Last Rites is the debut full length from this moody instrumental post rock combo from San Jose, and it's awesome. The band dropped off copies ages ago, and we're kicking ourselves for taking so long to listen, cuz it's pretty much everything we love about this kind of stuff, soaring and majestic, epic and moody and emotional. Definitely beholden to another time, their sound reminiscent of the nineties, and the whole instrumental math/post rock scene that flourished then, it was an era of music we love and miss, and we wish there were more bands today doing something similar.
Amonie take that nineties post rock, and give it a modern makeover, fusing it to a more brooding slow build Godspeed style, and definitely adding their own twist, the opener here "King Of Prussia" is a near pitch perfect 8+ minutes of brooding, smoldering, epic post rock heaviness, slipping easily from intricate loping melodic mesmer, to churning, stormy noisy heaviness, rife with explosive climaxes, soaring tangled guitar melodies, powerful drumming, super intense and cinematic, peppered with hushed expanses of muted minimal thrum, and string laced melancholic shimmer, all leading up to an explosive finale.
That first track definitely lays out the template for the rest of the record, a classic sort of epic post rock arrangement, but Amonie mix things up, especially on the shorter tracks, some dense and mathy and proggy, others, glistening and almost cosmic sounding, foregoing the blown out coda, at least until the very last minute or two, still others, chiming and minimal, bookended by fierce heaviness.
The record closed with two longform epics, the first, maybe the most hushed and delicate of the bunch, a woozy, dreamy drift of glistening guitar shimmer, and lush layered tones, with a near metallic final movement, and the closer, 13+ minutes, the first 5 of which sound almost like some sort of modern minimal chamber music, until the drums kick in, and the band lurch into a woozy washed out lope, before a brief bit of distorted crunch, only to unfurl in a dreamily palindromic drift for the remainder of the song.
Awesome stuff. Fans of Godspeed, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky and other epic post rockers will flip for these guys. Includes a download coupon as well!
It's been a while since we've heard from Anduin, the solo project of Jonathan Lee, he of late great longtime aQ faves Souvenir's Young America, whose distinctive harmonica flecked metallic post rock we we dug big time. But in Anduin, Lee focused more on the minutiae of sound, crafting lush, haunting soundscapes, that buzz and drift, smolder and shimmer. the sounds more along the lines of groups like Jasper TX or Machinefabriek, and with a distinctive cinematic flair, the sounds at once epic and majestic, while at the same time subtle and introspective.
Apparently this new record is the result of a burglary at Lee's house, which resulted in the loss of years and years worth of recordings (hence the title), and perhaps also the darkly spectral sound, infused with a deep melancholia, a spare, ghostly sonic landscape that manages to fuse field recordings, deep dronemusic, lumbering slowcore, downtempo electronica, and plenty of horns, into something soundtracky and sinister, brooding and ominous.
The record seems to spend most of its time rumbling and whirring through a sea of softly churning low end and dense layered whirs, but Lee has a delicate touch, whether it's introducing the aforementioned jazzy horns, or echo drenched flute flutter, the sounds of children playing, or a skeletal programed skitter, it transforms this dronemusic into something much more sprawling and engrossing, almost a sort of chamber music, a dark classical drone that slips easily from weirdly spaced out sci-fi shimmer, to bleak, bottomless pit mesmer, from almost new age drift to slowjazz creep, the songs all woven together into one epic songsuite, one that most definitely speaks to loss, and not just the loss of the stolen sounds, but a loss that's deeper and more personal. Powerful and haunting. Gorgeous stuff for sure.
Super swank packaging too, both the lp and the cd come housed in hand drawn, hand screened sleeves, with more hand drawn, handscreened prints inside!
The latest from this avant/industrial/experimental/noise trio finds the group operating without their most famous member, porn star Sasha Grey, who seems to have sat this one out, this one being a strange, but sonically compelling score to a recent English/German sci-fi film, for which the group used just the script, and the existing footage at the time, to craft their soundtrack. Having not seen the film, it's difficult to say how these tracks work in that context, we can say from a purely sonic perspective, those limitations did little to hinder the process, as these tracks are all pretty fantastic, dense, and sinister, heavily textured and darkly atmospheric, thick grinding, gurgling synth drones give way to minimal murky rhythms, very ambient and atmospheric, it is a score after all, but the group fill up much of that spaced with thick swirls of looped synth, clouds of abstract effects, woozy streaks of chordal shimmer, dubbed out production, low slung basslines buried in the murk, much of the sound washed out in an almost shoegazey haze, while some tracks are stripped down and minimal, spaced out electro dub rhythms driving weird sonic ripples and hushed gristly buzz. Some tracks are more overtly musical than others, drifting from a sort of new wave murk, to pulsing minimal synthscapes, and from gauzy kosmische drift to almost orchestral sounds moodiness. While much of the soundtrack is more concerned with mood, thus it ends up being about texture and tension, the group particularly adept at creating gorgeous swaths of sound, be it garbled voices, buzzing synths, or looped bell like rhythms, we can only imagine the strange sort of images that must accompany these sounds.
Limited to 500 copies! Pressed on transparent green vinyl. Includes a printed insert, and a download coupon as well!
So, can you really call a song "Pinball Wizard", if it's not actually "Pinball Wizard"??? We guess you can, if you're Black Dice. They don't give a damn. Or maybe it IS a version of "Pinball Wizard", but so fucked up Black Dice style as to be unrecognizable. Whatever it is, it's the opening track on this new platter from Brooklyn weirdos Black Dice, the entire nine tracks of which represent another damaged dose of what we've previously referred to as their usual "sampled and collagey, beat driven electro-noise" shenanigans. Piled with broken beats, looped noises, distorted vocal blurts, farting synths, etc., their lysergic grooves sound kinda like a really woozy drugged out Pop Will Eat Itself making an album for the Boredoms' Super Roots series or something. All kinds of chaotic craziness, but weirdly catchy though!
Latest slab of tripped out fuzzy garage punk from Down Under, and another dizzying blur of primal rhythmic thump, woozy synth swirl, distorto guitar crunch, the opening track "Acting Strange" might be our favorite (and most rocking) Blank Realm jam yet, with super distorted angular guitars, weird speaking-in-tongues vocals, tribal drum pound, and a super heavy blown out garage psych squall of a chorus, the song seeming to grow more unhinged by the minute, the sound more atonal and warped, like the sound was run through a funhouse mirror. So we were sort of expecting this to be the most noisy and psychedelic and rocking record yet, but the second track strips things way down, into a sort of Best Coast by way of Velvets sort of lazy reverb drenched jangle pop sprawl, driven by a sinewy bass line and super stripped down Mo Tucker style drumming. And then track number three sort of fuses the two, poppy jangle and garagey pound, woven into a sort of Sonic Youth sounding slab of garage psych.
The rest of the record tends toward the druggy and stripped down, especially the fantastically murky psych ballad title track, woozy and wasted, but in between, the band deliver another rocker like the opener ("Pendulum Swing"), heavy on the synth with a definite new wave vibe, and the kick ass two part "The Crackle", the first part, distorted and dirgey, blown out bass buzz and snarly girl vox, atonal and a little bit synth wavey, while the second part, pours on the reverb and the drifty guitar shimmer, unfurling a super washed out, spacey sprawl of unhinged psychedelia.
Another super recommended chunk of killer psychedelic spaced out garage pop weirdness, comes with a download coupon to boot!
All right! Unlike Blues Control, who might mislead just a bit with their name, this band Blues Addicts ARE indeed just what you think they might be from the moniker. Yep, reissue label Shadoks brings us the real deal heavy hippy blues rock here. And that is the sort of blues we like! Acid-rock blues circa 1970 from a Danish outfit definitely influenced by Cream and Hendrix. It's badass stuff, full of crunching chords and wailin' solos, approaching Blue Cheer levels of distortion n' heaviness, though with a jazzy side too, and some mellow moments. Blues Addicts' big thing was improvisation, as on the ten minutes plus of "Hailow". There's a singer, but really these songs are about instrumental musical expression, as you can tell from track titles referencing modes and methods like "Jazzer", "Bottleneck", "Electric", and perhaps even "(4/4+6/4)/�4"...
We mentioned these guys in our review of Shadoks' earlier reissue of another acid-blues item from Denmark, the Terje, Jesper & Joachim album. They were originally on the same label, Spectator, along with another, even fuzzier, band called Moses, which we hope will show up on Shadoks' reissue schedule someday soon too! Anyway, this is in that vein, and also fits in with other obscure bluesy proto-metal acts of the era like The Human Beast, Human Instinct, Speed Glue & Shinki, Skid Row, N.S.U., and many other fave raves of the same ilk.
Speaking of proto-metal, there's a high-contrast black and white picture in the cd booklet of hot shot guitarist Ivan Horn, whose evil facial grimace, long hair and shadowy brow makes him appear very black metal indeed. A man ahead of his time. Though, for looking so tough, he's also credited with playing the kazoo. The cd booklet also includes other photos and two pages of liner notes talking about the history of the band. Unlike the previous cd reissue we've seen of this (a few years back on the Karma label) there's no bonus tracks of alternate takes and the like, oh well.
Who doesn't love Peter Brotzmann and/or Han Bennink? If you're into skronky European free jazz craziness that is. Saxophonist Brotzmann is a hard-blowin' legend, and Han Bennink is not only a percussion whiz but also a strong "pro" argument in the whole does-humor-belong-in-music? debate. Teamed up here on this expanded (meaning there's a whole bonus disc with ten previously unreleased tracks!) reissue of what those in the know, know as the 1977 Bro-Ben Black Forest recordings, Brotzmann and Bennink actually did the Jewelled Antler natureboy thing here and took their instruments out into the forest to improvise amid the trees and birds and small curious animals. Along with a supply of bread and wine they toted with them an assortment of clarinets and saxophones, a banjo, a viola, some toys, birdcalls, cymbals, and suchlike sundry instruments -- Han had to make do without his customary drum kit, playing instead on tree trunks and rocks with branches and stones. Their free music got all that much freer for being loosed in the great outdoors, and these Black Forest sessions certainly brought forth all the wildman whimsy you'd expect from this duo. In some ways a precursor to the field recording aesthetic practiced today by the Jewelled Antler gang and all those Finnish free-freak-forest-folk outfits we all love, Schwarzwaldfahrt is replete with the gurgling sounds of water, birds twittering, primal yelps from Han and/or Peter, and other things you wouldn't normally hear in more "civilized" jazz recording. At one point, Han pounds (or splashes) out a stacatto rhythm on the surface of a stream or pond, and you can for sure tell how much fun they were having! So much, that they recorded a lot more music/sound than they could release at the time. They had to edit down their tapes to just one LP's worth of material for the original edition of this on FMP, but now Atavistic's Unheard Music Series has given them two whole compact discs to fill up, and it's a joy.
So many modern bands are looking back to the eighties, and even the seventies for inspiration, which quite frankly to those of us who grew up during those decades, seems a bit surprising, and shocking, all of the stuff that seemed cool then, was quickly deemed "what the fuck were we thinking" not too long after, from MTV synth pop to yacht rock to fringed leather jackets to creepers to rubber bracelets to... well you get the point, the kids today are reclaiming out teenage shame and doing their damndest to make it cool.
But what we're waiting for, and it can't be long off now, is the nineties revival, grunge, post rock, math rock, bands who look to Rodan, Pitchblende, Polvo, Bitch Magnet and all those bands for their inspiration. There are definitely a few bands digging into that era, but maybe it's that it just hasn't been long enough for the younger generation to discover that stuff, lots of those bands are still playing, or playing again, which is totally okay, we can wait, as long as SOMEONE is still making that kind of music. And making it well. Which brings us to Broughton's Rules, made up of members of Pittsburgh's legendary math rockers Don Caballero and not so legendary but still bad ass math rockers Blunderbuss (whose song "Broughton's Rules" is where these guys got their name).
The label's spiel is "recommended if you like: Russian Circles, Sonic Youth, Slint, Shellac, Battles Pelican and The Psychic Paramount", and we certainly can't argue with that, we might also throw in the above mentioned bands Rodan, Polvo, Pitchblende, along with Table, Breadwinner, Bastro, Butterglove, Hose.Got.Cable, Crain, June Of 44, The For Carnation, Shipping News, Turing Machine, Phleg Camp, well, you get the drift. Obviously we love this stuff, and are psyched when some band can totally pull it off, and since these guys have basically been pulling it off since back in the day, it should be no surprise that this RULES.
Dense and lush and intricate, moody and melodic, complex and convoluted, heavy and super rocking, mathy and meandering, brooding and moody, droney and blissed out, the songs are epic and sprawling, but manage to still be catchy, and this isn't all instrumental, there are vocals, which make this eminently more appealing to the rest of the maybe-not-so-instrumental-math-rock-obsessed world, and while there is plenty dense heaviness, and some intense mathiness, there are moments that are sunshiney and melodic and major key, a good balance, and a hell of a good record. One of our new faves for sure.
Now bring on the nineties math rock revival!
Dreamless Sleep is the latest from Caminiti, whose day job is as one half of twang flecked drone duo Barn Owl, and like his partner in Barn Owl, Jon Porras, Caminiti's solo records don't always deviate too much from the Barn Owl M.O., offering up variations of the duo's distinctive dusky sound, with the various individual solo records often easily mistaken for proper Barn Owl record, which is not a bad thing at all, Caminiti and Porras have undeniable musical chemistry, and both have proven to be perfectly capable on their own, both experimenting more with keyboards and synthesizers lately, which of course ironically seems to have been influencing their work as a duo as well.
All of that said, Dreamless Sleep definitely finds Caminiti pushing his sounds into uncharted territories, ditching much of the twang, and the droned out mesmer for something way more kosmische and downright new age-y at times. In fact, if it weren't for the fierce guitar tones and muted buzz, the sounds here could easily slip into full on new age bliss out. Thankfully, Caminiti takes that new age drift, and weds it to his dense guitarscapery, letting neither overshadow the other, resulting in tracks that manage to be both dreamy and ethereal, dark and cinematic, wrapping washed out shimmering synths in spidery sinister melodies, and wreathing hushed ethereal ambience in clouds of ominous thrum, the recordings adding even more texture and density, gristly and on the verge of slipping into the red, the sounds blown out and occasionally corrosive, with some of the tracks slipping into near SUNNO)))-like heft, only you have the shimmery swirl hold it back, and conversely, some of the tracks are so airy and ethereal, it's often just a single slab of crumbling, rumbling blackened thrum, that keeps things safely on the darkside. It's like the perfect music for some seriously psychedelic planetarium show, the music evoking massive sprawls of space, and the ever shifting cosmos, dying stars and black holes, planets being born and epic swaths of glimmering starfields.
Death Waltz does it again. This amazing new soundtrack vinyl reissue label resurrects another John Carpenter classic, 1987's Prince Of Darkness, a trippy horror movie about the discover of an 'anti-god' in a strange vial of green liquid, there's messages sent through time, tachyons, MATH. It's a doozy, and the soundtrack is pretty much perfect. Carpenter once again teams up with Alan Howarth, the two having collaborated on the soundtracks for Halloween II and III, Escape From New York, They Live and loads more, and the sounds here will be immediately familiar to fans of those other soundtracks, even if they've never seen Prince Of Darkness. The opening is classic Carpenter/Howarth, a whipping wind beneath a dark sinister bassline, just a handful of notes, sort of like the beginning of an eighties rock song, but instead of breaking into a song proper, those notes just loop ominously, over and over and over, underpinning a haunting six note refrain, the sort of thing Carpenter and Howarth are masters of crafting, evocative and haunting, an earworm on par with the Halloween theme. Other abstract sounds swirl around the theme, muted pulses, distant drones, haunting choir like vocals. And the interesting thing about this soundtrack, moreso than any of Carpenter's others, is that all of the tracks here are essentially variations of that single theme, that bassline, and that melody, resurfacing in multiple incarnations, some lush and almost symphonic, others spare and nearly silent, hushed and harrowing, and still others, pounding and sinister and a little bit new wave sounding.
The majority of the second side is taken up by "The Devil Awakens", which stretches the preceding sounds way out, into a grim, sprawl of spectral drift, lots of drifting drones and abstract ambience, punctuated with strangely out of place horns, mysterious voices, that melody hidden just beneath the surface, very tense, and darkly ominous. So great!
And as with all Death Waltz stuff, the packaging is fantastic, that immediately recognizable red black and blue cover, with a super striking new painting, a strange figure with beams of light shooting into a black sky, the title in a pool of blood red, multiple eclipses, and some scary figures lurking in the background, that same painting is reproduced on the big poster included inside. The back of the jacket features liner notes from Howarth, while the inside sleeve features notes on the cover painting from artist Sam Smith. And as you might have suspected, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!
Record number two from Christian Cosmos, just one of the latest projects from Dominick Fernow (Cold Cave, Prurient, Vatican Shadow, Vegas Martyrs, Ash Pool, etc.), who in CC is teamed up with Furisubi's Kris Lapke, and like on their first 12", which we flipped for, CC continue to mine a mutant industrial electro / techno, the sound gritty and grimey, and a little bit blackened, murky, woozy, the vibe subterranean and sinister, swaths of power electronics and swells of kosmische synthscapery underpin churning skeletal rhythms, and mutant house music, laced with haunting cinematic melodies. The sound on this latest 12" is even more dramatic than the first, sounding like the soundtrack to some obscure art film, moody and murky, brooding and ominous, but slipping as easily into something much more eighties sounding, like some stripped down minimal electro pop, as it does into dense, grinding industrial techno-noise, but it's all woven together by a haunting atmosphere, and blurred into a constantly shifting sonic whole, the tracks unfolding like some sonic travelogue of faded melancholy. We mentioned Philip Jeck in our review of the first record, and while this one doesn't feel so overtly looped and Jeck-like, it does ooze the same sort of atmosphere as many of Jeck's pieces, abject expanses of washed out melancholia, the mood dark and dolorous, the rhythms not so much driving, as trance inducing and mesmerizingly motorik. A gorgeous bit of gristly grey electronic mesmerism for sure.
It seems like maybe it was inevitable, but SF's Cloudland Canyon have finally ditched the last remaining trappings of whatever sort of band they may have been before, and now emerged a fully fledged modern day psychedelic krautrocking combo who are masters of their craft. This new super limited, import 12" finds CC exploring that sound, opening with a serious kosmische kraut / new age trip out, a slow building pulsing shimmering synthscape, before driving synths take over and transform the track into a dizzying swirl of looped and arpeggiated synth cascades, cyclical and repetitive, tranced out and mesmerizing, a churning synth swirl beneath a sky full of tangled melodies.
The B side is much more laid back, a woozy cosmic groove with a pulsing house music throb, all swirly and cinematic, until a seriously crunchy beat kicks in, super dubbed out and almost industrial sounding, like some lost DHR jam or maybe early Techno Animal - whatever it reminds you of, it kicks ass, and turns the record into something else entirely. The record begins to wind down in another dizzying sprawl of throbbing synth swirl, this time over a stuttering New Order like beat, and driven by stuttery ethereal vocal loops. Sweet.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. In fact, we have less than ten, and it's very likely these will be the last ones we can get. Pressed on foggy clear vinyl!
Longtime aQ fave, cinematic dubstepper Clubroot released the amazing III - MMXII record not too long ago, and folks who bought the vinyl version, missed out on two of our favorite tracks from that record, due to space limitations, which have now been released as a super limited 12" single, with a bonus track, only available previously on mixes, and not included on the cd version either. Folks who own the cd, skip down to read about the bonus track, as you've already got the other two.
Vinyl nerds, luxuriate in the A side, the lush, brooding "Summons", with its thick rumbling bass, skeletal beat, woozy swirling ambience, spaced out and darkly psychedelic, subtly sinister, with gorgeous hazy vocals drifting above the slow churning groove below, listening to this now, it's hard to imagine this was a track they left OFF the lp. Same with "My Kingdom", not nearly as dark, but more skittery and textured, with fluttery flute like melodies, Burial like slo-soul vocals, all wrapped around a killer stuttery groove, backed up by ominous strings, and swoonsome synth swells, super spacious and spare, haunting and very cinematic.
The bonus track is much house-ier, soft swirls of synth chords drift beneath a pulsing shuffling beat, more of those slo-mo soul vocals, and with a MEAN drop, the bass thick an corrosive, a rib cage rattling wobble that underpins the rest of the song, chopped up into a weird rumbling rhythmic counterpoint, and laced with bits of staticky glitch. The song darkening considerably from the beginning, and blossoming into something more drifty and ambient as the fluttery flutes return and the sounds gradually blisses out into an ethereal soft focus electro-dub shimmer.
The great Mexican experimental filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky directed, starred in and composed the music for one of THEE flat out strangest cinematic experiences ever made. El Topo from 1970 was Jodorowsky's bloody surreal take on the Western genre and was the film that began the phenomenon of the Midnight Movie. Funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, this film is like a Sergio Leone film on a serious dose of brown acid. Visually stunning and brutally violent, El Topo shares the avant garde qualities of all of Jodorowsky's early films: the soul-baring psyche of experimental theater, the role-playing excess of costumes, props and pageantry, the ritualistic entanglements of violence and beauty as catalysts of transformation, and most importantly the notion of existence as a journey through all kinds of personal and mystical revelations both sacred and profane. The soundtrack is comprised of 18 tracks composed by Jodorowsky and John Barham inspired by both the soundtrack work of Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota. Full of flutes and droning horns, accordions and organs and twisted Mariachi styles. The music is as visceral as buzzing flies around the rotting corpse of an evil marauder. Highly Recommended!
180 grams, gatefold, remastered from original tapes, with 4 page booklet including stills from the movie.
We may have mentioned it before, but it seems like Thrill Jockey is quickly establishing itself as an indie powerhouse. Not that they weren't already, but recently, they've been taking on band after amazing band, loads of aQ faves (heck, this week's Record Of The Week from Golden Void is also on TJ!), and broadening their scope to include, well, anything really, from the twisted experimental plunderphonic electronica of Matmos, to the brooding mesmer of Barn Owl, not to mention all the various strains of modern psychedelia, including a particularly virulent version practiced by long time aQ faves Eternal Tapestry, who in the past have been know to create records from hours of tapes, multiple jams melted down into one single slab of head heaviness, but apparently, A World Out Of Time finds the band going old school, and recording essentially live, single takes, the band locking into endless grooves, and blissed out kosmische freakouts. And all of the usual E-Tap radness is present, but there are definitely some surprises, like the 12+ minute opener, which is of course rife with thick whirls of drone and bleary shimmer, but is also laced with sax, and is driven primarily by some groovy classic rock guitar, it's like the Grateful Dead or the Allmann Brothers, but WAY more tripped out, imagine some obscure psych rock festival in the late sixties, early seventies, everyone, wasted and weary, and this is the band that goes on last, playing for HOURS, continuing to rock out as the sun begins to rise. It has that sort of wasted, endless psych vibe, and it definitely suits em, and of course it gets even more tripped out and drowsily squiggly near the end, although the end here feels pretty arbitrary, as if the track could have played on forever.
And weirdly, that retro vibe continues over the rest of the record, the sound slipping from dizzying mini-ragas, laced with bloopy electronics and loads of sitar like buzz, to full on fuzz rock proto metal, heart of the sun space rock, to loping tribal minimalism that sounds like No Neck Blues Band or Avarus, to straight up druggy psychedelic folk, replete with Donovan like vox, low end horn blurt, and swirling backwards fuzz guitar, and check out the purloined opening riff on "Apocalypse Troll"! There are some moments, where the band go for it, and deliver some blistering blown out heavy psych, and for the most part, the sound manages to not be that far removed from the Eternal Tapestry we know and love, but simply recasts it, the various influences brazenly displayed, old school Fillmore psychedelic classic rock transformed into modern space psych bliss!
While they last, the record is accompanied by a super limited cd-r, called Prometheus Rising, a killer collection of previously unheard/unreleased material handpicked by the band, ranging from droned out hypno-kraut grooves to full on wild psychedelic squall blowouts to hazy loping, brooding FX drenched drifts, to super spare kosmische ambience, even a couple blast of surprisingly rocking melodic fuzz-rock freakouts! We're the only store in the States to have this bonus cd-r, but they won't last long.
Probably better known as the guitar player in weirdo / outsider avant-jazz free-rock outfit Peeesseye, Forsyth ventures out on his own here, and while we were originally expecting something more like his previous PSI mothership, Kenzo Deluxe is something else entirely, more like a modern warped take on classic Appalachia, the label refers to it as cosmic Americana, which isn't that far off, long form compositions, simple and spare, softly doused with effects, but relying more on the melodic structure, and the subtle rhythms of the pieces.
"First 10 Minutes Of Cocksucker Blues", is a mesmerizing bit of slo-mo abstract blues, a woozy loop gives way to some awesomely emotive melodies draped over the top, a tranced out sprawl of psych-blues minimalism, that finds some slippery slide guitar sneaking into the woozy, hazy drift. "Downs & Ups" is more contemplative, the sounds muted and lovely, sounding almost liturgical, or like some lost piece of arcane holiday music, the melodies lilting, the overlapping guitar lines creating beautiful subtle harmonies, a gentle bit of pastoral guitarmusic.
From there on out, the sound drifts into different directions, lush billows of guitar strum are drenched in distorted crumble, soaring melodies become almost raga like buzz, the sound gloriously distorted, while elsewhere super spare folk builds into dense stretches of lush guitar soundscapery, and still elsewhere, the sound is totally delicate and crystalline, notes ringing out, the melody heart wrenching and dreamily minor key, the melodies unfurling lazily, and drifting into the grey sky above.
Got just 3 or 4 of these, a special vinyl reissue for Record Store Day, of probably our favorite record (originally released in 1993) from this long time aQ beloved old timey country combo, their first for Thrill Jockey, a way influential record in the early early days of the No Depression movement, the group is fronted by Catherine Irwin and Janet Bean, and here as on all their records, their gorgeous voices perfectly harmonize over acoustic guitar and mandolin on a handful of originals and few kick ass covers (Nick Lowe, Woody Guthrie and more). It's been years since we listened to this, but hearing it again, we're loving this like crazy! Remastered for vinyl, and housed in a thick, old style tip-on jacket.
You'd probably never guess listening to this, the debut from a mysterious trio called Gauchiste, that one of the guys here plays guitar in Loincloth, whose recent Iron Balls Of Steel record for Southern Lord was a huge hit around here, but even with that sort of metal pedigree, one that does in fact extend to all three members, you won't find any churning math rock metal mayhem here, or even pounding downtuned chug, instead, this trio specializes in a haunting hybrid of minimal electronics, abstract soundscapery, and droned out avant metal, that more resembles some strange soundtrack than a metal record proper, the whole thing meticulously assembled mostly via computer, using the various sounds in different ways to produce all manner of timbres and textures, evoking a gorgeous hauntological dread, that is seldom found in more traditional metal.
The opener is a noxious cloud of blurred guitar buzz, skittery cymbal shimmer, and buried double kick drumming, that initially sound more like some strange chittering insect, it's definitely metal, but a sort of smeared abstract offshoot, with those drums fading out gradually, eventually leaving dense slabs of heaving chordal thrum and post industrial shimmer. The follow up track starts out like it's gonna ooze into some sort of dense doomic creep, but instead blissed out into a billowy cloud of ethereal ambience, washed out drones, and buried processed vox, while elsewhere on the record, deep rumbles pour forth like some sort of downtuned sonic avalanche, the occasional metal vokills, are appropriately growly and gruff, but they're suspended in a sort of blackbuzz stasis, with the most metal moments more reminiscent of a group like SUNNO))), or even more appropriately, like some obscure Cold Meat black ambient outfit.
Guitars seem to be the main instrument, but they're rarely left in their distinctly guitar-like form, instead, deftly transformed into what sounds like whirring organs, or smeared blackened hum, over which the group lace skittery glitches and machinelike rhythms, rarely propulsive, or even strictly that rhythmic, more another textural element, to add to the already bleak atmosphere that infuses pretty much every moment.
The last two tracks probably best sum up the group's sound, slipping from glimmering dreaminess, almost orchestral at moments, to blurred blackened ambience, and finally to super dense drone, a harsh, haunting, abject sprawl of super cinematic malevolence, that should most definitely appeal to metalheads and dronelords alike.
The packaging is stunning, the lp in a deluxe, heavy paper, weirdly cut multi-panel jacket, the cd-r (why a cd-r and not a real cd we do not know), in a cool hinged metallic case, with a plastic front panel, the disc visible through the plastic.
The latest release from Bill Orcutt's Palilalia label is a sprawling double lp collection of mostly unreleased tracks from his old band, legendary Miami noise rock duo (or sometimes trio, sometimes more) Harry Pussy. Whose bizarre, and somewhat sonically unrepresentative, vocal driven computer drone album Let's Build A Pussy was recently released on Editions Mego. But fear not faithful noise rock fanatics, One Plus One is no high concept low brow art piece (or is it?), this is some serious raw, heavy, blown out, chaotic and crushing freeform noise rock bliss out audial punishment from HP, in their duo form: Orcutt on guitar, Adris Hoyos on drums and vocals. Recorded between 1992-1994, all sounds captured on a beat up old Walkman, some of the tracks here popped up on some early (and insanely limited) releases, like the Vigilance cassette on Chocolate Monk, as well as a couple singles (both untitled, one with the lady holding a frog, the other with the stereos and speakers lined up in a field), but over 40 minutes of these jams (apparently culled from HOURS of material) are previously released, and so odds are those tape and singles tracks are new to most folks.
So yeah, it's noisy, and chaotic, and lo-fi, heavy and punky and free form, but with some serious riffing and some surprising beauty. Some of the tracks are swaggery and Stooges-y, eventually morphing into driving drum pound wreathed in squalls of detuned guitar damage freakout. Elsewhere clouds of caustic guitarnoise, crumble and grind over wild free form drum splatter, everything woozy and atonal and angular, but more often that one might expect, slipping into some surprisingly melodic passages, and at a few points, when the band slows it way down, and strips away some of the noise, it almost sounds like some twang flecked fusion of Pavement and Barn Owl, albeit seriously fractured and fucked up. The sound can be almost downright anthemic at times, but at others, a melting woozy morass of sound, with Hoyos' vocals mostly buried in the mix, beneath Orcutt's non stop axe destroying barrage, but when her vocal do come to the fore, they are TERRIFYING. Like hysterical horror movie scream queen by way of Yoko Ono, flitting from ear piercing impossibly high shriek, to weirdly guttural speaking in tongues, feral yelp to bleated bellow, fierce and freaked out and fucking amazing. Especially on one track, where it's just drums and vocals, over a bed of Orcutt's amp buzz. Total avant garde noise rock minimalist genius!
Peppered throughout are also some seriously mesmerizing long form jams that channel the spirit (and sound to a degree) of the Dead C, transforming the otherwise caustic crunch and feedback drenched skree into thick lush billows of blissed out, borderline dreamy noise.
Gorgeously packaged, pressed on heavy black vinyl, and housed in a super thick, black and white, deluxe gatefold jacket. And we're guessing, as with most stuff on Palilalia, probably pretty limited!
This new record from High Aura'd is our first exposure to this one man band's gorgeous understated minimal dronescapes, which we discovered via the man himself, who is in fact a long time aQ customer, and who we're proud to say, makes some seriously breathtaking music. Two epic side long sprawls, both born from near silence, a slow building A side that emerges as a deep rumbling and lush layered shimmer, a blurred ambience that drifts in soft focus billows, buried abstract melodies hover over slow shifting textures, all flecked with buzz and whir and distant streaks of sound, a serious slab of deep listening or which active listening is well rewarded, with a sound that is super active below the surface, the keen eared will hear strange voices, and mysterious melodies, and all manner of evidence regarding some secret sound world within High Aura'd's already gorgeously obfuscated music. The A side blossoms into a hiss drenched slo-mo creep, gradually fading out in a cloud of chiming bells and buried rhythms, the sound melancholy and sweetly sorrowful.
The flipside opens with some seriously Koner like low end minimalism, a cavernous drift much like that which opened the record, again building gradually to swath of black buzz crunch, a grinding landscape of hum and thrum and muted howl which quickly collapses into a soft cacophony of what sounds like orchestral samples, burred and smeared into an epic blissed out dreamlike coda before slipping back into the shadows, and a more wistful, hushed final passage.
We have to say, anything that we could mistake for Pink Floyd one moment, and Freedom Hawk the next, is pretty darn cool. And thus, this is! The vinyl-only debut release from a local San Francisco groop whose hypnotic, propulsive neo-kraut rhythms are wedded with muscular rock riffery in a kind of stoner rock meets retro prog blend that should appeal big time to folks into the likes of Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo, White Hills, Lumerians, 3 Leafs, and Circle.
The guitars sprawl psychedelically, the drums (played by the former drummer of trance-inducing Bay Area black metal legends Weakling, also ex-Saros) lock into endless grooves, and upon occasion cleanly-sung melodic vocals soar up and over those mesmeric beats and churning, chiming guitars... There's also heck of analog synths put to traditional good use here, especially on the album's big finale, the nearly quarter hour "Fading Twilight", an epic track, both gorgeous and powerful, that you could play alongside your favorite, most spaced-out, pot-perfumed '70s album sides for sure. Hollow Mirrors really display their authentic love for real old school prog (a la Atomic Rooster, Eloy, Far East Family Band, ELP, Steve Hillage, and anything Roger Dean ever painted an album cover for, probably) on that one! And elsewhere too, although overall Hollow Mirrors are a modern, original band, not a retro exercise to the extent of say, an outfit like Astra or BigElf (cool as they are).
If we had to make any (hopefully constructive) criticism at all about these killer spacegothkrautstonerjams from Hollow Mirrors, well, maybe we'd like to hear a bit more dirt and grit in the production next time, it's almost a bit too clean, and could possibly be heavier too, considering the metallic pedigree of some of the folks involved (like the aforementioned drummer!). But that's not really a criticism, just an observation. They can do their thing their way and we're happy to hear it. 'Tis fine stuff we think a lot of you will like. A lot.
We first heard from Insect Factory on a recent split with NZ droneguitar master RST, the Insect Factory side of the split a gorgeous sprawl of woozy collaged psychedelia, not all that far removed from Campbell Kneale's Our Love Will Destroy The World, with a similar knack for taking multiple layers of sounds, and dizzying rhythms, and somehow fusing them into something more organic and blissed out. We dug those tracks like crazy, and were super excited to discover there was in fact a full length, which essentially takes the sound from the 7" and recasts it as something more longform, which is ideal for this sort of soundscaping, allowing the sounds and textures to gradually change shape and remain in constant motion.
The record opens with a brief bit of warm washed out pulsating shimmer, all overlapping swaths of buzz and hum and smoldering blur, heady and darkly psychedelic, it could have easily been stretched out to fill up the whole side and we would have been please as punch. But instead, the sound shifts to sky full of sine wave tones, drifting in and out, minimal swells, that seem to blossom like some time lapse nature film, glistening and glimmering, the sound laced with little melodic flourishes, little percussive high end blips, it's not until about 8 minutes in, that some low end surfaces, adding some lush heft to the proceedings, letting those glimmers and shimmers, drift atop subtly undulating sprawl of smeared sound. The sound grows gradually rhythmic, before splintering into prismatic distortion drenched ur-drone, a blow out of white noise sculpted into something much more dreamlike and shoegazey.
The near 20 minute "New Incision" begins with a spacious expanse of near silence, and shimmering dreamily dubbed out tones drifting to and fro, swooping backwards guitars drifting in and out, a dreamy melodic tangle, that seems to grow more and more dense, softly noisy, becoming a sort of soft focus shoegaze Reich/Riley style workout, before slipping back into a woozy bit of backwards drift, rife with warm buzz and streaks of high end shimmer.
The record finishes with a strange sort of lo-fi dreamfolk coda, a super lo-fi recording of a guitar, unfurling a lush and lovely bit of spare balladry, wreathed in tape hiss and wrapped in a cloud of crystalline metallic tinkles.
Gorgeous stuff. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Pressed on 140 gram vinyl.
Apparently MF Doom, now just Doom, was on tour in Europe, and got stranded, with visa problems, eventually finding his way back to the UK, where he was born, but hadn't lived for years, and being stuck decided to do what he does, and make a record, first hooking up with Jneiro Jarel, who produced all the tracks here and is the JJ in JJ Doom, and sorted out some surprising guests, Damon Albarn of Blur/Gorillaz and Beth Gibbons of Portishead. While much attention has been paid to the unlikely guests, and a fair bit of flak has been hurled at the record for being somewhat lackluster, we have to say we're pretty into it. The record opens with a strange psychedelic collage, all warped samples, pinball/gamelan melodies, field recordings, eventually wound around a stuttery handclap beat, before "Guv'nor" lurches into action, a woozy tangle of melted loops and a barrage of unlikely samples, musical and otherwise. "Banished" is a murky sprawl of soundtracky kung fu groove, "Bite The Thong" is all big beat hook heavy groove, Albarn's contribution a barely noticeable refrain, same with "GMO", Gibbons offering up a very Portishead-y style chorus, but hardly the most exciting part of the song, a dizzying assemblage of strummed acoustic guitars, and weird sound effects, streaks of electronics and dramatic strings. "Rhymin' Slang" is a killer slab of pulsating synthy stutter, the whole record is pretty fucking great, and to these ears the production, while dramatically different than Doom's past collabs with Madvillain and Danger Mouse, is really fucking cool and far out, Jarel definitely has his own twisted thing going on, and it suits Doom's weird flow for sure, a mush mouthed stream of consciousness that's as brilliant / baffling as ever. Been listening to this like crazy, and doesn't seem like we'll stop anytime soon.
First record we've reviewed from these Portland crushers (who count a member of aQ faves L'Acephale among their ranks), whose sound has changed dramatically over the last 4 years and 3 full lengths, having started life as something much more noisy and chaotic, initially some sort of twisted power electronic / grindcore combo, their sound blackened considerably, their music growing more and more dense and darkly metallic, arriving here, at Tresspass, where they have essentially made the transition to full on black metal band, but what makes these guys so good, and this record so compelling, is that it's informed by that transformation, for all the black buzz, and gnarled riffing, there are gouts of grinding fury, or weird stretches of processed vocals sounding like a symphony of gurgles. In some ways they're like a more punk rock Deathspell Omega, they have a similarly dense sound, and a similar knack for creating lush blackened crush from multiple layers of droned out guitars, tangled riffage, and impossibly chaotic drumming.
Even at their blackest, their punk roots show through, whether it's a barrage of squealing pick slides, or some serious punked out D-beat pound, the guttural vocals more death metal, but again, it just adds another cool element to their already wildly hybridized sound. Relentless and furious, the production MASSIVE, the sound epic and crushingly brutal, downtuned and HEAVY, the tracks occasionally splintering into droned out doom, or blurry stretches of rumble and thrum, or crumbling industrial blurscapes, but just as often exploding into wild gouts of metalpunk chaos, before slipping right back into another blast of grinding blackbuzz churn.
Super swank gatefold sleeves, with printed cardstock insert.
We first discovered Kohn, aka Jurgen DeBlonde, via his contribution to the Western Vinyl 'Portrait' series, in which each artist was to pick an individual, write songs about said individual, and provide a drawing for the cover. Kohn picked Bruce Willis, so we could hardly resist when we saw this weird record in the racks with this scrawled portrait of BW on the cover. We were then pleasantly surprised to discover that there was more to the record that the concept/cover, and in fact, it was a gorgeous disc of glitched out folkiness and droney melodic abstractions, trippy loops and blurred collaged soundscapes, it was so good that we went searching for every release we could find.
And not soon after, this showed up, the latest from Kohn, an lp on Kraak and one that finds him exploring the concept, as the title suggests, of random patterns, recorded with just an organ, and with minimal edits, improvised variations on simple random patterns, designed to be listened to, again according to the liner notes, while doing something else, reading, meditating, driving, and it does sound perfect for that. Obviously influenced by Reich, Riley, Glass and the like, this is moody hypnotic, almost new age sounding kosmische mesmer, four long tracks, that over the course of each, gradually shift and transform, from murky looped churn, to glistening melodic shimmer, and from lush chordal thrum, to percolating sci-fi arpeggiations, that sound very cosmic and soundtracky, the sort of stuff that should definitely appeal to everyone into the current crop of retro futurism, Zombi, Umberto, Majeure, Blizaro, etc, although this is definitely more minimal, and in places definitely has a Zomes vibe, a similar sort of spaced out zoner vibe, perfect drift off, zone out, late night soundtrack for sure.
Housed in a super swank four color silkscreened fold over jacket, with a printed insert with liner notes detailing the motives behind the music, and Kohn's ideas and intentions in creating these random patterns.
When we reviewed the recent career retrospective compilation on Omni from weirdo German outsider sci-fi electro pop alchemist Felix Kubin, we got a little taste of his very early material, and in a weird way, found some of that stuff the most twistedly and disturbingly appealing, so in the spirit of digging deeper into the warped youthful sonic dabblings of a burgeoning musical madman comes this lp collection of, as the title suggests, Teenage Tapes, which in fact is precisely that, a collection of early EARLY recordings, from a teenage Kubin, aged 11-15 (he began playing at age 8!). And like the tracks we heard on the Omni comp, maybe even more so, these tapes do not disappoint.
Consisting of nearly half entirely previously unreleased material, Teenage Tapes is a wild melange of tripped out electro pop, primitive cold wave, and some weird strain of home brewed krautrock, just check out opener "Paris Paris", with it's driving drum machine beat, twisted electronics, goofily playful melodies, sinister super distorted vocals, it may have been a teenage experiment, but it's way more fierce and bad ass than half of the grown up bands trying to pull this stuff off now. And more of Teenage Tapes is made up of the same sort of churning, rhythmic minimal kraut-pop weirdness. Stripped of the vocals, these jams could easily be early electronic krautrock experiments, but add in the vocals, and it becomes some sort of warped avant electro pop, with some tracks drifting into almost kosmische synth territory, others sounding a bit like Perrey & Kingsley doing Tangerine Dream, others like wild 8-bit freakouts, and still others sounding like some rad new band on Wierd or Captured Tracks. And while usually, a collection of early teenage works would end up being more of a novelty, and sure, some of this stuff is a little goofy, many of the tracks here are incredible, lush and textured and atmospheric and near cinematic. Hard to believe Kubin was making music like this in grade school, just grateful that someone is finally digging through Kubin's teenage archives. Here's hoping there's more to come.
Nicely packaged in a heavy jacket adorned with a teenage Kubin's gothy made up face, with an inner sleeve featuring lyrics, and some hand drawn diagrams and schematics.
First there was Warhammer 48K, then there was Cave, now there is Lazer Crystal. That's right those crazy noisemakers from Chicago have gone and got themselves a brand new band with a brand new sound. Fans of Cave and WH48K might be a bit thrown, but most likely only for a second, as the sound of Lazer Crystal was definitely hinted at in sounds of both those bands, especially Cave.
It may look like a 12". And it is, but there's only one song on each side, with most of each side being the runout groove, but fear not, there's plenty of sound to be found! Super ghetto spray painted cover art, tiny scrawled photo copied insert, all leading us to drop the needle and get bowled over by LC's wild lo-fi electro krautrock jams. Think total eighties John Hughes soundtrack new wave, all tangled up with electronic Kraftwerk style Krautrock. Analog synths buzz over fuzzy grooves, machinelike beats pound and pulse while vocoder-ed vocals swoon and swoop all over the place.
The flipside introduces some Bryan Ferry like crooning to the proceedings, the perfect compliment to the lurching synth drenched new wave krautrock what-the-fuck beneath. Groovy, danceable, weirdness that kicks a surprising amount of ass!!!
Anyone into all those French new wave reissues we've been digging lately, or any of the more modern dance floor destroyers, will probably find the perfect place for this in their next DJ set.
Putain de merde!! '70s French noisy garage punk rock insanity here, courtesy of France's Born Bad label who know their shit (they brought us some early '60s French rock insanity not too long ago from Les Blousons Noirs, remember). We've been wanting to review this for a while too, finally got a few imports in on both cd and vinyl. It's an offical compilation of most what remains of the recorded legacy of these cult '77 era punks, named after psychiatrist and drug addiction treatment specialist Claude Olivenstein. They were worthy contemporaries of the great Metal Urbain, sounding totally killed by death. The 13 tracks here range from their killer singles to even rawer and wigger demos to live material, some of it previously unissued, rescued from dusty old cassette tapes and so forth. Like their countrymen and early '70s forefathers Rotomagus, they never made a full-length album - or rather, this is it, 30+ years later!
Savage, slashing stuff, the vocals en francias delivered with a snotty sneer, the rhythms chugging and cooking like rock 'n' roll should, guitar jangle mixing it up with some wild lashings of noisy fuzz and distortion. Crazy. Like certain other obscure '70s French faves we can think of (Angelface, Soggy) there's plenty of Stooges-y shake appeal here. Also, if Metal Urbain was in fact the French answer to the Sex Pistols, these guys were ready to back 'em up in a pinch. They also have a cute little doo-wop thing going too with the ironically sunshiney "La Nuit Tragique", while the groovy twang of "Olivenstein Je T'ai Dans Les Veines" (performed here live) reminds us of both Radio Birdman and The Stranglers. Oui oui, recommended! (Compact disc version comes enhanced with a QuickTime video of Les Olivensteins performing "Euthanasie" on TV.)
We went a little crazy for the first Mamaleek record, a way too limited cd-r, packed with blown out blissed out shoegazey black metal, head spinning ultra technical metallic grind, and gorgeous blurred black ambience. That record was so intense, so gloriously fucked up, so complex and confusional, it really seemed like an impossible record to top, but this latest record, the first Mamaleek vinyl release, definitely does its best, and in some cases succeeds big time.
Like the record opener, "I Can't Stay Behind", which begins with some creepy sample, a mysterious voices, the sound of horses, then suddenly, speaker shredding blasts of start stop black grind, a haunting lull between each, before finally launching into full on hyper speed black buzz, but with weird interludes, moaning clean vocals, stuttering drum machines, a strangely almost indie rock arrangement, but shredded and shattered, cool loping arpeggiated breakdowns, the guitars impossibly distorted, the sound WAY in-the-red, the creepy intro sample resurfacing throughout.
That indie rock sensibility runs through the whole record, but is deftly twisted into much blacker shapes. The second track, is an almost looped single part song, very hypnotic, partway through keyboards surface, all sunbaked and swoonsome, and while the track remains buzzy and abrasive, those keyboards help transform the sound into something more akin to a black metal M83.
And that side of the band seems to be the most prevalent this time around, trading in much of the brutal grind and twisted blast of the first record for something a bit more melodic and sort of pretty. Gnarled fragmented and fractured angular crunch is butted up against almost loungey piano, and random Japanese vocal snippets, murky industrial rhythms underpin groovy acoustic guitars, grim buzz gets warped and twisted and draped over swinging jazz, and it almost works, but is all the better for not quite working, the result a seriously twisted mash up. And the jazz element runs through to varying degrees, so much so that there's even a Charlie Parker cover, done pretty straight, only the guitars are a bit distorted and a little off, and there are some harsh black vokills that were most likely not in the original, seriously twisted and tweaked. Elsewhere, Mamaleek unfurls drone drenched near static black metalscapes, weaves loping drum machine grooves beneath coruscating super distorted guitar melodies, incorporates what sounds like seventies FM radio rock into otherwise grim blasting blackness,
The closer is more M83 style washed out woozy drift, skittering drum machines, wheezing accordions, shimmering strings, warm and sun dappled, wreathed in crackle and hiss, until the song shatters into a full bore freakout, a squealing fractured nearly white noise free jazz blurred metal outro, that is as kick ass as it is utterly confounding.
If anything this record is WAY more varied, more experimental, less cohesive, but not in a bad way, the sounds all manage to fit together in one epic, seriously demented whole, but this time it's a much wilder ride, not for the faint of heart, or the unadventurous. But much like the first record, fucking amazing and WAY recommended.
Pressed on super thick vinyl, and housed in ultra deluxe sleeves, with striking and subtle, spot varnish inking.
It seems like most of the music coming out of Brooklyn these days has been tending toward fey eighties beholden electro pop or gloomy Cure worshipping synthwave, but it's not all eyeliner and Siouxsie lunch boxes happening over there, at least based on the debut from Meek Is Murder, who might as well be called The Meek SHALL BE Murdered, cuz this is some seriously kick ass poser disposing heaviness, displaying a darker, seriously more fucked up and chaotic sonic side to everyone's favorite borough.
Recorded by Converge's Kurt Ballou, and definitely not that far removed from the Converge / Coalesce sonic axis, Meek Is Murder traffic in a dense, gnarled mathy metalpunk crush, that shifts deftly from dirgey downtuned sludge to crazed hyperdense metalcore fury, with plenty of twists and turns in-between. Nine short sharp blasts of tangled metallic mathpunk, most of the tracks clocking in at 2 minutes or less, 3 or 4 closer to 60 seconds, culminating in a final 6+ minute epic.
The record begins with an intro of sorts, a churning seasick dirge, with rad syncopated drums and rib cage rattling metallic chug, all wreathed in woozy spidery leads, before launching directly into "Return Void", the opening blast the sort of shit that makes pits explode, but then the double kick comes in, and the song blossoms into a weirdly melodic mini-epic, a sort of metalcore Godspeed almost. But it's the title track that might be our favorite, a galloping Speedwolf like classic thrash, laced with a tangled shreddery that at times sounds like a less demented Mick Barr, unfurling woozy harmonized classic metal harmonies over the roiling metalpunk below. From there on out, it's some of THEE best mathed out heaviness, we've heard in ages, we're reminded at time of Kiss It Goodbye or Deadguy, heavy as fuck, with almost proggy arrangements, but shot through with some serious melody, fractured by super dynamic stop/starts and wreathed in thick sheets of feedback. The bulk of the record clocks in at less than 15 minutes, but the songs are so jammed with tripped out parts and intricate arrangements, killer riffing, rad melodies, it feels like way longer, until the record finishes off with "Garbage Collector", which sounds like a more metal Dazzling Killmen, churning noise rock math metal radness, with some amazing, weirdly melodic, droned out breakdowns, as well as a seriously epic, brooding, slow build Godspeed-ish final movement, that pushes MiM's sound way beyond most other typical punk/metal outfits, and is fast making this, and these guys, a new aQ favorite.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! 100 of which are white, and while they last we've got the white ones. Hand numbered.
One of two new releases this week on the Sleeping Giant Glossolalia label, the other, the debut from the new Mick Barr / Brooks Headley duo Oldest reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this, the debut from this rhythmic lo-fi post punk noise rock combo, whose sound is a super distorted, lurching, lumbering mathed out monster, all gristly guitar buzz, blown out rehearsal space drumming, the sound fuzzy and washed out, but dense and tense and thick. The songs tangled arrangements of churning downtuned heaviness, of stop/start math rock stutter, angular and chaotic, with the occasional weirdly almost arena-rock sounding chorus, in fact most of the songs have some buried melodies that transform Mutlicult's blasts of rhythmic frenzy into something much more than just noise rock workouts. The basslines are thick but brittle, the vocals a buried bellow, there's definitely an AmRep vibe, but there's also a sort of early eighties UK post punk thing going on, some of the jams downright groovy, everything wreathed in crumbling distortion, but the pop hooks are there somewhere, and seem to surface with repeated listens, but they are subtle, Multicult is more about woozy, dirgey, muddy heaviness, a sound that seems to melt and ooze, almost like someone is dragging their finger along the record as it spins, which only gives the sound an even more tripped out psychedelic feel. For all their pound and crush, the band don't shy away from the rhythms that drive their sound, often striping things way down, and letting the bass and drums take control, it's at those points that Multicult sound more like they could be some lost eighties punk/funk artifact, but as rhythmic (and at times, groovy) as these guys get, they never ever stray too far from another blast of churning skull caving noise rock crunch.
Packaged in a red 12" style sleeve, with a green and yellow sticker.
Recorded live in 2011 (in a yoga studio and a synagogue), the latest from these Virginian dronelords, once again prove these guys are still the modern masters of the raga. Seven extended tracks of exquisite modern minimal drone music, lush, layered tones, constantly shifting textures, and ever shifting overtones, multiple instruments deftly woven into one single organic whole, all recorded live, on acoustic instruments, with no overdubs, this is pure sound, Pelt masterfully weaving this pure sound into expansive/expressive sprawls of mesmerizing, meditative minimalism, the sound varying greatly from track to track, whether it's the near atonal din of opener "Of Jack's Darbari", or the downright folky "Wings Of Dirt", they both revolve around the drone, as do all the tracks here, the thread that binds all these sounds together. And the fact that the various instruments can be busy on their own, unfurling flurries of notes, that on their own, would have a completely different vibe than as part of the whole, where all of that business, simple adds texture, and propulsion, tonal color and depth, and these songs are deep, the sort that require deep listening to truly appreciate the sort of spiritual sonic tradition these guys are a part of. LaMonte Young, Pandit Pran Nath, Henry Flynt, Charlemagne Palestine, Catherine Christer Hennix, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Pelt's incredible body of work most definitely fits among those masters, and this live document demonstrate that Pelt can still channel that cosmic energy and form it into gorgeous, transcendental sound. In almost any form. The band really do explore every facet of the raga/drone here. Deep sonorous tones crafted from scraped bells and bowed metal, become a hushed metallic shimmer, rife with subtle movement and endless tonal variation, huge clouds of blurred shimmer are formed from piano notes drifting atop abstract percussion, and lush room reverb, wheezing chords are layered and layered, wreathed in keening streaks of high end, fiddles and harmoniums woven into a lustrous prismatic soft focus skree, dark bell tones hover over muted rhythms, wrapped in woozy metallic shimmer, and a mournful fiddle emits an aching, scraping tone, while below, thick slabs of metal rumble and whir. So incredible.
Packaged in a super striking, gorgeously psychedelic, full color, heavy gatefold jacket. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
This new vinyl (+cd) release from the consistently winning experimental label Utech comes from an artist we weren't previously familiar with, by the name of Frank Rosaly. We think he's based in Chicago, but aren't even sure about that. And it's a little hard to describe his music, as documented here, but we'll try, 'cause as soon as we heard this record, we could tell it was right up our alley. There's two long tracks here, about 15 minutes per side, apparently created/composed using a highly conceptual process, yet the results are much more than of academic interest, they're quite compelling and original, we think any adventurous listener will agree. Utech somewhat drily describes the genesis of Centering And Displacement thusly: "A body of improvised source material was collected, segmented and organized by a simple chance operation. These segments were then orchestrated into a sound program and arranged by order of the strict composed form. At times, the score also regulated post-recorded effects to manipulate the original material. As the material was edited, it was divided into six separate channels (three stereo tracks). Each pair of channels was transferred to a cd and each was played on three cd players simultaneously, creating a simple six-channel sound installation� the dense six-channel score was revised and reduced to two channels (one stereo track), which is now the final, preferred version."
Ok, but what does it sound like? How about a gamelan (or a recording of one) that's been all crumpled up, then unfolded and stretched out? Or, less fancifully, like a one-man electro-acoustic improv session on drums, percussion, and electronics (which IS what this is), subjected to the operations described above, in such a way as to strike a balance between abrasive, abstract textures and more hypnotic, if unusual and damaged, quasi-rhythmic soundscapes. Like we said, right up our alley!
It begins, on side one, with a low thunderous rumbling, like a magnified burst of record crackle. And such startling, ominous blown-out barrages of distortion continue intermittently throughout this first track, sounding like the breath of an expiring monster, sighing heavily amidst tinkling percussive jumble and crash, with pauses for silence� these tumbling spasms then steady and flow into what sound like masses of clattering chimes, a soundscape above which a recurring three-note motif (on synth? vibraphone?) is heard. That, in fact, reminded us of the incredible soundtrack to the 1971 movie Klute, sinister and suspenseful. There's electronics that sound like bird-twitter here too, and it's all very atmospheric, far from a mere experimental compositional exercise.
The second side/track continues with that atmospheric vibe, being a twilight soundscape of distant airplane engine drones, with more up-front textural scraping and bell ringing tones, that eventually coalesces into a softly thrumming humming pulse, over which a very gentle clitter-clatter of percussion drifts. Quite lovely and mesmeric, it is. The clank and rattle builds towards the end, as does the pulsation, becoming more insistent and dramatic, but still relatively mild as such things could be imagined, before a sudden whistling finale.
Inspired (we're merely guessing) equally by '60s/'70s out-there free improv (stuff on FMP, BYG) and also Industrial music's infamous "pipe-fighting" techniques, Rosaly's music has moments that may remind you of No Neck Blues Band, of Will Over Matter, of Supersilent, of Pierre-Yves Mace, of Aufgehoben, and other disparate and unusual and sometimes counter-intuitive but fascinating music-and-noise-makers. This is really pretty great. And, LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Note, the lp comes packaged with a compact disc version of the album as well, which is always a nice touch (much preferable to a mere download card, we think).
Record number two from this Seattle bliss out twee pop combo, and much like their debut, it's another killer collection of fuzzy guitars, simple stripped down drumming, shoegazey ethereal vox, and some seriously catchy songs. As we mentioned in our review of Go With Me, anyone into Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, or really any of the girl groups on Slumberland, Seapony will definitely hit the spot. Wistful, dreamily melancholy dream pop, but this time around, the band have roughed up the production a little, adding some grit and gristle, the guitars a little bit warbly and subtly woozy, the result makes for something just a bit more psychedelic. Just check out the opening track "Outside", which on the surface is pure jangly bliss, but listen close, and you'll hear distorted crumbling distortion, and the vocals somehow soft focus and hushed, but still in-the-red. "Tell Me So" is more smoothed out, but even there, the vocals are weirdly recorded, the drums seem to ping pong from speaker to speaker, all wound up in lush billows of warm strum and shimmery melody. The rest of the record unfolds similarly, the songs slipping easily from sixties girl group shuffle, to groovy garage rock pound, to dreamy shoegaze pop, to nineties retro indie rock, but all within the context of the group's dreamy soft focus dream pop sound.
Latest 12" jam from local label Voltaire, and the first we've heard from local trio Shock, their song "Heaven", starts out all noisy and synthy, driven by a dark house-y pulse, which sort of had us expecting something all Carpenter/Goblin-y, but then the vocals come in, and the song is transformed into a gorgeous slab of retro electro pop shimmer, all groovy low slung bass line, reverby guitar jangle, ominous synth pulse, dubbed out handclaps, skittery beat, and some seriously divine, sultry vox, all wreathed in a gorgeously lush production, that had us thinking M83 for sure, a fantastic blast of fuzzed out shoegaze electronic house-pop.
The remixes are pretty bad ass too, probably most exciting for aQ-ers, is Steve Moore from Zombi's mix, which transforms it into a glistening cascade of percolating synth melodies, the house music pulse left intact, but the vocals blurred and smeared into long stretches of breathy looped drones. So good!
The other remixes are less dramatic, Beatbroker, as his name would suggest, goes heavier on the beat, while letting all the other sounds blur into something more ethereal and washed out, while Hatchback go the other direction entirely, and take the song in a much more eighties pop direction, more fuzzy retro-pop, all hazy and almost Beach House-y at times.
Longtime aQ pal Chris Johanson (rad artist and Awesome Vistas label head) dropped by the store the other day with just a handful of this special edition release by his current band Sun Foot. As part of an ongoing series called Old News, where the label commissioned bands to make records based on current issues in the news (or rather, not in the news enough!) that are important to them, Sun Foot use their installment to highlight breakdowns in the justice system that inevitably send innocent people to death and for juveniles to be increasingly tried as adults, using the recent execution of Troy Davis as its central focus. Sun Foot, who also count among its members Brian Mumford from the tweaked Americana project, Dragging An Ox Through Water, bring a bluesy shambling dirge of grief and resilience through four tracks that are as ramshackle as they are urgent. Comes with three printed inserts of news clippings and information about the project. These are limited to 300 of which we have 5 and probably cannot get more so act fast if you want one.
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.
The latest record from former Yellow Swan finds Pete Swanson continuing to explore/dissect/reimagine/reinvent his own mutant strain of techno. Like on his recent Man With Potential lp, the sounds here are raw and chaotic, home brewed and noisy, a lot like what you might have imagined a techno Yellow Swans might have sounded like. The framework is classic, a thumping four on the floor, but it's the setting and surroundings that makes Swanson's sound so compelling. Very much like the more beat oriented jams of Our Love Will Destroy The World, or the dancefloor experiments of Astral Social Club, Swanson seems to be coming at techno from a similarly genuine, yet sonically removed, angle, a bit of kitchen sink, mad scientist noisiness, with lots of the sounds obviously culled from an arsenal of synths and drum machines that are not all that dissimilar from what he employed in his noise making floorcore days. But Swanson has definitely proven himself, this is no mere dalliance, these jams are fierce and driving, and in a weird way, seriously funky. The title track here is a mesmerizing blast of super layered, heavily textured techno, that has SO much going on. Total maximalist techno, tangled melodies, chirping fragments of high end, thick shard of rumbling bass thrum, the sort of groove you never want to end. The VIP mix of the same song, just strips back the melody, and piles on the noise, adding even more hiss and glitch, the bassline pushed up in the mix, woozy and hypnotic, the sounds sharp and jagged, and yet the whole thing somehow still so mesmerizing and kinda catchy. The idea that you could get this sort of thing stuck in your heard, seems preposterous, until you find yourself humming these sort of melodies, hours later.
The B side is the real gem here, a sprawling expanse of minimal noisescapery, all washed out shimmer, fluttery fragmented high end melodies, and super spare skeletal skitters, everything beneath a layer of gauzy ethereal hum, the vibe way less electronic, and more sort of Jeck / Tim Hecker style soft noise ambience, the beats not so much beats, as just more texture, buried rhythms and blurred pulsations, even filling up a whole side, you'll find yourself lifting the needle and playing it again and again and again.
Saucy retro Chippendales cover art too.
UK tape label the Tapeworm launches their new, non-tape imprint, called The Wormhole, with two new releases, the double 7" vinyl debut of Drcarlsonalbion aka Dylan Carlson from Earth, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and the oddly named outfit The Swifter, a trio of piano, electronics and drums and percussion, featuring long time aQ fave BJ Nilsen manning the electronics. This record documents the group's first encounter, which took place in an old German church, and found the trio taking full advantage of the space's incredible acoustics, for a fantastic bit of dreamlike minimalism, beginning life as a creaking ship's hull, channeling Nurse With Wound's fantastic Salt Marie Celeste, but quickly letting the piano move to the fore, the sound transforming into something much more Necks like, the flurries of swirling notes reminding us of Lubomyr Melnyk, the drums a subtle background shuffle, the electronics alternately adding texture, or manipulating the sounds of the other players, but on the opening track, the sound is quite organic, minimal motorik free jazz drift, that gradually splinters into something much more rhythmic and abstract, and electronic sounding, but due to the instrumentation and the space, even the electronics sound organic.
The rest of the record explores similar territory, the piano adding most of the melodic color, while the drums and electronics supply the texture, dreamy and washed out one second, spare and skeletal the next, with some really fantastic moments throughout, the looped piano fragment and martial snare on "Neap Tide", or the No Neck Blues Band like soft cacophony on "Swallow", the record finishing off with the fantastic "Wave Guidance Allows Three", which again on the surface has a Necks like feel, but the low end piano is looped and layered and processed, creating huge dense blackened billows, churning and strangely atonal, while the drums supply a simple subtle driving rhythm underneath, before dissipating into a gorgeous glistening bliss out coda.
In Limbo is the debut full length from Kristina Lieberson, who plays keyboards in a band called Here We Go Magic (who we've never heard), but as Teen, Lieberson whips up a pretty sweet slab of indie pop post punk, heavy on new wavey swirliness, and minimal space out dreaminess. There's definitely a serious old school post punk vibe, but filtered through something more modern and psychedelic. Opener "Better" pairs Lieberson's strident vocals (that remind us a bit of Grass Widow) with primitive simple drum pound, and clouds of swirling synth shimmer, not to mention the occasional handclaps, the vocals layered into a dizzying round. Which leads right into "Come Back", with it's strange calypso percussion, and stripped down muted guitar chug, a weird match for the squiggly synths and hazy echo drenched vocals, but those disparate elements seem to mesh more and more as the song goes on, before slipping into a weird swirly psychedelic breakdown. "Charlie" slows things down into a woozy, trudging, synth heavy ballad, that sounds a bit like Best Coast on horse tranquilizers.
And the rest of the record unfurls similarly, like some weird Grass Widow / US Girls hybrid, taking a simple jangle pop garage rock core, mixed with some quirky new waviness, and adding some dirgey, murky post punk churn, not to mention some serious weirdness (the cool pinball sound effects on "Electric"), and some crazy catchy songs. In fact "Electric" might just be our favorite of the bunch, those aforementioned pinball sounds mixed with some M83 style electro glam bombast, some blown out synth buzz, and a chorus to die for.
Record number three from these local country punks, and the first one we've reviewed, which is weird, since some aQ-ers have long been fans, but also because Trainwreck Riders include amongst their members, Andrew from SF pop gods the Ovens, but while TWR are in fact a bit poppy, their sound is much more twangy, bringing to mind, most obviously, Camper Van Beethoven, Uncle Tupelo, Dieselhed and that whole No Depression crowd. And sure none of those bands exist anymore, and really that whole scene sorta dried up and disappeared, but these guys definitely remind us of why we loved that stuff so much, and have us again wondering why more bands still don't do the whole country punk / country rock thing. It sounds as good now as it ever did. And it's easy to imagine these guys being huge back in the nineties, records on Bloodshot, touring with the Old 97's or the Mekons, but these days, they're definitely doing something WAY outside of what's hip and cool. But goddamn these guys nail it. Big jangly guitars, lush arrangements, loping rhythms, plenty of twang, drawled, laid back vocals, crazy catchy songs, with some occasionally exploding into kick ass start/stop almost mathy breakdowns, like on the second half of "Gypsy Stealin', which finds the band unfurling a dense tangle of progged out twang flecked post rock churn, which somehow fist perfectly with the rest of the songs droned out blugrassy groove.
The band definitely have their pop down too, every song here impossibly catchy, "House On The Hill" being one of our favorites, heavily beholden to Uncle Tupelo, sounding like it could be a cover of some Anodyne B-side, which is a huge compliment for sure! "Orchard Keeper" too, definitely displays a huge UT influence, the song shifting constantly from country gallop to woozy twangy dream pop and back again. But the more we listen, the harder and harder it gets to pick a favorite, as more and more of the songs become potential candidates, which is always the sign of a great record, in fact we only just now made it to the brooding closer, "Shark Attack", a moody woozy reverb drenched country ballad with some seriously grim lyrics about, yep, a shark attack, the music appropriately dirge-y and ominous, a serious chunk of grim dark twang.
The cd comes in a digipak, the vinyl pressed on 180 gram vinyl, also includes a cd version of the whole record!
The third full length record from Detroit garage punks Tyvek, finds the group once again, mixing things up, after beginning life as a warped lo-fi fractured garage pop combo, the last few records found these guys getting more and more punk, shedding much of their quirkiness and poppiness in favor of something more angry and urgent, culminating in the recent Nothing Fits, which found the band in full on punk mode, short blasts of crunchy guitar, pounding drums and yowled vocals, but here, on their latest, On Triple Beams, it's almost as if those preceding records never happened at all. Chronologically, this definitely sounds like it should have come right after their Siltbreeze debut, the songs are longer, noiser and poppier, lots of tangled guitars, wild chaotic drumming, all wound into tense sprawls of droned out, crunchy post punk garage pop pound, opener "Scaling" channels the Fall, the vocals sung/spoken over a relentless jagged jangle, and peppered with blurts of distorted buzz, the chorus loose and chaotic, all the while, catchy as hell.
And that Fall comparison definitely proves apt as the record unwinds, most of the track just two or three parts, frantic riffing, wound around stripped down propulsive drum pound, locked tight, while the vocals testifyin' over the top. The sound is much more in line with their In The Red brethren, but at the same time, they're definitely sounding very British post punk, angular and angsty, sharp and swaggery, somehow fusing the warped garage pop of their debut, with the agit punkiness of their last few records into this heady, sweaty, bruised and bloody blast of kick ass garage punk crush.
Not sure why it took so long for us to get turned on to these guys. We definitely remember listening to them in the past, and not being too impressed. It could be a case of just being a bit garage rock-ed out. Too many bands in a scene that seemed to be spawning a new band ever 5 seconds, the last thing we needed was one more. But on Racism, UV Race quickly show us what we've been missing out on. Definitely way weirder and quirkier than most of the garage rock out there, the label describes them as "Australia's most genius avant-tards", which kinds sums it up. Catchy and jangly, fuzzy and crunchy, but also sort of druggy and fucked up, warped and demented (check out the chorus on "I'm A Pig": "OINK OINK OINK OINK"), the songs are super simple, one or two parts, sing along lyrics, guitars that get woozy and angular, lots of fuzz and distortion, the sounds weirdly psychedelic, plenty of handclaps, squiggly freak out leads, and loads of super blown out fuzz guitars, ridiculous lyrics, so ridiculous in fact that the whole booklet is a series of paragraph long descriptions of each song, the lyrics, who wrote it, what inspired it, pretty goddamn funny. There's a definitely Fall vibe too (just check out "Life Park", with its sung/spoken vocals), and a lot of this is of the drug addled, brain damaged, outsider pop variety, but scattered throughout are some seriously ruling jams, the record at its best when those two sides collide, which they do quite often, maybe nowhere moreso than on the ultra tripped out closer, "Memenonome", all primitive drum plod, echo drenched shards of space guitar, dense psychedelic swirls, a long stretches of near silence, all leading up to some surprisingly catchy poppiness which quickly devolves into a melting miasma of bleating horns and tinkling xylophones, all wrapped around the group's lilting, and weirdly catchy psych pop dirge.
A very special Record Store Day 2012 compilation, released on the new(ish) label 12XU, run by noneother than Mr. Gerard Cosloy (formerly of Homestead and Matador Records, among other notable ventures), and in the spirit of the day, it's a benefit, with all profits going to Austin's Trailer Space Records, a DIY shop that hosts all ages shows in addition to selling records, and this comp, named for the edict given to folks coming to aforementioned Trailer Space instores, is equal parts 12XU label sampler and Trailer Space compilation, featuring bands who've played the shop and/or who have records out on 12XU, in some cases both, in others neither. Regardless, it's a pretty excellent collection, with a few names we know: Cruddy, Chris Brokaw, Air Traffic Controllers, and even more we don't, Naw Dude, Carolee, Nazi Gold, Marriage, James Arthur's Manhunt, Followed By Static, The Flesh Lights and more. The sound ranges from the 68 second blast of dirgey distorto garage punk from Cruddy, the dirgey indie post punk of Nazi Gold, the Dead C meets Crazy Horse psychedelic skree of Cosloy's band Air Traffic Controllers, the echo drenched bellowing vokilled crustpunk garage dirge of Naw Dude, the spaced out FX heavy psych rock of Marriage, the fuzzy druggy dirge pop of Followed By Static, the angular bass heavy new wave post punk swagger of the Flesh Lights and more more more. Definitely had us hankering to hear more from all of these outfits.
Limited Record Store Day release, so these will definitely have a limited shelf life. Housed in full color covers, with photos of Trailer Space, and the titular 'Bring Beer' sign. Also includes a download coupon.
Heads up all you Sublime Frequencies obsessives out there, and we know there are a lot of you, this is record number two from a new label called Sham Palace, run by Mark Gergis, one of the guys who runs SF, and whose first release was the amazing Leh Jani lp from aQ fave Omar Souleyman. This new lp is a collection of Dabke, a celebratory music performed at weddings and parties in the Middle East, hypnotic electrified dance jams driven by the buzzing of the mejwiz, a double reed bamboo flute, this modern version accompanied by driving electronic beats, over which a male vocalist, calls out for the audience to dance and participate. Does that all sound a little familiar? That's because Omar Souleyman is probably the most well known Dabke performer, at least in the West, so if you can't get enough of that sound, here's a killer collection of super obscure Dabke cuts, collected from various tapes and cds, featuring tracks captured live at parties and weddings, and like those Souleyman jams, the jams here are driving and hypnotic, psychedelic and totally mesmerizing, totally tranced out, the beats booming, pounding, skittering, the melodies buzzing wildly, the tracks here all vary quite a bit, from stripped down and a bit more mellow, to bombastic and booming, to brittle and lo-fi and distorted and drenched in echo and reverb, the programed beats wild and chaotic, the grooves totally irresistible, some amazing stuff.
And needless to say, WAY recommended, especially for all Sublime Frequencies / Omar Souleyman fans!!
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!! Packaged in nice full color sleeves with printed liner notes on the back of the jacket.
This awesomely titled compilation covers a very specific strain of metal, as in 'heavy metal from Northwest Arkansas'. Aha. Well, we were definitely intrigued. Not that we can think of any metal bands from NW Arkansas off the top of our heads (Rwake?), but we're always down for some obscure metal, and while we're often wary of comps that feature no bands we've heard of, we decided to give this one a go, and were pretty psyched we did.
Up first is Vore, who kick up some serious death metal brutality, equal parts chugging riffage, pounding pummel, churning breakdowns and mathy stop start dynamics, the song laced with some seriously shredding leads, not to mention some surprising melody, the whole thing pretty dang catchy for a DM jam. Deadeye Jack do a sort of grimy, crusty stonery sludge thing, the recording raw and rough, but it suits their sound, muddy and murky, the vocal buried in the mix, but with a pretty serious main riff. Lightbulb Detective Agency have a terrible band name, but their song has a great title ("HP Hovercraft"), the sound sort of mathy and proggy, definitely very modern, dramatic crooned vox over complex mathmetal chug and churn, reminds us of all those Norwegian black metal bands who decided to get all proggy and poppy (Borknagar, Dodheimsgard). Definitely not bad though.
The flipside starts off with Hymns, who are definitely the fiercest of the bunch so far, frenzied and furious metallic grind, mathy and relentless, shredding axe action and insanely frantic drumming, a wild chaotic grindmetal tangle that kills! Ogham offer up a brief blast of instrumental math metal, that might be our favorite of the bunch, a million parts and tempos crammed into two minutes, equal parts the Champs, Scale The Summit, Loincloth, Don Caballero, the song twisting and turning relentlessly before seeming to just stumble to a halt, definitely want to hear more from these guys. And finally some true metal / true doom to finish things off, from the questionably named Dragon Sunday, whose sound is epic and very Pentagram / St. Vitus sounding, soaring majestic guitars, dramatic vocals, classic metal harmonies, chugging riffage, total true metal radness that all you 'true metal'-heads should flip for.
Includes a download code too!
Ornamented Walls is the latest blast of primitive gothic electro industrial from Dominick Fernow, Hospital Records head honcho, and the man behind Prurient, Christian Cosmos, as well as sometime member of Cold Cave. And while this is the third or fourth VS record we've reviewed, this one differs in a big way, namely its creation. The A side is a vinyl reissue of a super limited tape (17 copies, sold at the first VS live show), which demonstrated Fernow's cassette deck technique, as in using tape decks and a mixer the way a DJ does a turntable and mixer, a primitive collage of blown out beats, of distorted melodies, of caustic noise, and all manner of raw buzzing texture, somehow deftly woven into a churning electro industrial crunch that kills. The three tracks on side A are live rehearsals for the above mentioned gig, and are raw, and powerful, intense and surprisingly nuanced, flitting from chaotic caustic crush, to stripped down droned out beatscape, to churning industrial pound, the sounds hissy and crackly, lots of tape noise, and murky whirring soft noise shimmer, not to mention mysterious voices, bits of other songs, primitive samples, stuttering beats and throbbing in-the-red basslines.
The flipside features a handful of tracks whipped up post show, using the same multi tape deck set up, and offers up still more of the same, thick insectoid buzz, dirgey distorted beats, creepy droned out melodies, swirling gristly textures, dark sinister atmospheres, and some gorgeously crumbling blurred bliss out noise, sounding a bit like Muslimgauze by way of Tim Hecker. In fact the B side tends toward the minimal and abstract, a more mellow balance to the A side's bombast, but it's great stuff, skeletal and spare, haunting and sinister, much more moody and atmospheric, gorgeous stuff, which definitely had us hoping there was more of this tucked way in the vaults somewhere.
It's weird to realize that RuneEater is only the second full length record in 5 years from this black metal outfit, but not too surprising considering how much time these guys spend on tour. And all that touring has definitely paid off, as record number demonstrates a huge progression from 2008's Sovereign Nocturnal, a record we dug, but one that was more obvious with its influences, but even then demonstrating the haunting folkiness and weird experimental streak that would finally come to the fore on RuneEater. The nearly ten minute opening track here pretty much lays it all out, a weird, drum heavy tribal intro, ritualistic and mysterious, bleating horns, chantlike vocals, throat singing, a bit of spoken word, which all disappears in a cloud of feedback, before the song proper kicks in. Dirgey and murky and super distorted, midtempo, but double kicks pounding away beneath the thick fuzzed out guitars, the whole thing reminding us of obscure Sub Pop outfit Rein Sanction, due in no small part to the guitar tone, but then the vokills come in, ands the song unfurls, revealing a definitely folk underpinning, before exploding into a weird stretch of blasting, that doesn't blast ferociously as much as texturally, if that makes any sense. The sound is truly unique, where before it was post rock infused BM, has now become some weird black metal / blackened doom folk / experimental hybrid that definitely seems like that the band were shooting for all along. There's a definite prog vibe going on too, which is inevitable in long songs with lots of twists and turns, but it suits them for sure, eventually the song winding down into a weird folk flecked doom, all slithery spidery guitar melodies, howled vox, and droned out melodies. It's a gorgeous part, and ends way too soon.
"Reverend Flames Of Antiquity" spends its first three minutes weaving a dark brooding sort of psychedelia, spare and abstract, lush chords drifting through shimmering fields of warm thrum and cymbal shimmer, before launching into a doomy creep, and then a weird tangled black prog churn, a dense chaotic crush, the sound slipping easily between dreamy drift and crashing chaos, and even drifting into some soaring epic slow build heaviness (a la Sovereign Nocturnal), finishing off with a seriously heavy Neurosis style chug heavy outro.
"Reclamation Of Valour" finds the band dabbling in some Barn Owl style twang flecked psychedelic folkiness, before again unleashing their twisted progged out black doom, the band slipping into some cool stripped down, droned out stretches, and adding some very medieval sounding folk melodies, before finally getting down to some seriously black buzz, only to shed the black and the buzz, for a sprawling doom folk outro. Finally, "Iconoclast" finishes things off, easily the most overtly black metal of the bunch, with some of the fiercest buzzing and blasting, but here too, the band mix in lots of melody, more of that medieval sound, the second half transforming the black buzz into a super dynamic black prog folk doom finale.
The packaging is insanely over the top. The cd comes in a gorgeous black on black hardcover book style jacket, complete with fancy gold on black printed inner booklet, and the lp, comes in a similarly book-like jacket, and the gatefold features what has to be one of THEE best band photos ever. Assuming you can even find the band in the photo!
While the last few Voltigeurs records found the duo of Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Total, Hototogisu, Sunroof!, etc.) and Samantha Davies (Skullflower) in a distinctly black metal direction, this new lp see the BM pushed way into the background, the sound here much more of a guitarnoise record, albeit with some black buzz lurking below the surface.
Four extended tracks, the opener titled "Morning Raga", but that title is a bit misleading, as the sound is less raga, and more a dense cloud of caustic grinding guitars, buried synths and unrecognizable piano, woven into billowing swirls of crumbling caustic distortion, shot through with shards of rib cage rattling low end and underpinned by a roiling sea of tangled melodic squiggles, barely audible over the din above. The second track reimagines the same sound as a more murky buzzy industrial framework, weirdly and subtly rhythmic, again buried beneath and avalanche of grinding, crumbling heaviness, but again, this is not simply a wall of guitars (and synths), within this noisy onslaught lurks all manner of weird droned out buzz and strange spidery melodies, all of which seem to ooze from Voltigeurs' blacknoise murk.
The flipside begins with a heaving landscape of metallic buzz, and an undulating low end rumble, all smoothed out into something more droney, and downright hypnotic, strangely cinematic in its own way, still noisy and abrasive, but haunting and harrowing, laced with keening minor key melodies, and infused with mysterious electronics (or something that sounds like electronics). The final track dials back the noise a bit, and sculpts what's left into a minimal sprawl of crumbling static, this time, there seems to be some black metal buzz churning away underneath, but so low in the mix as to be just another layer of buzzing thrum, the sound here reverby and cavernous, the aforementioned black metal elements distant and abstract, all swirling behind a gristly wall of grinding high end hiss, and weirdly glitchy hum, again transforming abstract guitarnoise/synthnoise into a mesmerizing slab of droned out mesmer.
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!!
We were pretty into Vom's Primitive Arts record from a while back, which we described as a "depressive, atmospheric, super distorted sort of gothic cold wave", and who we likened to groups like Soror Dolorosa, Sixx, Factums and Cold Cave, but whose particular version of sound was a much more raw and primitive beast, sort of crusty and filthy, from the production to the actual instrument sounds, even the atmosphere, it was as if a metal band or a noise band or somehow both, decided to make a gloom pop record, and failed spectacularly, and came up with something way meaner, weirder and more amazing.
This brand new split teams Vom up with another group of sonically like minded Scots with the awesome name Gummy Stumps, each group taking a whole lp side. Vom offer up more of the same, their sound driving and darkly post punky, the guitars thick and jagged, the bass fuzzed out and super distorted, the drums almost like some weird strain of motorik krautpunk, the vocals an effects drenched bellow, the group locking into long stretches of buzzing, snarling, minor key hypnorock, that sound like a goth rock Circle, pounding away relentlessly, the guitars unfurling slippery slithery melodies, over churning riffage and gloomy gothic bombast. But it's an epic, so the band sort of cobble together a songsuite, equal parts crash and burn, drift and smolder, shimmer and creep, the sound managing to be surprisingly lush while retaining its raw power. At one point haunting soundtracky synths drift in and transform the sound completely, before the band works its way up into another psychedelic cold wave gloom punk blowout. These guys are so fucking good, it's a crime they're not more well known.
With a name like Gummy Stumps, these guys had our hopes pretty high, and while they're not as grim or gloriously noisy, they're definitely a good match, their sound more of a Messthetics sort of post punk, all jagged angular guitar crunch, frenetic rhythms, and dueling call and response vocals. But again, like Vom's side, there's lots of space to fill, so the band stretch way out, slipping from murky psychedelic shimmer, to something that sounds like way more punk Arab Strap, to blown out drum heavy noise rock crunch, to surprisingly catchy punk pop and right back again to the angular post punkiness that started it all off.
Housed in super swank silk screened covers, with printed insert, cool lyrics booklet, and we're guessing it's pretty dang limited too...
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