There was a time when this LA combo was one of THEE aQuarius bands, played in the store constantly, top ten lists, in-stores, the whole shebang. Former aQ staffer Byram, and former aQ owner Windy, were both huge Radar Bros. boosters, but really everyone dug their dark wistful slowcore indie pop sound. Weirdly it's been YEARS since we reviewed a RB record, and our very favorite, The Singing Hatchet, popped up in the early days of the aQ list, so gets a very brief, but still pretty glowing review, worth reprinting here, cuz it probably applies to the band in general, not just that record: "Mellow LA-based slowcore trio Radar Bros make some of the most emotional music we've ever heard. With super-plaintive, Pink Floyd-y vocals, creamy thick guitars, and hook-filled melodies, some of Radar Bros songs are so beautiful you literally have to stop what you're doing just so you can listen to them - yeah, they're that good! Fans of Low, Half Film, Red House Painters, and Palace will LOVE this record."
And we have to say, listening to this new one now, we're tempted to think the same thing. The first song started, and it was like we never stop listening, totally warm and familiar, and dreamily enveloping, but there have been some changes, the sound is a little noisier, more distorted, there's even weird drum machine on the first track, but it's all woven into a warm shimmering haze, that simply blends into the classic Radar Bros. sound, and makes it just more, more fuzzy, more psychedelic, but just as hooky, and dreamy, and poppy, and addictive as before. In fact, as we often do, we listened to opener "If We Were Banished" five or six times in a row, before we moved on to "Reflections", which was somehow just as great! Think the above mentioned bands, but maybe this time around, include Teenage Fanclub, Olivia Tremor Control, Sleepy Sun, the sound is definitely more washed out and shoegazey, lots of studio stuff going on, swirling effects, swooping backwards guitars, textures and layers, all of which suits the songs, but the key is that the songs are still fantastic, stripped down, hushed and intimate, slide and lap steel surface here and there, the drumming spare and simple, the vocals warm and just a little bit rough. Long time fans will not be disappointed, and fans like us, who some how missed out on the last few definitely have some catching up to do. And if you've yet to check these guys out, give the samples below a listen, and prepare to be smitten. So good!
We definitely weren't expecting this from the Zeal label, who in the past have brought us the dark country of Timesbold, the folky pop of Isbells, and of course multiple records from apocalyptic folk one man band Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat. While we were expecting something dark, maybe folky, what we got from these Belgians was a wild slab of sludgey, mathy, experimental noise rock, that KILLS. They had us by the first track, which sorta sounds like Refused's "New Noise" recorded onto a shitty old cassette tape, and played back at 16rpm, the riff is similar, and the shrieked vocals, not to mention the mathy main riff, but here it's all dirgey, and detuned, a lumbering noise rock doomsludge churn, laced with all sorts of weird sounds and effects that give it a sort of avant element. And that Refused comparison definitely surfaces throughout, the band perfectly capable of whipping up that sort of frenzied post punk, but more often than not, choosing to twist it all up into something much more fucked and confusional.
It's a relentless barrage of twisted noisiness, from the driving, distorted groove of "Louis" (all the songs bear people's proper names), with its tense synths, and jumbled, progged out breakdowns, to the drum heavy psychedelic bombast of "Judith", which flits from Melvins-like downtuned heaviness, to little melodic flutters and back again. "Henri" is a killer too, all crumbling distortion, and fierce heavy crunch, not to mention some rad progged out melodies, super swaggery and intense, but then part way through the song collapses into a series of warped audio experiments, rife with sound effects and weird voices, sounding a bit like classic Butthole Surfers, fused to something much more rocking and heavy. "Eva" also fuses tribal drumming and warbly synths to grinding mathed out noise rock and lumbering downtuned doomsludge weirdness. The vocals are shrieky and unhinged one second, murky and processed and garbled the next, occasionally bellowed monstrously, sometimes mewled disturbingly. The songs are dense with multiple parts, ever shifting sounds, the mood consistently dark, but the vibe in constant flux, harrowingly heavy one second, droned out and hauntingly hushed the next, with most tracks a wild schizophrenic sonic chaos, all held together by some warped ineffable logic, known only to the band, which makes for some unnerving, and fantastically unsettling listening. Check out the closer, which sounds like some long lost Tool track slowed way down, and transformed into some sort of psychotic psychedelic drone ballad, that eventually erupts into a final stretch of whatthefuck heaviness.
Holy shit is this amazing. Our new favorite warped, weirdo, heavy rock / noise rock / outsider metal jam for sure!
We've been getting so much cool new music from China recently, the White+ we recently made our Record Of The Week, as well as the Boyz & Girl record reviewed on the same list, the Pairs cd-r from a while back, not to mention a whole bunch of titles we have in stock that just haven't made it onto the list yet. And here now is another. Sent to us direct from the band in China, who oddly enough has a sort of Icelandic name, and of course the record is called Iceland, and the man behind Reykjavictim is not in fact Chinese, but is Canadian, living in China. Phew. Needless to say, another piece of the puzzle that is the current underground / indie rock scene in Shanghai. Reykjavictim is part electronic flecked new wave rock and part homebrewed experimental pop. Fuzzed out crunchy guitars, pulsing synths, crooned vox, ping ponging melodies, the opening track fuzzy and crunchy before partway through, the drums transform into skittery drum machine, and the song becomes a sort of brooding electro pop. The second track is more of the same but stripped down. But then on "Feng Huang Qin", things get really interesting, a buzzing, Eastern sounding melody, sounding like it's being played on some traditional instrument, over a crackling bed of static and hiss, a swirl of short wave hum and pulsing whir. We wouldn't have minded if the whole record was more of this! The next track takes that Eastern melody, chops it up, and makes it into a stuttering base for some moody new wave mesmer, before the rest of the record unfurls similarly, a sort of home brewed electro wave, all fuzzed out synths, percolating rhythms, the final track a sort of Silver Apples by way of New Order.
Cool stuff for sure. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Packaged in super swank, hand screened and hand written sleeves.
Easily one of our favorite post punk / death rock groups EVER. Tense and angular, angry and ominous, sinister and sinuous, dark and gothic, every song here a stone cold gloom punk classic, the bass thick and almost new wavey, the guitars jagged, fuzzy and distorted, raw riffage and driving drum pound, all in support of the twisted vocals of Nick Blinko, whose distinctive vocals are only rivaled by his even more distinctive artwork, which adorns the cover (and the cover of all their records), a dizzyingly meticulous black and white horrorscape, that perfectly captures the world of nightmarish, anxiety ridden terror that lurks within the grooves of Death Church, and presumably within Blinko's mind as well, which is probably what resulted in several stints in mental institutions.
Even all these years later, Rudimentary Peni sound so good, their music so relevant, and whether consciously or not, aped by far too many modern bands to count, powerful and personal, depressive and kicking-against-the-pricks pissed off, and catchy as fuck, this record has lost none of its twisted black energy in the nearly twenty years since it was first released.
The cult Buried By Time And Dust label brings us an official release of this live recording by these doom metal legends in their prime, on tour with SST labelmates Black Flag back in 1984!! Featuring the classic original Vitus lineup of SoCal hippie punk wasteoids: guitarist Dave Chandler, bassist Mark Adams, drummer Armando Acosta (RIP) and vocalist Scott Reagers, doing songs from their first few early albums and eps (some of which hadn't been released yet), this was recorded on December 20th, 1984 in London, Ontario, Canada. They bring the acidhead, hippie punk, alcoholic DOOM with "White Magic/Black Magic", "Zombie Hunger", "War Is Our Destiny", "Hallow's Victim", "Saint Vitus" and three more classics.
Now, sometimes, live recordings are not always the greatest, but we knew this was a worthy one, as the audio comes from a videotape bootleg we've seen and heard previously. The sound is good, and more importantly, Scott Reagers' vocals are AMAZING. We already considered him one of the all-time great (but totally underrated) metal singers, but that he could pull it off live (and under less than ideal circumstances, we imagine) is damn impressive. His banshee vocals just like they do in the studio, full-on with all the range and dynamics, wow!
This vinyl document comes with cool cartoony cover art featuring a pit-full of Vitus fans moshing it up, although if you've seen the video from this show you know that the audience during the Vitus portion was bit smaller - with Henry Rollins himself being the most prominent headbanging fan in the room, pretty much all alone front row and center. 'Cause those were the days when punk and metal didn't always mix, and Vitus's psychedelic style of metal wasn't always appreciated by the hardcore kids! However, it's hard to imagine why not now since they RULED. As you can hear here.
Includes lyric sheet insert (backed with a typewritten Vitus band bio from SST's publicity department, circa 1984), the lp pressed on thick white vinyl.
An album that launched thousands of better known records, Ballet Statique is Conrad Schniztler's masterpiece. Schnitzler, of course, was a maverick in the Krautrock community, having been an original member of both Tangerine Dream and Kluster, and later developing an expressive language of tape collage and electronic synthesis which expanded upon his early studies with Joseph Beuys. His most influential works, however, came out in the late '70s following an almost serialist body of work based on the poetics of various colors through electronic sound, eventually leading to Ballet Statique. It was originally released with the title 'Con' back in 1978 through the Barclay funded Egg Records, Ballet Statique is a skeletal distillation of progressive electronics into a bleak hypnosis of rotating melodies, atonal slashes of synthetic noise, and proto-techno rhythmic propulsion. While this album has been reissued a few times since it's original release, the current infatuation with late '70s electronics - especially through the psychedelic and minimal-wave sensibilities - make this reissue especially timely. "Electric Garden" is one of those elegantly simple pieces of electronica with an abstracted, almost random melody guiding Schnitzler's rigid step sequence cast in a cosmic shower of delay ripples with bent electro-shock noises sliding up and down against his motorik drum machine. From a track like this, one can see where Aphex Twin would have been able to make such a profound break from rave culture with these head-spinning sequences. "Metall 1" is all space-dust and comet debris hung weightlessly through Schnitzler's ominous undulations of bright synthetic shimmers and lurching rumbles of metallic low-end, clearly the inspiration for pretty much everything that John Elliott of Emeralds has ever touched. The deep-space sonor pulses of "Black Nails" reprise the tone-bent noises Schnitzler produced on "Electric Garden," looking forward to the robotic bleakness of Monoton, Dome, and Omit. It's pretty shocking how good this record is, and how timeless it sounds, even with the current strain of '70s revivalism. So highly recommended, it's actually embarrassing that we've not written about this record sooner.
A while back, we highlighted an Omni label reissue of a pretty cool album called Chronoradial, some way-out library music from the late sixties/early seventies by avant-garde French composer Patrice Sciortino, which we likened to "20th century classical gone soundtrack wacky". Some months later, Omni released a follow-up second volume with more of Sciortino's works, which we're finally now listing as well. That's this disc, featuring two whole Sciortino albums: Percupulsions, from 1970, and 1975's Gymnorythmies/1, plus a few extra bonus cuts taken from a couple other Sciortino lps of the era - 43 tracks in all!
Percupulsions - what a great title, it sounds like a word we'd have coined to describe it - is of course very rhythmic, with classical percussionists gracefully navigating jazzy compositions that also incorporate harspsichord and tape manipulation, a soundscape that's melodic and playful - and rather strange and sinister too. Gymnorythmies/1 is likewise full of quirky movement and joy, being meant to accompany modern dance and gymnastics exercises (a instructional booklet with diagrams of dances was included with the original lp release!). Pretty neat, recommended to folks who liked Chronoradial or Omni's other arty European '70s library music reissues, such as those lps by Egisto Macchi.
Thirty or so years after first blasting off, the band known as Simply Saucer soars into view once again. Truly a twisted gem of the '70s pre-punk art-rock underground, the *Canadian* '70s pre-punk art-rock underground no less, this Hamilton, Ontario band was freaking people out back in 1974 with the material you'll find on this spiffy new cd reissue. The lucky and enlightened among you might already have the long out of print early-'90s cd version of this album, or even the original LP posthumously released in 1989, but this new edition of their half-studio, half-live "Cyborgs Revisited" adds 8 bonus tracks, including lo-fi demos, additional live stuff, and both sides of the Saucer's lone 1978 single. With or without these bonus tracks, it's a great fuckin' record, boldly owing allegiance to (early) Pink Floyd and the Velvet Underground and The Stooges. They've also got much in common with the likes of the Pink Fairies, Faust, NYC no-wave a la Von Lmo, and the contemporaneous crazy Ohio underground scene of the '70s (Rocket From The Tombs, Electric Eels). Yep, all these inspirations are immediately evident, not too far into side one of "Cyborgs Revisited": witness the the lengthy amazing repetitive Floydian effects instrumental "Mole Machine" as it segues into the acoustic intro of "Bullet Proof Nothing", Simply Saucer's idea of a love song, with lyrics like "Treat me like dirt/drive me insane" delivered in a sloppy Lou Reed drawl.
S.S. (unfortunate initials, hopefully nothing to do with their song "Nazi Apocalypse"!) were formed in '72 by a bunch of Canuck weirdos, notable among them lead guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Edgar Breau, and Sun Ra/Eno inspired electronics dude John LaPlante, aka "Ping Romany" -- Ping being a good stage name for the guy playing the primitive oscillators, tone generators, and theremin! They fought the good fight for a few years, cranking out freakish, space-fx laden proto-punk rock n' roll with sci-fi titles like "Dance The Mutation", eventually dabbling in Toronto's nascent "new wave" scene.
It's certainly no surprise that the Saucer never "made it" -- though that '78 single seems like a stab at poppier (or at least goofier) sound -- and, with no successful commercial career in the offing, they eventually disbanded. Dunno if they could ever be cited as an influence by anyone 'cause they were so obscure, but hypothetically anyway S.S. could be the warped template for today's garage artisans -- Comets On Fire, especially -- totally punk *and* psych, with skronked out guitar, snotty vox, oscillating noise waves and tumbling drums. Glad to have this back in print, and it's certainly a timely reissue considering how well this fits in with some of today's art-punk retro-electro trends!
MPEG Download: "Nazi Apocalypse" [/audio/simplynazi.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Nazi Apocalypse" [/audio/simplynazi.m3u]
You have to make sure when you're crafting comparisons you don't get too carried away. We're WAY into hyperbole, as by now you probably all realize, but sometimes hyperbole can backfire. We get so many records that get described as sounding like the Stooges crossed with Nirvana mixed with Black Sabbath and on and on, until you arrive as something that could not possibly be true. We weren't super familiar with the Sleepers, other than knowing they were a legendary psychedelic goth punk outfit from SF, which featured members Crime, Tuxedomoon and Toiling Midgets. But before we even heard this reissue, we read this quote from Joe Carducci in his book Rock And The Pop Narcotic, where he wrote: "The Sleepers were an awesome powerhouse live. They were an appropriate refinement of The Stooges, and what Joy Division might have developed into had they the balls." What? He had us until that last part. And we can see why Superior Viaduct would go with that quote, who wouldn't? "Like Joy Division with balls!" Sadly, as we all know, Joy Division most definitely had the balls, and while the Sleepers did aspire to the same great heights, they were definitely a whole different sort of beast. Their sound was more gloomy and gothy, more pop than punk for sure, gothic West Coast style, the sound that would later define places like the Scream Club, and would spawn bands like the Abecedarians and Kommunity FK, it's a sound we dig for sure, but a whole different thing.
This record was The Sleepers' only album, and definitely tends toward the woozy brooding side of the sound, even a track like "The Mind" that starts out all crunchy and fuzzy and punky, quickly morphs into something more poppy and psychedelic. Weirdly, we ended up digging the second half of the record more. After the brief industrial rhythmscape "Intro", "Forever" unfurls as a strident slab of post punk psych pop, all tribal drumming, swoonsome guitar textures, low slung basslines, and dramatic crooned vox. "Zenith" might be our favorite track here though, with it's swirl of guitar harmonics, the opening few minutes sounding like Durutti Column, all hypnotic psychedelic guitar swirls, which are soon joined by martial snare and swirling string like chords, before launching into a dark driving gloom punk groove. The rest of the record unwinds similarly, noisy, gloomy, gothy, dark and dramatic.
As with all Superior Viaduct reissues, fantastic heavy vinyl, the record sourced from the analog originals, nice thick covers, this one with a 12"x24" insert, old band flyer on one side (featuring Cabaret Voltaire and Young Marble Giants, which also gives a good idea of the Sleepers' sound), the other with liner notes from Joe Carducci.
First appearance on the aQ list for Soft Kill, an offshoot of aQ gloom goth faves Blessure Grave, and as you might expect, SK's sound is not hugely removed from Blessure Grave, but it definitely displays a different direction, with a new, and more warped sound palette, check out "Seven Hundred", which opens with chiming Cure like goth guitar melodies, drifting dreamily over some thick, super distorted synth squelch, while way off in the distance, tribal drums pound and churn. Super hypnotic, and weirdly minimal, until the guitar grows more urgent, the drums following suit, the song finally breaking the tension, and blossoming into a proper song, and maybe surprisingly, a proper pop song. We were expecting it to get seriously heavy and dense (especially considering the fact that the group now features, for this release at least, the drummer from doom heavies Atriarch), but instead, it's warm and jangly, still dark, but more goth pop than death rock, the vocals a deep dramatic croon, eventually exploding into a passionate wail, all over the roiling gloominess below, reminding us of old school goth outfits like Kommunity FK or the Abecedarians.
The flipside "Circle Of Trees" wraps dark twang around skittery programmed beats and some chiming effected guitar melodies, which builds to a darkly propulsive doom-goth groove, and again harkens back to the heyday of early eighties LA goth rock, Soft Kill sounding like the sort of band you'd stumble across playing the Scream Club, it's a sound we've always loved, and one few bands can pull off convincingly, but both tracks here are kicking our asses, and most definitely has us hankering for the upcoming full length.
Pressed on SUPER thick clear red vinyl, housed in a heavy PVC plastic sleeve with a full color cardstock insert. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
In our quest for the heaviest, trippiest, sludgiest, most psychedelic doom ever, we thought we had finally found the holy grail, in the form of UK outfit Bong. No beating around the psychedelic stoner doom bush, no 'cosmic whatever' or 'high priests of blah blah blah', no, Bong got right to the heart of it, naming themselves after the very relic that truly must have inspired most of the bands we love. We can almost imagine a massive bong, painted gold and surrounded by demonic seraphim, hanging above an altar in some sort of alternate universe cathedral, where all of our beloved groups worship, attaining divine inspiration, delivered to us in the form of drug soaked, tripped out ultra heavy sonic blissouts. But one thing we forgot to consider, one element that could, and very likely would, trump the simple bong, one thing that would elevate that essential and beloved stoner relic to the next level, more cosmic than earthbound, an implement derived to catapult the group, and the group's listeners to the heart of the sun, taking the legacy of all the came before, from Hawkwind to Bong, from Pink Floyd to Bongzilla, and sending them into space. It worked for Jason Voorhees (Jason X is INSANE), and it works for these Aussie doomlords, the awesomely named SPACE BONG, whose name promises extreme spaced out psychedelic heaviness, and most definitely delivers!
But, while you might be expecting, dirgey, abject, Bunker-like sludge, or even droned out Bong like psychedelia, the truth is Space Bong land somewhere inbetween, adding a healthy does of melody, their sound beholden to classic doom, as much as newer, weirder, slower stuff. Four loooooooong tracks, the shortest 12 minutes plus the longest over 21 minutes. The sound is massive, downtuned guitars, pounding drums, dueling vocals, one a demonic bellow, the other a Khanate like shriek, and while the ingredients aren't all that different than other doom outfits, it's what they do with it that counts. The opener, begins with a weird ambient intro before launching into a glorious sprawl of plodding slo-mo crush, then out of nowhere, super catchy guitar harmonies suddenly surface, soaring over the churning chug below, and then dissipate, leaving a field of pulsing feedback over tribal drumming, weirdly hypnotic and tranced out, and when the vocals come in, the result is some sort of super tripped out avant abstract psychedelic doom drift, which instead of slipping back into the doom that started things off, locks into a weird droned out deathmarch chugscape, before finally exploding into a final blast of furious psych doom.
And the thing is, it's not all doom in Space Bong land, the second track is downright rocking, almost stonery in fact, a killer main riff, swaggery and snarly, but it's really just a feint, cuz a minute later, the song collapses into another stretch of feedback drenched glacial creep, this time, buzz heavy bass drives the woozy churn, the sound super dynamic, lots of starts and stops, weird stretches of tranced out guitars, bursts of feedback, drones galore, not to mention some psychedelic noise, some glitched out ambience, processed vox, and all sorts of other chaotic noise woven into Space Bong's twisted druggy doom.
And we're only halfway through! The second half of the record plays out similarly, big bombastic drumming, some seriously classic metal sounding riffing, more harmonized guitars, wild squalls of keening feedback, fields of grinding guitar noise, super tripped out near ambient dronescapes, stretches of twisted mathiness, and a little bit of groove here and there, the closer displaying some seriously Sabbathy swing, and some killer psychedelic leads, and a super crazy catchy almost NWOBHM sounding final few minutes, albeit on the tail end of some seriously extreme dirge/sludge crush.
Random copies will come with a Space Bong patch!
Finally, record number two from these local hard rockers, whose debut self titled cd-r was a huge hit with the aQ metalheads, and while we LOVED that record, we're beginning to think Heart Attack might be even better, a another killer collection of kick ass metal jams, equal parts classic NWOBHM, eighties hair metal and classic early thrash metal, the sound poppy and heavy and hooky. Right up front, if you're fans of groups like Cauldron, Twisted Tower Dire, Slough Feg, Midnight Chaser, and of course classic metal and hard rock combos like Iron Maiden, UFO, Tokyo Blade, Pandemonium and the like, then Space Vacation is definitely right up your alley. Just give the title track a listen, it's been stuck in out head like crazy for weeks now, and it pretty much perfectly encapsulates the group's sound, the heavy riffed out opening, the harmonized guitar leads, the wild drumming, the song shifting into a chugging eighties hard rock, super poppy and catchy, before launching into a furious almost speed metal blowout, chugging guitars, and furious double kick drumming, wedded to soaring clean vocals, plenty of super dynamic stop starts too, and hooks galore, even the heavy parts are crazy catchy. And then there's the shredding last minute or so, wild soloing guitars over furious drumming, and still more killer guitar harmonies. It literally took us about twenty listens before we could stop listening to that one track and dig deeper in the record. But once we did, pretty much all the tracks here are equally catchy. "End Of The Bender" is another killer, with a chorus that won't quit, and another crazy shredding finish, and then there's "Bro Hammer", a churning chunk of classic double kick driven Euro metal style radness, with yet another impossibly catchy chorus.
And while there's plenty of heaviness here, and fierce riffing, and insane drumming, and for all the record's NWOBHM aspirations, Space Vacation still mostly sound like eighties hair metal, albeit on the heavier, hookier side, and while there's plenty of cool weirdness throughout, your love of Space Vacation all depends on how much you dig that era of heavy metal, which we dig A WHOLE LOT, so for us Space Vacation is basically the modern version of a metal band that would have literally been our favorite band at age 16, and heck, considering how much we've been listening to this lately, they're coming dangerously close to being just that even now, several decades on. WAY WAY recommended!
Includes download too!
DR-100. The last 7" to be produced by Drone Records, and it's fitting that the Japanese drone-maestro Hitoshi Kojo (aka Spiracle) got the nod to author the finale to this very impressive series of singles. The gauzy, shimmering sounds that trickle off the clear vinyl were sourced from glass harps, resonant trumpets, sheet metal, and electronics that generate beautifully complex drones that interweave amongst themselves into dense, amorphous masses of sound. While Kojo has more recently been recording in the freaked-out / drone-out psychedelic outfit Juppala Kaapio, the Spiracle output tends to land on the post-industrial drone smears of early Andrew Chalk and Organum. Here, he's definitely at the top of his game. We've got ONLY THREE COPIES!
One of five new tapes from the awesome Austin based experimental tape label, Holodeck. Largely documenting the growing and diverse Texas underground scene of synth conjurers, drone lords, psych meditators, and classical folk devotionalists, each tape conceived as a unique listening experience with beautifully designed minimalist packaging. We listed tapes by Lumens, Smokey Emery and Thousand Foot Whale Claw awhile back, and this time around we have another tape from Thousand Foot Whale Claw as well as tapes by M. Geddes Gengra, Silent Land Time Machine, Amasa Gana and this one from mysterious synth quartet Survive.
Two side long tracks, the first a pulsating cavernous modular synth exploration, an extended version of a track from their self-titled debut 10" which we had a handful of but are now gone (though if we can get more we'll surely list it). That track is otherworldly, sci-fi and dark, like early Cluster, Klaus Schulze and Alpha Centauri-era Tangerine Dream.
The other side is more spacious and primordial, and begins like a still night on some toxic planet. Gaseous rumbles, eerie night whistles and percolating textural bloops, far off some humming phased mechanoid vocals building up to what sounds like it could be the foley for the final hellish scene in the movie The Black Hole. Stripped of John Barry's ominous orchestrations, what we're left with is cold robo-futurist doom, laid to rest by an extended funereal space dirge. Limited to 100 copies!
If you read our in-between list last Friday, the one where where highlighted some of our favorite things on the Holy Mountain label, you may remember us mentioning this new, soon-to-be-reviewed Holy Mountain release, the debut album from Swiftumz. As promised, here it is, and it's awesome. But, those of you you familiar with Holy Mountain's usual output might be expecting something deeply psychedelic, acid folky, or even experimentally abrasive... so Swiftumz might throw you for a loop, 'cause instead it's quite poppy. Hum-along, stick in your head, lalala-ishly poppy, wow! But it's lo-fi bedroom indie pop, of course, kinda on the Ariel Pink or Art Museums tip, delirious and distorted enough to find favor with the Holy Mountain mystics. REALLY distorted on opener "Don't Cha Want Me Back?" in fact.
It's the work of a local fella, super nice guy and man about town, Chris McVicker. Who until now, we hadn't realized was such a hidden pop talent. Perhaps we should have known, apparently he wrote a hit single for Hunx & His Punx, but we tend to think of him as the guy who hangs out with Oakland heavies Pigs and brings us their records (and one of the Pigs guys plays on this, as does Myles Cooper and some other folks). So, surprised were we that this was such a catchy affair, inspired by the '80s British stuff from the C86 scene, but also reminding us of all kinds of other good ol' underground indie faves like Dinosaur Jr and The Supreme Dicks. There's plenty of strummy guitar jangle, shimmering FX, tick tockin' drum machine beats, and gentle vox to lift these tracks to the top of the pops in your heart. Really good stuff, it was tough to pick which songs we liked best out of the bunch to make sound samples of, 'cause they're all so good. Some mellow and dreamy, others uptempo energetic, all hooky and hazy and full of heartache.
By the way, that cute name, Swiftumz, is that McVicker's secret nickname or something? Sounds kind of like a term of endearment - or perhaps the opposite. "Good one, Swiftumz!" one could say, sarcastically. But we will say it sincerely, this IS a good one, Swiftumz, we're impressed!! Enthusiastically recommended. And by the way, the phone number that's on the sticker on the front cover, below where it says "call me", that IS McVicker's phone number! And he really doesn't mind if you call him.
Though unfortunately vinyl-only, this does include a mp3 download code.
Another batch of new tapes from now-local label Moon Glyph, brings us new sonic treasures, quite literally in this case, the latest from Treasure Hunt, a one man band from Texas, who offers up a blissed out serious of psychedelic collages, tinkling chimes, jazzy horns, all sorts of strange loops and field recordings, fractured melodies, a plunderphonic freakout, that almost sounds like a proper band, albeit one with maybe a hundred members. The vibe is most definitely free form and abstract, the opener delves into a sort of avant new age, while the follow up, unfurls a sort of heavily panned but of woozy droney murk, the panning downright dizzying, with the sounds swooping continuously from ear to ear and speaker to speaker. But that effect, along with the, looped melody, and the strange disembodied vocals, make for a heady bit of psychedelia.
The rest of the tape continues to explore a sort of avant free-jazz collage, plucked strings, what sounds like harp melodies, subtle shuffling rhythms, strange robotic clockwork creaks and groans, mournful strings, heavily effected acoustic guitars, birdsong, percussion, wheezing organs, buried voices, a sort of spectral chorale, strange bits of electronic glitchery, sampled voices, layers of hum and crackle, sliced and diced Christmas carols, wild squiggles of primitive electronics, the tracks occasionally bursting in top near chaos, but otherwise settling into something dark and dreamy. A super nice surprise, and one of our favorite Moon Glyph tapes yet!
To dedicated readers of the New Arrival list, there can be no doubt that goth and industrial sounds from the eighties are back in a huge way. But rather than riding the nostalgia train, most of the groups we love who are mining this sound and putting their own spin on it, adding unique elements to distinguish a sense of honest and progressive devotion from a mere genre exercise. Case in point is this debut tape from Austin-based heavy gloomers, Troller. Coming out of the same fervent scene that was birthed from the ashes of Silver Pines: Pure X, Survive, Sleep Over, and Thousand Foot Whale Claw (for a good overview of this scene, check out the Brain Club Vol. #000001 LP compilation), Troller mine classic death rock, but slow it down with a heavy shoe-gazing doominess. You can tell the female singer has a voice as big as Zola Jesus, or Siouxie, but what we like most about it is that she restrains her delivery from overwrought passion up front in the mix, instead letting it moulder at times in a dour misanthropic mire with the chilly synths and the booming plod of the drum machine patterns. In between each proper song is an untitled instrumental that shows the band's knack for sculpting dark ambient soundscapes that are alien, pensive and luridly bleak.
To check it out: http://troller.bandcamp.com/releases
The band dropped these off while on tour, so we have about ten. We probably can get more, but be prepared to wait for a restock until the band return home.
Holy shit, this is so fucked up, but in all the right ways. And thus, becomes our first ever CASSETTE Record Of The Week! One of those records that had EVERYone here sorta freaking out. And on it's first spin in the store, had all the folks in the back rushing up front to see what the heck was playing!
Un Festin Sagital are an occult prog-metal / angular post-punk / psychedelic free noise / black ambient orchestra out of Santiago, Chile that can strip down to the touring essentials of just flute, acoustic guitar, and voice, when need be, in bellowing their complex tales of a forthcoming lysergic apocalypse. But here, it's the full sonic onslaught of Satanic chanting, frenzied tribal rhythms, heavy anthemic riffs, acid-crazed arrangements, and witch/warlock vocals that sound as if they were recorded at the wrong speed, all dotted with some rather pretty moments of psychedelic impressionism. Diabolically strummed flamenco guitar riffs erupt into blisteringly rhythmic assaults of start/stop rhythms that are equal parts King Crimson, Comus, and Uz Jsme Doma. Or imagine Dutch punks the Ex crossed with aQ Record Of The Weekers Yamantaka // Sonic Titan!! A sound that somehow simultaneously reminds us of bedeviled Eastern European peasant folk songs that could very well be possessed gypsy curses from some remote old world village in a muddled sonic palette that also evokes the Art Bears mixed with ritualistic Hindustani vocal modulations, or the Vietnamese girls on Holgar Czukay's "Boat Woman Song". The sound washed out under layers of tape decay and warble, the music seemingly patched together and reassembled in beautiful, yet twisted psych-folk interludes which meander between the volatile rhythmic outbursts with wah-wah inflected, acidic guitar lines and long dizzying sprawls of cinematic creep and kosmische electronics, creating spellbinding atmospheres and gorgeously stunning modern avant heaviness. Strange, fucked-up stuff. Supposedly a full length is in the works for Beta-Lactum Ring. C40. Limited to 100 copies! And so totally recommended!!
We hadn't heard of DIEM before, but the title - and the cover art of a couple dozen VU meters in action - whet our curiosity. Turned out to be an awesome collection, of just what it says, a curated selection of electronic music produced at the Danish Institute Of Electronic Music (originally the Danish Institute Of Electroacoustic Music), since its founding in 1987: everything from conceptual, computer processed droneworks to the skittery scribble scrobble of abstract IDM beatscapes. Some pieces hold to a more traditional, academic 'musique concrete' aesthetic; others venture into ambient, 'lower case' laptop electronica realms. Both old and new stuff flow together well (the tracks are arranged in alternating chronological order, going both forwards and backwards, so you get a piece from 1988 followed by one from 2012, then one from 1989, 2011, etc.), and all are pretty great, seeing as how they were able to chose some of the best from 25 years worth of avant-garde output. Almost all tracks are exclusive to this box, which is enjoyable for what it contains, while also serving as a sampler of sorts to the works of a host of hitherto unknown to us electronic musicians that we now may have to track down other releases by. We hadn't previously heard of most of these artists, though many are presumably well-known in academic circles and/or in the European electronic music scene - some in fact being award-winners in Scandinavia.
$11.98 is certainly a "nice price" (perhaps subsidized by the Danish government?) for this, considering what you get - two cds in cardstock sleeves accompanied by a thick 30 page booklet, stuffed inside a hinged-lid cardboard box, a handsome little package indeed. The booklet contains several in-depth essays detailing the Institute's history, providing an account of all the (at the time) state-of-the-art recording equipment and computer music-making gear and software they acquired and discarded over the years, while pointing out the irony of how the rise of home PC recording rendered obsolete not only a lot of their studio's expensive machinery but also affected an aesthetic change in electronic music, where glitch and noise were to be valued rather than technologically scrubbed away. Many pages of the booklet are further devoted to providing information about each individual track and composer found on the discs. And there's photos too, some good retro gear porn for anyone into that sort of thing (you'll see the Otari MTR-90 24-track analog tape machine that was DIEM's pride and joy in 1987, and from where those VU meters on the cover come; and we're especially we're partial to the photo of the Macintosh Plus computer, circa 1988, hooked up to an Emulator SP-12 drum machine and Emulator II sampler).
Rather than provide a list of unfamiliar names, we'll just mention a few favorites amongst the 20 tracks here. There's the constant-pitch drone of "Tunnel Vision" (1995) by DIEM director Wayne Siegel, the percussive onslaught and processed sound collage of Rasmus Lunding's "On Learning How To Kill" (2002), the playful mad scientist bleep and bloop mixed with sampled chamber strings of Fuzzy's "Electric Gardens And Their Surroundings" (1989), the amazing vocal experiments (from inhuman gutturals, to Yoko Ono or Bjork like babble) of Line Tjornhoj-Thomesen on her 13+ minute "Lauria" (1998), Puzzleweasel & Richard Devines's quite IDM-ish "Mad Bonce" (2008), the blissfully-blown-out whoosh of Vectral's "AC-3" (2007), the piercing, dramatic drones of Anker Fjeld Simonsen's "Octav III" (1988), the noisy/melodic mashup of Hans Hansen's "Passaics Monumenter" (1998) - and we could go on. Well worth picking up!
Oneof three new Mississippi titles this week is an infectious ten inch charting what they call "The Global Rise of Rocking Music" over two decades , eight songs and seven countries. Largely, this is swinging big band music with touches of boogie, jive, early rock and roll and hot jazz from corners both far and near, each with its own unique cultural trademarks. A Thai take on an American song called "Rocking in Baghdad", a classic from Zimbabwe that has been described by the Everly Brothers as the first rock n roll record they ever heard, a female Japanese jazz singer who was once a geisha, jump blues from Egypt, Columbian cumbia, Chicagoan polka, hillbilly boogie from Ohio, and an Indian film theme that would have fit right in on one of the Great Googly Moo compilations. Red Hot!
Second collection of vintage 78 rpm records from the Sublime Frequencies label, following the fantastic Scattered Melodies compilation we reviewed recently, which focused exclusively on music played on the kayagum, a Korean instrument similar to the Japanese koto. This new one is all music from Burma, now Myanmar, all ultra rare recordings from 1909 to 1960, and again assembled by Robert Millis, a member of aQ faves Climax Golden Twins, and more recently, the curator of many of our favorite world music compilations.
The provenance of these recordings is almost as fascinating as the music itself. The liner notes explain that these records were collected by Millis and former Sun City Girl Alan Bishop over the course of several trips to Burma, some given to them by a dealer with boxes of records tied to the back of his scooter, others from small shops in tiny villages, one in particular where the proprietors would wash its records under the town's single faucet, and still others from their driver, who handed over a bag of records belonging to his dead father. The music itself is as varied as the sources, the A side made up of various 'zat pwe's, a term avid Sublime Frequencies fans might remember from several other SF comps we've carried in the past, and which refers to troupes that would travel throughout Burma performing their musical dramas, soaring emotional vocals, wild squiggly melodies, tinkling chimes, and darkly shimmering gamelan like percussion, some of the tracks are sung by children, the vocals almost always the focal point, the wild melodies in the background tightly wound up in those vocal melodies, making for lush tapestries of exotic inspirational sound, hypnotic and mesmerizing.
The flipside offers up several tracks featuring the Burmese harp, one of the most important instruments in Burmese music, with some tracks sounding like American blues, rich throaty vocals over laid back twang, and what sounds like wildly sawed fiddles, and the thick layer of crackle definitely furthers that whole early shellac / old timey sound. A few of the tracks are more modern, with piano, and male/female vocals, some of the tracks even sound almost like big band jazz, a definite Western influence for sure, but deftly woven into a distinctly Burmese sound. And then it's right back to another stretch of quavery almost traditional sounding Burmese folk music, buzzing strings, intricate vocal melodies, dreamy and dramatic and so divine.
When we first got this in, we sold two copies within minutes of putting the needle in the groove. Fantastic, gorgeous, utterly unique, emotional and haunting, all in equal measure. Obviously recommended for international / world music enthusiasts, but the sounds here totally transcend any sort of classification, anyone into adventurous listening and discovering new (old) sounds should most definitely take a flyer on this, you won't be sorry. Pure sonic bliss that will hopefully open up your mind, and ears, to a whole other world of music out there, past and present.
Comes housed in a heavy, old school Stoughton style tip-on full color jacket, and includes a printed insert with extensive liner notes, and rare photos.
Another fantastic collection of old timey music from local label Tompkins Square, this one chronicling the life cycle of rural America, in the twenties and thirties, split up over three disc, the first, songs of labor, "John Henry, The Steel Drivin' Man", "The Farmer Is The Man Who Feeds Them All", "When The Roses Bloom Again For The Bootlegger", the second songs of leisure, "Work Don't Bother Me", "The Beer Party", "Corn Shucking Party In Georgia", "Home Brew Rag", an finally, the ultimate reckoning in the form of songs of prayer and worship, "Climbing The Golden Stairs", "I'm S-A-V-E-D", "The Gambler's Dying Words", "When The Moon Drips Away Into The Blood" (!).
Almost as fantastic as the music is the provenance of the records themselves, most of which belonged to a single hillbilly 78 collector named Don Whale, from Louisville Kentucky, who died leaving a hoarder's haul worth of trash and junk and receipts and everything else you'd expect to find, but in addition to the usual detritus of life, was an INCREDIBLE collection of rare 78's most of which had been tossed in the dumpster, and were rescued mere hours before being hauled away to the dump and destroyed!
Most of the tracks here are previously un-reissued, and while a few of the names will be familiar to old timey / blues / bluegrass aficionados, many won't, and the songs themselves are gorgeous, the aforementioned "When The Moon Drips Away Into The Blood", is a surprising jaunty jam, considering the title, while the two part "Flat Wheel Train Blues", is beautifully melodic, with some fantastically melancholic fiddle, intricate finger picking, sans the sung/spoken vocals, it's a stunning slab of dreamy Appalachia, the song replete with simulated trains sounds which only make it that much more evocative. "The Beer Party" begins with a playful conversation/intro before the song launches into a stomping fiddle driven hoedown, "The Preacher Got Drunk And Laid Down His Bible" almost sounds like proto Mountain Goats, urgently strummed guitar, and keening rapid fire vox, and "Beyond The Starry Plane" is a wistful lament, wreathed in tons of hiss and crackle, which only makes it seem that much more ethereal and ephemeral. We could probably go though the whole collection song by song, but you get the drift, all of this stuff is amazing, and as with all Tompkins Square releases, beautifully packaged, here each of the three discs is housed in its own full color sleeve, there's a huge perfect bound booklet, with liner notes and essays, rare photos and more, all housed in a nice heavy box, with full color paste on artwork.
This super limited, extremely pricey triple lp gathers up the three most recent cassette only releases from primitive gothic industrial outfit Vatican Shadow, aka Dominick Fernow, he of Prurient, Cold Cave, Christian Cosmos, Hospital Productions among other similar dark sonic pursuits. Like other recent Vatican Shadow releases we've reviewed (Ornamented Walls, Kneel Before Religious Icons), these three cassettes: Jordanian Descent, Ghosts Of Chechnya and Atta's Apartment Slated For Demolition, all travel similar sonic terrain, a claustrophobic, war-on-terror obsessed sprawl of minimal, skeletal electronica, that falls somewhere between the Eastern tinged rhythmscapes of Muslimgauze, and the more bleak beat driven projects in the God / Godflesh axis (Techno Animal, Curse Of The Golden Vampire) as well as those amazing electronic comps from way back when (Isolationism, Electric Ladyland), but imagine all of that framed through a more gothic eighties sensibility.
The first half of the Jordanian Descent tape is a sidelong tranced out, dubby, loping stretch of minimal skitter, underpinned by an ominous droned out thrum, the surrounding sonic shifts, the beat locked tight for the duration. The second half also fills up a whole side, and cranks the sound up a bit, and adds a healthy dose of murk as well, looped percussion, churning away beneath moaning low end, and some super distorted beat heavy crunch. eventually ditching much of the low end and buzz for something more lurching and stuttery.
The second lp, which contains the Ghosts Of Chechnya tape, is much more eighties, right out of the gate, glimmering synths drift atop a loping electro beat, eventually some buzz and drone enter the mix, adding a sinister slant that remains throughout the rest of the record. The overall sound though is way more gothic gloom pop, albeit more spare and skeletal, but add some deep dramatic vox and this could be on Captured Tracks. Instead, Fernow, adds a bunch of other sonic weirdness to the tracks, a dizzying mix of murky minimalism and occasional noisy industrial crunch.
Finally, record number three, Atta's Apartment Slated For Demolition, sort of splits the difference, beginning dark, minimal, skittery, haunting and ominous, the vibe a bit more techno, but a mutant strain of techno that's away more creepy and cinematic than dance-y. But then moving into something more gothic and eighties, culminating in a woozy sprawl of dark electro pop that sounds almost like some instrumental Chris Isaak B side reinterpreted by Holy Other.
LIMITED TO 911 COPIES!! Housed in a swank gatefold sleeve.
One of the aQ metallers (that would be Allan), and a friend of his, who's played in some serious SF metal bands over the years, have this thing where they often text "VOIVOD!!!" to each other, in all-caps like that, when they're stoked about something or want to express the affirmative (this stems from repeated viewings of a Voivod dvd release from a few years ago, wherein a voice shouted "VOIVOD!!!" as you selected each chapter on the menu screen). Well, if anything to arrive at aQuarius this week deserves a hearty VOIVOD!!! this is it, of course - the brand new album from the brand new version of the famed French-Canadian sci-fi thrash/prog metal masters. The band's previous two studio albums psychically existed under a rather morbid cloud, as Voivod's founding guitarist and riff master Piggy had passed away in 2005, but (somewhat remarkably) remained as their guitarist, participating posthumously via a vast catalog of guitar parts he'd recorded on his hard drive before he died. Of course all Voivod fans wanted to hear Piggy playing - even from beyond the grave - but it made those albums (2006's Katorz and 2009's Infini) seem less the work of an ongoing, active band, than bittersweet memorials, no matter how good they were (and they certainly had their moments, especially the latter one). Each of those releases seemed like part of a slow, sad goodbye.
But then, thankfully deciding that Voivod must again live, really live, the surviving Voivodians, including erstwhile bassist Blacky (who last recorded with the band on 1991's Angel Rat), recruited a new guitarist to replace the late Piggy - and they chose wisely. New guitarist Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain (ex-Martyr) already has proved, via last year's ripping live album Warriors Of Ice, that he can play their older material, and now here on the long awaited Target Earth, demonstrates he can do justice to Piggy's legacy in contributing to new Voivod songs too. We doubt any Voivod fan would not agree that Chewy fits perfectly into the Voivod mechanism, you'll see. Thus revitalized, the post-Piggy Voivod simply kills it on this new album. Alienating and energetic, full of tension and aggression, it's a collection of very Voivodian compositions, off-kilter and complex - yet catchy. Heck if it doesn't sound like it could have come out directly following their late '80s classics Dimension Hatross and Nothingface. Definitely the best thing they've done in years, making us forget the alt/pop/punk/grunge stylings of the albums they did with Jason from Metallica, though we shan't get into a debate about the merits of the industrial flavored E-Force era albums (sorry, we're already getting a bit into the weeds here for those of you who are not major Voivod fanatics).
Suffice to say, Target Earth (hmm, didn't they know that was already the title of a Screamer album?) is replete with all the Voivod-isms you desire: the heavy, herky-jerky riffs and rhythms, the confusional time changes, the delirious dissonant sci-fi post punk atmospherics, the mega-advanced drumming of Away*, the thick angular blower bass lines of Blacky, the melodic, yet gruff and ragged (moreso than ever) droning vocals of Snake� that's all here, and so are the SONGS, they're good too! And Chewy, he sure does Piggy proud. Definitely call it a comeback - so look out Vektor, your grandpappas are back, and mean business! VOIVOD!!!!
*And his cover art too, of course, here in a slightly cartoonish style (and garish color scheme) very much like the one he did for the Orthrelm/Behold The Arctopus split cd a while back�
We are so VERY pleased to now have these, nice vinyl reissues (for the first time ever, we're pretty sure) of the three earliest, eeriest albums from the '70s by obscure & unusual French composer Igor Wakhevitch! They're imports from a label based in Barcelona, so they're not that cheap, but they're worth it. Perhaps you remember, years and years ago, the Fractal label released a limited, now long out of print, six-cd box set of Wakhevitch's works circa 1970-1979? We all freaked over that - everyone who worked at aQ at the time bought a copy!! And it was his first three records, these ones, Logos, Docteur Faust, and Hathor, that we were most excited about. All are masterpieces of tense awe-inspiring surrealism constructed from neo-chamber music, spatial electronics, massive plodding percussion, and odd ethnic influences, and feature occasional contributions from French psych band Triangle and some other rock musicians (including Magma's famous bassist Jannick Top), making for an incredible combination of evocative modern classical composition (with choirs, etc.) and krautrockish rhythms and fuzzed guitar. While he was an early associate of Terry Riley and Soft Machine (Docteur Faust is dedicated to Robert Wyatt and Mike Rattledge), Wakhevitch's work is far more malevolent than those artists, taking on qualities that we suggest have more in common with, believe it or not, the Swans. It should not be a surprise that the Swans' Michael Gira has claimed Wakhevitch as one of his favorite musicians. And likewise no surprise that Wakhevitch appears on the infamous Nurse With Wound list. We figure that folks who enjoyed the recent reissues of the strange library music of Egisto Macchi and Alessandro Alessandroni, and the symphonic psychedelics of Jean-Claude Vannier and recent Record Of The Weeker William Sheller will find much twisted appeal in Wakhevitch's music. Also fans of the 20th century classical creepiness of the likes of Luigi Nono, Luc Ferrari, and Stockhausen and/or such out-there prog bands as Magma and Faust ought to find themselves enthused about these records too.
Wakhevitch's first album, 1970's Logos, bears the subtitle: "Rituel Sonore pour Group Pop (Triangle), Choeur mixte et Bande Magnetique" and yessir it's a "Rituel Sonore" all right. The eerie opening sets the stage for much of what is to follow, full of rumbling drone and sinister synth shimmer, accompanying otherworldly wordless vocals, like hearing some dramatic, disturbing vocal choir wailing away on a distant windswept planet. As the album progresses, to these strange sounds are added some symphonic-scale percussion (timpani and the like), and eventually, on side two, some urgent, repetitive rock freakout action occurs (that's the band Triangle), replete with heavy ominous echoing chords... It's a powerful mix of avant-classical choirs, electronic tape music, and psychedelic rock weirdness. This record was originally meant as music for a ballet - a very modern, dark and twisted one we can only imagine! Comes in a gatefold sleeve, with notes mentioning Wakhevitch's interest in the mysticism of Gurdieff among other things.
1971's Docteur Faust is equally mad. This occultic avant-classical and acid rock combination is again music for a ballet, it's a kaleidoscopic collage of psychedelic sounds, with sci-fi synths, funky heavy beats, mystic atmospheres, crazed electronics, fuzzed out riffage, tape manipulation, bizarre vocal outbursts, and so much more. Who knew ballets could be this trippy?? One of our favorite tracks in the whole Wakhevitch canon resides here, "Licorns", which in part appears to feature a whinnying horse playing a harpsichord! But that's sandwiched between many other parts equally maniacal and insane, groovy and distorted.
And then there's the even more esoteric Hathor from 1973, a Satanic opera of sorts, subtitled "Liturgie du Souffle pour la Resurrection des Morts". We don't have to tell you what that means. Another hallucinatory mixture of avant-classical moves and cosmic electronics in a majestic, ritualistic composition meant to raise the dead. Hathor lays on the thick synth drones from the get-go, with monkish vocal chants hovering over the bass-heavy whoosh. Ominous and epic! Of course Wakhevitch soon shifts sonic gears, with other psychedelic surprises in store - spoken word & screams, tinkling percussion, shuddering beats, organ melodies - but of these albums this is perhaps his space-iest and synth-iest. Also a gatefold, with insert.
All three albums are quite recommended, as uniquely powerful & deliriously demented listening experiences. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
We are so VERY pleased to now have these, nice vinyl reissues (for the first time ever, we're pretty sure) of the three earliest, eeriest albums from the '70s by obscure & unusual French composer Igor Wakhevitch! They're imports from a label based in Barcelona, so they're not that cheap, but they're worth it. Perhaps you remember, years and years ago, the Fractal label released a limited, now long out of print, six-cd box set of Wakhevitch's works circa 1970-1979? We all freaked over that - everyone who worked at aQ at the time bought a copy!! And it was his first three records, these ones, Logos, Docteur Faust, and Hathor, that we were most excited about. All are masterpieces of tense awe-inspiring surrealism constructed from neo-chamber music, spatial electronics, massive plodding percussion, and odd ethnic influences, and feature occasional contributions from French psych band Triangle and some other rock musicians (including Magma's famous bassist Jannick Top), making for an incredible combination of evocative modern classical composition (with choirs, etc.) and krautrockish rhythms and fuzzed guitar. While he was an early associate of Terry Riley and Soft Machine (Docteur Faust is dedicated to Robert Wyatt and Mike Rattledge), Wakhevitch's work is far more malevolent than those artists, taking on qualities that we suggest have more in common with, believe it or not, the Swans. It should not be a surprise that the Swans' Michael Gira has claimed Wakhevitch as one of his favorite musicians. And likewise no surprise that Wakhevitch appears on the infamous Nurse With Wound list. We figure that folks who enjoyed the recent reissues of the strange library music of Egisto Macchi and Alessandro Alessandroni, and the symphonic psychedelics of Jean-Claude Vannier and recent Record Of The Weeker William Sheller will find much twisted appeal in Wakhevitch's music. Also fans of the 20th century classical creepiness of the likes of Luigi Nono, Luc Ferrari, and Stockhausen and/or such out-there prog bands as Magma and Faust ought to find themselves enthused about these records too.
Wakhevitch's first album, 1970's Logos, bears the subtitle: "Rituel Sonore pour Group Pop (Triangle), Choeur mixte et Bande Magnetique" and yessir it's a "Rituel Sonore" all right. The eerie opening sets the stage for much of what is to follow, full of rumbling drone and sinister synth shimmer, accompanying otherworldly wordless vocals, like hearing some dramatic, disturbing vocal choir wailing away on a distant windswept planet. As the album progresses, to these strange sounds are added some symphonic-scale percussion (timpani and the like), and eventually, on side two, some urgent, repetitive rock freakout action occurs (that's the band Triangle), replete with heavy ominous echoing chords... It's a powerful mix of avant-classical choirs, electronic tape music, and psychedelic rock weirdness. This record was originally meant as music for a ballet - a very modern, dark and twisted one we can only imagine! Comes in a gatefold sleeve, with notes mentioning Wakhevitch's interest in the mysticism of Gurdieff among other things.
1971's Docteur Faust is equally mad. This occultic avant-classical and acid rock combination is again music for a ballet, it's a kaleidoscopic collage of psychedelic sounds, with sci-fi synths, funky heavy beats, mystic atmospheres, crazed electronics, fuzzed out riffage, tape manipulation, bizarre vocal outbursts, and so much more. Who knew ballets could be this trippy?? One of our favorite tracks in the whole Wakhevitch canon resides here, "Licorns", which in part appears to feature a whinnying horse playing a harpsichord! But that's sandwiched between many other parts equally maniacal and insane, groovy and distorted.
And then there's the even more esoteric Hathor from 1973, a Satanic opera of sorts, subtitled "Liturgie du Souffle pour la Resurrection des Morts". We don't have to tell you what that means. Another hallucinatory mixture of avant-classical moves and cosmic electronics in a majestic, ritualistic composition meant to raise the dead. Hathor lays on the thick synth drones from the get-go, with monkish vocal chants hovering over the bass-heavy whoosh. Ominous and epic! Of course Wakhevitch soon shifts sonic gears, with other psychedelic surprises in store - spoken word & screams, tinkling percussion, shuddering beats, organ melodies - but of these albums this is perhaps his space-iest and synth-iest. Also a gatefold, with insert.
All three albums are quite recommended, as uniquely powerful & deliriously demented listening experiences. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
We are so VERY pleased to now have these, nice vinyl reissues (for the first time ever, we're pretty sure) of the three earliest, eeriest albums from the '70s by obscure & unusual French composer Igor Wakhevitch! They're imports from a label based in Barcelona, so they're not that cheap, but they're worth it. Perhaps you remember, years and years ago, the Fractal label released a limited, now long out of print, six-cd box set of Wakhevitch's works circa 1970-1979? We all freaked over that - everyone who worked at aQ at the time bought a copy!! And it was his first three records, these ones, Logos, Docteur Faust, and Hathor, that we were most excited about. All are masterpieces of tense awe-inspiring surrealism constructed from neo-chamber music, spatial electronics, massive plodding percussion, and odd ethnic influences, and feature occasional contributions from French psych band Triangle and some other rock musicians (including Magma's famous bassist Jannick Top), making for an incredible combination of evocative modern classical composition (with choirs, etc.) and krautrockish rhythms and fuzzed guitar. While he was an early associate of Terry Riley and Soft Machine (Docteur Faust is dedicated to Robert Wyatt and Mike Rattledge), Wakhevitch's work is far more malevolent than those artists, taking on qualities that we suggest have more in common with, believe it or not, the Swans. It should not be a surprise that the Swans' Michael Gira has claimed Wakhevitch as one of his favorite musicians. And likewise no surprise that Wakhevitch appears on the infamous Nurse With Wound list. We figure that folks who enjoyed the recent reissues of the strange library music of Egisto Macchi and Alessandro Alessandroni, and the symphonic psychedelics of Jean-Claude Vannier and recent Record Of The Weeker William Sheller will find much twisted appeal in Wakhevitch's music. Also fans of the 20th century classical creepiness of the likes of Luigi Nono, Luc Ferrari, and Stockhausen and/or such out-there prog bands as Magma and Faust ought to find themselves enthused about these records too.
Wakhevitch's first album, 1970's Logos, bears the subtitle: "Rituel Sonore pour Group Pop (Triangle), Choeur mixte et Bande Magnetique" and yessir it's a "Rituel Sonore" all right. The eerie opening sets the stage for much of what is to follow, full of rumbling drone and sinister synth shimmer, accompanying otherworldly wordless vocals, like hearing some dramatic, disturbing vocal choir wailing away on a distant windswept planet. As the album progresses, to these strange sounds are added some symphonic-scale percussion (timpani and the like), and eventually, on side two, some urgent, repetitive rock freakout action occurs (that's the band Triangle), replete with heavy ominous echoing chords... It's a powerful mix of avant-classical choirs, electronic tape music, and psychedelic rock weirdness. This record was originally meant as music for a ballet - a very modern, dark and twisted one we can only imagine! Comes in a gatefold sleeve, with notes mentioning Wakhevitch's interest in the mysticism of Gurdieff among other things.
1971's Docteur Faust is equally mad. This occultic avant-classical and acid rock combination is again music for a ballet, it's a kaleidoscopic collage of psychedelic sounds, with sci-fi synths, funky heavy beats, mystic atmospheres, crazed electronics, fuzzed out riffage, tape manipulation, bizarre vocal outbursts, and so much more. Who knew ballets could be this trippy?? One of our favorite tracks in the whole Wakhevitch canon resides here, "Licorns", which in part appears to feature a whinnying horse playing a harpsichord! But that's sandwiched between many other parts equally maniacal and insane, groovy and distorted.
And then there's the even more esoteric Hathor from 1973, a Satanic opera of sorts, subtitled "Liturgie du Souffle pour la Resurrection des Morts". We don't have to tell you what that means. Another hallucinatory mixture of avant-classical moves and cosmic electronics in a majestic, ritualistic composition meant to raise the dead. Hathor lays on the thick synth drones from the get-go, with monkish vocal chants hovering over the bass-heavy whoosh. Ominous and epic! Of course Wakhevitch soon shifts sonic gears, with other psychedelic surprises in store - spoken word & screams, tinkling percussion, shuddering beats, organ melodies - but of these albums this is perhaps his space-iest and synth-iest. Also a gatefold, with insert.
All three albums are quite recommended, as uniquely powerful & deliriously demented listening experiences. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
One of the best print mags around, that is if you're like us and want to keep up with all the weird music in the world! This issue has synth maven Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never on the cover. Inside, also: adventurous bassist Joshua Abrams, Amsterdam's Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, minimal techno artist Ricardo Villalobos (doing the "Invisible Jukebox" feature), a scene report on electronica in Tbilsi, Georgia, and lots of other stuff besides - of course including the usual ton o' reviews, news, charts, etc.
DR-99. Somehow we missed out on listing this one, but we do have a handful of copies of this Drone Records single from Wyrm. The subterranean scratchiness of Wyrm emanated from the North Carolina hills by way of Allan Zane; and he's collaborated in the past with the likes of Rapoon, Nocturnal Emissions, and shared a split release with irr. app. (ext.) to give you some sort of idea as to where this Wyrm likes to crawl. The two tracks are loop-based constructions of eerie, horror-film drone with revolving textures and tactile gyrations. "Divination Bones" cycles through patterns of acid rain pelting concrete surfaces with a sharp resonant guitar drone rising out of the mist and fog. "Adam Coils" lumbers with deep vocal mantras reverberating through catacombs topped with eerie electronic harmonic squalls that seem like devilishly treated Tibetan horns. Cut at 45 rpm, so of course we played it... and enjoyed it immensely at the slower speed. But these two tracks from Wyrm are pretty great at 45 too! Super limited stock. ONLY SIX COPIES... ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
