Caves is the latest sonic ritual from this mysterious Greek horde whose sounds is a blackened doomdrone, that seems to have more in common with the strangely hypnotic solo guitar psychedelia of aQ faves Blackwolfgoat that any of the more typical black/doom metal outfits we've reviewed in the past. No drummer, we can only assume LC is a one man band, and his M.O. is the sort of thing we love. A sort of post SUNNO))) sort of doomdronedirge, unfurling a churning slo-mo riff, and then looping it, over and over and over, a mesmerizingly cyclical core, around which various other sounds are arranged, blurred streaks of rumbling buzz, haunting chantlike vocals, clouds of FX drenched chordal whir, streaks of high end, buried melodies, bits of murk other sonic detritus, the result is indeed very ritualistic, record opener "�To Witness Under The Stars" spends a good four minutes chugging away, before the riff drops out, leaving just a strange swirl of overlapping voices, very liturgical, wreathed in crackle and hiss, before a new riff takes over, this one more brittle, wrapped in feedback, and more distinctly metal, but still essentially a slow motion bit of doom-ed riffery, one that seems to grow more downtuned as the surrounding sounds grow more horrific and blackened.
And so it goes, "Dawn Of A Dead Sun" follows a similar pattern, but wraps it's droned out feedback soaked riff in banshee wails and blackened vokills, and as the track progresses, it seems to grow more psychedelic, more raga like, inspiring a sort of trance state, a gloriously droned out blackriff ritual that is utterly entrancing. "Secret Entities" is the most 'rock' of the bunch, sounding like it might explode into proper song form at any time, but instead the chords ring out into the ether, the melodies fading into blackness, while "From The Depths" wraps the core riff in a weirdly processed almost slappy synth sound, which at first sounds odd, but soon more effects join the fray, and it becomes a strangely heady hypnotic crawl, and finally "Plutonian Funeral", finishes things off with the creepiest and most minimal sprawl of the bunch, layering a sort of creepy carnivalesque synth, beneath an oozing layer of crumbling low end, peppered with weird reverbed twang, and wrapped in distant melodic shimmers, as well as the occasional hellish shriek, a dark, occultic coda for sure.
Gorgeous haunting heaviness, that just might appeal to fans of black psychedelia and abstract guitardrones more than metalheads...
We're pleased to present three inaugural cassette releases from psych/noise label Holodeck, championing the exploding underground electronic experimental scene in Austin, Texas, with beautifully packaged and designed cassettes. have a look elsewhere on this list for other releases by Smokey Emery and Thousand Foot Whale Claw.
Lumens is a mysterious collaborative effort featuring members of Smokey Emery, Silent Land Time Machine and Troller, and is very much what you might expect when you put those three bands together. Murky cavernous industrial drones slowly bloom into all kinds of decaying ambiance, piano tones, viola and looping vocal whispers. Looming and dark clusters of layered organic sounds and field recordings, scraping rhythms and buried melodies, carefully arranged to hypnotically listenable effect. Over 4 long tracks, the compositions build from abstracted soundscapes to krautrock tinged build-ups, the final track merging into No Pussyfooting territory with layered repeating tape loops that float up towards the stars away from the murk they originally came from. Mesmerizing! Limited to 100!
The Omni Recording Corporation has been killing it lately in a string of essential vinyl reissue collaborations with the Australian Roundtable label, focusing on rare library, lounge and private press exotica. We recently listed the Orchestra Peter Thomas Orion 2000 lp of tripped out sci-fi grooves, and this week we have two extremely fine examples of Italian library music from composer Egisto Macchi and his more well known group that included Ennio Morricone, Gruppo D'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.
I Futuribili (The Futuristic) was recorded in 1972 for the Gemelli Library and is one of that label's rarest releases. Along with the ritualistic Voix, this is also one of the composer's most essential. Marked by a spacious sound environment and high-relief recording techniques, Macchi takes the listener on a surreal trip of suspenseful strings, big metallic washes, tinkling bells and plaintive electroacoustic atmospherics. Mysterious, and alluring but not necessarily foreboding, these pieces could easily be the soundtrack for a horror or sci-fi film or even a planetary documentary. But what's most interesting about library music composition as opposed to composing a soundtrack is that soundtrack composers compose to the visuals of a director, while in library music, it's the other way around. We're drawn into visualizing the music and creating a larger storyline through the sound design. And while this may sound cold or abstract on paper, Macchi instills a lot of warmth, depth and beauty into these pieces that envelops us in an exquisite sound world, unlike any we've heard in British library music such as DeWolfe or KPM.
Limited to 500 copies, these might be the last we get, so don't snooze!
Chicago's Mako Sica return with another cassette release, with the band conjuring up two lengthy pieces live in their hometown plus an additional studio outtake from their amazing Dual Horizon album. You couldn't put together a more varied trio; the band is comprised of Polish guitarist Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (who also handles trumpet duties) formerly of longtime favorites Rope, drummer Michael Kendrick who cut his teeth for years in the underground metal community, and North Carolina bred guitarist/vocalist Brent Fuscaldo. Somehow the three managed to come together in the center of the United States, and with an arsenal of influences and references have managed to create a sound that is distinctly their own. Pinning the band down with terms like "psychedelic" or "improvisational" may help one get a vague enough reference, but these ultimately prove insufficient. The songs are expansive and constantly moving forward, always avoiding the pitfalls of mindless jamming and relying on the natural interaction of the three musicians, who possess an uncanny understanding of how to work with each other. Not surprisingly, there is a strong jazz influence to these songs, but the guitar team of Drazek and Fuscaldo is more than qualified to rock out and bring things into bold new territories. Kendrick's drumming perfectly complements his bandmates and provides the elastic framework that really sets the band apart from their peers.
The live performance was captured in August 2010, and monolithic 17 minute opener "Fate Deals A Hand" begins like smoke looming out across the horizon with an exotic Eastern feeling. Wordless chanting is used to great effect - sort of like a MUCH more restrained and melodic Haino-esque wail, at any rate an essential part of the band's musical vision. Things slowly build in intensity as the guitars create walls of swirling atmosphere while cymbals slowly crash about in waves as bells chime away. With the shamanistic vocalizing you probably won't be thinking "band from Chicago" as they lurch forward and become almost demonically heavy. The lead guitar snakes about while the rhythm work is created on the low strings for a sound that is a lot like you would get from an actual bass guitar. As we've mentioned in past reviews, these guys are experts at incorporating negative space for a totally unique effect, and even with members of the audience yammering away it almost seems like the voices were meant to be there. Bits of atonal free shredding stab like knives and bear a resemblance to legendary skronk rockers US Maple (whose Todd Rittman actually recorded the outtake on this tape). The band eventually cools down with sparse freeform drumming and some vocal-like trumpet work adding an elegant yet slightly disconcerting vibe before going into another suite of blissed out heaviness. Wow. Side 2 opener "Ancestors" begins with a steady drum plod carrying things forward while a thumb piano provides a unique kaleidoscopic melody. The dramatic low end guitar resembles something one might get on a synthesizer and the vocals create a cool mysterious feeling before the band explodes into a finale of beautiful noise that no doubt had some jaws dropping to the floor. As mentioned earlier, "Red Rivers" was cut during the Dual Horizon sessions. The song is another perfect demonstration of how well these guys know each other as people and musicians. The sharp bits of delayed lead guitar give out a jagged little melody alongside the gorgeous wordless vocals. The song has a lonely cinematic Western feel to it, eventually becoming reminiscent of Sabbath's "Planet Caravan" as it kicks into a steady groove with one guitar establishing an amazing dubbed out rhythm while the lead guitar dances about before wrapping up like a sunset.
An essential outing from one of Chicago's great unsung bands, and we are looking forward to the band's next full length which is in the works - can't wait!
Shot Forth Self Living was the 1992 debut from this legendary LA shoegaze / dreampop outfit, and was recently included in a massive, super limited 5lp boxset collecting Medicine's first two albums (as well as an ep and TONS of extras) that came out for Record Store Day 2012, but has now also thankfully been released on its own, as a deluxe double cd, with a whole mess of bonus tracks and rarities.
One of the few American bands to be on the Creation label, Medicine spent the early nineties crafting some of the most glorious and gloriously blissed out experimental psychedelic shoegaze pop EVER. Their sound simultaneously heavy and tripped out, experimental and impossibly catchy, the guitars thick and lush and layered, soaring and so gloriously melodic, like a soft focus My Bloody Valentine, the vocals ethereal and washed out, definitely of the same era as Smashing Pumpkins, but where the Pumpkins had their sights set on arenas and mainstream acceptance, Medicine seemed to spurn such things, taking perfectly perfect pop songs, and pulling them apart, stretching out two minute gems into six minute psychedelic blowouts, their music as much about texture and arrangements, experimentation and exploration as songcraft. But excelling at both in a way few have since. Fans of experimental pop groups like Teenage Filmstars, Disco Inferno, Seefeel, Bark Psychosis and the like will definitely fall in love, if they weren't already. Hearing this stuff now, it sounds as fresh as ever, and groups like M83, A Place To Bury Strangers, Alcest, Health, Serena-Maneesh, Jesu, Phoenix, and all the rest, most definitely owe Medicine royalties big time. And heck if that list looks like your record collection, and for some reason you DON'T have these Medicine records, now's the time to right that wrong.
We could go through both 1992's Shot Forth Self Living and 1993's The Buried Life, and describe our favorite tracks, but we'd most likely end up describing every single track. Even now, we don't hear a weak track in the bunch, and what sounds cool and strange and experimental now, must have sounded revolutionary and downright insane in the early nineties, especially for a major label band, and it just may have been what kept Medicine from achieving Pumpkins like fame, although we like to think it was cuz they just didn't give a fuck, and refused to play the game, and instead concerned themselves with making some of the weirdest, coolest, most tripped out pop music they could conjure up. Which is exactly what they did.
Shot Forth Self Living was the 1992 debut from this legendary LA shoegaze / dreampop outfit, and was recently included in a massive, super limited 5lp boxset collecting Medicine's first two albums (as well as an ep and TONS of extras) that came out for Record Store Day 2012, but has now also thankfully been released on its own, as a deluxe double cd, with a whole mess of bonus tracks and rarities.
One of the few American bands to be on the Creation label, Medicine spent the early nineties crafting some of the most glorious and gloriously blissed out experimental psychedelic shoegaze pop EVER. Their sound simultaneously heavy and tripped out, experimental and impossibly catchy, the guitars thick and lush and layered, soaring and so gloriously melodic, like a soft focus My Bloody Valentine, the vocals ethereal and washed out, definitely of the same era as Smashing Pumpkins, but where the Pumpkins had their sights set on arenas and mainstream acceptance, Medicine seemed to spurn such things, taking perfectly perfect pop songs, and pulling them apart, stretching out two minute gems into six minute psychedelic blowouts, their music as much about texture and arrangements, experimentation and exploration as songcraft. But excelling at both in a way few have since. Fans of experimental pop groups like Teenage Filmstars, Disco Inferno, Seefeel, Bark Psychosis and the like will definitely fall in love, if they weren't already. Hearing this stuff now, it sounds as fresh as ever, and groups like M83, A Place To Bury Strangers, Alcest, Health, Serena-Maneesh, Jesu, Phoenix, and all the rest, most definitely owe Medicine royalties big time. And heck if that list looks like your record collection, and for some reason you DON'T have these Medicine records, now's the time to right that wrong.
We could go through both 1992's Shot Forth Self Living and 1993's The Buried Life, and describe our favorite tracks, but we'd most likely end up describing every single track. Even now, we don't hear a weak track in the bunch, and what sounds cool and strange and experimental now, must have sounded revolutionary and downright insane in the early nineties, especially for a major label band, and it just may have been what kept Medicine from achieving Pumpkins like fame, although we like to think it was cuz they just didn't give a fuck, and refused to play the game, and instead concerned themselves with making some of the weirdest, coolest, most tripped out pop music they could conjure up. Which is exactly what they did.
Yet another Record Store Day release, that we managed to get some extra copies of, so all our beloved, non-local customers could have a shot at snagging themselves a copy. This one from garage rock weirdo/legend Dan Melchior, a 5 song 45rpm 12" pressed up on white vinyl, that displays Melchior's poppier side, one we've got glimpses of before on other recordings, but barring one track, most of Ghost In The Supermarket is more sort of dark acoustic pop, with warm strum and simple arrangements, the opening title track sets the stage, with some fantastically twisted lo-fi pop, weirdly produced drums, lush acoustic guitars, and super bizarre lyrics, concerning the titular ghost and some Cheez Whiz, but Melchior manages to make the goofiness work, transforming what it lesser hands might have been too jokey, into a gorgeous chunk of low slung, stripped down acoustic pop, complete with a really nice, simple acoustic guitar solo. The second track is the oddball here, and gives us a glimpse of another side of Melchior's sound, one that's more post punky and garagey, angular and slithery, with jagged slashes of guitar, weird processed vox, very eighties sounding, catchy as hell, but also more rough and ragged than the rest of the record.
The B side starts off with some woozy acoustic dirgery, spaced out and droney, darkly hypnotic before drifting into some abstract Appalachian alien folk territory, all plucked melodies, and keening high end shimmer, before slipping into the gorgeous closer, a sweetly sorrowful bit of classic sounding acid folk, all warm strum and shuffling tempo, twisted lyrics again (this time about Star Trek), laced with some rad psychedelic backwards guitars. Awesome stuff! And some super bad ass cover art. And again, this was a Record Store Day release, so odds are, once we sell out, we probably won't be able to get more.
It's a sad story, but it continues to happen, someone sends us an amazing record, one what will no doubt blow our minds, one that we won't be able to help but want to share with all of you, one that begs to be reviewed and hyped to high heaven, but then that single amazing record, somehow slips through the cracks, ends up in a box, in a closet, on the floor, in a pile, and sadly, sometimes disappears forever, but thankfully, like it this case, miraculously makes its way back from the great beyond.
We were going through piles of cd-r's, from boxes that had been piling up, and we came across this mysterious disc, adorned with a strange bearded mystic, painted with a third eye, a triangle superimposed over his face, that photo affixed to a cool looking digipak, surrounded by a mandala of some sort, lots of pyramid imagery, a Japanese style obi, and some strings with bells attached. We threw it on, and BLAM, totally mesmerizing tripped out raga like trance, the opening track alone, the 17 minute title track we ended up playing over and over. Andee loved it so much he played it on his radio show, after which he seemingly randomly emailed a friend of his, to ask if he knew anything about said record. To which that friend responded "I SENT YOU THAT RECORD. TWO YEARS AGO!!!"
After enduring a bit of well deserved mockery, it was time to get down to business, and track some of these down for the store, and for YOU. Johnny Miller was a new name to us, but he played in a Chicago psych-kraut combo called Sadhu Sadhu, who we have yet to review on the list, but from whose ranks recent aQ Record Of The Weekers the Great Society Mind Destroyers were born. Miller though doesn't traffic in the same sort of blown out psychedelic heaviness as TGSMD, no all that shamanistic imagery was our first clue, but Miller is more about serious blissed out raga-drone, looped cyclical mesmer, heady ur-drone shimmer, and abstract free folk drift. The aforementioned title track is one of the greatest things we've ever heard, laying down a thick, slowly undulating sheet of high end shimmer, sounding like a dreamier more soft focus Sunroof!, underneath which, Miller lays down a mesmerizing latticework of melodies and rhythms, playful and looped, circular and cyclical, it adds a subtle bit of propulsion, to the otherwise seemingly weightless drift, he also adds soft swoops of backwards guitar, it's really utterly divine, and we say it a lot, but this is the sort of song that should probably go on forever, and we like to think does, somewhere.
But the cool thing about Miller's record is precisely that it does NOT just do that, instead, it's surprisingly varied, layering tinkling thumb piano melodies over wheezing harmoniums, wreathing simple steel string strum in clouds of simpler percussion and softly swirling tape hiss, unfurling spare, dreamlike Appalachian folk, bare and unadorned, simple and beautifully hushed, and unleashing some churning heavily distorted riffage beneath a glimmering sky of hypnotic looped electronics and buzzing synths, sounding like a fantastic hybrid of Zomes and Amps For Christ. The other epic here, a gorgeous 12 minute sprawl, does return to the sound of the opener, but adds some gorgeous crooned chantlike vocals, the result like some ancient spiritual ritual revved up and modernized, a buzz drenched blissed out mountain top raga.
LIMITED TO JUST 50 COPIES!! Each one in a hand numbered cardstock digipak, hand painted, silkscreened and stamped, with a Japanese style obi, a folded full color origami like insert, and a little string with bells hanging from the spine!
We sorta flipped for these local shoegazers when we first heard their Figurine ep a while back, and had been anxiously waiting for a full length ever since, and now that it's here, we're happy to report that it more than fulfills the promise of those first four songs, the hazy drug rock of that debut even more lush and lustrous this time around, the production cranked way up, the guitars thick and layered and lustrous, the vocals reverbed and echo drenched, Moonbell's 4AD shimmer wreathed in a gauzey otherworldly blur, still obviously beholden to nineties shoegazers like Ride, Swervedriver, Medicine and of course the godfathers of slow-mo drug rock Spacemen 3, but taking the sound and adding their own twist, the ethereal female vocals and the buzzing guitars a heady mix, and when wedded to a lumbering skeletal beat, the sound becomes a blissed out psychedelic slowcore dreampop, while on other tracks, the group up the tempo and crank the FX and send pinwheels of smeared melody and chiming guitars into the ether.
Our favorites definitely tend to be the slower jams, the group locked into mesmerizing hypnorock grooves, pulsing and pulsating through billowing clouds of wild guitar tangle beneath thick crumbling chordal swells, minor key and melancholic, the sounds swirling drowsily in epic expanses of glimmering sonic bliss, culminating in the chiming shimmerpop of closer "White Light", which infuses the group's sound with long streaks of thick layerd buzz and shards of crumbling distortion, all underpinned by a soft almost lullaby like melody. Gorgeous stuff.
Includes a download coupon (and there may also be a cd version we'll be able to get too).
Before we relay the weird way in which we fell in love with this record, let us just say right up front, this is our new favorite garage pop record, hands down!
So as you probably know, the increasing habit of listening to music on our computers has changed the way we listen to music so much. Lots of folks listen to everything on shuffle, others just play their favorite tracks, the idea of full, programmed albums is almost a thing of the past for some folks. And while in some ways those changes enhance the listening experience, in others, it definitely feels like something has been lost. But for whatever reason, at least in this one case, the quirkiness of said computer listening was the key to our obsession with Mrs. Magician.
We had been listening to this new record from the weirdly named Mrs. Magician, a garage rock combo who we had only really heard of cuz they were on tour with the Hot Snakes. And we definitely liked what we heard but were not yet totally blown away. Then for some weird reason, we accidentally sorted our music library by 'date added' and ended up listening to Strange Heaven IN REVERSE ORDER, from back to front, and holy shit, suddenly it all clicked, our socks were knocked totally off, and ever since, we can't stop listening to this (and yeah, we dig it in the proper order now too!).
Not sure if the record is just weirdly back loaded, or we just needed this little twist to unlock the magic of Mrs. Magician, but we're just grateful it happened. To help simulate our listening experience, the first two sound samples we've provided are of course the double shot (in reverse order) that sealed the deal, the sort of one-two punch you find yourself listening to over and over and over (just ask the other aQ-ers how many times Andee has played these two tracks over and over the last few weeks), and then once you can convince yourself to move on, the third and fourth sound samples, are the album's proper opening two tracks.
But c'mon, "Dead 80's" has to be the jam of the year, crunchy, jangly, fuzzy, with a chorus that KILLS, all dreamy oooooh's, some falsetto crooning, warbly organs, ramshackle riffing, and the sort of gleefully profane chorus you'll find yourself singing along too even after just one time through ("Oooooooh, Fuck the world, Oooooooh, Fuck the law, Ooooooooh, Fuck the kids!"). And if "Dead 80's" wasn't already THEE jam here, then "Hours Of The Night" sure as shit would be, a dead ringer for late great post grunge Nova Scotian pop group the Hardship Post, all post Nirvana strum, but with hooks galore, a shuffling rhythm, and snarky heart broken lyrics, not to mention plenty of reverby dreaminess, and so it goes, those two songs are the key, that unlock a whole record of crazy catchy garage pop bliss, that to be honest, is really all we want to listen to. Can't remember being as excited about a pop record since Jaill's That's How We Burn, which trust us, is huge praise indeed. Definite contender for record of the year, pop or otherwise.
FYI vinyl version forthcoming next month...
One of two new releases this week on the Sleeping Giant Glossolalia label, the other, the debut from the new Mick Barr / Brooks Headley duo Oldest reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this, the debut from this rhythmic lo-fi post punk noise rock combo, whose sound is a super distorted, lurching, lumbering mathed out monster, all gristly guitar buzz, blown out rehearsal space drumming, the sound fuzzy and washed out, but dense and tense and thick. The songs tangled arrangements of churning downtuned heaviness, of stop/start math rock stutter, angular and chaotic, with the occasional weirdly almost arena-rock sounding chorus, in fact most of the songs have some buried melodies that transform Mutlicult's blasts of rhythmic frenzy into something much more than just noise rock workouts. The basslines are thick but brittle, the vocals a buried bellow, there's definitely an AmRep vibe, but there's also a sort of early eighties UK post punk thing going on, some of the jams downright groovy, everything wreathed in crumbling distortion, but the pop hooks are there somewhere, and seem to surface with repeated listens, but they are subtle, Multicult is more about woozy, dirgey, muddy heaviness, a sound that seems to melt and ooze, almost like someone is dragging their finger along the record as it spins, which only gives the sound an even more tripped out psychedelic feel. For all their pound and crush, the band don't shy away from the rhythms that drive their sound, often striping things way down, and letting the bass and drums take control, it's at those points that Multicult sound more like they could be some lost eighties punk/funk artifact, but as rhythmic (and at times, groovy) as these guys get, they never ever stray too far from another blast of churning skull caving noise rock crunch.
Packaged in a red 12" style sleeve, with a green and yellow sticker.
A couple people asked us/told us about this before we got it... apparently word-of-mouth among cult black metal mavens was strong early on! And all their hushed queries and whispered expressions of awed enthusiasm are well deserved, we discovered, once we heard it ourselves. This is definitely NOT just another run of the mill black metal album. Negative Plane somehow have captured something more ancient and strange than usual in their music. They have a real "old school" mystique about them, that Venom / Celtic Frost / Bathory feel, yet at the same time this is infused and infested further with an especially alien weirdness, a bit of the same vibe as Nordic avant-gardists Ved Buens Ende. The album is drenched in effects, rendering the rasping vocals into an internal, infernal dialogue with themselves due to the amount of reverb, echoing in collusion with the music to make extra-effective what's otherwise indecipherable.
And though so seemingly raw and olden, there's a lot more "going on" here than with some of the dronier black metal efforts we've heard -- these tracks are full of complex runs, twisting turns, sudden changes. And sheer atmosphere is not neglected. Neg Plane's doomy vibe, their church organ tones and eerie melodies, are one important aspect of this record -- lashed with tons of FX to their other aspect, raging riffage, you've got an underground cult already established, the duo of Nameless Void (guitar/vocals) and Bestial Devotion (drums) requiring servitors rather than mere fans. Very special.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We first heard the New Lines on a split 7" with Still Corners, who went on to put out a album on Sub Pop, which we also reviewed recently. But when we reviewed that split 7", we went absolutely apeshit for the New Lines track, and even now still listen to that jam all the time, and we wondered why it was Still Corners who ended up in Sub Pop, cuz as much as we dug Still Corners, it was these guys we were obsessing over. An obsession that shows no signs of letting up, especially now that we have a whole new full length.
And like that track on the 7" the band are masters of retro pop, fuzzy analog synths, swirling organs, chiming melodies, lush harmony vocals, the production totally old fashioned but fantastically lush and expansive, we hear the Beach Boys, Stereolab, the Zombies, Elephant 6, the High Llamas, the Rollo Treadway (look it up on the aQ site, you won't be sorry), they manage to sound both like a modern throwback, and like an genuine article from some lost psychedelic sixties, the sounds lilting and lovely, a little bit druggy and dark, definitely psychedelic. The opener is some sweetly dreamy fuzz pop, and after a splatter of wild drumming, the second track is all surfy twang and Beach Boys harmonies, as is the next track, although that one is rife with swirling electronics and hazy reverby shimmer, if there was still a Duophonic label, these guys would be right at home.
The band mix their fuzzy futuristic retro pop with strange little sonic interludes, be it electronic skitter, or mad scientist bleeps and bloops, or strange electronic / drum jams, but the cool thing is those incidental pieces, sort of bleed right into the songs proper, with even the prettiest jangliest track rife with all manner of mysterious buzz, and constantly shifting layers, it's hard to know what else to say about these guys, other than we're crazy into this record, and the track from that split 7" of course, and we're just wondering how long it takes the rest of the world to catch on. Check out the sound samples, we're imaging that will be all it takes. Fans of ANY of the above mentioned bands, and anyone into dreamy retro pop, and Pet Sounds / Smile worthy pop deconstruction/experimentation, these guys just might be your new favorite band.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, includes a digital download as well. Already sold out at the label, so these may be the last copies we can get unless they repress. But while they last, all of the copies we got come with a special cd-r mix the band put together JUST for aQuarius, which features a killer mix of the band's favorite jams, including some seventies British folk, Tropicalia, Japanese psychedelia, dream pop, and more, including a handful of stuff we'd never heard! No info, no track list, just a fantastically varied hodgepodge of killer jams.
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,
Another new lp from this avant rock free-psych collective, hot on the heels of their already out of print YTIU, which we reviewed a couple lists back. This is a continuation of sorts, culled from the same sessions, and while not quite as limited, definitely limited enough that once we run out we won't be able to get more. So won't go into too much detail about this one, needless to say, folks who bought YTIU are definitely gonna want this one too, and anyone who missed out on the first one still has a chance to nab one of these. Two sidelong tracks, the first one playing out more like a multipart songsuite, the sound swinging wildly, beginning with wheezing organs and buzzing guitars, loose, super abstract drumming, dirgey and atonal, flecked with sci-fi FX, tripped out and weirdly dubby, blossoming into a sort of looped mesmer, drifting through fields of glitch and static, the sound shifts and becomes a droned out Eastern style raga, buzzy and trance-y, before shifting once again, stripped way down, just gnarled melodies, and skeletal rhythms, mostly hi-hats over a dense smoldering cinematic drone, laced with murky percussion and a thick woozy low end.
The flipside feels more like a single track, starting out super spare, again very abstract, in the distance moaning strings, reverbed percussion, psychedelic guitar buzz, unfurling snake charmer melodies, about halfway through the sound seems to grow more detuned and deconstructed, beginning a slow build, the an explosive last few minutes, a surprisingly heavy space-psych freakout, that quickly becomes glitched out, as if the tape player was malfunctioning, that sort of Faxed Head, old worn tape, busted tape deck sort of weirdness, the sounds seeming to ooze and melt and gradually grind to a halt. Cool!
Super limited, these are the last copies we'll be able to get, the covers are hand painted with paste on artwork. The covers are all bent, due partially to them being handpainted we think, and thus, a few of the records are VERY slightly warped, it's barely noticeable, and doesn't effect playback at all as far as we can tell (then again, it's NNCK, so it always -sounds- warped), but these are the only copies we'll ever get, so if you're super anal, or the record collector nerd type, you might wanna pass...
Debut release from this mysterious local black metal horde, who have been seemingly operating well under the radar, as the announcement regarding the pending release of this record was the first time we'd heard anything about them, but their sound is definitely right up our alley, depressive and droned out, a mix of raw buzzing primitivism, and blown out almost psychedelic blackened drift, the band slipping easily from old school blasting blackness, to midtempo slow burn majesty, the guitars thick and layered and lush in places, but appropriately buzzy and brittle in others, the whole record underpinned by field recordings, wind in the tress, running water, most effective when laid beneath chiming clean guitars, unfurling a sort of melancholic folkiness, replete with haunting shimmery swells and distant reverbed trills, eventually exploding into some seriously harsh heaviness, a roiling blurry black churn, wreathed in swaths of soaring synth, a strange mix that turns what would otherwise be pure sonic violence into something much more spaced out and melodic.
There are moments of spidery post rock, and meandery clean guitar minimalism, the folk element constantly surfacing throughout, finally finishing off with what we expected to a brief instrumental outro (the way most black metal records finish) but instead, ends up being a brief but blown out blast of furious epic heaviness, that might be the best two minutes of the whole record.
Housed in super nice, silver on matte black sleeves.
From our pal Mike at the amazing Sleeping Giant Glossolalia comes this latest blast of gnarled metallic guitar heavy whatthefuck from long time aQ fave Mick Barr (Krallice, Ocrilim, Octis, Orthrelm, Crom-Tech) who in Oldest, is teamed up with Brooks Headley (Born Against, Universal Order Of Armageddon), who besides being a rad drummer, is now a fairly well known pastry chef! However, as curious as we would be to hear/see Headley's pastries combined with Barr's axe-work, it is in his role as drummer, that he completes the Oldest duo, which Barr describes as sounding like Voivod meets Darkthrone, but which in fact sounds a lot like Barr's late great Crom-Tech combo. A wild mathy tech metal grindpunk noise-prog blowout that finds the duo unleashing frenzied stretches of tranced out guitars, frantic riffing, the melodies angular and atonal, the drumming dense and complex, the arrangements fractured and fucked up, the vocals a punkish shriek. Intricate and heavy, dizzying and chaotic, the songs super fluid, droney, cyclical and near static one second, lurching stop/start stutter the next, slipping occasionally into chugging classic metal mode or soaring blackened buzz, but always returning to that distinctive twisted technical grinding math/meth metal crush that Barr seems to have a lock on. Fucking awesome. And not even really out until next month, so for now, an aQ exclusive!
Woah. Kinda pricey but NICE import vinyl version of this super rare, Italian '70s hard rock / prog rock gem. We reviewed a cd reissue of this many, many moons ago. Neat to have it in stock again, on a nice big gatefold lp so the kitschy colorful artwork (and cool band photo on the back) can be fully appreciated.
These guys take the likes of contemporaries Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, High Tide, maybe some freaky Zappa, that sort of thing, add a bit of an American Indian theme-shtick, and just GO FOR IT in an absurdly wonderful over the top blazing heavy guitar attack that seems almost tongue-in-cheek (parodic of the genre) but is so good you know they mean it. Those moments are the highlights, but there's lots else to recommend this: delicate pastoral interludes, pop vocal choruses, weird chanting, the rockin' prog bombast, and complex psychedelic passages. Another obscure bellbottomed rock treasure from the fabulous '70s. A proud addition to any truly badass, proggy poppy proto-metal vinyl collection...
We were happy to hear that former aQ Record Of The Week honorees The Oscillation, from the UK, had a RSD release this year, a 7" limited to 295 numbered copies. We managed to get just a few, and obviously have even fewer left (like, 4). It features two new songs. "Waste The Day", on the A side, is one of their typically krauty concoctions of motorik beats, sci-fi synth FX, and psychedelic guitar shimmer, with some appropriately wasted low key vox, druggy and droney. And the B side, "No Place To Go", is perhaps a bit heavier. Grab one while you can, if you can.
It's here! Not Here Not There is the first release from Painted Caves, aka Evan Caminiti, one half of psychedelic dronefolk duo Barn Owl, and while Painted Caves, like many of the Barn Owl offshoots, definitely exists in a similar sonic plane, one of sprawling smoldering guitar thrum, and shimmering soft focus guitar ambience, Not Here Not There finds Caminiti getting way more abstract, mixing some ethereal synth drift into the dense swells of chordal thrum, a gorgeous expanse of guitar/synth exploration, with subtle electronic manipulations, all blurred into a gauzy softly billowing whole. The tape begins very much like past Barn Owl outings, a sort of twang flecked, sun dappled whirring cloud of warm guitar swirl, but after a spell, the sound grows downright malevolent, expanding into churning sonic stormclouds before dissipating into another hazy washed out ethereal atmosphere, underpinned by a
smoldering chordal fog, wreathed in a murky shimmer that soon gives way to a brooding softly undulating soft-psych thrum, and eventually finishes with the dreamily wistful final track, a hauntingly melancholic smear of muted prismatic buzz and hum, almost like a more psychedelic dronedrift version of the Caretaker, with buried lost memory like melodies, and a glimmering field of soft focus crackle and cosmic haze.
This is the first release on Caminiti's Dust Editions imprint and is LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Includes a digital download as well.
Latest solo outing from former aQ-er Jon Porras, one half of dronefolk desert doom duo Barn Owl, and the man behind Elm. This is only Porras' second record under his own name, and shares space on this week's list with the new tape from Painted Caves, the latest solo project from his Barn Owl partner Evan Caminiti. And like Painted Caves, Porras on his own doesn't stray too far from the dusky sonic soundworld the two have conjured up on past Barn Owl records, the basics are definitely the same, washed out and woozy, twang flecked and atmospheric, evoking burnt orange sunsets over wide open expanses of barren scrub, of slow moving stars in a pitch black sky, a little bit Earth, a little bit Ennio Morricone, an abstract alien Appalachia wedded to slowburn psychedelia. But Black Mesa, instead of reinventing a sound, that really doesn't need to be reinvented, simply pulls it apart, Porras strapping on his guitar, newly acquired synth under his arm, and moves deeper into this lost blackened landscape, slowly sinking deeper and deeper, a swirl of echoing chords left in his wake, or alternately, slowly drifting heavenward, held aloft on lush billowing clouds of chordal swirl and smoldering psychedelic drift.
The drone element, as always is paramount, these tracks like soft focus, slo-mo country ragas, if anything Porras' mastery of the form becoming more complete, able to fuse delicate crystalline shimmer, to heaving blackened churn, even adding simple skeletal rhythms, and heavily effected vocals, the sound on Black Mesa at once more melodic, but also strangely more malevolent, but very subtly so. Some lost soundtrack, a cinematic score to an endless wander through burnt black wastelands, Porras' sounds illuminating only so much, leaving much of the world cloaked in shadow, but as that light flickers, various bits of this lost world are gradually revealed, in some cases only to be lost again to the ether, but in others, revealing to the listener a new path, a less trodden course that leads even further into the unknown. With nothing but these haunting otherworldly sounds to guide us.
Another gorgeous, dark sonic gem. Fans of Barn Owl, Elm, Earth, Six Organs, and other purveyors of smoldering psych and black drone drift, will feel right at home here...
We first heard these occultic stoner psychedelic black doom Swedes on the 4 way split On The Powers Of The Sphinx, where they were teamed up with Aluk Todolo, Nightbringer and Nihil Nocturne. We were pleasantly surprised, as we were expecting some sort of black metal, but what we got was way more stonery and psychedelic, and as we described in that review sounding "like Kyuss at 16 rpm", which still pretty much holds true. This is tripped out, downtuned lysergic heaviness, thick stoner riffs, wild wah wah guitars, swirling occultic atmospheres, woozy low slung basslines, some serious grooves, and some totally tripped out, heavily effected vox, Electric Wizard fanatics might have just found their new band, that is if they were dreaming of a band that sounded sort of like Electrix Wizard, but WAY weirder and WAY more druggy and seriously fucked up. Which is pretty much what these guys are.
Laying down massive thick, super distorted riffs, the band slow motion swinging, slipping from stoner groove, to doomy churn and back again, the bass doing that weird walking thing that was all over Sabbath songs, the guitars occasionally erupting into little druggy effects drenched licks, and then the vocals, drawled and woozy and hazy and laid back, also wreathed in effects, a sort of true doom croon, but run through a wall of blown out fractured effects, and it's not just the sounds, the songs are pretty fucking bizarre too. "Aion Of Drakon" builds the whole track on a weird effected stuttery guitar loop thing, making it sound super hypnotic, a pulsing and pulsating groove, still super saturated, and in-the-red, but warped and subtly rhythmic, wound around big pounding drums, and all blurred into heaving black swells, the sound building to almost raga like tranced out stoner doom rituals, super psychedelic and seriously freaky.
Some of the other tracks slip into a more straight forward lumbering lurch, but even then, things continue to twist and transform, while other tracks, weave all manner of sounds, high end streaks, flute like flutters, warped effects, processed vox, into impossibly damaged, bit irresistibly mesmerizing slo-mo grooves, some tracks with dubbed out drums careening all over the place, sounds weird, and it is, but it works. Imagine a Sabbath 45, dipped in peyote, melted a bit over an open flame, and then spun manually on an old victrola, broadcast through a wall of Orange amps, heavy heady, far out and fucking absolutely incredible. Just might be our new favorite metal record. And was we mentioned above, all of you folks freaking out over Electric Wizard, Saturnalia Temple is what ET would sound like if you were dosed with PCP and horse tranquilizers, which is, at least in this case, a very good thing...
Record number three from this SF psych rock combo, and it's another heady blast of swaggery fuzz drenched psych stomp laced with fluttery freakfolk and big pop hooks. Like Fever before it these guys take the classic sounds of sixties San Francisco, and fuse them to the new wave or retro-psych that's all the rave, but all along Sleepy Sun has way more of a pop side, and a tendency toward shoegaze-y drift, and that really hasn't changed much on Spine Hits. The biggest change in fact, is in fact, the exit of vocalist Rachel Fannan, who's ethereal angelic voice definitely had a lot to do with the groups shoegazey sound. On Spine Hits the band seem to position themselves as much more commercial proposition, opener "Stivey Pound" the sort of jam that should have fans of the Black Keys and the White Stripes flipping their lids. We still hear plenty of Dead Meadow for sure, and lesser known aQ faves like Earl Greyhound and Malachai, but the sound is definitely arena ready, and would sound as amazing pumping from one of those massive sound systems as it does pouring through the open windows of your car as you cruise down the coast. Vocalist Bret Constantino has a killer raspy croon that has some Black Crowes too it too, but his voice totally reminds us of weirdo studio retro rock alchemists Malachai, although the sounds here are not nearly so tripped out. The record drifting from hushed almost Dead like slow jams, to blown out fuzz drenched dirges, and from hazy dream pop drifts, to groovy bouncy shuffles, but throughout, the songs kill, the guitars buzz, the rhythms shuffle, the songs swagger, and Sleepy Sun offer up a whole mess of hook heavy psychedelic fuzz pop, that while maybe a wee bit too polished for true psych-heads, is still pretty goddamn good.
We're pleased to present three inaugural cassette releases from psych/noise label Holodeck, championing the exploding underground electronic experimental scene in Austin, Texas, with beautifully packaged and designed cassettes. Have a look elsewhere on this list for other releases by Lumens and Thousand Foot Whale Claw.
But we're really pleased to see Smokey Emery's Soundtracks For Visibility series getting a full cassette reissue run. Long out of print on cd-r, here is what we said about Volume One when we first listened the cd-r version:
Recorded in 2002, these tracks of cinematic drones and loops quietly build from slow-burning sonic embers that pulse and throb to subtlety shifting drifts of piano, bells, and music boxes mutating into far-off whirring rhythms and wobbly melodic ellipsis. "Invisibility Vignettes" is an epic 16 minute track of 5 movements that lays out what sounds like a barren mechanical wasteland before a soft guitar and organ figure shines a small ray of humanity on the proceedings slowly evolving into an off kilter robotic heartbeat leading into the final track of a lovely far-off and decaying church organ loop. Lonely, Beautiful and of course LIMITED!
A list or two back we reviewed a tape from a new local group called Violent Change, a collection of twisted lo-fi pop that managed to be loose and chaotic, but catchy as all get out, and in that review, we mentioned that that group was born of the late great Sopors, a short lived SF band that existed in the same scene that birthed pop geniuses the Ovens, and while Sopors aren't as overly poppy as their brethren, their pop chops are undeniable, and the fact that they create such insane catchiness that at the same time manages to be so loose and ramshackle and wildly unhinged, in some ways, it makes it even better, with some of THEE catchiest melodies, and most irresistible hooks, but set amidst churning lo-fi riffage, and buzz drenched jangle. Just check out "Creation", the band unfurling some of the hookiest indie pop we've ever heard, but throughout, the song sounds like it could collapse at any point, reminding us a bit of early Pavement, but Sopors are somehow darker, their sound meaner and leaner, "Creation" spending as much time churning ominously as it does ringing out big melodies and sweet guitar jangle, if not more.
And like Violent Change which would come after, Sopors at heart were a punk band, so on the heels of something as poppy as "Creation", comes "Germ Attack", an 84 second blast of monochromatic punk stomp, but even in the roiling three chord crunch, Sopors lace their sound with sweet melodies, woozy riffage, and tangles of detuned guitar weirdness that transform the sound into something way more than punk rock. "No Solution" has a serious Guided By Voices vibe, from the murky guitar, to the British Invasion vox, and fuck if it isn't as catchy as anything Bob Pollard's whipped up. Listening to this now, it blows our mind that more people didn't catch on. And "Repetition" just seals the deal, another punk pop gem, with thick fuzzy guitars, yelped processed punkish vox, busy melodic basslines, and some sweet hooks, which makes the Sopors sound like some lost eighties band you might have heard on one of those Messthetics comps. So fucking great!
We also have the Sopors full length lp which we'll review next time, but if you want one of those (and trust us, YOU DO!!) just ask!
This 2006 gem and longtime aQ fave gets the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment. R.I.P Mark Linkous.
Here's our review from way back then...
Hard to believe it's been five years since we last heard from Mark Linkous and Sparklehorse. It seems like every record has involved some sort of struggle or personal tragedy. Linkous has had a seriously rough life, an accident that almost killed him, and which left him crippled for life, struggles with anxiety and depression, but the result of all that anguish is one of the most incredible bodies of work in modern music. Sparklehorse is sort of like the country rock Flaming Lips. Starting life out as a super scrappy rock band, and then discovering the joys of the studio, learning to use the studio like another instrument, creating an incredibly expansive sound palette, and eventually creating a unique world of unbelievably lush sounds, like a modern day Brian Wilson. And this record is no different. It's rich and dense and lush and sweet, the vocals, a plaintive heartstring pulling croon, guitars strum and shimmer, melodies drift, harmonies float and glisten, everything woven together into gorgeously perfect twang flecked pop. The vocals are multi tracked, doused in effects, swathed in reverb, guitar parts are simple and spare, the record is dotted with bits of strange digital glitch, or fuzzy record crackle. Some tracks are crystal clear, simple and straight forward, others are dense and dizzying, with strange edits, and extreme stereo panning, there are a few super fuzzed out rockers, but for the most part Dreamt For Light Years is a record of sun dappled divinity and sweetly melancholy drift. A gloriously and dreamily psychedelic excursion into the heart of darkness. So lovely.
Finally on lp! Here's what we said about the cd:
Hooray! AQ all-time fave Mark Linkous returns at last with a brand new Sparklehorse album and we are happy to report that he, once again, does not disappoint. Mr. Linkous has that innate ability to write incredibly infectious pop songs with teeth -- never slipping into preciousness or saccharine artificiality -- and a multi-instrumental playfulness that harkens Tom Waits' works from the mid eighties. It should come as no surprise then that both Tom Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan collaborate on one track. They are also the only other names to appear as songwriting credits on the album. Also contributing to this album are Cardigans vocalist Nina Persson (singing backup on a few tracks), PJ Harvey (playing some guitar and singing lovely harmony vocals) and Harvey's bassist John Parish drops some bass licks along with throwing his weight around as a producer on a couple tracks.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Sparklehorse, Linkous' aesthetic weaves delicate, about-to-crack vocals, gently strummed guitars, and all sorts of bizarre studio trickery (a wonderful amalgamation of lo-fi home recording and ultra-lush top dollar multi-track wizardry) to make his records SOUND so great. But it's the songs that make the biggest impression. Whether it's a super distorted rollicking rocker, a barely-there ghost of a melody, or a heart wrenching country ballad, every song, at its core, is a perfect, perfect pop song. Catchy as hell, but not immediately -- more a sort of insidious, slowly spreading, like a virus beautiful, but beautifully miserable as well. And the lyrics too are practically perfect. Simple but astonishing in their depth. Clever and brutally soulful, without being melodramatic or overwrought.
Most aQ customers, when they think of Finland, probably associate it musically with the weird foresty freak folk of groups like Avarus and Kemialliset Ystavat. Or, just as likely, you think of the hypnotic, occasionally metallic space rock of Circle and their various offshoots. But, among geeky metalheads, Finland is probably best known for their underground death metal scene, back in the day. Of course, nearby Sweden is king when it comes to that stuff - there's a whole huge book about it we sell called Swedish Death Metal. But a book could be written about Finnish Death Metal too. Early '90s acts like Amorphis, Demilich, Convulse, and Xysma are up there in the cult death/grind pantheon.
So, when none other than Jussi from Circle told us he was doing an archival cd release on his label Ektro by a Finnish death metal band called Stench Of Decay, we assumed they were a obscure demo band from the '90s... and the cd sure sounds (and looks) like that. Turns out though that Stench Of Decay are much more recent torchbearers for the tradition of Finnish death metal, having formed in 2004 (as fairly young kids, judging from the photo in the cd booklet). The ten tracks collected here come from the band's 2005 debut demo cd-r, a 4-song cassette/12" ep release that came out in 2009, and a 7" single released in 2011. All find SoD ably doing the old school thing, bringing back memories of Entombed, Grave, Bolt Thrower, classic Morbid Angel, etc. One track is a cover of a song from a 1990 demo tape by Finnish death metal pioneers Abhorrence, so Stench Of Decay know their stuff.
And yes, they ARE pretty killer. Press play and you'll be instantly bulldozered by guttural vox, blasting beats, divebombing guitar solos, and churning fuzz - fuzz that somehow seems to consist of serrated sonic saw blades. The tones are THICK, the vibe is SICK, yes what more could you ask for from a death metal album? But, brutal as it is, there's much musical nuance underneath, even melody. SoD have a knack for composing stuff that sounds "classically evil", hummable hellish little ditties you could imagine a being played with less volume and distortion by some sort of sinister chamber quartet...
To reiterate, this is NOT the sort of leather and codpiece clad, Thor-muscled '80s metal that usually inform the antics of Circle's tongue in cheek 'NWOFHM' side projects like Steel Mammoth. No, this is the pure grinding metal of death stuff. It remains to be seen if Jussi's interest in death metal heralds a harsh new direction that Circle and the NWOFHM might take, hmm? And while they sure don't sound like Circle (yet), in their own way, Stench Of Decay are quite brutally hypnotic, with repetitive riffs pulverizing repeatedly...
All right, time to get yr underground proto-metal kicks! Remember the new album from San Francisco longhairs Dzjenghis Khan we highlighted last list?? Well THIS is exactly the sort of thing those retro-stoners were going for. Step up for an authentic '70s hard psych experience. Stonewall's rare, awesomely fuzz riffed record was recorded in '69, but not actually released until 1974, and even then without the band's knowledge, due to exploito-label shennanigans. Read the liner notes for more about that. (Actually, other sources claim this was recorded circa '71-'72, and then released in '76, we don't know what to believe, but either set of dates sounds plausible.)
Stonewall pump out stompin', rockin' boogie, durn heavy for '69 (or '71), fronted by an expressively raspy vocalist, gripped by the spirit of rock n' roll at its countercultural best. He also busts out the occasional harmonica wail. But it's generally guitars to the fore, and fuzzed-out. There's some Hendrix and Cream influences of course, maybe Led Zep too depending on when this really was recorded, and we're treated to some total organ jammin' blues rockin' on "Try & See It Through", while "Atlantis" hints at the slightly proggier riffage of Captain Beyond's debut....
Definitely for fans of Sir Lord Baltimore, Dust, Bang, Jerusalem, etc. Also if you remember a much more recent (but very retro) band from the '90s called The Want, who did a disc for Southern Lord, this sounds pretty much just like them. Which is cool 'cause we really digged The Want. Maybe they really digged Stonewall?
Oh, and yes, this IS the same Stonewall album that was previously reissued on cd some years back by the Italian label Akarma, with a different cover and title (Akarma called it Stoner, and the cover had a wall of Marshalls, with blood seeping from several of 'em.) Presumably this is the how the original lp really looked.
While everyone here loves the Swans, we all have our favorite era. Pretty much all of us are WAY into the harsh, metal bashing pummel of the early years, on albums like Filth, Cop, Greed, but at the same time, we all also seem to love the group's later, more epic brooding folk flecked sound, one that hinted at Swans frontman Michael Gira's post Swans outfit Angels Of Light. That sound was first foreshadowed on the group's 1987 album Children Of God, which while still heavy and industrial, began to flirt with a much less harsh musical palette, one that was fully explored on the following year's The Burning World, their sixth album, and their only major label release, now finally reissued after many years.
At the time, the shift may have seemed more organic, but years later, it definitely like a crazy dramatic sonic shift, the band having shed pretty much all vestiges of their industrial past, and instead, embracing a dark swoonsome string laden psychedelic folk, the songs a mix of dark classic balladry, seventies UK acid folk, and low slung gothic gloom pop, a sound that fans of groups like King Dude, Hexvessel, Der Blutharsch, Cult Of Youth, Comus, Woven Hand and the like, will find surprisingly familiar, and we would imagine much to their liking.
Their continued post-industrial sonic trajectory definitely suited them, the abject metallic pummel and industrial crush of those early records replaced by a lush songsuite that seems to have more in common with Scott Walker, and Nick Cave, and other dark pop troubadours, the songs bleak and almost folky, often driven by an Eastern sounding percussion, giving some of the tracks an almost Muslimgauze vibe (due in no small part we'd imagine to input from producer Bill Laswell). Gira's croon ominous and dramatic, Jarboe's dreamy angelic background vocals the perfect foil, the backdrop a lush expanse of simple spare rhythms, lush, urgently strummed acoustic guitars, layered drones and lovingly layered soundscapes, fiddles and strings nestled alongside darkly pointilist pianos, the sound slipping from doomfolk creep to seasick waltz, to strange old time gypsy folk to strange almost angular pop, with some tracks that even bear hints of new wave, indie rock and post punk, but the band deftly weave these sounds into a haunting dark folk gem, that sounds as good now as it ever did.
And we had completely forgotten about Swans' version of Steve Winwood's "Can't Find My Way Home", with Jarboe on lead vocals, the original transformed into a timeless darkfolk lament, that manages to sound harrowing and otherworldly, but hushed and dreamily lovely.
And of course there's the immediately recognizable Robert Mapplethorpe cover photo...
We really didn't know what to expect from this Brooklyn duo, whose pedigree not only includes goofy dance pop combo Professor Murder, but also legendary post/math rock outfits Don Caballero and Storm & Stress, we might have been expecting the impossible, some strange mix of the two, but instead, Mixed Emotions ends up being a super fun, fuzzy, bouncy, hooky, and yeah danceable, pop record, lots of squelchy synths, programmed drums, groovy rhythms, soaring intertwined vocals, chiming guitars, fuzzy riffs, handclaps, it's hard to know who to compared these guys too, it seems like folks who dig groups like Animal Collective, and who aren't averse to the more electronic/dance pop side of things would love these guys, but also people into stuff like Phoenix and Miike Snow. And the band definitely are a proper rock band, with songs like "Green Grass" melding their more electronic side with a super hooky fuzz pop indie jangle that's pretty dang irresistible. Opener "Brothers" is all brooding stripped down electro pop, but it "All Of Me", the single, that really demonstrates just how good these guys are, and why it wouldn't be that weird to hear these guys on commercial pop radio, it's the kind of super hooky, synth heavy, big chorus. pop gem, that makes people want to get up and move, even grumpy wall flowers like us.
And so it goes for the rest of the record, electro pop meets groovy fuzzy indie jangle, majestic almost orchestral electronic epics meet woozy tropical dreampop, synthy strings meet crooned percussion heavy new wave pop, all those various strains of electronic pop and classic indie songsmithery melting into one gloriously dreamy whole.
We're pleased to present three inaugural cassette releases from new psych/noise label Holodeck, championing the exploding underground electronic experimental scene in Austin, Texas, with beautifully packaged and designed cassettes. Have a look elsewhere on this list for other releases by Lumens and Smokey Emery.
We've been hearing about Thousand Foot Whale Claw for quite awhile now. Their contribution to the Brainclub vinyl compilation we listed a while ago was one of our favorite tracks, a smoldering blast of psychedelic space-rock. Featuring members of Pure X, Silver Pines, and Troller, Thousand Foot Whale Claw strangely sounds nothing like any of those bands. Lost In Those Dunes is just two loooong sides, the first is the title track and it's a slow heavy drumless build of holistic psych drone and loping bass like a slow motion Spacemen 3, as if they were doing a cover of a Date Palms-like raga. "Fleshwave" is even heavier on the guitar feedback and cosmic expansiveness, a brain-melting tumult of acid squall over sheets of star-destroying synth drones. So good! And leaves us of course, wanting more! Limited to 100!
Marches Funebres is volume 13 in the ongoing series of Asmus Tietchens reissues from Die Stadt (here, in conjunction with Auf Abwegen). Tietchens, of course, is the experimental electronic krautrock musician who began his lengthy career back in the late '60s and stylistically morphed his compositions from obliterated tape music to coy electronic pop to sterile acousmatic seriousness as well as countless collaborative projects with Moebius, Conny Plank, Thomas Koner, Merzbow, Richard Chartier, Vidna Obmana, Arcane Device, and his long standing partner Okko Bekker.
Originally released on the now defunct Swedish label Multimood on vinyl in 1989 (and later on disc in 1994), Marches Funebres is something of a retrogarde piece of electronics for Tietchens looking back to the cosmic synthesis of his contemporaries in the late '70s. "Linea 5" is a slow-motion 20 minute piece of synthesized tension churning with step sequenced notes whose minor key repetitions ripple further in dynamically evolving delay patterns and aggregated ambience. Composed in '89, Tietchens offered an alternate take on what John Carpenter and Goblin were creating in their electronic sequencing, stripping away the melody and leaving behind the anxiety. The next track "Grunschattiger Nachmittag" is all melody, with Tietchens embarking on an orchestral work utilizing the technological advances in sampling circa 1989, creating a hyperbolic, trashy filmscore music dripping in pathos and saccharine emotion through the simulated timpani, strings, and even fake baritone vocalist. The 1979 version of "Grunschattiger Nachmittag" which is a bonus track on this reissue is far more compelling due to the more limited set-up of a Minimoog and drum machine, resulting in a much more impressive piece of Kraut-electronica akin to the best work of Cluster and Harmonium. The irony which became so prominent in the 1989 version is lost in translation early on, and the piece is better off without it. As a result, this track is probably the best 'pop' track Tietchens did during that spell on Sky Records in the late '70s and '80s.
Another special Record Store Day release, one that we managed to get few extra copies of, for our mailorder customers unable to make it out in person for RSD, a double 7" reissue gathering up two early singles from legendary post rockers Tortoise, in fact, their first two proper releases, both from 1993, the Lonesome Sound 7" and the Mosquito 7", which were released just months before their seminal self titled debut.
And sonically, these five songs definitely point what was to come on that full length, and were the songs that made us go nuts for these guys in the first place. Strangely enough, "Lonesome Sound" is in fact a Freakwater cover, and it's definitely Tortoise at their most twangy, sounding a bit like old Palace Brothers actually, a shuffling, hushed ballad, with just a hint of the group's usual post rock jazziness. The flipside, though, is a bit more post rocky, still woozy and washed out, shuffly and jazzy, but darkly skeletal, with a weird Slint like spoken word, and some dubby melodica wheeze, the gives way to some super minimal droned out bass heavy creep.
"Mosquito" is more 'classic' Tortoise, a shuffling groove, beneath thick swells of smoldering distorted guitar, and all maner of swooped backwards effects, and some dubbed out jazzy horns, while "Gooseneck" gets downright funky, lacing a loping looped bassline, over a shuffling rhythm, and subtle chiming melodies, all wreathed in soft smears of shimmery thrum. Awesome.
And super limited of course, A Record Store Day release that might not be long for this world, so grab one while you can, we've only got a handful left....
Robert Turman may be more well known in early industrial noise circles as a part of Boyd Rice's NON project (contributing to the seminal conceptual noise single "Knife Ladder" with its additional holes drilled into the vinyl) as well as other obscure noise groups such as Z.O. Voider and Comfort Control, but this recording shows a completely different side of this multi-instrumentalist composer's sound.
Flux, recorded in 1981 and originally released on cassette, is a series of long form compositions of lo-fi meditative minimalist grandeur, a home-brewed study of new-age avant-classical aspirations made through a distinct DIY sensibility. Reminding us a lot of the spacious dreaminess of Anton Batagov, Turman uses piano, kalimba, a rudimentary drum machine and tape loops to make slow-paced tones and textural phrases that eventually repeat, and form drifting mesmerizing patterns. Eventually the looping aspects of the various compositional components begin to gently overlap, causing the sounds to shift subtly and collapse on each other. A mysterious vibrational resonance flows throughout, created both through the hypnotic longevities of the pieces but also through the low fidelity manipulation of overtones. Rough button clicks and other sonic debris of the recording process occasionally cause crackles and distortions, emphasizing their home recorded origins. The choice of instrumentation and their processional pacing give off an Eastern influenced quality, but it also shows a deliberate effort to push the boundaries of minimalism within a challenging limitation of sonic palette and available technology. It's this restraint that makes this incredibly beautiful. Hats off to Spectrum Spools for allowing this to see the light of day again!
And for all of you non-vinyl folks, a cd version will be available soon!
Unrest's Imperial f.f.r.r. ranks near the top of our pantheon of all time greatest indie rock records EVER. We've raved about it on the aQ list before, but weirdly enough, we never reviewed the follow up Perfect Teeth, the band's final album, which is a shame, cuz as far as we're concerned, it's almost like Imperial part two, another clutch of perfect pop songs, some chiming and delicate, hushed and shimmering, others crunchy and frenetic, bouncy jangle heavy fuzz pop crunch. For this year's Record Store Day, Perfect Teeth was reissued as a deluxe 6x7" boxset, with some stunning packaging (more on that in a second), and we're a little shocked there are still any copies left, cuz Perfect teeth is brimming with some of the most perfect indie pop we've ever heard. Opener "Angel I'll Walk You Home" sounds like it could have been pulled right from the Imperial sessions, with it's chiming guitar figures, the hushed harmonized vocals, a slow drifting brooder, with lots of space, hazy and dreamy and softly reverby, then there's "Cath Carroll" which finds the band at their most rocking, the guitars crunchy and fuzzy, the drums frantic and busy, the vocals buried in the mix, but no amount of distortion of jangle can hide the oh so hummable hooks. "So Sick" splits the difference, a minor key jangle fest that sounds like the perfect rainy day soundtrack, and like pretty much every Unrest song, just begs to be the cornerstone of a makeout mixtape.
And like Imperial, the band were not just about pop, they had an experimental streak a mile wide, already evident in the off kilter arrangements and the unique song structures, it becomes even more obvious on tracks like "Food & Drink Synthesizer", a gorgeous swirl of whirling high end shimmer and the sounds of breathing, blurred into a gorgeous bit of abstract minimal thrum, or "Breather X.O.X.O" which sounds poppy and jangly at first, but then reveals itself as a dense repetitive arrangement with looping guitar figures and layered vocals, sounding more like Reich or Riley gone indie pop. In between these moments of overt experimentation, are still more dark pop gems, the droned out strum and drift of "Stylized Ampersand", the punchy, crunchy jangle pop of "Make Out Club" which just might be one of the catchiest pop songs ever, or "West Coast Love Affair", all spidery minor key guitars, shuffling rhythms, and strangely sung/spoken vocals, or the warm washed out shoegazey dreampop of "Six Layer Cake". So great! And so great to have this gorgeous deluxe vinyl version, that finds the record spread out over six seven inches, each one pressed on a different colored vinyl, along with a big 7"x7" booklet of photos, two stickers, a fold out poster featuring all the Teen Beat releases, a download coupon, the whole thing housed in metallic gold silkscreened origami style sleeve, tied shut with red string, each one machine numbered. Get it while you can.
It's hard to believe it's been more than 20 years since we first heard NYC noise rockers Unsane, but maybe even harder to believe that their sound, even after 25+ releases, remains relatively unchanged. Wreck offers up another collection of blood splattered, knuckle dragging heaviosity, that sounds just as good as the first time we heard them, via their crushing Sub Pop single, and their still tough to beat self titled debut full length. The math remains the same for the most part, the drums a muscled pummel, the guitars distorted and HEAVY, the bass holding it all together, and Chris Spencer's vox a feral wail. The songs mostly one or two parts, chugging and churning and pounding hypnotically. An exercise in metallic minimalism, a sort of hypno-noiserock. The one change we do notice, is a lot more melody going on, and Spencer's vox a bit softer, and also more melodic. While opener "Rat" is a dead ringer for the Unsane of old, the second track "Decay" ends up sounding almost like Mudhoney, Spencer's vox definitely drifting into Mark Arm territory, with the song offering up some surprisingly melodic broody moodiness. But it suits them. And it's been a while since we've listened to the last few records (we STILL listen to those first few) so those changes may have been creeping up gradually, but they definitely seem more prominent on Wreck. Fear not, Unsane has most definitely NOT gotten soft, the record for the most part is heavy on the headbanging noise rock crush, and any extra melody only makes it go down a little bit easier, but even so, there's plenty of jagged heaviness and head caving noisiness to get stuck in your craw, and do a lot of bloody damage in the process. And be sure and stick around for the closer "Ha Ha Ha", which features Spencer's demonic cackle as the chorus, mirroring Dan Higgs' much less malevolent laughing song, and beyond that, it might be the heaviest, and best of the bunch.
It takes a lot more than just a killer collection of songs to make an amazing compilation, and leave it to Tompkins Square, generally no slouches in the comp curating department, to come up with this curiously themed focus on affairs of the heart, in particular, the strange corner of human nature the impels and compels us to pursue romance, and love, even when the relationship seems doomed from the outset. A base human instinct not to just to find love, but to often look for it in all the wrong places. And to commemorate those lost loves and tragic encounters in song.
These prewar tunes, include music from the Cajun bayous, the mountains of Eastern Europe, and rural America, focusing on various nationalities who emigrated to America, only to form super strong enclaves, with a mind to preserve their cultural heritage, one part of which was various traditions of courtship and marriage, traditions that were quite different from one nationality to the next. But as different as those traditions were, the emotions, the feelings of love and longing, of sorrow and hopefulness, are of course universal, and were again, immortalized in music, a music that is at once festive and celebratory, but often with a subtle underpinning of sadness, the sounds are a mix of European folk, country music, bluegrass and gypsy music, lots of fiddles and strings, emotive vocals, wild melodies, there's plenty of blues too, cuz if one thing we all know, love can give a person the blues something bad, so Dock Boggs and his banjo spin a tale of "False Hearted Lover Blues", the Stoneman Family mix some gospel vocals and some wheezing accordion into their sweet country twang, Emry Arthur laments the fact that "She Lied To me", and in between the blues are endless variations on string music, polkas, hoedowns, wedding dances, it's a heady mix, that's fun to listen to, even when the subject matter is heartbreak and misery.
There's no shortage of old timey comps, but this one is most definitely a gem, musically AND thematically.
Gorgeously packaged in an oversized soft cover book style sleeve, with a massive 60 page booklet, filled with rare photos, extensive liner notes, lyrical translation, and gorgeous original illustrations by Robert Crumb.
MPEG Stream: DOUGLAS BELLARD & KIRBY RILEY "Aimer Et Perdre (To Love And To Lose)" [/audio/vaaimeretperd1.m3u]
A very special Record Store Day 2012 compilation, released on the new(ish) label 12XU, run by noneother than Mr. Gerard Cosloy (formerly of Homestead and Matador Records, among other notable ventures), and in the spirit of the day, it's a benefit, with all profits going to Austin's Trailer Space Records, a DIY shop that hosts all ages shows in addition to selling records, and this comp, named for the edict given to folks coming to aforementioned Trailer Space instores, is equal parts 12XU label sampler and Trailer Space compilation, featuring bands who've played the shop and/or who have records out on 12XU, in some cases both, in others neither. Regardless, it's a pretty excellent collection, with a few names we know: Cruddy, Chris Brokaw, Air Traffic Controllers, and even more we don't, Naw Dude, Carolee, Nazi Gold, Marriage, James Arthur's Manhunt, Followed By Static, The Flesh Lights and more. The sound ranges from the 68 second blast of dirgey distorto garage punk from Cruddy, the dirgey indie post punk of Nazi Gold, the Dead C meets Crazy Horse psychedelic skree of Cosloy's band Air Traffic Controllers, the echo drenched bellowing vokilled crustpunk garage dirge of Naw Dude, the spaced out FX heavy psych rock of Marriage, the fuzzy druggy dirge pop of Followed By Static, the angular bass heavy new wave post punk swagger of the Flesh Lights and more more more. Definitely had us hankering to hear more from all of these outfits.
Limited Record Store Day release, so these will definitely have a limited shelf life. Housed in full color covers, with photos of Trailer Space, and the titular 'Bring Beer' sign. Also includes a download coupon.
We've been trying to list this for ages now (we listed its predecessor, the Ongaku 70 comp, late last year), but our distributor kept running out, and then eventually it sold out totally and went out of print. Well, it's finally repressed and available again, but who knows for how long, so grab a copy before they're gone, cuz this stuff is so good, and so crazy, some of the coolest and weirdest minimal electronic and no wave music we've ever heard, and most of the groups were totally unknown to us. Sure there's Phew and Riuchi Sakamoto and Tako, but then there's also Daisuck & Prostitute, Gunjogacrayon, Lizard and so many more. For those of you who remember that awesome So Young So Cold compilation of seventies and eighties cold/new wave music from France, well, imagine an even more warped and whatthefuck Japanese version and you've got Ongaku 80.
The sounds here are so varied and so all over the map, there's no way to really describe it as a whole, so might as well go track by track. EP-4 starts things off with "Robothood Process", which is in fact quite robotic, sounding a little like Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" at 16rpm, a funky bassline, little flurries of percussion, a weird machinelike voice, streaks of feedback, tolling bells, all wrapped into ramshackle groove. Sakamoto's "Riot In Lagos" takes the new wavey prog of Yellow Magic Orchestra (Sakamoto's group), and pulls it apart into something more robotic, unwinding long streaks of dubby rhythms, and a stuttery almost hip-hop groove, wreathed in all manner of beeps and bloops and synth blurts. "Modern Beat" by Lizard might be one of our favorites, a militaristic beat, some spidery guitar melodies, buried crooned vocals, lilting melodies, but over the top super loud dubbed out drums and a thick super distorted low end buzz, that erupts every once in a while like a squelchy rib cage rattling pppppthhhh, not to mention some squiggly Bollywood melodies. Portray Heads offer up "Elaborate Dummy", which is a killer slab of futuristic electro-punk with sweet crooned girl vox over the top, pulsing and pulsating synthscapes that should have fans of Zombi, Umberto and all the rest flipping their lids. Gunjogacrayon channel early P.I.L. and the Slits for a noisy chunk of super rhythmic punkfunk, wreathed in all sorts of effects and guitar scrabble and garbled wild vox.
Flip the record over, and things start off with "Urahara" by Phew, a weird bit of stiff robotic funk, with cold sung/spoken female vox over theremin like melodies and an almost Kraftwerk like arrangement. Tako's "Funk Of The Hostage" is indeed funky, bit a sort of sinister soundtracky funk that slithers and swaggers, a creepy bit of stuttery broody psychedelic spacefunk, with processed vocal garble and shards of squealing feedback and fractured melodies, as well as flurries of atonal piano, and bursts of distorted yelps and swirling FX. The awesomely named Daisuck & Prostitute almost sound like they could be some sort of proto-Ruins project, progged out scrabbly lurching grooviness, peppered with horn bleats and strangled guitar squiggles, all beneath dramatic vox, the song slipping from frenetic skitter, to grooving post punk. Shinobu's "Earth" is another track that sounds like a mutated version of HH's "Rockit", this time pelted with all manner of spaced out swirl and stuttering swoosh, a collage of sliced and diced sonic fragments raining down on a mesmerizing sci-fi synth groove, with some bizarre bellowed vox. And finally, PTA's finish things off with their epic "Woo-Guy After Dark", which weds post punk guitar jangle to tribal percussion, swoonsome synth swells to sweetly crooned female vocals, a slow build to something that more resembles a lost Bollywood soundtrack or some strange Southeast Asian cassette reissued on Sublime Frequencies, the song slipping from dense and percussive to swirly and ethereal and back again, all the while super rhythmic and hypnotic.
Phew! So good, and so awesomely crazy and over the top! So totally recommended. We definitely can't say how long these copies will last, or if we can get more once they're gone, so better probably to not risk it. You have been warned!
Another Finders Keepers / B-Music treat here, folks! A collection of kooky, creepy, very cool music from the films (many of them about vampires, and many of THOSE about sexy lesbian vampires!) by French underground auteur Jean Rollin, circa 1968-1979. The late Rollin has been proclaimed the "father of European Horrortica". On the freaky fringes of free jazz and psych rock, the tracks found here are the perfect accompaniment to the director's sexy, surreal cinematic phantasmagorias. And unless we're much mistaken, we recognize one of the tracks here, Acanthus' theme to "Le Frisson Des Vampires", as having been surreptitiously covered in heavier fashion by drugged-out doomlords (and horrotica fans) Electric Wizard on their Witchcult Today album!
Another one of note is Pierre Raph's aptly-titled "Gilda & Gunshots", a track of consisting of excited percussion, jazzy bass and pretty trumpet, overlaid with whipcrack-like gun shots, girlish whimpers and cries. It could almost be some noir-jazz experiment by the Boredoms. What the heck was happening in the film scene this scored, we don't know...
We could go on describing this track by track, but there are 31 cuts in all on this disc! With great titles like "Abstract Procession", "Bizarre Cult 2", "Crotch Batterie", "Crimson Gates", and "Violent Library", these vary widely and weirdly, encompassing spooky theremin-like tones, chamber music drones, somber choirs, flute-laced grooves, melodic reveries, arrhythmic interludes, all sorts of stuff. It's a real cornucopia of suspenseful strangeness and freeform avant-rockin'. Composers/performers responsible include the aforementioned Acanthus and Pierre Raph, along with many more by Phillipe D'Aram, Yvon Gerault, Francois Tusques and others. Much of this is previously unreleased. And of course Finders Keepers provides plentiful, fully illustrated liner notes in the cd booklet.
By the way, we also have a couple copies each of the soundtracks to Rollin's films Requiem Por Un Vampire (1972, composed by Pierre Raph) and Fascination (1979, Phillipe D'Aram) on import 10" vinyl, reissued by Finders Keepers as well (key tracks from which appear on this cd collection, naturally).
By now, the term 'minimal wave' has become synonymous with a particular thread of somewhat dystopian and certainly DIY electronic pop whose origins land somewhere between 1978 and 1984. Back then, all of this music was probably lumped under the new wave or post-punk or maybe even industrial category; but thanks to Veronica Vasicka's label, a new taxonomy has stuck, and more than a handful of archivist labels following suit, including the exceptionally well curated Dark Entries alongside Vasicka's Minimal Wave.
Here, we have the second co-release between Minimal Wave and Peanut Butter Wolf's Stones Throw, collecting very rare tracks from very obscure 'minimal wave' acts mostly from that aforementioned time period. The only artist on this compilation with something of cultural cache would be Felix Kubin, whose contribution here is a cover of the jittery Germanic punk number "Japan Japan" by Abwarts, turning the frenzied pogo guitars and drums into Devo-esque electronic squeak and double-timed drum machination. Of course, Kubin adds his signature blankly-serious silliness to the reworking which dated back even to this track from 1985. Lesser known acts include Subject (with Belgian electronic maverick Alain Neffe providing the backing track to the impressively infectious guitar riff and motorik chug), Ruins (not to be confused with the Japanese group, this Italian act takes after the mid-'80s Factory Records dark discotheque productions a la Section 25) and Das Ding (a Dutch project of buzzing synth workouts who we only discovered through a full album reissued by Minimal Wave). Other total obscurities include the crooning melodrama of Class Info, the terse arpeggio of Hard Corps, and the contemporary production of Geneva Jacuzzi making a cheap electro-tango that harks back to the chimerical publications from 99 Records. It all makes for another fine piece of archival curation from Minimal Wave!
Killer four way noise rock split which starts out with the churning epic psychedelic crush of Seawhores, whose Forest record was a big fave around here. And like that record, on these three tracks, Seawhores take their classic-rock-meets-noiserock AmRep worship and douses it in all sorts of warped FX and garbled vox, tangles of guitar shred, and soaring melody, the sound slipping from Butthole Surfers like druggy lurch, to synth driven future prog, from stop start math rock crunch to warbly hip hop flecked murk-pop (!!), from Dead Kennedys / Black Flag like punk rock pound to Bastro like angularity. Holy shit these guys are awesome. Not sure why they're not a bigger deal.
Up next is a sprawling 10+ minute track from a group called Power-Take-Off, the first we've heard from these guys, but it's definitely good stuff, sheets of corrosive feedback, loads of hiss and hum, all wrapped around stumbling drum pound, but that's just the intro, when the song kicks in, PTO lay own some seriously acid drenched stoner sludge heaviness, with howled bullhorn vocals, buzzing downtuned riffage, the group locked tight into a serious tranced out chunk of almost raga like noise rock mesmer, a single part hammered away at, over and over and over, with a brief break for what sounds like an auctioneer doing his thing, only to have PTO lurch right back in where they left off.
Skoal Kodiak are up next, we reviewed their recent Kryptonym Bodliak record on Load and described them as knuckle dragging dancefloor deviants, and while that definitely still applies, there's plenty of noisiness going on for sure, here it's a groovy motorik beat, a slithery bassline, all smothered in clouds of malfunctioning electronics and glitched out effects, the vocals a mush mouthed howl, a dizzying chunk of demented dancefloor damage for sure. The second SK track offers up more of the same, but this time getting WAY more dubbed out, way more spaced out, the rhythms propulsive, the groove surprisingly, well, groovy, the sounds panned hard, zooming from speaker to speaker, super fun and funky and the sort of thing that would probably go over surprisingly well in an actual club.
Finally, finishing things off, are the awesomely monikered Gay Witch Abortion, a group we'd been hearing about for ages, but hadn't really actually heard until now. And we have to say, not at all what we expected from this duo, but if anything, it's way weirder and cooler than anything we could have hoped for. A six part eight minute song suite, murky and fuzzy, glitchy and squelchy, heavily rhythmic, sounding a bit like a way more lo-fi Lightning Bolt, but with some spaced out synths and weirdo electronics, sorta trancey, sorta heavy, epic and majestic in places, sludgey and metallic in others, slipping into some weirdly cheesy organ driven calypso style cheesiness at one point, before finishing off with an impossibly poppy drum heavy jam that somehow fuses wild angular flares of guitar skronk, with chaotic drum damage, and some serious hookiness, actual proper singing and indie rock melodies all tangled up with some seriously dense and damaged noise rock pummel. Definitely left us wanting more!
This single from the Finnish electronica giant Mika Vainio (one half of the Pan Sonic duo) was meant to be available as a special release on Record Store Day, but it arrived about a week late. These things, of course, do happen. But we've got 'em now, and while RSD 2012 is past, these are still crazy limited, and most likely will be gone in a flash!
Mostly when Vainio records under his given name, his electronics are thoroughly abstracted and dislocated from the rhythmic strategies he produces in Pan Sonic. Those recordings tend to be strange, dream-time excursions of Tesla coil charges and mad-scientist fizzle, but here on this single, Vainio returns to the 'rhythm', which has long been his strong suit. The A side is grinding, shuffle-techno number whose heavy rhythmic swagger and cycloramic distortion locks in step with the Pan Sonic albums Kesto and Gravitoni. The B side is a tad mellower with a groovy noirish rhythm, but equally as dark. One time pressing of 750 copies!
We were pretty into Vom's Primitive Arts record from a while back, which we described as a "depressive, atmospheric, super distorted sort of gothic cold wave", and who we likened to groups like Soror Dolorosa, Sixx, Factums and Cold Cave, but whose particular version of sound was a much more raw and primitive beast, sort of crusty and filthy, from the production to the actual instrument sounds, even the atmosphere, it was as if a metal band or a noise band or somehow both, decided to make a gloom pop record, and failed spectacularly, and came up with something way meaner, weirder and more amazing.
This brand new split teams Vom up with another group of sonically like minded Scots with the awesome name Gummy Stumps, each group taking a whole lp side. Vom offer up more of the same, their sound driving and darkly post punky, the guitars thick and jagged, the bass fuzzed out and super distorted, the drums almost like some weird strain of motorik krautpunk, the vocals an effects drenched bellow, the group locking into long stretches of buzzing, snarling, minor key hypnorock, that sound like a goth rock Circle, pounding away relentlessly, the guitars unfurling slippery slithery melodies, over churning riffage and gloomy gothic bombast. But it's an epic, so the band sort of cobble together a songsuite, equal parts crash and burn, drift and smolder, shimmer and creep, the sound managing to be surprisingly lush while retaining its raw power. At one point haunting soundtracky synths drift in and transform the sound completely, before the band works its way up into another psychedelic cold wave gloom punk blowout. These guys are so fucking good, it's a crime they're not more well known.
With a name like Gummy Stumps, these guys had our hopes pretty high, and while they're not as grim or gloriously noisy, they're definitely a good match, their sound more of a Messthetics sort of post punk, all jagged angular guitar crunch, frenetic rhythms, and dueling call and response vocals. But again, like Vom's side, there's lots of space to fill, so the band stretch way out, slipping from murky psychedelic shimmer, to something that sounds like way more punk Arab Strap, to blown out drum heavy noise rock crunch, to surprisingly catchy punk pop and right back again to the angular post punkiness that started it all off.
Housed in super swank silk screened covers, with printed insert, cool lyrics booklet, and we're guessing it's pretty dang limited too...
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Super limited cassette featuring two one man black metal bands from Kentucky, the first, the oddly named Wheels Within Wheels we've raved about before, it's the solo project of Crow from doomlords Seidr, and even though the label describes his 20 minute track as some sort of industrial blackened sickness along the lines of Gnaw Their Tongues, to our ears, WWW continues to push his peculiar brand of blackness into ever more blissed out shoegaze territory, the sound here definitely veers into some noisier and grimmer territory here and there, but it remains epic and majestic, melodic and lovely, warm and fuzzy and washed out, especially the opening movement, way more psychedelic and dreamy than heavy, a pounding lumbering bliss pop dirge that should have folks into Nadja and Jesu and the like suddenly realizing that maybe they do in fact like (some) black metal, and once they're hooked, WWW gradually drags them somewhere much much darker.
Merkaba, a before now unknown to us atmospheric black metal outfit counters with his own bit of melodic blackness, a sound the label likens to Fell Voices meets Neil Young which we have to say doesn't sound that far off. There's a definite Crazy Horse vibe, the sound psychedelic and drenched in feedback, long slow smoldering sprawls of rumble and buzz, that build to explosive squalls of heaviness, eventually erupting into dense blurs of black buzz, while still retaining the melancholia of the slower more psychedelic parts. Gorgeous stuff for sure, heavy and heady, a tripped out black buzz that is definitely recommended for fans of WWW and that sort of melodic shoegaze heaviness, although Merkaba sound, at least in places, definitely hews closer to traditional blackness. Great stuff from both bands. And of course, SUPER LIMITED.
Psssst! White Hills fans!! Good news. We just got a few of the limited edition disc, Oddity II: Night Scene On Mill Mountain, "a collection of out-of-print and previously unreleased tracks" that was previously only available inside copies of the bands' 2011 cd Hp-1 purchased at Rough Trade shops over in England. At the time, we were bummed, why should only the Brits be able to get this quite desirable bonus goodie? Don't the White Hills love America?? Well, while they last, we now have these available to fans of the beloved Brooklyn psych band wherever you may be. Since it's supposed to slip right into the gatefold sleeve of the Hp-1 cd you (presumably) already have, these don't have much in the way of packaging, you just get a disc in a plain white sleeve. What's important, is what's on the disc, let's quote what it says here: "three Untitled Synth Experiments, the full-length alternative mix of BE YOURSELF from the Hawkwind Trilogy project, HEADS ON FIRE (outtake from the S/T LP), a recent Untitled Jam, and the full-length remix of NO GAME TO PLAY that appeared on the Fuck Off & Di release They've Got Blood Like We've Got Blood. Over 50 minutes of music for your listening pleasure!"
Pleasure indeed. Heck, this would be worth it just for the 27+ minute "No Game To Play" remix, probably the track, with its mantric chug, that first got us the most into White Hills back in their cd-r daze...
Latest full-length from these Hawkwind worshipping drug-drone psychedelic space rockers from New York, after their killer long players Heads On Fire and Glitter Glamor Atrocity, as well as 7 or 8 other kick ass cd-r's AND a couple 12"s, all leading us here, quite possibly their heaviest and most full realized record yet.
Beginning with "Dead", a track we're already pretty obsessed with, as it was the teaser track from the last 12", and even after spinning the 12" to, um, death, it's still a doozy: fuzzy, druggy, looped and hypnotic, with dreamy soft singing, beneath billowing clouds of distorted guitars, all hazy and super space rocky, definitely channeling the spirits of Loop and Spacemen 3, totally hypnotic, like a blown out krautrock jam drenched in tons of effects, you can almost hear the flashing strobes, and clouds of glowing smoke, the track just oozes druggy bliss.
And druggy bliss pretty much describes the whole record. "Countin Sevens" is a slow burning meander through some otherworldly landscape if prismatic clouds and barren moonlit expanses, the drums tribal and motorik, the guitar strummy and jangly, the bass throbbing and dense, all wound up into yet another seemingly endless sprawl of psychedelic excess, hazy, bleary and so utterly enthralling.
"Three Quarters" is the first track to get TRULY riffy, a sort of Stooges / Loop hybrid, the band locked into a churning loping rhythm, the vocals weirdly processed, exploding occasionally into even heavier double time downtuned grooves, before slipping back into that opening lope, before breaking down into 4 minutes of droned out space psych drift, wild tangled leads, long sheets of rumbling buzz, streaks of feedback, the bass and drums locked into a super heavy groove, another track that could (and probably should) go on forever.
"Let The Right One In" is one of two tracks that crack the 12 minute mark, beginning with field recordings of street sounds and tolling bells, dogs barking and whirling wind, all set a top a washed out bed of murmured guitars, a simple spidery bassline, shuffling drums, a soft focus shimmer, a brooding ballad, that gradually grows more and more post/math rocky, but never truly letting loose, until the last few minutes, but this time the psych freakout is reeled in, and instead the band just get a little epic and majestic, with thick looped riffage, soaring chords, repeating mantra like as the song finally unwinds. "We Will Rise" is a super minimal stretch of gurgling effects laden murk, with some spare drumming, soft squalls of guitar glimmer and a warm liquid bassline running through it, leading directly into "Glacial" which is in fact glacial, a thick whirring drone, muted buzz, and grinding downtuned whirs wound tight into a softly pulsing minimal drift, with some seriously SUNNO)))-like doomic swells off in the background, haunting and hushed and seriously ominous.
Which leads perfectly into the epic closer, "Polvere Di Stelle", fuzz bass, big drums, weary ethereal vocals, and guitars galore, a hazy washed out drug rock space out, more tangled leads, swells of super distorted wah wah riffage, the drums wild and forceful, the whole song a massive lurching beast, building to a super chaotic psychedelic blowout, a speaker melting crescendo, drums colliding like atoms, the guitars whirling and howling, the vocals another hazy layer, everything locked into a churning hypnorock sprawl spreading out into the cosmos...
The cd comes in a cool mini lp style full color gatefold sleeve, the lp is housed in an eye popping super elaborate psychedelic silver foil metallic sleeve and is EXTREMELY limited....
Gorgeous 4 song, 35 minute 12" ep from this Michigan husband and wife dreamdrone duo, released for this year's Record Store Day, which means, these were probably meant to be gone already, but we managed to get a bunch extra for mailorder folks who might not have a record store nearby.
Like other Windy And Carl records, this self titled RSD 12" is another fantastic collection of billowing soft focus droned out drift, subtly processed guitars, blurred into lush dreamlike swells, rumbling and whirring, shimmering and softly pulsing, a mesmerizing bit of late night kosmische drift. Opening track "Shadows" is a darkly dreamy sprawl of layered guitars, a swirl of subtle overtones and slow shifting tonal color, hazy clouds of hushed chordal thrum hovers in a gauzy expanse of muted melodies and abstract ambience, pretty much the perfect late night drift off soundtrack. "Columns" is much more brief, but no less hypnotic, a meditative stretch of softly keening high end and warm wispy low tones, woven into a lush layered bed of warm woozy spaced out shimmer. "The White Birch" is even more brief, not sure if its title is an homage to slowcore legends Codeine, but it does capture the same sort of hushed melancholia, the guitar tones dark, the melodies minor key, the sounds all bleeding into one another, the most active track of the bunch, but like some sort of sonic black hole, all the sounds seeming to drift inward, contemplative, and darkly dreamy. And finally, the record finishes off with the epic nearly 16 minute "Baby Alpaca Wool Pulled Over My Eyes", which opens with spare guitar strum, left to hover weightless alongside softly crooned wordless vocals, a swoonsome lament, a drowsy slowcore dirge, that doesn't build, but instead smolders contemplatively, the sound cyclical and circular, the chord progression subtle and haunting, the track trancelike and utterly mesmerizing, softly reverbed, and in a perfect world, the sort of song that would be allowed to play on forever.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, pressed on green vinyl, with a download coupon. Another Record Store Day release, sold out at the source, which means these are the last copies we're able to get.
On the cover this month, looking stern and elegant: electronic eclectic Atom (tm). Also inside, you'll find interviews with/articles about Laurel Halo, Mary Halvorson, Scott Walker, Eddie Prevost's London improv workshop, and more, including a South Korean scene report (which includes aQ pals, post Pyha punkers Bamseom Pirates!) and best of all, a Primer on Sound Poetry! Plus all the usual columns, news, reviews, charts, etc. We like Gesellschaft Zur Emazipation Des Samples' chart of '15 Records To Play In Public Places', a playlist consisting of all "records or musicians involved in copyright disputes".
