Hmmm, we must have done something to obtain Satan's approval, since he has recently rewarded us with releases from two of our absolute favorite cult black metal bands, and both exceedingly idiosyncratic ones at that. There's Inquisition's highly anticipated and indeed amazing Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm opus, which we'll be reviewing next time (we ran out this week!), and this, the equally eagerly-awaited 2nd album from Negative Plane, whose 2006 debut caused us to describe them as "very special", a band so underground and cult that they require the devotion of "servitors rather than mere fans". As such, we bow and praise, for five years later, this second strike is another slab of antiquarian, abyssic genius.
Doomy, dramatic, delirious black metal that's so thick with true old school feeling that after a few spins, the only thing you can follow it with are crackly vinyls by '80s and early '90s underground overlords like Bathory, Venom, Celtic Frost, Possessed, and Mayhem. Yet their artistry is directed down their own path, not that of retro nostalgia, even if they stir up the same Satanic vibrations as those ancient ones.
Negative Plane are masters of mystique, their music a masterful combination of atmospheric (and not only that, but also interesting) interludes, that evoke eerie olde silent film musick, and much more metal onslaughts, that emerge intricately from the hissing murk with pounding drums, swarms of guitar, and raw guttural vokills. Field recordings, bells, cello, piano, organ, and some female vocals are all woven into the mix, creating something quite unique and effective.
These rumbling, rollercoastering compositions, with their sepulchral production and strangely classical motifs, are all cloaked in weird, haunting ambience, it's like they recorded with Leyland Kirby or Indignant Senility in the producer's seat. If it's truly possible for metal to not just be about the occult, but actually BE occult, the reverby rituals recorded by Negative Plane are, and leave us with a Lovecraftian "indescribable" to add to this review.
Vinyl version to be unleashed in March, FYI.
They're from Finland. They're called Nightsatan. Their record is called Midnight Laser Warrior and features on its cover some helmeted ghoul with a knife, and a sawblade, and a bullet belt, and tons of spikes and studs on the leather jacket that barely obscures his rotting zombie flesh. They have song titles like "Four Eyed Cyclops", "Death Chess 2000", "Karelian Stairmaster (Evil Lucifer)". The record was mastered by two members of aQ faves Finnish hypnorockers Circle. We saw a YouTube clip of Nightsatan performing, where a certain member of the crowd got so worked up he decided to sing along, that person was none other than Albert Witchfinder of the mighty Reverend Bizarre (and The Puritan, among others). Their drummer is credited with player "Laserdrums". And most importantly, they play "LAZERMETAL". Which is in fact, not metal at all, nor even "NWOFHM", instead it's some sort of crazy, futuristic, electro prog, like Goblin or John Carpenter, or any of the current crop of Carpenter worshipping retro futurists (Majeure, Umberto, Zombi, Blizaro) but filtered through some ELP, or Yes, or even more obscure prog faves like Il Balleto Di Bronzo or the New Trolls. Sure the sound is synthy, and retro and electro and will no doubt appeal to those folks, but it's also twisted and proggy and FINNISH, which makes this something else entirely.
The cool thing about these guys, ONE of the cool things, is that they're a proper band, this isn't just a studio project, assembled at a desk with a computer, no these guys are a BAND, and there's tons of footage of them playing live, and most notably, they have a DRUMMER, who plays drums, electronic drums sure, but they give the sound a sweaty, urgent, human element missing from lots of similar stuff, not to mention, these songs are epic and complex and again PROGGY.
Opener "Four Eyed Cyclops" begins with a bit of Tangerine Dreamy synthiness, accompanied by some growled cookie monster vox, but it doesn't take long for the track to get going, with some awesome syncopated rumming, locked tight with the synths, then another buzzing bit of low end synth swoops in, and while it's not metal, we can definitely feel the same sort of power and energy and intensity. All the synths drop out, leaving just the buzzing low end one to unfurl a serious slithery riff, the drums come back in, and it's like some weird electronic electro-doom, the metal vibe, more in the vibe than the sound, but it's definitely weird and heavy and electronic, with lots of bent notes wound into electro leads. Awesome.
"Death Chess 2000" starts off with more buzzing low end synth riffage, some "Iron Man" style kick drum, before slipping into another bit of electro-doom, only to have everything suddenly speed up, and transform into a car chase Autobahn soundtrack that returns briefly to that opening electro doom, before stripping down to just minimal synth and a skeletal rhythm, and more of those weird raspy vox, finishing off in a blaze of swirl and buzz.
"Karelian Stairmaster (Evil Lucifer)" might be the proggiest of the bunch, another swirly Logan's Run sounding intro, all arpeggiated melodies underpinned by thick wheezing synth buzz, while the snare drum drives the rhythm, before blossoming into a hazy, futuristic soundscape (which more than one customer mistook for the Tron soundtrack! If only!), that warbles woozily, and eventually switches tempo and becomes the perfect score for some lost eighties VHS tape horror movie futuristic dystopian city montage. Throughout, the song offers up some strange detours, intense super dynamic stop/starts, with pounding drums, and some gorgeous woozy video game soundtrack balladry (which again has us thinking how much better these guys would have been for scoring Tron).
"Ninja Apocalypse" is creepy, and haunting, with the sound of fake rainfall, deep bass swells, and a main keyboard melody that would most definitely not be out of place in a Halloween or Friday The 13th movie, but like all the songs, the track continually shifts and transforms, minimal and hauntingly creepy one second, supper progged out and propulsive the next, soaring and majestic the next, and druggy and psychedelic the next. "Steel Diamond Part 4" (parts 1 and 2 are on the 7" reviewed elsewhere on this list, not sure where part 3 is though), is another electro prog workout, that features a super soundtracky main melody wreathed in layer after layer of synth buzz, the drums dense and intricate, the sound swirling and shimmering, evoking images of alien planets, of crashed starships, of subterranean lairs, of strange creatures chained up and walking into the depths, of the blackness of space, which leads right into the final track "Stars, Our Destination", which takes that space synth sci-fi sound even further out, pulsing and throbbing, the melodies tangled and intricate, hypnotic and totally mesmerizing, the sound dramatic and emotional and epic, and so totally cinematic, every track in fact here plays out like the music to some climactic scene from some lost eighties sci-fi adventure epic, with "Stars, Our Destination" being the perfect culmination, the drums less rhythmic, and more dynamic, pounding alongside the synths, the vocals more breathy exhalations, soon joined by thick rubbery low end pulses, everything growing more and more intense before fading into a swirling drift of warbly synths, swirling FX and whispered urgent voices. There's a short hidden track, another sort of Halloween gone electro synthwave, with a pulsing house-y beat, creepy raspy vocals, and a main melody that sounds like it had to be created for some horror movie, tense and intense, this final coda brooding and moody, but also propulsive and weirdly motorik, the perfect sci-fi, electro house, futuristic synth wave hypno krautrock finish to a pretty much perfect sci-fi, electro house, futuristic synth wave hypno krautrock record!
And all this talk of soundtrack and cinema is not just us, the artwork on the back cover, which features a modular synth, with the various patch bays altered to read as song titles, also includes various inputs for things like "Doom & Gloom", "Heavy Pounding" and maybe most tellingly "Extra Giallo". So good. Easily our favorite of this new batch of synthy soundtracky sci-fi sounds. There is vinyl, but it's not out yet, a few weeks still. And if you dig this, be sure and grab one of those 7"s too!!
If you found your way here without reading about and most likely buying the full length Nightsatan record, best to take a second and go check out that review, we get WAY more in depth there about the band and their fantastic futuristic sounds. And if you already added the cd to your cart, and just need MORE, then heck, skip the rest of this, and throw one of these in your cart too.
But for those who need to know more. Nightsatan are from Finland, and play "Lazermetal" which is in fact less metal, and more futuristic soundtracky sci-fi synth wave prog.
"Steel Diamond" parts 1 and 2 make up the bulk of the 7" (part 4 is on the full length, no idea where part 3 is), and is a sprawling synthscape of fat, fuzz drenches electro future prog, swirling synths, propulsive electronic drums, sweeping arrangements, epic swells, the bass buzzy and blown out, all wound into some sort of electronic krautspacefunk soundtrack. There are some breakdowns and interludes that are so thick and heavy, the bass SO buzzy, that it almost does sound metal.
The second part of the "Steel Diamond" quadrilogy offers up a plodding super dramatic space opera lazer prog workout, wild tangles of synth leads, evoking the final march up to the castle, the final battle, knights versus aliens, the vibe is definitely doomy, but synth-doom, building to a wild proggy break, that gets all electro-metallic before slipping right back into that spaced out synthy futurism.
The other track here, "Space Revenger" (awesome title!), is a pounding Teutonic bit of synthy electro prog metal, but with all the metal guitars replaced by MORE SYNTHS, epic and dramatic and intense and cinematic, with some surprisingly crushing parts that remind us a bit of MIDI metal (those cheesy electronic versions of classic metal sounds, YouTube it) but cranked WAAAAAY UP!
The cover art here is cool too, the band in metal T's and studded wristbands, huge black shades, obscured by red lights, looking very metal, with a shiny silver sticker that says "Finland's No#1 Nightsatan - File Under LAZERMETAL", while the back boasts two different legends, one reads "No guitars played on this record", the other "DEATH TO FALSE LASERMETAL". Fuck Yeah. Pressed on LAZER-RED vinyl too...
We know pretty much nothing about these guys, other than they're from New York, their live shows are tripped out and psychedelic-light heavy, and more importantly, they make some awesome electro synth-wave abstract downer pop. Equal parts, haunting Witch House-y brood, block rockin' beats, and lo-fi home brewed electronica, Nihiti meld simple skeletal beats to pulsing fuzzy melodies, letting the tracks lock and loop, before crumbling and decaying and gradually transforming into something way more abstract.
The record opens with "Vulture Mentality", which takes minimal high end guitar strum, loops it, and lets it drift beneath a thick throbbing wave of crunchy distorted guitar, all wound around a super skittery barely there beat, which eventually drops out, leaving just that haunting guitar refrain. Perfectly setting the tone for the rest of the record, mysterious, ominous, otherworldly, claustrophobic, the sound cinematic and soundtracky. "No Angel Came" takes some Coldplay like piano, loops it, adds some chugging fuzz guitar, some post rocky drums, and layers various melodies over the top, making the whole thing wonderfully woozy and off kilter. "Mighty Neon Fragment" is all twisted minimal pop, slightly atonal and detuned, wrapped around a simple stuttery beat, and pounded piano chords. "The Ringing In (The Sun Is Rung)" is about as close as these guys get to a pop song, swoonsome vocals over rubbery bass, and muddy muted melodies, sort of funky drumming and out of tune piano, everything panned super hard so different sounds come from different speakers...
But it's "Black Cars (A Sinistra)"that might be THEE jam here, with it's minimal electro pulse, its stuttery synthy rhythms, all over a spare skeletal groove, pulsing and pounding, like a super lo-fi, way more minimal Basement Jaxx or Chemical Brothers. And the rest of the record stacks up just as well. Tripped out, groovy, abstract, druggy, rhythmic, synthy and spacey...
We weren't sure what to think when we first laid our ears on this, but it's quickly becoming a new favorite. Anyone into Balam Acab, oOoOO, How To Dress Well, Salem, Water Borders, Von Haze, Fuck Buttons, Small Black, Washed Out and all that sort of electronic weirdness, check this out...
One of two new releases on Sige Records, the new imprint run by Aaron Turner of Hydra Head / Isis fame, the other is the formerly on cd House Of Low Culture / Mamiffer split, and this, another Mamiffer split, this time teamed up with mysterious power electronics ambient drone trio Oakeater.
Oakeater, whose Molech lp on Nihilist we dug big time, return again, with their usual UNusually arsenal of noisemaking devices: guitar, voice, percussion, tapes, modular synthesizers, feedback, electric piano and oscillators. Here they take their ritualistic dronescaping even further, ditching their noiserock background/pedigree almost entirely (Oakeater is members of the Coughs and Panicsville), to delve deeeeeeep into dark drifting drones and sprawling expanses of cinematic shift and shimmer. Slow and smoldering, lushly layered, hushed muted whirs and high end chimes, haunting melodies, all very dramatic and soundtracky sounding, before slipping into something else entirely, a long stretch of shimmering cymbals, lots of space, streaks of feedback, a weirdly meditative, subtly rhythmic, metallic dronescape, which is quickly subsumed by SUPER distorted synths, fuzzy and buzzy and blown out, the sort of low tones some dubstepper would KILL for, transforming the track completely into something way more spacey and tripped out.
Mamiffer counters with one of the heaviest, noisiest tracks we've heard from her (aka Faith Coloccia), using just guitars, pianos, tapes and apparently jars, Coloccia weaves together and chaotic but strangely lovely bit of heavy, abstract guitar noise, some strange mix of SUNNO))) and Skullflower, chugging churning looped guitars, swooping backwards production, a thick corrosive buzz, a sort of static riffage, but those stretches of glacial buzz and howl and keen are stretched out into more avant drone directions, loads of overtones, subtle rhythmic shadings, still buzzy and heavy and metallic for sure, but wrangled into something impossibly melodic and meditative and downright pretty. There's hiss and static and crunch and buzz, and on the surface it's noisy and quite chaotic, but Colaccia manages to shape it all into a soft tangled swirl of psychedelic guitar noise, that is easily as entrancing as it is abrasive.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, packaged in super swank, ultra heavy silk screened sleeves.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We have only 4 copies of this, a super limited cassette tape release from weirdo abstract blackened doomscapers OS, whose Twelve Truths lp we raved about a while back. Besides being another sick slab of crusty creepy crawly black filth, the packaging is to die for, small, black-painted wooden coffins, each with a brass plaque affixed to the front, and each of course NAILED SHUT, inside is the tape, and a handful of tiny BONES! Pretty awesome. And CRAZY limited. Already out of print. We managed to get a mere FOUR copies from the band, and will not be able to get more. So if you're in the market for some howling, atonal, sludge-y blackened doom sprawl and lumbering chaotic caterwauling abject detuned black ambient heaviness, or even if you just want a killer coffin-cloaked bone-surrounded blackdoom cassette, well better act fast, cuz odds are these will be gone in no time...
Cool, our friends at Jackpot made a good choice here to do a vinyl reissue of this 1968 gem by sixties Dutch rockers The Outsiders, an album beloved by many collectors, critics, and us...
It's kind of a concept album describing multiple perspectives of an unrequited romance, with the father of the girl disapproving of the boy in the scenario. However, The Outsiders, being boys themselves, show considerable favor to the plight of the jilted boy in the story, which ends with that protagonist snapping in psychotic violence. Fortunately, The Outsiders spent just as much time composing an economical psych / garage / beat-punk score as they did on the story itself; thus, each track is a solid pop entry of jangly melodies and punchy basslines, occasionally repeating leitmotifs somewhat like the Leaves / Standells version of "Hey Joe" or Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd. The concept album element also puts us in mind of SF Sorrow by the Pretty Things. And anyone into other Nederbeat bands like Q65 and The Motions ought to like this too. Certainly worth checking out!
Limited edition, deluxe gatefold vinyl-only reissue, with silver foil cover artwork as per the original, and liner notes from Mike Stax of Ugly Things, including a recent interview with The Outsiders' lead guitarist Ronnie Splinter.
Hurrah, we have a double dose of Richard Pinhas for you this week!
We've just stocked and reviewed the latest album from this French prog pioneer (Metal/Crystal, his collaboration with Wolf Eyes and Merzbow. Check out what we had to say about it elsewhere on this aQ List!), but we've also just gotten a reissue of a stellar album of his that we've never carried before! L'Ethique was recorded back in 1982 and orginally released in 1991. The ten tracks (the original nine plus one bonus cut) enshrouds your headspace with immensely atmospheric and propulsive French prog. Some here found it to closely resemble that of Magma as well as his own band Heldon (such as on "The Western Wail Pt. 1"). The latter isn't really all that surprising since his Heldon bandmates contributed a good deal to the proceedings. This album covers a lot of territory - moving through stretches of both glorious beauty (such as on "Melodic Simple Transition") and reelingly ominous aggression (such as on "Belfast" and the bonus track"Southbound"). Heavy with electronics, analog synthesizers and processed electric guitars, this is sure to satiate any cravings for the dark, heady and dystopic. Yes, highly recommended!
Though it's 2011 already, turns out there's still some cool 2010 releases we haven't yet gotten a chance to list. We try to keep ahead of the curve, but we can't always get to everything of course. Here's one we don't want to overlook, though. A couple years ago, veteran French guitar/synth maestro Richard Pinhas (of Heldon fame) teamed up with infamous Japanese noise maker Merzbow for a fantastic double disc entitled Keio Line. That combo of '70s cosmic prog-rock electronics and harsh noise/drone was a winner. Here's the sequel, another double disc this time teaming Pinhas not just with the prolific Merzbow but also everyone's favorite underground American noise mavens Wolf Eyes!! Good lord. Batten down the hatches, people! And not only that, but Pinhas cohorts Antoine Paganotti (Magma), Didier Batard (Heldon), and Patrick Gauthier (Heldon, Magma, Weidorje), among others, also contribute on several of the tracks here... of which there are six, sprawling across the two discs.
The first track, disc one, entitled "Bi-Polarity (Gold)", is nearly 16 minutes of rhythmic spaced-out stoner-funk, with skittering drums and plenty of shimmering guitar widdle amidst much glorious hiss, feedback, and distortion. Groovy. Track two, "Paranoia (Iridium)" is almost as long, at 14:21, and is a searing, soaring, synthy soundscape, kind of like an extreme version of Fripp/Eno. Neither of those first two tracks features Merzbow or any of the Wolf Eyes, and that's just fine. Track three, "Depression (Loukoum)", at last brings those guest stars in, giving 'em plenty of space (the track clocks in at about 29 minutes), for a piece that's kind of a combo of the first two tracks. More free jazzish drumming, layered with droning pulsations and washes of shimmering guitar and electronics. It's sorta like Frippertronics meets a spacey Acid Mothers Temple jam, real nice! We are sure a lot of you, who like the AMT and the Necks and the more abstract Circle stuff, will dig this.
Disc two continues the collaboration, with two more epics from the full Pinhas+Merzbow+Wolf Eyes ensemble, "Hysteria (Palladium)" and "Schizophrenia (Silver)", both each almost 30 minutes. The harsh noise/power electronics element is definitely upped on "Hysteria", which starts off like a field recording from a mad scientist's laboratory and by the end gets quite destructively distorted; very Merzbowian indeed. Awesome and satisfying. "Shizophrenia" is rather like "Depression", but rocks out much more, in a psych prog freakout kind of way, before its over. Wow. And finally, the disc finishes up with a solo, seven minute Pinhas piece, "Legend", a calming coda after the intense ensemble action that precedes it.
Gotta hand it to Pinhas, after 40+ years of music making, keeping yourself challenged and on the cutting edge can't be easy, but this is definitely one way (a great way) to do it. Meanwhile, Merzbow and the Wolf Eyes guys must have been floatin', to get to jam with one of the fellows who helped pioneer much of the music they love. Maybe next time Emeralds, Kawabata Makoto, or Oneothrix Point Never can pay their respects. Recommended, even (or especially) to those who are more used to buying releases on, say, Not Not Fun than Cuneiform.
Another fantastic release from Echocord, and another excursion into deeeeeep dark spaced out dub, Resoe, a long time techno producer, explores all the various facets and permutations of dub, from buzzing dubstep, to shimmering ambient dub, to pulsing techno, even a little house, but the building blocks of this modern minimal abstract digidub, those sounds we love and can't seem to ever get enough of are all here, in full effect, think Echospace, Rod Modell, Variant, Quantec, Deepchord, Pole, etc, skittery skeletal rhythms, swirling atmospherics, abstract pulsations, muted murky loops, reverbed ripples drifting out into the ether, and then of course bass, rumbling Teutonic low end, washed out thrums, the sound warm and enveloping, the bass a swirling organic sound pulls you under and carries you off.
Opener "Lakeviews" is the perfect introduction, all spare and sparse, layered sounds gently swirling, unfurling, tangling and untangling, but blurred and smeared into soft streaks of whir and echo and throb, the beat, sort of dubsteppy, but way stripped down, drives the track, the bass a dark spectre just below the surface, while all around thick synth swells drift in and out. The sort of thing we could listen to forever.
And from there on out, it's some sort of spaced out bass excursion, propulsive clubby house music, gives way to hazy, skittery minimal 4 on the floor pulse, glitched out robotic space dub transforms into abstract Eastern tinged, almost African Headcharge sounding reggae flecked dub, grimy dubby echo drenched creep, crawls right into some crunchy stuttery alien dubstep, finally giving way to a long stretch of warm, whirling, gristly, pulsating dreamy dub drift...
And we continue to dig deeper into the catalog of Reuber, aka Timo Reuber, whose most recent, fifth record Ring we made our Record Of The Week not too long ago, and whose other records we've been reviewing one at a time ever since. All different, but all pretty fantastic. This one is record number 4, following Kintopp which we reviewed last list.
Sudpol translates as "South Pole", not entirely sure if there's any meaning, or if there's some South Pole theme running through the record, but like Kintopp, Sudpol seems to simply be a super varied, and totally hypnotic collection of sonic experiments, ranging from propulsive electro krautrock workouts, to droned out fields of glitch and pulse, hazy pop ambient shimmer to super distorted industrial flecked skitter, groovy almost post rock sounding loopage to fuzzy playfully melodic techno-pop, Kraftwerky robotic electronic funk to blissed out sun dappled soundtracky synth wave, culminating in the epic 12 minute dronescape "Steppengraskrieger", with its billows of distant buzz and haunting almost operatic barely there vocals, buried electro beats, sounding as if they're being blasted on the stereo in the apartment next door, lush gauzy streaks of hazy whir and thrum, those buried beats constantly surfacing amidst the swirl and shimmer, until finally, the track transforms completely into a softly slow swirling tangle of looped and warped melodies, strange metallic buzz and soft focus flurries of glimmering tones and muted streaks of smeared sound. So nice. Another winner for sure, and and yet another record that has us wondering why Reuber is not way more of a big deal�
From the same label that brought us records by Velvet Cacoon, Clair Cassis, Nightbringer, Temple Of N.O.T., Lonesummer, Void Of Reveries and Necktarium (same TWO labels more accurately, as Starlight Temple Society sort of became Khrysanthoney), comes this strange bit of abstract blackness, the debut 2007 release from Brazilian one man band, Roba El-Khaliyeh, who weaves deep ritualistic drones, lumbering industrial black ambience, sweeping cinematic soundscapery and raw hateful black metal into a sprawling bit of otherworldly sonic mystery.
A haunting stretch of minimal rumble and shimmer, gives way to some super noisy pound and buzz, sick vokills over moaning atonal riffage, and reverb drenched Teutonic pound, swirling synths, and thick buzzing low end, rife with strange bits of percussion, and sampled voices.
The record slips into moody, melancholic piano driven sort-of-bombastic balladry (peep the bloodied keyboard on the cover), with big drums and some weirdly glammy vocals, sounding like a black metal Rufus Wainwright, sort of. The sound quickly returns to something more hushed and minimal, deep bell like tones, softly undulating stretches of layered low end, very darkly meditative, laced with some subtly corrosive streaks of twisted fragmented melody. The record culminates in the church organ led final track, a stately hymn surrounded by thick swirls of whipping wind, before the synths come in, all majestic swells, sounding not unlike last week's Record Of The Week, Fastest, like some sort of Zelda style dramatic soundtrack, before finally fading to black.
Strange stuff for sure, but we definitely dig it. The black metal element is brief, but still seems to inform the rest of the record's not nearly as black soundscaping.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Housed in a slim dvd case, with full color cover and insert, recorded on gold cd-r.
The cover story this issue is is all about the early years of The Soft Machine. Also: AQ faves Euphoria ("the remarkable saga of the most expensive cult album ever made"), surf psych maven Merrell Fankhauser, Canada's Allied Records, home to Plastic Cloud and others, a eulogy for horror actress Ingrid Pitt, and much more, including the usual lots of reviews and colorful graphics in this way-back machine of a magazine.
BACK IN STOCK!!!
Have a glance back at our most verbose descriptions about anything from the avant-garde fringes of music making, and you'll most likely find a common metaphor of specific locations, or rather the memories that the author attributes to that space -- good, bad, holy, abject, transcendent, etc. Upon listening to Spots In The Sun, we find ourselves returning to the well-trod linguistic device of comparing sound to the detached memories of place; however, Shoemaker's exploration of psychogeographic sound never grounds itself upon a specific location -- like a crumbling hospital, reclaimed World War II bunkers, or even his own favored locations of the jungles of Indonesia. Rather, Shoemaker drops the listener into a sunbleached environment, where heat, humidity, jetlag, fatigue, and general environmental claustrophobia prevent any of the specifics to make themselves known. While Shoemaker's landscapes are openly hostile toward the listener, these swarming masses of sound are incredibly alluring, drawing us in even though we may know better than to enter these openly toxic spaces. Shoemaker is always teasing us with small hints as to where we might be, with screeching birds, temple bells, and the patter of rain; but before we can begin to triangulate a position, Shoemaker rips us from our locale with a ruptured crescendo and drops us somewhere else. It is through the drone that Shoemaker achieves all of this and more, his swarming monochrome morphs from complex vibrations into radioluminescent clouds. Spots In The Sun is an exquisite manifestation of abstracted field recordings pushed to the point of grotesque minimalism, and is indeed some of the finest that we've heard (comparable to the likes of BJ Nilsen, Machinefabriek, Loren Chasse, Philip Jeck's Surf, and mnortham).
Another fantastic twisted slab of lo-fi psychedelic shitgaze noise pop from these SF rockers, formerly the duo of Mike Donovan and Matt Hartman, now expanded to a trio with the addition of former Comet On Fire Noel Harmonson, and while it's inevitable that bands get more polished, and their songs get better, and recording techniques improve, as we all know, that's not always a good thing. Thankfully in the case of Sic Alps, the new record manages to move leaps and bounds beyond their last one, with out losing any off the oddball ramshackle charm and on-the-verge of collapse songsmithery that made them so endearingly lovable in the first place.
The songs this time around are somehow more immediately catchy, the band ditching their purposefully obtuse fuck you vibe and some of their sonic spikiness, for a noisiness and looseness that seems more organic, less calculated, and somehow the songs seem the better for it. It helps that these songs are super catchy, maybe Donovan's best batch yet, the sort of songs that recorded in a big studio with a crack band could be total hits. Okay, maybe not, but for a lo-fi noiserock band on Drag City, this is sorta like Sic Alps' Slanted And Enchanted, the perfect blend of new more polished songwriting, and the old, don't give a fuck, whatever vibe.
The opening three track salvo is pretty untouchable though. "Jolly" is a brooding noise drenched ballad, all lumbering tempo, and ominous piano, laid beneath, weary vox, falsetto harmonies, and shuffling drumming, "Eat Happy" is all minimal acoustic strum, wreathed in jagged psychedelic noiseguitar, mumbled mush mouthed vocals, and a super poppy, almost GBV sort of classic Brit pop sounding chorus, with a crazy catchy stuttered vocal line, and finally, "Cement Surfboard" might be the dreamiest Sic Alps jam yet, lilting and super melodic, with some sweetly melodic singing, and a hazy harmony vocal driven chorus. And we could probably go on. Expand that three track salvo to four, or five, or ten. Things do get more chaotic and noisy, abstract and murky, but even at its loosest and most fucked up, Napa Asylum is pretty solidly pop, and no amount of fuckery can disguise that. Awesome.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Okay metalheads, line forms here, to grab this, the final (?), and most elaborate issue yet, of the legendary and supremely kick ass Slayer magazine, #20, or XX as it's grimly printed on the cover, edited and written and put together as always by Metalion, but unlike the past issues, this one is a proper, super fancy hardcover book, a massive metallic tome, and while the outside may look super slick, the inside is the same old Slayer mag, cut and paste old school zine style, lots of drawings and cartoons, different typefaces, photos, no efforts made to smooth the edges, to hide the bits of tape or the staples that might have show up in the photocopies, nope this is a total DIY, kvlt metal zine, gussied up book style. Featuring interviews with and articles about Watain, Morbid, Whiplash, Bathory, Sadus, Kreator, Master's Hammer, Sadistik Exekution, Funeral Mist, Nifelheim, Destroyer 666, SUNNO))), Grotesque, Savage Thrust, Medieval, Invidious Deathrash, Obscurity, Nocturnal Graves, Pagan Altar, Strid, Jarboe and more.
Also includes an exclusive 12" ep from Pre-Nihilist / pre-Entombed outfit Morbid, featuring original Mayhem vocalist Dead, consisting of 4 tracks of super raw, thrashing black metal, murky and muddy and blown out, old demos and a live track, and a creepy bit of spoken word from Dead, raw and primitive and heavy and hateful and BLACK. The perfect sonic companion.
Also included is a big poster, on one side, Jon Nodtveidt of Dissection, the other side, a blown up version of the Slayer #20 cover art, featuring killer artwork by Erik Danielsson. So totally recommended. Every metalhead's bookshelf needs one of these!
LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES!!! ALREADY SOLD OUT AND OUT OF PRINT, so these are the ONLY and the LAST copies we will ever get...
These kids from Chicago are musically way wise well beyond their age. Barely out of high school they proved on their debut that they were most definitely a musical force to be reckoned with, playing infectious guitar driven pop that fits somewhere between the sounds of their slightly older peers and touring pals, Girls and Hunx & His Punx. With their second full length, they have upped the ante even more, once again demonstrating their knack for creating songs with huge hooks and melting warmth. Their love of T. Rex can be heard boldly throughout these songs, but you also get the feeling they spent a lot of last year being swept away by Beach House's Teen Dream, as there is a new level of sophistication and a whole other layer of woozy warmth woven into their sound. We love how SW's are both so full of energy yet also ridiculously talented musicians who have found a way to merge spirit and talent in such satisfying ways.
Previously a big fancy quintuple 7" vinyl box set, now on cd (and thus a bit cheaper)!
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.
On this disc, 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!
So we've worked are way backwards with the recent reissues of great British folkstress Bridget St John. A couple lists ago we reviewed her most pop and upbeat release Thank You For..., then last time it was the ever so lush and orchestrated '71 release Songs For The Gentle Man and this time we focus on her debut, 1969's Ask Me No Questions. An outing that's the most stripped down of her first three albums. Produced by her biggest supporter, John Peel, this was by and large a totally solo affair. Her totally beautiful voice and sparse guitar instrumentation help create an overall somber and peaceful mood that is usually so hard to get so right, but St. John demonstrates that she knew so well how to evoke those sentiments without hitting people over the head, instead slowly wandering and tiptoeing her way through leaves and trees and finding beauty, truth and sadness along the way. The reissue of this debut also contains two bonus tracks including a stunning cover of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne." These recent reissues have proven she is worthy of that spot in your record collections next to Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan and Marianne Faithfull, voices that are timeless and always ring so true and wise.
Some fairly heavy (maaaan) stoner psych blues rawk action here from 1971. Yep, seventy-one. We won't try to tell you that the lone album from Japan's Strawberry Path was one of the best rock releases of '71, 'cause of course there were so many great albums out that year. But if you're a fan of heavy rock of the era, especially the weirder stuff from overseas, you should check 'em out. There's plenty of wailing guitar and jammin' organ on here, but also some mellow moves too so it's maybe more '60s than '70s sounding, and VERY Jimi Hendrix influenced. And we'd guess they were also into such Western acts as Steppenwolf, early Deep Purple, Grand Funk and possibly Black Sabbath. In the realm of early '70s Japanese hard psych they're on par with Speed, Glue & Shinki and Foodbrain, but not quite as as solid as the best Flower Travellin' Band or Blues Creation. These guys (a duo of Shigeru "Jimmy" Narumo on guitars and keys, and Hiro Tsunoda on drums and vocals, helped out by various guests) went on to form the even heavier Flied Egg, who released an LP on Vertigo, a track from which is heard on Andy Votel's Vertigo Mixed disc in fact.
This is totally in that Vertigo vein, with classical flourishes of flute and strings, hard-rockin' boogie blues riffage, wild vocals, kickin' drum breaks, acoustic interludes... it's an acid-prog mix that isn't always in the proto-metal direction we might want but we'll take what we can get. Plus you've gotta love the song titles, which are either really cool and weird like "Maximum Speed Of Muji Bird (45 Seconds Of Schizophrenic Sabbath)" or totally indicative of what you'd expect like "I Gotta See My Gypsy Woman" and "Mary Jane On My Mind". Woah, yeah.
Way back in 2008, we reviewed the debut full length from a mysterious East coast outsider black metal horde called T.O.M.B. (which stands for Total Occultic Mechanical Blasphemy, btw). That record, Macabre Noize Royale, was a weird one, the MO of the band unlike any black metal bands we knew about. Sure, some bands record in the forest, or a cave, but these guys recorded in all sorts of strange locations, based on the places themselves, whether a location was supposedly haunted, or where some tragedy took place, or even better, with some fucked up acoustical properties.
Those remote recordings definitely informed their sound, depending on the space, the sound could be brittle and tinny, or deep and reverby and resonant, and the songs themselves differed dramatically as well, blackened dronemusick one minute, buzzing blasting blackness the next, weird industrial clang and clatter the next, often incorporating the location into the sound, banging on pipes, scraping fences and whatnot.
We managed to get just a small handful of these, the second, and perhaps final release from these guys, a collection of various tracks, recorded over the last 14 years, at all sorts of mysterious locations, a cemetery, a mental institution, a mental hospital, and although these tracks span more than a decade, they hold together pretty well, and sound incredible, from frenzied shrieking blasts of blackness, to murky, chugging, dirgey almost industrial sounding crush, from blown out blackened psychedelia, to creeping, lumbering mechanical dirgery, all clanging metal, and inhuman howls, from noise drenched Teutonic Swans-like pummel spaced out abstract ritualistic Abruptum like weirdness, from super distorted crumbling Merzbowian blacknoize blowouts to blurred and blackened ambience, this stuff is pretty goddamn great. Sonically, Total Occultic Mechanical Blasphemy II is really not that far removed from Macabre Noize Royale, but then that's just fine with us!
And again, be warned, we only got a small batch of these, not sure if we can get more when we run out...
Electric Wizard are the cover stars for this issue of one of our two monthly metal must-reads (the other being Decibel, which also featured EW on their cover recently). Quite a photogenic group, especially the new bassist with tattoos all over his face (his day job: tattoo artist, of course).
Also this issue, in depth interviews with Triptykon, Meads Of Asphodel, Slough Feg, Krieg, Woe, Blut Aus Nord, Bastard Priest, Sodom, Forbidden, and more. Cattle Decapitation do the Invisible Jukebox thing; one of the bands they have to identify is Caninus, which isn't difficult for 'em since they did a split with that pitbull-fronted band.
Plus there's shorter bits on Salome, Encoffination, Anguished, Procession, Enochian Crescent, and many others. Then there's all the reviews and news and ads for festivals and whatnot. And finally the free cover-mounted cd sampler.
Wow, 2011 is ruling so far, so much good stuff has come out this year already. Here's one we REALLY flipped for when we saw it was available - the third and apparently final album (bar the inevitable reunion tour!) from everyone's favorite all-elephant ensemble. That's right, the Thai Elephant Orchestra of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in the jungle locale of Lampang, Thailand. We're huge fans of their other two albums, made both of 'em Records Of The Week, and this one is just as good - or actually maybe even better, 'cause as they say it's a "purist" recording of the Elephant Orchestra, with no human guidance at all, edits, or overdubs. It's indeed all-elephant, with the exception of a Buddhist monk's chanted prayer for the elephant spirit heard on the very first track (also we're guessing a human came up with the song titles). All the music is entirely improvised by the elephants themselves, playing the special over-sized instruments built for them by conservationist Richard Lair and experimental composer David Soldier as part of their project to help preserve these amazing creatures and their ever-threatened habitat. Lair and Soldier just hit record and let the elephants go to it on these ten tracks. They really seem to enjoy expressing themselves, these tracks truly lovely and mesmeric, with all kinds of percussive textures, gently tinkling chimes, occasional crashing gongs or drums, gamelan-like tones, harmonica drones... and it's all remarkably rhythmic, at a stately pace. Beautiful! They definitely know what they're doing, they've got big ears after all, and it's incredible the feeling and careful restraint that they bring to the music they're making (for such large animals especially). We doubt humans could do better. NNCK, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Kemialliset Ystavat, et. al., you're no match for these elephants... as we've said before, if you didn't know dem wuz pachyderms, you'd think this was some new weird krautrock-inspired improv group, or a reissue of something by the likes of Amon Duul, the Taj Mahal Travellers, or Yahowah 13 perhaps.
For those unfamiliar with the Thai Elephant Orchestra, you're in for a treat! And anyone already a fan will be thrilled too. Previous albums contained a fair number of tracks with humans participating too, so it's nice to have one that's elephant-only, and it's sooooooo good. Utterly, utterly wonderful, both musically and conceptually. How can you not love these elephants?
FYI, a new documentary about the Thai Elephant Orchestra can be found on YouTube, part one is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZHLPrYkpRc
Expectations are set pretty high when your band is compared to This Heat, Swell Maps and The Ex, but for Baltimore math rockers Thank You, the comparison is pretty apt.
Over the course of six songs and about 30 minutes, the band unfurl some seriously intricate and dense sonic workouts, forgoing traditional song structure, and instead trafficking in tension and release, repetition and texture, whipping up super repetitive cyclical jams, the guitars alternately jangly and crunchy, the vocals yelped and anthemic, the record opener sounding like a post punk no-wave take on Animal Collective, with long stretches of frantic drumming and swirling droned out guitar.
The rest of the record spreads out, dipping into blissed out tribal psychedelia, motorik minimal krautrock, angular jagged punkish crunch and manic super intense mathiness. Chiming guitars swell and soar over avalanche like rhythms, laced with playful flurries of tinkling melodies, occasionally getting super abstract and dubbed out, just as often slipping into something more gnarled and chaotic, but when the vocals come in, all high and harmonious, the transform whatever is going on into some unlikely psychedelic pop.
Crunchy indie rock explodes into something much more frenetic and frenzied, before slipping into a slithery buzz drenched bit of woozy swirl, only launch into some organ driven psychedelia, noisy and loose, and again the vocals grounding the sound, while the organs and drums do the best to drag everything heavenward, and finally, the record closes with maybe the poppiest of the bunch, the guitars and drums locked in a rollicking tumble beneath the soaring vox, again the Animal Collective comparisons are unavoidable, but those vocals coupled with a sound more angular and jagged and noisy, make this a sort of avant post punk psych pop, that should appeal to modern pop kids, as well as folks who lean more toward sounds with prefixes like post and kraut...
Full length number three from these Louisiana heavies, and it just might be their weirdest, most experimentally sprawling and prettiest release yet. It seems like we're in the age of post doom, or avant doom, with bands moving well beyond the sounds that have so far defined them. We recently featured The Body's latest record as our Record Of The Week, which at its core was a sludge/doom record, but incorporated a choir, multiple drummers, drum machines, strange editing and collages, horns, all adding to the whole, but never taking away from the band's sound, or the ultimate heft and heaviness of the music. A delicate balance for sure, one that Thou seem poised to strike as well, with Summit. But it's not like they weren't a weird band anyway, they definitely had their own take on the ubiquitous post metal / sludge metal thing, even transforming a classic Nirvana jam into their own gnarled and twisted chunk of downtuned crunch. The changes here though are not as dramatic as those undertaken by the Body, the band offer up some blackened blastbeats right at the beginning of the record, there's piano, viola, trombone, other horns, female vocals, but most of those are all contained in a single track, an interlude of sorts, a hazy bit of slow building jazzy warble and drift, wreathed in clouds of cymbal shimmer and peppered with muted percussion, a brief respite amidst the otherwise thunderous proceedings. Some of those elements do show up elsewhere, but they're super subtle, and easily overwhelmed by the surrounding heaviness.
No, the main change seems to be a shift toward melody, where as before the band veered most frequently into serious abject crust-sludge Eyehategod territory, here, they tend more toward the post metal / metallic post rock end of the spectrum, unfurling majestic slow building Isis / Pelican style epics, still dipping occasionally into some filthy dirgery, but mostly crafting gorgeously soaring downtuned almost symphonic sounding heaviness, sounding at times almost like a black metal Explosions In The Sky, and other times slowing things down, dialing back the chug and crush, and resembling some sort of extra heavy sludgy slowcore outfit. But it suits them for sure. Summit definitely plays out as the perfect mix of pretty heaviness and fierce brutality, with just a smidge of experimental weirdness thrown in for good measure.
Another fantastic record from a group who pretty much only make fantastic records, some seriously epic sludge and surprisingly listenable ultra heaviness, fans of all those post metal combos like Rosetta, Baroness, the Body, Grails, The Ocean, Angel Eyes, Tides, Souvenir's Young America, Mouth Of The Architect, Irepress, Indian, Conifer, who have yet to discover Thou, this is the record for you....
Most of the underwater environmental recordings we're familiar with are of whale songs and Antarctic seals and penguins, but this one takes us to an even more unusual locale: the moat of a medieval castle! How cool is that? The ten tracks on this 55 minute disc consist of material selected by French sound artist Thomas Tilly from about five hours of hydrophonic field recordings he made in the murky green waters of the moat of Sanzay Castle in the west of France. These excerpts represent what Tilly, in his careful listening, found most interesting, a dense buzzing micro-sound world created by the aquatic insects and plants, apparently reacting to the intensity of the summer sunlight on the surface of the water. Aside from some "slight equalisation", he made no electronic treatments or altering edits of the raw recordings; weird as it is, this is what you'd hear if you dunked your head in the moat and gave a long listen! Yet, it SOUNDS quite electronic (something that other nature recordings have prepared us for). They certainly don't sound of organic origin. Buzzing, pulsing, chattering drones. Rhythmic, intriguing. Steady mechanical whirr. Sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle. Constant clicking, like the ticks of a Geiger counter. Sudden sharp whines... decay... Even Morse Code like BLEEPS! (Is that a robot rusting away at the bottom of the moat, still emitting sounds? Did a mad scientist once inhabit this castle?).
It makes us think, Raster-Noton meets Sounds Of North American Frogs. Almost makes you wonder why the likes of Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda, Nerve Net Noise, all the experimental electronica, digital glitch, clinical clicks and cuts types even bother, when instead of investing in a laptop computer and software, it seems you merely need to submerge a microphone in a suitable stagnant moat. Of course we're kidding. But the thought does occur.
The varied ambient textures of these tracks are mesmeric for sure, and surprising. The most fascinating Found Sounds / Field Recordings find we've run across in recent weeks (unless you count the new Thai Elephant Orchestra, but those elephants are playing instruments).
A gorgeous record of African folk music from this legendary Malian singer, documenting a series of collaborations between friends, recorded casually, field recording style, at a family member's house. Toure would meet with each friend, hang out, drink tea and choose a song the first day, then the next day, the two would record the song, giving themselves only two takes, in order to capture the energy and spontaneity of the moment. Originally, the producer intended to mix these songs with the sounds of the street and various interviews, to create a more historical document of the music, the time and the place, but once the recordings were finished, they decided the songs were too good to mess with.
And good is an understatement, the songs here are gorgeous, emotional, intimate, passionate, and quite simple, but so powerful, generally just two instruments and one or two voices, the instruments locked into looped cyclical melodies, super trancelike and hypnotic, while the vocals soar over the top. The opener is incredible, the two guitar wound into intricate harmonies and dizzying counterpoint, the vocals lush and soulful, and when the song shifts, and the guitars get even more tangled, and the second vocal comes in, it's so intense, we've listened to that first song about 20 times now.
The other collaborations are just as moving, the vocal interplay incredible, and the various permutations of dueling guitars fantastic, the sound shifting from traditional African folk, to desert blues, to something more American influenced, but all infused with Toure's spirit and style. Anyone who's been digging the various African releases on Sublime Frequencies, or any of the Tinariwen records, will definitely dig this too.
How long has it been? Seven years? Well it's about time we had a new studio album from these old, old AQ faves. Hopefully they're old faves of yours too, but if not, we're very happy to introduce 'em to you, and this new album will do the job very very well! Hailing from the Czech Republic, this legendary band of radical arty rockers, whose name means "Now I Get It" and is pronounced ooje-May-Dome-uh, or Oozh Smeh Dough-Ma, depending on whom you ask, got their start back in the '80s Prague punk scene, and soon became the PROG punks to reckon with as well; we've described their musical approach as being a sort of "heavy and hyperkinetic ... horn-blasted punk/prog hoedown that mingles the folk melodies of Eastern Europe with the underground/avantgarde of the Rock In Opposition scene" and that's certainly still displayed with fervor on Caves, a spelunking themed album of majestic melodies and energetic pop in their trademark eccentric style.
The current UZD quartet, lead by vocalist Miroslav Wanek (and including as always non-musical member Martin Velisek, credited with "brushes, paints" for his distinctive art and design work) is augmented by several guests on accordion, trombone, violin, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and vocals. That's in addition to their usual guitar, piano, trumpet, drums, and bass. So it's no wonder that this ensemble can be such a powerful musical force, driven by their unique vision.
After a brief intro, "Cave", consisting of dripping water and spoken poetry (in Czech, as are all the songs, though English translations are provided in the cd booklet), the band launches into the album's first song proper, the brassy, bombastic "Droplet", which has a bit of a Hawaii Five-O gone Eastern European vibe. That's followed by the more somber "Abyss", and then 8 more varied, vibrant numbers, some tracks like punked-up Carl Stalling cartoon music, some getting almost metal in the guitar dep't., others slowing down for gorgeous, mournfully melodic parts... They also get into some quite complex, convoluted rockin' that kinda sounds like Japanese zeuhl heavyweights Hundred Sights Of Koenji with more horns! Fans of uber-insane prog should be pleased, as well as anyone who likes their pop music to sound both dramatic and deeply meaningful (even when you don't know the language). We'd further guess that fans of sundry such current indie acts as Deerhoof, Hidden Cameras, and USAisamonster (RIP) could be potential UZD converts, for various reasons, check 'em out.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Remember that amazing String Of Pearls compilation, which collected a handful of awesome and obscure 78's from all over the world, compiled by Ian Nagoski? Well, that may be out of print, but Nagoski returns with yet another collection, a sequel of sorts, gathering up various dusty gems from all over the world, Portugal, Spain, India, Iran, Macedonia, Switzerland, Greece, and yeah, even America.
Just like the first volume, Brass Pins & Match Heads is overflowing with wonderful and wondrous sounds, almost without exception warm and mysterious, haunting and lovely, from gypsy folk to classical guitar, wild steel string workouts, soaring dramatic operatic vocals, old timey big band jazz, lush choir like harmonies, rickety skeletal strum, sweetly singing strings and more more more, all wreathed in that hazy dusty record crackle...
Our favorite track is definitely "Alpufzug", which is the name for the ritual procession of cattle through the Swiss Alps, the wordless musical interpretation is sung by a club in a town called Thun, the lead vocals by a man with an impossibly clear, high, feminine voice, who also yodels, the track itself slips from dreamy ethereal chorale to wild whooping hoedown, replete with yelps and howls and yodeling of course, as well as the bleating of cattle, voices of villages and the gorgeous soft cacophony of tinkling cowbells. So great!
Packaged in a super swank old school style tip on cover, with 4 pages of extensive liner notes, photos and more...
The latest from Sublime Frequencies comes in the form of this killer collection of Pakistani instrumentals, recorded between 1966 and 1976, the decade of music reflected by the decade spent putting this collection together, not just gathering the songs, but actually contacting all the various musicians, but the results speak for themselves, a wild assemblage of groovy, fuzzy garage and beat and surf music, all instrumental of course, with buzzing sitars, wheezing organs, distorted electric guitars, tangled melodies, all buzzy and psychedelic and so very good!
The history of the music, as always, is as interesting as the music itself. Pop music was banned for the most part, but in 1966 a nationwide movement was begun to overthrow the dictatorship, which did eventually happen, resulting in a surge in popularity of bands playing American style music, and of course along with the music came drugs and long hair and parties, and a huge flow of hippies from all over the world. Sadly most of those bands never recorded, as the industry was geared more toward film music, and the bands that did record, typically did traditionals or version of popular songs from films.
This mini musical revolution ended in 1977 when the Socialist party was overthrown, and the military chief took over, establishing a pure Islamic state governed by Sharia law, which meant alcohol and nightclubs were banned, films and TV were heavily censored, which resulted in most of the artists leaving Pakistan for Europe or the US.
But while it was going on, some amazing music was being made, as evidenced by these tracks, wild and funky and fuzzy and sweaty and groovy, playful percussion wrapped around garagey fuzz guitar, surfy riffs, spidery melodies, Ventures-y reverb, a definite Joe Meek vibe to lots of these songs, dreamily lo-fi, lots of organs and old synths, unfurling frantic flurries of notes, plenty of sitar buzz shimmering throughout, and the fact that these tracks are instrumental, definitely makes them way more accessible to the less adventurous listeners out there. We used to marvel at the fact that we sold so many copies of Ethiopiques volume 4, but realized that perhaps it was because it was instrumental too. Needless to say, the music here, even sans vocals, is plenty wild and wonderful enough to have even the most seasoned of world music explorers in utter bliss.
SUPER LIMITED as always, gorgeously packaged in a super heavy full color gatefold sleeve, with extensive liner notes, and lots of photos.
A new Pop Ambient collection is always exciting news around here, perhaps our favorite single ongoing series of electronic music compilations EVER. And goddamn if we don't reference the Pop Ambient sound in about half our reviews. But it's inevitable really, after all the sound we've come to know as Pop Ambient is just so gorgeous and glorious, washed out and hazy and gauzey and dreamlike. It's techno without the beats, it's new age without the schmaltz, it's dark deep listening, but it's also ethereal and ephemeral and the sort of sound that ends up being the soundtrack to so much of our lives, so soothing and mesmerizing and hypnotic, dreamlike sounds that entrance, and lull and transport us to some other place, thus, a new batch of Pop Ambient jams is some soothing sonic balm for our weary musical souls...
The biggest surprise this time around might be opening with a track by ANBB, the collaborative duo of Alva Noto and Blixa Bargeld of Einsturzende Neubaten, whose music, even here, is barely Pop Ambient, the sound is muted and buzzy, electronic and abstract, a slow building drone, that's more ominous than dreamy, very soundtracky and dramatic, with deep electronic pulses, and then right near the end, vocals come in, and the song is transformed into some strange bit of haunting electro cabaret. But that's about as weird as it gets, the rest of the record slips back into the swirling shimmering electronic dreamscapes we've come to love, pianos unleash flurries of notes that drift beneath soft swells of muted buzz and skittery barely there rhythms, warm whirring chordal streaks are layered and stretched out into beautiful sun dappled blurscapes, full on daydreamy fuzz pop like a druggier driftier M83 meanders and drifts like some after school special playing in slow motion, the standout track might be "30.6.1881", by Crato, who we'd never heard before, whose take on Pop Ambience is on the dark side, mixing a little heroin house underwater pulse to the otherwise whirring ethereal blur, fantastically warped and blurred and in places surprisingly noisy. But other than that and the opener, the rest of the record finds the Pop Ambient stable at their most blissed out, their most woozy and soft focus, featuring some of the usual culprits: Thomas Fehlmann, Jurgen Paape, Mikkel Metal, Wolfgang Voigt, Triola, as well as some fresh faces: Bhutan Tiger Rescue, Crato, Bvdub, Barnt and more.
As always, absolutely, utterly and wholeheartedly recommended, total bliss out dreaminess for sure, and if you're just discovering the world of Pop Ambience, prepare to become totally obsessed, and with a desire to track down the first TEN volumes as well...
Winner of the dumb/awesome band name of the week award! A "Volture" being kind of like an electric eel, except that it's a bird, who, uh, shocks its prey like the album title says. What kind of band would name themselves something like that? Well a '80s styled heavy metal band, of course. Indeed, the "Volture" concept is kind of an homage to the cover art of Judas Priest's Screaming For Vengeance, in a way. And Volture do a good job paying tribute, complete with wailing vocals (hitting some King Diamond-y falsetto highs), widdly guitar solos and rampaging riffage. There's six ripping, rockin' songs on this 22 minute ep, including "Night Walker" that originally appeared on a limited edition split 7" with Enforcer on Earache. And they do deliver the goods pretty darn convincingly. Not bad for what we assume was a "drink beer, think up a funny name/concept, and start a band" scenario!
This band is actually a side project of highly popular retro-thrashers Municipal Waste (specifically, bassist Ryan Waste), and also features members of Cannabis Corpse and Twisted Tower Dire.
On the same label that brought us Enforcer's debut, another band that would feel quite comfortable with song titles like "Heavy Metal Machine" and "Cheap Thrillz".
We've been trying to track these down for ages, a mysterious set of dubstep 12"s, some of the coolest, darkest, grimiest dubstep we've heard, all housed in plain white sleeves, no info except for a stamp of either a larva, a pupa or an adult Weevil, that symbol designating which of the three Weevil Series 12"s it is. We decided it was probably better to sell these as a set, as they were difficult to track down, and had to be shipped overseas, and odds are if you want one, you're probably gonna want the set.
Originally a customer sent us a link to some samples online and all it took was about 30 seconds and we were hooked. Dark and creepy, ominous and menacing, the sound rough and textured and raw and not at all slick or glossy, the beats, slipping from dubstep stutter to almost jungle skitter, the background a swirl of spaced out effects, deep bass swells, mysterious voices, and when the beat drops, it drops hard, the bass buzzing, thick and corrosive.
The first volume, Larva, is seriously grimy, muted buried rhythms and roiling black clouds, the beat gradually growing more intense, the drop huge, the beat nearly knocking us over, the dubstep definitely a little jungly. The second track offers up some super effected distorted dancehall style toasting over an echo drenched beat, and warped bass warble, and the drop here too is fierce, the bass a fat fuzzed out wobble, the beat jagged and stuttery, a super raga style dubbed out groove that kills. The final track gets a bit more darksteppy, the tempo cranked up, definitely more jungle than dubstep, the beat wreathed in clouds of squelch and synthy squiggle, and peppered with bits of African Head Charge like ambience. So good.
And the second volume, Pupa, is just as good, starting out with a clipped lurching groove, and some vocals that are chopped up and transformed into a weird sort of bassy hiccup, almost like a croaking frog, the beat stripped down and minimal, all skitter, wreathed in clouds of swirling psychedelic hiss and whir, and haunting black ambience, a strangely off kilter hip hop-ish chunk of dark dark dubstep. The second track mixes it up again, setting the beat against a backdrop of woozy synth swirl, wrapped around a skipping chunk of warbly bass buzz, wrapped in swirls of glitch and static, the sound more laid back and droney, hypnotic and washed out, which leads into the final track, a big block rockin beat, laid over fuzzed out bass, and all sorts of dubby effects and extra percussion, again, with some swirly synths laid down in the background.
Finally, the set finishes off with part three, Adult, which shifts gears again, the first track a murky bit of super minimal droned out mesmer, the beat, muted and buried beneath a field of static, and blurred low end fuzz, laced with random bits of clatter, like some super abstract Chain Reaction Heroin House take on lo-fi dubstep, crusty, and sinister, and abstract and haunting and AWESOME.
The second track continues in the same direction, similarly minimal and stripped down, not nearly as murky, but with a seriously clinical, motorik clipped beat, surrounded by Geiger counter like chitter, all over little flurries of high hat, and subtle bits of dubbed out FX, super hypnotic and WAY too short.
Finally, the closing track picks up the pace, that creepy processed raga like toasting returns, over metallic clouds of billowy bass, the beats laid back and stripped way down, the thick buzzing bass pulse driving the groove, everything surrounded by what sounds like field recordings of a forest or jungle, a darkly psychedelic bit of dubbed out bass heavy murk. So good. We haven't stopped listening to these since we first got them in. Dubstep jam of the year? Last year? This year? Any year? Hell yeah!!
Each 12" is limited to 300 copies, hand numbered, and hand stamped, all in plain white sleeves. And remember we're selling all three 12"s together as a single set.
We loved the White Fence record from last year, but nothing could have prepared us for what an amazing slice of warped '60s inspired psych pop they would conjure up on this mind blowing sophomore effort. Recorded with an analog warmth that melts and rocks and is so totally satisfying, overflowing with songs that rife with hooks and charisma galore, keeping us wanting more and more.
While influenced by the sounds of like Syd Barrett, Donovan, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, early Who, The Kinks or some track from a Nuggets compilation that would blow your mind, the secret to White Fence's greatness is that they don't just sound like a band from a different era, but they take some of those elements in creating such a warm and woozy vibe, with a set of songs that's had us under a spell we never want to get out from under. So damn good!
Formerly the guitarist for Northwestern garage rockers Federation X, and occasional collaborator with members of the Reeks And The Wrecks, Ben Wildenhaus has since transformed into a bit of an avant guitarist, now living on the east coast, and managing the Instrumental Quaalude blog, on which he weekly posts new recordings, always instrumental, always under 5 minutes.
Great Melodies From Around seems to be an extension of Instrumental Quaalude, as it is a cassette collection of similarly dark, gorgeously instrumental excursions, assembled from lush layered drones, Appalachian style steel string guitars, woozy twangy slide guitar, strange murky percussion, bits of vocals (NOT singing) employed as more texture, wheezing organ, sinewaves, minimal drumming, subtle electronics, bits of glitch and hiss, amp buzz, a little noise here and there, the occasional sample... The sound is smokey and dark and ominous, dreamy and hauntingly lovely, a distinctly Lynchian soundtrack vibe for sure, late night, lights low, everything dusty, and dark, and lonely, and lit by the streetlights outside, hazy, gauzy, fuzzy, and totally and fantastically lovely.
SUPER LIMITED of course. Full color photograph covers, blue cases, hand decorated tapes.
Another fine issue. On the cover, avant-popsters Deerhoof! Also: an interview with pianist Matthew Shipp, an Invisible Jukebox session with Hype Williams, and tributes to Captain Beefheart from Gary Lucas, Byron Coley, Savage Pencil, and others. And plenty more.
Wow. We're so stoked on this, a gorgeous book of artwork from Boredoms bandleader Eye Yamantaka, whose eyepoppingly colorful collages and multimedia art, as represented on most Boredoms and related releases, we have always loved.
So this is total eyecandy for us Eye fans, a 24 page, 8" x 8" softcover, saddle stitched book featuring not covers for records Eye has released (which is what we thought it was going to be), but actually all artwork for dozens of insane IMAGINARY bands (and formats!) he made up just for this project! We love it.
Each page features 2 or 3 different "releases", with both sleeve art and the disc itself pictured. So for instance there's Sunarchy's "Volume" 12" picture disc, Satori Disco's "Groovy1" 10" water blue disc, and Crackederic's "Yellp", which claims to be a 22 inch "Balloon disc". Yeah, that's right, some of them get really unlikely or impossible. How about Armed LyF's "Junk", a 12" rasta color no centerhole disc? Or VhV's "Steamed Bun" release, a 4" bun on 12" black disc? Or Age "2", supposedly a 1 inch black disc? And then there's Googloom's "Gog In" googles shape disc (what looks like two 7"s melted together side by side) and Googloom's "Gog Out", a 2" broken disc! Those aren't even the craziest ones.
In addition to enjoying the visuals, this of course puts our imaginations into overdrive wishing we could HEAR these bands too, wondering what they sound like. Some of them provide clues, we know that Donoid's 12" contains a Wang Chung cover ("Everybody Dub Tonight"), while D.A.M.'s "Don't Ask Me" 7" is apparently "South Fla. Hardcore", hence the mohawked skater depicted on the sleeve.
This is Number 12 in a series of music-related art and design "journals", so we might have to get some of the earlier entries in as well, in fact there's a Daniel Higgs one that's pretty cool (of course) and we do have a couple of those in stock. All the journals in the series are packaged in 10" record sleeves, as well. Super cool. ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
