A brand new record from Arcata black metallers Ash Borer, and more importantly, their first album with a title! Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find a review of the recent vinyl reissue of AB's debut 2009 demo, which we mistakenly listed last time as being the vinyl version of their 2011 full length (the confusion due mostly to both records being self titled and having nearly the same artwork).
On Cold Of Ages, the band continue to hone their sound, still delivering their black buzz missives in the form of lengthy sprawling epics, the shortest here clocking in at 11+ minutes, the longest 18 minutes. And as on previous records AB are masters of crafting majestic longform blackbuzz epics - "Descended Lamentations" opens the album with a long stretch of softly pulsing ominously minor key synths, over a barely there rhythmic churn, wreathed in clean guitar swirl, and a gauze of crumbling distant buzz, haunting and harrowing, the song proper doesn't kick in until three minutes in, but when it does, it's a furious thick, heavily layered blasting blur, rife with all manner of melody, and surrounded by a strangely shoegazey halo of soft focus production, that smoothes some of the edges and gives the sound more of a washed out vibe, which suits the music for sure. Dizzying and cyclical, woozy and psychedelic, halfway through the track shifts to a more midtempo pound, before blissing out completely, unfurling a sort of droned out abstract doomic dirge, which gradually builds back to the initial buzzing blackness.
"Phantoms" starts off all midtempo and minor key, a Buzumic riff swaddled in thick swirls of layered guitars and howled vox, everything again washed out and strangely sun dappled and glimmery, but like all these songs, the music is constantly shifting, here it flits to churning chug, to furious buzzing tangle, to soaring almost black metal Godspeed and finally to hushed delicate ambient dronescape. "Convict All Flesh" is the longest track here, and starts off with an ominous and stately riff, suspended in the ether, before it's joined by more guitars, creating a strangely psychedelic layered raga like ur-drone, which is soon dragged into motion by a creeping doomdirge rhythm, everything swaddled in distant synth swirl, slowly building to a seriously furious bout of black buzz, and throughout the rest of the track seasawing back and forth, although the best bit is the middle stretch where the group weds a furious blast beat to the doomy opening guitar creep, and an equally doomy chiming guitar melody, piling layer upon layer of buzz and crumble, creating a strange bit of black psychedelia that hover somewhere between furious blast and abstract drift, which could have (and maybe should have) gone on forever, but instead it eventually swallowed up but a billowing cloud of blackened static riffing, a haunting droned out coda.
Finally, the record finishes off with "Removed Forms", starting off all tripped out almost dubby guitar melodies, choral female vocals, drifting over a dark expanse of almost Barn Owl like sinister dusky twang, before exploding into a blur of brittle high end buzzing blast, mesmerizing and almost looped sounding, before splintering into a creeping Burzumic dirge, and building to a dense, mathy, layered final movement, the various elements peeling away, leaving, thick slabs of buzz drenched guitar to churn in a dark droned out finale.
Before we'd even HEARD this obscure Italian instrumental library music reissue, it had a lot going for it� Groovy name and title, crude freaky album artwork (really - it's got dinosaurs, and a stonehenge, and a mushroom cloud, and what the heck is that eye in the sky doing exactly?), and also it's from the magic year of 1971! Could it live up to all that? YES. And how.
Recorded by anonymous studio musicians from Milan, intended for use as incidental music for use (presumably suitably hip) film, TV and/or radio productions, this rare collectable is vintage psychsploitation weirdness for all you proto-metal and prog rock heads, full of lumbering heavy psych riffage, often with an eerie overlay of synth. Opening cut "Diodo" immediately suggests the likes of Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love", heavy maaaan! The Distortions title is accurate indeed when it comes to the guitars. But that's mixed with more sinister and/or romantic sounding grooviness elsewhere on the album, like the delicate (but still distorted) dance of "Compression" ferinstance.
The tracks on this disc are suspenseful, exciting, energetic, trippy, with titles like "Microchaos", 'Violence", and "Psycho-Nebulous". Listening to this, you can easily imagine kitschy retro-cool characters in black leather catsuits a la Danger Diabolik interacting with longhaired drugged out hippies in groovy psychedelic discotheques, with this music blaring and colored lights flashing. Spy cinema, spaghetti westerns, biker movies, could (and did?) all make use of these droning fuzz blasters and glammy grooves� we certainly would love to see any movie or TV show that had Blue Phantom on the soundtrack! Hmm, apparently quite a few of these cuts were used in a Jess Franco flick from '72 called Sinner: Diary of a Nymphomaniac...
Definitely one of the best (and by far the heaviest) stand-on-its-own "library music" album we've ever encountered, as good as a lot of 'actual bands' of the era, we've been spinning it quite a bit here at the shop since we got it in� which lead to a funny moment, when aQ overlords Allan and Andee were puzzling over the phenomenon of how there's still such awesome obscure stuff like this out there getting reissued that we'd never heard of of before, when some random girl walked into the store and immediately was like, "Oh, you're playing Blue Phantom! I love that record!", unintentionally showing up us record store nerds, eh?
This reissue includes a non-album bonus track, the only other Blue Phantom recording apparently known.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Repressed and back in print.
Record number two from Leyland Kirby's Caretaker project, whose last record, Persistent Repetition Of Phrases, was a unanimous aQ fave, and was of course one of Wire magazine's top 10 albums of 2008, and was, and still is, one of our best sellers, and it looks like this one is likely to follow suit.
A sonic meditation on memory and loss, The Caretaker, takes old jazz records, various effects, and what sounds like a battery of old beat up Victrolas, and weaves Philip Jeck like soundscapes, but unlike Jeck, the source sounds here are not obfuscated, in fact, in some respects, The Caretaker records are almost like spectral spiritual otherworldly mix tapes, especially on this new one, which sounds like old 78s left to play in a big old auditorium, the room's reverb lovingly wreathing the music in a gauzy old timey haze, the surface noise, hiss and crackle and pop, somehow accentuated by the cavernous space. Better yet, replace the auditorium with an old abandoned mansion. Imagine the great room, animal heads on the walls, old oil paintings, a massive fireplace, charred black, old decaying rugs, all the furniture covered in white cloths, looking like ghosts, cobwebs in all the corners, the floor beneath a layer of dust, and in the corner, an old record player, lit up, its turntable spinning slowly, some old dusty record, to a room full of spirits, a sonic requiem for a time that once was, the music seeming to reflect the ever fading memories, and that's what these songs sound like, some sort of haunted house jazz, old timey seance blues, mournful melodies played on an old piano, muted trumpet, swoonsome strings, shuffling drums, a slow motion big band performing live in the ether, a spectral band playing lament after lament, dedicating it to their lost loves, and loves lost.
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World plays like some archival collection of lost 78's, but where the records' provenance is unknown, timeless music that could have come from anytime, and anywhere, the imperfections and inconsistencies as much a part of the sound as the music itself, all of that hiss and crackle a warm wreath of time-transformed-into-sound detritus, the passing of time mad physical, a sonic memorial to the past. So utterly gorgeous.
Finally, the long awaited full length from these eighties beholden jangle pop shoegazers, formerly known by the same name, but with a much more standard (and already taken apparently) spelling. This Brooklyn outfit features members of aQ faves the Beach Fossils and the Smith Westerns, and takes the sound of both of those previous groups, tangles it all up and douses it in thick swaths of reverb and lush layers of crystalline guitars, the vocals nearly buried in the mix, a hazy washed out croon, that more often than not is simply another lush layer to add to the already blurry, bleary dreamscape. Within this fuzzy dreampop soundworld, Diiv manage to conjure up some surprisingly disparate sounds, sweet twee indie pop one second, and loping, almost krautrock like mesmer the next (just check out "Air Conditioning"), but the sound remains consistent, like listening through ears full of cotton, everything deliriously and dreamily hazy, with various elements slipping surreptitiously to the fore, whether it's a twangy bit of guitar, a soaring bit of Big Country / U2 like melody, or some slithery Joy Divisiony bassline, the tracks rife with hooks, and perfect melody, the group nearly obscuring their deft pop songsmithery with their druggy production, but it makes for a potent combo, and on repeated listens, what at first sounded like another entry in the already crowded reverb heavy retro pop field, has blossomed into what is fast becoming a new pop favorite. WAY recommended.
Flying Lotus is back and with every new release seems to bring something new to the table. This time around he doesn't spread himself as far out sonically as he did on Cosmogramma but instead reigns himself in to refine the details of his complex musical palette. This is definitely a late night record, full of lucid dreamy qualities, referencing obscure quiet storm RnB, celestial jazz, and narcoleptic funk, but with a soaring jewel-like exactitude. Cinematic in scope, we don't just listen, but become engrossed in his floating oceanic soundworld. Guest stints by Erykah Badu, Thom Yorke, Thundercat and others add to the ponderous gauzy midnight feel. Recommended! Vinyl comes with download.
Mysterious outsider songsmith (and former recluse) Jandek returns with Maze Of The Phantom, a new studio recording representing yet another reinvention in a career filled with surprises and no easy answers. It appears that the sheer energy accumulated during the past few years of fairly steady performances had a role in the creation of this double disc, which one can only imagine was captured live without overdubs. From the almost painful solitary nature of early solo Jandek records to the wild adventures of the first group recordings to the wide range of moods conjured on the live discs, the material here is some of the most harmonious and traditionally melodic material Jandek has yet produced, bringing to mind everything from Alice Coltrane to Harry Partch to Albert Ayler, as well as Jandek's recent Where Do You Go From Here.
This album is comprised of six lengthy untitled pieces and two rehearsals that feel right at home here. The songs feature harp, cello, flute, organ, some sparse percussion, and most notably, wordless female vocals that add a beautiful and mysterious element that makes it hard to imagine these songs being from any specific time or place. The traditional Jandek elements of discordant guitar and scattered, manic drumming are nowhere to be found within the musical dialogue, where the players all appear to be operating on the same cosmic vibration. The shimmering harp runs and warm flute seem to meld together as simple percussion creates more of a mood than any sort of particular rhythm. Occasional stabs of organ punctuate things here and there as the jazz influenced vocals give things an exotic feel that make Maze a nice companion piece to Om's recent Advaitic Songs. This one is sure to please longtime Jandek devotees and is no doubt beautiful enough to win over some new fans we would guess. A wonderful surprise and one of the most intriguing things we've heard in a while.
Novaya Zemlya is a grand statement. But then again, Thomas Koner doesn't operate in any scale other than monumental. All of his albums (barring the somewhat lackluster La Barca from 2003) speak through the gasping drones of a bleak existentialism. For Koner, the human condition is mirrored in the environment around us, especially those rugged, barren locales at the poles, with his isolationist smears of grey sounds alluding to water, ice, permafrost, wind, radiation, and vast empty spaces above the Arctic Circle. The environmental site for this album is a suitably inhospitable Russian archipelago jutting far out into the Arctic Ocean toward the North Pole. During the arms race of the Cold War, the Soviet Union used Novaya Zemlya as a nuclear test site, dropping the Tsar Bomba in 1961 on the landmass, which was permanently scarred by the largest atomic detonation in the history of the world. The thin layer of nuclear fallout which has buried itself in the frozen tundra of Novaya Zemlya commingles with radioactive isotopes from poorly managed storage facilities, sunken reactors, and scuttled submarines.
Koner describes this landscape through its hazardous potential, which is so much worse than the current situation. With global warming, the methane gas spewed from a melted permafrost will lift all of that radioactive material into the atmosphere and send that along the prevailing winds across western Russian over Scandinavia and into continental Europe. Perhaps, a greater catastrophe than Chernobyl. In speaking to that potential, Koner manifests pockets of near silence throughout the album with his signature tectonic rumblings and stealth-bomber frequencies gliding beyond the event horizon into the realm of the audible. Darkened crumblings of earthen material pocks the beginning of the first in a trilogy of tracks, sounding almost like slabs of ice thunderously collapsing into the sea. Drones swell and collapse into pools of resonant emptiness, broken on the second track by a disembodied shortwave radio transmission of garbled voices. The album returns to those cold, contemplative sounds until the end of the album draws near, when Koner introduces a few elegant, melodic plucks from what might be a harp. For all of the foreboding that looms throughout, the end is almost hopeful that humanity might just sort out this global warming puzzle. But then again, we might not; and then, we're fucked.
An easy contender for 2012's album of the year.
As the title no doubt led you to believe, this is in fact the fifth release in the ongoing collaboration between Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Khanate, etc.) and Peter Rehberg (Pita), and like IV before it, V was realized as a stand alone record, unlike the first three releases, which were all conceived and composed to accompany art installations. And again, like IV, the sound does not seem to be dramatically effected by this shift, although there does in fact seem to be a bit of a shift from IV to V, with V seeming, to our ears at least, to be a bit more academic, with an ear toward twentieth century classic and modern minimalism, further evidence which may be found in the two tracks here "Phill 1" and "Phill 2", which we presume are an homage to the master dronelord Phill Niblock, but of course done in their own inimitable style, with "Phill 1" opening up a thick gaseous dronescape, that is pocked with glitch and skitter, woven into the fabric of the tracks woozy undulations, and softly moaning choral shimmer. Where on past records much of the sound was barely there, and required close listening, "Phill 1" is much more immediately rewarding, lush and lustrous, thick and warm, and layered, the sort of minimalism that would probably still appeal to fans of O'Malley's SUNNO))) project. The track is definitely active, with plenty going on beneath the surface, and in the spaces surrounding the drone, be they thick slabs of blurred buzz, shards of computer glitch, and all manner of sonic detritus.
"Phill 2" finds O'Malley and Rehberg teaming up with the Prague Philharmonic, where they are joined by Johann Johannsson, who helps with the orchestration, the track transformed into something haunting and symphonic, yet still dark and droney, the sound even more rich, and somewhat cacophonous, a glorious noisy ur-drone, that definitely casts the orchestra as something much more chaotic and abstract that they are perhaps used to, the results are stunning.
In between these tracks, O'Malley and Rehberg do explore more minimal soundscapes, "Study A" features long tones, deep buzzes and sine wave like high end shimmers, stretched out into near static layered mesmer, allowing the two tones two subtly interact, and create all manner of overtones, gradually building in intensity, and at times sounding down right cinematic and psychedelic. "Tony" is another thick minimal dronescape, this one focused around a distorted stretch of slow shifting buzz, surrounded by warm melodic tones, and strange echo drenched percussion, the main drone ever shifting, creating a gorgeous slow motion melody, the background sounds lush and lustrous, maybe the prettiest thing we've heard from KTL yet. And finally, the record finishes off with the 20+ minute "Last Spring: A Prequel", which introduces text, a haunting spoken word, draped over a hissy shimmer, the breath urgent in the microphone, the vibe dark and claustrophobic, the music itself more like old KTL, ultra minimal, high end hiss, minimal static hum, bits of glitch laced throughout, the track all about the dramatically delivered vocals, which grow more and more agitated, more heavily effected, the music subtly following suit, like some strange abstract play, with some of the creepiest sound design ever, courtesy of KTL.
Housed in a super striking 6 panel digipak, with original artwork by Mark Fell. Meanwhile the vinyl comes in an equally colorful gatefold sleeve.
We might as well just start out with the obvious. Pop record of the year. Hands down. We knew it would be. And yeah, even in January, it's pretty much already been decided. In fact the minute we found out there was a new Nada Surf record on the horizon, we began to count the days, and wonder if it would be one of those slow growers, or if we'd be immediately obsessed (it was the latter, btw). And really, one of the only reasons it's not Record Of The Week, is because it just so happened to come out when we already had an embarrassment of ROTW's picked, but rest assured, for some of us, this is most definitely Record Of The Week, and most likely record of the year too.
Most people are probably super excited to extol the virtues of their favorite band, or that record they've been anxiously awaiting, and we are too obviously, but for us it comes with the added pressure of 'what the hell do we say about this', especially when it's a band whose records we've gushed about extensively in the past, two of those records past Records Of The Week in fact, we've said it before, but this is one of those records where we just want the whole review to be "Just buy it! it's so great! We love it and can't stop listening to it! We've been driving the not-so-pop-obsessed around here CRAZY with repeated listens, sometimes just setting the cd player on repeat!" And heck, for some of you that will be enough, if you dug the last few Nada Surf records, which loads of you did, you'll love this one too. We want to say it's the best one yet, but we say that every time. We can say, it's maybe the most rocking one yet. With a lot few slower songs, and some of their heaviest tunes, but without sacrificing any of the lush hookiness or irresistible jangle. We'd say just listen to the samples, cuz we really can't imagine anyone being able to resist, but on the off chance that you do need more...
Nada Surf have moved well beyond potential one hit wonder status, after the ubiquitous MTV airplay of a certain song called "Popular" back in the nineties (YouTube it), and ever since, they've continued to hone a sound rooted in classic power pop and nineties indie rock, a sound that quickly became all their own, lush and melodic and jangly, with Matthew Caws' super distinctive vox, and a melodic flair and impeccable songwriting that eventually became just as distinctive, their lyrics clever and smart, literate and carefully constructed, harmonies lush and lovely, songs that rock as much as they drift and shimmer, every record packed with potential hits, not a bit of filler, and this new one is no different. Opener "Clear Eye, Clouded Mind" starts things off with a bang, thick crunchy guitars, big pounding drums, and some impossibly catchy melodies, and like many of their tracks, the verse and bridge are just as catchy as the chorus, if not more so. "Waiting For Something" is another killer, all chiming and sunshiney, crunchy and fuzzy, big guitars, and even bigger vocals, all woven into a super dynamic arrangement that manages to be both intricate and hooky as hell. "When I Was Young" starts off all folky and balladic, just steel string guitar and gorgeous vox, eventually blossoming into a big crunchy jangly second half, "Jules And Jim" is another great one, the band taking unlikely melodies and complex arrangements and impossibly transforming them into pure perfect pop. We could go song by song, cuz every song here KILLS, everyone with a chorus most other bands would kill for, and most likely a verse that other bands would make into a chorus, but odds are we'd just end up repeating ourselves. But we can say, which we've mentioned before, is that as much as we obsess over grim black metal and noisy chaotic heaviness and weird dronemusic and all that sort of far out freaky stuff, we find ourselves always coming back to this, and NOT just because it's poppy and catchy, but because it's poppy and catchy in a way that so much other 'catchy pop' is NOT. Sure these guys are a pop band, but what they do with that pop is utterly magical.
It's at this point that we DO say, just listen to the sound samples, this is the sort of visceral emotional music that will connect right away, and if you're anything like us, once you hear it, you won't want to stop hearing it, and you'll want to hear more and more!
While they last, the first handful of copies will come bundled with a bonus disc of studio recorded acoustic versions of some of the tracks from the new record!
The return of Redd Kross!!! Their first record in FIFTEEN YEARS!! The Redd Kross nerds at aQ have been in a tizzy since we first heard about an impending new album. And we're happy to report it's even better than we had hoped. And impossibly, it might just be their best since Third Eye, heck, maybe even since Neurotica! And yeah, we talk a lot about favorite bands, and are quite hyperbolic in our descriptions of records and groups we love, but Redd Kross definitely are one of our all time favorite bands EVER, no hyperbole there at all, some of us have been listening to Redd Kross for going on thirty years now. And Andee's very first band (with Jay Lesser) even played their first show with Redd Kross!! And every single RK record, from the early punk rock teenage jams, to their later, more polished, major label releases, has ruled, the boys in Redd Kross masters of pop songcraft, unfettered Beatles worship mixed with an encyclopedic knowledge of classic pop music, not to mention punk rock roots and a sound so distinctive that even wearing their influences boldly on their sleeves, Redd Kross jams could never be mistaken for anyone else.
We went and saw them play last year, the first tour with the original line up in ages, and it was rumored the band were raising money to release the next record themselves, and they played all the hits, new and old, and sounded as food as ever. And here we are a year or so later, and Merge stepped up and released what might just be contender for record of the year, and as mentioned above, might just be one of Redd Kross' best record period.
We weren't initially sold by the first single, the title track, which totally sounds like a Neurotica B side, which is not a bad thing at all, it just sounded a little like RK by the numbers, but then something happened and the more we listened to it, the better it got, a KILLER chorus and an even more killer pre-chorus/bridge, some wild wah guitar psychedelia, the sound heavy and fuzzy and crunchy, swaggery and the sort of sound younger bands would kill for. But once the second track started, we knew this was IT. "Stay Away From Downtown", is total Yellow Pills style power pop super charged and cranked up, with a main riff that is SO catchy, the vocals and main melody total Beatles worship, and then the chorus, holy shit, one listen and it was lodged permanently in our brains. Nothing we can say can compare to hearing it, check out the sample below and be SMITTEN. We ended up listening to that song fifty times at least before we could even bear to move on, and yet the rest of the record did not disappoint, and more than lived up to the promise of the first two tracks. "Uglier" is another track that sounds like it could have been plucked right off of Neurotica, and the chorus, another killer, crazy catchy, the song laced with some rad psychedelic freakouts.
"Dracula's Daughter" is classic Redd Kross balladry, all Partridge family style power pop jangle, and at times melodically reminding us of Thelonious Monster's "Sammy Hagar Weekend", while "Meet Frankenstein" is a perfect slab of fifties style retro pop, which had us thinking Redd Kross would have been an even better choice to supply the music for the fictional band in the movie That Thing You Do (instead of Fountains Of Wayne).
The rest of the record unwinds like a classic Redd Kross record, every song crazy catchy, jangly and fuzzy, funny clever lyrics, killer harmonies, hooks galore, borrowing liberally from all the classic pop bands that came before, but making those sounds all their own, and stick around for closer "Hazel Eyes", whose main riff is a dead ringer for another classic RK jam "Follow The Leader", from 1997's Show World, but here unwinds as a droned out psychedelic jangle pop dirge, laced with weird effects, and a woozy groove, and finishes the record in fine fashion, weird, heavy, trippy and crazy catchy. It's been nearly impossible to work on the list cuz this record is ALL WE WANT TO LISTEN TO. And we're already gearing up to see Redd Kross play here next week, we're in a sort of Redd Kross mania, which makes sense cuz this record is SO GOOD. Record Of The Week hands down, and yeah, quite possibly Record OF THE YEAR!
Anyone who's been digging Ty Segall, King Tuff, Purling Hiss and other like minded noise poppers, who has yet to discover the joys of Redd Kross, now is the time to discover your new favorite band!!
Oh WOW! We're so so thankful to Light In The Attic for unearthing these amazing recordings by Wendy Rene. It's been a little while since a soul reissue totally blew us away, and became THE record that we found ourselves listening to over and over. But this collection has done just that, Rene's voice, one of the most deep, soulful and emotive we've heard in ages.
Otis Redding was so impressed with Rene as a teenager, that he helped make sure she got signed to Stax Records (Otis Redding would play another, more haunting and tragic part in Wendy Rene's life. She was on tour with him and decided to cancel her trip last minute, leaving him on a plane that would end up crashing and taking his life).
For some reason, none of her songs ever caught on as hits (makes no sense to us!) but each and every one of these songs completely grab you and send slight shivers up and down your spine, so warm, raw and honest . Her voice and presence rank right up there next to vintage Irma Thomas, Aretha Franklin, and Helen Smith. And the songs here are the sort that get under your skin, with a conviction embedded into every moment that you just can't deny. Her recording career was very short, and this collection of unearthed tracks, from 1965-'65, show that she recorded more memorable songs in a year, than many artists do in a multi-decade career. ESSENTIAL!
Our review of the most recent single from Ms. Frankie Rose, one time drummer for Vivian Girls, the Dum Dum Girls and Crystal Stilts, works pretty well as a thumbnail description for this just released full length as well: "fuzzy and dreamy and a little bit girl group sounding, but way more polished and produced, a lot more eighties, plenty of jangle, and a distinctly new wave vibe for sure, but it definitely suits her, hooky and and catchy like crazy", which all still applies, and the song from the 7" is here too, but that description really only scratches the surface of a record that is equal parts 4AD shimmer, fuzzed out synth heavy M83 style bombast, and buzzy girl group pop. Just take the title track, which starts out all glimmery and shimmery and dreamy, ethereal vox over soft focus smears of synthy swirl and tinkling chimes, and then POW, the drums kick in, an avalanche of thick buzzing synths, the song exploding in a shower of fuzz and crunch and layered vocals, only to slip right back into a more subdued, dream poppy verse, before getting surprisingly proggy, slow building to another killer chorus. It might be the coolest, weirdest track on the record, and will no doubt demand lots of replay action, but there's lots more on offer here, sure much of the record hews close to the bands in Rose's past, but amidst all that fuzzy pop and jangly girl group garage rock, is soaring synth, drum machine driven new wave, reverb drenched fuzzed out ethereal ballads, dark moody gloom pop grooves, skittery cold wave, and plenty in between, with somehow everything working perfectly as an album, not just a collection of songs, and all of those songs so lush and lovely, and crazy catchy, warm and dreamy, Rose's voice fantastic, we're loving this a LOT, and we're guessing this is the record where the rest of the world finally catches on...
When we reviewed the teaser 7" released a few weeks back to whet appetites for this, Ty Segall's new full length, we described the jam "The Hill" thusly: "a killer slab of glammy, proggy, garage pop, that might just be the best thing we've heard from Segall yet. A cool female vocal intro explodes into some seriously fuzzed out glam rock garage stomp, no lo-fi production here, it sounds incredible, massive and lush, and totally heavy, the boy/girl harmonies on the chorus KILL, the vibe swaggery and seriously glammed out, with some blasts of wild psychedelic shredding." And while that single and that sound is not really all that far removed with Segall's sound in general, the glamminess is cranked big time here, as is the hookiness. Just check out album opener "Thank God For Sinners", the perfect mash up of classic Beatles style melody and swaggery, slithery T-Rex fuzzed out groove. Which leads right into "You're The Doctor", adding some seriously driving psychedelic garage rock stomp, a wild blast of heady heavy psych rock that will have Oh Sees freeks losing their shit.
But as with every Segall record, the sound veers all over the place, slipping easily from sound to sound, vibe to vibe, and speaking of vibes, The Beatles vibe is huge throughout, but is deftly applied to Segall's already hook heavy sound, "Inside Your Heart" adds some brooding minor key melody as well as a killer catchy main guitar part, not to mention a wild squall of psychedelic freakout and a woozy, warped drag of an ending that makes it sound like the tape is slowly melting. "Would You Be My Love" is a dead ringer for classic Redd Kross, a supercharged sixties pop, while "Ghost" is a fuzz drenched, but still darkly melodic, almost metallic dirge, rife with gorgeous vocal harmonies, and a wicked main hook.
And so it goes. The rest of the record brimming with classic fuzzy pop and psychedelic garage gems, groovy and jangly one second, blown out and chaotic the next, but every track here stone cold killer. And while we do feel kinda foolish, going on and on about each successive Segall record as being the best yet, and our new favorite (and even making this one Record Of The Week only a few lists after Segall's Slaughterhouse record received the same honors), that's exactly what happens every time. And Segall really does just keep getting better and better, not just the songs, but the arrangements, the production, the vocals, everything. Have a look at past reviews on the aQ site, and you'll see just how much we love past records of his, which should tell you something when we once again, proclaim this the best one yet!
Another gorgeous discovery courtesy of Japanese reissue label EM, this one from Algerian composer / pianist Mustapha Skandrani, who recorded this record in 1965 in Paris, and raised quite a few eyebrows (in fact, nvoked much scorn and derision) by choosing to perform a handful of traditional Algerian vocal pieces (istikhbars) transcribed for piano, the most European of instruments (hence the derision). But purists of the time be damned, the results are stunning, these solo piano pieces are so lovely, haunting and stately, melodic and lyrical, with Skandrani presenting two versions of each piece, first the modal istikhbar, and then a subtly more fluid and loosely expressive improvisation based on that istikhbar, directly following it, a pattern that continues for the duration of the record, which definitely displays the two seemingly disparate influences, European and Andalusian, interacting and complimenting each other, these variations and interpretations not at all divisive, as the naysayers would have had listeners believe, but instead a bridging of musics and cultures, the liner notes mention this sounding a bit like Glenn Gould, Skandrani's Istikhbars & Improvisations like a modal Goldberg Variations, although we also hear echoes of G.I. Gurdjieff, an Eastern tinged moodiness and sinuous fluidity that also brings to mind Ethiopian pianist Tsegue-Maryam Guebro of Ethiopiques Vol. 21 fame.
So beautiful, and so recommended.
Like all EM releases, gorgeous packaging, with extensive liners notes in both Japanese and English.
aQ-beloved, all-instrumental metal/jazz/punk/prog power trio Stinking Lizaveta just won't quit. Thank God. Year in and year out, they make genius records, tour tirelessly (playing to perhaps not excessively large but always extremely enthusiastic audiences - naturally, since they're one of thee BEST live bands you're ever gonna see!), and just keep getting better and better. They have a well-deserved cult following (folks you know who you are, of course you don't need to read this review, just know there's a new SL album and come get it!!) that should be getting bigger with every record and tour. This album, their lucky seventh, is especially representative of the band's dedication and will. 'Cause earlier this year, Stinking Lizaveta's badass drummer Cheshire Augusta was struck by a hit and run driver while riding her bicycle in the band's hometown of Philadelphia. Fortunately, she survived the accident but had to endure surgery and painful therapy. But did that stop her from completing this album, and going out on tour a few months later? No sir!
If you're not yet familiar with the magic of Stinking Lizaveta, what this telepathic trio can do with abundant energy, incredible chops, and endless creativity, well please pick this up and listen (also, go see 'em perform if you get the chance 'cuz as all who've seen 'em will acknowledge, no matter how good they are on album, live is even better). Along with drummer Cheshire, the brothers Yanni and Alexi Papadopoulos (on guitar and upright electric bass, respectively) bow to no one in terms of majestic math-metal musicianship, crafting tracks that somehow meld together classic rock bombast, atmospheric post rock vibes, and jazzier, noirish moodiness. Plenty of heaviness, but also so much feeling and emotion and lighter moments of great beauty. And of course, no singing, none needed! While every member of this tight unit are virtuoso players, special mention must be made of Yanni's sheer sinuous psychedelic guitar heroics and his ripping riffs galore. He's a master, of "we're not worthy" caliber. There's something downright spiritual about his tremulous, ecstatic playing - and the music of Stinking Liz in general.
Ok, that's (almost) enough superlatives. Let's just say that Stinking Lizaveta's eighteen years and counting career of kicking ass in their utterly unique fashion are fully embodied here. Heck this has a bunch of our favorite Stinking Liz jams on it yet. As always, we know their fans will want this, but we really want to induct more new folks into the Stinking Liz fanbase. So let's say, did you dig the latest Six Organs Of Admittance? Well try this out too, it takes certain instrumental elements of that to whole 'nother level. Or, how 'bout a cross between Golden Void and The Fucking Champs? Sound good? Here it is, but better! Then mix in both Black Sabbath and Dave Brubeck (RIP). Yup, if you can imagine, it's in here.
And once again, this boasts a powerful production job from Sanford Parker (the switch they made on their previous opus Sacrifice And Bliss, from longtime engineer Steve Albini to Sanford P was, as it turned out, a pretty good one). Though we said the live SL experience can't be really captured in a recording, this comes damn close, especially if you play it LOUD! Includes 2 cd-only bonus tracks.
Swans, Version 2.0 continues with The Seer, and how could it not be monstrous, epic, and utterly all-consuming? When Michael Gira reactivated the Swans several years ago, he did so with the intent of constantly touring the band, who furiously and methodically pounded through every set with Gira devilishly commanding to his band "More, you fuckers, MORE!!!" The songs which dominated the universally acclaimed 2010 album My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky became grotesquely engorged during the live sets, with each track telescoping in length and straining with each note, each rhythmic smash made more intense than the previous one. The shows were exhausting from the perspective of the audience, and Gira's marathon-length sprint must have been hell on the band, but unlike previous incarnations of Swans, it was obvious that Michael Gira was full of joy in orchestrating all of this controlled havoc.
So, we come to The Seer - an album devised as a template malleable to the pressures of the Swans live performances. How these songs will sound at the end of the Swans 2012 tour, who the hell knows? Even outside the context of the forecasted mutation, The Seer is a beast of an album. The opening number "Lunacy" is a brightly charged march through dissonant guitar monochords and militaristic snares, before giving over to a wild-eyed chorale featuring the vocal talents of Mimi and Alan Sparhawk of Low. With Gira in charge, the emotional fragility that's emblematic of Low becomes lupine in its collective howl. "Mother Of The World" reprises the jackbooted rhythms found on the first Swans records, with a jagged guitar chord scraping bloodily against the unrelenting groove. The title track itself is a 32 minute piece that lesser bands would have used as an entire album with its massive crescendos of drone-rock pummel crashing down to a doomic plod and extended passages of slumped distortion, as something of a breather before ripping into another frenzy of gleeful obliteration.
Disc two opens with the much ballyhooed appearance of Karen O on the brief, lilting number "Song For A Warrior." It's more of an intermission for the band to shake out their arms and ears before Gira launches into another lengthy percussive workout, which is exactly what he does on "Avatar" - lockstep grooves for drums and bells rise up through a drone-rock ascent of guitars, bass, and vocals uttering languid melodies throughout before Gira commands the drummers into an furious crescendo of control, power, and noise. "A Piece Of The Sky" slowly unfurls through a shimmering drone density with plenty of Ligetti references but is probably also a thoughtful homage to Gira's amphetamine driven deconstruction on the brilliant Body Lovers cd from 1998, with a temperate Swans lurching forward into a near symphonic ballad. The finale "The Apostate" is a 24-minute vehicle for the screeching drones of lapsteel player Kristof Hahn, emitting divebombing raids across the throttled basslines, yelped vocals, and of course those interlocked rhythms.
We've got the limited 2cd combo which comes with a bonus dvd of live material from the last tour, during which Swans worked through variations of tracks that made their way on to this album, including "Avatar," "The Apostate", and "The Seer", with two gems from Children Of God and a few from My Father Will Guide Me...
And yeah, The Seer is just as good as everybody has been saying.
For the third installment of Jazzman's great Spiritual Jazz series, the hardworking diggers of underground jazz decided to stay on the European tip spearheaded on the second volume instead of venturing off to some other exotic location. And it's a good thing too, because how can you capture all the diverse iterations of communal jazz across so many various borders, ethnic heritages and regional communities in just one volume? What separates the two volumes thematically is that this third volume swings a lot more than the more reverent liturgical second volume, focusing on individual expression, private press visionaries and unique hybrids of Latin, Slavic and Asian influences. Obscurities abound, most tracks previously un-reissued in any form, really one of the only names we were familiar with is Jef Gilson, whom who Jazzman introduced us to on a great compilation aptly titled The Best of Jef Gilson! The suave cafe jazz sound of Gilson is a great introduction into what is an eclectic and diverse selection of hypnotic modal jazz that is uplifting, entertaining and refreshingly energetic! Along with Gilson and Mangesdorf there are great pieces by Hermann Gehlen, Palle Mikkelborg & Radiojazzgruppen, Michel Roques, Babs Robert, That's Why, Binder Quintet, The Crescendo Quintet, Dusko Goykovic, Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet, Yoki Freund Sextet, Jan Allan Quintet, Dennis Wiley, Full Moon Ensemble, Louis Xavier, and Antithesis. Yes!
An acoustic record might seem strange coming from Chelsea Wolfe, whose two records The Grime And The Glow and Apokalypsis, seemed to rely heavily on the production and surrounding sounds, the murky home brewed outside alchemy of the Grime, and the churning blackened full band energy of Apokalypsis, but as much as those records were about sound, they were more about the songs, and Wolfe may have wrapped her songs in all manner of bleak sonic gloom and dusky dolor, but it did little to disguise the power and emotion of her songwriting.
Unknown Rooms is Wolfe reconnecting to the country and folk music that inspired her, Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, and is not strictly 'acoustic' in the sense of just voice and electric guitar, no the sound here is much more fleshed out, the guitar and vocals are obviously the focal point, but the sound is gorgeously lush, songs laced with muted simple percussion, minimal drumming, shimmering strings, multitracked vocal harmonies, the production too, spare and cavernous one second, muted and washed out the next, some tracks here sounding clear and bright, like they were recorded in a proper studio, others, like the darkly delicate "Hyper Oz", sound like they were recorded at home, in the grey light of morning, hushed bedroom dreamfolk, and others, like "Boyfriend", sound like neither, hovering in some netherworld where it's perfectly natural for aching downer folk to be flecked with strange analog synth blurts. And of course Wolfe's vocals are divine throughout, rich and throaty, and swaddled in subtle smears of echo, often slipping into a witchy falsetto, the effect electric. Some folks at aQ hear Wolfe on Unknown Rooms as sounding a bit like Marissa Nadler, but Wolfe seems to be exploring a world much darker.
The record starts with "Flatlands", which is stirring and moody, starting out spare and stripped down, underpinned by haunting string shimmer, before blossoming into a lush sprawl of classic pop, the switch into the soaring sweetly melodic second half, and the final minute of swirling strings are stunning, and definitely set the stage for the rest of the record. "The Way We Used To" finds Wolfe sounding a bit like Zola Jesus, but the sound recast as a spare apocalyptic folk, the sound anchored to a gorgeous looped harmony vocal refrain, Wolfe slipping into that divine falsetto for the chorus. Those falsetto vocals bleed over into "Spinning Centers", hushed and dreamlike, with lush chordal swells, pizzicato strings, the vocals hushed and delicate and crystalline. And so it goes, song after song, which somehow play like lost classics, dusted off and reimagined, Wolfe's eerie folk as much indebted to the classics as to whatever darkness must haunt her musical soul.
