How can you resist a hyperbolically boastful black metal title like Barbaric Usurpation Of The Hypereonic Black Metal Throne? Andee's tUMULt label continues to dig deep into the Bay Area black metal underground, after introducing the rest of the world to such USBM luminaries as Weakling, Leviathan, Draugar and Crebain, now prepare yourself to bow before the mighty Mastery. Another one man band, known (not so) simply as Domignostika, who also does time as vocalist in local corpse painted horde Pale Chalice, as well as being the one man behind the only REAL one man black metal band (as in he plays guitar and sings while playing blast beats with his feet) Pandiscordian Necrogenesis, and who had previously played bass and sung for the late great Horn Of Dagoth (which also featured members of Crebain and Kerasphorus), Mastery is Domignostika's long running project, which over the last six years released 5 extremely limited cd-r demos, all of which are collected here, remastered, and widely available outside of the Bay Area for the very first time.
Barbaric Usurpation Of The Hypereonic Black Metal Throne? A serious claim of musical supremacy? A tongue in cheek poke at the constant battle for supreme grimness and kvltness, or taking the piss? Hard to tell, but considering the sheer brutality and relentless buzz of Mastery's frenzied black onslaught, we're leaning toward that title being a serious claim. After a strange, ambient intro, a sort of John Carpenter-ish bit of creeped out synthscapery, Mastery launches into the most recent demo, from 2009, the simply titled 'I' (all the tracks here a confusionally titled with Roman numerals), a frantic, frenzied freak out of swirling chaotic black buzz, a sound that at first blush sounds like some bastard hybrid of Inquisition and Vondur and Ocrilim. Six plus minutes of relentless gnarled buzzing, the vocals a sinister beastly croak, the drums a furious buried blast, but it's the guitars, insanely tangled and twisted, not so much riffs as a continuous serious of constantly mutating rapidfire runs, with much of the 'riffing' sounding more like multiple guitars maniacally soloing, spitting off pick harmonics and jagged squeals without ever looking back. Minus the drums and the vokills, this could definitely be some sort of avant experimental guitar record, but as it is, it becomes a demented slab of blurred, blown out, frenzied and fucked up black metal weirdness. The second track is way heavier on the low end, but no less flipped out, the riffing impossibly hyper, once again a swirling chaos of gnarled blackness and nearly psychedelic abstract avant shreddery. Mastery is total berzerker black metal, rooted in the tradition of true grim blackness, but filtered through Mastery's cracked perception, transforming this into something beyond true, a droned out and damaged, outsider blackness, that sounds pretty much unlike almost any other black metal.
Sure on the surface, it's blast and buzz, but as you sink into these extended black sprawls, the songs seem to unfold, and expand, buzzing blackness that blossoms into something wholly other, in such a way, that one has to fight the urge to try and figure out how these songs work, or how they're arranged, they sound almost improvised, but they're impossibly dense, and the arrangement, however esoteric, seems to be structured, but in some way that out pitiful human brains can not hope to comprehend.
Of course the newest demo is the most polished, but the older demos, for what they lack in polish, they seem to make up for in sheer whatthefuckness, demo four is another series of black blasts that twist and turn, and mutate before your ears, a glancing listen will reveal some of THEE fastest and most furious BM you may have heard, but again, the riffs seem to be constantly twisting and turning, the vocals to, hateful and harsh as befitting BM, but also completely baffling and utterly alien. But demo 3, a single 33 minute epic is something else entirely, with much of the record being made up of glitched out, harrowing black ambience, crunchy and distorted, with howled raspy vox, when the guitar do kick in, the buzz and drone, with the drums sounding almost electronic, looped way down in the mix, the sound weirdly hypnotic, before slipping into something slightly more black, and then back into some creepy ambience, before launching into a long stretch of blown out black majesty, which like much of the record, as much to offer upon deep listening, revealing all manner of hidden melody, lush textures, and most notably some strange strange riffs, this track in particular, though adding a super mesmerizing trancelike element, which is in fact present throughout all the demos, in lesser measure.
The second disc is made up of the first two demos, and thus finds Mastery at their (his?) most traditionally black metal, but again, it's all relative, so while much of this disc is spent chugging and blasting, raw and grim, all brittle buzz and brutal blast, the twisted sounds that would come to define Mastery's baffling sound begin to surface, strange gnarled riffs, some cool drum/guitar interplay, plenty of wild tangled squiggle guitar weirdness (especially on the first track of demo 2), which mixes in maniacally shredding guitars with more o that tranced/droned out atmosphere, not to mention some of the most anguished vokills yet, the whole collection finishing with the downright doomy final track from the second demo, a crumbling super distorted death march, with somehow even MORE anguished vocals, a woozy, washed out, blackened plod, that explodes in the final two minutes for one final burst of blasting, maniacal, demoniac blackness.
Killer black, red and white space / wolf / spacewolf cover art.
Well, if you're a Melvins fan you know that not only do these weirdos still make awesome albums (their most recent, The Bride Screamed Murder, we raved about when it came out a year ago) but they also still utterly slay live. With, what, almost 30 years of experience, they are as potent as ever. We just saw 'em live the other day, on the first evening of a two-night stand here in SF, doin' songs from Houdini, Lysol, and Eggnog, and boy their current 2 drummer line up sure packs a wallop. And guitarist/vocalist Buzz still looks striking in his mumu and outlandish 'fro. The Melvins are a heavy band of world-historical stature and we expect 'em to keep on rocking for at least as long as their forebears KISS!
So, as fans, of course we're curious about this new live album, and expectations are met, performance-wise they're on top of their game. The real question surely any fan has, is just what songs get the Melvins/Big Business treatment, there's 13 tracks here mostly showcasing the best of their more recent material but also digging into their massive discography for a few old faves. The first five tracks are Big Biz era stuff, from 2008's Nude With Boots (this recording comes from that tour) and 2006's Senile Animal, then they reach waaay back for an epic rendition of "Eye Flys" from 1986 opus Gluey Porch Treatments, followed by "Tipping The Lion" from 1996's Stag (a good choice, just 'cause we hardly ever pull that one out to listen to, but this makes us want to), and then it's back to Senile Animal stuff, four in a row, before, wha? a voice and drums version of "The Star Spangled Banner", that's right. They were feeling patriotic, apparently. Or just wanted to fuck with people, more likely. Then, for the grand finale, they offer up an anthem of their own, a crushing, extended version of "Boris" from Bullhead (1991), which will remind you why the band Boris chose that name!
If you're a Melvins fan from way back, but haven't acquainted yrself with their modern double drummer incarnation, this should convince you it was a good idea, and that they've still got songs to compete impressively with past "hits", a few a which you get to hear here as well. And if you're not a Melvins fan, well obviously live albums like this aren't intended for you anyway, so why are you still reading this review?
Long before psych folk became the flavor of the month in the indie scene there was the Tower Recordings. A group responsible for some of our favorite drugged out psych-pop EVER, with such nice swirling textures, delivered with such a gorgeous touch. The members of Tower Recordings have forged pretty of remarkable solo careers of their own. Folks like P.G. Six, Samara Lubelski, Matt Valentine, etc.
Metal Mountains is a brand new project that reunites Tower Recordings members Samara Lubelski, Pat Gubler (P.G. Six) and Helen Rush. There is a real magic between them as this is one of the most beautiful and mournful sounding albums we have heard in ages. Delicate composition stripped away of any fat, yet stretched out so nice with haunting instrumentation and a minimalist approach to creating a songs that make you sway so softly as you float away from all that surrounds you. It's restrained and understated without being uptight. A soft tension blankets the warm, moody recordings and we are left with a stunning and sublime set of songs.
Hugo Montenegro was one of many light composers of the space-age bachelor pad era that included Dick Hyman, Esquivel, Frank Comstock, Ferrante & Teicher and Ray Coniff. What set him apart from his contemporaries was a flair for restless frenetic rhythms, scatting vocalese, and groovy surfy spy themes like the soundtrack for such b-movie potboilers as The Lady In Cement and the TV shows The Wrecking Crew and The Ambushers. But his most literally electrifying moment came from his adoption of the Moog synthesizer for 1969's Moog Power, one of the more zany Moog records out there next to Gershon and Kingsley's In Sounds From Way Out. Not that he was exactly going for that. Everyone knew the Moog could make odd sounds, but Montenegro wanted to mine its musical potential to see if it had commercial appeal.
While the record is mostly covers of the day, "Hair/Aquarius", "Traces", The Doors' "Touch Me", and others by The Turtles, Harry Nilson and Jimmy Webb ("MacArthur Park", but only the rocking end part!), he puts such high energy into the arrangements which gives the songs a kind of warped feeling like the Hullabaloo singers on speed. We're sure that has only added to its appeal amongst Incredibly Strange Music circles. But the title song, the only Montenegro original, is worth the price of admission alone!
In a review recently we made some comment about death metal appealing to the lowest common denominator, a comment based on years of experience attending death metal shows, and in the process managed to illicit a little backlash, so at the risk of garnering even more, let's start this review with this: DEATH METAL FANS ARE THE BIGGEST BABIES!! Okay, so by now, you HAVE to have heard how shitty the new Morbid Angel record is, it's techno, it's industrial, it's garbage, there's a song about cop killing, the lyrics are stupid, the song titles are embarrassing, and yeah, that's all actually pretty much true, but holy shit, we've never seen as much freaking out as we have from disappointed death metal fans. And in fact, disappointed barely begins to cover it. So many death metallers, tough, mean metal dudes, hysterical and angry and apoplectic, posting vitriolic videos on YouTube (where we swear it seemed like some of them were gonna cry), writing angry diatribes on blogs, posting some amazing reviews on Encyclopedia Metallum (average review score: 27 percent! Oof!), it's as if a band they loved never made a bad record before. And yeah, we know. First Morbid Angel record in 8 years or whatever, the return of David Vincent, but so what? Maybe it's because we're not OBSESSED with Morbid Angel, that Illud Divinum Insanus didn't cause us to have a breakdown, or it could be that actually, Illud Divinum Insanus is pretty fucking cool. In its own delusional and fucked up way.
And no, we're not being contrary for the sake of contrariness, although at least one of the metalheads here continues to proclaim Illud Divinum Insanus an utter piece of shit, the other one (me, Andee!), actually digs the new weirdness. And the thing is, as much as we love Altars Of Madness and Blessed Are The Sick, we're pretty sure we'll probably end up listening to this one more, just cuz it's so weird (a subject that the above mentioned hater seemed to agree with oddly enough!). And it is weird. We had heard rumors about how it was all jungle and techno and industrial, and comparisons to the ill fated techno-meets-metal Spawn soundtrack, unfortunately, in all but a couple cases, it's not nearly that weird/bad, much of the record is straight up death metal, and most of the reviewers cop to that, more polished maybe, but those tracks definitely sound like Morbid Angel. But then there are tracks like "Too Extreme" (the title your first clue), which adds programmed industrial pound to death metal guitars, culminating in a ridiculous drill sound, that could have been plucked straight off a nineties Ministry record, and the song definitely has too much groove for death metal, bordering on nu-metal for sure, and the lyrics, that's where we'll agree with everybody, to appreciate even the questionable sounds, you have to tune out the inane lyrics, what the fuck was David Vincent thinking?
And it's that nu-metal thing that most likely has most people bummed out, cuz even when there's nothing overtly offensive happening, the band do seem to tend toward a sort of Sepultura circa Roots style heaviness.
But where it all goes wrong, where even we can't defend these guys, is on "Radikult", which does in fact sound like Ice-T's "Cop Killer" via nu-metal, fuzzy electronic bass buzz, programmed beats, one of those lurching stop start nu-metal grooves, with David Vincent whisper rapping "kill a cop cop kill a cop kill a kill a cop cop", all ominous nursery rhyme rap style, and then singing the verses in a gruff jock rock growl, some problematically funky basslines, and perhaps THEE worst lyrics EVER. And we mean EVER.
So yeah, folks after more MA style death metal, will find only a little here to love, but folks who want to check out this surprisingly cool carwreck of a comeback album, and aren't afraid of a little nu-metal and some dated industrialisms, you might just end up digging this as much as some of us. Even Allan, who thinks it's crazy/embarrassing for Andee to like this, admits he'll probably listen to it as much or more than Morbid Angel's last couple of albums, just for the humor factor. (But listen to it more than Blessed Are The Sick? No. That's wrong even to suggest...)
We had never really heard of these guys before, fronted by a Polish ex-pat named Milosz Gassan, a legend apparently in the European metallic crust punk scene, having played in Filth Of Mankind (who we had heard of), their debut album apparently a huge favorite of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone, so much so, that they incorporated the Morne logo into the artwork of their Circle The Wagons record!
Joined by a crew including members of Grief and Disrupt, Morne's metallic crust is in a big way beholden to the mighty Neurosis, the same sort of heaving metallic majesty, epic songs, crushing riffs, bellowed angry vox, but laced with plenty of moody melody, just check out the sprawling 17 minute opener, which has everything you could want in a doom crust metal epic, the sound shifting from crushing bombast, to more blissed out piano flecked meander, the guitars unfurling spidery minor key melodies one second, crumbling downtuned riffage the next, the track slipping into some dark psychedelia midway through, a warm whirling low end shimmer, all blurred guitar buzz and delicate melody, minimal muted drumming, slowly building to a a sort of post rock smolder, darkly dreamy, before finally finishing off with a blast of churning, chugging, epic doom sludge pummel.
And so goes the rest of the record, at its core a Neurosis-y doom-sludge, but with the songs drifting in different directions, lots of post rock action, the sounds laced with shimmery drones and meandering rhythms, hypnotic and cyclical, while other tracks slip into something more post punky and gothic gloom, the reverbed plink of minor key piano, the mournful melodies, that transform some stretched into an almost doom pop, and still others get seriously metal, unfurling fierce riffy chug and pounding downtuned crunch, and finally, the almost operatic, chamber music opening of the closer, which too eventually gives way to another bad as bout of surprisingly melodic metallic churn.
Definitely recommended for the usual suspects, fans of post-metal, doom sludge, and all stripes of epic heaviness, think Neurosis, Isis, Pelican, A Storm Of Light, Seidr, U.S. Christmas, VYGR, Mouth Of The Architect, Conifer, Tides and all the rest.
Fog Hag is a brilliant slab of psychedelic pop music from Bronze frontman Rob Spector. Anyone who has seen Bronze's live performances over the last few years knows that they are one of the most hypnotic and engaging live acts in the Bay Area. They combine mastery of minimal instrumentation and dance beats with a little bit of costuming and a sense of humor. Their debut full length comes out this August on RVNG. Except for maybe the costumes, these elements are all present on Muscle Drum's Fog Hag, which sometimes sounds like the Beach Boys via Thee Oh Sees and sometimes uncannily conjures Crispin Glover via Barnes and Barnes. The album opens with a few tracks that feature tons of jangly guitar and muted synths riding around minimal or no percussion, vocal harmonies and reverb washes weaving the songs together deftly. Spector's vocal delivery is consistent in its open earnestness, and is never pretentious or showy. Halfway through the first side, just as "St. Christopher" shows off the record's synthier elements and "Sashay" introduces a drum machine, you might notice that there's something a bit weird about these songs, something OFF. Once you get to "Public Transportation", your suspicions are confirmed: never has the failed quest for a burrito been so hilariously combined with the phrase "tight-wads". This is not a "novelty" record or a "comedy" record, and never tries to be funny. That's why it succeeds. The B side contains more well-crafted psychedelic jangle-pop, a track that starts off sounding almost like death metal, and lots of gratuitous echoplex usage. The songs are sequenced well, however, so that the weirder ones flow out of and into the rest of the record without the overall mood being sacrificed or sounding unbalanced. Much like Type records has been doing lately, this first LP on the San Francisco based Break Up label comes with a CD of a completely different record ("The Early Drum Gets the Snare" also by Muscle Drum, though Fog Hag is the stronger of the two). Limited to 500 copies, do not miss out on this record. Be sure to play it at 45 and not 33 1/3 or you might have a completely different experience!
Marissa Nadler's latest (and Kickstarter funded, on her own label) self-titled collection of dreamy folk-pop might be her best yet. Her voice is light and clear, carrying the listener through the narratives and characters she creates. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar provides the ubiquitous background around which pedal steel, vibes, a few synths and washy percussion float. Her vocals seems almost effortless in their breathy melancholic beauty. As on Little Hells, Nadler utilizes a full band for much of the record, though a lot of what the band does is minimal, allowing the layered vocals to drive the songs. When the band does really kick in, however, it's fucking magical, as on "Baby I Will Leave You In the Morning" and "Puppet Master". Nadler, who has been previously much compared to Cat Power and Mazzy Star, deserves the compliments those comparisons bring, but should not be seen as derivative or secondary to those artists. Yes, there's a healthy dose of Americana (the pedal steel, the banjo) and yes the vocals are drenched in reveb (though not to disguise any lack of talent), but there's no mistaking that Marissa Nadler's got IT, whatever that singular quality is that marks truly exceptional performers. A je ne sais quoi that trancends comparison.
After the wonderful opener "In Your Lair, Bear" which hints at the fullness of the instrumentation to come later in the record, Nadler gives us the minimal "Alabaster Queen". The hard-edged coldness created by the stately vocal narrative contrasts nicely with the slow-strummed warmth of the acoustic guitar and bell-like Rhodes piano. "The Sun Always Reminds Me of You" might be the song that sounds the most like Mazzy Star in one of their less drug-hazed moments. "Mr. John Lee Revisited" takes a step back and feels more akin to Nadler's earlier work. "Wedding" stands out in that it features no guitar at all, just synths, percussion and vocals that build and build and build. "Little King" serves as a nice comedown after "Wedding"'s drama, a return to fingerpicked guitar minimalism alongside a banjo that glides in and out of the vocal melody.
These are songs that make you stop and listen, whatever else is going on in your life. Songs where you can just close your eyes and drift away to wherever the music takes you. Highly recommended.
Another warehouse find, this one from the nearly impossible to pronounce Niellerade Fallibilisthorstar, who we in the past had sort of assumed were some obscure experimental black metal band, but who in fact are something much more esoteric, a mysterious group trafficking in a dark, skeletal, haunting and abstract industrial / electro-acoustic ambience.
These Swedes unfurl sprawling atmospheres of distant buzz, of lush layered shimmer, of rhythmic clank and clatter, a grey malevolence seems to settle over these blurred glimpses of some barren otherworld, the sound shifting from heaving downtuned distorted crumble, to hushed soft focus melodic smear, laced with buried foghorn melodies, what sound like field recordings from some old decrepit dock, streaks of sine wave like high end, machine-like creaks and groans, softly set in fields of reverb, and natural ambience, Halrum often plays out like an actual recording of the listener exploring some strange burnt out factory, discovering a part of the floor, where the concrete seems to crumbled revealing a firelit cave underneath, the walls seemingly alive with shadow motion, these are the sounds of exploration, into the deepest, darkest recesses of whatever blackness lurks below. So awesome. And we really only have a tiny handful of these, and we're not sure we can get more...
For some reason, it has been frustratingly difficult to restock last year's outing by Noveller, Desert Fires, which is such a shame as it was truly one of the years best drifting and dreamy albums. Here's hoping that her new record, this one right here, Glacial Wave, will not suffer the same distribution problems, as she has again crafted another exquisite collection of some of the most substantial blissed out sounds you are liable to hear all year long.
It's been so nice to witness the evolution of Noveller's music, from her much noisier, harsh and slightly unfocused beginnings to the much more serene, spaced out and majestic tones and songs she's creating now. But we think that background in the noise scene has helped her create such a strong core and depth to these beautifully ethereal soundscapes. There is something both so mournful and harrowing about the sounds on Glacial Glow. Much like Grouper and Windy & Carl, Noveller has this amazing ability to create utterly haunting and mesmerizing moods in her music. We've been playing this as we go to sleep, as we wake up and actually at all hours in between as there's no better sounds for when we are feeling dazed and glazed. Highly recommended!
We first heard from Cian Nugent on the Robbie Basho tribute We Are All One In The Sun, but hadn't heard much since, which makes sense seeing that as far as we can tell, this is the first readily available full length from this Irish guitarist. Who, as you might imagine, just from having taken part in that Basho tribute, whether you actually heard it or not, is another purveyor of modern Appalachia, carrying on the tradition of Fahey, Basho and Kottke, a la James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Marisa Anderson, and the 20 minute opening track here positions Nugent well within that pantheon, with his own take on the sound, dark, and tense, clear and crystalline, with lots of droning notes, subtle overtones, less melodic than many of his contemporaries and more textural, although as the track progresses, Nugent's fingerpicking becomes more elaborate, and a more traditional Appalachia surfaces within his dark droney tones, his sound dynamic and varied, lots of ebb and flow, and then close to the end, the sound seems to expand a hundredfold, with an out of nowhere swarm of layered drones, which add a whole other dimension to the piece.
The second track starts out similarly, albeit a bit more traditionally, until the band kicks in, yep, the band, a full band, drums, strings, horns, with Nugent taking on organ duty as well, the sound blossoming into something more than old timey Appalachia worship, the sound spare and sparse, again very dynamic, until about three minutes in, when the song seems to coalesce into a sort of Appalachia flecked chamber pop, but only for a few minutes, the song, also quite epic at 24+ minutes takes lots of twists and turns, slipping back into something more skeletal and darkly brooding, then dark and cacophonous, droney and softly psychedelic, then hushed and barely there, before a bit more chamber pop, with a slow build to something intense and slightly cacophonous, and then finally, a slow, lush, horn flecked steel string final movement. So lovely, fans of modern guitar music and classic "American primitive" (especially both) would do well to check this out.
There was a time when all of the Nurse With Wound records were available all at the same time, although this feat was the work of the much scorned World Serpent label, who screwed over pretty much every artist on their roster and pressed up a bunch of cds that were susceptible to bit rot. So, even if those records were in fact around, they were in many cases unlistenable. Who Can I Turn To Stereo was spared the bit rot, but didn't fair well otherwise. This came out in 1996, marking one of the first collaborations that NWW maestro Steven Stapleton conducted with Colin Potter. Along with Rock 'N' Roll Station released a few years earlier, the 1996 album Who Can I Turn To Stereo could be seen as one of the few gateway albums into the hermetic sonic realm of Nurse With Wound. While Stapleton has made no bones about the albums that have influenced his project (and in many ways, the Nurse With Wound LIST of influences which was included in the first album has become a collector's checklist of terminally out-there kosmiche rock and psychedelic electronics), the combination of those influences have defined one of the most singularly unique voices in all of music history. So when it comes to a NWW album with 'crossover appeal,' don't expect Stapleton to make it easy on the ears. Who Can I Turn To Stereo found Stapleton deeply mired in his infatuation with bizarre exotica records and the mambo sounds of Perez Prado, resulting in a long-form collage of hypnotic rhythms interlaced within a rollercoaster of seasick electrical squiggling, haunted ballroom motifs (some 10 years before Kirby was doing it), and spectral vocalizations.
This 2011 reissue is coupled with Stereo Wastelands - "a collection of musical debris from the original Who Can I Turn To Stereo session." The three lengthy cuts of "debris" from those sessions are thoroughly abstracted variations that occasionally ground themselves upon a bongo loop which had developed into a signature for NWW throughout the '90s. The tracks weave with eerie smoke and dopplereffected shadow. Jittery rhythms co-habitate alongside those bongo loops and march on one occasion with a jagged guitar whose spindly sounds harken all the way back to the NWW album A Chance Meeting Between An Umbrella And a Sewing Machine. Oh, there's a bonus track, "Eternity", not found on the original!
Very nice to see this material back in stock once again, and as mentioned, this would make for a very good place to jump into the wild and wonderful world of Nurse With Wound.
Two of of our favorite albums from these local garage poppers get paired up and re-released on this super limited cassette, awesomely designed to look like one of those old Columbia Records And Tapes Club releases ($13 tapes for 1�)...
So, here's what we had to say about The Cool Death Of Island Raiders when we reviewed it way back in 2006 (it's now out of print on both cd and lp):
No doubt about it, Mr. John Dwyer is one prolific man. The sound of Thee Oh Sees (aka OCS), whether intentionally or not, is very of the moment, and at the time one of Dwyer's best. His partner in crime on Cool Death was local artist and musician Patrick Mullins. At times The Cool Death Of Island Raiders sounds like a dronier and even more stoned Ariel Pink... which we've been diggin' heavily too. The album's title reminds us of those afterschool adventures we made up when we were kids, and the music is a lot like children's songs in a demented playground complete with occasional birds chirping.
Lots of shimmery cymbal and tambourine washes, off-kilter strummed guitar and unexpected visits from occlusive noise clouds, while through those clouds emerges layers of tweaked falsetto vocals. The album's mood is slightly unsettling verging on creepy but with a sense of humor at work as well. Produced by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio fame the album is paced really well and shows that Dwyer's still got plenty up his sleeve.
And here's what we had to say about Sucks Blood when it first came out in 2007:
John Dwyer has been a busy bee as of late (noticing a theme?). His great new free jazz outfit Swords & Sandals has been playing fiery short sets all around town. He's started his own record label, Castle Face and his first release on the label is his latest from Thee Oh Sees (OCS), which is fast becoming one of our favorites! Produced by Kelly Stoltz, Sucks Blood has a wonderful focus that gets stoney, blurry and all bleary and sunsoaked yet the songs still feel so well crafted and the record so perfectly paced. The opening track finds Dwyer reconstructing his garage rock roots with a smokin' lo-fi burner that would make Roky Erickson proud. As the record moves on there is an intoxicating hazy moodiness that emanates so effortlessly from every track start to finish. We love how timeless this record sounds and feels. It's doesn't at all seem like a part of any current trend or scene. Instead it sounds like someone locked up in their room with a window half open as sun, clouds and wind mingle in the sky and songs grow and blossom organically. With no one to please but himself, you get the feeling that Dwyer was able to totally relax and make exactly the record he's been wanting to make for ages. We've already been listening to this in our headphones as we walk through the city, on those afternoons made for wandering aimlessly just to see where you might end up, and this is the perfect soundtrack for sure. Whether laying in the grass, or sitting on the porch, or staying in bed till late in the afternoon, these are the perfect sounds for being busy doing nothing. So totally nice!
These tapes are LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, each one hand numbered!
Warehouse find! The 2006 debut full length from these Norwegian 'symphonic' UNblack death metallers, released on the EEE label, and like much of the stuff on EEE, so much more twisted and fractured and fucked up than the description above hints at, the 'symphonic' element is a swirl of synths, and choral voices, blurred into haunting smears, the music though, more like WOLD than proper death metal, the drums programmed, yet still stumbling, the riffing SUPER blown out, the distortion crumbling, the vocals an ultra processed bellow, the sound so in-the-red and so completely fried, that instead of sounding heavy, it begins to sound washed out and nearly psychedelic, a dizzying blackened swirl of crumbling chaos, peppered with brief bits of hazy shimmer and dreamlike drift, that only make the violent churn and buzz drenched stutter, that much more intense and bizarre, especially, when the two are mixed (which is most of the time), a backdrop of warbly melodic thrum and sweet synthy shimmer, barely audible beneath a garbled grind of cacophonous crumbling crunch. AWESOME.
This is OUT OF PRINT. We have 3 copies and then this is gone for good...
Lion Productions brings us another super obscure psych/prog reish that's pretty darn cool. France, 1972: the dawning of Ophicus, an astrologically inclined band staffed by some serious musicians from the French rock/pop scene, including a former member of Zoo. They certainly had a lot of promise, this debut album of theirs being a gorgeous and eclectic (and sometimes experimental) stylistic mix, encompassing everything from lilting acoustic folk to lush symphonic pop to raw backporch blues to heavy fuzz acid rockin' grooviness (Francais Metal de Proto ooh la la!). Sublime string orchestration, lovely vocal arrangements, and memorable melodies contribute to the wonderful moody atmosphere that pervades this album despite its diversity.
There's a lot to like here. This disc's 20 tracks include eight bonus cuts taken from a unreleased second album, among them several English language versions of songs from the debut meant for international release. And Lion (as is typical of them) provides a fairly hefty cd booklet into the bargain, full of photos, lyrics, and brand new liner notes from the band themselves, including commentaries on each track (for example: "'Darbouka' was meant to silently convey the feeling of oppression and the impossibility of expressing where it comes from"). If you liked the previous Lion reissues from France (Classical M, Ilous & Decuyper) you definitely should check out Ophicus, likewise if you've been digging that Pop Made In France comp we highlighted recently.
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.
Yay! Out of the blue, here's a new one from The Oscillation. The Oscillation? You might remember, a few years back (2008) we raved about this UK band's debut album Out Of Phase, an import on the DC Recordings label. We described their music as "a druggy, dubby mix of rhythmically krauty space rock, angular No-Wave funkiness, and, yes, oscillating electronics" and mentioned Neu!, Hawkwind, Salvatore, Tussle, and White Hills over the course of the review, as possible comparisons. If we were writing it now, we'd probably also cite the Lumerians, Moon Duo, Majeure, K-X-P, Maserati, Nisennenmondai...
The Oscillation's trance-inducing throb turned out to be, not surprisingly, something that a lot of you liked as much as we did! However we kinda lost track of them, for a while - though apparently they've been gigging hard - and thus were super excited to see that this new album was available, and it's domestically priced too.
Picking up where the debut left off three years ago, it's another potent dose of krauty rhythms, dubby disco, and druggy psych, both mesmerizing and melodic, but maybe, at times, heavier, more "rocked out" than before, witness the the beefier guitar on some tracks definitely getting into The Heads territory! Though The Oscillation started off as a one man band (that man being Demian Castellanos of Orichalc Phase), it grew from an electronic producer project into a fully-fledged live act, the power of which is displayed here (but also their mellow, shoegazey spacey side too). 'Tis mostly instrumental, even when it isn't, the occasional effected, hushed and chant-like vox betraying their (Brit)pop sensibility amidst the pulsating motorik beats, washes of distortion, and electronic FX... what's not to like??
The album opens with the subtle atmospheric drones and percussive textures of "Sandstorm", a build-up to the mantric chatter and sheer spacey howl of "Future Echo", like so many of the songs here, sounding like the perfect soundtrack to some futuristic, cinematic chase scene taking place in a Blade Runner style dystopia - though others sound more appropriate to a weightless drift, off into the soothing deeps of (inner) space. Next up, the haunting "Fall" eventually ups the ampage ante even more, with psychedelic guitar wrangling burying the drawled vocals... As well as feedback and freakout, elsewhere the guitars go more for chiming stabs amidst the hazy drone and hypnotic shaka-shaka-shaka rhythms. We'll spare you the whole track-by-track summary, let's just say that this is disc is ultimately epic (12 minute title track!), echoey (everything, all the time), often quite pretty (like the lulling swells of "See Through You"), and definitely propulsive. For fans of the likes of Loop, Can, and all the sundry other rad bands mentioned above. Tune in, turn on, oscillate!!
If someone had never heard San Francisco's Oxbow before, and knew nothing about them - or for that matter knew nothing about Sammy Davis Jr. either - we wonder what they'd make of that album title/cover art? Definitely wouldn't help 'em guess what sort of music lies within, some of the earliest and insanest stuff by an AQ fave band we lovingly call "fucked rock geniuses". If you are one of those innocent souls who have never heard Oxbow before, well, dive in here and see if you can take it. And needless to say, if you are already an Oxbow fan, of course you NEED this if you don't have it already, which you might not, since until now Oxbow's 1991 sophomore album King Of The Jews has never been available as a domestic compact disc release. It has been paired previously with their 1989 debut Fuckfest as an abridged single cd, and then later as a double, both imports long out of print, as are of course the original vinyl lps on Oxbow's own label CFY Records. And this new Hydra Head reissue is the most deluxe and definitive, packaged in a nice paste-on mini lp-style sleeve, and enhanced with four bonus tracks, three of 'em previously unreleased.
Back when we reviewed Hydra Head's similarly presented, equally essential reissue of Fuckfest in 2009, we said that when they did King Of The Jews, we'd probably just write more or less the same review, that is, saying that this record also displays all the elements of Oxbow we appreciate: primal swampy skree and atmospheric loud-soft dynamics, lumbering slide guitar sickness and singer Eugene's regression therapy vocal histrionics... it's part Scratch Acid (or Jesus Lizard), part Butthole Surfers, part Birthday Party, part Cormac McCarthy novel, part primal psycho-sexual cabaret, part utterly alien WTF?!
This album's special guest star Lydia Lunch joins the madness on 2 of the cuts, "Daughter" and "Angel", utterly subsumed into the crazy, kecak-y, confusional handclap chaos of the former (what an album opener, damn!!), adding extra drama to the latter. Not that Oxbow needs much help in the drama department; Eugene's bedlamite mewlings and mutterings amidst the band's desolate atmospheres and sudden rock spasms are both bizarre and intense and go way beyond mere music-as-entertainment that's for sure.
Oxbow has been keeping rock weird for a long time now, and this is one of the most crucial documents in their entire discography. It'll clue you to the Oxbow formula of lots of tension, not so much release, though there's more of the latter here than on some other Oxbow outings... Highly, highly recommended!
After a tiny handful of way too limited cd-r releases, and an endless series of devastating live aktions (including a show stealing opening slot at our 2009 South By Southwest showcase), comes the long awaited full length from this SF boy-girl-boy doom-crush psych-sludge power trio, a sprawling five, track, 40 minute epic, that will definitely hit the spot for all of you hard and heavies that like it slow and low, and dig the likes of the Melvins, Harvey Milk, Boris and other slo-mo dirge merchants. But Prizehog infuse their low end assault with all manner of druggy psychedelia, warped doom pop and blurred blissed out slow-core, conjuring up a sound that pounds and pummels, drift and shimmers, grinds and churns, slipping effortlessly from bombastic Melvinsy howl and chug, to a super hooky heaviness, that reminds us of the warped Buttholes beholden noisepop of Prizehog pals Wildildlife, from a sort of bluesy, blissed out tarpit ZZ Top swing and swagger, to a dark and dolorous black hole heavy slowcore a la Codeine or True Widow, often all wound up into a single song.
Thought Nest begins with "Swayback", opening with a little bit of harmonica flecked blues fakeout, that quickly transforms into some seriously downtuned heavy doompsychblues churn, lurching and mathy and metallic, but laced with some subtle groove, the vocals a sort of worldless croon, the song pounding away before slipping into a woozy, washed ouy lysergic haze, a blurred starfield of chiming guitars and whirling layered melodies, before returning to a more swaggery, slithery lumbering crunch, only to finally blossom into a skull caving, knuckle dragging bit of slo-mo dirgery, all bellowed howls and keening high end tones, wrapped around a pummeling, drum heavy dirge-metal doom-pop workout, grinding its way through clouds of tripped out FX, and finishing off like it began with a bit of harmonica-y blissed out blues, before one final blast of churn and chug.
"Dunner" is up next, unfurling a stretch of tripped out shimmer, draped over garbled soft focus white noise, all hovering beneath clouds of cymbal sizzle, spidery guitar melodies, a druggy bit of drift, before a flurry of monstrous drumming drags with it a glorious psychedelic metallic cacophony, wild squalls of tangled guitars over intense double kick drumming, only to slip right back into something way more abstract, moody and murky, a sort of blackened slo-mo ballad, some simmering slowcore shimmer, bleary and blurred, almost like a more metallic, more drugged out True Widow, the sound dense, and layered, alternatingly smeared and shimmery, soaring and pop flecked, crusty and crunchy...
The oddly titled "Aykranoid" explodes with a chugging almost Eighties style metal riffing wrapped around some pounding black hole drum pummel, wild swooping and swirling effects, and some seriously twisted vox, the aforementioned vocal bellow, but here even MORE bellowy, drenched in effects and way up in the mix, spitting out mush mouthed stream of consciousness vokills, that add a weird psychedelic avant pop vibe to the otherwise more metallic backdrop, before again shifting into a slow slithery crawl, the sound epic and majestic, but still muddy and murky, warped and woozy.
"1865" is a bit more introspective, a slowly materializing smoldering bit of chordal guitardrone buzz, spread out into a gauzy hypnotic hypno-dirge, the beats spread way out, each chord allowed to ring out, and fade into something softer and more shadowy and nebulous, a contorted bit of dark dirge droniness, the sound shifting from crash and crunch, to muted thrum, all very trancelike and ritualistic, especially when the ghostly washed out vocals drift in, the sound transforming into a sort of crumbling, super distorted dream pop, again sounding more like a bastardized True Widow or Codeine, although here the sound grows ever more caustic and corrosive, but never without losing that moody pop vibe, just getting louder, and more dense, eventually locking into a more metallic bit of contorted churn, only to bliss out a bit, before a final stretch of lurching, pounding pop flecked pummel.
Finally, the record finishes off with "Ramsong", which begins in a cloud of grinding guitar noise, and swirls of chaotic buzz, a wild bit of droned out static psych, out of which emerges yet another gorgeous bit of low slung slowcore shimmer, dreamy and druggy and drifty, before exploding in a blast of seriously cruching metallic riffery, the drums a wild octopoidal pound, the vocals that weird Tom Waits / Buzz Osborne bellow, the sound nearly schizophrenic, flitting from pretty drift, to damaged dirge, rife with cool little gnarled guitar licks, streaks of feedback, layers of buried melody, a stuttering sprawl of strangely melodic heaviness, an expansive epic chugscape, that seems to grow more poppy as the song unwinds, and weirdly enough getting darker and more dense, while simultaneously seeming to space out, drifting into something more psychedelic abstract. The song finally begins to dissipate, the various elements loosed from structured song and allowed to float weightless, a darkly delirious night sky of loosely tangled melodies, of overlapping spectral voices, of washed out guitar buzz and deep low end rumbles, soft focus effects and dreamy druggy blissed out ambience.
Fucking SO RULING, gorgeous stuff for sure, crushing, hypnotic, heavy and heady, poppy and spacey, the sort of thing that should appeal to folks who dig the dooooom, or the druggy psychedelia, or the dirgey slowcore, or the warped pop, or the sludgey metal, and just might be your favorite new record if you dig ALL of those. Which we absolutely DO!!
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl and LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Eagerly awaited, at last it's now here, the new import disc from South American doom overlords Procession - and we say overlords without a doubt, even thought his is just the second cd from this crushing Chilean underground act, and in fact can be considered their debut album - since the one we highlighted previously, The Cult Of Disease, was technically an ep, with bonus tracks from an earlier demo. One of those demo tracks, to these ears already a doom classic, "The Road To The Gravegarden", reappears here, redone (with special guest guitar leads/harmonies courtesy of Peter Vicar, ex-Reverend Bizarre). The five new tracks are equally awesome, Procession trudging forth resolutely into eternal darkness, bearing aloft their hymns of glorious despair.
What we said before about Procession certainly applies to this album as well. It's magnificently heavy, the majestic, morose vocals and fuzz laden guitar work are world class (both provided by the same talented gentleman, obviously a doomed soul). Destroyers Of The Faith is possessed of such a serious, sorrowful, doom feel. All the songs except the intro are long (and slow!), but never dull, being both moody and moving. Procession may just be today's truest torchbearers of utter, epic doom, certainly they're way up there with The Wounded Kings, Lord Vicar, Black Oath, Griftegard, and fellow Chileans Condenados, among newer bands well versed in the old ways, carrying on the tradition of Candlemass (who are still at it as well), taking things to an emotionally effecting extreme... defending the (doom) faith, really, not destroying it. And incorporating some interesting, darkly psychedelic textures too, so that this might be the "epic doom metal" band fans of sludgier/artier fare like Cough and Orthodox could really get into as well. Join the procession, and doom on!
We first heard Queens Of The Stone Age on a split with late great stoner rock legends Kyuss way back in 1997, and at the time, QOTSA, a side project of Kyuss axeman Josh Homme, didn't sound all that different than Kyuss, in fact in some ways it sounded even better, a little bit stranger, slightly more poppy, whatever it was we dug it, A LOT. Then came the first full length in 1998, and holy shit, an ass kicking, catchy as fuck, post stoner rock metallic pop wallop, every song a killer, heavy and hooky like few bands before or after. It's easy to forget how good that first QOTSA record really was, in the decade plus since, QOTSA have become a sort of mainstream/MTV/jock band, there have been multiple grammy nominations, there has also been the Eagles Of Death Metal, but if you can forget about all that, this reissue of that record will totally blow you away.
Reissued on Homme's own label, all of these songs sound as good as they did the first time around. The Kyuss vibe was still huge here, especially in Homme's blown out guitar tone, but Homme's vocals definitely suited these poppier songs, which while poppier, were still plenty heavy, just rife with groove and hooks killer chorus, and even more killer verses, the drums powerful and catchy in their own way (a bit like Dave Grohl's drumming in Nirvana, where you find your self humming drum fills!), and the songs, unbeatable. "Regular John" melds thick distorto riffage with some sweet vocalizing, and some cool mathy arrangements, and some crazy catchy melodies, while "Avon" is a dirgey doomy slice of chugging heaviness, but it too is impossibly poppy, a sound so distinctly QOTSA at this point, but when we first heard this stuff, we were so smitten, and we're realizing we sort of still are.
This is one of those records where we could go track by track, and talk about every one and how rad it is, and the thing is, a record that's both heavy and poppy, metallic and sorta weird, those records are rare, few and far between, and odds are like us, it's probably been a while since you've heard this, so might be time to revisit, and odds are you'll kick yourself for not listening to this all the time, cuz it RULES.
One complaint, the new version comes in a slipcover with a huge CENSORED over the original artwork, a black light style painting of a scantily clad woman, hardly censor worthy, makes us wondering if it was a plot to titillate, or simply a requirement to get into Walmart and other conservative spots, either way, kinda silly...
For whatever reason, we never really paid too much attention to Satan's Host, in the fine tradition of book cover judging, we sort of assumed they would be just another generic boring Satanic black metal band, and apparently they were at some point, and it makes sense, the band name, the cheesy (but cool) cover art, they're on Moribund, but this is maybe their 8th record or something, so we checked it out, and wow, not boring black metal, instead some strange sort of Satanic blackened power metal, led by the powerful soaring clean vocals of their original vocalist Harry "The Tyrant" Conklin, he also of the mighty Jag Panzer, and it's a pretty potent combination for sure, total epic TRUE metal vocals, nestled in some crushing, melodic, heavy as hell hybrid of classic metal and buzzing blackness, pretty tough to resist, especially if you love black metal, but tire of the raspy shrieks, or love metal, but find true metal and power metal a little to wimpy, well, then, this is for you.
And to top it off, they do an amazing/ridiculous/dumb/brilliant cover of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood", appropriately metallized (and damn it sounds good all buzzy and blasty), but even better, they rewrote the lyrics, so now it's about burning churches, "Norwegian Wood", get it?! Anyway, some seriously melodic blackened satanic power metal heaviness that the metalheads around here have been digging like crazy, and thus comes way recommended it you're of a similar stripe...
An album that launched thousands of better known records, Ballet Statique is Conrad Schniztler's masterpiece. Schnitzler, of course, was a maverick in the Krautrock community, having been an original member of both Tangerine Dream and Kluster, and later developing an expressive language of tape collage and electronic synthesis which expanded upon his early studies with Joseph Beuys. His most influential works, however, came out in the late '70s following an almost serialist body of work based on the poetics of various colors through electronic sound, eventually leading to Ballet Statique. It was originally released with the title 'Con' back in 1978 through the Barclay funded Egg Records, Ballet Statique is a skeletal distillation of progressive electronics into a bleak hypnosis of rotating melodies, atonal slashes of synthetic noise, and proto-techno rhythmic propulsion. While this album has been reissued a few times since it's original release, the current infatuation with late '70s electronics - especially through the psychedelic and minimal-wave sensibilities - make this reissue especially timely. "Electric Garden" is one of those elegantly simple pieces of electronica with an abstracted, almost random melody guiding Schnitzler's rigid step sequence cast in a cosmic shower of delay ripples with bent electro-shock noises sliding up and down against his motorik drum machine. From a track like this, one can see where Aphex Twin would have been able to make such a profound break from rave culture with these head-spinning sequences. "Metall 1" is all space-dust and comet debris hung weightlessly through Schnitzler's ominous undulations of bright synthetic shimmers and lurching rumbles of metallic low-end, clearly the inspiration for pretty much everything that John Elliott of Emeralds has ever touched. The deep-space sonor pulses of "Black Nails" reprise the tone-bent noises Schnitzler produced on "Electric Garden," looking forward to the robotic bleakness of Monoton, Dome, and Omit. It's pretty shocking how good this record is, and how timeless it sounds, even with the current strain of '70s revivalism. So highly recommended, it's actually embarrassing that we've not written about this record sooner.
As if you hadn't realized it by now, we're sort of crazy Sebadoh fanboys (and girls), we made the last two multiple disc reissues of classic Sebadoh records aQuarius Records Of The Week, and now that we're reviewing this one, we're not exactly sure why we didn't make this one a ROTW too, probably because Sebadoh reissue number three might have seemed a bit much, but fuck it, consider this an UNofficial record of the week, cuz while those other Sebadoh records are great, this one is too, in fact, in some ways it ranks as one of our favorites for several reasons. One, it's one of the heaviest and most rocking of the bunch, some new blood (at the time) seems to have reinvigorated the band. Two, Jason Lowenstein, who on the previous record Bubble & Scrape had finally stepped up and started writing songs that rivaled main man Lou Barlow's tunes, really hit his stride here, some of the best songs on Bakesale are his, and lots of tracks it's tough to tell if the song is Lou's or Jason's, and what might be THEE best Sebadoh song ever, is here, and yep, is penned by Jason. And finally, Bakesale is the last truly great, and classic sounding Sebadoh record, sure Harmacy and The Sebadoh are great, they're just not GREAT. This record is damn near perfect, just the right balance between classic Sebadoh sad boy angst, and seriously rocking crunch.
First, let's talk about that bold claim about THEE best Sebadoh song, maybe that's a bit too bold, let's say one of , if not OUR FAVORITE. The oddly titled "Shit Soup", with its instantly memorable opening bass line, it's almost noise rock riffing, and it's super staccato arrangement, not to mention some killer lyrics, the song seesawing between hooky heavy pop, and weirdly distorted crunch, woozy folky drift and back again, just listen to the sound samples, if you're not blown away, well, hell, we're not sure there's any hope. But even if you don't love "Shit Soup" as much as us, Bakesale is seriously hit heavy, opener "License To Confuse" with it's fuzzy bass, angular guitar part, and droney shuffling chorus, a sub two minute killer, then there's "Careful" another Jason jam, with an awesome melodic bassline that seems to drive the whole song, a song that's tense and dramatic, moving and moody and totally rocking. There's "Magnet's Coil" which is classic Sebadoh, a little supercharged, but at its core, a bittersweet pop song wreathed in crunch and buzz, with some of Barlow's best lyrics and melodies. And let's not forget "Skull", another classic Barlow jam, strummy and jangly, heartfelt and sweetly melancholy, and some super sweet and subtle hooks. Howabout "Rebound"? Yep another CLASSIC, hooky, and fuzzy, with some awesome distorted riffage and more of Lowenstein's fuzzy bass, and a bridge as catchy as most bands' choruses, and then a chorus as catchy as 2 or 3 of most bands' choruses combined. "Drama Mine" is another heavy Jason tune, that balances hooks with crunch, further demonstrating that Bakesale was about as perfect a partnership as could be imagined between Barlow and Lowenstein. And those are just the highlights, highlights among other highlights. Hyperbole, we think not, one of the essential indie rock records of the nineties without a doubt.
This reissue includes a whole mess of extra material (a bonus disc in the cd version, the vinyl inlcudes the bonus material, along with the album proper, as a download), which includes all the various b-sides and extra tracks from various 7"s and cdeps as well as a handful of Jason's demos. And here's where Barlow and company indulged their audio fuckery that figured so prominently on past records, opening with "MOR Backlash", a noisy collage of classic rock and garbled radio transmissions, but in true Sebadoh fashion it leads right into an achingly heartfelt 4 track acoustic version of "Not A Friend", and that's pretty much how the bonus disc plays out, balancing noisy experiments with alternate versions, acoustic home recorded demos, not to mention some unpolished gems, and one of our favorite Sebadoh B-sides, the awesomely titled brooder "Punching Myself In The Face Repeatedly, Publicly".
Includes a massive booklet, with new liner notes from both Jason and Lou, as well as expanded artwork, photos, collages, and some cool early drafts of the iconic over art, featuring a photo of 1 year old naked Lou reaching into the toilet.
Album number four, from San Francisco's garage-pop mastermind Ty Segall. It wasn't that long ago when we talked about how much promise this young guy named Ty seemed to have, and now he's an internationally renowned force to be reckoned with, and this just happens to be his debut full length for Drag City. Segall has been climbing up the musical ladder the righteous way, not by hype or gimmicks, but by touring his ass off and releasing one great record after another.
Goodbye Bread, finds Ty continuing to really focus on being a songwriter who doesn't rely on feedback or distortion to create cool songs, but instead the skeletal core of these songs is where the real meat is stored. Many of these jams show a slower paced, more laid back and almost paisley psych-pop disposition. Sounding like a scrappy cross between Syd Barrett, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, and Roky Erikson, yet none of it feeling like a put on and all of it delivered with an understated ease. Not to worry, there are still wonderful moments of fuzz and distortion, maybe more than ever, but those moments accent the album instead of shape it.
Ty has found ways to stay raw and spirited without having to hide behind a simple means of recording and playing. He's more than proved his mettle as one of the most captivating and commanding songwriters around. And no matter if the songs are slow or fast (we love how the last ten seconds of "My Head Explodes" morphs into the guitar shredding intensity of an early '80s hardcore-punk song) they all stick in our heads like crazy. It's funny that this is the most sneering and agitated recording he has made. Taking advantage of a slower pace in songs to amplify the moments of tension and release. It sounds so corporate rock magazine of us to say, but this really does sound like an amazing combination of Kurt Cobain's aesthetic and introspection mixed with Jack White's musical prowess and garage rock roots appreciation. But damn, just because they were/are huge doesn't mean being compared to Nirvana and The White Stripes is a bad thing, in fact it's fucking rad! Once again, Ty hits the mark RIGHT ON.
How does he do it? R. Loren of Pyramids, Sailors With Wax Wings and White Moth launched his new vinyl only label mere months ago, and already has a catalog that puts most labels who have been up and running for years to shame, releases from Blut Aus Nord, Celestiial, His Name Is Alive, Key, Evan Caminiti, Der Blutharsch (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), with forthcoming releases from Black Boned Angel, Blood Of The Black Owl, Circle Of Ouroborus, Human Quena Orchestra, Crooked Necks, Jasper TX, Our Love Will Destroy The World, Lovesliescrushing, Panopticon, Sutekh Hexen, Locrian, White Ring, Tenhornedbeast and TONS more, a mix of reissues and brand new records, and it wouldn't be so bad if everything wasn't so good, but if you're like us, you want them ALL.
Including this, a brand new release from black metal psych drone duo Servile Sect, formerly of Arizona but now split up with one member in Humbolt, the other in NYC, but the distance doesn't seem to have made much of a difference, with TRVTH taking up right where their last full length left off, a sprawling expanse of drugged out blackened psychedelia, programmed rhythms, buzzing lumbering dirges, thick guitars blurred into washed out streaks, harsh vokills that seem to hover wraith like within ever swirling clouds of dark effects and slowed down riffage, the sound shifts from blurred murk, to smoldering black effulgence, from grinding churning crunch to hazy abstract drift, SS's version of black metal less about the blast and buzz, and more about the vibe, the sound, the tone, the texture, the ambience, the mood, the feel, the duo crouched behind their duct tape adorned synths, a holy mountain of gear, hiding these alchemists as they unfurl sprawling soundscapes equal part haunting blackness, and druggy dreamy shimmer, each grim missive a controlled chaos of black hole dopesmoke drift and blackened ritualistic ur-drone buzz.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!!
Remember this deathly, doomic band and their debut Tomb Coven from 2009, which we recommended to fans of Acid Witch? Well, the fleshless ones are back, and now even witchier. That's 'cause somewhere along the way, they revamped their lineup. Original guitarist Sacrifice The Virgin is gone, leaving bassist Behold The Pentagram and drummer Haunting The Beyond to recruit into the band, in the incestuous fashion of many Razorback acts, none other than Vanessa Nocera, whom you know as frontwoman for Wooden Stake. With S.T.V. out, now B.T.P. plays both guitar and bass, while H.T.B. is still on drums, and Nocera (why didn't they make her adopt a Something The Something stage name, we wonder?) handles all the vocals, previously B.T.P.'s department. When she does the low guttural grunting death metal Cookie Monster / Boris The Spider thing (which she does, and does convincingly), you might not notice the difference. But, sometimes she also "sings" more properly, cleanly yet creepily, which witch-ily adds to the occult atmosphere they intend to evoke, Nocera sounding like some evil high priestess, surrounded by chanting monks. You do definitely get more of her deliberately wretched vokills here, than her cleaner, "Jex Thoth" style, though.
Vanessa's vocal versatility is melded to what the band already did quite well, catchy old school death metal with some sludgier spooky slow parts. The same Swedish DM buzzsaw guitar grind as before is in full effect, with a rakish hint of rock n' roll in their chunky riffage and squeaky leads. Lyrically, of course, it's all campy splatter cinema and EC Comics shenanigans. Ferinstance, "Sekhmet Prowls The Azure Night" is written from the POV of an undead Egyptian mummy (hence the vaguely Middle Eastern sounding guitar break at 2:21), "Raw Head & Bloody Bones" is about the supernatural revenge of a razorback hog (!), killed by hunters, while "Master Of The Muck" is not about a monster, but actually about cult comic book illustrator Bernie Wrightson, a tribute to him.
So this new Skeletal Spectre is for anyone with an appreciation of that "fun" horror aesthetic, and who digs death metal; specifically for fans of the doomier stuff, specifically Wooden Stake (of course), Acid Witch, Hooded Menace, Decrepitaph, plus early Dismember and Entombed, etc.
We reviewed a previous, long out of print reissue of this, way back in 1999, saying simply and succinctly (as we did back then, we're more long winded now):
Outstanding psychedelic folk rarity with delicate female vocals, from Hawaiian trio circa 1973. There's just enough tabla, slide guitar, and Arp synthesizer to give it an 'edge.'
We further cited it as being one of then AQ-owner Windy's new favorites.
Well, These Trails apparently have fans over at Drag City too, 'cause they've just reissued it, on cd and vinyl, and we're glad to have this old fave back! These gentle, melodic songs are alternately sunny, sprightly and delightful, or moody and mellow, a bit country-twangy and tropical too, this album overall having a wonderful hippy Hawaiian vibe to it... As mentioned above, some strangely buzzing, burbling synth alongside the acoustic guitars and dulcimer gives the proceedings a darker, mystical feel much of the time, with tracks like the droning, melancholy "Hello Lou" being among our favorites. The vintage electronics, in combination with the lovely harmonized vocals, do definitely put this into a very special category of its own, even among all the privately pressed, mysterious one-album-ever gems out there, from the dusty past.
Definitely for fans of Linda Perhacs, also perhaps imagine '70 UK folksters Trees on a Hawaiian vacation, on the beach at sunset, with a synth plugged in somewhere.
Perfect time to have this reissued, with the ongoing acid folk and New Age revival, lots of folks haven't heard this before and are gonna LOVE it. We should have had it on our Summer Special last inbetween list, come to think of it. So check it out, and hang loose, very loose, with These Trails.
Maybe Drag City will reissue The Enlightening Beam of Axonda, next...?
By the way, amazing that These Trails somehow anticipated the internet, by writing a song here called "Of Broken Links"... haha.
What an awesome new band from right here in San Francisco. Some of you might remember how much we raved about Marc Manning's self released cd-r from last year. A dark, doomy and rustic bedroom excursion that left such an impact on us. Tied To The Branches finds Manning teamed up with his longtime partner, Brad DerManouelian and Justin Wasterlain to create some of the most captivating and inpactful, sludgy and dreamy pop that we could imagine. The sound is like this awesome combination of slowcore legends Low if they added languid synths and drum machines into their mix, while playing interpretations of demos by The Cure, The Chills, Codeine, and The Clean. The songs have a drifty and dirgy disposition that evoke in us such a satisfying daydreamy shoegaze state of mind.
While there has been no shortage of shoegaze inspired bands as of late, so many of them are tapping much more into the polished and glossy side of the genre, so it's so nice to hear a group channeling some of that sound from a much more primitive and DIY ethic. In ways the songs make us think of Slowdive's Pygmalion recorded in a dark and dusty garage. It's one of those records we could see being a 'pop' favorite of folks who usually are into really dark and even metallic sounds, and it could be the weird and sludgy exception for folks who usually are into cleaner and more peppy lo-fi pop. The five songs on Light Of Day, It's OK, clock in at just under half an hour, and are all filled with such understated beauty and an undeniable integrity. So fucking good!
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!
We've long been fans of New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery, his guitar sound so distinctive, able to conjure up whole other worlds with his music, having cut his teeth in legendary groups like Dadamah and Dissolve, it was really as a solo artist where Montgomery finally unleashed his full potential. A sort of reverbed minimalism writ large, Montgomery takes simple melodic phrases, fragments, riffs, even just a few notes, and transforms them into mesmerizing landscapes of sound, hazy and spacey, multitracked expanses of melodic mesmer, his playing fluid and lyrical, all of the edges smoothed out by a battery of deftly employed effects, transforming the guitar into some sort of alien psychedelic sound generator, able to fashion strangely inviting sonic worlds for the listener to explore, and get lost in.
So we were curious to hear this, the oddly named Torlesse Super Group (a reference to some NZ geology apparently), which is (or was, this was actually recorded back in 2004-2007), Montgomery's new group, or duo to be more precise, and finds Montgomery teaming up with Nick Guy, who we had never heard of before, for a strangely haunting, and surprisingly rhythmic bit of hazy, psychedelic, post industrial, dreamlike guitarscapery.
The record opens with the three part, 16 plus minute "Erewhon Sentinel", the first part of which is a super abstract stretch of looped skeletal rhythm, a barely there bit of staggered static, distant melodic swells, twisted flecks of glitchy electronics, eventually a deep low end thrum surfaces, as well as some creepy soundtracky chimes, not to mention some ven creepier bits of distorted crunch, the low end beginning to pulse, all cinematic and a little bit ominous, honestly we would have been happy if this was ALL the record did, but then we would have missed out on part two, which might be our favorite new jam, beginning with more rumbling low end, laced with some cool super distorted melody, the result is very ghostly and otherworldly, and then a beat comes in, a slow, slithery, downtempo skitter, and suddenly this sounds like some post Portishead, post Bowery Electric sort of electronic ambient creep, now THIS definitely could have continued for the rest of the record, hypnotic and low slung, woozy and warped, a sort of subterranean underwater lope, very soundtracky, evokes all sorts of super striking images, rain slicked streets, dark abandoned cities, low lit late night speakeasies. The sound continues to develop, additional melodies, more layers, harmonies, distant lo fi chimes, looped electronic high end squiggles, all drifting on that low thrum and hypnotic shuffle. Part three is something else entirely, sounding like a lo-fi melding of Autechre and Seefeel, a little bit glitchy, but warm and organic, swoonsome and woozy and dreamily looped, wound around some serpentine melodies, and plenty of fuzz and thrum.
Definitely a surprise, if Montgomery is playing guitar over all this, then he's even more of an alchemist than we already thought, cuz nothing here sounds distinctly guitar-like, at least in this opening salvo, all textural and ever shifting timbres, and layered loops, and swirling atmospheres, and propulsive rhythms and dark sonic swirl. It's not until the fourth track, where the guitar finally makes its presence obvious, with Montgomery unfurling a looped bit of repetitive riffage, eventually joined by a super skeletal beat, and then an avalanche of guitars, all buzzy and psychedelic, warm and washed out, creating a heady, hazy sprawl of mesmerizing drone rock shimmer, definitely more reminiscent of past recordings.
The rest of the record plays out in a similar fashion, with Montgomery laying down some spare, sparse guitar, sometimes lacing it with muted feedback, or woozy folky strum, while his partner (we presume) wraps these delicate bits of melody with streaks of glitch, fragmented rhythms, even seeming to add some dub to the sound, letting various elements careen and drift before settling back into their original druggy drift, the sound is super hypnotic, fantastically lysergic and dreamy, the sounds tapping into a psychedelia akin to Spacemen 3, repetitive, cyclical, a core droned out loop, but surrounded by crumbling distortion, sonar like pings, but with Montgomery's melodic reverby strum at its core.
The final track in fact begins with that reverby strum, hear letting a single strum repeat, ring out into the ether, before gradually, various other sounds creep in from the periphery, streaks of pulsing buzz, hushed shimmery swells, it's almost like the dreamiest, prettiest, softest doom ever, which weirdly enough is more like the Montgomery of old than anything else here, it's late night drift off dreamdrone psychedelia, strummy and shimmery, it's not really until about 9 minutes in that some crunch and heft are added to the mix, but subtly, so they don't overwhelm, instead, they just add density, and Montgomery's strummy grows more urgent as well, and added layers of melodic counterpoint and guitar harmonies, only make the sound blossom into something both lush and lovely, crunchy and a little bit dark, before finally fading out into a sweetly melancholic softly psychedelic haze. Gorgeous!
We discovered a little stash of these recently in the closet, the 2005 debut from these bizarre Norwegian black metal trolls, who will obviously appeal to the same folks who dig Finntroll (us!!), similarly combining polka-like folk music, all fiddles and jaw harp and campfire twang, with tangled, maniacal almost punkish black metal blasting, singing in their own Trollish tongue (known as Trollsprak), and dizzying genre hopping arrangements, that flit from furious black buzz, to fiddle laced buzz drenched sea shanty, to ale hoisting drinking song, to sea sick black metal waltz, the various parts and sounds constantly tangling and intertwining, buzz meets jawharp, fiddle meets blast beat, it's pretty goofy, but pretty fun too, not sure if these guys go whole hog and dress up like trolls, but it sure sounds like they do. And the cover features a pretty awesome illustration of a beer drinking troll and his mad beast pet, seemingly carved into the trunk of an old tree. Nice! Only a few of these around...
Warehouse find! The final record from Finnish black blasters Uncreation's Dawn (who have since changed their name and continued on as Uncelestial), released way back in 2006, just discovered a small handful of these lurking in the back, and fans of all things Finnish black metal and Northern Heritage will find much to dig here. After a strange, old timey lo-fi piano intro, the band immediately lurch into action, the first track a super distorted, buzzy and black pound, the sound thick and super heavy, the vocals a monstrous bellow, the riffs gnarled and minor key, the sound a buzzing chugging midtempo lumber, the arrangement super dynamic, with the band shifting from relentless pound, to woozy start / stop breakdowns, eventually exploding into full on frenzied blasting, only to slip right back into a doomy plod.
And from there on out, the band continue to unfurl a wild tangle of swirling blackness, from dense almost Deathspell style churn, to more d-beat sounding punkish pound, to midtempo blackened doom, to wild furious black thrash crunch.
Only got a few of these...
For their second cd and first full length, The Union Trade's previous post-rock leanings are embraced by their fuzzy indie rock selves. Definitely brings to mind the slouchy, slightly dour charm of '90s college rock kingpins Sebadoh and Seam... for sure a good thing in our books! They've stripped back quite a bit of the guitar effects which dominated their previous release 2007's Now The Swell ep (or perhaps have more thoroughly integrated them), and have retained a nice warm blanket of reverb and gentler squalls of distortion. They're much more vocal heavy too. Eleven terrific songs for these overcast drizzly days!
Time once again, we're honored to announce, that we all are enabled to plug directly into the Earth's own Ur-Drone, 'cause we've got the new album from England's Urthona, psychedelic drone warriors heavily inspired, or even empowered, by the mythic natural landscapes of their rural West Country home, a green and pleasant and pagan land...
Previous Urthona missives have all contained long, epic tracks, but this one takes things further, as it's but one single piece, clocking in at 47 minutes, 59 seconds, conceptually concerned with the "elemental cyclic seasons" and patterns of weather in the Southwest of England. "Super-Heavy Hamoazian Reverie" lives up to its title, and you don't even have to know what "Hamoazian" means (The Hamoaze is a stretch of river in Devon and Cornwall, it turns out). There's field recordings from the area's moors and ancient tors woven into/buried under the hazy, echoing guitar distortion, feedback and assorted electronics of the main Urthona dude/druid Neil Mortimer - whose usual amped up, windswept guitar and synthesizer is augmented by more modular synth from prior Urthona collaborator The Asterism, as well as for the first time on an Urthona recording, drums! Though we feel like we've heard some subtle hand percussion on other Urthonas, before. The drums here, though, are more to the fore, when unleashed - while much of this is droning, drifting drumlessness, when they do start pounding the skins, additional krautrocking power is manifested, and maybe it's no surprise that one of the guest drummers here is longtime Urthona associate Julian Cope, who knows a thing or two about ritualistic rock n' roll. The other two (!) drummers are Mr. E from Cope's band Braindonor, and one Albert Snazz. We're beginning to think of the Boredoms, say circa Super Roots 5. And as always, we'll mention Ulan Khol, Keiji Haino, and maybe Neil Young a la Arc.
Cope you may remember once appeared on a SUNNO))) album, spouting pagan poetry... and while this is all-instrumental (they confine the poetry to the text found on the cd's sleeve and its inserts), Urthona could definitely (again) be compared to a pastoral SUNNO))) of sorts. This album is a sometimes blissful, but often blistering, trip, certainly meant to be played LOUD for full submission/submergence. There's feedbacky frenzies and quieter, calmer stretches too... sometimes The Hamoaze is flowing strongly, water roiling, other times it meanders gently, into an estuary with "strange eddies and weird tides", where you could certainly still slip beneath its placid surface and drown, down among the "conger eels and U-boat nets"... we're quoting here from the text that accompanies the cd, which is packaged, as with previous Urthona releases, in a handsome, eco-friendly cardboard tri-fold sleeve, with lovely photos/art, including two card inserts bearing quotations from William Blake and Fredrick Douglass.
Yay, it's Christmastime again. Well, US Xmas time that is. We don't know why they picked that odd name (abbreviated here to USX, dunno if that's an official change or what), but it doesn't matter now anyhow, since we've become firm fans of this band of Southern, psychedelic space rock, Hawkwind-worshipping, country-flecked heavies. Fans like us will be happy that they've got a new album out, and it's good, real good. However, The Valley Path may or may not be the best one for the uninitiated to start with, as it consists of but one long (38:53) song! A real doozy, obviously. Listening to this, we realize USX remind us of True Widow, if they stretched out and drew more on the majestic post-rock dynamics of the Neur-Isis contingent (USX are on Neurot after all), big and bombastic yet seriously moody and atmospheric at the same time. This album/song is replete with weary vocals, epic wailing psych guitar eruptions, wide open drone-twang, sweeping strings, martial drums, ambient field recordings, and sizzling synth FX... Yeah, we think you'll like it, if you dig anything/everything from latter-days Earth and Barn Owl to Godspeed You Black Emperor! to Six Organs Of Admittance to Grails to more recent Zoroaster. Merry USX everybody!
Another excellent compilation from Soul Jazz, even though we were a bit perplexed by it at first.
What we thought was going to be a southern rock primer (a la Marshall Tucker Band, Molly Hatchet, etc.) was only part of the story. Sure Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers are represented, but so are Johnny Cash, Joe South, Big Star, Boz Scaggs, and Cher(!?). It turns out the connection between these artists is behind the scenes, as the session players and studios behind much of seventies southern rock (namely Muscle Shoals, but also studios in Memphis and Nashville) had a hand in much of the country and soul production of the fifties and sixties. So this is more of a primer of the development of a regional sound, which comes across sound-wise as the peak of country crossover meets the roots of seventies rock, with the crossover acts edging towards rock, and the rock acts showing there mellower side. But it's all deep cuts here, no "Sweet Home Alabama", thankfully. Though some artists we thought should have been included are only represented through cover versions, which explains the presence of Cher who covers Dr. John's "I Walk On Gilded Splinters". But we were very happy to see Bobbie Gentry getting some love with three songs included. Often relegated to one hit wonder status, she made several great records with some of the finest southern production there is.
So those looking for more hell-raising, whisky drinking boogie rock, this might not be the comp for you. But those who dig the brilliance of southern studio production, this has that in spades! Here is a complete artist list: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Barefoot Jerry, Joe South, Bobbie Gentry, Area Code 615, Allman Brothers, Cher, Cowboy, Link Wray, Boz Scaggs, Leon Russell, Tony Joe White, Dan Penn, Linda Ronstadt, Big Star, Travis Wammack, Johnny Cash, and Billy Vera. Comes with a 68 page full color booklet chock full of pictures and history of this prolific musical region.
Once again, this one is for all the Grind Bastards out there, the fifth in this long running series of Japanese comps, collecting the best of (mostly) Japanese grind, released on the Grind Freaks label, run by legendary Japanese grinders Unholy Grave, who are present here, along with some other longtime faves: Mortalized, Agothocles and some others. But the best part of these comps is discovering all the weird ultra underground grind outfits you'd most likely not hear anywhere else: Red Ran Amber, Ada Max, Extreme Noise Destroyer, Hell And Hell, Easies, Fortitude, Midnight Resurrector, Naqro, Parasite and more!
Obviously, this comp is called Grind Bastards, on a label called Grind Freaks, so odds are if you made it this far you know what you're getting into, fast and furious, blasting, churning, chugging, GRINDing heaviness, frenzied beats, insane riffing, howled and screeched vox, total metallic chaos, blurry punk mayhem, short sharp blasts of super complex, downtuned intricate metallic grind. We're digging Red Ran Amber, who if all was fair would be getting the same love as say Wormrot, Pig Destroyer or any of the other grind outfits on Relapse, Mortalized offer up another minute long epic, further convincing us that they might have the potential to be our favorite grinders if they only had more material out and it was a lot easier to track down, Extreme Noise Destroyer offer up some sort of distortion drenched bit of acoustic guitar weirdness before launching into some serious downtuned devastation, the Easies spit out blasts of super blown out and in-the-red chaos, Brob offer up some seriously old school powerviolence fastcore grind, their sound thick and caustic, Parasite are almost straight up classic eighties metal, complete with super melodic harmonized guitar leads, while Naqro might be a new favorite, their super raw lo-fi sound impossibly dense and heavy, their sound swinging wildly from frantic grind to swinging almost groovy metallic churn, and Midnight Resurrector kick out the straight up hip hop, not sure if they're normally a grind band or they just have some grind cred (they do infuse their sound with some fat fuzzy bass, and some Hawd Gangstah style bellowed rapping). Already can't wait for volume six! Comes in a cool fold out punk rock poster style sleeve.
Sublime Frequencies and Mississippi Records may get all the world music hipster love, and it's not like they don't deserve it, but anyone into either label, or especially both, would do well to pay attention to a little label called World Arbiter who consistently release some of the most mysterious and amazing music we have ever heard. From gamelan, to sitar, to historic Chinese folk music, to minimal Moog music, to Buddhist chants, to Moroccan trance to this, the third volume in WA's series of 1941 recordings of legendary masters of the koto, a long 13 stringed zither, and the shamisen, a three stringed lute, performing various traditional vocal and theatrical pieces.
The sounds here are mystical and magical, the recordings warm and fantastically scratchy, the koto tracks are spare and haunting, both the voices and the instruments producing such distinctive tones, the interplay subtle but so beautiful, like some lost Japanese blues, haunting, and achingly lovely, hushed and intimate, the vocals both male and female deeply moving, and perfectly matched to the spare instrumentation. The shamisen pieces are more percussive, the vocals too more urgent, these tracks sounding even more like old timey blues Japanese style, which is essentially what Japanese traditional folk music is, these tracks often accompanying dances and kabuki performances, with various types of percussion, not to mention fluttering flutes, and some very distinctive vocalizing. And like the koto tracks, wreathed in a warm old time crackle that only add to the wonderful mystery of these magical sounds. Recommended for fans of all the recent world music reissues, regardless of label, as well as are all of the other World Arbiter releases...
Includes extensive liner notes in both English and Japanese.
Yes! Just in time for the bright sunshine and actual summer vibes we've been basking in this last week comes the latest offering from Strut's awesome Nigeria 70 series. A collection of smoking Afro-funk, highlife, and juju from Lagos, Nigeria. Such spirited and body moving tracks drenched in so much soul and infectious energy. It's so awesome to discover lots of new-to us artists, we love when great comps get us searching for more from groups we can't believe we haven't heard from before. Who knows how likely it is to actually find more recordings from some of these folks, which makes thick comp invaluable, as Strut always digs so deep and complete in their curatorial excellence. We're going to be blasting this all summer long and beyond!
Everyone knows we at aQuarius love us some comps. That much should be clear on pretty much any list, and lately we've gotten some interesting compilations that place a new and different emphasis on things instead of merely throwing together a bunch of great tracks from whatever genre. The ones that stand out the clearest are the recent Dirty Water albums, which include artists who aren't necessarily "punk" in the '77 studded leather jacket way, but undoubtedly punk as fuck in their iconoclastic assault on the status quo. That's why you'll find Albert Ayler next to Captain Beefheart and Mott the Hoople, artists that inspired the great big giant fuck you to society that we all know and love. With Spacelines, we have a particularly intriguing batch of tunes put together by none other than Sonic Boom himself, and anyone in love with Spacemen 3, Spectrum, or Spiritualized (sorry Sonic!) will most likely dig this shit BIG TIME. It all makes perfect sense and while it's a bummer that there is no information about anybody here, they are for the most part familiar enough that you should already know what they're about or not have any trouble finding all the relevant info. Instead, this comp is a bit like hanging out and burning one down with your ol' buddy Sonic Boom.
The album kicks off with the Staples Singers' "This May Be The Last Time", the obvious roots for the Stones song and a clear influence on the Spacemen 3, sounding a lot like their rendition of "May The Circle Be Unbroken". Bo Diddley is next with "You Don't Care", a classic albeit stripped to the bare bones example of the man's trademark rhythm, its minimal approach clearly a huge influence on a band like Spacemen 3. "Transparent Radiation", which we described as perhaps one of Spacemen 3's finest moments, is presented here by its authors the Red Crayola in a super bare demo form. It's funny hearing Mayo Thompson singing with a sort of fey vocal and laughing from time to time. There are also contributions from Washington Phillips and Jessie Mae Hemphill, who should be familiar to many of you from recent Mississippi Records titles. Other highlights include "Can't Let Go" by Evie Sands (the melody of which was utilized with completely stellar results in Spectrum's "How You Satisfy Me"), Juicy Lucy with their swampy original version of "Just One Time" covered by Spacemen 3 as "Mary Anne", Daniel Johnston, MC5, and northwest garage legends the Wailers. At 23 songs on a single cd, this one may be perfect for those who might have had difficulty gulping down the massive double disc Dirty Water sets. All in all, a seriously kick ass collection, one that proves how many of the greatest bands are perhaps, more than anything else, great interpreters.
Another breezy summer jam from local favorites, Vetiver. It's even more apparent on this second release on Sub Pop, that Vetiver is making larger strides towards a wider audience. The songs have a less introspective quality than on their last record while keeping the warm and hazy production intact.
But in the arrangements and especially the song-writing, Andy Cabic and cohorts have stepped up their game big time. We can see this as the soundtrack to many summer barbeques and friendly gatherings for the months to come. Nice!
Latest blast of blackened buzz from Matthew Bower's Voltigeurs project. Bower and partner in buzz Samantha Davies (who also does time with Bower in Skullflower) continue to take the sound of Voltigeurs in a distinctly black metal direction. Sure past records definitely hinted at the blackness that informed them. We described their sound at one point as sounding like "a symphony of black metal cassettes unspooling in zero gravity", which actually sort of still applies, but if anything, the sound of Voltigeurs seems to be bucking the trend of Bower's other projects. While Skullflower seems to be rapidly (d)evolving into something much more akin to pure noise, the last few records growing increasingly harsh and chaotic, on Nazi Ponies the sound seems to be approaching something much more obviously black metal, albeit via Bower's cracked sensibilities. The sound of Nazi Ponies is still a swirling cloud of chaotic noise, of blurred crunch and layered skree, but within this roiling black cloud, Bower unwinds mournful, depressive melodies, almost folky at times, as if someone removed the melodic skeleton from a Drudkh or Arckanum jam and dropped them into a swirling black cauldron of Bower's grinding post industrial freenoise soundscaping, the results are pretty divine, and again sound like some loose approximation of black metal, as if some strange force was pulling apart the very molecules of buzz and blast, into whatever this is, an amorphous sprawl of blurred buzz, and creeping ominous minor key buzz. The second part basically sounds like a supercharged even more distorted version of part 1, the buzz cranked way up, the low end thick and viscous, that same folky blackened minor key melody, now barely audible beneath heaving waves of crumbling greynoise crunch and churning pulled apart riffage, a glorious blown out smear of caustic and chaotic blackness.
LIMITED TO JUST 77 COPIES!!
Another warehouse find, this one the 2007 full length from these Hungarian (!) black metallers, named for a remote Siberian city that was the location for an infamous wartime gulag, Into The Chasms of Lunacy is an appropriately, grim and depressive slab of harsh blackness, that blackness of course is at its core made up of: howled vokills, pounding drums (way up in the mix) and plenty of brittle buzz, but these sounds are wreathed in a haunting atmosphere, thick swaths of mournful melancholia, be it spidery minor key guitar melodies, or creeping droned out ambience, even the blasting black buzz seems to constantly be pulled toward something more lumbering and hauntingly melodic, with the bass a surprisingly strong presence, adding even more melody and a dark low slung slither, not to mention the hazy swirls of washed out synth. In fact, that drift and shimmer makes up most of the disc, with the group spending more time weaving lush atmospheric landscapes, hushed minimal ambience and sprawling droned out drifts, only occasionally peppering that minimal moodiness with some surprisingly raw and constantly shifting buzz and crunch. Not sure how we missed writing this up this first time around...
It's not entirely clear why these two pieces were bundled together, other than they're awesome, and they're both by Chris Watson, he formerly of electronic legends Cabaret Voltaire, now composer and field recordist, the first half of this here two-fer, is in fact, a processed field recording, but not processed in the way we're used to, where found sounds are mutated into new sounds, no, what Watson has done is recorded 12 hours (sunset to sunrise) of South Africa's Kalahari Desert, the hidden nighttime symphony that is the world of the nocturnal animals and insects, but that whole 12 hour recording, compressed into a mere 28 minutes. The cool thing is, it doesn't actually sound strange or processed, it's not a barrage of overlapping sounds, instead, Watson has deftly created a half hour glimpse of the desert at night, the trill of crickets, the high pitched whine of other insects, the whipping wind, chirping birds, some of the sounds identifiable, but many of them downright alien sounding, the whole thing in some ways playing out like some abstract experimental 20th century electronic tape music, only as always done better by nature. A gorgeous, haunting listen.
The second piece by Watson for a festival called PESTival focusing on "insects in the arts and the art of being an insect" (we definitely need to check that out!), and composed and arranged by Marcus Davidson using recordings by Watson, exploring vocal harmonies between humans and bees, a choral piece woven into the sound of buzzing bees, the result is pretty stunning.
A warm summery afternoon, replete with wildly chirping birds, is underpinned by the deep thrum of buzzing bees, over which the choir sings long tones, creating lush harmonies, and mysterious overtones. At first, it's more vocals, the bess way down in the mix, but as the track progresses, the buzz of the bees grows more prominent, the human voices more hauntingly liturgical, building to an intense operatic crescendo culminating in a squall of blurred smeared sound, sounding neither animal or human, before fading back into the insect chorale, the human voices drifting dreamily over the lovely low end hum of buzzing bees, that buzz, growing murkier and muddier until for the last few minutes it's just a warm washed out thrum. So lovely.
Latest blast of psychedelic space rock from these NYC sonic assassins, and like all the previous White Hills jams, it's a good one, but in some ways, it's actually a lot different, still present are the usual space rockisms, swirling effects drenched guitars, pounding drums, vox buried in the mix, extended droned out jams and seriously psychedelic leads, but the tone is different, and the arrangements are more jagged, more varied, apparently this records is thematically focused on the band's anti government and anti-corporation sentiments, and we have to say, it sort of suits them, right out of the gate, opening track "The Condition Of Nothing" is a killer, a lot heavier and darker than much of the White Hills that have came before.
Dark buzzing guitars, woozy effects drenched atmosphere, motorik drumming, chanted dead eyed vox, some seriously caustic and crunchy FX, the guitar tones thick and super distorted, the sound ominous and sinister, the roiling riffage infused with a pulsing droning thrum, but then there's some super melodic female vox, courtesy of WH bassist Ego Sensation, which lead right into a cool, lurching breakdown that sounds almost pasted in, but it's a cool jagged shift, and just makes the track sound that much more fierce when the band swoop back into their churning droned out space psych, which is also laced with plenty of crunchy chug, and then comes the solo, which is super noisy, a little shreddy, a wild tangle of synths and guitars, all wound up into a whirling blown out wah wah drenched squall, before slipping right into that breakdown again, but this time stretching it way out into a hazy, druggy sprawl of synthy buzz, woozy and washed out and hauntingly dreamy, playing out till the end. Shit, just one song in, and we're thinking this may be the best WH record yet. After a brief experimental synth / noise interlude, the band slip into a slow burn lope, all blissed out minimal rhythm, layered hushed buzz, beneath softly swirling clouds of spaced out FX, quickly building to thick slab of reverb and distortion drenched hypnorock, mesmerizing and cyclical, the effects getting more and more pronounced, threatening to swallow the rest of the music whole, heavy and heady, but still sorta blissed out and laid back.
The next track is another angry groover, a thick propulsive rhythm, some pulsing synthbass buzz, like a supercharged Circle, locked tight for nearly 13 minutes, the sort of jam that might as well have gone on for 13 more, the main groove static and solid, while all around the band unleash some of their most twisted effects and warped atmospheres, adding woozy melodic layers, of jagged shards of processed hiss and static, some warbly almost new wavey synths, the whole thing, fuzzy and thick and totally and irresistibly mesmerizing.
White Hills kick out the jams on "Upon Arrival" a synth soaked guitar heavy Stooges-y stomp, the riffiest and poppiest of the bunch, hard and heavy but hooky as hell, and still appropriately spaced out, before slipping into a suite of experimental ambience, a thick, buzzy, almost funereal organ dronescape, a blown out synthdrone sprawl, all low end pulsations, warped FX, thick processed guitars, doom drenched downtuned riffage, and sci-fi spacey ambience, a weird drum heavy, tribal rhythmic workout, horn like tones, stretched into layered drones, glitched out electronics, propuslive and almost dancey, before the whole thing gets all tangled up and processed into a crunchy garbled smear of squelches, which brings us to the epic 17 minute closer, which is basically the ultimate White Hills jam, starting out all riffy and Stooges-y, before evolving into a heart of the sun psychedelic guitar jam, then slowing down to a druggy low slung crawl, only to explode right back into it, another stomping groove, wild leads, over thick crunchy riffs, and woozy walking basslines, building to a majestic ur-drone bass-heavy psychedelic space drift, before fading out into several minutes of gradually fading space-y swirl.
Fuck yeah, so good, and utterly kick ass all the way through, assuming we can get past that kick ass opener. As always, psychedelic spacelords and ladies need look no further than this for their cosmic fix.
We won't go into too much detail about this one, as it's already sold out and out of print, and these are the last copies we'll be able to get. Two live sets, both recorded at New Jersey radio station WFMU, one last year, one back in 2007, from longtime aQ faves, psychedelic space rockers White Hills. Both sets offer up variations of exactly what we've come to expect from these guys (and gal). Blown out distortion drenched Hawkwind via Stooges soar and stomp, the guitars swirling in thick druggy clouds, the riffs crunchy and wreathed in effects, the vocals buried in the mix, the drums propulsive and hard hitting, the sounds all blurred and gauzy, smeared into long sprawls of buzzing, smoldering spaced out heaviness, the more recent set definitely leans towards the heavier side of the spectrum, while the 2007 set gets way more abstract and drifty, melding chug and churn riffiness (bordering on psychedelic doom in places), with something much more shimmery and dreamily psychedelic. Needless to say, for WH fans, this is of course essential. And definitely recommended for the usual folks, fans of the Heads, Hawkwind, Wooden Shjips, Monster Magnet and the rest of the psych/space rock brigade...
And again, LIMITED TO 150 COPIES. SOLD OUT AT THE LABEL! These are the last copies EVER. ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
The awesomely titled Might Of The Planet Eater is the latest from mysterious Finnish one man band Will Over Matter, which just so happens to be the work of a fella by the name of Harald Mentor, who you might know better as the maniac behind avant outsider not-quite-black-metal weirdos Ride For Revenge. So if the low end rhythmic weirdness that is Ride For Revenge is one step removed from black metal, imagine Will Over Matter as about 5 or 6 steps past that. Not black metal at all, but more like some sort of outsider electronica.
Our obsession with Ride For Revenge stems from the fact that over the course of their career, their sound has changed to the point where they are now totally subverting and transforming the idea of black metal into something much more primal and rhythmic, forgoing the buzz and blast and replacing those obvious BM tropes with looped mesmer and tribal pound, stripping the sound down to its essence, and then slowing it down as well, sounding more to us like Aluk Todolo than Beherit. Although the mention of Beherit, another Finnish black metal institution seems particularly apt here, in that Beherit are infamous for their non-black metal output, their experimental electronics, which is precisely what Will Over Matter is. If Ride For Revenge is Mentor's twisted take on black metal, well then Will Over Matter is his skewed attempt at power electronics, or industrial music, channeling the spirit of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Whitehouse, and all the rest, but filtered through some sort of cracked and damaged blackened Finnish lens.
Will Over Matter combines the stripped down rhythmic minimalism of Ride For Revenge with experimental industrialism, melding lumbering beats to fields of spaced out static, wrapping sheets of Merzbowian noise around shuffling low end thrum and machinelike beats, adding distorted alien vox to squalls of glitched out electronics, or winding multiple streams of electronic information into strangely twisted sonic barrages.
The opening track here is a bizarre soundscape of chittery electronics, of twisted feedback and growled super distorted vocals, pelted by grinding crunch and skittering squelches, a strange array of bleeps and bloops, and buried within, a sort of almost rhythmic bit of ever shifting static, which leads directly into the next track, a droned out stretch of pulsing electronic shimmer, which manages to sound spaced out and sinister at the same time, the tone and timbre switching constantly creating, again, it's own sort of psychedelic rhythm. It's not until "Read The Signs", track number three, that the various elements coalesce into what is really the core of WoM's sound, another fluctuating field of static, of strange space-y electronics, bits of glitch and hiss, but wound around a lumbering, skeletal beat, some sort of alien krautrock, before switching gears, and becoming a weirdly propulsive throbbing electronica, but with elements of kraut/post/space rock, at it's most propulsive sounding a bit like Bastard Noise offshoot and former Record Of The Week-ers Geronimo, and at its least, like nothing you've ever heard before. The track offers up strange electronic squiggles, sinister high end buzz, all in the surface of trailing behind that motorik beat, which itself is in constant flux, cymbals popping out of the mix, processed and all dubby, while the various electronics get more and more tangled and frantic.
Then there's the sprawling 24 minute "Stone Cold Heart", a super spare and abstract stretch of blackened rhythms, and distant buzz and shimmer, that buzz, growing ever more insistent, the vocals here not so distorted, more ominous and intense, intoning some sort of ritual, over what almost sounds like a black metal Pole, minus the barrage of wildly buzzing synths, and primitive analog electronic tones.
One of our favorite tracks is the gorgeously droned out and hypnotic "Forever Nameless" that seems to inadvertently channel John Carpenter and Goblin, into something much more dark and sinister, a totally mesmerizing rhythm, wound up in a thick, corrosive buzzing low end melody, while way off in the distance, a Burzum like synth melody plays out, again reminding us of a less noisy Aluk Todolo, totally hypnotic, the vocals here are almost sung, wrapped in a weird warped distortion, the end result like some sort of doomy drone pop slowcore or something.
Throughout the remainder of these two discs, WoM stretch out strangely stiff rhythms, or pull apart robotic electro beats into weirdly metallic anti-grooves, which unwind lazily beneath hazy streaks of static, creating a series of tarpit crawls, often swallowed whole by heaving walls of electronic sound, that seem to emulate the sheer crumbling power of SUNNO))-like doomdronedirge, but are more often left to pulse, and pound, and throb, a strange alien death march, as the label describes these rituals, each ritual an "epic journey through inner knowledge, lunar madness and cosmic superpowers of satanic possession", the twisted bastard child of some dark forest, outer space ritualized mating of industrial music, black metal, power electronics and krautrock, brilliantly baffling and maddeningly mesmerizing, by now, it should be easy for you to tell if this is your cup of seriously spiked tea or not, and for most of you, we imagine it must be. Fans of Ride For Revenge, Aluk Todolo, Geronimo, Mammal, Bastard Noise, This Heat, spaced out ritualistic blackened electronics and fucked up Finnish weirdness, this one's for you...
Cover story: the legendary singer-songwriter Roy Harper. Hat's off! Also this ish, there's John Maus, People Like Us, John Wall, Nils Okland, and more, including a piece about the music of outsider artist Adolph Wolfi (the release of which we're very much looking forward too, soon, on Sub Rosa). Plus all the other usual Wire goodness; reviews, news, etc.
Yeah, she covered a Burzum song before releasing this album, but there's a hell of lot more to Chelsea Wolfe than copping a few moves from Mr. Vikernes. This Los Angeles minstrel has quipped she writes "spiritual realm funeral songs," and that's a pretty apt description given the acoustic guitar dourness, doom-laden atmospheres, grimy production values, and witchy goth-folk vocals that come together as the perfect hybridization of Zola Jesus and PJ Harvey. Her arrangements are pretty stripped down with little more than acoustic and / or electric guitar occasionally fleshed out with a rhythm section. She puts an outsider folk spin on her songwriting, as if she were penning acoustic black metal songs channeled through the freak-folk mysticism of Topanga Canyon. This also has a lot of similarities to the apocalyptic folk stylings of Death In June / Sol Invictus / Current 93 circa 1992 although Chelsea Wolfe is far less precious with the song and is not afraid to let some blood spill as she violently scrapes her knuckles on the guitar strings. In so many ways, what she does is so much better than what Douglas P and Tony Wakeford could conjure through their cryptic folk songs. The haunting "Cousins Of The Antichrist" is one track that effortlessly exceeds the songwriting achievements of those aforementioned British esoteric musicians, with the urgency of the violent strum on her acoustic guitar stuck in minor chords buttressing the soaring vocals.
Similarly, "Deep Talks" works its blown out 4-track recording of her grab-every-string-on-the-guitar-and-pull method of playing along with her wordless vocal delivery that's as impressionistic as Grouper, but with Grouper's narcolepsy replaced by night terrors. "Moses" (a track which interestingly follows "Cousins Of The Antichrist") plays on stomping Southern spirituals but turned ashen and turgid in pace and demeanor. And the album's closing number "Widow" is a bleak, half-whispered song mired in morose atmospheres and just the right amount of narcotic smoke and exhumed-from-a-swamp 4 track production values, sounding a lot like the criminally underappreciated Corpses As Bedmates (whose sole album was reissued under an entirely different band name - Venus Handcuffs, probably worsening things for the band, but we digress). The short of it is that Chelsea Wolfe's The Grime And The Glow is fucking great and marks another killer release in the growing catalogue of witchy releases by Pendu Sound, following an lp from Sasha Grey's Atelecine and a single from witch house maven Mater Suspiria Vision. Highly Recommended!
