Cameron Stallones is back from his pilgrimage to Jamaica, where he made that FRKWYS album with The Congos, and now offers up a new Sun Araw album on his own Sun Ark imprint, full of damaged grooves and new twisted strain of avant dub weirdness, fragmented and spaced out, stumbling and super loose, the guitars spidery and echoey, the rhythms skittery and a bit abstract, the vocals doused in effects and WAY up in the mix, the whole thing sounds like it's melting, gradually decaying, peppered with blasts of fuzzy synth, swaths of swirly organ, percussion that sounds like clinking bottles, shuffling processed glitches. The tracks stutter and hiccup, never locking into a groove, so much as drifting and slipping from sound to sound, a series of swells, often fading out to near silence, before slipping back into it, some folks here thought it sounded kinda like Blues Control making a reggae album, while someone builds furniture next door (!), but some of us definitely got a serious Fastest vibe, total fractured outsider whatthefuck weirdo reggae action that will definitely have lots of folks scratching their heads and wondering what the hell is happening here. Although plenty of other folks will flip for Stallones' new, more damaged incarnation. Listen to the sound samples, and you'll know pretty much right away, which side you'll find yourself on.
Meandering and gloriously unfocused, The Inner Treaty definitely lacks some of the catchiness and groove of past Sun Araw releases, but for what it lacks in those areas, it makes up for in confusional weirdness, lacing its sundappled WTF dub with James Ferraro weirdo-wave retro VHS wooziness, and Ariel Pink / John Maus style avant drama-pop, and tangles it all up into something totally bizarre, something in fact that is so fucked up, it's like a musical car crash, we don't necessarily WANT to keep listening really, but somehow can't seem to stop ourselves. Very reservedly recommended, and even then, only for folks who like their music a bit baffling. Which come to think of it, is probably a whole lot of you.
How can you resist a dub record called Dial M For Murder, especially when the word 'Murder' is printed in red, and is dripping blood, the album cover a crude sketch of a knife wielding hand stabbing a telephone?? Well, obviously the answer is you can't! But then why would you even want to try? Sadly (or perhaps thankfully for some), the murder theme pretty much stops at the cover art / record title, the music though is pure classic dub, played by a band of reggae dub killers, Sly & Robbie, Tommy McCook, and a host of other legends, recorded at Channel One of course, between 1979-1980, full of woozy basslines, wheezing organs, and kick ass drumming, those drums frequently doused in effects and sent careening into the ether, same with the horns... classic reggae melodies disappear into clouds of echo and reverb, often leaving just the bass, and those drums, low slung, tranced out and grooving. The whole record is pretty tripped out, some serious dub experimentation going on. Maybe not as insanely dubbed out as, say the Bush Chemists, but still seriously dubby, not a song goes by with out the various instruments drifting off, looped and effected into blurred streaks of sound, easily some of the best dub we've heard. And thus WAY recommended.
Now with an expanded lineup, and several tours under their collective belts, this Bay Area black metal / noise outfit offer up their latest missive, their sound continuing to evolve, their mix of blurred noise drenched black buzz and haunting atmospheric ambience skewing toward the former big time.
The opening track introduces Sutekh Hexen at their noisiest, the initial stretch of washed out buzzing blackness giving way to pure face melting black noise, unrelenting and devastating. Which is a bit of foreshadowing, as this might be the group's noisiest record as a whole, at least since their earliest recordings, which is surprising as the last few records found the band growing more and more melodic.
The rest of the side unwinds in blasts of corrosive noise, this time underpinned by low drones and chant like vox, adding some melody and color, however subtle, to the proceedings, everything burred into a Tim Hecker-ish haze. Side one closes with a blast of extremely harsh black metal, the buzz and any semblance of riffage, nearly buried beneath an avalanche of grinding psychedelic noise.
The B side lets Sutekh Hexen flex those soundscaping muscles, at least briefly, opening with a stretch of droned out thrum, a soft black swirl, drifting ominously, only to disappear in a squall of torrential blackness, a wild roiling black hole of sound, that eventually dissipates, allowing the harsh vokills to slip to the fore, then the buried rhythms, but again, it all bleeds into an extended sprawl of black metal murk, woozy and blown out, blurry and dense, trailing off into a cloud of grim black energy.
Latest album of fuzzy, ethereal dreampop from this aQ beloved SF songstress, and like her past efforts, Tender New Signs is another glorious collection of lush retro pop loveliness, the sound a dreamy druggy pastiche of modern goth pop and classic shoegaze bliss out, all big chiming guitars, softly propulsive rhythms, low slung basslines, all the sounds doused in echo and reverb, and wreathed in big billowing clouds of crystalline 4AD shimmer, the sound this time around bolstered by a big eighties style drum sound on the more rocking tracks, but most of the record gloriously washed out and gauzey, due in no small part to a fantastically lush, layered production, all of this woven into a luxurious sonic backdrop for Tamaryn's gorgeous vox, breathy and sultry, settled way back in the mix for much of the record, existing more as another sonic layer, but on the slower numbers, slipping to the foreground, transforming those numbers into slowcore dreampop torch songs.
The record, while sonically cohesive, definitely lets Tamaryn and her band stretch out, unfurling an evershifting super varied songscape, slipping from soft focus slowcore dreaminess, to swoonsome jangle pop balladry, to driving, surprisingly rocking shoegaze crunch, to hushed haunting broodiness. So good. And as always, recommended for fans of Beach House, My Bloody Valentine, Mazzy Star, 4AD, etc.
Brand new cd ep from this Spanish black metal duo, which pairs the single track from their one sided Purging Tongues 12" (which was so limited we only got 1 copy), along with a new unreleased track, just two songs, but they're long ones, the shorter just shy of 12 minutes, the longer 15+. And these guys waste no time, after a few seconds of creepy intro music, the band EXPLODE into a dense wall of pulverizing blacknoize, the riffs so frenzied and distorted they blur into thick streaks of filthy buzz, the drumming fast and furious, but also weirdly recorded, with the toms sounding like a drum machine, drifting to the surface amidst the group's blackened squalls, sounding like some weird eighties programmed rhythms, everything tangled up into a churning, roiling black hole of sound, dense and noisy and chaotic, freeform and seriously psychedelic. Without headphones, this might almost sound like some blackened Merzbow, or more metallic Masonna, but close listening reveals all sorts of crazy stuff going on beneath the surface, intricate arrangements, bellowed vokills, tripped out FX, the aforementioned drumming, it's not until nearly 5 minutes into the first track, that the blown out blacknoise abates, and the band switch gears, launching into a doomy, but equally noisy, death dirge, a chugging blast of doomnoise heaviness, that soon erupts right back into the frantic blackened noisiness of the first few minutes. And then the leads come in, it just adds a whole 'nother layer of psychedelic chaos to the proceedings.
The second track lets its intro stretch out a bit more, strange Spanish voices over haunting ominous cinematic drones, and when the band kicks in, they seem to just play over the intro, the result a super tripped out swirl of collaged noisiness, until the song coalesces into some of the densest black buzz we've heard in ages, the sort of furious blasting, that seems constantly on the verge of total collapse, a barely restrained chaos, channeled into fierce black energy, and somehow, midway through, the band crank it up even more, the sound growing MORE psychedelic, MORE noisy, almost like multiple songs playing at once, a swirling tangle of black buzz that devolves into another sprawl of chugging dirgey heaviness, accompanied by that mysterious voice from the beginning of the song, resulting in what sounds like the scariest, noisiest obscure horror movie soundtrack EVER, right down to the tolling bells and grimly cinematic outro.
Latest from black ambient soundscaper Theologian, aka Leech, he previously of long running power electronics / synthdrone outfit Navicon Torture Technologies, and like the recently reviewed (and awesomely titled) The Further I Get From Your Star, The Less Light I Feel On My Face, this new one Finding Comfort In Overwhelming Negativity is another collection of abject industrial blackness, of heaving, shadowy blackness, of harrowing cinematic ambience, four sprawling tracks that ooze and creep, blurring rumbling drones into stuttering mechanical rhythms, buried voices and smeared chordal swells, the opening track here, the most overtly rhythmic thing we've heard on a Theologian record, a hypnotic rhythmic loop, creaking and scraping, metallic and mesmerizing, churns away, while all around it, shades of black slither and shimmer, wreathed in streaks of black FX and shards of glitch and gristle and thrum.
The rest of the record ditched the rhythms, and returns to a more rumbling droned out black ambience, shimmery and atmospheric for the bulk of one track, corrosive and caustic for much of the other, the second sounding near metallic, roiling slo-mo riffage, draped over disembodied vocals and a swirling morass of mysterious sounds. The crunch and buzz, gradually smooth out and becomes a mesmerizing sprawl of staticky pulsations, and while rhythmless technically, are pretty tranced out and rhythmic.
The final track might be the noisiest of the bunch, a post industrial sprawl of chaotic noise, overlapping rhythms, streaks of keening high end, lots of hiss and hum, everything brittle and upper register, sounds almost like some strange field recording of a post apocalyptic wasteland, all rusted out robotics and grinding machinery, like some of the moments earlier, weirdly rhythmic, gristly and staticky, but also noisy, washed out and sort of of bleached out, as if at some point the sound was full and rich and simply decayed into the wasted skeletal sprawl that unwinds gradually, and ends the record with a slowly fading sky full of static and hiss...
Gorgeously packaged in an oversized book-style digipak.
Another eye popping collection of crazy obscure record covers that had all the record nerds at aQ freaking out big time, and we're guessing a lot of you will feel the same. Even if for some reason you don't love seventies glam, or proto punk, or bubblegum pop, this incredible 384 page hardcover book of seventies Euro picture sleeves doesn't require any listening at all, it's just total over the top music nerd record sleeve porn, although we can't imagine seeing some of these records and not being immediately driven to track them down, even if just to hear what sort of musical madness could inspire such over the top colorful visuals. When we first picked this big book up and started flipping though the pages randomly, we first opened up to a stunning shot of the ridiculous German glam rocker (and former crime reporter) Ramma Damma, posed in a glamorous black light up (!) jumpsuit, complete with battery equipped utility belt, and covered head to toe in Christmas ornaments and glitter and garland. Flipped through a few more pages and happened upon a CRAZY 7" cover from a band called Children Of The Morning, the song, oh just a little ditty called "Ku Klux Man" (!), the cover adorned with shadowy hooded figures superimposed over a burning cross. WTF?!! Flipped though a bit more and stumbled upon the band Hector, in their striped shirts and patched overalls and platform boots, looking like the even more flamboyant older brothers of the Bay City Rollers. And it only keeps getting better. And crazier!
There's lots of familiar groups: Angel, Slade, T-Rex, New York Dolls, The Sweet, The Osmonds (and the insane and awesome cover of their "Crazy Horses" 7"), Suzi Quatro, Bay City Rollers, Sparks, Tiger B. Smith, etc.; but a ton of super obscure outfits as well, some of our favorite names being Lieutenant Pigeon, Capt. Skid Marks, Bubblerock Is Here To Stay, Stud Leather, Hobnail, Shake A Tail Suzy, Bilbo Baggins, Rock Co. Co., Pantherman, Lemmings, Roobarb and of course Muff, but again, there are so so so many more. And it's not just the names that are ridiculous, the collection of covers is a parade of constant whatthefuck eye candy, lots of guys with big hair in poofy poses with INCREDIBLE outfits, some nudity of course, bizarre song titles, insane outfits, ridiculous (but totally rad) graphic design, it really is endlessly engrossing.
Besides all the amazing record covers and band shots (as well as a super cool page of just label logos), there are also interviews with Iron Virgin, Hector, The Jook, The Hammersmith Gorillas, Ramma Damma, Brett Smiley and Milk N' Cookies. The book is separated by year(s), and in some cases thematically, in one instance a series of record covers featuring bands on motorcycles, in another, just records about streaking. So cool, and ridiculous, and fun. Totally recommended for all you music nerds and obscure record obsessives and graphic design geeks. And goddamn if we don't now have about a hundred more bands we're DYING to hear...
It's been ages since we've heard from Irish one man drone/dirge/doom guitarscaper Paul McAree, not since a 2009 collaboration with fellow axewrangler/soundscaper Korperschwache, and while we were assuming nothing much had changed, and were simply in for another fantastic sprawling landscape of smoldering low end dronemusic on this new TBTP, Bogland is in fact a whole 'nother sort of thing. Not that you'd know it by the opener, which is exactly what we expected: a hushed, feedback drenched slo-mo shimmer, all long layered tones, and haunted twang, laced with strange sci-fi FX, trippy and woozy, landing somewhere right between Earth, and Barn Owl, and SUNNO))), but taking that sound and spacing it out big time, drifty and abstract psychedelic dronemusic. And it sounds as good as ever, a whole hour to whisk us away to some other plane.
But then something happens around track two, McAree doing his best Jandek, unfurling a murky bit of raw-blooz balladry, all angular detuned guitar, and warbly mumbly vocals, weirdly trancey and hypnotic, some serious outsider dirge folk for sure. We of course expected the sound to slip right back into dreamy droneland, but whattayaknow, McAree had something else in mind, a sprawl of gnarled mangled minimalism, a strange bit of abstract Derek Bailey like guitar action, scrapes, and weird truncated melodies, atonal chords, buzz and warble, there also seems to be a weird wheezy backdrop way off in the distance, subtly swooping effects, but that gnarled guitar is definitely the centerpiece. And for all its strangulated churn, it actually ends up being pretty mesmerizing as well.
The rest of the record offers up variations on those sounds, definitely leaning more toward the tweaked angular guitarscapes and Jandekian croon, occasionally wedding weird scrapey abstract guitars to lush layered shimmer, or unfurling thick rumbling low end, dirgey and dark, still shot through with weird guitar squiggles, but blurry and smeary, but really barring the opener and closer, both of which hew closer to the TBTP sound of old, this record is kind of a warped singer/songwriter affair, filtered through a cracked chunk of experimental guitar, resulting in something weird, and weirdly wonderful.
The oddly named Bogeyrealm Vessels is the latest solo offering from Mehdi Ameziane, 1/2 of psychedelic drone folk duo Natural Snow Buildings. And like past Twinsistermoon records, the sound doesn't deviate too far from Natural Snow Buildings, if anything, the vibe is more pastoral and dreamlike, all of the soft cacophony of NSB is smoothed out into lush landscapes of dreamy shimmer, and warm chordal swirl, tinkling melodies over sweeping sonic vistas of ethereal glimmer, these lush expanses of bleary ambience laced with lovely moments of fluttery folk and hushed delicate songsmithery, Ameziane's voice plaintive and crystalline, floating weightless above woozy whorls of blurred melody and warbly lysergic thrum. The folkier bits sound like some lost seventies acid folk, unearthed for the first time in decades, impossibly soft focus, gauzy and wistfully washed out, that folkiness gradually growing less and less distinct as each track progresses, the sounds often bleeding and blending into one another, until the delicately strummed guitars and dreamlike vocals, melt into a something much more abstract, a heady minimal psychedelic drift that in places sounds like Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, and in others like the decayed tape loop experiments of William Basinski. So so lovely.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!! Comes in a super striking full color DVD style digipak, with cool cartoon artwork courtesy of Ameziane's partner in NSB, Solange Gularte.
The last U.S. Girls record, U.S. Girls On Kraak, found Meghan Remy, who IS U.S. Girls, pushing her sound ever/even further from the gnarled low fidelity roots that seemingly defined it, claiming that those lo-fi records were that way based entirely out of necessity. And as we mentioned in that review, she said that if she could, she would make a super glossy commercial pop record. And while it may have been her intention, U.S. Girls On Kraak was most definitely not that record - Gem however IS.
We were actually pretty shocked when we put this one. The record opens with some warped music box melodies, wreathed in weird industrial scrapes, the sound panned woozily from speaker to speaker, so we were thinking that maybe all that talk about glossy pop was a put on, that she had reverted to her early experimental floorcore sound, and were just beginning to luxuriate in those woozy soft noise, when the sound suddenly transforms into something MUCH poppier, and MUCH more polished, simple stately drumming, wheezing organ, and Remy's vocals way up front, soaring dramatically, the vibe very sixties girl group, positioning this new version of U.S. Girls alongside some other Girls, namely Dum Dum Girls, and Best Coast, and while it's not nearly THAT poppy, it definitely sounds like that's what Remy is shooting for. More minimal, and a bit more droney and psychedelic, but ultimately a dreamy organ driven sixties style fuzzy pop, and heck, it definitely suits her. The next track adds some skittery programmed drums, which gives it a bit of a cold wave vibe, but still poppy and almost torch songy, her voice sounding a bit like Zola Jesus, there are horns (or what sounds like horns), some serious girl group vocals, it's weird, and surprising, but cool. Track three might be the straight up poppiest of the bunch, and listening to that, it's hard to conceive of the fracture fucked up sounds on past U.S. Girls records.
"He Who" though might be one of our favorites, harkening back to the more experimental USG recordings, brittle machinelike rhythms, haunting pianos, lots of echo and reverb, cinematic and creepy, darkly dramatic and psychedelic, we could easily listen to a whole record of just that. The rest of the record unfurls similarly (to the poppier opening salvo), and then something weird happens, with Remy seeming to try her hand at different sounds, echo drenched garage pop on "I Don't Understand That Man", or most surprising of all, some big guitar Gary Glitter style classic glam rock on "Slim Baby", or the groovy almost calypso sounding "Down In The Boondocks", and it all sounds pretty great. There's one more short experimental track, all stuttering programmed beats and looped and layered vocal samples, murky and muted, but those moments are few and far in between. The new sound is definitely well removed from the U.S. Girls sound of old, but for fans of Dun Dum Girls, Best Coast, and other sort of sixties girl group jangle pop, this will very likely hit the spot! And who knows, might get some pop kids to check out the way more warped early records too!
Not sure what the theme of this compilation is, but it hardly matters, cuz holy shit is it amazing. From the art to the nearly all exclusive tracks, from a weird array of outfits from weirdo Finnish black metal to kosmische synth wranglers! Might as well just give a run down track by track...
Ghoul are up first, but instead of their usual brand of metallic mayhem, offer up a creepy ominous pipe organ intro. Yep, just pipe organ, which leads directly into a track by late great eighties Portland true (Christian) metal band Xinr, whose track of Judas Priest style classic metal KILLS, replete with deranged laughter, and badass vox that are weird and warped but so good. Local Sabbath soundalikes Orchid deliver another dose of uncanny Ozzy era Sab worship, and as always, it's a dead ringer for the original, and thus, sounds amazing! Then our favorite fucked up weirdo black metal Finns, Ride For Revenge spew a filthy primitive caveman dirge metal pound, all practice space drums, crumbling distorted guitars, growled demonic vokills, and even when they crank it up to doubletime, it's still a woozy midtempo churn. The A side finishes off with Xander Harris, and some super rad, creepy Carpenter like soundtrack synthscapery, ominous and sinister, totally kick ass retro slasher flick score for sure!
The flipside starts off with Grave Violators, who we had never heard before, and who traffic in grinding blackened thrash, with some seriously unhinged vocals. The mighty Deceased are up next with some classic metal menace, brand new, but sounds like it could have been recorded back in the day. Occultation follow, and deliver what might be one of the best tracks here, a sprawling epic of witchy proggy female fronted doom, epic and haunting and heavy, definitely need to hear more! Up next, also new to us Venenum, who kick out some serious progged out metallic Voivodisms, with echo drenched vox and some twisted arrangements, and finally, Danava finish things off, and like Ghoul, forego their usual sounds and finish things off with the perfect outro, all creepy synth horror movie madness. So good. And perfect for Halloween listening.
And incredible packaged, garish cartoony cover art, which is also featured on the A side of the picture disc, the B side an even darker creepier drawing, and as things things usually are, quite limited, only 1000 copies.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Ethiopiques alert, too! Have yourself a hot sultry soul dance party this weekend, with some of the best vintage Ethio soul from the Golden era of Ethiopian music! Largely culled from the great Ethiopiques series, this vinyl compilation features crucial '70s tracks by Mahmoud Ahmed, Lemma Demissew, Tlahoun Gessesse, Sefu Yohannes, Bahta Gebre Heywet, Teshome Meteku, and Alemeyahu Eshete, all never reissued on vinyl before. All killer, no filler! What more can we say, other than this rules!
For the third installment of Jazzman's great Spiritual Jazz series, the hardworking diggers of underground jazz decided to stay on the European tip spearheaded on the second volume instead of venturing off to some other exotic location. And it's a good thing too, because how can you capture all the diverse iterations of communal jazz across so many various borders, ethnic heritages and regional communities in just one volume? What separates the two volumes thematically is that this third volume swings a lot more than the more reverent liturgical second volume, focusing on individual expression, private press visionaries and unique hybrids of Latin, Slavic and Asian influences. Obscurities abound, most tracks previously un-reissued in any form, really one of the only names we were familiar with is Jef Gilson, whom who Jazzman introduced us to on a great compilation aptly titled The Best of Jef Gilson! The suave cafe jazz sound of Gilson is a great introduction into what is an eclectic and diverse selection of hypnotic modal jazz that is uplifting, entertaining and refreshingly energetic! Along with Gilson and Mangesdorf there are great pieces by Hermann Gehlen, Palle Mikkelborg & Radiojazzgruppen, Michel Roques, Babs Robert, That's Why, Binder Quintet, The Crescendo Quintet, Dusko Goykovic, Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet, Yoki Freund Sextet, Jan Allan Quintet, Dennis Wiley, Full Moon Ensemble, Louis Xavier, and Antithesis. Yes!
We were lucky enough to have Vaz play our most recent South By Southwest showcase, and while we were already fans, of their previous band too, late great AmRep heavies Hammerhead, seeing Vaz live knocked our fucking socks off. Furious and heavy, mathy and dense, and impossibly tight. One of the best drummers we've seen the songs roiling, furious math/noise rock blowouts that totally decimated. This is a super limited reissue of their long out of print debut full length, and fins the band just emerging from AmRep mode, the sound super rhythmic, pummelingly hypnotic, but rife with crazy melodies, hooky as hell, which seems impossible when you're listening to these crushing noise rock blowouts, but these guys come from a time when melody and heavy rock crush were not enemies, it was all in how you got the two tangled up, and even a decade ago, Vaz had already mastered a unique strain of heavy/hooky/rhythmic/mathy noise rock that still sounds incredible.
Opener "Blocked By Satellites" melds a woozy groove to some skittery drumming, droned out guitar, and some seriously crushing riffage, a churning unfuckwithable noise rock gem, that is the perfect example of what made/makes these guys so good, a soaring crazy catchy chorus, the grinding verses and main riff still infused with a subtle bit of melody. But if that track is Vaz at their noise rock heaviest, follow up "Meld W/U-90" is a pop song by comparison, sounding like a precursor to the sludge pop of Torche, emotive vocals draped over wild almost tribal drumming, and layer after layer of buzzing guitar, it does slip into more chugging heaviness, but even then, that main melody will stay stuck in your head for AGES. Oh and yeah, there's some rad mathy freakout, but it leads right back into that crazy poppy verse. And so it goes, every track heavy and hooky in equal measure, weird arrangements, twisted almost-avant guitaring in places, a sound that definitely dates it to a specific time (actually, this originally came out in 2001, but it sounds gloriously mid nineties!), but one that pushes all our, and we're guessing your, heavy / noise / math rock buttons.
LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES, each cover hand silkscreened, and each a different color.
BROTZMANN! Peter, that is, on the cover, in black & white, looking intense. Besides an interview with (and a Primer on) the legendary free improvising saxophonist, this issue of our favorite must-read new music magazine gets into the likes of roots producer Niney The Observer, avant blues persons Loren Connors & Suzanne Langille, and "Postwar Optophonic Pioneers", among other things. Plus the usual reviews, news, reviews, charts, reviews, columns, reviews, etc.!
We have been wondering for a while now how long it would take for someone to reissue anything from this blithely influential but stubbornly obscurist brotherly duo, Woo, whose homespun DIY take on left-field new age-y electronic pastoral music has gone from largely ignored to rapturously revered over the span of 30 years since their debut. You can hear strains of their influence now in the music of Sun Araw, Ducktails, Nite Jewel, Animal Collective, Balam Acab, Washed Out and Caribou. But Woo's sound is not that easy to pin down, and It's Cozy Inside, the group's second album from 1989 (seven years on from their 1982 debut, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong), is as ethereal and intangibly beguiling now as it ever was.
Woo can best be described as a mix of Cluster and Durutti Column, two outfits separated by time and geography that delved deeply into the gentler realm of pastoral music while at the same time pushing the sounds to the edge of experimental composition through texture and effects. Add to this the bedroom recording techniques of Cleaners From Venus, the classical exotica of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, the ethereal imaginary soundtracks of Bill Nelson, the wide-eyed romanticism of Virgina Astley's From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, and even the most genteel side of Throbbing Gristle or Chris and Cosey (of course at their most lethargic, far divorced from any heavy industrial sensibility) and we're getting closer to an apt description of the singular sound universe of Woo.
Yet this album is much much weirder then any comparisons we can attribute to it. Newly remastered, it still sounds like it was made for falling asleep to, its subtle textural effects of woozy synthesizers, clarinet and heavily affected acoustic guitar, don't necessarily create fully formed songs, but short serpentine instrumental vignettes that stream from one piece to the next, creating a strange filmic dream world that is difficult to get your head around. Its mutant take on new age and classical forms are hardly meditative kosmiche as much as they are a kind of worried ambient minimalism, the sound gathering in watery pools of texture and mood, breaking off and reforming in surprising ways. Eschewing a big impactful sound, Woo make a genial refusal of high-end sonic dynamics instead finding a softly-treaded yet eccentric path through a dazzling aural river that ebbs and flows in a way that most bands of the time would hardly dare to go. Woo's subtle brilliance may take awhile to unfold, but its rewards are plenty. With many bands mining vintage new age music, it's amazing that Woo's unique sound has rarely, if ever, been truly duplicated. Beautiful, mesmerizing and of course, highly recommended!
Ok, we'll admit, some of us here have a huge problem with the saxophone, at least outside of jazz. We argue a lot about the sax in the Stooges for instance, the anti sax contingent (this writer included) somehow always hear strains of "Baker Street" or the Saturday Night Live band in almost every rock sax solo. But then recently, we were listening to Hanoi Rocks, and realized that EVERY song had a sax solo, but somehow, it sounded so right in that context. And throughout the years, sax has snuck it's way into bands we love, even the sax-ophobic among us. Late great Chicago post/math rockers Sweep the Leg Johnny killed, and the sax was a big part of it, and then there's these guys, who work some serious sax into their gnarled progged out metallic heaviness, and here too, it works. Granted, the sax is not all over the place, it's doled out judiciously, and is down in the mix, so it almost sounds like another weirdly tuned guitar at times, but even when it's all saxophone, especially when, it transforms Yakuza's sound into some sort of metallic jazz prog blowout, which obviously is never a bad thing. In fact an objective non-metalhead here actually thought that the more freaked out parts here sounded like a crazier version of psych/prog/folk combo Jan Dukes De Gray.
The sound is pretty varied though, fusing classic true metal heaviness, with brooding folk flecked psychedelia, long droned out almost balladic dirges, chaotic jazz prog weirdness, and even some blackened metallic crush, when they slow it down, it's like some sort of ritualistic Witchcrafty proto metal, all wailed almost Ozzy-ish vox and majestic melodies, but even when the sound is all gnarled, downtuned metallic churn, the melodies shine through, and the clean vocals transform much of this into something more like power metal (or in places, like a heavier Queens Of The Stone Age), chugging and pounding, soaring and epic. Some of it gets pretty punky too, sounding a little like Ozzy singing for Quicksand, which might be hard to imagine but for us is the sort of band math that sounds too good to be true.
For whatever reason, we weren't expecting to like this as much as we do, but with every listen we dig it more and more, so much so that it's sort of all we want to listen to. Which is about as good a recommendation as you can give. In fact, once we finish all the reviews for this week's list, this is the very first thing we're gonna throw on...
