up...
Lots of bands these days have a really cool sound, tapping into other eras of music ('80s, punk, etc.), and are just very likable, but not many of them have a core and soul that you can really latch on to. No Age stand so far above the crowd in that respect as the music they create just bubbles over with so much pure conviction. From their beginnings they were a band who helped remind us that punk energy and spirit could still be channeled in really fresh and invigorating ways. And like all the truly great punk bands who matter, they make music that makes you sweat, yet gives you goosebumps at the same time. There is just something so fucking honest and immediate about their presence that you can't really put your finger on but you just feel with total trust and devotion.
Everything In Between, continues their streak of seriously on fire top notch releases. While it's only their second true album, the mark they have already made in the music scene is kind of incredible. They really are one of the last bands who have come up in the organic way that we think still really suits bands in the long run. They weren't just an overnight blog hype band who never played live and were already huge. But instead they really helped foster a true sense of (non-virtual) community in Los Angles, playing as many all-ages shows as possible and packing up the van and rocking tiny clubs and basements from coast to coast so many times. That work ethic and commitment really has deeply affected the music they make. They aren't about being super cool or the most lo-fi or weird band around, but instead you just know they are pouring every once of themselves into making music that they love and believe in so much. This album is kind of making us fall in love with them all over again. It's got the same kind of fast and addictive adrenaline rush as their past releases, but there is also more crunchy guitar and a really heartfelt and honest lyrical delivery that is making this one of those records that feels like someone got in your head and wrote songs that are anthems for both the greatest joys and deepest agonies of your life. So fucking great!
If you've dug the songs of Hunx & His Punx, chances are you are a Nobunny fan even if you didn't know it, as he's the masked man responsible for writing most of the music for Hunx over the last few years. Besides giving musical inspiration to his friend Hunx, Nobunny has been a busy dirty garage pop peddler of his own. His raw and feisty live shows have become legendary, and with First Blood he's crafted his most immediate and catchy offering yet, with his trademark mixture of Cramps like grit, Ramones like bounce and Hasil Adkins outlaw garage prowess. We hope he's playing on Halloween as it would be so fun to all dress up like drunken bunnies and hop up and down to these songs in wasted and haunted delight.
Holy shit! Yes we know that's a pretty over the top and perhaps cliche way to start off a review but there is really no other way to jump into talking about how rad this record is without screaming those words loud and proud. We first heard about Nymph from our pal Tomo (Tussle, Coconut) and he's not one to say something is awesome when it isn't, so we knew we had to check them out. And luckily Social Registry has stepped up to help get the sound of Nymph into more and more ears, as only a few of us actually got to hear the cd-r they released themselves. With this proper release finally available, we hope and think lots of folks will be getting way into Nymph, and their awesomely psychedelic witched out sounds overflow with sparkles of golden dust and magical dissidence. Imagine a much more stoned OOIOO dipping their toes into some free jazz creek while filtering it through their own unique take on no wave, but twisting it all up into something much more expansive. Like Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band interpreted by Gang Gang Dance and Death: Sentence Panda, or a pack of stoners breaking into Deerhoof's practice space and blasting out long jams that you can't help but play as loud as possible. For sure one of the coolest new bands we've heard in a long while!
The latest release on Echochord comes from the oddly monickered Onmutu Mechanicks, aka the Scottish techno producer Arne Weinberg. Where Weinberg's regular gig is more melodic, traditional techno, Onmutu Mechanicks exists for his more dubbed out ambient explorations, which of course sounds right up our alley, and it is.
Fans of other stuff on Echochord (Quantec, Rod Modell) as well as stuff like Pole, Echospace, Deepchord, Kompakt's more minimal less housey sounds and well as the more Pop Ambient stuff, will definitely dig this, skeletal skitters careen back and forth over deep billows of dubbed out synth, low slung bass throbs pulse beneath strange bits of industrial crunch, while barely there melodies wrap themselves around the slow drifting murk, many of the tracks take that house music throb as their core, but bury it under layers of whir and shimmer, sending extra peripheral beats bouncing around from speaker to speaker before letting them sink back into the swirling sonic miasma, other tracks ditch the beats entirely, their looped synths and processed effects creating their own rhythms, while still others take chilled out late night techno and strip it way down, the soundtrack to some futuristic after hours nightclub, or a wander through some post apocalyptic future world. Another fantastic chunk of sonic bliss to add to the recent spate of killer minimal techno and abstract rhythmic electronica releases from Actress, Glitterbug, Pantha Du Prince, Clubroot, Vex'd, Klimek...
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Another fantastic release from Mississippi, this one a collection of recordings from Greek folk singer
Marika Papagika, who was born in 1890 and was one of the first Greek women singers to be heard on sound recordings, and who over the course of her career, toured extensively, owned her own club, with her husband (who also played in her band), recorded 225 performances, yet somehow remains sadly for the most part overlooked and underappreciated. The liner notes (by Ian Nagoski, whose records this collection was compiled from, and who also helped put together a whole mess of other amazing compilations including Black Mirror, String Of Pearls, Unheard Ofs & Forgotten Abouts among others) are extensive, and chronicle her life (what is known about it) as well as the recordings, performances and instrumentation.
The music is of course hauntingly lovely and mystical, emotional and dramatic, her voice gorgeous and powerful, and the instrumentation perfect, simple, just cello, violin, clarinet and cymbalon (a sort of hammered dulcimer).
Everything is bathed in that warm scratchy old record sound, but it only makes the music that much more beautiful, on some tracks you can actually hear birds chirping in the background, as if they had recorded outdoors, the songs are spare yet somehow so lush, moving and moody, just fantastic, fans of Greek folk music and Rembetika will of course need this, but anyone just looking for music that's both haunting and pretty, these songs totally transcend any sort of classification really, they're just beautiful songs, performed impeccably by an incredible band, and sung by one of the finest vocalists you've probably never heard of.
Pressed on heavy vinyl, and housed in a thick sturdy jacket, with a massive oversized printed booklet, featuring extensive liner notes, as well as all the know photographs of Papagika.
We've long been fans of this Louisville post rock supergroup, featuring members of Crain, Ariel M, The For Carnation, and Rodan. Simulacrenfield might just be their best yet. Mesmerizing and hypnotic, equal parts melodic meander and rhythmic churn, they often sound like a heavier Tortoise, locking into hypnotic, almost jazzy grooves, but without being afraid to infuse those jams with thick distorted guitar crunch, tangled complex woodwind interplay or buzzing sci-fi synth shimmer. With an arsenal that includes clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone and synthesizer, augmenting the classic rock guitar / bass / drums (not to mention some banjo here and there), these guys craft gorgeous, timeless instrumental post rock, the sort few bands play anymore, and even fewer can pull off.
The opener, "Destruction Paper" perfectly displays everything that's so good about these guys, a dizzying blend of post/math/kraut rock, the horns and synths adding so much breadth to the group's sound, standing in for vocals in a way that keeps the sound from getting boring, while simultaneously elevating the sound, adding a sort of prog/art rock element. "Camus" is more of the same, the band locked tight, the core instruments laying out an irresistible groove, while the horns wind and whirl and intertwine. The banjo on "Jalepenooptics" totally transforms the song into some sort of strange twang flecked post/kraut workout, the horns giving it a sort of chamber ensemble vibe, and definitely reminding us of Tortoise again.
Over the next few songs, the sound swings from dark Slinty brood, to almost Decemberists sounding Victorian jangle, to Godspeed like slow build and finally to the nearly 11 minute closer "Sea Of Bubbly Goo", which also has some serious Slint going on, the guitar parts creepy and skeletal, drifting amongst clouds of cymbal shimmer, gradually growing more and more propulsive, the sound fantastically tense and hypnotic, the tempo building, effects whirling, the horns adding plenty of melody, finally exploding in a skronky, crunchy, epic denouement, before fading out into a cloud of rumbling slow fading distorted low end. AWESOME. Definitely for fans of Tortoise, Chevreuil, Trans Am, Circle, Fridge, Maserati, Explosions In The Sky, Resonator, Salvatore, Woodsman and various other practitioners of the lost art of post/math rock...
Ultra limited new lp from guitarist and composer Duane Pitre, a collection of recordings featuring Pitre's bowed harmonic-guitar ensemble, six guitarists, bowing the strings of unconventionally strung guitars, all in 'just intonation', the sounds these players and instruments produce, free of any effects or post- or pre- production fiddling, all the strange overtones, and rhythmic variations, strange melodies and mysterious textures, are utterly divine, extended raga like drones, lush and layered, all the results of the natural interplay between the various notes and tones, and the acoustic properties of the space. All of which are considerable, considering the beauty and otherworldliness of these sounds, quite reminiscent of folks like Phill Niblock, Angus MacLise, Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt, but with its own particular magic, the very Eastern sounding raga vibe is undeniable on some of the tracks, but others are far more abstract, unfurling alternating tones, letting the notes ring out, just the tail ends woven into each other, creating a gorgeous expanse of warm, but spare melody, until the notes grow gradually closer together and finally settle into one another. Some of the tracks sound choral, almost liturgical, while others sounds like an orchestra tuning up stretched into swirling near static drones, the final nearly 12 minute track being perhaps the most beautiful of the bunch, a symphony of metallic buzz, rising and falling swells, buried melodies, the sound slow shifting, but ever changing, dense, and dark, but somehow lush and lovely and glimmering, sun dappled and so serene...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, includes a download coupon as well.
Final missive of dreamy druggy psych rock from the briefly reinvigorated Pocahaunted. Formerly a duo, half of which left to start the sunshinier beach pop combo Best Coast, the other half of the duo expanded Pocahaunted to a five piece, featuring THREE female vocalists, this the only recorded evidence of that lineup, recorded right here in SF with Tim Green, the first of these two tracks begins woozy and washed out, throbbing low slung bass underpins shards of softly angular guitar, the drums are muted and minimal, it's really all about the vocals, the three voices constantly swooping and flitting, locking into strange harmonies before separating again, the vibe is dark and groovy, and while things start off dreamy, the sound quickly builds to something much more frenzied and frantic, the vocals beginning to yelp and howl, the drums following suit, becoming way busier, the result a warmly chaotic chunk of vocal driven post punk psychedelia.
The B side begins even more abstract and dreamy, just bass, skeletal guitar, simple drums, some cowbell, a little synth, and of course vocals, all very spare and spacious, loping and hypnotic, the bass locked into a hypnotic groove, allowing the guitars and vocals to float freely over the top, surprisingly lovely, and a sweet psychedelic swansong.
Heavy psych and metal freaks, perhaps you remember we reviewed a reissue of this power trio Poobah's 1979 album Steamroller a while back? While '79 was a late date for "proto-metal", that's definitely what this Youngstown Ohio outfit sounded like, heavy duty acid rock n' roll action with plenty of psychedelically shredding guitar work. Well, now you can check out where they wuz comin' from, 'cause this "Special Collector's Edition" of their 1972 independently released debut has just been "re-unleashed". Just peep the vintage b&w photos of the band, all long hair, beards, head bands. Total hippies! HEAVY hippies. Hard as nails. But definitely hippies (like the fabulous furry freak bro looking dude depicted in the crude cover cartoon, spitting up into a toilet - or is it the other way around?).
So, yeah, Poobah is "proto-metal" fersure on this one, right from the get-go with the aptly titled "Mr. Destroyer", which despite the peace-loving message of the lyrics seems to demonstrate that violence for violence's sake can work, in rock anyway! And aside from one (quite nice) laidback number, "Enjoy What You Have", the six tracks that make up the original release of Let Me In are all similarly raw rifftastic freakrock heaviness, very underground, their unhinged high wattage psychedelia almost kinda punk, a la the UK's Crushed Butler, Detroit's Death, or Australia's Coloured Balls. BAD ASS in other words. Heck the ominous creepy-crawl of "Bowleen" is practically doom metal, though Poobah do have their lighter side, with a penchant for funny voices and trippy rhythmic passages, hippy potsmoking stuff y'know...
The bonus tracks (there's 10 on the gatefold double vinyl version and 12 on the compact disc) are all also quite worthy, recorded circa '72-'73, mostly more high energy ass-kickery in the vein of the album tracks, with a few weird noisy studio experiments thrown in for good measure... or maybe not "studio" exactly as most of the bonus cuts were recorded live to 2-track in the guitarist or bassist's living room. It all sounds great though, from the surprise vocal harmonies in the midst of "Make A Man Out Of You" to the Ted Nugent style gonzo goings on of "Going To Rock City"...
Quite a treat, now we're waiting on a proper reissue of Poobah's second album, US Music, from '76, that's gotta happen someday too...
There's something a little strange about Posies records. And we noticed the same thing about Sloan records weirdly enough. Two of our all time favorite bands for sure. But as excited as we always are for a new record by either, inevitably, when it does finally show up, we're always a bit disappointed, sometimes more than a bit, convinced that maybe that's it, the band is past their prime, done for. And we'll keep the record, just cuz we like the older records so much. It's that same loyalty that compels us to keep listening, and then, without fail, something mysterious happens, and the record, in both cases, Sloan and Posies, begins to grow on us, begins to sound better and better, blossoming, and revealing itself as another great pop record, one that does in fact fit with all the other releases. And then invariably we find ourselves listening to those records incessantly, which we're beginning to think is the magic of both Sloan and the Posies, the difference between spitting out some immediately catchy pop pap, and crafting something deeper and more complex, that does require multiple listens and does eventually end up being catchier in the long run, and certainly becomes the sort of record that we never tire of, unlike some of those hook filled sweet pop jams that we listen to over and over but tire of quickly.
So yeah, we were SO excited for a new Posies record, and experienced the exact same phenomenon described above. In the case of Blood/Candy though, there might be more to it, the fact that the first three tracks feature guests, none of which we'd heard of, but apparently each notable enough to merit mention in parenthesis after the song title. It's not that those songs were bad, they just didn't grab us, could it be that it was the Posies watered down by guest vocalists? Although to be fair, their vocal contributions are not all the noticeable. But if you skip those three tracks, and start the record on the third track, "So Caroline", suddenly, it works, and from there to the end, it's total classic Posies, it still took a few listens, but we can't stop now, from soft focus dreamy soft pop, to crunchy big guitar power pop, the songs split as always between the group's two distinctive vocalists/songwriters, Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer, hooks galore, lush arrangements, incredible harmonies, another great Posies record! And once you've played tracks three to eleven to death, then head back to those first three tracks, and guess what? Yep, they start to sound great too.
So yeah, Posies fans, you're obviously already gonna want this, and for newbies, while we might recommend Frosting On The Beater or Dear 23 or Amazing Disgrace first, this would not be a bad place to start either (although we'd still recommend starting with track three!). Classic power pop for sure, folks into Jellyfish, The Rollo Treadway, Sloan, Silver Sun, The Stereo and the like should already be WAY into the Posies, but if not, you should probably just get this, and the rest of their records too!
Wow, did this throw us for a loop. We were always fans of the Sea And Cake, every record was breezy and dreamy, soft and poppy, maybe too much so for some folks. And then When Prekop struck out solo, his records seemed to be even breezier and softer, continuing to craft smooth and sleepy, dreamy jazz flecked pop. So that's sort of what we were expecting from Old Punch Card, but that couldn't be farther from what this actually is. An homage of sorts to early pioneers of electronic music, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Raymond Scott, Nuno Canavarro, David Behrman and the like, almost entirely produced on analog synthesizers, with no vocals, no beats, virtually no guitars, mostly improvised, a gorgeous abstract collection of primitive audio experimentation, a symphony of bleeps and bloops, stretches of gorgeously rhythmic pulses and squelches, swirling squalls of analog freakout, lots of glitch and hiss and whir and hum, wondrous expanses of abstract ambient haze, playful music box like melodies, woozy atmospheres, delicate cascades of crackle and static, pulsing sci-fi synths that sound like the music from some seventies after school special, fuzzy blurs of glimmer and twinkle, scattery bits of lo-fi percussion, a constantly shifting world of low fidelity analog sound. Some of the tracks sound almost like Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, bleary eyed gauzy expanses of otherworldly drift, others sound like a bit like a more primitive Oval, collages of electronic glitch and clipped tones, while still others sound like modern electronica, albeit channeling the retro sounds of yesteryear, and a handful sound like academic electronic experimentation, but they all sound fantastic, weird and wondrous and really really cool.
Latest chunk of dirgey psychedelia from these aQ faves, and as we noticed on the past few records, Robedoor's sound has been growing consecutively more melodic, their songs sounding more like, well, songs, rather than extended freakout jams. These three tracks here offer more proof that Robedoor do in fact have a softer side, but fear not, they're still plenty distorted and dark and tripped out, the songs are just more restrained, they'd have to be to fit 3 on a 7". But the shift suits them, washes of keening high end drift above scrabbling bass suspended in the ether, guitars chime and ring off in the distance, each track is a slow build from spare spaceiness to tribal pummel, the rhythms minimal yet propulsive, vocals hazy with effects and woven into the fabric of these songs, another layer in an already thickly layered sound, the tracks grow more and more dense, usually culminating in spaced out droney drift, laced with delicate melodies, all psychedelic and fuzzy and murky and way psychedelic, and pretty dang kick ass!
Litanies is the debut from SF garage gloom poppers Royal Baths, who have crafted a gorgeously hazy and murky bit of rhythmic hypnopop, equally indebted to the Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, and of course the current crop of retro reverb junkies that have been spilling from garages all over the Bay Area.
Gauzy and druggy, looped and mesmerizing, the drums simple and motorik, a distinctly Mo Tucker like pound, the sound reverby and cavernous, as if they recorded in an old cistern, the vocals a lazy melodic drawl, but often supported by gorgeous Beach Boys like harmonies, and the guitars, chiming and jangly one minute, howling and distorted the next, slipping from muted chug, to buzzing drone, to grinding crunch, often in the same song. All of that wrapped around crazy hooks, irresistible melodies, and some seriously kick ass songs.
"After Death" is definitely a contender for song of the year, spidery echo drenched guitars hover over a primitive rhythmic thud, the vocals sweetly melancholic, gorgeous boy/girl harmonies, plenty of sixties pop vocal "Bop Bob Baaaa"s, some cool strangely angular riffage, an explosive bridge that crunches and pounds, the whole thing so deliriously druggy and impossibly catchy. And that's only one of a clutch of killer jams, "Nikki Don't" is the Velvets by way of the Beach Boys, a murky low slung slither, but infused with plenty of unlikely sunshininess. "Needle And Thread" is total Loop / Spacemen 3 style buzzdrone murk pop, washed out and woozily dreamlike, with warbly basslines and some seriously fierce fuzz guitar. "Sitting In My Room" is like Wooden Ship on tranquilizers, hypnotic and psychedelic, but so gloriously wasted sounding.
Easily one of our new favorite records, and new favorite bands, druggy droney garagerock krautpop, like a SF garage rock mix tape (Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, the Mantles, Sic Alps) that's been chopped and screwed, the Fuzztones via the Velvets, the Beach Boys filtered through plenty of Loop, Spacemen 3 covering the Lyres, however you slice it, this totally rules!
"Welcome to darkness!!" It's a red letter DOOM day here at Aquarius, with the arrival of this long awaited reissue! For some reason, SST had never before released these essential Saint Vitus records on compact disc. Now they're here, officially together on one cd, the LA doom legends' 2nd full length album Hallow's Victim and subsequent 12" ep The Walking Dead, both first unleashed back in 1985! Plus, a bonus track!!
There were other great underground metal bands in the '80s who practiced what doom messiahs Black Sabbath preached: Trouble, Candlemass, Witchfinder General, Pentagram... But it was LA's Saint Vitus who took the Sabbath sound to even further extremes. They were heavier, slower, doomier than anyone else. Psychedelic, wasted, DOOM. Both of these essential doom documents boast the unique vocal presence of Vitus' original singer, Scott Reagers. As we've no doubt mentioned in other reviews, it's been a subject of some debate 'round here about who was the best Vitus vocalist, Reagers or his replacement, Scott "Wino" Weinrich. Whatever your preference, we'd hope you agree that Reagers was pretty AMAZING, his dynamic, dramatic banshee wailings somehow like an unholy hybrid of both Ozzy and Dio! But way more twisted, wretched, and over the top than even that would sound. And although the recent Vitus reunion lineup is with Wino, when we saw 'em, Wino made a point of paying tribute to Reagers, talking about how awed he was to have to try and fill his shoes back in the day. (Man, we wished we'd been at the show in LA, where Reagers did show up on stage to sing a few songs!).
Containing classic tracks like "White Stallions", "War Is Our Destiny", and "Mystic Lady", we can't recommend disc this highly enough to any traditional doom fan who doesn't have this stuff! Druggy frizzy fuzzy punk rock burn out Black Sabbath worship doesn't get much better (maybe Vitus's self-titled debut from '84 edges this out). While guitarist Dave Chandler is technically a mess, he sure had a knack for writing a riff, and his demented wah-happy soloing makes up in sheer psychedelic chutzpah what it lacks in chops. Drummer Armando Acosta and bassist Scott Adams revel in the slow and low, respectively (though Vitus do crank up the speed at plenty of spots on this disc, actually). And then there's the mournful cries of Reagers on the mic, delivering the goods, proving that a scuzzy band of stoners from LA playing the '80s hardcore punk rock circuit might just have had the best metal vocalist of all time EVER... well that's what some of us here think, anyway. Hear for yourself.
The bonus track happens to one of our favorite songs in the Vitus catalog, "Look Behind You". This is the original recording of that tune, as sung by Reagers, taken from SST's 1986 Blasting Concept Vol.II compilation (it was later redone with Wino on the Thirsty And Miserable ep in '87).
Before we get into our usual wordy meandering, hyperbolic gushing and tangential ruminating, we oughta come right out and say it first thing, this record is fucking incredible. One of the coolest weirdest records we've heard in ages. Twisted and blown out, weirdly melodic and groovy, dense and washed out and otherworldly and fucking bizarre, equal parts blissed out hypnogogic shoegazey drift, lurching, chopped and screwed style Southern crunk, majestic choral dreaminess, blurred beat heavy collaged electronica, and sample heavy blown out synthbuzz epicness. In some alternate universe alien world, THIS is the music that comes blasting out of booming systems in tricked out lowriders, some sort of glorious, blindingly blissy club music that fuses stuttery stumbly beats, to crumbling distorted low end, and thick swaths of synths so blown out the whole record sounds like it might collapse, mix in soaring operatic vocal samples, low slung bass buzz, jittery drum skitter, and mush mouthed slowed down 'rapping', smear and blur it all into one glorious, warped and warbly cough syrup fever dream epic, and that's basically Salem's King Night.
By now, most folks have at lest heard of 'witch house' a new 'genre' that Salem seem to represent, willingly or not, it's hard to say, but alongside other groups like oOoOO, witch house has received the sort of blog hype (and mainstream press) that immediately turns us off, and made us want to hate it, but so far, everything we've heard, we've dug, big time, but nothing has kicked out ass as much as this Salem record. It's so weird, and twisted and bizarre, it's sort of hard to believe that THIS is the record people are talking about, it makes sense that we'd love it, and that it would be an aQuarius Record Of The Week, but the New York Times? John Q. Public? Fuck it, like we always say, we'd way rather here stuff like this on the radio anyway. But regardless of the hype, or the backlash, or any of the nonmusical stuff, it all boils down to how ingenious and utterly OUT THERE this is. Just check out the title track, some weird garbled voices, some skittery drum machine, some ravey synths, choral voices, and then BAM, the song explodes, the bass a throbbing slab of rumbling crunch, the drum machine weirdly awkward, but the perfect compliment to the tangled melodies, and those soaring distorted operatic voices, the track a total epic, building and building, like the score for some insane alien sci-fi slow motion dancefloor martial arts battle, you can almost visualize fishtanks exploding into galaxies of exploding glass shards, while bodies fly threw the clouds of glistening sparkle, everything seemingly floating weightless. So good. We could listen to this track FOREVER (and pretty much have since we got it). But then comes "Asia" with its fat stuttery beat, and girlish vocals buried beneath a miasma of crumbling distorted crunch, and woozy synth melodies and confusional drum programming, sounding a bit like some over the top M83 jam gone haywire, or maybe some lost Cocteau Twins B-side remixed by Alec Empire and Black Moth Super Rainbow, everything fuzzy and washed out and gauzy, murky and dark, but still suffused with a weird sort of sunshininess. "Frost" is more of the same, even prettier and blissier, taking Sigur Ros and dipping it in a vat of gristly distortion and Carpenter sci-fi synths, and then stretching it out into a billowing sheet of diaphanous dream pop.
It's not until "Sick" that we get a glimpse of Salem's other side, their chopped and screwed, sippin' sizurp, alien slow motion shoegaze hip hop side, the music remains essentially the same, maybe not quite as dense, still swirls of female vocals, a strange otherworldly chorale, but over the top of this sonic cotton candy , a 'rapper' delivers his mutated pitch shifted flow, mouthful of marbles, finger on the record slowing it do a crawl, creating a weirdly dreamy draggy druggy hip hop / dream pop hybrid. And the rest of the record seems to drift lazily between those two sounds, "Release Da Boar" finds Salem offering up another cloud of dopesmoke dreaminess, fuzz drenched dirge pop bliss, which gives way to "Trapdoor", another slow motion, DJ Screw style cough syrup remix, laid over a warm warped and warbly bit of lysergic ambience and buzzing rave synth swirl. "Hound" is like the title track redux, so thick and crumblingly distorted, but so blown out and beautiful, "Tair" is a gloriously weird spaced out, handclapped chunk of shoegaze rap, and "Killer" sounds like Joy Division or Interpol run through a million distortion pedals, and set to a Casio keyboard drum machine beat, only to shrug off some of the crunch and warble, leaving a gorgeous stretch of plaintive low slung doom pop, that hints at the poppiness that lurks beneath the surface on King Night, only to finish the record in a squall of synth buzz, mumbled vox and drum machine chaos.
Wow. What else can we say. This sounded so good in the store, and even better in headphones, but it wasn't until we got in the car, and cranked this as loud as it would go, that it finally sunk in, and suddenly, we were bouncing up and down in a tricked out lowrider on some alien planet in some alternate universe, our booming system BOOMING, getting totally lost in these twisted and gorgeously damaged sounds. WAY WAY recommended.
We had never heard anything from these Italian blackgrind crustmetal crushers before, but holy shit is their Southern Lord debut a seriously fierce and ferocious slab of extreme brutality, crushing post metal sludge, insanely frantic metallic hardcore, blasting black metal buzz, crusty feedback drenched filth, gnarled downtuned grind all woven into a little over 34 minutes of skull caving, spine wrenching, ear destroying heaviness.
The killer 'dripping black goat' Justin Bartlett cover art is the perfect visual accompaniment for Solve Et Coagula, although we did actually assume these guys were gonna be buzzing blasting true black metal, but the truth was better than we would have hoped for.
The record opens with a long stretch of layered guitar buzz, droned out and hypnotic, tense and intense, gradually building, howled hellish vox buried just under the surface, like a blackened Sunroof! almost, or some Neurosis intro music, and then when the band kicks in, that's just what it sounds like, a plodding doomic lumber, epic and majestic, a sort of Neur-Isis-y post metal trudge, the vocals harsh, over tangled guitars, and then the song REALLY kicks in and gets even heavier, a massive churning chunk of post metal doom sludge, which barely prepares you for the next the next 8 tracks, averaging less than 2 minutes each, of furious blasting metallic pummel, grinding frenzied crunch giving way to crushing d-beat blast, giving way to squalls of punkmetal chaos, occasionally slipping back into something more sludgey, but never for long, always exploding again into caustic bursts of throat shredding vokills, impossibly dense drumming, super distorted guitars, and gnarled mathy arrangements.
Until "Eve Of The Last Day", mirroring the opening track, with its soaring guitar buzz, its spaced out drum pound, a majestic epic, that finally slips into a seriously crushing chug heavy dirge. "War Desire" is the record's last bit of punk metal crunch, before the twisted finale, simple titled "1968", super mathy and complex, lots of lurching start stop arrangements, the guitars super tangled, before splintering into an awesomely psychedelic breakdown, all swirling FX freakout and abstract drum crush, the middle portion gets a bit melodic, and if possible, somehow even heavier, a lumbering, lurching groove, that spaces out into a tribal droney slow burn outro, eventually leaving just streaks of feedback, blurred high end drones, and a mysterious sampled voice.
So fucking awesome. Heavy music obsessives of all stripes (black, doom, post, crust) should for sure check this out...
The return of our favorite anarcho vegan pagan black metal band, Kentucky's Panopticon, here teamed up with Canadian duo Skagos, who we'd never actually heard before, but had heard OF, and were dying to check out.
But first, three new tracks from Panopticon, a one man band from the South, whose crusty weirdo math abstruse black metal we went nuts for, a buzzing blasting pounding onslaught of Pagan fury, rife with samples and all manner of strange sonic filigree. The tracks here begin with a strange sampled folk song, simple percussion, lots of cheers and group vocals, very Teutonic, until the track explodes in a gnarled frenzy of furious blasting blackness, dense and brutal and weirdly melodic, an epic jam shifting from mathy churning stutter to frantic lightspeed buzz to loping post rock meander, and finally to shimmery shoegazey ambience. The second track begins a gauzy rhythmic dronescape, washed out and hypnotic, the drums sound programmed, stuttery and shuffly, while melodies unfurl and blur, the whole thing hazy and dreamlike, until the guitars come in, the track instantly transformed into some churning Neurosis like heaviness, breaking down at one point, to just super fuzzed out bass, drums, and weirdly tortured and effected vokills, before finishing off in a blaze of total blackened sonic chaos, which somehow manages to still sound melodic and melancholy.
And holy shit, the last track is a monster, right out of the gate, an impossibly insanely complex squall of looped buzzing riffage and frenzied drumming, so heavy and dense and intense, over the course of the track, shifting to hushed soft focus drone laced with tinkling chiming melodies, to spacious post rock drift, wreathed in echo-ey shoegaze guitars and maniacal shrieked vocals and anchored by still more incredible drumming, grinding to a halt, leaving a just a strange sample of deep chanted singing, and a mysterious German conversation, angelic choirs, and the sounds of birds and streams in the background.
As if that weren't enough, we've got two lengthy epics from Skagos, both seeming to fit in with the whole Cascadian black metal sound (Wolves In The Throneroom, Fauna, etc), the sound as post rocky as it is black metal, very melodic, and melancholy, blasting beats and harsh vokills laid atop swoonsome melodies, and some super surprising clean vocal pop parts, very distinctive, not typically black metal 'clean vocals' either, almost like Modest Mouse or Built To Spill, an indie pop croon over woozy minor key riffs and simple rhythms, eventually erupting back into some seriously fierce heaviness, but never losing that element of emotion and melody, the track getting mathy occasionally, with cool start / stop rhythms, twisted arrangements, and plenty of blissed out ambient haze, so much going on over the course of the 12+ minutes.
The second track is even longer, and just as varied, beginning with crystalline clean guitars, underpinned by haunting atonal strings, before erupting into some seriously filthy raw blasting black metal, that eventually dials it back, and reveals a strangely pretty melodic element lurking just below the surface, the vibe is a little Neurosisy too, heavy and epic and a little bit crusty, slipping into a cool churning chugscape, before a burst of loping doomic crunch, and then more delicate ambient prettiness, just gorgeous guitar suspended in a dreamlike haze, where the clean vocals return, this time sounding like Jeff Buckley, super emotional and intense so at odds with the rest of the track, which is why it's so cool. Makes us almost wish they would have that singing all the way through, instead of the harsh vox, how cool would that be?
Eventually, the track winds down with a final burst of pounding downtuned blackened howl, but it's those mysterious clean vocals, and the strange melodic elements that run throughout both tracks that definitely make Skagos something special.
Comes packaged in a super swank digipak, full color, printed with reflective UV ink...
Here we go, another seven inches of skweee from Lo Dubs subsidiary Losonofono, a label devoted to that very special Scandinavian electro subgenre we love so much. Previously they hit us with the "apocalyptic skweee" soundz of Sweden's Daniel Savio, now it's The Spartan Lover's turn to pump some squelching, sizzling skweee our way. Like Savio, this Finnish artist, his name a tribute of course to electro/hiphop legend The Egyptian Lover, is a key skweee producer, you've already heard him on the Museum Of Future Sound Vol.2, Skweee Tooth, and The Internalization Of Massy compilations amongst other appearances.
Two trax here, both great, with lotsa fat funky low-end.
For a band that's proudly "always on tour" (and have been for the better part of the past 15 years!), the band of Philadelphians known as Stinking Lizaveta don't make it out here to San Francisco nearly often enough, in our opinion! (And when they do, we always request they play an instore here at AQ, just so we get to see 'em twice.) So, not having had the pleasure of attending a Stinking Liz show for far too long, getting in this brand new album is, well, the next best thing. It also might be the best Stinking Liz recording yet. Steve Albini (no slouch) was behind the board for the first five of their albums, but this time 'round they've switched things up production-wise and recorded with heaviness guru du jour Sanford Parker (Pelican, Indian, Buried At Sea, Samothrace, Minsk, Bible Of The Devil, etc.). With more overdubs and a thicker sound, or something, this just immediately impressed sonically. While it's by now commonplace to remark that any studio album from this all-instrumental, more and more metallic "doom-jazz" trio can't quite capture the sweaty, gleeful intensity and exuberance of their live performances (how could they?), this one still certainly excels as an at-home, loud listening experience, revealing subtle nuance of light and shade while also pulverizing massively when they tilt towards the heavier side of that so-called doom-jazz thing. (Really, what are they? They've been rightly welcomed into the metal realm, specifically the stoner/doom scene, but the upright electric bass points to jazz, and they display signifiers of mathrock, postrock, prog, fusion, and crustyhippiepunk as well... let's just say Stinking Lizaveta ROCK and be done with it.)
And even though it's their sixth album, they have no problems conjuring the usual Stinking Liz magic in the songwriting dep't. The feel and finesse of SL's style of tightly wound jams is in full effect, these ten tracks packed with all the power and prettiness we expect: Menacing, calm-before-the-storm moodiness. Surging grooves. Eruptions of exotic, trebly guitar god soloing. Ripping riffage. Dynamic stops and starts. Sheer beauty and sudden complexities.... You get plenty of what we might (confusingly?) term 'Earthless-condensed-and-gone-classical' geetar wailin', wired through the choppy chunky chuggery of song structures that sound like Confessor on SST.
Fans of the band will be seriously chuffed, and if you haven't heard 'em before this would be a fine introduction as any (short of seeing 'em live of course - but heck WE got into them in the first place from hearing their debut cd, not at a show). Sacrifice And Bliss currently stands as the authoritative album from this band about whom we've waxed rhapsodic so much before, that all we can say is if you haven't gotten into 'em yet, please do so now. Of course, we don't expect EVERYONE to like 'em, though we do feel sorry for you if you don't...
As if the music of lysergic, lo-fi drugdub one man band Sun Araw wasn't flipped out and damaged enough, on this latest joint, those already tweaked and twisted sounds get even more far out, the vibe WAY druggier and spacier, a 26 minute blast of crumbling wah-guitar laced psychdub comedown in the form of three skull caving soul freeing innerspace excursions.
"Last Chants" begins with a dense swirling cloud of white noise and damaged effects, shot through with barely there melodies, and loose detuned riffage, as the noise gradually fades out, it reveals the strange slow motion cough syrup psychfunk dub drawl lurking underneath, woozy wah guitar, echo drenched Sly Stone vox, streaked with shards of high end shimmer, distorted fuzzy crunch, all hazy and blurry as if run through a series of bongs, all roped to a loping lugubrious barely there rhythm.
"Midnight Locker" is way more dubby, fragmented rhythms, and strange vocal oooh's, drift in a sea of swirling whirring low end thrum, woozy bass slithers throughout, cowbells surface here and there, little bits of wah, spidery tendrils of psychedelic guitar, the buzz and blur eventually recede leaving just a strange assemblage of percussion and guitar, all over a distant rumbling shimmer, but mostly it's spare and spacious and still seriously drugged out.
And finally, "Deep Temple" starts out almost like a proper dub jam, but within seconds, that woozy groove is wreathed in gorgeously blown out prismatic sheets of shimmery sound, an impossibly shoegazey dub drone bliss out of the highest order, twisted and looped, and as the track progresses more and more heavy and psychedelic.
The cd version tacks on an additional 18 minutes, 2008's Boat Trip ep, which is a bit more lo-fi and a bit more minimal, long stretches of low slung bass rumble, thick swaths of shimmering drones, crumbling distorted heaviness, reverbed vox, loping and hypnotic, still dubby, but not nearly as blown out and explosive, a sort of meditative dreamy druggy coda. So cool...
As if the music of lysergic, lo-fi drugdub one man band Sun Araw wasn't flipped out and damaged enough, on this latest joint, those already tweaked and twisted sounds get even more far out, the vibe WAY druggier and spacier, a 26 minute blast of crumbling wah-guitar laced psychdub comedown in the form of three skull caving soul freeing innerspace excursions.
"Last Chants" begins with a dense swirling cloud of white noise and damaged effects, shot through with barely there melodies, and loose detuned riffage, as the noise gradually fades out, it reveals the strange slow motion cough syrup psychfunk dub drawl lurking underneath, woozy wah guitar, echo drenched Sly Stone vox, streaked with shards of high end shimmer, distorted fuzzy crunch, all hazy and blurry as if run through a series of bongs, all roped to a loping lugubrious barely there rhythm.
"Midnight Locker" is way more dubby, fragmented rhythms, and strange vocal oooh's, drift in a sea of swirling whirring low end thrum, woozy bass slithers throughout, cowbells surface here and there, little bits of wah, spidery tendrils of psychedelic guitar, the buzz and blur eventually recede leaving just a strange assemblage of percussion and guitar, all over a distant rumbling shimmer, but mostly it's spare and spacious and still seriously drugged out.
And finally, "Deep Temple" starts out almost like a proper dub jam, but within seconds, that woozy groove is wreathed in gorgeously blown out prismatic sheets of shimmery sound, an impossibly shoegazey dub drone bliss out of the highest order, twisted and looped, and as the track progresses more and more heavy and psychedelic.
The cd version tacks on an additional 18 minutes, 2008's Boat Trip ep, which is a bit more lo-fi and a bit more minimal, long stretches of low slung bass rumble, thick swaths of shimmering drones, crumbling distorted heaviness, reverbed vox, loping and hypnotic, still dubby, but not nearly as blown out and explosive, a sort of meditative dreamy druggy coda. So cool...
Michael Gira has made his point that Swans has been reactivated, and that this is not a reunion. The distinction may be important to Gira, but it's pretty clear that he doesn't want the world to think he's jumping on the bandwagon of every cool band from the '80s and '90s getting back together again. But the fact remains that Swans dissolved back in 1997, and Gira took some of the musicians from those Swans gigs and sessions to form his grizzled folk ensemble Angels Of Light. Given the acoustic songs that Gira would sometimes wrangle as a counterpoint to Swans' signature brutality, the transition for Gira from Swans into Angels was a logical one. Over time, Angels developed into a lush ensemble with twinkling psychedelic aspects of a bright baroque aesthetic never revealed in the harrowing, abject tracks from Swans.
In early 2009, Gira embarked on a solo tour, showcasing a bunch of new material that seemed to be harkening back to the sound and fury of Swans, in spite of their minimalist presentation through just acoustic guitar and voice. On more than one occasion Gira quipped that he was thinking of making another Swans record. And that brings us to My Father Will Guide Me, ushered forth by a squadron of atonal guitars and lumbering percussive crashes. The album really does sound like it could have been produced in 1999, right after Soundtracks For The Blind, which was thought to be the final studio record for Swans. Sure, there's no Jarboe (for obvious reasons), but Gira did recruit guitarist Norman Westberg to return to the fold, as he was responsible for the guitar sound for the band from Filth up through White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity - in other words, the most brutalist period for the band. That buzzsaw rasp which Westberg produced is very present in Swans resurrection, cutting through the thug-fist basslines and lockstep drum rolls. The sound of Swans is very much intact, but Gira's songwriting has constantly grown, with his booming voice still wailing doom and gloom through the lens of an American apocalypticist. Devendra Banhart also makes a guest appearance on a track equally noted for its discordantly brash trombones and trumpets with their resembles to divebombing arcs. If only every band that got back together could make a record with this much intensity, drama, and power. Utterly brilliant.
Sometimes a record can hit you in the face like a punch, other times the music can pierce you like a needle, sinking deep into a sensitive place without you even realizing it's still in your flesh. Tamaryn's debut album, The Waves, is like the latter. It's so light, pain and tension melt away while you listen, but also so sharp and brilliant, you can't get it out of your head. Strongly evoking the slowcore brilliance of My Bloody Valentine, the layered reverb on the guitars give the effect of distance while at the same time the dreamy vocals keep the listener close. A veteran of many outstanding bands (Vue, The Audience), Rex John Shelverton's guitar playing is tempered perfectly throughout the record, never seeking to override the vocals, filling in gaps and expanding outwards in huge planes of reverb wash. At times, like the song "Haze Interior," the atmosphere is hazy and slightly chilled, a frustrated plea for understanding from a loved one whose language you can't quite understand. The next song "Sandstone" builds from a punctuated guitar riff into a driving bass and drum beat that manages to make you nod your head while still leaving plenty of room in the mix for layers of vocals. If Beach House's Devotion and Mazzy Star's So Tonight That I Might See were to have some sort of precocious offspring, the result might very well be The Waves. Highly recommended.
The Inevitable Past Is the Future Forgotten is the long-awaited new Three Mile Pilot record and it's definitely a keeper. Gone are the eight minute dirges, the post-apocalyptic imagery. In their place are concise, brilliant pop songs with sometimes intensely personal lyrics and catchy refrains. For those of you who have (somehow) never heard of Three Mile Pilot, a history lesson: San Diego in the '90s was a truly memorable place. So many genres and sub-genres of music spawned and died and were born again in some new bastardized form. One of the most influential and unique bands to emerge was Three Mile Pilot, a trio that originally relied only upon drums, vocals, exceptional bass playing and the occasional homemade horn built by Jim French. Their first two full-length records (Na Vuccu du Lupu and The Chief Assassin to the Sinister) are flat-out masterpieces: sprawling, epic landscapes that build walls of chaos and discordant harmony only to tear them down; lyrics and album art that evoke militaristic machinery and a glacial sincerity; bass melodies that seem impossible for one person with only ten fingers to play. On subsequent releases, the song structures were tightened, the band introduced guitar which gradually came up in the overall mix, and the edges were polished a bit, possibly due to the influence of the 3MP "side project" The Black Heart Procession. Like their last full-length Another Desert, Another Sea, The Inevitable Past features the piano and the guitar, for the most part, as melody-makers, though the bass takes center stage (as it should) on quite a few songs. The overall "feel" of the record is similar to Another Desert, Another Sea, though the new record adds a layer or two of subtle, sparkling synths that brighten and deepen the music. Possibly because of the influential nature of a band like Three Mile Pilot, there was a lot of anxiety floating around about how good this record was going to be. Without a doubt, though, this is an outstanding record that will not disappoint.
Hell yes! A magazine totally devoted to the world of female drummers! This issue features articles and interviews with Cindy Blackman, Tabla master Suphala Patankar, Yuko Araki, Valerie George, Pikachu, and Zildjian cymbals (the company that some may not know,has been run by a woman for the last 11 years). Plus interesting stories and featurettes from The Runaways, Merrill Garbus from Tuneyards, Laura Fares from Disco Damage, Valerie Agnew from 7 year bitch, Yael cohen from The Witches, Purple Rhinestone Eagle, and of course lots of favorite drumming techniques, gear guides, and practice tips including our favorite tidbit of info: how to buy a steel-pan drum!
NOW ON VINYL!!!
Yay! Always cool to get a new comp of crazy, colorful, psychedelic pop rock treats from way back when (and way far off too, internationally speaking).�The comic bookish cartoony cover art gets the swinging '60s (and early '70s) concept across, plus we were already fans of a couple previous comps on the same label, Neurotic Reactions and Some Songs Stuck In My Mind. So we were curious to hear this, and quite pleased with what we heard! 15 cuts full of fuzzy guitars, funky drum breaks, exuberant vocals, Hammond organ orgies, and other facets of freaky, garagey goodness, all from rare 45s by bands straight outta Argentina circa '69-'75, part of something called the "Rioplatense scene".
The lineup: Bosques, Dynamita, Los Fantasmas, Gipsys, Caballo Vapor, Kon-Tiki, Brujos, Wooky Toky, Los Barbaros, Victoria, Them (no, not that Them), Asfalto, Jarabe De Menta, and Little Green Men. Lots of great stuff. We love the backwards effects on Kon-Tiki's "Viaja Al Ayer (Turn Back Time)" which sounds like something by Peru's We All Together, old AQ faves. It's actually one of the prettiest, most restrained songs here, the others go for a variety of pop music that, y'know, really POPS. Like, ferinstance, the sheer organ-heavy FUNK of Caballo Vapor's cut. Or the unhinged mayhem of Gipsys' "Oh! Malala" (they get two tracks here, and the other one, "Kamasutra", is pretty wicked too). Wild, wacky, and fun are what you should expect, especially from the band that calls themselves Wooky Toky...
Another killer Soul Jazz compilation, this one focused on a new genre they've decided to call 'Future Bass', but which is essentially the next step in the evolution of dubstep. Some of the names here are recognizable, as already having made a serious splash in dubstep circles: Ginz, Coki, Ramadanman, LD, but then there are some wild cards, like aQ faves Four Tet, who seem to stick out, but who have actually been making their own sort of 'future bass' for a while now when you think about it, and of course there's a whole mess of names we've never heard before, but somehow, all of these random jams and disparate soundmakers do manage to fit together, into a sound that's definitely futuristic and definitely big on the bass, but beyond that, manages to sprawl in all sorts of incredible and unexpected directions.
The record begins with Mala's "Don't Let Me Go", a stripped down bit of techno skitter, wreathed in chirping electronics, and blurred cascades of space-y shimmer, but the coolest part, is this peripheral rhythm that seems to be constructed from that weird stuttering cell phone interference you sometimes get, that and some softly wheezing dubby melodica, so nice. Four Tet lock into a clipped loop right off the bat, then add their own little shuffling rhythm over the top, and then keep on adding, weird little fragmented melodies, little bits of squelch, thick buzzy synths and playful little bursts of bloop and bleep, a few moments can all synthy and swirly and ambient, but for the most part it's awesomely and endlessly motorik and mesmerizing.
The dubstep contingent definitely push the genre boundaries, Ginz takes a playful melody, and adds a WICKED, crumbling buzzy synth bassline that is SO KILLER, and a strange juxtaposition with the rest of the light airy sounds in the track, Coki's jam might be the most typically dubstep, but that bass warble here is way more brittle and percussive, and a little sci-fi, and it's chopped up a bit so it's a little glitch, sometimes stuttering, other times buzzing, while the rest of the track creeps along ominously in the background, Ramadanman's jam sounds like a sample of "White Lines" sped way up and layered, a throbbing rumbling warbly bassline beneath some dubbed pout ambience and a super skeletal rhythms, the whole thing warped and wonderfully warbly.
Elsewhere the sound slips from playful and party-ish, jittery and bumping, to dark and washed out and almost Portishead-y, all grainy and gristly, like some slowed down electro ballad, to super spare Raster Noton style click and glitch, but even then the bass rumbles and buzzes, to late night almost bossanova sounding shuffles and piano driven half tempo jungle jams that sound downright cinematic, it's all pretty great, big beats, buzzing bass, anyone who's been digging the last few Soul Jazz comps, or all the killer weirdo electronica of late, especially all the variants of the dubstep sound will dig this big time.
Holy cow! Matador Records has turned 21!! Hard to believe that it's been over 2 decades, and that what was once a tiny little indie label has turned into one of, if not THEE biggest independent labels in the world. But it's not all that surprising when you look at the records Matador has released, and the bands who call (or called) Matador home, just off the top of our heads: Pavement, Guided By Voices, Interpol, Yo La Tengo, Bardo Pond, Chavez, Belle And Sebastian, Matmos, Arab Strap, Cat Power, New Pornographers, Fucked Up, Sonic Youth, Ted Leo... We could go on, but you get the drift, in fact, if you're reading this, odds are you own a whole bunch of those records, and your house is probably overflowing with Matador jams.
So to celebrate the big TWO-ONE, Matador had a huge party in Las Vegas, with tons of awesome bands playing, and released this incredible 6cd box set (or 2lp, not so incredible, more on that at the end of the review, vinyl folks might as well skip the next bit as it only applies to the cd version). Six discs, a massive sprawling greatest hits collection, spanning the label's entire history, chronologically. The first disc is maybe the most exciting, as it features tons of the lesser known Matador outfits: Dust Devils, Toiling Midgets, Bailter Space, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Come, Bettie Serveert, Chain Gang, Circle X, H.P. Zinker as well as Unsane, Superchunk, Railroad Jerk (one of Andee's favorite bands EVER), Teenage Fanclub and more. The next few discs feature all of the bands mentioned in the first paragraph, as well as Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Pizzicato Five, 18th Dye, Guitar Wolf, San Francisco Seals, Helium, Boards Of Canada, Spoon, Pole, Mogwai, Cornelius, Dizzee Rascal, Dead Meadow, Mission Of Burma, Early Man, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Shearwater, Jennifer O'Connor, Stephen Malkmus, Lavender Diamond, Kurt Vile, Times New Viking, Jay Reatard, Harlem, Ted Leo, Magic Kids, Perfume Genius, Cold Cave and more more more! As if that weren't enough, there's a sixth disc featuring all unreleased recordings from Matador's 10th anniversary show back in 1999, live tracks from Pavement, Come, Bardo Pond, Cat Power and Mogwai!
Those all come in a super swank box, with an 80 page book, packed with liner notes, a history of the label, photos, emails and other goodies, and finally, 36 custom Matador poker chips (in keeping with their Las Vegas celebration, we presume).
Phew! Basically the raddest Matador mixtape EVER.
Vinyl folks are not so luck, the lp version is a more stripped down greatest hits double lp, featuring a handful of jams from Matador and Matador sublabel True Panther Sounds from Fucked Up, Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile, Yo La Tengo, Kurt Vile, Jay Reatard, Times New Viking, Ted Leo, Cold Cave, Girls, Interpol, Cat Power, Delorean and a few more. Still a pretty excellent mix/collection, but in this case, seems like probably the cd version is the way to go, $43 for 6 discs, poker chips and a swank box is not bad at all...
Okay, we *might* be able to convince Fire Breathing Turtle to print up more copies of these; but then again we might not. So be warned about the potential paucity of these Sweet Hawaiian Dreams!
This short-run cd-r compilation comes by way of Jeffery Taylor - known to some as half of the Climax Golden Twins, to others as one of the curators of that impeccable Victrola Favorites anthology, and to those in Seattle as the bearded fellow behind the counter at Wall Of Sound Records. Pretty sure that all of these tracks come from Taylor's collection of '78s, dating from 1913-1936. This is a time period that predates the 'golden era' of Hawaiian music, when the territory became a state in 1959 and the rest of America became enthralled with the exotica of the Pacific Islands. Given the Victrola gramophone medium of these recordings, the fuzz and hiss of surface noise plays heavily throughout the compilation, but ukulele and slide guitar do their best to push through that pleasant patina of antiquated static. The signature slack-key sound of Hawaiian music is found throughout, the notes bent into languid, almost lazy melodies. There seems to be an equal number of instrumentals and vocal tunes, with the vocalists adopting a wide range of more continental singing styles, from the barbershop harmonic stylings of Sol Hoopii And His Novelty Five to the belting croon of the South Sea Islanders. Like we mentioned from the onset, very limited, but a worthy addition to all of those Sublime Frequencies anthologies which we have loved for so many years.
Another batch of glorious fuzzy girl pop, this one from UK combo Veronica Falls, a surprisingly upbeat song about a popular suicide spot called "Beachy Head", total old school urgent post punk jangle pop, sassy female vox, backed up by deep boy background vocals, cool tendrils of psychedelic guitar melody, fuzzy summery pop for sure, rife with all that sixties reverb and echo, but with just a bit of an ominous edge, and a KILLER chorus. The B side is a sweetly sorrowful beachy ballad, boy girl vocals over Beach Boys shimmer, simple muted percussion and lovely crystalline guitar melodies, warm whirring organ, all woven into a timeless soft focus beach pop ballad. So nice. Obviously for fans of Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, Grass Widow, Brilliant Colors, etc...
Debut ep from this Scottish one man depressive doom laden black metal band and it's a good 'un, mixing lumbering downtuned riffage, howling chaotic blackness, and some serious melody, all wrapped up in a blown out, low fidelity production, that only serves to add a cool creepy vibe to the already grim proceedings.
After a short-ish intro, all sprawling chords, spare drumming and some cool layered super distorted minor key melodies, in come clean, melancholic finger picked clean guitars, weaving a haunting miserable atmosphere, before the song explodes into a murky pound, a stumbling blurred blackness, everything washed out and muddy, the vocals a demonic mush mouthed yowl, tortured and anguished, while the blurred smeared blackness underneath swirls darkly, the loping drumming anchoring the otherwise amorphous black sonic cloud. About 4 minutes in, the blackness flakes away, leaving spidery, distorted melodies, electronic sounding drum plod, all woozy and depressive, and as the track progresses, the sound grows slower and sicker and more dour, finishing off with several minutes of weirdly melodic ultra doom plod.
The vocals are super twisted, reminding us of Shining or even Abruptum, adding a seriously ominous fucked up vibe to what might otherwise me more traditionally depressive blackness. The record that transforms into some trudging spaced out doomic crunch, before slipping into some weirdly clean jangly post rock lope, reminiscent of later Hypothermia, before exploding into some seriously intense, yet still melodic black howling buzz, with those pounding drums, more gloriously inhuman screeching, the result trancelike and weirdly epic. Finally the record finishes off with a short stretch of woozy lilting doom, more pretty and washed out than heavy, thick minor key chords, simple percussion, a gorgeously miserable crawl, that grows more and more anguished, with the chords fragmenting into upper register skree, and the vocals growing more and more hysterical, still beautiful, but also beautifully harrowing.
SUPER LIMITED, and in super swank, hand made packaging...
The Reggae Issue! It may seem like Wax Poetics has done this before, but besides having Lee "Scratch" Perry once on the cover, no issue has ever been fully devoted to reggae. Augustus Pablo and Gregory Issacs grace the cover. Features articles and interviews with Island Records label head, Chris Blackwell. Dancehall label Greensleeves, Dub Sound systems in the UK, Essential playlist by British Roots DJ David "Ramjam" Rodigan, Sugar Minott , Beres Hammond, Bob Andy of The Paragons, and of course the Roland Space Echo! ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
Super limited lp only collection of studio outtakes and rarities from psychedelic space rockers White Hills, the main attraction being the epic side long jam "Drift Away", anchored by a solid krautrock rhythm, wrapped in a woozy bassline, the bass and drums locked tight, while the guitars soar and howl, total epic slow build mega space jam of the highest order, thick clouds of droned out guitar churn and roil over thick slabs of crunchy riffage, leads wriggle wildly all over the place, all very druggy and lysergic and heavily spaced out, like a Hawkwind outro stretched out to fill up a whole side, EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE, we're always talking about how White Hills jams should go on forever, well, this is as about as close as we're gonna get. Endlessly hypnotic, the guitars piling up into huge layered looped expanses, seeming like they might explode into the stratosphere, but instead, finally wind down into a cool blissed out chill out, swirls of effects, the guitars softened and blurred into slowly fading swells of whir and buzz.
The flipside features two shorter tracks, the first a gorgeous slab of spacey synthy droning kosmische drift, not all that dissimilar to the recent White Hills (aka Black Valleys) aQ instore, pulsing, whirling ambience, a sea of swirling looped guitars, again layered and layered, built up to a glorious Sunroof!-style Ur-drone, while the second track is way more murky and washed out, thick streaks of distorted riffage, blur into almost drones, the bass thick and undulating and driving the whole thing, the drums a buried throb, the guitars growing more and more crystalline, and less and less murky as the track progresses, totally droned out and mesmerizing!
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, housed in a cool bootleg style lp sleeve.
Everyone into Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, Spacemen 3, Loop, A Place To Bury Strangers, Swervedriver, Black Angels, The Heads, White Hills, Lumerians, Mugstar, Monster Magnet, Serena-Maneesh, Telescopes and similarly drugged out, psychedelic hypnorock, best make some space in your music collection for this, the latest addition to your blissed out space-psych drug rock section (what? doesn't everyone have one of those?), the debut from Welsh space rockers White Noise Sound, who pretty much sound exactly like a heavier, modernized Spacemen 3, all it'll take is a couple minutes of record opener "August", with its motorik drum machine, sung/spoken vox, looped psych guitar mesmer, and then when the band kicks in proper, heavy guitars and propulsive drumming, explosive and hypnotic and if you're anything like us, which we're guessing you probably are, you're done for, just let yourself be pulled under, and dragged along through thick billowing clouds of psychedelic effects, of gloriously bleary drugged out churn and chug, surprising female harmony vocals, wild squalls of psychedelic leads, buzzing sitars, whirring synths, heck there's even some glockenspiel! To be honest it took us a while to get further into the record, as we found ourselves playing that first jam over and over and over.
But it's worth the effort, the whole record is gorgeously lysergic, slipping from propulsive drone rockers like the opener, to tripped out blissy drifts like the follow up "It Is There For You", with its tinkling chimes, clouds of cymbal shimmer, skeletal guitar strum, and motorik pulse, spaced out and spacious. But even those mellow ones build to serious freak outs, the guitars exploding in shards of prismatic shimmer, coruscating sheets of feedback drenched melody, Hawkwinded heart of the sun jams that could (and should) go on forever and ever. In fact, the record for all its explosive moments, definitely spends more time in hazy, druggy, dreamy bliss out mode, letting the synths and sitars weave gloriously gauzy expanses of weightless sonic shimmer and softly pulsing kosmische drift, which only makes the heavier parts that much more dramatic and kick ass.
Born in Mississippi in 1906, Booker T. Washington White - "Bukka" as he came to be known against his wishes thanks to a misspelling - got his start in the music business in 1930, with records for Victor and Vocalion. Following a stint in Mississippi's notorious Parchman Farm prison, White made his way to Chicago where he recorded for OKeh in 1940. Years later, White's songs would be covered by everyone from Bob Dylan to Spacemen 3, but to the record buying public at this time, the Mississippi style of hard hitting country blues was out of fashion, and his work met with little commercial success. It's strange to think of music like this being viewed as outdated, because the sheer power of White's guitar work and his intense vocals are timeless. Fortunately, one of the people who found inspiration in White's music was none other than John Fahey, who in the early '60s figured he'd attempt to locate White in the town the bluesman sang about two decades earlier in "Aberdeen Mississippi Blues". Addressing a postcard to "Booker T. Washington White (Old Blues Singer), c/o General Delivery, Aberdeen, Mississippi", Fahey lucked out when White's relatives obtained the note and forwarded it to the singer, now living in Memphis. In 1963, Fahey and ED Denson went to meet and record White, resulting in this lp. Unlike some of the other original bluesmen to be "rediscovered", White sounds as strong as ever. His resonator guitar playing seems to defy logic with its thunderous, heavily percussive attack and a piano-like slapping technique. White's expert slide playing is frantic yet precise, and everything is topped off by a huge, booming voice that could only belong to someone who had been through a lot. The sound quality here is no frills and upfront, but nice and clear and perfect for capturing the raw power of White doing what he did best. Highly recommended.
Believe us, we were very skeptical of this brand new release from the godfather of grunge, interestingly titled Le Noise and housed in a stark, black & white cd booklet. But after seeing a solo set at the Fox Theater in Oakland a few months back, Neil pushing monumental amounts of fuzz and volume through four vintage Fender tube amps, we knew Mr. Young would be back to the heavy amplifier worship we've heard on past albums like Year of the Horse or Zuma. Le Noise reminds us that Neil isn't the type of performer that sticks to what's comfortable, safely plucking away at old songs for fans of his own generation. Instead he continues to explore new ground and expand the taste level of himself and his listeners.
For Le Noise, Neil enlists the help of legendary producer Daniel Lanois to piece together his heaviest album in the last decade. And as the title may suggest, not only is Le Noise heavy, but there is an experimental undercurrent throughout the entire album, Neil's voice often shrouded in delay and reverb, noisy underwatery washes of electronic sizzle and shimmering feedback flutter about, we think Neil's been listening to Fennesz.
We also love how bare bones Le Noise is, no sign of Crazy Horse here, only Neil and his guitar, sometimes acoustic but mostly blaringly loud electric. Not even any drums or percussion, just lots of low end rumble and tube amp sizzle to accompany Shakey's quivering voice. So great and so recommended!
