The Middle Eastern psych rock obsession continues to rage here at Aquarius! Nothin' better than the exotic sounds of swingin' sixties Istanbul (or a close approximation). Here's a cd reissue of a 1974 album by guitarist/vocalist Erkin Koray, known as the Jimi Hendrix of Turkey. Maybe that comparison isn't the most accurate (there's nothing as heavy as "Purple Haze" here), but at least it gives you an idea of the East-meets-West grooves found on "Elektronik Turkuler". Two cultures, one counterculture, it seems. With sinuous "belly-dancing" tunes rocked up with distorted electric guitar, rock n' roll beats, some wild flute playing, and the occasional lysergic organ freakout, this is an authentic "magic carpet ride" as it were, culminating in the 9-minute "Turku" complete with spoken word incantations and freaky sound effects. The traditional-sounding vocals are all in Turkish, some of the tunes are clearly adaptations of traditional Turkish music as well. Anyone who really dug the John Berberian "Middle Eastern Rock" disc we listed a few months back, or loves those great "Turkish Delights" or "Hava Nargile" compilations (both of which feature Koray tracks), should check this album out. Unfortunately we only have 8 copies in stock at the moment, so please act fast, or be patient...
MPEG Download: "Karli Daglar" [/audio/koraykarli.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Karli Daglar" [/audio/koraykarli.m3u]
We missed the first two singles from these self proclaimed 'ice-poppers', but we're digging this new full length a bunch, the sound not that far removed from the current crop of garage-y jangle pop, not hard to imagine this coming out on Sacred Bones or Captured Tracks, and like some of those groups, these guys look back to the eighties too, but more toward groups like Modern English and Echo & The Bunnymen. There's a definitely new wave vibe, and lots of the tracks here sound like they would have fit perfectly on some John Hughes soundtrack for sure. But unlike a lot of bands with similar influences, Lenz don't seem to spend as much time and energy aping that era's sound and production, although much of this does sound genuinely eighties, but much of it sound way too polished and modern, opener "Moody Michelle" melodically is a total throwback, but otherwise, it's a sweet slab of super hooky jangle pop.
"Roman Holiday" though IS a bit more lo-fi, with a distinctly old school production, and a cool angular guitar melody/vocal line that sounds like it could have come from some classic MTV era new wave pop hit, with a verse and a bridge that are equally crazy catchy, and that has us hearing Thompson Twins and Duran Duran, albeit a lot more gritty and psychedelic. But really, of the current crop of retro pop, this Lenz record has been stuck on our turntables, and lodged in our heads nonstop, and if the measure of a record is how hard it is to actually stop listening to it in order to listen to something ELSE, then this is most definitely a new fave. Fans of Blank Dogs, Big Troubles, Craft Spells and other sonically similar eighties jangle pop throwbacks will be in heaven (seventeen?)...
A blast out of London cassette culture circa 1985, Leven Signs was the duo of Maggi Turner on vocals and Peter Karkut on synths, tape and drum machines in a brilliant hodgepodge of avant-pop experimentalism. Atypical of the cold minimal synth wave sounds we've been hearing lately from the period, Leven Signs had a more exotic attitude, blending ethereal vocals with ambient ethnic flourishes, medieval rhythms and a flair for making synth sounds that emulate acoustic instruments like organs, percussion and flutes sounding like a remarkable hybrid of Young Marble Giants and Gang Gang Dance. Definitely one of those rare "incredulous" records where we ask ourselves, why haven't we heard of this before? Remastered for its very first vinyl issue, this was originally put out on Robert Cox's Unlikely label and then reissued on Cordelia the same year with a different track order and with some new tracks and some omitted tracks that were on the first version. This Digitalis vinyl release follows the Cordelia version, for anyone keeping track. Amazing!
Not to be confused with the Trunk Records compilation of Norwegian composer Sven Libaek's film scores that had the same name and cover photo, this Votary Records reissue is the actual full soundtrack to the 1973 Australian undersea nature documentary, Inner Space, from which only four songs were included on that previous Trunk comp. But they were among our favorite tracks on that disc, not only because of their inclusion in Wes Anderson's Life Aquatic, which used the film Inner Space as a referential touchstone, but because they are some of the most alluring and evocative jazz pop scores we have ever heard. A hallmark of what would be called in library music circles as "underwater music", Libaek captures haunting and wondrous melodic scores that carry just the right tone of curiosity, beauty and mystery found in the life of deep ocean waters. Remastered from the original tapes and including some of the best Australian Library musicians, such as John Sangster from the band Tully and an amazing soundtrack composer in his own right. Full of vibes, piano and flutes, Libaek's film score work recalls the best of John Barry, Vince Guaraldi and John Cameron, composer of Kes and Psychomania. 180 gram record in deluxe gatefold with extensive liner notes. Amazing!
We have never heard of this Aussie duo before, but our pal Jonathan who runs the Flenser label has been freaking out about these guys, and is planning on putting out a record for them in the near future. For now though, we have this ultra brief three song cd-r demo the band put out, that while described to us as black metal, is something else entirely.
The opener is a sort of gloomy, dirgey creep, at least in the beginning, all chiming guitars, and woozy, moody atmospheres, sinewy basslines and crumbling distorted chords, all hanging weightless in a field of what feels and sounds like classic shoegaze, the drums super distorted and blown out, the vibe laid back and languorous, at least until the last 45 seconds (the song's only 2 minutes long after all), where the song explodes into a dense tangled blast of blackened math metal, all shrieked vokills, pounding drums, squiggly psychedelic guitars, and swirling hazy atmospheres.
The second track is more of the same, starting off galloping furiously, but the sounds washed out and gauzy, yeah, there are vokills here too, but the music is downright dreamy, sans the vocals, this would be pure shoegaze pop, lots of jangle and chiming chords, which is precisely what you can expect on track three too, although everything is slowed way down, the drums a swinging shuffle, the guitars woozy and bleary, everything sun dappled and prismatic, the sound slowly building to a epic, majestic, swirling post rock style crescendo, before finishing off with a final blast of pounding black shoegaze blissout. Killer stuff for sure. Super short though, three songs, nine minutes, but it's cheap, and comes in cool homemade packaging, LIMITED TO 63 COPIES and we have LESS THAN TEN!!!
Observing The Universe is the latest komsiche transmission from Greek synth wrangler and ambient alchemist Panos Alexiadis, aka Lunar Miasma, and is another gorgeous collection of spaced out synth drones and slow burn prismatic drift, operating in the same realm as folks like Expo 70, Oneohtrix Point Never, Emeralds and the like.
The intro track here is the real gem, a dark, brooding, thrum, rife with crackle and buried melodies, a slightly sinister soundtrack to some old light show that for some reason plays endlessly in some abandoned planetarium, the music of constantly shooting stars, every sonic streak here another contrail glowing against the inky blackness of spaces, simple Eno like melodies drifting outwards like ripples in some epic celestial pond. This woozy sprawl parked by what sounds like fragmented transmissions from the ether, the whole thing underpinned by deep rumbles, and thick swirls of blurred low end shimmer. We almost wish the whole tape was filled with an extended version of this track. But while the rest of the record is not nearly as dark, there's much to dig, the two part "Expanded Dimension" is all futuristic synth swirl, and prismatic cascades of analog melody, all hazy and dreamlike, and darkly cinematic, a blissed out sprawl of glistening crystalline sonic glimmer, culminating in the title track closer, which seems to merge the dark ominous thrum of the opener, with the glistening shimmer of the other tracks into the sort of dark, retro synth ambience, that will definitely appeal to fans of Carpenter, Zombi, Umberto, Majeure and the like, but unlike the driving pulsating krautiness and pulsing Euro-disco of those groups, LM's strain hovers much closer to a dreamlike cosmic new age.
These guys have been getting a ton of hype lately, not to mention some controversy, and not necessarily because of their music, although that has something to do with it. These modern doomlords have a classic sound not that far removed from say, Black Sabbath or Pagan Altar or Witchfinder General - lumbering, true doom riffage, and some seriously wailing Ozzyish vocals - which is nothing new obviously, but these guys caused quite a stir cuz this true doom combo is in fact made up of a handful of Boston hardcore luminaries, guys who used to play in Mind Eraser, Rival Mob, Battle Ruins and Doomriders. So that fact had punk rockers crying sell out and metalheads crying poser, certainly everybody kind of shocked/surprised. And while there remains not a shred of their punk past, really, metalheads have nothing to complain about, just give "Scream Evil" a listen. Holy shit, who thought these punks had it in them? Especially the vocalist, who manages to conjure up a killer Ozzy beholden wail, without falling in to the Sabbath copycat trap lots of other doom vocalists seem unable to avoid. It's hard to say exactly what it is, but the phrasing is different, and the timbre of his voice, more rough and raspy, which gives these songs a different kind of emotion and energy, and a raw urgency. And heck, let's not forget about the riffs, which KILL. When you're done with "Scream Evil", give "Magic Circle" a try. There a distinctive pop element running throughout, making the songs crazy catchy, besides being heavy, and sorta psychedelic, the overall sound is actually quite minimal, the occasional classic metal lead, some harmonized guitars once in a while, but lots of tempo shifts, the band not afraid to crank it up, "Magic Circle" morphs into "Cloven In Two", which adds some serious swing, slipping into something very NWOBHM sounding. And "Scream Evil" too, gets downright rocking, launching into some metallic pound that sounds more like Angel Witch.
Those two tracks, originally released on a super limited 7" are buried WAY deep on the record, but opener "Winter Light" sets the stage just fine, with it's slithery downtuned main riff, a classic doomy dirge, and those vocals soaring over the top, a killer chorus, the whole thing darkly psychedelic and totally epic, as are the other three tracks, the most notable being the furious galloping onslaught of "Rapture" which almost has a Tokyo Blade feel too it, and has some seriously kick ass lead guitar, that sounds super processed and tripped out, but "Conquering Nocturnity" is pretty amazing too, another jam that sounds like it could have been transported here from back in the day, classic, soaring, majestic, emotional doom of the highest order. Fuck the haters, the doomlords around here have been digging this like crazy, and all you aQ-ers into true doom, past and present, enter the Magic Circle!
One of three new tapes from (now) local label Moon Glyph, this one from Brooklyn based ambient soundscaper Meadowlands, who created these tracks while abroad in Berlin, and endeavored to capture a sort of weightless drift, a timeless sonic space representing his time spent wandering in a strange city, and these three extended tracks to conjure up that sort of mysterious tranquility. It's not hard to imagine wandering through Eastern Europe, with this drifting through your headphones, long layered tones, softly pulsing, subtle overtones drifting and blending into all new shapes and sounds, no jagged edges, everything smooth and rounded, washed out and softly psychedelic, a warm almost liquid thrum that seems to enter your ears and spread throughout your body, emanating like some inner glow. The tape begins to grow more ominous, with a subtle tension, a keening high end underpinning a slow shifting shimmer, a barely perceptible ebb and flow, soft swells of dark chordal whir, which eventually resolves in the final track, a long stretch of soft focus dream-noise, a sound that's smeared into long blurs of murky melody and wreathed in a Tim Hecker like haze, but this track too, infused with a dramatic energy that lurks just below the surface, adds a strange pathos to the proceedings, which keeps the sound from being nothing too soft, to wispy, and instead imbues Meadowlands' sonic travelogue with some indefinable emotional heft.
We were pretty obsessed with this record when it was first reissued back in 2009, a lost psychedelic Indian funk gem from one of Iran's top sitarists, his only record, recorded sometime in the seventies, and a holy grail ever since. Known as one of the rarest and most in demand albums from Iran EVER, finally hearing it for ourselves, it wasn't hard to hear why. Imagine your favorite jams from the Ethiopiques series, WITH SITAR and FLUTE, and we're talking total psych funk groove nirvana. The other version is out of print, but fear not, now the fine folks at Pharaway Sounds (who seem to have also undertaken a long overdue Erkin Koray reissue campaign, among other tantalizing releases) have fleshed that original out even further, including that original rare record in its entirety, and a whole bunch of bonus tracks from equally rare 45's!!!
Heavy and fuzzy and druggy and a little bit space-y these far out jams totally destroy, we can only imagine the sort of joyous meltdown any crate digger lucky enough to snag one of these must have experienced, the drums are fierce, powerful, organs swirl, flutes soar and flutter, and all over the tracks that sitar buzzes gloriously. Some of the songs are a bit folkier and more pastoral, sounding like some seventies acid folk record only with sitar and haunting Eastern melodies. But it's the stomping funk workouts that seal the deal, especially the 11 minute funk rock epic "African Jumbo", which sounds straight out of some seventies sitcom, or like it was purloined by Tarantino for one of his soundtracks, looped and hypnotic, super melodic and catchy as all get out. A few of the tracks feature vocals, deep and dramatic, and those songs slip into Bollywood love scene territory for sure, mysterious and moody, in fact a few songs tend toward full on ballad territory, until inevitably along comes another blast of murky and heavy Indian sitar-funk, rife with strings or wah guitar, often slipping into total Indian blaxploitation soundtrack grooves, that slip from sexy strut, to dreamy croon, to cinematic soar and back again. Amazing stuff. Fans of the Ethiopiques series and the funkier Sublime Frequencies releases will definitely dig. And even folks who already have that other reissue, if you're anything like us, you'll probably wanna buy this one now too!!
Probably, the most Conrad Schnitzler we've heard in Motion Sickness Of Time Travel, and you better believe that's a very good thing. The cosmic arpeggiations that Rachel Evans uses to drive the side long track "Initiation" are very dark and squelchy, with the propulsive, '70s cyborg vibe that Schnitzler brought to Ballet Stratique; but with her signature incorporation of a hushed, heavenly voice and solar-flare streams of long synth melodies, the track is very much her own and one of the better things we've heard from her! "Growing Things" is a much airier affair of effervescent electronics that flange through aquatically spluttering sequencing and slowly evolve into the backdrop for Evans' lullaby vocals. Both tracks were recorded on Halloween of 2012, with the first seeming very much in tune with the holiday and the latter being a Spartan response anticipating the grey winter skies of rural Georgia. Just 100 copies were printed of this one, and it's a 32 minute long tape. Don't expect this one to last be around for long.
We were joking a couple days ago about Phill Niblock, or it could of been Tony Conrad (Or Angus Maclise or any of those folks) about how great it must be having over the course of your entire 30 or 40 year career to have played only 4 or 5 notes. Obviously it's not as simple as that. Niblock is one of the few modern composers that can hold your attention for an hour or more with the judicious use of a single note. Like Reich and Riley, Niblock harnesses the natural properties of sound letting the sound do much of the work, shifting slowly, beating intermittantly, always shimmering and occasionally throbbing as notes nestle close to each other, sometimes sliding into place perfectly, other times finding a strange resistance and audibly working to fit in, resulting in all these subtle shifts. This is glacial and static, warm and thick and totally mesmerising. Touch Food also seems, to me at least, to be Niblock's most melodically complex set of pieces. The melodies here manage to be fairly prominent, even though they are stretched to their limit and obfuscated by the thick wash of sound. This is heady, heavy stuff. Heavy enough in fact that all you dirge-istsâ who are into Earth and Sunn 0))) and stuff like that may find that Niblock is your gateway drug, opening up the door to Maclise, Flynt, Cale and beyond. And of course, fans of modern drone, Sunroof!, Birchville Cat Motel, Skullflower, Vibracathedral Orchestra should definitely pick this up! His best record since Four Full Flutes!
MPEG Download: "Sweet Potato" [/audio/niblocksweetpotato.mp3]
We've long been fans of this mysterious NY outfit, whose past records found these guys brewing up a dizzying concoction of warped electro wave, haunting witch house-y minimalist creep, fuzzed out shoegazey ambience, and home brewed big beat crunch, all blurred and smeared into something way more abstract and psychedelic that its constituent parts. But here on their third and most recent, the band dial things way back, and craft a dark, gorgeous slab of introspective, electronic soundscapery, opening the proceedings with thick swaths of gristled, pixelated Tim Hecker like sonic haze. All washed out and dreamy and woozily lysergic, perfectly leading into a stunning Marissa Nadler cover, the already dark original transformed into an even darker lament, all swirling churns of mumblecore drift, heaving swells of black blurred fuzz, over skeletal rhythms, and moaned barely there vox, smeared and subtly processed, a plaintive whispery croon becomes a lush landscape of layered drones drifting dreamily and druggily, a ghostly and spectral electro-ambient threnody, that builds to a near squall of roiling riffs and tangled black melodies, the result still somehow warm and soft and utterly trancelike.
Elsewhere, the group unfurl smoldering cinematic soundscapes, strange slivers of shadowy sound, moaning fragmented melodies, all over a haunting heartbeat like pulse, a sort of slo-mo electronica, laced with strange hummed/sung vocals that remind us a bit of country weirdos the Reveries, who sing with cell phone speakers in their mouths, the same effect here, a wordless warble that ebbs and flows, slipping from near insectoid buzz to deep softly dramatic, barely there croon, and back again, all over slow swooping backwards guitars, and disembodied fragments of guitar melody.
Some tracks, like "Eisenbahnstrasse, January 1st 1946" shed some of the darkness, and blossom into dreamily prismatic swirls, all tinkling chimes, clean guitar jangle, soft psychedelic shimmer, all interwoven with random samples and brief blurts of FX heavy skree, but the sound always seems to drift back into the darkness.
As the record progresses, heavy machine like industrial beat, lumber through fields of clang and clatter and thump, all constructed into a dense driving blast of junkyard groove, the whole thing swaddled in a distant buzz, and slowly building swells of layered static drones, a sort of ultra minimal hypno-hop, like something you migh have heard on an old DHR record, or on one of those Electric Ladyland comps alongside Techno Animal, Spectre and the like. Eventually, the sound slows to a crawl, still beat heavy, but this time a tar pit drag, a lurching, looped lumber, all downtuned thrum, and disembodied voices, and some buried shuffling skitter.
"Sun Shatterer" is a heady sprawl of minimal gloom pop, minor key guitars, chiming through a cloud of woozy sonic warble, weird clipped whispers, tense strings, keening high end tones, what sounds like Hermann Nitsch like brass, which resolve into soft whorls of crumbling distortion and lush waves of fuzzed out feedback, before unexpectedly exploding into something much more in keeping with their old sound, big beats, a sort of post industrial electro wave downer dirge, with clean, dramatic new wave vocals, big melodies, buzzing synths, but all still wreathed in the weird droned out sounds that started the track off, like a noiser, more abstact Interpol maybe...
After a couple brief tracks of creepy, psychedelic ambience, the 30 second "Campfire Ashes" way too short, sounding like it could have blossomed into some dark Demdike Stare style epic, which thankfully is in a way what happens, as that track leads directly into the closer, a nearly nine minute sprawl called "Hymn Division". that lays down a simple pulsing beat, over which Nihiti lay thick swaths of black buzz, dense swirls of ribcage rattling low end reverberations, and finally deep, dramatic minor key melodies, that infuse the song with serious pathos, it's not hard to imagine this as the sound track to the denouement of some twisted, modern, avant indie film, a dizzying expanse of moving, emotional, electronic minimalism, but here drifting towrd maximalism, the tones expanding and exploding in slow motion, the melodies, bright, and eventually blinding, the tones strecthed way out, tense and intense, the coda a sort of Hecker / Nadja dreamdronedrift, but more soft focus here, heady and heavenly.
The good news: at last, we finally got some copies of this recent vinyl-only PO album! The not-so-good-news: we only were able to get a few, not nearly as many as we'd wanted. And that's it, when they're gone they're gone. So, if you're a fan of Finland's Pharaoh Overlord (and/or their mothership act Circle, which this could just as easily be, sonically), act fast if you want one.
Some further info: the four (long!) tracks on Horn were recorded live at something called "Space Force 1, 2nd Flight" in Lahti, Finland in late 2010. Three out of the four are exclusive-to-this-record PO compositions: "Lalibela", "Solar Stomp", and "Sky". And then other one's a cover of "Revolution" by Spacemen 3. All are riffy, raucous, rhythmic noiserock, with some stray pretty piano plinking and enthusiastic crowd response whenever the band takes a between-song break. And the packaging is sumptuous, the thick gatefold sleeve bearing colorful artwork, band name stamped in golden foil... Limited to only 500 copies and as we said, we got all we're gonna be able to get, ever.
Well, we probably don't need to say a whole lot more, but absolutely have to quote the blurb on the sticker on the cover. Pretty much sums it up: "Horn documents 'The Lord' in their rawest, nastiest live mood. Like an early Mudhoney jamming with Crazy Cavan and The Rhythm Rockers, or Sonic Youth tearing it up with Elakelaiset." Yeah, we totally agree! Even though we've never heard of ('70s teddy boy rockabilly act from Wales, it turns out) Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers before, nor novelty Finnish "humppa" band Elakelaiset, neither. But the Mudhoney and Sonic Youth, we hear, yeah.
'Tis wild stuff, not exactly in PO's "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" style like their recent Out Of Darkness album, but definitely ROCK, channelling Spacemen 3 (obviously, since they do the cover) and Funhouse-era Stooges. But noisier! It's blasting, throbbing, distortodelic overload, that WE might compare to a rabid combination of The Heads and Circle. Awww yeah!
Batten down the hatches, lock up your daughters, run for the hills, and/or break out the beers, 'cause Pennsylvania OG punk paragons Pissed Jeans are at it again, erupting with their 4th full-length of scuzzy ugly pounding filthy punk rawk action.
Opening cut "Bathroom Laughter" starts things off all uptempo, a hardcore blast that's almost jaunty even as the singer froths at the mouth all over your ears. Taking a different tack, the second cut, "Chainworker", delves into the depths of sludgey dirgepunk heaviness a la Flipper. The record then seesaws seasick betwixt these two extremes, always dishing out the raw riffs, choppy rhythms, and vocal vitriol. Flashes of Black Flag at times, as per usual, Jesus Lizard too, and some of the catchy bits here reminding us a little bit of Rocket From The Crypt, oddly enough. Oh yeah, and certain tracks, like "You're Different (In Person)" have a grunginess to 'em that makes us think of another (former) Sub Pop act, Tad.
In other words, another highly enjoyable Pissed Jeans platter, for those who like their rock noisy and their noise rockin'.
Radical Cemetery is actually a pretty awesome name for a band, and while we have no idea who these guys are, or where they come from, we're pretty into their tripped out zoner doom murk. Squlechy synth blurt, and rumbling, crumbling buzz, over minimal drum creep, and disembodied free-rock moan, all coalesce into some sort of abstract freeform doom-drone jazziness that besides the above description, is pretty tough to put into words, especially when the track explodes into something like the Dead C crossed with Daniel Higgs by way of No Neck Blues Band, which really, sounds like pretty good rock math to us. But which doesn't quite describe the rest of the record. The second track conjures up a sort of swirling kosmische shimmer, but laced with grinding clunks, and heaving thunks, a dark tranquility on the verge of collapse. And the track after that is all free jazz drum skitter, wedded to feedback shards and weird laser beam squiggles. The track after that is all lilting dayglo noise drenched slow-pop creep, a bit like a lobotomized Black Moth Super Rainbow dosed with horse tranquilizers, and then after than, we're back to another murky organ driven slither. The record reveals itself as some warped lo-fi, outsider drone-noise / free-rock chimera, slipping easily from minimal mumbly mesmer (reminding us at times of aQ faves Net Shaker) and drugged out brain damaged, sci-fi slowburn psych jams. But some surprises lurk amidst all of that. Like the churning guitar heavy dope-dirge of "Nice RVINS", the John Carpenter by way of Wolf Eyes, ominous synth dirge "From Musk To Defrog", and the woozy swirling cosmic underwater-orchestra mesmer of closer "Concrete Dunks / Heat Distortion". Cool.
Heck yeah. For all you proto-metal lovin' freaks out there, we've got another treat for you this week. Finally, a nice legit reish on both cd and vinyl of this New Jersey power trio's sole slab of raw, wailin', fuzzed-out action, originally released on their own wonderfully named Zonk label back in 1970. Of course back then they didn't know it was proto-metal. They'd have called it heavy, though!
Heavy bluesy zonked out acid rock to be precise. As private press hard rock rarities go, this is a good 'un. Gotta agree with all the "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeahs" of the album's opening salvo, "Love Over You", a blistering, blown out Hendrix inspired headbanger. The rest of this eight-song album is also an LSD-fuelled rave up, with plenty more Hendrix-y guitar soloing, gravelly vox, and rhythm section shake appeal to the max. Imagine an "extreme" sixties garage rock band, that's the brand of proto-metal/acid rock on offer here, for fans of Blue Cheer, Fraction, Stonewall, Zipper, Frijid Pink, Bolder Damn, Speed Glue & Shinki - and their modern day descendants like SF's retro-proto-metallers Dzjenghis Khan ("Lone Soul Road" could easily be them). Yup, this is a savage "fuzz monster" that lives up to the hype.
The cd booklet includes detailed liner notes, lyrics, vintage photos, press clippings and other ephemera - including those "wish we were there" concert posters and ticket stubs for shows where Sainte Anthony's Fyre, apparently a live band of some repute, appeared alongside the likes of Grand Funk Railroad, the MC5, and "sensational English group" Wishbone Ash! The lp version has a poster and insert, as well.
Remember that guy who used to play bass for UK psychedelic doomlords Electric Wizard? You know the one, the fellow with tattoos all over his face, and that Satanic thousand yard stare? Well he actually left EW to try his hand at something more evil, and more Satanic, which is precisely what he's come up with in Satan's Wrath, his new duo, in which he handles everything but guitar, the band's sound a combination of old school thrash, Venom-ous black metal, and classic NWOBHM-isms, which Galloping Blasphemy has in spades.
Opener, the oddly named "Leonard Rising - Night Of The Whip" is indeed a killer slab of classic galloping old school metal, right down to the shredding, dueling leads, and the chugging almost proggy outro. The second track "Between Belial And Satan" are where things get truly thrashy, after a killer doomy intro, rife with woozy psychedelic solos, the track explodes into some metal thrashing madness, that will probably have readers of the aQ list reminded of Denver thrashers Speedwolf, who are definitely drawing from the same sonic/Satanic well. Raw riffing, dive bombing leads, furious drumming, some serious retro satanic chugging and Possessed style shreddery going on, old school blackened primitivism, but with a fierce, modern production, over the course of the record SW display their influences at every turn: Venom, Bathory, Beherit, Possessed, Maiden, even Slayer, and while the classic NWOBHM-isms surface throughout, be sure and stick around for the closing track, holy shit, total classic seventies hard rock heaviness, the main riff a near rip off of Black Sabbath's "Country Girl", the only thing that keeps this from being classic seventies metal is the raspy Satanic vokills, there's some awesome harmony guitars, and a killer old school classic metal lead over a wild metallic gallop, the sound slipping into total Maiden worship constantly, we almost wish the whole record sounded like this, but at the same time, the mix of wild speed metal thrashing, and classic melodic metal make for a pretty good combo as well...
Hell, whoops, ach eee double hockey sticks yeah! Or should we just say hallelujah!? This obscure Xtian '60s psych fave has just been officially reissued with loving care and TONS of extra, associated material. Here's what we said about The Search Party when we first encountered a reissue of it (a Korean import, at the time) some years ago:
Fans of psychedelic sixties rock n' roll might be a little concerned about what they're getting when a peek at the album cover shows that two of the band members are men wearing clerical collars. Priests who rock? And these are no long-haired Jesus Freaks, either. The four men and one woman in this band look pretty straight. But, have no fear, their music is plenty far-out. This self-released 1968 album is the sole recorded legacy of The Search Party, a Christian folk-psych combo masterminded by the Reverend Nicholas Freund of Mount Saint Paul College in Waukesha, Wisconsin, but recorded at the San Francisco Theological Seminary's Montgomery Chapel (hence the title). They were definitely hip to the sixties West Coast vibe, with female vocals that remind us a bit of both Grace Slick and Linda Perhacs. Much of this is quite ethereal and haunting, full of organ drone-tones and dreamy, downer atmosphere. The album's centerpiece, the nine-minute "So Many Things Have Got Me Down" could be a lost acid-krautrock jam. While The Search Party are at their best on the slower, moodier numbers, the more uptempo songs, though, go to some amazing extremes with over-the-top vocals and searing fuzz guitar - as in "You And I" which stands in stark contrast to the gentle, somber sounds of much of the rest of the record, whose original liner notes include the statement that "this album...is a demonstration of these five people's concern for you." Now how often do bands today say things like that? Bless' em. The New Creation and the Concrete Rubber Band - a couple other lost '60s Christian rock reissues we reviewed here previously - have nothing on this!
And not only do you get that wonderful album here, but Lion Productions have tacked on a whole extra disc. Turns out, prior to the formation of The Search Party, Nick Freund and The Search Party's guitarist/vocalist Peter Apps already had made music together in the St. Pius X Seminary Choir. As you can guess from the name, this group was rather more overtly religious, less secular sounding, 'though it was during this period that Freund attended a show at the Fillmore (featuring Cream, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Janis Joplin!) and got turned on to the hipper sounds of the SF ballroom scene. The St. Pius X Seminary Choir released three albums: Sing Out With Joy To The Lord, Sing To The Lord A New Song, and Each One Heard In His Own Language About The Marvels Of God, the third of which appears in its entirety on this set's second cd, with selections from the other two spread across the balance of both discs as bonus tracks. While the St. Pius X Seminary Choir was different in style, being mostly more 'square', churchy choral music with some rock/pop influences, and definitely not in the same league as The Search Party, it's still cool to hear music from 'em, particularly the stuff on the Each One Heard In His Own Language album, which starts off with a quite freaky, possibly Stockhausen-influenced electronic noise / sound collage composition (!) and also includes what appears to be a version of "Twist And Shout" rewritten as part of "Mass For The Secular City"...
Furthermore, this is packaged with a thick cd booklet full of liner notes (including reminiscences from both Freund and Apps), press clippings, photos, lyrics, etc., etc.
Let's say it again, hallelujah!
We had to order twice as many copies of this issue of Shindig!, just 'cause of the cover photo of the band Shocking Blue, specifically their bodacious lead singer Mariska Veres. Lots of sex appeal there. That classic '60s Dutch pop-psych band (famously covered by Nirvana) are only one of interesting features inside this ish though, other retro psych rock (and folk, and pop...) related stuff covered being Satanic Majesties era Rolling Stones, '90s paisley power poppers Jellyfish, Richard Thompson, the Sundazed label, Eastern bloc psych rarities, The Bevis Frond, The Bee Gees, and more. Lots of reviews of course, colorful graphics & photos, glossy paper, the usual good stuff we've come to expect from the UK's much prettier, and more frequently published, answer to Ugly Things. 98 pages this time.
Originally released on the Rock Is Hell label as a super limited triple lp, this twisted chunk of sprawling rhythmic whatthefuck weirdness from these Texas-by-way-of-the-UK-by-way-of-Texas-again multiple drummer-ed noiseniks is now finally available on cd, also super limited, originally only orderable direct from the label, we're the only store in the US to have these, and they won't last long, so grab one before they're gone...
Le Grand Larance Prix just might be Shit And Shine's most ambitious and most over the top record yet, which is saying a lot, considering pretty much everything these guys do pretty goddamn over the top. But this one really takes the cake, pushing their sound in a whole different direction. We might have imagined them going even noiser, more drum heavy, but no, instead, $&$ offer up a bunch of epic jams, looped out and tranced out, that tend toward the super minimal, the mesmerizingly rhythmic, ultra repetitive and hypnotic, but not in the usual bombastic heavy $&$ way, no these are like alternative universe minimal dancefloor chillout jams. Or something. Probably best to just go through em one at a time...
"Flirtations At A Cocktail Party", pretty much sets the template, looped tribal drumming, a revving engine, loping low slung bassline, all blurred and looped into a sort of abstract rhythmic mesmer, laced with strange robotic vox, like some sort of alien lo-fi electro, the track gradually growing more and more blown out, finally becoming extra melodic and dense right near the end. That's the most typically Shit & Shine track of the bunch, cuz the next one, "Frankies Theme" dials everything back, loopy and minimal, with muted melodies, a sort of circular slow motion groove, motorik and locked in, while around it sounds swirl and shimmer, distant melodic swells ebb and flow, it's sidelong but it's the sort of thing that sounds like it could have gone on forever.
"Switching 2 Nite Mode" definitely lives up to its title by swiping the main part of the Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue" and looping it into a jumbled psychedelic freakout, adding swirls of processed vox (even some sliced and diced Jagger falsetto), dubbed out production, some deep ominous vocals all slowed down, before the song transforms into a slo-mo creep, all weirdly muted and creepily sexy. Which leads right into "Frenchys Automotive", another super minimal loop-jam, a main melody repeated rhythmically, pulsing hypnotically, the vibe almost kosmische, but more sort of murky and mesmerizing, that main figure looped and looped, while all around it, random sounds swirl and shimmer druggily.
The home stretch starts off with "How To Rattle A White Tailed Buck", which unfurls a brittle looped melody, peppered with occasional rib cage rattling boomin' system low end bass thumps, the whole thing sort of blurpy and lumbering, a stuttery groove that shuffles through clouds of staticky hiss, which bleeds right into the final track, "Klipp", which is most definitely the most high fidelity of the bunch, super heavy, repetitive, Circle like hypno-rock, but a bit more minimal, the main guitar riff and shuffling rhythm totally in sync, while all around it sounds swirl and decay, shards of melodies and and crumbling FX, processed vocals and constantly shifting layers wreathe the hypno-rock in a buzzy, blurry, noisy gauze. Fuck yeah. The cd version comes in a green minimal digipak style sleeve that sort of apes the original lp packaging. And as mentioned above, SUPER limited, we have about 25 copies, and then that's probably IT!!
Packaged in a 6 panel hand screened triple gatefold jacket!
1972 has been on a Stereolab vinyl reissue roll and we're finally catching up. We missed out on reviewing Mars Audiac Quintet and Transient Random-noise Bursts with Announcements (both presumably still available if you'd like to order them), but we thought we better get to these next two, Emperor Tomato Ketchup from 1996 and Dots And Loops from 1997, since they mark the group at both their highest creative and commercial peaks.
Emperor Tomato Ketchup was a summation of all the influences they had been building off of during their first four years together: krautrock, minimalism, avant-garde, lounge exotica, jazz and French pop arranged into a fully formed working unit that exceeded beyond said influence into something wholly original. Seventeen (!) years later and little has changed in our opinion about Stereolab's classic 1996 album. While the groop have made plenty of great records since, this is still the go-to record that we can hear over and over and never get tired of. A timeless multilayered and wide-ranging experimental pop candy headtrip that has it all. If you're looking for *the* Stereolab album though, this is it!
Dots And Loops from the very next year, show the band not resting on their laurels and embracing the (then) future of electronic music. Collaborating with Tortoise and Mouse on Mars, Stereolab veer towards their avant-garde tendencies without leaving their pop qualities too far behind. Mixing bossa nova, electronica, freeform post-rock and even drum and bass (on one track) in a glossier cooler sheen than what came before, one might think that Dots And Loops might not date very well, but the group have always rigorously aimed for a timeless sound despite their retro-futurist leanings and Dots And Loops still holds up as one of their best records. So glad to have both of these classic records on vinyl once again!
1972 has been on a Stereolab vinyl reissue roll and we're finally catching up. We missed out on reviewing Mars Audiac Quintet and Transient Random-noise Bursts with Announcements (both presumably still available if you'd like to order them), but we thought we better get to these next two, Emperor Tomato Ketchup from 1996 and Dots And Loops from 1997, since they mark the group at both their highest creative and commercial peaks.
Emperor Tomato Ketchup was a summation of all the influences they had been building off of during their first four years together: krautrock, minimalism, avant-garde, lounge exotica, jazz and French pop arranged into a fully formed working unit that exceeded beyond said influence into something wholly original. Seventeen (!) years later and little has changed in our opinion about Stereolab's classic 1996 album. While the groop have made plenty of great records since, this is still the go-to record that we can hear over and over and never get tired of. A timeless multilayered and wide-ranging experimental pop candy headtrip that has it all. If you're looking for *the* Stereolab album though, this is it!
Dots And Loops from the very next year, show the band not resting on their laurels and embracing the (then) future of electronic music. Collaborating with Tortoise and Mouse on Mars, Stereolab veer towards their avant-garde tendencies without leaving their pop qualities too far behind. Mixing bossa nova, electronica, freeform post-rock and even drum and bass (on one track) in a glossier cooler sheen than what came before, one might think that Dots And Loops might not date very well, but the group have always rigorously aimed for a timeless sound despite their retro-futurist leanings and Dots And Loops still holds up as one of their best records. So glad to have both of these classic records on vinyl once again!
The latest from this French ethno-experimental composer is a document of sort of a trip to India, on which the composer gathered material, both audio and video, to document a fantastic journey, one that goes well beyond simply India, and into some mysterious realm of the sonic unreal, where Tazartes is really the only guide you need.
Combining all manner of sampled sounds, from music to voices, found sounds to bus station broadcasts, busy rhythms to animal calls, Tazartes has fashioned a seriously dense, collaged sound world, that may just require headphones, not to understand what's going on, no mere mortal could hope to do that, but to become totally immersed and fantastically lost.
From the word go, it's a dizzying non-stop barrage of sound, with almost no let up, looped rhythms cascade over vocal fragments and snippets, layered and rearranged into strangely shifting textures, street conversations morph into tangles of acoustic guitar, splatters of handclaps, yelps and screams, the calls of monkeys, total plunderphonia overload!
A warped lo-fi blues surfaces, over the woozy clatter of percussion, and blurts of blown out electric guitar buzz, dense swirling drones wrap around colliding breakbeats, barking dogs, warped sampled drums, Tazartes has a definite kitchen sink approach, but there's always a method to his madness, or at least seemingly so, since even at it's most chaotic, his music manages to make some sort of twisted sense.
Buzzing steel strings and warbly classic folk drift over manic turntable scratching, and distorted clubby rhythms, the sound settling into a dreamy drift with crooned operatic vox floating above soft swirls of mutated parlor piano, before the sounds seem to drown in a sea of woozy manipulated turntables, beneath a sky full of screaming seagulls, and murky barely there drums buried in the mix, until finally, the sounds seem to soar into a sprawling finale, epic and noisy, and chaotically swirling, weirdly funky at first, but eventually tripped out and dizzying, finishing with a final psychedelic plunderphonic squall.
The lp includes a bonus dvd, which features some of the footage gathered while Tazartes was in India, that was meant to be inspiration / source material for a composition for a dance company. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!
Latest issue of this UK metal mag, stoner rock heavies Orange Goblin on the cover, inside, the usual fantastically varied cast of black/doom/noise/sci-fi/sludge/post metal (and not quite metal) outfits: Voivod, Suffocation, Tomahawk, Satan's Wrath, Septic Flesh, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Cult Of Luna, Exhumed, The Bronx, Enforcer, Ghoul, Andee's new obsession the Chinese outfit Tengger Cavalry (who fuse epic metal with Chinese and Mongolian folk music, including horse hair fiddles, throat singing and more!), Vried, Koldbrann and more.
There's tons of reviews of course, as well as a Hard Of Hearing, Invisible Jukebox style listening session with Canadian metalheads Cauldron, and some back page mix tape mayhem from Nick Barker of Cradle Of Filth, Lock-Up, Dimmu Borgir, Old Man's Child, Brujeria, etc.
And as always includes a cd sample featuring new tracks from Suffocation, Devourment, Helloween and a bunch of bands we've never heard of including the awesomely named outfits Teaspoonriverneck and Fuckshovel!
An utterly punishing onslaught of hateful hardcore and feedback drenched punknoise from this Texas outfit, 27 songs in 39 minutes, opening with what sounds like an unholy union between the Dead C, Harry Pussy and the Brainbombs, a full on, downtuned, stumbling, free noise, avant punk crush, and fuck, we would have been happy if that track stretched out past it's already sprawling 3:51 and filled up the whole record, but as the title suggests, this is just the "Introduction". From there on out it's a full on Black Flag / Void style blowout, blistering hardcore fury, vitriolic vocals, frantic riffing, fuzzed out bass, a wild, unhinged, bloody knuckled, sweat soaked hybrid of eighties thrash punk, grind, powerviolence, classic hardcore and new/no wave heaviness, all blurred into a monster blast of skull crushing punk rock pummel.
This cd collects the self titled record proper and tacks on 15 bonus tracks (!) from their Sex Pig 7" and demo!
Here's the third warehouse find we've been able to dig up of Unsound - the seminal underground San Francisco magazine from the '80s focusing on the amorphous regions between punk, industrial culture, the performance-art world, and outsider shock tactics. Volume two marks the beginning of 1985, with Number one being the first edition published that year. The lead article is on the nerd rock ridiculousness of Three Day Stubble, who have enthralled and annoyed audiences in San Francisco for two decades well after their inception. But the lengthy interviews with Christian Marclay and Borbetomagus are well worth the price of admission. Both Force Mental (the magazine run by Club Moral) and Sleep Chamber contribute lengthy statements of intent, with the former critiquing the work of Whitehouse in relation to their appropriation of fascistic imagery, and the latter mapping out their fascination with sex magick. And of course, there are articles on those we know nothing about (e.g. Psychodrama and the filmmaker Leslie Thornton). As always, an amazing time-capsule read into the deep-end of San Francisco underground counter culture.
These two long out of print early nineties gems back in stock, but who knows for how long. As far as we know, these in fact remain out of print, but one of the band members bequeathed us a tiny handful, so we figured some of you more adventurous folks out there, might appreciate an earful of these SF avant slo-mo country weirdos, who over these two records (and a few more after), created a warped, dark, idiosyncratic drummerless country music, that drifts and creeps, moodily and murkily, the music, hushed and spidery, mostly just guitar and viola (provided by Brian Hageman of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282), the vocals super melodramatic and definitely an acquired taste, backed by Margaret Murray's more hushed, almost whispered croon, the songs loose and ramshackle, drowsy and druggy, but ultimately strangely lovely.
The second record is even weirder, noiser, the guitars buzzing more wildly, Murray's vocals more present, sometimes a wild caterwaul, other times locked into dreamy harmonies with USS main man David Tholfsen, the music, slipping easily from hushed moody brood, to angular Jandekian blooze, both of these records, had they been instrumental, would sound that far removed from the stoner country sprawl of aQ faves Souled American, but the vocals definitely transform this into an even wilder strain of outsider lo-fi country, one that sounds just as good today as when we first heard theses records two decades ago.
Fans of Songs:Ohia, Palace Brothers, and other country outliers should easily fall under U.S. Saucer's dark hypnotic spell.
Originally released last year some time, and available exclusively from the Castle Face website, due to some strange arrangement with the label and/or the band, this killer comp of all our Castle Face faves covering the Velvet Underground & Nico record in its entirety, is FINALLY more widely available, and should really not need that much of a description considering the lineup: Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Blasted Canyons, The Fresh & Onlys, The Mallard, Burnt Ones, Warm Soda, Kelly Stoltz and more! Plus we're guessing even this version is probably gonna disappear pretty quick. Fans of any and all those bands are definitely gonna want this and we can attest to the fact that even VU haters might find themselves digging this anyway.
Kelly Stoltz starts things off with his take on "Sunday Morning", which is lush and lovely and dreamily sun dappled, swirling synths drift beneath a slow stately rhythm, soaring strings and Stoltz's warm soft croon. Warm Soda, who are quick becoming our new Castle Face fave, crank up "I'm Waiting For The Man", into a cool, glammy lo-fi, jangle stomp. Ty Segall's "Femme Fatale", adds lots of feedback, and some Stoogesy swagger, noisy and chaotic and super rocking. Thee Oh Sees get seriously loose and free with "European Son", the whole thing a wild, loose, free-rock/free-jazz drift, all detuned guitars, fluttering flute, and wild splattery drumming. Blasted Canyons transform "Venus Furs" into an awesomely creepy sci-fi garage-synth dirge, while The Mallard add some tweaked guitar and woozy psych to their version of "There She Goes Again". Burnt Ones trip out Spacemen 3 style (which we know, is essentially also VU style), with their sprawling cover of "Heroin", and the Fresh & Only's turn "All Tomorrow's Parties" into what could essentially be a F+O original, adding thick swaths of swirling psychedelic synths shimmer. There's more, but by now you should definitely be sold.
Oh, how we waited for this album! The British quartet's eponymous album from 2011 had become a staple here at aQuarius, hitting all the right sweet spots of jangly, retro indie rock with super catchy girl/boy harmonies that fit perfectly next to old favorites like Unrest, Heavenly, Beat Happening, and whatever your particular favorite C86 band might have been. There was probably a stretch of time when it would be an anomaly if that album *wasn't* being played in the middle of a Saturday afternoon at aQ.
So, Waiting For Something To Happen is an album that undoubtedly has really big shoes to fill; and admittedly, the first couple of listens found us wondering what happened to the tension between the sourpuss punk and the giggly twee, which left us with such a warm and fuzzy feeling on that the first album. Instead, the band has settled into a melancholy jangle that pushes towards those brilliant arrangements John Squire penned on the first Stone Roses record (sans the Madchester grooviness, Veronica Falls still champion the VU minimal-motorik-mono beat) or maybe those tunes Vini Reily wrote for Morrissey's first solo record, proving to be a deft replacement for Johnny Marr. Veronica Falls may have pulled the tempo down a bit, but they are filling in the gaps with a few more baroque flourishes (like something close to a guitar solo, which was entirely absent on the first album); but seriously, do yourself a favor if you loved the first record, pick this up and give it a few spins to let the songs sink into your skull. You'll be rewarded mightily!
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�
Record number two from these East coast dream poppers, and like their self titled debut, it's another lush and luxurious collection of soft focus jangle, ethereal Mazzy Star like vox and wistful minor key melodies, all woven into dark billows on washed out melody and ephemeral grey skied drift. Like their cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game", this whole record evokes that same sort of brooding, haunting, swoonsome minimal shimmer, although this time around, the production is definitely more polished, giving these songs some heft, sonic and emotional, letting the sound blossom into mini jangle pop epics, adding all sorts of extra instrumentation, lush layers, and letting some of the songs get downright rocking. Where the first record had a definite nineties vibe, the Mazzy Star comparison is pretty much unavoidable, this new one also dips into the eighties, with tracks like "Dyed In The Wool" channeling the Motels or Scandal, through a more modern psychedelic garage pop filter, and the results are pretty divine.
Like the first record, repeated listens reveal more and more songs as being stone cold pop classics, and again, that new production, makes these songs more fuzzy and crunchy, giving them a dreamy dark power, but the band are just as adept sans studio magic, check out the stripped down "Thick As Thieves" a near acoustic brooder, that reminds us of Chelsea Wolfe's recent acoustic record, here multi tracked vocals are draped over downtuned guitar plucks and wheezing accordion, steel string strum and a shimmery prismatic drone, the whole thing a dreamy, druggy, psychedelic sea shanty, and maybe our favorite track here. But keep listening, and like all great records, more favorites reveal themselves. "Ballad Of The Golden Hour" is all shimmery fuzz pop bliss, while "Devil Knows" has a "Crimson & Clover" feel, all crunchy guitar and driving drums, but then a soaring swirly chorus reels it back into Widowspeak's more psych pop sound. "Sore Eyes" sounds like some classic rock should have been, Fleetwood Mac via Dum Dum Girls maybe, and the rest of the record unwinds in a similar fashion, equal parts classic dream pop and modern psychedelic garage rock, finishing off with another gorgeous brooding psych folk gem, the smoldering "Storm King", which like "Thick As Thieves", is currently vying for our top spot, on a record that's FULL of top spot contenders. SO great. Sweet packaging too, the cd comes in a standard jewel case housed in a die-cut slipcover, the lp in a deluxe full color gatefold jacket, and a download of course! We're listing the lp only for now though 'cause the cd is on backorder, boo hoo.
Been waiting for this one. Shadoks (or Normal, or Q.D.K. Media, or whatever they're called) reissued Witch's awesome Lazy Bones!! album a while back, then did this one on (crazy expensive limited) vinyl, now here at last is the much more reasonably priced cd, yay! Along with a reissue of Tirogo's Float, also reviewed this list, both of which should make all fans of '70s African garage psych action super extra ultra happy...
Witch's Introduction was, as the title suggests, this Zambian band's debut, originally released in 1973, and it's such a damn delight, living up to the high hopes we had for it. "Zam Rock" at its best - not that we've ever heard any Zam Rock we didn't like, so far the reissues have been uniformly rad! As with Witch's later Lazy Bones!!, the fuzzed out wah wah'd guitars run rampant, the rhythms are infectious, the organ playing unrestrained, the English language lyrics charming (song titles include "Feeling High", "Like A Chicken" and "See Your Mama"... how could this record NOT be good?). Need we go on? If Lazy Bones!! rocked your world, this should be enough of an introduction to Introduction! While '75's Lazy Bones!! is a bit heavier, any fan will dig this too.
The cd booklet includes vintage photos, plus liner notes by Now-Again / Stones Throw's Egon, who was instrumental in making these legit Witch reissues happen. From those liner notes, we learn that the name Witch was actually an acronym, standing for We Intend To Cause Havoc! How cool is that?
Full length number two from this UK neo-pagan black metal horde, and like the first one, and much like their sonic brethren in Winterfylleth (they also share members with another aQ fave, Atavist) the band continue to be focused on nature and Anglo-Saxon history, and their sound is appropriately epic and sweeping and atmospheric. And while that sound hasn't changed too much since the first record, they've definitely honed that sound, and if anything, this new record is quite a bit heavier, more fierce, and dense, the keyboards still present, big time, but their presence in the mix is a bit more subtle, sweeping to the fore on the slower atmospheric parts, but fading into the background when the band are at their most brutal.
The songs are super long, and almost proggy, ultra dynamic and constantly shifting, from explosive blasts of furious black buzz, to brooding, dense atmospheric sprawls of moody blackened psychedelia, replete with gorgeous clean vocals, swirling synths and tribal drumming, even some fluttering flutes here and there, and from midtempo classic metal majestic to shimmery, acoustic guitar flecked drift, the drums pummeling and intricate, the vocals shared now by the various members, so super varied, from demonic shriek to banshee howl, so surprisingly melodic crooning, the guitars shifting constantly from soaring fast picked flurries, to old school metal chug, to tranced out buzz, the band totally capable of laying down some seriously gnarled Deathspell worthy riffage, or Wolves In The Throne Room Cascadian epicry, but always returning to the atmospheric black buzz they do so well.
As we mentioned in our review of the first Wodensthrone record, it's not that the music of Wodensthrone is super original, or twistedly bizarre or even really that radical, it's more that it's just so well crafted, so full of emotion and energy, so epic and intense, headbangable for sure, but also darkly introspective, it's easily one of the best modern iterations of that classic black metal sound, and much like when we got the first one, we find ourselves wanting to listen to little else!
Recommended for fans of Wolves In The Throne Room, Primordial, Negura Bunget, Drudkh, etc.
Long in the works, this last ever Throbbing Gristle project, which was to be a fully realized cover album of the legendary Nico record from 1970, has had more than its fair share of controversy and drama within the confines of the remaining members of the group (Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson). Not only by the death of key member and project leader Christopherson, but also the decision of Chris and Cosey to continue the project on their own as a tribute to "Sleazy" sparking a widely publicized twitter feud with former Throbbing Gristle member Genesis P-Orridge. Already the name X-TG was christened due to P-Orridge's unwillingness to continue to tour with the reenergized Throbbing Gristle in late 2010, and the remaining members continued on, under the new moniker, with a desire to mold new sounds in the studio. The Desertshore album was in fact instigated several years before, back in 2006 for an art installation, but the results were unsatisfactory and thus re-recorded two years later. With Sleazy's death occurring before the project was finished, it became a tribute with vocals given to an array of familiar guests. What seemed at first like a dream project, has since been altered so far away from its original intentions, that while on one hand it's great to see a long involved project finally realized, we can't help but wonder what could have been.
The problem being that with so many guest vocals, it's impossible to be immersed into a singular sound world that the original Desertshore demands, as the changes among vocalists create an unwanted distraction. The sound that X-TG created for themselves is beautifully exquisite, and on some tracks, especially the Antony led, "Janitor of Lunacy", the total effect is mesmerizing. But between the bravado of Marc Almond, the tepidness of Sasha Gray, and the wildly fluctuating moods of other guests including Blixa Bargeld and Argentine cinema provocateur, Gaspar Noe, it's difficult to feel satisfied overall. The biggest question for us is why didn't Cosey just sing the whole thing? Her vocal contributions are among the best of the lot and might have led to the project having some much needed continuity. Perhaps perfect closure was too much of an unattainable goal in the post-TG world for us to expect.
Unlike the other declarations of finality, disc two in this double disc set is in fact The Final Report for the remnants of Throbbing Gristle. The sketches of The Final Report were mapped out during studio sessions from 2009 through 2010 up until Sleazy's death, with Chris and Cosey completing the album themselves. In many ways, it's a considerable improvement upon the Third Mind Movements by Throbbing Gristle from 2009, with flickering, mirage-like electronic tones and deconstructed samples sliding in and out of focus around the orbit of the lumbering rhythms. While the technology and the ability to use it has improved, the band continue to build from primitive pulses and scaffolding that are plastered with uneasy sounds, subliminal vocalizations, and mutant electronica -- all very much in keeping with the Industrial agenda of 1978, but with current technology. "E.H.S." sounds very much like what Throbbing Gristle revamped today would sound like, with unsettled vocalizations lurking at the perimeter of perception and Cosey's atonal guitar bursting through the cybernetic, lurching rhythm in chunky blocks of bent sound. "What He Said" is a noirish piece of futurist electronica with a heart-beat pulse gradually building in intensity with elongated coronet tones and skittered echoings of caustic noise bouncing throughout. The Final Report is pretty much a unified album, which is a strange thing to say about a Throbbing Gristle record, which in the past were known to be distinctly disjointed and multi-faceted. Here, the vision is consistent with a morose soot covering both man and machine alike. Let's hope the next Chris & Cosey record picks up where this one leaves off!
We're actually glad Yo La Tengo isn't more prolific and makes us wait a few years before each release. This way we eagerly anticipate each new album and fully savor it once it's finally here. There's always a give and take of expectation too, we know inside and out what YLT's basic sonic template will be, but there's always a loose thematic exploration or vague organizing principle behind each release that gets changed up each time. The last two, Popular Songs, and I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, were largely kitchen sink affairs in terms of style and duration, mixing cool genre pop experiments of Motown soul and country with long excursions into indie psych rock. Fade by contrast is their most compact and concise full length in over a decade with just 10 songs in about 45 minutes (the deluxe vinyl comes with a bonus 7" with two covers of a Todd Rundgren song and a Times New Viking song, as well as a download coupon that also includes a bonus new 11 minute track, the ambient instrumental "Oriole"). But the brevity of length on the album proper brings greater focus to the nuanced details of each song. Produced by John McEntire of Tortoise in a wonderful collaboration we are surprised hasn't happened long before now. This may be the band's best sounding record yet.
Whether it's their overall best record is always debatable, but every YLT record satisfies us on some level like a dear old friend, and all of us of course have our own favorites. Fade hearkens back to the softer pastoral sensitivity of 2003's Summer Sun without so much of that album's cosmic free jazz flourishes. Instead, each track on Fade is a tightly composed slice of indie pop economy with attentive detail to arrangement and production: The warm warble of the organ, the brilliant reverbed guitar tones, the subtle chamber orchestration of horns and strings that are peppered about, but used with restraint, and of course the sublime vocal harmonies. Definitely a great morning record to get your day started. Not a game changer by any means, but in the band's 30 year history, who's really expecting one at this point. At least they remain firmly on top of their game, and that's all that matters.
Carbondale, Illinois's catchiest band of NWOBHM lovin' heshers unleash their sophomore slab of throwback metallic might. Ooooohyyeah! We loved their debut Out Of Time back in 2010 (which sounded like 1980 in Zuul years), and this one's another ripper specializing in '80s styled, speedy umlaut-laden metal with a definite pop sensibility, not unlike SF's own Space Vacation. Wailing and shredding and riffing and riffing and shredding and wailing, this 2nd effort fires on all cylinders, delivering the goods with, not inappropriately, songs about rockin', getting laid, and doing bloody battle in fantasy/historical settings (as per the wonderfully garish cover art). But it's not all fun and games and good times, there's some serious/somber sections too, ferinstance the acoustic strumming of majestic instrumental "Of The Fallen" which functions as an intro to the next track "Bounty Land", an epic both galloping and ponderous, getting into the real world of war and death, weighty with heartfelt emotion.
Effin' recommended to fans of the few other "modern" metal bands also operating in Zuul's zone of vintage metal revivification, like the aforementioned Space Vacation, Twisted Tower Dire, Cauldron, Bible Of The Devil, Midnight Chaser, and High Spirits (whose Chris "Professor" Black put out the cd version of this on his own Planet Metal label).
