Super limited live cassette from aQ beloved psychedelic space rock drifters 3 Leafs! And by super limited, we mean FIFTY COPIES. We did get a bunch, but needless to say, these won't last long, so you might want to grab one before they're gone.
Recorded in December of 2011, right here in SF at the Cafe Du Nord, this tape offers up the entirety of the night's proceedings, repeated on both sides, a beautifully brooding slow burn / slow build epic. Dark swirls of abstract FX, warm synth swirl, buried voices, all blurred into a soft psych haze, before the drums and bass kick in, transforming the sound into something much more krautrock, sorta like the Necks meets Faust, or Can, mesmerizing and tranced out, laced with little bits of guitar filigree, dubbed out vox (courtesy of the Fresh & Onlys' Tim Cohen), some very Eastern style melodies, and some seriously nimble bass playing, the band locked into sprawling rhythmic kraut-psych workouts that slip deftly from hushed and hypnotic, to dense and driving, all the while wreathing the proceedings in swirling clouds of druggy spaced out shimmer and soft focus celestial murk, as always, fantastic stuff, and as we warned above, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES! Each one hand numbered.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Here's another $5 sale cd that, well, you must buy if you don't have it already. An utter classic - albeit one of the many classics that came out in 1971. Probably the original Alice Cooper band's best album, though that's a tough call. A lot of folks mistakenly think of this as their debut, 'cause it featured their first big hit, the anthemic "I'm Eighteen". But while it was the debut of Detroit-era Alice, it was actually the group's third album, following the two somewhat weirder and artier, more Sgt. Peppery poppy psych ones they did for Frank Zappa's Straight label before they moved to Detroit from LA (those being Pretties For You and Easy Action, the reissues of which we made Records Of The Week here!).
Love It To Death is plenty psychedelic too, and weird, but also really established the band's hard rock bona fides. They heavied up when they moved to the Motor City it seems, delving into high energy Detroit rock action in the vein of the MC5 on "Long Way To Go" amongst others here - heck "I'm Eighteen" could easily be a Stooges song. It's the record too where the Alice Cooper shock rock horror show image really came into focus for the first time. It includes such creepy cuts as "Black Juju" and "Ballad Of Dwight Fry", also their curious cover of Rolf Harris' catchy "Sun Arise" from the early '60s to end the album and demonstrate it's not all darkness. We'll also mention "Caught In A Dream", "Is It My Body" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name", but every song here is great. This album belongs in our 1971 top ten for sure, which is no mean feat!
Note: filed under A, not C: singer Alice hadn't gone solo yet, and the original band is called Alice Cooper, dammit!
A couple years back we flipped for a record by the oddly monikered Angst Skvadron, a side project from one of the guys in Urgehal and Beastcraft, but unlike those more traditionally black hordes, Angst Skvadron trafficked in something more proggy and spacey and psychedelic, still sort of black metal, but mostly something else entirely. Armed with a battery of vintage synths and Mellotrons, Angst Skvadron whipped up what was probably our favorite weirdo whatthefuck sort of black metal record of 2010. The strange thing was that that record, Sweet Poison, was in fact their second album, and somehow, the debut had disappeared before we ever got a chance to list/review it. Thankfully, both have now been reissued, Sweet Poison, which is reviewed again elsewhere on this week's list, and this one, Flukt, which we're finally able to review after all these years.
Originally released in 2008, Flukt definitely hints at what would come on Sweet Poison, and while not nearly as far out as the follow up, it is sort of the perfect gateway from the more grim black buzz of Urgehal and Beastcraft, to the tripped out black prog of Sweet Poison. Flukt is still essentially a black metal record, but it's a weird one. Lots of woozy guitars, tangled melodies, strange vocals, the vibe is super Voivod-y much of the time, mathy and melodic, a bit sci-fi for sure, and way proggy. The record is rife with strange moments, the disembodied lo-fi guitar drift that closes "Silent Light, Alien Night", the creepy horror movie theremin melodies all over "A Song To The Sky", there's the awesomely titled "The Asteroid Haemorhoids And The Drunken Sailor", a super distorted chugfest, rife with cool sixties style exotic melodies, that sounds like some sixties spy movie, black metallized, or the woozy acoustic guitar laced lope of "Slaves Of Mental Distortion", which finishes with some warped sliced and diced sampling. There's plenty of rad psychedelic leads, and loads of atmospheric weirdness, but all of that is woven into some killer buzzing blackness, minor key and midtempo, striking a perfect balance between classic black buzz and warped blackened weirdness.
Trondr Nefas, aka T.B., is probably better known in black metal circles for fronting Norwegian heavyweights Urgehal and Beastcraft, among others, but odds are that might be about to change with Angst Skvadron, a blackened bastard offspring, that while still black metal is so much more.
This is record number two from this post black metal trio, whose sound, if we had to describe it, would be something more like post space black prog. And were this easier to get, don't doubt that this would have been a shoo-in for Record of The Week. For some of us it's already Record Of The Year!
Employing the usual instruments, but with an incredible arsenal of vintage and classic keyboards and synths, even a Mellotron, to add all sorts of texture and weirdness to their grim black sound. Did we mention ghostly female vocals? Yeah, these guys are a strange proposition, but have maybe catapulted themselves right to the front of the line, that line being our favorite new black metal bands.
Just take record opener "Valium Holocaust" (great title), opening with a cloud or reverbed piano rumbles, before launching into a lumbering midtempo dirge, equal parts Ved Buens Ende, Khold and Voivod at 16 rpm, the guitars warped and crumbling, the riffs woozy, the rhythm peppered with toiling bells, and laced with little glimmering tangles of melody, and super melodic basslines, and of course some haunting female vocals, that make the track either sound like some black metal Argento soundtrack, or some blackened version of Hundred Sights Of Koenji, gorgeous and creepy and far out and spacey and totally mesmerizing.
The whole record is so close to NOT being black metal. The riffs are gnarled and not at all typical, sounding almost grungy at times, like a way more grim black Skin Yard, which is definitely a good thing.
There are moments of blackness for sure, but even then, the band seem dead set on subverting any sort of true kvlt cred they might otherwise be developing, by twisting the songs all up, whether it's adding Mellotron strings, and creating weird carnivalesque slowcore, or adding all sort of strange crooning vocals, or taking an otherwise black blast beat, and transforming it into a mathy stutter. The slow atmospheric bits are incredible, not just randomly quiet for a minute or two like most BM bands, these are fully formed bits of minimal moodiness, with lush tangled melodies, ghostly harmonies, thick wheezing organs, often giving way to spaced out blackened krautrock, all clean guitars, hazy clouds of reverb, rubbery Joy Division basslines, some full on whatthefuck post industrial lumber and crunch, with thick buzzy bass riffs, and streaks of static and hiss, all wound around some incredible black metal grooves, some of the best riffs we've heard in ages, that in other hands could be the basis for perfect pop songs, but here just infuse the blackness with a weirdly irresistible pop element, that helps make these songs totally weird, totally catchy, and completely genius.
The record finishes off with an unlikely three song salvo, some warm almost sunshiney softly strummed minimal pop, all brushed snares, soaring strings, major key melodies, a lush gauzy dream pop dronescape, that gives way to possibly the most mathy and convoluted track on the record, all super tangled riffage, octopoidal math rock drums, serpentine basslines, super heavy and harrowing, with tortured super effected tripped out vocals, culminating in heaving doomic crush, before finally finishing off with the weirdly melodic title track, a wistful minor key dirge, all clean chiming guitars, simple spare drumming, strings and flutes (or at least the Mellotron version), gorgeous and dreamy and softly psychedelic, an appropriately unlikely finish to one of the most unlikely 'black metal' records in recent memory. And quickly becoming our favorite...
The latest in the ongoing Latitudes series, in which bands pop into Southern Studios in the UK and capture a session live to tape, comes from long time aQ faves, Philly psychedelic space rockers Bardo Pond. And while lots of Latitudes releases are anxiously anticipated, often from the second they're announced (which is often months and months before they're released), we can't remember one that had people in as much of a tizzy as this one. But the wait was well worth it. Three extended jams, everything we love about these guys (and gal) present and accounted for, brooding hypno rock mesmer, churning squalls of psychedelic guitar noise, driving rhythms, swirling ethereal vox, all blurred into heaving expanses of dense, droned out psychedelia. Opener "The Cawl" finds the band immediately launching into a sprawl of heady kraut-psych, the guitars whipping up clouds of caustic crunch and swirling layered riffage, there is a groove, but it seems to bleed into something much more amorphous, wreathed in tangles of distortion and melody, all smeared into a drone-like churn, anchored by some kick ass drumming, over which ghostly vocals drift and shimmer. Like all the best BP jams, it could have stretched out way longer than its 7 minutes.
The second track, "Side To Side" is a bit more riffy, with some swagger to it, seeming to channel Flower Travellin' Band, Hawkwind and Godspeed, all soaring and epic and bit swaggery, with a crazy catchy vocal refrain, and a lurching almost doomy groove, as the track progresses the guitars get a bit more wild, and the vocals drift to the fore, but that roiling main riff drive the track throughout, very metallic mantra like.
And finally, the session ends with the epic 20+ minute "A Crossing", which is of course where a band like Bardo Pond really shine, and shine they do, stretching out a softly psychedelic, ethereally propulsive space psych sprawl, the drums skittery and loose, the bulk of the track multiple guitars swirling and cascading, coalescing into proper riffs, but just as quickly dissipating into whirling clouds of ambient psychedelic shimmer and prismatic sonic swirls. The track manages to be gloriously dynamic as well, the band building up to some serious sonic heft, the guitars exploding into wild tangles, the drums pounding away, but always slipping right back into a more mesmerizing, woozily rhythmic soft psych tranced out krautgroove, and even at 20 minutes, WAY too short.
As always, most definitely recommended for fans of White Hills, The Heads, Carlton Melton, 3 Leafs, and similarly minded psychedelic space rock explorers.
Packaged as usual in that distinctive Latitudes packaging. Both the lp and cd in a brown and white origami style sleeve, with a cool silver metallic embossed print on the front, the vinyl with a super elaborate die cut cover, and a full color insert inside with liner notes. BOTH LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
A long-awaited reissue of Robbie Basho's debut, originally released on John Fahey's Takoma label in 1965. Basho was the third part of the Takoma triad which of course included Fahey and Leo Kottke. A big surprise that back then, Basho was the least popular of the three, as he has become a serious cult favorite of the genre since, and this first look into his unique take on Guitar Soli shows why.
Basho was the least interested in American forms of blues, classical and ragtime, and sought out instead Celtic and Oriental idioms which heavily influenced his music, giving his work a searching devotional quality. But he also wasn't afraid of performing with a brusque playing style as long as it captured an unfettered emotional intensity. This set definitely highlights his inventiveness as he uses the guitar body for a resonating percussive instrument and even accompanies himself on the flute on one song.
Housed in a Smithsonian Folkways style tip-on sleeve, with a simple hermetic drawing, Seal of The Blue Lotus has the feel of an arcane mystical object, one that imparts ancient wisdom to seekers of the craft. Basho's records didn't have cryptic liner notes or partake in humorous antiquated eccentricities, so their more serious reverential nature may have had something to do with his lower profile on the Takoma roster, but probably everything to do with why his records are so coveted now.
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When we listed this on our site before, we were pretty succinct, 17 words:
Their 1968 debut, the birth of metal? With "Summertime Blues". Dumb yet so brilliant. Essential heavy history.
And yeah, that's basically it. The first album from San Francisco ballroom badasses Blue Cheer, is a seminal heavy psych proto-metal power trio document indeed. Druggy biker blooze that taught so many later bands - from Pentagram to Comets On Fire, Fushitsusha to Dead Meadow - how to turn it up to 11. Have Dickie Peterson, Paul Whaley, and Leigh Stephens been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame yet? Apparently not and it's a travesty.
While we like other, later Blue Cheer albums and lineups, THIS is the one that belongs in the early annals of metal history. In '68, what else was this heavy? Blue Cheer themselves never were again.
Produced by Abe "Voco" Kesh (yes, that's where that band got their name), this includes Blue Cheer's aforementioned monster cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues", also their killer version of Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm" (which they call "Parchment Farm" for some reason), BB King's "Rock Me Baby", and bunch of equally lumbering, blown-out Peterson originals like "Doctor Please" and "Out Of Focus". While they sound closer to Hendrix and Cream than to the yet to be birthed Black Sabbath, this is ye olde acid rock at its rawest and heaviest.
Chances are, if you're into metal and/or psych, you already have this, but if you don't, now's the time to grab it!
Oh Bong. How we have longed for thee. Ever since we first go wind of a stonery slow motion doom sludge outfit called BONG, we knew we had to have it, even the non-bong inclined around these parts became disturbingly obsessed with tracking down the BONG. Finally it's here, so prepare to partake.
Before we get to the music, they're called Bong, two sidelong tracks, one called "Wizards Of Krull", the other called "The Starlit Grotto". The cover is gorgeous a washed out painting in all blacks and browns of some creepy alien landscape, and some strange looking flora or fauna (hard to say with). No info anywhere, except the names of the songs, the last names of the players (one of whom happens to be an aQ mailorder customer!) and the word BONG.
Deep buzzy layered drones, peppered with little bits of banjo-y (?) buzz, creepy and minimal and abstract, cymbals sizzle over the undulating black backdrop, the bass a simple single deep thrum, and then the vocals, deep and ominous and (almost overly) dramatic, which when we first heard them reminded us the Mighty Boosh. The guitars thicken, the drums begin to pound, and suddenly the shapeless miasma begins to take the shape of some seriously drugged out stoner doom sludge. Distorted and downtuned and Sabbathy and sloooooooooooow, that voice begins to chant, the banjo returns only now it's a sitar, and we're neck deep in some primal doomdrone stonersludge ritual and sinking fast!
The second side / track is more of the same, beginning with a smattering of drums before the guitar slither in and the track becomes another plodding chunk of druggy doom, the drums are brief blasts, the riffs so slow they're barely riffs at all, that reverby croon returns, but this track explodes in the second half, the guitars going wild, unfurling swirling clouds of warped and wild wah wah drenched leads, tangled and frenetic, drifting over the churning sludge below, all woven into a dense and drug addled chunk of blown out lysergic and psychedelic dooooooom.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!!
Maybe we've been going through a bit of a techno phase here at aQ lately, freaking out about the likes of Shed and Silent Servant, among others. For some of us here, it's waaaay more than a phase... And you know we love the krautrock. So Christian Borngraber & Jens Struver are just what the doctor ordered. The Berlin based duo (whom we first encountered remixing the late great Conrad Schnitzler) offer up what could arguably be considered "techno krautrock" on this disc, which collects together two of their vinyl 12" releases (still available separately, we got 'em), Urlaub and In G, originally from 2011 and 2010, respectively.
The three tracks of Urlaub are all quite compelling, rhythmically and otherwise, full of hushed pulsations and eerie echoing electronic hypnosis. There's the tremulous atmospheres of 16 and half minute opener "Reise". The icy dancefloor noir of "Berlin Tribal Music". And then the nearly 12 minute "Dancing Queen", which has a breathy, flute-like lick looping throughout as part of its happy chugging shuffle that we can't help but associate with early, traffic cone era Kraftwerk (gone disco). All of Urlaub is groovy, minimalist, motorik stuff we're really digging.
Maybe even better, and even more krautrockish, is the second half of this disc, In G parts I and II, totaling almost 32 minutes, a slow-building beatscape with whispery, wind-like textures and choppy samples of sweetly sawing strings. It's both haunting and groovy, quite a krauty techno tour de force that incorporates clicks n' cuts, drones, and pop ambient 20th century classical sounds. Wow. We note that it bears a dedication to revolutionary free jazz bassist Sirone.
In particular, if you liked a couple of other releases we've reviewed recently - Oren Ambarchi's Sagittarian Domain, and/or Elektro Guzzi's Live P.A. - this might be right up your alley. Recommended, of course!
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While Captain Beyond's 1972 debut was all about proggy proto-metal riffery, the group's quite different but equally classic 1973 follow-up, Sufficiently Breathless, is much less hard-edged, much more Malibu-mellow. Smoother, and spaced out. Indeed you could call it space rock, what with song titles/subjects like "Drifting In Space", "Starglow Energy" and "Distant Sun". It's a definitely trippy album, to match the very bizarre cover painting. But there's some riffage here all right too, with a bunch of the tracks, even including "Drifting In Space", having a rollicking, groovy energy to 'em. "Evil Men" kinda reminds us of Blue Oyster Cult, and also it - and a lot of the record - has a jazzy feel, with Latin percussion, a la Santana.
Our favorite track is probably the majestic and uplifting "Starglow Energy", a somewhat Floydian, New Agey hippie hypnotic bliss out. It's been a long time (since 1973, perhaps!) that an artist could do a song with a title like "Starglow Energy" and sound so sincere about it. Nope, they don't make 'em like this anymore.
So, compared to Captain Beyond's debut, the super stoned and sorta Santana-styled Sufficently Breathless isn't so much astral proto-metal, than, uh, maybe what we could call yacht-psych (?), but we still love it!
This isn't really a new cd, just an old favorite that we thought we'd list for the first time 'cause the name sometimes comes up in our reviews of present day heavy psych/stoner rock bands: LA's legendary Captain Beyond. This cd reissues their classic 1972
Easily our favorite of the Halloween movies. And oddly enough the only one without Michael Myers. Instead it focuses on a company that makes Halloween masks for children, who have a seriously sinister agenda... if you haven't seen it, we don't want to give too much away, needless to say it really is a classic: atmospheric, super creepy, totally original, and WAY weird. And of course, director John Carpenter along with longtime collaborator Alan Howarth, whipped up what might be one of our favorite Carpenter scores EVER, which is saying a lot.
This hard to find soundtrack joins the already amazing lineup of classic horror scores on the Death Waltz vinyl reissue label, and it's a perfect fit. One listen to the main title music, and you'll be sold. That first weird electronic effect, that is constantly surfacing throughout the move, so much so that listening to it while we review this reissue, gave us goosebumps. Creepy buzzing synths, murky rhythmic pulses, disembodied melodies, lush layered textures, sinister chordal swirls, it all sets the mood perfectly, the whole movie oozing with a creeping atmosphere of dread. Carpenter at his best, both as director AND composer.
Most of the tracks are variations on the main title theme, with pulsing synths, brooding and rhythmic, all wreathed in ominous drones, in fact much of the soundtrack is drone based, Howarth and Carpenter letting tones drift and slowly decay, before introducing the next melody or texture, and it's incredible effective. And fear not, there's plenty of pounding tense synthscapes, the sort Carpenter is so good at, the chase scenes, even here sans the visuals, will have you compulsively looking over your shoulder. And of course that weird electronic effect that opens the movie pops up again and again, perfectly creeping the listener out.
And while the whole soundtrack is pretty incredible, we can't neglect THE SONG, the one you hear constantly throughout the movie, the commercial that plays on TVs all the time, getting the kids psyched up, and counting down the hours to the special horror-thon and giveaway and whatever else Halloween might bring, a maddening jingle that will stick in your head like crazy, and once you've seen the movie, that jingle will sound even more terrifyingly ominous. SO goddamn good. And so utterly recommended. As is the movie. If you haven't seen it, well it IS almost Halloween...
Like all Death Waltz releases, super fancy packaging, this one in a glossy full color jacket, with a full color rendering of a TV screen, which of course plays such a big part in the plot, not to mention a logo for the mask company. Notes from the composer on the back of the jacket, the inside sleeve featuring extensive liner notes AND a beautiful poster of the cover art.
Finally repressed, so we can review it! We had been waiting for this FOREVER, a gorgeous, super deluxe comprehensive career retrospective from slowcore legends Codeine, a group who most aQ-ers count as all time faves, and whose sound most definitely influenced a legion of slo-mo outfits that would surface in their wake. This box collects both their albums proper, Frigid Stars and The White Birch, as well as the Barely Real ep, and on top of that, piles on TONS of rarities, single B-sides, compilation tracks, unreleased demos, live songs, Peel sessions, essentially everything they ever recorded, all housed in an impossibly lavish box, which includes SIX lps and THREE cds, as well as a huge booklet which includes essays by Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman, Love Child's Alan Licht, and the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd. There was originally an oral history compiled as well (Please Kill Me style), which included our very own Andee, but for some reason, that was not included, and will supposedly show up in print somewhere else eventually. But really, it's all about the music, and Codeine's music is truly breathtaking. Their recent reunion show here in two was one of the best shows we've seen. And even at that show, these boxes were sold out! But for now, we have a few in stock, and should hopefully be able to get more. But you never know...
We recently reviewed Codeine's debut, Frigid Stars, on its own, but that review most definitely also describes their body of work as a whole, and barring some subtle sonic shifts over the years, applies to all three of their records, which combined, exist as one of the most beautiful, intense, moving, and hauntingly harrowing collections of slowcore indie rock EVER. Definitely one of those bands that Andee, Allan, et. al. here will tell you, if you don't have all of their records, you oughta get them now... seriously. Emo, indie-rock, post-rock, whatever Codeine is, it's totally classic. A classic of majestic melancholia. They employed the soft-loud dynamic that their former Sub Pop labelmates Nirvana already made famous (or would around the same time). Not that they sound much like Nirvana. They sound a bit more like Low, albeit a lumbering downtuned Low. Codeine's own brand of moody, melodic misery wouldn't, couldn't be an MTV hit. Indie-pop it was, but so sad and slow... The songs share slowly crawling tempos, and echoey drum hits and big distorted guitar chords crashing down to give extra weight to vocalist/bassist Stephen Immerwahr's weary vocals and love-lost lyrics. We've always wanted to hear a metal band do cover Codeine. But even though this isn't really "heavy" in a metal sense, it still IS heavy. The perfect music for when you're sad and alone. Strange how something like this will make you feel better, but it will.
Highest recommendation!
Debut full length from this LA outfit who fuse shimmering shoegaze blissouts to churning, taut, cold/new wave rhythms, everything murky and synthy, taut and sinewy, tribal drums and crooned heavily effected vox, a little bit gloomy, a lot gothy, all driven by some punkish pound, and crazy catchy, a rad retro sound that's equal parts classic Factory Records, 4AD gloom pop and urgent low slung post-punk crunch. We can't help but be reminded of some other bands mining similar territory recently, most notably the Holograms and Iceage, and of course we hear plenty of Interpol here as well, but Cold Showers traffic in something much more murky and dramatic, brooding and intense, less wiry and punky, more hypnotic and tranced out, with the songs locking into super mesmerizing cyclical grooves, which stretch way out, before blossoming into some impossibly hook melody, or swirling psychedelic squall. The vocals especially add a different dimension, way more croony and moody, which along with the soaring spidery melodies, and the driving Joy Division-y basslines give Love And Regret a serious classic new wave vibe, and when the female vocals swoop in sparring with the male, we can't help but think of a cold wave X, which is most definitely a good thing. Cold Showers could easily have ended up on Captured Tracks or Sacred Bones, and fans of either/both will very likely dig, as will anyone into dour gloomy new wave pop, and obviously fans of all the above mentioned outfits. Definitely a new favorite around here...
They may have set the bar impossibly high with 2001's Jane Doe, one of the most perfect punk metal / metallic punk rock records EVER, but it's really time to stop holding that against them, cuz even stacked up to Jane Doe, the records that followed (You Fail Me, No Heroes, Axe To Fall, and now this one) are impossibly dense, insanely heavy, progged out, super dynamic, mathy, tech metal hardcore genius, the sort of sound that most bands spend their whole lives aspiring too without ever coming close.
The sound here is really not that far removed from the last few full lengths, but as they say, why fix what ain't broke? That's not to say this is Axe To Fall part two, the band always seem deadset on pushing themselves and their sounds further and further, and every record, it seems that their sound couldn't get any more heavy and chaotic and furious and intricate, and yet it does. EVERY time. The band occasionally slip into something approaching more traditional punk rock bash and crash, but the majority of their time is spent maneuvering through maze like arrangements, stop-on-a-dime breakdowns, dizzying almost psychedelic blasts of facemelting heaviness, and even when they do get all punk rock, it's weirdly lush and layered and rife with texture and melody, and still about as mean and metallic as punk rock gets. And when they do slow it down, unfurling some doomy churn or some post rocky tangle, it's impossible not to imagine a room full of sweaty punks losing their shit. Hell, even listening to this on headphones, it's kinda hard not to just go apeshit. And with all this furious mathed out punk and chugging metallic crush, not to mention some rad classic metal guitar harmonies (check out "Sadness Comes Home"), it still manages to somehow be catchy as fuck. Music this crazed and chaotic should not be so goddamn catchy, but it is Converge after all, and once again, they've created a modern metal punk masterpiece, that a whole 'nother generation can analyze and pick apart, desperately trying to discover what warped musical DNA can produce sounds like these. As for us, we don't really care where it comes from. As long as it keeps coming. We'd definitely expect this to end up on lots of folks year end lists. It's definitely gonna make ours...
We had SO many people asking for this over the last few weeks, the debut full length from Mac Demarco, out on Captured Tracks, one of our favorite labels, who have a pretty stellar track record for sure, so we of course got some copies in, and were pretty surprised by the sound. There are certainly some sonic ties to other outfits on Captured Tracks, but Demarco's sound is way more laid back, woozy and sun dappled, the vibe is a little like a more lo-fi jangle-pop Jimmy Buffet actually, or a hazy softly psychedelic Grateful Dead at their very poppiest, softly groovy, a wee bit funky, lazy drawled vocals, sometimes slipping into a wavery falsetto, spidery, warbly guitar melodies, all drenched in chorus, giving it a strange ethereal feel, the instrumentation super stripped down and minimal, the drums skeletal and spare, with a slightly off (in a good way) production, seemingly barebones, but close listening reveals all sorts of weird textures and strange swirling filigree in the background. But don't let that paint a too weird picture of what's going on here, the sound slipping easily from strummy soft focus folk to low key psych pop, but all infused with an old school singer/songwriter vibe, which definitely reminds us more of the aforementioned combos than any modern outfits, Captured Tracks or otherwise. It's not hard to imagine Mac Demarco, fronting the house band in some open air, divey Tiki bar, set right on the sand, at some mysterious beachfront resort, in some alternate universe, softly serenading a room full of lost souls.
Finally, Demdike Stare's dark and dizzying, murky and mysterious hauntological black dub triptych, previously available via three separate slabs of vinyl, is now available on cd, gathered up into a single, nicely packaged triple disc set. And loaded with bonus tracks (nearly 40 minutes extra all told), which makes this pretty much a shoe-in for Record Of The Week...
Demdike Stare are one of the few bands who seem to be a unanimous aQ favorite, everyone here LOVES these guys, and judging on how many of the various lps we've sold, everyone out there does too. Which makes sense, when you consider, DS basically create a kind of black metal dubstep, or as we (and others) like to describe it, a blackened dub record on Chain Reaction. Either one should give you an idea of the sort of dark sonic energy these guys conjure up. Thick claustrophobic atmospheres, skeletal rhythms, thick throbbing bass, skittering dubbed out beats, disembodied voices, stuttering minimal sort-of-dubstep, looped and processed African folk music (??), swirling glitched out electronics, deeeep pulsing dronemusic, reverb drenched post-rock-via-techno skitter, all woven into a swirling organic mass of dub flecked blacktronica, dark and sinister and dubby, and weirdly house-y, sprawling and epic and creepy and so totally sweeping and cinematic.
The first disc, Forest Of Evil, was originally two sidelong tracks, the first starts out all deep shimmer, with a softly melodic buzz, spidery acoustic guitars, long stretches of billowy black ambience, bits of shuffly jazzy drift, peppered with thick shards of buzzy fractured dub bass and Kompakt style skitter, giving way to glistening late night techno, whirling pop ambient, and blissed out ethereal dronemusic, while the second is darkly dramatic, epic and majestic, like some lost Italian soundtrack, big drums, orchestral and ominous, looped samples, blurred melodic smears over deep pulsing bass, whirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, insectoid FX buzz, jumbled atonal melodies (hints of Bernard Herrmann), the vibe tense and haunting, with some dubstep bass buzz, that slowly dissolves into a Caretaker like outro, all layered strings wreathed in hiss and crackle, hazy and druggy and divine. The bonus track "Quiet Sky" conjures up just what the title implies, a quiet sky, but a dark, bruised midnight sky, flecked with stars, soft swirls of metallic shimmer like gauzy clouds, the song gradually developing a strange minimal hiccuppy rhythm, underpinning the deep melancholic swells, a strange almost industrial tinged bit of pop ambience.
The second disc, Liberation Through Hearing, is thematically related to the Book Of The Dead, and focuses on the space between death and rebirth. Rendered in greys and blacks, in buzz and rumble, beginning with some woozy late night Portishead style downtempo trip hop, low slung looped skitter and swell, lush swirls of cinematic strings, ghostly choirs, a softly lurching rhythmic stutter, a deep cavernous throb, sounding like a ghostly stripped down dubstep. Which gives way to heaving expanses of black tidal thrum, muted scrapings, all wound into hypnotic pulses of dark energy, laced with distant chiming melodies, a haunting, gauzey faded memory in sound, drawn from radios with dying batteries and gradually slowing turntables, a soft focus symphony of creaks and rumbles and blurred low end shimmer. The first half finishes with a swoonsome smear of looped ambience, like a field recording of an after hours nightclub captured in a temporal loop, warm and druggy and fuzzy, strangely hypnotic and rhythmic, totally trancelike, a creeped out wasteland soundscape, mysterious and chilling, which is eventually augmented by thick slabs of corrosive low end, and heavily reverbed industrial clatter, which eventually emerges into a strange sea of crackle and hum, of warbly rhythms, chiming bells and distorted crunch, sounding a bit like Jeck spinning Pole record, abstract and spaced out and hauntingly lovely.
The second half opens with thick streaks of ghostly mesmer, all washed out and slowly decaying, underpinned by thick swaths of dubstep style bass wobble, but muted and smoothed into soft smears of undulating blackness. Subtle skitter surfaces, as do distant voices, the sound getting more and more dubby, a bit like a Caretaker record on Chain Reaction, that sort of hazy abstract drift, but anchored to barely there beats, the buzz building to an intense coda, all the while wrapped in throbbing woofer punishing low end.
Some super stripped down rhythms are laid over a swirling ghostly backdrop of fragmented melodies and a buried house music thump, tangled and blurred strings wrap the proceedings in a veil of softened reverb and subtle echo, the almost Eastern sounding pulse and swell reminding us a bit of the late great Muslimgauze.
Finally, the record collapses into some sort of melancholic sonic reverie, a hushed ambient outro, a tranquil sea of soft swirling swells, clouds of echo and reverb, a dreamy darkness, a blackened bit of blurpop minimalism, laced with muted streaks of fuzz and hiss, but all gradually sinking into Demdike Stare's endless trancelike billowing blackness.
The bonus tracks on this one (3 of them, clocking in at nearly 20 minutes) continue the record's surreal sonic journey, spidery rhythms, and chiming melodies are looped and layered over a simple pulsing propulsive groove, the whole thing slightly warped and warbled, as if recorded onto an old piece of tape, and played back on some dusty old ramshackle tape player, ghostly, but surprisingly playful at first, before slipping into some seriously creepy, deeeeeep droning rumbles, wreathed in shimmering solar winds, softly billowing sheets of hiss and static, eventually shedding all of that, leaving just a thick morass of softly undulating low end, shot through with a slo-mo house music pulse, only to have the hiss and whir return, this time relegated to the background, until the track finishes surprisingly with what sounds like a bit of African style funkiness, before disappearing in a brief cloud of swirling hushed buzz.
Finally, the third disc, Voices Of Dust, unveils the Tryptych's final movement, opening with "Black Sun", a short stretch of some super minimal electronic dronemusic, all layered overtones and strange sonic shadings, which gives way to the chopped and looped and stuttery vocal driven "Hashshashin Chant" which takes tribal drums and traditional folk music vocals, and twists them all up, and tangles those elements with strange percussion, industrial buzz, the whole thing a dizzying chunk of hypno-electronic collaged psychedelic mashup weirdness, before slipping into the much murkier and minimal "Repository Of Light", which unfurls like some sort of Hawkwind-meets-Pole spaced out digi-dub drift. And so it goes, the sound flitting between impossibly realized miniature sound worlds, cinematic electronic ambience, ominously pulsing low end rumble, hazy glitchy dubbed out Jeckian smears, super blown out electronic big beat bombast, almost industrial sounding avant big band abstraction, roiling corrosive soft noise, bellowing foghorn-like melodies, warped and woozy scratchy old lp warblescapes and beyond.
The bonus tracks are the perfect, hazy, ghostly coda, the first, a warm, whispery bit of keening abstract melody and thick pulsing thrum, all very washed out and space-y and dreamlike, a constantly vibrating living thing, a throbbing organic expanse of minimal space drone psychedelic ambience, until finally, the whole disc is laid to rest with 9 minutes of heaving, glacial, metallic creep and creak, wreathed in record crackle, the final sounds unfurl like some old dusty Tim Hecker 45 spinning at 16rpm, mournful moaning melodies, buried rhythmic thumps, shimmery sitar like buzz, all hazy and smeared and lysergic and mysteriously murky, the perfect slipping-into-darkness, leaving-this-world-behind finale...
Gorgeously evocative, creepy and cinematic, abstract and otherworldly, druggy and dreamy, fantastically haunting and utterly spine tinglingly stunning. And thus, absolutely recommended.
Packaged in a super swank, oversized, hardcover book style digipak.
We've been going pretty nuts for French occult rock rhythmatists Aluk Todolo, their most recent record, appropriately titled Occult Rock, we made Record Of The Week, and could barely keep in stock. Hell, we made all THREE Aluk Todolo albums our Record Of The Week. But before there was AT, there was Diamatregon, a furious black metal beast featuring essentially the very same lineup, their second and third records released on Andee's tUMULt label, their sound, at least early on, a blown out raw satanic blackness, the drenched the usual buzz and blast it crumbling distortion and speaker shredding noise, but seeming to mature into something much more experimental and polished, which makes the eventual formation of Aluk Todolo less surprising. We're not entirely sure if Diamatregon is still a going concern, what with the members doing time in lots of other bands including Aluk Todolo and psych rock outfit Gunslingers, which is further suggested by this 'new' single, which is not in fact new at all, but recorded back in 2006, but it definitely reminds us of why we loved Diamatregon so much in the first place.
The A side starts of with a creepy soundtracky piano intro, but it's not a sample, it's part of the song proper, the piano continuing on into the first part of the song proper, even after the super distorted guitar comes in, the combination is truly haunting, we would have been happy for a whole side of this weird piano driven blackness, but soon, the sound explodes into some classic black buzz, with some seriously super sick vox, over frenzied insectoid guitars, the vibe raw and old school for sure.
The B side explodes out of the gate with a barrage of blasting beats and tangled anguished vokills, which gives way to some classic midtempo metal chug, before peeling away and leaving a long stretch of sinister black ambience, all detuned guitars, random drum hits, woozy FX, swirling sinister shimmer, darkly psychedelic and seriously creepy, eventually the band come back in proper and finish off with a blast of fierce metallic blackness. So killer! Has us hoping these guys are still a band, and hankering for a new full length!!
Yet another amazing archival release from Medical Records, this one from short lived electro pop / new wave combo Drinking Electricity, who existed for just a couple years at the beginning of the eighties, only releasing a single album and a handful of singles, all of which are collected here. And while the sound is fantastically of its time, it's also so prescient in its foreshadowing of a sound that would resurface in recent years, so much so, that it would be easy to believe this stuff was some new band, mining music's rich minimal wave past. Taut rhythms, angular guitars, sci-fi synths, the sexy but cold and clinical vocals of Anne-Marie Heighway, chugging guitars, spidery melodies, alien effects... Check out "Breakout", which any current retro-wave band would kill for, sinewy and robotic, but laced with strange spacey swirls and some seriously kick ass post punk guitar crunch. Or the group's 'hit' "Discord Dance" with its propulsive rhythm, strange dueling boy/girl vocals, squelchy synths, strangely catchy, but again cold and robotic, minus the strange sing songy vocal refrain. Crazy catchy for sure, think a more stripped down cybernetic / post punk take on Berlin, or Haysi Fantaysee, definitely shades of Gang Of Four, Fad Gadget too, not to mention all the bands trying for something similar now. Hell, Crystal Castles even covered a Drinking Electricity song! But the songs and sound here are pretty unique, even the most spare skittery sprawl of minimal wave is infused with some serious post punk crunch and vice versa.
The record is brimming with spiraling guitars, percolating electronics, lazer gun squiggles, faux horn blurts, playful melodies, quirky vox, hooks galore, some tracks super poppy, others totally tripped out and druggily out there, both of those sides meshing in most cases to create the strange post punk electro pop that DE specialize in, and few since have been able to pull off.
Fantastically packaged, in a super heavy full color gatefold sleeve, with a full color printed insert, loads of rare photos and liner notes, pressed on super thick colored 180 gram vinyl (one record red, the other yellow), and LIMITED TO 650 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
We've never reviewed any records from Seven Minutes Of Nausea, but for the grind/noise core freaks around aQ, they've been a long time favorite. This new record from Israeli label Heart & Crossbone is the latest from End Of Silence, an experimental side project of the long running 7MON, and while fairly far removed from that group's noise drenched grind, EOS does somehow weave some of that sonic fury into these three sprawling abstract tracks of minimal free noise weirdness. The 22 minute opener starts with cymbal crashes, set amidst a field of near silence, super minimal and spaced out, it's not until nearly 5 minutes in, that anything else happens. The anything else in this case, a pulsing sine wave stretch of high end feedback, which is eventually joined by a buzzing low end thrum, as the cymbal hits grow more and more rapid, in some weird way, it almost sounds like experimental classical doom, or something, it also reminds us of the tripped out abstract heaviness of Habsyll, but things have only just gotten going. Soon the sound coalesces into a weird pounding, almost looped sounding metallic minimalism, pounding rhythm, swirls of dense noise and sculpted feedback, buzz and squelch and swirl, finally the drums explode, a flurry of wild octopoidal pound, all of the instruments drifting free, the final few minutes a strange sort of noisy feedback driven free jazz style free for all, dense rhythms, noise squalls, more feedback, some serious stellar psychedelic freenoise freakout for sure.
The second track dials back the noisiness, and unfurls a haunting sprawl of abstract shimmer, and soft processed thrum, ethereal cymbal shimmer, and a murky rhythmic pulse, sounding almost like a more abstract Necks, but before they locked into any sort of groove. The sound never explodes, instead, broods and drifts, the background electronics growing more staticky and gristly, the drums only swooping in near the end, and even then, not bombastic so much as textural. And finally, the relatively short closer (13+ minutes to the other tracks' 22 and 23 minutes respectively) begins as a wall of crumbling static, underpinned by deep rib cage rattling rumbles, buried melodies, slow shifting textures, which do soon expand into dense swirls of mangled electronics and tangled strands of feedback, and while it is noisy, it's not noise, it's much more about mood and atmosphere, for this final stretch, one that's a bit caustic and chaotic, but still not completely free, a writhing roiling cascade of blown out sound, which is soon harnessed to another bout of wild drumming, the final few minutes playing out like a blast of Merzbowian free jazz. Cool stuff for sure, recommended for fans of abstract noisiness and heavy free form experimentation.
Godspeed are one of those rare bands who enjoy a slavish dedication from their fans, a nearly unrivaled level of hero worship style extreme fandom, the sort of thing enjoyed by very few others (Neurosis? Neutral Milk Hotel?), with fans treating GYBE like a post rock Grateful Dead or an alternative underground Phish, following them from show to show, state to state, hoarding live recordings and patiently awaiting the second coming. And by second coming, we of course mean the first Godspeed record in a decade! And ever since word leaked, that there was in fact a new record on the horizon, and especially as soon as the band started playing shows, and playing the new material, we've been barraged with requests for the new record, questions about the release date, months and months before it was actually released (heck, probably before it was even recorded). But here we are, and the new Godspeed is in fact among us, and we are pleased to say, it's definitely pretty goddamn great. We had actually cooled a bit on Godspeed, having LOVED their debut, and Slow Riot almost as much. But both Lift Your Skinny Fists and Yanqui didn't quite do it for us the way those first two did. This one though, is a whole 'nother story.
The record is split into two twenty minute tracks, and two 6 minute interludes, the two proper tracks are exactly what you'd expect, and want, from a new Godspeed record, droned out psychedelia, layered tones and soft swirls of melody, the opener all brooding slow build mesmer that over the course of the few minutes builds in lush billows of sound, before the drums kick in, and the song gains momentum, sort of Hawkwindy at first, before exploding into what sounds to these ears like full on psychedelic space rock, as in Heads, White Hills, and the like, driving, distorted, spiraling leads, swirling effects, propulsive almost krautrock like drumming, but it is Godspeed, so there are plenty of Eastern melodies, strange textures, lush layers, and after a bout of FX drenched wig out, the song gradually settles down into a slow fade outro, one that is pocked with bursts of psychedelic freakout and shard of abstract heaviness, looped and cyclical and gorgeously majestic, the final two minutes, near symphonic and utterly breathtaking.
The second proper track is much more subdued, the strings taking up much of the melodies, tinkling chimes over spidery guitars, and simple spare drumming, the sound dynamic and dramatic, but never quite exploding into full on freakout, instead just building and releasing tension, the way only Godspeed can. There is a bout near the end, where they again dabble in some psychedelic space rock, but it's Godspeed style, and like the first track it leads to another final few minutes that explode dramatically and tug on heartstrings, creating another majestic finale.
The shorter tracks are more abstract, droned out and minimal, textural and atmospheric, definitely gorgeous in their own right, the first, acting as a brief interlude between the two slabs of post rock bombast, the second, a haunting outro, a winding down, a fading out, after the sonic catharsis that is Allelujah!
FYI, the vinyl version of this is currently MIA, being repressed, so we'll have to list it another time, soon we hope...
We've been digging so hard on so much good techno lately. Even the techno averse among us (and some of you, too) have been won over by killer releases from Shed, Terrence Dixon and others. The latest comes in the form of 17:50, a new record from Berlin producer Stefan Goldmann (who we knew from cassette on The Tapeworm wherein he remixed Fennesz), which finds him ditching Western harmonies in favor of new pitch systems that create a whole slew of crazy sounds and exotic alien melodies, all melded to pulsing skitter and robotic grooves, and peppered with all sort of dirty, low fidelity sounds, giving these tracks a seriously raw vibe, and pushing it even further afield from standard techno, so much so, that even those of you who have continued to resist, might just find it impossible when faced with 17:50.
The two track opening one two punch will seal the deal in a matter of minutes. The title track / intro sets things up, with a shuffling skitter, some machine like pulses, all hissy and brittle and lo-fi, quickly blossoming into a super distorted groove that's more experimental and melodic than techno, laced with weird buzzing melodies and clattery organic percussion. Which leads directly into the opening track proper, which introduces a strange melody that will be stuck in your head FOREVER, woozy and exotic, draped over a crazy groove, and dappled with all sorts of squelches and melodic curlicues. Eventually some thick rubbery bass swoops in, and only adds to the track's catchiness, the percussion from the opening track returns, and suddenly, it's some crazy psychedelic fractured robotic funk. The rest of the record follow suit, employing these alternative pitch systems to craft melodies that while definitely alien, are totally irresistible, especially when locked into Goldmann's serious techno grooves. Mix in lots of buzz and gristle, plenty texture and loads of layers, let the sounds bleed and ooze, distort and decay, and you end up with one of the coolest, weirdest techno records we've heard. And absolutely a new favorite. Most definitely giving the Shed and Dixon records a run for their money.
Teranga Beat is yet another amazing world music label, who along with Sublime Frequencies, Yaala Yaala, Sham Palace and a few others, continue to discover some of THEE most amazing sounds around. Halleli N' Dakarou is a live recording from a West African outfit called Guelewar, their last in fact, captured in 1982, and is a fantastic document of the group, often described as one of the more/most psychedelic bands from Africa, due in no small part to their mix of classic African songcraft with more modern instrumentation, most notably, the Mini-Moog, which the band use to wreath their heady fuzzy Afro-funk in wild squiggly melodies and woozy swirling textures, the synth often all tangled up with spidery guitar melodies, and intricate rhythms, the band featuring SEVEN vocalists, and THREE percussionists, as well as a guitarist who is credited solely with "Guitar Solo".
While the sound won't be unfamiliar to fans of West African music, Guelewar definitely had their own unique take on the sound, tranced out and cyclical, most definitely psychedelic, the percussion creating a dense grooving framework beneath a constant swirl of melodies, super dynamic, funky for sure, but also mesmerizing and drone-y, many of the melodies almost raga like, wound around spiralling cascades of notes, as well as brief blurts of distorted psych guitar, the sound slipping easily from a jubilant high-life to warped synth driven grooviness, to something much more brooding and mysterious. Incredible stuff!
The packaging too is ace, super striking cover art, and extensive liner notes with tons of rare photos.
Drone records are a dime a dozen these days. Not that we don't love drone records, we do. In fact, often we're way too easy on the purveyors of drone, since the very essence of that sound, is so simple, and yet so completely satisfying to listen to. A guitar against the amp, a handful of keys on a keyboard held down, a loop cycled over and over and over, almost any sound smeared into a near static drift, we could listen to that stuff forever, and often do. But it's the rare drone record that uses the drone as just the jumping off point, as a foundation upon which to build a fragile and ephemeral structure of minimal melody and movement, instead of the beginning AND end. Stars Of The Lid are a good example, as is William Basinski, Tim Hecker and a handful of others.�
Horseback too. We were sent this disc out of the blue and immediately fell in love. Only later to discover that this was the work of a faithful AQ mailorder customer by the name of Jenks Miller! Small world. Horseback is most definitely a drone record, but manages to incorporate plenty of not specifically drone-like sounds. At once massive and dense, dark and distorted, but also ephemeral and airy, soaring and dreamlike. The root of the sound is a guitar, or guitars, allowed to reverberate and ring out, unfurling billowing clouds of distorted buzz and whir, that settles on the speaker like a thick blanket of snow, glistening and blinding, but at the same time warm and enveloping. The guitars pulse and swell, melodies drifting in and out, streaks of feedback, all wound up into a huge softly roiling glowing orb of sound.�
It's almost unfair to call this a drone record, as it's so lush, and rich, and full of motion, sprawling out like some sort of sonic sunrise, the sounds gradually changing color, everything shifting and shimmering and transforming subtly as the record progresses. So much more than just a simple 'drone' record. In fact, it's easy to hear Galaxie 500, Spacemen 3, Loop, Flying Saucer Attack, that sort of spaced out doped up drift, all smeared into Horseback's haunting sun dappled world of slow burning sound.
Elsewhere piano drifts amidst the dense guitar swells, and rhythms are provided by pulsing guitars and various sounds beating against one another. Vocals hover way below the surface, barely audible, but adding another layer of lilting mystery, near the end, the guitars peel back gradually revealing a blurry expanse of swirling cymbals and splattery free jazz percussion, all spread out into a buzzy sizzling swirl, over which the final haunting piano notes drift and fade. So gorgeous. Absolutely one of our favorite new records, a practically perfect fade-out-drift-off-drone-dream-disc, and quite an auspicious start for this brand new label...
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Now part of that special $5 cd sale deal, so there's no excuse not to own a copy of this vintage heavy classic (even just to check it out if you haven't heard it before). Here's an expanded version of what we said about this when we first listed the cd version some years ago:
Newly remastered and reissued, the James Gang indeed "Rides Again", the title of this, their 2nd album, from 1970. Their first and third albums, Yer Album (1969) and Thirds (1971) have also received the same treatment, and we have 'em, but this is our favorite. Guitarist Joe Walsh (pre-Eagles, y'know) and his biker rock cronies Dale Peters and Jim Fox supply the famed '60s headbang "Funk #49" on this disc, along with extended musical suite "The Bomber" and some beautiful acoustic tunes mixed into the electric rawk. A classic indeed.
Also, does the lettering/logo on the cover look at all familiar? It should, to anyone with who has seen our aQ logo. Heh heh heh. That's how much we like this one...
Last time we listed Jandek's most recent album Maze Of The Phantom and the response was pretty great, so it only made sense to backtrack a few steps with this similarly amazing album highlighting what seems to be a new direction for this legendary songsmith. For the sake of convenience it's easy to divide Jandek's massive catalog into the early, later, and live stages. But with this and Maze, Jandek seems to have effortlessly glided into new realms that bring the energy and mood of his recent live shows into the studio for some surprising and very rewarding listening. And by "studio", we aren't talking Jandek's house in Houston, but something at least approximating a professional recording setup. Which is good, because the interaction between the musicians and the spaciousness of the room are essential to the feel of this material. Like Maze Of The Phantom, the free jazz influence is strong here, with piano and evocative drumming providing the backbone for the songs, which also include some classic Jandek-style harmonica shrieking and spare vocals from the man himself and someone that we halfway suspect may be frequent collaborator Richard Youngs (ok, we just checked, it is, and that's drummer Alex Neilson on here too, though apparently all three switch instruments from time to time). While things generally flow quite melodically, guitar and bass are featured on some of the numbers, leading to some of the most tensely awesome moments on the record where it sort of sounds like the Godz or the Red Crayola at their most zoned jamming with Henry Cowell. Elements of the classic group recordings are present, and it is interesting to note how well Jandek's music is served by drummers who either seem to have picked up sticks for the first time OR know their way around a kit, like Neilson does here; the overall result remains strikingly similar and unique to Jandek.
Thankfully Jandek shows no signs of slowing down - he never really has - and not many artists could continually reinvent and redefine themselves with such awesome and uncompromising results. Jandek albums represent a musical journey free from the guiding laws of industry and popular culture, approaching levels of freedom that most musicians will never reach. And while that has led some not so easy listening in the past, things here sound unmistakably joyous, even in the darker moments. Rather than leading the show, the man seems more like a conductor as well as a participant in a telepathically linked ensemble. You get the feeling that this is music to be shared and experienced with people. Another vital release that has us looking forward to whatever comes next.
We began our review of Katatonia's last full length, Night Is The New Day, with these words: "Nobody does heartbreaking heaviness like Sweden's Katatonia", and really, we couldn't think of any better way to start this review, of their brand new full length, Dead End Kings, which takes up EXACTLY where Night left off, sweeping epic minor key bombast fused to brooding metallic balladry, bordering on the symphonic at times, their metal past only present in the muscular riffing and the occasional bursts of chugging guitar, otherwise these guys continue to craft a super distinctive, and distinctly NOT metal sound that manages to be instantly recognizable, even to folks who may have given up on them long ago, which at this point is probably a good chunk of their original fans. Cuz at one point, these guys were in fact a metal band, their iconic Discouraged Ones record signaling their shift toward something more melodic and to our ears still the perfect hybrid of metal crush and dramatic brood, like the Cure or Red House Painters gone metal. And over the years, they've continued to hone and perfect that sound, and now it just seems so effortless, every song catchy and dark, heavy and haunting, moody and melancholy, soaring and majestic, and just so goddamn good. We know plenty of folks who don't dig this at all, and to a certain degree we can understand why, we hear people make comparisons to Alice In Chains (who we love btw), Three Doors Down, even Creed or Nickelback, and sonically, there are definitely similarities, but Katatonia are so much more, their metal past, even now relegated to a subtle influence here and there, most definitely informs their sound, and they take that brooding stadium rock, and infuse it with some serious pathos, and the heavy parts are still HEAVY, the melodies so mournful and gorgeously miserable, this time around there are even strings, which only make the sound that much more epic and cinematic. As we've mentioned in past reviews, we LOVE these guys, and with every record they just get better and better. Some of us here have been listening to this nonstop since it came in...
One of our main complaints about garage rock, (and hell, most music in general) is that to a certain degree, it's easy to get the sound right, but the sound is really nothing without actual songs. Plenty of bands can bash it out Oh Sees style, or get all Stoogesy, but no amount of vintage amps, old mics, beat up guitars, blown out vocals, pounding drums, and swaggery snarly attitude can make up for a dearth of hooks or melodies. Sure a band like that can be a blast live, if all you want to do is sweat and bleed and fuck shit up, but bands like that tend to not translate so well on record. Cuz once the visceral live experience, of careening wildly against the stage in a heaving sweaty throng, ear drums blasted, body battered and bruised, is stripped away, you're often left with something that pales in comparison to the live experience.
And that was actually our first impression of Lamps, the first track here especially, a speaker shredding blast of garage-noise that rivals the full blown intensity of Japanese garage noiseniks Acid Eater, a pounding jangle and stomp peppered with bursts of grinding full on in-the-red NOISE, but the weird thing is, we found ourselves playing that track over and over, and eventually even those noisy bits, became somehow catchy. And as the rest of the record unfolded, it all somehow made more sense. The hookiness, the melodies, the catchiness that we look for in bands like this, was still present, just way more subtle, utterly buried or obscured in places, but then in the midst of some droned out riff heavy pound, a hook will surface, and drag you in, and suddenly, the record, and the sweaty, bloody live show don't sound all that far apart.
Nothing else on the record is as totally blown out as the opener, but the sound does tend way more toward the noise rock side of the sonic spectrum, than the garage rock, jagged shards of super distorted guitar, thick rumbling bass, yowled vocals, huge clouds of psychedelic noiseguitar freakouts, tranced out hypnorock crush wreathed in swirls of crumbling distortion, squalls of feedback, the sound frequently coalescing into parts that are surprisingly poppy, but only briefly, seeming to always devolve into something way more messy, noisy, heavy, and gloriously chaotic.
Fans of the current crop of garage rockers (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, etc.) probably already dig these guys, but really, anyone who's into all the kick ass noise rock we've been listing lately: Metz, the Men, etc. should check these guys out for sure!
It's tough being a Liars fan. They seem to exist to confuse and confound, almost every record dramatically different than the last, this new one is no different. That is to say, it's TOTALLY different. But it might just be our favorite on yet. Another dramatic shift in style and sound finds these guys conjuring up a strange, droned out electro-pop. Raspy Peter Gabriel sounding vocals over billows of synths, skeletal rhythms, that can be churning and robotic one second, krautrocky and propulsive the next, and then even sorta dubsteppy the next, with thick slabs of wobbly bass. The sound on the surface is spare, but there's a lot going on, with layered loops, vocal snippets that are sliced and diced and collaged into strange melodies, or made into rhythms themselves, some twisted mad scientist beats, but those beats tend to be engineered for maximum mesmer, instead of the dancefloor. That said, plenty of these tracks do have some groove to them, it's just that those grooves often act more as textural framework, for songs that without would otherwise drift aimlessly. Some of the tracks here have a sort of nocturnal downtempo Portishead style vibe, but most of the record actually sounds a bit like Radiohead, fusing a sort of alien future funk to some sort of minimal electronic pop, like an underwater Kid A, murky and muted, sort of laid back, but also kind of driving, and hypnotic and mesmerizingly addictive. Sans vocals, this could be some mysterious minimal electronica, but the Liars transform it into their own brand of electro pop minimalism.
Lp version includes a cd cope as well!
Christoph Heemann (of HNAS , Mirror, and many other storied tape music/drone outfits), finds himself in yet another collaboration, this time with none other than aQ faves, Chicago's blackened doom drone duo Locrian, and the results are fruitful to say the least. Albeit a bleak and black fruit, that the shiny and happy amongst you might be hesitant to taste. But then, there's much to enjoy, even for the less adventurous, in the moody drifting darkness conjured up here.
We see Locrian dialing back the harshness in favor of a more hushed and dreary post apocalyptic soundscapery. Opener "Hecatomb" starts with a creepily stark, almost Nitschian drone, complete with what sound like a cacophony of burbling horns, with disassociated fragments of 12 string guitar floating atop a heady haze of drifting textures. Part way through a lush drift of beautiful piano harmonies intermingle with a pulsating tom tom, while scraping doom-laden electronics lie buried beneath the surface, creating a haunting whirlpool of mesmeric aphotic bliss. The proceedings take a much grimmer turn with "Loathe The Light". As the title suggests, this is a dark one. Wonderfully depressive skeletal guitars outline the overall feeling of doomed helplessness. Scraping cymbals swell and clang and hiss, tortured blacked screams reverberate inside some long forgotten cavern. The mood is tense and forlorn and beautiful. "Edgeless City" has more of a lost in the cold depths of space vibe. Writhing guitar textures seep out across a barren moonscape, buzzing and dubbed out, it builds subtly into a spacious brooding stasis. A throbbing grumbling underpins the whole thing, a moody desolate soundtrack for impending end times. The last cut "The Drowned Forest" is a deep and murky miasma of death time vocal crooning and cold twisting drone harmonics, completely enveloping and angelic, like a much bleaker depressive Tim Hecker, the track as a whole developing into a churning lush hypnotizing swirl of glacial black drone. A stunning collaboration brought to us by the always ruling Handmade Birds imprint. RECOMMENDED!
Fyi, there's a cd version too, we have a handful, waiting to get more though...
We've been trying to get these for ages now, a super deluxe, extravagantly packaged lp+7" reissue of the soundtrack to David Lynch's Eraserhead. They came, and went, and now it's apparently been repressed, but those are going fast too, limited to 1000 copies. We managed to get just ten, and aren't sure our supplier has any more now. So, if you want one, grab one quick before they're gone.
Before we get to the actual music though, it's probably best to come clean, and admit that the person writing this review (as well as at least a couple other people at aQ) has NEVER actually seen Eraserhead! A travesty we know, not sure how we managed to make it this far without seeing it, we always meant to, and we WILL, especially now that we've gotten an earful of this amazing soundtrack. Much more abstract and noisy, droney and minimal than we expected. The first few minutes, all blurred noise, and rumbling low end, a smeary bit of ambient drift that sounds like Organum or Lustmord. Sinister and a bit harrowing, eventually all sorts of subtle sounds enter the mix, distant calliope melodies, like from a carousel way off in the distance, fog horns, all smeared into the smudged grey thrum that oozes across side one. Eventually, that low end is dialed back, leaving more of that mysterious organ music, this time wreathed in an insectoid hum, like a sky full of crickets, laced with Raster Noton like glitches and clicks, having not seen the movie, but being of course familiar with much of the iconic imagery, these sounds seem like the perfect sonic accompaniment, the score is peppered with strange dialog, and swirling hissy swooshes, sinister swells of blackened thrum, keening feedback, muted into minimal melodies, the sound noisy and industrial, and almost like some weird field recording flecked experimental drone record you might hear on Type or Blackest Rainbow, all wreathed in a sort of otherworldly hazy, which gives the whole thing a creepy, darkly psychedelic vibe.
The flipside begins with what sounds like a field recording of a couple in bed, creaking springs, rustling covers, which is soon swallowed up by a huge wheezing wall of atonal chords and layered tones, all draped over the sounds of choking, driven by a strange percussive pound. A long stretch of hiss and hum, gives way to haunting church organ, then cavernous rumbles, the whole second half of the soundtrack a wild, noisy chaotic collage of dense drones and crumbling noise, of whirling wind and fractured melodies, lots of buzz and crunch, creak and howl, it sounds less like a soundtrack and more like some lost record by Nurse With Wound, or Psychic TV or Throbbing Gristle. Super rad, and even removed from the visuals, this is a killer slab of lo-fi musique concrete, abstract free form noise and post industrial dronescaping.
The bonus 7" features "In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)", which is some gorgeously creepy organ driven balladry, with woozy falsetto vox and lots of warble and buzz; it sounds a little bit like a dronier, doomier Daniel Johnston, and there's even a little note on the sleeve about how this specific track came to be. The B-side is a never before release bonus track called "Pete's Boogie", which is anything but a boogie, instead it sounds like it oozed right off the soundtrack, all buried organ melodies, hissing shimmer, and wheezing looped rumbles, creepy and haunting and seriously freaky. Which pretty much describes the whole soundtrack, and yeah, we know, the whole movie as well.
The packaging is totally swank, with a thick black and white gatefold sleeve, the singe to housed in a heavy sleeve, both adorned with images from the film, inside a huge booklet with still more photos, as well as several photographic prints, AND a download code.
Super awesome, and again SUPER LIMITED. This is probably your last chance to snag one of these at a somewhat reasonable price. As they say, buy now, or cry later.
Prepare to be soothed and elated. Here's the second album from Majeure, aka A.E. Paterra, one half of Zombi. (FYI, the other half of Zombi, Steve Moore, also has a new solo album out, Light Echoes on Cuneiform, that we'll hopefully have reviewed for you next time around!)
Any longtime aQ customer knows we're big Zombi fans, and of the duo's respective solo work too. In fact, the first Majeure album, Timespan, was a Record Of The Week. So this new one, well, it's great, that's a given really. But beyond that, we're have a hard time coming up with stuff to say about it. What to add to what we've said already about Majeure's brand of propulsive, synth-laden, spacey instrumentals? (Of Timespan, we wrote: "Sprawling spaced out sci-fi electronic minimal kraut disco epics of the highest order. Fusing the creepy film music of Vangelis and John Carpenter with the pulsing hypnotic minimalism of Steve Reich or Philip Glass, even some propulsive motorik Can style krautrock, all woven into sprawling spaced out psychedelic futuristic retro faux film music, layered synths, looped melodies, and a killer mix of programmed rhythms and live drumming".) This new disc is a bit less sprawling, with only one of the six songs breaking into the double-digits duration-wise. And the mood is perhaps lighter and lovelier. But otherwise, what? We will stress that A.E. Paterra really knows what he's doing. (Moore too, on his discs.) This is well-crafted, retro cosmic shimmering synth bliss with some groove, yeah. We're lovin' it. It's like New Age disco music, and we mean that in a good way.
Ok, why not let's list all the gear Paterra is credited with playing on this: "drums, Moog Source, Moog Voyager OS, Kawai SX-240, Korg Lambda, Korg Polysix, Roland Alpha Juno 2 + Roland PG-300, Arp Omni II, Ursa Major Space Station, Mu-Tron Bi Phase, and an old German plate reverb". You don't even have to know what all that stuff is to get an idea about what this album is like. But gadgetry aside, what's more important is, like we said, Paterra knows how to use all those synths to make truly mesmeric music, that sounds both authentic and enjoyable.
Majeure's retro-vision isn't limited to the music - the art and graphic design is nostalgically spot-on. In fact, while there will be a vinyl lp release of this (which was bumped back a bit), the compact disc is the way to go anyway, on account of how they've replicated the '80s look, including the text explaining the superior performance of the Compact Disc Digital Audio System, and how to care for your new cd ("If you follow these suggestions, the Compact Disc will provide a lifetime of pure listening enjoyment"), which proudly bears the DDD code meaning a digital tape recorder was used for recording, mixing and mastering. At the same time, the cover looks like it's been reduced down from an lp-sized original, everything in tiny type, the tracklist divided between a side 1 and side 2. Nice.
Holy crap, Bazillion Points does it again, another amazing book, and another collection rescuing some amazing influential zine from oblivion, this one collecting all of the issues of legendary Southern California punk zine We Got Power, which was edited by Mr. Dave Markey, who if you're a SoCal eighties punk nerd, you might know better as the director of both Lovedolls Superstar and Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, and yeah later The Year That Punk Broke, but those movies, starring of course Redd Kross and a who's who of the scene, were perhaps our favorite documents of that era. We missed out the We Got Power zine, which existed from 1981-1983, and consisted of five issues (although a sixth unreleased issue is included here) and featured pretty much everyone and anyone you could want to read about: Flipper, Wasted Youth, Nervous Gender, Red Cross (before they became Redd Kross), Overkill, Saccharine Trust, DOA, Misfits, Channel Three, T.S.O.L, No Crisis, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Bad Religion, Minor Threat, Husker Du, Suicidal Tendencies, Circle Jerks, Vandals, White Flag, Necros, and more more more. Not to mention, record reviews, show reviews, columns, amazing ads for classic records, and assorted other silliness/radness. The amazing thing is, that the reprints of We Got Power, barely take up any of the book. The majority of which is made up of essays by Henry Rollins, Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena, Keith Morris, Mike Watt, Pat Fear and tons of others, but the real treasure here are the loads of rare vintage photos documenting the scene at the time, which of course included Redd Kross, the Gun Club, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, The Descendents, The Minutemen, Saccharine Trust, Government Issue, Social Distortion, JFA, the Big Boys, Nip Drivers, Suicidal Tendencies, fIREHOSE, Butthole Surfers, D.R.I. and so much more, not to mention amazing shots of club kids and punks, old venues, various locations that are gone, or that have been totally transformed, it's an incredible look back at not just the scene, but the time, and the place, and the people.
A thick coffee table style hardcover book, with swank debossed full color covers, and it weighs a ton, so mailorder folks, this will get shipped by weight, not at the single item rate, just FYI.
Somehow this is the very first full length from Michael Mayer we've reviewed, although we've long been fans, and have dug his tracks on a bunch of the Kompakt total compilations. But this new one is a doozy, don't let the goofy title fool you. The record starts out super dark and atmospheric, thick swirls of textured shimmer, haunting melodies, everything wreathed in a druggy haze, the sound less Kompakt techno, heck, even less Pop Ambient, and more sort of electronic chamber music / drone folk, super soundtracky and cinematic, the opening track sounds like it could have been plucked straight out of the opening credits of some mysterious foreign art film. The second track starts out similarly, before dropping a big beat, into the almost Bernard Hermann sounding soundscape below, but it makes for a heady combo, the gauzy soundtracky backdrop infusing the beat with some serious pathos, and then Mayer adds in all sorts of electronics, and eventually adds female voices, blurred into an angelic smear, the sound blossoming into something strangely groovy and weirdly funky, but still dark and moody.
Not all of the record is so cinematic, with the sound dipping into more straight ahead Kompakt style techno, or retro Goblin / Carpenter style synth grooves, but throughout the record, Mayer continues to return to that murky mysterious soundcaping of those first few tracks, like on "Roses", where he samples some old folk song, and stretches the final word of the lyric into a gauzy blur, before adding the beat, or the strange harp driven birdsong laced exotica of "Baumhaus", or the horn flecked, xylophone heavy, techno-ska thing that is "Rudi Was A Punk", which might be the coolest/weirdest track here. But then there's the closer, which is total Euro techno electro pop, right down to the crooned dramatic vocals and house-y groove. It's goofy for sure, but after a minute or two of thinking "I should skip this track", you find yourself not wanting it to end...
A few weeks back, we got an unsolicited email from someone called Mr. Peter Hayden. Not being someone we had ever heard of, we might have just deleted it, if it weren't for the subject line, which read: "Finnish music trying to impress you." Hmmm. Still skeptical, we opened the email, only to discover that Mr. Peter Hayden was not in fact a person, but a five piece psychedelic combo from Finland, who had recently got some serious love on Julian Cope's Head Heritage website. The email also ended with the line: "I know every word I write here is a waste of our time until You take an hour off and dive deep in to the worlds the album will take You." We were pretty much sold. After all, Finland. Check. Psychedelic. Check. Cope. Check.
And once we threw it one, we were not disappointed, in fact, we were wondering, being the weirdo Finnish music obsessives we are, and being super obsessed with all strains of psychedelic space rock heaviness, how the hell we had missed out on these guys? Well, better late than never, and really all it took was about a minute and we knew this probably had to be a Record Of The Week. Heavy, atmospheric, druggy, dynamic, psychedelic, pounding drums, soaring guitars, streaks of feedback, wailing melodies, long stretches of swirling spaciness between bursts of chugging heaviness, and that's only a couple minutes in, total trip out heavy head music for sure. A single seventy minute jam, that builds and builds and builds, from that first blast of psychedelic heaviness, chugging, and churning, the sound gradually grows less and less spares, more propulsive, more metallic, by about six minutes in, the song has transformed into a roiling sprawl of psychedelic doom, but sort of freeform, and a little bit jazzy, the guitars riffing, but also splintering into wild squalls of tangled melodies, and unfurling lush swirling textures, the sort of rare sonic beast that immediately entrances, first time we listened to this, we listened to the whole thing all the way through, totally mesmerized, and in a druggy, hypno-rock trance. And speaking of hypno-rock, just wait a few more minutes and the band locks into a seriously cyclical groove, seemingly channeling vintage Circle, but augmenting the minimal riffage of Circle with clouds of psychguitar shimmer, and what sounds like a phalanx of buzzing humming synths (maybe just more guitars), wild dense tangles of thick corrosive guitar buzz, chordal swells, all wrapped around a main riff that just chugs along all hypnotic and motorik.
The sound shifts constantly, without ever losing momentum, slipping at one point into a sort of doomy dirge, only to blossom into what might be the poppiest part of the record, all major key melody and soaring majesty, and then seconds later, to dial everything back, and unfurl a brooding stretch of ultra minimal meander, all super spare drumming, guitar buzzing like sitars off in the distance, the sound laced with fragmented riffs, strange FX, bits of squiggly melody, and all manner of slow shifting textures, woozy and washed out and dreamily druggy, all of this dreaminess eventually interrupted by some seriously metallic heft, a crushing drum heavy distorted riff churn, but still surrounded by a swirl of psychedelic shimmer, that somehow keeps it from being just heavy, and makes it both heavy, and blissfully psychedelic.
The heaviness seems to ooze and expand, the various guitars switching from riffing to spiraling soaring melodies, a lurching lumbering groove that as far as we're concerned continue to the end of the record, but Mr. Peter Hayden have other things in mind, slipping into some soaring near Godspeed like post rock epic-ness, not to mention a weirdly mathy almost metallic breakdown, and throughout, more stretches of hushed minimal drift, softly psychedelic, drowsily dreamy, a continual push/pull between blown out psych and space rock crush, and blissed out mesmer and shimmery lysergic ambience, but like any great record of its stripe, Born A Trip ends with a serious blast of psychedelic heaviness, sounding like Neurosis almost, epic and crushing, blown out and metallic, a heavy psych coda that eventually fades into a final stretch of droned out slo-mo minimalism. Wow. So great.
obviously so very recommended for fans of Carlton Melton, White Hills, 3 Leafs, Gnod, Sylvester Anfang, and other interstellar psychedelic space rock explorers, as well as all of you who dig motorik Circle style hypnorock, Finnish freakiness, and just trippy spacey heaviness in general. Definitely a Record Of The Week, but a serious contender for Record Of The YEAR as well...
We never thought we'd say this, but it's been a while since we've heard from Nadja! Two whole years in fact. There is a collaborative lp we're been meaning to review, but this is the first proper new full length since 2010's Autopergamene, and even if we were inclined to dismissively think "oh, another Nadja record", we throw it on, and are immediately reminded why we remain sort of Nadja obsessed.
Another collection of super distorted, darkly blissed out metalgaze perfection, this time the guitars sound even MORE distorted, crumbling and blurring into washed out smears of chordal gristle, and if that wasn't enough to get you excited about a new Nadja, howabout the fact that in place of the usual drum machine, is none other than Jesus Lizard drummer Mac McNeilly, who adds some human heft to the equation, making Nadja sound more like a real band, a fantastically blown out dirge metal slowcore band, the opener, a lurching super dynamic slab of dream doom bliss out, with hushed vocals, pounding drums, and the aforementioned gorgeous guitar crumble, even at 11 minutes it's still not nearly long enough.
The second track almost sounds like a Jesus Lizard song, a little bit Slinty too, with its spidery minor key guitar part, you can imagine it recast as a burst of bombastic noise rock, but here, it becomes the framework for a cool, constantly shifting metallic blowout, which features some gorgeously hushed moments, but also Nadja at their most propulsive and rocking. The second half gets mathy, and again super dynamic, and it has us wishing Nadja had hooked up with McNeilly long before now. The title track is epic slow burn Neur-Isis style heaviness, a sound that Nadja borrowed, and opted to reimagine and make their own instead of returning, and they continue to do it better than almost anyone else. Soaring and majestic and crumblingly heavy! Which leads into the closer, a 14 minute sprawl of tribal drumming, smoldering drones, blown out psychedelic noise, buried vox, all smeared into a shoegazey shimmer, which fades out midsong, leaving the second half spare and spaced out, a slowcore creep, with big drums driving swirling guitars, delicate melodies, and barely there vocals. So good. And well worth the wait.
We love Fenriz. Not just cuz he's the drummer from legendary black metal duo Darkthrone, but cuz he's a funny, super opinionated, black metal mouthpiece, whose musical knowledge, especially when it comes to metal, but well beyond, are above reproach, and his related rants are hilarious. There's a reason they've been reissuing all the Darkthrone records with a second disc featuring Fenriz's 'director's commentary'. There's a reason he was the focus of the recent black metal documentary Until The Light Takes Us. And if you have the DVD, and there's a reason one of the bonus features is Fenriz in a classroom, with a bunch of blackboards, schooling the rest of us on the history/roots/development of black metal. But as we've discovered over the years, and as the above would attest to, Fenriz is not your normal black metaller. For one, he has a thing for techno, and electronic music as a whole, not to mention a bunch of other seriously non-metallic musics, one of which is spaced out kosmische synth music, a la Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Jean Michel Jarre.
Which resulted in a band mysteriously named Neptune Towers (aka Fenriz and only Fenriz), and a pair of records (with a third that was unreleased) woven together by some overarching sci-fi concept. Sure, by now, synth projects, well, everybody's got one, but in 1994, to have some underground black metal icon release a synth record, well, it was a bit shocking. But what was even more shocking, was how goddamn good they were. Listening to this stuff again now, if the circumstances were a bit different, Fenriz could have essentially been Expo 70 or Zombi neary two decades ago! Sure lots of metalheads probably have this or want it, but all the kids today into the whole retro Goblin / Carpenter kosmische synth axis, will be blown away to discover this slab of brooding, epic, droned out, synthscapery.
Caravans To Empire Algol is part one of Fenriz's Algol mythology, and is self described as "Deep Space Alien Astral Synth", which is pretty much right on the money. The cover featuring a red hued cloud of stars, some mysterious corner of the galaxy, the liner notes simply read: "Escape The Earth. Unlike many synthesizer/space releases, this album has no vocals or drums. This is purposefully in order to enable the listeners to keep 'both feet off the ground.' Vocals and drums are particularly earthbound instruments that would eclipse the mission of this disc. Escape the earth." The original liner notes further suggest that the record "will only reach their optimal goal when heard alone. NOT FOR COLLECTIVE LISTENING." And finally, "Only effectively listenable on large black stereos. Deep space awaits. Neptune Towers supports extinction of all organic life forms. NO TAKEOFF. NO LIFE." And while that may have been a bit tongue in cheek, the sounds here seem to back up those boisterous claims, unfurling a seriously chilling sprawl of isolationist drift, like the soundtrack for some planetarium light show, but an old crumbling planetarium, tucked away in the woods, seemingly abandoned, except for these strange sounds emanating, and instead of stars projected on the ceiling, the building has crumbled, leaving the listener to stare directly into the blackness of deep space.
Two epic tracks, the title track clocking in at 24:35, and its sonic sequel, the 12:39 "The Arrival At Empire Algol" closing out this first installment of our sonic journey. Thick sitar like buzz, droned out, and drifting above a hissing swirl of shimmer that seems to float from speaker to speaker, the sound occasionally building into something more distorted and crumbling, almost like SUNNO))) or some sort of black noise combo, but blurred and billowing, haunting and ominous, the sounds rough and raw, heavily textured, primitive and lo-fi, but somehow transcending their genesis and blossoming into something truly cosmic, a pulsing krautrock style synth throb just beneath the surface.
The vibe is murky and minimal, but also trancey and psychedelic, a serious slab of home brewed kosmische, akin to some kid building a time machine in his bedroom, it's like Fenriz tinkered with his crappy old synth, until it opened a portal to some other dimension, to the far reaches of the universe, and these are the transmissions that came pouring out. And while lots of synth music borders on the new agey, there's nothing wimpy about this, this is synth music that rattles your skull and loosens your bowels, it really does evoke some sort of otherworld, some journey into the unknowable, conjuring up not just the mysterious of the unknown, but the harrowing journey to get there.
About nine minutes in, the clouds part a bit, letting shards of prismatic melody shine through, giving the proceedings a celestial vibe, but soon it settles back into something much more haunting and ominous, long tones, unravelling over a softly swirling sea of tangled melodic murk, yet it remains still weirdly majestic, until the almost bombastic final minutes, dirgey, and distorted, but a groovy bassline that seems to lurk just below the surface throughout, which is what gives this a subtly krautrock feel, and that near the end is panned hard and swings from speaker to speaker, while the synths grind away, slipping back into the sitar like buzz of the opening few minutes.
The second track is much more minimal, the buzz pushed into the background, a low level insectoid hum draped over the glimmering sonic starfield, the feel here even more raw and primitive, a mad scientist concoction, the buried melodies, and delicate textures doused in lots of noise and hiss, and strange sonic artifacts, intentional or otherwise, most likely the limitations of the original synth/4-track set up, but those limitations become as much a part of the sound as anything else, all smeared into a washed out haze, rife with strange barely there melodies, keening feedback, buried percussive thumps, and layers of thick undulating low end whir, all of which eventually devolves into a blurry sprawl of flanged rumbles and melodic moans, all sprawled into an endless series of blackened swells, laced with strange little bits of electronic filigree, sent into the ether like some doomed sonic transmission.
So incredible. ANYONE who digs all the dark synth kosmische cinematic soundscaping that is going on today, will flip for this. Especially if you have a large black stereo to play it on. Comes with updated artwork, swank slipcover, and new liner notes from Fenriz, explaining the genesis of Neptune Towers, and exactly what happened to the lost third part of the Algol trilogy.
Really, at this point, what else is there to say about long running epic doom/sludge outfit Neurosis that we (or someone else) hasn't already? Their sound, ever evolving, remains a template for a million bands that have and will continue to follow in their gargantuan footsteps. The arrival of each new record is an event unto itself. Their performances, increasingly rare, rival Godspeed and Phish and the Grateful Dead in terms of obsessive and slavish fan worship, with fans driving hours, even flying to see them perform. And anyone (including us) will tell you it's well worth it, their performances visceral and emotional, punishing and epic. And they continue to masterfully craft their own brand of brooding, majestic heaviness, even now, nearly THIRTY years in.
This latest full length finds them once again returning to Electrical Audio in Chicago, with Steve Albini manning the mixing board, having been recording them since 1999's Times Of Grace, and while we all have our favorite Neurosis records (Andee's is Enemy Of The Sun, Allan's is Souls At Zero), they've yet to make a bad record. And while they continue to crush and pummel, they have also mellowed with age, or maybe more accurately, gotten more comfortable expanding the group' sonic palette, and it definitely suits them, this new record might be the most varied, and in some ways the least heavy yet.
The opener almost sounds like Neurosis channeling Lungfish, the same sort of looped trancelike mesmer, with the vocals delivered in a staccato sung/spoken bark, the vibe a little bit groovy too, a strange opener for sure, but about halfway through it slips into huge heaving riffery, and yet instead of sounding crushingly heavy, it's more sort of washed out and psychedelic, the heaving riffs, laced with woozy melodies, and weary clean vox.
We can't help but think Steve Von Till's and Scott Kelly's forays into folky singer songwriter territory and their obsession with the late great Townes Van Zandt, hasn't informed the sound of Neurosis, with "At The Well" starting off with some spare guitar shimmer, and Von Till's raspy croon, and even when the hammer falls, it isn't the same sort of Neurosis pummel we would have expected, it remains mournful and melodic, and a little bit twangy, and it might just be our imagination, but we hear slivers of slide guitar drifting in the background, which gives the song even more of a melancholic vibe. "Bleeding The Pigs" too starts off a bit croony, but quickly evolves into something more fierce and feral only to lock into a long stretch of droned out psychedelia, that reimagined with different instrumentation could easily have turned into some brooding dark folk. And even in the heavy parts, that folkiness subtly surfaces again and again.
And as the record plays out, you begin to realize that in some ways, this is in fact a way different sounding group, with the churning, gnarled super distorted heaviness, relegated to a supporting role, the second half of "Casting Of The Ages", the final few minutes of "Bleeding The Pigs", sounding especially like old Neurosis with weird samples, tribal drumming, and anguished bellowed vox, but really, most of the rest of the record seems to be more contemplative, with strings surfacing here and there, acoustic guitars, long stretches of post rocky minimalism, brooding expanses of hushed drift, and then when the riffs come in, the pounding drums, they seem to be infused with a sort of mournful energy, and seem to be recorded in such a way, that the sound is more psychedelic, more lush and enveloping, a hammer wrapped in velvet, the band unfurling some of their moodiest, and most majestic material yet, which we imagine, live, could still translate into something utterly brutal and punishing, but here, exists as something much more measured and mature, a darkly melodic, occasionally metallic, moody musical fugue that is as much brooding heavy post rock and roiling psychedelic heaviness as it is doom dirge crush, and more often than not, much more so.
While they last, we have the limited version in slightly oversized gatefold digi-packaging, after which we'll have the slipcased jewelcase edition.
When this first came out way back in 1997, Andee and former aQ staffer Byram played this constantly, at least three times a day. Literally. It was and still is easily one of THEE best No Depression style records, and even now, 15 years later, it sounds as good as ever. With hook laden, lyrically shrewd song-writing, and serious kick ass rocking, the Old 97's are probably the only band of the No Depression movement to capture the intensity of early Uncle Tupelo without losing the earnestness or twang. The first song alone, "Timebomb," will get stuck in your head forever. And hearing it again after all these years, had us wishing the rest of the Old 97's records were this good. And it just doesn't let up, not a single dud in the bunch, "Big Brown Eyes" is another stone cold classic, not to mention the final track on the album proper, a singularly kick-ass number, features a duet with Exene from X, the sound an even balance between earnest twang flecked classic country balladry and wild rollicking punk infused country rock, with some of the catchiest songs EVER.
This deluxe edition features fancy new packaging with extensive liner notes from Old 97's frontman Rhett Miller, but more importantly, a BUNCH of bonus tracks, including four outtakes from the Too Far To Care sessions, and a whole disc of previously unreleased demos, including a handful of never before heard songs!!
We'd been meaning to list this for a while now, the lp debut of Paco Sala, aka Antony Harrison, who normally does time in the outfit Konntinent. In Paco Sala, he indulges his love of hip hop and synth pop and Italo Disco, but in a way that obscures/obfuscates those influences, recasting them as part of a slightly darker sonic vision. The vibe hazy and ethereal, dubbed out rhythms, and woozy melodies, the sound a glorious slo-mo soul drag, synths drifting above chopped and screwed rhythms, whispered vox, softly psychedelic and ominously soulful, definitely reminds us of Burial and How To Dress Well, although Paco Sala's M.O. is definitely more home brewed and abstract.
The female vocals first surface on the second track, a lazy, sultry croon over a skeletal beat, and a dense swirl of swoonsome synths and fractured melodies, more dubbed out beats, and soaring strings, the whole thing infused with some pulsing electro skitter. Lush and lovely, late night electro soul dream dub that displays shades of Portishead, and other nocturnal purveyors of downtempo sopor, but again, the sound of Paco Sala is much more fractured, beats splinter and spin into the ether, melodies seem to melt and ooze, the vocals wraithlike, wind their way through these sprawling expanses of beat driven shimmer. In places, the sound does crystallize, and sheds some of that hazy murk, revealing more of a soul pop core, but inevitably, the sounds drift back into some woozy netherworld, where Harrison's mad scientist sonic alchemy results in some gorgeously lysergic, electro-soul witch-dub weirdness.
We were super excited when we first heard about this single, assuming of course that it was gonna be a cover of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy", but once we got over our initial disappointment (or not), we were still pretty psyched to discover, that it was in fact still a cover, but a Magnetic Fields cover, and as you might imagine, the song suits TPOBPAH's sound perfectly, so much so, that had we not been familiar with the original, we would not have doubted for a second that it could have been an Pains original. Jangly, and propulsive, bouncy and hooky as hell, the vox here are handled by one of the boys in Pains, even though the cover apparently has deep meaning for Pains vocalist Peggy Wang, who found solace as a teenager in the music of the Magnetic Fields.
The flipside is another cover, this one originally by East River Pipe, and another perfect choice, supercharging the original, wreathing it in wild swaths of distorted guitar, and sheets of feedback, a heavy heady chunk of shoegazey jangle pop, that definitely finds Pains at their most rocking, and also had us thinking we should dig out our old East River Pipes, which is precisely what the best covers should do...
Looks like we've got a new contender for pop record of the year! After a clutch of kick ass singles, the debut full length from these San Diego garage pop punks more than fulfills the promise of those 7"s, a non stop barrage of hook heavy noise pop bliss out, big jangly crunchy guitars, pounding drums, echo drenched whiney boy vox, hooks galore, crazy catchy choruses, everything sort of lo-fi and blown out, the songs laced with occasional squalls of psychguitar freakout, and super distorted guitar melodies woven into the jangle and crunch, the sound a little bit surfy, a lot bit garagey. Some of the tracks definitely remind us of Thee Oh Sees, some of the others like Jeff The Brotherhood, we described these guys in a past review as Eat Skull crossed with the Fresh & Onlys, which is still pretty on the mark, although on this full length, Plateaus have really come into their own, taking everything they've borrowed and transforming it into something their very own, all the sounds cranked, and in the red, the vibe is loud as fuck, but still beholden to classic jangle pop. It's not hard to imagine these guys actually hailing from NZ and not SD, their sound rife with classic Kiwi jangle popisms, but obviously filtered through the current crop of garage pop. Not sure what else to say, other than we can't stop listening to this, and every time we play it we have a new favorite songs. Summer may be gone but drop that top, put on a hat and scarf, bundle up and blast this like you were cruising down the coast, basking in the summer sun...
Where last year's Raven In The Grave found Danish boy/girl shoegaze fuzz poppers the Raveonettes moving in a distinctly darker direction, the sound much grittier than past efforts, Observator is pretty much the exact opposite, the sound warm and sun dappled, jangly and seriously summery. Opener "Young And Cold" is a lush slab of gauzy dream pop, that sounds more Best Coast than Jesus And Mary Chain, their sixties girl group worship in full swing, the song laced with piano and acoustic guitar, drifting in clouds of echo drenched fuzz, the boy/girl harmonies divine and dreamy. But even amidst all this warm shimmer and washed out bliss pop, the band do still indulge in their knack for melancholia, wrapping minor key melodies around crunchy drum machines, or stretching out keening tones into blurry sonic swells, the vocals languorous and laid back. "Observations" is a bit of a brooder, especially following that opening track, but it still manages to glow with a dark energy, which leads directly into "Curse The Night", which is a dead ringer for Blonde Redhead, all wavery female vocals over spidery guitar melodies, simple propulsive drumming, and a gorgeous fuzzy chorus, druggy and divine.
And so it goes, the band still master popsmiths ("The Enemy" will be stuck in your head for ages), crafting warm fuzzy hook filled gems, with just enough emotion and pathos to keep things interesting. And be sure you make it to the closer, "Till The End", which is a crazy catchy, guitar heavy slab of fuzzed out indie rock bliss, heavy on the shoegaze, and maybe the best track here!
Earlier this year, as we hope you recall, we made the "totally tripped out and hypnotic, stonery psych explorations" of Rhyton's self-titled debut for Thrill Jockey an aQ Record Of The Week� it was a limited edition lp, and even more limited cd, and neither version lasted long, flying out of here fast. Sorry if you missed it. Good news then, that at least the Brooklyn-based trio (featuring members of No Neck Blues Band and Psychic Ills) is back already with a new release, this one vinyl-only, and also limited - to just 619 copies, we're told.
On The Emerald Tablet, Rhyton offer up three more slowburning, instrumental psych jams (two of them quite long). Over steady percussive pulsations, side one's 19-minute opus "Obligation" slowly meanders, replete with echoing, effected whale call guitar distortion and improvised, sorta snake charmer melodies. Frazzled fuzz (from electric saz?) smolders amidst this laidback, krautrock inspired throbulation. Think Davis Redford meets Richard Bishop, something like that� There's a slight edge of jazzy skronk, too, moreso on side two's 13 and a half minute finale, with the esoteric-sounding title of "Trismegistus Sto Smaragda". That one's kinda like the first long track, meandery, but with more swing to it, and more chaotic sprawl. And in-between you get the spacey "Revert To Daze", six or so minutes that do sound quite dazed, but melodic and Middle Eastern-y too.
140 gram vinyl, jacket art by Arik "Moonhawk" Roper, includes mp3 download code.
Silent Servant's dour techno emerges from the now defunct Sandwell District collective of techno-heds keen on bending the Detroit / Berlin axis to allow for the grim pathologies of Industrial culture and all of its post-punk offshoots to infiltrate the boom-boom-boom of a 909 drum kick. Sandwell's Karl O'Connor is certainly the most vocal, hardlined, and aggressive of the District's members through the brutalist techno that he's produced over the years. His DJ sets are notorious for dropping Whitehouse and other power electronic squalor amidst furiously hard breakbeats. Juan Mendez (aka Silent Servant) strikes a gloomier pose than O'Connor through the Sandwell District and carries this over into the ethereally witched-out Tropic Of Cancer. Silent Servant's Negative Fascination drops from Hospital Productions, whose ghastly noise aesthetic parted once before for Cold Cave's gritty synth pop, making room for head honcho Dominic Fernow to follow suit with his own adventures in rhythm (e.g. Vatican Shadows, Christian Cosmos). If one were to imagine what Dom would want out of a techno record on Hospital, Negative Fascination is exactly what comes to mind - Chain Reaction's dub-inflected heroin house, Clock DVA's cybernetic futurism, and the atmosphere from the mournful dirges of New Order's first album.
A fine grit coats the production of Negative Fascination, and it's something that electronic purists may find off-putting, but it suits the bleakness and dystopian overtures that Mendez injects into his production. Acid-like gurgles propel the minimalist techno thump of "The Invocation Of Lust" and "The Strange Attractor" both of which rise and fall through a complex sequence of churning rhythms and shifting drones. "Temptation & Desire" lifts a taut rhythmic stab straight from The Sisters Of Mercy circa Body Electric and mutates it into a punchy minimal wave number with appropriately coldly theatrical drones hovering in the distant. The finale "Utopian Disaster" is right out of the Sandwell playbook of modulated techno sequencing, Chain Reactive dubby rhythms, and stealth bomber vibes. A fucking great record. (FYI, turntable types: the vinyl version's first pressing sold out, but is being repressed right now, so back in soon.)
This reissue isn't new, but we overlooked listing it when it came out and it's GREAT so figured better late that never. A one-off symphonic pop-psych masterpiece circa 1968, one of the many lost classics of the era, and really this is so good it's hard to understand how it wasn't a big hit. Listen to these songs and you'll wonder why as well. Southern California's The Smoke (not to be confused with the UK's Smoke of "My Friend Jack" fame, though these guys sound British too, and use British spellings and Peter Max style artwork) weren't really a band, but more of a studio concoction, the brainchild of 20 year old wunderkind producer Michael Lloyd, who was a founding member of the legendary West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. He also was responsible for producing (and writing most of the songs for) the lone album from '67 by a band called October Country. Like that fine band (whose Michael Lloyd-penned "theme song" is reprised here), Lloyd's own The Smoke is Beatles and Beach Boys influenced big time, total paisley pop perfection. Lloyd sure knew what he was doing. And we'd be surprised if discerning DJs haven't mined this album for breaks, what with all the fanciful baroque prog bits and lush orchestration in there alongside the wistful balladry.
Perhaps since The Smoke didn't play live, album sales never took off. Too bad, but we're so glad it's been reissued. And Lloyd at least went on to a very successful career as a producer for a bunch of big names in the '70s and '80s so you don't have to feel bad for him. But we think you'll be definitely happy to add the likes of "Cowboys And Indians" and "The Hobbit Symphony" to your personal '60s popsyke hit parade...
From the very first time we heard post punk / minimal wave / gloom pop one man band The Soft Moon (aka Luis Vasquez), we were totally smitten. The sound dark and menacing, distorted drum machines, buzzing low slung basslines, tangled melodies, all woven into a sort of lo-fi downer wave propulsion, that took the Cure, removed much of the overt poppiness, and instead recast it as some sort of home brewed post industrial goth wave, replete with breathy whispered vox, woozy minor key refrains and alien atmospheres, everything wreathed in a washed out eighties murk, noisy and rough around the edges, we couldn't get enough.
The Total Decay ep seemed to be an extension of the self titled debut, a perfect slab of similarly shadowy post punk nihilism, but if anything it was the bridge between that record and this one, where Vasquez' sound has blossomed into something even more perfect, a twisted dystopian future-wave, all thick, corrosive buzzing synths, and dubbed out machine funk, keening sine wave melodies, and woozy, echo drenched ambience. It's all about the sound. Really it always was, which is ironic since we often complain about bands getting the sound right, but not having the songs to back it up, but with The Soft Moon, while there are still songs lurking in the shadows, it's really all about the sound, and the sound is so impossibly perfect. All it takes is a few second of the opener, "It Ends", with it's dense blown out buzzing low end synth buzz, dubbed out hand clap rhythms, and frantic percussive skitter, not to mention the weirdly mournful keening melody over the top, it's like all the best parts of witch house, reimagined as some mutant strain of cold wave, we would have been perfectly happy if that sub two minute chunk of pulsing, buzzing witch-wave was stretched out to fill up the whole record, even if it just stayed locked in that witch loop. Sure it's an intro, but we've listened to it about 20 times in a row!
Thankfully, that alien electronic witch-wave oozes into the rest of the record, wrapping its inky tendrils around the more recognizable Soft Moon style of jagged rhythms, Factory style basslines, echo drenched guitar jangle, and hypno wave groove, cold and clinical, like the soundtrack to some alternate future, and as one grows accustomed to the sound, suddenly, as if by some slight of hand, the songs reveal themselves, a melody here, a vocal there, a hook hidden beneath a cascade of corrosive metallic crunch, a catchy chorus obscured by sheets of synth buzz and dubbed out robotic rhythms, repeated listens are definitely rewarded, the record acting almost as some sort of sonic portal, requiring a deep listening key, ultimately allowing the listener access to the inner workings of The Soft Moon's sentient musical machine.
Oh and stick around for the closer, a reverse bookend of that witch-wave opener, literally, as it's the opening track in reverse, which only makes it that much more psychedelic and fantastically fucked up.
Death Waltz is fast becoming one of our favorite reissue labels, all vinyl, all horror or suspense movie soundtracks, many of them extremely obscure, some not so much, all lavishly packaged in deluxe jackets with all new artwork, and extensive liner notes. It's almost impossible to resist the urge to collect them all, which is proving to be pretty difficult, considering how many records they're releasing, and the fact that they're a little pricey, but they're worth it, if you've seen/heard any of these, you know it's true. And while they've all been pretty stellar, this one might just be one of our faves.
The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue, aka Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, is a rad seventies hippie zombie movie about a serious of Manson like murders which are blamed on a hippie couple, when in fact the grisly crimes were committed by a horde of zombies brought back from the dead by a machine that uses radiation to kill insects!!
It's pretty crazy, and while it's been years since we've seen it, we remember being pretty blown away. But what we didn't remember, was how goddamn good, and crazy weird, the soundtrack was. A dizzying array of symphonic arrangements, funky almost disco-y grooves (with some breakbeats to DIE for), creepy operatic vocals, haunting dronescapes, and all manner of crazy 'zombie' vocals. Even separated from the film, the music here remains creepy and cool, fluttering woodwinds drift over a chorus of moans and groans, weird vocalizations meant to be zombies, countered by soaring plaintive female vox, crooning creepy laments, that at once point devolve into maniacal laughter. One of the tracks here is a wicked organ drive groove, heavy on the percussion, with a wild drum solo, the sort of thing we can't imagine hasn't been sampled like crazy. Strings soar, chaotic percussion all over the place, long layered drones, sinister black ambience, and the whole record is peppered with those strange undead vocal growlings and mewlings, the director of the film even contributes some vocals, doing his best crazed zombie. Some of the tracks even have a Perrey & Kingsley vibe, sorta playful and melodic, but the score is never far from another stretch if blackened sinister cinematic ambience. We've been listening to this like crazy, and it's making us want to see the movie again too!
As we mentioned before, super swank packaging, that immediately recognizable Death Waltz blue and black sleeve, with super striking painting on the cover. Notes from the composer on the back of the jacket, the inside sleeve featuring extensive liner notes AND a beautiful poster of the cover art.
Another list, another fantastic release from local label Time Released Sound. This the latest from a one man band called Stray Ghost, who fuses washed out soft focus atmospherics, a la Tim Hecker, Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, with more modern new classical composition. Lush blurry soundscapes, ebb and flow, gauzy expanses of hushed hazy thrum, which give way to delicate pointillist piano, sweeping and darkly dramatic, haunting and quite lovely, swirling strings, the sound cinematic and at times near symphonic, a sort of faded dreamlike chamber music, shifting easily from layered ominous clouds of brooding electronics, to spare, contemplative drift, to delicate, crystalline shimmer, the sound wistful and melancholy, the spare prettiness and the lush brooding swells, continually blurring into one another, creating a gorgeous bit of electronic / neoclassical modern minimalism.
As with all TRS releases, the Stray Ghost comes in two versions, the standard, which is a proper cd housed in a heavy digipak, which subtly mirrors the meticulously designed packaging of the deluxe version, which is limited to just 100 copies, and is packaged in a handmade sleeve created from hand sewn sheets of antique Braille paper, all held in an origami style black fold up sleeve, hand stamped and Braille labelled, inside various pockets containing antique charts and drawings. As always. WOW.
Another list, another fantastic release from local label Time Released Sound. This the latest from a one man band called Stray Ghost, who fuses washed out soft focus atmospherics, a la Tim Hecker, Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, with more modern new classical composition. Lush blurry soundscapes, ebb and flow, gauzy expanses of hushed hazy thrum, which give way to delicate pointillist piano, sweeping and darkly dramatic, haunting and quite lovely, swirling strings, the sound cinematic and at times near symphonic, a sort of faded dreamlike chamber music, shifting easily from layered ominous clouds of brooding electronics, to spare, contemplative drift, to delicate, crystalline shimmer, the sound wistful and melancholy, the spare prettiness and the lush brooding swells, continually blurring into one another, creating a gorgeous bit of electronic / neoclassical modern minimalism.
As with all TRS releases, the Stray Ghost comes in two versions, the standard, which is a proper cd housed in a heavy digipak, which subtly mirrors the meticulously designed packaging of the deluxe version, which is limited to just 100 copies, and is packaged in a handmade sleeve created from hand sewn sheets of antique Braille paper, all held in an origami style black fold up sleeve, hand stamped and Braille labelled, inside various pockets containing antique charts and drawings. As always. WOW.
