We recently listed a double cd reissue from this blackened experimental soundscaper, which compiled two supposedly out of print lps, but good news for you vinyl fiends, after we posted that review, the band got in touch with us to let us know they had a stash of the Follow You Beloved half of that reissue, on vinyl, which we had never had before, so we got a handful of copies for the store...
It's getting a little bit hard to keep track of their various permutations, but in a nutshell, first there was Pussygutt, a male/female duo from Idaho who trafficked in sprawling blackened folk flecked dronescapes. That band transformed into Wolvserpent, with the sound remaining essentially the same, weaving blackened drones, fluttery folk, and corrosive doomic dirges into something heavy and psychedelic, cinematic and atmospheric. And now we have Aelter, which just so happens to be the solo project of Blake Green, one half of Wolvserpent / Pussygutt, who takes the sound of WS/PG as a starting point, crafting something much more melodic and soundtracky, eschewing much of the metallic crush of the former in favor of shimmery deserty twang, swirling strings, lush layered drones, choral vocals.
The label mentions that some of this sounds more like something you'd find on 4AD, and we can definitely hear that, it's a delicate almost shoegazey dreamfolk blackdrone drift, which is less heavy than it is mesmerizing and hypnotic, for folks who were looking for more Wolvserpent, this might be a bit of a let down, cuz this is something else entirely, a sort of soundtracky post rock, or atmospheric black ambient soundscape, on Follow You Beloved, it's all hushed shimmer, melancholy melodies and distant drones, and drums too, which don't normally play a big part in Aelter's sound, that rhythmic component adding a bit of a slowcore doom vibe, but even then, it's more darkly ominous than doomy, more haunting than heavy, but as a gorgeous lab of abstract ambience and cinematic soundscaping, it's pretty tough to beat. Fans of the current crop of Goblin / Carpenter worshippers who are after something a bit darker and a lot less synth heavy, might find this is just what they were looking for.
Gorgeous red on black packaging, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered...
Latest record from psych folk troubadour Ilyas Ahmed, his first since 2009's Goner, and much like Goner, his sound continues to move away from the super delicate folky drift of his past records. In fact, we remarked in our review of Goner, that there was a marked shift toward a sound more distorted and blown out, and while that record seemed to simply bury all of the delicate sounds under buzzing guitars and pounding drums, on With Endless Fire there seems to be a more of an organic hybridization of the two. The sound here is less prettiness-wreathed-in-heaviness, and more prettiness recorded in a way that it actually BECOMES heavy, the sound super hot, and in-the-red, so much so that lots of the music sounds super saturated, but it only makes it sound that much more urgent and intense. Even the moodiest broodiest bits, seethe with energy, a smoldering emotional intensity that oozes from every note.
The record opens with "Now Sleeps", a lush layered raga, all buzzing tones, that build and build to an almost Sunroof! ur-drone level, softened by Ahmed's ethereal vox, the raga sloughing off high end until it becomes a dense drone, which is soon joined by acoustic guitar, and simple shuffling drums, strangely recorded, the result a sort of blackened sun baked psych folk dirge, again with Ahmed's voice changing the tenor, all wistful and weary, but distorted and thus intense and emotional, and when the leads come in, super blown out and fiercely psychedelic, convulsing over that warm brooding rhythm beneath. "Skin In Circles" is more folk pop, softly rhythmic and propulsive, the seemingly minimal guitars, imbued with an energy and intensity that transforms a delicate bit of folkiness into something darker and more brooding. That same vibe oozes into "Stained Sky", which almost has a classic rock vibe, but again, the sounds are so blown out and druggy, that it becomes a sort of blackened psych ballad, gorgeous and harrowing.
After a brief bit of steel string balladry, a lovely mid record bit of hushed dreamfolk, the sound shifts right back into that smoldering drone, with another expanse of layered twang flecked heaviness, laced with spidery tendrils of dense buzzing melody, wrapped around a more delicate bit of psychedelic drift, which leads right into the sprawling "My Mirage", another deserty folky drift fused to some thick super distorted psychedelic guitar, the perfect balance for Ahmed's vox and the shimmery steel string strum, the second half of the song blossoming into a gorgeous dreamily blown out psychedelic dream dirge, that eventually fades onto record closer, "By The Light", which ditches all the distortion for something much more hushed and lovely, a hazy, reverby stretch of warm washed out dream folk, a darkly sweet lullaby and perfect way to wind down, and drift off.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Pressed on high quality virgin vinyl and housed in a super heavy Stoughton tip-on style jacket. Also includes a download coupon. Cassette version coming soon, btw.
When you imagine a tribute to Austrian apocalyptic industrial / militaristic folk legends Der Blutharsch, you might not imagine it being black metal by way of Italy and the Netherlands, but that's precisely what transpired way back in 2005, when Italian black metallers Altar of Perversion and Dutch BM horde Mordaehoth each offered up their own sonic homage to DB, each taking up a side of the record with their own twisted take on DB's already twisted blackened sounds. While that slab of vinyl disappeared before we could manage to get a single copy, it's now been released on cd, with the original tracks from the 10", but with the added bonus of SEVEN Der Blutharsch tracks, over thirty minutes of grim grey sonics, the sounds which ostensibly inspired these blackened reworkings.
Altar of Perversion are up first, with a sprawling 11 plus minute epic, that blurs the line between lurching doomic creep, and frenzied black blast, the sound raw and lo-fi, the guitars murky and droney, the track a lumbering dirge for the first little bit, melancholic and depressive, the sounds seem to bleed and ooze, sometimes slipping into killer droned out stretches of blurred buzz, before slipping back into that doomy trudge. It's not really until maybe half way through that things get really black and buzzy, but even then, the production is so warped, brittle and weirdly spare, that it retains that doomy energy of the first half, while wedding it to blasting beats and soaring fast picked majestic melodies. Eventually the sound does explode into a more standard blasting blackness, still, the sound retains a sort of seasick lurch that lurks just below the surface. Hard to say if it's a cover, or just a song dedicated to the mighty DB, but either way, it definitely exudes the same sort of black energy.
Mordaehoth take up three tracks, starting off with what sounds like some wartime radio recordings, only to launch right into it, weaving pagan flute like melodies into an almost punky sounding crush, clean vocals add to the pagan vibe, lulling us into thinking there won't be much blackness until the song darkens considerable, the vocals transformed into a sinister demonic croak, the music following suit, blasting and buzzing, only to return to that opening lilting shuffling blackened folk. The second track is a bit more dirgey, and simultaneously more majestic, soaring melodies, over crumbling distorted riffage, buried lo-fi drumming, but it's the third track where the Der Blutharsch homage becomes way less subtle, after starting out with a blast of growled buzzing blackness, the song slips into a more folky buzzy sort of cadence, which is soon joined by a distorted voice, sounding like some sort of militaristic sloganeering, over loudspeakers, before the band explodes into some serious churning black buzz, still accompanied by those voices, transforming the black metal into an almost military sounding march, and then the metal is peeled away leaving, some old scratchy military propaganda record spinning, then what sounds like some super dramatic footage from a war film, all ominous horns and more mysterious voices. Pretty goddamn great. easy to imagine this is what DB might sound like if they were black metal.
But then come the DB tracks, worth it for the price of admission alone even if you're not into black metal, unclear if these tracks are exclusive, but they are fantastic, brooding and dramatic, haunting and cinematic, deep spoken vocals, all manner of samples, martial snares, woozy ominous strings, warped swirling black ambience, wheezing industrial crunch, blurred blackened melodies, darkly rhythmic apocalyptic folk, Caretaker-like fuzzy, faded atmospheric drift, mysteriously cinematic soundscapes, raga like drones, and of course plenty of military marches, snippets of propaganda films, all woven into DB's gorgeous, barren, blackened soundworld.
Gorgeous packaging too, all black on black and extremely subtle. LIMITED TO 999 COPIES.
There was a zine produced by power electronic antagonist Mark Solotroff, back in the mid-'90s, called Rape Of The Angels. In one issue, he wrote rather poignantly about two new projects which then were mostly unknown - Brainbombs and Bodychoke, describing them as two sides of the same abject-rock coin with one side aligned with the bacchanalia of the Stooges and the other the melancholy of Joy Division. At the time, Solotroff's principal outlet for his power electronics was Intrinsic Action, which was shameless in appropriating Whitehouse's ultra-violent posturing and searing noise. But since, Solotroff has ventured into a whole host of projects with various aesthetic differences, but all of which maintain an axis of grime, sleaze, transgression, and violence. Anatomy Of Habit is Solotroff's first venture into an outright 'rock' context, after the punishing electronics of Bloodyminded and the bleak coldwave of A Vague Disquiet; and here, it all comes back around to Brainbombs and Bodychoke (although more Bodychoke than Brainbombs) with Anatomy Of Habit. Formed around Solotroff, drummer Dylan Posa (Brise-Glase, Cheer Accident), Greg Ratjczak (Winters In Osaka), Kenny Rasmusen, and Blake Edwards (Vertonen), the band is a steamroller of huge Swans / Neurosis riffs chugging out of crawling rhythms, and lots of bad vibes. Both sides of the wax are sprawling numbers that hypnotically build out of interlocking guitar and bass that steadily builds towards a distorted, crushing climax with dextrous turns toward powerdrone sludge. Solotroff, with his years of barking like William Bennett, has turned into quite a deft vocalist with his baritone in perpetual motion amidst the roiling noise-rock, coming across more like a cross between Jaz Coleman and Michael Gira. Well worth checking out.
Talk about obsession! That's what produced this, a super deluxe collection of the fuzzed-out greatness that is Atomic Forest, the premier hard rock/psych act from India in the '70s (and the only one to make an album - in fact, they made two).
Some of you may already be aware of Atomic Forest from their track on an international fuzz-psych comp called Obsession that came and went a while back (yep, that comp took both its title and its cover artwork from the Atomic Forest's debut lp, Obsession '77). More likely, you've heard the brilliant Deep Purple cover "Mary Long" that they contributed to the Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! compilation of vintage sub-continental grooviness, seeing as we made that particular item a Record Of The Week and sold a ton of 'em.
Really, their name alone is almost reason enough to be obsessed with Atomic Forest. Also that their music is just so much fuzz-filled fun. So we're stoked that the Now-Again label, blessings be upon them, decided that it'd be cool to do a full-on Atomic Forest archival reissue, collecting ALL their extant recordings, from both their Obsession '77 album (recorded circa 1977, natch, but released in 1981) and their other one, Hit Movie Themes, recorded at the same time and also released in '81, under the name of bandleader/bassist Keith Kanga. Plus six previously unreleased bonus tracks (including an intense 7 minute live version of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady"), amounting to 17 tracks in total.
Of those 17, there's lots of covers - a weird wide variety of 'em in fact, ranging from tracks by the disparate likes of The Beatles, Osibisa, the aforementioned Deep Purple, to such "hit movie themes" indeed as the "Theme From The Godfather" and "Windmills Of Your Mind"! And that's no surprise, 'cause like so many bands of the era, Atomic Forest earned their bread - and their rep - on the live circuit, where you had to play the hits... As well as playing gigs at hotel discotheques, the Atomic Rooster guys also honed their chops in an Indian production of Jesus Christ Superstar, by the way. So they were versatile, to say the least. And thus the material here ranges from the heavy (Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath", Atomic Forest's own "Obsession '77" in either fast or slow versions) to somewhat softer stuff - like, well, "Windmills Of Your Mind"! But ALL of it is super groovy, and dosed with killer fuzz guitar and distorted tabla beats, and sometimes wild theremin-like electronics. That it's all by the same band at first seems a bit unlikely but then it all begins to come together, Atomic Forest (a bit like Indonesia's badass AKA) as fluent at playing moody jazz-funk as they are kicking out heavy rock jams, and no slouches at catchy pop psych either. And while this collection consists of mostly covers, their originals fit right in alongside these better known tunes, including two takes of a track called "Butterfly" that's a bit of a riff on the riff from "Freddie's Dead" by Curtis Mayfield, but infused with freaky synth.
This package represents the fruits of Now-Again head honcho Egon's obsessed quest to find out more about - and hear more of - Atomic Forest. And the packaging is deluxe, all right. Much like Now-Again's equally elaborate collection of Indonesian psych rarities, Those Shocking Shaking Days, where we first heard AKA, this comes slipcased, containing a thick, miniature-lp style sleeve holding the cd, tucked in there alongside a super thick, square bound 44 page booklet, its bright orange pages full of vintage newspaper clippings, rare photographs, and other ephemera - along with lengthy, extensively researched liner notes, discussing the history of the band and its members, the result of much diligent work tracking down the musicians and their relatives to share their stories. So this is really like getting a cd AND a book. The double vinyl version, likewise, is fancy, packaged with a similarly huge booklet in a sturdy sleeve. Nice!
Originally released in 2004 on cd and long out of print, this killer collaboration between Charalambides guitarist Tom Carter and Philly psychedelic space rockers Bardo Pond finally gets the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment, which includes a bonus track not on the original cd version. And, as well, it now comes with a bonus cd containing a live set recorded just days after this record was recorded.
The sound here is about as epic and awesome as you might expect, but what you might not expect is there are no psychedelic freakouts, each sidelong track is not a slow build to a heavy super rocking climax, instead, Carter and Bardo Pond explore a sound much more dirgey and bluesy and droney, smoldering and darkly propulsive, the music organic and alive, constantly shifting, and definitely dynamic, but more meditative and hypnotic. The first track sets the mood the multiple guitars all piling on tangles and spidery melodies, deftly woven into something much more raga-like, droney and mesmerizing, a sort of slow burn late nigh jam session vibe which suits both parties perfectly.
The B side is even more murky and minimal, abstract and atmospheric, super spacey and dreamily psychedelic, lush layered drones shift and shimmer, the band drifting druggily through space, which leads right into side C, also muted and minimal, but this time laced with some awesome processed psych guitar filigree, little swoops and shards, all beneath hazy ethereal vocals (their first appearance) and fluttering flute, the sound here the most Bardo Pond-like of the bunch, with Carter sounding right at home (so much so that it's hard to tell which guitar player is which). The final side is the most hushed and laid back of the bunch, meditative and tranquil, a sort of drifty dark folk, skeletal and softly reverbed, the song just shimmers contemplatively, total late night, come down psych drone bliss for sure.
The packaging is gorgeous, fancy two color silkscreened heavy jackets, included is a download coupon, and the live cd in its own sleeve with its own cover. LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!
One of the greatest indie pop records ever, gets a long overdue vinyl reissue! This classic slab of eighties bittersweet jangle pop from legendary New Zealand pop combo the Bats, still sounds as good as it ever did, originally released on Flying Nun in 1987, Daddy's Highway was the group's debut after handful of eps, and found the band effortlessly creating a template for pretty much all of the Kiwi pop music to follow. Robert Scott, one of the best (and perhaps most unsung) pop songsmiths of the last 3+ decades, delivers these heartfelt tunes in a gorgeous clear croon, his guitar playing understated and so sublime, the traditional rock band arrangement augmented by long time aQ fave Alastair Galbraith on violin, giving the songs a dark gravitas, and an even more melancholic vibe, some of the songs bouncy and bubbly, but many of them moody and brooding, laced with subtle drones, sounding at times like a janglier Velvet Underground, while at other times hinting at the more new wave sounding pop going on around the same time, but more often occupying some pure pop space, every song here, rife with warm jangle, sweet melody and dreamy hooks, all wreathed in lush instrumentation, and presented heart on sleeve. So great!
Finally, In Stock On Double Vinyl!
The newly released, highly anticipated Smile Sessions are finally here and it's been an occasion for all sorts of debate and nerd-ery among us. First off, some of us have been obsessed with the record for years, having acquired various bootlegs, the recent Brian Wilson re-do, as well as tracing the seeds of the Smile sessions throughout the trajectory of the later Beach Boys records (which are some of our favorites). While our bootleg versions always had the main song cycle separated from the various shorter interludes and segues that connected them, the Brian Wilson re-do saw the potential of what could have been, yet it still felt like a cover version of what was supposed to be the real thing.
Now what the Smile Sessions tries to do, and for the most part succeeds in doing, is taking the blueprint Wilson made with the re-do and marrying the songs and interludes into a solid dazzling whole. On the vinyl version, the flow of what is understood as the proper album has never sounded better with the rich harmonic vocals, symphonic arrangements and beautifully antiquarian lyricism provided by Van Dyke Parks combined in elaborately layered arrays of epiphanal pop orchestration over the first three sides. The last side is a handful of selected stereo mixes and session excerpts, a really small taste of bonus material compared to the whole extra cd of the 2cd version and the 4 extra cds of the deluxe box set.
For the most part, the main album is put together quite faithfully to Wilson's vision and it sounds amazing!. We're used to the sometimes slightly abrupt transitions that have long become a part of the record's charm and the result is still quite incredible and kaleidoscopic. No matter our particular desires of how we would try to put this together (For instance, why isn't "Cool, Cool Water" included in the main song cycle like it was in the bootlegs, and in Brian Wilson's version, there renamed and rewritten as "Blue Hawaii"? Instead it's relegated to the bonus material on the cd versions!) , it's still quite a remarkable feat. We still wonder if Wilson finished and released this as it was meant to be in 1967, would we still care so much about it? Allan doesn't understand the "lost record" appeal of it all. "What was wrong with Smiley Smile?" Oh, Allan.
We're sure plenty of folks will be having their own geeky debates. Still for those obsessed as we are or even for the newly curious, this comes Highly Recommended!!!!!
Overt rhythms had seemingly disappeared from Biosphere's work over the past decade, as he had been building his lush ambient electronica from orchestral loops and samples. Dropesonde may have broken into an electronic jazz shuffle for a moment or two, but all of his signature ambient-techno structures seemed to be something of the distant past (especially from his 1994 album Patasknik). That is until the 2011 release of N-Plants, which is the first album from Biosphere to feature the drum machine with any regularity since maybe Cirque in 2000. Gier Jenssen hasn't lost his touch, that's for sure, as a clean, mechanical breakbeat punches through the slow-as-molasses basslines and heavenly ambient swooshes on "Shika-1." Blooping melodies march alongside the clockwork rhythms of "Joyo" and "Ikata-1," and "Genkai-1" could be some missing Boards Of Canada track from Music Has The Right To Children with its off-kilter sub-melody locked in step with a warmly cybernetic tumble of algorithmic notes and a gliding hip-hop breakbeat.
This is all well and good as simply a great Biosphere record, but Jenssen actually finished this album in early 2011 as a study on the architectural designs of the Japanese nuclear power plants built during the reconstruction period in the middle of the 20th century. On completion of N-Plants, he saw this as a soundtrack to those plants, their relationship to the turbulent landscape, and the potential damage caused by radiation contamination if something were to happen. Little did Jenssen know that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant would succumb to the damage from an earthquake and subsequent tsunami. While his precognition is downright spooky, the album is not. It's quite lovely and lilting even in its mechanical design.
Substrata is often heralded as the grand statement of Biosphere, and gets lumped alongside Boards Of Canada's Music Has The Right To Children and Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. II as one of the best electronica records from the '90s. There's little to argue with such claims, even with a half-dozen or so of stellar records that followed this album. Originally released back in 1997 on All Saints Records and repackaged as a double-disc with Biosphere's soundtrack to the Russian silent film Man With A Movie Camera in 2001, now the album gets released on vinyl for the very first time, alongside the vinyl of Biosphere's latest, N-Plants.
Like all great ambient records, Substrata works because of its subtlety, balancing soft-focus melodies that never assert themselves too much, but never fade so far into the background to become irrelevant. Given that his previous records smoothed out contemporary techno for the chill-out crowd, Substrata is a logical extension of Biosphere's sound for billowing synth-pad sequences and time-suspending ambience that never has to give over to the release of a big 909 backbeat. "Chukhung" cycles through muted arpeggios with layered chiming strings that gently rasps against the pastoral ambience to give the piece a crescendo of drama and softened tension. "The Things I Tell You" refines the tremolo / delay ambience that Pete Namlook was churning out into a quintessential Biosphere number rippling in time with an arctic wind pushing flecks of snow across a landscape lit by the midnight sun. Vocal snippets swimming in echo, aqueous passages, reverberant acoustic guitar plucks, and looped field recordings dot the album's resonant ambient hum, providing small signposts more to mark the passage of time than to assign any particular allusion. Biosphere rounds out the vinyl edition with a 14 minute bonus track entitled "Laika", although it's unclear as to when this track was produced. This album offers up beautiful music for lucid dreams.
As you can guess from the title, this is the second album by Massachusetts psychedelic sludge doomsters Black Pyramid, sequel to their self-titled full-length from 2009, also on the MeteorCity label. We somehow missed that one, much like we did with the first Elder, another MeteorCity act from the Bay State that we recently highlighted the 2nd album by... and boy are these bands kinda similar in other ways, yep both stoner sludge trios, both kicking out the double digit length jams, both (like a lot of MeteorCity bands) worshipping at the altar of Sleep and the like, and worshipping 'em well. If you like Elder and WhiteBuzz, you oughtta check out BP!
The disc starts off with the very metal "Endless Agony", one of those galloping, triumphant, leading-beserker-troops-into-bloody-battle sort of songs. And that's the vibe on a lot of this record, storming stuff that fans of Sleep's aggro offshoot High On Fire should cotton to. Certainly the first couple of tracks take no prisoners... then they get REALLY Sleep-y (but not sleepy), on "Night Queen" which has that swinging Sleep-like lope, a la "Dragonaut". (And a la Black Sabbath too of course.) That then leads into the disc's first true epic, the 12-minute plus "Dreams Of The Dead", which interweaves Black Pyramid's crushing riffage with introspective psych explorations and milder melodic moments. They follow that with a brief, beautiful instrumental acoustic number, "Tanelorn", as if to serve as an intermission of sorts, a quick, quiet break before the rest of "side two", the second half of the album mirroring the first, containing both raging metal ("Sons Of Chaos") and lumbering doom ("The Hidden Kingdom"), culminating in another double digit epic, "Into The Dawn", complete with classic riffing, gruff but glorious clean vocals, Melvins-y grind, delicate guitar bits, and spacey synth drone over the course of its nearly 16 minutes. All kinds of awesome there. BP could be likened to a sludgier Saviours, in fact, when we're not hammering on the Sleep comparisons. Again if you liked the recently-reviewed Elder on the same label, you should give Black Pyramid a go!
Sublime Frequencies followers will remember the great Group Bombino record from a few years back in their Guitars From Agadez series. Since then it seems that Oumara Almoctar, aka Bombino, has ditched his 'group', yet thankfully his tranced out Agadez desert sound, is still as hypnotizing and entrancing as ever.
Following in the footsteps of Ali Farka Toure, Bombino has that special ability to create songs that transcend language and place. Much like Tinariwen, Bombino's song have such a fluidity, and even a tranquil strength that makes listening to this record such a cleansing and empowering experience. The incredible hypnotic, guitar playing creates an awesome feeling of a locked groove that you never want to end. We can definitely imagine lots of modern psych groups like Carlton Melton, Brightblack Morning Light, and The Drift being so into this sound, and in fact incorporating it into their own. So great!
We've long been obsessed with this Midwestern one man black metal band, their twisted combination of bedroom black metal buzz and more abstract sonic experimentation, be it clean guitar drift, or violin, is exactly what we wanted to hear, there is no shortage of blasting and buzzing, and as much as we love that stuff, we also love hearing black metal pushed in new directions, and BoS definitely blazed, and continue to blaze, their own unique sonic path, so much so, that it's often been a struggle to get their records released. We were pretty thrilled when UK label Paradigms released the last Book Of Sand, and were in some way were not all that surprised to see it receive a zero percent rating on Metal Archives, cuz the music of BoS is not the sort of grim kvlt black metal that most metalheads want to hear, or would even understand if they did, and hell, this new one's not gonna further that cause at ALL.
Which of course means we LOVE it. While some more familiar tropes of black metal are present, some buzzing guitars, and some shrieking vocals, in every other way, this is barely black metal, in fact, if we had to boil it down to just a few words, we might describe it as some sort of slo-mo blackened doom-jazz. Yep. There are strings, and horns, and what drums there are tend toward more of a shuffle and skitter, and while there are some furious buzzing guitars, they're pushed WAY toward the background, transforming any identifiable black metal riffage into something more like a droning atmospheric backdrop, while in the foreground, clean guitars unfurl woozy abstract melodies, wreathed in deep buzzing strings, and a hazy cloud of Jandekian reverby shimmer. The pace is glacial, the mood is melancholy, the vibe is haunting and otherworldly, and occasionally, when the vocals drop out, and you can hear those distant guitars, there's a distinctly black metal vibe, but it strangely muted, those fast picked guitars blurred and wedded to that slo-mo jazzy shuffle, bleating horns, it's pretty strange, but fantastic too, it's definitely unlike anything you've heard, (black) metal or otherwise, moody and mysterious and definitely way too whatthefuck for most metalheads, but if you're after something twisted and dark, buzzy and abstract, a little bit jazzy and atmospheric, but still in its own way dark and sinister and blackened, then you might just end up digging this as much as we do.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! And yeah, they're real cds, not cd-r's!
At this point in her career, any new release by Kate Bush is an event. When the release in question is a record of the caliber of 50 Words For Snow, one can only marvel at the artistry and career of one of the world's greatest living pop artists. After all, she's never toured (aside from a short one in 1979 for The Kick Inside), and, Director's Cut notwithstanding, has only released 2 albums of new material in the last 18 years. In the '80s, Bush's penchant for making awesomely strange videos and MTV actually playing those videos helped sell records. Since the (televised) music video's demise, however, someone who does not play live has to rely on the strength of the LP itself. This is where Kate Bush has always shined, not only in the quality of the songs, but in the quality of the recordings themselves.
Like the B-side of Hounds of Love (also called The Ninth Wave), 50 Words For Snow is thematic and purposeful, a "concept" record if you will. Slow, sparse and deliberately paced, the seven songs carry the listener for over 65 minutes with strings, drifts of piano, and sparse, jazzy drums. Whereas The Ninth Wave, told the story of one person's journey through death into ghostly haunting and, finally, redemption and forgiveness, 50 Words For Snow is more a series of icy vignettes. They paint pictures of a woman first creating, then making love with a snowman, a wraith watching her dog watch her corpse, a hunt for a yeti. Although sometimes thematically humorous, it's tragic comedy that interests Bush: a kind of sad, beautiful quirkiness that is somehow universally human and uniquely Kate Bush.
From her work with Peter Gabriel in the '80s to Prince's guitar playing on The Red Shoes, collaborations have been an important part of Kate Bush's work. 50 Words finds her working with longtime compatriot Del Palmer as engineer and occasional bass player, Sir Elton John in the duet "Snowed In At Wheeler Street," and the British actor Stephen Fry.
When Director's Cut was released in early 2011, some noise was made over Kate's "huskier" voice, the slight change in its timbre. Really? There's not a moment on 50 Words that could have been done better, vocally. If Kate knows anything, she knows how to change, and how to create characters. If people expect artists with careers spanning 30+ years to remain static, well, that's why records are made, right? To capture a moment that can always be revisited. Very few artists have the longevity and integrity of Kate Bush, and that's something that should not go unrecognized or unappreciated.
The cd version comes in a hardback-book style package with the booklet glued to the inside cover. The gatefold double lp comes with a large, full-color lyric booklet and a cd version of the entire record.
While Israeli label Total Rust may specialize in all things slow and sludgey, doomy and dirgey (see reviews of Tort and Lurk elsewhere on this week's list), they have been known to dabble in sounds buzzier and blacker as well. Which was most definitely the case with French black metal horde Hyadningar, whose The Weak Creation was a big favorite around here, which at the time we described as "a serious storm of grim, technical, melodic black metal, a strange mix of Deathspell-ish complexity, epic soaring melodicism, dour depressive miserablism, and even a hint of Viking metal here and there." And the reason we mention that, is the fact that Chaos Dei, is a new project featuring both the drummer and the guitar player of Hyadningar, and while it might not be as all over the place, Chaos Dei's Arising From Chaos, is a super varied, and super ruling chunk of grim noisy blackness. And not noisy in the sense of noise music, but more noise ROCK, the band seeming to have infused their black buzz with some classic noise rock tropes, whether it's the more mathy arrangements, or the vocals, which sound less black metal shriek and more noise rock yowl, the music too, slip easily from blazing buzzing fury, to mathy chugging churn, as well as some almost post rock sounding melodic stretches. The production too is strange, brittle and bright, which gives the music a distinctly different vibe than a lot of black metal, but when these guys do get all grim and spit out a blast of blurred blackness, it's fierce as fuck, and seriously black and brutal. C'mon, they're French, you know how we feel about French BM, and odds are you do too. So imagine that French blackness with some noise rock influence, and a distinctly twisted sense of melody and arrangement, and you'll get an idea of what's going on here. The sound is raw and furious, but at the same time atmospheric and experimental, it's grim and troo enough for the least discerning black metalhead, but fucked up and original and just twisted enough for the rest of us who are after something weirder, hell they even dedicate a RIFF from one of their songs to Simon Boswell for his soundtrack to Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre!
Finally! The return of Swedish black metal horde Craft, six years after their crushing Fuck The Universe record, purported to be their last at the time, but it was well worth the wait, and we're happy to report very little has changed in whatever negative grim underworld these guys call home, in fact, if anything, Void sound even more misanthropically miserable, the sound seriously cranked, a killer production that doesn't take away from the sound's raw immediacy or caustic filth at all, just makes it that much more powerful. As always, these guys weave dizzying blackened riffs into plodding doomic trudges, creating a strange dichotomous sound that find the guitars riffing furiously, while the rest of the band lumbers ominously, their debt to Mayhem and Darkthrone more than paid, as they take the classic sound of vintage Scandinavian blackness and make it all their own, peppering their dirgey miserablism with cool little melodic trills, processed backwards guitars, weird effects, all employed judiciously, and subtly, letting the core black buzz and demonic pound speak for itself, the vocals even more harsh than before, and so blown out and high in the mix that occasionally you can almost hear the needles in the studio peg, but for all the lumbering midtempo dirgery, it's not just all doomy blackness, and while the band rarely go full bore frenzied blast, they do crank up the tempo here and there, although they do tend to slip right back into some gnarled and churning dirge before too long. There's also plenty of classic metal mixed into their black buzz too, which makes these songs surprisingly catchy, but again, without at all sacrificing the band's grizzled hellish blackness.
We made Mikal Cronin's debut album our Record Of The Week a while back, and still it remains one of the most listened to records in the shop. And a testament to that record's rulingness is the fact that none of us are sick of hearing it yet. That said, it doesn't mean we're not hankering for new stuff. Which is where this brand new single comes in, two new blasts of psychedelic pop bliss, the first, "Tide" is fuzzy and almost Elephant Six sounding, lush vocal harmonies, and a weird super catchy chorus that manages to stick in your head like crazy, but sound totally twisted. And there's a wicked wild psychedelic guitar solo, the production too, much like the full length, manages to be lush and expansive, but also raw and lo-fi, with some super strange choices in terms of balance and volume, in this case, that guitar solo nearly leaps out of the speaker, but somehow it still sounds perfect.
The B side is much more pure pop sounding, all fuzzy and dreamy and Beatles-esque, a killer hook, an impossible to resist melody, wild and loose, a little ramshackle, but so catchy and great. And another weird psychedelic solo that is about twice as loud as the rest of the song, but again, once you hear it, you can't imagine it any other way. How this guy remained a secret for so long we'll never know, but we're psyched the world is finally catching on. And we're psyched that we have two more MC songs to spin again and again and again...
No laments here about diminishing returns on archival releases, this new KD collection is a keeper! Delmore digs up another round of wonderful home recordings from one of our favorite folk singers and interpreters. Like a companion piece to their last great Karen Dalton collection, Green Rocky Road, 1966 feels more warm and intimate, focusing more on present day songs mostly from friends and then-contemporaries, Tim Hardin and Fred Neil with some jazz and traditional standards thrown in there too. While Green Rocky Road felt intimate in a sort of ghostly way, as the songs were largely British folk standards and sung with a haunting air that was beautiful yet slightly chilling in an out-of-time way. The recordings on 1966 feel more at ease, the kind that are easy to sing along with, especially Tim Hardin's songs, "Don't Make Promises" and "Reason To Believe". Not that those songs aren't without their melancholy, but perhaps it's the accompanying vocal and instrumental presence of Dalton's then partner, Richard Tucker on some of the tracks that give this set recorded by Carl Baron on his reel to reel recorder, such a naturally relaxed quality. There are also early versions of "Katie Cruel" and Neil's "Little Bit of Rain" plus a version of "God Bless The Child", that is sung like a true lullaby. Quite lovely indeed and highly recommended!
The cd comes with a booklet containing rare photos and an essay written by Ben Edmonds of Mojo. The lp comes with a 4 page heavy insert, an exclusive color portrait and a download card.
Rose is the third volume in Demdike Stare's latest sprawling multipart sonic hauntological tetraptych, the first two volumes of which were released together as a double 12" a little while back, and housed in a massive quadruple gatefold sleeve, designed to hold all four volumes, so obviously if you were one of the many folks who got the first two, you're gonna need this one as well, it does come in a fancy Andy Votel designed sleeve, but that sleeve fits right into the third pocket in above mentioned gatefold jacket. And sonically, it fits perfectly alongside those first two as well, beginning with a churning industrial chug, grinding through a woozy washed out haze, wreathed in a distant ethereal vocal drift, looped and mesmerizing, the sound is most definitely epic and cinematic, the sound laced with bits of clatter and crunch, and than BAM, the track is transformed into a gorgeous stretch of Middle Eastern string laden groove, all wrapped around that opening industrial rhythm, sounding like a more dense, more psychedelic Muslimgauze! The second track is more murky and dubbed out and spacey, anchored by a muted slo-mo house beat, buried in the murk, the beats wreathed in soft metallic billows, the surrounding sounds swirling dreamily, hazy melodic streaks and blurred background shimmers, clouds of tripped out drift, through which that industrial flecked rhythm soldiers druggily on.
The side-long third track begins as a gauzy, ethereal thrum, that seems to hover wraithlike, before suddenly in drops an impossibly dense and heavy ribcage rattling bass pulse, accompanied by cool spare tabla like rhythms, that Muslimgauze vibe is definitely huge here too, a keening high end sine wave tone flutters over fragmented chunks of dubstep bass wobble, all drifting in the sonic ether. And while like many 12"s, this sounds great at 45rpm, it sounds WAY better at 33, so much darker and woozier and druggier and more drowsily divine!
If you're after the whole set, might be a good idea to preorder the final volume, which should be coming soon, and as we mentioned in the review of the first two volumes, there WILL be a double cd version available sometime this year as well, according to the label, but apparently the music will be (somehow?) different, with altered versions of all the songs...
We love Nate Denver. Not only is he just about the nicest guy we've ever met, he's also utterly batshit crazy, musically at least, the stuff he comes up with is totally baffling and brilliant, often goofy and puerile, but always hilarious and impossibly catchy, or punishingly heavy. He was the frontman in the short lived weirdo metal band Dig That Body Up It's Alive (which also featured John Dwyer from Thee Oh Sees), and he played with SF noise punks Total Shutdown, he's done hip hop, folk, he's obsessed with metal, and he's a paramedic. He's also a writer, and has published at least one book, which was hilarious and touching in equal measure.
So here we have the latest musical missive from Nate Denver and his musical Neck, and it's a doozy. We figured the elaborately photoshopped cover art was a put on, it looks like an old taped up and beat up thrift store lp of Swan Lake, the ballet music, but it says Nate Denver in the same font, and Rock is Hell too, it's gorgeous, but like we said, we figured it was a goof, we flipped it over, and there's the story of Swan Lake, told in Denver's bizarre and ridiculous style, so we still weren't really sure what the music would be like. And then whattayaknow? It's Denver, and an acoustic guitar, singing the story of Swan Lake, a single repeated chord progression for the whole of the side, with Denver's delicate croon, spinning the tale of Swan Lake. And weirdly it's a fantastic listen, mesmerizing, and crazy catchy, we couldn't stop, and even now we have little turns of phrase and bits of melody sticking in our head, but after all it is Nate Denver, so when it comes time for the ultimate battle between the protagonist and Boris Smith his archenemy, Boris' lines are delivered by a full on death metal band, grinding guitars, blasting drums and guttural gurgled vox, Denver easily flitting between the two, and we won't tell you how it ends, but you can probably figure it out.
The flipside, as far as we can tell, contains the ACTUAL ballet music from Swan Lake, presumably the music that was on the original record that came with the original cover, and it's of course beautiful, and bombastic, and bears pretty much no relation to Denver's version of the events.
So totally recommended, as is pretty much everything Denver plays or writes. Comes with an insert featuring some Nate Denver artwork, and is pressed on orange vinyl and is LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
Ah, scenes, waves, movements, trends, genres, we all know rock critics love 'em. We gotta admit we do too, if only 'cause it makes writing our reviews a bit easier sometimes, when you can stick something in a category. To wit, take this thing happening now with all these "female fronted, occult-oriented, rock/metal" bands, one of the most popular examples of such, being Dutch outfit The Devil's Blood. While some of these bands are super sludgey and doomed-out (Wooden Stake, The Wounded Kings) and others hark back to the '70s proto-metal psych scene (Blood Ceremony, Jex Thoth), and still others are straight up NWOBHM steel (Christian Mistress), this one, The Devil's Blood, while displaying elements of all the styles just mentioned, is by far the most "classic rock", with almost a '60s vibe, reminding us especially of Heart! Huh, well that's cool 'cause we heart Heart.
One of our friends theorizes that as modern metal has gotten more and more extreme, it's reached a point where, with bands like The Devil's Blood and Ghost, it's gotta go full circle back to completely classic, melodic roots. That's the new extreme! That's his theory, anyway.
And scenes and theories aside, we are digging this new Devil's Blood for sure. Eleven new tracks of their swirling, retro rockin', sweetly Satanic sounds, laced with great guitarwork and graced by THAT VOICE, which will be the deciding factor for most listeners, the soaring singing of "F. The Mouth Of Satan" (yep that's what she calls herself!) being an un-ignorable element, the crucial crux of this band, and either you'll fall under her spell or you won't. If you do, the rest of their witchy wall o' sound will fall in line, the dramatic organ, the urgent rhythms, the powerful production, the catchy choruses...
Heck, but chances are you already have found yourself smitten, as we sold plenty of this album's predecessor The Time Of No Time Evermore, and before that, their debut ep Come, Reap. If you liked those, you'll like this, as The Thousandfold Epicentre builds on their strengths, maybe generating more of a mystic mood than the last one. Their talents are especially on display during this album's tour-de-force finale, the 15 minute ritual of "Feverdance". There the band's balance of melody and menace tips to way outside of pop territory by virtue of sheer eerie epicness alone.
Another friend of ours, who runs a local label that puts out a lot of vinyl reissues (mostly '80s era new wave / electronic / coldwave stuff), was in the store the other day when we were playing this new album by The Devil's Blood. He thought it sounded like a band from the sixties, the vocals anyway, reminding him of acts like The United States Of America, Ultimate Spinach, and probably Jefferson Airplane, stuff like that. And he was quite taken with it, funny 'cause he's a guy who would normally not have been checking out a band with the evil/metal look and name The Devil's Blood has! They're not only for metalheads, that's all we're saying. Even though The Devil's Blood is happily (la-la-la!) serving Satan all the while.
We had never heard these guys before, but we've been digging this a LOT, another black metal band from Australia (released on the same label as the new Pestilential Shadows, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), their sound definitely beholden to the classic Scandinavian sound, certainly hints of Emperor and Mayhem abound, as well as Marduk and Dark Funeral, that sort of classic black metal, that few bands can pull off, and even fewer with this sort of power and grim black energy, the band spending much of their time chugging and churning instead of blasting, those more midtempo stretches super intense and moody, the riffs gnarled and twisted and a little bit Deathspell-y for sure, but when the band do explode into a blast, it's dense and furious and heavy as fuck, the guitars an insectoid buzz, the drums furious and impossibly fast, the band careening wildly, the sound dissonant and sinister, the balance between blasting raging fury and moody melodic crush near perfect, with hints of classic metal, lots of cool droned out heaviness, but all woven into what is essentially a modern slab of classic black metal. And most definitely a new favorite with the metalheads around here...
It's been harder and harder to know what to write about Expo 70 records lately. Besides being uber prolific, we've pretty much exhausted out psychedelic stoner space rock thesaurus. Thankfully, this new one changes things up enough to give us something new to work with. Mostly the addition of rhythm, which the band have employed in the past, but never to such an extent. Sure they remain spacey, and psychedelic, and new age-y, and drifty and dreamy, and druggy, and washed out, hazy and gauzy and cosmic and kosmiche, and we could go on, but here, they open up their latest record with what might be their most chaotic and sonically dense jam yet. Starting off all stumbly and abstract, with skittery programmed beats, and loosely strummed guitars, some amp buzz and bits of glitch and random crunch, but then those sounds gradually begin to coalesce, the guitars super reverbed, the rhythms looped and mesmeric, the guitars getting more intense, and more driving, multiple loops and melodies layered, eventually some proper riffs entering the equation, churning beneath clouds of those looped melodies, all the while, that rhythm skitters away, the song getting louder and louder, more intense, easily on of the heaviest things we've heard from these guys in a while, bordering on White Hills / Heads territory there for a minute, before fading back into something much more tranced out and meditative.
And while the rest of the record isn't quite so dense or heavy, the songs definitely display both a cool sort of jammy looseness, as well a penchant for something darker and more dense than usual. "Seven Serpents" minus some spidery guitars is a lush undulating expanse of layered synths, and warm whirling dronemusic, definitely cosmic, and spaced out, minimal, and super mesmerizing. "Growing Mushrooms Of Potency" starts off with a sky full of BBC Radiophonic Workshop / sci-fi bleeps and bloops, before another lo-fi skittery rhythm comes in, and then finally some low slung bass, and some shimmery organ, and we're in full on intergalactic drift mode, dodging stray FX and clouds of celestial glimmer, and then at the very end, the sound shifts, and becomes intensely dark and ominous, like some sort of soundtracky Umberto style creepdrone, which fades out WAY to soon. And then finally, "Heartfelt Moon Tripper" finishes things off with what begins as a hazy big of new age-y shimmer, all glistening crystalline clouds and warm whirring chordal drifts, until about half way through, a dark heartbeat like pulse surfaces, and dense little guitar tangles begin to loop and layer, until the hazy opening layers are shed completely, and replaced with a deep ominous thrum, wound around that sinister pulse, all surrounded by streaks of jagged melody and howling echo drenched sheets of guitar swirl, until a brief bit of Zombi / Goblin like cinematic synthscapery ushers the song to its more ethereal conclusion.
Cassette version coming soon too, btw.
We never reviewed the debut from German black metal outfit Farsot, though we should have, and this new one is kicking our asses big time (in retalitation?). From the beginning of the first track, these guys unfurl something that manages to be furious and fierce, but also pretty weird and tripped out. Some classic riffing, super aggressive and intense, combined with some woozy wandering basslines, some deep crooned vox and some bizarre samples, eventually some more 'proper' black metal vokills come in, but somehow it doesn't make the sound any more black, instead the music shifts too, and the sound becomes way more melodic, rife with cool guitar licks and layered chant-like vocals, the song shifting from propulsive pound, to churning slow build chug, to epic cinematic soar, it's a weird combination for sure, and one that's pretty difficult to describe, but we're loving it. The sound is incredible, the production massive, the band sound huge, and fucking intense, and that's just the first song. The second track starts out all doomy and proggy, lurching start/stop arrangement and weird angular melodies, and even when the song kicks in proper, the guitars are weirdly droney and blurred into tranced out mesmer, creating a sound that's somewhere between grim blackness, and some sort of post black metal. There's also some clean guitar, and an ambient interlude, lots of melody, some cool slow burn psychedelia, all of which is why these guys get pegged as post black metal, which they most definitely are, but the connotations of that classification might obscure the fact of just how heavy and weird and still pretty black metal these guys really are. The more we listen to this, the more we're reminded of a WAY heavier and way more black metal Ved Buens Ende, if that makes any sense, the same sort of twisted take on BM, definitely cut from the same sonic cloth, but with their own unique modern twist on black metal, which just so happens to include plenty of classic metal riffing, all sorts of different clean vocals, lots of atmosphere, and mathy repetition, some loping meandering post rock rhythms, a bit of clean guitar jangle, some awesome abstract guitar drone drift, but ultimately, all woven into some seriously dense and dark metal. We dig A LOT.
Latest release from former Skater Spencer Clark, whose partner in the Skaters, James Ferraro, was recently awarded record of the year honors by UK music mag The Wire, but as much as we dig Ferraro's stuff, we have to say, we often find ourselves more partial to Clark's outings, especially his project Monopoly Child Star Searchers, especially those early cd-r's, twisted murky soundscapes woven from woozy looped rhythms and blurred samples, dense and dizzying and druggy and dreamy, so we're always excited when we discover a new record from Clark. Fourth World Magazine is in fact Clark's new project, and in some ways it finds his sound drifting toward that of his former bandmate, this high concept record based on something called the Spectacle Of Light, which happens in Salt Lake City and concerns UFO's, as does most of Clark's recordings we seem to remember, hard to tell if it's a put on, or if all this spiritual stuff is real (or at least real to Clark), but ultimately it hardly matters, cuz musically it's real, and whatever the twisted concept, it gets woven into Clark's sonic flights of fancy, this one in particular opening up with swirling new agey synths, what sound remarkably like the music from one of those late night star chart segments on cable access, and thus like much of Ferraro's recent work, but from there on out, Clark definitely mixes it up, beginning with garbled voices, weird tape manipulation, and more hazy synth shimmer, peppered with weird bird call like squawks, before transitioning into a collage of warped looped melodies, playful and sunshiney, almost like a snipped of fifties film music as envisioned (or reworked) by the Caretaker. Soon those new agey synths return, but now with murky muted rhythms, which somehow transform the sound into something more raga like, then adding more of the garbled vocals until we finally reach the final track, and epic nearly sidelong jam, that might be our favorite stuff here, definitely harkening back to the aforementioned Monopoly Child Star Searchers cd-r's, all lo-fi Casio melodies, chaotic looped rhythms, skittery tangles over woozy collaged layers, everything muddy and smeared and gloriously washed out, a fantastic chunk of outsider psychedelic rhythmic drift.
This is the first release on Clark's Pacific City Sound Visions label, and comes in a full color 12 page 12" x 12" jacket/book, with fuzzy photos, and plenty of text explaining (sort of) the Spectacle Of Light, of which this music is dedicated to.
This is not only one of our favorite blaxploitation soundtracks, it may also be one our favorite Marvin Gaye Record too (though I Want You may be a close second). While the movie itself might be rather unremarkable, the soundtrack stands apart from its more well known contemporaries, like SuperFly and Shaft by focusing less on a hard hitting urban funk grit and more on a cool detached noir vibe that somehow feels more menacing. Mostly everything is performed and arranged by Gaye, with Moog synths, piano and saxophone being the main instruments. There is of course some wah wah-ed guitar in the theme, but its low-key laid back swing seems to illustrate a more plausible reality for the title character, one of reserved violence as opposed to say, Isaac Hayes' uptempo go-get-'em macho swagger for Shaft. Still, there is plenty of urban grit. The tense set-ups of "'T' Stands for Trouble" and "The Break In", the pensive ambiance of "Deep-In-It", the love themes tinged with sadness, and the troubled vocal harmonies of "Cleo's Apartment" and "Life Is A Gamble". But the topper of them all is "'T' Plays It Cool", a stone cold groove that is deadly as it is funky. All killer, No filler! So happy it's now been reissued on vinyl - and we got the bargain-priced cd version in stock as well.
With Valentine's Day just a couple weeks away, this fancy one-sided heart shaped single from Girls will be the perfect way to tell that special someone you dig them a lot, or more appropriately in the spirit of Girls, you should get it for yourself and lament the love that you have lost or you wish for but can never have.
"Lawrence" is dedicated to Lawrence Hayard, the frontman of Felt, and what an awesome dedication and tribute it is as this song has the same kind of languid and hazy daydream glow of so many of our favorite Felt songs. It's not a cover, but instead a way for Christopher Owens to show his gratitude and love to someone who has played such a big influence on his music making.
Quite possibly the most beautiful Girls song to date. We've been spinning this heart over and over since we got it in, and don't expect to stop any time soon...
Time to get swept away by some deep dreamy Icelandic beauty, as our favorite experimental cellist Hildur Gudnadottir teams up with composer and pianist Hauschka for a stunning collaboration. We already deeply smitten with the meditative music Gudnadottir has made on her own as well as in collaboration with Angel, BJ Nilsen, Mum, et cetera. But we hadn't spent much time with the music of Hauschka, but this pairing definitely has us wanting to hear more of his stuff. Together they create music that sounds like a solemn soundtrack for ghost towns, abandoned buildings, and isolated existence.
With elements in sound, composition and an overall feeling that reminds us of some of our favorite works by Gavin Bryars, Charlamagne Palestine, Harold Budd, Sylvain Chauveau, and The Rachels, this is one of those records we love playing early on a crisp winter morning or as it turns dark on a Sunday night and it's time to clear our heads of the distractions of the world, and start taking deep breaths and immersing ourselves in thoughtful introspection. Utterly beautiful and stirring.
Single number two from this Beach Fossils side project, and it definitely takes up where the first one left off, jangly, handclappy, eighties dreampop, still reminding us of the Style Council, acoustic guitars, soaring strings, hazy twee vox, low slung new wave bassline, all echoey and softly reverbed, with a cool production and some interesting production tricks this time around, mostly some subtle dubbing out of the vocals. The flipside offers up more of the same, super stripped down minimal pop, but here the strings are allowed to soar, while the verses are even more hushed and subdued, lovely and lush, summery sunshiney eighties retro pop, that we're finding surprisingly addictive!
We imagine the master sleeps soundly, if THIS is the music loudly vibrating in his dreams! He may never wish to wake up. Here's the 2nd album from (to be sibilantly alliterative) this spacey Swedish psych band, the first we've listed - though if this proves as popular as we think it really should, we'll try to get more of their self-titled 2009 debut to review as well. Plain old Hills are not to be confused with WHITE Hills, though they almost could be - their brand of mantric, mesmeric, FX laden, krautrocking groove is definitely in the same druggy realm as White Hills, and that of other AQ faves like Circle, Salvatore, and especially Wooden Shjips. No doubt they all share many of the same influences, from Can and other krautrock to Hawkwind to Spacemen 3. So if that sort of stuff is your bag, Hills comes highly recommended!
While mainly instrumental, there's more singing here than on the debut, but the echo-effected vocals are just another part of the throbbing wash of sound, riding waves of heavily phased guitar, motorik drums, and insistent organ (that specifically reminds us a bit of Circle relatives Itavayla). While we KNOW we're always saying stuff is repetitively hypnotic, Hills really do it to perfection, locking into to inescapable, all-encompassing grooves you never want to end. They also delve into instrumental electric, folky passages with melodies that perhaps draw upon their native Nordic traditional tunes, a la Kebnekajse back in the '70s, though they can sound somewhat Eastern-inflected as well. And final track "Death Shall Come" is a spaced out droning ritual, getting into OM territory there...
We'd love to see these guys (and gal) play live, do a US tour soon please please please! In the meantime, this disc will be in heavy rotation 'round here, and should be required listening for anyone into SF's Wooden Shjips for sure...
It's been a while since we've listed anything from Hoor-Paar-Kraat, aka Anthony Mangicapra, but over the years, we've been enthralled and a little obsessed with Mangicapra's gorgeous surreal soundscaping. This new one is another fantastic collection of manipulated field recording, strange melodic flights of fancy, and stumbling abstract rhythms, a super personal project, the title refers to a type of nervous system disorder, one that claimed a family member, and this record is a tribute to him, and in it's strange herky jerky composition, reflects the symptoms of those nervous disorders, the rhythm seemingly provided by a typewriter, while the air around those clicks and clips is filled with scapes and clanks, super distorted chiming melodies, thrums and whirs, buzz and rumble, it's not so much noisy as there is much going on, the result is quite dreamy in it's own softly cacophonous way. The flipside is much more minimal, with what sounds like some of the A side sound flipped and played back in reverse, all wreathed in a keening sine wave high end, and again surrounded by bits of flutter and buzz, hum and drone. Haunting and quite lovely.
And as with all Black Horizons releases, the packaging is over the top, a silver ink printed slipcover, around a silver printed black J-card, as well as eight silver printed black cardstock inserts, and a small black envelope, signed and fingerprinted in gold ink, which contains a razor blade. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
Brand new on Agitated, the label that has brought us jams from Bardo Pond, Carlton Melton, Moon Duo, Mugstar, the Scientists and the Heads, comes the latest from L.A. psych rockers The Icarus Line, who we had never heard before, which is weird, cuz they have tons of records out, but who we have to say are thoroughly kicking our asses. The A side is a bluesy creep, all dark and skeletal, a brooding sonic monster laced with wild squalls of psych guitar and delivered in a swaggery drawl, a slow build that eventually explodes into a serious psych-dirge blowout, the vocals following suit, soaring and wailing, a wild slab of bluesy psych that we've probably listened to 20 times since this came in.
The flipside is a cover of the the Flamin' Groovies "Slow Death", which is pretty faithful to the original, just sort of cranking it up a bit, the guitars wild and slippery, swooping all over the place, distorted and in-the-red, a wild garage rock stomp that sound like it could be an Icarus Line original, with the way these guys own it. Total garage psych bliss for sure.
Way recommended, obviously, and we're gonna head out and track down all the Icarus Line records we can, as should you...
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!
This stunning slab of outsider electro krautpsych coldwave gloom pop came out of nowhere (well, San Francisco actually!), but is quickly becoming a new obsession around here. Dark and mechanoid, dense and noisy, skeletal and mesmerizing, shoegazey and totally warped in equal measure. While there's been no shortage of weirdo/outsider pop in the last couple years, it's starting to become a way too crowded field for sure, and more and more it feels like lots of these weirdo pop groups aren't truly weird. That seems like a strange distinction, but think about the Shaggs, truly inspired, creating music within limited means, out of a pure desire to be creative, the results totally bafflingly brilliant. Now think about all the bands who cite the Shaggs as an influence, how many of those bands just simply suck, but for some reason consider sucking somehow analogous to the naivete and primitivism of the Shaggs. Such seems to be the case with 'weirdness' these days, it's not as if any pedestrian boring group can just slop on effects, or record their record poorly, or sing in a crazzzeee voice, and suddenly it's art. That stuff, the real thing at least, true outsider sonic art, is absolutely inspired, it comes from the heart, and the soul, you can fake weirdness, but you can't fake genius. Which brings us back to Jealousy, who are most definitely weird. In the most wonderfully and organic way, and who are totally brilliant, pushing all of our buttons, sounding alternatingly like an even more cracked lo-fi Suicide, or a more industrial cold wave Moon Duo, the vibe paranoid and druggy, the music warped and woozy, mesmerizing and motorik. After a wild squall of echo drenched reverbed garbled vox, the record kicks into gear, all low slung, frigid basslines, shimmery echoey guitars, creepy sung/spoken vocals, lots of space, very spare and skeletal, the krautrock vibe is huge, but only surfaces here and there, in between jealousy offer up bursts of chaotic softly noisy murk, heavy drifts of distorted shoegaze, abstract arrhythmic grooves, from weirdo coldwave pop, to clinical industrial creep, to tripped out krautpsych mesmer, our favorite jam might be the super spare spacekraut workout of "Night Stalking", which takes up most of the B side, sounding like a seriously stripped down Moon Duo, mixed with some This Heat, and a little Throbbing Gristle, spidery and psychedelic, one of those tracks you wish would go on forever, totally tranced out rhythmic bliss. The record closes with another favorite, the evocatively titled "Drug Sores", which wraps weirdly distorted speaking-in-tongues Buttholes-like vocals over Spacemen 3 style droney heavily effected space psych guitars, creating something both darkly mesmerizing, and ominously disturbing, which pretty much captures the vibe of the whole record. TOTALLY recommended.
As much as we think sometimes we have a real way with words, there's always somebody who totally puts us to shame, which is exactly why we're gonna start our review of this, the sixth and latest record from Finnish underground outsider rock weirdo one man band Keuhkot ('lungs' in Finnish), with a description written by Jussi of Circle, whose label Ektro released it:
"The sixth struggle album of Kake Puhuu. The combat noise and insect world music downpreaching book. Rawer than its precursors, this album strips it down to marrow and squeezes juice out of it. Keuhkot batters mindless attributes of humanity from insects' point of view by means of reverse pop music. The aim is towards backwoods motorism, meritocamping, real men, moose hunt madness and established global upstarts. The most bearded feminist of Finland, Keuhkot, kicks the real man's groin. Keuhkot makes its own ethnic fusion gadding from rhythmic highways to distorted sidepaths in a refreshed guitar oriented soundscape. You may call it freaky but according to Kake, pop music (including metal, of course) is a freaky industrialized illness that needs a vaccination � which is Keuhkot."
We definitely couldn't have said it better ourselves, but heck, why not give it a try? Longtime readers of the aQ list might remember Andee's harrowing and ultra personal private Keuhkot performance in an abandoned schoolhouse in the wilds of rural Finland (you can read more about it elsewhere on the aQ site, in one of the other Keuhkot reviews), and are quite possibly already fans of Kake Puhuu's twisted sonic world of primitive programmed drums, twisted percussion, weird samples, layered loops, warped and woozy synths, detuned guitars and warbled guttural vox, and how could you not be, Puhuu is like the underground electro minimal abstract noise rock Jandek of Finland, record after record of totally idiosyncratic, ultra personal, musical weirdness, that sonically is all over the map, be it twang flecked almost Western sounding folk, woozy crooned torch songs, junkyard percussion driven lo-fi dirge rock, stumbling hypno-prog, who knows how the heck to classify any of this, easiest to just say this is some sort of utterly singular, surreal Finnish psychedelia, equal parts the Residents, Tom Waits, Birthday Party, Cop Shoot Cop, and who knows what else, all filtered through that totally cracked Finnish sensibility that informs so much of the Finnish music we love. A little bit circusy, a LOT whatthefuck, droney, fuzzy, distorted, stumbly, we want to say this is the best Keuhkot yet, but we sort of love them all, cuz they're all great. We'd say it's the weirdest, but they're all pretty goddamn weird too. We will say the opening track "Kuuluisia Alkemisteja Vol 1", is one of the coolest jams we've heard in ages, all super blown out synth buzz, pulsing and undulating, laced with haunting disembodied vocals, but the sort of droned out abstract psych trip out we could listen to forever. Just check out the samples, and prepare yourself to be baffled and confused and totally transported to some seriously demented sonic otherworld, and Jussi did in fact say it best: Keuhkot kicks the real man's groin!
All of you who loved Light In The Attic's career-spanning collection of music by Korean psych guitar maestro Shin Joong Hyun, that we recently made Record Of The Week, should be happy about this. It's an brand new official reissue, the first in a series, of Shin Joong Hyun related albums. As you perhaps recall, soothing psych-pop-folk singer Kim Jung Mi, backed by Shin Joong Hyun and his group The Men, appeared on that Beautiful Rivers And Mountains anthology with a song called "The Sun", which we said reminded us of Galaxie 500!
This 1973 full-length from Kim Jung Mi, as masterminded by Shin Joong Hyun, is also quite special. "The Sun" is just but one of the ten dreamily melodic tracks found here, including a four minute version of the song "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains" itself, a signature Shin Joong Hyun tune. Other titles include "Wind", "Blow Spring Breeze", "It's Raining", and "Lonely Heart", and although the lyrics are all in Korean, we get the idea that love and nature form much of the subject matter here (actually, the thick cd booklet provides English translations of the lyrics, along with EXTENSIVE, ultra-laudatory liner notes and lots of full-color photos of the sexy young chanteuse). In those liner notes, Shin Joong Hyun is quoted as having said: "There is no person who can sing Psychedelic music as well as Kim Joong Mi".
Kim Jung Mi's lovely voice will go straight to your heart, and the emotive music accompanying her is moodily lush, majestically melancholic... it's not really about hard-edged fuzz guitars, though they surface occasionally, as more often do propulsive psych "beat" grooves, but for the most part this album seems to hover on a higher, more heavenly pop plane of psychedelia than that suggests... The groovier stuff, though, reminds us of Serge Gainsbourg's Historie De Melody Nelson at times (on "Your Dream" especially). And it's no stretch that the liner notes call Kim Jung Mi the "Francoise Hardy of Korea". Recommended to any fan of the Forge Your Own Chains comp, in addition to those who already heard her on that Shin Joong Hyun collection. Gorgeous!
Comes nicely packaged in a miniature lp-style sleeve, with that aforementioned info/photo packed booklet. There's a vinyl version forthcoming as well, fyi.
Record number three from these German post black metallers, the first we've reviewed on the aQ list, although they did merit mentions in our reviews of records by Alcest and Amesoeurs, which makes sense since that's usually who they get lumped in with (along with Farsot, whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this weeks list), which to a certain degree makes sense, like those groups, Lantlos have more in common with the new strains of black metal, but unlike the sort of shimmery ethereal pop of those groups, Lantlos is simultaneously much heavier, and even LESS black metal. To our ears, Lantlos at this point sounds like a post rock band, albeit a very heavy one, and one with a distinctly black metal pedigree, but there are very few instances of blasting or buzzing, the vocals are definitely one the vokills side of the spectrum, but the music, is quite removed from black metal, slipping easily from abstract doomy plod, to dreamy, droney drift, from Neurosisy churn to soaring Godspeed like majesty, from moody, melodic almost Katatonia like doom pop, to skittery almost jazziness and back again. There's also the fact, that many of those sounds coexist in the same song, the lengthy tracks shifting constantly. And while here and there a bit of blasting buzz does pop up, in most cases it's in conjunction with some other sound that is distinctly NOT black metal, which if anything only makes it that much cooler.
These guys definitely get pegged as 'post black metal' but it might be more accurate to describe them as blackened post rock, or simple post metal, cuz they definitely sound like the sort of band that would find themselves sonically more at home alongside groups like Angel Eyes, the Ocean, Snowblood, Baroness, and all the other brooding slow build epic heavy post metal combos we dig so much. And hell, mixing in a little vokill rasp and some extra buzz, maybe a little bit of blast, can't hurt either.
This is the debut release from these Finnish heavies, and is a crushing slab of gloriously abject doomsludge infused with plenty of old school slo-mo death metal crush, the label mentions bands like Coffins, Autopsy, Winter and Celtic Frost, and we're definitely feeling all of those, but we're also hearing plenty of Melvins (especially in the vocals) even some diSEMBOWELMENT, not to mention all those other modern death metal outfits like Disma, Vasaeleth, Vastum, Encoffination and the like. Lurk mix long stretches of droned out ambience, layered guitar buzz and effects drenched thrum, with bursts of churning chugging heaviness, pounding doomic sludge, the drums massive and pummeling, the vocals slipping from a growling guttural howl to a surprisingly melodic bellow (hence the Melvins comparison), there are some surprising melodies too, even some hooks, but they're less noticeable once they've been stretched way out and slowed way down. The songs often fracture into lurching lumbering stop/start workouts, or disappear in squalls of white noise, slipping into near-grooves, before splintering into something much more abstract and dirgey. The closer is the fastest of the bunch, but even then it's still basically a crawl, but when the drums and the riffs fall just right, and the band lock into a serious chunk of blackened chugging sludge, these guys become fucking monstrous, and that sort of sonic power and black hole metallic fury, should have all those other modern death metal outfits looking over their shoulders, and running for their lives.
Last list we got to rave about one of our favorite old Magnetic Fields records, Holiday, from the early '90s, which was just reissued on vinyl. This time we get to rave about a NEW slab of wax from Stephin Merritt and his crew. With a new album coming out in March this awesome 7" gives us a sneak peak at what the style/set-up will be this time out and from the sound of these two tracks we're pretty excited. The title track is not only one of the wittiest songs Merritt has penned (and damn he's made a living out of crafting witty songs) but it also brings back synths to the Magnetic Fields sound, something we've been missing so much in recent outings. The B side "You Ain't No Picasso" is classic Merritt, bittersweet and sardonic, it's also an exclusive track which won't be on the upcoming full length. This is a no-brainer for Magnetic Fields fans.
Protometalheads, psychfreaks, Japanophiles - listen up.
Imagine, what if Janis Joplin sang for Black Sabbath? And further imagine, what if both Janis and Sabbath were in fact Japanese?
Well, you almost don't have to imagine. 'Cause Carmen Maki and Blues Creation's album together has just been reissued, on both cd and vinyl!
It dates from the magic year of 1971, originally released 'round about the same time as Blues Creation's all-time proto-metal classic Demon & Eleven Children, which we've gone on and on about before, one of the heaviest albums of the era, from a band who were basically the Japanese answer to Black Sabbath. And Japan had some heavy bands back then, like Flower Travellin' Band, Flied Egg, Ranmadou, and Speed Glue & Shinki. But of all those, the most Sabbathy one was probably Blues Creation (though of course FTB comes close, having actually covered the song "Black Sabbath" on their debut).
The lovely Carmen Maki, for her part, was already a popular Japanese singer, definitely of the Janis Joplin blues belting school. Though she's also been likened to Grace Slick, and even to a female Robert Plant. Made sense for her to team up with this particular shit-hot blues rock outfit, both live and on this record.
Bands back then tended to do a lot of covers, but instead of being obvious and covering a Janis Joplin song, the opening track here is a bit more obscure, though it might sound somehow familiar anyway, it's a version of "Understand" by a lady often compared to Janis, Lydia Miller of the American band Fantasy. They do a few other standards on this album, "Motherless Child" and "St. James Infirmary", but all the other tracks were written by Blues Creation guitarist Kazuo Takeda.
And to be clear, this record isn't nearly so heavy as Demon & Eleven Children, not all the time, a lot of it's in fact fairly mellow, and all of it is, naturally, quite bluesy. But, even when they're not in the midst of a rollicking full-tilt Mean Old Boogie, the gentler "soft rock" stuff is pretty nice; and each track usually builds into a fine frenzy of wild wailing blues licks and distorted riffery. Those solo sections are really when the Blues Creation guys get to let loose, though Cream is probably the much bigger influence here that Sabbath.
Maki later fronted a band called Oz (no not the Swedish '80s metallers), who were pretty heavy too, and proggy; we'd love it if that stuff got reissued too someday...
Italian industrial pioneer Maurizio Bianchi released Nervo / Hydra as a private edition cassette back in 1981; and the tape was subsequently bootlegged a number of times always with the incorrect title "NH/HN." With Vinyl On Demand's thorough exhumation of Bianchi's impossible to find cassettes spanning a couple of 5lp boxsets, the material from Nervo / Hydra did get an official reissue and an impressive remastering job as well. As with most everything on Vinyl On Demand, however, those two MB boxsets went out of print, necessitating yet another reissue of Bianchi's work.
In 1981, Bianchi unleashed his first major work through Sterile Records in Symphony For A Genocide; and Nervo / Hydra churns through the trademarked MB carcinogenic electronics minus the death-march drum machine of that aforementioned album. Fibrillations of grimy electronics and electro-shock dronings crawl ominously through endlessly cycling variations, punctuated with frigid divebomb squeals and slabs of flickering melodies erupting from Bianchi's abused Korg synth. Expect deadly, corrosive atmospheres on this impressive album!
We must point out that the material on this cd was taken straight from the LP of one of those Vinyl On Demand boxsets, as the album pops and hisses with a few choice bits of vinyl crackle. It certainly sounds *way* better than the crappy bootlegs from the original cassette, and we always like a little crackle and hiss on our records anyway, but in case that sort of thing concerns you... Also, we have limited stock on this item.
We first heard from the oddly titled Medroxy Progesteron Acetate on a split 7" with Warmth a while back, but this is the first we've heard since, a sprawling double cassette epic, of burnt out psychedelic drift and drone out black synth shimmer, rife with strange voices and sampled vocals, buried melodies and constantly shifting textures and tones. Dense stretched out drone music, lush layered abstract psych-synth minimalism, slow-motion muted industrial creep, squalls of grinding sci-fi noise, or thick bleary buzz, this is heavy, deep, dark listening, paranoid, sinister, ominous, otherworldly, haunting, harrowing, but at the same time, strangely blissed out, mesmerizing, dense and dark and in its own bleak and black way surprisingly dreamy. Muted rhythmic drift fused to ethereal shimmer, and softly roiling sonic murk, the voices constantly in the distance, occasionally moving to the fore, intoning some mysterious passage only to be swallowed up and covered in layer after layer of hum and thrum and rumble. Fans of Pulse Emitter, Grasslung, and other synth-drone alchemists will definitely dig, but the constant flow of samples and strange voices and mysterious broadcasts, gives this the vibe of some fucked up soundtrack, or some purloined surveillance tape set to music, which is what makes this so cool. And so trippy, fucked up and frightening.
Like all Black Horizons releases, crazy deluxe packaging, two tapes housed in one of those cool double tape cases, with two full color printed J-cards, on metallic paper, each with an insert with all the 'lyrics' and liner notes, and each either silver or gold, matching whichever tape it accompanies.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!
We dug Melchior's most recent full length, Assemblage Blues, like crazy. It was a wild collection of garage pop, and really our first proper exposure to his noisy chaotic outsider songstyle. We played that record to death, so were super psyched to get in this new single, and it's a doozy, much darker and lower key than that record. The A side offers up moody brooding verses driven by a woozy low slung bassline, which explodes into a dizzying psychedelic organ driven chorus, the song super catchy, and maybe one of our favorite Melchior jams yet. The B side is another brooder, that sounds a little bit like a more fractured lo-fi Cardinal if that makes any sense, the same sort of stately pop vibe, but here it's all lush darkly dreamy vocal harmonies over dizzyingly looped guitar figures and has us reassessing what we said about the A side, cuz the B side is also one of our favorite Melchior jams yet. Guess that means this is most definitely recommended!
Braggadocious San Francisco metallers Midnight Chaser unleash their album debut, brought to us by the same label that put out the Vektor album we highlighted last list. But while Vektor blew minds with their advanced thrash tech, Midnight Chaser are much more retro and rockin' than that. They play sleazy hard rock steeped in the sounds of the late '70s/early '80s New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, a la Diamond Head, Blitzkrieg, Chateaux, and Tank. And we know they know their stuff, they covered Tank on the limited edition ep that preceded this, and are named after a song by obscure NWOBHMers White Spirit (the band that Iron Maiden third wheel Janick Gers got his start in). Combine that with their native Californian good time rock n' roll roots and you've got a party... in fact, the lead off track here, entitled "Awesome Party" (actually Midnight Chaser's original name before wiser heads prevailed) tells you pretty much all you need to know. Super catchy chugging riffiness, in support of the singer's spirited contention that he's "got nothing to lose", "really need(s) to cut loose" and is "looking for an awesome party tonight". And it would be an awesome party, if Midnight Chaser were playing...
The whole rest of the record is similarly rockin' and fun, including their cover of "Dynamite" from Blackout by the Scorpions. Other things to like about 'em: the singer has short hair, wears aviator shades, and thus kinda has a Graham Bonnet thing going. The disc's cartoonish cover is pretty rad/ridiculous, depicting a sexy woman of indeterminate age (possibly the protagonist of track 5, "Cougar'd") riding a mechanical amplifier beast with electric guitars for legs, galloping across a hot pink landscape. Yeah they're not very grim and kvlt, are they? But take a break from the black metal and rock out for once! Seems we've got a little New Wave Of San Francisco Old School Awesome Partying Heavy Metal happening here, with the likes of Space Vacation, Hot Fog, and now these guys! Cool.
Altered state exploration and bedroom mysticism is on tap from North Carolina's Robert Thompson, who's taken up the moniker Mohave Triangles. Thompson has crafted the standard fair torrent of cassette releases, now offering his wares through the shambolic cottage industry label Hooker Vision out of rural Georgia. This tape opens with a spoken word segment from a Native American shaman explaining a recurrent prophecy about a messenger arriving at the end of a cycle of time. With accompanying ambience, the piece closely resembles the beginning of Godspeed! You Black Emperor's F#A# lp. But instead of orchestrated rock crescendo, Thompson zones out a very hypnotic piece of murky ambience, one that would harken back to classic Zoviet France or perhaps Basinski's shortwave compositions, through the hazy mirage of slowly repeating, constantly shimmering sounds. Elsewhere, he picks up the guitar, dialed into plenty of looping patterns, delays, and effects, skewing the Mark McGuire sound towards a freeform approach to avant-trance dronescaping. Limited to 100 copies!
Not new, but we've been fans of this record for years and had never reviewed it, in part 'cause in recent years stuff on the Second Battle label has been notoriously difficult to stock consistently. But one of our suppliers just managed to score a batch of these so we saw our opportunity to write it up for those of you as yet uninitiated into the krautrock awesomeness of My Solid Ground. How awesome is that? Well, the very first track is called "Dirty Yellow Mist" and is over 13 minutes long, featuring a relentlessly repeating distorted guitar riff ceremonially intoning over and over and over as wordless female vocals, droning organ and tribal percussion build up around it. If you're like, "cool!" then this record is for you, it's as good as that sounds. This 1971 (aha, 1971! says Allan) album exemplifies druggy, downer spaced-out psych, being very reminiscent of Pink Floyd circa Meddle (another awesome album that we really should properly review some day!) and Amon Duul II -- along with other krautrockers like Siloah, Necronomicon, Agitation Free and early Guru Guru. And the Floyd feel isn't just 'cause of the cartoon pigs that adorn the cover art either. But there's also a side to the band that's more along the lines of garagey hard rock, with several Kinks-riffed attacks to shake your shack. As primitive heaviness goes, this is a classic. Hazy and weighty and often ominous (check out the mumbling vocals on "The Executioner"). Includes seven bonus tracks (the original 24 minute version of "Flash" not least among them), and comes packaged in a swank digipack.
We might as well just start out with the obvious. Pop record of the year. Hands down. We knew it would be. And yeah, even in January, it's pretty much already been decided. In fact the minute we found out there was a new Nada Surf record on the horizon, we began to count the days, and wonder if it would be one of those slow growers, or if we'd be immediately obsessed (it was the latter, btw). And really, one of the only reasons it's not Record Of The Week, is because it just so happened to come out when we already had an embarrassment of ROTW's picked, but rest assured, for some of us, this is most definitely Record Of The Week, and most likely record of the year too.
Most people are probably super excited to extol the virtues of their favorite band, or that record they've been anxiously awaiting, and we are too obviously, but for us it comes with the added pressure of 'what the hell do we say about this', especially when it's a band whose records we've gushed about extensively in the past, two of those records past Records Of The Week in fact, we've said it before, but this is one of those records where we just want the whole review to be "Just buy it! it's so great! We love it and can't stop listening to it! We've been driving the not-so-pop-obsessed around here CRAZY with repeated listens, sometimes just setting the cd player on repeat!" And heck, for some of you that will be enough, if you dug the last few Nada Surf records, which loads of you did, you'll love this one too. We want to say it's the best one yet, but we say that every time. We can say, it's maybe the most rocking one yet. With a lot few slower songs, and some of their heaviest tunes, but without sacrificing any of the lush hookiness or irresistible jangle. We'd say just listen to the samples, cuz we really can't imagine anyone being able to resist, but on the off chance that you do need more...
Nada Surf have moved well beyond potential one hit wonder status, after the ubiquitous MTV airplay of a certain song called "Popular" back in the nineties (YouTube it), and ever since, they've continued to hone a sound rooted in classic power pop and nineties indie rock, a sound that quickly became all their own, lush and melodic and jangly, with Matthew Caws' super distinctive vox, and a melodic flair and impeccable songwriting that eventually became just as distinctive, their lyrics clever and smart, literate and carefully constructed, harmonies lush and lovely, songs that rock as much as they drift and shimmer, every record packed with potential hits, not a bit of filler, and this new one is no different. Opener "Clear Eye, Clouded Mind" starts things off with a bang, thick crunchy guitars, big pounding drums, and some impossibly catchy melodies, and like many of their tracks, the verse and bridge are just as catchy as the chorus, if not more so. "Waiting For Something" is another killer, all chiming and sunshiney, crunchy and fuzzy, big guitars, and even bigger vocals, all woven into a super dynamic arrangement that manages to be both intricate and hooky as hell. "When I Was Young" starts off all folky and balladic, just steel string guitar and gorgeous vox, eventually blossoming into a big crunchy jangly second half, "Jules And Jim" is another great one, the band taking unlikely melodies and complex arrangements and impossibly transforming them into pure perfect pop. We could go song by song, cuz every song here KILLS, everyone with a chorus most other bands would kill for, and most likely a verse that other bands would make into a chorus, but odds are we'd just end up repeating ourselves. But we can say, which we've mentioned before, is that as much as we obsess over grim black metal and noisy chaotic heaviness and weird dronemusic and all that sort of far out freaky stuff, we find ourselves always coming back to this, and NOT just because it's poppy and catchy, but because it's poppy and catchy in a way that so much other 'catchy pop' is NOT. Sure these guys are a pop band, but what they do with that pop is utterly magical.
It's at this point that we DO say, just listen to the sound samples, this is the sort of visceral emotional music that will connect right away, and if you're anything like us, once you hear it, you won't want to stop hearing it, and you'll want to hear more and more!
While they last, the first handful of copies will come bundled with a bonus disc of studio recorded acoustic versions of some of the tracks from the new record!
Here's another new one from the ever-reliable stoner rock label MeteorCity. This interesting, oddly named Swedish outfit is a HEAVY juggernaut indeed, but also nuanced, combining chugging guitar crush with graceful twin harmonies, and switching up from shouty aggro vox to more tuneful, croon-ful melodic singing. According to the Encyclopedia Metallum, The New Keepers Of The Water Towers' typical lyrical themes pertain to "Dwelling Beasts" - whatever that means. Perhaps those beasts are the quarry of "The Calydonian Hunt". There's certainly something mythic and fabled about their songtitles ("Mankind's Fall", "Arise, The Serpent", "The Sword In The Stone"...) and the music follows suit, their surging Swedish sludge being both bombastic and more complex than you might expect. Primal prog perhaps? Mystic metal? Certainly recommended to fans of such folks as High On Fire, Mastodon, Grand Magus, The Sword, and others of that equally heavy and probably bearded ilk.
KILLER RARE PROTO-METAL DOOM KRAUTROCK ALERT!!!!
We haven't been able to get the cd version of this in years, but we were stoked to discover that a new 2010 vinyl version had been released... which also took us quite a while to get a hold of. But now we've got 'em, at least a few, though when they're gone we don't know when we'll be able to get more. So if proto-metal is your thing, especially on vinyl like it was originally, then act fast!
Here's more or less what we said about it back when we had the compact disc reish:
Yet another amazing discovery in the realms of unheralded heaviness from the '70s. Krautrockers Night Sun released this, their only album, back in 1972, and probably the only heavier sounds produced on earth that year were produced by Black Sabbath (and, hopefully, some other as-yet-unknowns). Seriously. If anything is "proto-metal", this sure is. Deep Purple (the keyboards and high-pitched vox) meets Sabbath style DOOM guitars. These guys must have been gobbling both amphetamines and downers 'cause the disc goes to both extremes of doom-paced creepy crawls *and* manic prog-spazz riff, uh, mania. Produced by Conny Plank, with plenty of psychedelic phased-out atmosphere to go with the jarring riffage and crazy vox. '70s proto-metal to file alongside Jerusalem, Buffalo, Toad, Leafhound, Captain Beyond, Blues Creation, and early Pentagram. Definitely a crucial artifact of the "early heavy". Why Night Sun aren't huge cult heroes we don't know...
Yup, that is a nod to Model 500's classic "NO UFO's" - one of the few techno trax from the mid '80s that can legitimately qualify as being timeless. The project that has taken this name is authored by Vancouver's electronica wunderkind Konrad Jandavs, who's caught in not one, but two parallel timewarps - one fixated on the kraut / motorik oscillations of Harmonia, Neu!, and Conrad Schnitzler and the other on a lo-fi adaptation of the avant-electronica circa 1993 especially Autechre and Main. All of which are great sonic signposts on their own; but thrust together in a mottled collage, the results are kaleidoscopically discombobulating. The cheap drum machine marching beneath an expository synthdrone noodle akin to J.D. Emmanuel on "Evidence / Century Park" leads into the acid reflux of "Vertigo (K. Alexi)" seeking the same influences that spawned Aphex and Autechre. The hypno-riff from Jandavs' guitar on "00/00/2010" with scrabbled electronic drone and oscillation is structurally identical to what Robert Hampson was going for on his awesome Main album Hydra-Calm (now, there's an album in need of a reissue!). For all of its genre-hopping bricolage, Soft Coast is a very self-assured album and one that fits rather nicely amidst the retro-garde agenda promoted by John Elliott's Spectrum Spools imprint.
We've listed Noctum's The Seance previously, when it came out domestically on the Stormspell label, in 2010. Subsequently, the band put out a vinyl-only 12" ep on the High Roller label called The Fiddler, with two new songs and a Pentagram cover.
Unfortunately, we never were able to pick up any of those eps, but now the Swedish psych/prog label Transubstans has put out an import edition of The Seance that includes 2 of the 3 tracks from The Fiddler as a bonus! (They left off the Pentagram song.) So, if you missed this before, here's a bigger better version, and if you're a big fan, now's your chance to upgrade to this expanded edition...
What we said about the original limited edition Stormspell pressing:
Woah. Witchcraft fans, listen up!! There's gotta be something supernatural in the water over there in Sweden, 'cause they've somehow conjured up ANOTHER band that channels the swinging riffage and occultic vibe of early '70s Sabbath (and Pentagram) so perfectly, a la Witchcraft. We had thought that Burning Saviours (RIP) were Witchcraft's closest doppelgangers, but these young guys do a damn good job of it too. Other bands in this vein include Graveyard, Horisont, Troubled Horse (well they're mostly all Witchcraft members, that one), and Dead Man... now add Noctum to that list and put 'em at the top! Not what we were expecting, with its cover art and logo, this looks a bit more like black metal, but these Swedes are definitely practicing an earlier form of witchcraft for this seance of theirs... Quite a nice surprise, if something that sounds so familiar can be called a surprise.
Probably if the singer didn't have that particular Swedish-accented lilt to his voice (all songs but one, "Den Onda Trollpackan", are sung in English), and did more of an overt Ozzy, we'd be calling 'em Sabbath clones (first 3 albums!) rather than Witchcraft ones, but the combination of Pentagram/Sabbath stylings and the emotive, melodic, sincere-sounding vocals definitely spell Witchcraft. (Though "Lucifer's Way" also reminds us of a song by heavy progressive krautrockers Dies Irae!).
We thought of trying to review this without playing up the Witchcraft-iness of it, but really, if you like Witchcraft (and who doesn't?) you'll find this a pleasure - and if you aren't yet into Witchcraft, you should probably start with one of their own albums anyway. Though this would do in a pinch! Sabbath fans, too, queue up. Noctum possess a very Iommi-ish guitar tone for sure. Goes great with their undeniably catchy, and heavy, riffs. Throw in crashing cymbals, bellbottomed lope, and urgent-sounding songwriting infused with portents of doom, and you've got something that's more authentically 1971 proto-metal than most things from 1971!
...So, pretty awesome, and now even better, with bonus tracks "The Fiddler" and "The Serpent Bride" both pretty groovy, bringing the cowbell and sounding like Led Zep was as much an influence as Sabbath.
