The strangely named Padang Food Tigers, are actually an offshoot of blissed out pastoral dream drone folk outfit Rameses III, and it sounds like it.
A short three track ep of sun dappled folky drift, sounding like three movements of a single piece, all hazy and hushed and delicate and lovely, the simple strummed melodies drift above field recordings of wind and water, wrapped in lush gauzy swells of soft focus whir, laced with tinkling chimes and distant bells, a slowly unfurling landscape of abstract folk drone meditative mesmer, eventually the instruments fade, leaving just the chimes and the sound of the world outside. Only to have the simple strumming reemerge over a brief stretch of crackle and pop, the sounds presumably of a warm fire in the hearth, this time there's piano as well, a delicate counterpoint to the crystalline guitar, which drifts lazily into the final track, the piano more pronounced, this time everything underpinned by the thick liquid buzz of a bowed cello, the deep resonant rumble wrapping warmly around melancholy pointilist piano, a sonic rendering of a lazy summer afternoon, the trees waving in the breeze, a stream burbling nearby, a glimmering world of tranquil bliss and washed out dreamlike folk drone ambience. So lovely. Sad it's so short.
Packaged in a stamped cardstock sleeve, LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
Another back room discovery, a little stash of these until-now-unreviewed discs, 2008's Pause For The Jet, from aQ fave Daniel Padden, whose solo records we ended up digging way more than his day job in Volcano The Bear. Not to slag VtB, but Padden on his own, manages to create gorgeously head spinning, fractured and fantastical worlds of sound, schizophrenic and chaotic for sure, leaping willynilly from all out noise assault to lilting folk, from murky drone to twangy ethereal drift, which in other hands could definitely be jarring and disorienting, and, well... hell, it still is in Padden's hands, but there's just something about the way he strings all those disparate sounds together that works. Although works in a way that will most likely not be obvious to the casual listener, but by now, anyone into weird homebrewed sounds, will no doubt find much to dig here (and anyone whole loved Padden's other discs, you're probably gonna want this too!).
Pause For The Jet seems to tend toward the drone and the drift, sort of, 17 songs most of them pretty short, some as short as 30 seconds, the longest almost 5 minutes, but the rest hovering between 1 and 3 minutes, which might frustrate some, looking for long, slowly unfurling dronescapes, but taken as brief bits of droning sound and twisted melodic weirdness, PFTJ is a pretty appealing listen. Stretches of ethereal shimmer, underpinned by plonking piano and low slung bass, slip into maddeningly fractured collages of varispeed tape manipulation, hazy blurred drift and disembodied pump organ, detuned twang flecked campfire folk gives way to hushed melancholic thrum, Tow Waits-ish back alley cabaret is peppered with Ribot like guitar buzz and still more tape weirdness, elsewhere strings keen and buzz and bombinate, Padden croons beautifully over skeletal melodies, dark swells of thumping upright bass pulse beneath Herrmann like strings and noisy percussion, the record lumbering back and forth between atonal skronk, and haunting avant lo-fi folk, psychedelic shimmer, and disembodied ghostlike creep.
Another one we have VERY few copies of, so act fast...
Pan American is the solo project of Mark Nelson, who we first discovered via the late great Labradford, a group whose gorgeous brooding minimal post rock most definitely informed much of what's gone on since. Nelson began Pan American to explore his blossoming interest in computer music, electronica, dub and techno, stretching the sounds he created in Labradford and crafting dark landscapes of mysterious electronic sound, dreamlike stretches of minimal droning drift, and skittering softly stuttering and swirling textured ambience.
For Waiting For Chasing was originally released in a super limited edition back in 2006, and is easily PA's most minimal outing, skeletal and spare, haunting and otherworldly, the songs here drift, and slowly unfold, the rhythms are less rhythmic, and more textural, the opener here, "Love Song" is the perfect example, chittering clicks are draped over lush layers of whirling chordal thrum, chiming bells unfurl muted melodies, the sounds softly smeared into bleary streaks, bits of field recordings, static, glitch, all woven into PA's gorgeous soft swells of sound. Absolutely lovely dreamlike ambience, but flecked with distinctly un-ambient elements, which is what makes the sounds here so compelling.
Later PA records definitely moved in directions that some of us found way less appealing, but it's pretty impossible not to love this one.
Fields of crackle and mournful creak, looped melodies buried under layers of hiss and hum, woozy and warbly and dreamily indistinct, crumbling textures, smoldering layers, hazy fields of glimmer and muted loops, Oval like underwater swirl, dubbed out barely there beats stretch into heartbeat like pulses, bell like tones, glitch bursts of staticky melody, it's all just so fantastically hushed and lovely, culminating in the final track, "Amulls" which is as much about the melody, way down in the mix, off in the distance, a softly reverbed lullaby, tinkling piano, drifting minor key melody, all beneath a patina of crackle, a crackle which almost begins to sound rhythmic, like the some nearly invisible crystalline framework, around the delicate melancholy within. So so nice.
We were never all that into garage rock legends the Oblivians, and we'd never even heard of The Ettes, but this Parting Gifts record has totally been kicking our asses, and had us wondering if maybe we should give the Oblivions another chance, and thinking we should most definitely check out the Ettes.
The Parting Gift is a collaboration between Oblivions mainman Greg Cartwright, and The Ettes frontwoman Coco Hames, and instead of sounding like In The Red style garage rock, it sounds like classic sixties pop, mixed with a little soul, and a little Misfits/Samhain punk popsmithery, in fact record opener "Keep Walkin'" sounds like it could most definitely have been a lost Misfits jam, here stripped down and made all jangly, rife with handclaps and pounding piano.
"Bound To Let Me Down" sounds more like the Fresh & Onlys' take on sixties pop, and it's the first time we hear Hames, who has a gorgeous and sassy voice and perfectly compliments Cartwright's gruff croon. The resulting jangle pop brew would sound right at home next to the recent Matthew Melton record, but where that record channeled old Who, The Parting Gifts take their influences from the Beatles and the Stones, in fact, they do a gorgeous version of the Stones' "Sleepy City", brooding and dark and moody with Hames vocals drifting gorgeously over the top.
Definitely a new favorite around here, and anyone into the current crop of girl group beholden garage pop combos like the Dum Dum Girls, the Vivian Girls, Girls At Dawn, and aren't averse to the idea of a little sixties boy pop with their sixties girl pop, might just want to check this out.
We actually bought one of these when we were in a shop in NYC, based entirely on the cool cover art. What is surprising is that the art is courtesy of one Mr. Stephen O'Malley. It's not surprising because it's cool, just that is looks so unlike the rest of his immediately recognizable work. A sort of angular, geometric, psychedelic Pippi Longstocking. Fucked up for sure, but totally appropriate to be adroning this latest record from PeeEssEye, or PSI or whatever. We initially expected some sort of metal, maybe something sludgy or doomy, but it's really not metallic at all. it's more of an abstract, sound collage noise record. Lots of sineaves, and swoops of white noise and fuzzed out static. There is metal present, but in the form of clanking clattery percussion. Or in the shape of some weird live performance, where the band seems to be spewing metallic shrapnel through a blown speaker. Super distorted and totally fucking bizarre. The rest of the record is a series of abstract soundscapes, from twinkling shimmer, to full on harsh noise. Definitely falls sonically somewhere between the Yellow Swans, the Skaters, Wolf Eyes and the like. Fans of any of that sort of brass knuckle to the skull goodness will dig this as will strong stomached iron eared dronesters. Comes in a cool mini gatefold style sleeve with badass O'Malley artwork!
Not a person, but a duo from France, Pepe Wismeer create an incredible concoction of otherworldly cabaret, psychedelic chamber folk and mysterious minimal ambience, creating a soundworld that seems to situate itself somewhere between Nurse With Wound, Antony And The Johnsons and Natural Snow Buildings.
Pianos and strings swirl and soar, while operatic female vocals drift over the top, the sound is stirring and dramatic, soundtracky and cinematic, occasionally those sounds fade into the background allowing the aforementioned folk to surface, the duo crooning warmly over this very unlikely assemblage of sounds, seems like it would be too much, but it's perfect, like a doom folk NWW whipping up this, moving tales of lost loves, the dark meandering minimal soundscaping augmented by bells, chimes, samples ouds and sitars, creaking and moaning, random animal sounds, it's like a musical interpretation of Alice In Wonderland, surreal and fantastical, occasionally dark and ominous, always warm and weird and mysterious, lapsing now and again into some serious chaotic noisiness, but always returning to the group's glorious core brood and drift, shimmer and soar. So wonderfully and mysteriously lovely.
LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES!! Each one is numbered, on the sleeve AND the lp, includes an 8 page booklet, and is housed in a gorgeous paste on jacket.
If you happened to miss out on their super limited tour tape, from a few months back, Pure Ecstasy have returned with a beautifully remastered vinyl version (the tape split into two ten minute tracks, one on each side), and with it a new name: Pure X. Guess there was already another group that shared the name and so they took the high road and modified theirs. Reminds a little bit of the detergent though...
Anyway, Chain Reflection shows off the bands more experimental side, a side we haven't seen as much on their pop singles. The bands slow motion grooves are intact, but the overall effect is more collage-like, chopped in a blender style. Sometimes veering into foggy dub experimentations a la Sun Araw, or lo-fi distortion squalls, murmured voices, and pretty ambiance. It reminds us of all the reprises they put at the end of their singles, that sublime moment that fades out too soon. Here though, those moments are stretched way out and turn in on themselves into something much more tripped out and elusive, but still allowing us to laze in their bright and sunny haze.
These come on translucent smokey vinyl in a layered hand-drawn mylar package.
Super beautiful and super limited! Don't sleep on this one this time around!
Record number three from electronic/krautrock/spacedrone/experimental soundscaper Reuber, aka Timo Reuber, whose fifth and most recent record was an aQ Record Of The Week a while back, and whose second record we reviewed just last list, and now as we work our way through his catalog, we've got his 3rd record, and it's just as great and all over the map as the two previous ones.
Kintopp is German for cinema, and on Kintopp, Reuber creates mini soundtracks, twisted little electronic vignettes that range from playful to brooding, noisy to minimal, dark and haunting to twisted and abstract, and more often than not some dizzying combination of all of the above. A quick sampling would reveal: a strange bit of cabaret, rubbery basslines, looped mechanical rhythms, and a strange high end melody that sounds like it's being played by releasing air from a balloon, pulsing almost techno style throbs buried beneath a dubbed out expanse of melodic shimmer, a looped bit of bassy riffage, like some sort of spy theme, laced with backwards sonic swoops, and little flecks of melody and shards of glitched out electronics, that same sort of spy theme bass riff is wrapped around deep mysterious Tuvan style throat singing, hushed melancholy strings, soar over a deep expanse of rumble and thrum, a kaleidoscopic avalanche of pizzicato notes tumble like a hazy glimmering sonic waterfall, swirls of pop ambience spread out in clouds of gauzy blurred soft focus haze, a pounding almost industrial groove that sounds like a techno-fied themes song to some Miami Vice knockoff, the whole thing peppered with strange percussion, and wreathed in sweeping streaks of warm whirling sound, a weirdly looped collage of chopped and looped African folk music, wrapped in reverb and delay, a tinkling bit of piano driven cinematic ambience, like a more woozy, washed out Chariots Of Fire, all dramatic and epic and majestic, but slightly warped and warbly, and on and on and on.
A fantastically varied collection of beautiful but brief electronic soundscapes, woven together into a strangely cohesive whole. Oh and did we mention the cover photo, of Reuber (we presume), wearing a leather jacket, a cowboy hat, American flag pants, with his foot up on some sort of sports car, with a personalized REUBER license plate, holding a spear gun, standing next to a stuffed elephant, that has been speared, and appears to be bleeding spaghetti in tomato sauce. Woah.
We made Reuber's Ring a Record Of The Week a little while back, the latest solo record from Timo Reuber, who is one half of the electronic duo Klangwart. Ring was fantastic, super varied, slipping from kosmische dronemusic to pulsing psychedelic techno to spacey new wave. We loved it so much, that many of us got a little obsessed, and decided to dig deeper and check out some of Reuber's other releases. Thus we have this, Reuber's second solo release, from 2001, the title translating to "Stay Cool", the bulk of which is made up of the two part title track, each part about 22 minutes. The first part, definitely in keeping with the album title, is an extended electronic dronescape, shimmery and crystalline, lush yet delicate, warm tones drifting from speaker to speaker, bathed in a hazy glow, meditative and dreamlike, new agey and a little bit krautrocky, soft flurries of notes dissipate into gauzy streaks, bits of electronic glitch and spacey effects surface here and there, like the score for some educational film about interplanetary travel. The sounds eventually coalesce into an almost rhythm, pulsing warmly, wreathed in strange atonal melodies, before quickly blissing out again, and spreading out into a barely there cloud of glistening, tinkling blur.
The second part of the title track is pretty much the opposite, a pulsing metallic buzz like rhythm, skeletal and mechanical, skitters and shuffles, the sounds growing more and more thick and buzzy, distorted and intense, eventually becoming almost Merzbowian, thick and corrosive, yet still somehow warm and melodic, a wildly buzzing chunk of hypnotic spaced out rhythm, the timbre constantly shifting too, from dense and layered, to brittle and tinny, finally to fully blown out and in-the-red. All the while managing to sound kosmische and psychedelic, under that coating of crunch and thrum and buzz and glitch.
Finally, the record finishes off with another bit of 'cool'ness, a relatively brief (7+ minutes), of hazy high end shimmer, a warm whirling drift of subtle overtones, slow shifting layers, of blurred melodies and glowing near static thrum, a perfect bit of tranquil mesmer to finish with.
Fantastic stuff, anyone who dug Ring will like this too, and anyone into kosmische drift, and spacey new age kraut drone, who is not averse to a little bit of crunch and buzz, this will definitely hit the spot.
The holidays are behind us but we couldn't just ignore this great Christmas 7" from Oakland's Shannon & The Clams, showing they aren't too cool to have a soft spot for the holidays. Covering four of their favorite holiday tracks by a range of folks including Paul 'Fat Daddy' Johnson and Mariah Carey. The A side features the more punkish garage-y Cramps like side of the band, while the B side shows off Shannon's awesome vocals and much more of their affinity for girl groups and early rock n' roll music. Never too late for a little stocking stuffer.
BACK IN STOCK (we listed this on our Xmas gift guide in-between list only, some of you might have missed it)...
Sonny Smith has had quite a year, culminating in a huge project where he wrote and recorded 200 songs for 100 singles by made-up bands in a vast array of styles and asked 100 artists to make the record covers. That project has been touring the country at various art venues and some of the records are actually being made for real release. The first volume to be released was a limited edition boxset made by local SF gallery, Gallery 16, and may be already gone. This second volume while still rather limited is more affordable and focuses more on the music Sonny made than the artists who were included in the show.
In this box edition of 5 split 7"s, we get to hear Smith with help from members of the Sandwitches, The Fresh and Onlys, Ty Segall and Kelly Stoltz make music by The Fuckeroos, Zig Speck and His Specks, Versatile Kyle, Loud Fast Fools, and Wayward Youth among others. While we haven't been able to hear all the tracks, this edition, most likely focuses more on the garagier incarnations of Smith's fake band pantheon, which also mines country, soul, doo-wop, rockabilly, as well as folk-rock idioms. Needless to say, the dude ain't lazy!
Not sure where this one even came from, but we just noticed a little stack of these hidden away in the back room, and judging from the packaging, an oversized brown paper booklet adorned with a black ink screen print of an octopus with its tentacles wrapped around an arm, and the band name, SOLVENTS, we were actually expecting this to be some sort of noise record, or some avant drone thing, but instead, we were treated to a gorgeous bit of lilting indie folk, piano and violin laced brooding strum and croon, a subtle Pink Floyd vibe happening, but filtered through more modern signifiers like Iron & Wine, Beirut, Bon Iver, Band Of Horses, Mount Eerie, the Low Anthem, a seriously impressive collection of stripped down twang flecked pop, the piano and violin elevating above most of the current crop of similarly sonic popsmiths, and Solvents main man Jarrod Bramson has an incredible voice, and knows his way around a pop song, and Manresa Castle definitely had us wondering what these guys were doing hiding way unreviewed on our shelves instead of being adored by legions of fans, and being worshipped by Pitchfork. Needless to say, for fans of this sort of thing, doesn't get much better. But be warned, we only have 4 or 5 of these, it's from 2007 and odds are it's long out of print...
A couple of lists ago, we awarded Record Of The Week status to the fantastic Soundway compilation The Sound Of Siam, a collection of vintage '60s and '70s psych/pop music from Thailand (and it just came out on vinyl too, which we're listing this week). Dunno about you, but The Sound Of Siam only whetted our appetites for more, though we had to wonder, who could possibly top that? Well, if anyone could, Japan's EM Records, one of our favorite labels for eccentric, unexpected reissues, would be a good bet. As if on cue, here's EM's first entry into the '60s Thai music reissue market, by the group Son Of P.M., so named because their manager, one Phayoung Mukda, was the father of their keyboardist and arranger, Khabuan Mukda. (Amusingly, their name is making us think of the '90s hiphop groups Son Of Bazerk and P.M. Dawn, neither of which this sounds like of course!).
Son Of P.M., and spinoff group P.M. Pocket music, who feature on 3 of the 14 tracks here, were part of Thailand's "Shadow Music" scene back in the day, "Shadow Music" being the uniquely Thai synthesis of their own ethnic folk styles with Western rock, surf, Latin, go-go, and other pop sounds. It's an exciting, groovy, colorful hybrid indeed, a good example being the title track, with its swirling keys, chiming Thai xylophone, wailing group vocals, and drum breaks. Specifically, Son Of P.M. considered themselves to play "Modernized" or "Modified" Thai music, as EM notes that means their use of traditional Thai melodies and instruments (various gongs, drums, flutes, fiddles, etc.) has been augmented with electric guitars, keyboards, and other modern/Western instruments. Despite that, though, to Western ears this is still gonna sound way more Eastern than otherwise. Though the final track here, "King Of Drums", does get pretty darn surf-rock, a la The Ventures or the Surfaris, it's a bit of an outlier, the majority of this is less "rock" sounding, and seems to us to have more in common with the orchestral "exotica" of Arthur Lyman and Martin Denny, which is cool too.
Delightful stuff, sure to put a smile on your face and a wiggle in your hip. Another winner from EM. Unfortunately for us, though, the liner notes in this gatefold cd sleeve are all in Japanese.
The re-reissue-ance of a lot of crucial '70s Japanese psych rock documents continues apace, with this seminal stoner rock release now on cd (and lp) again via the Phoenix label. Originally released in the musically bountiful year of 1971, Eve was the debut from a psychedelic power trio that made no secret of their predilection for recreational pharmaceuticals, and preferences therefor. "Glue" was bassist Masayoshi Kabe's nickname, "Speed" that of singing drummer Joey Smith. Guitarist Shinki Chen (formerly of Food Brain, as was Kabe) lacks a nickname, so we dunno his drug of choice, but it's obvious he's really into Jimi Hendrix...
Obligatory citation of Julian Cope's Japrocksampler ranking: tied (with Flower Travellin' Band's Satori) for number ONE out of fifty!!! So, yeah, this is considered by some (including us) to be an essential - though we wouldn't personally rate on par with Satori, or for that matter ahead of Speed Glue & Shinki's own self-titled sophomore album, or some others on Cope's list, but it would be up there, nonetheless. 'Specially perfect when you're in the mood for some druggily spaced out, heavy cowbell knockin' acid blooze rawk splurge, laced with loping riffs and lackadaisical vocals, with titles that (of course) couldn't be any more overtly oriented towards the subject of gettin' high, such as "Mr. Walking Drugstore Man" and "Stoned Out Of My Mind"! But you, the listener, needn't be stoned, this music is head noddingly hypnotic all by itself, just turn it up and let yourself veg out to it, all the way through to the relaxing coda of the album's final
track, "Someday We'll All Fall Down", a quietly lovely, folky acoustic number with a doubtlessly prophetic title. Along the way, enjoy garagey rave-ups like "Ode To The Bad People" and lumbering blues blasters like "Big Headed Woman".
The seven tracks here are primal "proto-metal" (VERY proto) for fans of Blue Cheer, Blues Addicts, Moses, Modulo 1000, Human Instinct, Juan De La Cruz (the Filipino band with whom SG&S's drummer Joey Smith later played), Flied Egg (also reissued and reviewed this list), and others of that wasted, rock n' roll ilk from around the world.
Nicely packaged in a mini-LP style gatefold sleeve for the compact disc. Gatefold sleeve for the vinyl version too.
Second disc from this Dutch black ambient doom outfit and it's just as harrowing and horrific as the first. For more on the band and their strange ways, see the review of the last record Nihilistik Terrror elsewhere on the website.
But, in a nutshell, these guys are brutal, harsh, extreme and really fucking scary. Musically as well as in their modus operandi. Not content with coaxing the harshest of sounds from their instruments (there are instruments?) and emitting harsh demonic howls and hysterical maniacal shrieks themselves, these guys managed (through some dubious connections) to recruit a handful of inmates, in local psychiatric hospitals, to supply the 'vocals' and much of the artwork. And it sounds like it. Stalaggh's sound is a harsh swirling drone drenched freaked out noise, raw and hissy, loads of buzz and shriek and industrial whir, all whipped up into a dense stormcloud of sound, but it's the vocals that truly disturb, and this time they're everywhere, male, female, howling, moaning, weeping, wailing, sometimes barely audible, sometimes ferociously way up in the mix, always completely freaked out and brutally intense. This is like wandering through some old school mental institution, wandering the halls, all set to the sounds of SPK or Throbbing Gristle. This is the sound of human suffering, not just musically, but in every way, this is hate and confusion and misery and loneliness and sadness and despair and depression all channelled into a single 35 minute track. This record is sad and scary, and thus pretty fucking amazing.
It definitely takes a strong stomach, and a lot of mental resolve, and some seriously iron clad ears, but it ends up being worth it. Very little music is this raw and intimate and frightening and seriously scary. It's really pretty fascinating, as well as a little bit repugnant, definitely hard to listen to, but almost equally hard not to.
Limited to 100 copies, each one hand numbered and the inside features a reproduction of a piece of artwork drawn by one of the mental patients.
[The digipaks are all a little worn on the edges, but that's how they all came...]
Dug up a little handful of these too, a long out of print collaboration between field recordist and noisemaker Joel Stern and avant guitarist Anthony Guerra, whose collabs are always fantastic, epic expanses of mysterious soundscapery, the field recordings a perfect backdrop for the duo's sonic explorations, the chitter and glitch of electronics, twisted bits of warped FX, draped over the proceedings like a gauzy malfunctioning electronic blanket, while the strings buzz and keen, unfurling streaks of feedback, as well as lush swells, warm chordal whirs, and layered stretches of high end harmony, much of the electronic interference sounds almost like some abstract percussion, the sound often spare and ethereal, but slipping easily into an almost pop ambient sounding soft focus drift, albeit still wreathed in bits of squelch and crackle and hiss.
Released on Antony Milton's Pseudo Arcana label and LONG out of print, these are the last copies EVER...
Released almost two years before The Waves, Led Astray Washed Ashore is a different kind of (awesome) record. It's power lies in being direct and driving: the drums are tribal, the layers of sound are starker and sparser. Though there's still a lot of nice washy reverb in places, Tamaryn's vocals are recorded without a lot of doubling or many effects. Where The Waves makes you feel like you're floating in a dream, Led Astray Washed Ashore is grounded in the close and crisp dynamic of mostly clean vocals and tom-heavy drumming. The first song, "Return to Surrender," has echoes of the darker songs of the Eurythmics. "The Unknown" is all chanting, tribal drumming, and what sounds like an organ: a cacophonous interlude between the energy of the opening track and the colder, more stark "Sarah In The Aeadrone." "Golden Song" sounds like the best song Siouxsie and The Banshees never wrote, though the sparkly guitar work is pure Rex Shelverton. "Ashore" and "Metal Beasts" continue the lyrical themes of death and water and drowning present on the entire record (including the cover). Yes! Truly, there's nothing more nourishing for a blackened soul than beautiful music about death.
This record is a must have for anyone who bought The Waves or anyone wanting an introduction to the shoegazey brilliance of Tamaryn. It features an alternate take of "Mild Confusion," one of the best tracks on The Waves, and an unreleased song, "Light Shadows" that could have stood with pride anywhere on the full length. There's only a few of these left floating around (we got these from the artist herself) and it's doubtful if we'll ever get any more. Limited to 1000 copies and pressed on white vinyl.
Tectonic, Teutonic, yeah Tekhton is a good name for this heavy dirge/doom metal plus post rock (?) band from the Netherlands. This is their second opus, and it's a doozy of FUZZ laden riffage slamming repeatedly into your head, alternating now and again with much quieter, prettier parts, even acoustic strum and spacey synth. There's gruff, emotive singing, sometimes verging on melody, that works with both sides of the loud/soft equation. Tekhton make some allusions to geologic processes, and while a lot of this is subterreanean and slow-mo (and thus massively heavy) they speed up too for the occasional earthquake... their songwriting full of interesting complexities that keep the listener's ear engaged, along with one's emotions, that are already probably firmly in the grip of this intensely doomful music.
We mentioned pretty parts, well the prettiest here might be the indeed glorious "All Is Glory", that track being a mostly gentle, sorta spaced out psychedelic ramble, that's mesmerically mathy too, repetitive in a nicely Circle-ular way. Didn't Om and Six Organs do a record together? Did it sound like this song? Probably not but maybe it should have! (Oh, right, that was a split not a collaboration.)
Call it post-rock or not (maybe doom-prog would work as well?) this does remind us of post-rock stuff, but keeps it doooooooooom too, old school even, with any tendencies towards fancypants artsy-fartsiness utterly bludgeoned by the likes of, ferinstance, the crushing creepycrawl that is the appropriately titled "Tectonic Mass".
Super recommended, in particular to fans of a specific variety of AQ-beloved bands from Harvey Milk to Khanate to Pharoah Overlord to The Body to Boris. And we're detecting a definite Melvins influence on tracks like "Tooth And Nail", also a good thing.
The catalogs of both Asmus Tietchens and Richard Chartier deservedly have reputations for stoic minimalism. But even so, there are plenty of differences between these two exemplars of contemporary electronic music, with Tietchens embarking on a 40-year adventure of post-Krautrock experiments refined into barren, microsonic transmissions and Chartier distilling composition into elemental tones whilst maintaining a grasp of emotive impressionism. Tietchens has never shied away from the collaborative process, and his work is often better for it. Take his impressive Kontakt Der Junglinge project with Thomas Koner, for example; this (hopefully ongoing) collaboration with Richard Chartier is another.
The first disc is the source material that Chartier composed for Tietchens to rework. Had Chartier not mentioned that this was his own material, it would be easy to qualify the disc as a happy marriage between the two stalwart composers, as the rhythmicist patterns and generative forms which seem so much the signature of Tietchens are fused upon hushed slippages of tone and the faintest whisper of a half-melody. Perhaps Chartier did compose this specifically with Tietchens in mind, although he does state the piece was "an unusual improvisation," however that may be interpreted. It's a damn fine piece of microsound composition, no matter how you look at it. The second disc finds Chartier's work deconstructed and augmented by Tietchens, who also seems keenly aware of Chartier's aesthetic and seems to slant his contributions more towards that end of the spectrum. In the accumulated digital dust, sinewave obfuscation, granular synthesis, and glitched errata, Tietchens constructs glacial piles of filtered hiss pocked with enigmatic electronic glistenings and repeated mechanoid phrases, occasionally consumed by subharmonic rumbles. Like many of the best works from both catalogues, you'll find plenty hints of grandiose drama expressed through electronic gestures of shadow and innuendo. Very well done.
We're sure many of you are familiar with the eccentric ukulele playing, helium-voiced singer Tiny Tim from his surprising successes in the 1960s. Most view the man as nothing more than a novelty act, which may be easy to understand if you think "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" and Laugh-In is where the story begins and ends. But Tiny Tim (born Herbert Khaury) was more than just some flash in the pan weirdo, and one thing this compilation makes abundantly clear is that he WAS indeed a highly talented musician. Born in 1932, Tiny had been an avid listener and player of a wide variety of music since his youth. These recordings, many thought to have been lost, span his pre-fame years in the early '60s Greenwich Village scene to his post-fame comedown in the '70s. The range of material here will be surprising to many, and the songs are wisely sequenced without regard to their recording dates to demonstrate this more clearly.
The falsetto vocals are featured on many tracks, sure, but Tiny Tim also possessed an impressive and dramatic croon, while the instrumentation goes way beyond the sparse ukulele accompaniment, even going into some bombastic orchestral arrangements like in "I Ain't Got No Money". When "Ten Little Fingers, Ten Little Toes" follows in the style most people associate with Tiny Tim, his unique genius and skill as a musical interpreter become more obvious. Elsewhere, like on his arrangement of "Maggie May", things are played impressively on piano and delivered in a mushmouthed old man voice. He also completely KILLS with a spooky, Halloween-y rendition of the oft-covered classic "In The Pines". Listened to together, it's all pretty hilarious, not as some joke, but because one man was capable of being not only incredibly strange but also so endearing and highly listenable. The sound quality here is murky, but in a good way, lending a strange out-of-time feel to many of these songs, which makes sense considering this comes to us via the same label that released Michael Yonkers' Goodby Sunball album. We expected to dig this for sure, but really had no idea just how much this stuff would rule. Highly recommended.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Includes extensive and super interesting liner notes from Tiny Tim historian/biographer Justin Martell.
Latest in the ongoing series of super limited 3" cd-r's, paying musical tribute to H.P. Lovecraft. Past installments have come courtesy of UK avant black metaller Caina, Appalachian heathen metal horde Harvist, black noise occultists LVTHN, Kentucky one man USBM outfit Sapthuran, blackened French metal combo Smohalla, legendary Italian dark metallers Frostmoon Eclipse, aQ faves, Texan black metal Lovecraft worshipper Brown Jenkins, Frostmoon Eclipse side project Stroszek, and now, Italy's The True Endless, whose split with Angmar was a big favorite around here (we still have a few copies, just ask), and whose sound we described as buzzing black Mayhem worship, and very little has changed, the guitars buzz maniacally, the drums pound relentlessly, the songs are epic and majestic, blazing and frenzied, but often slowing down into churning chugging stretches of lumbering doom, before exploding back into another burst of frenetic Norwegian style classic blackness.
The True Endless here sound a bit like some weird hybrid of Khold and newer Funeral Mist, with midtempo almost-grooves, killer stuttery start stop arrangements, some super intense and epically anguished guttural vokills, woozy melodic guitar melodies, all wrapped in a gauzy blurred black buzz production, and surrounded on all sides by furious bouts of blown out blasting blackness. Awesome.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES, we got 20, and can't get more, so grab one quick, cuz these always disappear right quick. Packaged in a slim jewel case, with a 4 panel booklet and a thick card insert with a photo of Lovecraft on one side and an essay on the other. And it's always worth mentioning, that TTE bassplayer Soulfucker, is still quite possibly the foxiest babe in black metal...
Wow, this swooning, rich pop record has been seeping into our souls in such satisfying ways. The debut full length from Twin Shadow is one of the most emotionally brooding and satisfying albums we've heard in a long time. Makes perfect sense that Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear not only produced it, but also released it on his own label, Terrible. You can tell how Taylor would find a kindred spirit in the kind of music Twin Shadow makes, as it has the warmth and emotional richness that Grizzly Bear have become famous for. But Twin Shadow's music owes much more to the new romantics of the '80s, as it has us recalling folks like Talk Talk, The Smiths, Duran Duran, Japan, and later era OMD. George Lewis, Jr, who is the man behind Twin Shadow has such a memorable and seductive voice. While many of his peers have been tapping into the colder or kooky side of the '80s, he is able to get to the more fragile and heart stirring side of that decade's pop music. Some songs on the album even remind us of Richard Youngs' great pop outing, Beyond The Valley Of The Ultrahits. We have yet to play this once without someone in the store needing to know what they were hearing. It's that immediate and evocative and so damn good!
We were pretty obsessed with the debut from this Canadian Viking black metal horde, released way back when on bad ass UK label Paradigms, so we of course planned on reviewing their second record as well, this one right here, but for whatever reason, it just sort of slipped through the cracks, and thus it was only quite recently that we realized A) we had somehow never reviewed it, and B) we had a handful in stock. Better late than never we suppose, and if we had more copies you can bet this would be a big ol' blackened highlight, but as it is, it's more of a warehouse find, and what a find it is! Like their debut, Utlagr spit out a furious (but still melodic) blast of epic, majestic, Scandinavian style blackness, a little bit Viking for sure, but more in the imagery and themes, sonically, they continue to channel Immortal, Satyricon, Mayhem and most especially Enslaved. Frantic riffing, sweeping melodies, furious drumming, the sound slipping from frosty buzz to waltzy melancholia, grinding grim crunch to mathy DSO style gnarled blackness, woozy depressive drift to almost classic sounding metal majesty. Fucking awesome!
Avid readers of the aQ list have no doubt noticed out new found obsession with 'jukin' and 'footwork', and the music that is the soundtrack to this new style of dance battling. We reviewed collections by DJ Nate and DJ Roc, both big names in a scene that most folks had never even heard of until recently, and masters of a sound that is equal parts twisted genius, and maddeningly repetitive insanity. It's easy to imagine this being the perfect music to get out there and dance your ass off, the manic music matching the speed of the frantically moving bodies, or vice versa, but removed from the dancefloor or street corner, the sound takes on a life of its own and has proven to very divisive. Most of us can't get enough, the looped repetition, the ridiculously relentless skitter and stutter, but some folks are driven totally batty after a matter of minute. But frankly, we just don't know what the heck is wrong with those folks. This stuff is totally brilliant, baffling, confusional, and weirdly funky and freaky and WAY far out.
This collection gathers up jams from the better known names in Footwork music, DJ Roc and Nate are both represented, but so are a whole legion of others, who take the sound of dance music and twist it all up, the formula being super intricate 808 beats, chopped and spliced and layered, into intricate mathy patterns, while snippets of soul songs are sped up and repeated over and over and over, bits of rapping, or fragments of a vocal line are also lifted, chopped and then looped, a variant of ghetto tech, the sound is so intense, and groovy, and funky, and in its own way psychedelic too.
From the weird low end synth stutter of DJ Rashad's "Teknitian", with its warbly sci-fi melodies and skeletal skitter, to Tha Pope's "Jungle Juke", which takes "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and speeds it up, loops it, and transforms it into a hiccupping avant soul groove, to DJ Spinn's "2020", which does sound strangely futuristic, and to these ears approximates Majeure or Zombi making Footwork music, to DJ Yung Tellum's creepy soundtracky "Freddy Vs. Jason", all the songs here rule, and are totally mesmerizing, and hypnotic, and weirdly impossibly addictive, and odds are you won't be able to resist either.
We're always on the lookout for killer dubstep compilations, like most UK electronic music genres, the really great stuff ends up being released mostly as 12" singles or even impossible to track down white label dubplates, so often we look to folks who might just be able to get their hands on the best of the best, and hope that they're willing to share the wealth, more often than not in the form of a banging mixtape. Which is exactly what this is, courtesy of beatmaker/producer Diplo, a seriously banging, bass heavy dubstep mixtape that KILLS. The sounds and styles vary, but almost all the tracks here rule, our favorites being the ones with that relentlessly buzzing bass warble and stuttering big beats.
DZ's "Down" is is the perfect example, a shuffling hiccupping big beat is defined almost entirely by HUGE slabs of buzz, warbly, rumbling, wheezing basslines, sometimes more than one, and constantly being sped up an slowed down, changing the rhythm and the pitch and turning the song into a dizzyingly dense bass dub jam. Doctor P's "Sweet Shop", begins life all bouncy and ravey, with soulful female vox, but after 30 seconds, the track switches gears and sloooows way down, and becomes this dubbed out bass heavy creep, rife with buzzing synths, and whistle like melodies, all wound around some of the fiercest electronica we've heard in ages. And did we mention the bass? This is the sort of shit we'd pump if only we did in fact possess a booming system.
James Blake, who has been getting hyped a lot lately, but who we had never heard, takes a more Zomby-ish tack, a sort of retro eighties pop, but rendered woozy and warbly with processed vox, squelchy synths and heavily effected bass buzz. Dubstep legend Benga of course does not disappoint, after a tangle of high end synthy squiggles, launches into some awesomely twisted bass warble driven skitter. Rusko is another one who starts out with some soft focus radio pop, all diva driven and warm and swirly, only to pull the rug out, and send us tumbling into a swirling psychedelic dubbed out bass synth blowout, only to eventually slip right back into that breezy electronic soul pop. So fucking great. And there's loads more dubbed out bassy goodness, tracks from Ginz, Major Lazer, Diplo himself, Zomby, Untold, Rudi Zygadlo and more more more...
Tough to argue with a compilation called Far Out Spaced Oddyssey, especially with its super stylized witchy, skull-stick-carrying naked woman cover, her hair flung out over a starry backdrop of green and yellow, and the fact that this comp is subtitled: Psychedelic Folk, Electronica, Jazz & Rock From The Out-There Edges Of Brazil, well, that just seals the deal. And while we're often wary of comps like this, that mix vintage classic lost jams with more contemporary tracks, it actually works here, the result is an Andy Votel worthy double disc collection of Brazilian super varied sonic psychedelia. From prog to funk, to psych rock to folk, the amazing thing, is that in many cases, we had trouble telling if something was from the sixties or seventies or NOW. Which again speaks to the bad assness of Far Out Spaced Oddyssey.
The collection opens with Jose Mauro's "Apocalipse", a classic slice of vintage Brazilian psych-prog, soulful vocals, lush strings, groovy percussion, haunting witchy melodies, acoustic guitars, fluttery flutes, very reminiscent of seventies acid folk, but with a distinctly Brazilian vibe, and from there on out, it's a glorious mind expanding musical trip, from groovy flute flecked calypso, to hazy, organ driven soul (peppered with distinctly modern production filligree), from dense tribal electronic spaciness to fuzzy funky seventies jazz prog, from funky Blaxploitation sounding electronica to noisy chaotic psychedelic rock, from spacey new agey tinkle and shimmer to sweet summery Tropicalia, it almost doesn't matter which song is by whom, or what song is from what era, at least until you decide you need to track down more, which is always the sign of a killer mix, and if you're like us, you'll find yourself wanting more of much of this, not to mention playing both discs to death!
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
It seems like most Mississippi Records obsessives are also fans of the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies label, which makes perfect sense, they both seem to have a somewhat similar aesthetic, both focus on unheard gems, and curate some of the best compilations we've ever heard. Mississippi tends to focus on blues and country and gospel, while Sublime Frequencies looks further out, focusing on world music from Africa and Asia and beyond, but this record right here, the latest on Mississippi, might be the perfect Sublime Frequencies / Mississippi crossover, in fact, listening to this now, it's hard to believe it's not actually on Sublime Frequencies.
A fantastic collection of recordings of guitar music from West Africa (Senegal and Mali) focusing on various bands who are essentially unknown outside of Africa, but are quite popular in their villages, and are called upon often to play parties, celebrations, political events, their sound most likely immediately recognizable to fans of Group Bombino, Tinariwen and Group Inerane, which we'd imagine most aQ customers are.
That sound is a totally distinctive African folk music, captured live in various settings, houses, backyards, town squares, parties, you can hear people talking, birds chirping, kids laughing, random conversations, it all just adds to the sound, warm and inviting, emotional and so melodic, heavy on the acoustic guitars, lots of handclaps and foot stomps, the guitar playing is quite percussive too, a sort of low slung twang flecked desert blues, alternatingly moody and melancholy, effusive and festive, sometimes the sounds are distinctly Western, other times they're reminiscent of traditional African music, more often they're a hybrid of the two. Most of the groups here are made up of just acoustic guitars and vocals, but the sounds and songs they create are so lush and layered, so fantastically evocative, and just so totally beautiful.
Fans of all things Sublime Frequencies and Mississippi will definitely dig this, and it's absolutely essential listening for folks who love those Sublime Frequencies' Guitars From Agadez records...
The packaging is fantastic, super thick full color jacket, with a massive full color booklet, featuring tons of photos and liner notes, as well as plenty of history of the region and the musicians.
NOW AVAILABLE ON GATEFOLD VINYL, WITH A BONUS TRACK!!
So we've actually already had quite a few amazing compilations of '60s and '70s popular music from Thailand, including a whole bunch of discs from the infallible Sublime Frequencies label (Thai Pop Spectacular, Siamese Soul, Molam: Thai Country Groove, Shadow Music Of Thailand, etc., etc.), and also the Subliminal Sounds label's Thai Beat A-Go-Go series, but we were still super excited when we heard about the upcoming release of this new comp of vintage Thai tunes, 'cause it's been put together by Soundway, the UK-based label that also seemingly can do no wrong when it comes to international crate diggin'. Soundway is responsible for all those Nigeria Special comps, and the Ghana Soundz ones too, among other fine collections and reissues, most focused on music from Africa or Latin America. This is their first venture into Southeast Asia, as far as we know, and boy did they do the job well! A more lively, colorful comp could hardly be imagined. The compilers, who have spent hours and days on the ground in Thailand searching out vintage vinyl, know their stuff (their DJ night, "Bangkok Paradise", must be a blast).
Nineteen tracks, 66 minutes of music, ranging from yearning love songs to super groovy funk, all of it quite undeniably 'exotic' to our ears, so that even with Western psych and pop influences, incorporating surprise rock riffs, synths, and brass sections, it's most definitely music from Thailand, utilizing Thai folk traditions, sung in the Thai language, though some of it also reminds us of Bollywood stuff (which makes sense), or possibly the Ethiopiques series as well (a less likely connection there). We recognize a few of the artists' names from those other abovementioned comps, though they seem aware of what's been comped already and we're assured that most of the tracks here have never been released outside of Thailand before.
The subtitle doesn't say "leftfield" for nothing, this probably isn't the most typical mainstream Thai pop from the period, more like the hippest and freakiest, though often from quite popular artists, many revered to this day. Soundway treat us to some wonderfully eccentric picks, gems like Waipod Phetsuphan's "Ding Ding Dong", a song inspired by a dumb 1971 Italian sex comedy about prehistoric cavemen (and cavewomen) that was inexplicably a hit film in Thailand. And the spaced out lounge-jazz of The Viking Combo band's "Pleng Yuk Owakard" must be mentioned. Mindblowing. Walking bass, spooked out electric organ, maniacal vocals, loud shuddery chords, sudden percussion, woah it's a weird one, almost disturbing. Whichever DJ/collector first dug that one up must have been stoked. So much good stuff here, our point is, the treasures of vintage Thai pop are plentiful enough to require this comp, those that came before, and hopefully many more to come. You gotta be thankful when you think about it, without the efforts of labels like Sublime Frequencies, and Soundway, etc., we'd be missing out on so much incredible music that we now listen to on a daily basis, whether it be from Thailand or Nigeria or wherever.
One of two new dubstep comps on this week's list. The other is a sort-of-mixtape from DJ/beat maker Diplo, and is more a collection of dancefloor destroying party jams, big beats, HUGE wobbly basslines, booming system sort of stuff, and then there's this one, a double disc collection of past, present and future 12"s cut on the legendary lathe at Transition Studio, which is South London dubstep HQ, with most of those 12"s being released on one of the two in-house labels, Transition and Ringo. A quick look at the lineup should be all it takes: Distance, Skream, Cluekid, Kromestar, LD, Coki, Benga and more, all the big names, as well as a handful of up and comers, crafting some seriously deep and dubbed out darkness.
And that is basically the difference between these two comps, obviously, we're nuts for dubstep so we think both are essential, but the Diplo one is the one you're gonna blast in your car, the one that will get you out on the dancefloor and all sweaty, where this one is more laid back, stripped down, this is for after hours, winding down, late night drinks, chilling out, making out, and sure, you might blast this in your car, but you'd have the windows up, speeding down the highway, into a black expanse, or rolling slowly through rainswept empty city streets.
Low slung, dubbed out, skittery and stuttery, the beats minimal, the bass still warbly and wobbly, but more muted, this one's more about mood and atmosphere, and has some of our favorite dubstep jams yet.
Benga's "The Germ" is a haunting cinematic spy theme, with some very old school sounding horns, draped over the pulsing bass buzz and the skeletal rhythm. Distance and Skream team up on "Wiseman", a sample heavy bit of dubbed out crawl, dark and atmospheric, laced with occasional swells of ultra dense rib cage rattling bass. Kromestar takes that dubstep bass wobble and works it, choped and looped, sped up and slowed down, layered, pulled apart, the song is mostly a single stripped down beat without it, but that bass is so heavy and hooky and groovy and goddamn great! And speaking of heavy bass, Coki takes it even further out on "Goblin", playing that synth bass like some sort of metal guitar, buzzy and fuzzy and distorted and totally blown out. LD swaps his dubstep for some classic jungle on "Guerilla Warfare", a hazy old school drum and bass workout. We could go on, but needless to say, two discs, full to overflowing with some of the best dubstep out there, and if you're like us, you're gonna want this. Actually NEED this. This AND that Diplo dubstep comp. Cuz really, this is the perfect companion to that comp, one hard and heavy, one deep and dark, both totally bad ass...
With all these warehouse finds we've been reviewing and listing, you might imagine aQ was like that last scene in Raiders Of The Last Ark, cd shelves as far as the eye can see. And while that's really at all accurate, we do have a closet, and a back room, and piles of stuff and boxes everywhere, which means, stuff gets forgotten, overlooked, misplaced, and what not. Lots of stuff we order with the intention of getting more, but then for whatever reason we don't, maybe the release sold out, the label stopped pressing them, and then we don't have enough to review it, and it somehow slips through the cracks.
Which is what seemed to have happened with Three Uneasy Pieces, a solo guitar record from Aussie axeman Ian Wadley, who is probably better know as the guitarist in garage rockers the Bird Blobs, but here, he creates, just as the title suggests, three uneasy pieces for guitar, and a handful of pedals, and nothing else, and creates a gorgeously abstract, dreamy meandering soft focus tangle of spidery melodies, of deconstructed chords and of haunting effects wreathed atmospherics. Minimal and minor key, the tracks range from near psychedelic swirl, to brooding dramatic abstract folk drift, to hushes minimal twang flecked drone, and within each of those pieces, Wadley deftly conjures up surprising moods, and emotions, subtly shifting textures and timbres, and creating some gorgeous guitar ambience.
While their sounds are not all that similar, this seems like something that would definitely appeal to fans of Roy Montgomery. And really, anyone into dark dreamy contemplative guitar music, or just ambient atmospheric soundscaping in general, should really check this out. VERY FEW COPIES LEFT, grab one before they're gone.
Now here's a warehouse find that actually came from a real warehouse, instead of our closet behind the counter or the shelf near Andee's desk. We dug up a handful of these at one of our distributors, the same place we found those rare Japanese cds we've listed lately.
We have always been obsessed with Shimmy Disc. For a long stretch there, everything they put out was weird and wonderful and unlike ANYthing else we had ever heard. Bongwater, Velvet Monkeys, Dogbowl, B.A.L.L., Fred Lane, King Missile, Carney-Hild-Kramer, Spongehead, Shockabilly, Jellyfish Kiss, and long before they became household names, Shimmy Disc was introducing us to groups like the Boredoms, the Ruins, Gwar, Naked City, Ween, Damon And Naomi we could go on. Needless to say, our Shimmy loyalty was not misplaced.
One other band we discovered via Shimmy Disc, was UK psychedelic space rockers Walkingseeds, and as luck would have it, one of our local distributors had a handful of copies gathering dust in their warehouse, of the group's final, and some would argue best, record, Bad Orb, Whirling Ball. If you're a reader of Julian Cope's Head Heritage blog (and if you're not you should be!), you might remember him raving about Bad Orb, describing it thusly:
"An album of malign, choppy cosmic fuzz that Killing Joke would have died for, an album that twists American delta blues and English folk shanties into strange psychedelic vistas that far better musicians can only dream of... a relentless, cathartic, pysch-rock album that spins with malice towards its final conclusion!"
Tough to argue with that, and why would you? This is some fantastically tripped out, spacey, weirdly poppy, psychedelic fuzz garage heaviness, produced by Shimmy Disc head honcho Kramer, so instead of sounding heavy or spacey, it sounds gorgeously washed out and cosmic, otherworldly, but still raw and urgent and super rocking. Don Fleming of B.A.L.L. and at one time Dinosaur Jr. contributes some "Chinese alien guitar" on one track, which is a strange coincidence since head Walkingseed Frank Martin is an almost dead ringer for Fleming, with a similarly nasal, ragged style of vocalizing.
Equal parts Stooges, Blue Cheer, Hawkwind, Blue Oyster Cult (who they cover on another record), the Beatles (who they cover brilliantly here), vintage psychedelia, classic sixties pop, seventies classic rock, druggy space rock, crunchy, fuzzy, gritty, garagey, loose and still fucking amazing. Puts the current crop of wannabe psychedelic space rockers to shame! We figure fans of The Heads should dig.
The cd version includes three bonus tracks which are remixes of songs from the group's previous record, Upwind Of Disaster, Downwind Of Atonement, and offer up more of the same, and will most likely have you desperately searching for a copy of that one too. Good luck! Worth the hunt for sure. Unfortunately, we have a very limited number of these, especially the cds, which we most likely will NOT be able to get more of, it's long out of print, so we took all the copies our distributor had, but they do have more of the lp, and while that's 3 tracks shorter than the cd, it's also cheaper!
Not sure how we managed to properly review anything from these Kentucky weirdos (just a tossed off two line review for a previous cd on Troubleman), but holy shit, just discovered a little stash of these, their 2007 two track full length on Release The Bats, and it's a head caving chunk of tripped out noise drenched schizophrenic collaged avant psychedelia. Two sprawling tracks, the first, a nearly 15 minute epic, beginning with a barrage of serious sonic weirdness, slipping from white noise hiss, to twisted tape experiments, warped voices, crumbling distortion, chaotic noise, eventually morphing into some gorgeously lugubrious tarpit riffage, which in turn develops into some hazy, druggy, slowed down psychedelic noise rock, which then begets some pounding feral punk rock crunch, before the whole thing begins to collapse and crumble into a slowly decaying sprawl of stumbling, creeping sludge and noise and skree.
The second track, even longer at over 16 minutes, is some sort of woozy, warbly outsider noise folk, like No Neck and Avarus and Sylvester Anfang channeling Captain Beefheart, but reeeeealllly slowly, and abstractly, rubbery detuned bass, atonal guitar strum, jagged shards of distorted chordal clang, swirls of tripped out FX, moaned crooned garbled vox, wreathed in echo and delay, the whole thing creeping and crawling and slithering through gauzy fields of distorted whir and twisted abstract psych bliss drift. Wow. And only got a few copies left...
Latest blast of classic/black/death metal from this Canadian-by-way-of-Bangladesh metal horde, and as much as we loved their debut, Drakonian Paradigms, From The Devil's Tomb is even better. Heavier, better riffs, better production, more epic and intense and intricate songwriting, and most importantly, at least to us, WAY weirder. Not as in twisted damaged weird, just way more creative and strange, riffs, arrangements, the whole thing. The first song along should make things perfectly clear, after some strange tinkling chimes and swirling backwards FX, the guitars come in, filthy and distorted, and then the song proper kicks in, and the guitars are huge, a lurching, lumbering doomy plod, laced with some strange little super distorted high end squalls, until finally, the frantic black riffing swoops in, and the band explode into a blast of murky, muddy, downtuned death metal churn, that SLAYS. The song plays out, flitting back and forth between classic metal riffage, complete with squiggly leads, doomy crush, and blackened blast. The second song is just as gloriously twisted, with a super dynamic mathy start/stop opening, that leads into a woozy post rocky drift, with gorgeous harmonized guitars, the sound moody and minor key, before again spitting out more DM fury. And that's basically what makes Weapon so interesting is how they infuse their blackened blasting and DM grind with classic melody, old school riffage, wah guitars, leads, Eastern melodies, sitar, organ, whatever the fuck they feel like tossing in, it all somehow works, and serves the greater good, that good being pure evil, evil attained via furious fucked up blackened heaviness. Probably our favorite track though would have to be the final jam, "Towards The Uncreated", which mixes some galloping blackness, with some surprisingly melodic midtempo post rockisms, not to mention some super emotional, melancholic leads, creating a strangely moody metallic bit of doom flecked mystery, bookended of course by blasts of gnarled black crush.
Recommended for anyone who digs Absu, Bathory, Melechesh, Mayhem, Morbid Angel and the like, or any sort of blackened death metal / deathlike black metal.
These SF noiseniks kick up a serious skree, originally intended to be improvised soundtracks, for friends' films, these jams need no visual component to drag your brain from your head, via destroyed eardrums, and hurl it into the heart of the sun, jamming out while it sizzles and eventually melts into a puddle of grey goo.
Super abstract psychedelic space jams, removed from any of that pesky rocking, and instead allowed to just hover and swirl, and crash and howl, moan and creak, crumble and oooooooze. The guitars are tangled and atonal, the melodies angular and jagged, the drums don't so much propel as offer up spatters of rhythmic interference, swirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, flurries of rapid fire snare, all beneath a continuous avalanche of free-psych-noise. The vocals moan and mumble, organs spew in-the-red wheeze, lots of feedback everywhere, the sound sinister and alien, psych rock with all the rock removed, twisted and tripped out and definitely for those with a taste for sonic whatthefuck and difficult psychedelia.
Packaged in a bright pink fold over Xeroxed sleeve. And probably pretty dang limited (especially considering this was a bit of a warehouse find)...
Warped druggy psychedelic metallic noise rock trio Wildildlife, who just so happen to features a former aQuarian amongst their ranks, always had a bit of pop in their sound, even at their most tripped out and damaged, when they were channeling Butthole Surfers and Gaye Bykers On Acid and God Bullies and Lubricated goat, their wild rhythmic blowouts were always laced with primo hooks and loads of melody, and it was that subtle poppy undercurrent, that kept them from being just another noisy rock band. But the thing was, before now, it seemed that it was mostly about the heaviness, and they were indeed heavy, sidling up alongside outfits like Harvey Milk, spitting out churning elephantine riffage and skull caving flurries of drum damage, if we had our way, we wouldn't have changed anything about Wildildlife. That is until we heard this.
It's like they're a whole different band. Not sure if it's a natural progression or if it's the influence of their new producer, Jennifer Herema of Royal Trux, but the new sound is downright GLAMMY, swaggery, and power poppy, the vocals, which used to be distorted and sped up and processed into strange chipmunk squeals, is now actual and proper singing, and as if to drive that whole glam thing home, there's sax now, and we generally HATE sax, but this is like Stooges / Hanoi Rocks sax, which means it rules, and it somehow just makes things sound even cooler.
The opening track might just be our new favorite jam, right out of the gate, it's total soaring fuzzy pop, chiming guitar melodies, warm synth swells, and then when the main riff kicks in, we're in classic Kiss territory, suddenly the picture on the back of the lp, that has the band all in white, the lens all vaselined, looking like seventies rockers Angel, makes WAY more sense. And actually, after more listens, it sounds less like Kiss, and more like Redd Kross cover Kiss, which is even better, slithery and swaggery an snotty and hooky but still heavy, but so glammy, right down to the little sexy exhalation of breath in the super short break. And somehow it seems appropriately self defeating that their catchiest and most accessible song is titled "Fuck That".
The follow up "I Want You Out" even furthers the whole Redd Kross / Kiss thing, but we're talking old Redd Kross, circa Teen Babes From Monsanto, when they were still heavy and a little dark, and way drugged out and psychedelic, "I Want You Out" is all big tribal drumming, downtuned riffs, even some handclaps, and more of those new vocals, and lots of bleating/skronking sax, that once the song gets going sounds like a glam metal version of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk". Not sure what the hell happened, but we most definitely want some of what they're having.
And the rest of the record unfurls in a similar fashion, classic rock riffs, are all wound up in a glittery haze, hooks are doused in fuzz and buzz and sent spinning into the space rock ether, but the band continue to mix it up, to confuse and confound. "Sometimes" is a folk ballad, dubbed out and drenched in low end synth buzz, acoustic guitars wrapped in reverb, the result a sort of apocalyptic doom folk, glitter style, only to lurch right into "Give In To Live", another Kiss/Thin Lizzy style glamrock groover, but here underpinned by some serious double kick drumming. "Stormbringer" (possibly a Deep Purple cover?) is an epic slow build of distorted vocals, gurgling synths, big drums, but instead of launching into full on glammed out noise rock mode, they lay back, and groove out, a sort of old school Hawkwind style space rock brooder that KILLS, and should have gone on for another 6 minutes. "Shiv" is a low slung, super distorted fuzz heavy churning creep, laced with glammy filigree, and finally, "Permanent Vacation" is the ultimate send off, you can almost imagine these guys on a huge stage, lit from behind with blinding showers of pyro, the drummer standing on his seat, winding up the crowd to clap along, the vocals gnarled and twisted, the guitars chiming and soaring, but instead of launching into the song proper, these guys stretch it out, adding weird rhythmic shifts, bits of mathy weirdness, all the while building and building, totally epic and majestic, before all the sounds are stripped away, leaving a weird warped melody, and some twisted drum machine skitter.
Remember about 1000 words ago we said something about never wanting these guys to change? What the hell were we thinking, sure we might miss the sheer heaviness and drugged out crush of the old Wildildlife, but it seems like a more than fair trade for the new, glammed out, super catchy, weirdo noisepop Wildildlife. Fuck yeah.
While they last, we have the super limited version on AMAZING colored vinyl, they are mostly clear, with weird spurts of color in the middle, mine looks like a bloody egg or something, and all the lps include a download coupon for a digital copy of the record as well!
We're usually not all that into modern thrash, too much of it is style/sound over songs/substance, more about bandanas and party-like live shows that ripping and shredding and destroying. Recently we discovered Speedwolf from Colorado, who had us thrashing like mad, their sound heavy and hooky and equal parts modern metal and classic old school thrash. So it should be no surprise than on their most recent tour, they teamed up with these guys, from LA we think, but with a record on Swedish label Blood Harvest, and goddamn, all you folks who went nuts for Speedwolf should definitely check out Witchaven. But, where Speedwolf was all Motorhead and Venom and Danzig, Witchaven are all Slayer and Kreator and Discharge, total old school thrash metal bliss, absolutely killer riffing, chugging and churning, wild leads (and like all great metal records, the leads are credited on the lyric sheet to the guitar player who played them), and the drumming, shit, so heavy and powerful and UP in the mix, that when the double kick explodes into action it feels like someone is pounding on your chest with their fists.
What else can we say, need some serious heaviness, some classic metal crush, need to get metal thrashing mad? Then these guys are for you.
Pressed on thick vinyl, housed in a heavy black and white sleeve, with a printed insert, with pix and lyrics. ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
Our favorite apostrophe'd doomsters from Down Under return! We've had a heck of a time tracking down the compact disc version of this, haven't been able to get it in yet (their supposed US distro won't email us back, helloooooo?), but thankfully Buried By Time And Dust just put the album out on deluxe vinyl, we got it from them along with Solstice's New Dark Age reish we reviewed last list. Usually BBTAD do reissues of classic doom (Witchfinder General, Pagan Altar, etc.) but they decided to get ahead of the curve here and release what simply sounds like something they'd eventually be reissuing anyway, if they're still doing this in 20-30 years.
With Pathways To Darkness, their second full-length, Tasmania's most Sabbathy DIY doommongers offer up a crude, yet catchy album that posers will doubtless despise. Normal folks will find the vocals too weird and nasal, the riffs too raw and remedial. But those that don't mind their doom a little damaged and psychedelic, ought to dig this wretched and rockin', emotional and eccentric, seven song opus. Less murky than some past recordings, this is, in fact, perhaps The Wizar'd at their poppiest. Seriously, slumberously.
There's lots for the True (and Truly Demented) Doom fan to love here... The slo-mo pop of "Living Dead". The melancholic triumph of "Rainbow's End". The almost gothic epic "Frankie's Dungeon". The tearful trudge of "Some Like It Dead". The spooky, droning Hammer Horror keyboards that herald "Disease From The East"... You gotta delve in, and revel in the sheer doominess of it all, that in its own outsider, down under way, retardedly rivals Electric Wizard, Reverend Bizarre, and Saint Vitus. Folks who enjoyed the recent, ridiculous, Sabbath-centric Furze might also find this to their liking as well.
By the way, there's been a few lineup changes for The Wizar'd since their previous album from 2008, with rhythm guitarist Sir Nun Piss having left the band, causing bassist Blackie The Crimson Heretic Of A Thousand Eyes to move over to guitar, alongside vocalist and lead guitarist Ol' Rusty Vintage Wizard Master, with Iron Tyrant on drums, and new bass recruit Tangerine Dream holding down the low end (of which there's plenty). Yes, those are their stage names, and aren't they great?!
Ultimately, though, even with the obvious sense of humor such names convey, we suspect that any such frivolity on the part of the The Wizar'd is part of a "sad clown" scenario, y'know? This is DOOM to the core, in the truest sense. Feel it, folks.
Being on BBTAD, it's a nicely done 180 gram vinyl slab, packaged with a booklet and a giant obi, AND they've included 3 live bonus tracks not on the cd version: "Crushing Gothic Slime", "Burned Lord", and "Smouldering Sinners"!
Xeno & Oaklander were born in the wrong decade and on the wrong continent, but that hasn't stopped them from constructing brilliantly haunted minimal-wave tracks which lead directly back to Belgium (or France, or Germany, or England, or anywhere else in Europe for that matter) circa 1982 through all sorts of analog synths, drum machines, and sequencers. Vinyl of course is the right medium for a band that seeks the vintage pleasures of forgotten futures; but Vigils was originally just a cd-r self-released back in 2006. It quickly became a staple at the Wierd Records parties in New York, and some of the tracks here had appeared in slightly different forms on the two Wierd Records compilations from about that same time. Since then, Xeno & Oaklander have seen their stock rise thanks to a number of retrogarde forces at work, including the reissue campaigns from Minimal Wave and Dark Entries, as well as the huge success of fellow dark-synth technicians Cold Cave. While their 2009 album Sentinelle was received with considerable critical acclaim, Vigils is a much better album altogether. Arpeggiating synth lines and skeletal drum machines form the basic structures of all of the Xeno & Oaklander songs, whose uptempo rhythms belie the aching melancholy formed out of the intertwining melodies and detached vocals from both Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride. In all of these echo-plexed pulse-tone synths, stark atmospheres, and romantic pop detachment, Xeno & Oaklander unabashedly channel the spirits of Chris & Cosey, Ruth, and Depeche Mode, with the European desire furthered by lyrics in French and German as well as English.
