In case you missed it on our mystery themed in-between list last week, something we reviewed just for that, for the first time...
It's pretty much acknowledged that Bad Brains are one of the most influential American bands of the 20th century, having blown the minds of every young hardcore band in the D.C. and New York scenes and beyond. Their sound went way further than just "punk" or "rock", blending jazz, fusion, and reggae into something that defies simple classification. While most people might be familiar with the group from their godly self-titled debut and after, Black Dots collects early material recorded at the then fledgling Inner Ear Studios from a session in 1979. The studio at that point was in owner/engineer Don Zientara's basement, with band members situated inside while H.R. did his thing in the backyard. It's easy to imagine how cramped things were, but between song banter reveals a band in good spirits as they tear the living fuck out of their early material. Bad Brains in '79 weren't as fast, distorted, and manic as they would become, but the chemistry is still totally unbelievable, sounding both loose and ridiculously tight at the same time. And even with modest recording gear the band sounds HUGE. This looser style works particularly well for their reggae numbers, always a point of contention with many fans. These recordings almost sound like some hyper charged group from the 60s taking things into new worlds. Not many bands could sound this bad ass while also sounding like they are having the most fun ever - but I guess if you wrote songs like "Pay To Cum", "Regulator", "Banned In D.C.", "Attitude" and everything else here, you'd also be having the best time ever. Loads of personality with this band (check out H.R.'s hilarious kiss off of "Bye, Celeste" at the end of "Red Bone In The City", their reworking of "God Save The Queen"), it's completely easy to see why they were such a force to be reckoned with. They were just different. Better. And again, completely bad ass. There's almost no point in going on with this review, sure you'll have some people who prefer what Bad Brians became, but others will tell you that music kind of doesn't get any better than this, stripped to its bare form. Whatever the case, it all leads to the same recommendation: ESSENTIAL.
Is misery really a butterfly? That's quite the non-consensus take on the usual butterfly metaphor. This record is good enough, though, that it could convince you. And butterflies bring up the subject of metamorphosis, which you could say Blonde Redhead has gone through. In the past, this band was often compared to (or vice versa): Sonic Youth, Polvo, Deerhoof. Guitar dissonance with distinctive vocals. This one is a bit different, following on from their last album Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, the one where they veered away from their Sonic Youthisms of yore and embraced a poppier, less angular demeanor. With Misery Is A Butterfly, their Lemons remain Damaged, Certainly. I guess it wasn't just a phase. Blonde Redhead are still making "desperate yet beautiful epics" as we once said of their In an Expression of the Inexpressible album, but gone are the "angular guitars" and "noisy melodies" that were once their trademark. This time, what's new? In a nutshell, it's Blonde Redhead with STRINGS. All lush and orchestrated. It's as if Eleanor Rigby joined the band. (Actually they got help from violinist Eyvind Kang among others.) The resultant album has got an Italian soundtrack sort of feel to it. Also a bit of a Stereolab feel. Very 'of another time'. Melancholic, dreamy. It's a progression from their earlier works, maybe even a perfection in a way. The signature sound that remains are the vocals of Kazu: high, breathy, accented (Japanese but it could just as easily be French), sometimes dueting with her male counterpart Amedo, who also sings high, but with a voice less pure, a bit like the Flaming Lips guy. He sings a few songs all on his own but our ears prefer Kazu. With her at the mic, Blonde Redhead are sooo nice. We know this is gonna be a popular album, and it should be!
Ah, BORIS! The band that everybody loves (or if they don't love 'em, they probably love to hate 'em...). The Melvins-worshipping Japanese "heavy rock" band that started off in the '90s as an import-only cult fave, and eventually got picked up over here by Southern Lord. The next thing you know, they turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of super limited edition releases and unlikely collaborations, and got BIG. For a while, they were definitely a band that could do no wrong, combining that Melvins-y sludge, and equally Melvins-y weirdness, with their own, innate Japanese "WTF?" aesthetic... In addition they boast the presence of a female singer/guitar player, Wata, who is both cute and talented. And making themselves even more potent proposition, they also recruited noted psychedelic guitar whiz Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven, Stars) more or less permanently into their ranks.
Yet, in recent years, Boris has also been courting a backlash, the way we see it, as anything hyped to the skies usually does. Those aforementioned ridiculously limited editions have something to do with it... and what can come off as a too ironic attitude to everything... and when we've seen 'em live, well, memo to drummer Atsuo: the gong is cool, but the headset microphone maybe isn't so much.
So, we've been Boris fans for a long long time, and still are, but we'll confess to wondering if it could be said that Boris finally (?) "jumped the shark" with last year's BXI ep, wherein they, oddly enough, teamed up with rock star Ian Astbury of The Cult (who is presumably still "big in Japan"). That disc was probably the first Boris release in history that didn't merit highlight status on our list... but hey, nobody's perfect.
But now, as if rising to the challenge, and/or making said challenge all the harder for themselves, Boris are back with not one but TWO* new albums for new US label Sargent House.
There's Attention Please, which undoubtedly will get a lot of attention, and not just 'cause of the glamor shot of Wata on the cover. She also sings on all the tracks, to this is definitely one for all you Wata fanciers out there! The other one is called Heavy Rocks, not to be confused with the earlier Boris album, that's also titled Heavy Rocks. Huh, what's with that, Boris? Why give two totally different albums the same name? Obviously to invite comparison (and for the record, while we're definitely digging this new purple 2011 one, if we had to choose between 'em, we'd pick the original, orange 2002 Heavy Rocks). Naming an album Heavy Rocks in the first place is a bold move, having two of 'em is just silly. Or ironic. Or something. Brilliant, perhaps. Oh, and this Heavy Rocks features another guest appearance from Ian Astbury, doing backing vocals on the track "Riot Sugar". There's other guests on the album as well: Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), and regular Boris collaborator Kurihara. Heavy friends for Heavy Rocks!
First up, let's talk about Attention Please. Of the two albums, possibly more interesting to us as it's really quite a departure for Boris, plus we've always found Wata to be their most appealing singer anyway. Her delicate vocals are accompanied by some of the band's softest, most mellow material yet. There's acoustic guitars, and electronica elements, and it's all really quite nice. At times dramatic, dancey, dreamy, and/or rockin', one thing it's not is sludgey. Not that it doesn't get loud and noisy at times - shoegazing explosion of "Spoon" could probably have gone on the accompanying Heavy Rocks just as easily. But for the most part, if you didn't know it was Boris, well you wouldn't know it was Boris! The nervously rhythmic "Tokyo Wonder Land", with its stabbing psychedelic guitar sizzle, and glitchy tic-tic-tics of drums and electronics, is the highlight here for us, but we're pretty into the whole disc. Utterly captivating. Wata and Boris sound like they're channelling every dreamy girl fronted band from the nineties and beyond: My Bloody Valentine, Blonde Redhead, Adult, Amp,Noriko Tujiko, and even Grouper, and it works. Hopefully we'll hear more from this incarnation of Boris in the future, with Wata on the mic... we suspect we will! We think open minded Boris fans will indeed like this album - and it just might make 'em a lot of new fans too, who didn't have any idea Boris could or would sound like this.
Then, to Heavy Rocks (2011)... Drop the needle on track one, and you're greeted by a mean, heavy chugging riff, and it almost seems like, hey, they've gone full-on metal here, but that track, "Riot Sugar", becomes more of a howling psych stoner rock song, with hushed vocals. Off to a good start. The next track isn't nearly as heavy, it begins with some jangle, then a tangle of guitar soloing from Kurihara in his Quicksilver/Cippolina mode, there's also more of those hushed vox, and a general loud/soft songwriting dynamic, this track having echoes of both Nirvana and Can! Kinda sounds like something Kurihara's band Stars would do. Track three "GALAXIANS" is a more energetic, uptempo attack, lots of whoops and hollering going on, with thrashing drums, noisy guitar and electronic FX...
And so it goes, the album a mix of race-with-the-devil rockers and much moodier, shoegazey stuff. "Missing Pieces" is an example of the latter, a slow build from quiet ambience to almost Merzbowian jet-engine noise. The two final tracks are well worthy of mention, the penultimate, nearly 13 minute "Aileron" (greatly expanded, and of course heavied up, from the brief acoustic guitar version of the same track found on Attention Please), is another of the shoegazier pieces, super heavy, lumbering and lovely, reminding us a lot of Codeine, then after that there's "Czechoslovakia", at the very end of the album, a brief instrumental thrash metal number with electronic embellishments, sounds like something Circle would do in their NWOFHM mode, pretty killer, but of course we have to assume Boris sorta meant it as a joke, oh well, in any case it unfortunately fades out at 1:35, just as it's really gettin' good... if another five or ten minutes of this song as we imagine it actually existed, and were included here, that would definitely make Heavy Rocks even radder. Who knows, though, maybe it will continue on a forthcoming album entitled, Heavier Rocks?? (Our idea, but Boris you're welcome to it, sounds like something you'd do - well actually probably what Boris would do is release ANOTHER album also called Heavy Rocks.)
Anyway, to wrap up, these two new discs from Boris are both pretty darn good & satisfying overall. And both emblematic of the band's dabbling in an almost alt-pop, quasi-commercial (on their own terms, though!) direction, while staying HEAVY as they wanna be.
*There's actually a 3rd new Boris full-length as well, out in Japan only, the cleverly (?) titled New Album, which includes some of the same songs found on these two domestic US releases, though we'd imagine they're different recordings/versions, Boris being who they are (confusing!).
Ah, BORIS! The band that everybody loves (or if they don't love 'em, they probably love to hate 'em...). The Melvins-worshipping Japanese "heavy rock" band that started off in the '90s as an import-only cult fave, and eventually got picked up over here by Southern Lord. The next thing you know, they turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of super limited edition releases and unlikely collaborations, and got BIG. For a while, they were definitely a band that could do no wrong, combining that Melvins-y sludge, and equally Melvins-y weirdness, with their own, innate Japanese "WTF?" aesthetic... In addition they boast the presence of a female singer/guitar player, Wata, who is both cute and talented. And making themselves even more potent proposition, they also recruited noted psychedelic guitar whiz Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven, Stars) more or less permanently into their ranks.
Yet, in recent years, Boris has also been courting a backlash, the way we see it, as anything hyped to the skies usually does. Those aforementioned ridiculously limited editions have something to do with it... and what can come off as a too ironic attitude to everything... and when we've seen 'em live, well, memo to drummer Atsuo: the gong is cool, but the headset microphone maybe isn't so much.
So, we've been Boris fans for a long long time, and still are, but we'll confess to wondering if it could be said that Boris finally (?) "jumped the shark" with last year's BXI ep, wherein they, oddly enough, teamed up with rock star Ian Astbury of The Cult (who is presumably still "big in Japan"). That disc was probably the first Boris release in history that didn't merit highlight status on our list... but hey, nobody's perfect.
But now, as if rising to the challenge, and/or making said challenge all the harder for themselves, Boris are back with not one but TWO* new albums for new US label Sargent House.
There's Attention Please, which undoubtedly will get a lot of attention, and not just 'cause of the glamor shot of Wata on the cover. She also sings on all the tracks, to this is definitely one for all you Wata fanciers out there! The other one is called Heavy Rocks, not to be confused with the earlier Boris album, that's also titled Heavy Rocks. Huh, what's with that, Boris? Why give two totally different albums the same name? Obviously to invite comparison (and for the record, while we're definitely digging this new purple 2011 one, if we had to choose between 'em, we'd pick the original, orange 2002 Heavy Rocks). Naming an album Heavy Rocks in the first place is a bold move, having two of 'em is just silly. Or ironic. Or something. Brilliant, perhaps. Oh, and this Heavy Rocks features another guest appearance from Ian Astbury, doing backing vocals on the track "Riot Sugar". There's other guests on the album as well: Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), and regular Boris collaborator Kurihara. Heavy friends for Heavy Rocks!
First up, let's talk about Attention Please. Of the two albums, possibly more interesting to us as it's really quite a departure for Boris, plus we've always found Wata to be their most appealing singer anyway. Her delicate vocals are accompanied by some of the band's softest, most mellow material yet. There's acoustic guitars, and electronica elements, and it's all really quite nice. At times dramatic, dancey, dreamy, and/or rockin', one thing it's not is sludgey. Not that it doesn't get loud and noisy at times - shoegazing explosion of "Spoon" could probably have gone on the accompanying Heavy Rocks just as easily. But for the most part, if you didn't know it was Boris, well you wouldn't know it was Boris! The nervously rhythmic "Tokyo Wonder Land", with its stabbing psychedelic guitar sizzle, and glitchy tic-tic-tics of drums and electronics, is the highlight here for us, but we're pretty into the whole disc. Utterly captivating. Wata and Boris sound like they're channelling every dreamy girl fronted band from the nineties and beyond: My Bloody Valentine, Blonde Redhead, Adult, Amp,Noriko Tujiko, and even Grouper, and it works. Hopefully we'll hear more from this incarnation of Boris in the future, with Wata on the mic... we suspect we will! We think open minded Boris fans will indeed like this album - and it just might make 'em a lot of new fans too, who didn't have any idea Boris could or would sound like this.
Then, to Heavy Rocks (2011)... Drop the needle on track one, and you're greeted by a mean, heavy chugging riff, and it almost seems like, hey, they've gone full-on metal here, but that track, "Riot Sugar", becomes more of a howling psych stoner rock song, with hushed vocals. Off to a good start. The next track isn't nearly as heavy, it begins with some jangle, then a tangle of guitar soloing from Kurihara in his Quicksilver/Cippolina mode, there's also more of those hushed vox, and a general loud/soft songwriting dynamic, this track having echoes of both Nirvana and Can! Kinda sounds like something Kurihara's band Stars would do. Track three "GALAXIANS" is a more energetic, uptempo attack, lots of whoops and hollering going on, with thrashing drums, noisy guitar and electronic FX...
And so it goes, the album a mix of race-with-the-devil rockers and much moodier, shoegazey stuff. "Missing Pieces" is an example of the latter, a slow build from quiet ambience to almost Merzbowian jet-engine noise. The two final tracks are well worthy of mention, the penultimate, nearly 13 minute "Aileron" (greatly expanded, and of course heavied up, from the brief acoustic guitar version of the same track found on Attention Please), is another of the shoegazier pieces, super heavy, lumbering and lovely, reminding us a lot of Codeine, then after that there's "Czechoslovakia", at the very end of the album, a brief instrumental thrash metal number with electronic embellishments, sounds like something Circle would do in their NWOFHM mode, pretty killer, but of course we have to assume Boris sorta meant it as a joke, oh well, in any case it unfortunately fades out at 1:35, just as it's really gettin' good... if another five or ten minutes of this song as we imagine it actually existed, and were included here, that would definitely make Heavy Rocks even radder. Who knows, though, maybe it will continue on a forthcoming album entitled, Heavier Rocks?? (Our idea, but Boris you're welcome to it, sounds like something you'd do - well actually probably what Boris would do is release ANOTHER album also called Heavy Rocks.)
Anyway, to wrap up, these two new discs from Boris are both pretty darn good & satisfying overall. And both emblematic of the band's dabbling in an almost alt-pop, quasi-commercial (on their own terms, though!) direction, while staying HEAVY as they wanna be.
*There's actually a 3rd new Boris full-length as well, out in Japan only, the cleverly (?) titled New Album, which includes some of the same songs found on these two domestic US releases, though we'd imagine they're different recordings/versions, Boris being who they are (confusing!).
Long hair, bellbottoms, loud guitars, Swedish accents... and they spell fire "phyre". It's the new Burning Saviours. What more do you need to know?
Ok, here's the quick recap. First there was Witchcraft, the Swedish band that magically conjured an authentic sounding seventies stoner/doom/psych thing a la Pentagram, Black Sabbath, and a host of other early '70s bands more obscure (many of them wielding both flutes and Mellotrons along with the heavy, proto-metal riffs). Then we discovered *another* seemingly timelost Swedish band, Burning Saviours, who were almost more Witchcraft than Witchcraft. Not a case of one band ripping off the other, more a case of both bands liking Pentagram, Sabbath, and the self-same host of obscure '70s proggy proto-metal acts... and being equally talented at bringing their influences to life. They both debuted with self-titled albums. Then Witchcraft released Firewood, and Burning Saviours released Hundus. It was kind of like having four Witchcraft (or Burning Saviours) albums instead of two! Fans debated which band was "better" but why bother, we love 'em both.
Earlier this year Witchcraft released their third album, the much-lauded The Alchemist. A definite step forward for them, if not a break with the past. And now Burning Saviours have come out with their third album, Nymphs & Weavers. For them too, something a bit different. Maybe a lot different, 'cause they have had to make some lineup changes. Their original vocalist/guitarist decided to leave the band to pursue his academic studies, so they replaced him with a new singer -and- a new guitar player.
The new Burning Saviours is still a heavy-riffed '70s-styled retro-proto-metal affair, never fear. But they have diverged from the "Witchcraft" sound of their previous albums to some degree, perhaps in large part due to the different voice and style of their new singer. Unlike his predecessor, he sounds nothing like Bobby Liebling of Pentagram (remember, Burning Saviours is named after a Pentagram song). He definitely brings in with him more of a traditional Swedish folk influence (he plays flute too). They had that before, of course, the folkiness, but it's more pronounced now, more like a metal Dungen or something. His sometimes solem, soaring vocals remind us a bit of the the singer on New Dark Age, the pagan masterpiece by UK epic doomsters Solstice. Apart from the singer, who Burning Saviours fans will either get used to or not (we're certainly warming to him but do miss the old guy), the this album already seems as comfortably classic as something actually from 1971 or so, full of the usual righteous heavy rock riffage, stick-in-your-head melodies, Heepish organ jamming, electric folk-prog jiggery, and, like Witchcraft too when they ham it up on stage, a bit of whimsy -- it features the heaviest song ever to boast a title like "Dreaming Of Pastries"!
AVAILABLE AGAIN ON VINYL FOR A LIMITED TIME.
An all time AQ perfect pop favorite! Here's our brief yet concise review from way back in the 20th century before these guys had gotten HUGE:
At the risk of slipping into hyperbole, which we try avoid at all costs (snicker...), this is hands down, one of the best (and possibly most overlooked - we almost missed it ourselves, gasp!) indie rock records ever. Landing somewhere between 'There's Nothing Wrong With Love' and 'Perfect From Now On', Death Cab craft a Built-to-Spill-ian universe, full of lazy sad pop, intricate compositions, jangly melodies, shifting structures, odd time signatures, and haunting cellos. This record has been an unbelievable hit in the store. It's pretty much never ever been played without at least one person buying it, sometimes 2 or 3!
We fell in love with the Dum Dum Girls at first listen, back when we heard their self titled 12" from a year ago, it was this awesome blown out girl group inspired garage pop that just totally satisfied. With their/her jump to Sub Pop they have cleaned up their sound a bit, but oh my god we think it's totally for the best. When it comes down to it, the songs have to stand up for themselves. You can pour all the reverb and lo-fi glory on top of your music but if that's all you got it's going to get old and tired pretty quick. Luckily that's not all Dum Dum Girls are about. I Will Be shows that what they are about is totally heartfelt, addictive and impactful songs. But don't worry, it's not like its gotten all slick or smoothed out, it's still totally immediate, rocking, punchy, sassy and also so sincere.
Dee Dee (who as it turns out is pretty much the fiery force behind Dum Dum Girls) recorded all these songs at home and then sent them to the legendary producer and hit maker Richard Gottehrer, whose resume is pretty damn drool worthy. In the '60s he wrote totally amazing songs that have become party of our cultural landscape like "I Want Candy" and "My Boyfriend's Back", and in the '70s he went on to produce the debut records by both Blondie and The Go-Go's as well as being a cofounder of Sire records (home of The Ramones, Talking Heads, The Dead Boys, etc.). So awesome to see how this collaboration turned out so damn perfect. Gottehrer knew it wasn't his job to sugarcoat or generically polish the Dum Dum Girls songs, but instead he did use his wisdom to help them jump out with so much vibrancy and color.
While his contribution can't be overlooked, it's still all about Dee Dee's songs and charisma. Whether she's totally rocking out, or melting hearts with her cover of Sonny & Cher's "Baby Don't Go", there's an authenticity and unhinged passion that can't be denied. She's also so smart and economic about her songs, no fat, no wasted notes, just the good stuff. The album is over before you know it but it works out just fine because all you're going to want to do is play it right over again. This one is going to be a strong candidate for record of the year!
In case you missed it on our mystery themed in-between list last week, something we reviewed just for that, for the first time...
Another one of our all time favorite bands who never made it on the aQ list, mostly due to the fact that all of the group's records, and in fact, their whole career (not counting the reunion), predated the modern incarnation of the New Arrivals List. We really wanted to include them on this week's list, for the obvious reason (obvious if you've sussed out the theme of this week's list, that is), but really we were basically itching for an excuse to gush like crazy over these indie pop legends.
Hailing from the same Canadian province that brought us other indie rock luminaries such as Sloan, Hardship Post, Jale, and lots of others, Eric's Trip were the very first Canadian band to sign to Sub Pop (who ended up popularizing the ensuing Nova Scotian pop rush, as it were), releasing just three full lengths before calling it a day. Love Tara, was their first, originally released in 1993, and is a glorious, ramshackle collection of perfect lo-fi fuzzy indie pop, like some delirious mix of the mopey sad boy 4-trackery of Sebadoh, the fuzzed out crunch of Dinosaur Jr, and of course the lush noisiness of the band who gave them their name, these guys and gal were absolute pop geniuses, even the most fragmented/abstract tracks here will get lodged in your head like crazy, and when they do let loose, they can definitely rock with the best of them. Hushed acoustic bedroom ballads, buzzy psychedelic indie rock blowouts, the production sweetly off kilter and home brewed, the bass lines fat and fuzzy, the guitars thick and gorgeously corrosive, the boy vocals, courtesy of Rick White and Chris Thompson (now of The Memories Attack, whose most recent record was released on Andee's tUMULt label), are earnest and heartfelt, that perfect plaintive sadboy croon, perfectly balanced by the sweet angelic voice of Julie Dorion, whose solo records we HAVE raved about on the aQ list, all in the service of some of THEE catchiest songs EVER. Alternatingly hushed and dreamy, heavy and hazy, even nearly two decades later, this record, and this band, put most other pop music to shame. So absolutely recommended, one of those rare records that we find ourselves listening to all the time, and have since we were in our twenties. Glad it's still in print. SO GREAT!!!
You might recall The Last Of The Blacksmiths' fine self-titled debut back in 2006. Despite this Bay Area band's name, The Last Of The Blacksmiths prove they're in no danger of extinction. They've stood strong for over two years and now have a sophomore cdep under their belt. If you've a hankering for some slow creeping soulful Americana, Young Family Song is for you. The band's brooding bleary folk-rock melancholia will bring you down in the best possible way. Steeped in hard liquor and salty tears, these are songs of slurred speech and blurred vision that cast a heady spell that linger long after this short ep is over.
Japanese heavy psych guitar exploders LSD-march performing live in a book store?? What happened to shhhhh, quiet please, people are reading? Well actually this DVD document of LSD-march live at Philadelphia's Big Jar books is actually a triptych of solo sets from each of LSD-march's three members, so they are relatively quiet (as compared to the usual full-band blow-out volume dealing). Filmed whilst on a brief US tour last fall, the softer side of each individual in the band is revealed. Drummer Ikuro Takahashi gets the most avant-garde, with an odd apparatus of oscillators giving off experimental drones... while both guitarists Shinsuke Michishita and Masami Kawaguchi do sets of gentle vocal/guitar folkiness, a la the calm in the storm often heard in LSD-march sets. Totally personal, and perfect for this intimate setting. Some use of video effects adds to the psychedelic atmosphere. And of course aRCHIVE has packaged this 550-copy limited edition (natch) dvd handsomely in a hand silkscreened folder with some very cool artwork commissioned for this release.
Here's another fantastic transmission from the Black Snowflake Sound studio in Sapporo, Japan, sent out by these prolific psych peddlers! The duo of Michishita Shinsuke on vocals/guitar and Takahashi Ikuro (ex-Fushitusha) on drums have crafted what sounds to us like sort of a cross between two of their recent releases, Constellation Of Tragedy on Important (the gentle, twilight ballads) and Uretakumo Nakunarutorika on Beta-Lactam (freaky, experimental WTF?). Of course, with more than a few flashes of the heavy Les Rallizes Denudes-style amped-up throb and grit we all love included as well. Starting off all slow sad and soft, this disc would be a good LSD-march for Nagisa Ni Te fans as well as those into Rallizes. Moody melody abounds. "Bisyonure No Kimi" is lovely and languid, but also blanketed with shivering guitar feedback and distortion, clouding over Michishita's gentle vocals. Meanwhile Takahashi's drumming is also an crucial contributor to the mood. His deliberate, echoing clank and plink of rhythms on "Ai No Sakebi" are especially effective, in unsettling combination with the piercing Quicksilvery lead guitar unleashed by Michishita.
At about halfway through the disc, LSD-march kicks the volume up a few notches for the lumbering, distorto-rocker "Dare Ga Hoeru". But then the very next track, "Taiyoko No Uta" is so weird and glitchy it could be by Starfuckers or US Maple - it's a good example of the abstract, experimental side of LSD-march to which we referred above, like something from Uretakumo Nakunarutorika. They do channel the Rallizes once more, though, on the disc's final and longest named track, "Kimi No Uta Wo Kiite Boku Wa Akuma Ni Natta" (7:17) a slow burner which eventually erupts into muzzy heaviness, mustering quite a bit of drama in the manner of Up-Tight or Shizuka.
That's the last song, sort of, but the disc ain't over. And just gets stranger. There's two unlisted, untitled bonus tracks yet to come, including an 8 minute cut stringing together botched takes of a song called "My Mother's Killed Me" (?), featuring all their flubs and false starts, including talkback from the increasingly frustrated (and British?) sound engineer. At one point, they have to stop 'cause someone's cell phone goes off and ruins the take. Whoops. But eventually, by the end, they get the song on tape in its entirety, and it's a nice garagey groover. We're really into the fact that they included all the screw-ups. We love stuff like that. And halfway think that's how they wanted it to sound, based on some of their other strange ideas... There's another, similar bonus track that's only 18 seconds though. More WTF? for you.
Basically, Under Milk Wood manages to incorporate everything we already loved about LSD-march, plus some other confusional stuff we didn't even know they were into that's also rad. And everyone here seems to be digging it, even if they weren't already huge LSD-march fans. The band's best yet? Maybe, certainly a good one to get!!
We've always been big fans of the warm and shimmery sounds of this great Japanese psych-pop outfit but somehow their new album is making us fall in love with them all over again and it's proving to be quite possibly their best outing yet! We love how the band are able to evoke those hard to describe lingering moments on lazy Sunday afternoons, or the feeling of walking along the pier as the sun slightly reflects against the slow moving waves and all your other thoughts just fade away. Tapping into the great tradition of Japanese psych-folk/pop that folks like Melting Glass Box and Happy End first explored in the '70s, and even reminding us at times of that great Milton Nascimento record Clube Da Esquina that we gushed about last list. As always we hear the influence of the dreamy passages of Neil Young records, especially On The Beach, which we've been listening to immediately after this record pretty much every single Sunday since Yosuga came out. Highly recommended!
Way back in the 20th century, 1991 to be precise, media pranksters Negativland got themselves into a legal tussle with Island Records when they naively released a single on SST that covered U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and revealed Casey Kasem to be a foulmouthed ogre, all on the same track! Both SST and Negativland were subsequently sued into submission. Copies of the original U2 cd can still be had for anywhere from $75 to $100 US for the disc and bootlegged copies have been floating around ever since the track was pulled. Rather than go further into that whole can of carnuba wax I'll just refer those who are unfamiliar with this mother of all fair use lawsuits to Negativland's thorough and entertaining book "Fair Use: The Story Of The Letter U And The Numeral 2", a 288 page document of the entire court case and Negativland's subsequent legal troubles with Greg Ginn and SST. Well now, here we are in a new millennium, on the ten year anniversary of the lawsuit where Seeland has already tested the legal waters with their re-issue of John Oswald's magnum opus "Plunderphonics" and so far the sharks aren't biting. Sensing that maybe the industry's lawyers have lost their taste for such passe copyright issues in favor of the much tastier Napster and the whole peer-to-peer fiasco, the label "Seelard" (hmmm...) has stepped in to see the return of this classic piece of copyright infringement. As a bonus to this risque reissue Seelard has included 9 extra tracks relating to the original single such as an excerpt from an Over The Edge (Negativland's Don Joyce's weekly radio show on KPFA) show from 1989 where the germination of the single began. One track is an edited version of the "Radio Edit" so that you *can* now safely play it on the radio -- all the nasty words have been covered up with a cornucopia of sound effects. The seven remaining tracks on this disc were taken from live performances by Negativland in 1990 (Knitting Factory, NYC) and 1993 (Great American Music Hall, SF) and cover Casey's "Long Distance Dedication" on up to material that wound up on the cd that accompanied Negativland's book (see above). There's an abundance of good material added to the fated single in these live performances including numerous tapes referring to "U2" that Don Joyce had picked up in the interim, plus some more serious audio forays detailing Francis Gary Powers' fateful flight over the USSR in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Diddley Shit!
Once again, not to be confused with the old sceamo band THE Orchid, but yes very much to be confused with BLACK SABBATH, that's their schtick as it were, this Bay Area based doom metal act now offering up their debut full-length album after a four-song ep that we considered almost a guilty pleasure because of how much Orchid sounded utterly, EXACTLY like Black Sabbath. That's what they do, and they do it damn well. There's been other bands who emulate the Sabs, of course, that's the whole "doom metal" genre really, but Orchid sound more like Sabbath than even, say, Iron Man, sHeavy, or Sleep on Sleep's Holy Mountain!
The vocalist's version of Ozzy, though, is maybe more of a malevolent one, he comes off like Ozzy with a grimacing, evil edge. Riff wise, it's Iommi all the way. Really, every moment here sounds like it's been lifted of an old Sabbath lp, but rearranged/rewritten into Orchid's all "new" Sabbath songs. They can't complain about us saying that, that's obviously their intention, to recreate the Sabbath vibe circa 1970-73 as closely as they can, becoming Earthly vessels of sheer Sabbathiness, originality be damned. "Black Funeral" here for instance, seems to channel Sabbath's "Hand Of Doom"... but without quite (quite) crossing the line into outright plagiarism. Pretty much all the other songs on Capricorn can also be mapped to their vintage Sabbath templates, it's almost like you're listening to an alternate universe Sabbath album that never existed.
All right, so we've established that it would be impossible to write a review of Orchid's album without referencing Black Sabbath. What else is there to say? The musicianship is excellent, the production heavy and '70s sounding, with psychedelic synth embellishment and other droning eerie atmospheres (see "Planet Caravan", we mean "Albatross") - and of course catchy riffage that rocks mightily when the band is going full-bore, as on "Eyes Behind The Wall" and "Down Into The Earth" among others. There's absolutely no duds among the nine songs here, we're digging 'em all, and we think all fans of heavy retro occult metal like Blood Ceremony and Witchcraft will likely enjoy these too... as well as, of course, Sabbath fans, especially if you've worn out your actual Sabbath records and want a fresh dose.
The Church Within has done this up in super-deluxe packaging - a heavy duty four-panel gatefold sleeve, adorned with art painted by Orchid's singer. We hear rumors of an even fancier, but way more expensive, limited leather bound book version, but this will do for us! Nice.
Relisting this in case you missed it on our mystery themed in-between list last week (we gave it a new, expanded write-up just for that).
"Japanese duo on John Zorn's domestic label." Good grief, is that ALL we wrote about this when we first listed it way back when (1995)?? Might as well say that the Beatles were "a British quartet on London-based label Parlophone". There's a lot more to the story.
First off, bass and drums two piece Ruins are/were probably our favorite crazy underground Japanese band, next to the Boredoms. Drummer/mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida is a musical genius, and if you've been paying attention to our site over the years you're read our raves about many, many of his various albums and projects, from Ruins to Koenjiyyakei to Korekyojinn to Zubi Zuva... etc., etc.
Hyderomastgroningem (that's a mouthful!) was the first Ruins disc to come out on Tzadik. It features bassist Ryuichi Masuda, who also played on their out of print classic Burning Stone (1992), and may in fact be the only Masuda-era Ruins disc still in print, as well as being the last one that he appeared on (Ruins has had several bassists over the years, all of them amazing, but Masuda was our fave).
There's 20 tracks here of the Ruins' complex, heavy, stripped down Magma-inspired prog madness, some continuing the catchiness of Burning Stone and earlier works, others getting more imrov-like and experimental and noisy... super distorted bass, faux-operatic (and nonsensical) vocals, Yoshida's usual octopoidal drumming, repetitive rhythmic bludgeon... it's all here, along with unique touches to this album, like a track where Masuda plays a radio, for instance.
My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive embody the term shoegaze. If you have, have had, or may one day have even the smallest interest in said genre, you have this or you need this. Guitars are simply texture, bass and drums take the driver's seat, and vocals flutter here and there. This is their second to last album, but kinda the last. After this was Pygmalion, which was recorded by only half the band's members (one more than the other) and caused Creation to kick them off the label. Oh, we should mention that Brian Eno produced one song, and he played on two.
Not to mention any names, but one (former) AQ staffer has a Slowdive tattoo. This record is more than recommended, it's essential.
Includes 4 bonus tracks "not on import".
Not sure how this band has managed to remain so unpopular for so long, 'cause god damn if Spoon aren't one of the best pop bands around. And not sugary sweet Kindercore pop, or retro sixties Elephant Six pop, but more rough and raw, simple and dark, late night pop. Breaking up with your girlfriend mixtape pop. Really stripped down sounding with warm guitars and shimmering vibes, and a fucking amazing voice. Spoon seem to suffer from the Sloan syndrome; being a really creative and intelligent pop band, that doesn't sound enough like other pop bands to 'make it big', and end up being bounced from label to label and dropped, even after recording amazing record after amazing record. It's hard for me to objectively describe Spoon in terms of 'their sound' and/or other bands since they have been one of my favorite bands for so long now and everything they do seems so unique to them. They obviously fit somewhat comfortably on the various labels they have recorded for (Matador, Merge, etc.) which gives you some idea, but their sound is really unique. Definitely for fans of the above (Matador, Merge, Sloan), but maybe also for those folks who feel like they may have outgrown pop or indie rock.
This just might do the trick.
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.
