First of all, now that's a name! To which your reaction might be, okay, this band must really be into 17th and 18th century British military history, to name themselves after a heroic naval officer who perished in a shipwreck in 1707. Or, if you're like us, you might think, hmmm, seems a bit like the moniker of Sir Lord Baltimore, the fuzzed out early '70s proto-metal greats. And that's definitely relevant to Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell's also very much fuzzed out sound, all right. Like Witchcraft, Gentlemans Pistols, and the elusive Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats, these guys are another band on Rise Above (licensed to Metal Blade in the USA), who kick out the Sabbathy jams and sound like they actually -really- belong on Rise Above Relics, that UK label's imprint for reissues of swaggering '70s heavy rock obscurities. Yeah, the Shovell (as they like to be called, for short) deliver the goods, a ramalamajama of high energy brutal boogie with distorted to heck vocals, and noisy psych geetar explosions all over the place. 'Tis total guitar heavy, FX laden, rifftastic kickass rock n' roll. Extreme enough that while they've got one foot firmly in '70s rockarolla, they've almost got the other in, like, '90s noiserock� We say that 'cause sometimes the guitars break out stuff that's so sinewy and mathy, and the vocals get even more gruff and gnarly, that suddenly we start thinking the Melvins (meet Blue Cheer). It's just that they're waaay more freaked out and crazier than, y'know, mere Led Zep copyists. Much more like, The Heads, if they were all proto-metal about it. In fact, we'd say that this is definitely recommended to both fans of The Heads -and- Sir Lord Baltimore, of which we'd imagine there'd be plenty. Also if you like Danava, the aforementioned Gentlemans Pistols, Harvey Milk circa The Pleaser, Dzjenghis Khan, plus oldies like High Tide, Budgie, Toad, Dust, Buffalo, the Groundhogs (whose Tony McPhee gets in a guest guitar solo on one track here!), Captain Beyond, etc.
In a word, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell SLAY. And do so in style. Which includes, slipcase packaging. Oh, and there's a hidden bonus track, a cover of "Bean Stew" from Buffalo's Dead Forever, so stay tuned at the end�
Always interesting Aussie experimentalist Oren Ambarchi has been impressing us a lot lately, what with the excellent Audience Of One album on Touch we recently reviewed, and now this, another new solo disc via Editions Mego, which is also pretty fantastic, and different. What's Sagittarian Domain all about? Well, our customer and pal Gregg pretty much put it best, summing this up simply as "Oren Ambarchi's krautrock album". 'Nuff said for some of us, gotta get it, right?
Oren is a one man band here, playing almost all the instruments. He's credited with guitars, Moog bass, drums, percussion, and voice. There's also a (processed?) string section of violin, viola and cello that makes some appearances as well. We're not sure about the genesis of this project, the sleeve states it was featured in some sort of stage production in Sydney. It it was for a dance, it was a long one; the disc is 33 minutes, 37 seconds minutes long, a single track. A single-minded track as well. "Sagittarian Domain" is a mesmeric exercise in the power of the "motorik" beat, as previously practiced by kosmiche krautrockers like Can, Faust, and Neu!. Ambarchi's role as drummer here comes first and foremost, his guitar and FX etc. then wandering darkly over the motorik beat, the track gradually building and morphing, always maintaining Teutonic discipline, controls set for the heart of the nearest black hole�
Press play, and a tick-tick-ticking pulse emerges from the nothingness, its steady stutter joined by sudden fly-bys of keening electronic feedback and creaky drone-glitch. Then, a few minutes in, proper atmosphere established, Ambarchi goes into machine-like action on his drum kit, raising the volume and adding more crucial elements to the ominous rhythmic foundation of the piece, which continues its pulsating slow-build, crackling with electricity. With his syncopated and propulsive beats doing their thing, you're on your way into a hypno-zone where time has no meaning, your head nodding, eyelids heavy. The track becomes ever more primal and insistent, even dangerously sensuous, in a way (try this: start making out with your romantic partner when this disc starts, and see where that leads�).
As it goes, and goes, and goes, it gets louder and heavier and noisier; the grinding droning of Ambarchi's guitar washes in waves over his non-stop rhythm. Krautrock fanciers who like the more extreme stuff will be in heaven. When the beat finally stops, that classical string section alone provides a gentle, soothing chill-out coda for a few lovely minutes at the very end. Damn good!! Which aQ pal Gregg also said.
Cd comes in gatefold mini-lp style jacket.
Anatomy Of Habit is the noise-rock ensemble revolving around the twisted mind of Mark Solotroff, Chicago's long standing power electronics king known for his numerous projects over the years including Bloodyminded and Intrinsic Action. Accompanying Solotroff is another noise icon, Blake Edwards (aka Vertonen), yet even with these two ear-shattering technicians on board, Anatomy Of Habit's impressive dynamics come from the far more traditional axis of drums, bass, guitar, and vocals, played by Dylan Posa (Cheer Accident, Brise-Glase), Greg Ratajczak (Winters In Osaka), and Kenny Rasmussen. "The Decade Plan" begins with a bright ellipsis of guitars that wouldn't be out of place on a slowcore jam from Codeine or Slint before the band launches into a super heavy riff, girded by metal-bashing percussion only to settle into a assaulting groove to further along Solotroff's tales of sex, violence, and their psychological implications. The brutal brooding continues on "After The Water" amplifying their smashed sound even further through the tranced-out, sludge riffs and subharmonic roar. Think Pelican, Isis, Bodychoke, and of course, Swans. Cut at 45 rpm, these two tracks are fucking massive!
"I'm just a rock n' roller from Beverly Hills / My name is Ariel� Pink!"
Well, okay. Sing it, Ariel! Peculiar popsmith Ariel Pink and his Haunted Graffiti are back, and as absurdly delightful and infectiously catchy as ever. Hella amusingly weird too - just check out the damaged Beach Boys vibe of, uh, "Schnitzel Boogie". Oh, and of course AP couldn't resist titling a track here, "Pink Slime"!
Like his previous album for 4AD, 2010's Before Today, this one displays AP's "new" sound, one that's (slightly) less fucked up, (somewhat) more slickly produced than his pre-4AD output. It took us little while to adjust to the not as lo-fi, not quite so shambolic AP, but now we're fully into it. And really it's not that big of a change anyway. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti still traffic in a twisted take on sunshiney psychedelic '60s/'70s AM radio pop, and '80s synth stuff, blended with darker, more drug addled fare, like the fuzz filled "Early Birds Of Babylon" with its propulsive, "driving at night" postpunk vibe...
Thus, Mature Themes has been on heavy rotation here in the store ever since we got it in, and never fails to bring big smiles to our faces with its mix of dreamy, cotton candy colored melodies, bizarre lovelorn lyrics, and quirky elaborate vocal arrangements (that make us think Ariel is probably a big Sparks fan). Those grins start right from the get-go, when the song "Kinski Assassin" opens the proceedings with lyrics that include (repeatedly) the lines "Who sunk my battleship / I sunk my battleship", delivered in a mopey voice over a hiccupping beat. Love it!
The whole record is full of treats, we're pegging "Only In My Dreams" for a hit (and yeah, they made a goofy video for that one) but there's lots more, every track has its charms. Maybe our favorite is the one from which the lines quoted at the top of this review come, "Symphony Of The Nymph", which is indeed a symphonic prog-pop opus of sorts, with lots of parts, that comes across like a collaboration between eccentric '60s pop producer Joe Meek and equally eccentric "song-poem" composer Rodd Keith, thanks to its echoes of Meek's space age hit "Telstar" and the strange, singsong rhyming lyrics. If that's not a recommendation, we don't know what is. Also, the way Ariel Pink squeaks out his name in a high voice kills us every time.
Also gotta mention the smooth and soulful album closing ballad "Baby", with help from DamFunk on vocals, which we already reviewed when it came out as a pre-album single a few weeks back; it's a cover of a song by Donnie & Joe Emerson, from their 1979 album Dreamin' Wild, that we made a Record Of The week recently when it was reissued. The AP version amazingly sticks pretty close to the original, not noisily messing with it or anything, which points up how wonderfully warped AP's own songs still sound, despite the slightly higher fidelity, cleaned-up production we mentioned above.
Like we said, we've been playing this album a lot, and are probably gonna keep playing it over and over until somebody makes us stop. Just can't get enough of the Ariel Pink sound, and it IS a sound of his own; gotta hand it to him, he's already (a while ago) reached that point where, as shorthand, we describe lots of other artists, many of whom were influenced by him, as sounding like Ariel Pink.
Another batch of kick ass new tapes from local tape label Black Horizons is here. Two of 'em: the other a grim slab of ritualistic demonik black ambience from Trepaneringsritualen, reviewed elsewhere on the list, and this one, a gloriously blown out live set from LA goth-noise / postpunk combo Bestial Mouths, the first recordings from their new expanded 4 piece lineup, and holy shit does this stuff sound amazing. A dense wall of drum machine driven synthscapery, the rhythms super distorted and blown out, a rib cage rattling tribal pound surrounded by fields of ethereal synths, and ominous industrial buzz, super noisy and chaotic, but weirdly mesmerizing, and impossibly catchy. Howled shrieked female vox swoop and soar, but are mostly buried in the mix, giving them a much more impressionistic vibe, and making this a bit less abrasive than other BM records, but it's still pretty punishing, a sort of super heavy noise-wave power-electronics goth rock bliss out even adventurous metalheads should be able to get into.
Bestial Mouths sound like a band on Wierd or Captured Tracks, being remixed by some industrial / noise outfit, the tracks pounding and crushing and brutal as fuck, but still infused with all sorts of whirling melodies and shifting textures, the new wave synthiness ever present, but often obscure by sheets of white noise, and cascading crumbling heaviness, with the band dialing it back here and there for some woozy gloom dirge drifts, but those moments generally bookended by extreme noisepunk blowouts. Fucking AWESOME. Includes a bonus track of improvised noise, that to these ears harkens back to some of the other BM records we've carried, mirroring the groups penchant for pure noise punishment.
Like all Black Horizons releases, some sweet packaging, a multi panel metallic silver on black J-card, xeroxed reflective silver tape labels. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
When we did our $5 sale list a few weeks back, we were pleased to include the first three early '70s albums from the often underrated & misunderstood Blue Oyster Cult. Those discs proved quite popular, probably the best sellers of that list! Now here's another one by them, also on sale for just $5. Fire Of Unknown Origin dates from 1981, and thus belongs to BOC at their prime, after they had attained stadium-sized classic rock status. And it features one of the band's biggest hits ever, "Burnin' For You" (a great song, for sure, with lyrics by rock critic Richard Meltzer). But there's also a lot of equally awesome 'deep cuts' here too, like the creepy/campy "Joan Crawford", based on Mommie Dearest, which features a full-on musique concrete freakout in the middle.
Listening to this album, no matter how far out and sci-fi some of the songs get, it's clear that Blue Oyster Cult were a POP band, big time. Their roots in '60s psychedelia are still manifest, but this is also a total state-of-the-art '80s pop rock album, with loads of shiny new keyboards on the title track (based on a poem by Patti Smith), and elsewhere. Their imagery and umlauts (and guitar riffs!) of course also found favor with the hard rock / heavy metal hordes, but despite their reputation, it's hard to really call BOC a metal band. Sure, there's a track here entitled "Heavy Metal: The Black And Silver", but that's 'cause apparently a lot of these songs were written for the animated film Heavy Metal - though only "Veterans Of The Psychic Wars" (with lyrics by author Michael Moorcock, and Andee's favorite B.O.C. track EVER) actually appeared on the soundtrack. Giving this a bit more metal cred, though, the producer was Martin Birch, who did Sabbath's Mob Rules and Iron Maiden's Killers the very same year. And we gotta mention how much stuff like "Vengeance (The Pact)" sounds like the template for current Swedish metallers Ghost!
Ultimately, this is a great, sci-fi-fried, slightly progged out, and even a bit experimental, pop rock record with a bit of metal to it; heavy on the synths, the hooks, and the weird lyrics.
Brocas Helm! Brocas Helm!!! BROCAS HELM!!! That's the crowd chant that automatically sings in our brain as we behold this, a deluxe double vinyl collection of this cult San Francisco true metal band's several mighty demo tapes from over the years - thirty years! A labor of love on the part of the Buried By Time And Dust label, in honor of one of the best heavy metal bands ever to walk the Earth (so sez Allan, go read his other Brocas Helm reviews for further hyperbole!). NWOBHM-ish, triumphant, (literally) fantastic, old school metal mastery here. Eccentric medieval metal whose closest contemporary comparison would be (much younger) brothers-in-arms Slough Feg, so its very much recommended to fans of that band. "Iron Maiden on acid" also isn't far off the mark.
What you get here is as follows - Side A: Into Battle demo (1983), Side B: Black Death demo (1987), Side C: Helms Deep demo (1989), Side D: Ghost Story EP (1994). There's 19 tracks in all, all of 'em killer, including the raw original versions of faves like "Ravenwreck", "Into the Ithilstone", and "Time Of The Dark". All but one of these songs later appeared on Brocas Helm's three full-length albums - Into Battle (1984), Black Death (1988), and Defender Of The Crown (2004) - and since these represent some of the best tracks on 'em, this double lp then functions sort of like a Brocas Helm "Best Of". It's obviously meant for those who are already dedicated fans of the band, but since their albums are now hard to come by, anyone who can dig some underground '80s heavy metal at its utmost in galloping, guitar shredding glory might just wanna pick this up.
This LIMITED vinyl release comes with an 8 page booklet with full demo artwork, lyrics, pictures, old fliers, etc. plus a vintage gig poster reproduction. Brocas Helm! Brocas Helm!!! BROCAS HELM!!!
Latest on Dom Fernow's (Prurient, Cold Cave, etc.) Bed Of Nails label comes from Kris Lapke, aka Bronze Age, whose three song 12"s is a fierce slab of Teutonic gothic techno, pulsing four on the floor synth squelch, backed by ethereal swirling melodies, peppered with low end percussive stutter, dense and driving and super hypnotic, definitely an extension of Fernow's Vatican Shadow, albeit much more intense. The second track is probably our favorite, a creepy slab of dour techno pop, a rhythmic drag that churns and chugs, moody, murky, morose, dubbed out, rife with plenty of skitter and hand clap rhythms, it's a dark drowsy pulsing techno trance out, that we almost wish went on for way longer.
The side long third track is super spare, still plenty housey, but with a seriously anthemic vibe; it's propulsive and stuttery, a bit spaced out, but still driving and hypnotic.
And since we accidentally spun this at 33 instead of 45, we can tell you it sounds even better slowed down, the side long track becomes some lost Burial jam, a gorgeous washed out dub dirge, while the other two sound like doomy Depeche Mode and murk step creepiness respectively! Either way, super rad.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Y'know the special $5 sale cd list we did a few weeks ago? Well, there's actually a few more really good $5 deals available that we'll try to list, while they last. We reviewed 1968's Notorious Byrds Brothers before, now here's another Byrds gem for just $5 (or, $30, if you wanna spring for the brand new vinyl reissue that just came out!)� Originally issued in '69, with its title track appearing on the soundtrack to Peter Fonda's countercultural film classic Easy Rider, this was The Byrds 8th album, and their last of the '60s, with Roger McGuinn the only original founding member still on board (the other Byrds here being Gene Parsons, Clarence White, and John York). Still, it's a great bunch of songs, including not just the aforementioned Dylan-inspired title track (he wrote some of the lyrics), but also a fine interpretation of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (its sad vibes perhaps appropriate for the end of the '60s, the decade's revolutionary promise on the wane). This album also boasts one of our all time Byrds favorites, the rousing, rocking "Jesus Is Just Alright", originally by gospel singer Art Reynolds. Elsewhere, the record is mostly all about melancholic country and old timey folk, lovely songs including a traditional sea shanty and a Woody Guthrie protest number and even a timely drone-folk homage to lunar-landing Apollo astronauts "Armstrong, Aldrin And Collins".
Regarding the cd, this nicely done reissue tacks on 7 bonus tracks, alternates and out-takes, including one written by a young Jackson Browne, and a spaced-out synthesizer / Appalachian folk hybrid from McGuinn called "Fiddler A Dram (Moog Experiment)". And, plenty of informative liner notes are to be found in the cd booklet. Well worth the five bucks for sure!
German band Camera definitely belong on the Bureau B label, who have brought us quite a few killer krautrock reissues over the years (including the recent Record Of The Week by Gunter Schickert). But - this isn't a reissue! Camera are a current krautrock outfit, apparently with predilection for performing impromptu shows in public locations, and this is their debut. A 3-piece based in Berlin, Camera are modern-day upholders of the krautrock aesthetic, heavily influenced by both Neu! and Harmonia especially. And in fact, they've earned the blessing of their heroes, having played live in collaboration with Michael Rother (Neu!, Harmonia, etc.) and Dieter Moebius (Cluster, Harmonia, etc.).
This debut recording features eight tracks of live-in-the-studio, semi-improvised, mostly instrumental jams that indeed "radiate" the classic krautrock vibe. The juggernaut of a first track, "E-Go", leaps out of the gate with an intense pulsating "motorik" beat and heavy waves of distortion, churning forth like something by aQ-faves Circle or Salvatore at their most krautrocky. Shifting moods, that's followed by "Villon", much softer and prettier, like one of Can's quieter moments. Then, on "Ausland", Camera whips up another energetic motorik groove. The next track, "Lynch", is the disc's longest, and finds Camera delving into some spaced-out, kosmiche synth serenity, laced with skittering beats and sinister, wind-swept electronics. But then, after eleven minutes, Camera are back to the amped-up throb with "Utopia Is", another juggernaut (after a bit of a slow-build, that is)...
And so it goes, the rest of the disc following suit, providing more quite authentic tick-tock motorik beats and shwooshing guitar/synth soundscapes like it's 1974 all over again. Krautrock fans will for sure hear echoes of a lot of the greats: Neu!, Can, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Harmonia, Agitation Free, La Dusseldorf, etc. And anyone into other kraut-loving bands of today, like Circle, Cave, Wooden Shjips, and Hills among 'em, should check this out forthwith. Truly, for any fan of hypno-rock bliss new or old, it's hard to find fault with Camera's worshipful, enthusiastic emulation of their krautrock forebears; if anything, there's something almost a little too perfect about this, in that a krautrock band from back in the day would probably have colored outside the lines a bit more, whereas Camera kinda plays it safer, sticking close to the motorik formula. But, they do it REALLY well and we're definitely digging it!
By the way, there is a vinyl version of this (which comes with a cd too) but our supplier was out this week; we should have more of that in again before our next list, though.
Dreamless Sleep is the latest from Caminiti, whose day job is as one half of twang flecked drone duo Barn Owl, and like his partner in Barn Owl, Jon Porras, Caminiti's solo records don't always deviate too much from the Barn Owl M.O., offering up variations of the duo's distinctive dusky sound, with the various individual solo records often easily mistaken for proper Barn Owl record, which is not a bad thing at all, Caminiti and Porras have undeniable musical chemistry, and both have proven to be perfectly capable on their own, both experimenting more with keyboards and synthesizers lately, which of course ironically seems to have been influencing their work as a duo as well.
All of that said, Dreamless Sleep definitely finds Caminiti pushing his sounds into uncharted territories, ditching much of the twang, and the droned out mesmer for something way more kosmische and downright new age-y at times. In fact, if it weren't for the fierce guitar tones and muted buzz, the sounds here could easily slip into full on new age bliss out. Thankfully, Caminiti takes that new age drift, and weds it to his dense guitarscapery, letting neither overshadow the other, resulting in tracks that manage to be both dreamy and ethereal, dark and cinematic, wrapping washed out shimmering synths in spidery sinister melodies, and wreathing hushed ethereal ambience in clouds of ominous thrum, the recordings adding even more texture and density, gristly and on the verge of slipping into the red, the sounds blown out and occasionally corrosive, with some of the tracks slipping into near SUNNO)))-like heft, only you have the shimmery swirl hold it back, and conversely, some of the tracks are so airy and ethereal, it's often just a single slab of crumbling, rumbling blackened thrum, that keeps things safely on the darkside. It's like the perfect music for some seriously psychedelic planetarium show, the music evoking massive sprawls of space, and the ever shifting cosmos, dying stars and black holes, planets being born and epic swaths of glimmering starfields.
It's finally here, the years in the works Sense Of Place, an ambitious audio/visual document that captures San Francisco drone/ambient/folk band Common Eider, King Eider's quest to build a cabin in the wilds of Alaska. It's an incredible package including both a book and a dvd, each offering up images of the process, from the flight up, the journey to the site, to the actual construction, as well as the gorgeous landscape surrounding the cabin (or cabin to be). The dvd and the cd both contain part of the music, both of which are meant to be played simultaneously, Zaireeka style, the fusion of the two resulting in a lush soundscape of layered organ drones and haunting choral harmonies, the music on its own is moving and mysterious, but when coupled with the visuals, it's that much more powerful.
The dvd is a gorgeously impressionistic visual travelogue of the process, the first image is the plane soaring over the clouds, then the snowed-in city, the trip to the site through epic expanses of snow, the actual building of the cabin, from the ground up, the whole thing peppered with lots of stunning shots of the surrounding landscape, the snow that goes on for miles, gorgeous pink tinged skies, distant mountains and dense almost black forests, eventually, the shots are through the windows of the cabin, the trees bowing in the cold wind outside, the clouds drifting across stunningly blue skies, eventually, there's one more survey of the pristine landscape surrounding the cabin, animal tracks, frozen lakes, the setting sun, trees still green, gathering storms in the distance, and finally, the cabin recedes into the distance, and we're back on the plane once again, heading home.
The accompanying music is the perfect soundtrack, spare and spacious, the distant drone a constant underpinning, the vocals drifting in and out, we were worried at first about matching up the two discs, but realized it almost doesn't matter, we tried multiple mixes, and it always sounded fantastic, wheezy chordal whirs, the vocals layered and wreathed in echo and reverb, a mysterious chorale that instead of building and then fading out, remains somewhat constant, with different voices receding and resurfacing, each part of the music slipping easily from just organ, to organ and voices, making for a constantly shifting landscape of muted melody and vocal texture, the vibe is sort of Grouper-ish, but a bit more medieval, a bit more arcane sounding, as if it were in fact some ancient ritual, reenacted for the building of this structure, to imbue it with the spirit of the ancients. The music is dark, but infused with a mysterious warmth, the perfect analogue really for the whole process/project.
The cd and the dvd are both housed in stickered clear plastic inner sleeve, which itself is then housed in a super elaborate printed origami style fold out poster, sealed with a sticker. All that's accompanied by a trade-sized, full color, 56 page perfect bound softcover book, featuring photos from the expedition, some as mundane as a sign at the local grocery store, others stunning shots of the terrain, the roaring fire in the cabin stove, empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans in a snow drift, a black banana, cut firewood, the plane, tracks in the snow, some obvious, others abstract, all gorgeous. Includes minimal liner notes, including a poem by Ben Chasny of Six Organs Of Admittance. And on top of that, the package also includes a silkscreened patch, featuring the Common Eider sigil.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!! And only available at aQuarius!!!
Latest issue of this massive metal (and more) mag, only number six, in maybe twice as many years, but we look forward to every issue, it's sort of like Ugly Things for metalheads, but as the 'and more' above suggests, CH pushes way beyond just metal, there's industrial, folk, experimental, psych, electronic, drone, in addition to all the various strains of metal, and each issue is packed with tons of reviews, great articles and interviews, and as for the bands covered, tons of old favorites and even more new discoveries. All that and some seriously excellent writing to boot!!
So this time around, long time aQ faves Blut Aus Nord, Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, as well as Russian pagan black metallers Vspolokh, Finnish black metal weirdos Funerary Bell, neo-folkers Larrnakh, Icelandic experimental electronic duo Gjoll, Russian neo-folk combo Neutral, folkish black metallers Falls Of Rauros, German black metal horde Bergthron, old school Lusitanian BM outfit Cripta Oculta, Italian trad black metal combo Movimento D'Avanguardia Ermetico, Finnish death metal outfits Purtenance and Rippikoulu as well as a killer retrospective of Finnish death metal.
There's also UK death metallers Cruciamentum, an awesome primer on Japanese experimentalist Aube, a live review of Merzbow and Charles Cohen, post diSEMBOWELMENT outfit Inverloch, ambient neo-folkers Trial Of The Bow, spaced out doomlords Monolithe, Belorussian folk ambient outfit Dalina, ultradoomsters The Sullen Route, Israeli black metallers Dagor Dagorath, German BM horde Infestus, French black metal outfit Christicide, the Temple Of Torturous label, Philly record store Digital Ferret, a killer compendium of the worst metal of 2009-2011 (which had us sort of wishing for a whole mag's worth!), a review of 2011's Killtown Deathfest in Copenhagen and an interview with the festival's organizer, fantasy/horror novelist Joe Abercrombie, several really great essays by Convivial mainman Yury, as well as a visit to St. Peter's Village in rural Pennsylvania, some train hopping action (excerpted from another zine we love, Bogus Rendition), a bunch of zine reviews, record reviews, book reviews and more more more!
Easily one of the best, and more passionately put together music mags out there, metal or otherwise!
We reviewed the first five reissues from legendary punk rock outfit Crass over the last year, and now here's the sixth and final in the series, and as we mentioned in the other reviews, we're so thrilled that these anarcho-punk legends are finally getting the deluxe reissue campaign they always deserved, but probably never really wanted anyway. In case you missed the reviews of those first five, here's what we had to say about Crass the band (before we get to Ten Notes On A Summer's Day):
Having spent the seventies and eighties kicking against the pricks, these DIY iconoclasts pretty much lived and breathed punk rock like few others since, making music, putting on gigs, setting up squats, coordinating political actions, starting a label, creating art, making films, advocating animal rights, environmentalism, feminism, direct action, anarchism, pacifism, criticizing various subcultures, encouraging dialogues, and encouraging participation and protest, and obviously, and perhaps most pertinent to this here review, making some of the most awesome punk records EVER.
And these records sound impossibly and incredibly fresh, intense and dramatic and emotional, heavy and hooky, jagged and jittery, their ideals clearly on display, backed up by musical muscle, pop smarts, and some super original and innovative sounds and songs. The crazy thing, revisiting these records again, is how much they've influenced modern underground music, there are at least a handful of bands, who now with these records fresh in our ears, sound almost criminally beholden to Crass: Arctic Monkeys, The Fall, Louis XIV, Art Brut... the list goes on.
Legendary for a reason, all of these records should be required listening for punks and metalheads and hell, anyone into underground sounds, and are totally worth revisiting, we had sort of forgotten how goddamn great all of these records are, and even if you still own beat up original copies, there's enough extra stuff, music and artwork wise, that they're totally worth picking up again.
Ten Notes On A Summer's Day was the final proper Crass record, originally released in 1985, and like on past records, displayed yet another dramatic stylistic shift, this time toward something much more European and avant garde, two tracks, one an instrumental version of the other. The music loping and rhythmic, atonal and a bit abstract, jazzy at times, proggy at others, definitely not punk, at least not in the traditional sense. Blurts of synth, wild squalls of free jazz drumming, spidery melodies, all manner of vocals, choral, choir like, at times the sound is super academic, at others, warped and woozily whatthefuck. The instrumental version ditches the drums in addition to the vocals, transforming the sound into something much more swirly and shimmery and atmospheric, still angular and atonal in places, but much more blissed out and hauntingly ambient, not nearly as prickly as the vocal version.
The reissue tacks on a handful of bonus tracks, remixes and unreleased jams, the sound tending toward the experimental, collaged and chaotic, one track sounds like weird warped eighties MTV pop, albeit more tweaked, while another sounds like Current 93 style apocalyptic folk, the vocals a dead ringer for David Tibet, while the last track is a lovely bit of haunting choral music, that near the end splinters into some twisted synthy angular pop weirdness. Wow.
Like the other reissues, the packaging is incredible, a gorgeous slipcover, which is meant to join together with the other 5 reissues to form a single huge Crass logo, inside is a massive booklet with new liner notes from the band, all the lyrics, as well as photos and artwork, there's also a reproduction of the original insert.
Another Deerhoof album that makes you feel hella psyched! Some of their last few outings have had a more breezy, almost psych-folk quality to them. Now on Breakup Song, the groove is back, though apparently the members aren't. They've all moved away from San Francisco and dispersed to the four corners of the country, it seems. Perhaps that's what the title is referencing. But even while separated by mountains, streams, cities, and suburbs, this uber-optimistic quartet still exudes the joy of creation. And with this their (can you believe it?) thirteenth record since drummer Greg Saunier formed the band as a duo in San Francisco in the mid-nineties, Deerhoof will take you dancing, dare we say, as some of these tracks are borderline funky, as with "There's That Grin", where Deerhoof sound like Parliament's grandbabies, as much a booty-shaker as it is way the heck out there. Songs like "Flower" carry some house inflections, while "To Fly Or Not To Fly" take off like a damaged club jam before it breaks down into some weird Rick James offshoot. There are bits of cha-cha and French pop mixed in there, too! Through it all, you still get the signature herky-jerky, spazzed-out Deerhoof rawk, the spacey musings of singer Satomi Matsuzaki, and the curious ability to insert small songs within greater songs and then go back to the main part and make you miss the little interloping part all the more. Where did it go? It's a neat trick that gets you putting their records on repeat.
Latest full length from UK garage poppers Dignan Porch, and like Tendrils before it, Nothing Bad Will Ever happen is another fantastic collection of sunshiney, jangly, crunchy, ramshackle pop, heavy on the hooks, lots of swirling keyboards, sad boy vox, and all the usual garage pop stuff we dig, but this time around, the band seems to rock a lot more (due in part to the fact that it really IS a band this time, whereas Tendrils was a one man band type deal), just check out "Sad Shape", which starts out all minor key and jangly, stripped down and spare, but soon, a heavily effected guitar swoops in, giving the song a seriously psychedelic vibe, and then the choruses, kind of crunchy and fuzzy, the drums busy, the guitars soaring, and then for the last minute, the band go full on psych rock freakout, and it sounds amazing! The swirling synths somehow keeping it grounded and firmly rooted in garage pop territory rather than psychedelic space rock, but it's a pretty potent combo, and one that suits DP pretty well. And while those moments tend to be fleeting, some crunchy riffing here, some weirdly sci-fi effected murky psychedelia there, stretches of super distorted fuzz guitar and some seriously heavy feedback drenched dirgery, they perfectly compliment the groups impeccable popsmithery, which is in full effect here, with the group delivering some of their catchiest songs yet, and even minus that extra heft, this record would be blowing up our stereo like crazy, but that extra fuzz and crunch just seals the deal. A new favorite for sure!
Fantastic archival release from the always kick ass Kranky label, this one digging way back to the early nineties, collecting everything ever released (and then some) by this relatively unknown UK shoegaze outfit, whose sound most definitely predicted much of the music on Kranky's roster, a bleary, blurry sprawl of ethereal, washed out rainy day dreampop shimmer, songs slipping easily from hushed 4AD style drift to more driving jangle drenched bliss out.
At its most laid back, this is wistful soft focus indie pop, the sort of twee jangle and crunch that would have sounded right at home on Slumberland back in the day (heck even today), but Dreamscape add some seriously driving programmed drums, to give these tracks some density and texture, some sonic heft and some krautrock style motorik momentum. The more upbeat songs peppered with cool weirdly industrial percussion and cool tribal rhythms, some surprisingly deft drum programming, wreathing everything in a gauzy atmospheric haze, the vocals swaddled in soft billows of reverb, all draped over gloompop basslines and tangly spidery minor key melodies. Darkly dreamy shoegaze dreampop perfection that sounds like what most of the current crop or retro poppers wish they could pull off.
While Bill Orcutt has been carrying the post Harry Pussy torch, with his own mangled lo-fi junk blues Americana, as well as a sporadic Harry Pussy reissue campaign (starting with the recent HP oddity on Editions Mego, Let's Build A Pussy), there was in fact another guitar wrangler in the 'Pussy back in the day, a man by the name of Mark Feehan, who played in a bunch of other rad Miami noise rock outfits, but who will no doubt be best remembered for his stint with Orcutt and drummer Adris Hoyos.
And like Orcutt, Feehan has definitely moved in an entirely new direction, the tracks here gorgeous exercises in looped repetitive swirl and churning minimal guitarscapery, the first two tracks sounding like a more lo-fi detuned Durutti Column, or a more spare softly psychedelic Roy Montgomery, with just a hint of the Americana that Orcutt traffics in, but here, Feehan's music sounds more like something you'd find on some mysterious New Zealand cd-r, urgent strumming, chiming, jangling, buzzing, looped and mesmeric, slipping from crunchy and brittle, to washed out and woozy. It's not until the third track, "Sopio", that things get weird, the prettiness of the first two tracks still present, this time just buried beneath a blown out rhythmic pound, and chittering high end chirps, a sort of abstract noise rock house music maybe but still all wedded to Feehan's cyclical jangle. There appears to be some vocals in there too, but all distorted an chopped up.
The middle of the record does seem to lean more toward the noisy and chaotic, short bursts of heavily effected guitar howl, layered billows of tangled melodies and swirling buzz and crunch, chaotic sprawls of almost Our Love Will Destroy The World like kitchen sink soundscapery, but even at its noisiest, the sound remains sort of blissful and hypnotic, and Feehan eventually slips back into dreamy bits of guitarswirl shimmer, like the crackle drenched muted jangly thrum of "See You In Brundisium", and into almost Sun City Girls like rhythmic meanders, like the moody string laced percussion driven "Stoned Pilot B", or the downright dreamy hushed drift of "Arma Virumqu Cano", that is probably the prettiest thing here.
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!! Includes a download coupon.
Don't be fooled by the promotional DJ sticker, this is in fact a proper full length from weirdo witch house / ghost drag outfit First Flesh, the dead eyed seventies zombie hottie on the cover your first clue as to what lurks inside Zombie Rave, and actually, the jams here sound less Zombie Rave, and more warped new wave chopped and screwed eighties house pop, which is not a bad thing at all. Imagine some Rick Astley style cheesy eighties pop vox slowed way down, to a ghostly, almost Antony sounding dramatic baritone, then lay those vocals over some woozy slo-mo house music, some HI-NRG grooves, sapped of most of their energy, and recast as a sort of symphonic gloom house, woozy and warped and pretty fuckin' cool. The second track takes those same vocals and wraps them around pulsing synths and ominous tolling bells, the whole thing rife with a 'wrong speed' vibe, a dark drowsy drag, a ghostly house music pop ballad that sounds like it could be the music from some cheesy montage in a seventies zombie arthouse flick.
The flipside starts out with another slab of ghostly draggy gloom pop, the vocals sounding auto-tuned, but instead of tuned up, tuned WAY down. The final track is more pounding and industrial, but mixes in a crazy poppy chorus, a sped up Kesha style radio pop chorus, which sounds so weird with the otherwise gloomy pound, but somehow sounds so cool at the same time! Fans of weirdo witch house will dig for sure, and folks who like the warped pop of Ariel Pink, John Maus and the like, might also find themselves getting into FF quite a bit...
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
As regular readers of the aQuarius list already know, we're HUGE fans of the golden era of Ethiopian Jazz as archived in the amazing Ethiopiques series. And besides the more well known players such as Mulatu Astatke (Ethiopiques #4) and Mahmoud Ahmed (Ethiopiques #6), #21 in that series also has a special place in our hearts as it's the incredible solo piano compositions of an Ethiopian nun named Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou. Her playing is devastatingly lovely and haunting. A curious hybrid of old time jazz and classical, but still truly Ethiopian. Dark and contemplative, moody but subtly playful as well, like exotic impressionistic lamentations that have an expressive lyrical sadness.
Now the fine folks at Mississippi / Change Records have gifted us with this beautiful reissue of Guebrou's debut album from 1963. Comprising the first five tracks of the Ethiopiques compilation, these songs were the first signs that we were hearing a uniquely distinct musical voice for the first time, and boy were we hooked!
Culled mainly from compositions written in the late '40s and early '50s, a period during which Guebrou had recently left the convent due to illness, and then continued to compose and perform as a way of raising money for charity. And THAT's on the heels of having moved to Egypt and then returned to Ethiopia a figure of high society, her dream of playing piano dashed by the Emperor, which led her to sickness and then near death, she even received the last rites, survived and then joined the Imperial Guard, went back to school to study business finally fleeing to join a convent and become a nun. All the while continuing to play music - in fact, last we heard, she continues to perform to this day, in Ethiopia where she still lives.
And like her fantastic and adventurous life, her music is equally as remarkable, the sound and feel is so dense with memory and imagery, musical but somehow quite visual, warm and woozy, a fuzzy, sepia toned old timey feel, due in no small part to the recording, which is quite reminiscent of old 78's, the soundtrack to movie Crumb, that sort of thing, dark rumbling low notes underpin sweet swirls and delicate flurries of minor key melody, sweet and lowdown for sure, warm evenings, back porches, big beautifully appointed parlors, huge empty fields, grass waving in the breeze, long late night wanders, moonlight strolls, so completely dreamy and lovely. Highest Recommendation!
We've been waiting for this one for ages. After an insanely limited 7" single, which was so scarce, no one we know has actually ever even seen a copy, let alone bought one, and a teaser video on YouTube, and all sorts of rumors about this Swedish band who were influenced by African music and voodoo and came from some mysterious village no one had ever heard of, well, needless to say, we were DYING for the full length, and it does not disappoint.
So the story goes, in a tiny village in Sweden called Korpolombolo, there has existed a band called Goat for generations, this is just the first incarnation of the band that has captured any of their music on tape. Supposedly the village was cursed by some sort of voodoo witch doctor, who was put to death for being a witch, and introducing voodoo worship to this tiny village. It only takes one Google search to discover that there is no such village, or so say the skeptics, but we choose to BELIEVE, and that village is just so obscure and tiny and tucked away, that it has even escaped the notice of Google. And whether it's true or not, the IDEA of it definitely influences the music of Goat, whose sound most definitely has a serious African vibe, the percussion, the vocals, it's heady concoction of wild psychedelic space rock, all driving krautrock rhythms, and tangled squalls of electric guitar freakout, and dense rhythmic percussion, and almost double dutch sounding vocals. When we first threw this on, our first impression was that it sounded like a weird mix of Konono No.1, The Heads and (believe it or not) the Go! Team, which even now, after constant listening doesn't seem that far off.
The tracks are dense, and psychedelic, heavy, fuzzy, definitely Stooges-y at times, Hawkwindy at others, several of the tracks display a Miles Davis style grooviness, sounding like a SUPERCHARGED ultra heavy Bitches Brew, others pound away sounding exactly how you might imagine some ancient voodoo ritual would sound reimagined by some modern Swedish psychedelic space rock outfit. "Goatman" (from the 7") is the perfect intro, after a strange sample, and some tribal drumming, the guitars come cascading in, wild squalls of psychedelic wah guitar, and keening high end wails, then the vocals come in, belted out over the fuzzed out bass, the percussion wild and groovy, it's total Swedish Afro-psych, or something, if this one track stretched out and filled up the whole record, it STILL would have been Record Of The Week.
The band do have a surprisingly broad palette though, whether it's the subdued acid folk Appalachia of "Goathead", or the organ driven Afro-groove of the appropriately titled "Disco Fever", with its percussion heavy funk swaddled in progged out organs, and then there's the equally funky "Golden Down", that sounds like some Southeast Asian Sublime Frequencies jam, but here cranked up, the guitars super distorted, the bass dangerously buzzy, the sound blissfully in-the-red, the drums wild and loose, the ultimate heavy psychedelic dance band, for those three minutes you can almost imagine these guys jamming out at the edge of the world in some alternate dimension seedy dive, with a dancefloor full of damned souls. Sweaty and swaggery and fierce as fuck. "Let It Bleed" delivers a more laid back groove, and even introduces some saxophone, which gives it the vibe once again of some psych-ed up Ethiopian groove. "Run To Your Mama" melds serious Sabbath-y riffage to some wild tribal percussion, and wailed vox, while "Goatlord" unfurls some dark psych folk, replete with super distorted heavy psych leads, over urgent strumming and cooed echo drenched vox, sounding a bit like a more psychedelic Comus in fact.
And finally, the record finishes off with the epic "Det Som Aldrig Forandras", with its bagpipe sounding opening, that quickly explodes into a heady psychedelic groove, droned out and hypnotic, the sort of jam that should/could have been ENDLESS, but instead, works its way back to a seriously heavy psychedelic coda, bookending the brief 3 minute opener, again, the sort of jam they could have stretched out for another twenty minutes, and we would have been in heaven, but the fact that it loops back around to the beginning, only adds a strange sort of endless ritual vibe to the proceedings, and makes it that much easier to play it all over again. And again. And again. Forever.
Super swank, die cut, eye popping artwork too, on the cd and lp both!
It doesn't always work out that when frontmen from heavy bands begin to fancy themselves troubadours, ditching all the distortion and metallic bombast and laying everything bare, it's the sort of thing that in the worst case can reveal all the shortcomings that are disguised by all that volume, and all those other instruments, we've seen plenty of ultra painful unplugged sets, that were just begging to be plugged back in. But in the best cases, like this, the solo debut from Nate Hall, frontman for psychedelic heavies US Christmas, it can demonstrate just why the heavy stuff is so compelling, cuz there are actual songs lurking underneath, and a vocalist who can actually sing, and has a knack for classic songsmithery. To be fair, it's not like the singer from Cannibal Corpse making a psych folk record (oh how we want to hear that now!), since US Christmas is essentially just a supercharged cranked up more metallic version of a psych folk band anyway. And plenty of the songs here actually sound like they could easily have been retooled into proper US Christmas jams, but that doesn't take away from how good they sound. Hall's voice is a slightly raspy croon that reminds us a bit of Nikki Sudden, ragged and rough around the edges, but it's perfect for USX and perfect for these songs here. Rooted around simple strummed acoustic guitar, but wreathed in thick swaths of distorted effected psych guitars, theremin here and there, a bit of slide guitar, plenty of echo and reverb, the songs droned out and a little druggy, there's even a killer cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Kathleen", and Hall definitely makes it his own, adding some cavernous reverb, but for the most part playing it straight. Helps that it's such a great song, and Hall's got the kind of voice that can do justice to a song that was basically already perfect (not sure why Hall wasn't included on the recent three way Townes Van Zandt tribute with Scott Kelly, Steve Von Till and Wino).
But not all the tracks are so psychedelic, a handful of the songs here are even more stripped down, no electric guitars, just straight up Appalachia, steel string guitar and banjo, and those tracks kill as well.
Folks into other psych folk should check this out for sure, and heck who knows, this might be the gateway that gets you into US Christmas that gets you into other heavy stuff, it's a slippery slope, but we're all waiting for you down here at the bottom!
Listen on: Deezer
Latest from these LA black metal mashers, not a proper new record, but instead a collection of tracks culled from various live practice space recording sessions with Bobb Bruno, he of Best Coast, Polar Goldie Cats, Submissions, etc. Murky and muddy and appropriately lo-fi, recorded on a 4 track, but still sounding pretty fierce and heavy as fuck, these jams find Harassor in fine form, their blackened punkish pound flitting easily from furious blackened thrash to churning chugging crush, laced with glass gargling shrieks and caveman drum pound. The sound is pretty epic and huge considering the set up here is just one guitar, drums and vox, the band make the most of it, spewing thick black gouts of black buzz, and roiling doomic crush, blasting beats driving these jams, and like the best black metal, the sound often blurring into tranced out black mesmer.
The lp version is LIMITED TO 300 COPIES and comes housed in a super swank hand silkscreened cover. Inside is a fold out poster, one side featuring the band, with Bruno, and a very black metal cat; the other side offers up tons of liner notes, the coolest part being extensive track by track notes, with each member weighing in on each track, its writing, recording, genesis, whatever, which makes for pretty fun reading. Plus all the lp sleeves are decorated with real human Harassor blood! The tape version IS LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! And comes sans blood, and liner notes/poster.
Latest from these LA black metal mashers, not a proper new record, but instead a collection of tracks culled from various live practice space recording sessions with Bobb Bruno, he of Best Coast, Polar Goldie Cats, Submissions, etc. Murky and muddy and appropriately lo-fi, recorded on a 4 track, but still sounding pretty fierce and heavy as fuck, these jams find Harassor in fine form, their blackened punkish pound flitting easily from furious blackened thrash to churning chugging crush, laced with glass gargling shrieks and caveman drum pound. The sound is pretty epic and huge considering the set up here is just one guitar, drums and vox, the band make the most of it, spewing thick black gouts of black buzz, and roiling doomic crush, blasting beats driving these jams, and like the best black metal, the sound often blurring into tranced out black mesmer.
The lp version is LIMITED TO 300 COPIES and comes housed in a super swank hand silkscreened cover. Inside is a fold out poster, one side featuring the band, with Bruno, and a very black metal cat; the other side offers up tons of liner notes, the coolest part being extensive track by track notes, with each member weighing in on each track, its writing, recording, genesis, whatever, which makes for pretty fun reading. Plus all the lp sleeves are decorated with real human Harassor blood! The tape version IS LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! And comes sans blood, and liner notes/poster.
The latest release from Bill Orcutt's Palilalia label is a sprawling double lp collection of mostly unreleased tracks from his old band, legendary Miami noise rock duo (or sometimes trio, sometimes more) Harry Pussy. Whose bizarre, and somewhat sonically unrepresentative, vocal driven computer drone album Let's Build A Pussy was recently released on Editions Mego. But fear not faithful noise rock fanatics, One Plus One is no high concept low brow art piece (or is it?), this is some serious raw, heavy, blown out, chaotic and crushing freeform noise rock bliss out audial punishment from HP, in their duo form: Orcutt on guitar, Adris Hoyos on drums and vocals. Recorded between 1992-1994, all sounds captured on a beat up old Walkman, some of the tracks here popped up on some early (and insanely limited) releases, like the Vigilance cassette on Chocolate Monk, as well as a couple singles (both untitled, one with the lady holding a frog, the other with the stereos and speakers lined up in a field), but over 40 minutes of these jams (apparently culled from HOURS of material) are previously released, and so odds are those tape and singles tracks are new to most folks.
So yeah, it's noisy, and chaotic, and lo-fi, heavy and punky and free form, but with some serious riffing and some surprising beauty. Some of the tracks are swaggery and Stooges-y, eventually morphing into driving drum pound wreathed in squalls of detuned guitar damage freakout. Elsewhere clouds of caustic guitarnoise, crumble and grind over wild free form drum splatter, everything woozy and atonal and angular, but more often that one might expect, slipping into some surprisingly melodic passages, and at a few points, when the band slows it way down, and strips away some of the noise, it almost sounds like some twang flecked fusion of Pavement and Barn Owl, albeit seriously fractured and fucked up. The sound can be almost downright anthemic at times, but at others, a melting woozy morass of sound, with Hoyos' vocals mostly buried in the mix, beneath Orcutt's non stop axe destroying barrage, but when her vocal do come to the fore, they are TERRIFYING. Like hysterical horror movie scream queen by way of Yoko Ono, flitting from ear piercing impossibly high shriek, to weirdly guttural speaking in tongues, feral yelp to bleated bellow, fierce and freaked out and fucking amazing. Especially on one track, where it's just drums and vocals, over a bed of Orcutt's amp buzz. Total avant garde noise rock minimalist genius!
Peppered throughout are also some seriously mesmerizing long form jams that channel the spirit (and sound to a degree) of the Dead C, transforming the otherwise caustic crunch and feedback drenched skree into thick lush billows of blissed out, borderline dreamy noise.
Gorgeously packaged, pressed on heavy black vinyl, and housed in a super thick, black and white, deluxe gatefold jacket. And we're guessing, as with most stuff on Palilalia, probably pretty limited!
Here's the latest from our very own Jim Haynes, dronologist, soundscaper, recorder of rusting metal. These two pieces both represent impressions of Kamchatka, a Russian province often referred to as the "Siberia of Siberia", which speaks to its utter isolation, which Haynes manages to evoke magnificently in the opening track "Lilith", which is a 21 minute sprawl of intercepted shortwave broadcasts, captured and reworked into brittle buzzing textures, swirling masses of crumbling sonic shimmer, and deep morasses of subterranean rumble, the sky full of tinkling chimes and blurred static, beneath it fragmented melodies drift below the surface of a tranquil sonic sea. The track seemingly drifts between two extremes, thick layered dronescapes, and spare stretches of Geiger counter like chitter, those sparse passages draped over what sounds like field recordings of boats rubbing against docks, the clatter of oars, or perhaps the slow decay of nature. Somehow these mysterious purloined sounds are captured and recontextualized as a strange field of scrape and rumble, of creak and groan, all beneath soft focus billows of distant shimmer, and those skittery Raster-Noton cricket-like chirps. Haunting and ominous, the track finally seeming to blossom into the blurred bleary final movement, an ethereal wash of blissful thrum and strangely, an almost aquatic shimmer, that evokes images of some placid body of water, surrounded by miles and miles of emptiness.
The second track, "Rocks Hills Plains", a slightly reworked version of a soundtrack Haynes performed for a film by Paul Clipson at the ATA in 2008, seems culled from the same source material, opening with a gauzy cloud of static, over a softly undulating sea of low end rumble, and continues in a similar manner, all of the rough edges and more clattery elements of the first piece here, smoothed into a swoonsome sprawl of hushed murky mesmer, haunting and cinematic, the sounds creeping and oozing ominously, until the begin to recede, leaving in the foreground a field of softly percussive scrabbling, sounding like strange ghostly rubbings against the microphone, those sounds slowly growing more ethereal and soon transforming into still more cloudy shimmer. Eventually, the sound of the whole track begins to coalesce into something much more pure tone, seeming to shed any vestiges of the low fidelity with about 7 minutes to go, the sound building to something softly caustic, with some serious sonic heft, on the recording it's still comparatively quite, but live through the proper sound system, it's easy to imagine the sort of sonic energy this passage might emit, lush and layered and darkly dense, a powerful (but still minimal) coda, which quickly subsides, winding down as a barely there bit of ambient thrum, laced with disembodied field recordings, a hushed outro that quickly becomes silence.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, housed in super swank, silkscreened, oversized 6 panel sleeves.
Finally, the full length debut from this Beach Fossils side project, and it absolutely fulfills the promise of the preceding singles. It's all achingly lovely wistful softly shoegazey eighties beholden dream pop, all breathless vox, shimmery crystalline guitars, warm woozy melodies, programmed rhythms, swirling atmospheres, like a less bombastic M83. Heavenly Beat have conjured up a strangely abstract bit of eighties style pop, that deftly balances sweetly twee popsmithery with an experimental streak that can't be denied, with most of the songs taking all sorts of twists and turns, from swoonsome swirling strings, to spare abstract breakdowns, haunting processed vox, psychedelically stereo panned sounds that drift from ear to ear and speaker to speaker, bits of jangle guitar, low slung gloom pop basslines, soaring choruses. The A side from the most recent single shows up, all jangly hand clappy eighties dream pop, still very much reminding us of the Style Council, with acoustic guitars, soaring strings, dreamlike melodies, more twee vox. And while that track might be the most immediately poppy of the bunch, the whole record is brimming with unlikely poppiness, the band deftly weaving together distinctly UN-pop components into impossibly hook filled pop, shimmery and softly shoegazey, skittery and subtly new wave, the sound super dynamic, lush and lovely, and really quite weird, especially for a pop group, which is precisely what's making us dig this record so much. We have to say, of the current crop of retro-pop new wave twee poppers, Heavenly Beat is fast becoming our favorite.
We are definitely masters of hyperbole. We admit it. So many of our reviews boldly proclaim records to be "the best ever" or "the most retarded ever" or the ever popular "most fucked ever". The thing is, at least from where we're sitting, there CAN be more than one "best ever", and there ARE many "most fucked" records ever... why not? It depends on your mood, what you're doing, where you are, stereo or headphones, car or computer, happy or sad, depressed or romantic, and hell, it could be as simple as a whim. Sometimes, you feel like listening to a specific record, and for that 40 minutes, it is without a doubt, THE BEST RECORD EVER. Now, granted, some 'best records ever' are all time top 10's, while some are favorite records of the summer, and others are favorite make out records, or whatever, but all of them are awesome. For us to make that sort of proclamation, a record has to completely rule, totally kick our ass, and get the shit played out of it! But sometimes, it's not hyperbole. Sometimes a record ABSOLUTELY IS, one of the best pop records EVER MADE. Like Jellyfish's Spilt Milk.
This is not a new release or anything, not even a remastered reissue, but 13 years after it was released, it still gets played A LOT, and still pretty much destroys every other pop record around. Jellyfish started out as a bellbottomed, paisley psychedelic retro combo, but quickly blossomed into a completely amazing, heavy rock power pop supergroup. Not in the sense of being made up of members of other famous bands, but in the sense that they were an absolutely super amazing rock group!!! Jellyfish took the over the top bombast and incredible harmonies of Queen, the perfect summery pop of the Beach Boys and mixed in their own off kilter approach to power pop. Incredibly intricate and complex arrangements, but done so deftly as to never take away from the inherent catchiness of the songs. The guitars are huge, crunchy and heavy, like a super charged Brian May, the drumming is incredible, heavy hitting, super creative, and as catchy on their own as any of the guitar parts or vocal lines. In fact, the one time we saw Jellyfish live, vocalist / drummer Andy Sturmer managed to sing all of these incredible harmonies WHILE playing incredible drum parts, on a STAND UP kit!! Totally blew our mind. A look at the cover and the incredible arrangement of instruments in the studio gives an idea of how epic and amazing this record sounds, gongs, timpani, strings, piano, organ, acoustic guitar, harp, xylophone and more and more and on an on.
Some of the songs are delicate and sweet, soft and shimmery, some are bombastic and heavy, some are sweet simple lullabies, others are incredibly complicated slabs of ultra complex prog pop, but every song on here is a stone cold classic. If there were any justice in the world this record would have been HUGE, and Jellyfish would be playing arenas and making music videos and still making even more incredible records. But sadly, the world wasn't ready for this kind of intelligent, heavy, proggy power pop and the band hung it up soon after. But what a way to go. Just listen to the sound samples and see if you aren't immediately kicking yourself for waiting more than a decade to dig in to this utter pop brilliance.
Crippled Intellect Production introduces us to the labyrinthine cosmic synthesis of Neil Jendon, who detours from the vaporous ambient sprawl that has encroached back into the vernacular and also eschews the Goblin / Carpenter horror pastiche that has served well as an antidote for one too many pale imitations of Klaus Schulze or Edgar Froese. Jendon is a satellite member of Chicago's languid slowcore ensemble Zelienople, and also plays in the Locrian offshoot Kwaidan; here on Corporate Laughter, Jendon dials in modular synths and bulky keyboards tossed off from the '80s for a dense, often menacing album. The sawtooth tone and white noise orchestrations teeter between gnashed violence and isolationist calm on the first two tracks, with Jendon steadily tipping the equation towards swarming density even as his electronics retain a brightened corona around the volatile electron clashes within. On "Static After Static", Jendon transmits a lumbering rhythm through the lens of Throbbing Gristle and Conrad Schnitzler with spiralling yet razor sharp synth patterns lurching outward from the rhythmic structure of the piece. Slower, looping rhythms capture the linear phase-shifting of late period Omit, complete with bleak-minded, half-melodies that crawl through "Always And Only" and the ghostly finale "Staggers And Folds". Very well done!
Here's another attack, this time via Tzadik, from the dynamic duo of Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Korekyojinn, etc.) and Kazuhisa Uchihashi (Ground Zero, Altered States, etc.). These two Japanese superheroes of spazzed out improv prog shred have teamed up on at least 3 previous installments of drums/guitar only avant-garde mayhem, but the world needs more - too much is never enough with these guys!
Tatsuya Yoshida is as octopoidal as ever in his percussive abilities, and again shows off his quasi-operatic but utterly abstract vocal stylings upon occasion here as well. Meanwhile, veritable guitar whiz Kazuhisa Uchihashi is all over his instrument, making it make sounds from all across the spectrum of skronk, and beyond, visiting sundry rock styles, as advertised, in sliced up snippets and shards� Together they're telepathic in their ability to segue out of a full-on freakout into something that almost sounds composed, even melodic! Many of the dozen thrombulating tracks are riotous and rambunctious, though there's also moments of calm, as in "Equillbhimgorzz" with its echoed vox stretched over skittery soundscapes.
Probably not for everybody (as this music sounds like their song titles read!), but those who know they want it, know they want it. And the Yoshida/Uchihashi duo, with their exquisite control over what could otherwise sound quite uncontrolled, won't let you get bored. Exciting improv ADD entertainment here, folks!
Eyewash Silver, the debut from one man knuckle dragging minimal psych avant boogie one man band King Blood, was a massive hit around here, every track seemed to be a Reich / Riley style deconstruction of psychedelic boogie, a thick corrosive riff, dipped in distortion, then repeated trancelike over and over, inducing a seriously psychedelic state in the listener, we haven't been that blown away by a mysterious debut in ages. So we were super psyched for this follow up, and were expecting another does of blown out caveman riffing, but instead, something strange seems to have happened, at least judging from the opening title track, sure the sound is still insanely in-the-red, the low notes crumbling and seeming to tumble from the speaker in corrosive gouts, but the vibe is much more laid back, the sound much more melodic, a serious fuzzy psychedelic groove, multiple melodies, intertwined guitar lines, there's still really just one part, repeated over and over, but it's downright catchy, and near the last minute or so the low end drops out, leaving just the drums and some soaring guitars for a strange sort of majestic psych coda.
So we were expecting the second track to drag us back into the murk, and while it too is all thick and slithery, the low end a seriously dense buzz, it too is pretty goddamn melodic, the low end locking into a groove, while other guitar lines soar and wail over the top, and like the opener, it's blissed out and hypnotic, and yet weirdly melodic and catchy. "Wheels Across The Night" does touch on some of the Stooges vibe that was present on much of Eyewash Silver, all swaggery super distorted stomp, but then "I'll Take What's Mine" strips things way down, practically acoustic, lilting and balladic, sounding a bit like some lost Les Rallizes Denudes recording (which we're sure was the intention), buried crooned vocals, shards of feedback, spidery melancholic melodies, it's a cool side of King Blood we hadn't seen before, but we definitely want more. "Here Comes A Candle" is a brief bit of super melodic boogie, which leads into the closer, the 8+ minute "Silent Dust", which is the most abstract of the bunch, and ends up sounding like Six Organs Of Admittance or Ghost, albeit run through a daisy chain of malfunctioning distortion pedals and blasted out of a cabinet equipped with shredded speakers, and as good as that sounds, the actual jam is even better, blown out, dusky and deserty, lazy and druggy and dreamy, and yet still plenty distorted and heavy and seriously psychedelic.
Beautifully packaged in a heavy screen printed cardstock jacket, already sold out at the label, so these may be the last copies we're able to get!
This is the first we've heard from Konx-Om-Pax, aka Tom Scholefield, a video director whose made videos for all sorts of folks, as well as having toured with Mogwai as a DJ, we weren't sure what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised by these shortform abstract beatless soundscapes, displaying a sound that falls somewhere between the blissed out minimal drift of Pop Ambience, and the cinematic synthscaping of the current crop of Carpenter / Goblin worshippers, the difference being, that the jams here are not at all overtly retro, or really synthy, instead, each is a self contained sonic vignette, some gentle and pastoral, others layered and dense and dark, still others soaring and symphonic, all woven together into an ever changing tapestry of mini soundtracks. We can definitely hear the Orb in plenty of these songs, and KLF's chill out record, and a few tracks definitely display a similar sonic palette to folks like Umberto or Zombi, but Scholefield definitely has his own thing going on, the sounds blurry and crumbly, shimmery and blissed out, pulsing kosmische throb one second, tripped out primitive synth musique concrete the next, displaying a definite flair for crafting earworm melodies, and weaving lush lovely textures. In some ways it's tempting to point to his filmmaking as an influence on these purely audio sounds, and really, how could it not be? And the thing is, these songs and sounds here are truly evocative, definitely cinematic, evoking all sorts of sights and memories, colors and sensations, it's easy to imagine him moving from pairing his visuals with other folks' music to just doing it all himself.
As it is, this is some fantastic stuff, equal parts retro synth, minimal soundscaping, pastoral ambience, and blissed out beat free techno shimmer, the perfect collection of soundtracks for whatever your subconscious can conjure up.
The self-titled debut release from Malditos is a minimal and dark synthesizer driven ep filled peppered with some unlikely but super awesome electric tablas! Because most of the songs are sung in French you might be tempted to think this is a slab of obscure European '80s gothic vinyl reissued by Dark Entries; but no, this Oakland, CA band is comprised of current or former members of Swann Danger, The Phantom Limbs, and Black Ice. The aforementioned tablas and Eastern scales recall more than a few of the moodier aspects of Dead Can Dance, but there's also echoes of Rowland S. Howard's angular phased guitar work. The record is quite heavy, the two synths proving a driving and repetitive low end while occasionally swirling around the upper registers. As previously mentioned, three out of the four vocal tracks are in French. Pretty much the only French word you need to know, however, is "Noir". When listening to lyrics in a foreign (to this reviewer) language, what is said is less important than how it's sung and Cyn M. does an excellent job of setting a brooding and dark mood with her powerful vibrato. The last track is an almost industrialized cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Requiem Por Un C..." (sung in French, of course). Limited to 259 hand numbered copies, this record is sure to go fast.
While we've stocked much of the Monos / Darren Tate / Ora back catalogue over the years, this was one that slipped through the cracks, only to be re-released some six years after the fact by Infraction. Age & Transformation was originally self-released as solo Darren Tate album in 2006 through his Fungal imprint in two small editions of about 100 copies each. Now, in this weighty 2cd set, Tate has again adopted his Monos moniker (which sometimes gets applied to solo work, sometimes get applied to work with Colin Potter and Paul Bradley), with the second disc dedicated to a drone-on redux by Mr. Potter. The first track on the original album is one of those bonkers / outsider excursions that Tate has unfurled over the past four or five years, with plenty of ring modulation augmenting his atonal guitar scrapes and muffled electrical drones. The spluttering guitar has the rasping characteristics of Bill Orcutt's damaged anti-blues, although Tate's guitar sounds like he's broadcasting from the bottom of well and playing really slow, with just one hand. The second track is grounded by an industrial din, with a cheap organ sporadically oozing slow melodic phrases.
The first of the two Colin Potter remixes condenses everything from Tate's original into an unhurried collage, just 9 minutes long emphasizing those peculiar melodies and lurchingly hypnotic patterns that Potter found hidden within Tate's recordings. The second redux drones-out for well over 40 minutes revolving around the acoustic reverberations deep inside the bowels of a water tower, with the electro-harmonic chorus from Tate's ring-modulated guitar echoing throughout. Ghostly, through and through.
Record number two from LA black metal one man band Moonknight, aka James Brown III, one third of LABM trio Harassor (whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), and like Toplov before it, Ligeia is another blast of blown out black buzz and pounding metallic grimnity, opening with a blast of old school buzz and pound, punkish and droned out, the track gradually gains momentum, the vocals drawn out into raspy drones that mirror the fuzzy insectoid buzz beneath, all interwoven into a mesmerizingly undulating sprawl of hypno-buzz blackness, which leads directly into the crackle drenched lo-fi blur of the second track, atmospheric and almost Tim Hecker-like before the song proper kicks in, cranking up the buzz, the drums buried beneath, reminding us of another buzz overloaded black metal band we dig Wrath Of The Weak, the sound crumbling and in the red, again blurring into an almost near drone.
And so it goes, for the most part. There are still some awesome surprises, like the tripped out effects heavy super atmospheric psychedelia of "Thyrsgrieden", which deftly weds some blackbuzz guitar, vokill rasp and midtempo blasting to the otherwise tripped out space rock drift. There's also some serious dirge-y chug on "Dim Corridor", and the record finishes off with the epic atmospheric "The Translucent Path", a chiming, ominous cinematic creep, that sounds like it could be Umberto or some other Goblin / Carpenter worshipping faux soundtracker. Awesome!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered, the covers letter pressed on super thick textured cardstock.
If the letters N-W-O-B-H-M in a review get your attention, then this is for you. Buried By Time And Dust have done another of their typically deluxe vinyl reissues, of an obscure but worthy NWOBHM classic. Lots of NWOBHM bands were "one-hit" wonders, recording a killer single and that's it. Mythra managed a bit more, though their reputation as a long lost legend is primarily based on what was originally a collectible 4-song 7" released in 1979, the Death & Destiny EP. It was later expanded to full-length status with the addition of demo tracks from 1980 and '81, thus this, the full 13 track Death & Destiny LP� And it's all pretty good, mostly on the ripping, rollicking, rough and tumble side of the NWOBHM equation, very much in the vein of somewhat better known acts like Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Blitzkrieg, and Raven. Basically, if you like NWOBHM, you'll like this. Allan's owned the (long out of print) cd edition of Death And Destiny for many years now, and considers it a bit of a prize amidst his NWOBHM collection.
This limited edition vinyl reish comes with a 12 page booklet featuring lyrics, liner notes, band interview, and photos. Plus, you get a reproduction of a poster for a gig Mythra played opening for Motorhead, Saxon, Girlschool, Angel Witch, White Spirit, and Vardis in 1980 (wow!).
Oh, and for anybody who read this far and is still wondering, NWOBHM stands for the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal!!!
The latest weirdo outsider electronic offering from the Pre-Cert Home Entertainment label, run by Demdike Stare and Andy Votel, comes from the mysterious N. Racker, supposedly a pseudonym for someone too famous to actually name, but who can tell with Pre-Cert's predilection for misinformation. Regardless, this is a good one, maybe our favorite Pre-Cert jam yet, ostensibly based on "an imagined alternative history of a sinister, pre-industrial pestilence among the ovine population and the people who work in wool processing, ending in complete devastation and dereliction" and sounding like a cross between "SUNNO))), The Haxan Cloak and Morricone/Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza", we can't speak to the subject matter, but the sonic description is really not that far off.
Moaning scraped strings underpin abstract percussion and mournfully melodic shimmer, which bleeds into some seriously creepy lullaby like melodies, that immediately remind us of the theme from Resident Evil, creepy and cinematic, more moaning strings, totally ominous horror movie music, with some awesome bursts of thick distorted buzz, that almost becomes krautrocky at one point. The A side ends with some droned out drift, all buzz and static and squelch.
The flipside introduces some more creeped out orchestral shimmer, lots of low end and some Morricone-ish melodies, grinding cello buzz and lumbering bass thrum, which splinters into some super abstract musique concrete, sapced out and spare, a dark sprawl of abstract ambience that slowly sinks into some woozy warped underwater burble, laced with tinkling chains, and gauzey swirls of sinister shimmer.
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES.
A bizarre missive from this mysterious Texan producer of modern pop pulverizations who repurposes the likes of Britney Spears and Justin Beiber into nearly unrecognizable witchhouse-y goth dance remixes. Takes us back to the likes of Princess Tinymeat, March Violets, Danse Society and other wasted shards of our eighties gothic youth.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, we only have a few and might be awhile before we get more. On dark pink and white swirled vinyl!
Brand new split from these two black metal outfits. There's the intercontinental trio Ophidian Forest, who have gotten much love on the aQ list in the past, one third of which is in fact the man behind eco-terrorist drums-and-dulcimer black metal one man band Botanist, who are teamed up with a San Jose one man band called Haeresiarchs Of Dis, who we've yet to review on the our list, but who some aQ metalheads have dug for a while.
The split, titled Darkest Origins, is in fact, just that, early material by both bands, unreleased until now, which as you might have guessed means more raw and lo-fi, which is just fine with us. Ophidian Forest are up first, and while the production is a bit more rough, their sound seemed to be already essentially fully formed, classic almost traditional black metal, shot through with some weird woozy melodies, the occasional almost carnivalesque keyboard, the vocals so raw and raspy, they sound like blast of staticky hiss, the overall sound washed out and a bit blurry, but in a way that really suits the sound, giving everything a tranced out vibe. OF dip often into a sound more midtempo and atmospheric, especially on the final track, which has a melody in the background that almost sounds like a Christmas carol, but when wedded to the shriek and blast, the buzz and howl, it pushes the sound toward something approaching almost choral, take the drums and vokills away and we'd have some seriously blissed out gauzy ambience, but fused to the black buzz, it becomes something pretty cool and weird.
From what we'd heard of Haeresiarchs of Dis in the past, his sound was a furious unrelenting, almost dizzying onslaught of lightning fast black buzz, furious and frantic and frenetic, a relentless blasting fury, shot through with all manner of warped melody, and constantly shifting texture, super dynamic, peppered with swaths of swirling synth, and some seriously insane vokills. And all of that is definitely evident here, although again, in a slightly more lo-fi version, with HoD slowing things down now and again, for some serious chugging, and more punkish pound, the vocals augmented by strange samples, the whole thing laced with some surprisingly melodic classic metal sounding melodies, not to mention the occasional bit of piano driven atmospheric ambience, or psychedelic swirl, or creepy static drenched Caretaker like drift, but all of that weirdness if woven into the overall blackened buzz.
With a name like Pallbearer, and a record cover that looks like an illustration from some obscure Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, you might be expecting some grim, oozing blackened slo-mo tarpit creep, or heck maybe even some full on over the top swords and sorcery power metal epic-ry, but what you might not expect, is precisely what this Arkansas doom crew conjures up, a surprisingly melodic, and downright dreamy chunk of true epic, super melodic, classic sounding doom, complete with acoustic guitars and soaring clean vocals, all wound around a sound that's more warm and fuzzy and washed out oftentimes than downtuned and sludgey. Reminding us a bit of aQ faves Megaton Leviathan, the same sort of shoegazey sound and dreamily psychedelic vibe, but Pallbearer sound much more beholden to classic metal, with some of these songs sounding like some lost eighties metal jam, slowed down and blissed out, often slipping into almost slowcore dirgery, that sort of haunting druggy mesmer, still epic and melodic, but more bleary and gauze-y, with the guitars not crunchy and buzzy, so much as thick and dense and lushly layered, the songs slow building and hauntingly brooding. Not that Pallbearer, aren't heavy, they most definitely are, like on "Devoid Of Redemption", a re-recorded track from their demo, the sound is massive, the guitars thick and churning, the drums a muted massive pound, but even then, those clean vocals change the whole vibe, and within the music itself, the melodies almost sound like horns, mournful and funereal, and the sound, even at its heaviest, seems to ooze into something much more dreary and dreamy and druggy. The recording and production too, perfectly suits the sound, vintage and classic, the sound Sabbathy, and Candlemass-y and St. Vitus-y, heavy but spacious, plenty of reverb, and deftly applied effects, but smeared and subtly stretched into something even more crushingly heavy, spaced out and psychedelic, and weirdly hauntingly lovely, a sound that's both murky and mesmerizing, magical and mysterious, which is making this a new favorite with the metalheads around here and a definite contender for doom record of the year...
Latest blast of blown out heavy psych guitar grime from this oddly named Ohio outfit, and like the records before it, this is some gloriously filthy in the red noise rock crush, equal parts Stooges-y sludge, droned out heart-of-the-sun Hawkwind heaviness, and slithery leather pants-ed, bong smoke-y swagger, a bass driven dirgery that erupts into wild squalls of wah guitar blowout and feedback fried freakout. For fans of the current crop of psych/space rock, these guys are like a dirtier, scarier, grimier, noisier version of all those other bands, which some might argue also makes them BETTER. And while they sound right at home on Hozac, it's easy to understand why they sometimes also call Siltbreeze home, that aesthetic is definitely all over 1982, a continuous barrage of crumbling in-the-red riffage, avalanches of chaotic drum damage, wild shredding leads, buried feral vox, a million tangled melodies woven into walls of blown out psych, and buried underneath all that there seems to be a whole mess of hooks, and heck, maybe even some 'choruses', but instead of hunting for them, it's way better to just crank this as loud as you can, and let PA's psychedelic skree wash over you, wallow in their wild wooly psychedelic noise rock, and eventually, all of that other stuff will seep into your pores, like some glorious sonic poison.
Finally available on vinyl!
This amazing slice of majestic tribal funk free jazz was briefly reissued on cd from Japan's EM Records a couple of years back, but due to legal disputes became quickly unavailable. We've been waiting patiently now for the proper reissues of this and the two other full lengths from this previously little known group, The Pyramids, biding the time by listening over and over again to the awesome 2cd set of The Pyramid's main founder Idris Ackamoor's solo output (also reissued on EM) ...and now finally they have reappeared in beautiful vinyl format (a long ago promised cd box set has yet to materialize!). Here's what we said about the cd reissue back when:
Originally released in 1976, we haven't been able to glean too much about The Pyramids, there are no liner notes (if that tells you how obscure this recording was/is) and a Google search turned up almost exclusively Japanese language sites. But don't let the lack of background keep you from enjoying this record, cuz it's definitely one of the most amazing rediscovered free jazz gems we've heard in ages. And it's not just free jazz, all wild swirl and skronk. Instead it's an exotic blend of Don Cherry's Orient, Funkadelic's Maggot Brian, some Art Ensemble Of Chicago, with wild Eastern sounding tribal rhythms, shuffling jazzy post bop, fluttering flutes and skronking horns, chanted vocals, droning buzzing ragas, seventies psychedelic free folk, propulsive krautfunk jams, some totally chaotic free jazz here and there, octopoidal drumming and wild shrieking sax, haunting percussive soundscapes, replete with strange creaks and whistles, and then before you know it transforming before your ears into what sounds like traditional African music with warm muted thumb piano melodies, chanted harmonies, bird calls, and sweetly melodic flute, rollicking bass heavy grooves under wild hand drums and carnivalesquee noisemaking. The final track, the 16 minute long "Black Man And Woman Of The Nile", is a mellow slow burning groove, with a throbbing bass riff, warm rich sax runs, shuffling percussion, the whole thing a laidback, sun drenched, barefoot funkjazz jam, warm and dreamy and hypnotic, with a short break in the middle for a brief skronky freakout, and then straight back into it, eventually drifting off into abstract ambience, softly moaning horns, dreamy melodies and barely there percussive chatter. Awesome!
This is the reissue of the second album from The Pyramids, whose other two records we raved about last list. Released in 1974, it opens with "Mogho Naba" with some mantra-like chanting over a frenetic groove straight out of something on one of the Ethiopiques comps while the lead flute and saxophone played by husband and wife leaders Idris and Margo Ackamoor duel it out in a sort of ritualized frenzy, the saxophone becoming more smeary and free, ending with the reemergence of different kind of flutes playing around the same tone like a busted calliope, before that riff comes back and takes us out to the next track, "Queen of the Spirits". Leading with a beautiful lilting flute melody that gains energy and dynamics with lots of ethnic percussion. But being about the Queen, this is Margo's track with the sax kept at bay except for some key transition moments, merging into a Brazilian carnival percussive breakdown and ending with beautiful languid flute and Ethiopian harps.
Side Two has the record's shortest and longest tracks. The first one is the 18 minute "Nsorama (The Stars)" that leads with Margo's intoning the word over a piano and a soft percussive riff, sounding like a more tribal version of a Doug Carn or Alice Coltrane track full of brooding majesty as the horns and flutes come in all plaintive and slow that keep this pace for awhile before the flutes let loose over the calm, but the frenzy on this track is minimal, in fact it becomes really minimal in parts with just a sole percussive rhythm taking the space for a few minutes before the key elements slowly reemerge. Definitely, one of their loveliest tracks! The final number, "My Africa" is more call and response mystical chanting over a repetitive piano and bass riff. This is the most vocal-centric track and in its listing of African homelands suggests a settling peace as it fades out. Such a beautiful record!!
We're super psyched to finally see these rare Pyramids LPs available once again! (Note, the there's a third one, King Of Kings, that we and suppliers have already run out of, but we should be listing it eventually).
Lalibela from 1973 is the first recording by this previously little known spiritually tribal free jazz unit, The Pyramids. Based in Yellow Springs, Ohio, before moving to Oakland, CA by 1975, The Pyramids were led by Idris Ackamoor on saxophone and his then wife Margo on flute and piccolo backed by four other musicians using an arsenal of African tribal instruments such as Clay and Talking drums, Ugandan Harp, Bailofone, and Masenqo.
That presence of ethnic instrumentation makes itself felt right away. The nearly thirty minute title track (comprising a side and a half of the lp) begins with some raucous Morroccan-style funk rhythm with horns and piccolos swirling over the top before some soft chanting and Ackamoor's sax lay down the key melodic figure. Then everything sets in at once, hectic sax skronk, the percussive rhythms undulating at times claustrophobic and intense filling the space then gradually separating, becoming airier, sparse and placid before laying down a more martial rhythm that once again collides into a cascade of bamboo flutes and chants, and cymbal washes that becomes a serene idyllic pool of intense calm.
The second track,"Indigo" is more lyrical, though it begins with some powerfully heavy drum fills, with lilting flute, melodic sax laying on top of lurching bass rhythm and percussion. The vibe is more majestic and pulsating then "Lalibela", with a lone shaker being the wildcard instrument for a bit as slow dramatic drums build, offset by metallic bowls and noises before the wooly skronk of the horns and woodwinds sets in and all the players ride that manic torrent before finally settling into a more subdued ending of call and response between Margo's flute and Idris's saxophone.
It's that intuitive dynamic between the players, how they stay afloat through recurring periods of noise and calm that make listening to The Pyramids such an enjoyable and worthy experience!
Like the Depths tape we reviewed on the last list, this is another blast of true underground grimness, Ravendawn however is in fact two Iowa teenagers who reviewed this slab of sonic sickness way back in 1997, and which has never been released until now. And it's a doozy, especially if you like your black metal raw and primitive, and like your fidelity fucked up. This is total practice space / basement / subterranean cavern sound, the guitars a muddy insectoid blur, the vocals a super distorted rasp, the drums total cardboard trashcan lid pound and bash, but all woven together into some seriously fierce black heaviness. And some tracks manage to be weirdly atmospheric dialing back the buzz, letting the guitars weave weirdly tense minor key drones, the drums loping and spaced out, the result sort of cinematic and trancelike, surprisingly progressive for the time certainly, and the weirdness/coolness is only enhanced by the warped recording, cuz when the blown out blasting drum damage swoops in toward the end of the track, that combined with the weirdly woozy psychedelic atmosphere makes for some seriously tripped out sonic radness.
Ravendawn do a pretty great job of fusing those too sounds/vibes, they're at their best when it's a dizzying concoction that can't seem to decide between atmospheric and psychedelic or grim buzzing and black, usually opting for both simultaneously, which results in something fucked up and weirdly original, but still plenty raw and grim and true to keep the metalheads satisfied. Fans of other Universal Consciousness stuff will definitely dig (Harassor, Moonknight, Wrath Of The Weak), and again, if you dug that Depths tape, this one will most likely hit the spot too.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered, the covers letter pressed on super thick textured cardstock.
Woah! Francais Metal de Proto!!! Dunno if y'all remember a cd-r mix that was floating around a few years ago, featuring such obscure & amazing early '70s French proto-metal, heavy psych acts as Docdail, Les Variations, Chico Magnetic Band, Quo Vadis, Zoo, and this band, Rotomagus. It caused a bit of sensation 'round these parts. Seriously, there was some incredible, ahead-of-its-time heaviness on there. So whenever we track something down by any of those bands we get pretty dang excited. And this is the best reissue related to that to come along yet, an anthology of the complete recorded works of this group, responsible for the raucous, more proto-punk than proto-metal really track "Fighting Cock" on that comp, which also featured Rotomagus' equally radical singles tracks "Eros" and "Madame Wanda". Those are all here, of course, as well as five more tracks from 45s, and entirety of the band's even more maniacal final unreleased 1971 demo session, which includes rawer versions of "Fighting Cock" and a few of the other singles cuts too... 17 tracks in all. Quite a treasure trove!
Now, as we've previously discussed, a LOT of awesome music came out in 1971. But very little if any of it was quite as freaked out and fucking punk as "Fighting Cock"! Elsewhere, among the tracks here, there ARE some poppier, melodic moments, which only make the aggro acid rock explosions of most of the rest of the disc seem even more insane. Certainly the two flowery tracks from the band's debut 1969 single, lush and la-la-la filled, don't provide any warning of how crazed Rotomagus would sound just a year or two later. Too bad the band never got to record a proper album, but presumably the record company heard the full-length demo found here and, shocked, pulled the plug on Rotomagus's career, robbing the world of an early entree into a realm of Raw Power that it would take Iggy & the Stooges another couple years to achieve... Seriously, this stuff is proof that Rotomagus belong in the annals of the "early heavy", high energy division, alongside the likes of the Stooges, MC5, Sir Lord Baltimore, Jerusalem, Night Sun, Crushed Butler, Colored Balls, Cerebrum, May Blitz, and Detroit's Death.
So, if you want a disc full of distorted stomp, wailing wah-wah'd out geetar, and wild vocals, look no further! There's fuzz and FX a-plenty, plus schizoid proggery and other weirdness (like the chipmunk vocals of the single version of "Laureline"). The Hendrix-y title cut is almost tame by comparison to some of the rest of this stuff, which comes off like the Pink Fairies at their most punk... It's funny, France turned out some bands in the late '70s who sounded like the Stooges (Angel Face, Soggy) but who knew they had one this early too?
As with all Lion reissues, nicely appointed, with a 32 page booklet full of liner notes, in both English and French, including the (practically frothing with amazement and disbelief) review of the "Fighting Cock" single that the Seth Man originally scribed for Julian Cope's Head Heritage website a few years ago...
FYI there is also a double lp vinyl version of this planned for release sometime this fall.
Four years on since their 20 Buck Spin debut Life's Trade, and these formerly Midwestern, now Northwestern postrockish doomlords (and lady) aren't any happier. Nor are they any faster or poppier, quite the opposite. Instead of the four long songs found on their previous opus, now on this album we're presented with but two. Of course, they fill up the whole compact disc (or both sides of the vinyl), clocking in at 14:19 and 20:29. And they're as heavy and slow as they are long - although, first track "When We Emerged" barrels along at a fairly decent place, in parts, before concluding with an extended feedback/drone/distortion fadeout.
Our review of Life's Trade was particularly evocative, we think, at one point where we said: "Samothrace's loping lethargy and mopey melody is such that even at its most crushing, the band's music still seems suffused with the sunset's psychedelic twilight rays, or perhaps radiates its own comforting warmth, somehow". So we'll repeat that sentiment here, it applies to this one too. Again, Samothrace somehow mold a thing of beauty from ugliness and misery. Anguished, throat-torn, seemingly wordless vokillizations find sustaining strength in the band's own massive slo-mo groove, perfect for spaced-out headbanging. Amidst the sludge, the guitar soloing gets kinda classic, majestic. At its most glorious, we're thinking Thin Lizzy at 16rpm or something. Heavily recommended heaviness, especially for fans of the likes of Yob and Elder!
Holy shit this is amazing. You might have thought that Burial and Rhythm & Sound and Pole had deconstructed dub about as far as it could go, but this mysterious outfit has conjured up some of the most tripped out, weirdly psychedelic ultra minimal digital dub we've ever heard. Those above mentioned groups are definitely good jumping off points, and if you like any/all of those, then you're gonna probably want this too, but those are just jumping off points. SeekersInternational dig way deeper, their sounds drifting unmoored to conventional rhythms, swirling and abstract and totally spaced out and druggy, the roots of the sound are definitely old school styled digi-dub, but the sounds here are stretched way out, pulled apart, until it's more like an impression of dub, than actual dub. Imagine the Bush Chemists and Pole remixed by Lesser, or something equally weird, dubbed out grooves, warped loops, layers creepily swirling, lazer synths emerging from the murk, vocals drenched in reverb, everything collaged and layered, sampled song fragments drifting in and our of focus, at times maddeningly repetitive, only to blur into blissed out ambient dub drift, the Burial vibe is huge, but imagine that sound WAY more druggy and drowsy and woozily warped.
The B side gets even more abstract, opening with a super skeletal dub, instrumental, almost straight forward if it wasn't for how ghostly and minimal and barely there much of the sound is. And if THAT one is barely there, the next one is a mind blower, constructing a full on dub jam out of nothing but sonic detritus, static, and crackle and buzz, hiss and hum, skitter, squelch, reverb and echo, all somehow sculpted into a sweet slab of spectral dub, some of the coolest shit we've ever heard.
The record finishes off with a final burst of abstract fragmented murky, druggy, dubby drift, that left us wanting more more more!! So great, and yeah, probably crazy limited too, so best grab one before they're gone!
Two song teaser for the forthcoming full length, the A side already has us freaking out, a killer slab of glammy, proggy, garage pop, that might just be the best thing we've heard from Segall yet. A cool female vocal intro explodes into some seriously fuzzed out glam rock garage stomp, no lo-fi production here, it sounds incredible, massive and lush, and totally heavy, the boy/girl harmonies on the chorus KILL, the vibe swaggery and seriously glammed out, with some blasts of wild psychedelic shredding. The flipside is a bit more subdued, but also quite glammy, with a total Bowie vibe going on, hooky and heavy, fuzzy and jangly, further proof that the new full length is gonna be a mind blower!
We actually originally discovered this record in a thrift store, years ago, and ended up buying it for $5 or whatever, just cuz the cover was super trippy, and it was printed on cool prismatic reflective paper, and of course, we had no idea what to expect, and while we dug it, a LOT, and listened to it constantly, for whatever reason, it never occurred to us that what we had was some treasured rarity lost psychedelic artifact, one that certain discerning producers have mined for killer breaks, until we found out this reissue was on the way. So we revisited the record and holy crap!!!! How could we not have known?! So insane, and inspired, and ridiculous, and over the top, and ahead of its time, and it totally out trip-outs almost any record we can think of! Needless to say, we're super psyched to have this reissue, which features that original record, along with a whole mess of bonus tracks!!
So the record proper, Lux Aeterna, was originally composed to celebrate a friend of William Shaller's wedding, thematically driven by concepts of union and togetherness, and ostensibly based on the Catholic mass, this is far from any sort of religious music you've ever heard. Following in the footsteps of other iconoclastic composers, like Serge Gainsbourg, Jean-Claude Vannier, Lee Hazlewood, David Axelrod, Scott Walker and of course Magma (more on that in a second), Sheller conjured up what is at once an over the top symphonic prog epic, but also a strangely meditative operatic chorale, the sound a gorgeous and dizzying fusion of bombastic prog, classical opera, tripped out seventies psych, outsider jazzfunk, and soaring symphonic majesty. The first track alone should convince you, with its groovy loping stripped down rhythm, its woozy bassline, its swoonsome strings, its slippery slide guitar (!!), its lush operatic vox. That cut is equal parts lost soundtrack and weird Morricone-esque krautfunk, sort of, the sound epic and dramatic and VERY cinematic, dark and subtly sinister, minor key and haunting, but then with about a minute to go BAM, the the sound shifts, sort of fractures, and gets super lo-fi, soaked in phaser and flanger, swirling and tripped out, laced with psychedelic wah guitar, a woozy, melting fad out groove. Holy WOW. So fucking awesome. And that's pretty much how the rest of the record plays out, with Sheller weaving these lush orchestral epics, alternatingly symphonic or operatic, when all of a sudden he'll mix in some trippy sci fi freak out FX or fuse rock drums to soaring operatic vox and symphonic strings. Some tracks play it totally straight, like "Ave Frater, Rosae Et Aurae", which really could have been plucked right out of a mass, but then in swoops "Opus Magnum Pt. 2", with its driving kraut-ish groove, reprising the opening theme, but adding some seriously loopy bleeps and bloops, squelches, and reverby blurps, tripped out laser fire squiggles and swirling analog electronics. Only to then settle right back down into some hushed string driven drift, but a minute or two later and the sound explodes again in a frenzy of FX, the song gathering momentum, and heft, and transforming into a sort of dirgey driving jam, wreathed in strings and an avalanche of glitched out electronics. And so it goes, slipping from haunting ritualistic choral music, to tripped out psychedelic seventies prog funk grooviness and back again, sounding quite often like Magma, or some similarly epic prog combo, stopping occasionally to dip into a bit of musique concrete or twentieth century classical, or introducing seriously terrifying children's spoken word, reciting what sounds like scripture, before finally finishing off with a gorgeous melancholy piano coda, again a refrain of that opening melody.
Quite a strange and twisted record for someone's wedding, sure WE'D all be psyched, but in 1972? Wow.
After a two minute track of silence, meant to separate the programs, comes, as the first of a big batch of bonus tracks, several pieces from Sheller's soundtrack for a 1969 film called Erotissimo, the music appropriately psychedelic and seventies hippie rocking, but of course laced with strings, and surprisingly some heavy proto metal riffing, wild psych guitar leads, dreamy female vocals, the whole thing building to a killer fuzzy psych rock blowout, before slipping back into something a bit more fuzzy and woozy.
After that is "My Year Is A Day", Sheller's big hit, a fantastic slab of orchestral pop, that reminds us of early Bee Gees and the Zombies, and fans of either/both will flip. The rest of the record is more of the same, fuzzed out psychedelic orchestral pop, "Couleurs" being a standout, with its freaked out effects heavy breakdowns, and sitar like buzz running throughout, but really all twenty tracks are killer, making us thing there must be a whole lot more William Sheller we need to track down. Maybe Omni will follow up with another reissue. Here's hoping!
Like all Omni releases, lots of photos, and extensive liner notes, as well as some weird unseen art and reproductions of the covers of some of the singles that are included as bonus tracks!
