This reissue isn't new, but we overlooked listing it when it came out and it's GREAT so figured better late that never. A one-off symphonic pop-psych masterpiece circa 1968, one of the many lost classics of the era, and really this is so good it's hard to understand how it wasn't a big hit. Listen to these songs and you'll wonder why as well. Southern California's The Smoke (not to be confused with the UK's Smoke of "My Friend Jack" fame, though these guys sound British too, and use British spellings and Peter Max style artwork) weren't really a band, but more of a studio concoction, the brainchild of 20 year old wunderkind producer Michael Lloyd, who was a founding member of the legendary West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. He also was responsible for producing (and writing most of the songs for) the lone album from '67 by a band called October Country. Like that fine band (whose Michael Lloyd-penned "theme song" is reprised here), Lloyd's own The Smoke is Beatles and Beach Boys influenced big time, total paisley pop perfection. Lloyd sure knew what he was doing. And we'd be surprised if discerning DJs haven't mined this album for breaks, what with all the fanciful baroque prog bits and lush orchestration in there alongside the wistful balladry.
Perhaps since The Smoke didn't play live, album sales never took off. Too bad, but we're so glad it's been reissued. And Lloyd at least went on to a very successful career as a producer for a bunch of big names in the '70s and '80s so you don't have to feel bad for him. But we think you'll be definitely happy to add the likes of "Cowboys And Indians" and "The Hobbit Symphony" to your personal '60s popsyke hit parade...
For their second full-length album this San Francisco-based quintet have developed into a more sophisticated indie-pop outfit than what we heard on their earlier releases. A dreamy introspection replaces the youthful wide-eyed innocence and up beat tempos of 2010's Wind Up Wooden Hearts. As she reaches for her lower range, singer Natalia Rogovin exudes a greater maturity, and her distinctive way of drawing out each syllable only heightens the pensive mood. Part of what separates Social Studies from being some kind of Feist rip-off is they don't insult the listener's intelligence by beating them over the head with the same crescendo build-up that peaks and then just keeps pounding through to the end. Songs like "Still Life" do build in intensity, but you have to follow along through a lot of pretty melodic twists and turns before you get there. Much of this is due to the way the vocals operate as one instrument instead of a star vocalist put out in front of the other players. Rogovin's interplay with bassist Jesse Hudson and guitarist Tom Smith create an interesting call and response. The sum of the parts here definitely make a greater whole, which is why we always look forward to spending some time on Social Studies.
Another out of left-field gem from Hooker Vision, who've really tapped into the deep underbelly of what The Wire had pegged as "New Weird America." Frank Baugh (aka Sparking Wide Pressure) carries on the tradition of outsider / asynchronous artists warping blues, rock, and folk sensibilities within his own drug-addled visions of narcoleptic collages and murkily psychedelic droning. Bauer hails from the satellite city of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where he's crafted a number of DIY psyche-drone explorations that seem to have a psychic connection with those similar hallucinatory vibes from the Starving Weirdos or the self-subverting detours of Tarentel's latter day incarnations. Sensible basslines, humble electronic structures, and Byrds-like acoustic jangle form Baugh's foundations which blossom through dizzying, lo-fi layers of heavy, washed-out distortion, fucked-up megaphone vocals, and some unhinged knuckle dragging on the guitar that might warrant a Richard Youngs / Bill Orcutt comparison. What residues of Americana that reside in Baugh's work has been forgotten, then found, then lost again, only to be crumpled up in a pair of jeans and left to soak in the chemical properties from some pot shake tossed nearby. As with all the Hooker Vision tapes, this one is limited to 100 copies.
Super limited split, on local tape label Brotherhood Of Light, featuring one man black ambient alchemist Surt, who we've featured before on the aQ list, and who just so happens to be the man behind the BoL label, here teamed up with Austrian ambient soundscaper Uruk Hai. As might be expected, the packaging is very abstract and minimal, the track listing non existent, so it's hard to figure out which tracks are which, but it hardly matters, the sound a brooding, synth heavy shimmer, a sprawling warm blackness, slowly unfurling minor key melodies, all hazy and gauzy and washed out, sinister and ominous, but with a mysterious warmth, the vibe a little bit medieval too, reminding us in places of aQ fave Dark Ages, with majestic chordal swells, giving way to haunting medieval melodies.
The flipside (again, not to sure which is which), is a much more melodically dense affair, lush tangles of melody, distorted and blown out. grinding low end, heaving swells of crumbling synths and spidery melodies, a churning, dense slow motion wall of sound, that drifts from hushed near shimmer to caustic black ambient crush, the tones pulsing and pulsating, overtones galore, a dizzying swirl of abstract psychedelic ambience, that is ultimately more avant experimental than black ambient. Killer stuff!
LIMITED TO JUST 66 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered.
We really wanted to hate these guys. Another one of those bands who were nearly buried in blog hype and Pitchfork superlatives. But after about a million people came in looking for this record, we decided to give in, and we have to say, we're pretty glad we did. Hovering somewhere between classic psychedelic Beatles-esque pop (due in no small part to the vocalist's uncannily John Lennon like vox), and tripped out, studio-as-instrument experimental Flaming Lips style bombast, Lonerism is a pretty sweet slab of weirdo, electronic flecked avant pop, and one that we can easily see ourselves having discovered via some random cd-r sent to the shop. But as always, we're forced to re-learn the lesson, that just cuz it's popular, doesn't mean it sucks (although that IS what it means a lot of the time). It's easy to see why these guys blew up the way they did, they're the perfect mix of the Flaming Lips, Animal Collective and Phoenix, but grounded by some serious pop chops, some classic hooks that sound lifted straight out of some lost Beatles / Kinks / Queen B-side, and if that doesn't sound like a sweet combination, it should, cuz it IS. Opener "Be Above It" takes a looped sample of the title being spoken in a hushed whisper, adds a loping bombastic drum beats, swirls of sci-fi synths, everything doused in effects, so you're ready for some cosmic trip out, but then those Lennon-like vocals come in, and the song suddenly coalesces into a proper pop song, albeit an alien strain of strange mad scientist pop. And the cool thing is, it never gives into traditional song structure, instead, it's weirdly abstract and tranced out and mesmerizingly loop-y. The second track reins in the group's experimental proclivities, just a bit, bursting forth as a glimmering blast of prismatic fuzz pop, all swirling synths, and wild octopoidal drumming, very psychedelic, again heavy on the effects, and like the opening track, it plays like an intro transformed into a song, the Beatles vibe huge, as it is throughout, inevitable with that voice, but then out of nowhere, in swoop some seriously crunchy, crumblingly distorted guitars, the vibe suddenly Tropicalia via Elephant 6! Even at its pure poppiest, the sound seems to always (d)evolve into some warped FX heavy freakout, before inevitably making its way back again, which makes for a seriously lysergic listen.
And so it goes, the whole record, a pretty fantastic collection of fragmented avant experimental psych pop, that manages in equal measure to satisfy our classic pop music sweet tooth, while pushing all of our what the fuck outsider damaged freak pop buttons, which is a rare thing indeed. Even rarer that a fractured and fucked up sound like that would find such a wide audience, but we're thrilled when it does.
From local label Moon Glyph (local now, recently relocated to the East Bay from afar!), comes another gem, this one a dreamy collection of shimmering French psychedelic pop, from the oddly named Tara King Th. A group who traffics in fuzzy, prismatic, Technicolor retro dream pop, lush and lovely, baroque and blissful, lilting pop songs laced with Morricone-ish twang, and futuristic Stereolab style dreaminess, shuffling busy drumming, chiming melodies, droning keyboards that occasionally build to near psychedelic squalls, and of course some seriously swoonsome vox, often woven into lovely harmonies, but just as often crooning dreamily over a spare backdrop of groovy shuffling shimmer. Fans of another recent Moon Glyph outfit, the New Lines, as well as Still Corners, with whom they shared a split, will dig big time, the same sort of sixties style space age retro pop that evokes shag carpeting in sleek silver penthouses, cocktail parties and secret agents, the dreamier numbers making us imagine rainy afternoons in Paris, sitting by the window, drinking tea, looking out at the steel grey sky and the glistening city below. Really great!
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!
Too long has passed since we've heard anything new from Tarab - the solo project of Australian sound artist Eamon Sprod. His process involves the recontextualization of field recordings into dense collages of acoustic noise, natural disruptions, violent crackling, and grandiose crescendos of activity bracketed by periods of a unsettled calm. In listening to each of his records, we can easily see how much time and attention he puts into these increasingly complex compositions; so it's no wonder it can take two to three years for a new album to emerge. Sprod collected all of the sounds for Shards Of Splinters while on a month-long residency at MoKS in Estonia. He purposefully chose to go to Estonia in the middle of a very cold, very bleak Baltic winter, in stark contrast to the fire-season and sweltering temperatures he would have found at the same time in his native Australia. As with his small back catalogue, Shards Of Splinters navigates along the boundary between the natural and the industrial - where factories had been left to collapse and to be consumed by vegetation, where tin sheds were torn asunder by hurricane force winds, where rusted pipes eerily resonate chorale drones from unseen cisterns deep under the surface of the earth. Many a field recordist and sound ecologist uses this boundary space to collect a beguiling array of recordings, but Sprod focuses almost entirely on mapping an apocalyptic poetry through his profoundly broken sounds. The unforgiving cold of the Estonian winter threads his recordings of slushing ice, crumbled concrete, and scraped metal that he deftly arranges into ruptures and disturbances that churn through tactile squeaks and metallic vibrations. There is a violence front and center in Sprod's work as if he's forecast the globe itself waking from hibernation to exterminate humanity once and for all. Aesthetically, Shards Of Splinters finds common ground with Eric La Casa or the more narrative work of Chris Watson; but conceptually, Sprod takes a much darker approach akin to Small Cruel Party or G*Park, that gives his recordings a magnificent depth. Brilliant.
Been a while since we've heard from Terror Danjah, whose past releases have been HUGE faves around here. As the world of dubstep moves further and further toward the dreamy and pastoral, the minimal and blissed out, and grime seems to have disappeared completely, we sometimes find ourselves missing the massive rib cage rattling basslines, the pounding big beat pummel, the crazy grimy flows, and the grim sinister dark edges sonics that seemed to define that sound in the early days. Thankfully, in Terror Danjah's warped soundworld, very little has changed, the beats still stutter and pound, MC's still toast wildly over rambunctious beats, and most importantly, things are dark, and scary, ominous and freaky. After a killer near symphonic cinematic intro, rife with killer chaotic programmed beats, in comes "Mirror's Edge", which starts out like some twisted seventies horror flick, all ominous pianos, wistful vocals, everything wreathed in static and record crackle, until BLAM, the beat drops, the bass too, thick and squelchy, that churning dubstep groove fused to the weird dark grimnity of that soundtracky opening, the whole thing fractured, funky, fucked up and seriously dark. The track laced with a sinister laugh that pops up on most every track here. And speaking of recurring sounds, the "Dark Crawler" track pops up constantly, as a sort of interlude, but featuring some seriously bad ass toasting from all sorts of killer MC's, hell if this record was just multiple version of this one song we'd be perfectly happy, but those "Dark Crawler"'s, are bookended by some seriously dizzying dubstep workouts, warped bass heavy electro jams, and psychedelic breakbeat driven groovers, the bass throughout super thick and ultra distorted, the beats dense and complex, that creepy laugh, it's almost as if this is some sort of alternate universe soundtrack, to the sort of fucked up horror movie / dubstep musical that we wish existed, so goddamn good. And for some of us, this might be THEE electronic record of the year!
Metallica's Kirk Hammett is on the cover, been getting a lot of mileage lately out of his (admittedly amazing) collection of horror memorabila, with a book and all. Then, inside, also: Fen, Dordeduh, Weapon, Graveyard, Von, Destruction, Troubled Horse, Nine Covens, and more. Plus the usual news, reviews, and other metallic goodness. We particularly liked the regular "Mix Tape Mayhem" feature this ish, with the guitarist of Katatonia, who picks the likes of W.A.S.P., Priest, Crue, Maiden, KISS, a man after our own heart.
And there's also the usual cd sampler stuck to the cover, too!
Yet another blast of fuzzed out, hook heavy shitgaze from these long time aQ faves, who as hard as they may try, can't seem to keep their sound from getting more and more polished, same with their songwriting. Sure it's still pretty rough and tumble, loose and ramshackle, the drumming a little stumbly, the harmonies wavery and woozy, the synths, slipping from simple sing songy melodies, to wild squalls of detuned chaos, the sound still plenty lo-fi, but there's that saying about not being able to polish a turd, well, with these guys it's exactly the opposite. You just can't disguise their perfect pop, no matter how fractured or fucked up you make it, and their core, these jams are pure pop, and catchy as all get out. Reminding us as always of old Sebadoh, Guided By Voices, the early Days of Matador, and the poppier side of the late great Homestead Records. The sound this time is heavy on the boy/girl harmonies, the songs rife with spidery melodies, lots of fuzzy crunch and dreamy jangle, the opening one-two punch of "Sleep-In" and "Telephone Wires" is tough to beat. But then the group get all angular and dirgey on "Y2K2" and as if to prove our point, somehow transform a weird bass heavy tangle of murky churn into something crazy catchy, the female vox drifting over a strange keening snake charmer melody, all wrapped around driving tribal drums, and crunchy jagged guitars. And then it's right back to the crunchy garage pop on "Future With Girls", and then, for the remainder of this all too brief ep, the band toss of one classic lo-fi pop gem after another, culminating in "At The Bars" which might just be one of the catchiest TNV jams yet!
Includes a download code!!
Holy shit! Here's quite a find for the discerning aQuarius customer! The inaugural issue of Unsound - a zine published in San Francisco back in the '80s with an uncompromising vision peering into industrial culture, underground electronics, post-punk at its most volatile, and transgressive performance art. The editorial disclaimer states: "We view the irregular as important, adherence to convention trends as camouflage for ignorance and see the only viable material as that produced in an alternative mode to fashion." Issue 1 was published in September 1983, and the list of artists on the cover represent an amazing cross section of those amorphous genres at the time, with Whitehouse, The Birthday Party, Culturcide, Kommunity FK, Z'ev, and Public Image Limited! The interview with Nick Cave is particularly entertaining, as is Brad Laner (later of Medicine fame) writing about the experimental scene down in LA. Between the interviews and reviews, Unsound splatters its pages with antisocial texts from San Francisco denizens and malcontents as well as high-contrast collages extracted from medical textbooks. Of course, the punk-as-fuck advertisements are amazing even without the content. It goes without saying that these are WAY out of print and extremely rare, and are probably worth more than the $15 price tag. And we've got less than a dozen...
Yup, another amazing find, the second issue of Unsound - a zine published in San Francisco back in the '80s with an uncompromising vision peering into industrial culture, underground electronics, post-punk at its most volatile, and transgressive performance art. In keeping with their ethos of favoring the true alternatives to mainstream culture, the second issue (also published in late 1983) has more of a free jazz bent with in depth interviews with Rova Saxophone Quartet and Wes Robinson to go along with a typically confrontational interview with Blixa Bargeld and a wild interview from the notorious SF performance artist Johanna Welt. Plenty of fantastic reviews, grim artwork (including a naughty piece by John Duncan), and amazing ads from the underground San Francisco Bay Area scene at the time (and well worth the price of admission just for those incredible ads!). As with the first issue of Unsound, it goes without saying that these vintage zines are WAY out of print and extremely rare, and are probably worth more than the $15 price tag. And we've got less than a dozen...
Holy cow! The Analog Africa label does it again, another amazing archival collection, even more notable this time around for the fact that it's not really even a collection of African music, instead, it's a sampling of sixties, seventies and eighties Colombian music, which as we discovered via this comp, was in fact hugely influenced by African music, and within seconds of pushing play, it's definitely obvious, the hybrid of Latin and African music so perfect, Afrobeat and Afrofunk, psychedelic fuzz funk, the drums and vocal chants of African music perfectly fused to classic Latin rhythms, even the folks around here who aren't always into this kind of stuff, have been digging this big time, and at least one of us has been listening to nothing else.
As with all Analog Africa releases, there's a massive booklet, with extensive liner notes, on the history of Colombian music, theories on how African music made it to Colombia (a single mysterious man called Boquebaba? Seafaring traders?), ideas on what drove this fusion that seemed utterly ubiquitous in Colombia at the time (roaming mobile sound systems, innovative and forward looking producers), there's also the story of how this comp came to be, which tells the tale of the curator's repeated visits to Colombia, which involved bringing African records to trade for Colombian records, and which ultimately resulted in threats on his life, as apparently, many of those records existed in Colombia already, but without anyone knowing the artists or the names of the songs, and various DJs and sound systems had been playing those records for years, and now that folks knew what they were, and more copies had been brought to Colombia, they felt threatened. It's all super fascinating, and there's so much more, multiple essays on the evolution of the Colombian sound, of Colombian psychedelic Afrobeat and more more more.
But it's really it's all about the music, and the music here is incredible, wild and fuzzy and funky, groovy and psychedelic, crazy percussion, chaotic drumming, wah wah guitars, soulful horns, and check out the vox on opener "El Caterete" by Wganda Kenya, which starts off sounding impossibly African, in fact, had we not known it was from THIS comp, we would have assumed it WAS African, and then when the lead vocals come in, a soaring near operatic croon, that is at the same time totally over the top and almost comical, and one of the coolest vocalists we've ever hear, all over call and response chanting, driving rhythms, psychedelic guitar jangle, groovy loping funk bass, it's KILLER. And it never lets up, the first disc focusing specifically on the Afrobeat and Afrofunk rhythms that worked their way into Colombian music at the time, while disc two, is more oriented toward more danceable tropical Latin rhythms, although both discs seem to offer a bit of both. The beginning of disc two is awesome as well, the vibe a little bit dark and brooding, the first few tracks sounding alternately like the swampy slithery blues of Screamin' Jay Hawkins (right down to some maniacal, echo drenched sinister laughter, wooooohahahahah), sultry and some seriously fuzzed out psychedelic Latin Afro-funk, and at times almost like Klezmer! And this disc two, never lets up, every song a stone cold killer, which will have you nodding your head, tapping your toes, and fighting the urge to get up and dance.
Easily our reissue of the year, hands down, coming in just under the wire, to leave all other reissues in its dust. And another strange thing, you don't often find on collections like this, a hidden track tucked away at the end. After a few minutes of silence, what sounds like a call in radio program, and then one final jam, all groovy percussion, whoops and hollers, acoustic guitar strum, and some serious accordion shredding! Fantastically packaged, in a miniature hardcover book, a huge almost sixty page booklet, tons of liner notes and essays, rare photos and more!!
Holy crap! An epic, double cd, FORTY THREE band, label sampler from local label 20 Sided Records (who recently released the awesome new Trainwreck Riders album!), featuring a bunch of bands from right here in SF, but also LA, Fresno, Santa Cruz, Long Beach, Oakland, and as far away as Seattle, Bellingham, Spokane, Phoenix, Portland and Denver. The really crazy thing, is that of those 43 bands, we actually had only even heard of 5 or 6, and more than half of those are from right here!
So this is a pretty awesome introduction to a whole bunch of new bands, a list of which we would imagine wouldn't mean much, since odds are you probably wouldn't know most of these groups either, but there's definitely some good stuff, the sounds super varied, heavy on the indie rock and variations thereof, but still all over the map: crunchy, fuzzed out twee pop, jangly Pavement style indie rock, Ramones-y garage punk, chugging math metal, blown out shoegazey Built To spill sounding indie pop, bluesy garage stomp, rollicking chaotic garage stomp a la Thee Oh Sees, dreamy echo drenched folkiness, brooding slow build epic post rock drift, and that's just a tiny taste, and heck, screw it, here's a list of the bands, the ones we know: Blank Tapes, Slow Trucks, Ugly Winner, Hazel's Wart, Ash Reiter (who has a new full length on 20 Sided!), Trainwreck Riders, and the ones we don't: Sci-Fi Caper, The Suicides, Quiet Americans, High Horse, Wild Pack Of Canaries, Saything, The Hoot Hoots, Mosshead, Big Mittens, Future Space And Time, The Palisades, Smalls, One Hundred Percent, Eureka California, Myth Ship, Rosa Grande, The Fay Wrays, San Joaquin Steamers, Vows, Fpod Bpod, Li Xi, Rubedo, Cannons & Clouds, Sugar Candy Mountain, Pony Village, The Cat From Hue, Pro Wings, Street Pyramids, Upstairs Downstairs, The Wild Kindness, Excited States, One F, Candysound, Animal Eyes, Former Friends Of Young Americans, Owl Paws and Speak Friend. Phew! It almost reads like one of those Robert Pollard / Guided By Voices box sets, where every song is credited to a different made up band! And usually we're pretty wary of comps where most of the bands are names we don't know, but lots of this stuff is pretty great, and odds are if you dig all the strains of indie/garage/fuzz pop/rock/punk, there's lots to love here!!
We just reviewed volume 5 of this ongoing series which surveys the vibrant traditional past and bright experimental future of guitar soli. Hot on the heels of that fifth and final volume comes this elaborate box set of the entire series, plus an unreleased live bonus album by Lambchop guitarist William Tyler called Elvis Was a Capricorn. While we were remiss in reviewing vol 4, it's easy to tell by our other reviews of just how good this is. Here is what we said about past volumes:
ONE:
Dang, we've got a good one here for followers of the whole "Wooden Guitar" crowd -- Wooden Guitar being the name of another compilation on another label, devoted to guitarists doing acoustic solos in the tradition of John Fahey and the other folky folks on his classic Takoma label roster. That's more or less the idea here too, except that in addition to contemporary flame-keepers of the form like Pelt's Jack Rose and Cul de Sac's Glenn Jones, this comp features quite a few veteran string pickers who were part of the '60s scene -- some of 'em just recently been coaxed out of retirement. There's a few archival cuts dating from decades back, but a lot of this is newly recorded, and much of it is as yet otherwise unreleased, live and studio tracks both. Not all the names are familiar but when you hear 'em you'll want to hear more. The line-up includes the aforementioned Rose and Jones, along with Sandy Bull, John Fahey, Harry Taussig, Harris Newman, Brad Barr, Bern Nix, Steve Mann, Janet Smith, Terry Riley and his son Gyan, Suni McGrath, Bob Hadley, Kaki King, and Max Ochs (whose Fahey-dedicated track "Inspirational Anthem" gives this collection its title, and appears here twice, once in a version recorded in '69 and another from just last year). Moods and techniques vary, from the more old timey to the Eastern-tinged to the jazz-flecked. But it's all totally entrancing, hypnotic, transportational music. Several generations of adventurous American acoustic guitarists are represented here and it's nice to know that this musical movement looks to be going on strong into the future.
TWO:
Second Volume of American Primitive guitar explorations from both the old and new schools, showcasing the diverse styles of its strongest players. While the patron saint of this movement is still John Fahey, the resonant strains between generations exemplify how far the movement has grown while allowing each artist to retain their own voice. Representing the old school this time around are Billy Faier, Michael Chapman, Peter Lang (re-doing a piece from the early '70s), Fred Gerlach and a rare live recording of Robbie Basho from the Venus in Capricorn era. The New school is represented by James Blackshaw, Jose Gonzalez. local Berkeley musician Sean Smith, Christina Carter from Charalambides, Jack Rose (also featured on Vol. 1), Jesse Spearhawk, and British Banjo player Sharron Kraus. From traditional Americana, to eastern inflected ragas, shimmering 12 string washes to minimalist banjo odes, this is a fine set of excursionary guitar.
THREE:
Looking at the line-up of Tompkins Square's new Imaginational Anthem volume three, you would think they were focusing on the more experimental side of the solo guitar genre. Featuring R. Keenan Lawler, Shawn David McMillen, banjo mystic George Stavos, electronic musician Greg Davis, Ben Reynolds, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Berkeley guitarist Matt Baldwin, and Richard Crandell amongst others, we were half-expecting (hoping for?) a more way out approach towards the instrument. But alas that's not the case and that isn't really a bad thing either. While the sounds are more in line with the previous volumes, and other compilations of solo guitar work, this compilation stands up amongst the best of the genre with some fine finger-picking by some unexpected sources. Though props go to Lawler, McMillen, and Stavos for pushing the envelope the most.
FOUR:
Volume Four, subtitled New Possibilities, contains tracks by mostly newbies to us, except for Chris Forsyth, William Tyler and Aaron Shepherd. Rounded out by tracks from Sam Moss, Nick Jonah Davis, Pat O'Connell, Tyler Ramsey, Michah Blue Smaidone, Mike Fekete, and C. Joynes.
FIVE:
The latest round-up of modern guitar soli practitioners is as beautiful as ever, this time focussing on the newest breed of the craft. Familiar and unfamiliar names abound, but we're sure folks will get as excited as we were at the inclusion of two longtime San Francisco acolytes, Danny Paul Grody formerly of Tarentel, who brings a lush and lovely kosmiche vibe to "Lookout Point", and Bill Orcutt, delivering a healthy dose of dissonance and experimentation with his track "John Fahey Commemorative Beer Can", a title the great master would surely love. The overall feel of this set seems to oscillate nicely between the two poles of the traditional and experimental with tracks also by Steve Gunn, Jordan Fuller, Nick Shallice, Will Stratton, Daniel Bachman, Eric Carbonara, Tom Lecky, Alexander Turnquist, Cam Deas, and Yair Yona. Gorgeous!
We haven't seen the movie yet, but it looks AWESOME! Check out the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7l3okIqnCg
Holy shit, kinda like the movie the Wu-Tang Clan were always meant to make, or the movie version of the best Wu-Tang jams, or something, regardless, the movie's gonna rule, and the soundtrack is pretty bad ass as well, worth it pretty much for Wu-Tang Clan and Kool G Rap's "Rivers Of Blood" with it's haunting Morricone via traditional Japanese folk music opening, RZA's spoken word and then when the track kicks in, BAM, weirdly modulated almost metal guitar crunch, super distorted horn bleats, the whole crew fiercely flowing, a killer chorus complete with fight sounds and wailing funk soul horns. The other new Wu-Tang jam "Six Directions Of Boxing" is another good one, cool old school fuzz funk samples, psychedelic organs, and again the whole Clan in fine form, the only thing missing is O.D.B., R.I.P.
The rest of the soundtrack ain't too shabby either, various Wu-Tang-ers doing their own thing, teaming up with a pretty excellent selection of guests, Ghostface Killah, M.O.P and Pharoah Monche kill it, as do Raekwon, Pusha T and friends, Ghostface and Wiz Khalifa definitely deliver the hit, the brooding, melancholic "I Go Hard", a swoonsome string heavy production courtesy of the RZA, of course. And there's still plenty more good stuff, the Killa Sin jam is pretty fierce, and Kanye does his Kanye thing over a sweet RZA jam, and while there are a few tracks that aren't terrible, but we could do without (The Black Keys, Corinne Bailey Rae), dig the seriously fucked up, sinister buzz-drenched creep of RZA & Flatbush Zombies' "Just Blowin' In The Wind", which channels the horrorcore of the Gravediggaz. So good. Wanna see the movie more than ever now!
Another triumph brought to us by Mississippi Records (via Tompkins Square who originally released this collection as a 3cd set we listed a while back!), this 3 volume collection is overflowing with 39 amazing songs (about 17 less than the cd set, but still...) from Ottoman-American artists who found themselves in the bustle of American life from 1916 right before America entered WWI until 1929, when things became a little more quiet during the Depression. Oh, and we're not just talking Anytown, USA, but specifically New York City, with most of these songs recorded on the island of Manhattan. Scores of inhabitants from Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Levant fled Europe and settled here, bringing forth a brilliant cross pollination of cultures which we can now enjoy as the treasures they are. Places like Little Armenia and Little Syria sat alongside a Greek neighborhood around 8th Avenue and 30th Street, and musicians would mingle in the cafes and streets while no doubt absorbing other elements of what the city had to offer. In the process, they developed something vibrant, new, and exquisitely beautiful.
Separated into the three volumes: Naughty Girl (Dances and Joys), I Wish I Never Came (Nostalgia, Yearning, & Pride), and Notes From Home (American releases of music from Ottoman emigres, some of these songs were actually recorded outside of the states), these compilations cover a vast range of the human experience while also focusing on culture-specific events like genocide, war, and travelling across the world to a strange new land.
Without exaggeration we can say that what labels like Tompkins Square (and Mississippi) do is important for all of world culture, and the detailed liner notes help to give a better understanding of these exotic sounds which can overwhelm with their beauty but become EVEN BETTER when you know something, even just an anecdote, about the performer. Most of these musicians are unknown names to us - an exception being Marika Papagika who we became acquainted with thanks again to Mississippi Records - with some in fact being listed as simply "unknown performers". While their names are lost to time, at least we still have these unbelievable sonic portraits of a rapidly changing moment in world history.
Another triumph brought to us by Mississippi Records (via Tompkins Square who originally released this collection as a 3cd set we listed a while back!), this 3 volume collection is overflowing with 39 amazing songs (about 17 less than the cd set, but still...) from Ottoman-American artists who found themselves in the bustle of American life from 1916 right before America entered WWI until 1929, when things became a little more quiet during the Depression. Oh, and we're not just talking Anytown, USA, but specifically New York City, with most of these songs recorded on the island of Manhattan. Scores of inhabitants from Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Levant fled Europe and settled here, bringing forth a brilliant cross pollination of cultures which we can now enjoy as the treasures they are. Places like Little Armenia and Little Syria sat alongside a Greek neighborhood around 8th Avenue and 30th Street, and musicians would mingle in the cafes and streets while no doubt absorbing other elements of what the city had to offer. In the process, they developed something vibrant, new, and exquisitely beautiful.
Separated into the three volumes: Naughty Girl (Dances and Joys), I Wish I Never Came (Nostalgia, Yearning, & Pride), and Notes From Home (American releases of music from Ottoman emigres, some of these songs were actually recorded outside of the states), these compilations cover a vast range of the human experience while also focusing on culture-specific events like genocide, war, and travelling across the world to a strange new land.
Without exaggeration we can say that what labels like Tompkins Square (and Mississippi) do is important for all of world culture, and the detailed liner notes help to give a better understanding of these exotic sounds which can overwhelm with their beauty but become EVEN BETTER when you know something, even just an anecdote, about the performer. Most of these musicians are unknown names to us - an exception being Marika Papagika who we became acquainted with thanks again to Mississippi Records - with some in fact being listed as simply "unknown performers". While their names are lost to time, at least we still have these unbelievable sonic portraits of a rapidly changing moment in world history.
Another triumph brought to us by Mississippi Records (via Tompkins Square who originally released this collection as a 3cd set we listed a while back!), this 3 volume collection is overflowing with 39 amazing songs (about 17 less than the cd set, but still...) from Ottoman-American artists who found themselves in the bustle of American life from 1916 right before America entered WWI until 1929, when things became a little more quiet during the Depression. Oh, and we're not just talking Anytown, USA, but specifically New York City, with most of these songs recorded on the island of Manhattan. Scores of inhabitants from Anatolia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Levant fled Europe and settled here, bringing forth a brilliant cross pollination of cultures which we can now enjoy as the treasures they are. Places like Little Armenia and Little Syria sat alongside a Greek neighborhood around 8th Avenue and 30th Street, and musicians would mingle in the cafes and streets while no doubt absorbing other elements of what the city had to offer. In the process, they developed something vibrant, new, and exquisitely beautiful.
Separated into the three volumes: Naughty Girl (Dances and Joys), I Wish I Never Came (Nostalgia, Yearning, & Pride), and Notes From Home (American releases of music from Ottoman emigres, some of these songs were actually recorded outside of the states), these compilations cover a vast range of the human experience while also focusing on culture-specific events like genocide, war, and travelling across the world to a strange new land.
Without exaggeration we can say that what labels like Tompkins Square (and Mississippi) do is important for all of world culture, and the detailed liner notes help to give a better understanding of these exotic sounds which can overwhelm with their beauty but become EVEN BETTER when you know something, even just an anecdote, about the performer. Most of these musicians are unknown names to us - an exception being Marika Papagika who we became acquainted with thanks again to Mississippi Records - with some in fact being listed as simply "unknown performers". While their names are lost to time, at least we still have these unbelievable sonic portraits of a rapidly changing moment in world history.
A bit of archival noisiness from aQ pal Monte, who most of you might know as the man behind brooding twangy heavy drifters Burial Tree, as well as the more ambient projects Dark Matter Halo and Time Spent, but the sound of When Prophecy Fails is something else all together, recorded while Monte was still in graduate school, this chunk of blown out digital noise and dense black ambience was in fact inspired by a book about a cult from the fifties, their expectations of the impending apocalypse, and how they dealt with it all when the end of the world did not come to pass (sound familiar?). So if you're reading this, we can assume the most recent extinction event also didn't end up happening, so once again, a legion of doomsdayers are forced to deal with their (and everyone else's) continued existence. And what better way to represent the ever impending apocalypse and the frustration of a million mysterious and undecipherable end of world prophecies, than with clouds of grinding Merzbowian murk, screeching strings, machine gun analog stutter, heaving swirls of grit and grim and glitch, undulating tangles of sculpted hiss, fracture melodic fragments, mysterious samples, haunting stretches of muted electronic shimmer, pocked with jagged shards of digital errata, guitars and violins, doused in effects, the sounds pulled apart until they're fully removed from their sources. The sound chaotic and brutal for much of the disc, but often settling into haunting passages of serene drift, soft psychedelia blurred into crackling swells and muted smears of dense, tense buzz and howl. These brief respites are of course bookended by dizzying bursts of crunch and howl and skree, but even at it's most chaotic and freeform, there does seem to be a method to this musical madness, which comes into clearer focus on the final two tracks.
The first of which is based on recordings of a mentally ill woman (Monte works in the mental health field and captured these recordings with the woman's permission), her voice cracked and weary, the words garbled, but occasionally certain phrases stick out, "can you help me?" being the most disturbing, and they are looped and layered, subtly effected, some reversed, all tangled into a disturbing collage of pain and anguish, which is as fascinating as it is strangely compelling, and of course chilling. Which leads into the final track, which is downright lovely, albeit creepy and sinister and broodingly dark, as if this was in fact the moment of rapture, deep rumbling tones, lush layered droned, slowly shifting over an expanse of deep black nothingness, the instruments coming to the fore, what could be a bit of guitar drifts amidst this abject sprawl of groaning, moaning minimal ambient creep. The sound subtly glitchy, cavernous and dense, a dark strain of black ambient industrial shimmer, the soundtrack to a timelapse film of the end of the world, a cascade of slo-mo blackened churn, that plays out glacially as everything around it, and us, fades into oblivion.
Cool packaging too, printed cardstock inserts, in a stickered plastic sleeve, each disc accompanied by a doomsday fortune, predicting your end, and what you'll experience at the end, along with six unlucky numbers, all printed on a little fortune sized piece of vellum.
The only thing we've heard from local psychedelic noise collective White Pee, was a split they recorded with psychedelic space rockers, White Hills, but as that was a collaboration, it was sort of difficult to parse just what these guys sounded like. But finally, the band have released their first proper record, and it's a doozy, featuring at least one member of local psych rockers 3 Leafs, along with a bunch of other SF noisemakers, White Pee reveal themselves as less 'noisy', like we imagined, and definitely more psychedelic, the opening track gets right into it, with some dense gnarled riffage, draped over a simple motorik rhythm, it's still noisy, but here that noise is employed in swirling clouds around that main riff/groove, swirling FX, all manner of buzz and thrum and skree, in a constant swirl. It's downright doomy actually, a dirgey doomkraut groove, laced with what sounds like some bizarre strain of vokills, the sound is most definitely psychedelic, and very trancey, the whole first track essentially a single part looped and locked, the band pounding and grinding away, the sort of heavy psych bliss out that induces deep sonic mesmer in the listener. After a brief bit of actual noise, a freeform drift of warped samples, drum splatter, horn bleat, and effects overload, the group bring it all back together for another kraut-flecked psychedelic jam, after some swirling ambience and mysterious samples, the band lock into a killer groove, the drums simple and propulsive, plenty of piano, lots of squiggly synth, and still more effects, it's a bit like a way more active, much noisier Necks, there's a Circle vibe too, that same sort of endless circular hypno-rock, wrapped in a thick squall of wild synth swirl, and while the band wind it up after about 6 minutes, it easily could have stretched out for another 6 (or sixty!). Finally, there's the epic 11+ minute closer, which begins all twangy and dolorous, woozy and washed out, buried drums, scraggly acoustic guitar, burbling sound effects, the first eight minutes or so spent drifting dreamily, the sounds hazy and blurred and softly psychedelic, before the guitar grows more urgent, horns surface from the murk, the piano gets pounded, the guitar grows angular, only to quickly settle back down into a gorgeously murky slow burn fade out.
Way recommended for fans of 3 Leafs, Circle, the Necks, Carlton Melton, and other cosmic psychedelic explorers...
Profound Lore brings us the second album in two years from female fronted PDX doom posse Witch Mountain. And for the second time, their weighty Sabbathy stoner sludge is taken to another level by the soaring singing of Uta Plotkin, who can really belt it out, damn!
Opener "The Ballad Of Lanky Rae" is a bit of a curveball, a bluesy backwoods tall tale about a seven foot woman, who as a little girl preferred to play with guns instead of dolls, and eventually leaves town (after stealing a car and shooting a man down) to find her gun-totin', whisky drinking demon daddy, deep at the center of the earth. It's good fun, some swampy stoner rawk all right, and Plotkin sure puts it across. But, the other tracks on this album are quite a bit more "serious" sounding than that, with atmospheres more desolate, or emotions more real. The riffs are massive and mighty, the quiet parts moody and melodic, and Plotkin proves that her vocal range can convincingly venture into scary growls as well as piercing howls. The guitars get to let loose too, and these aren't short songs. Ferinstance, "Aurelia", the longest, clocks in at almost 12 minutes, its epic post-rock loud-soft dynamics mixed with more of that high lonesome sound, Plotkin singing sadly and sweetly amidst plodding heavy parts that utterly crush. The album's closer is another long one, a 9:22 doom-blues that creeps along quietly for some time before its cathartic fists-clenched conclusion. Earth fronted by Alannah Myles might be a good/weird comparision! Furthermore, there's moments on this album that make us think of both Hammers Of Misfortune and Black Label Society, at the same time. Which is also weird. But awesome.
Basically, if you liked Witch Mountain's South Of Salem, you'll like this. And it's very much recommened to fans of the current crop of female fronted heavy rock acts, especially Royal Thunder, Loon, and The Devil's Blood.
Awesome garagey/glammy '70s hard rock that sounds like a demented Led Zeppelin some of the time, featuring frontman Fred Cole, future co-founder of the legendary Pacific NW punks Dead Moon! For as big of proto-metal, '70s rock nerds as we are here at aQuarius, we don't understand how we'd somehow NEVER heard of this band until quite recently. And it's not like this is a new cd reissue, in fact, it apparently dates from 1994! When we got clued in to Zipper, we tracked it down, thankfully one of our distributors still had a supply in stock, so here it is, gotta share it with those of you who haven't heard Zipper either. Well, it's nice to know there's always some new but old gem out there we haven't yet heard.
So, Zipper's sole album, originally released as a private pressing (by the Cole's own "Whizeagle Records") in 1975, features nine cuts of high energy ramalama and bluesy grunge. The album opens with a bang, the song "Bullets" being the one that immediately made us think Led Zeppelin, with extremely lewd & lascivious lyrics delivered in what sounds like an exaggerated parody of a lemon-squeezin' Robert Plant. The sexual innuendo here is pretty outrageous / hilarious if you pay attention ("wanna stuff my face in your swimming hole, stroke it so hard I'm gonna break my pole", for example) and the guitars riff it up with wild abandon.
Cole's over the top vocals are big part of Zipper's sound, for sure, and at first (before we realized it was Fred Cole singing) we were kind of taken aback by his style, sneering and screeching, part Percy, part Mick Jagger, often doing a scrappy, campy falsetto that makes us think of Wayne Kramer warbling "Rambing Rose" on the MC5's Kick Out The Jams! Overwrought and ridiculous, but damn it works, with the downer epic "Face Of Stone" ferinstance being truly emotional wrenching. Some big influences are probably late '60s Stones, Zeppelin of course, perhaps early Detroit-era Alice Cooper, and maybe a bit of Black Sabbath. There's some sweet aching ballads, some lumbering blues rawk blasters, some glammed-up punkers, and even a '50s style raver. Good stuff - for raunchy, kickass, low-budget heavy jams from the garage circa '75, look no further!
(Sometime soon, we'll also have to review the reissue of the excellent album by Fred Cole's even earlier band from the sixties, The Lollipop Shoppe, a band whose cutesy name belies their seriously gloomy vibes.)
First we've heard from this mysterious outfit, but somehow from the strange name, and symbol heavy spelling, we were expecting something heavy, which is precisely what we got. A churning, death march plod, sort of Godflesh-y, pounding caveman pummel beneath thick caustic downtuned riffage, blurred into heaving swells of droned out thrum. This is a some serious slo-mo, abject doom-dirge heaviness, the opening track eventually shifting into something more majestic, the droned out riffs, soaring heavenward, wreathed in feedback, the vibe very Harvey Milk, as if they might break out into some twisted Leonard Cohen number at any second, but instead, the band unfurl a woozy bassline, that drifts below streaks of feedback, as the whole track oozes malevolently, into a stripped down creep, laced with whispered vokills, squalls of tribal drumming, all driven by that distorted bass buzz, before finally exploding into a sort of anguished doom ballad, the vocals a mournful wail, over the lumbering doomic creep.
We kind of expected the second song to be more of the same, but wow, the instrumentation is the same, but the vocals, epic, soaring, belted out, this could be a doom metal Circle, the same sort of near ridiculous almost operatic bombast, but here it transforms the sludge into some sort of epic doom-prog, or a more rocking Harvey Milk maybe, it even reminds us at points of Magma! The final track mixes it up again, laying down a murky dirge of muted guitar chug, swirling almost psychedelic shimmer, before blossoming into some slow near metallic churn, and those vocals again, swoop in, dramatic and over the top, and transform everything, suddenly it's some warped ultra heavy doom ballad, a little bit mathy, a lot bit moody, darkly dramatic, eventually shedding much of the heaviness, and finishing with a strange stretch of stripped down minimal syncopation. Seriously cool, and seriously warped stuff. Fans of twisted doomy dramatic heaviness will go nuts for these guys, Harvey Milk, Pinkish Black, Eagle Twin, Like A Kind Of Matador, etc.
Be warned, the jackets are not perfect, some have slightly dinged corners, some slightly split seams, we weren't able to get replacement covers, so we're selling these at a serious discount, but if you are AT ALL anal, you might not want to buy one of these, but even with the slightly dinged up sleeves, this is WAY recommended!! Includes a download code!
