It's so sad that we haven't been able to keep a single release by this band of space age retro psych poppers in stock for than a matter of days. Both their debut lp, and their split 7" with Still Corners sold out in a flash, and we imagine a similar fate will befall this most recent cassette, yet another ultra limited record from Boston pop groop The New Lines, whose sound is a gorgeous, warm and fuzzy blur of Stereolab like krautpop, sixties bachelor pad grooves, Beach Boys harmonies, analog synths, whirling organs, and that sort of retro jangle pop we can't seem to get enough of, a la the Zombies, High Llamas, and the Elephant 6 Stable. These guys may be flying under the radar for now, but it can't last long, cuz anyone into THAT sound will be flipping out when they hear The New Lines. Perfect fuzzy, jangly pop, wreathed in reverb and echo, driven by super melodic basslines, underpinned by lush chordal swells, the vocals a deep and dramatic croon, all blurred into a gauzy swirl of dream pop shimmer, hooks and melodies drifting weightless through sun dappled glades of whirring organs and summery strum, everything infused with a weary melancholia that makes these sounds perfect both for summery afternoons, and bundled up wintery wanders. Grab one before they're gone, cuz this is LIMITED TO 150 COPIES, and it's already sold out and out of print. So these are the LAST COPIES EVER...
This is the debut full length from Floridian experimental blacknoize / psychedelic drone technicians NRIII, it just showed up in the mail one day, we weren't sure what to expect, we did dig the strange two-headed-horse-and-sigil on the cover, but the second we threw it on, we pretty much knew that folks into the sort of abstract ambient blackness conjured up by folks like Sevile Sect, Locrian, Ural Umbo, Gog and the like, NRIII could very well have just found their favorite band.
That said, NRIII's sound definitely hews closer to the noise side of the sonic spectrum, the vibe very industrial, and at times reminding us of SF outfit Sutekh Hexen, the same sort of grim blacknoise vibe, but NRIII definitely have their own thing going on, taking weird blasts of almost metallic sounding percussion, strange sampled voices, dense blackened shimmers, super distorted blasts of psychedelic noise, or alien sounding processed vocals, and transforming them into something super atmospheric, darkly terrifying, and strangely and very abstractly rhythmic.
The sound shifts dramatically from brittle shards of hiss and skree, to churning, rumbling blackened rumble, both sides often peppered with strange jagged fragments that seem to act as vocals, but sound more like steam escaping from fractured vents, or blasts of white noise, those 'vocals' seeming to ooze into drifting clouds, or blurring into thick crumbling layers, the tracks driven by simple dubbed out machinelike rhythms, sometimes sounding like the churning chug of a train, other times the lumbering crush of ultradoom, and still others like a skipping jazz cd (which is the only track to feature some wild sax skronk). But even there, that skittery stuttery chaos is underpinned by ominous moans and bizarre demonic vocalizations.
Here and there the sounds do seem to coalesce into a sort of abstract black metal, twisted into strange and -nearly- unrecognizable shapes, but still retaining that a hellborn grim black energy and abject demonic fury. But just as often, the sound seems to collapse into strange tangles of churning speaker shredding low end and thick corrosive industrial crunch, often accompanied by those same sick vokills creating a strange sort of industrial black psych crush that KILLS.
Needless to say, WAY recommended.
Oval's 94Diskont still ranks as one of the most gorgeous, emotional and lush and lovely electronic music records we've ever heard. Oval mainman Markus Popp arranging a symphony of glitches and skipping digital sound into something impossibly organic and beautiful. For whatever reason, around the turn of the century, Popp seemingly hung it up, only to return almost a decade later with a new record, and a new sound. With this first new release, an ep called Oh, Popp offered up something that sounded like a proper rock band, gone was the pure glitch and experimental electronic collage, and in its place was something that sounded more like some strange post rock / free jazz hybrid, which weirdly enough sounded more like something that should be on Thrill Jockey. Still rife with glitch and jagged edits, but definitely a strange new direction. Next came O, which positioned itself as the perfect meeting point of this new band-like Oval, and the Oval of old, and we have to say we dug it quite a bit. And now it seems like Popp must be re-energized cuz here we are not more than a year later, with a whole new full length, and yet again, the sound has shifted, in one respect, more toward the warm liquid soundscaping of those early records, but with hint of nineties IDM in the mix, the result is a record that shifts from swirling contemplative glitched out drift, to stuttery, propulsive groove, albeit those grooves assembled from the same strange elements, resulting in a bastardized electronica, that even in that more 'groovy' state, could be no one but Oval. Popp's new sound palette continues to amaze as well, a veritable symphony of clicks and chitters, of creaks and bleeps, strange synth sounds, and what sounds like heavily processed, but proper recorded drums, warm chordal whirs, haunting melodies, lush textures, the sound brittle and crunchy one second, hushed and lush the next, with an attention to detail that's staggering, yet even as meticulously crafter and deftly assembled, the music sounds alive, and emotional, and the more we listen to it, on headphones especially, the more we're sucked in, and utterly transported.
Accompanying the cd is a second disc, a DVD, but not to be played in a DVD player, instead, loaded with extras, including videos, a ton of bonus tracks, a TV special, extensive liner notes (which are also in the booklet) from David Toop, Atsushi Sasaki, Minoru Hatanaka as well as Popp himself, not to mention a whole library of Oval sounds, which one can use to make your own OvalMusic, and there's a link in the packaging to the Shitkatapult site, where you can download OvalDNA software as well!
With a name like Pallbearer, and a record cover that looks like an illustration from some obscure Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, you might be expecting some grim, oozing blackened slo-mo tarpit creep, or heck maybe even some full on over the top swords and sorcery power metal epic-ry, but what you might not expect, is precisely what this Arkansas doom crew conjures up, a surprisingly melodic, and downright dreamy chunk of true epic, super melodic, classic sounding doom, complete with acoustic guitars and soaring clean vocals, all wound around a sound that's more warm and fuzzy and washed out oftentimes than downtuned and sludgey. Reminding us a bit of aQ faves Megaton Leviathan, the same sort of shoegazey sound and dreamily psychedelic vibe, but Pallbearer sound much more beholden to classic metal, with some of these songs sounding like some lost eighties metal jam, slowed down and blissed out, often slipping into almost slowcore dirgery, that sort of haunting druggy mesmer, still epic and melodic, but more bleary and gauze-y, with the guitars not crunchy and buzzy, so much as thick and dense and lushly layered, the songs slow building and hauntingly brooding. Not that Pallbearer, aren't heavy, they most definitely are, like on "Devoid Of Redemption", a re-recorded track from their demo, the sound is massive, the guitars thick and churning, the drums a muted massive pound, but even then, those clean vocals change the whole vibe, and within the music itself, the melodies almost sound like horns, mournful and funereal, and the sound, even at its heaviest, seems to ooze into something much more dreary and dreamy and druggy. The recording and production too, perfectly suits the sound, vintage and classic, the sound Sabbathy, and Candlemass-y and St. Vitus-y, heavy but spacious, plenty of reverb, and deftly applied effects, but smeared and subtly stretched into something even more crushingly heavy, spaced out and psychedelic, and weirdly hauntingly lovely, a sound that's both murky and mesmerizing, magical and mysterious, which is making this a new favorite with the metalheads around here and a definite contender for doom record of the year...
Record number two from this Oneida offshoot, two long form pieces, both heavily drum driven, spaced out, psychedelic and very very rhythmic, beholden for sure to the many minimalist greats that came before, not to mention heavily indebted to krautrock classics, but for everything these guys borrow from the past, they manage to infuse it with its own unique modern psychedelic energy. So much so that it's actually quite difficult to describe. The 40+ minute, two part "Border Waves" begins with a strange flurry of stuttering drumming, over heaving swells of whirring organ, and buried swirls of melody, it's not until about 4 minutes in that the sound shifts, the drumming shifts from snare to toms, and gets all tribal, the sound mesmerizing and hypnotic, folks who flipped for the Boredoms Boadrum performances (of which Kid from Onieda and POTN played a big part), will go nuts for this too, a similarly drums-as-portal-to-the-cosmos energy to the sound, that sound growing more and more chaotic, the swirling swooshing background sounds growing more and more active and noisy, but never losing that droned out psych-kraut mesmer. The second movement is almost like the sonic flipside, the background sound, the tripped out synths and drones moving to the fore, squelches and swooshes drifting over a bed of grinding crumbling blacknoise, a similarly stuttery drum rhythm, albeit way more stripped down, enters the fray, but fades way after not too long, letting the various other sounds shift and sway, a dark ambient spaced out psychedelic drift, underpinned by that ever present distorted low end rumble.
The 30+ minute title track, might be the heaviest, darkest krautdrone jam yet, all rumbling whirring low end, pulsing synths and grinding buzzing thrum, laced with minimal spare drumming, a sense of propulsion infused into the sound, less rhythmic, but still weirdly motorik, the caustic crunch almost SUNNO))) like in its tarpit creep, but strap some headphones on and lose yourself in the undulating layers and the lush, blackened textures.
Comes with a download card too!
Finland's Pharaoh Overlord return with this devastating double lp on Aaron Turner and Faith Coloccia's vinyl-only Sige label. Whilst we have many favorite Finns, these guys (and their mothership Circle) are among our very favoritest. Yours too probably, so we imagine these are gonna fly out of here fast.
This Circle sideproject is certainly VERY "circular" here, full of repetitive minimalist vibrations to the max, utter stoner neo-kraut hypnosis for sure, with a heavy metallic undercurrent and some freaky cosmic jazziness to it too. Of the couple most recent previous PO efforts, Lunar Jetman aligns more closely with the space/noise rock of live lp Horn, rather than the "song-ier" classic metal of Out Of Darkness, harking back also to the dark stoner soundscapes of some of their earlier albums as well; but as always, it is its own entity.
Lunar Jetman features six tracks, mostly quite long, sprawling over four album sides, for far more than an hour of slow burning, steady building, all-instrumental Overlord action. The album begins with the insistent gallop of the nearly 11 minute long "Rodent", which almost sounds like Maiden gone motorik! With extra spaceage shoegazey shwooshing and wooshing thrown in. It'll have you totally transfixed before it's even half over. The distortodelic kraut-iness continues amidst the metronymic percussive percolations of the even-lengthier track two, "Palmyra Cali"; then "Cardinal" is a much shorter, blissed out improv-sounding interlude.
That's followed by the 16+ minutes of "Black Horse", at long last a studio version of a composition earlier documented in briefer versions on both PO's 2004 live album The Battle Of The Axehammer, and then again on 2007's Live In Suomi. Here, it begins with much skitter and skree, before hammering into the happy heavy churning riffage we recognize. This one's definitely bound to be a fave of all the Wooden Shjips' fans out there.
Finally, Lunar Jetman delves deep into the dirge, with the two-part, nearly half-hour, massively moody "Cave Of Hair", a detailed, obsessively repetitive soundscape of ominous chuggery, building from quietly brooding near ambient creepy-crawl to metallic majesty...
Another awesome Overlord recording, in other words. And fyi, Lunar Jetman features Faust's Hans Joachim Irmler on keyboards, who has performed with PO previously, appearing on Live In Suomi - and who produced Circle's 2002 Klangbad release, Alotus. Not that PO nor Circle need Irmler to make 'em any krautrockier, they already had that covered!! But this IS plenty krautrocky.
Double lp fancy limited (530 copies) vinyl for now via Aaron Turner's Sige imprint; cd version expected also from Ektro, someday soon we hope...
It's a lot easier to write about metal when there's a hook. In our case, it's often that a band is super fucked up, their sound demented and damaged, but we worry sometimes that our thirst for the weird and wacky, perhaps paints to simple a picture of what we dig. Especially when it comes to metal. Cuz as much as we love the strange stuff, we have an undying love for the classics. Like many folks our age, we were lucky enough to grow up in a golden age of metal, whether it was crazy eighties hair metal, classic Bay Area thrash, speed metal, death metal, even the first and second waves of black metal. Those are sounds and musics we will never grow tired of, and we're just as excited about bands of today who are mining those sounds, and offering up their own versions of the classics, as we are of the folks actively subverting and bastardizing those sounds.
Which brings us to Rhode Island doom trio Pilgrim, who besides having some of THEE best metal names we've heard in ages (Krolg Splinterfist, Slayer of Man on drums, Count Elric the Soothsayer on bass, and of course The Wizard on guitars and vocals), sonically take their cues from the classics, Sabbath of course, Candlemass, St, Vitus, Cathedral, but also (slightly) more modern outfits like Electric Wizard and Sleep. And of course, judging by their handles, and the awesome fantasy album art, you can also probably guess what sort of lyrical focus these guys have, yup, swords and sorcery and dragons, and all that good stuff.
So yeah, sonically, it's pretty much everything you're blackened doom-loving heart could want, massive downtuned riffs, slithery Sabbathy slo-mo grooves, pounding drums, the songs epic and majestic, rife with classic doom melodies, all minor key and mournful, and the vocals, a crooned, sort-of-Ozzy-ish heavy rock caterwaul, that suits the music perfectly, maybe not distinctive enough to push these guys to the next level, but the perfect voice for pure underground true doom. Melodic, a bit raspy, passionate, a little rough around the edges, but it suits the music, which again is some seriously awesome classic sounding doom, from the swaggery atmospheric opener, complete with cool almost chanted wordless vox, to the more spaced out tarpit creep of the title track, with a handful of the tracks offering up sonic surprises, like the furious almost stoner rock groove part way through "Quest", not to mention some killer leads, the downright poppiness of "Adventurer", or the super strange midsong breakdown on "Forsaken Man" which is all slow motion post rock meander beneath what appears to be some sort of black magic ritual.
So yeah, this may not be fucked up or freaky, warped or weird, but not everything needs to be, what it IS, is heavy, and catchy, and doomy, and pretty goddamn great!
Even though this is Pontiak's SEVENTH album, we had never heard anything of theirs before now, and to be honest we weren't really sure to expect, but it most definitely wasn't this. Not sure what it is, the name, or the fact that they're on Thrill Jockey, but everything had us expecting something more minimal and post rocky, even perhaps a little electronic, which ended up being WAY off. All it took was about 30 second of the first track, a blast of super distorted Stooges-y buzzsaw riffing, some thick low slung bass buzz, yowled vox, a sort of laid back almost stoner rock vibe, hell there's even some organs, all blurred into a sort of heavy rock desert groove that KILLS. Sorta bluesy, sorta stoner rock, pretty goddamn heavy, but also moody and atmospheric, we're hearing Dead Meadow, Comets On Fire, seventies proto-metal, Bardo Pond, Burning Brides, even some classic rock like Zeppelin, slithery swaggery verses, soaring crunchy, heavy as fuck psychedelic choruses, the band as deft at crafting a slab of heavy psych pop as they are at putting together tripped out mathy space rock epics, check out the 6+ minute closer, that sounds like some crazed Boredoms meets Earthless instrumental jam, while super distorted chaotic drumming, wild blown out psychguitar tangles, the sound dense and heavy as fuck, but still spaced out and seriously trippy. And while that's fast becoming our favorite jam here, along with the face melting opener, in between there's plenty of kick ass psych pop, fuzzy garage rock, classic rock crunch and mathy brooding space rock epics, all of which tells is we should really be tracking down all their other records as well...
We first heard Philly psychedelic shoegaze death rockers via their VHS tape (!) released on Video Horror Show, and as we mentioned in that review, the band describe themselves as sounding like "the time you saw your creepy metalhead brother at 80's night", which while hilarious is really pretty spot on. The guys are most definitely gloomy and gothy, thick Joy Division-y basslines, reverbed dramatic vox, all moody and minor key, but beyond that, they buck lots of gloom pop and goth rock convention by tethering that stuff to big muscled drum pound, clouds of wild psychedelic guitar freakout, not to mention dense distorted guitars, reminding us at time of Bailter Space, thus the shoegaze vibe, the result a sort of eighties death rock, cranked up and spaced out and metalized, in fact that Bailter Space comparison definitely taps into what makes us dig these guys so much, cuz in some ways, with the noisy guitars and thick bass, and the deep vox, they almost sound more like some super obscure Flying Nun band from the eighties, who put out one lp that no one really heard but that still pretty much destroys everything else you've heard. They also remind us of AmRep Aussies Kingsnakeroost and Lubricated Goat, that sort of noise rock blues stomp just gothed up a bit. Plus they pepper their gloomy crush with blasts of almost punk sounding crunch, which makes them seem even heavier when they slip back into the churn and pound. These guys must kill live, which definitely seemed to be the case from what we could discern from that VHS tape (of which we have a few copies left), and this record oozes the sort of live energy most recordings lack, which of course means this is WAY recommended, for fans of gloomy heaviness, metallic gothrock, psychedelic shoegaze deathrock and other sonically similar genres we just made up!
Pressed on white vinyl, housed in a cool striking heart-art cover, with a big white 'x' affixed to the outer sleeve. Includes a download coupon as well!
Never seen this before, maybe it's the first time it's been reissued... a 1970 solo album from Frank Nuyens, who had been the lead guitar player with one of Holland's top '60s beat/blues/psych rock groups, Q65. We've never listed anything by them, but would if we could, they were a fantastic band, we'll keep an eye out for any available reissues. But we're certainly glad to have this Nuyens solo album, it's great too. Super melancholic and melodic, with gentle vocals and a rustic, folkish psychedelic vibe, but also flashes of psych guitar glory. There's snappy drum shuffle and lovely flutey parts too. We hear definite hints of the Beatles, also the Zombies and the Kinks, at their moodiest. We're also reminded of Roy Harper, maybe it's Nuyens' voice and guitar playing and the whole folky-proggy singer-songwriter thing. Check out the track "Vicious Circle" for evidence of that. Another song on here makes us think of Neil Young. And although Nuyens might not be as well known as any of those artists outside of his native Holland, he and Q65 definitely belong in such company. There's been a lot of great '60s/'70s psych/pop/prog reissues lately, and this is one of 'em!! So many good songs here. A really recommended reissue indeed - and it includes a bonus track, a song from a single that didn't originally appear on the LP proper.
The Swedish contingent of the New Wave Of Old School Heavy Metal sure is picking up steam, and being picked up by the Metal Blade label, who've recently signed such slayin' Swedes as In Solitude, Portrait, Ghost, and now RAM. As you may recall, we were big fans of RAM's previous, import-only album, Lightbringer, from 2009, and thus eagerly anticipated this, their domestic Metal Blade debut. And we were NOT disappointed.
The album starts off with its title track, a pensively pretty, eerily plodding synth-laced instrumental that proves RAM are not bound to any formulaic "true metal" aesthetic limitations, 'cause here they really sound a lot like, say, Zombi!!
That unusual intro tune past, the album launches into galloping metal mode proper with "Comes From The Mouth Beyond", a surefire stormer that will get heads banging and fists waving within seconds, while also over the course of its 6+ minutes demonstrating that RAM have depth and sophistication and melodic chops that belie this disc's simple, generic title of Death.
RAM's vocalist/mastermind/graphic artist Oscar Carlquist is is capable of shrieking into the stratosphere (reminding us of the dude from Metal Church back in the day), as well as singing in a lower range with more restraint though no less passion. He's got a raspy edge to his voice that also brings to mind the singer from power metal's finest, Blind Guardian. Meanwhile, his band kicks out the catchy riffs and glorious guitar harmonies with plenty of power... damn they're good. This is now their third full-length album, and they're clearly at the top of their game.
RAM have the rare knack among bands in their retro-minded genre of coming across as fresh and vital while simultaneously being obviously & joyfully inspired by ye olde '80s greats like Mercyful Fate, Iron Maiden, Dio, Armored Saint, and Judas Priest. Instantly classic stuff. There's even a doom-laden power ballad of sorts here, in the form of "Frozen", also the longest song on the album.
Easily one of the best traditional (but original) heavy metal efforts of the year so far (though we expect it will face some stiff competition soon when the new Christian Mistress comes out). RAM gets the horns up all right. Recommended!!
Oh WOW! We're so so thankful to Light In The Attic for unearthing these amazing recordings by Wendy Rene. It's been a little while since a soul reissue totally blew us away, and became THE record that we found ourselves listening to over and over. But this collection has done just that, Rene's voice, one of the most deep, soulful and emotive we've heard in ages.
Otis Redding was so impressed with Rene as a teenager, that he helped make sure she got signed to Stax Records (Otis Redding would play another, more haunting and tragic part in Wendy Rene's life. She was on tour with him and decided to cancel her trip last minute, leaving him on a plane that would end up crashing and taking his life).
For some reason, none of her songs ever caught on as hits (makes no sense to us!) but each and every one of these songs completely grab you and send slight shivers up and down your spine, so warm, raw and honest . Her voice and presence rank right up there next to vintage Irma Thomas, Aretha Franklin, and Helen Smith. And the songs here are the sort that get under your skin, with a conviction embedded into every moment that you just can't deny. Her recording career was very short, and this collection of unearthed tracks, from 1965-'65, show that she recorded more memorable songs in a year, than many artists do in a multi-decade career. ESSENTIAL!
We've been stoked on the series of 2-on-1 remastered cd reissues of classics from the vaults of avant-jazz label Impulse!, among 'em discs we've reviewed by Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Gabor Szabo, with more to come.
Among the latest batch of Impulse! twofers, we discovered this one, featuring two albums, Antelope Freeway (1971) and Equinox Express Elevator (1975), by jazz guitarist Howard Roberts. No, we hadn't heard of him before, perhaps you have, apparently he did a lot of session work, and cut a number of records for Capitol as a bandleader in the '60s. We're now curious to hear those (1963's H.R. Is A Dirty Guitar Player is supposed to be really good) to see how "straight" they were, 'cause while Howard Roberts might be a bland sort of name, turns out these two Impulse! albums of his are some darn freaky records!
Well, it WAS 1971, and Roberts and his session cat colleagues were obviously turned on to the psychedelic rock scene... and drugs... so they made Antelope Freeway, a "jazz" record with tracks seamlessly flowing from one to another, interspersed and layered with field recordings of highway traffic noise on account of the album's loose 'on the road' concept. There's song titles like "The Ballad Of Fazzio Needlepoint" and "Five Gallons Of Astral Flash Could Keep You Awake For Thirteen Weeks", plenty of experimental ambience, electronic effects, and, most importantly, tasty playing. There's surreal stoner humor to it for sure, but the actual emphasis is on groovy, beautiful instrumental sounds. Lots of funky jazz-rock jamming AND wacked out weirdness...
Even a boogie track like "De Blooze", which starts out quite cliched, intentionally so (the title is a tip off), by its fifth minute has gotten quite warped...
To give you an idea where Roberts was coming from, Antelope Freeway's original sleeve includes shout outs to the Firesign Theatre (whose comedy records may have inspired the subversive, quasi-narrative sound collage elements of this album) and guitarist Joe Walsh of the James Gang. Walsh is specifically credited with "Optimization of space-time energy transformations" here, which likely has something to do with his immortal quip, "The smoker you drink, the player you get!"...
Recorded at sessions in '72 and '74, Equinox Express Elevator is just as freaky, similar to Antelope Freeway but with extra Moog synth added to the mix. Tracks range from the delicate, droney "Unfolding In", to the abstract burble and textural drift of "Real Freak Of Nature Historical Monument", to the herky-jerky "Harold J. Ostly, The County Tax Assessor".
Across the two albums, there's 19 tracks in all, each one uniquely lovely and/or strange. The cd booklet considerately contains the original artwork (front, back, gatefold interiors) for both albums. Definitely a recommended reissue twofer fer sure - much thanks to Impulse! for bringing back, and bringing to our attention, these trippy '70s jazz gems.
Our review of the most recent single from Ms. Frankie Rose, one time drummer for Vivian Girls, the Dum Dum Girls and Crystal Stilts, works pretty well as a thumbnail description for this just released full length as well: "fuzzy and dreamy and a little bit girl group sounding, but way more polished and produced, a lot more eighties, plenty of jangle, and a distinctly new wave vibe for sure, but it definitely suits her, hooky and and catchy like crazy", which all still applies, and the song from the 7" is here too, but that description really only scratches the surface of a record that is equal parts 4AD shimmer, fuzzed out synth heavy M83 style bombast, and buzzy girl group pop. Just take the title track, which starts out all glimmery and shimmery and dreamy, ethereal vox over soft focus smears of synthy swirl and tinkling chimes, and then POW, the drums kick in, an avalanche of thick buzzing synths, the song exploding in a shower of fuzz and crunch and layered vocals, only to slip right back into a more subdued, dream poppy verse, before getting surprisingly proggy, slow building to another killer chorus. It might be the coolest, weirdest track on the record, and will no doubt demand lots of replay action, but there's lots more on offer here, sure much of the record hews close to the bands in Rose's past, but amidst all that fuzzy pop and jangly girl group garage rock, is soaring synth, drum machine driven new wave, reverb drenched fuzzed out ethereal ballads, dark moody gloom pop grooves, skittery cold wave, and plenty in between, with somehow everything working perfectly as an album, not just a collection of songs, and all of those songs so lush and lovely, and crazy catchy, warm and dreamy, Rose's voice fantastic, we're loving this a LOT, and we're guessing this is the record where the rest of the world finally catches on...
We'd been hearing about these guys for a while, the new group fronted by legendary Butthole Surfers drummer King Coffey, a band that apparently formed nearly a decade ago, yet Farewell Drugs is the first recorded evidence, and still all we can say is it was totally worth the wait. Just listen to the first two minutes of album opener "Cigarette Rabbit", and you'll be transported to some drug addled psychedelic sonic otherworld, or maybe just back to the eighties, to some grim, filthy dive bar in bumfuck Texas filled with flashing lights and cloud of noxious smoke, where you're immediately ensorcelled by that oh so recognizable drumming, cuz holy shit does Rubble sound a lot like vintage Buttholes, King Coffey's drumming, dirgey and tribal, and woozily propulsive, pounding its way through dense clouds of detuned guitar fug, and a grimy fog of dying-batteries FX boxes, all manner of voices and vocals dipped in effects and reverb and sent careening into the blackened swirl of rhythmic churn and blurred drugrock chaos. But Rubble is not at all a Buttholes revival, although these guys pull off that psychedelic murk like no one has ever since. There's plenty more going on, like the noise rock dirge of "It's So Easy" (we were secretly hoping it was a Guns N' Roses cover), driven by thick, viscous riffing, caveman drum pound and some heavily effected lysergic vox, the whole thing a sort of psych sludge dirge on the verge of total collapse. Then there's "Waiting To die" (which we were also hoping was maybe a Townes Van Zandt cover), which shrugs off much of the murk and muddiness of the first few tracks for some seriously kick ass Stooges-y swagger, with cool raspy vox, chugging riffage, some tangled psychedelic leads, and a downright catchy sing along chorus. But then it's right back into it, with "Tom Of Midland", the guitar (or is it bass), fuzzy and buzzy and practically oozing, those Buttholes drums pounding mesmerizingly, the song gradually growing more and more chaotic and noisy and finally disappearing in a wild squall of tangled psychguitar.
But hold onto your hats for "Old Dominion", a bass driven slow burn shuffle, all woozy and washed out and then what the heck is that? Fucking kalimba! A thumb piano plucking out a dreamy melody over the group's druggy slow groove dirge, sorta like some Texas sludge Konono No.1, weird at first, but then suddenly you end up wishing there was kalimba on ALL the tracks. The sound shifts back to murky and crusty, until "On The Road South" that sounds impossibly like classic Hawkwind, and we're not talking freaked out space jam Hawkwind, although there's plenty of that too, we're talking catchy pop song Hawkwind, Rubble totally killing it with another hook filled psych pop heavy rock stomp that any other band would make their whole sound, but part of the joy here is you can sort of tell, it's sort of tossed off and effortless, and just maybe they don't realize (or even care) how good it is.
There's one more stretch of heavy spaced out psych pound before things get weird (or weirder!), with a closing one two punch that just seal the deal. "Southside Ashes" is all dirge-y drum pound, whirling guitardrone ambience and FIDDLE!! (courtesy of Ralph White from the Bad Livers, who also plays kalimba!), a dark brooding almost Godspeed like slow build, that leads right into record closer "Grey At Grace", which is a sprawling buzzing tripped out violin laced raga (!), all muted percussion and long layered tones, layered swirling psychedelic shimmer, hauntingly and meditative, a gorgeous chunk of minimal krautdrone mesmer that is probably the most surprising ending we never could have envisioned for this twisted slab of Texas drug rock psych.
Record Of The Week easy, record of the year contender for sure as well!
Cool, creepy see-through skull / health film-strip visible brain artwork, includes a download coupon as well!
The Austrian noise artist Helmut Schafer died in 2007, leaving behind only a handful of recordings despite his constant travels to music / art festival around the world, including appearances at ARS Electronica and Documenta back in 1997. His work dealt mostly with psychoacoustic principles of intense frequencies at intense volumes, as such he found a sympathetic ear in Zbigniew Karkowski - who became a longtime friend and often collaborator. Yet, beginning around 2003 he came across some dismantled church organ pipes and began experimenting with alternative ways of activating the tones and timbres of those pipes, including a contraption of hairdryers that pushed small currents through the pipes to generate hushed, muffled tones. In building compositions through this system of organ pipes, he radically shifted away from the searing noise and towards a very quiet, contemplative electro-acoustic sound, involving violin, electronics, percussion, and ample pockets of empty space. Thought Provoking III is Schafer's final recording dating back to 2006 when he employed percussionist Will Guthrie and violinist Elisabeth Gmeiner to perform the piece in a Vienna church. In fact, Guthrie stitched this recording together from the rehearsal sessions and the performance itself, attempting to keep true to Schafer's wishes. The proceedings are solemn excursions in electro-acoustic mark-making built around those bellowing hums from Schafer's organ pipes amidst intermittent percussive flourishes, subtle gong overtones, sustained violin trills, and fizzling electronics. The non-repetitive clustered events sound akin to anyone from the Miasmah roster taking up the task of remaking late period Morton Feldman. For the final track of the album, Zbigniew Karkowksi took up remixing elements of Thought Provoking III into a piece reflective of Schafer's more volatile compositions. While full of the frigid vibration and electric toxicity, Karkowski shows considerable restraint in his remix, and constructing a poignant tribute to his lost friend.
First, before we get into the review, we should mention that this double lp is housed in an oversized French paper hand silk-screened jacket. While it's a beautiful package, the combination of its oversized shape and the delicacy of the material means it's prone to damage in shipping, and of course all the copies we have received arrived a bit bent up. The label has no replacement covers so this is all we're going to get. We've taken a couple dollars off the price to compensate a bit, but those who are more fastidious about the shape of their vinyl sleeves, might want to steer clear of this, as we won't be able to replace them. Sorry about that!
But WOW!, this is a beautiful double lp live set from 1972 by the late experimental kosmiche composer, Conrad Schnitzler. Salvaged from decaying tapes of a performance for an art exhibition, the sounds on this are like a multifaceted sci-fi ballet. The coordination of individual electronic sounds operating in harmonic tandem of each other showcases a brilliant array of synthesis and restraint, while at the same time emanating a warm centrally vibrant core. For some reason in some of our minds we always have this impression that Conrad Schnitzler was the most abstract and cold of the German musicians of this period, but lately with each new reissue that becomes available, that impression is proven wrong time and time again. This is a gorgeous set, as essential as any of his key recordings from this era. And as usual, crazy limited, ONLY 1000 COPIES and at this point almost gone so act fast!
The latest transmission from this alien psychedelic black metal duo, and when we first got this in, we were convinced we had already reviewed this before. And then realized that it was in fact, a vinyl reissue of the long out of print cassette that was originally released on Handmade Birds as a companion to Servile Sect's Trvth record, but it was something else, something more, and then it hit us, the new cover art was what was so similar, and then we realized, it's actually the EXACT same painting as the cover of the Lumerians' Transmallinia record. Doh! What can you do? It's obvious why both bands picked it, cuz it's a seriously bad ass painting by famous outsider artist Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, all cosmic and swirled greens and yellows, and in some weird way, it suits both bands. In the case of Servile Sect, it definitely taps into their weird alien vibe, and their subtle psychedelic undertones, both of which are present throughout Surrender. Here's what we had to say about the cassette version when we first reviewed it earlier this year:
Released as a companion to the group's recent Trvth record, Svrrender acts perfectly as an extension of Trvth, building on the band's sprawling blackened psychedelia and scorched blackbuzz drones. The record opens with sheets of thick buzzing synths, and swirling electronics, all over strange murky pulses, and laced with strange disembodied voices, before launching into a full bore blast of traditional sounding black metal fury, huge thick squalls of barbed riffage, programmed beats blasting wildly through the murk, the vocals a sick, raspy demonic croak, a blur of chaotic blackness, that manages to meld traditional BM tropes to something much more mysterious and experimental, the group infusing the seemingly traditional sound with all manner of unlikely texture and subtle warped FX. Definitely grim enough for unadventurous metalheads, but as this is Servile Sect, the sound soon shifts to something much more spacey and droned out, total psychedelic cosmic drift, thick undulating swells of crumbling rumbles and sci-fi shimmer, wrapped around chantlike vox and smeared layers and textures, and over the course of the five songs on the A side, the sound veers from that droned out celestial thrum to furious churning black metal blasts and back again, the whole side a dizzying twisted black/drone juggernaut.
The flipside is just as heavy, but in a completely different manner, taking the band's knack from blackened soundscaping, and applying it to a blurred, lumbering ultradoom, sort of SUNNO))) like in its slo-mo glacial heft, but the band's grim psychedelic dirgery somehow manages to take that sound and push it even further, the guitars grinding (or are they synths) and rumbling, streaks of spacey FX and glitched out electronics, not to mention heavily effected vox, swirl above whorls of feedback, and smeared synths, all anchored by a deathmarch ultradoom pound, a caveman creep wreathed in thick downtuned rumble and thrum, super hypnotic and heavy, but also caustic and abject and fucking massive sounding, not to mention somehow totally spacey and psychedelic. Easily some of the best stuff we've heard from these guys.
And like the tape version, this vinyl is also limited to so grab one quick before they're gone!
The latest release on Pre-Cert, an ongoing label / project / collaboration between Demdike Stare and Andy Votel, which so far has consisted of two Anworth Kirk lps and an Applehead record, ostensible different artists, but we're fairly sure for all the smoke and mirrors, the same trio are responsible for all three. All four now counting this, the first release from Slant Azymuth, whose sound has much in common with both Anworth Kirk and Applehead (no surprise there), but seems to be the danciest of the bunch, or at least the most overtly and hypnotically rhythmic. Before we give you our take on the record, here's what the label had to say about it, apparently the music here explores "fake-loric nonlanguage/electric codes and forbidden information to create an archive of sonic and poetic commentary (evidence) concerning corruption in pre-war local industry, perverted belief systems and scientific invention. Part music concrete, part folklore, part-pulp-fictitious, part Neorealism - this indulgent patchwork of mechanical folk/pop and non-music combines essential influences of electric Smithsonian releases, sound poetry, Zden?k Liska, Ilhan Mimaroglu, basic Carnatic music, Lettrism, Pierre Henry, Oramics in Ardwick, Massiera, Lloyd M. Williams, Stella Crenshaw, Bruno Nicolai, Suzanne Ciani, Eastern European fiction, AgitProp, L.S. Lowry, J.G. Frazer, Gurdjieff, Kommune pop groups and futen theater."
Thankfully, you don't really need to know at all what the fuck they're talking about to enjoy this, a tripped out slab of ever shifting avant electronica, and hauntological psychedelia, which begins with chugging train-like rhythms, over which keening high end tones shimmer and drift, laced with disembodied female vox, all of which seems to melt into a sort of dark synthy groove, all low slung and druggily sinister. From there on out, the sound flits from BBC Radiophonic Workshop style bleeps and bloops, to chopped and looped voices, to warbly tape experiments and finally to a sprawling bit of deeeeep dubbed out minimalism, all murky and spacey, some seriously hauntological heroin house for sure, Chain Reaction but even more minimal and psychedelic.
The B side starts off with a looped heavy dirge, with blast of brass, and dense tribal percussion, swooping, swirling effects, the whole thing surprisingly droney and heavy, eventually dissipating into a mysterious field recorded percussion jam, before finishing off with another long side close, this one a similarly minimal looped groovescape, downtempo and dark, late night trip out drift off, all subtly warped and warbly. Cool weird stuff. Definitely recommended for fans of Demdike Stare and their various and sundry offshoots...
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!!
There are different kinds of heavy for sure. There's the grim black corpsepainted buzzing heaviness, there's the lurching lumbering knuckle dragging doom sort of heaviness, there's also the face melting noise rock sort of chaotic heaviness, and of course there's the conceptual heaviness, like "ooooh, that's really heavy, maaaan", and there's about a million different sorts of heaviness in between, all strains, some heavier than others, but then there's the mightiest heavy of them all, just a classic, pure, heavy metal heaviness. Few bands can achieve that sort of heavy purity, a rare confluence of killer riffing, howling throat shredding (but still melodic) vox, blasting pounding drums, shredding guitar leads, hooks galore, catchy choruses, all woven into a metal blowout that causes immediate headbanging, that could start a pit in a stuffy office, the power of the riff, the power of real metal.
This is a power Denver's Speedwolf wield like a bloodied mace. Before we even get to the music, all the signs are there. They're called Speedwolf to begin with. Their record cover is a badass binder art / side of a seventies van black and white drawing of a huge scythe and hourglass wielding cloak-ed skull headed death, hovering in the sky above a gang of Speedwolves, wolf headed toughs on motorcylces, cruising down the highway, there's also a naked woman wearing the skin of a wolf, looking sexy and howling at the moon, their logo is a wolf pentagram, and they have song titles like "Up All Night", "Out On Bail", "I Can't Die", "Death Ripper", "Ride With Death", "The Reaper" and of course "Speedwolf" cuz any heavy metal band worth it's salt has a namesake 'theme' song. So yeah, all the signs point to pure heavy metal heaviness, and the sounds inside do not disappoint. We've raved about past Speedwolf records, they even played our South By Southwest showcase last time, and blew EVERYbody away, we have been dying for a proper full length ever since, and finally here it is, with a handful of our old favorites re-recorded, as well as a clutch of new jams, with a massive production, the sound is crushing, and the songs of course kill.
Like a supercharged Motorhead, or a tighter heavier Venom, or like a cranked and kick ass version of our faux metal heroes Bad News, these guys kick out the jams, relentless and punishing, furious and frantic, but at the same time with that weird sort of positive heavy metal party energy that few bands can conjure without diluting their heaviness. We were most excited to see two of our favorite Speedwolf jams revisited, "I Am The Demon", which still sounds like a more metal Danzig, and includes a drum solo, complete with cowbell (which shows up here and there elsewhere on the record, and is another signifier of pure heaviness!), and of course "Speedwolf" which after a creeping ominous almost Maiden-y intro, really does sounds like a Motorhead 45 at 78rpm, and the rest of the tracks too, everyone sounding like some lost early heavy metal classic, but delivered with a ferocity that is undeniable. These guys have been toiling away in relative obscurity, it's about time the rest of the metal world took notice, and bowed down before these masters of metal. And while the vibe is definitely speed/thrash metal, this totally destroys all those other retro thrash revivalists, and transcends any mere metal classifications, and ascends to some sort of true metal pantheon on high. Where they belong.
We missed the vinyl versions of Passed Me By and We Stay Together the first time around, but ended up making the double disc compilation from Andy Stott our Record Of The Week back in December of 2011, now the original lps have been repressed and are available again separately. Here's what we had to say about Stott and Passed Me By:
UK producer Stott seems to have taken the minimal downtempo soul of Burial as a jumping off point, taking that same sound and slowing it down even further, adding more grit and grime, creating a sound now twice removed from the dancefloor, a soporific, somnolent techno that fuses murky dirgey slo-mo soul with abstract house music creep, conjuring up a music that is both haunting and sinister, mesmeric and minimal, an array of looped melodies, melded to skeletal thumps and heartbeat like pulses, fragmented samples woven into the mix mostly to provide texture and melody, but for the most part all of the various elements are recruited to either become rhythms themselves, or to be blurred and smeared into a grim washed out backdrop, over which the rhythms slither and skitter. The dub element is huge, but it's a muted sublimated dub, only really showing itself, when a voice escapes the gravitational pull of Stott's black hole dub, the swirl of effects dragging it right back down into the murk, quickly disappearing into the inky blackness, leaving just the churn and lurch, and it's that balance, a delicate one to be sure, that makes Stott's sound so special. Too much rhythmic murk, and it's monochromatic and dull, too much melody, and sonic filigree and suddenly it's not nearly so dark and mysterious. Stott deftly negotiates the middle ground, dragging the more melodic elements into the dark and repurposing them, using them to infuse his sonic black energy with life.
Released on the same label that gave us all the Demdike Stare records, which should give you an idea that while this might technically be techno, it's some murky dubbed out hauntology that transcends any sort of genre classification. A brand new unanimous store fave!
We missed the vinyl versions of Passed Me By and We Stay Together the first time around, but ended up making the double disc compilation from Andy Stott our Record Of The Week back in December of 2011, now the original lps have been repressed and are available again separately. Here's what we had to say about Stott and We Stay Together:
UK producer Stott seems to have taken the minimal downtempo soul of Burial as a jumping off point, taking that same sound and slowing it down even further, adding more grit and grime, creating a sound now twice removed from the dancefloor, a soporific, somnolent techno that fuses murky dirgey slo-mo soul with abstract house music creep, conjuring up a music that is both haunting and sinister, mesmeric and minimal, an array of looped melodies, melded to skeletal thumps and heartbeat like pulses, fragmented samples woven into the mix mostly to provide texture and melody, but for the most part all of the various elements are recruited to either become rhythms themselves, or to be blurred and smeared into a grim washed out backdrop, over which the rhythms slither and skitter.
We Stay Together dials back the murk that was all over Passed Me By a bit, instead focusing on the rhythmic component, wrapping everything in a Pop Ambient haze, but letting the beats break free of the whir and thrum, opener "Submission" is all hazy swirls, the only rhythm a sort of echo drenched dubbed out ripple, very dreamlike and abstract, before slipping into "Posers" which at first sounds very much like something off Passed Me By sampled water gurgles beneath a muted techno thump, but soon, fog horn like melodies drift in, and the beat blossoms into something much more active, a shuffling crunch anchored to a house-like pulse, processed vocals drifting over the top, the vibe groovy, but still washed out and druggily abstract. Which is how the first half of We Stay Together plays out, but then about half way through, the sounds begins to veer back toward the murk, "Cherry Eye" being a fantastic bit of muddied minimalism, even at its most propulsive, it's still a muted creep, as is "Cracked", although it does crank the beat a bit, conjuring up a sort of slow motion shimmy, that remains looped and mesmerizingly motorik.
Released on the same label that gave us all the Demdike Stare records, which should give you an idea that while this might technically be techno, it's some murky dubbed out hauntology that transcends any sort of genre classification. A brand new unanimous store fave!
The sound of this Bay Area blackmetal / blacknoise duo-turned-trio continues to evolve, and in surprising directions on this, their latest in a flurry of extremely limited releases over the last year. Beginning life as purveyors of dense speaker shredding noise, informed by, but not necessarily sounding much like, black metal, it seemed more a case of black metal riffs buried beneath sheets of white noise and crumbling industrial detritus, and blast beats recorded on a crappy cassette tape and played back through a Walkman, and again, buried beneath a punishing wall of sound. But with every record, the sounds seem more composed, perhaps less antagonizingly harsh, with more time spent creating atmospheres and ambience, than actually buzzing and blasting, which again is the case on Larvae. The opening track, begins with 3+ minutes of shimmery ominous ambience, laced with strange insectoid clicks, the guitars, when they do surface, unfurl soft strummed streaks of chordal whir, beneath which lush swells undulate drowsily, it's at about the 4 minute mark, that the song splinters, and explodes in a dense blurred barrage of furious murky black buzz, that while heavy, is also soft focus enough that it nearly has more in common with Tim Hecker or folks like that, until the group crank up the sound once again, and it becomes full on black metal, that lasts less than a minute, and the band return to the haunting drift that opened the record, before one final time, blasting through the last two minutes, the guitars a black blur, the vocals a fierce monstrous bellow, the drums, if there are any, buried in the mix, a heaving wash of noise drenched heaviness, that manages to be massive, but still weirdly textural.
The relatively brief second track applies the group's corrosive crunch and black atmospheres to something much more dirgey and dismal, a churning industrial tinged creep, the sounds blown out and in-the-red, a tangle of black noise / white noise and industrial crush somehow sculpted into a lumbering black doom, peppered with squalls of blaring FX drenched ear shredding skree, but also underpinned by all manner of layered drones and disembodied voices.
The final track, clocks in at a whopping 15 minutes, and again, finds the band easing into it, unfurling a hushed bit of blackened dronescaping, again flecked with strange clicks and skitterings, the guitars drift in, this time sounding like some sort of Appalachia, draped over streaks of muted crumbling crunch, the song sprawling out into an epic chunk of black folk drift, tangled voices, swirls of hiss and thrum, all wreathing the steel string buzz of the acoustic guitar, until at about the ten minute mark, everything is swallowed up by an avalanche of frenzied black buzz and frantic riffing, so dense and tangled that again, sans headphones the riffs all bleed into one thick roiling cloud of sound, eventually coalescing into an almost classic metal sounding chug, a murky hypnotic dirge that churns malevolently to the record's end.
Both the cd and the lp come in super swank, and gorgeously designed packaging, the artwork abstract in all blacks and greys, with the text printed in clear spot varnish ink, designed by Sutekh Hexen member Kevin Gan Yuen and Dwid Hellion from hardcore legends Integrity. The cd is limited to 500 copies, the lp is already sold out and out of print, so these are the last vinyl copies we'll be able to get...
We found ourselves immediately intrigued by this group of Philly black metal / blacknoise / industrial merchants, whose M.O. consisted of site specific rituals, and what essentially amounted to field recorded black metal. A space would be chosen, as much for its acoustic properties as it's historical/emotional significance, an old abandoned mental hospital, supposedly haunted buildings, various ruins and locations of past tragedies. Seemingly in a bid to channel that energy through sound, and we have to say, to our ears it worked. Total Occultic Mechanical Blasphemy aka T.O.M.B. have created a sound that is black only in mood and vibe, that sonically has more in common with outfits like Gnaw Their Tongues, Demonologists and even NRIII, whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this list. Whether it was intentional, or just the result of the locations and the recording process, the sound of T.O.M.B. tends toward the cavernous, lots of echo and reverb, sounds careen from speaker to speaker, some sort of infernal black dub in places, the vibe way more industrial noise than black metal, but somehow, ultimately it feels more like an unholy union of the two. Lots of rhythmic percussion, processed sounds that rumble ominously one second, explode in shards of white noise the next, there seem to be voices, but those too are transformed into just more blurred psychedelic noise.
The most 'serene' moments might be the most sonically malevolent, churning looped pulses, some sort of deep hellish thrum, gradually drawing ever nearer, the percussion like some sort of demonic death march, the sound locked into long stretches of rhythmic mesmer, the sound at it's MOST rhythmic, reminding us of Aluk Todolo or German Oak, albeit much more blown out and blackened, at its blackest, like the sickest, grimmest, most raw and primitive low fidelity black metal, and at its noisiest, rivaling the most corrosive Japanoise, yet all somehow strung together into some sort of black hymnal, an abject collection of abstract, mysterious, soul stirring sonic malice.
Welcome to the sensual realm of John Talabot! This Spanish producer has been releasing some of the most ecstatic, hypo-rhythmed, DEEP sampledelic house music going back to the release of his breakout single "Sunshine" in 2009. Some of us around here have been obsessed with the enigmatic producer for a while now and are fully stoked to be sharing fIn, his debut full length with you, our dear customers, on this most holy "list Friday".
Talabot's sound world is a multilayered tapestry of disembodied samples, glistening synths, intricate but organic sound design, and ASS-SHAKING rhythms. To be sure, this is most certainly house music, but his treatment and subversion of the idiosyncratic nature of house music is what draws us in. Because of that, his sound world seems to be entirely his own. He bucks the trends and comes up with some of the most beautifully personal and dreamily hazed out jams we've heard in quite a while.
The second track, "Destiny" featuring another up and coming Spanish producer, Pional on vocals, is a smashing cosmic roller. The verse sung sexy and sweet over lush synth melodies and syncopated marimba notes melting together into a warm cocoon of transcendent SOUND. Bleary eyed and sun addled, the sound is like the come down freefall after an all night beach rave. The joy and release still on the periphery of your consciousness, with the sorrowful realization that the reverie must end, slowly creeping to the forefront. It's somehow simultaneously rapturous and melancholic. "Missing You", a tripped out slow jam is another of our favorite moments on fIN. The drum programming rolling out subtle slowly developing riddims as an otherworldly pitch-fucked "guitar" sample enters on top, reminding us of a more luminous, yet just as haunted Burial. And then some seriously far out, processed into outerspace vocals enter, and the tune just develops into, well, a CHOOOON. Futuristic pop music for sure. The following track, "Last Land" finds Talabot right in his zone, which is arranging samples into impossibly beautiful dance tunes. Starting out with a subtly dubbed out disco break into a gorgeous string / vocal loop the track is a slow burner. Hypnotic and pulsating, the rhythmic texture building into silence! Following this functional breath from the beat, the bass line slowly creeps in and the whole thing swells into an ecstatic drop, the string sample now reconfigured to create an amazing melodic hook. Stunning. The last track, "So Will Be Now", another one featuring the this time pitched down vox of Pional, is a beautifully developed deep and dreamy house cut. The mood is dark and evolving, the vocals acting as a grounding constant as the fuzzed out lush textures and astoundingly psychedelic percussion layering result in dance floor timelessness. You truly want to hold on to this musical moment for eternity.
fIn is most definitely a journey of discovery, and we need not spoil that. It is some of the finest dance music we've heard in ages, on par with The Field's "From Here We Go Sublime"... totally EXQUISITE!
Finally! The debut full length from these Bay Area punks, after two kick ass singles, and we have to say the full length definitely fulfills the promise of those 7"s, the sound is essentially the same, if anything even more kick ass, big crunchy, fuzzy guitars, pounding drums, super melodic basslines way up in the mix, that totally drive the songs, and the super distinctive vocals, which had some of us thinking of the Smoking Popes, that sort of Morrissey style croon over buzzsaw punk pop. We mentioned the Undertones and the Buzzcocks in our review of the last seven inch, and it's hard not to hear that here as well, but listening to these tracks as an album, the sound really blossoms, and somehow the sound seems way more pop than punk with every listen, the songs just impossibly catchy, hooks galore, and unlike most records, that tend toward being front loaded, Killing Time, seems to just get better and better, catchier and catchier, with some of these tracks sounding like classic pop songs from years past, albeit with crunchier guitars, fuzzier bass and pounding-er drumming, occasionally wreathed in feedback too, even some cool boy/girl vocal interplay, and that's sort of what makes Terry Malts so good, that undeniable punk energy, but wedded to some of THEE best songs we've heard in ages. Haven't found ourselves listening to a record this much nonstop since the Veronica Falls record...
We first heard these New Zealand psychedelic loop-noise, beat wrangling weirdos on a split 7" with Whirling Hall Of Knives released on Trensmat, and one of the tracks from that single opens up the group's debut lp, with a glorious, dizzying blast of abstract psychedelia, looped and rhythmic, rife with woozy low end synth buzz, swirling tangled melodies, a robotic rhythmic pulse, sounds swirling and beats stuttering, like we mentioned in the review of the 7", we're reminded a bit of a more electronic, slightly less noisy Our Love Will Destroy The World, or a way noisier, beat driven High Wolf. The record flits from woozy groove to almost jungly skitter, from pulsing spaced out psychedelic electro, to crunchy, churning soft focus noisiness, churning industrial dub to tripped out cosmic alien dancefloor destroying, noise drenched, house music of a sort, only house music as it has that 4 on the floor pulse, but otherwise it's some sort of cracked and freaked out avant kitchen sink home brewed weirdo electronica. "Wild Rent" is one of our favorite jams, a slow building chaos of colliding beats, and looped melody, that eventually transforms into a super tripped out minimal dub, but that dub is buried beneath a cascade of sonic swirl, "Cassini Tubs" is a good one too, a spare bit of skitter, that is soon surrounded by thick buzzing synths, gradually transforming into a sort of alien M83 slowgroove shoegaze dubstep. The record finishes off with the 10+ minute "Tropfend Platz", which starts out as the prettiest, dreamiest track on the record, all glimmering looped high end, and whirling soft focus thrum, and then the drums kick in, a super spastic sort of fucked up and fractured drill and bass, with thick squelches of low end buzz, the whole thing gradually surrounded by a hazy cloud of shoegaze-y shimmer, becoming a dense chunk of beat heavy bliss, that's as psychedelically mesmerizing as it is infuriatingly groovy.
Pressed on splattery clear gold vinyl, housed in hand silkscreened red and white jackets, and includes a link to a digital download of the whole record, which includes two bonus tracks, 16+ minutes, not on the lp!
Our favorite funky sleaze merchant is back with a whopping double lp (plus 2cds of the same material included!), and while we were shocked enough to think that there could be more than one volume of Tonetta's inflammatory outsider dance rock, we're practically, um... gagging on the abundance of grooves this time around. And it's not only the revelling in sexual deviance that make up the subject matter here (though there's plenty of it: assplay, scat play, gloryholes, four-ways, prostitution, bare-backing, basically, the works!), there is a lot of skewed political diatribes ("Obama's Prize", "Saddam", "This Old World"), and a questionably racist song using the N-word (though it could be viewed as anti-skin-head too maybe). But the most shocking of all perhaps, are the love songs which are some of the sweetest and most heartfelt tracks on here. Not sure if some of these tracks are old recordings or just shittily recorded, but this collection overall has the most range musically, with Tonetta's vocal style sounding at times like a crooning Roy Orbison, a bleating Captain Beefheart, or a seductive Leonard Cohen with lots of distorted circular guitar rhythms, lo-fi pans, tweeked-out synths and relentless predatory dungeon sex beats. Freaky!
Second record from this nature obsessed one woman black metal band from Sweden, whose last record, the flora focused Herbarium, paralleled another record we were freaking out about at the time, a double disc from one man, drums and dulcimer black metal weirdo Botanist (released on Andee's tUMULt label), the two 'groups' both with unique sounds, and both with a fixation on plantlife, nature, and man and womankind's perilous place in the the ever evolving ecosystem, one in which it seemed both groups were convinced plants would eventually, and perhaps rightfully take over.
While the first Turdus Merula record was most definitely beholden to Burzum and Xasthur and the like, it definitely infused a sound we already dug with all sorts of cool sonic weirdness, whether it was blown out drones, or weird almost poppy jangle, it all resulted in a record that managed to be both grim and black, but also plenty tripped out and damaged sounding. On Mentem Recipere, while some of the elements from the first record are still present, the vibe overall is much darker, more doomy and dismal, the atmospheres more bleak and harrowing, there's a dedication in the booklet, to a lost loved one, and it doesn't seem like it's reading to much into the sound here to realize it must have been influenced by that loss. Opening with a dark balladic creep, all reverbed piano and hushed ethereal vox, it's not until the second track that the metal kicks in, and even then it doesn't so much kick in as slowly ooze and drift, the guitars woozy and washed out, the melodies minor key, the vocals tortured, the buzz blurred into smears of black thrum, eventually the song does actually begin to blast and buzz, but even then, while the drums and vox intensify, the guitars seem to continue on all haunting and soft focus, which makes the sound less black, and more sort of grey, almost in a strange way, warm and soothing, tranced out and mesmeric. Which is pretty much how the whole record plays out. The sound shifting from doomic plod, to loping crush, to blasting blackness, but all the while, the sound, the mood, the vibe, remains haunting and melancholic, that's not to say that it's not heavy, or buzzy or black, it most definitely is. But it seems that the underlying emotion give the sound a mournful quality that makes it not only darkly personal, but also keeps it from sounding like every other black metal record out there, which it absolutely does not.
Fans of the first record will want this too, but anyone into gorgeous depressive buzz and heavy psychedelic blackness will definitely dig big time.
Estonian folk music isn't something that comes around these parts all that often (to be honest, it's never shown up until now); so we're not going to claim to have any pre-existing knowledge of the genre. But we'll don our ethnomusicological hats for this beautifully rich document of ancient Estonian folk songs!
Utsiotso is an Estonian men's choir reviving very old songs and archaic dialects from the Estonian people, whose cultural and geographical wanderings had planted villages as far as Novosibirisk in central Siberia over the millennia. There were a number of tribes and communities which took part in this diaspora, including the Seto and the Voru peoples. The former was the more widely spread, responsible for those Siberian settlements many centuries ago; and the latter populated what became southern Estonia and northern Latvia. As you could imagine, their dialects and their cultural traditions vary with the distance from the Estonian cultures localized farther north and west near the Baltic Sea. It's these particular, nearly forgotten cultures that are the objects of research for Utsiotso.
Musically, these folk songs are a capella short numbers, hinged upon the recurring polyphonic chants from the four voices offset in rhythmic phrases by a single voice, who presumably carrying the narrative of the song against the allegorical reprise of the chanting. It's not hard to hear Appalachian call and response, or the cyclical rhythms of Persian song poems, or the melancholy harmonics of Germanic plainsongs in these ancient hymns. The liner-notes are mostly in Estonian, with some brief English translations explaining that the songs wax about love, war, alcohol, and the bitter cold; but throughout these languid harmonies and vocal repetitions, Utiotso emphasizes a profound and beautiful sadness in their songs. They fix this emotional sentiment to the land from which they come by recording these songs in various locations in the Estonian countryside, including the windswept forest, the lapping waves of Lake Peipsi, and a couple of resonant churches. The recording was provided by Patrick McGingley, better known as the sound ecologist / drone strategist Murmer. His role is suitably small, lending all of the weight to the drama of these four men, their voices, and these ancient songs.
This is the debut release from a new Seattle label, specializing in their own murky darkly psychedelic brand of doom / folk / drone / noise, a sampler of various artists on the label as well as likeminded noisemakers from the area, with a few familiar names (Megabats, Demian Johnston and Inh Halentropy), but way more unfamiliar ones (Kristian Garrard, Karnak Temples, Josh Medina, Them,There, Nightjar, Sokai Stiljed, Thunder:Grey:Pilgrim), all of them contributing this sprawling chunk of droning blackness, strange industrial ambience and looped psychedelic mesmer, all the sonically disparate tracks woven into a collection that works almost as well as an album proper. The familiar names first: abstract avant atmospheric (sort of) black metal weirdo Inh Halentropy lays down some John Carpenter style seventies soundtrack wooziness, all muddy and murky, programmed beats and sci-fi swirl over brooding rumbles, and theremin-like high end melodies, a gorgeous creepily atmospheric chunk of lo-fi faux soundtrackery, while Megabats offer up dense swirls of kosmische synth drift, and glimmering ambient dreamdrug haze, all super blissed out and trippy, and noisenik Demian Johnston delivers some blunted blurred soft-noise, all cavernous and industrial, thick swaths of blurred crumble and greyed out crunch, all smeared into slowly undulating blackened dronemusic. The rest of the tape follows suit, super abstract creaking and crumbling mutates into gauzy almost Pop Ambient loopscaping, thick whirring melodies emerge from slow churning sheets of whirring synths and echoe-y shimmer, delicate acoustic guitars drift amidst sitar like buzz, plaintive vocal harmonies and warm lustrous chordal swells, bleak black rumbles roil ominously through clouds of ominous low end thrum, metallic ragas seem to slowly melt into oozing blackened dronefolk, and finally wild tangles of clipped vocals and shards of melody are stretched out, then layered and looped into a druggy dizzy psych-out. Killer stuff for sure, and odds are pretty dang limited as well...
Yay! Three classic albums by one of our favorite '70s prog rock bands just got reissued, with bonus tracks and remastering and vast new liner notes and all that good stuff, with more reissues to come. So we thought we'd list the two that we'd reviewed previously, and then maybe next time we can write up the other one we've got as well. Back when we first reviewed these, we did it 'cause we knew that lots of AQ customers had been digging our Italian prog recommendations (like Osanna) and buying tons of Magma reissues and of course always loving the good ol' Krautrock, and we figured that such customers are just the types who'd probably like VDGG too.
As you may know, several folks here are pretty big into the '70s prog thing (despite having been but little kids back then) and one band we really all agree on is the mighty Van Der Graaf Generator from the UK. They're definitely a bit out of the ordinary. He To He... was the group's third album, from 1970. It's a great example of their bombastic, dark power and unique instrumental formula. Saxophone (with "devices"), Hammond organ, and tympani are the sort of thing that dominates VDGG's sound, along with the crucial component of Peter Hammill's dramatic, declamatory vocals of course. He's had his own successful solo career running in parallel with Van Der Graaf from the band's very earliest days, and clearly he's a cult figure, a frontman that some will love and some will hate. His wide-ranging voice courses like blood through the flesh of this album's five epic conceptual tracks (the shortest song here is over 6 minutes, the longest more than 12), tracks that must have elicited many a "heavy, man" comment at the time. The heaviest might be opener "Killer", the sad saga of, yes, the lonely killer whale. Other songs, like "House With No Door", are more gentle and melodic, yet still quite gloomy and bleak. Please don't mistake our use of the term "heavy" here -- although Hammill's voice will sometimes rise into a metallic shriek, the Generator have more in common with jazz than heavy metal, being way more Soft Machine than Machine Head (Deep Purple).
The bonus tracks are but two in number but one of 'em is over fifteen minutes long, the previously unreleased "Squid 1 / Squid 2 / Octopus", an early VDGG concert staple recorded live in the studio.
"Pawn Hearts" was Van Der Graaf's fourth album, originally released in 1971. Like its immediate predecessor "He To He Who..." it's certainly one of their classics, equally as epic, emotive, and extravagant. These guys were outrageous musicians, ambitious lyricists, and definite prog rock nutters who made music so outre and intense at the time that it should appeal to weirdos today just as much as it did back in the early 1970s.
The side-long, ten-part "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" is one of those prog rock suites that belongs in the pantheon alongside "Karn Evil #9" and "Supper's Ready" and "Gates Of Delerium" for sure. Next to King Crimson (whose Robert Fripp contributes some guitar work on both of these albums), VDGG is the darkest, weirdest, most "outside" commercially-popular '70s prog rock band we can think of from the UK. A worthy contemporary to the likes of Magma, Amon Duul II and Goblin from the Continent.
All right, more VDGG to come on future lists...and then maybe we'll move on to Yes, Caravan and ELP!
MPEG Download: "Lemmings (Including Cog)" [/audio/vdgglemmings.mp3]
Real nice, these new Van Der Graaf Generator reissues are. We're glad they they've now got US distribution, though we'd have happily paid $30 for the import versions (Andee and Allan both did for some of 'em, actually, oops). All the prog fans here are stoked, 'specially since VDGG are one of our top prog faves. We've already listed the reissues of Pawn Hearts and H To He Who Am The Only One, and we'll try to get to them all, one by one... so here's VDGG's second album, from 1969 (following their debut Aerosol Grey Machine, not a part of this reissue series though there is a cd we do stock), maybe the first that really displayed their signature sound in a fully formed fashion. That sound: bombastic, epic, emotional, complex, slightly jazzy, eccentric. And probably an acquired taste. Partly because VDGG's instrumentation isn't the standard guitar/bass/drums -- they've got saxophone and keyboards, mainly, alongside the drums. Plus their most distinctive sonic feature, Peter Hammill's exceedingly dramatic, dominating vocals! Love 'em or hate 'em vocals, we'd venture to guess. His voice is perfect, though, for the sweeping grandeur of VDGG's music, which can be quite gentle (as on this album's most pop hit, speaking loosely, "Refugees"), and at other times so much darker, heavier, and more hectic (as on "White Hammer" wherein Hammill sings about the Inquisition). All this power and passion is reflected in Hammill's intelligent, questioning, quasi-mystical lyrics, and is furthermore augmented by the suggestion of church and worship brought in by the use of the electric organ.
Yes indeed, VDGG is very weird and very much it's own thing... there's definite connections to the likes of King Crimson and Genesis, and '60s psychedelia, but ultimately nothing else sounds quite like these guys. The Least We Can Do, which features a surreal depiction of an actual Van Der Graaf generator on its cover, is a fine starting point and/or an essential part of their discography for fans building a VDGG collection. This reissue, in addition to being digitally remastered and boasting extensive liner notes in the cd booklet, also features two bonus tracks, the single version of "Refugees" and its non-album B-side, "Boat Of Millions Of Years". Recently we came across an old print advertisement for this single, the tag line of which was: "Some of today's violence is innocence defending itself... some of today's music is Van Der Graaf Generator."
This now-quarterly mag of funk, soul, hiphop, jazz, and anything else groovy presents their 10th Anniversary issue, with his Purple Highness, Prince on the cover. Inside, a lot of Prince-related content, including "33 Reasons Why Prince Is Hiphop" by ?uestlove of The Roots. There's features on Morris Day, Jesse Johnson, Madhouse, The Family, 94 East...
Also: Blood Orange, DJ Quik (talking about some of his favorite records), Larry Graham, Toro y Moi, Frank Ocean, and more. All, as always, copiously illustrated with full color photography. 104 pages.
Slo-mo dronelords Earth are on the cover of this month's Wire, discussing among other things their newfound fascination with mystic Britfolk... also this ish, Julia Holter, zoviet*france, The Ex in Ethiopia, a primer on King Tubby, and plenty more including an "Invisible Jukebox" session with the Ghost Box label guys. Plus the usual plethora of reviews, news, etc.
We've long championed these German post black metallers (metallic post rockers), their sound most definitely heavy and brutal, but also moody and atmospheric, and with every record, their sound seems to continue to move well beyond the confines of 'black metal', the genre which is where they seem to be most often (and increasingly inappropriately) lumped with their more grim brethren. While some black metal tropes surface here and there, the sound of WH is more recognizably marked by clean soaring vox, intricate proggy arrangements, spidery Slint-like melodies, even the occasional synth. In the past we've compared them to Dutch instru-metallers Gore, even Voivod, as well as groups like Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky. This time around we're hearing Swans (mostly in the deep vox), lots of Slint, with those distinctive arpeggiated minor key guitar parts, there's also the brooding moody bombast of Katatonia, but don't let all those comparisons lead you to believe these guys are just a mess of conflicting influenced and purloined sounds, those are merely references, cuz with this record, maybe even more than last releases, the band continues to carve out its own truly unique sound, one that here is at it's most lush, layered and melodic.
In fact this time around, the metal component is almost entirely removed, only vestiges remain, buzzing guitars, pounding drums, but even those elements, at their most metal, are defined by context, and here the band is capable of taking a blast beat, and letting it pound quietly beneath crystalline guitars, and haunting crooned vox, or taking very black metal sounding melodies, and transcribing them for acoustic guitar, and turning black buzz into some strangely alien pastoral folk. And the vocals, even more varied this time around, the deep Michael Gira like croon is present, but so is a super emotive raspy wail, not to mention so super cool (and strange) falsetto, all woven into the group's sprawling mini-epics, super dynamic, and emotional, and alternatingly epic and majestic, brooding and moody. At this point, we're not sure we'd recommend this to most metalheads. Especially black metallers, but hell, folks who dig Alcest and Amesoeurs and Les Discrets and Katatonia as well as the more metallic side of the post rock spectrum, and heck even prog nerds after something more far out, these guys might be just the ticket.
Ultra limited 12" single from these SF psychedelic space rockers, featuring three tracks, reworked, reimagined and remixed, by Spectrum from Spacemen 3, Kandodo (aka Simon from heavy psych rockers The Heads!) and strangest of all electronica artists Andrew Weatherall, and if past WS records are any indication, even though we got a whole mess of these, odds are they'll sell out in a flash, and it's very likely that we will NOT be able to get more. Just fair warning.
Andrew Weatherall does seem like an odd choice, but his version is pretty cool nonetheless, he strips it way down, leaving just the bass, and some reverby vocals to drift over a slo-mo house music shuffle, chopping up the vocals into a cool skittery melody, laced with some Synsonics styled eighties Miami Vice drumming, and space age synth pulses, the result is edgy and tense, and definitely ends up sounding like something all the folks into that current wave of retro-futuristic faux eighties Carpenter / Goblin style soundtrackery (a la Zombi, Umberto, Majeure, etc.) would most definitely dig.
Spectrum from the late great Spacemen 3, whose band pretty much set the template for the Shjips, offers up the heaviest remix of the bunch, beginning all woozy and washed out, lots of sweeping backwards effects, dense tangled guitars, building to a serious psychedelic space rock blowout that almost sounds like multiple copies of the original all playing simultaneously, all slightly off, with one spinning backwards, a little like what we would hope a Teenage Filmstars / Wooden Shjips remix might sound like, which means it RULES.
The whole of the B side is taken up by Kandodo's mix, which begins with the basic tracks recorded by the Shjips and then sent overseas to be transformed into a spacey slow motion drug rock dirge, a gorgeous stoned drag, lazy and laid back, spacious and spaced out, the guitars liquid and fluid, the sound swoonsome and super hypnotic, the sound is pretty much locked in, a sprawl of psychedelic hypnorock, laced with all manner of squiggly guitars, and murky blurred melody, the perfect, nodding off drifting off comedown space-drug-psych jam for sure!
LIMITED TO 2500 COPIES! Which does seem like a lot, but see above, you have been warned...
Issue #2 of this awesome local magazine, filled with essays, interviews, artwork, short stories, etc. This time out there's interviews with Grass Widow, Goner Records, White Fence, artwork by Joe Roberts, Mattia Lullini, Marc Warren, and tons more. This will keep your eyes and mind beyond entertained, or at least entertained.
Attention all fans of spaceward soaring sludge!!! In 2010, blackened doom-mongers yet all-around nice guys Yob left their Pacific Northwest environs to travel to Europe, appearing at the Roadburn Festival in Holland, which we know from experience to be just about the best fest that any metal/psych fan could ever hope to attend. Yob now join the elite ranks of such bands as Wolves In The Throne Room, Earthless, Bong, Church Of Misery, and most recently White Hills, in having their Roadburn performance released on disc! In this case (as it was with WITTR's), they've included both a cd and a dvd in the swank digipack package, Yob's show having been professionally filmed in no-frills fashion with multiple cameras as well as audio-recorded.
If you're a fan, pretty much all you need to know about something like is is, is the audio/video quality any good? And was their performance killer? The answer to all those questions is, yes... Yob slay live, and this release will prove it to anyone who hasn't yet seen 'em. In the hour allotted, they do four sprawling songs, "Quantum Mystic", "Burning The Altar", "Kosmos", and "The Great Cessation"; that's 2 from their most-recent-at-the-time The Great Cessation album, and 2 from their previous slab to that, The Unreal Never Lived.
Epic and intense as you might expect. There's no difference between the cd and dvd tracklists, it's of course the same songs either way, but if you want to SEE how heavy they are as well as hear 'em, you've got the visuals option. The set is structured nicely, crushing with riffy heaviness almost from the grinding get-go, but then "letting up" to space out psychedelically towards the end...
Are you ready for some talk boxin block rockin boot knockin FUNK!?!? We sure are! And here it is... The debut record from the funky Ohio family Troutman, newly reissued on cd, Zapp! This is some original bass music right here, groovy as hell with a tight, almost drum machine like pocket and that O.G. talk box sound we all know and love. In fact Zapp is the reason that sound has entered our musical collective pop-consciousness, and we are most thankful for it! The lead single, and the most recognizable hit, "More Bounce To The Ounce" came to be a defining musical achievement, spawning a multitude of rad west coast hip hop, and becoming THEE sound of lowrider culture. Zapp's music is also surprisingly hypnotic...the groove is so strong and their forms are perfectly repetitive, there's plenty of room to get lost in the funk. Perfect music to cruise to, top down, real slow down the strip. Summers not that far off! A G-Funk classic! Ooooh Weee.
It seems like only yesterday that Nika Rosa Danilova was thrilling us with her outsider gothic basement recordings. Now, she's a full-fledged international pop diva working with none other than David Lynch! Danilova seems to be dealing with her new recognition well. Her live shows have gotten consistently better and better, her songwriting has become more focused and has not lost its edge, despite losing most of its reverb. The Zola Jesus aesthetic - the beauty within the noise, the darkness behind the veneer - seems to fit right in with Lynch's work, both sonic and visual, without much of a struggle. The A side here is a head-bobbing, booty shaking synth-pop classic: one of those songs that no matter how shitty your day was, it'll make you tap your feet and/or dance like crazy. For the B side, David Lynch slows the tempo a bit and adds a bit of dreaminess. The drums are smoother and less frenetic. Lynch's (now somewhat trademark) reverb-laden guitar replaces some of the synth pads. A must have for any Zola Jesus fan and a good starting place for those (few) of you who haven't yet fallen in love.
