Released on the same label that put out the Starfuckers compilation Ordine '91-'96, one of our Records Of The Week this week, this collection of eps from Italian/British shoegaze dreampop duo My Violent Ego couldn't be more far removed from the gnarled experimental noise rock of the Starfuckers. MVE instead traffic in heavily processed, washed out effects drenched shimmer, dreamy abstract pop drift, and hushed ethereal pop ambience. 4AD loosed from its more traditional song like structures, the sounds allowed to float freely, blurred clouds of tangled melody, hushed angelic voices, looped melodic mesmer stretched into dreamy droned out drifts of ephemeral dreampop, many of the tracks here mere fragments, but even in fragmented form, so breathlessly lovely.
We knew the name My Violent Ego was familiar, but we couldn't quite remember why, but then it came to us, they were one of the bands who accused black metallers Velvet Cacoon of plagiarism! Remember those rumors of an unreleased VC demo that supposedly consisted of mostly borrowed/stolen music made by other people? The Velvet Cacoon folks copped to it too, admitting to being a total fraud, but knowing VC, it's hard to tell whether they're ever being genuine or always taking the piss, but finally hearing MVE it's easy to hear why Velvet Cacoon might be tempted, slather on a little black buzz, and this stuff would make the most divine and dreamily druggy black metal bliss, the sounds already warm and fuzzy, woozy and washed out, even a bit witch housey, the arrangements looped and circular, slipping from fully realized jangle pop drift, to blurred and smeared impressionistic shoegaze ambience, often melding the two, into some of the dreamiest dreampop we've heard.
There's definitely an old school Eighties vibe, but the band infuse their jangly drift with enough experimentalism that many of these tracks sound more like something you might hear on Touch or Kompakt than 4AD, taking single riffs, or simple loops, and treating them, dousing them in effects, and stretching them out into hushed expanses of mesmeric shimmer. So so nice. And so so totally recommended.
Latest blast of gloomy post punk from these Aussie rockers, the A side starts out with some heavily reverbed guitars, plenty of jangle, joined by female vox, low slung basslines, even some deep crooned male back up vocals, the song hypnotic and droney, repetitive and psychedelic, with some awesomely strange boy/girl harmonies, droned out and druggy, that give the song a bit of a spaced out vibe. The B side is heavy on the organ, a buzzing bit of gloom pop garage rock, the sound way more distorted and raw, some sweet boy/girl harmonies here too, less strange and more traditional than on the A side, again, all hazy and hypnotic, the sound super spaced out and repetitive, with a killer heavy and noisy psychedelic chaotic outro, all tangled guitars and wild loose drumming.
The last two outings from the Swedish drone composer BJ Nilsen have veered considerably outside of his normal modus operandi; and we certainly have to thank his Icelandic collaborators for steering him down the path of cheeky Euro-disco on the Super Great Love album recorded as Evil Madness. And then there was the masterfully hauntological outing from Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa on Big Shadow Montana. But dating back to his early recordings as Hazard, and even further back to his teenage / Cold Meat Industry days as Morthound, the cold, steel-minded drone has been central to the output of BJ Nilsen. The less than thrilling title of Vinyl returns to the sprawling, isolationist sounds that Nilsen chiselled and honed from various field recordings coupled with the more traditional instruments of guitar and piano. Ghostly tones flicker around floes of ice getting tossed in the surf and cold blasts of wind racing around what could be a forgotten WWII era bunker somewhere in the north of Sweden. Out of all of the natural elements, Nilsen extracts a variety of sustained drones, radioactive tonalities, and muted rumblings that beget metaphors of an existential emptiness. The thrumming low-end frequencies that crawl out of Nilsen's compositions are comparable to those of Thomas Koner, who hasn't made a record this good in many years! Be warned however, that the pressing of this vinyl is not terribly good, as our turntable's needle required a couple extra pennies to stay in the quiet grooves on the B-side of this album. Bafflingly limited to 250 copies.
Onde hail from the Belgian underground, and members of Onde had all been part of the psychedelic collage ensemble Noise-Maker's Fifes, a project that had more than a few parallels to HNAS. The first Onde record was something of a continuation of the gloomy atmospherics built from semi-improvised gestures; but Purple is an entirely different beast, that seems to lock itself onto the motorik rhythm and atonal squalor that Tony Conrad & Faust generated on their seminal Outside The Dream Syndicate. Even if they are not intentionally paying homage to that album, they do a damn good job of replicating that single-minded, art-rock minimalism with sustained violin harmonics shot through with an insistent heartbeat kick-drum rhythm and double-timed guitar arpeggiation that phases out of its monotone with throat-singing harmonics. Onde's harmonics seem to have more of an expressionist urgency than the cantankerous pursuit of a pure minimalism that Conrad demands on Outside The Dream Syndicate; but this is nevertheless fantastic. While the album was cut to be played at 45rpm, we are probably not alone in dropping the needle onto this record at 33rpm. This surely must have been by Onde's design, as at 33rpm the record now takes on a Neu! 2 feel with a slow-motion crawl of those hypnotic rhythms and detuned heaviness now oozing forth from the thick stringed drones, sounding all the more monstrous. Yeah, it's like getting two records for the price of one. Fuck, yeah!
Japan's Otomo Yoshihide is a noisy, sampling-mad composer and performer, yes, perhaps best known for turntablist chaos in his notorious Naked City-ish outfit Ground Zero, and also for his "onkyo" experiments in groups like ISO and Filament, where he's been known to "play" the turntable without records. But, he's also a jazz guitarist. Of course, noisy and experimental in that mode too, a lot of the time. But with a definite love of the standards. Some years ago, Otomo's New Jazz Orchestra did a whole disc dedicated to Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch album. And there was Ground Zero's Plays Standards, before that. And Otomo has also covered Mingus, Ellington, Coleman, and others. Now with the stripped down ONJT+ unit, he's got two new discs tackling two more of his favorite jazz touchstones: "Lonely Woman" (from Ornette Coleman's 1959's The Shape Of Jazz To Come) and "Bells" by Albert Ayler (originally released as a single-sided 12" by ESP-Disk in 1965).
Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Trio consists of the man himself on guitar, with Mizutani Hiroaki on bass, and Yoshigaki Yasuhiro on drums and percussion. The "plus" part of the name is due to the presence of two special guests as well: Sachiko M with her sine waves, and Jim O'Rourke on EMS synth!
The Lonely Woman disc consists of 6 individually tracked interpretations of that composition, the two lengthiest tracks that bookend the disc featuring the full quintet, two more with just the core trio, and two that are solos from Otomo alone, one for electric guitar, the other one for "broken acoustic guitar". So it's sort of a "Lonely Woman" suite, varied throughout, but also like one extended rendition of the tune, a worshipful (but adventurous) "Lonely Woman" tour de force, achingly gorgeous and moody and often noisy too, both outright and subtly, with much electronic crackle, hiss, and whine especially when Sachiko M and O'Rourke are involved.
It's clear from Otomo's personal, quite interesting liner notes in the cd booklet, that this disc is really more of a tribute to his free jazz guitar hero, the late, legendary Masayuki Takayanagi, than to Ornette. After all, Takayanagi did his own Lonely Woman album. And exerted a huge influence on his would be "apprentice" Otomo. So this is definitely recommended as much to fans of Takayanagi as to those of Coleman or Otomo...
On the other disc, there's two takes of "Bells", one by the quintet, one by the trio. Albert Ayler has always been a horn player beloved by avant-guitarists (Marc Ribot especially, but also Keiji Haino and Sonny Sharrock come to mind) and "Bells" makes a good launchpad for Otomo and Co. to get LOUD and go way out. Particularly since Aylers' wonderful folky melodies have already been proven to withstand (and compliment) any such abuse, by the composer himself. This disc is an intense freakout all right, but with a high degree of listenability due to its loveliness at heart. That Otomo wrote liner notes for this about a served head (Mishima's) he saw a picture of in a newspaper as a kid, and makes some kind of a connection to Ayler, is also interesting...
Both discs, quite recommended, come in beautiful digipacks, with similar art, abstract pink jellyfish / balloon / breast images.
Japan's Otomo Yoshihide is a noisy, sampling-mad composer and performer, yes, perhaps best known for turntablist chaos in his notorious Naked City-ish outfit Ground Zero, and also for his "onkyo" experiments in groups like ISO and Filament, where he's been known to "play" the turntable without records. But, he's also a jazz guitarist. Of course, noisy and experimental in that mode too, a lot of the time. But with a definite love of the standards. Some years ago, Otomo's New Jazz Orchestra did a whole disc dedicated to Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch album. And there was Ground Zero's Plays Standards, before that. And Otomo has also covered Mingus, Ellington, Coleman, and others. Now with the stripped down ONJT+ unit, he's got two new discs tackling two more of his favorite jazz touchstones: "Lonely Woman" (from Ornette Coleman's 1959's The Shape Of Jazz To Come) and "Bells" by Albert Ayler (originally released as a single-sided 12" by ESP-Disk in 1965).
Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Trio consists of the man himself on guitar, with Mizutani Hiroaki on bass, and Yoshigaki Yasuhiro on drums and percussion. The "plus" part of the name is due to the presence of two special guests as well: Sachiko M with her sine waves, and Jim O'Rourke on EMS synth!
The Lonely Woman disc consists of 6 individually tracked interpretations of that composition, the two lengthiest tracks that bookend the disc featuring the full quintet, two more with just the core trio, and two that are solos from Otomo alone, one for electric guitar, the other one for "broken acoustic guitar". So it's sort of a "Lonely Woman" suite, varied throughout, but also like one extended rendition of the tune, a worshipful (but adventurous) "Lonely Woman" tour de force, achingly gorgeous and moody and often noisy too, both outright and subtly, with much electronic crackle, hiss, and whine especially when Sachiko M and O'Rourke are involved.
It's clear from Otomo's personal, quite interesting liner notes in the cd booklet, that this disc is really more of a tribute to his free jazz guitar hero, the late, legendary Masayuki Takayanagi, than to Ornette. After all, Takayanagi did his own Lonely Woman album. And exerted a huge influence on his would be "apprentice" Otomo. So this is definitely recommended as much to fans of Takayanagi as to those of Coleman or Otomo...
On the other disc, there's two takes of "Bells", one by the quintet, one by the trio. Albert Ayler has always been a horn player beloved by avant-guitarists (Marc Ribot especially, but also Keiji Haino and Sonny Sharrock come to mind) and "Bells" makes a good launchpad for Otomo and Co. to get LOUD and go way out. Particularly since Aylers' wonderful folky melodies have already been proven to withstand (and compliment) any such abuse, by the composer himself. This disc is an intense freakout all right, but with a high degree of listenability due to its loveliness at heart. That Otomo wrote liner notes for this about a served head (Mishima's) he saw a picture of in a newspaper as a kid, and makes some kind of a connection to Ayler, is also interesting...
Both discs, quite recommended, come in beautiful digipacks, with similar art, abstract pink jellyfish / balloon / breast images.
Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find two other releases on Campbell Kneale's Don't Fuck With Magic label (born of the late great and aQ beloved Celebrate Psi Phenomenon), an incredible archival release from the defunct Kneale one man project Birchville Cat Motel, as well as a crushingly noisy new Kneale project, called Tmpls. Then there's this one, which finds Kneale, in his new guise as Our Love Will Destroy The World, teaming up with weirdo Finnish noisemakers Tomutonttu, the one man band of Jan Anderzen, a member of aQ Finnish faves Avarus, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat among others.
This collaboration is a fantastically hazy bit of tripped out kosmische drift, all long droning tones, strange electronics that sound like alien field recordings, effects simulating a burbling brook (unless that is indeed an actual brook burbling), a lush layered dronescape, druggy and dreamy and hypnotic, but that's only the first few minutes. The track that splinters into something much more distinctly Tomutonttu, a jagged bit of buzz drenched tribalism, processed vox, tangled buzzy melodies, distorted percussion, very ritualistic and dreamily damaged, all wreathed in pulsing feedback and confuisonal clouds of swirling sonic squiggles. The hazy backdrop gradually moves to the foreground, burying the rhythm beneath a wash of groaning melodic buzz, the percussion transformed into a muted industrial crunch, all fading out to a bizarre bit of percolating electronic bloopage, haunting lopped melodies fractured into a dizzying array of swoon and sway, the bloops and bleeps sounding almost like some alien language, all underpinned by constantly shifting whirs and shimmers, only to finally ditch the skree and bloop and transform into a thick droned out drift, all pulsing partial riffage, woozy synths, barely there rhythmic skitter, washed out high end and weird buried sonic mystery, a murky and muddy final movement, gorgeously tranquil and strangely meditative...
EXTREMELY LIMITED. We're the only US source for these, and we took fully HALF the pressing, of which we sold HALF before even reviewing/listing, which means we have a bunch of these left, but they will undoubtedly be gone before you know it, which means grab one while you can.
As sad as it is for us to say, it's it may just be about time that that THEE prime purveyors of 'shitgaze' should be forced to give up that charming sobriquet, considering this is their least shitty sounding record yet (and we mean that in a good way). Ohio's Psychedelic Horseshit leave the four track behind and record in a proper studio for the first time, and while the results are pretty spectacular, they're far removed from their shitty older recordings (and again, we mean that in a good way). All of the core elements are present, the jangly guitars, the warbly fuzzy organs, the loose simple drummings, the off kilter boy/girl harmonies, the crazy catchy songs, but here they're presented in high fidelity (at least by PH standards), the sound lush and a little reverby, if you didn't know this band was in fact called Psychedelic Horseshit, you might think it was some new group on Kill Rock Stars or Slumberland, so if buzz and hiss and noise was what was keeping you from digging into PH's killer back catalog, then this is definitely for you, the songs are clear and sunshiney and jangly, the vocals dreamy, the sound reverby and softly fuzzy, the songs still great, in fact, this might be their best batch of songs yet, but fear not, there's still plenty of glitchy shitgaze-isms that wouldn't cut it on most pop records, tape drop outs here and there, the sound slipping into the red and peaking in places, the tape speed shifting now and again, the actual performance, loose and ramshackle, but fuck all the haters who are lamenting PH's new less lo-fi direction, as much as we love those old records, we might even love this one more. With every listen, more and more of these songs blossom into new faves, and we find ourselves spinning this like CRAZY, which is really the ultimate test.
Fans of all stripes of ramshackle pop will love this, and might even be convinced to dig deeper into Psychedelic Horseshit's shitgazier past...
In the last few years before his tragic death, Jay Reatard was responsible for some of the most kick ass, and hooky as hell garage pop we had ever heard, singe after single of amazing catchy as fuck tuneage culminating in his last record Watch Me Fall, which was pretty much pure power pop. And it's that pop side that made it easy to forget that Jay Reatard started out as the frontman for a super scuzzy lo-fi garage rock combo called appropriately enough, the Reatards, and this here comp, gathers up the first Reatards full length, as well as a bonus album of early tracks, previously only available as super limited cassettes. And to be honest, we were sort of ready to write this off as a bullshit cash-in revisitation of Reatard's earliest, and what we only assumed would be far inferior, releases, but holy shit were we wrong, this stuff is so frantic and fierce, fuzzy and blown out and in the red, but at the same time, hooky and poppy, subtle here, but for sure hinting at the Reatard power pop to come.
Opener "I'm So Gone" sounds like an even more lo-fi Dwarves, the guitars raw and ragged, the vox raspy and emotional, and the song hook heavy and totally rocking, we find ourselves playing this 90 second blast over and over and over. Follow up "Stacye" is another blast of Ramones / Toy Dolls bouncy scruffy garage punk pop radness, and then there's Reatard's cover of Fear's classic "I Love Living In The City", that's transformed into something way more fierce and feral, noisy and geniusly chaotic. They also cover Dead Boys, Buddy Holly, the Beatles and more, turning those old classics into noisy, crunchy, catchy modern garage punk killers.
And so it goes, a relentless onslaught of pop infused garage punk madness, that slips easily from hooky almost power pop jangle, to grinding caustic punk rock, to fuzzy groovy surfy garage, the bonus tracks, are only marginally more low fidelity, still hooky as hell, with the poppiest moments reminding us a bit of Thee Oh Sees. Awesome!
It's been a while since we've heard from Italian one man black metal band Rhuith, who had a penchant for strange covers, including Depeche Mode, Placebo and Portishead. On this brand new tape, he teams up with fellow Italian noisemaker Rotorvator, for a truly twisted and brilliantly tweaked chunk of abstract industrial pop flecked blackness. The opening track sets the stage, with its simple motorik drumming, swirling shimmery atmospheres, bizarre howled vocalizations, and blasts of blown out industrial crunch, which eventually leads into the second track, a much more metal proposition, but still weirdly industrial and also seriously twisted, the guitars murky and buzzy, the drums mechanical and super distorted, the vocals a buried in the mix monstrous growl, the whole thing laces with weird almost techno sounding synth stabs, the vocals getting more and more croaky, over the churning trancelike rhythm, the sound shifting from muted and muddy, to bright and brittle, everything hazy and washed out but still distorted and seriously heavy.
The rest of the record spirals into creepy depressive dirge, spidery minor key guitar melodies, hushed haunting falsetto vox, clomping percussive thumps, thick squalls of psychedelic blacknoise, an ultra distorted noise drenched blackened pound, infused with wild shrieks, detuned guitar crumble, and swirling buzz, which slips into a murky gurgly drone, before exploding again into some super distorted, raw and frantic black metal pound, the guitars in-the-red, the vocals super hot and WAY up in the mix, the drums a robotic programmed d-beat. Eventually the sound slips into something more spaced out and synthy, even a little new agey, the sounds panned hard careening from speaker to speaker, laced with stuttery chopped up rhythms, deep growled vox, chiming harmonics, streaks of effects and glitched out electronics, the tape speed constantly in flux, the distorted sounds growing more and more distorted, the bass woozy and pulsing, a sort of low slung new wave that quickly transforms into a hysterical noise metal plod, that pounds and pounds until the tape runs out.
So bizarre, and bafflingly brilliant, noisy and sort of poppy, rhythmic and atmospheric and just totally far out. But sadly CRAZY limited. We got about 10 copies, and will NOT be able to get any more. Comes in a cool black and white fold out poster sleeve.
She's been on the scene for a few years now, but this is the first we've heard of the intimate and fragile dreamlike sounds of Sanso-Xtro, aka Australian multi-intrumentalist Melissa Agagte, who uses analog synths and electronics to create a fantasy soundtrack for a wander through a mystical forest, a sound that makes us think of folks like Islaja and Paavarhaju, or what it might sound like if Natural Snow Buildings teamed up with Colleen. It's never too precious for its own good, and in fact there's a mesmerizing haunting quality to this album that wraps you in its arms from start to finish. Like a warped music box floating on an empty lake, this is intimate and engaging music at its best!
How can you resist a Scientist record called Heavy Metal Dub? Especially with some of THEE most amazing cover art ever, a musclebound barbarian, in reggae colored loincloth and boots, dreads sticking out from under his Viking helmet, wielding an exploding sword, standing on the wing of his red, green and yellow spaceship, there's also some aliens, some other spaceships, a weird flying reggae lollipop man, and of course 'Heavy Metal Dub' is written in a cool video game font. And oddly enough, the song titles mostly seem to reference Star Trek: "Having Fun With The Klingons", "Conversations With Khan", "Party Time On The Enterprise", "Dread In A Remulacks Dub", among others. You can't resist. So really, why even bother trying? Now here's the rub, there's nothing remotely heavy metal about this record at all outside of the cover. Even opener "Watch The Sound Of The Metal Dub", is just straight up classic Scientist dub, but hell, we're not complaining, cuz as far as dub records go, this one is a doozy, slithery basslines, minimal guitar, simple rhythms, bizarre wordless vocals, everything DUBBED to high heaven, the songs sounding like they started off as classic reggae jams, but the Scientist goes nuts, sending beats spinning into the ether, guitars spiraling into stuttering swirls, the whirring organs following suit, the tracks flitting from groovy laid back reggae to total tripped out psychedelic dub and back again.
And while that cover promised so so much, this is probably way better than any actual 'heavy metal dub' record could ever be anyway. At least that's what we keep telling ourselves...
We first stumbled upon Scrotum Poles (sounds painful!) about a year and a half ago with the Auchmithie Forever anthology, knowing not much else other than their contribution to one of those cool Messthetics comps and the fact that they owned one of the best AND worst band names of all time. Hey, that's a start.
Scrotum Poles sprang to life in the late 1970s in a sea of similarly shambolic punk bands forming all over the UK and the rest of the world, though the sound is also quite similar to what's happening in the indie realm here in 2011. Jangly, scuzzy, snotty, and catchy as all hell, you would be forgiven if you mistook these guys for a bunch of young upstarts on Siltbreeze or Woodsist. Or, ya know, the Dulc-I-Tone label itself. But this five song 7" is in fact from 1980, and if you dig Television Personalities (who the band professes their love of on the sleeve), Orange Juice, and 14 Iced Bears (on uppers), then Revelation should find a nice home on your shelf. Side 1, the "Sad Side" begins with "Why Don't You Come Out Tonight?", a jangling minor key number with sort of Zombies-ish vocals, as sung by a crazy art punk. It's a great way to kick off the record and much more serious than you would expect from a band counting Burt Spurt and Smeg Pole among its members. "Night Train" is an ominous plodding number, very much in the vein of Wire. The "Happy Side" begins, happily enough, with "Pick The Cat's Eyes Out". For a band with a firm grasp on super catchy jangle pop, Scrotum Poles' nihilistic side still cuts through the bullshit, and boy does it sound fun. "Helicopter Honeymoon" is another frenzied number teeming with snotty energy, and the record closes with "Radio Tay", the punkest moment on here. It's funny, after taking in all those awesome Crass reissues, we find ourselves more and more interested in the crazy skiffle influenced origins of punk rock, and this tune flows with a similarly herky jerky abandon.
Another welcome archival reissue that's made us want to find out more about whatever the hell made these guys tick.
Over their last few releases, The Sea And Cake have added some pep and punch to their trademark breezy pop. While they continue with moments of higher energy on The Moonlight Butterfly, it's also an album that contains some of their most dreamy and seductive sounds yet. Sam Prekop's vocals continue to induce swoons like very few modern male vocalists can, and the layers of sounds that glide and shimmer alongside his voice have had us swaying side to side, reminding us why The Sea & Cake continues to be such an amazing band. Much like Stereolab, it's easy to take them for granted. Yet they never slip up, they never make a bad record, and they maintain a level of excellence that is so rare for bands that have been around as long as they have.
We last heard from Prekop, on his surprising experimental, electronic solo outing Old Punch Card, and perhaps it was that exploration that led to all the nice warm layers that really make this album sound so great on repeated listens. In fact the title track, is the most unexpected Sea and Cake song yet. An electronic composition that sounds like Aphex Twin playing Philip Glass, but somehow infusing it with the same breeziness and warmth that makes their sound so infectious. While we've been talking so much about Prekop, it's important to note just how amazing this permanent 'super group' is, as folks like Archer Prewitt and John McEntire continue to help shape the texture and architecture of Prekop's unique vision. Crazy to think that it's now almost 20 years since The Sea And Cake released their debut, and even crazier to think that we've loved everything they've done over these past two decades. If you've slept on their last few outings, we urge you to get back with them on this. One of the best pop albums of the year!
FUSHITSUSHA! No, that wasn't a sneeze. We're trying to get your attention, if you're into that band, Fushitsusha. Those of us here who are big Keiji Haino fans (and we're talking BIG fans), will readily admit that while we love all of the Tokyo psych shaman-in-shades' multi-instrumental solo outings (including solos for guitar, hurdy gurdy, percussion, and electronics) and various collaborative efforts (with Pan Sonic, KK Null, Boris, Sitaar Tah, Tatsuya Yoshida, Merzbow, etc.), it's really his best-known band, the legendary Fushitsusha, that got us into Keiji in the first place, and that we love the most. Avant-garde, free-rock, garage-psych heaviness taking off from obvious sonic/spiritual '70s inspirations Les Rallizes Denudes into the realms something even more experimental and "outsider", a la the Dead C. Unfortunately for us, Fushitsusha disbanded some years ago. But at long last, we've got these, the simultaneously released TWO debut albums from Haino's new "permanent band", Seijaku. Like Fushitsusha, an improvisational power trio, led by Haino's amped up guitar. He's also on "blues harp" on one of these discs, steel guitar on the other, and of course trademark anguished vocals (or should we borrow the metal term vokills?). Besides Dark Lord Haino, the Seijaku trio consists of Nasuno Mitsuru (Altered States, Korekoyjin, Sanhedolin) on bass, and Ichiraku Yoshimitsu (Acid Mothers Temple, Nishinihon, ISO) on drums.
And yes, the "blues harp" does mean that the idea here is Haino & Co. playing "the blues". Or what the label suggests is a fusion of Delta blues, and Noh theater. But electric, very electric. And, well, Haino sure sounds like he's got the blues, bluer blues than any blues EVER, judging from how his guttural cries sound like each word is being tortuously torn not just from his throat, but from his very soul, as if it's the last thing he's ever going to be able to say, or scream, in this world. A striking contrast to his relatively calm and trad harmonica playing. But quite in keeping with sheets of feedbacky guitar skree, utterly Fushitsusha style, that Haino often unleashes. At other times, his guitar is a chiming, slashing, distorted twang, part of the fractured "blues" vibe, along with the plodding percussion and low end rumble that gives this an apocalyptic atmosphere indeed. Would Robert Johnson recognize this stumbling, staggering, scrabbling music as the blues? Well, he knew about dealing with the devil, right, so the vocals wouldn't faze him, and yeah we think might well appreciate the improvisational and spiritual aspects of the Seijaku sound. But beyond that...
Of the two discs, Mail from FUSHITSUSHA (bless you!) (it really is all caps in the disc's title) is the one that, according the Haino, represents "21st century blues". The title obviously makes the connection clear to Haino's earlier outfit, they're apparently "adhering to the Fushitsusha method", and the back cover credits Haino as the "originator". There's ten tracks, with titles like "Forced To Think You Love" and "Please Send Me A New Heart"... this one has a sheet of lyrics provided, in Japanese though, but we think we might get already have gotten an idea of what Haino is so down about.
Meanwhile, the 2nd of the two discs (by catalog number), You Should Prepare To Survive Through Even Anything Happens, with the whiter/lighter cover, is dedicated to "Albert King, The Doors, and Steppenwolf"! It's meant as Haino's tribute to the SPIRIT (if not exactly the sound) of 20th century blues, and is the one with his occasional harp blowing. It features four (long) tracks, titles include "Keep On Fighting" and "Look Over Here From The Other Side".
While each is a bit different, Mail From... with more short sharp shocks, You Should... stretching out soulfully, rollin' but mostly tumblin' hard, we're pretty certain that if you want one, you'll also want the other! Both come in handsome digipacks, like all Doubtmusic releases, of course.
FUSHITSUSHA! No, that wasn't a sneeze. We're trying to get your attention, if you're into that band, Fushitsusha. Those of us here who are big Keiji Haino fans (and we're talking BIG fans), will readily admit that while we love all of the Tokyo psych shaman-in-shades' multi-instrumental solo outings (including solos for guitar, hurdy gurdy, percussion, and electronics) and various collaborative efforts (with Pan Sonic, KK Null, Boris, Sitaar Tah, Tatsuya Yoshida, Merzbow, etc.), it's really his best-known band, the legendary Fushitsusha, that got us into Keiji in the first place, and that we love the most. Avant-garde, free-rock, garage-psych heaviness taking off from obvious sonic/spiritual '70s inspirations Les Rallizes Denudes into the realms something even more experimental and "outsider", a la the Dead C. Unfortunately for us, Fushitsusha disbanded some years ago. But at long last, we've got these, the simultaneously released TWO debut albums from Haino's new "permanent band", Seijaku. Like Fushitsusha, an improvisational power trio, led by Haino's amped up guitar. He's also on "blues harp" on one of these discs, steel guitar on the other, and of course trademark anguished vocals (or should we borrow the metal term vokills?). Besides Dark Lord Haino, the Seijaku trio consists of Nasuno Mitsuru (Altered States, Korekoyjin, Sanhedolin) on bass, and Ichiraku Yoshimitsu (Acid Mothers Temple, Nishinihon, ISO) on drums.
And yes, the "blues harp" does mean that the idea here is Haino & Co. playing "the blues". Or what the label suggests is a fusion of Delta blues, and Noh theater. But electric, very electric. And, well, Haino sure sounds like he's got the blues, bluer blues than any blues EVER, judging from how his guttural cries sound like each word is being tortuously torn not just from his throat, but from his very soul, as if it's the last thing he's ever going to be able to say, or scream, in this world. A striking contrast to his relatively calm and trad harmonica playing. But quite in keeping with sheets of feedbacky guitar skree, utterly Fushitsusha style, that Haino often unleashes. At other times, his guitar is a chiming, slashing, distorted twang, part of the fractured "blues" vibe, along with the plodding percussion and low end rumble that gives this an apocalyptic atmosphere indeed. Would Robert Johnson recognize this stumbling, staggering, scrabbling music as the blues? Well, he knew about dealing with the devil, right, so the vocals wouldn't faze him, and yeah we think might well appreciate the improvisational and spiritual aspects of the Seijaku sound. But beyond that...
Of the two discs, Mail from FUSHITSUSHA (bless you!) (it really is all caps in the disc's title) is the one that, according the Haino, represents "21st century blues". The title obviously makes the connection clear to Haino's earlier outfit, they're apparently "adhering to the Fushitsusha method", and the back cover credits Haino as the "originator". There's ten tracks, with titles like "Forced To Think You Love" and "Please Send Me A New Heart"... this one has a sheet of lyrics provided, in Japanese though, but we think we might get already have gotten an idea of what Haino is so down about.
Meanwhile, the 2nd of the two discs (by catalog number), You Should Prepare To Survive Through Even Anything Happens, with the whiter/lighter cover, is dedicated to "Albert King, The Doors, and Steppenwolf"! It's meant as Haino's tribute to the SPIRIT (if not exactly the sound) of 20th century blues, and is the one with his occasional harp blowing. It features four (long) tracks, titles include "Keep On Fighting" and "Look Over Here From The Other Side".
While each is a bit different, Mail From... with more short sharp shocks, You Should... stretching out soulfully, rollin' but mostly tumblin' hard, we're pretty certain that if you want one, you'll also want the other! Both come in handsome digipacks, like all Doubtmusic releases, of course.
There are very few bands we can think of who have so fully and utterly invented a sound for themselves, sounding like nothing else on earth before, and possibly since. Italy's Starfuckers are such a band. And it's a sound that fascinates us. Unique, true originals. One of our favorite bands (and by "our" we mean us, and anyone who belongs to the secret club of possibly demented Starfuckers lovers). Which goes a long way to explaining why we're making this Record Of The Week, a disc by a band with such incongruous and impolite name, and a perhaps problematic sound as well, for some. This disc consists of a reissue of their best / most definitive albums, 1994's Sinistri, and a never-before-on-cd mini-lp that preceded it, plus other, extra rare tracks. 16 tracks in total, almost 70 minutes of music. Or since it's the Starfuckers, should we say "music"? One definition of music is organized sound, and this stuff is organized in its seeming DIS-organization. Deconstructed music. Counter-intuitive rock n' roll. Genius. Here's what we've said about 'em before, in a review of their final album, 2002's Infinitive Sessions, currently out of print:
"Starfuckers...play an abstract, sparse, and totally unique brand of what they term 'rock concrete', something that kind of sounds like This Heat falling down the stairs, but trying to be really quiet about it. Percussive and full of near-silences, their almost-randomly-improvised-sounding music uses guitar, drums, and electronics to take the 'glitch' aesthetic out of the laptop arena and into that of the live band. It's as if they played 'normal' songs, then removed about 70 percent of the music, and shuffled the remaining sounds around. It's counter-intuitive, disjointed stuff, yet every dissonant chord played on the guitar, every bassy electronic rumble, every drum hit seems to have meaning, unknowable meaning. Attentive listening will reveal compelling rhythms and structures."
Yes, indeed, but that's only part of the story, and why this disc is THEE Starfuckers disc to get, if you're ever gonna get any Starfuckers, and you should. We said they established their own sound, but they built up to it from a more familiar basis. The earlier tracks here demonstrate that, while the Sinistri stuff is the best example of the special qualities of Starfuckers alluded to above.
Those earliest tracks, the first 6 here, come from the band's 1991 mini-lp, Brodo Di Cagne Strategico. They're indicative of the band's roots in all things Stooges-y, being totally badass, driving, dark post-punkish numbers laced with shards of noisy, "out" guitar and free jazz saxophone squall... This is the sort of Starfuckers splooge that our pal JW, now head of the Holy Mountain label, once so succinctly dubbed "Funhausen" (i.e. the Stooges' Funhouse meets experimental composer Karlheinz Stockhausen). Spacemen 3 fans should dig as well. And that avant-garde, Stockhausen side of the equation comes more and more to the fore as this disc progresses...
The Bordo Di Cagne Strategico tracks are followed by two compilation appearances, both "covers". You get their utterly unrecognizable (what did you expect?) version of the Beatles' "Dear Prudence" from a cd that came with Bananafish magazine #11, and also their appropriately monomaniacal take on "Mechanical Man", from a Charles Manson tribute upon which they appeared alongside the likes of Skullflower, Controlled Bleeding, and Eugene Chadbourne, among others. We'd like to think that John Lennon would have dug the Starfuckers (if any Beatle would, Yoko Ono's husband would). Maybe Charlie would too, he's crazy enough.
Then, tracks 9-15 are from Sinistri. The main course. The masterpiece. The Starfuckers aesthetic, fully realized, celebrates 'asynchrony' and minimalism, and that's what you get here. Are you ready? It's a mysterious, compelling soundworld, one that stokes the imagination and seems somehow unassailable in its avant garde gravitas. Serious stuff, but still somehow rock n' roll. In spirit, more than anything else. Anti-rock too (with the slogan printed here: "new music means destruction of ego"). These songs/sounds are quite curious, cryptic... Blats and bursts of chiming, chunking guitar. Blips and bloops of eerie electronics. Sudden percussion, sudden silence. Feedback. Suspenseful rhythmic passages. Much moody rumble and hiss. Bassy detonations, chaotic jumbles of piano. And, crucially, the calm, semi-spoken vocals, deadpan declamations in Italian, like we're being poetically lectured by one of the Starfuckers while the rest of 'em disassemble rock n' roll as we know it. How can we describe the Starfucker's Sinistri further? We don't even understand it. But we love it.
Oh, towards the end, Sinistri's got the Starfuckers "hit single" (as far as we're concerned!), the song "Ordine Pubblico", also released on a Drunken Fish 7" back in the day... harking back to the Brodo Di Cagne material, "Ordine" is a sinister, cyclic, claustrophobic rock song, the brilliant last gasp of their Stooges-ness, hypnotic and handclap driven, with subversive lyrics that go something like this: "Criminale / Comunisti / Vagabondi / Terroristi / Prostitute / Extremisti / grazie / grazie..." You don't need to know Italian to know what he's saying.
That's all followed by Sinistri's final track, "Macrofoneie Ia", which sounds like what might happen in the studio after the musicians had all gone home or passed out, if the machines then started "playing" themselves. Clicks and buzzings, as of patch cords being unplugged, or plugged in. Or, you could say it takes the Starfuckers "Eternal Soundcheck" (a song title of theirs on another album) notion to an extreme, as if you recorded not the soundcheck at a show, but the band just setting up beforehand, in near silence but for when electrical connections are being made. Then, the disc ends with a previously unreleased track from 1996 that certainly wouldn't have been out of place on the original issue of Sinistri.
Hearing Starfuckers for the first time isn't just like hearing music you haven't heard before. It's also like hearing an IDEA of music that you've never had before. And, better yet, listening to Starfuckers for the 100th time, it remains fresh/strange, you still are piecing together the hidden structures of what's going on...
While we said that they sound like no-one else, we HAVE referenced 'em in various reviews, to say that other bands maybe remind us a bit of them, usually due to their fractured and confusional compositional ways... Radian, US Maple, Supersilent, Sim+Otomo, even Tony Tears, have all garnered comparisons by us to Starfuckers for some reason or other, but still none of 'em (and nobody) really does what the Starfuckers do. Or ever will.
If you've never heard Starfuckers, and are at all curious (you should be, if we're doing our job) this is the disc to get, as we said. And even if you are a fan, who already owns the long out of print Sinistri cd, you probably need this anyway for all the other rare tracks included. Record Of The Week? Reissue Of The Year! Well, maybe not for everyone, but those select few who 'get it' will really be grateful. And this, with the inclusion of their earliest, most rockin' material, is the most 'accessible' Starfuckers we could suggest.
Italy's Sometimes Records (who were thrilled that we appreciate the Starfuckers as much as they do), have packaged this with a cd booklet containing everything we could expect in the way of photos, graphics, credits, lyrics, and liner notes... the latter in Italian, though we glean references to the Stooges and Demetrio Stratos of '70s Italian proggers Area, possibly another inspiration to them.
FYI, btw, Holy Mountain will soon be doing a vinyl reissue of the Starfuckers rare 1990 debut lp Metallic Diseases, so watch out for that as well!
From the always amazing Equation Records, who in the past have brought us incredible records from groups like Fear Falls Burning, Bass Communion, Nadja, Landing, organum, R.Y.N., Troum, Ultrabunny, Apse and more, comes this comprehensive collection of everything ever record by late Eighties UK new wavers Taming The Outback.
Never heard of these guys? Nor had we, but listening to this now, it's a little surprising they didn't make a bigger splash, the label describes them sounding like Killing Joke and Echo & The Bunnymen, which is not that far off.
The sound is dark and jangly, the guitars reverbed and chiming, the bass thick and gloomy, and the vocals, a super anguished dramatic delivery that's a dead ringer for Ian McCulloch, and a perfect match for the group's angular downer pop. We also hear plenty of old U2, back before they became stadium rock whores, that sort of brooding urgency they once trafficked in, and that seems to be the thing with TTO, their sound is dark, and a little bit sinister, a gloomy vibe that makes their sound that much more compelling, especially now, with so many bands looking back to that era to cop their sound, but ultimately unable to conjure up the same sort of passion and pathos. And while this isn't some earth shaking lost treasure discovery, it is pretty damn great, and for anyone into Eighties post punk, or who digs the current crop of retro Eighties rockers, but would rather hear the real thing, then this will definitely hit the spot. And where on first listen we were thinking this was just okay, repeated and frequent listening has found this to be a definite grower, and definitely revealed Taming The Outback as something special indeed.
The normal cd version comes in a gorgeous oversized Stoughton mini lp sleeve style gatefold jacket, with a big booklet, jammed with liner notes, pictures, interviews, articles and more. LIMITED TO 385 COPIES. The super deluxe version includes the same fancy cd version, but also an original copy of the band's only 7", a miniature reproduction of the Alive & Kicking fanzine, a sticker, a two sided mini poster, 4 badges and a special card insert designed by Organum's David Jackman, all housed in a super swank embossed box. LIMITED TO 75 COPIES!!
This came out last year, but somehow it managed to slip right by us, which is a shame cuz holy smokes is this right up our alley, and yours we're guessing. The first proper release (we think) from this UK instrumental space psych combo, who craft sprawling, smoldering epics, total kosmische psychedelic bliss out, not heavy and heady like the Heads or White Hills (at least most of the time), instead, TOTS let their songs brew and steep, like on the opening track here, the band unfurling a long stretch of warm washed out guitar buzz, haunting mariachi like trumpet, deep bass thrum, swirling sci fi FX, all woven into a super cinematic stretch of ritualistic psychedelic ambience. The second track offers up more of the same, but pushing the sound in a more Godspeedy, slow build direction, a minimal muted shimmerscape, wound around spidery guitars and a thick gloomy basslines, tribal drumming drives things forward, brooding and hauntingly intense, it's not until the final minute that the song explodes in a glorious burst of psych noise chaos.
The rest of the record offers up a series of miniature epics, haunting soundtracky ambience, mariachi flecked spaghetti western style psychedelia, occultic space rock infused krautrock, and just full on psychedelic space rock, all in varying measures, from the creepy soundtracky sci fi electronics of "Coraniaid", to the deserty drone rock of "Swear Blind The Alsatian's Melting", that transforms into a sort of mathy space rock part way through, rife with haunting twang, and metallic buzz, eventually blasting off, for the heart of the sun, all pounding dynamic chug and churn, and soaring psychguitar freakout. "Dreadnaught" is another one that's all cinematic and sweeping, that trumpet adding a little mariachi vibe to every track it touches, this one a hazy slow burn, the horn adding layer of buzz and thrum, before a brief bit of shimmery glitched out jangle, before the final jam, "Sentimental Journey", which is all wheezing electronics, and minimal tribal drumming, harmonica, gauzy washed out melodies, a droning dirgey drift, that builds to a pulsing hypnorock dronekraut groove, all murky and motorik, and the sort of thing you wish would go on for ages longer, but instead here finishes off in decaying swirl of hazy harmonica flecked shimmer.
The perfect mix of spaced out psych and slow burning post rock epic, which means you can probably figure out if this is for you (it probably is!)...
Arch Enemy frontwoman Angela Gossow is on the cover (hmm why'd they pick her?), inside there's also features on Anaal Nathrakh, Primordial, Blood Ceremony, Septic Flesh, Pentagram, Cruachan, The Dwarves, Between The Buried And Me, In Solitude, Negative Plane, Corrosion Of Conformity (in the studio!), and more.... we learn why Kvelertak didn't show up to the Scion Rock fest in LA - somebody stole the singer's backpack, which contained all the band's passports, from a Burger King in Oslo! Man, the rest of the band must have been pissed at him. There's also a bit with David Vincent of Morbid Angel, talking about how extreme and next level their new album (due out next week) is gonna be... we'll see... heard otherwise!
Plus the usual reviews and news and free cover mount cd sampler. As always, a must-read for metal heads.
They're named after a New Order song, they have a song titled after a Philip K Dick story AND they're on Captured Tracks, what's not to like? Nothing, especially if you like skeletal minimal electronic Euro new wave pop. Four songs of moody swoonsome woozy electro pop, simple programmed drums, super minimal guitar jangle and synth pulse, boy girl vocals, a little bit icy, very Eighties sounding, the opening track a cool, late night electro ballad, all minor key and sweetly sorrowful lyrics. The second track is more of the same, a skittery rhythm beneath soft focus synth swirl and more hazy, dreamy boy girl vocal harmonies, all washed out and dreamlike, a sort of softly psychedelic new wave.
The rest of the record follows suit, with "You And I" getting a bit more propulsive, with a thick bassline, wrapped in synth swirls, and a loping rhythm, while the PKD worshipping "Flow My Tears The Policeman Said" finishes things off with maybe the best of the bunch, all soft swirling synths, layered and lush and ambient, eventually joined by glitched out effects, and fuzzy crunchy riffage, the riffs adding more droney swirl, the whole thing a dreamy expanse of new agey new wavey guitarsynth drift that wouldn't be out of place on a Oneohtrix or Pulse Emitter record. Cool!
Comes with a download coupon as well.
Latest from split release loving Baton Rouge heavies Thou, teaming up this time around with a similarly sludge minded outfit from Germany called Human Intruder, and as much as we love Thou, Human Intruder come damn close to stealing the show here.
Their track begins as an appropriately massive crushing detuned doom dirge, a lurching and lumbering creep, with tripped out, almost falsetto vox wailing off in the distance, but then things switch gears, a second vocal, a more harsh bellowed howl comes in, along side some unlikely piano, and maybe even strings, the sound transformed into something weirdly haunting and pretty, moody and super dramatic, the bellowed vox the only thing keeping this from turning into some sort of epic post rock. The guitars are super dynamic, the riffs dropping out completely, to reveal the hushed melody beneath, before dropping right back in again. The song eventually finishes off with a heavy, groovy, almost southern stoner sludge sounding outro. We have GOT to hear more from these guys.
Thou definitely hold their own, while not as weird as Human Intruder, their sound is still pretty sick, a murky, downtuned slithery doooooom, with harsh shrieked vox, the riffs warped and woozy, and way down in the mix, a seriously drum/vokill heavy mix, which suits the insane inhuman screeches, and crazy double kick drumming, pounding and howling away over a muted washed out downtuned churn, a sound way more Khanate than Eyehategod, finishing off a bang, that bang in this case being some punked out metallic noise rock crush. Fuck yeah.
Super swank packaging, a 6 panel fold out jacket, held shut by a Japanese style vellum obi. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
You might remember a pretty cool, Nick Salomon curated comp called White Lace And Strange, from a few years back, full of heavy vintage fuzz psych from the USA, circa 1968-1972. Well that comp's title came from Thunder And Roses' contribution, also the lead-off track on the band's lone 1969 album, now reissued. The song was also later covered by Nirvana in 1987 (you'll find it on the rarities box With The Lights Out). So it's their most famous song, but the entire record is pretty cool too.
The Philly-based Thunder And Roses were a sorta poppy, spacey, proto-metal power trio, obviously inspired by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream. They even cover Hendrix's "Red House" here... so it's definitely blues rock all right. But heavy psychedelic blues rock, the kind we like. There's a flower-power sixties vibe, naturally, and they're not quite so heavy as Blue Cheer or Sir Lord Baltimore, but fans of those bands should still dig this!
Plus, the head scratching "fire hydrant with angel wings" cover painting is kind of awesome.
One of three new releases on Don't Fuck With Magic, Campbell Kneale's (he of Birchville Cat Motel and Our Love Will Destroy The World) new post Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, the others being an archival sonic blast from the now defunct BCM, and a killer collab between OLWDTW and Finnish noisemakers Tomutonttu (both reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). We're the only source for these in the US and we have HALF the already small pressing, of which we've already sold half before even reviewing, which means these are going quick, and will be gone before you know it, so act fast if you want any/all of these.
The consonant heavy Tmpls is yet another Kneale project, and you thought his other projects were noisy, whoo boy, they ain't got nothing on Tmpls, a nearly 47 minute blast of ear shredding, head melting, speaker destroying white noise sound, a heaving wall of crumbling sound, blown out and distorted, crunchy and corrosive, on the surface, pure Merzbowian brutality, and heck even a little bit below the surface too, but in places you can definitely tell this started out as maybe something a bit more melodic, or something(s), in fact it sounds a bit like multiple Kneale jams laid on top of each other and then sent through a battery of malfunctioning distortion pedals, only to come out the other side a roiling chaotic crush. The timbre and tone constantly shifts too, from warm and warbly, with what could actually be buried melodies, to pure rhythmic crunch, as if any bits of melodies were stripped away, leaving a strange bit of glitched out garble, and elsewhere the sound is infused with undulating sheets of lowend, as if the noise component might be shed at any second, leaving a woozy warbly thrum, but it never does, it's a continuous sprawl of wild noise drenched sound, that is about the most intense and brutal thing Kneale has ever whipped up. You have been warned, only the iron eared need apply.
And as mentioned above, we have a handful left, but odds are even these noisy little buggers will disappear in a flash.
Through no fault of his own, some of weren't all that excited when we saw a new Amon Tobin release had arrived (some of us have remained HUGE fans, of EVERY record, but we digress). Not sure why, but maybe in our minds we just kind of associated him so much with the sound of Ninja Tune in the '90s. But damn that lack of excitement was thrown out the fucking window once we put this on the stereo. We were reminded right quick that Amon Tobin is for real. Not just a relic of some bygone electronica era, but instead someone who continues to explore, experiment, and soar with new ways of approaching sonic velocity. This is without a doubt the most intense and harrowing release of his career. In fact a few of us thought this was the new Ben Frost when this was first playing. A record that is made to be played LOUD. It's like watching some awesome nature documentary in 3D with a soundtrack by Pan Sonic blasting out of the THX speakers. In an age when so much electronic music is so specific in its genre focus (dubstep, micro-house, witch house, etc) it's so nice to be reminded that electronics can be used for something on a much larger scale. Tobin is like an experimental composer using electronics to create massive blasts of sonic glory. The album is frightening, compelling and awe inspiring all at once. Tobin demonstrates that IDM is not dead, it just got bigger, badder and better!
You'd have to have been living under a rock, to not have heard all the hype about Tyler the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and the rest of the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All crew, a collective of teenage rappers, producers, skaters and visual artists, who have in a matter of months gotten the whole underground all in a tizzy, the blogs gushing over every single thing these guys have done. And as always, our first impulse was to dismiss the whole thing as just another overhyped bit of internet bullshit. But all it took was hearing a couple songs, seeing the twisted videos, and seeing their killer live performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, to convince us that for once, the hype was well deserved.
Their sound definitely recalls the horrorcore sound of the nineties, especially the Gravediggaz, and while the band publicly deny the comparison, it's hard NOT to hear the connection, the vibe and production is super spare, creepy and intense, Tyler and his crew definitely strip it WAY down though, often JUST the beat, the rhymes, and a minimal amount of creeped out ambience. "Yonkers", the first single is the perfect example, with its super stripped down beat, weird industrial loop, and low slung bassline, over which Tyler spits some seriously fucked up and off kilter rhymes, and if you've seen the super stylized video, where he eats a live beetle and then hangs himself, it's pretty bad ass. "Sandwitches" is another good one, with it's horror movie like synth melody, draped over a swaggery, lumbering beat, a definite witch house vibe, but here all chopped up and stuttery, woozy, druggy and seriously demented. On a few tracks, Tyler dips into some warped woozy R&B, his flow transforming the sound into something that sounds more like Ariel Pink than R. Kelly, his vox pitched WAY down, multiple voices all tangled up, engaging in strange surreal conversations, but before too long, the sound slips right back into another sprawl of fractured warbly hip hop, oozing blackened off kilter grooves, the loops twisted and unraveling, the pitch constantly shifting, the perfect fucked up and fractured backdrop for Tyler's baffling and brilliant flow.
This just might be the coolest compilation ever. A musical compendium focused on the sound, singers and groups, who were in some way linked to the infamous Jewish mafia, aka the "Kosher Nostra", an organization including such underworld legends as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Dutch Schultz, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and Meyer Lansky, a group who worked alongside the more well known American mafia, and who had a huge influence on popular music, creating a musical movement that was equal parts big band, jazz, swing and Yiddish music, a musical scene which existed parallel to the mainstream, with its own radio shows, record labels, and superstars. Organized by the artist Oz Almog, who is also a curator at the Jewish Museum in Vienna, and who created a high profile exhibition of his original paintings of Jewish gangsters, along with articles, biographies and crime scene sketches, along with someone named Shantel who wrote his thesis on the Kosher Nostra and did extensive research on organized crime and its influence on American musical culture, all of which is detailed in the massive booklet that accompanies this compilation. But even knowing nothing about the roots of these tracks, the music here is amazing, from Connie Francis doing a classic Yiddish tune, to Tom Jones singing the super dramatic "My Yiddishe Mamme", from The Andrews Sisters first big hit "Bei Mir Bistu Sheyn" to Chubby Checker singing in Yiddish on "Misirlou", Solomon Schwartz's fuzzy groovy version of the Jewish classic "Hava Nagila", tracks from Al Jolson (with the Andrews Sisters), Sophie Tucker and loads more. Some of the tracks live, others presented as part of old time radio shows, complete with announcers and advertisements, a gorgeous, and fascinating glimpse into this remarkable social and musical subculture, or as the label describes it "an unparalleled journey back in time to the music clubs, vaudeville theaters and gambling casinos of the 1920s to the '60s bearing compelling witness to this enormously diverse and truly remarkable fusion of styles". Easily our reissue/compilation of the year so far. So totally great!
Fantastic packaging, a massive booklet, loaded with extensive liner notes on the music, and the history of the Kosher Nostra, lots of pictures do, the cd in a similarly designed digipack, all housed in a swank slipcover.
Death metal can be a tough sell. It's not as grim and kvlt as black metal, not as melodic and catchy as true metal, not as creepy and emotive as doom metal, and as metal goes, it often seems like death metal caters to the lowest common denominator metalhead. Don't believe us? Go to a Cannibal Corpse show and then talk to us.
But c'mon, there's been some incredible death metal, Carcass, Death, Morbid Angel, Grave, Autopsy, Deicide, Suffocation, Immolation, Sinister, we could go on, but most metalheads we know, definitely have a soft spot for death metal. But like anything else, we do tend toward the weirder end of the DM spectrum, whether it's the ridiculous ultra tech silliness of Braindrill, the noodly fusion of Psyopus, or the murky noise drenched filth that is Wold or Mitochondrian, but that said, we always love us a little death metal, it's a 'sound' we love, and while there are WAY too many DM bands, you can count on a label like 20 Buck Spin to sift the wheat from the chaff.
Thus we have Vastum, who hail from right here in SF (another one of those instances where this band is popular enough to get signed to 20BS, yet some metalheads here had never even heard of them!), but they're a pretty seriously meancing death metal beast, who seem to have traded in furious speed for something much more murky and atmospheric, the guitars thick as tar, the vocals a beastly rroooooaaaar, the riffs muddy and blackened, laced with fast picked soaring epic melodies, the sound a hellish blackened miasma, churning and roiling, chugging and pounding, the band seeming to prefer the plod over the blast, which suits us just fine, giving the sound a doomy, creepy vibe, and when the band do occasionally crank up the tempo, it's only to midtempo, a weirdly galloping anti-groove, which adds another even stranger dimension to the proceedings.
Fans of all that modern death metal murk will most likely dig, as will all of you who still worship before the altar of classic DM, and heck this is plenty doomy enough that it might just tempt some of you doomlords as well...
Just got a handful of these limited, lathe-cut (by Peter King in NZ, natch) seven inches directly from the now defunct Baltimore band Vincent Black Shadow, an outfit whose two full-length records we've previously raved about for bringing the Iggy-influenced, ugly ragin' raw rawk action with such authentic energy and attitude. Too bad they broke up, sadly before completing their third album which was to be called Baltamont. Some of the VBS boys are in a new band, called UNNH, and others in one called Murder, so we'll look out for those. In the meantime, we've got this final farewell 7" slab of VBS's psychotic party pleasing punk... Hear 'em kick out the jams in their usual Stooge-ly style on the A-side, "Nazi Gold". And then on the flip, you get their frantic interpretation of Queen's catchy speedster "Sheer Heart Attack", from News Of The World. With VBS singer's snotty sneering snarl, and their relentless rhythm section's careening drive, here it sounds almost like something by the Sex Pistols - more "God Save The Queen" than Queen! Well, the Sex Pistols meet The Sweet... which might have been what Queen was going for too, on the original, it came out in '77 after all.
LIMITED EDITION, clear vinyl, last copies.
We may proclaim our love of French black metal practically every list, but if there was a single country who threatened the blackened supremacy, it would be Finland. And yeah, we know we're already pretty obsessed with Finnish music in general, and how could we not be, it's so amazing and weird and demented and over the top and unlike almost anything we've ever heard. So of course that weird/unique/whatthefuck vibe spills over into the real of the buzz and the black. Off the top of our heads: Ride For Revenge, Aanal Beehemoth, Circle Of Ouroborus, Dead Reptile Shrine, Jumalhamara, Behexen, Clandestine Blaze, Beherit, Azaghal, Horna, Diaboli, Sargeist, Trollheim's Grott, Barathrum, Satanic Warmaster, Ajattara, Torturium well, you get the drift. So you can now add the oddly monikered W.A.I.L. to the list. W.A.I.L. of course standing for Wisdom through Agony into Illumination and Lunacy, and while we weren't able to discover too much about the band, other than that they were indeed from Finland, it hardly matters, this is some creepy and blackly doomy heaviness, which we're digging big time.
After a repetitive trancelike intro, all chanted vox, weird glitches, and looped melody, the band unwind some dirgey low slung bass, before slipping into some classic sounding doom, downtuned and lumbering, a lurching plod, that soon explodes into chugging, pounding stretch of murky metallic heaviness, equal parts classic metal, twisted death metal, and black buzz, the vox a sinister croak, the song flitting from murk dirge to thrashing churn, before a cool droned out stretch of horn laden hypnorock, sorta wish that part would never end, totally creepy and mesmerizingly weird, before returning to the blackened metal fray.
The record continues on its black path, slipping from martial drumming laced old school doom, with deep moaned clean vox, to tripped out mathy post black metal, sounding almost like a way more minimal Deathspell, to some woozy double kick driven creepy crawly dirgery, to some classic metal worship, before returning to another creeping chunk of ambient blackness, with the churning doom backed off, now beneath more moaning horns and plinking piano. The final track is a 12 minute monster, with a killer main riff, some stretches of serious thrashery, but with a gorgeous middle section that explodes from a flurry of eighties metal shredding, only to settle into a weird bit of gypsy strum, muted and minimal, before finishing off with a frenzy of lightning fast blackness, peppered with brief bits of doomy lope, it's a dizzying tripped out, kick ass finish, to a record that definitely has us hankering for more...
Latest from this post Raccoo-oo-oon duo, and like the records before, these two continue to confound, moving ever further away from the sonic chaos that was Raccoo-oo-oon, their sound a barrage of Dead C style noise rock melded to fractured outsider folk, all caustic and abrasive, freaked out and dementedly psychedelic, hell we even made one of their albums our Record Of The Week. And while we have dug most of the Wet Hair stuff, it never had the same impact that their old band did.
Sort of more meandery and jammy, which is not a bad thing at all, but at times, it definitely seems confusional, and a bit aimless, but on In Vogue Spirit, it sounds like these guys have finally figured out where this Wet Hair thing was meant to be going, and apparently it was meant to be some sort of trippy, psychedelic krautrock, all motorik rhythms, woozy dreamlike melodies, buried in the mix Spacemen 3 like vox, pulsing low slung basslines, all woven into long stretches of spacey, trippy hypnorock. The sort of thing that should definitely appeal to fans of Wooden Shjips, Spacemen 3, Cave, Circle, Silver Apples, Moon Duo, and various other space/psych rockers. There's plenty of Stereolab/Neu! worship happening too, but filtered through Wet Hair's decidedly cracked post-whatever sensibilities.
There is still plenty of schizophrenic weirdness, bizarre sonic detours, from skittery, echo drenched lo-fi outsider calypso exotica, circusy organ driven echoplexed ambience, lo-fi eighties style electro pop, squiggly effects drenched hazy blissouts, but even those strange moments don't sound as far removed as before, still droney and hypnotic in their own way, and thus tied to the core of Wet Hair's sound, which at least for now, is a fantastically spaced out, shimmery, droney, druggy spacekraut hypno rock. Awesome.
Ha, what a (intentionally misspelled?) title! The songs are short and sweet and sound like they were recorded with a boombox covered with a towel in their practice space after smoking more than a few bongloads. What's not to love about that? Garagey-punk a la Black Flag should not sound heavily produced or overdubby, it should be raw and fucked up and a little loose. It's obvious that these guys don't take themselves very seriously (see: "Can't Find My Weed"), and therein lies the charm (think: a less skilled but more stoned Turbonegro). The title track totally rips off Elton John's "Saturday" in the most glorious way for about ten seconds. "Funny Disguises" and "Fuck Up a Fascist (I'm Down)" have maybe the only actual guitar shredding on the whole record and half the time it's so buried underneath layers of midrange skrawnk that you might stop banging your head to notice, but then again you might not.
Previously only available as a double lp, this sprawling slab of blissed out space rock psychedelia is now available on cd, and with a SIXTEEN MINUTE bonus track, which, if you're obsessive like us, and we know lots of you are, makes this essential, even if you (we!) already have the vinyl version. More on the bonus track below, but first, here's what we had to say about the record proper:
Touted as the first 'official' teaming up of these two outfits, we're pretty sure this is definitely at least the second, maybe the now out of print Aquarian Downer cd-r is not being counted as properly official, but having freaked out over that a while back, we already knew these two were a good match. And on this collaboration, the two mesh seamlessly, White Hills seeming to let Gnod dial down the intensity and all out rocking, and crank up the shimmery washed out dreaminess, we mentioned Tangerine Dream in our review of the cd-r, and that sound is all over here, but so is Neu!, Wooden Shjips, all sorts of things, but WH and Gnod are clearly space rock masters, and these 4 sidelong tracks only further cement their placement in our personal space rock kraut drone pantheon (what, you don't have one?)!
So for this record, White Hills are a four piece, again featuring Oneida's Kid Millions on drums, and Gnod are a SEVEN piece, so you would think 11 rockers jamming out would be a crazy mess, but nope, these guys are so obviously sonic soulmates, which is evident from the first track, a slab of slow groovy krautrock, motorik (multiple drummer-ed?) drumming, smoldering minimal riffage, mantra like vocals, the Neu! / Stereolab vibe here is huge, woozy synths, tangled psychedelic leads, all glistening and sunshiney, never exploding into full bore heaviness, instead, just unwinding lazily and dreamily, drowsy druggy drift giving way to super spare spaced out smolder, before launching into a muscular Hawkwind sounding jam, all downtuned crunch, caveman pound, swirly psychedelic effects, churning and chugging relentlessly, the rhythm and groove LOCKED in, while the guitars and synths and effects swirl and whirl all around, finally unwinding with a cool muted bit of cinematic drift, haunting ghostlike melodies that almost sound like strings, all in a softly fuzzy dreamlike haze.
Which leads into another bit of druggy drift, all rhythmic and almost new agey, cool repetitive melodies, simple and stripped down drumming, all laid over a deep rumbling synth drone, everything washed out and otherworldly. Eventually that gives way to a throbbing fuzzy bassline, matched up with a rock solid rhythm, more effects are applied, as are some wild fragmented super distorted leads, some warped Manzarek style organ, that main groove never faltering, total low slung incendiary psychedelia.
And so like us, you were probably expecting the final closing jam to be the full on blow out we had all been waiting for, a free for all freak out of epic proportions, but instead, the band dial it WAY down, and offer up some super sprawling, ethereal atmospheric space folk driftscape bliss out, all spidery crystalline guitars, barely there hand drums, thick languid basslines, gauzy restrained effects, soft focus finger picked neo-Appalachia, totally dreamlike and mesmerizing, it almost sounds like the Alps covering Hawkwind, converting heart of the sun heaviness into something hushed and pastoral, subtly lysergic and utterly divine. So good.
This cd version tacks on a final track, a NEW final track, a sprawling 16+ minute slow burn epic, that like the previous 'final' jam doesn't explode or freak out, instead offering up another gorgeous gauzy expanse of swirling psychedelia, loping woozy basslines, muted minimal drumming, soft swirling effects, and plenty of dreamily tangled melodies, sitar like buzz, tinkling chimes, synthy shimmer, all spread out into a blurred, head tripping, Eastern tinged, chunk of glorious smoldering dream psych. Awesome. And maybe just worth buying again...
We made Wolvserpent's Blood Seed lp our Record Of The Week on list #358 back in November of last year, Wolvserpent being the group previously known as Pussygutt, a male/female duo from Idaho capable of crafting grimly powerful blackened folk flecked dronescapes that defy easy categorization. And as we mentioned then, the name Pussygutt probably put off plenty of people, thus the shift to Wolvserpent, and while that name definitely better captures the group's ominous tone and black metal leanings, it still leaves much about the music, and its makers, quite mysterious.
Yet for as much as we dug Pussygutt, and love their new Wolvserpent incarnation, we somehow managed to miss completely, the Wolvserpent lp that preceded Blood Seed, a record called Gathering Strengths. Thankfully, the mighty Crucial Blast have stepped in, and combined both Blood Seed AND Gathering Strengths into a handsome double disc compendium, the first disc of which, is the first time on cd for the aforementioned Blood Seed, two epic sprawls, the first a haunting bit of dirgey folk, laid over lush shimmery drones, a gorgeous funeral lament, that only hints at the abject brutality these two are capable of, instead, simply invoking a darkly melancholic mood, eventually guitars drift in, plucking out simple sad melodies, while the strings continue to swirl and soar, gorgeously tense and intense, cinematic and soundtracky. It's not until nearly the nine minute mark that the drums come in, as do the electric guitars, laying down a sort of skeletal doom framework, a different kind of downtuned slowbuild creep, pounding drums, muted riffage, the strings and Sunroof!-like drones growing in intensity, a super intense bit of droney tribal drift, but with an odd start stop arrangement, peppering the lush droning plod with little bits of more traditionally metallic riffage. Eventually some shrieked vocals swoop in, and the song stretches out into a strangley psychedelic epic, a bastardized mix of Godspeed like post rock, avant ur-drone drift, funeral doom, and glacial black metal buzz, all muted and blurred as if mixed by Tim Hecker.
The second 'movement' takes up right where the first left off, long layered high end tones, a lush undulating upper register dronescape, haunting and hypnotically shimmery, before finally lurching into some seriously metallic crunch, a lumbering doomy dirge, buzzing riffs, caveman drums, all wrapped in swirling swaths of reverbed vocals and superdistorted streaks of ambient melody, erupting into occasional blasts of uptempo chuggery, but always slipping back into that stuttery creep, and constantly wreathed in a lush otherworldly sonic haze.
Which brings us to Gathering Strengths, originally released on lp by Olde English Spelling Bee back in 2009, like Blood Seed, a single track split into two epic parts, the first, subtitled "Silence Within", begin with the chirping of crickets, which is soon joined by some haunting distant low end thrum, a dreamlike swell, which is soon joined by a more intense layer of buzzing tones, overlapping woodwinds, rife with mysterious overtones, a creepy harmony, the buzz and shimmer drifting in and out, the minimal drift gradually coalescing into an intense bit of dronemusic, like a blackened Phil Niblock, while off in the distance, barely there percussion surfaces, fragmented slo-mo rhythms, while more and more layers are piled on top, super intense and trancelike, until the woodwinds drift off, leaving a feedback laced stretch of blackdronedrift, softly clattery and corrosive, A wolf Eyes-ian industrial sprawl, that transforms into some hauntingly lovely gypsy like folk, driven by a mournful fiddle melody, the sound swells and smolders, all lilting melodies, and cinematic atmosphere, the vibe like a doom folk Astor Piazolla, that is until a MASSIVE avalanche of washed out downtuned doomcrush rolls in, that gorgeous fiddle now all tangled up in a heaving SUNNO)))-like churn, which manages to be both brutal and blackened, dreamy and so totally lovely. Impossibly pretty heaviness, this whole double disc worth it for that 5 or 6 minute stretch alone.
But there's still the second part, that one subtitled "Spirit Walker", this one starts off in seriously gorgeous drone-folk mode, the band laying down a lush, mesmerizing, hauntingly tense layered drone backdrop, over which the violin keens and cries, accompanied by simple shamanistic drumming, the result a darkly mesmerizing glimpse into some lost forest glade, where some shadowy priest like visages are gathered around dancing black flames, conjuring up spirits from another realm, but like the first track, this one too gradually grows heavier, with the addition of a slow thick dirge-y doomy riff, not super distorted or grumbly, but more softly buzzy, the chords ringing out and fading until they seem to bleed into the sounds around them, only to have the next chord take over, what we said about the last few minutes of the first track, well, we could say it about this whole track, worth the price of admission all on its own, a hazy tranced out chunk of heavy, heady, forest folk drone drift bliss.
Both records are incredible, and work amazingly well together, and like Pussygutt before, Wolvserpent continue to hone their unclassifiable sound, a melding together of dark hushed folk, minimal drone music, and blackened dooooooom. Their name change probably won't really make 'em much more commercially appealing, but who needs that, when you're ruling the darkened otherworld of psychedelic avant heaviness???
Latest from this sunshiney soft psych folk duo (now a trio, if you count new member Jewelled Antler-er Glenn Donaldson), and it's another gem, a collection of warm, jangly, strummy folk flecked indie pop sweetness, lo-fi, but somehow still lush and lovely, reminding us alternately of classic Elephant 6 bands, the Kinks, even Can or Neu! in places, specifically on "Out Of The Eye", which finds the band getting totally kosmische krautrock, locking into a darkly dreamy motorik groove, the rhythm softly propulsive, while all around strange garbled vocals and wah guitars drift and swirl, and on "Sol Y Sombra", which takes that same krautrock vibe, and stretches it way out, into something way more washed out and abstract, a little new agey, sounding not unlike The Alps actually, acoustic guitars, muted hand drums, whirling atmospheres, and softly chiming melodies, not to mention some distant spidery guitar leads, and a warm woozy, low slung bassline, dreamily hypnotic and captivating.
But of course those moments are peppered throughout a record that is significantly more poppy, and folky, rife with about-to-break falsetto vox, simple strummed guitars, mysterious Pet Sounds style percussion, hazy shimmery guitar jangle, sweetly subtle hooks, lilting summery, shuffling reverby garage pop, even some almost tropical sounding psychedelia, all wound into practically perfect little folk pop gems, that definitely find the band reaching new heights of popsmithery, and making this maybe the best Woods record yet.
Record number two from these Singaporean grinders, and it's just as fierce and furious as their first. In fact, in some ways it might be even MORE so. Twenty five songs crammed into eighteen minutes, most of the songs between 30 and 45 seconds (a couple 5 seconds or less!), which is plenty of time for these guys to blast out some tangled super frenzied riffing, and some INSANE lightning fast drumming, the vocals a maniacal shriek, and unlike lots of grind, much of the riffing here sounds VERY metal, not so much punk, but actual metal riffery, just sped WAY up, these micro metal epics that SLAY. No wacky covers like the on their first record where they did a Yeah Yeah Yeahs tune, instead, just a relentless blast of grinding metallic fury, with many of the tracks slowing down for some serious chuggery, before exploding in another head shearing blast of blurred brutality. AND unlike a lot of grind, these songs are surprisingly catchy, with some seriously killer riffs, which makes this way more listenable than lots of similar stuff, but somehow, no less heavy and brutal and badass.
